Puppet Festival-ness

I recently returned from the Puppeteers of America National Festival and had a great time!! A really great time! Perhaps the best time I've ever had at a festival which is saying a lot since I always have a good time... but this time was even better!

I think it helped that at this festival I taught a workshop... a long one. I think it helped to be more involved. The workshop went really well! I had a great group and we had a good energy for all three days-- fantastic!

I made an effort (though it wasn't hard) to be more social this festival... that probably made a difference too. Yay for new friends! and yay for strengthening not-as-new-friends! Yay!

There were great shows a well! (and no painful shows!)

And fore the first time I had items for sale in the Puppetry Store... and did pretty well and it also inadvertently served as a place to display my work. It wasn't uncommon to talk with someone and have it come around to "oh, I saw your masks in the store..."

s w e e t !


I also need to redo and downsize my carry around portfolio-- eventually. It's currently 11x17... a little obnoxious and since now I have a website, oh yes I have a website, I can hone the portfolio to make it more straight froward... 'leave them wanting more' as it were.

Andrew and Katy Got Married!

You may remember when they got engaged-- but now they're hitched! I'm so glad that I got to go back to Sacramento for a week and help out... not that they needed much help.



I did get to take pictures, however, lots of pictures-- more pictures than I've ever taken in one day. Then I got to edit those pictures... I know what you mean Andrea! (although this was child's play compared to what you do!)

I wouldn't call myself a photographer, just a willing friend with a camera. So here's a sneak peak-- I'm mailing off the disks to the happy couple today... I suppose I should ask their permission before posting these...

Each table had a row of vases containing Gerbera Daisies... very pretty!

I couldn't possibly be happier for these two! Two great people making one great couple!

Mushroom Hunting

The season is passed but I thought I'd share a little bit about this fun experience.

I first heard of morels from the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle where the authors had morel mushrooms growing on their property and where a prized treasure. So I was exited when I was told that our wonderful park out back also provides a season of Morels (just when I thought it couldn't get any better).

I never thought I would be a mushroom hunter. never. I always pictured short stout fellows with bushy gray beards, dirty clothes, missing teeth, and a hat made of tree bark with moss growing on it. And don't forget the mesh bag.

We did some research online and found that this type of mushroom is pretty safe to gather and eat if you know what to look for (if it looks like a morel-- there are a couple different types-- and it's hollow then you're good).

Here's a closer look at what morels look like:

in the "wild"

in the hand

and on the plate!

Since the park is public there are a lot of other mushroom hunters so we never found a ton of them. It's not exactly easy but it's really fun when you find one-- makes me feel feel very 'hunter/gatherer.'

It seems the general online consensus to prepare morels fried with some sort of coating (other wise they shrivel to nothing). They were pretty tasty... especially for free!

a few more pretties

I love this picture

These white flowers are one of the common understorey plants along with the may apples (below) that have umbrella forms that remind me of Dr. Seuss.

Couldn't just grow around the leaf, this one had to bust through.

..and oh.. hello? A tree frog about 1 1/2 inches long and candy colored . It's the only one we've seen here to date but we will surely keep an extra eye out for them now that we know they're here.

Cuteness Overload

Baby Foxes
There you go...
...Bask in the Cuteness

love the black sox

More Pictures of Animals

We have better pictures! yay! Dennis did a good job getting these shots!

I like how they lift their feet up!

The Heron has proven difficult to photograph but I'm pretty happy with these.

GOSLINGS!! Two of them! The whole little family hit the road over night. I'm sad to no longer have them in the pond but I'm glad we got pictures when we did-- these little guys are maybe a day old.

And so it appears there were two geese tending the nest (we only saw one at a time and assumed mama goose was on her own-- we were mistaken). But oooh soo cute! Baby Gooses!

Graphic Design?

Here's an example of "just because you've never done something, doesn't mean you can't do it." Now I'm not saying anything about: "doesn't mean you shouldn't do it."

Here I've designed a logo for a farm that keeps bees and chickens -- the client is very happy and that makes me happy. This was a different type of experience for me and it all sort of happened suddenly. I didn't hood wink anyone, he knew I was a puppeteer before we started. I think Dennis help me talk myself into this.

Here is the first set of samples with a few different ideas:



When the beau came home the day I sent these off his comment was: "You made clipart!"

After a few drafts we landed here:

Adventures Out Back-- The Toad Pond

About a week or so ago we had a night of thunderstorms and we heard the toads calling. The toad mating time is pretty short so we decided to take advantage of it. We suited up for the rain and took a couple of flashlights.... and it was amazing!

Surprisingly, the pond featured in the last post held no toads, they has all congregated in another pond further off the main trail. There in the rain and in the dark with our flashlights we saw a different side of this piece of nature. The toads weren't skiddish so we took extra precautions not to step on anybody because they didn't jump away-- even the few that we bent down to get a closer look and stroke their back-- they seemed almost in a trance.

