Noah's Time Share

#271 Noah’s Time Share

Finally, an answer. In autumn, we have squirrels for a month or two. In summer, we have Gypsy Moth caterpillars, and then the moths themselves for about two weeks. In winter, the “snow-shoe” rabbits move in for awhile, and sometimes a deer.

The woods in back of the Wessays Secret Mountainside Laboratory are a time share. These animals are subletting their parts of the woods for vacation, or in preparation for the next flood – the one Al Gore says is about to result from the melting of glaciers.

This was only an assumption a few days ago. But careful research shows it’s a valid working theory. First, there are two of most species. Other than the caterpillars and the moths, which all seem to look alike (is that racist?), the animals are in obvious pairs. Two deer. Two snow-shoe rabbits. Two squirrels.

Two humming birds, two robins, two Monarch butterflies.

Then, there are the ads. This from the Weekly Rodent:

Stonewall County PA Timeshare

Enjoy the cool Autumn breezes of Central Pennsylvania while escaping the nose and bustle of New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh or Baltimore. Hospitable climate. Clean air. Enjoy treetop or underground accommodations. Write to PO Box 499, Moote Pointe, Pa 16803.

That’s a dead giveaway.

There was a similar ad in the magazine “American Antelope,” though no one seems to be responding. Perhaps in winter.

There was an ad on the HBR, too, the Hummingbird Radio Network. Probably, hummingbirds can’t read. Or, if they can, they flit so fast they don’t have the attention span to take in an entire classified ad. (Hence the term “bird brain.”)

It makes you wonder, is there something to the Al Gore Prediction after all? If the North Pole melts, all the water will come down this way. If the South Pole melts, where will the water go? Maybe to Sao Paulo? What’ll happen to the Amazon Rain Forest? And all those long runways at the airport?

You know dogs and cats act funny before a storm hits. Their radar is better than ours. So maybe the animals in our little woods, here, know something we don’t. On the other hand, maybe they’re just a bunch of hard working rodents and birds and insects and deer and rabbits.

It’s tough to communicate with them. And it’s tough to read their publications and hear their radio stations. But modern science has at least gotten a handle on such things. The translations are rough, but they’re mostly accurate. Or at least that’s what we’re told by human-speaking creatures.

One of them, Alan “Blues Bird” Crow, a year-rounder here in Stonewall, says he’s heard through the grapevine that end times are coming. When pointed out to him that it’s hard to accept that sort of prediction from a guy named Crow who’s really only a blackbird, he says that this season, the time shares are way up over last year. Probably, he knows, in as much as he has spent his entire life in these parts.

When the giraffes and elephants arrive, we’ll get really worried.

I'm Wes Richards, my opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.

(c) 2007 WJR