Game Day – Mar. 16, 2009

Mike came by yesterday afternoon. I had recently traded for Conflict of Heroes and had it set up on the aforementioned game table. Funny thing about that table, the Plexiglass top seems to confuse the cats so that they don’t get on it; they’ve scratched at it from underneath, trying to get a hold of a fun-looking piece but they haven’t jumped to the surface and disturbed a set up game… yet.

Conflict of Heroes set up for Firefight #1.

Conflict of Heroes, first Firefight, I’m the Soviets, I’m totally embarrassed, losing 8-1. I think my aggressive first move was the wrong strategy for this fight. That and the fact that dice instinctively hate me.  Mike and I both enjoyed the game, and I find myself thinking about how to play the Soviets more effectively… a good sign for any game. Their high cost to fire seems to suggest that they should sit tight and fire whenever possible rather than moving in for short range confrontation.

Mike brought Race For The Galaxy, which I’ve resisted up until now due to all of the icons on the cards, but decided to give it a shot. We played a teaching game, cards all open and Mike explaining iconography and strategy as we went. I’m still not comfortable with all the icons after that one game and don’t have any idea how I won by almost double Mike’s points, all I know is that I went for the brown worlds or any cards with brown in the icons. I’d like to play again, this time with my husband joining us to get his opinion of the game; if he doesn’t like it, there’s no point in even considering buying it.

Finally we tried the other new game I traded for: Perry Rhodan.  This is one of the Kosmos 2-player line, a pick-up-and-deliver game set in space. There are a couple of clever things about this game, one is that it takes more moves to travel away from the sun than toward it. Another is that the delivered goods cards are turned over and recycled for pick up unless a matching pair are delivered, in which case they are removed from the game. This makes getting profitable sets to deliver tougher as the game progresses. Another aspect of the game that I like is the deck of cards for each player which can help you in several ways, sometimes at the expense of your competition. Yes, everyone here likes that hands-on, mess-with-your-opponent aspect in games.

Perry Rhodan

Mike and I both loved this game and want to say to Jay Tummelson of Rio Grande Games, “MAKE THIS GAME AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH!”. Seriously, even though Mike became the premiere trader in the solar system by many megagalaxes, we both thought this game was an excellent addition to the Kosmos line and think it’s sad that it’s only available in German since it does have a lot of text on the cards.

How Memoir ‘44 became my Hot Game

Playing board games around here had slowed to a drizzle and then a total drought. But then we got rid of the pool table which took up a huge part of the family room and set up a folding table in its place.  Five days ago I set up the board and terrain tiles for one of the original scenarios from Memoir ‘44, covered it with a piece of Plexiglass, and waited for my opportunity.

 

Board and terrain tiles set up and waiting for 2 players with a little time.

 This has worked amazingly well.  Since half of the set-up is already done, it doesn’t take much time to finish the set up and be ready to play. The Plexiglass keeps the cats from playing with the game before we do, and it’s nice to be able to move the figures without worrying about disarranging the terrain. My husband noted that the Plexiglass also keeps the dice from interfering with the setup, unless you throw hard, of course.

So far, we’ve played almost every day since I set it up–sometimes twice. I’ve had Memoir for… what, 4 years, and haven’t  even played all of the original scenarios. I have the Pacific, Air Pack, and recently, the Mediterranean expansions but have only tried the Air pack a couple of times. I would really like to play all of the scenarios and try the rules tweaks that they offer. Hopefully, having the board set up ahead of time and waiting will help me get to them in the foreseeable future. Then I won’t feel so badly about buying the Eastern Front expansion!  And if we ever get through all of that, this will work just as beautifully with Ancients and the three expansions I have for that!!

Race Games: Powerboats vs. Snow Tails

I recently bought two new racing games, Powerboats by Cwali and Snow Tails by the Lamont Brothers. I’ve had a chance to play both games twice, Powerboats with 2 and 3 players; Snow Tails with only 2 players. They’ve both left me with a good first impression but which one leaves me wanting more?

