The Blind Woodchuck – theblindwoodchuck.com

And to Think That I Wanted a Mulberry Tree (2026 version)

Someone had been calling “Yoohoo!” for hours when the blind woodchuck finally sat up in her burrow. She went from groggy to enraged in a matter of seconds and was about to start screaming as her cousin Shirley poked her head into the burrow.

“Are you still asleep? I thought you’d be up by now.”

“I’m hibernating!” the blind woodchuck shouted. “Why doesn’t anyone respect my natural circadian body instincts to slow down my metabolic rest for 5 months and then awake refreshed in the spring?

“It’s the middle of June,” Shirley said pointedly, “I think you slept through your alarm.”

Two frenzied balls of fur suddenly dropped into the burrow, streaking through the tunnel and slamming into the wall. They bounced to the ground, stunned, while tiny cartoon birds circled over their heads.

“The meadow is possessed!” the two chipmunks squeaked in unison. “It’s a sign! It’s like crop circles, only with fruit.”

“Calm down, you ridiculous gerbils.” The woodchuck was not a fan of chipmunks. “Chip, what’s going on?”

“He’s Chip, I’m Dale. Say our names!” said the one with the stripe running from tip to tail. The other chipmunk had an identical stripe and the two were indistinguishable. Their names were not actually Chip and Dale, but they had accepted the hard reality of being adorable anthropomorphic Disney characters.

“The crop circles are real! I saw Disclosure Day!”

The woodchuck shook her head; last summer she had seen the platypus stomping around in the field, giggling as it flattened giant circles in the prairie grass with its flat tail. It seemed to be having a lot of fun.

The chipmunks scampered up to the surface and began running toward the trees. The woodchuck caught up to Shirley, who had been following the over excited pair. “What the hell are they chattering about?”

The foursome stopped at the edge of the forest. A large tree with heavy limbs reached out toward them from beneath the forest canopy. Under the branches, there was a dark pile that looked like a freshly dug grave and the spatter zone circled the trunk, reaching several feet in every direction. An ominous moan whistled through the leaves, and with a sudden gust of wind, the branches launched their bloody ammo.

The woodchucks screamed as the tree pelted them with the ripe berries that exploded upon contact with their heads. The chipmunks had taken cover in the back fur of the two groundhogs when a very large mulberry smacked Chip and/or Dale in the head, and the animal slumped to the ground. Shirley scooped up the tiny body and the three retreated to the safety of the open meadow.

“It’s mulberry time already?!” wondered the blind woodchuck. “I really did oversleep.”

The woodland creatures had a complicated relationship with mulberries. They were sweet and tart and delicious and could be scooped up off the ground and eaten by the handful; much easier than cicadas, who were almost as stupid but could fly. But the tree seemed indignant they were snacking on her reproductive seeds and had been known to aim a payload right at whichever guilty animal had the reddest snout. It was paintball with juice and the tree was the only one with the gun.

“Chip, are you okay?” sobbed Chip over the limp body in Shirley’s arms.

“I’M DALE, you idiot, you’re Chip. Did you see what was under the tree?”

“It just looked like a pile of delicious berries,” mumbled the groundhog, her mouth full of the few on the ground that had bounced their way.

“It wasn’t just a pile!” Dale was near hysteria now. He drew Shirley’s ear toward him and whispered, “There was something written in it.”

After Dale had breathed into a paper bag to stop hyperventilating, the four animals crept closer to the edge of the forest. They were far enough away to avoid pelting but close enough to see that the chipmunk was right: the letter H was visible within the pile of crushed, bloody berries. As they watched, mesmerized, another vertical line appeared, followed by three short horizontal ones.

“HE! It says HE!” shouted Chip.

“Who is HE?” wondered Shirley. “Does it mean Man is in the Forest?”

There was a moment of panic where they passed around the paper bag to get everyone’s breathing under control.

Minutes passed as they stared at the pile of maroon debris, trying to figure out what the message meant. The woodchuck was eating the last of the dropped mulberries when Shirley shouted, “Wait! It’s starting again!”

Another vertical line, then a quick horizontal one.

“Ohmygod, we’re in HEL,” moaned the chipmunks.

“That is one opinionated pile of fruit,” commented the woodchuck. “Shirley, what’s going on?”

“I’m starting to wonder if it’s some kind of message of protest—that Mother Nature is chastising the world for how badly the earth has been polluted and abused. This feels like a witchy prophecy and you know how humans love supernatural signs.”

“Yes, remember when that spider was writing in a web and saved a pig? It’s just like that,” said Chip.

“I think it’s a little more complicated than Charlotte’s Web, although that was a really good book; this message seems a little more foreboding. Maybe all the plants and trees are joining together to protest data centers and the destruction of national parks. I hear the algae population is doing something fun in DC.”

“IT’S STARTING AGAIN!” shrieked the chipmunks.

One more vertical line slowly emerged, and the four animals cheered. “It’s gonna be HELLO!” gasped Shirley.” “We are witnessing the first actual communication between the land and the creatures who walk the earth—they are pleading with us to live in harmony because we are all share the same space and are dependent upon each other for survival.”

“No, I’m pretty sure we’re still in HELL,” argued the woodchuck. “It’s just completed the word.”

“Maybe it’s both?” The woodchucks looked at the two tiny chipmunks, the most vulnerable of the creatures in the meadow. “We are in HELL . . .” started Chip, and Dale finished the sentence: “. . . but if we say HELLO, maybe we could work together to fix it.”

The four animals looked at each other in a moment of pure honesty and understanding, when a small, formerly green head popped out of the pile of mushy fruit and gasped, “It’s HELP, you idiots, I’m trapped under these stupid berries! Someone get me out!”

It took the strength of two woodchucks and both chipmunks to overcome the suction of the swampy pile of fermenting fruit to pull Steve the iguana, now a bright red, to terra firma.

“Woah, I didn’t know you could change to that color,” joked the woodchuck. “You look like Lucy and Ethel after they crushed the grapes in that episode . . .”

“Don’t be mean,” hushed Shirley. “He’s had a rough day.” Chip and Dale scampered to support the lizard as he staggered away to sleep off the trauma of being buried alive; he was also very drunk after subsisting on prison cell wine for hours.

