Hello Halloween 2011

Pirates from Knoxville love it...

Photo: Jim Schulz

And Asha, an Asian elephant at the Oklahoma City Zoo, with her 6 months old daughter Malee too...Halloween is smashing time...


Ghosts can be seen everywhere...

African lions Isis, right, and Zenda eye a rope of pumpkins in their enclosure at Brookfield Zoo...

Lion mother Binta (L) and her babies Joco and Zari inspect a jack-o-lantern filled with pieces of meat on Oct. 27, 2011 at the zoo in Hanover, central Germany.

Curious meerkats swarm around a pumpkin
as part of an enrichment program at the Brookfield Zoo.

Here courageous meerkats mob a pumpkin spiced up with meal worms placed in their exhibit by San Diego Zoo Safari Park keepers.

A meerkat climbs out of a carved pumpkin on Oct. 27, 2011 at the zoo in Hanover...

This photo taken Thursday, Oct. 27, 2011 and provided by the Chicago Zoological Society, shows a pair of African wild dogs enjoying Halloween treats at Brookfield Zoo.

Photo: Jim Schulz

A kangaroo checks out a pumpkin - also at the Brookfield Zoo.

A red river hog sniffs a pumpkin at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. The keepers like to keep the animals happy by putting some greens in the pumpkins.

Tony Franceschiello, the senior keeper at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, says bat-eared foxes get pumpkins that have mice and crickets crawling throughout.

A wolf takes a look at a Halloween pumpkin, Thursday, Oct. 27, 2011, at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle - I wonder if there is a chicken inside...


In this case it's a Bronx Zoo snake....))

Photo: Toby Melville/Reuters

Much to my surprise, even fish celebrate Halloween...
Divers Gareth Calvert (L) and Jamie Oliver pose with pumpkins after a race to carve them underwater in the Ocean Reef Halloween display at the London Aquarium October 27, 2010.

Photo source

And what about the bigger bears?

Charly, a polar bear from SeaWorld San Diego's Wild Arctic Exhibit, plays with a carved pumpkin just in time for Halloween. However, he will not actually eat it.

This is an older Halloween pic from San Diego Zoo, I bet it was Charly again,
and that pumpkin looked quite delicious...

Photo credits: Doug Lindstrand
Posted by Jordan Carlton Schaul on facebook

So why not joining in and enjoying yourself tonight...?!

Sources:
- Zoo Animals Pig Out On Pumpkins At Halloween/Huffington Post 30.10.2011
- Halloween comes early for Detroit zoo animals/yahoo news October 2011 & a video
- Unlikely Playmates:Pumpkins and Animals for Halloween 2011 /ibtimes 31.10.2011
- Zoo animals have a smashing pumpkins good-time/msn 25.10.2011

Related:
- Halloween 2010, Halloween 2009, Halloween 2008

"When Wishes Come True"...Manche Wünsche werden wahr...

Children's book by Per-Henrik Gürth
Picture sources

"Kleiner Bär schließt die Augen und wünscht sich und wünscht sich, ein Astronaut zu werden z.B., oder Pirat auf einem Schiff, König in einem magischen Schloss...Doch wenn er seine Augen öffnet, sind seine Wünsche nicht wahr geworden. Er ist immer noch der kleine Bär, der in der arktischen Tundra lebt.

"Little Bear closes his eyes and wishes and wishes and wishes to become an astronaut in outer space … a pirate on a ship… a king in a magical castle! But when he opens his eyes, his wishes haven’t come true. He is still Little Bear living in the Arctic tundra.

Mutter Bär hilft ihm zu sehen, dass viele seiner Wünsche doch wahr werden, Schwimmen mit verspielten Belugas oder das Ansehen und Erleben der unglaublichen Nordlichter.

Mother Bear helps him see that many of his wishes do come true, from swimming with playful belugas to watching the dazzling northern lights.

Und zu seiner allergrößten Überraschung und Freude entdeckt Kleiner Bär, dass er selbst Mutter bärs größter Wunsch war, der wahr geworden ist...

And much to his surprise and delight, Little Bear discovers that he was Mother Bear’s wish come true..."

Here now a video found by LeenP where part of the story is read,
Tanks to LeenaP and now enjoy!

Strickzeit ....Knitting time

Source

Photo credit: Toby Zerna/Newspix/Rex USA

Although it looks very much alike, it's not a fashion show!
Back in 2005 in Australia, tiny fairy penguins Toby and Percina modeled sweaters that were being sent for the rehabilitation of penguins involved in oil spills. It was not for the first time that sweaters for penguins were needed, and not for the last time. Just recently lots of knitting activities were seen around the globe..

