Upstairs / Downstairs

I woke up this morning to an ice storm outside of the burrow. The layer of ice coating everything was so thick I couldn’t get the burrow door open. After washing the dishes, doing the laundry, and tidying things up, I was bored. I flipped the TV on and they were running the New Years Eve episode of “Upstairs/Downstairs” a widely popular critter series similar to your Downton Abbey. The show is set in the medieval period when bird families were royalty and chipmunks and other four pawed critters were peasants and servants. The chipmunk servants live and work in the castle’s dungeon. They cooked the meals, polished the silver and catered to his lordship’s every whim. Colonel Gray was lord of the castle. The colonel was a widower and looking for a wife. He was smitten with the daughter of the Earle of the Golden Nest and was frequently absent from his castle wooing her. She is secretly in love with a young handsome prince but her father wants to cement an alliance with Colonel Gray.

While the romantic drama plays out, the servants take advantage of the Colonel’s absence and pretend to be royalty. The colonel has flown off to the Golden Nest to attend the New Years Eve Gala Ball. The servants figure he will dance the night away and not be back before dawn. So they, turned the great hall at the castle into an impromptu servant’s ball. Unbeknownst to them, the young prince arrives at the Golden Nest and declares his undying love for the Earle’s daughter at the gala ball in front of everyone. Colonel Gray thinks the Earle double crossed him and flies home to declare war.

In the meanwhile, the servants are busy being merry and drinking the colonel’s wine and beer, and stuffing themselves full of the finest imported sunflower seeds. Being medieval times, it was standard practice to post a lookout on the turret. Luckily for the servants, they kept the lookout on duty. Just as the party is in full swing, the alarm is sounded by the lookout. The Colonel is on the way home and looks raving mad.

The Castle was designed by birds and there is no staircase to the turret. The only way to reach is by going through the window and climbing the outside wall.

 

The lookout checks twice, The Colonel is about to arrive! She abandons her post to alert the others.

The Colonel arrives and realizes something is amiss in his own castle, there is no lookout on duty.

Picking of a seed, the colonel thinks: What are my finest French sunflower seeds doing on the turret? I only feed my servants stale moldy peanuts.

One of the servants anxiously hides in the dungeon.

The Colonel follows the trail of seeds to the dungeon.

Not finding any of his servants, it is beginning to dawn on him his servants have forgotten their place in society. Servants partying in my great hall? Unthinkable! He quickly flies back to the turret to look around.

 
Thinking the coast is clear, the servant starts to leave the dungeon.

He has a plan. He is going to stuff cheek pouches full of seeds in the great hall and run away to the woods.

 

Colonel is on the turret and hears noises from below.

Hoping to surprise the miscreant servant, the Colonel swiftly flies down only to find an empty great hall. The servant has slid down the garbage chute to the dungeon.

 The servant jumps up and gives the Colonel’s tail feathers a nip!

Outraged, the Colonel speeds to the dungeon only to find it empty. The servant has crawled up the garbage chute to safety. How long can this continue before the servant is caught?

A messenger from the Golden Nest arrives outside the Castle. Both master and servant forget their troubles as they strain to hear the message. The handsome prince has been exposed as an imposter sent by their common enemy! Seeing an opportunity the Colonel makes haste to the Golden Nest.

The servants realizing they are not the powerless drudges of society, make a New Year's resolution: they are going to leave and setup their community where everyone is equal.

 

Winter Bed – Twas the night before Christmas

It has been a very hectic week leading up to Christmas: Decorating, wrapping presents, and a marathon session baking seed cakes (the chipmunk equivalent of your fruit cake). Lucky for us there was a fresh coat of snow and the kids have been out sledding most of the time and have worn themselves out. Now that Christmas eve has finally arrived, it didn’t take much to get the kids into bed.

It has been a long standing family tradition to read Clement Clark Moore’s poem “A Visit from Saint Nicholas.” That’s the one that starts “Twas the night before Christmas …” The kids like to change some of the verses. For example, “sugar plums” becomes candied seeds. The one that gets the biggest laugh is “Not a creature was stirring, not even a chipmunk”. The kids take that very seriously. They were worried if Saint Nick came by and we were not all fast asleep that he would skip our burrow. I reassured them, Saint Nick would come but got me thinking what if the kids are right? I hurried off to bed.

