Wine and cheese at work

Posted on September 6, 2011 by waggadventure

CSU has, as strange as it may seem, both a winery and a cheesery. Yes, that might seem odd, but then again, this is Australia, where many things are a bit odd. In our time knowing about them – from last December’s trip here through to now – we’ve had the opportunity to sample pretty much the full range of both.

The lemon myrtle cheese has won some awards. Forest berry, none. Oh well, we like it.

The cheese…we’re not sure exactly why CSU makes cheese. The cheese factory is part of the food sciences area of the uni, but you can’t do a degree in it; we’re not even sure if you can take any classes in it, though we did meet someone one day at the market who was here from France apprenticing there. They do, however, offer a weekend cheese making class, that Dan will probably take some time in the near future.  The cheese range is quite interesting: they call it bidgee cheese, a semi-hard style developed here by the cheesemaker (who is from Coolamon) and named after the Murrumbidgee River. It is a cheddar-like cheese infused with local flavours such as lemon myrtle, mint, and bush tomato.  Neither of us generally like flavoured cheeses, but these are quite interesting at least for their uniqueness and some are actually very good.

Wine making makes more sense, as there are a variety of wine programs at CSU, ranging from viticulture (growing grapes) to wine making to wine marketing.  These programs have been in place for quite a while, and since the winery opened in 1997 they have won numerous trophies and medals at national wine competitions. The grapes come from various areas around NSW, such as Orange, Tumbarumba, and Wagga, and the wine is all made here in Wagga.

At a recent Faculty event in Bathurst, where CSU has a campus, we attended 2 wine and cheese receptions.  Of course, they have to serve CSU wines and cheeses, so we had some of the current release reds (Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon), the newly-released 2011 Sauvignon Blanc, and a few different cheeses. This beats the hell out of most campus food events, where the onsite catering company has the monopoly on Faculty events. CSU wine and cheese events win, hands down!

The menu for the Barrel Hall dinner, with the odd wine stain.

In early September, we went to the inaugural CSU Winery Barrel Hall Dinner, a food-and-wine pairing meal held in a huge warehouse/workspace at the winery. It was quite an event, starting with a sparkling wine and canapes while people mingled in the hall, entertained by a cello/violin duo. After watching chief winemaker Andrew Drumm ‘sabre’ a bottle of bubbly with an outback bush knife (very cool!), the first course was served. This was a salad with fennel, apple, and trout (avocado for the seafood-allergic Lisa), paired with 2002 and 2010 chardonnays.  The 2010, which we had purchased previously, is good, but the ’02 has aged wonderfully and was great. Unfortunately, this was something that they don’t have enough of to put on the market.

This is the CSU wine maker 'disgorging' a bottle of sparking Pinot/Chardonnay. Unfortunately, iPhones don't work well in the dark, so it is a pretty horrible photo.

Main course was a massive rib-eye, grilled rare and served on a bed of porcini and chevre risotto. Yummy! Wine pairings: 2009 Cab/Shiraz and a 1997 Cab, again one pulled out of the cellar in limited quantity. It was spectacular…well-aged, very mellow and fruity.

Next up was the interactive part of the dinner. Huge plates of CSU cheese (including a Camembert-style soft one and a blue, neither of which you can purchase) were brought out, and we got to be the first public tasters of the 2009 Merlot that won first place for Merlots at a recent boutique wine competition. After that was a barrel sample of the 2010 Shiraz that is aging in the building, not to be bottled for a couple of years. Then there was a game where people tried to figure out what they were drinking from an unmarked bottle. It turned out to be a new Tempranillo – a grape they hadn’t used before at CSU. It was really good – light, strawberry and cherry flavours, not too tannic but a bit acidic. We ordered a case of this one!

Then, after everyone settled down again, two dessert wines (a sticky and a light Moscato) accompanied a chocolate/licorice concoction and a chai panna cotta. The Moscato was, like most of them, horrible – too sweet and ‘cooler-ish’ for us, but the sticky (their College Muscat) is quite nice.

The new CSU winery label. The image of Dan with his iPhone above the label is just a reflection of him taking the photo, not part of every bottle.

Much of the winery discussion of the evening was about the new labels for the Merlot and the Tempranillo. CSU wine labels are, in our opinion, pretty boring. They are very corporate and plain. The new ones are just a white letter on black background, that looks like chalk on a board. M for Merlot, T for Tempranillo (the bio scientist sitting beside Lisa joked that they might need a P for plonk label!). They got mixed reactions; we liked them but some people prefer more traditional labeling. The marketing guy said they are trying to appeal to a different audience, one that is more fun. Maybe that is why we like them!

We are looking forward to more dinners at the winery. They will be having more Barrel Hall dinners, and we have heard they also have one each year to celebrate the new releases (the Vintage dinner, where we get to wear party dresses! Well, Lisa will wear one… we’ll hope that Dan does NOT). The CSU wines and cheeses can be sampled every day at the winery cellar door sales room, so we want to remind all readers that anyone who comes to visit will get a sample of all they have to offer. You will also have the opportunity to consume both the wines and cheese in any quantity you wish at our home. CSU staff get a 25% (!) discount, so we are always stocked up, and we can get you some to take home at a good price, too. Unfortunately taking cheese across borders is sometimes a challenge, so you will have to eat that here (or risk the wrath of Canadian/American customs officials!).

Posted in Australia, cheese, CSU, wine | 5 Comments

Creature comforts : Part 2 – Settling in

Posted on September 3, 2011 by waggadventure

It is kind of weird, but with all the things we had to do to get the house organized, one of the first things we did was put up art. Anyone who knew our Edmonton house would remember that the walls were full, and we’ve been living here for more than a month staring at bare pale yellow walls. With boxes and  packing material all over the place, furniture scattered around, we spent the first evening hanging pictures. In our rental contract, we agreed not to put any new holes in the walls. There are 19 hooks already there, so we had to use those… Since we had the crates open anyway to look at them, we hung the two Alex Janvier pieces and the Maureen Enns bear.

We both fell in love with these pieces when we saw them in BA last winter, so it was an easy decision that we use some of our limited 'nail space' to hang them. Not only are they visually interesting, but they represent a time of transition for us - it was while on the cruise around Patagonia that we made the final decision to move to Australia. And, in a really strange turn of events, the gallery owner had gone to school at UWO while we were there in the mid-90s!

We also got to hang the two pieces by Nestor Gomes that we bought in January – these were still in the wrapping that the gallery in Buenos Aires did for bringing them home. Though we have owned them for 8 months, we haven’t actually seen them since we bought them.

There are some other things scattered around the house, in odd places (what were the people who hung things here thinking?). The rest of the art is stuffed in a closet in the spare bedroom.

Another priority was making sure the few electronic items we brought with us still worked. As soon as Craig and Bob left, Dan hopped in the car and drove to a local computer store to purchase some new power cords for our iMac and stereo equipment. Apple is smart enough to make everything dual voltage, and our amp and cd player are British, so have a voltage switch on the back. And yes, they arrived intact, and we now have something better than an ipod dock for music (and Lisa gets to take her ipod dock to her office!). The only thing still to do in that area is that Dan’s turntable has a strange power supply, and so he has to go to a specialty store (in a bigger city) that sells that brand to replace it.