Powerboats is, obviously, a game about racing boats around a lake. The board is modular, made up of 6 double-sided pieces that can be combined in a variety of ways, and shows land and water overlaid with a hex grid. This variety is a huge plus, offering so many different race courses that it’s very unlikely that you’ll ever play the same game twice. The board shows recommended spots (marked A, B, and C) to use as the starting/finish line, and  the 3 course buoys but I see no reason you can’t just lay out a course in any manner you wish. In fact, I was a little disappointed in the placement of these and would rather choose my own course marker spots.

Movement is determined by special 3-sided dice. These are cool looking and unique but if you enjoy the dance of the dice when you roll them, you’ll be disappointed. This is more like dropping the dice rather than rolling them, but they do offer a method for randomization. On your turn you can add or remove a die from your “speed” track, then choose to roll as many of your dice as you wish. This is a clever way to speed up or slow down and ensures that you can’t slow down too quickly; you can’t step on the gas for a long, straight stretch and then go to a super slow speed to make a corner. Very nice.

This is a quick, light, fun game offering no real tough choices and between the dice and the many small islands you need to maneuver around, it can cause frustration. It’s very likely that you have 3 dice and want to really step on the gas to catch up but instead find yourself putting along at 4 or 5 hexes on your turn. Or you re-roll a 3, hoping for a 2 or a 1  to turn around a spit of land and get…a three. If moving three causes you to crash into land, you take a damage token and lose all of your speed (lose all of your dice). When you get your fourth damage token, your boat is too beat up to continue and you’re out of the current race.

Snow Tails takes you to snowy climes, racing sled dogs. Your weapon of choice this time is cards–a deck for each player with numbers 1-5. On your turn you can play 1, 2, or 3 cards but they must all be the same denomination. These are played on either or both of your dogs or discarded to determine the strength of your braking. Movement is determined by adding together the numbers on your dogs then subtracting the brake number to get your speed, then, if the dogs’ numbers are different, drift the number of lanes that the numbers are different. So… your left dog is pulling at 5, your left dog is pulling at 3 and your brake is set at 2. Your speed is 6 (5 + 3 – 2) and you drift 2 lanes to the left. It’s fairly simple, logical and thematic but it does take time. And you don’t always get to go exactly where you’d like to go because you’re limited by the cards in your hand. If you try to plan this turn and still take into account the cards left in your hand that you’ll have to deal with in the next turn, your brain is likely to ice up.

If you’ve misjudged your speed or drift, you could collide with another sled, which means you don’t get to refill your hand to 5 at the end of your turn, or run off the track, which gives you a “ding” card. The “ding” card counts towards the 5 card hand limit so avoiding them is paramount if you wish to retain control over your sled. If you should have to draw your 5th ding card, you are out of the race, of course, since you have no number cards to play.

The game comes with many double-sided track pieces, some straight, some curved, and two u-turns. If you’ve become proficient at handling your sled, you can throw in a piece of track that narrows down to a single lane or one that you set up trees on so that the first player who hits one takes out the tree and damages his sled. 

Snow Tails is different from other race games because the card management is more complex, taking into account several aspects of movement at once. It requires more thinking and planning than Powerboats which means it isn’t as fast a game, but that is precisely the thing that keeps me wanting more. The challenge to manage the cards, to find the right combination of speed and drift, is addictive. And even with a damaged sled, you can still have enough control to win, as evidenced by the second game we played when I had 3 ding cards by the half-way point but still came in first.

I enjoy both games and am glad to have them in my collection but I consider Powerboats to be a lighter game, more likely to be put in the “family game” category. Given a choice, I would rather play the tougher but more interesting Snow Tails.

Two New Games

When Mike arrived this afternoon, he brought with him his two newest games: Prophecy, which he’d played a couple of times with his wife, and Battlestar Galactica, which he was itching to launch on its maiden voyage.

Prophecy is an rpg-adventure style game like Runebound or Return of the Heroes, both of which I’ve played with him. The board, compared to Runebound, is very simple which keeps you from having to over-analyze your next move. It also offers several ways to move more quickly from space to space so it doesn’t bog down while you slog your way from one end of the “kingdom” to the other like Return of the Heroes.