“Okay, so it wasn’t a message from the earth,” mused Shirley as they walked back to the burrow. “But maybe we should pretend it was. You know we can’t keep going on like this.”

“You’re probably right, but I’m too tired to think about this now. I’m going to take a nap.”

The blind woodchuck ducked into her quiet, dark burrow, where news of the all the bad things happening never quite reached. From above, she heard Shirley say, “At some point, you’re going to have to wake up. We all are.”

• • •

“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Steve was both.”

E.B. White (maybe)

• • •

The woodchuck has a new burrow! You can still hang around here with the other woodland animals, but the iguana and the platypus have moved over to Substack, where they hope to reach millions of new readers and possibly amass a fortune in cicadas! Look for her at The Blind Woodchuck on Substack.

• • •

The original And to Think That I Wanted a Mulberry Tree can be found at this link:

https://theblindwoodchuckdotcom.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=718&action=edit

Does a bear hit (on cows) in the woods?

The gloom hanging over the meadow was palpable. It was the usual spring mix of clouds and rain but with the added barometric pressure of confusion, plus a light misting of depression. Even the rabbits were humping distractedly, keeping one ear cocked for any news from the front.

They were at war with bears. Or maybe they had been last week, but now they weren’t? It could possibly start up again at any moment, but no one knew why this what was happening or who was on which side. The bears were much larger than any of the animals in the meadow, and while their dispositions were usually fine, getting them mad seemed like a bad idea. The Weasel had plunged the meadow into chaos by insulting their ursine fishing skills and vowing to steal their salmon.

Now the Weasel was shouting about cow prostitutes at the non-bendy part of the river, saying no one had told him the bears would react with anger. The animals were confused by this statement and wondered whether they should be now be worried about sex worker bovines, until the blind woodchuck’s cousin Shirley figured out the weasel was talking about the straight part of the river called the Hor-muz.

“Oh, I get it,” said Steve the Iguana. “Cow prostitutes are Whore-Mooz!” They all got a chuckle out of the idiocy that was the Weasel, but they still didn’t know why they were supposed to be mad at bears.

The woodchuck was done with reality. She’d been hoping for an uneventful spring that would lead up to the emergence of the cicadas—her favorite summer treat!—but this war thing was pushing her over the edge. She couldn’t get the lyrics Bears? Bears are sweet! Besides you ever see a bear with forty-foot feet? out of her head. There really was a Sondheim song for everything.*

Nothing made sense anymore, but one thing was certain—her burrow needed a makeover. Between epic bouts of doomscrolling, she’d been spending most of her time watching HomeTown and had decided that wallpaper was the way to go. The dumpster behind Floor & Décor had magically produced a roll of a pale green print stamped with vines and huge pink peonies. Erin and Ben promised the Peel & Stick wallpaper would be the easiest home improvement ever. Enlisting the help of Shirley and Steve, she figured they would be done by lunch.

The first strip went up quickly; there was a lot of high-fiving, although the disparate size of their paws made it awkward. The problem started with the second piece, as the pattern edges did not match. Steve stood on the woodchuck’s shoulders, waiting for Shirley to remeasure and cut the wallpaper so he could paste it at the top. “Shirley, you’re wasting it!” shouted the woodchuck. “There won’t be enough —I don’t care if the flowers match.” Shirley kept measuring, ignoring her cousin and muttering, “Of course it has to match—were you born in a barn?” Which was a hurtful comment because the woodchuck, had, in fact, been born in a barn.

The second piece was finally ready, and Steve held the top in place as Shirley lined up the edges, which now matched perfectly. But the first strip suddenly rolled down to the ground, the adhesive side completely covered in soil. The inventors of Peel & Stick neglected to mention their product was not suitable for dirt walls.

Steve started screaming and jumped off the woodchuck’s shoulder. “There’s something hiding in there!” he shrieked. Two glowing eyes bored out from a small hole in the wall, and the woodchuck reached in and yanked out a terrified racoon who was cowering with his tiny paws over his crotch.

“Dude, whatever you were doing in there, stop it!” shouted the woodchuck. “It’s already too sticky in here!

The racoon tearfully explained he was hiding from that crazy Rhino from Kentucky who had been spotted in the area. “He decapitated a whale and now he wants my penis!” sobbed the racoon. “He dumped a bear carcass in the park!”

“Is that why we’re at war with them?” asked Steve.

“You know,” said Shirley thoughtfully, “there was an online survey about whether you would rather meet a human man or a bear in the forest, and the majority of responders said definitely a bear.”

The animals all nodded. Although the bears had a tendency to hog the dumpster when something delicious was thrown away, none of them had a quarrel with the huge beasts. This made the war so infuriating—had the weasel never heard the term Don’t Poke the Bear?

The racoon calmed down and offered to help with the wallpaper. “Only after you’ve washed your paws,” said the woodchuck, grimacing. The unlikely team discovered if they pushed small sticks through the top of each strip into the dirt, the panel stayed in place. Shirley doubted this solution was going work for long but kept it to herself. After a long afternoon that involved a lot of swearing, the decorators stood back to admire their work—the entire burrow wall covered in a breathtaking riot of color and nature.

“Excuse me?” The four animals turned in unison to see the head of a giant bear poking upside down into the burrow. “Are the cow prostitutes in here? Not that I want to do anything with them,” he added hurriedly. “I’m just curious.” Frozen, the iguana, raccoon and two woodchucks silently shook their heads; the bear waved and left.

Some days it felt like the entire meadow had lost its mind, thought the woodchuck. But at least the wallpaper looked great!

She turned to see that all but one of the panels had fallen to the dirt floor.

• • •

Today is May 1 —a Day of Economic Blackout and Strike, so I hope you are somewhere reading columns about woodchucks and
not spending any money or going to work.
(Local shops are okay, but try to use cash to pay. The Man owns all the credit cards!)

*Into the Woods—”The Witch’s Rap”

• • •

The Ant-idote to Fascism

The large flat rock in the meadow was tilted at exactly 12 degrees facing west, so the surface was the ideal spot for an animal to flatten out and catch some rays. The blind woodchuck had been waiting for the first warm day of spring and was delighted to find the stone empty of other creatures, because when she lays around the rock, she lays around the rock. She giggled at the joke at her own expense and then flung herself backwards, as if diving into a pool of cool water.

