kmkat and her kneedles

What is this holiday of which you speak?

Welcome to my Easter!

No rest for the wicked tax accountants.

Too hard to see the screens against the light of the window:

* * * * *

Earlier today the dogs told me another dog was running around outside. They barked until they could bark no mo--, er, the other dog ran away.

A bit later I looked up from my screen -- this was before I put up the light-blocking board -- and saw this:

See that black furry blob? That's Hannibal. Although he is completely comfortable with our two dogs, he is not so brave with others. Probably for the best; some dogs like to kill cats.

For scale:

Not to worry, though. He is down now.

Enough frivolity. Back to work...

Bunny update.

When I checked later, the *dead* bunny was gone. I can only surmise that what I had suspected basesd on the lack of blood was true. Bunny had played dead until the dogs lost interest; then s/he scooted away... with a hair-raising and cautionary tale (heh -- see what I did there (x2)?) to tell his/her grandchildren.

Winter storm whatitsname was here.

That's my minivan under the blanket of snow. It does pretty well in the snow, but this was too deep for it. The car in the foreground -- Smokey's 4WD Subaru, aka Sue Baru -- charged right up the unplowed driveway hill.

We let the dogs out for a run in the fresh powder. No videos of them romping, though. Here they are after they had worn themselves out.

But wait -- what's that small thing at the right?

I guess if you are a dog, and your owners let you have a free run in the snow, and a poor unsuspecting bunny wanders by... it's curtains for the bunny.

The circle of life, etc.

LIttle free libraries.

You may have heard of Little Free Libraries. You may even have noticed one in your city.

Imagine my surprise when I saw this in my teeny tiny town.

It is in the lot occupied by Julia's Java, a tiny drive-up kiosk selling morning caffeine. I make my own latte/cappucino at home every morning, but I buy my ground coffee from Julia in a 3-pound bag.

And now I have another place to donate books!

Without a camera, I am lost.

Actually, I have a perfectly good camera that takes very nice photos. The problem that I just discovered is that it suddenly refuses to communicate with my computer. WTF? Sometimes when I connect them -- the same as I have been connecting them for a couple years -- the computer recognizes the camera and the fact that it has 52 (52!) photos on the memory card. Other times, like now, it simply ignores the camera's existence.

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,

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Well, I figured that one out. It seems that one port on my newish 7-port USB hub was bad. Such are the risks of buying cheap electronics from Hong Kong on eBay.

Moving on.

Now that I have photos I can catch you up on what's been happening in The Land Of The Kat™

This was the Tuesday of World-Wide Knit In Public Day, which as we all know lasted for a week this year. Dinner was consumed at a nifty little outdoor cafe across the street from the LYS (owner, who organized this get-together, at far right) and knitting happened.

* * * * *

This is what can happen when a small city (pop. 2,133) has a volunteer fire department many of whose members work at jobs 20+ miles away.

This had been a gorgeous and well-kept Victorian house. Happily, none of the family were home at the time. 

* * * * *

The annual Fisherman's Party happened in my little hamlet. The library Friends organized its annual book sale, an event eagerly anticipated by the frugal readers of the village.

9:55 am:

We initially had seven banquet tables and two double-sided library carts of books for sale, plus many more boxfuls under the tables.

By the end of the sale all the boxes were empty, we could give the carts back to the librarian, and the remaining books fit on two or three tables. When you sell hardcovers and videos for a buck, DVDs for three bucks, and paperbacks and all kids' books for 25¢, they fly out the door. Plus, for the last two hours we said, Buy a bag for a buck! and they flew out the door even faster.

Our village queen is a reader, yay!

Main Street was the setting for a tractor show (Saturday)...

 

 

...and a classic car show (Sunday).

 

 

Re: those last two photos. It is humbling when the hot cars of one's youth become classics, even as their admirers become merely old.

There was the annual Medallion Hunt. The librarian was tapped to hide the medallion and write the clues, which were posted one each hour until the medallion was found (please ignore the dreadful reflection in the window).

Ice cream in the park...

...and the Boy Scouts sold cotton candy.

Hard to tell who was having more fun, the kids eating the cotton candy or the Scout making it.

