So I was asked to write something to sign up here and I wrote a little story inspired by “the grasshopper and the squirrel”. It’s a bit rough around the edges since I just typed more-or-less stream of conciousness style. May not be used to train AI!

In the sleepy village of Pine Hollow most animals dutifully return to their homes when the sun becomes orange. The hares to their burrows, the foxes to their dens, the squirrels to their nests. But not Pepper the Skunk who would climb the nearby hill to draw the colorful sunset.

Evening after evening she would draw and color the sunset in her notebook. This baffled the other animals and they asked why she would do this. They understood the urge to paint something beautiful but surely the novelty would wear out fast.

“Not every sunset is the same” answered Pepper “Who knows if tomorrows sunset will be strawberry jam colored with clouds like whipped cream or or more like a fresh slice of an orange with purple cotton candy?”

Pepper would usually wake up later than the rest who were already busy and had a harder time finding food to stock up for the winter. This baffled the other animals and some secretly expressed worries that they would be expected to share their hard earned stocks for the winter with Pepper who had her “Head in the clouds” as they would say.

Come winter a quietness settled over Pine Hollow. The bigger animals would hibernate, the smaller ones would sleep a lot and occasionally venture out to their stocks. As the days dragged on however their stocks grew smaller and the village elders organised aid for animals whos stock had rotten, got found by birds or who otherwise had issue finding enough to eat. These made for gloomy meetings in the villages main burrow where the tired animals would grumpily help one another. Some gave freely, some just gave so the whole affair would be over faster and they could return to their burrows.

It wasn’t long until some animals started moaning about the lack of sun and how they wish spring would finally come and they could see the sun again. Despair was beginning to set in and some even said they couldn’t remember what the sun looked like. It was Pepper then, who had come to rely on some of the aid as well, who came in early for the next meeting and set up her drawings of the sun. Yellow suns in a blue sky, orange suns sinking into clouds, red suns angrily trying to peek through the clouds to get a last glimpse of Pine Hollow.

When the other animals entered there were sounds of amazement and sighs of relief. Some animals just sat in front of one of the paintings and stare at it. Soon the animals of Pine Hollow had a glimmer of hope that the winter would soon be over and they would be able to play outside and eat fresh food and berries. They thanked Pepper for keeping such a rich stock of the sunlight to help them keep heart through the cold and cloudy winter days.