art paul schlosser, celebrity

our favorite kazoo-playing guitarist from state street has finally made it big. stephen colbert gave him his propers with a shout-out on the colbert report!

now his paintings are going to be really out of our price range.positively prayer warrior in the presence of the lord

how well do you know madison?

try match these snippets of photographs to their location. click here to play.

fargo!

we spent a long weekend in fargo, north dakota (not to be confused with fargo north, decoder) to celebrate my grandmother's 80th birthday. it was action-packed.

there was giant backyard jenga,

sister time,

a visit to the beloved northwestern minnesota prairie chicken monument,

a stop for groceries,

a mexican fiesta with the birthday girl (complete with sombrero and maracas),

a family reunion,

and some road-side resting.

it was a great weekend. happy birthday grandma!

turn down that noise!

in minneapolis, you turn down you car stereo at the gas station, or you suffer the consequences.

the wonders of pollination

a bumblebee in minneapolis, doin' his thing.

e-wasteful

where do your "recycled" computers, printers, and ipods go? it's pretty disappointing.

dane county fair

we took a trip this afternoon to the dane county fair. here are some of the highlights:

a baby pygmy goat. now that's a tiny (and adorable) goat.

marta greets some miniature donkeys

mother and baby sheep

pigs, they're so adorable...

...and delicious.

check out this llama enjoying the breeze.


mmmm...wisconsin cream puffs. delicious.

happy birthday, marta!

marta is 30 today! 30 is the atomic number of zinc.


happy "zinc" birthday, birthday girl.

a new patron saint

we received these candles as a house warming gift from jack and roxanne. we've decided to make la santisima muerte the patron saint of our new house.

la santísima muerte (most holy death), a.k.a. santa muerte (saint death), a.k.a. doña sebastiana (lady sebastienne), can be petitioned for love, luck, and protection. those seem like three things a home could use.

thanks for the candles j&r.

weekend pics

la fete de marquette

biking to the square

garage organization

the view from la fete

bridge along the bike path and yahara river

more manhole covers

our operatives in the field have found some wonderful new manhole covers.

reed snapped this photo of few street's, and quite possibly madison's, newest manhole cover (and newest manhole for that matter)

rachel sent us a photo of this manhole from philadelphia, which was produced by the s.j. creswell ironworks, and it rather is ornately decorated with colored glass tiles.

thanks for the photos. keep 'em coming!

holiday gnome

while we were away this spring, our garden gnome, known as fred t. gnome-staple on facebook, was abducted. his abduction led to a variety of garden gnome adventures documented in photos taken by our gnome's captors, then shared with us through the magic of facebook. in the photos, it was clear that fred t. gnome-staple was seeing the broader world, and was in good hands. 2 weeks ago, his adventures ended, and he was returned to our backyard.

why am i telling you this? because we now feel compelled to carry on, supporting the gnome's adventures outside the garden. we went to grand haven, michigan for some quality family time with the staple clan over the weekend of the 4th, and we brought the gnome along. he smiled the whole time, so we have to imagine he enjoyed himself.

quality beach time with the family.

getting ready for a hike.

roasting marshmallows.

happy 4th

on store bought potato salad

"a child served yellow slop from a bucket is being told that it's o.k. to plagiarize a term paper off the internet just so long as it's poorly written."

-garrison keillor