Prophecy's board, image by Werner Baer

I found Prophecy to play quickly, not necessarily in the total play time, but in how the time flies while you’re playing. I’m not sure how long it took us to finish the 2-player game (with the game-ending conditions modified to whoever got two treasures from the Astral plane), but it never left me feeling like I wish it would hurry up and be over. There are enough choices to give you a feeling of control but not so many that your mind starts to overload and smoke begins to curl lazily from your ears.

Rpgs are not my forte but in the other two that I’ve played, I would watch Mike as his character’s stats increased so quickly that my mind began to boggle with wondering, “HOW did he do that?” while my poor soul either couldn’t find anyone to fight or lost most of the fights. In Prophecy, I still lagged behind in strength and magic but I made up for it with better equipment and skills and managed to collect the two treasures needed before Mike had managed to win one.

Prophecy is definitely a game I am willing to play again, and not just because I won. I like how smoothly and quickly it plays, and the many ways you can improve your character’s overall strength. There are plenty of bad guys to fight, lots of weapons and spells and skills to acquire, the board was always full of choices but it never felt overwhelming.

Richard joined us for the semi-cooperative game of Battlestar Galactica. I’ve never watched the show but have a general idea of its premise, which I think is helpful to immerse yourself in the world of the game. The humans are trying to get their space ship home while their enemies, the Cylons, are trying to prevent them—a simple and timeless story, no?

Each player chooses a character which has both good qualities that benefit your team and a bad quality which hampers you. For instance, my character could choose between two of the Crisis cards drawn at the end of your turn (these are bad things that happen to make your humans miserable) but it cost her two hand cards to take any action related to the room she was in. I think this was a neat addition to the characters, giving them each a weakness to deal with.

My character's card, image by C. Hahn

On your turn you first draw cards corresponding to your characters specialization, such as a pilot, a military leader, political leader, or support. Next you may choose to move to another room in the ship, then you can take 1 action. Finally you draw a dreaded Crisis card. Many of these cards are “Skill Checks” that require your team to pick cards from their hand to put into a pool blindly in hopes of coming up with enough points to pass the skill check. This is where the unknown Cylon can mess with your plans.

You see, as in Shadows Over Camelot, there can be a traitor among you without your knowing it. At the beginning of the game, a card is dealt to everyone which identifies you as either a Cylon or not a Cylon. As if that isn’t bad enough, half way through the game, a second round of cards are dealt. Now you KNOW there is a traitor, you just have to figure out who it is and try to through them in the Brig and keep them there.

We had a very good time with this game even through there were only three of us, partly, I think, because it was so easy to get into the atmosphere of the game. I enjoy Shadows Over Camelot but more as a family game since it feels like you’re just collecting poker hands, running to the right spot and playing them one at a time. The theme in Galactica is so easy to fall into even if you are not a die-hard fan of the show.

Richard turned out to be our Cylon after the half-way point. We threw him in the brig but couldn’t keep him there. He came dangerously close to spoiling our trip home but in the end, the humans won. We were nearly out of food and fuel, our morale was low and we’d lost a lot of our population but we made it.

This turned out to be a hit with all of us, even my non-gamer husband. It moves along very nicely with no real down time since you have to watch the other players for signs of traitorous behavior, and the many Skill Checks keep you in the action a lot of the time even when its not your turn.

The Annual Weisbeck Walnut Festival

 

This is the email my husband wrote to friends and family which I wanted to share. Be warned: you are entering a silly place.

Fall has arrived and the trees are turning colors so I am sure that all of you are thinking the same thing. Time for the annual Walnut Festival.

