National Cowboy Poetry Gathering

Here's an old post that never got posted. I'm working on some thing from Black Sheep Gathering. It's funny to be sitting here in June, nice and warm, and reading about a time when it was really cold, snowy cold.

In January I went with my folks to the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, NV and had a blast.

My folks have been going to this event since 1992 and my sister joined them in 2000. I had been able to go for the last few years.

If you've never been, its interesting, in a good way. We saw a lot of very good performances. Even some new people my folks had never seen before. Which you would think would be hard. I mean how many cowboy poets can there be. Quite a lot as I learned. And not just from our own western states but as far away and Canada and New Zealand. There are many different traditions with their own flavors. This years focus was on Florida and Louisiana and the Cajun influences.

My favorite musical group was a group from the Bay Area called Red Meat. Their style of toe tapping Honky Tonk had the place jumping.

I really like the funny stories the best. Some times you laugh until you cry. Then there are the sad ones where all you do is cry.

Of course this trip would not be the same without the food. We eat at a couple of the local Basque restaurants every night. Basque food is always served family style and the plan is to order and entree that keeps well because there is always so much of the stuff before that be the time the entree is served you are stuffed. There is always soup and salad, baked bean, pasta, french fries, green beans. Of course after dinner there is the small dish of ice cream. Start the whole meal off with a couple of Picon Punches and it is just perfect. I had my left over entree for breakfast the next morning. Most mornings that meant lamb. Baked lamb, lamb chops plus some of the other stuff, Heaven.

I always take some projects to work on while I am there. I had either a scarf or a pair of socks to work on where ever I went. It was grand to be just hanging out with a beer, pull out the knitting and meet lots of new friends.

Now you see it....

Now you don't.

I has blossoms

I have some tomato plants that my boss gave me that he started from seeds. They are all heirlooms. Here is a picture of three of them.

All of the have blossoms. If all goes well by August we should be swimming in tomatoes.

Off to Black Sheep

Well it's Thursday morning and I'm all set to take off for Black Sheep Gathering. I'm meet some friends to caravan up together. I hope to be able to post from there.

Wisdom

I just found something awesome. There is this book called "Wisdom" This guy when to all these great people and asked them to share their experence about work, love, wisdom.
I've just spent time on this website.
http://www.wisdombook.org/
I really want to get this book.

Greatest thing ever.

If you are a Muppets fan or a Queen fan, this is the greatest thing ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY&feature=player_embedded

I'm a sunflower

I am a Sunflower What Flower Are You?

Finished projects

I finished another project over the weekend. I knit a Citron Shawl featured in the Knitty, Winter 2009 addition. It was a fun and quick knit. It think it went faster because I created a chart of the increases for my self.
I'm now wanting to start on something new. My choices are, Herbivore by Steven West, The Fall Leaves Shawl by Sara Lamb, Spin Off Fall 2009, or Storm Cloud Shawlette by Hanna Breetz. Actually I modify that one a bit to include some kind of cool border stitch and maybe make it stockinette.
Too many projects not enough time.

I also finished a five year old project, Meg Swansen's Super Sprial Shawl from A gathering of Lace. I hand spun all the yarn for this project. I started with 2oz of cashmere and silk I got from Chasing Rainbows. In the end I needed to put this project on a 120" needle to be able to see all the stitches. I used the super stretchy bind off from Knitty. I used 88 markers in the border section and a whopping 1760 bound off stitches.