Photo credit:Getty Images file
found here

A little blue penguin from Papamoa Beach was covered in oil after a Liberian cargo ship hit a reef on Oct. 7 in Tauranga, New Zealand. According to the Associated Press, the oil spill, which began after a cargo ship containing 1,700 tonnes of heavy fuel oil and 200 tonnes of marine diesel oil ran aground on October 5, has already left 1,300 birds dead and already cost New Zealand $3.2 million for cleanup.

Adorable Penguins Need Sweaters, Too

"Awww. Apparently folks in New Zealand have been knitting sweaters for the penguins swimming in toxic waters in the wake of the Taurunga oil spill. The sweaters prevent the little guys from preening oil off their feathers (and then ingesting it, which can be fatal) until workers can clean them off. So if your knitting skills are advanced enough to bind off stitches for flipper holes, now would be the time to put them to use."(source)

Creation by lela nargi


How to knit the sweaters

Note: It is recommended to use 100 percent wool yarn

Materials:
1 pair 3.25mm, 1 pair of 3.75mm needles 1 set of 3.25mm dpn's or circular

Method:
1. Cast on 36 stitches using 3.25 needles.K1, P1 to end of row.
2. Repeat this row 7 times.
3. Change to 3.75mm needles and K2, P2 rib.
4. Work 4 rows increasing at each end of every row.
(44 sts) Continue until work measures 15 cms.
5. Decrease 1 st at each end of every row until 28 sts remain.
Decrease 1 st. in middle of next row (27 sts.) Leave on needle. Make second side the same.
6. Transfer the 54 sts from both pieces to 3 of the set of 4 3.25mm needles.
(18 sts on each.) and work a round neck in K1 P1 rib for 10 rows. Cast off.
7. Stitch up sides to decreasing to 27sts (opening for flipper).
8 . Add elastic to the top and bottom to prevent the penguins getting out of them.
Top: 15cm of elastic; bottom 17 cm (knots allowed). Flat elastic okay.

For more information, visit the Skeinz website.
Sweaters can be sent to: PO Box 3123, Onekawa, Napier

found here

The sweaters serve a dual purpose of keeping the penguins warm until rescuers clean them and preventing the birds from cleaning themselves while they are coated with poisonous oil.

Auch in Schweden wird gestrickt...

Swedish grannies in bid to save freezing penguins

A gaggle of needle-wielding Swedish pensioners and other residents in the village of Österbymo have heeded a call for knitted sweaters to help keep penguins warm following a recent oil spill in New Zealand. “I bet there are about 40 people working on the sweaters,” Anna-Karin Gustafsson, one of the organizers of the initiative, told The Local.

Gustafsson is the treasurer of a Kreativitetshuset Lyan, a local community centre located in Österbymo in central Sweden which decided to take action to help New Zealand's freezing penguins.Hundreds of the country's native blue penguins found themselves caught up in an oil spill caused by the grounding of a cargo ship in early October.

When penguin feathers come in contact with oil, it opens up channels in the birds' densely packed feathers, allowing water to penetrate through to their skin, making it hard for them to keep warm.

Last week, Gustafsson and her colleagues learned of an initiative launched by a New Zealand yarn store calling on fleet-fingered knitters around the world to produce penguin-sized jumpers to help the birds stay warm until they are well enough to be properly washed and to prevent them from ingesting the oil stuck to their feathers.

“It seemed obvious that we should do a little something that could make a difference between life and death for these little penguins,” said Gustafsson, a self-proclaimed “animal nut”. An appeal put out on Facebook earlier in the week prompted an overwhelming response from the local community and also caught the attention of the national media.

“The hardest thing was actually getting a hold of enough of the right kind of yarn,” Gustafsson explained. By Wednesday, the community centre had distributed “tonnes” of patterns to members young and old, who, by the end of the week, were all busy knitting as fast as their fingers allowed, according to Gustafsson.

“My mother-in-law has already finished three sweaters,” she said, adding that the group has set a goal of producing 100 penguin jumpers to send to New Zealand by the end of next week. “We'll meet again on Monday to start collecting the sweaters. I'm guessing we'll get a big box full.” Once the sweaters are collected, Gustafsson and her colleagues plan to ship them to the yarn store in New Zealand that started the campaign, which will then see to it that they end up on the backs of the oil-damaged penguins.

