1 More Week Until Melbourne!

I'm excited for Melbourne in 1 week...I'm leaving next Tuesday! Yay! Until then, I still have many adventures here on the farm...

Thurs Jan 8 - I finished the acorn banner I was making! One down, three more like it to go. Pat brought back a baby hare from the field today. He was removing Tussex weeds when he stepped on something and heard a squeal. The animal ran to the dam and nearly drowned when Pat rescued it and brought him home. Owen, Rys son, was excited and named the bunny "Pat". He put the baby hare in a cage with some food. However, the little hare had to be released back into the field that night because the 2 house cats were circling the cage like hungry sharks. Poor thing was frightened to death. We were told that the parents usually tell the baby to stay in one spot while they went to find food. Therefore, the parents would be back to look for their baby. That's another reason why the little hare had to be returned (in addition to being wild).

Fri Jan 9 - I went to Canberra for the day just to get away from the farm. I had breakfast at Veneziano Caffe and read a book. I ordered a spinach pie when the teenager working behind the counter told me that the spinach and feta sandwich with tomatoes and hardboiled egg was a better choice. So i took his advice and had a flat white (coffee) with that. Mmmmm, it was a great choice! What a delicious meal it was (the sandwich kinda tasted like egg roll...weird, I know but I loved it). I sat in a comfy armchair next to a bookcase and coffee table and slowly had my breakfast while I read my book for 2.5 hrs. It was so nice to just relax in a cafe and have nowhere to go. The 2 guys working at the cafe were so friendly and greeting everyone "Happy Friday!" to everyone who came in and had small talk with them. The teenager reminded me of Ray (my best bud's brother) and the other one was anolder artsy darkhaired guy.

After the cafe, I went to the Dendy theatre inside the mall to watch a movie. I saw Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the new Woody Allen film. It was a very good movie - more of a chick flick, really. The best part was when I went to the counter to purchase my ticket. The guy behind the counter immediately asked "student, right?" and I said "uhh, yeahhh!". Haha, I'm such a bad liar but he didn't ask for any ID. So I paid the student price of $12.50 for a movie! Later, I asked Allison about it and she said it's because the University of Canberra is nearby and they are used to getting a lot of students. Furthermore, I still look like I'm in uni (university), I have an accent, and my clothes are "different" (foreign-looking).

Sat Jan 10 - I started on the horse banner, which is my banner (I don't get to keep it though). It has a black horse (to represent Domino, the killer horse who almost trampled me) on a red and white background (to represent Canadian colours).

At dinner, we watched A Knight's Tale, the medieval movie about jousting with Heath Ledger. We were laughing at how cheesy it was.

Sun Jan 11- we got 2 peacocks today! A peacock and a peahen. They are for the medieval stuff. Rys and Allison had one before but it escaped and now lives on the nieghbour's property. They sure are beautiful birds!

I made mint cordial (syrup with sugar, water, vinegar, mint leaves). I boiled the ingredients for 10 min then threw the mint leaves in before taking them off the heat. You drink cordial by putting a bit of this minty syrup into a glass and filling it up with soda water. It makes for a refreshing drink on a hot day.

We went to the village of Taralga (30 min north of Goulburn, pop. 370) for dinner at the pub. The pub looked old fashioned and brightly lit. It looked like a nice old dining room as opposed to a hole-in-the-wall pub. Since we were in sheep country, I had the lamb cutlets with veggies, fries and gravy. Yum, it was delicious!!!

Mon Jan 12 - As I fed the animals today, i noticed that one of the Muskovie Ducks (South American duck) was dead. Perhaps she died because she couldn't lay eggs since the other female was sitting? I don't know...

I laid newspapers, sawdust, woodchips on part of the space around the new garden bed this morning. I will be cooking dinner today - I will make pate chinois or shepherd's pie (the "quebecois version" with corn and creamed corn).