“Hey!” There was a furious shout and a strangled choking noise as Steve the Iguana materialized halfway buried under her bulky haunch. “Get off me!”

“Steve, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there. You were the same color as the rock.” The iguana was her best friend, but the woodchuck was often surprised by his ability to blend into different parts of the meadow. The lizard was still coughing and the woodchuck prepared to Heimlich him, although there was a real possibility she would crush his spine while saving his life. “I’m ok,” gasped Steve; “Some ants went down the wrong way.”

“Steve, you should not be eating ants!” scolded the woodchuck. “They are defenders of democracy.”

“How is that possible?” muttered the iguana, annoyed because his lunch had now scattered.

“You’ve heard of the resistance group antifa, right?” she whispered. “This is them.”

Seeing the look of disbelief on Steve’s face, the blind woodchuck went on to explain that all the organizing and fundraising of the resistance was coming from the inhabitants of the nearby ant farm. “Pretty cool, huh? No one would suspect they were the brains of the group.”

“Do they have brains?” wondered Steve. “How can they make a decision when there are so many of them?”

“I think there’s a queen in each colony that tells them what to do; kind of like me in the meadow.”

There was a soft snort of disbelief from behind the rock; Steve and the woodchuck leaned over to see her cousin Shirley slumped on the ground. “If you’re the queen,” snapped Shirley, “why don’t you make this all this stop? Get rid of the weasel and his minions, tell Treasury Secretary Bessent to release the financials relating to the Epstein files and leave us the hell alone!”

The woodchuck and the iguana were taken aback. Shirley was the most optimistic animal in the meadow; the head organizer and cheerleader for marches and protests. When even the chipmunks were ready to give up, she always had a slogan or a fight song ready to energize the troops.

“You okay, Shirl?” asked the woodchuck softly.

“I AM NOT OKAY! I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to march or make signs—I want to sit in the sun and finish the epic poem I am writing about wolves. It’s 3,182 lines and written in alliterative verse but I can’t focus enough to finish it. I don’t want my every waking thought to be about the weasel. Why do I know who the Secretary of the Treasury is? I am a goddamn groundhog!”

The woodchuck was not very good at comforting others and felt she often made the situation worse by making a joke. Instead, she pushed Steve toward Shirley and muttered, “Say something to make her feel better.”

The iguana thought for a long moment, and then said, “Shirley, did you know I have two penises?”

The woodchuck yelled, “How is that going to make her feel better?”; but her shout was drowned out by Shirley’s surprised bark of laughter.

“I knew about the third eye on your head, but not the hemipenis!” she gasped, rising hysteria shaking her whole body as the woodchuck glared furiously at Steve, who had blushed into a deep pink. Shirley was still snorting and giggling, tears running down either side of her snout as she tried and failed to maintain her composure.

“You don’t have to go to this march; you can sit this one out.” The woodchuck patted her cousin’s knee in solidarity. “Antifa is going and they estimate there are about eleven million of them in this meadow alone, minus the ones Steve ate for lunch. They will cover for you.”

“The ants go marching one by one . . .” Shirley started singing and then cracked herself up again.

“They don’t really use that song anymore; it just goes on forever,” explained the woodchuck. “They have adopted a Dave Matthews song as their theme; it’s only 4:27. But seriously, it’s okay to take a break if you need to.”

Shirley sat up and swiped at the damp fur under her eyes. “I haven’t laughed this hard in months. They’re not going to make me cry uncle—I’m going with the antis!” The woodchuck winced at the very bad pun, as Shirley added: “I’m definitely going to the March, but on one condition—I want to march next to Steve. I have a lot of questions for him.”

• • •

Because it’s important to learn something new everyday, the iguana hemipenis is a real thing, found in over 9000 species of Squamata (the second largest order of vertebrates around the world). They have spikes on them! Here is a picture of the hemipenes to haunt your dreams.

Also, the next No Kings March is March 28—this Saturday. Come join the eleven million ants and people we hope will turn up to show this awful administration we want them all out, including the Secretary of the Treasury.

• • •

Faster, Higher, Stupider

“HAWK!”

The raucous fighting in the burrow immediately ceased, as every animal hit the ground and covered their eyes. Silence was instantaneous as a musky smell of terror hovered over the dirt floor. “Pardon me,” whispered the skunk.

“Y’all are so loud I feel like I’m losing my mind,” muttered the blind woodchuck.

One by one, the marmots and squirrels and skunks and lemurs and wood frogs and every other creature who should have been asleep but were not, slowly sat up and sheepishly realized that predators can’t fly into tunnels.

The woodchuck understood that the non-hibernating clan who were crammed into her burrow were there because the world above ground was too scary to face; they were looking for comfort and safety as the weasel and his ferret minions were terrorizing the meadow. But the noise level of woke, chattering animals was more than her nerves could stand, and the while her shout had been the equivalent of shouting Man is in the Forest! in a theater, it was effective. They shut up.

“What are you all arguing about? One at a time!” warned the woodchuck.

“We were watching that big sports event,” said the marmot, “and the flying squirrels were boasting about who could go higher and then one accused the other of padding his nuts to get more height when gliding, and then all hell broke loose. Also, we just realized the winners were getting cute stuffed animals and we all want one so we can carry it around like that monkey.”

“You do realize that adorable stuffie you want is a stoat?” asked Shirley. The woodchuck’s cousin knew all the correct names of the animals. “Um, sure,” said the marmot, not really knowing that but thinking about checking out the dumpster behind IKEA to see if anyone had tossed out an orange stuffed orangutan.

“A stoat is a member of the weasel family!” shouted Shirley. “Do you really want a lovie that is a fake fur version of your oppressor?!”

The animals were horrified and immediately began backtracking, saying they were appalled and would never watch this sport thing again.

“What if . . .” began the woodchuck, realizing that if she ever wanted peace in her burrow, she would have to plan an activity to tire everyone out, “we hold our own version of the games? And instead of passing out stuffed weasels, we’ll give everyone a live chipmunk!”

