Days of Eating Earth

The kids and I found a nice supply of Shaggy Mane mushrooms during a walk in the woods by our house. Natalie is becoming an expert mushroom spotter. Also she enjoys picking wildflowers on the side of the trail.

This was my first time finding edible wild mushrooms. After the rains last week I foraged a bag full of beautiful, fat, white buttons. They taste really good fried up with onions. I can't get anyone else to try them yet. Oh well, more for me!

Mix with tater tots, scrambled eggs and cheese to make a midwest breakfast scramble (I ate this for dinner). Be careful eating wild mushrooms, though. I did lots of research and tasted a tiny bit before going back the next day for more.

Back to School

Natalie started Kindergarten this fall and I rode on the bus with her for the first day of school. She's attending a Kindergarten Center and rides a full-length school bus with five other girls who all live within a mile of our house. In fact one of the girls lives in the apartment complex next door.

So anyway after she met her teacher and went to class, those of us parents who stayed at school were put to work preparing craft projects. I met a few of the other moms and got to use a sweet die cutter and heavy-duty paper cutter. (Christmas gift ideas?!)

A week later, I was back in Minneapolis on a Tuesday night for another semester at St. Thomas. I'm taking Business Law and Managerial Accounting. If all goes according to plan, this will be my last semester with more than one class. Meanwhile, the next three months could get a little rough.

Happy Anniversary

Nine years ago today!

Comix

I remembered that drawing is fun and I started making comics again and I submitted my work to a couple of places. First was Rock Ink Roll. I spent a lot of time on my submission and I'm really proud of it. It wasn't selected for the printed anthology but Kevin Cannon said he liked it and that is awesome.

Next I submitted a last-minute strip for the City Pages Comix Issue. That one wasn't published in the paper either but you can read it online here.

Maybe the third time's the charm? Altered Esthetics announced that they're planning an exhibition of single-panel comics, and that's perfect for the Family Hexagon strips I've been posting on Tumblr. I'm gonna draw a bunch more and submit the best one!

Natalie's last Twins game

All season I've been looking forward to the AZ Canteen stand (based on Andrew Zimmern's food truck). While we stood in line, I offered Natalie a bite of my Cabrito Burger. "No daddy," she shouted. "I'm not like you!"

Natalie got to choose one snack for herself. She was pretty set on ice cream (or was it popcorn?) until the cotton candy man walked by. She ate almost the entire thing and had a tummy ache on the way home. "I shouldn't have eaten that," she said.

Natalie took this photo. After an inning and a half she was bored so we wandered around Target Field, riding up and down the escalators and elevators. I told her that next time we go out, we'll just ride the train into town, get a snack, and go play at a park or something. Man if you could have seen her face light up then.

I got all these comics for 50 cents or a quarter each at the Chaska Library book sale.

Culinary Arts Competition

I was a judge for the Kitchen Window Culinary Arts Competition during this year's Uptown Art Fair. I saw they were looking for jurors to rate the art, so I applied for that originally. They didn't pick me as an art juror but asked if I'd be interested in eating food instead, which was even better!

My favorite photo is above and here's the whole photo set on Flickr. The competition was a lot of fun and it helped promote our craft fairs a little bit.

Between heats I walked around the fair and talked with artists. I met someone we'd rejected from Craftstravaganza, which was awkward, but I asked her to try again. Also got a nice leather belt from some dudes from Texas.