A collection of anecdotes and other things

As mentioned in a previous entry we bought some feijoa fruits at the farmers market.  It had a very strong, strange tropical smell--like no other food I can really compare it to except pineapple and wintergreen.  It was bizarre.  (We didn't take any pictures, but here is the link to the wikipedia page for more information if you're inclined.)  The flesh was soft but not very juicy, a bit like the custard apple from several weeks ago.

Also, I said I would put up pictures of (the inside of) passionfruit, so here it is.  Pretty weird looking, right?

You just eat all of that yellow-green slimy stuff.

Lemon lime & bitters soda.

Lemon lime and bitters is quite common here, but I don't recall ever seeing it in the states.  Also, at least where we were looking in the supermarket, it was all +bitters, and no regular lemon/lime.

Yesterday I had morning tea and a long conversation with the coordinator of volunteer services in Armidale.  When she asked what part of the US I was from, she said it sounded like I was up there close to Canada. (Reid doesn't think she could have known, and like other Australians just pretends to know where Wisconsin and Michigan are.)  I thought she did though. Who knows. I also never know what to say when people ask where I am from, specifically. I said Wisconsin, yesterday, because it was just me and not Reid. When it's both of us, though, we tend to just say we were "living in Michigan", which is usually followed by the clarification "northern middle part of the US, by Chicago, close to Canada."  Et cetera.  I don't think either of us really think we are "from" Michigan, though. (After all... we never even really went in to Detroit, in the three years we lived there.)  Anyway, it was a great meeting.  Like all the other Australians I have met, she was really, really nice.  And a great conversationalist, which is good for quiet folk like me.

Ever since we bought a microwave and I saw the settings for fish fillets and chicken fillets, I have been wondering how Australians pronounce English-French words. Like valet, being pronounced "val-let" as opposed to "val-ay" in Downton Abbey, but I was wondering if that was more of a thing of the early 1900s, and maybe English people aren't so concerned with their grudge of the French anymore. But we finally got the confirmation: yup, they say "fill-it". At least some Australians do.  I often wonder what these people think of me and my accent.  What words do they think I say ridiculously?

We have heard a little on the news how a new budget proposal is going through legislation and they want to add a $7 co-pay to all general practitioner doctor visits. And the public is outraged.  Let me repeat, SEVEN DOLLARS.  No longer free, okay, but still.  You Australians don't understand.  You just don't get it.

The other week I was sitting in the Armidale library minding my own business when I heard a conversation begin behind me at the collection desk.   An older gentleman was trying to renew his genealogy book, but what surprised me is that it was Michael Caine talking.  Well, obviously, not really.  I knew it only sounded like Michael Caine but I had to look to make sure, and nope, wasn't really him.  The Cockney accent was 100% exactly the same though.  I like to think of someone following this man around with a tape recorder and making some hilarious dubs on youtube.

The timeless, epic battle between land horses and seahorses continues.

Reid has been asking me to do the landhorse versus seahorse picture since ... gosh, 2009, New York. I've done a couple drawings in the past but this one is by far the best. I'll post the finished painting when we get there.  Anyone know of a building that needs a mural?  I think this would make a great mural. Give me a projector and a wall and I will do it.

***Note on comments: I changed the comments preferences to allow anonymous posts. I did not realize this was the automatic setting, so if you have been reading and declining comments because of this, please know that it is now fixed.

(P.S. I love to hear from you. :)

Armidale Express Extra - Wednesday, May 14, 2014

New England Brewing Company was featured in the Armidale Express Extra a couple weeks ago.  It's a magazine/flyer that comes every Wednesday in the mail; there's usually one or two real articles, a couple of community calendars or events listed, and the rest is advertisements (mostly real estate).

I kept hoping they would put this online so I didn't have to post the poor-quality pictures of it, but I haven't seen it, so here it is.

Note that the "wooden barrel" exterior of the tanks is decorative.

Uralla brewery eyes bright future for its amber gold
by Victoria Nugent

THE year isn't even halfway through but for Uralla's New England Brewing Company, it's already been jam-packed.
     Over the past few months the local enterprise has gained a small bar and a new brewer, fresh from the United States, while new beers and a sustainable initiative are around the corner. 
      Brewer Reid Stratton was coaxed over by director Ben Rylands from a job at Jolly Pumpkin Brewery in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
      Mr Stratton said he had wanted to work in an overseas brewery and the New England company was a good fit. 
     "It's been really pleasant to find how well the brewery is set up and how well designed the system is," he said.
      Mr Stratton said he it was also great to be able to access local ingredients, with the brewery sourcing malt from Tamworth. He's been able to jump straight into brewing, with two new beers, the New Englander Golden Ale and the New Englander Dark Farmhouse.     Since its inception little more than a year ago, the little brewery has been busy and now does regular deliveries to Sydney, Newcastle and Brisbane.
      Mr Rylands said the company also received good local support, with their beers on tap across the region. "We're pretty lucky that the pubs have supported us," he said. Gaining a small bar license has meant the brewery now sees a steady influx of people wanting to come and sit down for a beer. The duo also has an environmentally friendly initiative, with them set to offer refillable glass containers to allow patrons to take draught beer home from next month.
      Containers will come in two sizes; one-litre squealers and two-litre growlers, tapping into a growing trend.
      Mr Rylands said it would cut down on packaging and allow people to take home fresh beer. 
     "No one in Tamworth does it, no one in Armidale does it," he said. 
     Mr Stratton said the use of such containers in the US had diverted billions of cans and bottle from waste since its invention in 1989.
      "To me the two main advantages are having that really fresh beer and it allows me as a brewer to make a special edition that isn't packaged," he said.
      "It's just going to get more and more popular over time."

