Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Well we had Thanksgiving in the land of Oz! It turned out to be a good event some mishaps but overall a wonderful evening. We planned out our meal yesterday, puchased our goodies this morning organized everything and when Smyth came home after work we all got to work cooking and cleaning and preparing for our Thanksgiving Feast.

Danielle couldn't have Thanksgiving Dinner without sweet potatoes and marshmallows... Well they only have one kind of marshmallows half being vanilla and half raspberry... yuck! So we hand picked out the vanilla ones and ripped them to small bits and spread them on top. It sadly didn't end up too well the mallows turned very sugary and lumpy... A very sad Dani. :(I of course couldn't go without my corn bake... we thought that would be an easy dish but it turned out to be a lot harder than we thought. They don't make cornbread here so they didn't have the cornbread mix. So we thought we would look up how to make it from scratch... easy enough... think again corn meal is apparently not heard of here so I called my friend Dail and asked his opinion on what to do to make it work to our advantage. Knowing it wouldn't be the same but we needed it to at least be some what tasty. Well it turned out after all day of searching for the mysterious corn meal they stinking had it... it's just called Polenta and do you know what is said in the ingredients say?! Point blank Corn Meal! My word! When I asked if they had any corn meal they looked at me like I made up this thing. Apparently the Italians eat it and love it and use it for lots of meals but they just call it Polenta so since there is a huge population of Italians here they just happend to have it. Thanks Smyth for saving the day! I made my corn bake from scratch and it was mmmmmm mmmmm good!

Our final product minus the yams we forgot to put them on the table before we took the pic... oops! We had Chicken made with homemade stuffing by Smyth. Very good! Corn bake, sweet potatoes, rolls, mashed pumpkin... yum! and Fruit Salad with custard. Yum Yum all the way around... we forgot the greens but we didn't do too bad for our first time on our own!

It's dig in time! Bon apetit (sp?) we are really stuffed and are now cleaning up so I should get off the computer but I had to share our fun day. Thank you Smyth for letting us use your house, car and kitchen for this fun adventure.

I am thankful for all my family and friends that have supported me in this grand crazy plan of adventure I miss you all terribly and I can't wait to share all my stories and memories with you. I am thankful to have this opportunity to live life to the fullest and on the edge of the world. It's been a most amazing chapter in my life and it's something that will both change me and stick with me for the rest of my life.

Mushy gooshy time is over!

Did you notice my new profile pic. Smyth has this amazing didgeridoo and it has turtles all over it! So love it! The aboriginal culture is just amazing! It's bad luck for a woman to play it so I didn't even try ~ knowing my luck it would actually come true. Not taking any chances.

Well folks have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Love you all!

Muah!

The Apricot Crew

In order: Me, Irene hiding behind the lunch box, Seamus, Garry, Mich O'Tool, Warren, Antwon, Ursela McGregger, Danielle and Bob the dog

(he looks like Fozzy Bear from the Muppet Babies he is the sweetest dog!)

You may not be able to tell but Antwon has a shaved eyebrow and a lock of hair missing on the left side of his face... he passed out and "someone" mysteriously took it upon themselves to give him a make over. Well he is so funny about it he doesn't care about how he looks he just is annoyed that when he is taking a shower more water drips in his eye and it stings. Oh my this lot needs help. Too funny!

Apricots and Irish Adventures...

Well this last week has been a long one! We spent 9 days straight picking and packing Apricots. It was fun and very interesting but anything after 9 days is a little much! We were so tired by the end of that time we all barely spoke words to communicate to one another... just those tired half hearted grunts and nods of the head and quick flick of the hand. Garry the owner of Willra (the Farnsworth station we have been working on for the last month) hired 5 more backpackers to help us out on this endeavour! They were all from Ireland! 4 Lads and 1 Lass. Too much fun listening to them talk and banter with each other. What happens is you stand on this trailer with three different levels and the tractor pulls you along the inside of the orchard so you can pick all the apricots at all levels at once. You dump the contents into a box in front of you and when it's full you turn around and exchange it for an empty box placing the full one on these huge frames that are on the other side of the trailer! It's insane but so cool and I'm sure dangerous on some levels but once you've survived a motorbike crash you think you can survive anything so it's all good. Haha just kidding all you fuddy duddies out there! It wasn't that bad! We picked for a day and a half and then headed off to this packing shed which is basically a factory for fruit! I've never worked in a factory before but now I have a whole new appreciation for my parents as they have worked in one ~ hmmm come to think about it that's where they met and fell in love... awww how sweet! Well it came full circle for me and man it can be crazy! First you dump the fruit onto this conveyor belt and it travels through the picking spot where the bad ones get hand picked and thrown out. Then they travel down the wash line and get sprayed with water and sucked under a brush to clean them off then they are spit out onto a ramp where they fall onto these scales all lined up in this huge line that continuously moves and they get dropped off at each station according to their weight. They fall into a box and that's where you pull the bag over all the apricots when it's reached max weight and you pass them to the lid guy and he stackes them on a crate to go off to sale. It's very interesting. We had to make the boxes and lids before we got started and line the bottoms with bags. A very hands on job. Although it's not something I would want to do forever it was very interesting to see how the process works and I was happy to be a part of it.