“Hey!” protested the chipmunks, but they were drowned out as everyone started discussing what sport they would perform.

A pair of minks were new to the neighborhood and had joined the crowd in the burrow just to see what all the noise was about; they immediately chose pairs skating, because they were long and elegant and knew they would look fabulous in flowing silk outfits. They started speaking with French accents in case the French hen judge was listening.

The woodchuck was happy her friend Steve the iguana was in the crowd and the two of them decided with his tiny hands to steer and her awesome bulk in the back, they could crush the bobsled. They had watched Cool Runnings together last spring and then spoke with Jamaican accents for weeks, which the mink couple thought was cultural appropriation. The mink adjusted their berets and called the bobsledders le ratel et le lézard, not realizing that the woodchuck was not a honey badger and would probably rip their faces off if she had been.

The frogs were appointed as figure skaters because they were good jumpers; they were fine with that until they realized they were supposed to turn around four times while in midair. There was one who was pretty sure he could do that and started calling himself the Quad Frog, but that was because he had licked a hallucinogenic toad and believed it was true. After the colorful cane toad had been passed around, the rest of frogs believed they were champions, too, and started doing backflips.

All the remaining animals were separated into two hockey teams, with the platypus coaching the females and the beaver as general manager of the males. “Wait, shouldn’t the beaver be in charge of the girls?!” one of the otters shouted, to the uproarious laughter of his team. “Shirts or skins?!” The platypus slapped a frozen disc of deer skat spinning across the floor and knocked out one of the beaver’s front teeth, and the otters shut up.

The woodchuck had been gathering food before the cold set in, and in her pile of bugs and scraps there was a small box with the picture of a white castle containing very old onion rings. Much to her annoyance, Shirley strung the snacks together and hung them across the burrow, declaring The First Annual Hypnos Games were now open!

The animals looked at each other in confusion and the noise level started rising again, when a small voice in the corner spoke up. “I believe Hypnos is the Greek god of sleep, and since we aren’t, the Games take his name to honor him and hope he eventually helps us to slumber.” Shirley nodded in delight that someone had caught the reference, and the Limnos Blind Mole-rat continued with a complete history of how the various Greco-Roman gods had influenced the sport. “Who is this guy?” whispered the woodchuck, as the mole-rat began reciting The Odyssey in its original Greek form. “I think he was visiting some rat cousins and got stuck here,” said Shirley. “He’s from a Greek island called Limnos.”

The agitated animals found themselves soothed by the soft, droning voice, and their heads started to droop one by one as the monotone lulled them into a stupor. Soon everyone was asleep, with the exception of Steve the iguana who was fascinated to discover that he might be a descendent from Gecko-Roman gods.

“That worked out well,” murmured Shirley to the woodchuck as they curled up together in the now silent burrow. “If we can just get through the rest of hibernation without waking up to find the weasel has done something else stupid and illegal.”

“Oh, you mean like declaring we’re at war with bears?!” laughed the woodchuck.

They both slept.

• • •

I wish The First Annual Hypnos Games were being televised, because I could sure use something to put me to sleep in the midst of this waking nightmare we are all in. I would definitely be rooting for the Quad Frog. Also, the next No Kings March is March 28—put it in your phone!

• • •

The woodchuck has a new burrow! You can still hang around here with the other woodland animals, but the iguanas and the platypus have moved over to Substack, where they hope to reach millions of new readers and possibly amass a fortune in cicadas! (The woodchuck doesn’t really expect you to hand over your tasty bugs—she’s just hoping for new eyes to read about her adventures.) Look for her at The Blind Woodchuck on Substack.

A Dream of Spring

The woodchuck was stumped.

She had decided to write a strongly worded letter to the person in charge. In her opinion, there was nothing more persuasive than writing carefully chosen verbiage that laid out exactly what an idiot the person reading it was; in impeccable penmanship, of course. She just couldn’t get past the salutation.

Dear Weasel was succinct, but it didn’t seem forceful enough; a little too polite. She wanted something cutting and insulting right up at the top, but the only modifier she could think of to put in front of Weasel was weasely. It worked as both a noun and an adjective.

She tried pacing around her burrow, but it was very crowded and she kept trodding on tails. Anxious creatures had slipped into the warm tunnel looking for comfort, and now there was snoring in a variety of minor keys. She didn’t see Shirley, but she assumed her cousin was asleep somewhere under a pile of squirrels.

Earlier that week, she had told Shirley the situation above ground was getting more tense by the day. The weasel had put a cow in charge of the ferrets, and he was as small-minded as he was tiny.

“I’ve known a lot of cows,” said Shirley, “and they are sweet and mostly kind. Are you sure?”

“Well, I heard it was a bovine, so I guess so –probably it was a dude bull who was insecure because of its small . . .”

“. . . dictionary says a castrated bull is a steer,” interrupted Shirley.

“Whatever, he’s gone now. Saw what the ferrets did and disappeared.
They are still getting their orders from the dog-killer, but now they are all dressing like members of the Toon Patrol with tiny helmets and machine guns.”

That had been a few days ago, and the Roger Rabbit cosplay had been the trigger for the letter she was trying to write.

Shirley entire body suddenly plummeted down the entrance hole and landed in heap on the burrow floor.

“What are doing up there?!” gasped the woodchuck “I thought you were asleep under that scurry of squirrels with the fringe on the top.”

Shirley looked ashen and the woodchuck was suddenly afraid, instantly regretting the Oklahoma! joke. “What happened?”

“They’ve killed Kevin,” whispered Shirley. “The ferrets insisted it was a hawk, but this was no bird attack—I know what that looks like. The weasel’s goons did this on purpose.”

Next to Shirley, Kevin was the cousin she was most fond of—he had succeeded her as Punxsutawney Phil when she (almost voluntarily) retired. The woodchuck hadn’t seen him in a few days but assumed he was on his way to Gobbler’s Knob to participate in the February 2^nd holiday.

The guttural scream that rose up from deep inside the woodchuck held every bit of fear, grief and rage she had been holding inside for the past year. It ricocheted off the walls of the extensive network of tunnels that ran under the meadow and coursed through the veins of the earth as a bloodcurdling message to all who were still asleep. Wake up! it shrieked; you cannot pretend this is not your fight!

