Christmas Down Under

Hey all! Let's go over my adventures of days past before talking about today - Christmas Eve.

Mon Dec 22 - After a night of singing carols at the town chruch and being disappointed they didn't have Aussie Jingle Bells, I was on a mission to find a CD of Aussie Xmas carols. Allison took me into town and searched several stores and couldn't find any. Damn. But here are the words:

Dashing through the bush
In a rusty Holden Ute
Kicking up the dust
Esky in the boot
Kelpie by my side
Singing Christmas songs
It's summer time and I am in
My singlet, shorts & thongs

CHORUS:
OH, JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE BELLS
JINGLE ALL THE WAY
CHRISTMAS IN AUSTRALIA
ON A SCORCHING SUMMER'S DAY
JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE BELLS
CHRISTMAS TIME IS BEAUT
OH WHAT FUN IT IS TO RIDE
IN A RUSTY HOLDEN UTE

Engine's getting hot
Dodge the kangaroos
Swaggy climbs aboard
He is welcome too
All the family is there
Sitting by the pool
Christmas day, the Aussie way
By the barbecue!

CHORUS

Come the afternoon
Grandpa has a doze
The kids and uncle Bruce
Are swimming in their clothes
The time comes round to go
We take a family snap
Then pack the car and all shoot through
Before the washing up

CHORUS

A yute (or "ute") is a pickup truck that is actually a car if that makes sense. So imagine a car with 2 seats and the back is open and flat (no walls surrounding the flat area). An esky is a cooler where you keep cold drinks, a boot is the trunk of a car, thongs are flip-flops/sandals.

Christmas here is during summer so backpackers go to the beach on Xmas day and you see Santas in shorts and t-shirts. Some Aussies don't eat turkey or hot dinners for the holiday so instead, they have cold food such as "prawns" (I've been corrected each time I said "shrimps").

So after failing to find a xmas CD with these fun songs, I went back to the farm and watered the many newly planted trees with Pat, one of the french wwoofers. We had to tread through long grass that reached up to my chest...this is snake territory. They love tall grass and sun. I was careful to scan the ground around me while I heavily stomped on the ground to warn the snakes I was coming. They can't hear but they feel the vibrations and move out of your way. I saw a snake slither away from me as I approached. I just managed to see the last 4 inches its brown tail....thank goodness! I'd hate to see its head.

While in the paddocks, I gave a go at driving the yute. Pat was so brave to sit with me and guide me through because not only do I not have a license but this thing is a manual car with a hard clutch! I wasn't too bad....I mean there were no disasters but I can say that I prefer automatics.

For dinner, I gathered some greens for a salad from the garden. I noticed that some of the lettuce was eaten up so I thought we've been eating a lot of salad. Days later, we learned that the ducklings managed to squeeze through the fence and eat the stuff in the garden while we weren't looking!

I tried feeding the chickens by hand today and it didn't hurt until they got a hold of my fingers. No blood was drawn so it was ok.

Tues Dec 23 - I helped Allison in the kitchen today and she taught me how to make pavlovas. It's a meringue dessert that's popular here. It's basically meringue which is baked carefully and then whipped cream and fresh berry mix drizzled on top. We only baked it today and the rest goes on tomorrow.

Cara's (dog) friend Bella (neighbour's yellow Lab mix) came to play today. Bella just came over by herself -- she's really cute but wayyy too much energy! She doesn't listen and jumps on people. She slobbered on my arm; I've never had slobber that thick on me before it was difficult to wash off. We bring her back to her home and she is back before you know it! She scares the ducks and geese (Nicky the duck ran away somewhere to hide for the night). I love dogs but this one is too much! (Her owners aren't home...I reckon they went away for the holidays).

Wed Dec 24 - Today is Xmas Eve and everyone is gone except for Pat and I. We decided to stay on the farm and have a traditional northern hemisphere dinner of roast chicken, mashed potatoes (garlic and chives), stuffing, etc. Rhys and Allison went to Sydney to her family's while Nicky (the other french WWOOFer) went to Bondi Beach for a touristy Christmas on the beach. And no, we did not slaughter any chickens for our dinner! We got one from the supermarket instead. We had permission to take 2 from the farm but we didn't after all. Tomorrow when everyone comes back, we are going to have an Aussie Xmas dinner of cold food (prawns and ham, etc). Because...it's summer here.

Bella the dog came back today. She was tied up and she escaped by breaking the rope! She is really too much and she gets sweet Cara into trouble. They are cute together...a black and yellow Lab playing together. But really, Bella has too much energy for us.

Alright, I should go now to gather the celery, sage, chives from the garden for my mashed potatoes and stuffing. It's so wonderful to eat fresh food!

Living it up at Cockatrice Farm

Hi all! Sorry for the long lag...I haven't had internet access since I got to the farm. I've been so busy and we don't get internet everyday. We're kinda restricted now since the guys dowloaded some movies and our hosts got a huge bill in the mail! That was before I arrived. I am trying to write on a french keyboard (Pat, one of the french wwoofers is nice enough to let me use his laptop). This keyboard has the letter keys in the wrong spots! So this is very difficult for me to write. Please bear with me. Let's start from Tues when I left for the farm from Sydney....

