Chippy's Birthday Party 2020

In the years to come when your grand’munks ask you what it was like to live through the pandemic, what stories will you tell them? My strongest and strangest memory will be of celebrating my birthday during the lockdown. The grocery store shelves were empty and it was impossible to buy flour to make a birthday cake let alone get one from the bakery. I made a sunflower seed cupcake instead. The Post Office was overwhelmed by online orders and I only got one birthday card on time (the rest arrived three months late!) I had just arrived back from an overseas trip and had to quarantine, so, I could not spend the day with my family. My ever resourceful cousin Vinnie built a catapult and sent my present by “air mail” into the quarantine compound. I tried to make the best of the day, and sang “Happy Birthday” to myself. (Remind me to take some singing lessons in the future.) I used the self timer feature on my camera to take some photos of the “party.”

With no ingredients to bake with, I improvised with a no-bake sunflower seed cupcake.
It came out pretty good!

 

I was so excited when my card and present arrived.

I wonder who sent the card?

The card is from my kids.

The present is from my cousin. I wonder if it is safe to open? Last year, I made the mistake of shaking his present [a make your own fireworks set] and it sort of exploded.

I think it might be safer to use it as party table.

 The highlight of the day was when one of my fellow quarantine inmates tried to crash the party. He snuck through a small opening between the logs and raided the party platter.

 

 
Well, someone needs to eat all the snacks!

Science Class

Mrs. Spot the Woodpile school teacher wanted to take her class on a field trip to the ocean to learn about marine life. The parents (who had watched too many reruns of Gilligan’s Island) were concerned their little ‘munks would be swept out to sea. So, the field trip got cancelled. However, our ever resourceful school teacher, approached Merry and myself. She said she needed a couple of brave souls to go on a “dangerous mission.” We immediately volunteered before we even knew what the mission was. Mrs. Spot deputized Merry as an assistant science teacher for the day. Merry was going to do a virtual class from the beach while I ran the video camera. That sounded easy enough.

We arrived at the beach on the coldest day yet in March. It was 23 degrees with a 25 mph wind making it feel like 15 degrees. I had to stick the extra camera batteries in my cheek pouches to keep them warm and prevent the cold from draining them. Mrs. Spot wanted to find some ice. That seemed like a strange request given the ocean is full of SALT water. Merry wandered over to the stone jetty and spotted some ice on the top most stones.

Merry pointed out it had not rained in over a week and the previous few days had been above freezing. He asked the class how the ice could’ve formed so high on the rocks above the tide line? A lively discussion followed as everyone tried to figure out this puzzle.

As we discussed it, Merry and myself heard a deafen roar followed by an ear splitting crashing sound. Water came flying over the top of the rocks barely missing us by inches. The ocean decided to answer the question for us. The ice was formed by spray from the ocean waves.

We scurried off the rocks at warp speed. The Coast Guard thought we had been swept out to sea and a search plane circled overhead looking for us. We waved to plane to let them know we were okay and they returned to base.

We stopped to catch our breath on the beach. We looked down on the sand and saw these tracks almost as big as us. Oh great, we escaped being washed out to sea only to be eaten by an unknown predator. Merry was cool, calm and collected. He immediately asked the class to look through their field guide to identify the tracks. The students quickly identified the tracks as belonging to a gull. According to the description they didn’t eat chipmunks. Phew!

We continued walking down the beach and encountered these strange marks in the sand. One of the students remarked it looked like the surface of Mars. Merry said that was a great observation. This a channel formed in the sand from water running off the beach. (Does this mean there was water on Mars? I wonder if we will meet little green alien chipmunks someday?)

Wandering along the edge of water, we found this really strange blob. Mrs. Spot asked Merry to describe it. It was semi-transparent with tentacle like strings evenly spaced on the blob. Merry touched it and it felt like a ball of jello except it wasn’t sticky. No one had any idea what it was, so, we sent photos to the Seacoast Science Center. Their expert identified it as a “Sea Gooseberry” a type of comb jelly fish. 