Our new Irish friends were so fun. As we picked apricots they started playing this question game to pass the time. I feel that I've played it before and it won't be anything new to you but with Irish accents and banter it made it oh so memerable and funny! The person that is "it" picks a topic like, Film, Sport, TV Program, Thing, Entertainment... whatever you wish and then everyone else asks yes or no questions to try and guess what you have selected from that topic. You can only ask yes or no questions and if someone doesn't then you can't answer there question... well that was hard for everyone as they started to explain things or answer in full sentences as apposed to one word... Yes or No! Then instead of saying yes or no they would say... It's debatable... They would lose it over that one! "You can't say that either stick to an answer yes or no or don't pick something that's too hard to get!" They got all worked up about every answer and question. Needless to say it sure did pass the time. In addition to these fun afternoons of endless questions most every morning they came to work hung over from the night before. So the boss would have fun picking on them for looking like crap. We would hear all the stories of the night before which usually drunk stories don't impress me but when said in an Irish accent apparently everything is funny to me. Needless to say we totally enjoyed their company and stories and high energy and it was fun to have new people to work with. We now get the rest of the week off ~ we are not complaining as it's Thanksgiving and you guys are off for holiday so we feel like we get to do the same. We are cooking for a friend tonight and sharing Thanksgiving with her at her home. So I should probably get off this computer and get to cooking! Yikes my first Thanksgiving meal to prepare! I'm so nervous! We will let you know how it turns out!

Later Mates!

Talent in Australia

Check out this youtube link:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=RR72wOt3oBU

Australian Idol is my new thing to watch while living in the land down under and I think you all should take a look at this clip! Just amazing and so fun!

They had a Micheal Jackson night and this Wes (pronounced Wez) kid is just amazing. I think he is going to win and rightfully so he has an amazing voice and can perform like no other! He did What a Wonderful World last week and it brought me to tears.

I must make a correction about a blog or so ago. The Rugby Anthem "Hero" is not from Bette Midler but Mariah Carey. Sorry fro the confusion. Regardless it doesn't fit and was poorly sung. Oh well can't be any worse than Rosanne Barr singing the National Anthem at the World Series.

Lord of the Flies

In addition to the Spiders we now have to deal with these horrible little black flies now that it's warming up. They drive me insane! They play cards on your nose, try to search for gold in your nostrils, try to get a drink from your eyeballs, go on searching expeditions on your forehead, cheeks or neck and duck for cover from the wind in your ear! It's repulsive! The more you chase them with your hands the more vigilant they get. Apparently you have to blow at them with your mouth because they hate wind and if that doesn't work you supposedly just get used to them and they don't bother you much. WHATEVER! I can't stand them. They camp out on your back in a huge colony and they take turn with their enemy attack! It's so yuck! I absolutley hate it when one gets trapped in between my sunglasses and my eyeball and they freak out buzzing back and forth between my eye and lens! Can you imagine! Well I don't have to it happens at least every hour! Yeesh! But I guess that's just one of the set backs. Everything else is good. It feels like Cali here to be honest. The Golden wheat fields and the bright green grape leaves not to mention all the snails and lady bugs and pincher bugs. I haven't seen so many since I moved from Cali. It's because of the Golden Fields and Green leaves that you see everywhere that Australias colors are Green and Gold it's kind of cool ~ they are the colors of the greatest Football team EVER! So I guess it's just as well! Go Pack Go!