A review of the rules and history for the festival. The festival came to be when the Black Walnut trees in the yard grew large enough to present a problem. When the leaves would fall, some of the walnuts would still remain in the tree. Anyone who had seen these nuts would realize that when they fell out of the tree they would register on the Richter scale.  A method had to be devised to remove the nuts safely and to give us an excuse to have a good time. The Festival came to life. Assorted objects are thrown into the tree and the number of nuts knocked down is scored. One nut – one point, two nuts- two points with a two multiplier = 4 points. You get the picture.  Teams are formed and everyone gets a chance to play. Objects need to be thrown by hand with no mechanical assistance. Points are taken away if someone is hit with a nut. The amount of points subtracted is directly related to the amount of damage inflicted on the individual. The Judges determine the points removed. Bribery is accepted and expected.

Our son, Chris, put together a team of work mates from the Harley-Davidson shop. They were very excited about their chances until I reminded them that the objects cannot be thrown with mechanical assistance. The V-Twin catapult was disqualified. I wondered what he was going to do with that extra V-Twin motor?  So with tears in there eyes they set off to find something else to throw. I hope the cows are hiding. With the team from H-D out of the picture, Chris turned to his Billiards team and a new group was formed.

Cori, our daughter, got together with her boyfriend and put together a group that looked promising. The group of Wizards, Bards and Trolls were very excited until they learned that the games were planned for Sunday and they would all be off in some dungeon fighting dragons.  The back-up group was formed from the call center where she works. They all seemed very happy to be outside and not locked in cubicles. They spent a bit of time walking around the house looking for the designated smoking area–it is hard to break the habit. They came armed with cushies, broken mouses (mice?), and staplers.

Mary’s team was the most experienced. They were gamers, used to working together and achieving a common goal. The problem came when they started to review the rules. If you have ever been around gamers when they review the rules you would know that it can go one of two ways. The rules can be arrived upon easily, or they can be knick-picked and bantered about and pulled apart and then argued and objected to. Guess what happened?  They may still be auguring about it.

With the importance of the event we needed to spruce up the yard for the Festival. In keeping things local a couple from the neighborhood were engaged. In staying with the fall theme, they began there decorations. Domestic flora and fauna were used. Here problems started. They decorated the wrong back yard, our neighbors’.  There are apples and nuts on top of the fence, apples in the bird feeder and the decorative nest. Nuts had been packed along the fence below the pine trees. Have you noticed the continued use of the word nuts? Yes, ladies and gentleman, I should not have hired Mr and Mrs S. Quirrel as the decorators. When they were done the need for the Festival was negated. So once again, there was no Walnut Festival. We had to just settle for refreshments and admiring the wonderful decorations.

Play safe and enjoy the season

Rick

McCain or Obama?

Republican or Democrat?

Conservative or Liberal?

Truthfully, I don’t follow politics because every time I read an article or watch a news feature I end up pacing the house in a rant. So much stupidity and self-interest in one city!

I am not registered as either a Republican or a Democrat since I choose a candidate by their beliefs and platform rather than a generalization of a Party. Sometimes I’m not sure that even the Party members know exactly what they stand for. The lines seem to blur sometimes.

And since I believe the government should change with the times rather than be stuck in some distant past, I guess I would qualify as a Liberal. I mean, when Ward sent the Beaver to his room, did he go there to call Lumpy on his cel phone or surf the ‘net or boot up GTA4 on his XBox? No, back in that day, he was sent there to think over his behavior. We can’t be stuck back in the ’50s just because they’re painted so beautifully on television; we have to change with the technology and the society we’re living in.

So with my background of ignorance explained, I will tell you my impression. It will be a sad day for America if McCain is elected. From the little I’ve read or heard, here’s my three top reasons why McCain is the wrong choice.

1. He wants to stay in Iraq until we win the war. Well, you may as well nuke the hell out of them right now because there’s no way you’re going to harness that team and get them to pull in the same direction.

2. He wants to build more nuclear reactors. Oh, sure, let’s poison our planet from the inside with nuclear waste because we’re not ruining it fast enough on the surface.

3. I’d hate to see the demand for wire coat hangers rise.

Game Day Where I Lost Every Game

Mike came over this morning and the first thing I brought out was my favorite, Magna Grecia. We hadn’t played in way too long and it was good to enter that world again. We each started in a different area of the board and met in the middle to fight over who could make the most impressive city. Mike managed to get the attention of many more Oracles than I so won handily.

