I had a great photo shoot today with my three favorite ladies on Hampshire street: Lisa, Hannah, and Lucy.

I love you guys!  Hope to see you soon…

… with a billion mushrooms!  We scoured the Oakland hills for Evan’s sometimes-annual Birthday Mushroom Hike and found some pretty sweet specimens.

Birthday Boy with an Rosy Russula

This Fly Amanita’s a little too large to put in the carrier

Our first Death Cap… safe to handle, deadly to eat!

A little baby with big ambitions

From the runways of Paris to the composting stumps of the Hills: this petite charmer was a perfect fashion match.

Some kinda coprinus?

Left: Daisy just realized she’s surrounded by mushrooms!

Right: Max just realized she’s surrounded by mushrooms!

Slime X 2

Spot the mushroom

Spot the mushroom hunters

Spot ted dog with mushroom

Mushroom-Hunting Posse in effect

My E.T. moment

Fungus sniffs fungus

Spore prints from the exclusive Winter Collection ‘10

Death cap peeling back its veil

A good day’s work

Pig Racing! Definitely the coolest part of the fair.



Great Horned Owls in the trees!

There are many things I find wrong with this scene.

This was the second coolest part of the fair: historical sock monkeys. Above: Pope Gregory the Somethingth. Below: Sock Monkey who died in the Bubonic Plague. AWESOME!!

Nutritional interlude…


One of these men fell off their mount after 10 seconds. One of them won first place.


I really liked the tiny flower competition. The lower picture reminds me of an illuminated manuscript.

I heart the county fair.

This creepy baby is called a “reborn” doll. I recommend you Google that.

Meanwhile, in the model railroad pavillion, shit gets very cool:

A warm Berkeley summer night? I can’t believe it, either. Perfect for a BBQ with great friends and great food.

The Great Daveboni reads from his magical book and conjures up the faint but powerful Spirit of Booze (just visible, stage left)

The Pushmi-Pullyu waits patiently to go onstage, for treat

K.V. Huckenpuff, master hypnotist, performs the Boogledy Dance to an entranced audience

Wolfman Ev reads your fortune.  For the prediction, Ask Again Later.

Fungus in the limelight.  He would like to thank all the little kibble who helped bring him to the stage.

One night only: Papa French’s glowing eyeball hovers above mystical fire ring

Kev prepares to swan dive through a wall of pure flame

SEE: Beautiful Caged Lizelle!

Madame LeTall, 15 feet 2 inches, reclines in the largest chair that could be found.

Ringmaster Rowan goes over his lines one more time backstage

Strong Man lifts over 12 ounces of beagle… High Over His Head!

Madame Blavatsky’s psychic sense tingles: Someone in the audience is playing with Mr. Potatohead instead of getting me a drink!

The crystal ball of Lily Mae Rubenstein, famed astrologer and palm reader, is dark… until you pay your 10 cent admission fee!

Oh, the horror!  Much more practice is needed until the Trained Dog act can go onstage.

Simon, one half of the Siamese Twins Separated At Birth, patrols the grounds for any misbehavior…

While, ironically, his identical brother, Schuster, sneaks up on MeatButt-u-les, The Meat What Looks Like A Butt.

The Lovely Lady Geisha levitates a weiner using only her beauty and demure Asian charms.

Oh the David Lynch stage, some crazy shit is happening.  No one is exactly sure what.  Warning: Midgets may appear.

Master Shapeshifters practice their craft

MeatButt-u-les is berated by stagehands for failing to enter stage on cue… again.

Today at Sibley Regional Park, local dog Fungus carefully sniffed entire hillsides of wildflowers, then turned his attention to a coyote turd lying on the path. A dusty root was also sniffed, as was a bird, an empty bag, and seventeen dog anuses.

All told, about 10,000 flowers were sniffed.

After the two hour walk, Fungus was spotted falling asleep in a vehicle driving north on Grizzly Peak road. Sources report that he was a very good boy.

The maestro at work

Fungus needs to let off some excitement after a particularly good sniff

Back to work

A job well done!

Some photos from my first trip to Alcatraz:

Tonight we met little Vivian French.  She is very beautiful, very mellow, and piping hot.  Her little ears are like heating pads.  Very low light led to grainy photos, but at least I’m learning about setting the ISO, so not everything is blurry…

Mama and Vivian

Proud Papa

Closeup

Unkie Ev holds Vivian

Mama holds best

Bigfoot

This is pretty nice, I guess

Sleepy baby

Rowan’s birthday party was a photo challenge for me, with low light and lots of movement.  Maybe I missed the mark in the focus department, but I still got some fun memories of his party.

The (tiny) man of the hour

The birthday boy gets Chef Boyardee

It’s good to be one

Kevin performs the Rick Roll

This tastes pretty good but…

This is definitely more fun!

A slo-mo replay of the face-smear

You like-ah this baby?

Today I visited three of my favorite ladies: Lisa, her daughter Hannah, and their dog Lucy.  I love this family.