No more iPod! Turntable will be operating soon! Check out the spacing of nails on the walls; previous tenants must have had a big TV.

Over the next couple of days, Dan was floundering around, putting things away, stuffing things in cupboards, trying his best to do a task he is horrible at: organizing. But he didn’t do too bad. The few books we kept are shelved, the CDs are shelved (though not in any order), furniture is in places that make sense, and the outdoor living area is set up. Our patio heater, unfortunately, doesn’t fit under the roof of the patio so we won’t be spending the evenings out there yet as it still gets down to single-digit temps at night. But soon, we will be spending a lot of time out there.

Lisa took on the job of organizing the clothes closets and dressers while Dan went to his Indian cooking class on the Thursday night. After living with a minimal wardrobe for the past few months, it is kind of weird to have so many clothes (and real hangers!) again. But the selection is nice – Dan, for instance, was getting tired of the one pair of shorts he had; we weren’t thinking that winter would be so warm or we would have packed more. Lisa is happy to be reunited with her collection of Fluevogs.

After weeks here with just 2 chairs, we how have capacity on our patio for over a dozen people. We will welcome any visitors with open arms. And open bottles of wine.

The kitchen is still a bit of a mess. We have a lot of gadgets, and figuring out where to put them is a challenge…not that there isn’t room, but it is time consuming to think about just what goes where. We are thrilled to have our pots and pans though, because the cheap ones we bought here were so crappy you couldn’t really control the temperature. So now we can cook somewhere besides the barbecue!

The really odd thing is when you realize how happy you are to see trivial things. Like a mortar and pestle……try grinding fennel seeds, cumin seeds, and cardamon to make a yoghurt-based paste to marinate a rack of lamb without one, and you’ll realize how much you need it (or an electric spice grinder, but we sold that to a friend before we moved).

Towels. A simple part of life, something we all have, but probably don’t pay much attention to. We brought one tea towel and one dish cloth with us, but quickly realized that we couldn’t make it from one laundry day to the next without a second one. So we bought two tea towels, but one just seemed to spread blue lint around, so was useless. But still, they weren’t enough. And we didn’t bring any bath or hand towels; we bought some here, because they are a bit bulky, but one bath sheet and one hand towel each aren’t really enough. Sure, you can make it through a week, but what do you do when you need to wash your hands and your only set of towels are in the dryer? (Quick answer: wipe them on your jeans, same as you do in many Australian rural public washrooms. But that is another whole post!).

A broom. It wasn’t something we wanted two of, and since ours was on the ship, we didn’t buy one. But do you know how much crap lands on your floor every day ? Exactly enough to be annoying, but not enough to want to pull out the vacuum. That’s why someone invented brooms. We did buy a small dustpan but that’s not good for cleaning large areas.

Despite the fact that they have most of their old furniture, and a huge house, the cats just want to be near us. Luckily, our dining table is big enough to accommodate us at one end and them at the other. And for potential visitors: we will scoot them off and wipe it clean before we serve you.

But, after all the shit we’ve been through, planning how to get here, wondering where our stuff was, how much of it would be intact/broken, how long would quarantine hold it, etc., we now have a house full of stuff. And, more importantly, and after a lot more anxiety, we have our cats safe and somewhat well adjusted (stay tuned for a settling in: the kitteh edition post). And we have each other. And together we are making friends and we are learning about Wagga, the Riverina, NSW, and Australia, and making a new life.

After all the shit we’ve been through, we are finally settled. Up until now, when someone, hearing our (lack of an) accent would say “where ya from, mate?”, we would probably respond “we’ve just moved here, but we’re from Canada.” Now, we might just say “Wagga.”

After all this shit, we are finally starting to feel like this is home. Sure, it will never be ‘home’ as in where we come from, where our family is, etc., but we haven’t had that kind of a home since we left Ontario many years go. Now, this is where our life is.

This is home.

And, really, all the shit really hasn’t been that bad. So, for everyone reading this, when an opportunity arises, go for it! It might seem daunting, but in the end, life is too short to not try.

Posted in art, Australia, cats, family, Moving, Riverina, rural life, small town culture, wagga | 2 Comments

Creature comforts: Part 1 – Unloading

Posted on August 28, 2011 by waggadventure

Regular readers will remember that it was a long time ago…several posts ago in blog terms…that we talked about our furniture being packed into the sea can and starting its long, slow journey to Australia. And now, more than 11 weeks later, the can arrived in Wagga and our stuff is back in our possession.

We had a couple of updates on its transit over time, but this actually confused us. In late July, we were told that the ship was on schedule, and would dock in Sydney on August 2. Then, a while later, we received a letter asking us to authorize the company to submit our stuff to customs, and to provide a credit card number for any incidentals, such as quarantine fees. It also said that the ship, now identified to us as Northern Practise, would hit Sydney on August 9. Not sure why the date was changed.

This is the Northern Practise. Is one of those containers our stuff?

One day, Dan goes on to the internet and googles Northern Practise. Here’s some details: It is registered in Liberia (aren’t most ships these days?), is 264 metres long and 32 metres wide, and registered as carrying Hazard A (Major) cargo.  Hmmm, did this put our stuff in any danger? Would our couch glow with radiation on arrival? Or did they put it on this ship because they felt our goods were hazardous?

But more interesting, he also found out that the ship’s last known port had been Hong Kong, and its position at that time was just east of Wollongong, NSW…south of Sydney. It seemed to have missed its stop! The ship’s posted destination was Melbourne, where it went, offloaded (we assume) some containers, then turned around and went back to Sydney. Who knew you can track all this stuff on the web (and for you shipping geeks out there, here is the link; you can follow the NP’s schedule as it continues on its journey)! It finally arrived in Sydney early on the 10th of August, unloaded, and took off for Brissy (that’s Aussie for Brisbane).  The really strange thing about the tracking process is that you can look back a couple of months, and there is no record of the Northern Practise having been in Vancouver in June to pick up our container; it seems to pretty much stay in the South Pacific, floating back and forth between China (mainland and Hong Kong) and south and eastern Australia. So we have no idea what happened. Maybe the container left Vancouver on one ship, went to China and got transferred, or maybe the ship’s history was wrong. Who knows?

The container that arrived wasn't the same one that left Edmonton. This means that Australian customs moved everything, but from what we can figure out they didn't take anything.

Anyway, after all that, the container got unloaded in Sydney and the quarantine/customs people took a look. Not finding anyone in the container who needed to be transferred to Malaysia (Aussies will get this…) or any agricultural products, they actually sped through it pretty quick and less than 2 weeks later Lisa got a call saying it would arrive in Wagga some time on August 24; if they drove it down from Sydney on the 23rd, we would have it in the morning, otherwise it would be early afternoon. On the 23rd, they confirmed that it was on the way, and delivery would be in the morning.

