Trouble in Paradise

Vinnie has embarked on a scientific plant study on the tropical island they are stranded on in hopes of finding the next important miracle drug for saving lives. He has two trusty assistants, Merry the chipmunk and tropifly, who will be scout the island for exotic plant samples. Vinnie in the mean time is getting his laboratory setup.

Merry and Tropifly had grown bored with hanging out at the beach week after week, and have imagined themselves on a dangerous and hair-raising adventure in the jungle just like they have seen in the movies. Collecting plants was not quite what they had in mind, but it was something constructive to do. They were a bit surprised by how much paperwork was involved with doing science. All the samples had to be bagged, cataloged and labeled. Vinnie was pleased with their first few days work but really wanted some exotic plants no one had ever seen before. He sent them deep into the tropical vegetation.

Merry and Tropifly spotted a promising specimen. It was a cactus like plant growing in the middle of a rainforest. It was a dark part of the forest that didn’t get much sunlight. That seemed rather odd, a plant from a hot sunny dry desert environment in such a dark wet one. It must have evolved to do so. What sort of adaptions did it come up with to survive? They figured Vinnie would be really excited by this one, and might even reward them with some sunflower seeds from his secret stash! Eagerly Merry ran up to the cactus and dug out his clippers from the backpack. Tropifly broke out the notebook to write down the all the important details. Tropifly’s attention on the notebook was shattered with an air piercing scream!

Long tentacles shots out from the cactus and grabbed Merry!

 

Tropifly rushed in to save his friend from an omnivorous critter eating plant!

 

Merry escaped but Tropifly wasn’t so lucky.
The cactus took a long lick of tropifly and cried “Yuck, wood and paint!” and spit him out.

 Merry and tropifly had always envied their fellow Woodpilers for being flesh and blood  critters but discovered the value their uniqueness, that being wooden, could be a life saving asset.

 

Sledding Tuckerman's Ravine

With most of the Woodpilers stuck on Paradise Island, the responsibility for hair raising, crazy, insane and irresponsible adventures falls to me, Archie your friendly grasshopper. I was rummaging through the props warehouse and came across the famous red sled used by Chippy a few years ago. I dragged it out of storage and dusted it off only to realize all the snow had melted away. I thought “what would Chippy do?”

I gave it some thought and decided to lookup the snow conditions report for New England. The report stated that someplace called “Tuckerman’s Ravine” in New Hampshire had several feet of snow. That sounded perfect! I checked the Critter Book of World Records and found no critter had set any records for Tuckerman’s Ravine. There was a footnote explaining that in order to set a record you had to survive the activity, and so far no critter has lived to tell the tale. Excellent, an element of danger, I can check that off the list of prerequisites for a Chippy adventure.

I hopped a bus (pun intended) for someplace called Mount Washington. That’s a rather unusual name for a town. After a few hours the bus stopped and I got out. I looked around expecting to a find a ski resort, tavern, and quaint New England town. Instead, there was a sign saying Appalachian Mountain Club trail head. I spied a human starting up the trail with his skis and inquired as to where the village of Mountain Washington was. She laughed and point up the steep trail. I insisted on a bit more of an explanation. Apparently, Mount Washington is a very big mountain not a village. It is a several mile trek into Tuckerman’s Ravine high up on the mountain.

 The photo does do justice as to just how bug a mountain it is.

 

I checked the snow and it is icy – perfect for setting a speed record.

There are no ski lifts on Mount Washington, you have lug your sled up to Tuckerman’s Ravine.

 

Here I go!

I hit 60 mph in less than 10 seconds

At 80 mph the paint started peeling off the sled and flying away.

This should be fun, a natural ski jump!

Not the most graceful landing

 

It is hard to keep the sled under control when your up on one runner

 

Phew, back on two runners. It should be smooth sailing for the rest of the run.

I can see the end of the run a chance to make the record books

 

I think I spoke too soon, that must be a three hundred foot drop, I will never survive it …

 

[loud crashing sound]

 

Did I make it?

