Paradise Lost

The Woodpilers are settling back into their normal routines. Sunflower gardens are being planted, burrows cleaned out to be filled with seeds for next winter and humans are being retrained to deliver food on command. We have a lot of retraining to do.

The blog mail bag this week has been full of letters from my adoring fans wanting know why we ever left Paradise Island. Whatever critter gave that island the name “Paradise” had a real sense of humor. I must admit, at first the place really did seem like paradise. For the first few weeks, I assisted my cousin Vinnie with his archaeology project. The locals were happy to act as our guide to rock art locations for a small fee. We documented all sorts of ancient rock art.

Ancient rock with his strange geometric shapes

Vinnie thought it was  language, we spent days trying to decipher it.

The archaeology project was a real bust. Bit of a practical joke on the part of the locals. Turns out the lines are slime trails left by snails with some sand stuck to them!

We complained to the mayor of the island and his assistant but all he did was laugh and stick his tongue out at us. How rude!

Next I decided to become a beach bum. I staked out a bit of beach for myself found a lounge chair and umbrella and idled the days away. It was wonderful. Well, that didn’t last. Some human conservation agents showed up and fenced off the beach and kicked everyone out. The beach was designated critical habitat for nesting Piping Plovers.

The beach became the exclusive domain for plovers.

The rules were strictly enforced. This plover accidentally wandered into someone else’s nesting territory and spent a day in jail. (The jail was an old lobster trap).

One day I was participating in a trash cleanup day on the Island. I came across a discarded menu for the Undersea Café. I was horrified to see the delicacy of the month – chipmunk deep fried in a secret batter recipe. After that I began to notice how some of the local “wild” life were watching me like I was an appetizer.

This sea monster followed me around for hours. I finally lost him but I did not sleep a wink that night. I didn’t know it at the time but this was another one of the locals practical jokes.

After a storm eroded part of the sand away, the jaw bone of this fearsome looking sea predator was exposed. I thought this was another practical joke until I noticed how terrified the local looked. Vinnie was all excited because he thought it was some new species of dinosaur that died millions of years ago. I wasn’t so convinced.

The number one reason we abandoned Paradise Island, was there were no sunflower seeds.