Happy 18th Birthday! Please read, sign, and date…

Lab Mice turned 18 this fall!

(Oh, did you think it was my 18th birthday? Nope–been there, done that, have the filing cabinet to prove it).

Perhaps it’s just because I’m annoyed about sorting through the piles of paperwork that I have neglected since 2018, but adulthood seems to be one endless ream of paperwork–virtual or otherwise. If you’re stuck on what to get for that newly-minted 18-year-old in you life, may I suggest a filing cabinet and some hanging file folders? Unless they happen to be an office supplies aficionado, they won’t actually appreciate it until they’re 35, but then they will be truly grateful when they unwrap a box of manila folders to complete the set.

A shredder and dedicated recycling bin would also be thoughtful gifts.

Now, I’m off to have a good cry over some pre-pandemic grocery receipts. I might have my favorites custom-framed.

I Hate Apples

Actually, I love apples.

But when you’ve been peeling and chopping a small mountain of them for a week, it becomes a case of too much of a good thing.

Why don’t I have an apple corer-peeler-slicer, you ask? Our apples were home-grown from unmaintained/unknown variety trees, so they were funky shapes with lots of bits that needed to be cut out. They tasted amazing, though. Once we got over temporarily hating them.

Comic from 2017.

An Encounter of the Four-Footed Kind

The weather here has been unseasonably warm and sunny for early November, so the other day I decided to take my cartooning outdoors.

We’re living with my in-laws at the moment, and although they live in a busy suburb, they have a deep backyard surrounded by a small wood, and their yard receives visits from a variety of wildlife, including white-tailed deer. Living out in the country as I have for the last few years, I am used to mainly seeing deer grazing in a field from a distance. The only time you see them up close (if you aren’t a hunter) is if they are about to become the cause of an insurance claim.

These suburban deer are quite a different story. They don’t stick to the wood, but amble freely through yards, ravaging flower gardens and sunbathing on front lawns. A car, a person or a dog has to get pretty close before they become concerned, and even then, they run only a few feet, maybe just over the next property line. I have remarked to my husband that it would be a tough sell to explain to the insurance company that a deer hit us in our driveway, but it could happen.

I set myself up on the swinging bench in the back corner of the yard, and was soon absorbed in adding color to the cartoon for our Christmas card. After a while I heard a rustling in the dried leaves nearby, and looked up, expecting to see a squirrel. Instead, there was a doe behind the framed-in blueberry bushes at the edge of the yard. She looked as startled as I felt–either she hadn’t realized that I was there, or she hadn’t thought that I would move.

I could have jumped up and scared her off, since she had come to snack on my in-laws’ garden, but I found her appealing. She hadn’t run away, and I had never been this close to a wild deer before. We played peek-a-boo over the back of the bench for a few minutes. She seemed curious about me, and took a few cautious steps forward to get a better look.

I know you aren’t supposed to approach wildlife, they don’t seem to know that they’re supposed to reciprocate. I started talking to her, thinking the sound of my voice would send her off. It did make her sidle away to the edge of the yard at first, but she seemed to like the sound of my voice, and came around the back of the bushes to stand in front of me.

She bobbed her head up and down to look me over, and I did much the same. She was larger than I had expected, and so pretty. It was tempting to reach out a hand and see what she would do. She was quite at her ease, ambling back and forth around the little artificial pond in front of the bench, and even taking a drink while I looked on. She was also slowly edging herself closer to me, especially whenever I started talking to her.

She was closer than the picture makes it appear, and eventually came up to the edge of the white gravel, less than 10 feet away.

When she started to nibble at the garden plants, I decided I should probably warn her off. I shifted on the seat, and tapped my clipboard against it a few times. She looked up, surprised, and seemed to be thinking about coming over to investigate, until I started waving my clipboard in her direction. She was still unconcerned, but decided that I would carry my point, and sauntered away to the other corner of the yard. She browsed among a pile of brush for a while, and eventually disappeared into the wood.

Inktober 2022: Crossing the Finish Line

Inktober artists: we did it!

This challenge was so much fun, I’m glad I finally went for it. It was the highlight of my day to see the unique responses to each prompt, and I found some great artists to follow on Instagram. I plan to do Inktober again next year–this time with more advance planning (like, the entire month of September…).

Between pushing to finish up Q is for Quarantine in September, and spending all month on Inktober…I am tired. I’ll be posting a comic weekly on Fridays during November and December, both brand-new and from the last few years (along with nicely edited versions of three Inktober comic strips), and evaluate how that’s working for me going into the New Year. I want to create and post comics regularly, so I need to find a way sustainably pace myself. Behind the scenes, I’ll be working on publishing Q is for Quarantine, and setting up a Lab Mice Etsy shop.

…Anyone else ready for a long post-Inktober nap?
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Wait–what do you mean, the holidays are coming???

Gold Rush Apple

Inktober 31. Farm, part 2

Something a little different for the (bonus) final day of Inktober…and a little story.

It turned out that the prompt “farm” coincided with a special trip I made during the last weekend in October, to the family farm where my grandpa grew up. My great-great grandfather started the business in 1922, and Kercher’s Sunrise Orchards is still owned and operated by my cousins, the children and grandchildren of my grandpa’s brother. They celebrated their 100th anniversary in business this year.

Although my grandpa decided to pursue a career in engineering rather than farming, and ended up living far from his family home, it was always an important place for him. He passed away this year, at the age of 92.

I moved across states this summer, and discovered that I now live much closer to the farm. So my husband and I, along with my brother’s family, spent a beautiful, sunny morning at the orchard taking a hay ride, picking apples, choosing pumpkins, and reconnecting with our cousins and their families.

I wanted to make a drawing from the orchard, and the Gold Rush variety apples were glowing in the trees that morning. When first picked, the apples are both sweet and tart, just the way we like them. We picked as many as we could fit in our bag, and I took a photo for later reference.

The trip could not have gone more perfectly, and we hope to visit again…maybe for the 101st anniversary.