April 3, First Treehouse-Mounted Jelly Cannon Test

Like a pirate ship without a treasure or a pizza without cheese, a treehouse without a side-mounted jelly cannon is just missing something.

The crew of the pirate treehouse, dubbed the S.S. Jolly Ollie decided that a cannon was necessary for pillaging, plundering and treasure hunting.  It was settled that they would use gobs of jelly balls after the potato cannon resulted in broken glass and a shortage of mashed potatoes.

Artemouse was the engineer.  She took some scrap parts from Moonwater Labs and built the cannon.  Ollie, the chef, whipped up a few drums of raspberry-grape jelly.  Spoon served as taste tester even though the jelly was supposed to be ammunition, not a snack.  Ticklebit, Bearly There Bear and Clownley Clown Bear served as moving targets for the first tests and spent the rest of the day getting sticky goop out of their fur.   The cannon worked perfect as planned.

It was time for the actual run.  Gordon, the flying dragon was called upon to attack the SS Jolly Ollie from the air and the pirates would defend the ship. It would be an epic battle in the Meadow.  Gordon swooped in with cardboard sword and shield, the crew, dressed in full pirate garb shouted all kinds of pirate-like stuff about hoisting mizzens and avasting me hearties.

Gordon made his move and dove for the ship.  Ollie mounted the cannon and the crew gathered behind him.  Gordon yelled his battle cry, “Ahoy there!”   Ollie replied, “You can’t say that!  That’s our line.”  “Oh, right”, Gordon said.   “Um, roawwwwwrrrr!!”, Gordon shouted and tried to shoot fire as dragons do but instead he coughed up a little mucous.

Ollie got Gordon in his sight.  He took a breath and pulled the trigger.  There was a click.

Several days later the crew of the SS Jolly Ollie were still cleaning Raspberry-grape jelly out of their fur, out of the tree house and off the nearby trees while Gordon, unscathed, played video games in the corner.  It seems jelly cannons need to be cleaned after each use or they get gooped up and explode backward on the next use.