Last week I heard an NPR report about blogging and I was surprised to learn that some people post to their blogs as much as 12 times a day. Can you imagine? I've been in awe of the knitting bloggers who manage to post more than once or twice a week. Obviously, I'm not much of a blogger, but I suppose 10 days between posts is really pathetic. In my defense, I ask my regular readers (all 5 of you) to understand that summer in northern Michigan is really, really special, and it only lasts a couple of months, and the rest of the year has snow and gray skies and cold, so sitting in the house by the computer is hard at the moment.

But I do remember my promise in the last blog entry to post a photo of the ugliest skein of handspun yarn ever seen on this planet, so here it is:



Well, no, it's not actually in skein form anymore. I wound it into a ball, but it is so ugly that even my cats won't touch it.

However, my spinning skills are progressing rather nicely, I think, and I'm currently spinning up that Romney fleece I bought at the Michigan Fiber Festival last summer. Here is a swatch of it in a 3-ply:



and a single still on the bobbin:



I swatched it in hopes that it would work for the long tunic with detachable hood and backpack from Lavold's Viking Patterns for knitting. The answer is ya! So in 5 years, when I have spun enough of it, I will start knitting.

And that's the end of the spinning/knitting content of today's entry. Now on to the important stuff.

All of my babysitters were unavailable this past weekend, so I haven't yet seen Fahrenheit 9/11. I'm thrilled at its strong box office showing and will be happy to help it have a great second weekend.

In other news, CNN is reporting a mountain lion attack on a hiker in California. This is not an attempt of mine to commecialize this tragedy as I have no vested interest, but I want to recommend my aquaintance Dave Barron's excellent book, The Beast in the Garden. It's an in-depth look at a mountain lion attack near Boulder in which a jogger was killed about 10 years ago. The book reads like a fast-paced, page-turning detective novel, and Dave has a lot to say about the human relationship with the wild. Check out the reviews on amazon, but if possible, always buy books from your local independent bookstore!

Reader's Questions

I hope Joe will not mind if I borrow his style of answering reader questions and comments at the end of the blog entry. This method prevents half of the comments from being mine!

Max, Alain Delon is new to me; I will have to check him out.

Leslie, Colin Firth may be the only man on the planet for whom I would leave my husband AND my children. Not much chance I'll get the opportunity.

Diane, walking is better exercise than biking in my circumstances. Nearly all of my usual destinations are within a mile of my house and are on flat terrain. Biking is so fast and efficient that I barely exert myself. Ivan Illich in his book Energy and Equity described the bicycle as the most efficient form of transportation ever devised in terms of calories/fuel spent per distance traveled. This is great for transportation and makes the bicycle truly one of the seven wonders of sustainability; the more people we can move from cars to bicycles, the better! BUT I'm trying to stay off mine because of its wonderful efficiency. I want to burn a lot of calories and I don't do that with one-mile bike trips on flat paved streets. And I'm not completely parking my bike; I'm still using it when I have something to haul (a kid or groceries in the trailer) or when I'm in a hurry. To get a good workout on a bike generally requires at least an hour of hard riding and/or hill work.