 

NEWS RELEASE

 Archie the Grasshopper becomes first critter to survive a trip down Tuckerman’s Ravine. His top speed was 120 mph, and he completed the run in 2 minutes 33 seconds beating the previous record held by a human.

 

There is No Place Like Home

One of Chippy’s longtime loyal fans has emailed the Woodpilers a long list of suggestions on how to return from paradise island. One of the more creative ideas was to fuse quartz grains in the sand together and build a bridge back to the mainland. After using a hand magnifying glass the Woodpilers were successful and built 2 centimeters of bridge in one day. At this rate they should return to the Woodpile in about 10,000 years.

Bushy the Squirrel has been using his time on the island to catch up on the classics. He has been reading the “Wizard of Oz” out loud to a group of children during English class. To make himself more comfortable he uses the old magic red hat as a lounge chair. The kids have taken to calling it the “ruby slipper.” After a number of afternoon readings, Bushy had come to the most important part of the book. He closed his eyes, and in dramatic voice is said “There's no place like home" and clicked his paws together. He opened his eyes and looked around as if he was expecting to find himself back at the Woodpile. Sadly, he was still stranded on this island. Mentally he chided himself for even thinking such a silly magical saying from a kids book would actually work. With a bit of mischievous humor he repeated the famous line with a minor addition “There's no place like home in a blizzard." The kids cracked-up laughing and rolling around in the sand under the palm tree. Mrs. Spot, the Woodpile’s illustrious teacher, upon hearing the excessive noise went to scold the kids. She arrived just in time to see Bushy wink out of existence along with the “ruby slipper” hat!!!

In the meantime, at the Woodpile we had a week of gorgeous warm weather and all thoughts were on the arrival of spring. For reasons unexplainable by modern science temperatures dropped below freezing in a matter of minutes, the skies turned dark and ominous, and a blizzard hit us out of nowhere. After the white-out conditions subsided, we humans looked out the window to find to our amazement, Bushy huddled in a snowstorm looking a bid dazed and confused. Shaking off the snow he searched for the sunflower seeds he can smell all around him in the snow. He could be heard muttering to himself, “Be careful what you wish for.”

Brrrrr!

Where am I?

This can’t be the Woodpile, it is suppose to be springtime there.

Maybe I ended up in the Antarctic?

  Something about this place smells familiar. Wood smoke, wet logs, and something else.

Could that be a sunflower seed I smell? I would do anything for a sunflower seed after months of eating coconuts!

I found it!

Give it to me straight, how bad does my tail look?

 

Paradise Lost

The Woodpile has been eerily silent all winter with Chippy and friends stranded on a tropical island after the unfortunate mishap with the magical hat. We, humans, were surprised to find a half starved and soaking wet chipmunk munching on sunflower seeds this morning. He had quite the tale to tell once he warmed up with three cups of hot chocolate.

The Woodpilers were giving serious consideration to permanently staying on their tropical island because it was like living in paradise. Beautiful sunny days, bath water warm ocean to swim in, an endless supply of fancy drinks with umbrellas, and no time clock to punch in/out of. They had even gotten a taste for coconuts and bananas. Who wanted to plant and tend sunflower seeds and stack wood anymore?

One day, this fellow checked out one of the rental sailboats. He was having a grand time when out of nowhere a monsoon came barreling down on the island. His sailboat was blown out to sea by the strong winds and battering rains. In his struggle to stay afloat as the boat was tossed and turned on the huge waves, he began to feel alive again. The allure of living forever doing nothing in paradise lost its charm. In that moment, he made a resolution to plot a course to the Woodpile to get help to rescue the rest of the Woodpilers. His sail boat survived a journey half ways around the world only to be sunk by a mini iceberg five yards from the Woodpile. Undeterred he swam ashore.

We awoke to find a wet chipmunk washed ashore at the Woodpile 

 

He was relishing the taste of sunflower seeds