Canning the Harvest

Tomato Bob has been enjoying a bountiful harvest. The dilemma is, he has more tomatoes than he can eat right now and he would like to continue to enjoy them through the long cold winter months. He was watching one of the PBS cooking shows and they explained how to preserve tomatoes by canning. Following the instructions, he started first with making tomato sauce. Having been successful with that, he experimented with canning his tomatoes whole without cooking them. By some miracle he managed to get that to work. According to Tomato Bob, he is using a proprietary vacuum seal canning system he invented.

One problem all of us critters have had to face for many years is that our sunflower seeds and acorns we store in our burrows during the winter get a bit stale. Eating stale seeds makes you feel like you have returned to the cave-munk era. Millions of seeds have been spent on developing high-tech environmental control systems for seed store units. The results have been sadly very disappointing.

Fresh from the success of preserving whole tomatoes with his vacuum seal system, Tomato Bob tackled the stale seed challenge. However, his efforts were hampered by the bottomless seed jar conundrum. Exasperated, he turned to myself and Vinnie to help he solved this riddle. No matter how many sunflower seeds he put in the glass jar, he could never fill it to the top

I think Tomato Bob’s ancestors came from Italy. He has the strangest taste buds for a chipmunk: tomatoes, pasta sauce, and he is even drying his own parsley for pizza. Did I mention he has his own brick pizza oven?

Tomato Bob is very proud of his vacuum seal system for preserving whole tomatoes without cooking.

Moving these jars around proved to be a bit more of a workout than he had anticipated.

He also grows squash but not for the seeds. He likes to make squash pies. I am beginning to think he was raised by humans rather than ‘munks.

His buttercup squash took first prize at the human’s county fair. (Lets just say that it didn’t go over well with the human farmers.)

He kept trying to fill a jar to the top with sunflower seeds but for some reason, each time he came with a new load of seeds he couldn’t fill it.

He was completely baffled. He checked the jar but couldn’t find any holes in it

 

With Vinnie’s help, I setup a network of spy cameras with motion sensors. Here I am testing the cameras. I tried my best to sneak up without being detected but I was caught! The system is foolproof.

Our thief anticipated our spy cameras. Apparently using fishing line as a lasso he tipped over the jar. The cameras then caught this shadowy figure. This ‘munk was checking to see if the anyone heard the dull thud as the jar hit the ground.

While using the shadow to hide his identity, he stuffed his pouches full of seeds before sneaking off. Vinnie offered try to enhance the photos and use advance facial recognition to identify our suspect. I told him not to bother.There is only one ‘munk clever enough to pull off such a brilliant seed heist. … The Phantom Chipmunk has struck again.

 

The Bubble

The Woodpile has been trying to be a host for the International Cheek Pouch Stuffing Games for years. The international committee finally liked our proposal and we got the 2020 games. Then the pandemic hit which threatened to cancel the games. If that happened, the games would move on to the next host on the list. The broadcast license fees are worth thousands of seeds. (We really need the cash. The Woodpile is looking shabby and we need to order a fresh load of wood).

The Woodpile Council wanted to schedule a meeting to discuss our options. But, they could not agree on a date and time because various councilors wanted to watch their favorite human basketball teams play in the Bubble. After hours of disagreeing by email on a meeting date, it finally dawned on them what the solution was: They needed to hold the games in a “bubble.”

Normally the Cheek Pouch Stuffing Games occurs on an Olympic size stage where the athletes compete side by side competing through the various rounds of competition. Instead each athlete would compete in their own bubble. The rules clearly stated the contestants had to seal themselves inside the bubble during the three minutes they had to stuff their cheeks. (Each bubble holds five minutes worth of breathable air).

 For “bubbles” we used discarded N95 mask shipping containers which we scrounged out of recycling barrels. A worker is pushing the bubble towards the games arena.

 

Almost in position. The bubble needed to be just right for the live broadcast cameras.

 

 To avoid any appearance of bias in the officiating of the games, we hired a squirrel referee.

 

Bushy the Squirrel carefully inspects everything.

 

Hey Bushy, taste testing all the seeds is not part of your official duties!

 

The defending champion from last year, assumes the starting position. He is using a special breathing technique to stretch his cheek pouches.

The defending champion has the fastest start time getting into the bubble. Every second counts in this timed event.

He finds the bubble is really slowing him down. So he flips the cover off … and gets disqualified by the referee! Wow, what an unexpected turn of events.

Everyone has been watching Sammy the Stuffer as a new and upcoming star in the games. A lot of wagers were placed on him winning. As he watched the reigning champion struggle with the bubble and get disqualified he thought he had the perfect solution. He would prop the bubble open just a bit with a stick. The referee wasn’t amused and tossed him out of the games.

The host critter community is allowed one contestant in the games. The Woodpile was represented by Jenny. She owns the “Twisted Seed” eatery which specializes in deep fried sunflower seeds. With so many front runners disqualified she actually had a fair chance. She made it through to the final round. She was quick into the bubble. Here she is just about to seal the bubble tight before beginning to stuff her cheeks. All the other finalists who were too busy doing their signature poses for the cameras were caught off guard by the sound to begin stuffing. In their rush to make up for those lost seconds none of them sealed their bubbles. After the three minutes of competition were completed no winner was announced. The referee and game officials were seen conferring with each other (socially distanced of course). After ten minutes of agonizing delay as the referee reviewed camera footage to verify the violations, Jenny was declared the winner. As much as it pains me to admit this, it sometimes pays to follow the rules.