Of course we didn't dare take a camera with us that night as it was very wet and muddy. But the toads were still calling the next day so we thought we would try to get a few shots-- which we did-- but the action was certainly dying down.

The Toad Pond

Toad calling... we didn't see many lady toads around... poor fellas

I think toads are cuter in person

Then as we were on our way back, we had a surprise!

Baby Foxes!

Toads? What toads? Sorry guys but you just can't quite compete with a den of baby foxes! They were very curious! We think there are six.

This place has gotten even better!

Adventures Out Back-- The Main Pond

First I must say that my husband did a great job of finding a home for us! He did it by himself, as I was working in California, and he did it on a very tight time-line-- I'm not ruling out divine intervention here-- this is a good place for us. The house has it's quirks and is not amazing all by itself. What makes it all noteworthy is what's Out Back.

We have a fenced in yard to call our, rented, own but behind our back gate is not another house, it's a park. A wooded park with a walking trail loop-- the typical playground and sports field is on the other side but most of our time is spent surrounded by trees and with spring comes a lot of cool things to see. the next few posts will be about those!

This is the main pond. This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago and the place as greened up a bit since. I left this photo large so you can get a closer look of you want. This shows roughly two thirds of the pond. It's not huge but is not small and lots of folks live here.

The nesting goose is one of my favorites for many reasons: 1) she's always there so I look forward to seeing her 2) it's neat to watch her nest (not quite as passive as one might think-- still a lot of sitting though) and 3) I'm really looking forward to goslings! The thought makes me beam inside.

And if you look behind and to the right you'll see the Heron-- not the best picture, I know, he's on the other side of the pond. He's more of a visitor than a resident-- but pretty awesome. That day I watched him catch two fish. They wriggle as they go down his throat!

I went out on the first really sunny day we've had in a long long time and was surprised to see turtles... we had never seen them here before. There are 9 in the photo above and as I sat I counted no fewer than 25 ranging in size between 2 1/2 to 5 inches long. Times like this I wish I had a telephoto lens/ camera with telephoto lens capability.

These Green Frogs are pretty common (they can withstand higher pollution levels than many other frogs-- and this pond receives runoff from an adjacent golf course) but they typically don't stay still long enough to get a good look. These are the ones that croak a "meeerp!" as they jump into the water to hilarious effect especially if several jump in succession.

I learned that sitting still, and having a nice toasty sun out, will coax them to hold still. A few days later I learned that it's a different game at night!

Bready Goodness

Above is the very first loaf of bread I made using the methods described in a really neat book called: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (it's a pretty nifty website as well). Notice that we had already eaten half of it before I remembered that I wanted a picture of it to share. This book is not new, it came out last year, I read about it on Angry Chicken, I put a hold on the book at the library, and about two weeks ago got the book... I think we may have to buy it as I don't want to give it back.

The book has many base recipes that you may then tweek slightly (mostly in the shaping) to make many kinds of bread and is based on the idea that you can make a large-ish batch of moist dough, keep it in your refrigerator for up to two weeks, and just pull off hunks of dough to bake that day so you can easily have fresh bread in your home without starting form scratch nor running to the store. So far I've only done the basic recipe-- and it is really good-- who knew what four really basic ingredients can do? Water, yeast, salt, and flour-- that's it!-- and oh so good! I'm still working on my technique and we're learning what we like-- as the dough ages it develops a sourdough flavor and aroma which is interesting but we haven't decided if we like it better.

I like how convenient it is although you do have to plan ahead a little-- once you've shaped the loaf you leave it on the counter for 40 minutes-1 1/2 hours (but you don't have to attend to it) then you bake it for about half an hour (for the little loaves that we make). The five minutes the title talks about refers to the hands-on time which is minimal.

I like that I can make loaves the size that we need them and I like that I know exactly what is in them. Another thing that I like about the book, besides it's straightforward nature, is that they also give you dinner recipes that the bread should compliment. I'm always open for good dinner ideas!

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As a side note I wanted to mention one of the many reasons I love my husband:

It was the Saturday before last. I had a busy day. I attended Women's Conference in the morning. When I got home I laid brick borders around the new flower beds (one is 10 feet long, the other is 3o feet long-- Dennis helped!) then proceeded to plant over 100 Gladiola bulbs. I came in, showered, made dinner and a new batch of bread dough to have on hand. At the end of the day I was tuckered out and hadn't done the morning or mid-day dishes so the kitchen was showing signs of neglect (tiny kitchens show neglect very quickly). When the beau came back home I apologized for the kitchen being a mess and walks over, gives me a hug, and says "but the bathroom's clean so 'Thank you!'"

Now it's not that I always keep a spotless house-- that's just not the case! Nor do we as a couple consider it my "wifely duty" just I make an effort since I am at the house a lot more than he is. And since he's so nice about it it makes me want to get more done around the house so then when he is home his time can be spent either building something useful or spending time with me-- not vacuuming-- because he will vacuum if I don't and that in itself makes me want to vacuum. Well played, Honey, well played.