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.