Around 9:30 am, Craig and Bob show up with our stuff. They were great! Craig was obviously in charge; in his early to mid-40s, he was the driver, and spent a lot of time on the phone while Bob, who was probably around 20 yo, unloaded and carried most of the heavy stuff. They were from Melbourne, and had been working in Wodonga because there wasn’t much going on in Melbourne; this week Wodonga wasn’t too busy either so they got a job in Wagga. Who knew that Wagga was the hot place for movers these days?

It didn't take Bob and Craig too long to unpack these boxes. They just put everything on the counter and we tried to keep up with them, getting stuff into cupboards.

So…we don’t know much about regional Australian accents, but there are three possibilities here: people from Melbourne have a strong accent; working class people in Australia have a strong accent; or working class people from Melbourne have a strong accent. Whichever it was, we had a really hard time understanding these guys. Craig made a joke about his brother, who married a Canadian and moved to Canada (somewhere in BC, we think), and then came back. Craig told him he came back with a Canadian accent, and the brother said “I don’t have an accent, but you sure do!” And did he ever…or it was just a lot of bogan pronunciation and slang he was using. Whichever it was, thanks to Lisa’s interpretive skills (Dan spent much of the day trying to comprehend what was going on), most things got placed in the proper room and we had some fun chats with some genuine, hard-working blokes who got to unpack (and therefore see) our UMC Canadian stuff (they probably saw more kitchen gadgets than they knew existed, and thought that the way we treated our cats was hilarious! Craig couldn’t stop talking about the fact that they had their own water fountain. We’re sure that they would have had some good laughs over a beer in the pub that evening, talking about the crazy Canadians’ stuff).

It took a few hours to unload and unpack, and then Craig and  Bob left us to put everything away. Most things arrived unscathed, though there were a few casualties and wounds. Our bed’s footboard is scratched, the glass in one picture frame is broken, one wine glass, some xmas ornaments are broken, etc. And we will be putting in a claim with Allied over these things. It will be interesting to see what happens. Most of the damage is from bad packing by the Edmonton crew. Lisa realized that they even broke something in Edmonton and then tossed the pieces in a box, as she found a piece of a porcelain xmas figurine in the basement when we left our old house. Didn’t think anything of it at the time… until we found the rest of the ornament in the box here in our new place.

The packing materials pretty much filled the container when they loaded it up to take back to the depot.

The cats were locked up in the ‘family’ area of the house (i.e., the extra bedrooms and bathroom area), where not much was going to be delivered. Lester did manage to escape a couple of times, because he has mastered the art of opening pocket doors, but we caught him before he got outside.

We are thrilled that our art, for the most part…just that one broken piece of glass…made it, fully intact. The irreplaceable pieces by  Alex Janvier and Maureen Enns, that we purchased custom-built crates for (thanks for that tip, FFG!), arrived unscathed.

This is what we woke up to the next morning. It looked like a tornado hit.

And then, after a long day of helping Bob and Craig, telling them where to put things, organizing cupboards, unpacking boxes (they were supposed to do it all, but Dan just couldn’t stand around and watch them work; Lisa finally allowed him to put the feet on a bookshelf – much to Bob’s dismay! – and start unpacking a few books), and inspecting everything, we finally, after 81 days of friends’ place in Edmonton, hotels and BnBs in the UK, airplane seats, The Lawson, and then a futon, we finally got to sleep in our own bed. But neither of us really slept that first night because it was a bit unfamiliar, and there was a huge pile of cats who also hadn’t had their bed for months! Dan also couldn’t sleep because it was so loud – all that purring, non-stop, through the night. Night two…we were out for hours!

Next up, some more unpacking and ‘setting up house’ in detail.

Posted in art, Australia, cats, decluttering, Moving | Leave a comment

How to speak Australian, Part 3

Posted on August 24, 2011 by waggadventure

Yes, it’s another installment of our popular feature on the Australian language. In fact, the phrase ‘how to speak Australian’ is a common Google search that sends people to our blog (welcome strangers!). Most days, our lives proceed as normal… and then we encounter a word or two that stops us dead in our tracks. Sometimes we stare quizzically for long periods of time while our brains try to process meaning (people must think we’re loopy); other times, we just laugh out loud (then they must think we’re nuts). All in all, it’s a fascinating experience as we adjust to our new culture.

It really does get rid of pong!

It really does get rid of pong!

Pong: Australia is a bit behind in terms of technology. While PS3 and Wii have taken over North America, pong is the big thing here…  Just kidding. This does not refer to a variant form of ‘ping-pong’ (what must the Aussies think of that game?). Pong, it seems, is a term for a bad smell. The Oz-Pet cat litter company makes a special litter box that lets the pee-soaked litter filter down to a lower tray so all that is left on top is clean pellets. The pissy stuff below is sealed in by the pile on top, and it doesn’t smell. And it really works…no pong noticeable. Wow! Why aren’t these available in Canada?

Rissoles: Are they meatballs? Or miniature meatloaves? Or maybe these burger patties that someone forgot to flatten (can you buy patty stackers here?).  Basically, rissoles are mince (ground meat), with some additions (like peas), in a ball about half the size of a tennis ball. They are available in all the butcher shops and grocery stores. We’re not sure what you are supposed to do with them. We barbecued some (as mentioned earlier, we barbecue just about everything); you could probably bake them or pan fry them. We’re not sure what the point is though…

I love the smell of pyrethroids in the morning. But spiders don't.

Mortein:  This is the most important word in Wagga. We thought it might be some odd hybrid of the French morte (death) and insect, but according to Wikipedia (and they are always right!) it means ‘dead one’ from the French dead (mort) and German one (ein). Mortein is a wonder spray that gets rid of spiders!  You spray it around the outside of the house, around door frames, windows, etc., anywhere that a spider might live or be able to get into your house. Houses here aren’t well sealed, so there are gaps everywhere. Mortein creates a barrier between you and the spiders outside, and supposedly lasts for 6 months. And it coaxes them out of the crevices, and kills them. It’s evil! Wonderful, wonderful stuff. We happened upon it in Bunnings one day, and thought we would give it a try, though later one of Lisa’s colleagues mentioned it as something we should know about. Dan sprayed around the house, and by the next day there were about 25 to 30 spider corpses around the outside of the house. Most were harmless ones like wolf spiders, but he did get rid of one whitetail and one redback(!).  Some died so quickly that they were hanging from a web string (we had to be careful not to walk into any of these). So we’re winning the game. Dan: 2; deadly spiders: 0. We recently bought a can of Mortein indoor, to spray around walls before our furniture arrives (and no, it’s not toxic for kitties).

In trade for not being allowed to strike, Australian letter carriers get to ride motorcycles across peoples' lawns. Where do we sign up?

