An Issue From the Zucchini Archives!


THE ZUCCHINI CLUBHOUSE NEWSLETTER
...the official newsletter from The Zucchini Brothers!
www.zucchinibrothers.com

WINTER '03-'04


Greetings from ZucchiniLand! And welcome to this archived edition of our Zucchini Clubhouse Newsletter, a quarterly publication filled with interesting facts, news from ZucchiniLand, stories, educational tidbits, projects, and much more! Please feel free to print this out and share with as many people as you want!

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NEW & EXCITING ZUCCHINI PROJECTS

The Zucchini Brothers are pleased to announce that we've started recording our new CD! We've dusted off the controls in the Clubhouse Studio and are putting some sounds onto tape! We'll keep you posted as we assemble our new songs.

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STEVE'S CORNER

Steve Zucchini here! I just got word from my brother, Sam, that it's time to write to all of you. So I'm taking a break from cleaning up the clubhouse pantry (where we stock all our food).

What's the big news? We've got a mouse in the clubhouse! Well, actually I'm not sure WHAT it is, but for the last week I've been finding some strange things in the pantry:

-A half-eaten granola bar in it's wrapper (maybe the mouse didn't like enough to eat the whole thing!),
-Something that I thought was sawdust, but is actually a finely ground chocolate chip cookie,
-And little piles of cocoa mix and marshmallows on the floor.

This Mystery Food Monster has a sweettooth! Our dog, Polly, barked to me that it wasn't her and I believe her. I guess I've just gotta pack the food away good 'n secure!

Now, I'm gonna heat up some of that cocoa that the mouse overlooked and ask Jack and Sam if they'd like some too. Gotta drink some hot liquid, stay warm and work on some music because....GOOD NEWS.....we're recording a new CD! The musical project of writing, recording and performing 5 new songs at a funny shaped venue called "The Egg", inspired us to tackle a full-length recording that's been a long time-a-coming! Which brings me to.......


STEVE'S WINTER WORD OF THE DAY:

Venue
Definition: (Noun) The scene of a large gathering for some event.
(Synonyms or words that mean the same thing are: location, site, setting, place, or establishment.)


and.....


STEVE'S WINTER QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there."
-George Harrison, the Beatles


and, finally......


STEVE'S WINTER TONGUE TWISTER OF THE DAY:

"Jerry dropped the jumpin' Jello" (try to say five times in a row-betcha the words sound like they're Jello hee-hee!)



Keep warm, and thanks again to all of our friends and fans who write to us and come to our shows!

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JACK'S CORNER

It's so quiet--just the fireplace crackling as it munches happily on another log while doing a fine job of keeping my dog, Polly, and me toasty warm here in the wighouse. "Wighouse?" you ask? It's my own special place away from our clubhouse. It's basically "the house that Jack built", only a really different kind of house. Which brings me to my....


WINTER WORD OF THE DAY:

Wighouse
(from the Zucchini Land dictionary)
Definition: (noun) Somewhere between a longhouse and a wigwam; structure built in the old way then covered in the new way with plastic tarps, blankets, and bungee cords; very cozy year-round.


I'm very much at home here in my wighouse. It's over 35 feet long, and it has 8 to 10-foot ceilings with 4 entrances--one for each direction: east, north, west, and south.  

As I look outside from my wighouse, the snow is falling silently to the ground. It's below zero degrees out here in ZucchiniLand, as it's been for the past few days--the kind of shivering, cold weather in which it would be hard to say my......


WINTER TONGUE TWISTER OF THE DAY:

"Tim trims the treetop, treetop, treetop." (see if you can say it 5 times fast.)


Anyway, here inside my wighouse, the temperature is just perfect. I love this fireplace that I built with our dad. I feel so happy and peaceful here in my little home--which reminds me of my.....


WINTER QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"Happiness in the home will lead to happiness in the world."
-Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet (where it's also cold!)


Well, I'd better get going. I hear some footsteps approaching, which probably belong to our friend, Susan, who promised to bring a thermos of minty hot cocoa for us to drink around the fire. Keep warm! And just remember, folks, "In the winter, let it snow! In the winter, let it be freezing cold!"

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SAM'S CORNER

Hello from snowy ZucchiniLand! And snowy it is!

We had a snowman-making ordeal yesterday. It started when I decided to make the biggest snowman ZucchiniLand had ever seen. I packed a small snowball and  spent half the morning rolling it around our clubhouse yard until it was the size of our parents' car. My goal was to make 3 of these, each a little smaller than the other. The one that was the size of a car was to be the base, the next, the belly of the snowman, and the last, smallest one, the head.