I feel really comfortable here in Robinvale as one the town has my sisters name in it and the street names are from all of my favorite people... Ronald, Robin, George, Morris, and David! So needless to say I feel very safe and welcome here not that street signs are my only rule of thumb but it helps. :)

So we have a new president... we didn't get to vote but apparently it wouldn't have mattered anyway. And can you believe it our ballots came in the day after the election! Seriously! We are keeping them because they have historical significance so that's kind of cool. Would have really liked to vote though. I'm not a very political person but I guess we will see what happens with all of this now. It's interesting being here during all of this though. The election was a really big deal to the rest of the world. People here had rallies and everything it was very interesting and they can't even vote but it was important to them to see the outcome because as they all say here "America sneezes and the rest of the world catches Pnemonia." I hope that Obama lives up to the expectations that the rest of the world has placed on him because they are looking to all be saved by his acceptance into the White House. I would have prefered Palin but she wasn't running for President so I guess we will have to see what happens in 2012... Here's hoping!

Grapes of Wrath!!!

Wine grapes and spiders aren't a great combination! The wine grapes aren't the problem it's the spiders that creep me out!!!! If you don't know this already I am absolutely petrified of spiders. There is nothing cute or endering or fun about the creatures I can't STAND THEM!!! You can get a play by play of the whole thing if you go to Danielle's Blog www.livingthedreamintheoutback.blogspot.com ~ at any rate besides the spiders we are in a pretty cool set up. Living at a really cool house during the week of work, good food, good company and great experiences. Everywhere we go people want to show us amazing things and really educate us on what they do and all that goes into it. It's great! We even got shear a bit of a sheep it was so fun. One day we will have to upload some pics because we have some great shots. It's beautiful out here and there is just so much to see. Much different landscape than the outback and when I'm not sneezing from hay fever or peering through teared up eyes it really is just amazing and gorgeous! :) Australians are very trusting that or we look like trustworthy yanks because it seems everywhere we go we stay for one night and then the next night everyone has to leave for one reason or another. So we are either house sitting and come and go as we please or we have the place to ourselves for the night and just relax and veg like we are sitting at home. It's really nice because after a while chit chat to fill the silence gets a bit old. It's sweet but I hate it when people feel they need to entertain us all the time. I feel bad for them and sometimes I just like the peace and quiet. So house sitting is fine by me!!! :)

We are officially 17 hours into the future due to your fall back and our spring forward! Crazy stuff!

During all this house sitting and surfing the channels Danielle and I have grown to love a new sport. International Rules!!! It's a mix of Gailic Football and Australian Rules Football! They come together each year and change up the rules so that one team doesn't have the advantage and they play this amazing fast paces full on game. It's hard to explain but you can score 3 different ways with 4 goals and it combines soccer, rugby, volleyball and basketball in the most interesting way. You should look it up I know there are some youtube clips of it. If you like sports I think this will entertain you. Ireland beat Australia this year but not by a huge margine. Both tests were very close and intense. I wish I could watch more but it's sadly over. As most sproting events are coming to a close. We watch the Rugby League World Cup round against Australia and New Zealand the other night and it was very interesting as their Rugby Leauge Anthom is Hero... by Bette Midler... hahahahaha I know you are laughing now as Danielle and I just looked at eachother and busted a gut over the whole thing. It was the most interesting rendition not to mention it's RUGBY!!! Bette has no place in Rugby! I love the lady and her songs but come one give me some pump you up music and get this party started type stuff not HERO! hahahaha we had a good laugh! We did however get to see the Haka and that was brilliant. Too bad it didn't help them out a little more. They were slaughtered by Australia ~ not even a close match. You should youtube the Haka as well it's so amazing! I love the Moari people. They really are a beautiful and amazing race.

Well it's almost election day and we sadly cannot vote. We were silly (for lack of a better word) and didn't figure out all the stuff with the embasy before we left and when we were without internet in the outback we thought we had time but alas we ran out of every option and so we go uncounted in this election. We are sad and disappointed. It's most upsetting. So please feel free to email us and tell us what neglectful Americans we have become and make sure to let us know who wins.

Well I miut sign off now as I am now depressed and am going to go drown my sorrows in ice cream and a brownie.