Postie bike: We’ve seen these for sale in The Daily Advertiser (our local newspaper; you should read it to see what’s happening where we live!), but it took a while for us to figure out exactly what they are. They are motorcycles that the mail carriers ride to deliver the mail.  Yes, deliver the mail. To your house. No superboxes at the end of the block here, that you have to walk to; mail actually gets delivered. The letter carriers (postie bikies?) drive these little motorcycles all over the place, even up on your lawn to your mailbox. It looks like a really cool job. They probably even get paid for it, though it would seem like Australia Post could save a lot of money if they just explained how fun it is and let volunteers do the job. Not everything is delivered on bikes though, as bigger parcels are delivered in vans. This is is how we got the cats’ fountain delivered and a case of wine that Dan bought in an online auction. At around $10 per case for delivery, mail order/online wine sales may be keeping Australia Post in business. We wouldn’t trust Canada Post to deliver wine in Canada without breaking it, or losing it (or drinking it? haha). Here, it is a specialty service.

This case of wine was purchased on a Saturday night, delivered to our door at noon on Wednesday, and sampled that evening. Canada Post couldn't move a box that fast, and they would probably break a bottle or two.

Cracka and Vinomofo: OK, not common Australian terms, but ones that we have been using a bit. Cracka is an online auction site for wine, kind of like eBay. How it works is that they list some wines by the case (say 10 cases of WineX) on any given day; for the next 7 days, people bid on them, and on the 7th day there is a strange live auction/buy it now event where the price starts to drop until either people buy it at the ‘buy it now’ price, or it reaches the high bids.  Dan bought a case of Thorn-Clarke cab/shiraz blend that retails for $20 per bottle for just $7.50 per bottle. Vinomofo is a Groupon-like wine site, where every day they put up a special at 40-60% off. They have a minimum number of cases that they have to sell, and also a maximum in stock. We’ve registered, but haven’t bought anything yet. We just love the less-Draconian liquor laws here. Can’t see this happening in Canada.

Squizz: OK, this is a weird one, and one that we haven’t heard much. It seems to mean check out, look at, etc. We hear it on the radio station that we listen to, Triple J, whenever they are talking photos, videos, and podcasts posted on their website; they will say something like “if you want to know more about this, there is a video on our website so go have a squizz.”

I am not a mongy. There is no such thing on my planet. If you call me this, I will kill you with my death-ray eyes.

Mongy: One day when we were still staying at The Lawson, Dan was talking with PerkyGirl about cats. She asked him what kind they were, and he said something like “just normal cats,” as in not Siamese, Sphinx, etc. She replied, “Oh, mongies.” This, it seems, is Aus for mongrel. Our cats would have been offended by Dan’s comment that they are normal, but even more offended by PerkyGirl calling them ‘mongies’.  We have since decided that any time someone asks, we will explain that they are rare Canadian purebreds (not sure of the name yet…and don’t want to contravene anything that we said on the import papers; suggestions anyone?). It is also very likely that mongy is used for people too, something like feral.

Search terms of the week:

  • long skinny orange body with black legs spiders in alberta
  • on air canada flights am i allowed 3 luggages
  • if a whole bunch of women were walking down the street and they all turned into potatoes how could you tell

OK, we understand what the first two were looking for, and maybe even how they found our blog. But that last one…wow, what were they looking for, and why did Google send them to our blog? (and from what post?)…

Posted in bogans, bug spray, cat litter, cats, cooking, ferals, food, pet supplies, rissoles, spiders, Uncategorized, wine | 1 Comment

Show me the pie…

Posted on August 20, 2011 by waggadventure

Wagga is often referred to as a ‘country town’, but it is a city, despite the fact that we can hear sheep from our house, drive past goats on the way to the uni, and see kangaroos on campus. If you want to see the real rural Australia (not the outback, but the farming community), you need to go for a drive…and that is what we did.

In Canada, usually in September, there are events in small (and not so small) towns called Fall Fairs, where farmers and farm people do their thing, showing cattle and crops, entering baking contests, and so on. Last fall, when visiting Dan’s parents in Pike Bay, we read the local paper in earnest, to see whose pickles would win ‘best in show’. In rural Australia, this type of event  is called a Show, and they happen in late winter and spring. It is, therefore, now show season in the Riverina. We went to the Ganmain Show in Ganmain, in a town of about 650 people, about an hour’s drive from Wagga. It was a fun introduction to real small town farm culture in Australia.

The Yard Dog competition was a bit like a woolie mosh pit, trying to vie for position for the best viewing spot for the pie eating contest.

Unfortunately, the Ganmain Show website let us down; we actually missed a few big events, such as the equestrian jumping. And we didn’t see much of the NSW Yard Dog Championships, but what we did see was pretty cool! Australian sheep dogs are kelpies; they are quite small, very fast, and from watching them herd sheep at their masters’ commands, it seems they are very smart. And, their best trait is that they are nimble enough to walk on top of the sheep; seriously! In the competition, a bunch of sheep would be let into a pen and the kelpie would round them up into a small area; the dog would then climb on the sheep’s’ backs and herd them through a gate (just like they were being prepped for shipping);  then they would do it again into another gate area. The dog owner would give commands, some using words, others strange noises, or even just whistling. The whole thing was timed and the winner was the one who could do it fastest. Very interesting to watch!

Shearing was a big mess of hands, hooves, and wool.

As you may have guessed, the Riverina is sheep country; so the other major attraction at the show was sheep shearing. In the Quick Shear competition (Intermediate for younger shearers and Open for the seasoned pros), competitors shear one sheep in the first heat, and the fastest ones compete in the finals. The process went like this: they would go to a pen at the back of the stage, grab the sheep with their number on it (written on its head, by hand, with a sharpie!), drag it out and wrangle it into position; the clock started the moment they turned on the clippers. The clock stopped when the clippers stopped, and the sheep was pushed out a second gate (the ‘money hole’). It is, apparently, just like they would do at work. And it seems that sheep shearing is a pretty lucrative business. This is piece work, paid by the sheep, not the hour.  In competition, the times were ranging from about 40 seconds to 1 minute 15 seconds for one sheep. This is probably faster than on the farm, but still – that is a lot of sheep in one day! The emcee kept talking about how important it was for younger people to get into shearing, and one young man (in his early 20s probably) in the Intermediate division said he makes about $450 a day shearing sheep. Wowsers!

Despite how hard it looks on the sheep, shearing is pretty tough on the shearer too. This guy has been doing it so long he is having surgery to replace both knees next week! He couldn't even climb back on the stage to accept his prize money for 2nd place, because he was in too much pain.

Sheep shearing, on the face of it, looks pretty cruel. The sheep are wrestled into position and held in place with their limbs at awkward angles; they are also spun around on the floor as the clippers go for every bit of fleece. Sadly, they do get nicked now and then. But during the competition, the emcee actually talked about keeping the sheep comfortable, and competitors are given a ‘red light’ for drawing blood. One of the organizers (who also competed in the Open category and is pretty quick) was coaching the younger shearers as they competed, telling them how to hold the sheep, to keep focused, etc. And at the end of the competition, he spoke about a “duty of care, to both the farmer and the sheep.” In the end, the sheep were remarkably calm, clearly quite used to the process; the big winner of the day went home with $500 and bragging rights for the next year.

The winning baking was so good that they had to keep it in a cage!