Black-faced cuckooshrike

I took these pictures a while ago (mid April, actually) and (sorta) forgot to post them.  I kind of like this bird, the black-faced cuckooshrike.  I like how wikipedia describes them as "inconspicuous birds".

I followed this guy on my walk between three different perches, until he flew away out of sight.

Coracina novaehollandiae

 

Put a bird on it.

Fog at Daybreak

Friday, May 16th.  Reid didn't have to go to work early so we took a drive to enjoy the morning fog.  He gets to see this every day.

When we got home we were ready for second breakfast so we walked to the corner store and bought a loaf of banana bread.  Unfortunately, it tasted like fake banana candy, specifically laffy-taffy, with a terrible aftertaste.  It was not good.

Revisit to Coffs Harbour

Last Saturday we went back to Coffs Harbour for the Pacific Bay Resort and Coffs Harbour Rotary Beer and Wine Appreciation Tasting Event and Silent Auction (or something like that).  We followed much of the same route as we did a couple weeks ago, sans Bongil Bongil National Park.  We went to Mother's Milk (a classy bar/delicatessen-type restaurant) in Sawtell first to drop off some kegs, then went to the resort to set up a little, and then downtown Coffs Harbour for lunch.  We got sangas (sandwiches... someone please tell me how that makes sense) at Old John's, a restaurant we had considered but didn't try on our last visit.  Then back to the resort for the event.

Reid and Ben in their matching NEBCO shirts

Flying Merino tasting panel

The event was from 2:30 to 6pm; I ended up taking a walk around 4:30 because I couldn't stop nibbling on the cheese and dried fruit they had available, and there wasn't that much else for me to do besides wander and eat.  We'd walked around the resort a bit when we arrived so I knew the way to the beach, and that's where I headed.

The resort is swankier than any place I've ever been to before.  It had that definite resort-feel to it, complete with palm trees and golf course and manicured lawns and tropical gardens.  It kind of felt like going to Hawaii (not that I would know).  It was pretty quiet, though: said golf course and an outside pool area were both pretty empty.  I saw a couple having a barbeque and feeding two magpies and this brushturkey.  The brushturkey didn't like to share his crumbs and would chase the magpies away, a pretty humorous sight.

Australian brushturkey, not related to American turkeys.

The beach was pretty empty, too.  It's not a swimming beach, but there were a couple people walking and sitting around in the twilight; later some fishermen came out, too.

At the end of the evening a woman ate a hop pellet.  Reid told her not to but she did it anyway.  She said it wasn't that bad but had a strong aftertaste.  I, um, well, couldn't believe it.  The kid who picked up a hop pellet on a school tour at Grand Teton and immediately spat up probably wouldn't believe it, either.

Ben drove his Landrover so we didn't have to bounce around in the Berlingo. (Thank you~~~)  The Berlingo only seats two (people and about six to eight kegs) so if I had declined the invitation they probably would've taken little bluey.  There is something incredibly nostalgic about riding in the backseat of a car at night.  Maybe it was all the cheese (combined with getting a little carsick on the way over) and just general weariness, but I felt like I didn't remember who I was or where I was or what place or time I existed in.  Also the moon was still really full and it was beautiful; it was bimulous.

When we stopped for petrol we saw a character adjusting the produce boxes on the back of his truck, maybe filling up his flat tire (it was still pretty flat when he left, though). I think we noticed him first because he was barefoot (a lot of people are barefoot in Coffs, is what we deduced from our first visit). We would have completely forgotten about him except he was at the Armidale Farmers' Market the next morning.  We've gotten produce from him before; he always has a wide selection.  Sunday was no exception: we picked up red capsicums, passionfruit, turnip, zucchini and coriander leaves.  (They don't call it cilantro down here.)  Should've gotten bananas, but at the time it seemed like too much.. oh well.  We also bought pears, cabbage, and some interesting South American fruit called a feijoa, also known as the pineapple guava.  We'll try it tonight when Reid gets back from Melbourne.  Happy Friday!

Living arrangements and spiders and things.

The spiders have gotten much better at hiding themselves since we got here.  I don't really see them anymore but there are new cobwebs under the bathroom and laundry sinks.  Or maybe they're all small since we vacuumed up all the ones we could see when we moved in (there were just a couple in each room or so).  With one exception, most of the spiders we've seen in our apartment are daddylonglegs (probably 98%) or just a couple instances of some other little house spiders.

