On boys, bread and a new bird

On a recent evening I had the rare treat of having dinner with my three boys. Ok, one is my husband, still just a boy at heart and the other two boys are my sons Josh, 37, and Jon, 31. Jon had come down from Baltimore to play a concert with his band, The Leeves, and Josh happened to be in town and picked him up at the train. We all settled down for a quick meal at our favorite sandwich shop, First Carolina Deli. 

Now about the bread. Dan Leader has a wonderful book, Local Breads, that I have really enjoyed exploring. He has recipes for a variety of kinds of sourdoughs and the stiff dough levain was used to make this Auvergne Crown. His book was available at the public library and I checked it out several times. Finally bought on on Amazon when I was not sure I could keep the pages clean in the borrowed book!

Another bread baking resource that I love is Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day. This entire book is available as a PDF file on this link.

Finally birds. A friend suggested that I make a papagayo, otherwise known as a red macaw. 

Here is a photo of a real papagayo.

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Here is the one I knitted. Chris's basic bird body pattern is easily adapted to a wide variety of animal creations! I used the puffin body from Chris de Longpré's book 52 Timeless Toys to Knit.  The wings are 2x2 rib knit and the tail feathers are i-cord. The gray feet are also i-cord but have pipe cleaners inserted into the i-cord. Facial details are satin stitch and the beak is an experiment in increases, decreases and stuffing!

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Wishing you happy days as summer approaches!

Knit your own zoo!

Knitting animals is a lot of fun especially since I have a new source of inspiration in Chris de Longpré's book, 52 Timeless Toys to Knit. Tina Fier has them at Gate City Yarns in Greensboro. She brought one back from a recent buying trip for the shop and we have been oohing and aahing over the cute animals ever since.

The first animal isn't actually in the book, except as pieces of various other animals. I had searched for a pattern for a pelican only to find crochet patterns and I don't know how to crochet. After collaborating with Tina and Timmie, knitting gurus, we decided on the flamingo body, and wings and feet from the blue footed booby found in the book. The beak was kind of extemporaneous. He landed rather clumsily in the bird bath in the front yard!

Next was the puffin. Following this pattern was easy. His black wings and cap are sewn on after knitting the body. 

The lizard is knit from wonderfully soft EZC Nautika yarn from Gate City Yarns. The collared lizard really does have these beautiful blue and greens colors on his body and gold head. Green scales on his back are done in duplicate stitch.

The turtle is the most recent addition to the zoo. The brown hand-spun wool for his shell is from Rising Meadow Farm in Liberty. Ever year I buy wool there, right off of the sheep! This rich brown is the natural color of the sheep. Tina from Gate City Yarns picked out the green for his head, feet and tail. 

There is also a lighter green for his plastron (that's biologist speak for the bottom shell). On the underside the shell was attached so that openings were left to tuck in the appendages. His head, feet and tail can be pushed back into his shell, protecting him from some predators! 

Three animals from the book plus the pelican have been a source of great amusement and satisfaction. It doesn't take long to complete an animal and they do bring a smile to your face!

Now I have to decide who's next...beluga, frog, platypus?? They are all so cute!

The teacher becomes a student

In January I transitioned from my former career as a teacher to a new role as a student. Star gazing has been a passion for some time and I took advantage of the opportunity to take an astronomy course at UNC-G. The experience has been fascinating and challenging!

Dr. Steve Danford is the instructor. He hosted my 2nd grade class on various occasions at the Three College Observatory near Greensboro. We would look at constellations in the dark sky outside of the observatory dome and inside see sights like the Sombrero Galaxy through the telescope.

During the course of the semester I was able to participate in the Peer Learning Program which the university offers for students. Eni Minerali, a biochemistry major from Albania, was my instructor.

She is a remarkable young woman both academically and personally.












She guided my efforts to master the math problems since I hadn't used much algebra in more than 40 years and explained in detail topics we covered in class.

We spent many study sessions solving problems with Eni's guidance.

 Eni's sessions just flew by each week, it had to be the shortest hour of the day! Maybe it was because she was such a good teacher!

Dr. Steve Danford was our professor. In this picture he is getting ready for class, so I snapped a picture of him! He teaches with so much passion that the subject just comes alive, which is amazing considering we are talking about things we can barely see without telescopes. The best part about everything that I learned is that now if I want to know more about the stars in a constellation, when I read about them, I understand the information. This is thanks to Dr. Danford and everything we studied during this semester.




On of my favorite galaxies is M104, The Sombrero Galaxy.

We see it here nearly edge-on. you can see the disk and the glow of the billions of stars it contains. Click the link above the picture to read more about this beautiful galaxy which is 30 million light years away!











During the semester we observed stars, clusters and galaxies at the Three College Observatory. It is located in Alamance County and has much darker skies than we have in the city. You can go to their website and sign up for one of their public observing nights, no cost, but you do need a reservation. Space is limited. One night we saw the International Space Station pass over. To see the ISS you don't need a telescope or even binoculars. Just go to the ISS website to see when it will be passing over your location. Fill in your country, state and city and the site will tell you the next nights when the ISS will be passing overhead. It even tells you exactly when it will appear, from what direction and how many minutes you can see it. It will appear as a bright light, not blinking and will move steadily across the part of the sky where it appears that night.

Well the final exam is over, I learned more than I ever imagined and met some amazing undergraduate students at UNCG. A parting thought that I leave you with on this post:

Thanks to Ron for the idea for this graphic!

Till next time...

Spring is for the birds-literally!

Finally it is beginning to feel warmer! Bird watching is a daily event at our house with bird feeders outside the front room window and kitchen window at the back. A friend of mine makes Chubby Chirps (little knitted birds) for friends and I decided to try one also. I wanted to make a bluebird for my sister and thought this would be a challenge, so I began with a male cardinal-- all red should be easy.

