All Eyes

Well, guys, it's that time of year again!

Did you bring us candy?

Sacks and sacksfull?

Candy!!!!

No candy. I brought you these fine pumpkins to carve for Halloween.

 No candy?

No matter! We are armed and ready to go!

I get to do the eyes!

No, I get to!

I called it first!

 That's a lotta guts, Maurice. You wouldn't think so many guts would fit into such a modestly sized pumpkin.

 Let's get to work.

 Nice eyes you've carved there, Astrid.

 Oh, and here's another one. Good job, Britta.

And there's another on the far side.

Did anybody carve anything but eyes?

 Looks great, rats; let's take it outside.

This Jack-o-lantern will see 'em coming from all sides.

Hey, guys! What about this one?

we could maybe give it a mouth and some scary teeth...

.

1001 uses

Why so glum, Maurice ? You’re not looking so pink today.

*Sigh* Well, Laars, this paper has come back rejected again. Nobody likes my results ! I admit, they are modest, and represent but a small incremental step in the march toward Understanding. But they’re solid results, succinctly put.

Hm. Many big words. Any pictures in there ?

Yes, of course ! Look at this beautiful histogram of flowgram values !

Err, I was thinking more cartoons. It is a nice little paper, though.

I think so too, but alas, the Reviewer and the Editor did not.
The boss’s orders are to add some « pep » to it and send it out again, quick.

Ah, Pep.

...

Um, what does that mean ?
Is there some secret neato-keen data we can add to it ?

No.

Is there some astonishing new conclusion to be drawn ?

No.

Does it go faster than light ?
Can you work the Higgs boson in there somehow ?

Ummm...

How about this ?

Hey ! That’s just the ticket !

This has gotta work.

.

A rabbit goes to Stockholm

 The train! The train to Stockholm! Here it is!

 This is my buddy Luis. He and Mev live in Lund, but we went to Stockholm last week, just to see it.

Because it's there.

 I met lots of fun characters in Stockholm. They were everywhere!

 This fox-lady sitting by one of the canals was very nice.

Didn't even try to eat me.

 Swedish pastries are excellent! I like to taste the pastry wherever we go. I could just live on pastry.

The coffee was alright.

 hey? feeling okay?

 Mmmm! raspberry crumble and beer for lunch!

This vacation thing is a deal!

Really, the hot sandwiches were on their way, and not all the beer was mine...

 Another interesting character. Strong, silent type.

I don't know what this guy was speechifying about, but he did have a crowd.

After that it was time to go home.

Blackberry adventure

Hey, Astrid, let's go blackberry picking with Marie-Laure and her mom!

Yeah! Let's go!

 Ow ow. The berries are nice, but the plants are really mean!

Ouch! I'm stuck in the brambles.

 Hey guys! There are plenty over this way!

 Aïe! This blackberry business really hurts!

 OW OW OWWW

Time to go. Our basket isn't full yet, but the chicken in the oven is done, so it's time to head home for lunch.

 Marie-Laure and her mom have gathered a good kilo or more.

This is our share.
That and a thousand blackberry stickers!

Oooh, that's going to be some good jam.

Bun Dublin

 Yes, folks, this is two, count them: TWO, posts in the very same week!

 I got to play on some of the statuary.

  This guy seemed nice, but he wasn't very talkative.

I like Dublin parks - no dogs to chase you, and nobody tries to use you as a football.

Now if they would only serve Guinness to Rabbits, it would be perfect.

And that was my trip to Ireland.

See you later this summer, once the rats think of something fun to do in the yard.

Bun in Ireland

 Hello hello!

Yes I know, I've been away far too long.

What can I say? I've been in Ireland.

 I went to the Tall Ships Festival in Waterford, where there were tall ships in the water and strange creatures on the quay.

 And I got to see old castles, and sit on the furniture from time to time.

This is me being King.

 I got to ride a rocket.

It seemed to be broken, though.

 The best part was hanging out with Darrell

 and meeting new friends. These are hitchhikers from Dublin.

And of course, you can't go to Ireland without being surrounded by Green.

Here it is!

Apricots

It's summertime, guys! The cherries are over, but the apricots should be just right.

Apricots?

We don't see any apricots.
Well, you have to have superhero vision this year. There are two up there.

Oh, yeah!

Yeah, whatta crop!

This ladder isn't quite tall enough to get up there.

Here, let me stand on your head.

Now you, Britta, climb up on top of us.
Still not tall enough. You know what that means...

(oh, look, Blogger is having fun deciding which way the photos go, again.)

Sigh. The phonebook trick isn't working.
Hey, smarty, why don't you just use your superflying cape, whizz up there, and get them on the flyby?

ooff!

uh. The cape seems to be having technical difficulties. Can you think of anything else?

Sure! We're rats! Just climb.

Easy peasy!

Hey, no fair! All that effort, and they're not quite ripe yet.
We'll have to do this all again in three or four days.

All of it?

Well, perhaps we can skip the falling on the ground part.

On the bright side, all that messing around did manage to dislodge the one ripe apricot on the other side of the tree.

Let's eat!