Tuesday, January 15, 2013

My New Christmas Sweater

My New Christmas Sweater

This sweater is made from the fleece of two sheep that were on Judy Tysmans farm.

Evelyn was helping with the shearing and did purchase the entire fleece of the black sheep and part of the fleece of the white sheep. 

She cleaned, carded, spun the thread, and then plied the white and black threads together to make the yarn.

She then knitted the yarn into a great tube that was open on one end (the waist). Finally she used a technique called "Steeking" to create the neck and arm openings. 

Judy Tysmans obtained those two particular sheep from from a local farmer, Kate Shirley, where they were born and grew to large lambs there. She got them in October, and they were on her farm until 1 1/2 years later, when she passed them along to Glenda Moore, who has younger sheep. Judy's old Romneys were getting knocked down by these large Border Leicesters, so she found another farm to take them. 

The names of the two sheep from who's fleece this sweater is made; a black sheep and a white sheep were, Obama and Biden.  Both sheep were cross breeds between Border Leicester and Bluefaced Leicester.


From 1/15/13



Sunday, January 13, 2013

First Bike Ride Of The Year


13 January 2013

First Bike Ride Of The Year


With the temperature climbing over 70F and a lazy Sunday afternoon what is the thing to do?

Head out for a greenway ride!  I left the house and rode down to Crabtree Creek and then thru the neighborhood to Lassiter Mill Road.  From there it is a short leg to the greenway.  Turns out about 3/4 mile down the greenway it is closed so I exited onto the neighborhood streets and made my way over to Anderson drive. Then it was back down the hill to the greenway and off to the east following the creek.  The last time I rode this section it had serious construction, they were putting in a new sewer line (the greenways in Raleigh follow the sewers).  Now everything was put back together and I rode all the way to the end, 14 kilometers.  Then it was back the way I came.  This time to get around the closed part of the greenway I went thru the neighborhood and came out on Lassiter Mill up the hill from the creek.  Then it was back thru the neighborhood to Yadkin and up the hill to home.  Here are the statistics for this ride:

01:40 HH:MM
28.60 Kilometers
17.20 KPH Average
56.00 KPH Maximum (There was a long downhill)

Here is a picture of me and the bike just before the ride:

From 13_JAN_2013_FIRST_BIKE_RIDE


Here is a picture looking up the greenway toward the end near the WakeMed end (14K out).

From 13_JAN_2013_FIRST_BIKE_RIDE


Here is a picture looking back down the greenway at the same location

From 13_JAN_2013_FIRST_BIKE_RIDE

Friday, January 11, 2013

Spoiler Alert

I've seen this posted a few times and could not resist enumerating what I thought were the possibilities: