'Tarsir' ...

...junk sculpture  by Patrick Amiot* and his wife, artist Brigitte Laurent. 

It has been two years since we went to the Sebastopol farmers' market. We used to go there almost every Sunday when we had our little house in Sebastopol and continued going there from time to time after moving to Santa Rosa. The weather was beautiful this morning so we decided  to go look for micro greens and mushrooms. We also got a baguette from a stand with beautiful loaves embellished with delicate patterns of flour on their crusts.

The area by the bandstand is grassy and shady and there is always something interesting going on. This morning there was a lone guitarist and a dancer improvising to the music. It wasn't clear that they were even together. We stopped and watched for awhile. She was lost in her own world and quite good.

Seized with nostalgia we decided to take Spike along a trail we used to walk with Ozzie. It's an old railroad right of way that has been repurposed for walkers and cyclists, wending between back gardens, old farmhouses and abandoned chicken coops. We came upon a group of people looking up into a tree who told us that there was a Great Horned Owl in a nest with four babies. One woman had a camera with a very long lens, and showed us pictures of mother and babies. All we could see from where we stood was a lump high up in the crook of a eucalyptus tree. Two of the babies have fledged, and one fell in the attempt, but one still remains in the nest. 

Back in the parking lot outside a nice looking group of office spaces, I noticed a new Patrick Amiot sculpture I haven't seen before. It's a tarsir, the mascot of the business it stands by. Once you have seen one of these sculptures, made by Partick from found objects and junk and painted by his wife , you begin to see them all over the place. Almost every house on the street where they live has commissioned one of his quirky, hilarious sculptures, and a walk along Florence Avenue is a delightful experience. Many businesses have one of his sculptures...one of my favorites is a porcupine in front of an acupuncture place.

* website, if you are interested.