Chippy for President

I hope you caught my campaign ad from a couple of weeks ago. No, this is not some sort of joke, I am really running for president. I know what you’re thinking four pawed critters don’t qualify. I read the Constitution and discovered there is no requirement that the president has to be a human being. Check for yourself.

What am I campaigning for?

(1) Equal rights for all critters

(2) Quadrupling U.S. production of sunflower seeds

(3) All backyards will be required to have birder feeders

(4) Tax break for critter families making less than 400,000 seeds per year

(5) Exempting imported Guinness beer from all tariffs and taxes

Here is an interesting fact, it turns out you only have to be a U.S. citizen to register to vote. Since all of us critters were born in the U.S. it makes citizens. The Woodpile set up a polling place for early voting.

Town clerk setups up directional signs at the polling place

The clerk and her assistant setup a sample ballot

After some final adjustments, everything is ready to go

Quite a line formed before the polls officially opened

This ‘munk is excited to be voting in her first election as a registered voter

This fella forgot his reading glasses and had to look at the poster size ballot.

I need a new marker to fill out the ballot. The last voter [a woodchuck] chewed it up.

So many choices and my vote could decide the entire election!

Social distancing and paw washing were mandatory.

The constable is on the lookout for any trouble

 

The constable chased off a teenager up to no good. He confiscated an exploding black marker from the local joke and gag shop.

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to hold early voting on Halloween. Trick-or-treat was cancelled due to the pandemic and the kids decided to “protest” by playing tricks. This unsuspecting voter is about to get a bowl of gooey chocolate covered seeds dumped on him by the kid hiding behind the ballot poster!

A short video from the polls

What's Brewing?

You might remember me, I am Blackie the Spider. I arrived at the Woodpile when Chippy opened up a portal to the spirit world. I am a potion master by trade although there isn’t much call from my special skill set. I do get the occasional request for a love potion or to cure a wart after some critter foolishly kisses a toad thinking it will turn into a prince. Most of the time you will find me in my apothecary shop selling bottles of aspirin and fur gel.

The annual Woodpile Halloween party is coming up soon. Chippy asked me to “brew” a special Halloween punch for the party. I have never understood the obsession critters and humans alike have for alcoholic beverages but on the plus side I do a steady business in hangover cures. Suffice to say, I had no idea how to “brew” punch. I trolled through some old dusty cookbooks at the library looking for recipes. I found a promising recipe from the 1920s but some of the ingredients sounded like they would be hard to obtain. On the bright side, it was a non-alcoholic punch.

Critter Punch Brew

Gallon of Ginger Ale (5% Ginger)

Quart of Cranberry Juice (aged 10 years preferably)

1/4 lb of pumpkin seeds

1 Bone

Chipmunk Tail

 *Put all ingredients into cast iron pot. Bring to boil. Stir with witch’s broom for 5 minutes.

 

 I asked the ever resourceful Woodpilers to help me get a pumpkin and a witch's broom.

 … but, I wisely decided not to ask where they got the supplies. (They looked like they were concerned the original owner might come looking for their pumpkin.)

 I was running behind schedule and asked them to cut up the pumpkin and collect the seeds. Lesson learned, never leave a chipmunk in charge of seeds, they have a habit of disappearing.

 Then I asked for a bird volunteer to collect the seeds, well, that was a big mistake too!

 

Chippy helped gather wood for a fire and moved the cast iron cauldron on to it. Bushy’s grandmother donated one of her calcium supplement bones.

Chippy asked if he could be of further assistance, but before I could grab his tail, he got a call from his wife and ran off to the store for milk.

 

A couple of other ‘munks dropped by and I asked them to help take to cover off the cauldron. While they struggled with the heavy lid, I figured I had enough time to grab my scissors and get myself a chipmunk tail.

I seriously underestimated the strength of two chipmunks, they had the  lid off in a jiffy.

Chippy came by later to see how things were “brewing.” The recipe called for chipmunk tail, I thought if I can’t get a tail maybe I could just throw a whole ‘munk into the pot.

I encouraged him to take sip of the punch. While he hung on by his back paws trying to avoided becoming part of the brew, I tickled his tail and in he went. Finally success!

 

Chippy popped back up and said “Blackie, you do realize you are suppose to light the fire?”

 

Then he whispered in my ears, “It doesn’t taste right, I think you forgot the chipmunk tail.” I must have looked dumbstruck because Chippy explained, “You don’t know what chipmunk tail is do you?! Back during Critter Prohibition,  chipmunk tail was the code name for a bottle of sunflower seed moonshine.”

