Tomato Sandwich Party

I have been a big fan of the idea of community gardens for a while. Currently, we have plenty of space where we are at to garden, but I've been places where there really was no land nearby for me to use for a garden and I anticipate it happening in the future. Thinking beyond just me, I think that gardens liven up communities and there is nothing better than tasting fresh garden fruit and vegetables. We went to an event hosted by the Wasatch community gardens yesterday where we were given free seeds, tomato sandwiches and got to see a beautiful community garden in Salt Lake.

Mushrooming

We went on a mushroom foray a few weeks ago with the mushroom society of Utah. I had no idea that 1) Utah had places that had so many mushrooms (admittedly we had to drive into the high uintas, near the snow line to find them) and 2) just how different mushrooms can be. We found mushrooms that tasted savory and were made into entire meals, mushrooms that tasted sweet like candy and ones that were spicy when you chewed on them. The mycologist and mushroom identifiers were really friendly, even though every time we found a mushroom our first question was "Can we eat it?".

There was also a friendly photographer there whose pictures you can find on his blog.

Here are a couple that we took.

These are spicy, and they look a little Mario mushrooms.

The biggest mushroom that we found.

Having a Fair-ly good time

On Saturday, Daniel and I met up with our friends the Islemans and explored the animals and booths at the Utah County fair. Who knew that there were so many varieties of chicken? Even more surprising I think was the number of flies, how did they all get there? We spent time counting nipples on pigs when Daniel wondered if all pigs have the same number of tits. (To find out you can go find a fair of your own or view this article on comparative mammary anatomy). Exploring the arts and craft section I realized that most of what is entered into the fair (at least by kids) feels like it could easily have just been picked up off of their bedroom floor and then slapped with a ribbon, like the random pool toys wrapped up in duct tape. One of the most interesting displays was presented by the Utah Lego's user group, it included lots of trains, scenes from movies recreated with legos, landscapes, artwork and other intricate lego creations.

David, Cami, Paige and Henry

Why do they make those holes so huge and round.
No one's head is big enough to fill most of those holes.

The best artwork in the kid's section

Lego's! 

United States of Lego's

Scene from Dracula, if you look close you can see Van Helsing up top.

Admiring the animals

Daniel approves of pigs

Chicken or pigeon?

This is from our garden.
All of the veggies at the fair looked like they had died.

The Living Planet Aquarium

My summer work party was at the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium in Draper. I have a bit of a phobia with fish, or at least, I used to. But since going to the aquarium in New Zealand, I have started to love aquariums and I was really excited to go to this one. Even with the 4D movie, the manta ray petting area, rope bridge, and otters, Daniel's favorite exhibit was still the penguins. 

They feel surprisingly soft, like velvet.

Anna is listening to the anaconda.
She was the only one who could talk to it.

Rope bridge in the South America exhibit.

4D movie. It means 3d movie where they squirt water and blow air at you.

Make

We went to Craft Lake City this weekend, which is basically just the craft section of a farmer's market-- lots of postcards covered in whales with vests and monocles, hand crafted notebooks, clothing, etc. The main attraction for us though was the science and technology section where we got to see 3d printers, virtual reality goggles, lots of cardboard creations, synthesizers, and print our own Polaroids.  Daniel was also excited by the Salt Lake Bike Collective booth where we got a smoothie from a bike powered blender and Daniel ground wheat and got to take home some flour from a bike run wheat grinder.

The Occulus

Bike smoothie

Shrinky dinks that we made in a sun oven

New-land

Penguins were a lot more fish than bird in my opinion

Redwood trees

Lots of this in New Zealand

I fit right in, being a hobbit and all

New Caledonia!