In Canada, there are many highlights to your typical country fair. Bossy bingo (where you hope that the cow in the pen will shit in your chosen area of the bingo card painted on the field); the contests for best pie, jam, or quilt; and, of course, the pie-eating contest.  We didn’t see any cow-shit bingo at this show, but the other events were quite familiar. Jams, jellies, and cakes galore, along with some unusual categories – like prettiest coat-hanger, decorated arrowroot cookie, and edible necklace. There was even a photo competition, where everyone in the community submitted pics of their kids, their dogs, or their big vacations (like, the time they went to Sydney!). Application forms were posted on the show’s website in the weeks leading up to the event (yes, we’ve been waiting for the Ganmain Show for some time now!); we just may enter ourselves in a few categories for 2012.

Not your average arrowroot cookies. Maybe this will be Dan's winning category in 2012?

And, of course, the pie-eating contest! You may have seen such things on the news in Canada, even watching reports from the US now and again. Competitors across North America engage in pie-eating rites of passage of all types – cherry pies, lemon meringue, apple… you name it. Often, these are very messy competitions (no forks allowed!), too. We’ve seen ‘Ganmain Pies’ advertised around Wagga in the weeks that we’ve lived here and always wondered what they were. Well, now we know! In another example of the UK influence, pie in Australia often refers to meat pie – and Ganmain is no exception. High noon marked the start of the Ganmain Pie-eating contest and Dan decided that he was up to the challenge. If nothing else, it would be a cheap lunch; the entry fee was $5 for 3 Ganmain Pies. Luckily, the pie is hand-sized, about 4 inches across; it’s filled with a mince (lamb perhaps?) and gravy combination and the crust is super-flaky. Lisa’s task was to take lots of pictures and try not to fall off her seat laughing!

Tucking into pie #2. The tomato sauce bottle was distracting him, that's his excuse for not winning.

Dan took to the stage and grabbed a seat beside one of the locals (who was wearing a red and white – Canada Day?? – t-shirt that read “I’d tell you to go to hell but I work there and I don’t want to see you everyday”). Dan was competing in Heat 1 (of 2) against 4 other guys; this followed the kids’ competition, where the winner was the only girl who was brave enough to compete (good going, Molly Jones!). Dan sized up the competition and stared down his plateful of pies. ‘No way!’ he said, when offered a bottle of tomato sauce (i.e., ketchup!); the announcer remarked ‘Well, we know he loves the taste of those pies – he’s saying no to the sauce today!’ Little did he know that Dan hadn’t yet tasted one of these local treats.

He may not have won, but he was doing better than the guy on the far left who looked like he was going to hurl and didn't finish. But the emcee did say Dan was the neatest eater in the contest. More evidence, according to Lisa, that he didn't really "give 'er" his all this day.

In the end, Dan gave it a good go… but was bested by the locals on this one. His time: 3 minutes, 1 second to eat 3 pies, getting him 7th place out of 10 entrants. The winning time was 1:30! Two contestants didn’t finish all 3 pies. It’s 12 months until the 2012 competition, so he’s got some time to practice his technique. Or, will this be the first of a series of show pie-eating competitions in the coming weeks? Watch this space…

Posted in agriculture, Australia, fall fairs, kelpies, pie, Riverina, rural life, sheep, sheep dogs, sheep shearing, shows, small town culture, Uncategorized, wagga | 2 Comments

This little piggy…

Posted on August 16, 2011 by waggadventure

The Wagga farmers' market is a very social event.

One cold day in January a couple of years ago, while Lisa was off at a conference (somewhere much warmer), Dan almost ran over a coyote on 119 Street in Edmonton, alongside the U of A farm. It was still dark, and it was snowing extremely hard, so hard that neither Dan or the coyote really knew exactly where they were. Both, however, were probably out foraging for food. We’re not sure what the coyote was looking for exactly, but Dan was on his way to the Old Strathcona Farmers’ Market. Because, almost every Saturday that we were in Edmonton, we went to the market. Cold, snow, rain, hangover, flu…nothing kept us away, even in winter when there wasn’t much there besides beets. We are market people. We like supporting local farmers, we like talking to them about what they are selling, and we like living seasonally (asparagus should only be eaten for 6 weeks, cherries and blueberries only in July…well, Edmonton’s July, at least).

There were many types of potatoes available in Edmonton, but we don't recognize any of these varieties. Is it just that they call them by different names, or are they really different kinds?

We’ve now experienced the Wagga farmers’ market twice. “Twice? Is that all?” you might ask.  Yes, twice, because it is only held once a month. Yes, you read that right, only once a month.

We went to the July market on the first weekend we were here. It was a cold and rainy day (for Wagga, and even we found it a bit uncomfortable), and not too many vendors were there. We were still jet-lagged, so it all just seems like a blur of a memory at this point. And we were living at The Lawson, so didn’t really have much need for a market, as we couldn’t cook. But we did buy some items that we could eat in our room, such as cheese, salami, bread, and wine. What more do you need, really?

A huge variety of veggies, from what would seem to be different seasons, is available, from spring onions to root vegetables.

This past Saturday, we went again. This time (jet lag behind us – yay!), we have a place we can cook; we bought some veggies, fruit, and some meat, too. There were a few veggie vendors; we bought from one from a town called Leeton (about 90 minutes drive from Wagga), that had beans, cauliflower, kale, mandarins, rhubarb, parsnips… and this kind of confused us in terms of what season we’re in. This is winter, and that is a range of produce that would be fresh in Canada in summer and fall. So what we will get in summer here will be sure to be a treat.

Stikaroo is a stupid name for something that tastes so good! Of course, since Dan is also known as "literal man" a "stick of (kanga)roo" does make some sense...

We also bought a Stikaroo – a cured mettwurst sausage made of kangaroo. It is delicious! And we bought a waygu beef salami too.  At the waygu beef booth, from a farm in Victoria state, a couple of hours from here, we also bought a couple of amazing steaks and really yummy beef pie. It was a beefy weekend for us!  And, keeping the Canadian connection alive, the guy who sold us the waygu beef was an economist-turned-farmer who had done his masters in Winnipeg at the U of Manitoba (of course! everyone here has been to Canada, knows someone in Canada, or wants to go to Canada). He understood why we wanted to abandon the cold for the southeastern Australia climate.

We don't usually like flavoured cheese, and neither does Opa...the one named for him is a plain gouda.

There is cheese available at the market too. An elderly couple from Boosey Creek, somewhere southwest of here, make an interesting array of cheeses. Our favourite is “Oma’s Favourite”, a gouda with cumin seed in it that is very subtlely flavoured and yummy! They also make great soft cheeses; the Warby Red is soft and stinky, the camembert-style one is firm yet creamy. We didn’t buy any of their blue this time, but will next month. The Charles Sturt University Cheese Factory also sells their cheese at the market. We didn’t buy any because we can get it any time on campus (for a discount! Lisa gets 25% off all wine and cheese. Now that’s a staff benefit!).

The wines from Harefield Ridge are way better than the horrible fruit wines that were available at the Old Strathcona Farmers Market in Edmonton.