 

A short video 

On Trial

I was tending my sunflowers when I saw the constable making his usual rounds. I put done my pruning shears and walked over to the fence to pass the time of day. As is my habit, I put my front paws on the top of the fence. The constable looked all business like today which was strange, he is a rather jolly ‘munk. Out came his paw cuffs and he slapped them on me before I realized what happened. He announced in a loud official voice, I have a warrant for your arrest issued by the grand jury on the charge of “writing bad prose.” I protested, “there must be some mistake.”

I was dragged by the tail a half mile to what passed as the jail. It was more like a medieval torture chamber. It was dark, smelly, and littered with the bones of its previous occupants. I found graffiti dating back to Shakespearean times. Most it of was flowery love poems written in old English – talk about “bad prose.”

 I knew my rights and demanded my one phone call. The guard opened my cell door and led me down a dimly lit maze of tunnels until we came to the contraption pictured above. Have you ever seen one of these? Supposedly it is a communication device. From what century? This is embarrassing but I had to ask how to use it. It is a rotary phone. You have to stick a claw in each number, one by one and rotate the ring clockwise till you hit the metal clip than you let it spin backwards. It took twenty minutes just to dial the number. It was exhausting. I called my cousin Vinnie only to get his voice mail saying he was in the middle of the Pacific ocean conducting global warming research for the next three weeks and couldn’t be reached.

 When we walked into the court house, I found a red squirrel snoozing on the defense’s table. I tried to rouse him so I could sit down but he was out cold. I gave up and asked where my lawyer was? Everyone pointed to Mr. Sleepy. Before I even had a chance to try talking to my lawyer, the bailiff called “All Rise, the honorable Judge Snowy presiding.”

 Oh, no, not Judge Snowy. I heard she ate the last defense lawyer after he called her cold hearted. I plead “not guilty” and cautiously asked for a jury trial.

 Judge Snowy ordered the bailiff, old Eagle Eyes, to round up a jury. He flew over to Blackbird Tavern and impaneled everyone who wasn’t passed out drunk. Everyone on the jury was a friend of mine, So I relaxed.

The prosecution presented five witnesses who claimed they suffered boredom, insanity, and loss of their sense of humor after following my blog. They all placed the blame for their suffering on my “bad prose.” I didn’t recognized any them as blog followers. The  first witness was clearly illiterate, the second one needed a translator because she didn’t speak English, witness #3 asked what a “blog” was, and the fourth had never heard of me, Chippy. Imagine that, someone who didn’t know who I was! The fifth witness was none other than my archenemy the Phantom Chipmunk, a career criminal!

The court recessed for lunch. The jury got a free lunch on the court’s tab at the tavern. They spent the lunch hour playing their favorite game Scrabble. This photo was all over social media of their game. Hmmm, this isn’t looking so good. Apparently they haven't forgiven me for that April's Fools prank I pulled on them. I thought it was hilariously.

 

The court reconvened and my lawyer woke up just long enough to tell the judge the “defense rests.” I tried to protest that the jury had already made up its mind ... What a disaster! The maximum penalty is 20 years hard labor shelling peanuts. My poor loyal fans what would they do without my weekly entertaining stories? I “borrowed” my lawyers smart phone and put out a desperate plea for help. My fellow Woodpilers, and numerous critters from neighboring communities, and even the pesky humans we have put up with all came to the courthouse. They started stacking up piles of cash on the judge’s bench, totaling some $20,000. The judge counted every last bit of it. After a few moments Judge Snowy declared that my name had been misspelled on the warrant and therefore it was invalid. I was free to go!

Before, you all begin to denounce me as a chipmunk with no ethics and devoid of moral values because I bribed a judge, I should probably mention this was a charity fundraiser event.

 

Chess Tournament

My cousin Vinnie dropped by the Blackbird Tavern looking for volunteers to learn something new and challenging. All of the longtime Woodpilers knew better than to volunteer. But some of the newer residents of the Woodpile, namely Merry, Spitfire the dragonfly, and Archie the grasshopper jumped up with enthusiasm. Poor fellows, never even asked what they were volunteering for.

It turns out Vinnie had signed up for a team chess tournament. This was no traditional chess game. Some of the chess pieces on the board were being replaced by team members. Vinnie being surprised by anyone actually volunteering forget to inquire if Merry, Archie and Spitfire knew how to play the game. Of course they didn’t have a clue how to play. They had two days before the tournament to master the game.

 In chess, each of the pieces king, queen, bishops, knights, rooks and pawns move differently. The first order of business was to learn how they moved. In this photo Vinnie is teaching Spitfire how the knight moves (two squares in a straight line and then one square to the left or right.

 

 

Vinnie explains the knight can move to the closest pile of seeds and in the next turn move to the farther pile of seeds. He is trying to teach them to plan out of their moves.

After two days of grueling training, Vinnie sent everyone home for a good night’s rest while he cleaned up in preparation for the tournament the next day.

The team made it to the finals. In the game to determine the winner, the Woodpile presses the advantage under Vinnie’s careful instructions.

During the games, Vinnie who stood in for the rook, sacrifices his piece to save them from losing the game and has to leave the board. The team retreats to their end of the board to regroup.

 

Unable to coach the team, Vinnie looks on nervously from the sideline hoping his team makes the right move. However, the white knight thinks Vinnie is trying to cheat.

 

Spitfire makes a brilliant move putting the white king in check.

 The white kings tries to flee but is put into checkmate by the Woodpilers!