Longfellow Garden - Minnehaha Park

State Fair (Part 2)

I never miss a spin through the Agriculture/Horticulture building at the fair. Check out this awesome display of vintage seed sacks. They are hard to find these days because most were re-purposed to be of use on the farm (towels, rags, bags, even clothes)


However, the main draw for me is the crop art:

And finally - check out these awesome scarecrows!

Scenes from the fair (Part 1)

Urban Knitting aka Guerilla Knitting

I'm not a knitter. It's been something I've been meaning to get around to learning but there are always so many projects to choose from! Anyway, have you guys heard of urban knitting (aka guerilla knitting aka yarn-bombing)? You can find out more about the phenomenon on this site (in addition to lots of other sites around the web):

http://knittaplease.com

The phenomenon is particularly popular in the pacific northwest, but this is the first example that I've seen in the Twin Cities, This is a fairly humble piece of work compared to whole trees covered in "sweaters" but still pretty cool, right? I noticed it at the 46th Street Station while waiting for a downtown train.

The Cat Days of Summer & Zucchini Bread

I haven't been doing very many art or baking projects lately. We just went through a hot spell where the cats and I weren't feeling really active. That's not unusual for the cats as they sleep all the time, anyway. Hot summer days are ideal for them - roasting themselves in a patch of sunlight seems to be a favorite activity. They also enjoy sleeping on cold days, too, of course but usually in someone's lap. I guess being a cat is pretty ideal, in general.

I've been reading a lot of books (Including Julie & Julia, which was okay but not my favorite because the author is, well, kind of a jerk)

So, it's mostly been too hot to bake. I did just finish grating a million zucchinis for freezing and made a batch of zucchini muffins from this recipe: www.allrecipes.com/Recipes/Moms-Zucchini-Bread/

I used 2 cups of whole wheat flour and 1 cup of white flour and used yogurt instead of oil to make them a little healthier. I don't think all muffins or cakes should be tampered with that way but zucchini and carrot breads are already pretty heavy so the wheat flour and yogurt blend right in. It doesn't work for light and fluffy cakes, no matter what health nuts say. Don't do it! Just enjoy a smaller piece of cake.

Vintage Posters

My friend gave me several vintage Smokey the Bear posters (from the late 70's/early 80's, I'm guessing). I especially like the mushroom one below. I'm considering hanging them all in the guest room, since I really like them but they don't really go with the rest of the decor in the house.

Two Upcoming Events

Melanie and I will have a booth at the Uptown Market this Sunday, August 16th. It looks like it will be a lot of fun and have a wide variety of cool things. Check out their website and flickr pool: www.uptownmarket.org
We'll also be at the Defeat of Jesses James Days festival in Northfield. We'll have our booth in the Central Park locations. I've been to this event before as a vendor and has a visitor and it's pretty fun. Re-enactments of the famous bank raid, bingo and other games, lots of food, a carnival, arts and crafts....tons of stuff! And Northfield is a beautiful town.