CSU doesn’t bring its wines to the market, but there are wineries there. Borambola Winery is in Gundagai, 30 or so miles from here, and Harefield Ridge is just 10 or so miles outside of town. We didn’t buy any Borambola wines this time (we did last time) but brought home a few from Harefield. Their Cottontail cabernet sauvignon has a minty/eucalyptus undertone, spiced up by a bit of shiraz blended into it. It complemented the ‘bushmans spice blend’ (purchased at Knights Meats) on the waygu steaks, perfectly.

Our favorite baker sells at the market too. Bernard is a french baker, living in Wagga and operating a business called, simply, Artisan Baker. Some days, his breads are available at Knights Meats, and on Thursday, Friday and Saturday he (and his wife, mother-in-law, daughter) also sells out of his own retail space (more of an industrial space…). It is a small operation, and his baguettes and other breads sell out quickly everywhere. When we got to the market, there were no baguettes available so we went to his shop…where they were open but only selling pastries because all the bread was at the market. We zoomed back to the market and managed to get the last loaf of pain levain. That was all there was, and it was only 10:30. There would be a lot of disappointed people over the next few hours until the market closed. We also got a loaf of carrot and poppy seed bread from Magpies Nest, a local restaurant that also grows grapes and olives and makes its own wines and oils and brings them to the market. The bread is spectacular; haven’t tried their wine or oil yet, but we will. We haven’t made it to the restaurant yet; Dan’s waiting for a special occasion (our anniversary, perhaps? If he can remember the date?).

Pistachios taste good; so do the special pistachio bread crisps we purchased.

Another treat we bought was some pistachios. These delightful nuts grow here in the Riverina, one of the many great things we had no idea grew here before we came (same with olives, mandarins, and limes). There are a couple of vendors selling them…we made the mistake of buying from the first one we saw, which turned out to be way more expensive than the second one. Oh well. Live and learn.

So it was a good trip to the market, and we will be there again in September. And October. and November. You get the drift! How we will cope until then, we’re not sure. There are good fruit and vegetable markets and butchers in town, who sell some local products, so we don’t have to rely on the grocery chains, but it isn’t the same.  We like buying from the source. We are thinking that we will have to start planning Saturday morning road trips to outlying towns like Junee or Gundagai or Narrandera, wherever else there might be a farmers’ market on Saturday or Sunday (Waggans – if you’re reading this – can you please post a comment and tell us where to go? Okay, not “back to Canada where you came from!”… but to markets that we might go to on our weekend excursions?). If we can do the Wagga market once a month, and maybe another one in the middle, that will be enough.

Posted in agriculture, beef, cheese, farmers market, food, kangaroo, market, pie, pistachios, sausage, vegetables, wine | Leave a comment

Comfort creatures: Herding cats – the homecoming edition, Part 2

Posted on August 12, 2011 by waggadventure

We brought the kitties home to the new house that was (almost) ready for them. Couples who are having children often prepare a room for the baby; we kitted out the mostly empty house as best we could for our little ones to arrive. We bought them an ‘activity centre’, two scratching posts (don’t want them destroying someone else’s carpet), beds, blankets, dishes, food, toys, litter boxes…more than most cats in this city seem to have. And at this point, they have more furniture and amenities than we have. And really, anything that is ours they can use, but it doesn’t work the other way; they can sleep on our bed but their beds aren’t much good to us!

The kitties' new 'activity centre' (it really should just be called a sleeping centre) and one of the scratching posts.

Shopping for them has been a bit of a challenge.  There are three pet supply stores in Wagga: Petbarn, Bob’s Birdz-N-Pets, and Pets Plus and Aquarium, plus a section in Big W (owned by Woolworths, kind of like Wal-Mart); they all specialize in dogs, birds, and fish for the most part. Oh yes, and spiders; why you have to buy spiders in this country, when there are so many freely available, we don’t understand. Even the dog sections are geared toward animals that spend much of their life outdoors. The cat sections are pretty minimal. We had to shop at three of the stores to get just the items that we thought our cats would appreciate (tried Pets Plus and Aquarium too, but it is horrible…not much besides chook cages and fish).

We reckoned that Qantas wouldn't provide snacks on a short flight, so had the water fountain flowing and food dishes filled for the cats' arrival.

Some of their favorite items from Canada, we are working on replacing; others are in the sea can, sitting in port in Sydney right now. The cats absolutely loved their water fountain (a gift from Lisa’s parents and sister), but it wasn’t dual voltage; thanks to CB for giving our old one a good home! Nothing like that fountain could be found in Wagga, but an online store based near Sydney (Paws Point Pet Deli and Boutique) had the same one we had in Edmonton; they were out of stock, but said they would have it in a few days and send it our way. Just as we were about to get in the car to go collect the cats at the airport, an Australian postie (in a van, not on a motorcycle…that’s another cool post!) showed up with the fountain. This is important, as they actually like to play with their water while they drink. Another favourite toy is a big blue plastic ring with a ball stuck in it, that they batted around and around as they tried to get the ball out. It was about 18 inches in diameter – the ones we can find here are about 8 inches…Lester couldn’t lay inside it to play. Luckily, this one is on the ship. And the cardboard scratchers that Malachi honed his toes on are nowhere to be found. We will probably have to do some more online shopping (which Australia, being so spread out and with so many remote areas, does very well).

No, these aren't strange Australian bugs - just a whole mess of catnip toys.

Food has been a bit of an issue too. We found a vet that sells their ‘prescription’ Hills T/D dental food. In Edmonton, we could buy it in 9 kg bags, which lasted quite a while. Here (not just Wagga but Australia in general), all we can get is 2 and 3.5 kg bags, and they are about 35% more expensive. And in Canada they ate Science Diet beef soft food; that isn’t available in Australia (because of worries about mad cow disease!), so we have bought both chicken and turkey to see how they go (another Aussie saying…).

Luckily, we were able to get the wood-pellet litter that they have used for years. It is much easier to deal with than clay, and much less dusty. It’s also environmentally friendly – compostable, biodegradeable, etc. If you’re a cat owner and you’re reading this, we encourage you to make the switch! In Edmonton, the pet shops sold it for about $20 per bag but we bought it at Rona, where they sold it as fuel for wood stoves at about $5 per 40 lb bag. Here, no such luck, we have to pay pet store prices. However, the good news is that the Aussies have perfected this approach to cat litter. We were able to buy “cat loos” designed for wood pellets, made by Oz-Pet. Our cats are now officially Oz cats.

We bought some blankets and 2 cat beds - a 'single' and a 'double' - thinking that the boys would share the big one and Ellie would use the other one. We have now actually gone and bought a third one, because that plan just didn't work out.

So now the kitties are adjusting to their new home, and we are adjusting to having them here. We’ll report on the adjustment next time, but for now, we will say that our bed isn’t big enough for all 5 of us (sorry Dan! Maybe you’ll have to curl up on the activity centre after all!), and we have no other cat-friendly furniture. But we will get used to it, and hopefully we will have furniture (and the blue plastic ball toy!) soon.

