Greetings From Rhinebeck and BadKitten--Day 3

Saturday morning was the kind of autumn mornings that poems are written about.  The light was perfect, the trees were in full blaze and the sky was that mix of dark gray clouds and bright blue sky that only happen this time of year.

I'm not sure if they schedule the NYS Sheep and Wool Festival for the fall every year so that we can all wear our sweaters and socks and hats or if they do it because all of the colors that you see driving there are so inspiring.  In the spring, the Taconic Parkway is awash in every shade of green.  In October, there's green, orange, yellow, red, brown, blue, gray, purple and even little hints of pink.  It's enough to take your breath away.

I found my favorite vendor in the first building I went into.  Snowshoe Farm has such wonderful alpaca and Terry is so very nice that I had to buy two skeins of lilac colored yarn from her.  I saw some great sock yarn but decided to wait and see what else was out there before I blew my whole budget.

And I had a very strict budget.  As you know, I've been broke.  So a few months ago, I started cashing in my cans and putting the little slips in an envelope in my car to save up for Rhinebeck.  I stopped at the A&P on my way and cashed them in (that's half the fun--not knowing how much I had) and walked out with $53.05.  Rockin!  A lovely, generous woman had thrown me a $20 the other day to "buy myself something nice" so I had a total of $73.05 and I only ended up going $4.95 over.  I think that's pretty impressive.

I came upon this sheep.

Hmm.  Who would expect the KKK grand wizard sheep to be at Rhinebeck.  We had a little talk, he and I, about the beauty of learning about others and sharing in their culture.  I think I got through to him.  I heard that later in the day, he and one of the llamas were trying to cut the line together to get chicken pot pie.

I almost came home with another kitten but stopped myself when I realized that there truly is such a thing as a crazy cat lady and I don't want to be one.

I stood for a while and admired the peace garden.

And I had me a nice lamb sandwich for lunch.  Yum.

At the end of my tour around, I realized that the only other thing that I really wanted was that skein of sock yarn at Snowshoe Farm so I wandered back over and it was still sitting their patiently waiting for me.

I didn't find of the friends that I went there expecting to meet up with but I did run into Earthtones Girl and I met Knitgrrl  who was very very cool.

On the way home, a hawk flew into my windshield which was kind of a surprise.  The hawk was fine as was I and he was really quite beautiful.  He may have  lump or two but I'm pretty sure he survived.

And of course, we shall finish things out with BadKitten Day 3.  Iron and Wine's "Boy With A Coin".  Very cool song.