I attended a one-day conference last week for the ten or so communities in the state that received Energy Independence grants from the state of Wisconsin this year. Polk County -- specifically, the renewable energy committee of which I am a member -- won one of the grants. The conference was predictably interesting (and offered lengthy opportunities for knitting -- more on that later).
Even better, though, was the fact that the conference was being held in the home town of one of everyone's favorite knitters, Vicki knitorious! We met on the day of the conference, and she took me to her daughter's coffee shop for breakfast.
kc&t is a cute and friendly and comfy storefront in the downtown area,
filled with photographs and paintings by talented members of the owner's family.
(That's Vicki's hand at left.)
We sat in cozy chairs and drank coffee and ate bagels and cream cheese and knitted until it was time for me to scurry to the conference. Thanks, Vicki! It is always so good to get together with a fellow knitblogger.
The conference was held in a nature center. This is just a small fraction of the furred and hoofed and winged and finny stuffed critters who surrounded us in the conference room.
Does anyone else find it ironic for a nature center to be filled with taxidermied animals
that were clearly bagged by a big game hunter? Distinctly odd, imho.*
I chatted with this man, the city manager of a smallish city, before the conference started.
Should I have told him to keep an eye on that fellow attendee over his shoulder?
Is it just me, or is that buffalo give this guy the evil eye?
They were checking out the river next to the nature center.
It was really rockin' and rollin' -- lots of recent rain thereabouts.
It was a five-hour drive from our government center to our motel. What to do to fill the time?
Guess.
This is for a benefit and silent auction next month. I cast on as we were leaving the government center parking lot Tuesday afternoon, and the scarf was 51" long by the time I got home Wednesday evening. Go, me!
* Vicki told me later that she thought all the critters were donated by by a big game hunter who lived in town at one time -- he lived right on the main drag and had big display windows toward the street to show them off. Probably better that they are where they are now.