She said the entire project has been an uplifting experience for her.“It's great for the penguins. And it shows that when everyone pitches in, anything is possible,” she said. When asked whether any plans are afoot for members of the Lyan community centre to travel from Sweden to New Zealand for a first hand look at the penguin sweaters in action, Gustafsson said that nothing has been organized yet. “But it's not impossible. We'll see where things go. It would be fun to see the penguins dressed up in the sweaters we made,” she said.

found here incl. some additional infos about previous knitting activities

Photo credit: Anna Zieminski / AFP - Getty Images file
Found here

In 2000, a group of penguins were rescued off the coast of South Africa after getting caught in an oil spill from a sunken carrier ship. Sweaters helped them stay warm while they recovered.

There was also a very informative comment in connection with the Swedish article sharing the experience of penguin cleaning in South Africa. Oiling is the biggest single threat also to African penguins. Oiled penguins lose the water-proofing on their feathers and swallow the oil as they try to clean themselves. Ships use seawater to clean out their tanks at sea which causes more pollution than an oil spillage. Oil spill disasters create instant crises. In 2000 the cargo ship The Treasure sank off Cape Town leaving 20,000 African penguins covered in oil.There is a South African charity called SANCCOB. Each year, 1000 oiled penguins are brought to their rehabilitation centre near Cape Town. Volunteers at SANCCOB help to de-oil, clean them, and nurse them back to health.Volunteers are taught how to catch, hold, feed and tube feed the penguins until they can be released into the wild which takes up to 6 weeks. Other daily tasks involve the preparation of fish, cleaning the pens, pools and mats, sterilizing syringes and more. "But be warned, as cute as they are, penguins will bite given the opportunity. "

After an oil spill near Philip Island in Tasmania in 2000, a penguin was clad in a knitted sweater in an attempt to prevent it from ingesting oil.
Read more about it here


And here a video

Sources:
-Adorable penguins need sweater/ NYmag com October 2011
-Sweaters for the penguins/ Phoenix Newtimes 20.10.2011
-Knit a Sweater, Help a Penguin in Need/etsy com 18.10.2011 or here
-A good yarn: Knitters make sweaters for penguins after oil spill/MSN 20.10.2011
-Swedish grannies in bid to save freezing penguins/10.11.2011
-New Zealand oil spill: grounded ship threatens environmental disaster/Guardian 09.10.2011

Related:
- Rennen gegen die Zeit. Oil spill threatens 20 000 rare Rockhopper penguins/20.03.2011

More:
- The great penguin rescue/Talk by Dyan Napoli
- US schoolgirl helps to raise $100,000 for oil spill charities/Guardian 15.06.2010

Ein Oktober-Mond und eine Bärige Konstellation....

Christina M. hat den 13. und 14 . Oktober auf dem Land in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern verbracht, und ein zauberhaftes Album mitgebracht. Mit der mir üblichen Verspätung möchte ich mich für das Teilen dieser stillen Momente bedanken und ihr nachträglich alles Gute zum Geburtstag wünschen. Wegen der bärigen Sternenkonstellation gibt es den Eintrag heute...-

Christina M. spent October 13 & 14 in the German country side, where she captured images of stunning simplicity, natural richness and fairytale like beauty. I want to thank her for sharing these silent moments, wishing her - belated as usual- all the best for her new year. Because of the Bear Constellation I decided this little post to appear today...

Source:
Die Stille genießen/Christina M. Blog 17.10.2011 & Album 13-14 October 2011

Nur ein Foto...Just a pic for the road....

Disziplin ist nicht meine stärkste Seite und deshalb gibt es doch noch was Kleines,
sozusagen als Wegbegleitung...-

Discipline is not my strongest asset..., just a pic for the road....))

Source:
Our Fragile Earth on facebook

Oktobereinsichten...Some thoughts and decisions

Schon Oktober...- Already October...

Zeit nachzudenken und Prioritäten zu setzen-
Time to think of what is important and to take decisions...

Vielleicht Zeit für eine Pause um mich um Sachen zu kümmern, die mich beschäftigen, mehr Konzentration erfordern und die mich immer wieder davon abhalten, Geplantes fertigzustellen und zu posten...-

Maybe time for a break as so many other other things need some more attention,
having kept me from updating the blog already more than once ...

Einfach eine Pause...-

Just a little break...

Thank you all for your comprehension...!


Photo credits: Christina M.