dinosaurs – Deborah Makarios

June 24, 2021June 24, 2021

Adventures with Avians

There are dinosaurs in our back yard. For a given value of dinosaur. “Feathered theropod dinosaurs” is what Wikipedia calls them (not to be confused with the celebrated therocephalian therapsid Purlovia Maxima). One is Troodon and one is Kryptops, and both are hens. Well, technically, only Kryptops is a hen. Troodon (pronounced Troo-don, not Tro-o-don like the original dinosaur) is a pullet.

And therein lies the problem. A pullet is a teenage hen, more or less, and Troodon turns out to be one of those rebellious teenagers who’s never seen a boundary she didn’t want to cross.

Continue & Comment

June 25, 2020June 25, 2020

The T-Rex’s Remarkable Grandchild

Grandchild being in this case a major understatement, but seriously, chickens are amazing. Amazing and amazingly weird.

Take the whole issue of eggs for example. It takes a hen about 26 hours to produce an egg. But when the hen sits on a whole batch of them – up to a dozen – they all hatch around the same time, not at 26 hour intervals for a fortnight. (Assuming a rooster was involved prior to egg-laying. Otherwise no business results and the hen gets bored after a while and wanders off.)

Continue & Comment

December 19, 2019

Stripy Happy Fun

Despite my overall eccentricity, I consider myself a conventional knitter. I’m not into in improvisational design, knitting on broomsticks or arms or anything else that leaves gaping holes in the knitting, or using novelty yarns with lumps or wire or spangles in, or knitting models of gardens, fruit, royal weddings or anything else of the sort.

No judgement if that’s your cup of tea, but I am more a plain-but-well-made-and-durable-garments kind of knitter. But even I have my eccentric moments. The Dishonour Cow, for example. And more recently, the Diplodocus from Tina Barrett’s wonderful book Knitted Dinosaurs (winner of Pattern Book I’ve Used Most Often Without Actually Owning A Copy, Alas).

Continue & Comment