The time seemed to fly and the game was over way too soon so I begged for a second. Mike, being a gentleman, agreed. This time the Oracles were all around the edges, leaving a large vacant area in the center of the board. I began on an edge with 2 Oracles in villages adjacent to my city. Then I made my first mistake; I forgot to buy a market in the next village over in anticipation of Mike building there, which he did. I built a road to cut him off from one of the Oracles and the fight was on. This game was very different from the first with a lot of nasty plays. It was great! I made a second mistake in my last move as I was going to build a city and connect it to a city where I’d already sold my market so that I could score those roads a second time, but I forgot. This cost me another 4 points and, between the 2 mistakes, the game. I don’t mind, this game is a joy for me to play no matter who wins. But I must remember: your turn doesn’t end when you place a tile. Buy or sell Markets is the final decision! 

Another game which I love and don’t play enough is Taluva, which I brought out next. As usual, this was a very close game with only 2 players. It came down to who could play a building first, completing 2 of their 3 types of buildings. On Mike’s turn he was sure he’d messed up since he only had 2 villages and all of his huts were gone. I showed him how he could place his tile where it would cut one of his villages in two and let him play his final Tower piece. So even though I lost the game, I made the winning move. That has to count for something, right?

For the final game we played Metro. This is a game I’d got in trade a while ago and never played but Mike had played a computer version before. I was consistently behind by 15-20 points through the first half of the game drawing tiles that would only turn me around and head right off the board with only 5-6 points. My best moves were ones where I messed up one of Mike’s lines, giving him 2-4 points rather than the 8-16 points he seemed to get so often (he got double points for reaching the center 2 or 3 times). I finally got a tile that let me make a very good move (20 points) and caught me up. Unfortunately, the last half of the game went much like the first with me trying to find a tile that would let me keep my lines going. The last plays gave me only a handful of points while Mike managed to get to the center again for another 20 points or so. We agreed that following the lines on this game is tough on the eyes as well as the brain and would rather play Tsuro which is faster, easier on the eyes, and (with 2 players) more tense and fun.

I lost all four games today. As my psychiatrist friend, Dr. Meepolous, would say, “How do you feel about that?” I feel great. I played 2 of my favorite games and had a great time doing it. I gave it my best and enjoyed the company. What else does a real gamer need?

My favorite computer-based puzzle game

I found Brickshooter seveal years ago and would say that, in my opinion, this is the best pure-thinking puzzle game out there.  I didn’t want a Bedazzled-type game; the timed aspect makes my heart race and my hands shake.  I wanted something that made my brain race and this is it!

 

Brickshooter screenshot

The objective is to clear the “bricks” in the black area.  To do this, you click on one of the side bricks that line up with an internal bricks.  It shoots across and stops at the first brick it meets and a new brick joins the queue at the back of the line of side bricks.  When you match up 3 bricks of the same color, they disappear.  If the brick doesn’t match, it stops in the direction it was going and waits for you to either clear it with 2 like-colored bricks, or remove the bricks that are in its way.  Simple and addictive.

When you’ve cleared the screen, a new one automatically pops up with a new configuration and more bricks as the difficulty increases. You find yourself having to make a bigger mess of the board in order to get to the colors you need and trying to find a way to clear those out as well.  As you can guess, you’re required to do a lot of planning ahead in order to keep the extraneous bricks to a minimum.

There is a setting to choose your level of difficulty, changing the number of colors in the puzzle from between 5 and 10.  You can also choose to turn off the sound effects and music if you find them annoying. You have the ability to undo the last move, which gives you a chance for second thoughts but keeps you from thinking you can just click pieces willy-nilly to see what the next color in the queue would be.

I enjoy this game so much that when I recently bought a MacBook, I had no qualms about buying it again in Mac format.  I can sit playing for hours while watching tv or listening to music.

Edit: I forgot to put in a link to the website.  So much for thinking being my strong suit!