The wife bought a new bed and it finally arrived today. She bought new blankets and pillows. She had ordered a comforter with cheerful sunflowers on it but the warehouse sent one with stacks of books and cats! It was too late to fix the mix up until after Christmas. She got rid of the old rug and bought a new one of simulated grass and added some leaves to give the illusion we were sleeping outdoors.

After assembling the bed, I made a final check to make sure that I had tightened the bolts properly.
It looks like I need to get the wrench out again.

My wife crawled into bed and was out cold.

I made myself comfy on the soft new pillows but my nose got cold so I crawled under the blankets too.

While huddling under the blankets, I heard a clatter on the bed but dared not peak out.
I thought it must be one Santa’s elves to checking to see all were asleep.

Next thing I know, Santa’s helper is replacing my sunflower seeds with lumps of coal!
I must have made the naughty list.

 I appealed my case to the head of the naughty list but to no avail.
I would just have to do better next year.

I woke and realized I must be dreaming.

I drifted back off to sleep only to be awakened by noises from the roof top. I thought I was dreaming again, so I nodded back off to sleep.

Christmas morning finally final dawns, and Chippy Jr. anxiously tries to rouse us from bed.

“I know your under there.”

  

 “You got to see what Santa Claus brought us! And you’re not going to believe this dad, Santa left you a note apologizing for putting you on the naughty list. Something about a computer glitch.”

 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Holiday Cheer

My friend Bushy the squirrel always goes nuts over the Holiday Season. He is never content to do things small. Everything has to be big and exciting. Take for example last year. He organized a Christmas carol sing along marathon which lasted four hours. Boy were we all hoarse after that. Us Woodpilers, look forward each to year to seeing what new idea he has come up with.

While we waited with anticipation for Bushy’s 2021 holiday surprise, we were all busy doing a bit of decorating. My wife must have spent a half hour trying to decided whether we could splurge on buying a 3 inch (instead of 2 inch) wreath for the burrow door. In desperation, the salesman offered to throw in a free red bow if she bought the 3 inch one. (I think that was what she had in mind the whole time. She is a shrewd bargain hunter!) Chippy Jr. and myself spent the half hour watching critters wait in a long line to buy the latest gimmicks. It used to be a real novelty to have electronics you could control using your smartphone. Last year critters spent a small fortune buying outdoor lights you could turn on/off with a phone app. Well this year, a rather enterprising group of women ‘munks opened a shop selling “antique” holiday lights with mechanical on/off switches. They are charging 4x more than the smartphone controlled lights … there was a line out of the door of the shop.

With our holiday decoration shopping complete, we headed back to the Woodpile. We found Bushy busy with this year's holiday surprise: a gigantic 12 inch wreath to be hung on the Woodpile. The wreath was twice as big as he was! He had gathered up some of the scrap branches from the Christmas tree lot and wired them together. He made the bow from ribbon saved from a present last year. To complete the decorations, he added a couple of Christmas bulbs that had blown off someone’s yard decorations. Total cost was zilch.

Bushy hangs one of the bulbs on the wreath.

One final check to see if everything is perfect.

According to Woodpile bylaw 121-A all holiday decorations over 6 inches in size must be safety inspected by the building inspector. Mr. Titmouse our very tough inspector gave the wreath an
A+ safety rating.

 Mrs. Bluejay, our soprano singer in the Woodpile Chorus,
christens the new wreath with some traditional songs.

The completed homemade giant wreath awaits to be hung on the Woodpile. Bushy reminds us of the true holiday spirit – it is about the thought and love you put into, not how much money you spend.

Knitting Sleeping Bags

This fall a rather unusual collision of events took place. The Critter Almanac came out in October with its annual winter outlook forecast. In the past the forecast was developed by throwing darts at a cork board full of post-it notes with various weather conditions written on them. Once every hundreds years or so, it turns out to be accurate due to plain dumb luck. The editor finally grew tired of all the bad weather jokes readers sent her every year making fun of the forecast. She wisely hired my cousin Vinnie with his quantum super computer to model the weather for the next few months. Vinnie is forecasting an unusually cold winter. His computer model predicted ice on the pond by Thanksgiving with nights dipping into the 20s. So far, his forecast is spot on.

