The First Day of Spring

The First Day of Spring All the birds had arrived back home from their various winter vacations, just in time for Raccoon’s equinox party. On a giant picnic quilt in the greening meadow, she’d set out tiny bowls full of seeds and nuts (and sugar-water for the early...

New Books

New Books One of Mama Chipmunk’s littlest grand-babies, the one who watched and heard everything but rarely spoke — the “quiet one” — was a voracious reader. She devoured school books and fun books and had read her way through most of the books on the shelves lining...

Story Time

Story Time The weather had turned gloomy and cold again, but the windows of Rabbit’s tea shop blazed with cheery candlelight. A few customers waited by the bookcase for their tea-water to boil, some sat in mismatched old chairs at the two small tables under the...

A Fierce Wind

A Fierce Wind Everyone who could fit through the chipmunk-sized door (it was rather a squeeze for Old Possum) — and who didn’t have somewhere just as safe, or safer, to go — had gathered at Mama Chipmunk’s house in the stone wall. They lit candles and huddled in the...

The Frost

The Frost At the tail-end of a warm, false-spring day, Old Possum stepped outside to sniff the air, and realized that a hard frost was coming. Would the cheery purple winter windflowers and the winter roses, in a dozen shades of pink, survive the night? Better not to...

The Winter Roses

The Winter Roses All of a sudden, it seemed, the winter roses were in bloom. The first one to notice this year’s blossoms — in a dozen shades of pink and purple, hiding shyly among fresh green leaves, as they do — was one of the littlest chipmunks, who had gone out...