27 posts tagged “australia”
What's your favorite thing about fall?
My favourite thing about autumn is that its a long way away. Because I'm not a fan of the cooler weather.
Here, we are one month into Spring and if its anything to go by we are in for a hot dry summer.
We have been drought declared where I live for years. And lately it has been so hot, dry, dusty and windy that this is currently what I look like.
The other day my lips were so dry I couldn't open my mouth because they kept cracking in the corners. I think every person in this town keeps a tube of chap stick or carmex handy in their pocket.
If the drought doesn't break soon I think we'll evolve into something like that picture.
But even though it all sounds grim, I still hate autumn. Anyway here autumn is always windy so its not very nice anyway.
When I woke up this morning the house was surrounded in a red glow. It was like the house was on a movie set and we had some special lighting effect on us.
So when I got up at 6.30 this was what it looked like out the back door.
Dust. And lots of it. Over most of NSW.
And this was about half an hour ago.
And now my camera is dirty, my car is filthy and my eyes are gritty. A good day for asthmatics to stay inside and wear a mask.
If you could have personally witnessed one event in history, which one would you want to have seen?
I would want to have seen the one I witnessed today!!
The day we won the AFL Black Diamond Grand Final.
Not me personally, but Lloyd played in it, and if your children participate in a sporting event, it feels as if you've played the game yourself.
This morning I had the sick tummy. When we got there and sat down, I couldn't take a photo because my hands were shaking.
I did manage to get a shot of the bar though. Because it was pretty cool. And rowdy by the end of the day. Daz wants to hire it for a party. That top level was packed by 2pm.
And it was hot. 30 degrees. So the boys were running around for almost two hours in that heat.
So they ran out and had the pre game huddle like they always do.
The ball sat waiting for kickoff
And the mascot did... whatever mascots do. Which seemed to be run around and get chased by small children. Nice socks.
Half time came and it looked grim. We were losing 59 to 24. The coach would have been yelling, because he tends to go ballistic in that situation.
There was a brief moment of panic when I saw one of our guys fall down and I said - OH NO, HIS LEGS GONE. And poor Daz jumped up and started running off because he thought I was talking about Lloyd. Thats because Lloyd has something called myositis ossificans. That means that he has torn his thigh muscle almost in half and now it has a bone growing in it. Thats why he shouldn't have played. But they strapped him up and he did. Even though he wasn't supposed to play for three months. But as I said, he's a 19 year old young man who must make his own decisions about these things.
So when I saw this happening I was a little concerned
But it was all good. And it was pretty cool how they had that physiotherapist come and rub them all down.
And can you believe that just when the final bell went, the other team were leading by 5, and our man had just caught the ball and he had to kick the goal to win the game. No pressure on him. And he kicked it.
And they were joyous
And they recieved medals
And they sang loudly
And it was a good day.
And I had my first dose of sunburn for the summer.
And I just found this on top of my washing machine.
Oops, forgot to post my photos last week. Lucky Candy is on a road trip so won't know.
So, we're up to 36 - 43
These are some very annoying seeds that hang from our next door neighbours palm tree over our fence. They drop into our yard then when you run over them with the lawn mower they shoot out like bullets. They're up too high to reach though. I need some of those extending snippers. Oh, and bats love them as well. So we have bats come and fight in the tree at night.
This is not a Bratz doll, but something like it that I can't remember the name of. I found her when I was packing up some toys. Lizzie cleaned out her room and gave me about 1000 dolls and toys that are not to be thrown away but not to be kept in her room. So I was having a look through. This one looks like Daz's sister. Except she's not plastic.
This is my bastard holder. Not the bastard known as Daz, my bastard file I file tiles with. It always feels a bit funny going into the shop and asking for a bastard.
This was at Ettalong Beach. But we had Indian. Daz had his so hot he went blind for a minute.
This is Lloyd playing AFL. He's the ruckman. He's the one in red in the middle about to hurt that guy. The umpire throws the ball up and they have to jump and try to hit it to their team.
This was taken at my mothers house and obviously there is one very un australian person inside.
And here is Lloyd again. Warming up. I suggested to him that maybe he should be doing pole vaulting or high jump instead of AFL.
The meat pie is a national treasure here in Australia.
I myself don't eat them anymore but we'll get to that in a minute. I used to have two every Saturday for lunch when I was a kid. Nan used to buy them for me. I'd always peel of the top and eat it, then use a spoon to eat the meat, then eat the base.
Remember the holden ad of the seventies - We love Football, Meat Pies, Kangaroos and Holden Cars. Just repeat that a few times and you get the idea. We had to change it a bit from the american version because theirs wouldn't have made sense to us. It was - We love Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet.
