Remnants and Code

MD S&WF #4

I promise - this is the last one ! (You thought that this would be like Coronation Street, didn't you?).
Let's start off with the last of the wool and pretty much the only sheep (well, a ram, actually) in the affair. In one barn we met Linda O'Brien from Mill Branch Farm in Huntingtown, MD. The light wasn't too good, so I don't have a picture, but they had a couple of their Katahdin sheep with them. Here's a sample photo of a ram of the species.
So what's so strange about a ram, you might ask. Well, normally you take shears or clippers to get the wool off a sheep. With this breed it just pulls off! Honestly! You can just reach over to the animal and pluck some off, just like taking cat hair off your clothes. Well, anyhow, Linda was nice enough to promise to send us some wool and the AG in return promised to see how it might spin up and to try to knit something with it. We brought about 2-3 grammes home, put it in some cold water, rinsed it a couple of times, and let it dry. It's got heaps of lanolin in it and smells really nice (i.e. not of "old damp sheep"!). Katahdin sheep are usually kept for meat, by the way.

We'll bring you more when we have some pictures to show.

Back at the Sheep & Wool for the very last photo

G&W Sharpening (Manahawkin, NJ, is just a few miles north of Atlantic City, so you might get your luck sharpened before checking out the slots!) is where we took our scissors for sharpening. They did a great job, so we have to be careful now! Mine were three pairs of german scissors from Solingen in the Federal Republic, and are pretty much razor sharp now. Definitely not kid-friendly. Definitely kid-friendly, on the other hand, was the range of wooden toys sharing the stall. These are made by madebyewe, and really really cute.

Ok. That's it for the show. Saturday evening we spent with friends in Sykesville, about five miles down the road from the fair, and it rained. Boy oh boy did it rain! So we didn't go back on Sunday, and we didn't go to the May Day Faerie Festival in Glenrock, PA (next year!).

On the way home we noticed this shop, the Knitters Nest, in Eldersburg, MD. Apparently it caters for knitting and crocheting, stocks yarn, and holds classes. Unfortunately it wasn't open on the Sunday we were in the area for the Fair. Oh well ... next time.

Now, as most of you know, I'm a programmer by trade, so here's the return of the "Geek Section"!
[Geek Section]
Tip: If you're moving a database from Access to SQL Server then you have a choice of using an explicit user ID (not "sa" !!) or else using Windows Trusted Authentication. If you have lots of users and may want to know which does what, use Windows Trusted Authentication! If you started of using SQL user IDs then making the change means you will have to go through all your code setting the default datasource prefix to "dbo" (or whatever your SQL Server scheme is called) and, likewise, make all stored procedure calls from datasource definitions of comboboxes also be prefixed by "dbo.". Otherwise you run the risk of suddenly having unbound controls.
Tip: When writing T-SQL always use table aliases in order to make the code easier to read
Tip: When writing T-SQL always use schema identifiers (i.e. "[dbo].") to speed things up some and to ease migrations of software.
[/Geek Section]

TTFN