Posted in aclimatizing, Australia, birds, Bob's Birdz-n-pets, cat litter, cats, cultural differences, food, pet supplies, Petbarn, spiders | Leave a comment

Comfort creatures: Herding cats – the homecoming edition, Part 1

Posted on August 9, 2011 by waggadventure

This is a song about being happy! Feel free to listen to it as you read.

Our family is finally all together here in our new home. Our kitties arrived yesterday, after a month in, as MO calls it, Kitty Gitmo (aka Eastern Creek Quarantine Station).

In preparation for the homecoming, Dan went down to the council office last week and rego-ed the cats.  We’re opposed, in principle, to having to license cats that never leave the house. They aren’t going to get lost, they aren’t causing problems in the neighbourhood. They will never need to be rescued. In London, we rebelled against registering them when a bylaw came in saying we would have to do it. We gave in when an animal control guy came to our house and told us to…they were actually driving around looking for unlicensed pets, and ours were sitting in a window.

Wagga airport doesn't have a really complex cargo system! We asked in the terminal about where the pick-up area was, and were told just go to where the luggage trolley was. Our cats were first to be unloaded.

In Edmonton, when we first arrived with Dexter and Simone, we didn’t license them. They weren’t microchipped, and it would have cost a lot of money because of that. Our vet was very opposed to that law (spoke at city council several times as it was being debated), and offered to write a letter saying that they couldn’t be chipped “for health reasons”, and because they lived on the 21st floor of an apartment building, it was kind of unnecessary – if they ever got out, they would be dead from the fall anyway. In the end, we just didn’t bother. If an inspector in a helicopter saw them on the 21st floor, we would give in! Ellie was registered by the Humane Society when we got her, and by that time we just gave in when we got Lester and Malachi. Each year, we renewed their licenses.

Registering them here in Wagga was easy. Dan just took in their medical history to prove that they are chipped and de-sexed, and paid $40 per cat for a life-time registration. Not necessary, in our opinions, but when in Wagga, do as the Waggans do (who we assume must all have their cats properly registered). The stupid thing about the whole process was that because Lisa was listed as the client on the paperwork from Whitemud Creek Vet Clinic in Edmonton, she is the ‘license holder’ here; Dan wasn’t allowed to put his name on the form. He was allowed to sign on her behalf, and they were quite happy to take his money though.

The Qantas cargo lady drove the luggage trolley to the pick-up area, where we collected our kitties. We thought of asking her to drive them across the parking lot to where our car was. The locals enjoyed saying hello to the cats as they grabbed their bags (we wish the Daily Advertiser had been there to take photos for tomorrow's paper!).

Ellie, Malachi, and Lester were released on Saturday, but because Wagga is a small town with a small town airport that doesn’t receive pets on weekends, they had to spend a couple of nights in boarding in Sydney (Kitty Kingdom!). And then on Monday morning they got shuttled to a lounge (did it have a pancake machine?) at Sydney Kingsford Airport where they awaited boarding. Then they were loaded onto Qantas flight 2225 that brought them to Wagga. Lisa stayed home from the office that morning and we met them at the airport.

Out of the entire voyage, this is the part of the trip that might have been causing us the most angst. We haven’t really spent any time with them since June 5, when we dropped them off at Calico Hills. We know that they were extremely well cared for there…Camp Mommy loved them.  Their shuttling and flights (YEG to YVR, YVR to SYD) would have been odd, but at least the planes would have been large. From SYD to WGA they were on a propeller-driven paddock hopper.  Based on our experience on that flight, it would have been loud and bumpy. Humans know what they are doing; cats, however, have no concept of commercial airline travel… It must have been very confusing for them. And, there was a dog in cargo with them, too. At least they didn’t have to negotiate SYD’s multiple terminals on their own.

Lisa getting reaquainted with Malachi. We've only seen them for a couple hours in the past 2 months, while they were having their final checkup in Edmonton on July 5.

We were quite happy with the care they received at Eastern Creek. Lisa had the mobile number for Rachel, their appointed care-giver (aka Gitmo Mommy), and called weekly to check on them. They were eating well, and being their normal selves. Rachel could describe their personalities to a tee: Lester was happy-go-lucky, mischievous, and wanted to play with the water; Malachi was cool, aloof, and generally friendly on his own terms; Ellie was extremely loving (wait – she’s normally a bitch to Dan! Hmm…). Rachel said she will miss them.

The biggest problem at EC was that they didn’t have their blankets. We had purchased some for them, and taped them to their crates when we prepped them at Calico Hills on the morning they departed from Edmonton. Somewhere along the way between Edmonton and Sydney, however, they got lost. The people at Eastern Creek were nice enough to find some old pillow cases and other blanket-like items for the trip here though, so at least the carrier wasn’t completely hard. Sadly, they didn’t have anything that smelled like home for the 30 days in quarantine. Just three mice, thanks to M&H… which Gitmo Mommy was happy to throw into the crates, so they can enjoy them at home now, too.

During their 2 month separation, Ellie almost forgot how much she hates Dan.

The airline approved crates, which we wrote about in earlier posts, were too big for our car. We purchased 3 smaller, soft-sided carriers to bring them home in; these are much nicer for them, and they will get used for trips to the vet. We’re not sure yet what we are going to do with the other ones. Maybe they will be donated to an animal rescue group, or maybe we will try to sell them. We won’t need them again…we aren’t going through this again!

So, our little family is back together. In a few days, we’ll post Part 2, about how we prepared for their arrival and how they are settling in.

Lester was too busy playing with a spider to cuddle with us. He completely decimated a daddy long legs, before abandoning it in pieces on the floor.

Posted in airport, Australia, Canada, cats, family, Qantas, quarantine, travel, wagga | 2 Comments

Peter Parker to the rescue

Posted on August 6, 2011 by waggadventure

Lisa wanted to buy these boots for Dan to wear on his morning hunt, but they only came in kids' sizes.

Every morning, Dan gets up, puts on his robe, shakes out his slippers and walks to the pantry, where he grabs a can of bug spray and goes on patrol, all the while singing Spiderman, spiderman, does whatever a spider can…

There are spiders in Australia. And there are spiders in our house.

The house had been empty for about 6 weeks before we moved in. We took possession on a Monday, and moved in on the Wednesday. The days in between were spent putting together the bed and other bits of furniture and cleaning.  It was, generally, pretty clean…just needed a bit of de-bugging really.  When we got first got here, there were a few dead insects on the floor and, we found out, a few live ones as well. On the second day, Dan spent several hours hoovering (do Aussies use hoover as a generic term for vacuum, like the Brits do? And since we bought a Miele vacuum, should it be Miele-ing?). He did the carpets over and over again, went around every room with the crevice tool to get at the edge of the carpet, did the inside of closets and cupboards, everywhere he could basically. This got rid of all the dead spiders and a few live ones, and hopefully any nests/eggs that were around.

The next day, when we actually ‘moved in’ (brought the last of our possessions from The Lawson and prepared to sleep here that night) there were a couple spiders in the rear living room. These were quickly dispatched with Raid, and he vacuumed again.

And we think that we are winning the war, but there are still some here, despite a lot of suction and spray.

This is what we find in the back living room some mornings, a hairy black spider sleeping at the edge of the room.

