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Carpal Tunnel
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news item: WELLINGTON, New Zealand(AP) Shrek the hermit ram took six years to grow his massive fleece. On Wednesday, a champion shearer clipped it off in just 20 minutes on live television in this nation of 4 million people and 42 million sheep.http://www.modbee.com/24hour/weird/story/1328778p-8497632c.html
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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heh. I'd do the math, but.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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no picture? 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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You didn't see it on TV? You needed widescreen to get it all in!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Saw it on TV the other night. Not much sheep left after the shearing! Wish I could shed weight that easily. Sigh
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veteran
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veteran
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I had so hoped that merino and meringue were related, but alas they aren't. Spanish merino < LL majorinus 'a larger kind (of animal)' (interesting use of the -inus suffix not for diminuation); French meringue has a troubled etymology, but seems to have ultimately come from Walloon, a French dialect of Belgium. And then there's the maraschino cherry on top of it all. From the syrup in which they are preserved, ultimately from Latin amarus 'bitter' ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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jheem, I share your disappointment. Wouldn't a connection have been neat?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Shrek's popularity is not confined to his Upworld home, either. Some USns have offered as much as $50K US for him, even in his woolbegone state.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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thanks for the pic, Jackie. there's a sweater or two in there... 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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actually , eta, 55 lbs of wool, when washed, will yeild about 40 lbs of usable yarn, so--now think about it, even when skiing, or out in vermonts endless winter, do you wear 10 lb sweaters?
40lbs of wool= 640 oz of wool, and a heavy sweater is about 40 oz of wool.. so 16 sweaters, is a more likely number, or about 10 full suits!
the news is old news on knitting BB's!
(55 lbs of wool will yeild about 10 lbs of lanolin/40pounds of fiber, and 5lbs of un-usable stuff, (twigs/dag/etc)
merino is a particulary fine wool, the fibers about 1/10 the diamiter of a human hair, curly enough to be easy to spin, but not too curly, and long (though shrek's is partiularly long!) fibers, that yeild fine strong 'thread'.. its great stuff to knit with, and knitters who no nothing about sheep, know merino wool!
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Carpal Tunnel
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It's funny that the guy (Ranch owner John Perriam) says this.... ...the ram would have had "little food in winter" when snow piles up more than 6 feet deep, bitter winds blow across the mountain peaks, and grazing would only be possible when snow was blown off slopes. when Shrek has been on the lam and surviving on his own for six years.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I had so hoped that merino and meringue were related Why? Had you wanted to make a key lamb pie?
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veteran
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AS-- Yes, indeed.
Jackie-- 'Cause of the fluffiness in both.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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bel said "It's funny that the guy (Ranch owner John Perriam) says this.... ...the ram would have had "little food in winter" when snow piles up more than 6 feet deep, bitter winds blow across the mountain peaks, and grazing would only be possible when snow was blown off slopes. when Shrek has been on the lam and surviving on his own for six years."
Don't have ranches in NZ, bel. Them's "stations".
And Mr Perriam was right. There would have been precious little food for him in winter. Obviously enough, but it wouldn't have been great tucker ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Had you wanted to make a key lamb pie?
Can I get an amaretto off the rocks with that?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well, there's one fact-checker that should have his knuckles rapped. I copied "Ranch" straight from the article.
Two questions though,
1) Are all ranches called stations in NZ or only those with sheep?
2) Obviously enough, but it wouldn't have been great tucker ... What?? [confused-e]
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Carpal Tunnel
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Was the article written by a New Zealander? Was it for a New Zealand audience?
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addict
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Obviously enough, but it wouldn't have been great tucker ... What?? [confused-e]Enough tucker (ie, food) to keep the poor lamb alive, but not the choicest selection. (Din't we just talk about the food-as-tucker thang? Somewhere.)
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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The article was most definitely not written by a New Zealander. It would be a page 3 job at the most in the Zild. People aren't as obsessed with sheep in NZ as people outside NZ think they are ... I know Bendigo Station (the farm where Shrek exists) quite well. It's one of the areas used in the Great Easter Bunny Hunt. In winter there would be very little food (tucker) available to him, and he would be competing with a lot of ravenous rabbits for what little there is. He would have had to eat tussock shoots (not the best) and matagouri leaves (more usually eaten by goats). He would have been able to find grass on sunnier slopes during the winter, but not much. He's probably as thin as a rake underneath all that wool!
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Dunno much about merinos, but there are many (non-hybrid) varieties of sheep that are particularly good at storing fat during the spring and summer and absorbing it during the winter, thus surviving to eat in another spring-time.
The fat-tailed sheep are excellent examples of this - their tail is where they stor the fat!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Actually, Shrek became very big news here, but only because he became big news overseas. The coverage here was more about the coverage from overseas than about the sheep itself.
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Carpal Tunnel
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ah, gloating about pulling the wool over our eyes, no doubt...
formerly known as etaoin...
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Having foreigners talking about New Zealand *must have been quite exciting. (run & hide - e)
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Carpal Tunnel
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>Having foreigners talking about New Zealand *must have been quite exciting.
Having so many of them flock in to be shorn of their hard currency by a well-spun yarn that played on their stereotyped preconceptions of Zild was rather entertaining, yes.
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Carpal Tunnel
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dxb - At least he ain't bitter about it.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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People are always talking about New Zealand. Particularly about how they can go there to live. It's clean and green and the lifestyle is really laid back, doncha know?. And after 50 years of looking for all of this, I've given up. England is pretty green, it's passably clean if you squint and it's less stressful than my previous life in New Zealand was. Go figure ...
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...doncha know?.
If I didn't know different I'd be thinkin' you's from Canada... or at *least Minnesota.
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>It's clean and green and the lifestyle is really laid back, doncha know?. And after 50 years of looking for all of this, I've given up. Don't worry, Pfranz, everything will be all right here after next year. Helengrad will become Brashville, or, just possibly, St. Petersburg.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Well, just so long as it's not Prebbleton or Turianaton. I guess. 
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