* * * * *

There you have it, the past few weeks. This week the weather is unbearably hot, 100 degrees or so, and today Smokey and I forewent the annual boat parade and pot luck picnic on our lake for the shelter of our air-conditioned bedroom. A couple days ago the electricity went off for 55 minutes and I whined non-stop until it came back on. Those of you in the Washington, DC area have my sympathies. You have it much worse.

One of these days I'll catch you up on my knitting. Please curb your enthusiasm.

How to hypnotize a chicken.

This one is for Erika and Yarnhog.

You may not be familiar with Michael Perry. He is a local author from New Auburn, Wisconsin (population 485) now living on a farm in the Chippewas Valley near Eau Claire, Wisconsin. His first book was Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time, which came out in 2002 when I was working part-time at our local library. That book was never on the shelf; it was always being requested by someone somewhere in n.w Wisconsin. Eventually I decided I needed to read it and found, much to my happy surprise, that Mr. Perry is a thoughtful writer. I recommend all his books. Read 'em in order and follow his life.

Saturday.

This was the Saturday activity for my friend Colleen, the county librarian and fellow knitter, and I. She picked me up at 10 am and we were off.

First stop was Fibre Functions in rural Frederic, WI. (No website; link is to the Facebook page.) Audrey, the owner, is in my book group and in the alternate-Thursdays-knitting-group I attend when I can, and Colleen had taken a knitting class from her, so we were already acquainted. (Such is life in small towns.) But I had never been to her shop, which is housed in a small building behind her lakeside home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audrey had LOTS of yarn crammed into the tiny three-room building. We spent nearly an hour touching, squeezing, stroking, and drooling. (Wait, that sounded pornographic. Yarn, people, yarn!) After doing serious damage to Colleen's checking account and my credit card, we were on our way to the next stop....

...which was Blackberry Hills, the enterprise of Jerry and Loretta Pedersen. They have sheep and llamas and alpaca (and goats and cow and rabbits, oh my). I have seen and purchased Loretta's yarns and fiber at Yarnover and Shepherd's Harvest. The studio, in the walk-out basement of their home, has Loretta's spinning wheel(s) and loom(s) and lots of fiber. More damage to our respective checking account and credit card ensued. Happy damage, though.

[digression] The day before the event it occurred to me that the very last thing in the world I needed was more yarn. However, what was the point of going on a yarn shop hop if I didn't buy some yarn? So I resolved to buy something at each stop. Buy local, support local businesses, etc., etc. So I did. [/digression]

By this time it was noonish and we were hungry, so we headed to St Croix Falls to find some lunch. On the way we passed Chateau St Croix, a local winery that you have seen here before, where we noticed many tents on the grounds and lots of cars. We stopped to see what was happening, which turned out to be an art fair. We briefly walked through, but the food for sale did not tempt us, mainly because the outdoor temperature was quite possibly equal to the surface of the sun and we did not relish perching on a picnic bench in said sunshine to eat. So we left, but not before I bought a quarter pound of truffle cheese upon which to feast at bedtime.

And also not before I took my sole photo for the day.

Wine-themed ceramics. Click to embiggen so you can read the inscriptions.

Lunch was at Grecco's in a shady corner of their lovely outdoor deck (sort 0f) overlooking the St Croix river. Grilled salmon sandwich to die for for me, grilled chicken sandwich and a cup of carrot ginger soup (also to die for) for Colleen, and a glass of cold Sangria for each of us.

After lunch we headed across the river to Shelley's, site of my other knitting group and housed in a former bank. That is the former drive-up window at lower left in the first photo, and, no, Shelley does not sell drive-up yarn, sorry.

These photos are old and have been patiently waiting their turn on the blog.
Today is the day, guys!

I left Shelley's with yarn and a pattern for the cutest baby sweater EVAH (no, I don't know anyone who is having a baby, but they seem to crop up about once a year; this time I will be prepared) and the yarn to make it.

There were lots of knitters and shoppers in Shelley's small shop while we were there; it is just that sort of welcoming place where one feels the urge to hang around and chat and maybe sit and knit a few rows. I overheard a woman say to another shopper, "There are shops with yarn, and there are Yarn Shops [I could hear the bold and Caps in her voice]. This is a Yarn Shop." I totally agree.