In other news, home burrow heating fuels are forecasted to rise by 50% or more in cost over the winter. The two different forecasts sent Woodpile families scurrying to find ways to save on heating costs. Many critter families are considering going back to the ancient traditional practice of hibernation. With all our modern conveniences we had almost outgrown the need for this practice. Looking over old history books, it appears our ancestors used to snuggle up in piles of dry leaves to hibernate in their burrows. I tried doing this once on a survival weekend, and I shivered all night.

The Woodpile Council decided to offer a 10,000 seed award to a critter who could find a practical solution to the problem. Mr. Weaver got up and spoke at the Council meeting. He said “Back in the my day, ‘munks didn’t have central heating and all of these other conveniences. We were a lot tougher back then. In my youth I worked in my grandfather’s factory making sleeping bags from the finest merino wool. We were warm and cozy all winter. I am going to my shop to make one and you can see for yourself.”

Old man Weaver hand knitted a sleeping bag in about two days. He hasn’t lost his touch. The secret to a successful sleeping bag is the hand rubbed sunflower oil coating they receive.

It takes several dozen seeds for each sleeping bag. Mr. Weaver was trying to teach his grandson this traditional craft. However, his grandson preferred computer games to hands on work.

The grandson tried to finish up the oiling quickly so he could go back to his games.

But Old man Weaver found a spot not properly oiled so it was back to work.

The Woodpile Council dropped by for an inspection.

 

The thermometer is reading 40 degrees warmer on the inside!

Looks like it passed with flying stripes. Council hands out the award, and folks lined up to place orders.

After the crowd left, the grandson felt there was something not quite right. The more he thought about it, the more he realized the natural gray wool color was so out-dated.

The grandson went to the yarn store and bought yellow and purple, his high school’s colors.

He had seen his grandfather hand knit these sleeping bags with ease. But he quickly discovered there was a lot of skill to it … and well there was a difference between watching and doing. His first attempt was a total disaster.

Feeling a bit dejected he pondered his next move.

Old man Weaver went looking for his grandson who was late for dinner. He went to the shop and his eye’s look like they are going to popped out of his head when he saw that colored yarn. What a disgrace, dyed yarn in his shop, never!

His grandson came out from behind the yarn and confessed he was the one who bought the colored yarn and explained he wanted do something a bit more trendy but it turned out to be a disaster.

Old man Weaver finally realized he had a rare opportunity to pass along the traditional craft if he was willing to allow his grandson to create a new tradition: colored sleeping bags.

Joey Bond 007

Some of you might remember Joey from our episode on job hunting. He is an aspiring actor and tried out for what turned out to be a car hood ornament job. He wisely declined that job offer. His charisma and athleticism during the job interview attracted the attention of a Hollywood talent agent who happened to be vacationing at the Woodpile.

Earlier this year, it was announced that the current actor playing James Bond 007 was retiring from the role. Efforts to fill the role with another human actor failed miserably with their test audiences. The talent search was expanded to include other species.

Joey flew out to Hollywood expecting the standard interview: read some lines of script in front of the camera. Instead he found himself at a “boot camp” interview. Actors had to perform a series of action scenes. It was a grueling interview process and most prospective actors bailed out in a matter of hours. Joey wasn’t one to back down from a real challenge. He grew up at the Woodpile and spent his youth being chased by cats, dogs, foxes, and coyotes. He could climb trees, chuck wood, dig burrows, and raid bird feeders. His country upbringing was invaluable.

I tagged along and documented the interview process. Here are some highlights:

The first task was to find your way through the maze of a pile of firewood. Most of the actors got completely lost. Joey made it through in record time.

The second task was to cross a parking lot without becoming a snack for this very hungry hawk.

 Joey used the parked cars as cover to avoid being detected.

The third task was run across the top of the woodpile. Sounds too easy. You guessed right.

Unclear as to what he might encounter, Joey carefully noted all the places he could hide along his route before starting.

When Joey heard a faint noise, he dove for cover. A few moments later, he jumped up out of his hiding place to find the Woodpile riddled with arrows

That was a close call.

The casting director was duly impressed.

The final task was to load, aim and fire a seed cannon at ten targets.

To speed up the loading process, Joey filled his cheeks with seeds then loaded the cannon. This cut the time in half.

Joey announces he has finished loading the seed cannon.

Joey fires the seed cannon and hits 10 bullseyes securing his position as the next 007 agent. Now the script writers have to find an evil villain worthy of being Joey Bond’s adversary, no easy task.