Spooky, scary skeletons send shivers down your spine

Last Saturday we broke tradition by visiting bunny_hugger's parents on a Saturday in the fall. Her father insisted there weren't any football games he wanted to see. (He snuck over to catch the scores several times, though.) But the main goal of our visit was getting pumpkins carved. Between bunny_hugger's work schedule, pinball, and our hopes to get to Cedar Point for a weekend there just wasn't any better time available. This also meant we had to have pumpkins around for a week before it'd be really the time to show them. We're worried about squirrels eating them, of course. But we also have a new touch of paranoia. A couple weeks back someone smashed the small pumpkin set on the porch. It wasn't carved; it was one that bunny_hugger had gotten as reward for one of her 5K races. bunny_hugger fears it was an act of malice from one of the neighbors she's annoyed at. I suspect it was a random act of mischief but, either way, we don't want our jack-o-lanterns out before they really need to be.

bunny_hugger's father carved his usual pumpkin, a quick cartoony cheerful enough one. Her mother carved her typical jack-o-lantern, talking all the time about how terrible it was she was so slow. She was slower than me or bunny_hugger, yes, but not that much slower. Especially considering she had one of those pumpkins that's about 85% shell by volume. The rest of us had it easy. I tried something a bit wilder than usual and carved a two-faced pumpkin, with three eyes and two mouths between them. I'm not sure it actually works, but you have to try things. And bunny_hugger carved a bunny, regretting that she didn't arrange things better so the ears would more clearly show. She also carved a plastic pumpkin, to add another one to our bedroom windows. This one's a raven looking down at people walking south along the street. She would then spend half a week trying to get all the automatic-starting timers in the battery-operated candles synchronized.

Besides eating way too many pancakes (there's no such thing) we played a bit of one of the Mice and Mystics bonus chapters. We got it set up with how our characters were arranged at the end of the first expansion set, to learn that the adventure was set before the first expansion set. Well, the notes also explain the adventure is of dubious canonicity, so we could run with it. We would get about halfway through this adventure. Filch, the rogue who's got way too levelled up, got to level up once again. And I kept pointing out that one of bunny_hugger's mice could level up and get a limited ability to fy, but she didn't go for it. Maybe whenever it is we resume.

Our jack-o-lanterns have been resting in our garage, where they're safe from everyone but mice. They'll get deployed soon.

Let's get back to looking at pictures of the Calhoun County Fair.

And this is the one photograph I took of that young, wild cottontail someone had found injured and brought in for bandaging. Also that somehow put up with people grabbing them and wrapping a bandage around their leg like that. They seemed ... okay ... way beyond what I think even Sunshine might put up with, and I don't know how much that reflects an inability to process everything that's gone before them.

Is ... is this that hog heaven I hear so much about?

Cows having a little rest time, gossipping. When I looked at this photo I thought one was licking the other and no, but you can see where I got that.

The cow-washing apparatus seems like it should be a your-character-here picture offering.

Cow caught up with nostalgic thoughts after getting their high school reunion invite.

Oh, zebra crossing stripes.

Trivia: Brooklyn's Union Grounds, which in the 1860s was the first enclosed baseball field, had a pagoda in center field, where club directors could host their guests; in a way, baseball's first luxury box. Source: But Didn't We Have Fun? An Informal History of Baseball's Pioneer Era, 1843 - 1870, Peter Morris.

Currently Reading: Meet Me By The Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall, Alexandra Lange.