Last stop was the St Croix Art Barn in Osceola, where Mrs. I was selling her inventory. Her shop had been located in a former church on Main Street, but she had recently closed it and is looking for a way to continue her business with lower overhead. I left there with a couple balls of cotton chenille to make the softest face cloths on the planet.

Tomorrow (or soon), photos of the haul.

* * * * *

Colleen and I had both been to Shelley's and the Art Barn many times, so we had no trouble finding them. But Fibre Function and Blackberry Hills were both out in the wood and unknown to us. The day before I came up with this: screen shots on my iPad of the Google Map to each place.

Sometimes I just amaze myself.

Eye (and ear) candy Friday.

Join me here for the ear candy part (totally safe for work,
no matter how crabby your cube mate is).

Babies!

One of my knitting groups (I attend 4 on an irregular basis) met at one of the member's farm today because she wanted to show us her baby lambs -- all 38 of them! 

The newest was only a few hours old and was still with its mama in the barn.

Later I went to the county recycling center for its annual Earth Day event. There were exhibits by vendors of any number of products -- geothermal HVAC systems, flax meal granola, window blankets -- and by the county health department (How to Catch Lyme Disease in Three Easy Steps) and the UW extension agents and the county land & water department (Jeremy the bug guy was there, as was Amy the water gal, both of them very popular with crowds), plus the county renewable energy committee on which I sit. The recycling center invites all the area schools to send their fourth grade classes, and the place is bustling with 9- and10-year-olds from 9 to 3. 

What else did I see? More babies!

These were kids rather than lambs. It is hard to tell their size in the photo, but they were roughly the size of Hannibal The Fluffball of Doom, my cat. And sooo adorable.

Bear! Cat!

Photo taken by a friend from his living room... without benefit of zoom. Said friend lives about 5 miles away from me; that's where Matthew and I were on New Year's day. That cat waiting for his turn at the feeder? His name is Pete and he weighs 23 pounds. Hard to say which is more amazing, the bear on the deck or the size of the cat.

Thanks to Kris and Dave for sharing their photo.

Winter on the ice.

Just in case you live where people are sane winters are mild, let me show you something I saw earlier this week. (Crappy photos taken with my iPod because I had left my camera at home.)

In summer, this is the swimming beach on a nearby lake. 

In winter it is the place where those crazy Norwegians Danes locals drive onto the lake to get to their fish houses. While I was sitting there, two pickup trucks went past me.

Now, ice houses on the lake are no big thing. Anyone who saw Grumpy Old Men knows about the ice house villages that spring up on northern lakes in winter. I spent my high school years in northern Minnesota, where the village plowed a road across the frozen-over lake on the edge of town so that residents on the other side didn't have to drive so far to get into town. I have even grown to accept driving on the lake, although I will not do it myself.

What drew my attention this time are the two fuzzy gray things in the photo below.

Those are fuel tanks -- BIG fuel tanks -- to run the heaters inside the fish houses next to them.

Somehow that struck me as... weird.

As I look at the photo now, it occurs to me to wonder if the two side-by-side blue things at right are Port-o-Potties for the convenience of the fisherfolk...

When the going gets tough cold, the tough cold... is everywhere.

I woke up this morning to... this.

Not only did it snow last night, but it is cold and very windy out there. 

Crap.

Summer/autumn = gone. Winter = now. (Of course, it is mid-November in n.w. Wisconsin, so what did I expect -- sunshine and palms?)

On the bright side, that means that this little thing OTN:

will be very welcome. It is a dog sweater for Ser Percival The Energetic, who has a very, very short coat and a naked pink underside. Poor baby needs a sweater.

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P.S.

Anything still green in the woods in November (except conifers) is an exotic. This is a Tartarian honeysuckle that was here when we bought the place and that I have intended to remove for... a long time.

Energy fair, or How To Have Fun While Keeping An Eye On The Toilets.

I volunteered at the Polk County Energy Fair today. Because I cannot walk very far or do heavy lifting or really anything remotely physical, my job was to check the women's bathroom every hour or so to be sure there were sufficient paper towels and t.p. and that no one had done anything disgusting. Except for the 30 seconds it took me to walk from my comfy camp chair out by the information booth to the restrooms every time, the job required roughly 3.5 minutes spread out over an 8-hour day. 