On Tues Dec 9, I took the suburban train from Sydney to Goulburn; a town ~3 hrs south of Sydney. (Before leaving Sydney, I had a meat pie with peas, mash and gravy on it. It's lean beef pie with green peas, mashed potatoes and gravy piled onto the pie). As for the train ride....luckily, I met a nice elderly lady named Nettie from Holland who now lives in Oz. She told me to sit in the front car of the train because at one of the stops, they detach half the train and only the first half continues on whereas, the second half stays. I would've been stranded if she didn't tell me! The conductor does announce this but you really can't hear anything over the intercom. When I got to Goulburn station, Rhys (one of the wwoof hosts) was there to pick me up. We stopped to pick up pizza since Tuesdays are pizza nights. Back at the farm (about 15 min from town), I met Allison (Rhys significant other) and the 2 french wwoofers Pat and Nicky. Allison was so happy to have another female in the house and she taught me to sew some stuff as practice. I'll be making banners later on.

Wed Dec 10, Nicky showed me around the property and how to feed the animals. There are chickens (a rooster who makes noise at 5 am each morning, silkies who are strange looking, and regular ones), ducks with ducklings, geese (one of them was decapitated by a fox 2 days before), other weird looking geese (one named Nicky who tries to go in the house....Nicky the french guy bought that one), a baby horse named Rev and a female coming soon. There's also Cara, the ultra friendly black Lab who follows us around. She loves getting dirty and she reeks. My first task was painting the white in the flowers on a fence that will be used for medieval festivals. The fence is purple with white flowers. I will be putting 4 layers of paint over the next few days.

Thurs Dec 11, I fed animals, painted more and removed some weeds called Tussex: they are yellow hairy looking grass. Pat and I went out to remove these with a tool that looks like a hoe on one end and a spike on the other. We had to hack into the ground and remove the Tussex from the roots. It's hard work! We only have to weed 1 hr per day. We work 4 hrs per day in 2 shifts. We take a break from 12 to 3pm so that we're out of the sun. So great Rhys and Allison care about our well-being!

Fri Dec 12, I woke up early around 7am because Rhys and Allison wanted to bring me to Canberra, the country's capital. They work there so they dropped me off on their way to work. I got some breakfast at a cafe called Coffee@Helen's....I ordered a mocha and the BEST french toast with maple syrup I ever had! The french toast wasn't overfried and I could taste the egg in it. Yum! I then took a hop-on hop-off tour bus around Canberra since the streets are so loopy and confusing. It was a rainy day so I didn' t see too much. I visited the War Memorial, Parliament, and the National Museum. I learned in Parliament that all EXIT signs must be green...it's illegal otherwise. However, they did pass a special law so that the Senate can have red EXIT signs. The public can also sit in on a Parliamentary debate to hear the colourful things that the politicians sling at each other. After work, Rhys and Allison took me to a glass blowing place but unfortunately, it was quiet that day so I didn't see much going on. We also went for some yummy chocolates in Canberra before heading back home.

Sat Dec 13, Rhys and Allison went to Sydney to visit Allison's family so us wwoofers were left alone at the farm. I did another coat of paint on the white flowers and then the guys and I watched some DVDs. We saw I am Legend, he Will Smith movie.

Sun Dec 14, I painted the fence in the horse paddock a blue colour (it was rusted red). It was so windy that paint blew all over me. It was tough getting that off until Rhys came home with some turpentine for us. Great...now I have tiny blue spots on my brand new windbreaker. It's been windy and cold here lately.

Mon Dec 15, this morning I awoke to see that the chickens had escaped! Nicky helped me round them up. Later on, I found a straggler chicken and I caught it to put it back in its coop. My first caught chicken!!!! The guys went to work today so I continued painting the fence blue in the horse paddock. Just now, Rhys' new horse came and I showed the man where to put the horse. She's in the field next to the baby boy horse so that they can get to know each other through the fence. This one is one of those worker horses with the big hooves (Clydesdales?). Cara the dog is next to me snoozing....she snores a bit, it's so cute.

Oh by the way, Cockatrice Farm.....a cockatrice is a beast with the head of a chicken and the body of a dragon. I don't know if it's a medieval mythical animal or it was made up by Rys and Allison.

A lazy day at the Lake

We spent the day at Lake Wanaka today by bringing with us some crackers, mussels, cheese, nachos, salsa, hummus, and wine. It was difficult to eat in peace without a gang of ducks approaching to beg for food. These ducks are so used to humans that they are not afraid to come close. One poor little girl was feeding a duck when it nipped at her.

I went into the lake with Alice where she taught me how to float on my tummy. I still get nervous in the water. It is so wonderful to just relax by the water watching dogs run happily along the beach and swim in the water. There were many ducks and seagulls just hanging out by the shore.

In the evening, we went for some take-away fish n' chips and brought it back to the lake to eat. I love how the fish n' chips are wrapped in newspaper the old fashioned way. Mmm, so delicious!