Game Day-Featuring Druidenwalzer

Mike and I had a great day of gaming this Saturday even though I had forgotten it was Saturday so wasn’t ready when Mike showed up at 8:00 in the morning.  Due to my not-quite-ready-for-thinking brain, we started out with a simple game of Roma.  This is a game that we both still enjoy as it’s fast and doesn’t require that all of your brain cells be in attendance.  This time the Forums came out in the first and second rounds, no “gotcha” cards were played, and the game ended in about 10 minutes with Mike winning by a few points.

My brain awakened, we next played Jambo.  I enjoy the play of this game very much but never seem to manage the right balance of Utility cards to allow drawing lots of cards and also manipulating what goods I have.  In the last 2 times we played, I also have had a hard time getting a small market, which isn’t necessary to win but it sure doesn’t hurt!  As usual, Mike won.  I think he had about 20 points more than I did but after 10-12, who’s counting?

We played DVONN, which I think Mike has never played or it was so long ago that it makes no difference.  Mike is an excellent game player, much sharper than I am in almost every way, but this game just did not click with him.  I ended up owning every stack.

Mike requested Glory to Rome. We’ve played twice before, once vanilla and once with the buildings, and we’re both very impressed with the depth and variety in this game.  This time we also found that it’s possible to overuse the Jacks, especially early in the game. Play drug almost to a halt because the draw pool was either empty or had only 1 card. This makes the Laborer and Patron roles useless, and the Legionary less useful.  It didn’t help that for two or three turns I chose roles that I knew Mike wouldn’t want to follow.  This didn’t add anything to the draw pool but may have helped me win the game.

Now I get to the game that I really want to talk about: Druidenwalzer. This is one of the first games I bought which means I’ve had it for about four years and have played it maybe three times.  See, the thing is that the game in this small box, part of the Kosmos 2-player line, can turn your brain into a liquid that pours from your ears and leaves you with a strong desire to take a long walk in a quiet garden. Every time I’ve played it before, it left me impressed with the strange workings of it but too worn out to do more than put it back in the box.  Many months would go by before playing again and, of course, it was like playing it the first time. “Oh, wow..that was..brain hurts..wow.”  This time I made Mike promise that we’d play it twice.  And we did, but with a break in between to play Boom Blox on the Wii and let our brains cool off.

The set up is simple; each player has a set of 4 trees, numbered 1-4, and a Cult tile (also called a discard tile), a set of 30 cards, and 3 Druids.  The Tree tiles are laid out with the 1’s opposite each other, 2’s opposite each other, etc.  The players deal 5 cards to each of their trees, 4 face down and the top one face up, draw 3 cards for their hand and set the rest aside to draw another 3 cards when their hand is empty.  The moon player then places his three Druids on three of his trees, the sun player then places his Druids.  The game is ready to begin, moon player playing first.

BGG image by Propose.

On your turn you can do one of three things.  The first two are easy: 1)discard a card either from your hand or from beneath one of your trees; 2)move one of your Druids to a different tree.  The third option is the heart of the game and the part that is tricky to wrap your head around.

A quick word about the cards before I tell you about option 3.  Each card has a number between 1 and 5, and arrows showing either a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction.  The third option is to play one of the cards from your hand on the pile beneath one of your trees.  This begins the Druid’s Dance.  First you will mark the tree where the card was played with the wooden ring. Then each card with the same number as the card you played (including on your opponent’s side) will “dance” in the direction shown on the card.  But they don’t move the number, which is what your brain wants to do; they move the number that is on the tree tile. This card now covers whatever card was on the top of the pile, or can end up being discarded if it ends up on the Cult tile.  Finally the Druids have a show of strength, which is just what it sounds like: the highest number wins, ties do nothing.  The winner places a chit on the loser’s tree, six such chits will kill the tree.  The winner of the show of strength discards the winning card to his Cult tile and turns over the next card on that pile.  Killing two of your opponent’s trees makes you the John Travolta of dancing druids.

