Gnomes and Snails

Ok, forget the fishing reel, here's the ultimate gnome accessory: a pet snail!

Growing up, my sister Ina and I would each pick a snail in the garden and keep it for a couple of weeks in a terrarium, which could be re-purposed as an aquarium or a vivarium, depending on which poor animal we'd choose to terrorize.
We'd name our snail, feed it, take them for a crawl, make them race, and then release shim (they're hermaphrodite). A month later, we'd pick another one.
But not the same ones from before! We could tell them apart by their shell.
We stopped doing that when we left the house for college.

Moogie Hackenfeffer, Ambroise and Tap-Tap Le Swain, and Lupin Saint Gussage. Thank you Patricia for the brilliant names! 





Taxidermy Mouse Soldier

Et maintenant, la pièce de résistance. Marcus Mousius, in a genuine leather roman armor and metal helmet. 

There will be two armies. A king and a queen, facing off on a chess board. Epic!
Unless you just want a soldier.

I'm looking into pewter casting so they can have little gladiī. 
And pewter, oh, the possibilities... Stay tuned...


Dashing Leather Eye Patches


Why do so many pirates wear eye patches? Why do they so often get poked in the eye with a sharp stick or a cat ò' nine tails, or one of those curved cutlasses that they sported with such panache? It turns out they didn't! 
When a pirate ship intercepted another ship, the pirates used to swarm aboard and take over. The pirates would make their way below decks - or downstairs as we landlubbers would say, to where the crew of the boarded ship had retreated. The poor fellows would wait for their attackers, under the safety of darkness, to come below from the bright sunshine outside, hoping to ambush the pirates and hack them to pieces before their vision could adjust to the low light conditions.
Knowing this, any pirate worth his salt would cover one eye with a patch before the boarding, to then flip it up when he had to run below deck, so that he would not be rendered completely blind by the sudden descent from brilliant sunshine into gloom.
This way, one eye would already be accustomed to darkness.
Isn't that utterly brilliant? Thank you Chris for sharing!
So whether you lost an eye, need a temporary eye patch or decide to become a pirate, you can get a dashing eye patch here.