Moose Burps

Well, and other stuff, too. Business first: I don't think I can say thank you enough for all the wonderful comments and all the knitting you folks are doing for the blanket project. I've never taken on anything this big before, but, like I told someone recently, I have access to great goodness and generousity. This is a huge gift.

To the person who asked if there was anything else that she could do to help--you're such a sweetheart! If you lived near me, be assured I'd be drafting you for the stitching together. As it is, though, the support and the squares are perfect. Absolutely perfect.

To the wonderful person who offered hand-dyed yarn as a giveaway for my drawing.....I'm speechless. What a tremendous offer. If you want to donate for that purpose, I'd be thrilled. And thank you again and again and again. Oh, and Mr. K said that I should perhaps put people's names in the drawings once for every square they donate. That way, the people who send the most squares have the best chance of getting a prize out of the deal. Consider it done.

Amy is still knitting, and has purchased her first two skeins of Cascade 220. Unfortunately, she bought it at a larger store where no one was able to wind it for her, or even tell her it needed to be wound. Oops. She is now the proud owner of a largish lavender knot with knitting on one end. I offered to wind the other ball for her, but she's determined to figure it out for herself. This conversation all took place at lunchtime, as we were sitting in the waiting room with several muggle co-workers. I forget, sometimes, that we seem a bit alien to muggles....when I realized what had happened, I picked up the other hank, untwisted it to show her how to open it into a simple skein for winding, and then quickly twisted it back into the figure 8 hank. Then I looked up to see half a dozen people staring at me, as one of them begged "Do that again!"

Okay, so about these moose burps. I swear to all that's woolen (and you know I take that seriously) that I'm not making this up. An article came out of Norway with this as an opening line:

"A grown moose belches out methane gas equivalent to 2,100 kilograms (4,630 pounds) of carbon dioxide a year, contributing to global warming, Norwegian researchers said Wednesday. " It goes on to say that there are about 140,000 moose roaming Norway's forests, which apparently results in an estimated 294,000,000 kilograms of CO2 per year.

That's a lot of moose burps. What I wanna know is:

• Someone apparently decided to make a serious study....of moose burps. Who in the world.....? I'm trying to picture a young scholar, trying to finish school in a hurry in order to save the world from belching moose...and you know, I'm having a tough time with that.
• How does one go about making a study of moose burps? Did this aforementioned scholar just follow them around for a long while and listen really hard? Did he finally get tired of it and start leaving out buckets of beer in the hope of getting them all belching? How exactly did this work?
• Most likely the scientist in question had a grant for this. Can you just see the grant application? "I would like to consider the impact of moose burps on global warming by following them around for a year and listening to them burp. I'll need money for beer."
• I would think this person might have used recording equipment, since you can't be present for every single moose burp when there are over 100,000 moose (which does beg the question about how many burp at one time....and what the global impact might be of...say...50,000 of them all burping at once. I was wondering where all these hurricanes were coming from...). So, does that mean that some scientist somewhere has a whole collection of tapes of moose belches? I'll bet he hosts some interesting parties. "Oh, wait until you hear this one--you'll notice it's a bit deeper and more rumbling than the last 74,000. This particular moose drank most of the beer."

What really startled me, though, was halfway through the article where a professor at a university there is quoted as saying that "this is no reason to kill the moose."

????

Was this an option? Was someone really thinking that burping should be a capital offense for a moose? Man, they're tough in Norway. I'd better tell my husband. I don't think he'd be safe over there.

Happy knitting, all. I'll post pictures of squares as they come in, and start keeping a count on the sidebar of how many I have (assuming I can make blogger do what I want it to do, instead of what I tell it to do....a big if). In the interim, be careful if you go to Norway. Watch out for slightly crazed looking scientists with recording equipment. Oh, and don't drink the beer.

p.s. Please don't send me hate mail from Norway--I know Norway is a wonderful country and I would love to visit, honest. And I won't burp.