Now I don't know if their hot dogs are anything like ours, but I never eat them either because you have no idea whats in them. No meat thats for sure. We call them Lips 'n' Arse here. Because those are the parts of the cow they use to make them.
And as for our Meat Pie. Well, you have to use the term Meat very loosely. The law is that they have to be 25% meat. And its always best not to think too hard about what the other 75% may be. And the 25% that is meat can, by law, come from any of these sources - I saw this in Choice magazine a while ago.
The meats allowed by FSANZ in a meat pie are beef, buffalo, camel, cattle, deer, goat, hare, pig, poultry, rabbit and sheep. Kangaroo meat, a leaner alternative, is also sometimes used. FSANZ's definition of meat includes snouts, ears, tongue roots, tendons and blood vessels. Only offal (such as brain, heart, kidney, liver, tongue, tripe) must be specified on the label. Wild animals ("slaughtered ... in the wild state") may not be used.
Yum Yum. Thats why I don't eat them.
But most people find it hard to go to a football game and not eat a meat pie. Or as we call them here, a dogs eye. I'm not sure why, but if you came to Australia, went to the footy, and asked for a Dogs Eye with sauce, no one would think anything of it.
So we were at the footy today watching Lloyd and Daz had a pie.
Isn't this beautiful. I mean look at that blue sky contrasting with that "meat" and pastry.
And I should point out the pastry is important. It has to be firm enough so you can hold the pie in one hand and eat it, while holding a beer in the other hand.
When I was at school, if you bought a pie for lunch, they used to inject the sauce under the lid with a syringe.
As you can see Daz has the art of pie eating perfected. lol, it looks tiny there but I guess they're about 4 inches square, maybe a bit bigger.
No way - its a giant freakin' rat.
And I just nearly trod on it on my way to the garage. The reason I almost trod on it was not because I didn't see it, because I did see it, but because I didn't have my glasses on, so what I saw was - a birds nest that must have fallen out of a tree. Then I got closer and no, its a tumbleweed type thing, with a bit of wire sticking out of it. Then just as I was about to bend to inspect it - holy shit, its a giant rat. A giant sick rat.
But hang on I thought, maybe its a little marsupial. Lost. Or sick. Ok, definitely sick. Poisoned by the look of it. So I rang Daz
where are you
at the workshop, why?
theres something you need to come and have a look at
ok
and probably kill
Because I didn't want Betty to get at it if it had been poisoned. Because it was big you know, so I figured fairly toxic. And I remember the vet saying something about cats getting sick if they ate poisoned mice.
So Daz turns up with JD for backup, and all I could picture was the scene from Me Myself and Irene where they tried to kill the cow.
So after we all agreed it wasn't a marsupial, and that even if it was, it was too far gone to help, we decided JD could put it out of its misery. And out of the yard. Anyway, we didn't want to turn up at the wildlife place only to be informed we had brought them a giant rat to save and release back into the wild. Because then we'd look like dickheads.
Its hard to tell from the photo how big he was. But you can get an idea from the thickness of his tail. And the feet - yikes look how long its toes are. Maybe its a bush rat.
Maybe thats whats been running around my ceiling for the past few months.
castlereagh street sydney 1952 - taken from The Australia Hotel roof
Bobbin Head
Circular Quay Sydney - under heavy smoke.
Bill - been shearing for thirty years - taken in 1952
We love our condiments here in Australia.
I mean this little selection is out on the bench at the chinese restaurant.
Who knows when you might feel like a bit of potato salad dressing on your fried rice.
Well we are into winter here now. And I can't complain, although I still do, about the weather.
And as soon as I declared that my deciduous tree was not dropping it's leaves, it started to.
I'm like a sunflower - all my chairs point to the sun.
They don't look pretty anymore though because it rained. Now they're just a slushy mess right outside the back door. Not that they ever look that pretty. We don't get the golds and reds of autumn here. Just dirty green and yellow.
And I noticed this butterfly on Sunday. He/she had a strong attraction towards one of my clothespegs. Wouldn't move when I came near or when I had to spin the line.
Wonder what that was all about - colour maybe?
I have had butterflies come and sit on my flower tattoos.
Australian black and white photos taken by papa in 1952. Last time I saw Mum she gave me one of papa's photo albums she'd found. She said to take them and scan them because they were deteriorating. Some of them had blotchy markings on them and she told me to take them out of the album and give them a good wash under the tap. Well she did work with Papa in his studio so I assumed she knew what she was talking about, even though it sounded frightening. So wash away I did, but not all of them came clean and I did manage to leave a rubber glove print on one. She tells me just to wash it again.
A lot of these were taken on our farm. Which was Papa and his brother Hammy's farm at this time.
a good old australian gum tree
nice little kanagaroo face
browns cows
bushmans camp