She took a deep shuddery breath and looked up—a hundred glowing eyes stared back at her. Every woodland creature who had been dozing seconds ago was now awake.

“Everyone listen up. We are all going to write letters and tell them this must end. We are going to make phone calls and tell them how much we hate this. And we are going to be in the meadow marching and filming and yelling non-stop. Hibernation is over —if we don’t get to sleep, they don’t get to sleep. I know you’re tired and hungry— we’re supposed to have six more weeks before the alarm goes off. But use that hangry feeling to tell the others to wake up!”

As news of Kevin’s death spread through the burrows, the animals seem to coalesce into one united group. They were all different species, shapes and sizes; some even on the wrong end of the food chain with their new partners. But thoughts of eating each other were put aside for the moment as they grasped paws and vowed to fight back against the destruction of the meadow.

The woodchuck pulled Shirley aside and told her she must be the leader of this group of rebels now. “Not me,” she protested. “You’re the one that got them all fired up.”

The woodchuck shook her head, “I am leaving. I have to get to Punxsutawney by Feb. 2 so the Mayor can lift me up to talk to the people. It’s the biggest crowd I’ll ever be in front of and I have to take advantage of the platform. I have to do this for Kevin.”

“You know, PETA is trying to replace you with a hologram because they think it’s animal abuse for Pennsylvania to take advantage of you like this,” Shirley commented thoughtfully.

“I don’t care what he thinks about this; if I can put up with the mayor’s freezing cold hands shoved up my ass, it’s none of his business. Besides, I was always Team Gale.”

“No, that’s The Hunger Games. This is different— PETA stands for People for Ethical . . .”

“It’s not different — it feels like the beginning of the book where they have taken control of all the districts, and I am suddenly the tribute from District Twelve!”

She hugged Shirley and set off on her journey. She knew the general public was only interested in one message from her—that this hellish winter would finally end and that early spring was right around the corner. The woodchuck knew that wasn’t true—there was always six more weeks of winter, sometimes even eight or ten. But it would end eventually; that’s what she would tell them. They could outlast the weasels of the world, but only if they worked together.

Spring would come. It would be hard work, and there would be many setbacks; but it would come. The Dream of Spring was alive.

• • •

Don’t let the fear that you’re not doing enough paralyze you into doing nothing. You may not have a platform like the woodchuck’s, but you can still make a phone call or get a whistle. The woodchuck’s Dream of Spring is that one day soon she can go back to writing about cicadas and eclipses.

• • •

For Good

The woodchuck sat quietly in the dark, her small paws folded over her belly. She wasn’t sure what to do with herself. Plans for continuing hibernation had been set aside; being tired all the time was better than the constant nightmares she had been having while asleep.

Two nights ago, she had woken up for a quick pee and stupidly checked her phone—she knew better than to expose her scarred retinas to blue light at night, but was hoping to find out if Gail was having Nathan’s baby on the final episode of Below Deck. Instead, her feed had instantly filled with horrible videos of masked (L)ice agents doing what they had become known for—destroying people’s lives.

Survival in the wild was always difficult, but the animals accepted that as part of life. The woodchuck was grateful that her eyes, ears and nose were all on top of her head: she could listen for the predatory screams of hawks and keep a look out for coyotes or dogs all at the same time. Those were instinctive actions she could take to protect herself from the dangerous physical world she lived in, and she felt confident in her ability to survive. But how was she supposed to deal with the despair she now felt when the predators were changing the rules daily? When the Weasel and his sycophantic ferrets were now assuming the role of Hunter and they were all the huntees? It violated the Laws of Nature, as well as about a hundred commandments.

She felt desperately alone. There was nothing worse than being awake while the rest of the meadow was in deep slumber. She needed Shirley to help her calm down, but she knew she could not violate the sanctity of her cousin’s hibernation; you deserved to get a chunk bitten out of your haunch if you woke someone up.

The woodchuck poked her head out of the burrow, just in case there might be others having the same problem. She did a slow 360 degree scan around the deserted meadow, barely moving her head, and ended up back at the beginning of the panorama just as a pair of beady black eyes met hers.

She let out a shriek that was quickly muffled by a slapped paw over her mouth as Shirley hissed, “Shhhh—you’ll wake everyone up!”

Just knowing her cousin was up made her feel better. The groundhogs huddled together in the burrow and spoke in hushed tones about what was happening above ground. The woodchuck wasn’t good at sharing her feelings, and she trembled as she told her cousin how utterly helpless she felt to do anything.

Shirley paused and then said, “Now don’t roll your eyes at me; I’m going to tell you a story. Many years ago (46 to be exact), a volcano called Mt. St. Helens erupted. It spewed ash and debris over 135 square miles of woods—not our forest, another one far way. The blast zone was covered with fallen ash so thick it was deeper than several woodchucks, completely obscuring the soil below. Nothing could grow there. A few years later after the ash had cooled, scientists saw how barren the area had stayed. They got the idea to bring in some gophers to try to dig below the surface.”

The woodchuck interrupted to blow a raspberry and make a disparaging remark about gophers. “People think they are groundhogs who need orthodontia and we get blamed all the time when they dig up golf courses!”

“I know you are not a fan of them, but hear me out,” continued Shirley. “The scientists airlifted a bunch of gophers into the area and dropped them into the ash covered forest. And the gophers did what they do best—they started to dig. They were only there for 24 hours, but they were able to irrigate the ground and allow fungi and microbes to come to the surface and penetrate the roots of plants so they could regenerate. Six years later, there were 40,000 plants thriving in that area.”

“The gophers got to ride in a helicopter?”

“You’re missing the point! They brought back an entire ecosystem! If a couple of dumb gophers can bring about a change like that, who can say what a few individuals can do? Maybe we are not as powerless as we think we are.”

“There are no volcanos around here . . .”

“Oh, for God’s sake! It’s a metaphor!” shouted Shirley.

“Wait, you didn’t let me finish. So if stupid gophers can bring about change, then we much smarter woodchucks—or anyone, I guess, no matter how insignificant they are, even squirrels—have the potential to change the world. If you don’t want there to be ash, you can dig up some fungi!”