A few of the information booth crew:

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There were workshops and speakers. Five minutes before each round of workshops started, Dennis would skip (skip!) around the area ringing a cowbell and Jean (in the green dress) would put on her loudspeaker voice and announce the workshops.

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This is the second annual energy fair. From the very beginning it has aimed to be a low-waste event. This recycling/composting/trash station sums up their success.

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In between my arduous stints of checking the bathrooms, I spent most of the day knitting; it was my own little Knit In Public day. Three afghan squares done for Blankets for Birmingham:

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En Esch approves.

Random musings.

I am a charter member of the apostrophe police, and I currently trying to find out who I need to arrest for this egregious overuse of the little curvy devils.

 
* * * * *

This year's birthday was quite restrained, but Smokey and I did go out for dinner at a very picturesque location nearby. Tthe menu turned out to be unimaginative, but the food was excellent and the setting was lovely.

* * * * *

The shawl is slowly coming off the needles, which leads me to the all important question: what to cast on next? Should it be the sweater on the left but done with vertical stripes like the swatch on the right (please turn the swatch 90˚ clockwise in your mind), using the Noro yarns below?

 

 

Alex has requested a rugby-style doggie sweater for Percy, her and Matthew's rescued pit bull terrier, and has chosen yarn from my stash:

    

I am all excited about lace knitting and am considering using some Rowan Calmer I bought on closeout at Webs for a Cece (but I would make it longer and with 3/4 sleeves):

 

(I am not fond of the color of the Calmer -- color at right side of skein is truest -- and am thinking of overdyeing it. Tea, for a browner tone? Rit, if I wanted dusky blue? Anyone have experience?)

There are a number of other project swimming in my head but I'll stop here.

* * * * *

I picked these wild blackberries three feet outside my front door.

Small but tasty.

Winner!

The secretary of the county fair society is also on the county board of supervisors with me, and at the July county board meetin she sold the supervisors raffle tickets. Being a good citizen I bought a book of five tickets.

I was rather hoping for the 32" flat screen TV but had decided that if we won half a hog we would keep some of the pork chops and bacon and give the rest to the food shelf.

I did not win either of those things. What I did win:

 What is Remington 870 Express, you may ask?

Yep. It's a pump-action 12-gauge... shotgun.

Just what I always wanted. Not.

However, I did have the option taking cash instead: $150. According to several retail websites I checked, the gun retails for upwards of $300; I guess I got the wholesale value. Whatever.

I'm a winner!

The road not taken...

...can lead to extremely interesting discoveries when one finally travels on it.

--  The Kat™, 2011

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A perfectly ordinary farmhouse, now on the edge of a nearby village and probably no longer part of an operating farm.

But strange things lurk near the mailbox.

Even stranger critters lurk in a fenced-in area in the yard.

I know you want a closer look.

I have lived here 12 years and never knew this zoo existed. Let this be a lesson to you: when you want to avoid road construction, try an unfamiliar route home. You never know what you will find...

Reach for the sky!

Saturday was an exciting day. First the awesome yarn bombing, then the future mural, then I got back to our tiny town in Wisconsin and found this.

A new roof on the steeple of the Lutheran church. Excitement!

Yikes. I'm glad it is not me up there...

Catching up.

It is tough to find time to blog these days. I signed up to work 30 hours a week during this tax season. That was fine and dandy until we got busy a couple weeks ago. I have worked more than 60 hours in each of the past two weeks. This week will be not quite so bad, mainly because I took Monday off -- mental health day. It was marked as OFF in my original schedule, so I don't feel too guilty. (Until I look at my to-do list of 10+ returns that are waiting for me to review them, and fix them, and send them on to the next level of review, and fix them again, and do all the steps required to efile them, and, and, and...)

But I have a stash of photos from the past few weeks so we are gonna do Random Photos And The Stories That Go With Them, 'kay?

Random Thing #1.

Back in January a county board  committee of which I am a member toured the county jail. Interesting; I had only seen jails on TV.

The kitchen:

  

The county contracts with a food service to prepare the meals. They also prepare the meals here for the Meals-on-Wheels program.

Guess what this is:

The machine with the LED readout on the desk is the Breathalyzer. Happily, I had never seen one before.