The exception happened last week when the cover to the kitchen fan suddenly fell off.  When climbing onto a chair to replace it I noticed a different looking spider crawling along the edge.  While we can't be totally certain, we think it was a whiteback/white-tailed spider, which are a bit venomous.  While a bite from one would certainly not be fatal, it would definitely be painful.  Needless to say that makes me nervous.  At least it doesn't seem like such a thing is very common.  Still, we keep the vacuum handy at all times just in case.. let's hope the probability of our existences crossing paths is minimal (see figure 1).

On a side note, the cover to the kitchen fan falling off was kind of funny.  It scared the bejeezus out of me as I was standing half-under it and it glanced my arm.  What are the chances it would fall off when I happened to be right there?  It's above a inconvenient space between the stove and a counter, not exactly a high traffic area in the kitchen.

Spidey-sense.

This spider is fake. Reid frightened me into thinking it was real at first.  The Huntsman spider that appeared in our cabin at the caravan park was almost this big (at least in my memory it was, so, no, it probably wasn't).  The good thing about Huntsmans is that they are big and terrifying, but not dangerous.

Our apartment is a duplex; we live on the south side of the house.  While this will be great in the summer to keep the house cool, this autumn is already a little chilly.  On warm days like today, it's warmer outside than in by 9am so I open up the windows to bring the temperature up a couple degrees.  We only get direct sunlight in through the laundry room (the sole north-facing window) and the entry hall (west-facing window).  Still, the house stays pretty cool so the only way to keep comfortable by wearing many layers.  The bathroom becomes my studio during the day because the lighting is good and it's usually the warmest in there.  Unfortunately, the window is really small.

Overall: we like our apartment.  Surprisingly, it's a little too big.  We could make do without the bedroom and have one less room to heat, which bodes well for my dreams of a tiny house future.  Or perhaps it's not exactly that it's too big, but the proportions aren't quite right.  Now that I'm using the laundry/bath as workspace, it would be nice to have some of the extra room from our living area in there.  Especially if we end up getting a washing machine, because then there really won't be any room.

Also, one note on the house design, which I fail to understand.  So you have windows and doors with screens, but then you have open vents to the outside in all the rooms?  Also, the small window in the toilet is just open: two off-set pieces of plexiglass that just barely overlap.  When I saw that I thought, seriously?  No screen or anything?  Hopefully a magpie doesn't find its way in, or anything else, for that matter.  Our cabin at the caravan park was the same way with open vents, except it didn't really matter because half the window screens were broken anyway.  We tacked muslin over the vents, hopefully this will discourage anything from coming in.  I will tell myself that it's working.

On a much more pleasant note, please see this pretty picture of a foggy rainbow.  Later on it was a double.

Postscript; next time I promise to write about something more pleasant and not spiders.  Even I just get the willies just thinking about it.  I will try to put together a photo montage of some of the other foggy morning photos we took last week.

Also, please do not google any of the spiders mentioned above... please don't.

Crimson Rosellas

Crimson Rosellas are probably my favorite parrots around here.  Galahs are more common but they look like they're wearing a silly hat.  Eastern Rosellas are also striking to the eye, but the bright red of the crimson rosellas is something else entirely.  I've delayed and procrastinated and waited to put these photos on the blog... please enjoy.

Juveniles are green instead of red.

How you goin'? No worries mate.

One of the most common Australian phrases we've latched onto is "How you goin", a seemingly innocuous variation of "How's it going".  This phrase is used as a greeting in place of "Hello", "How are you", "Good afternoon", "Nice to meet you", "Good to see you", et cetera.  The most difficult part to get used to is that the correct response is not "Good" or "I'm well, how are you?" (which I always reflexively say) but rather just "How you goin'."

"How you goin'?"  /  "How you goin'?"

"No worries" is another common phrase that seems just a little bit different than you would expect.  Not only is it used nearly exclusively for "You're welcome" (or equivalent to the casual "No problem") but it is also used as an affirmative ("Will do", "That's ok"), as a casual apology, and even a thank you.

But, at least those expressions we can understand.  We haven't encountered too much incomprehensible slang, though there are occasionally accents we cannot understand in the slightest.  Reid has had truck drivers come into the brewery that he cannot understand a word of, and we'll be walking down the street and hear kids calling to each other in what seems to be a foreign language.  ("Is that even English?"  we'll ask each other, though the kids are whiter than us so we assume it is.)

Reid and I have also joked that I need to assume an Australian name.  Americans rarely get the pronunciation of my name right on the first go, but Australians just don't have the "ah" sound in their vocabulary.  I think their mouths are incapable of the sound, just like Westerners often have difficulty with Japanese "r's" (and likewise Japanese people naturally have trouble with the English word "gorilla").  Or maybe I should just start going by my middle name?  Though the transition would be tricky I'm sure.

In other (non-living-in-Australia-related) news, I have been researching foxes for some paintings and have completely fallen in love with the Tibetan sand fox.  Just another reason to go to the high plateaus of Nepal and Tibet.

Why hello there.  How you going?