“Close enough,” yawned Shirley. “Let’s try to get some sleep and we’ll work on saving the world when we’re better rested.”

The woodchuck paused for a moment and sent out a silent prayer for an orphaned six-year-old and a devastated family. “Shirley, what about a tshirt that says Don’t be an ashhole; be a fungi!”

The soothing reverberation of her cousin’s snores filled the burrow as the woodchuck snuggled up to her favorite furry relative and closed her eyes, thoughts of branding and marketing filling her head. If she sold enough of the tshirts, maybe she could afford a ride in a helicopter.

• • •

I haven’t stopped writing 2025 on my checks yet because it feels like nothing has changed. If you find it hard to stay positive in these dark days of winter, I hope you have a Shirley in your life who will tell you a story that is a tortured metaphor for not losing hope. Words to live by: Don’t be an ashhole; be a fungi!

• • •

You Say You Want a Resolution

The woodchuck squeezed her belly upwards through the tunnel entrance to her burrow; she could barely fit through it. She took this as an encouraging sign she was ready for hibernation, although a few more Snickers bars couldn’t hurt. She sniffed the cold, clear air and spent a few peaceful moments watching the snowflakes flutter to the ground, when a snickering came from behind the flat rock. Two of the Weasel’s elite guardian ferrets were pointing at her and making snorty, giggling sounds.

“Hey, I heard you won the Fattest Woodchuck Contest!” one of them taunted. “You barely got out of the burrow!” There was usually a pile of dirt at the entrance of the hole she had dug that was now gone, and she realized the ferrets had shoveled it back into the burrow to make it seem like she was too fat to get out.

“Hey, Ferret Buehler, come over here;” the woodchuck beckoned to the two skinny animals. “Do you know why we get so chonky just before we go to bed for a few months?” The foolish ferrets ambled over, convinced there was safety in numbers, when the woodchuck grabbed their legs and pinned them both under her belly like an irritated sumo wrestler whose thong was too tight.

“I will live off my body fat for the next few months, cozy in my burrow, while you two skeletal freaks are out scrounging around looking for food in the middle of winter!” There was muffled screaming and gasping coming from under her body, and the woodchuck teased, “Buehler? Buehler?” She gave them another thirty seconds before hearing one whimper uncle and rolling off them. “I’m going to tell my uncle, the weasel!” one of them sobbed as they limped off. “Life moves pretty fast,” shouted the woodchuck after them. “If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could get sat on.”

She chuckled as they disappeared; hibernation was her favorite time of year and that encounter had put her in a good mood. She was very late to the Big Sleep, but the weasel had been inflicting so much chaos on the forest this fall that she had not been able to settle down. She ambled over to Shirley’s burrow to say good night, knowing that her cousin had been dealing with the same issues she had and was overcompensating for the insomnia by painting woodchucks in the style of Bob Ross.

“Look who’s here!” said Shirley in a strained voice. “You remember our cousin Tawny from the next meadow over —she just dropped by!”

The woodchuck had many cousins but had trouble distinguishing one from another—they all looked pretty much the same to her. She did not remember there being a Tawny in the family, and this one seemed larger than life.

“Tawny is an influencer,” Shirley explained through gritted teeth. “You’ve probably seen the videos she makes where she exercises to Kenny Loggins’ songs and sells cicada protein shakes. She is trying to persuade our fellow groundhogs to get into wellness and to be careful with the winter weight gain.”

“The winter weight gain, as she puts it, is what allows us to survive underground until spring,” muttered the woodchuck. “Why does everyone get so weird about diets this time of year?”

“You know, your snout is adorable,” gushed Tawny. “But if you plumped up your lips a bit, I’ll bet you could attract some attention from that gentleman groundhog in the next burrow. There’s a racoon a few trees down who can poke you in the mouth with a tiny sharp stick about a hundred times.”

Shirley quickly changed the subject. “Has everyone made their New Year’s resolutions?”

“I’ve tried, but honestly, restaurants won’t save tables for rodents. It’s so racist!” complained Tawny.

“Um, I believe that’s reservations, Tawny. I’m talking about what you plan to do in the new year to become a better woodchuck.”

“I have some reservations about this whole conversation. . .” started the woodchuck, but Tawny interrupted.

“My plan is to try Chat GLP-1; that same raccoon with the tiny sticks can also talk you into trying those weight loss drugs.”

“Tawny, if you took those shots and then slept three months, you would come out of hibernation looking like Ariane Grande’s clavicles. For heaven’s sake, eat a Snickers bar.”

“Oh, I loved her in Wicked! I’m so glad she teamed up with the Wizard—he really knew what was best for the people of Oz.”

“You thought the Wizard was the hero of that movie?” The woodchuck turned to Shirley and whispered, “Are you sure she’s a groundhog? She seems more like a mink or a hoary marmot.”

After Tawny’s complete rundown of every Real Housewife episode, the woodchuck managed to extricate herself from Shirley’s burrow and head back to her own. She was yawning as scurried across the meadow and realized she was finally ready for hibernation. She felt bad for abandoning her cousin to Tawny’s reviews of different reality TV franchises but was certain the monotonous squeak of her voice would drop Shirley into a coma soon enough.

Damn, it had been a long year. She closed her eyes and slept.

• • •

Wishing you the peace that would come from a three-month nap in a cozy burrow, and the energy that will be needed to confront the challenges of the coming year. Happy New Year!

You’re still here? It’s over. Go home. Go!

• • •

Oz Long as You’re Mine

The pyramid of groundhogs reached high into the sky, five layers of furry cheerleaders with an unbalanced center of gravity that made the tower impressive, but precarious. At the very top, wearing long, lacy tendrils of moss that fluttered in the wind, stood the blind woodchuck. She’d had glow worms for lunch so the fur around her mouth was stained green, and she was singing at the top of her lungs. As she reached the crescendo, she leaped off the back of the stack of her cousins and soared into the air, the cloak whipping out behind her as she flew into the ether and then landed with a thud about eight inches from the pyramid. “Everyone deserves to fly!” she shouted.