Then I made a baby chick, next a female cardinal--you see where this is going. The bluebird was an interesting challenge to incorporate the different colors. Baby chick isn't in the picture, he went to live with a former student, who just happens to have chickens who were once chicks. Now they make the most marvelous eggs--which are great for baking brioche! That is another story.

Here, from left to right are the bluebird, male cardinal,
female cardinal and a red-bellied woodpecker!

Male and female cardinal.

My sister loves bluebirds. Her bird houses have seen many families of bluebirds over the years. This one is the second bluebird I made. In the first I used 'duplicate stitch' to overlay the colors on top of the blue body. On this one, I knitted the colors in as I created the body. I like that process better. None of these birds came with color directions. For that I rely on my copy of Peterson's Field Guide to Birds of Eastern  and Central North America and the internet.

The red-bellied woodpecker has just a tinge of pinkish-red on the underbelly, rarely seen. The female may not have any red at all on the belly, but the males have the most fabulous red on the back of the head and a zebra-stripped back.

The red-headed woodpecker is solid black on the back, not zebra-stripped. The bald eagle used up some chunkier yarn knit on larger needles, so he is enormous by comparison to his little buddies.

OK, who's next?

Beaks, feathers and claws - amazing birds

Volunteers from Amicalola Falls State Park in north Georgia were sharing their knowledge of these amazing birds: a red tail hawk, a black American vulture, a great horned owl, a barred owl and a pair of screech owls. Educational programs are conducted in the park. Go to the link above for dates. All of these birds were rescued and rehabilitated. Because of their injuries they could not be released into the wild and became part of the park's educational program. They are protected species, but not endangered ones. They are accustomed to being handled by these volunteers.

 Zeus is a great horned owl.

Goliath is a grey screech owl and Gizmo is a rust colored screech owl. Goliath is a little larger and is a female. Gizmo is the smaller male.

Owl Capone is a barred owl.
His feet are large and powerful and he could pick up a small bobcat.

Fabio is a Black American Vulture. He was found as a very young bird and became imprinted on humans.

Scirocco is a red tailed hawk. His eyes were injured when a group of crows attacked him. He was found in a sand trap at a golf course and hence the name Scirocco which means a desert wind.

Watching these birds was fascinating! The Carolina Raptor Center in North Carolina, has lots of information and an interesting program about these amazing birds.

Stargazing at its best!

Recently I was able to observe stars, a galaxy and a planet at Three College Observatory near Greensboro. We had an incredibly clear night for observation and it was a new moon which meant no light interference from our near neighbor.

We saw Jupiter and four of the moons. These are the Galilean moons; Io, Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa.  We could see the cream and brown colored stripes in Jupiter and these 4 of over 60 moons that revolve around the largest planet in our solar system. If you can hold your binoculars very still or even have just a small telescope at home, you can see these moons. Jupiter is high overhead now, found in the constellation Gemini, just beside Orion. Since Jupiter is a planet, a wanderer, its position in months to come will change and it will be associated with a different constellation. This link shows Jupiter's path from 2012 - July 2014. You can see that its motion through the constellations has changed.

There was a supernova that was recently observed and is now fading.  It is in a galaxy that is seen on edge, M82, and has a star in it that recently exploded. Here is more information about how the galaxy looked before and after the supernova.

A star cluster, NGC 2539 On this link you can see this star cluster and many more. Clusters contain hundreds of millions of stars.

Cassiopeia was beautiful when we went outside to look at constellations. Tonight it looked like a backwards 3. Depending on what part of the year you are observing in the early evening, it may be below Polaris and look like a W, or if east of Polaris will look like a 3, and if above Polaris will look like an M. It is a circumpolar constellation, so we see it all year. One of the stars in Cassiopeia also exploded in a supernova in the 1660's. The images of Cassiopeia a from the Spitzer Space Telescope are beautiful.

Orion shines brilliantly in winter. The name of one of his stars was well known as a character in the Harry Potter books, Bellatrix. Orion is a large constellation and the three stars in the belt are readily recognized. With binoculars you can see a really beautiful nebula in the sword below the belt.

This is an image of the Trapezium, a group of stars in the nebula in Orion's sword below his belt. The three stars you see to the right are not Orion's belt, it would be above this.











Every season brings new sights to see in the sky. Take a moment to look up and you'll be amazed at what you see! Even better, take a drive away from the city lights--you'll see even more!

Astronomy videos - engaging and educational!

Since astronomy tells us that the universe is expanding, it is time to expand our minds--OK, funny Ha, Ha. Seriously, there are some very interesting videos to watch and some I have seen are listed below. The first three were found in the public library.

The first two are NOVA productions:

The Elegant Universe - a video based on a book by the same title, author Brian Greene. Greene presents very complex ideas in a way that the non-physicist can understand. His book and the video are very engaging.

The Fabric of the Cosmos - also based on a book by the same title by Brian Greene. Here he uses vivid illustrations to describe space-time and quantum mechanics, heady stuff for the average person, but very understandable.

Inside the Milky Way is a production of National Geographic. Here you learn about the parts of our galaxy, the Milky Way, how stars are born and die and hunt for black holes.

Some excitement in the months to come:

In Saturn's Rings is a movie that will be released sometime later this year. The movie is  the creation of a Greensboro resident, Stephen Van Vuuren. Click the link to read more!

Cosmos is a reboot of the 1980's series by Carl Sagan. The first episode will air March 9th and there will be 13 episodes. Neil  deGrasse Tyson will be narrating the series.