The Kitty I Want

Here's a picture of a stray kitty that I decided I want to adopt yet.

Co-op Fund-Raiser

Our Fund-raiser was a nice little, intimate affair. The board arrived early for the preparations.


We set up the carrotometer with our sign of appreciation.


We had everything: fresh local cheese.....



We had live jazz music....


... and a sommelier, who served some interesting wines and trained us to know how to appreciate them.
And of course what would a fancy fund-raiser be without a chocolate fountain and fresh strawberries from local farms?

Here's a closer view.


The Sommelier trained us to look for hints of grapefruit or berries as we sampled a variety of wines from Chardonnay to a Cabernet Sauvignon.



We were honored to have representatives from College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University and we used this occasion to try and let them know how grateful we are to them for their help in getting started.


It was great to see people enjoying the art!


And of course there were some speeches of support and thanks along with the celebration!



So now it is just a question of getting everything ready for the opening in one short week!

Pictures For the Co-op

So here is a better view of the finished carrotometer.


I spent the morning getting it to the co-op (and then repairing it, because the carrot fell off in transit.) Then I hung paintings. Since our co-op aims to be one fo the first art and food co-ops in Minnesota we needed art, so I basically grabbed everything I could off my home's walls so that we would have a little color for our upcoming Fund-raiser. I don't have that much framed art of my own, so I grabbed anything that didn't have dead bodies and guns and ended up with four paintings. The spindles, and three Afghani war paintings, the jeep in the bombed area, the bicycle and the young Afghani girl. (You can click on the images to see the pictures better.)


Of course the nicer art was that by my Mom. Here style is defined and her technique is crisp and attractive. Below are three paintings, "Saying Goodbye" what I called "Blue Fantasy" (originally just titled "Blue" and one I call "Blue Tango".


The next pictures go so well with the green walls and wood of the co-op decor! (Although the image does not do this synergy justice.) These are "Family Outing," "The Airplane Plant," and "Departure for College."


"Flight of the Spirit" below was hung on the front wall and it looks perfect there. This one I had to reframe because it was coming out of its old frame and it now looks really good with its new mat board and thicker frame.


Next up some photos from our Fund-raiser

Almost Done! Yay!

Here are a few images with the current fund level marked. I will put a thin black line on it tomorrow after the orange paint dries (and try to get a picture of it upright in all its glory (cough!))

Update on Nebraska Nuclear Plant Problems

(Above image from 21stcenturywire)

Well, you may remember my blog post on the Fort Calhoun Nuclear plant emergency (here). It seems things are not looking better and there is NO national news coverage of impending potentially very dangerous events. According to Globalresearch.ca A second nuclear plant in Nebraska (the Cooper Nuclear facility) may also experience additional flooding and is already unable to expel sludge because of the rising Missouri River (and more flooding is expected) so its sludge pool has already been "overtopped."

Omaha Public Power District reports there is nothing to worry about, maintaining:

June 23, 2011

Rising water from the Missouri River has begun flowing into a sewage lagoon at Fort Calhoun Station. A partial bypass was recently put in place to divert water that had leaked into a sanitary wastewater lift station, allowing the continuation of most of the flow to the sanitary lagoons. The water overtopping the sewage lagoon this week will be considered a continuation of the previous bypass issue by the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality.

The NRC notes,
"RELEASE OF OIL TO THE MISSOURI RIVER

Notification is being made to the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality regarding the release of oil to the Missouri River from the Cooper Live Fire Training Facility. Currently, levees separating the Training Facility and the Missouri River are being over topped due to flooding of the Missouri River. This condition has resulted in flooding of the burn pits in the fire training facility, with the subsequent release of the residue which includes unburned fuel oil. Any release of this water containing oil to the Missouri River is uncontrolled at this time. Then is no radiological contamination in this area.

Current river level is approximately 900.5 ft. MSL, approximately 3.0 feet below plant grade elevation. The fire training area is lower than plant grade. A press release is not planned at this time. River level is currently projected to be 899 ft. by Wednesday 6/22."

These optimistic opinions are not shared by everyone, however. Tom Burnett on The People's Voice website reports, "“Ft. Calhoun is the designated spent fuel storage facility for the entire state of Nebraska…and maybe for more than one state. Calhoun stores its spent fuel in ground-level pools which are underwater anyway – but they are open at the top. When the Missouri river pours in there, it’s going to make Fukushima look like an X-Ray.”

For more very interesting information please see Patrick Henningsen's article, "Why is there a Media Black Out on Nuclear Incident at Fort Calhoun."

Veg(e)ing Out

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a......


Yup,... it's a giant 8 foot tall carrot! So let me try and explain this one!

Oh, yeah, this is SO what I spent hour after hour in college learning art for! Large vegetables! As you may remember, we are trying to start a Co-op in our little hamlet here in central rural Minnesota, so we are having a Cocktail/(Beg for Money) Affair on Monday preceding our opening on Friday. A few weeks ago I got persuaded to do invitations with little watercolor carrots on them, so I obediently provided 35 little carroty note cards. We were going for simple and elegant (and cheap of course).


So now, somehow I have become the go to girl for carrots. This week, I was asked to do a sign, as well as to paint and letter the carrotometer (above) that we will fill out as we get donations.

Alas, it has been too many years since that calligraphy class in the 70s. The sign is not as good as I had hoped. Here's what I ended up with (bad spacing and all.) I guess it gets the job done, but there is no hope for either simple or elegant there!



And while we are on the topic of food - here is a really good sashimi salad that I made last night. Now that is art! (wink!)

Edging for Shawl

I'm definitely not happy with this edging - nor with the beads. I'm considering ripping the whole thing out and starting over. I'm doing far more repeats per section than I should be doing according to the pattern, ( I think I should be skipping every other stitch when attaching, but I'm not sure the edging would take that much stretching.) The beads are BORING too just in a basic row. I've done a good 8 hours of work on this much of the edging but if I can stretch it out twice as far (by starting over, then it would be worth ripping out), since I will take a lot less knitting (but then it might look too stretched out for the shawl.)

Here is a closer view, but unless you click on the image to enlarge it, you can't really see the beads in the photo. I hate the outer edge (that I redesigned) too - It looks sloppy - I may need to take a break from this project and reevaluate it later - I'm not sure I have a level perspective at the moment.