A cell, this one for eight inmates. This one is in the less-restrictive area, to which prisoners are moved if they behave themselves. It was empty when we were in there because maintenence was working on the lights.

The uniformed man in the back, newly elected last November; he had been an investigator before his election (I voted for him because he was experienced and low-key; the other guy was experienced but seemed to want to build a paramilitary police force). The man at right is the jail sargeant who led the tour.

If your husband/wife/father/mother/sweetheart/brother/sister/son/daughter is in the Polk County jail and you come to visit, this is where the two of you will meet, you on the green chair on the far side and the inmate on the stainless steel stool:

Random Thing #2.

Remember the Spring Wine Sale? That beautiful and creative sign didn't last long. This was about a week later:

Random Thing #3.

A couple weekends ago I worked on a Saturday; my team took over a conference room that faced west.

The big building with the white rim around it just beyond the high-rise is Target Center, an indoor arena where the Timberwolves play. Beyond that and to the right is Target Field, where the Minnesota Twins play. The plume of smoke/steam just beyond that is... the city garbage burner.

Our office is on the 29th floor so we have a fabulous view. I'm not a baseball fan nor will I be here during baseball season, but with a pair of binoculars one could watch the action around home plate quite easily. If one were not too busy.

If you look carefully you can see the people lined up to buy tickets. That Saturday was the first day single game tickets went on sale.

Random Thing #4.

I really, really wish I had better photographs for this item. But I don't, so we'll just have to deal.

The aerator keeps some water open on our lake all winter, plus our groundwater heat pump outflow keeps a small area open next to our dock. A few weeks ago half-a-dozen raptors, mostly bald eagles, discovered the open water. They hung around for days. I don't know if they were finding fish or getting drinks or pretending they were ducks; I just know that we would see them swooping over the lake or over our house, and we had a great view of them.

You can just make out a bald eagle in flight through the tree branches:

Here's one sitting on the ice:

The open water by the dock:

The tracks around it were made by the eagles. (And probably other animals, but it's cool to think of the eagles leaving footprints in the snow.)

Random Thing #5.

There are always lots of fun little distractions at work during busy season. One Friday afternoon my neighborhood (the office is divided into "neighbborhoods" of twelve to twenty people, which are easily determined by the physical layout of the office.) There was beer and wine and snacks and... Jenga!

Pardon the photos; taken with my iPod.

 

We also have a daily trivia question that comes by email; s/he who has submitted the most correct answers by the end of busy season will get a prize. Last Friday's Happy Hour (beer, wine, snacks) featured a Name That Tune contest; winning team took away a mini-keg of Heinekin. There are email bingo games and guess-the-number-of-pieces-of-candy-in-the-jar contests, prizes being gift cards to Starbucks ro some such.

There are also impromtu antics. Look for the suction bup dart on the mirror. (Sorry, more iPod photos.)

Once they had the technique down, they attacked from afar, over cube walls.

And that is what I have been up to. Darned little knitting, and what there has been was never photographed. But there are only thirteen days to go!

Gulp. I have a lot to do before then.

Winter has arrived.

Last week we broke, or nearly broke, all-time high temperature records. It was almost 70˚ more than once. This is mid-November, folks -- it just ain't right. Sometime in the middle of Friday night, all that changed.

Our driveway, Saturday morning, 11 a.m., when I came home from a 9 a.m. meeting:

That was pretty much where I left the car because this (below) is what was ahead of the car (and behind the photographer):

That tree fell sometime last summer but was hung up -- high up -- on other trees. The snow today was so wet and heavy that it brought that tree nearly all the way down.

Coincidentally, it fell in the only place along that stretch of driveway where it DIDN'T land on a vehicle.

Nest.

Matthew is here today to get new brakes on his car and to help Smokey do some other car stuff. A few minutes ago he came running into the house to show me what he had just snapped with his camera phone.

Behold: the biggest wasp nest we have seen in recent memory.

Hmm, guess we don't use that door much. Maybe when I was designing the house I could have left it out...

Watch out, little ladybu-- oh, wait, that's one of those annoying Asian ladybugs.

Kill!

For now, while the wasps are active, we will just let them be. In a few weeks it will be cold enough that they will be sluggish. Then we will knock down the nest and burn it. ::wicked laugh::