I parked the largest, car-sized one in our front yard, so that everyone walking by our clubhouse would see the incredible creature that I was creating. I started rolling the second snowball at about 11am when I ran out of energy. I went back in to the clubhouse and found my brother, Steve, by the fireplace, begged him for help, and together we finished rolling the second snowball until it was the size of a couch (just smaller than a car). We soon found we had a problem: how were we going to get the couch-sized snowball on top of the car-sized one?

We knew we needed help. We found it in the form of our final brother, Jack, who was off in the woods in his wighouse contraption. He was quite comfortable where he was, but thought it a worthy undertaking to make the biggest snowman ZucchiniLand had ever seen. So he joined us as we strode back to our clubhouse front yard, and helped us push the couch-sized, belly-of-the-snowman, snowball onto the car-sized, base-of-the-snowman, snowball.    

The front yard did turn out to be the best place to put this monster together; my planning had paid off. We soon had a group of ZucchiniLand's finest as an audience. Mrs. Sweettooth, Mayor Muffin, and Jerry the garbage man cheered us on as we finished the first two-thirds of our beast. Now we had to make the head and dress this thing.

It was already 3 o'clock and the sun was going to set in an hour and a half, so we rushed to each job that was necessary to complete our snowman. Jack rolled a snowball the size of a large chair (just smaller than the couch-sized snowball that was just smaller than the car-sized one). This was going to be the head and we knew that we would need a ladder to get it on top of the base and the belly of our creature (which was already twelve feet tall). So my job was to convince Dad to come over with his ladder. In the meantime, Steve was in charge of dressing the biggest snowman that ZucchiniLand had ever seen. He knew that ordinary clothes would be way too small, so he got table cloths and sheets.

Dad arrived with the ladder, and climbed to the top of it. With me two-thirds of the way up, Jack a third, and Steve at the bottom, we passed the chair sized snowball up the ladder to Dad, who placed it on top of the couch-sized snowball that was on top of the car-sized one. Steve passed up a basket he borrowed from the clubhouse laundry room to make a hat. For eyes, we used old tires, for a nose, a construction cone (which gave our audience the impression that the biggest snowman ZucchiniLand had ever seen had a cold), and for a mouth, a fender from an old eighteen-wheeler truck. Steve then passed up the blue table cloth, which Dad draped over the couch-sized belly of the snowman. This was his shirt. Next the purple sheet was draped over the base of the snowman. This became his pants.

We stood back at 4:15 pm and congratulated each other on a job well done. Our audience, which had grown since 3 o'clock (and now included Mrs Untemeyer, the Opinionated Man, Officer O'reilly, and Mr. Tuba the milkman), congratulated us, too. The Moose that kept showing up in our yard over the summer, appeared too and seemed pleased with the giant creature, and the Opinionated Man said that, in his opinion, the creation of this monstrosity should be on the front page of tomorrow's ZucchiniLand Ledger newspaper.

Well, the newspaper never did get the story, but we had fun, and we invited all our friendly onlookers in to our clubhouse for some hot cocoa.



And, now....for my Winter Word, Quotes, and Tongue Twister........



SAM'S WINTER WORD OF THE DAY:

Ordeal
Definition: (Noun) A severely difficult or painful experience that tests character or endurance.



SAM'S WINTER QUOTES OF THE DAY:

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?
-J. B. Priestley (1894 - 1984) English author, dramatist


The Eskimo has fifty-two names for snow because it is important to them; there ought to be as many for love.
-Margaret Atwood (1939 - ____) Canadian novelist, poet


About the woodlands I will go/ To see the cherry hung with snow.
-A. E. Housman (1859 - 1936) English scholar, poet


Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into, the mind.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834) English poet, critic, essayist


Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.
-Phyllis Diller (1917 - ____) US comedienne


Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty.
-Stanislaw J. Lec (1909 - 1966) Polish aphorist, poet, satirist




SAM'S WINTER TONGUE TWISTER OF THE DAY:

"Where will we wrestle readily?" (try saying THAT 10 times fast!)

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This newsletter is written by the Zucchini Brothers with Susan Meyer. Thanks so much for subscribing to this newsletter and supporting The Zucchini Brothers! We hope to see you at an upcoming performance! And please consider calling or writing your local radio station to let them know you like our show!

Your Friends,
Steve, Jack & Sam Zucchini
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