 

A flock of sandpipers wandered by. They kept sticking their long beaks into the sand. What a bizarre behavior. Merry explained they were using their beaks to find larvae, worms, and small creatures in the sand to eat. Wow, the sand beneath our feet is teaming with life, that’s a bit creepy!

Merry asked the class what organism used to live in this bivalve shell? Mrs. Spot called on one of the students to answer the question but he clammed up because he had forgotten to read the homework assignment.

I was all excited when Merry discovered this pile of metalwork and netting. I was convinced we had found the wreck of a pirate ship full of treasure. No, according to Merry this was a lobster trap that washed ashore.

Merry showed me that it had nylon rope which was invented long after the last pirate ship.

Merry saw how disappointed I was, so, he found some “treasure” for me, a sand dollar.

Eagle Festival

Because of the pandemic, the humans have cancelled their late winter Merrimack River Eagle Festival. The Woodpile decided to organize their own Eagle Festival for critters. The return of eagles to the Merrimack River over the past twenty years has been one of the great environmental success stories. (Although, I hear the fish population disagrees!) It took the humans decades to clean up the water in the river and make it safe for wildlife again. In recent years the eagles have started fishing in the nearby ponds. We occasionally see them on the pond the Woodpile overlooks.

The mayor dropped by my burrow to talk local politics over coffee. After a while he finally got around to the real reason for the visit. He wanted me to sponsor a competition for the festival by putting up a $100 in prize money. The competition would be who could photograph the most number of different eagles between sunrise and sunset. Mrs. Spot had agreed to be the judge for the competition. I didn’t want to disappoint my old school teacher Mrs. Spot so I said yes.

After the mayor left, I ran to the closet and got out my binoculars and cleaned the lens. I dropped by Vinnie’s lab and asked to borrow his super telephoto camera lens he had in development. Next stop was Mom’s place to ask her to be my chauffeur driver for the day. I needed to visited as many eagle hotspots as possible. I had every intention of winning this competition and keeping my hard earned money!

The night before the festival, I set my alarm clock for the crack of dawn. Early on the morning of the big day, I brewed a gallon of coffee, bought two dozen deep fried snow donuts, and loaded my equipment into Mom’s car. The plan was to start at the mouth of the Merrimack River where it empties into the Atlantic ocean and work our way up river. First stop was Salisbury Beach State Reservation.

I found a log washed up on the beach that made a perfect vantage point for searching for eagles.

I heard a commotion on the rocks (known as "Badgers Rock") where the seals were sunning themselves. I found my first eagle of the day.

Next stop was some mud flats that eagles are known to hang out at. We were rewarded with the sight of this beautiful mature bald eagle.

 

These two immature bald eagles are trying to figure out how to catch the fish under the ice.

 WHO WON?

Suffice to say, I got the most eagle photos that day. I went to Mrs. Spot to collect my reward. According to Mrs. Spot, since I was sponsoring the competition I was disqualified from competing!

Tales from Vinnie’s Lab

With the university campus closed down due to the pandemic, my cousin Vinnie the P. had to improvise a lab in his burrow. I dropped by his place the other day to see how he was fairing without his supercomputer and scanning electron microscope. He was in a surprisingly good mood. He was chattering on about how necessity was the source of some of the greatest scientific breakthroughs.

The other day, Vinnie got up early and went to his kitchen to make breakfast. As he searched through his cupboards he discovered they were almost completely empty. He had been so engrossed in his latest experiments he forgot to order groceries. All he had left was a tin of lard, five pounds of sugar and a yard full of snow. What would you do with these “ingredients”?

 

How about making deep fried snow donuts! Impossible you say? The hot oil would melt the snow. Leave it to Vinnie to overcome this “minor physics” problem. I must have eaten a half dozen of these delicious treats.

While I was munching deep fried snow donuts, Vinnie got a call from Swiss Academy of Sciences. They were calling to congratulate him on finding a new species of mammal. Apparently this is a really big to-do. A few weeks ago, Vinnie was bored with watching re-runs of the old McGyver show for the 10^th time, so he hacked into the Woodpile security camera system. He was shocked to find a bobtailed raccoon nosing around the bird feeders. Thinking he had one too many cups of coffee that evening, he checked the next night and there it was again! This was the discovery of a century