The first few months in Australia...

We have been in Australia for more than six months! It's time we updated this little old blog.

home life

First day of school in the new school year! Wardrobe choices are easy when one wears a school uniform.

At the school bus stop on a chilly morning (with Juke). We all enjoy our walk or bike ride to the bus stop in the morning and afternoons. We listen to the birds, scope out the river, and keep our eye open for snakes.

Barracking for Collingwood in the AFL Grand Final. 
When they lost, Imogen cried. Carn the Pies!

The SAC (Science-Art Cottage). This is where stuff gets DONE! The house looks a little creepy from this perspective. Good thing there are flowers to off-set that!

The interior of the SAC is much nicer than the outside. Here is the studio.

Here is half of the lab, the other half is behind me!

YUM!

Dear sweet Paloma Dove.

Dear sweet Imme Vivi.

Happy birthday Paloma!

farm adventures

Exploring the canola crop.

Howard is getting to know farm life. This is the air seeder. We are planting out the 40 acres with hemp here.

Fun with sheep! Ayesha always gets quite animated when we are working with the sheep. She makes a lot of whoops and calls and pretends she is a wedge-tail eagle swooping down on the unsuspecting sheep.

More views of the canola. The sky is really big!

More fun with sheep!

This is the hemp after sowing. It did not take long to germinate and grows like a ....weed!

Imogen confidently opens and closes gates for us.

Even MORE fun with sheep!

into the wild

A visit to Warrnambool on a cold and windy day...

A hike into the bowels of Mount Elephant.

A windy day on Mt Elephant.

Some random weird kid, hiking to the top of Mt Sturgeon.

Canoeing down the Hopkins. We made it about 800m before getting stuck in cumbungi. 

We had a much longer uninterrupted trip (four days) down the Glenelg River. There was a lot of paddling to be done as the river seemed to flow upstream verse down!

Brolgas dancing on the hills across the river from our house.

fishy stuff

Howard has been fortunate to go out on a few fish surveys with some biologists working in the area. These are a few of the natives in the nearby Wannon River: The River Blackfish.

The Southern Pygmy Perch...

...and a rendering of the Little Galaxias (female and male). These 'little beauties' only grow to be about 4 cm long.

We installed a staff gauge to keep track of changes in the river....

...the Hopkins river

We are in Australia

Australia at last!

Our last few weeks in New Mexico were full of good friends, family and warm weather. We appreciate it all so much. 

Aaron's platypus pinata. The May-Gutierrez family and the Bixby-Zeek family hosted a marvelous farewell party (and a little bit of a birthday party). Thank you! We also had a massive party with all the fish folks, but were too busy to take any photos - if you have good photos, please share them with us!

A walk in sunny Taos. We spent the last week soaking up the sun, enjoying some family time and recovering from the previous hectic weeks.

...And then we flew off to Australia! The flight went really well: the girls are amazing travelers and adventurers.

After arrival in Australia, we threw the luggage in the car (including these two suitcases on the backseat).

It has taken us a while to adjust to the cool weather. Paloma found the best place to warm up was directly in front of the wood fire. This is our main source of heat for the house.

Imogen is getting to know The Boyz in the neighbourhood. We have four rams (who receive a special breakfast every morning).

The Girlz also get a special breakfast every morning (all 400 of them + lambs).

We went to Melbourne to buy a new car. The bow might indicate that it was a gift, but - sadly - it was not.

Every morning, we walk down to the ol' mailbox to catch the bus to school. We are now fortunate to be able to pick them up from the bus straight after school - we head home for some hot chocolate and shenanigans before dinner.

We have been scoping out long-term monitoring sites. This is a potential candidate, just upstream from the bridge.

Imogen discovered a scooter in The Annex (more details soon!). She's been scooting around and around and around in the garage because that's the only paved space for a couple of miles. 

Morning time is beautiful, if you're able to get up early enough and bear the cold on a frosty morning like this.

We adopted a lamb. Her name is Lucky Lammikins because she's luckier than her twin and her mama. Enough said.

Howard got to re-live a little of his youth by setting fire to things. Enough said.

This is looking up into the arms of an old River Red Gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis). The roots have created a similar labyrinth on the river bank below. Great habitat for water rats!

The carcass of a River Red Gum in the Hopkins River. They are mighty big trees!

Freedom! Juke, Ayesha, Imogen and Paloma catch some wind beneath their wings.

The canola is blooming and the countryside is bright yellow!

Imogen.

Paloma.

Thanks for listening; stay tuned for more!

Australia #3

Wildlife viewing

While we were in Australia, we tried to find an echidna. Unfortunately, we had no luck with that (I did find a couple of porcupines in a tree last week though). But we did spot some other animals.

Of course, Howard went looking for fish. He checked minnow traps in the Hopkins River every single day.

The girls were roped in to hunting for fish.

And we found gudgeon!

Lots of gudgeon!

Lots and lots of gudgeon!

Big gudgeon...

And little gudgeon too. 

 

On the last day, he pickled one. 

In the meantime, I was distracted by smaller creatures....

We tried to find a few quintessential Aussie animals too.

We found a koala in the Framlingham forest! I think there's a joey there. When Imogen and I spotted it, we called out to Paloma and Howard to hurry hurry run run run come and see the koala! I don't know what the rush was... it's obviously not going anywhere any time soon...

On our way up to the Grampians, some emus wandered by...

And then there were a couple of lizardy visitors. 

Oh, and did we mention that we caught a freshwater eel in the Hopkins? Yep, you read that right - an EEL!!!! I don't know if I've ever seen one there before (although Grandpa reports seeing them migrating in herds). 

Paloma was rather smitten...

She even gave the eel a quick little hug. 

As you can imagine, Howard was rather pleased too. 

Paloma didn't like the idea of eating it. 

So our eel friend went back to nature...