Lyneborough Town Pound Keeper

Chippy Jr.’s class is studying colonial history. To make the history lesson a bit more exciting, each student had to learn about a colonial job. Chippy Jr. was assigned the task of researching town pound keepers. Well, I had a little surprise for him. I know a ‘munk that still does this job in a small rural New Hampshire town. As far as I know, he is the last official pound keeper in the U.S. Everywhere else, the job has been handed over to an “animal control officer”.

In the 1700s and 1800s, towns had many farms. Cows, horses, sheep, pigs and other farm animals would sometimes escape and damage the neighbors crops. The town pound keeper’s job was to capture these loose animals and lock them up until the owner paid a fine. Since they had already escaped once, the “pound” had to be built like a fortress with thick tall stone walls.

Junior and myself took a weekend trip to Lyndeborough to interview Harry the town’s pound keeper. Harry explained how the job has evolved over the years. There are very few farms to day. He mostly deals with escaped cats, dogs, squirrels, raccoons, the occasional alligator, and of course human pets who think they are clever. According to Harry human pets are the easiest to capture, you bait them with a pizza and a six pack of beer. He says it works every time.

 

 

Built in 1774

 

 

 

Harry the Town Pound Keeper

 

 

Built like a fortress

 

 

with thick, tall stone walls

 

 

It does have nice views

 

 

 

No animal has escaped on Harry's watch.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 [paid promotional political advertisement]

CHIPPY

For

President

 

Friendly, hard working, industrious, scrappy - fights for his rights to sunflower seeds, creative, willing to work in a bubble, capable: dug a 100 foot long burrow to store ten years worth of seeds, competes with squirrels four times his size - climbs trees to harvest acorns

 

 "Small in size, tall in stature"

 

Vote for Chippy

 

 

 

Windfall (200th Blog Posting)

The leaves are falling as well as the temperature. With the colder weather, the birds have been looking for a free meal in the morning to get the day started. Mom put out the bird feeders and dragged out a brand new #50 bag of sunflower seeds. After opening it up, she filled a couple of feeders. Before she could put the bag away in the seed vault, she got a call from one of her sisters. Leaving a giant bag of sunflower seeds unattended next to a Woodpile filled with professional hoarders is like leaving a child alone in a candy store or a Ferengi unguarded in a bank vault full of gold pressed latinum

The seed bag was emptied in record time. We had such a good harvest this year, our individual store rooms in our burrows were already filled. So, we had to use the school gymnasium to store our unanticipated treasure. Mrs. Spot the school mistress wasn’t very happy with us when she found out. She gave us a simple choice: move all the seeds in the next hour or get a year’s worth of detention! While we work on plan “B” here are some photos from operation “Windfall.”

A brand new bag of sunflower seeds! (I am on the stump behind the bag.)

 I better investigate

I have never seen so many seeds before.

 

No time like the present to hoard.

 I am joined by my fellow Woodpilers.

What’s this? An unattended bag of seed?

 Anyone around?

 

I suppose I could help myself to a couple of seeds

 While we were in the middle of operation “Windfall”, I got a call from my editor. She wanted to know what I was planning for my 200^th blog entry which was coming up this week. I told her I thought I might run for president of United States. She yawned and said she wanted something more exciting than boring human politics. Jokingly, I said how about the Woodpile opens its own brewery? She thought it was fantastic idea! Everyone was excited about Plan B, building a brewery and making our own Guinness Sunflower Ale. The excitement wore off quickly once we realized we had no idea how to brew beer. Thankfully, we found some great how-to videos on CritterTube and ordered some used equipment off  Critter-Bay. We followed the trend and opened a tasting room for the four flavors we developed: Irish’munk, Woodpile Lager (with a hint of wood smoke flavor), School House IPA (in honor of Mrs. Spot),  and Sunflower Brewfest.

Here is our brewery tasting room

The bartender puts out some snacks: salted sunflower seeds & tomatoes

 

Bartender is ready to serve behind our genuine rustic log bar.

 Wow! The sunflower flavor is so strong. I love it.

Good to the last sip.

  

I could use a refill.

 

Someone bet this lady she couldn’t drink the whole tankard in one swig. I think they just lost their bet.

It is time to cleanup.

 

The bartender went to move the mug on the bar to the kitchen to be washed when he discovered it was half full.

He did the only sensible thing, He finished it off.

 

We hired a local teenager as a busboy. We asked him to clean the mugs. His idea of washing was to lick them clean.