While the woodchuck was not an experienced cheer flyer, she did consider herself a musical theater savant. She could quote obscure Sondheim lyrics and entire Original Broadway casts. She was still mortified by the memory of a trivia contest where she had shouted out the winner of the 2004 Tony Award for Best Musical as Wicked. Her team had been embarrassed and demoralized when all the others had answered correctly with Avenue Q, and jeered at them for forgetting one of the biggest upsets in Broadway history.

In spite of that embarrassing faux paw, she still knew all the words to Wicked and had been acting out the flying scene for the past year. She had substituted chipmunks for the flying monkeys, and they wore tiny hats made of acorn caps. She couldn’t wait for the sequel, Wicked: For Good.

Shirley wasn’t quite as invested in the movie as the woodchuck, but she was a good sport and wrapped herself in a tutu made of pink insulation to cosplay Glinda.

The nearby AMC theater had a back door that was frequently propped open with a brick to accommodate the weed vaping ushers on their breaks, so the woodchucks could choose any theater showing Wicked. They avoided the one in 3D because it made Shirley nauseous. The floor was littered with a variety of quality snacks, and they found a flannel scarf that had slid between the seats to curl up on. The movie was quite long, and Shirley dozed off about halfway through the film.

“Shirley, wake up!” hissed the woodchuck. “I just realized this story is not about finding your power within while singing fabulous songs—the wizard is a lying dictator who is trying to capture and jail animals and make them lose their ability to speak out against injustice. It’s not a fairy tale at all–—it’s a modern-day morality warning about the weasel and how gullible most of us are!”

Shirley sat up, startled, just in time to see the scene where the animals were stampeding out of the forest. “Hey, is that your cousin Kevin next to the wildebeest? I had no idea he was doing extra work now.”

“Yes, I’m really annoyed he got a part and I didn’t, but you’re missing the point. The Wizard was fake and had no real power, just like the weasel. He lies all the time, but animals believe him because he has a good PR team. Also, vicious flying monkeys, which are more intimidating than ferrets.”

Shirley yawned and pulled a gummie she had been lying on out of her fur. “Honey, you know I like it when you’re involved in current events, but you may be reading just a little too much into this comparison. But at least the movie is almost over— I was about to go into hibernation.”

“It’s also got a Christo fascism undertone to it! Did you see the part where they beat up Fiyero and then hung him on the scarecrow pole like it was a crucifixion? He represented Jesus! And the Holy Trinity of Dorothy, the Tin Man, and the Lion brought him Frankincense, courage, and a heart in a bucket of water.”

“Did you drink all the brown liquid in that cup? You seem a little overcaffeinated to me. What am I sitting on?” The woodchuck giggled and said “You have gummie bears stuck all over your butt. I’ve been eating them through the movie!” She peeled one off and popped it in her mouth.

A bright light suddenly blinded them and a voice whispered, “Wow, tiny animal friends living under the seats. Cool.” The two woodchucks froze, not sure if they should flee or attack, when the disembodied voice (which was attached to a very stoned usher) continued. “Have you possums seen my bag of gummies? They fell out of my pocket and there’s so much junk on the floor I can’t tell them from the Milk Duds or Junior Mints.”

The woodchuck hesitated and then slowly turned Shirley around; her furry haunches were covered with gayly colored gummie bears.

“There they are!” As he plucked them from Shirley’s hind quarters, he started softly singing, “Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better? But because I knew you . . .”

Shirley turned around in horror as she heard the blind woodchuck harmonize “. . . because I knew you . . .”

They finished in unison: “I have been changed, For Good.”

Shirley started slowly backing away, dragging her cousin by her stubby tail. The usher stood up unsteadily and muttered “Did that really just happen? Damn, that squirrel’s harmony was spot on.”

The two woodchucks were out of the theater and halfway home before the credits were over, Shirley dragging the limp body of her cousin. The blind woodchuck looked up at the starry sky and said dreamily, “Do you think he’ll marry me?”

“That dude at the theater? I certainly hope not. He probably makes $11 an hour, he’s a different species, and he thinks you’re a squirrel.” The woodchuck had passed out by the time Shirley pushed her into her burrow and made sure there was a glass of water and an aspirin next to the snoring body. As she climbed up and out to head to her own burrow, she heard the blind woodchuck muttering “you were there . . . and you were there.”

Shirley smiled to herself. The material from this little excursion was going keep her going for months.

• • •

What’s your favorite obscure Sondheim lyric? Mine is “Such lovely Blue Danu-be music how can you be still?” from the underrated Do I Hear a Waltz?

• • •

A Charmin’ Tale

The odor was getting intense as the woodchuck followed the toxic cloud through the tunnels of her burrow. Where was it coming from? It smelled like a toilet had exploded but it wasn’t from her own segregated bathroom area—she kept that very tidy with mint and lavender PooPourri she gathered from the meadow. She might be an animal, but she certainly didn’t have to live like one.

“Watch out!” The warning shout was overwhelmed by a sickening squelching sound as her hind quarters sank deeply into a disgusting pile, and she found herself midway up her haunch in someone else’s poop. The woodchuck was so incensed she couldn’t formulate words, just sputtering expletives and variations on Eewwwww.

“I tried to warn you,” said her very unhelpful cousin Shirley, her head sticking down in the entrance while she held her snout. “The weasel has been going around taking a dump in the burrows of animals who Marched a few weeks ago.” She extended a paw to her cousin and with a mighty heave, pulled the woodchuck up and out of the tunnel with an embarrassing sucking sound. The woodchuck rolled in the dry grass and scooted like a dog with clogged anal glands, but the smell had inhabited her being like an odorous poltergeist. She finally plunged into the nearby stream and stayed underwater as long as possible, much to the horror of the beavers who were doing some finishing work on their latest dam. The ferret keeping watch snickered and jeered, and then scurried off to report to the weasel, hoping to move up through the ranks of deputies to Number 2.

Finally clean, lying on a large, flat rock to dry in the sun, the woodchuck thought about what the weasel had done. There were droppings everywhere in the meadow and a lot of information could be gathered from the spoor dotting the field; what kind of seed and nuts were in season, who’d been eating leftover Halloween Tootsie Rolls with the wrapper on, that sort of thing. On the next rock over, a colony of rabbits was engaged in a game of coprophagia roulette. They were tossing pellets of their own turds into each other’s mouths—when the catcher caught one, the hare who threw it had to do a shot of carrot juice and then a verse of Little Bunny Foo Foo. They called it scat singing.

