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Sparky And The Wheezles

The Glen Meadow Chronicles

About Glen Meadow

Sparky and his friends are small woodland creatures who inhabit the higher foothills and mountains of the Central California Sierra Nevada.  Glen Meadow is located somewhere between Yosemite National Park and Sequoia National Park and is a vast woodland meadow where once thrived a large mining and logging town.  But after the Great Fire of 1964, all evidence of human life was bulldozed away, sold for scrap and the area was left a barren patch of scorched earth.  

But nature is strong, in the years since that fateful event, life has returned with a vengeance and those who know about Glen Meadow call it the "Unofficial 8th Natural Wonder Of California"  But most humans don't even know about Glen Meadow,  The other natural disasters that took place that year, The Alaskan Earthquake and the Christmas Flood of Northern California, relegated the Great Fire to third place and Glen Meadow is remembered only as a barren waste.  

 

About the Books

Sparky And The Wheezles: Decision at Glen Meadow

Sparky Wheezle is a young adult male long-tailed weasel who liven in Pond Canyon,near an old abandoned coffer-dam mill pond that the Corps of Engineers have allowed to overgrow.  He makes his living gathering herbs, bark, roots, fibers, mushrooms wild fruit, bird eggs, anything that he can trade at Market.  His best customer is Harriet the Wise, Master Healer who uses Sparky's herbs as medicine up at Healer's Hall.  Sparky makes a very comfortable living and he has a nicely appointed burrow where he spends his leisure time making small musical instruments like willow whistles and gourd mandolins which he is also quite adept at playing.

Sparky's best friend and older cousin is Bosco Wheezle, a large extroverted weasel who works as a fish and fish monger in their small village.  Bosco enjoys Sparky's company and they have a lot of adventures together, but Bosco feels obligated toward Sparky and can sometimes seem overprotective and exasperated with him at the same time.  

When their habitat is destroyed by humans who build a poultry egg farm and processing plant in it's place, the small creatures, led by Sparky, take matters in their own paws.  With the help of their other friends Mitch, Zippy, Suzi, Brenda, Lizzy and Sally, Daisy and Skippy, they form a music group to help them spread the word about their plight.

 When their plan to record their music and make money to purchase the land back fails miserably, they decide to raid the processing plant at night to discover it's secrets.  The group of friends soon become mixed up in a miss mash of international terror groups, government  chemical warfare plots, a cult-like secret society within their own population and a human family living in their recreational vehicle. It all culminates in an epic battle that proves once again that love and loyalty are the strongest weapons agains hate and violence.  

 

Lady Frieda: Master Healer of Glen Meadow

Frieda Von Steuben is a young long-tailed weasel and is the younger first cousin to Sparky Wheezle.  The story takes place shortly after Sparky And The Wheezles and continues the saga of the Glen Meadow Chronicles.  

Frieda is the twenty-third offspring of Sunflower and Wilbur Von Steuben, the oldest living members of their tribe in Glen Meadow making Frieda's birth already remarkable.  But the marking on her tail in the shape of a black arrow causes a commotion within the Woodland Council and many believe that Frieda is The One who fulfills a five hundred year-old prophesy.  

Young Weldon George is given his first assignment as Watcher to guard the Von Steubens and to report any unusual activity in and around their home.  He is soon taken in as a member of the family and bonds with Frieda's parents, and as time passes, he eventually befriends young Frieda.

Frieda and Weldon part company when she is finally old enough to take on an apprenticeship with the Master Healer and Weldon is reassigned to learn all about a secret Watcher weapon.  It seems there is an evil cult-like secret society within their population who have built an army to bring down the Woodland Council and establish their own reign of terror against the citizens of Glen Meadow. Their ultimate goal is to prevent the Prophesy from coming to fruition.

After Frieda is framed for a murder of one of the cult's warriors, she is banished from the tribe and taken to the wilderness and left to die.  She escapes and with her best friends Madison and Lili sets out on a quest to find the answers to her questions about her place in her tribe and clan.  What she learns is that tolerance, peace and love will ultimately win over fear, hate and prejudice, but sometimes war is needed to bring ultimate peace.

The story culminates with a civil war between the the secret society and the Woodland Council.  Will Frieda be reinstated back into her tribe?  Will Weldon survive the epic battles?  Will Frieda and Weldon ever renew their friendship?

 

Benji the Greaser: Savior of Glen Meadow.

This story is set in Glen Meadow during the 1960's, decades before the stories of Sparky and Frieda, when Glen Meadow was a thriving human logging and mining town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada of Central California.

Benjamin Redfern lives on the fringes of his society and makes his living as a costermonger and tinker.  Despite his second-class status, Benji is quite successful at providing for his lovely mate Margo and their eight offspring.  Benji's success comes from his gift of wheeling and dealing as he pulls his cart from village to village.

Benji is well liked by the citizens of Glen Meadow, but there is trouble brewing and Benji finds himself in trouble with the local magistrates who have started purging their villages of all lower-class citizens.  It seems that there is a war brewing.

In the human town of Glen Meadow there is also in turmoil, the logging industry is at a crossroads, cheep timber is pouring in from South America and China, forcing the closure of the town's lumber mill.  The local gold and silver mine is also in trouble, gold prices are at an all time low and the mine operators have decided to shut down the mine and smelter too.  As people are laid off the town's economy collapses and the humans flee the dying town.  

A gold heist, a war and a major forest fire collide in an event that forever splits time in two in the lives of the small creatures of Glen Meadow, BB and AB, Before Benji and After Benji.