Flaking out

Well, it has been snowing lightly pretty much all day, although I doubt if we got more than a couple of inches in accumulation.

Tom had a meeting in Baraboo this morning, and I worked on some editing while he was occupied. Speaking of which, the quote of the day that popped up on my home page this morning is fitting for me:

I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.
-- Peter De Vries

After lunch we headed over to the FlakeOut Festival to check things out. It was close to 20 degrees, and except when the wind was blowing in your face, it was rather pleasant out. It was long underwear weather, though. (Sorry, Kristin!)

First we went to the Arts & Crafts Show. I found several nice paintings and photos of Holy Hill, and had an interesting conversation with a couple of photographers. I didn't buy anything, though. My checks from the Carmelite Institute will cover my recent doctor visit and lab tests, but that doesn't leave much to spend on non-essentials.

There is an exhibitor at this show every year who has animal skin hats, caps and so on. Very nice (unless you don't like people wearing fur), and Tom is always tempted to get some sort of mountain man hat. The one he really liked was made from a coyote, with the complete head attached and quite striking. I didn't get a photo of that one, but this shot gives you an idea of the sort of thing we are talking about. This one is tame, just the fur. They have all sorts of skins, some with heads, some without: fox, badger, skunks, raccoons. Oh, the one Tom liked? Ran to about $300, so look and like is all he did.

After that we wandered around to watch the snow sculptors at work. This is the Racine team working on Deathstalker -- obviously a scorpion. I was amazed that they could get the tail to stand up so high.

This is the team from Belgium (the one in Wisconsin, not the one in Europe) with Tea Bag. So far it looks like a Buddha or a sumo wrestler.

Tomorrow the prizes will be awarded, and I will try to post some pictures of those from the newspaper. Those should be better quality photographs.