Shirley brought over some catalpa leaves to absorb the moisture, and as she dried off her cousin, the woodchuck sat up and declared, “Only I get to poop in my burrow! I am going to get revenge!”

“Well, you can’t do anything to physically to harm him because the ferrets are always around and they will cut you. I think the best route is to find a way to prank him. You know how much he hates to be laughed at.” The woodchuck agreed and the two of them started brainstorming ideas for some payback humiliation.

“Maybe we could set up a Wheel of Fortune game and get him to play, and every time he tries to solve the puzzle, all the other players could shout “Vanna, he would like to buy a bowel!”

Bad ideas were bounced back and forth, and the two rodents were getting sillier. Shirley had been pacing while dropping one-liners “. . . and then the waiter says, “May I take your ordure?!” and finally collapsed on the flat rock. Her butt came in contact with two catalpa leaves that were stuck together and as she flattened them, it made a small Pffttt! sound.

“You farted!” shrieked the woodchuck, gasping for breath. “I did not,” Shirley fiercely defended her dignity. “It was the leaves; they had air between them . . .” her voice trailed off as she looked at what she had sat on. “The meadow is basically one big toilet, so why is farting still so embarrassing?”

The blind woodchuck picked up the leaf and said thoughtfully, “You know, we could make a whole bunch of these . . .”

“. . . and distribute them all over the grass,” Shirley added.

The woodchuck continued excitedly ” . . . and then scratch A Message from Your Leader across the front . . .”

“. . . so it sounds like he’s farting!” the two of them shouted in unison.

Soon the entire meadow was on board, as the weasel had dropped his excremental calling card in each of their homes. It was fall and the giant catalpa leaves carpeted the ground, making the gathering of raw materials simple. A production line was set up and everyone worked together, sealing the edges of two leaves together with sap. The platypus had a glue gun, which was even faster. The woodchuck could not figure out how it was working as there was no electricity in the meadow, and when questioned, the platypus looked at her blankly and said, “I have a long extension cord.”

The chipmunks had the best penmanship, and they busied themselves scratching the message across the front. The possums blew a little air into the opening, and soon there was a pile of innocent looking catalpa bombs. They were scattered across the meadow and the woods, blending into the fallen leaves like tiny flatulent mines.

“He’s coming!” the beaver hissed. The crowd of animals silently parted as the weasel and his crew of ferrets started to walk through them. He made the royal wave as he walked on his hind legs, already assuming that his manure message had not been wasted. They were his subjects now and he demanded their respect.

As he stepped forward, there was suddenly a loud farting noise. The crowd held its breath, and the weasel said, “I didn’t do that!” He looked at one of the ferrets behind him who blushed and waved sheepishly as he accepted the blame.

The weasel took another step, and the sound was even louder. His pace quickened and the farts kept coming; soon he was running and the rapid machine gun repeat of ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca followed him as the animals pointed and laughed, chanting, “He who smelt it dealt it!”

The weasel and his minions disappeared into the forest, the mockery of the animals echoing through the trees. The woodland creatures knew he would be back—this was not the dunghill he would die on—but they took their small victories when they could get them. It had been a long day, and they were all pooped. It was time to go home.

• • •

I freely share this idea with the world, so if anyone wants to start a GoFund Me to produce Whoopee Cushions with A Message from Your President scrawled across the front, go for it! They could be passed out at the next March and would also make a lovely souvenir.

• • •

Yes, And . . .Or

“Shirley! Shirley! Wake up!” The blind woodchuck shook her cousin as hard as she could until her relative finally sat up and sleepily asked “Is it the Rapture?”

“No, you idiot, I need your password. The mouse streaming service stopped working.”

Shirley yawned hugely and sat up. “I told you I canceled that as a boycott when they took that TV guy off the air. I said you have eleven days to watch whatever you’re in the middle of and then it’s gone.”

“But I had to finish Love is Blind before I could go back to the Star Wars one. I have two episodes left… do they win the rebellion? I need to see what happens! Can’t you get it back?”

“That kind of defeats the idea of a boycott. Speaking of protests, are you ready for this weekend?”

The woodchuck sulked. “I’m not going.”

Shirley was incensed. “You told me if I took that improv class with you, you would come with me! Why are you reneging on your promise?”

“I have my reasons . . .” began the woodchuck when Shirley cut her off.

“Let’s do that thing we learned in the improv class and you can explain them to me: you start.”

“Um, well, for one thing, it’s going rain.”

“Yes, and . . .” Shirley interrupted. “We’ve been in a drought all summer. Rain will feel wonderful. Next?”

“It will be cold if we get wet!”

“Yes, and . . . the last time we did this it was about 100 degrees. Also, you’re wearing a fur coat.”

“What if I get hungry?”

“Yes, and . . . there will be dropped snacks all over.”

“You know I don’t like crowds!”

“Yes, and . . . we don’t have to be in the middle; we’ll stay on the outside of the masses.”

“I don’t have a sign!”

“Yes, and . . . you don’t have to have one; but I have cardboard and markers if you want to make one with your famous bubble letters.”

“Shirley . . .” the woodchuck paused for a long time, and then said in a small voice, “I’m afraid.”

“Oh, honey, Yes, and so am I. But we’ll hold each other’s paws and try to be brave together. Remember, we have friends everywhere, and they will be there with us.”

The woodchuck sighed and realized her cousin was right. For as many excuses as she had for not going to the No Kings March, she knew showing up was the most important thing.

As she uncapped the blue market to make a sign reading Welcome to the Rebelion, she teased Shirley, “Did you really think if there was a Rapture that you would be among the chosen to go?”

Shirley threw the red marker at her and said, “You spelled “rebellion” wrong!”

• • •

Yes, and . . . everyone has reasons why going to the No Kings March this Saturday, October 18 might be inconvenient or scary, but it’s very important. So pull on your inflatable Frog suit or T-Rex costume and join us!

• • •