The first game, for me, has always been spent talking to myself, becoming comfortable with the card play and the dance that results from it. I’ve never had the chance to explore any tactical abilities other than to move a druid from a nearly dead tree to a fresh one. This time, with back-to-back playing, I thought of moving my druid in order to have it on a tree with a higher strength for the next dance. You could also move it to a lower strength tree, provided it doesn’t have too many hit chits on it, in order to run the other player out of cards under his tree when he wins the dance.  Having no cards beneath your tree is a good way to lose it no matter the number of opponent’s chits on it. Another tactic is to move your opponent’s high cards to your Cult tile so they’ll be in your deck when you reshuffle, and conversely, move low numbers to your opponent’s discard tile.

We both enjoyed our second play and felt more in control.  It gave us a chance to look beyond the brain melting aspect and see some of the possibilities in the play.  I’ve always been impressed with the game but now I actually can’t wait to play again.

The Squirrel in the Stovepipe Adventure

 

We have a couple of squirrels in our neighborhood and they have given us lots of entertainment ever since they showed up last summer.

Yesterday Cori came home from work, went downstairs and came running back up the stairs doing a bit of a freak-out.  A squirrel was squeaking from inside the stovepipe.

Now first off, I thought squirrels were smarter than that; strange, but smarter than that. Secondly, I thought Richard had put a wire cover on the top of the chimney after we had to get a bird out of it a couple of years ago.

The box we used to rescue the bird was still in the garage so we dug it out, checked it for spiders and put a little bird seed in it as enticement.  This box is taped shut but with a hole cut in it to fit over the end of the stovepipe where it comes out of the wall.  We carefully removed a section of the pipe, shown a flashlight into the pipe and saw a scared little squirrel looking back from its sooty depths.  With the box fit snugly over the end of the pipe, we settled down to wait quietly.

I was giving a couple of the cats some attention (they were very interested in the occupied stovepipe), and Cori was listening near the stove when a thought struck her: a squirrel is not a bird. Maybe you don’t know much about either so I will explain.  If a scared bird goes into a box, there’s a good chance you can move the box and cover the hole before it gets its wits around the circumstances and escapes.  A squirrel is very highly strung, much like Hammie in Over The Hedge, which made us wonder if it would be possible to remove the box before the squirrel flew back into the pipe where he felt safe.  We decided we needed a plan B.

Plan B came from Cori, some elaborate contraption involving the pet carrier, a small box with a slit in the top for a sliding panel, and lots of duct tape.  Even if this didn’t seem a bit of an extreme invention, we were stymied by the highly unlikely fact that we couldn’t find any duct tape!  On to Plan C.

Plan C seemed like the thing we should have done in the first place if we weren’t a family of self-sufficient, I’d-rather-do-it-myself types: call animal control.  But animal control was gone for the day!  Uh, o.k.  On to Plan D.

Plan D seemed quite logical, allowing the squirrel safe exit from the pipe while giving us an easy means to trap him and remove him from the house. We had brought in a huge, heavy drop cloth to put around the stove area to protect the carpet and I thought it would be great to just create a bag-like escape route with it.  When the squirrel was in the bag, we’d just squeeze the top shut and carry it all outside.  We thought we should put a small box at the bottom of this tube with food and water. In theory, this was a good plan; in reality, it was tougher to carry out. The drop cloth is very large and very heavy, creating something too unwieldy for the two of us.  Plan D needed modification.

We have several old sheets which come in handy for any number of purposes but they were very thin and I imagined the ruckus that squirrel would cause when he felt his trap being moved.  No, we needed something a little more substantial. Wheels turned in my head, envisioning what the perfect item would look like, and it looked pretty much like something we had at hand…a sleeping bag. We have some old, cheap ones that we got when the kids were little so it wouldn’t matter if they got nasty inside from soot and creosote.  

The sleeping bag slide escape for the squirrel

And ladies and gentlemen, this worked beautifully. A half hour of waiting found our unexpected house guest “in the bag”.  We carried it outside and laid it near a tree, gave it a little shake and out he ran.  He zipped straight up the tree and only stopped long enough to give us a look that may have said, “Thanks for the help.  Gotta go now since I’m really late for supper.”