The Chronicles of an Outback Misfit

Well it's time I give you all a real blog and I do apologize for the lack of blog I left you with last time. My world is definitely different. In the outback I got used to getting up at 5:40am each morning (with no problem I might add! It could be because I don't have to dress up and do my hair... sorry Dail that part just sucked. I now just thrown on my jeans and t-shirt and trusty hat and I'm out the door!) I put in a 12 to 14 hour day of physical labor. I might add that I'm getting quite strong I was very impressed with myself the other day when I hoisted a 12x4 sheet of tin on top of a shed we were building for a cattle yard. But enough of me bragging about myself hahaha! We then return to the pub for at least another 3 hours of serving drinks making dinners and listening to yammerings of drunk and impaired individuals. Then it's off to bed to wake up to do it all agian the next day! All this physical labor and time outside has contributed to the most amazing tan! Sadly it's just from under my sunglasses to the nape of my neck and from my elbows to my wrists as I wear gloves all the time because it gets SO hot that when you pick up tools they burn the snot out of you! But it's a tan nonetheless and it apparently brings out the native american features in me because I've been asked so many times what tribe I belong to. Oh my! Well it's either that or if I'm from Canadia... yep that's right Canadia! Yeesh these bush people are all over the place. First of all Canadian! I don't sound anything like they do - maybe if i was from North Dakota or Wisonsin "Don't ya know!" And second of all it's CANADA!!!! Well I guess it's no different than the guy who wants to learn to speak Mexican (oh how my family will appreciat that!) Then there are things like the "Worstest trip I've ever taken", Betterer, or More Betterer! Can you believe it!? And that's not just tied to one person they ALL say it! Along with Fitted and redicleeous! I'm not making this up people! Actually if you want to pronounce it in Assie Dialect all your er's should sound like A's and if you want to further your Aussie lingo take the word my out of your vocabulary entirely and replace it with me. Hahahaha it's been interesting by all means. Oh and the word thing is pronounced thinK ~ they do know that's already a word right? It all cracks me up and I might need some intervention when I get home... to think my English was already bad now it might end up getting much worse after the next 9 months of being out here. We shall see. The alphabet is a little different as well but only two letters. H and Z. When spelling out words they say Hey-t-ch for H and Zed for Z. But enough of that you want adventure stories don't you? Well I have them!

I ate Kangaroo for the first time the other day! There are professional roo shooters and they help maintain the over population of the kangaroo's. Sounds cruel I know but if they don't they start choking out the land and the cattle suffer therefor the station owner suffers financially. Roo shooters are regulated and can't just go crazy killing roo's they have to only get a certain breed and then only a certain number per month or they get docked. It's a really good system if you have to go to those extreams and even though I couldn't do it I understand the need. I've been out here long enough to see the effects and need for it so please believe me when I say it's not inhumane. Anyway some process their own meat and just as my Uncle George makes elk and buffalo sausage they make roo sausage and so I had a cook out at lunch out on the line with some blokes not thinking anything of it and in the middle of me eating my very good sausage by the way they asked how I liked it and I said it was actually quite delicious. The then informed me what I was eating and to be honest I wasn't grossed out of repulsed. So well done me for trying something new and liking it and well done them for doing such a good job! Would eat it again!

So I must say that we are now in Victoria and are enjoying a week of relaxation and comfort. But we did not get here without some near misses and some crazy adventures. You may think I'm about to tell you about a travel story or something but those two days of travel were quite nice and very smooth thanks to the well run air system and train and bus systems of Australia. I'm going to tell you about Danielle and I's near miss at death! I'm not exagerating here it was VERY scary!!!! It all started on a very dark and stormy day... no lie! It was so black with clouds outside and thunder and lightening was everywhere but surprisingly not over us directly. We were in the middle of a cirlce that was untouched by the bad weather but it was all around us. Very strange. It was nice outside because of all this and wasn't hot as it started getting boiling outside so Dani and I decided to go on a walk. We saw the goats that live in the dam paddock and thought we could maybe muster them in but as they saw us approaching they ran the other way. No worries we didn't really care we just thought we would help. We think we are cool in the middle of no where and just chit chat and walk well out of no where comes the camel. Dani already doesn't like him and so I place myself in betweent he two and start petting it's face and talking to him. He likes it for a minute and then decides he doesn't like us at all and starts kicking and stomping and freaking out. We don't know what to do and know we can't run so we play it cool and try to leave he rounds on us and does his fit all over again. Yikes! We try to leave again this happens 4 times until we see Jonesy and she tries to help us out. He ignores her and starts chasing me around the tennis courts. I know I have to find cover because he is much faster than I am and with stomp me if he can get close enough. I find a light pole and run around it keeping it between me and the camel. He gets bored with this and goes to find Dani who is taking shelter under a tree. Chases her and get the pack of her shirt at one point but then drops her and leaves for me again. He does this over and over and it gets worse and worse each time he starts frothing at the mouth and I'm feaking. Jonesy picks up a stick and starts hitting him and he retreats to the woods. Dani and I make a run for it and all is safe after that. But man get your heart pumping! Too much for me friends! The next day we leave and now we can laugh at it but I don't know if it was the thunder or if he doesn't like Americans but it was VERY not funny at the time!

Well that's all I have for now folks. I will let you know more when I know more.

Until next time. :)