The ones we find in the back living room are fat and hairy, with a huge abdomen (kinda like a lot of men [and a few women] around Wagga). They mostly are curled up where the carpet meets the wall, and when sprayed with Raid or Hovex just curl up a bit more and die immediately. There have been a few smaller ones too. Our research has us thinking that the big ones are the females and the smaller ones are the males. They are, again according to what we can find on the web, simply called ‘black house spiders’ and they aren’t lethal.

They seem pretty much restricted to the back of the house for some reason. We haven’t found many in the master bedroom fortunately; there was one snuggled up in a corner in the walk-in closet, but that is it for that area of the house. Most of them have been in the living room, with only a few even coming as far to the front as the dining room. One tiny little guy was on the wall in the front hall a couple of days ago, but he seemed pretty harmless.

This is one of the spiders that just appeared on the dining room floor. Before killing it, Dan tossed a pen down beside it and photographed it so you can all see how bit it is. Nice of him, eh!

The ones we have found in the dining room are more interesting. They are also black and, again according to our web findings, also called ‘black house spiders’ (there are something like 17 different spiders sharing that name). These ones are bigger and sleeker and faster and don’t die easily. And we can’t figure out where they come from. We’ve had two so far, and both just sort of appeared in the middle of the floor; we would leave the room for a few seconds, come back and there they were.  The first one was late at night; we were just going to bed and Dan had left his phone in the kitchen. Since we use it for an alarm clock, he went back to get it and there was this spider. He sprayed it…and sprayed it…and sprayed it again, chasing it across the room until it finally slowed down. Eventually, it crawled onto a napkin he had tossed on the floor, which he then folded over it (using a walking stick to maintain distance) and then crushed it.

The other one appeared one morning after the spider patrol. Dan had just gotten out of the shower and Lisa was coming out to kitchen to make tea. The spider was on the kitchen floor, near the door to the second bathroom, where Dan was drying off. He heard the sssssssssssssssssssssss of Lisa killing it with Raid. She used enough that if the chemical wasn’t going to kill it, it would drown. Later that morning came our only spider-related incident: Dan was heading back into the bathroom and slipped on the puddle of bug spray that Lisa had tried to drown the spider in. He ended up flat on his ass on the hard tile floor. His butt still hurts! Maybe the Spiderman rubber boots would have had more traction than his Fluevogs.

We're trying two different bug sprays. And we also plan to make sure we always have a spare can in the pantry.

Our daily vigilance seems to be paying off. A little over a week ago, we went to Bathurst for 2 nights; Lisa had to go to the CSU campus there for some meetings, so Dan tagged along rather than sit at home alone in an empty house. We thought that we might come home to a herd of spiders after that, as we hadn’t been fighting them for a couple of days. But no, there were none. We think we are doing well. We know that we won’t ever be rid of them completely, but if we can keep it to only a couple each week we will be happy.

The only real spider concern we have now is about the outdoors.  We will be gardening…and there are deadly spiders out there, we are sure. Dan has a tendency not to wear gloves while gardening but has promised that he will here. There are redback spiders that bite. We know someone who got bitten by one, and she says it caused a lot of pain for several days. She went to hospital, but all they could do for her was give her an icepack and some Tylenol; at least we know what to do if that happens to us. They won’t kill you, but you will hurt bad. And those are just the ones we know about.

Though we think we have things under control in the house, what is lurking in the garden shed remains a mystery. Dan will probably just open the door and empty a can of Hovex into it then wait a couple of days before stocking it with gardening equipment.

So, for the next while anyway, we remain vigilant. We shake our shoes (probably un-necessarily), and swat at every little itch and twitch on your body. And we wonder what kind of interaction there will be between the spiders and our cats, who arrive in a couple of days.

This post was for you, FFG. And sis, we hope you made it this far.

Search terms of the week: do cats binge and purge; sweat pants with uggs; kicking ass and taking names mr. rodgers

Posted in Australia, danger, gardening, spiders | 3 Comments

How to cook Australian

Posted on August 3, 2011 by waggadventure

Many cultures have a strong connection to cooking with fire. Americans think that what they do – slow roasting on a fire – is real barbecue. Canadians think that quick hot cooking on a grill is barbecue. Argentines cook huge hunks of meat on open coals and call it asado…that is South American barbecue. Australians too are famous for barbie. And while the common stereotype in Canada is that Aussies cook shrimp on the barbie, it looks more like sausages are the local barbecue specialty in the Riverina.

On our second weekend here, we went to the Wagga Swap Meet. It was a real introduction into bogan culture...a huge flea market type of thing with lots of car parts available. There were a lot of community groups selling sausage sangas.

You can buy a variety of sausages in Wagga, but the most common type are long and thin, kind of like a Canadian breakfast sausage in diameter but maybe 12 inches long. We have cooked both lamb and chicken versions, so aren’t sure what the real traditional one might be. Maybe beef or pork is more common. But it seems that the traditional way of eating them is grilled, and then wrapped in a slice of white bread. This is what is called a sausage sanga (you’d think they would have come up with a more creative name, like sausie sanga). We haven’t tried one yet, but they are available wherever soccer teams and service clubs need to raise money, such as in front of Bunnings hardware on Sunday afternoons.

Despite the silly name (which has something to do with the song Waltzing Matilda), these little lamb parcels from Knights were tasty!

We bought a barbecue and have been doing a lot of cooking on it, while we wait for our pots and pans to arrive. We bought a couple of cheap pots for cooking inside, but use those as little as possible. We’ve cooked rice a couple of times, some peas, heated some store-bought soups (good stuff from a NZ company called Pitango). And we used the oven once to heat some lamb parcels we bought at Knights Meats. Otherwise, all barbie all the time.

Dan is a genius with the barbecue. (Note: yes, I’m (Dan) writing this bit…but Lisa won’t be taking it out! Note from Lisa: gotta let him believe he’s a genius at something!) Already, he has cooked lamb, pork, chicken, beef, duck, and kangaroo. That’s all pretty typical though; it is just meat. But there’s also been veggies: pumpkin, kumara (sweet potato for all you Canadians), potatoes, capsicum (the Aussie and European name for what Canadians call bell peppers), fennel, bok choy, oyster mushrooms…he’s been pretty creative.

This thin sheet of teflon is the key to cooking on a barbecue. The salesperson even suggested that they are great for travel. There are public gas barbecues in parks all over the place, but they might be a bit, shall we say, scuzzy. Just drop your own teflon sheet liner on the grill and cook away!

An odd thing about Australian barbecues (the machines, not the events) is that they all come outfitted with half grill, half griddle plate. We were used to all grills; we had bought a small griddle for our barbecue in Canada, but only used it once or twice. But it seems here, cooking on a flat-top is as common as it is on the grills. The woman serving us at Barbecues Galore said that her husband prefers all his food cooked on that side; she prefers grilled.  At first, we were thinking about swapping the griddle out for more grills, but then thought, when in Oz, cook like an Aussie. And it seems that the best way to do that is with a thin teflon sheet. The sales lady showed us this thing, and it is amazing. You lay it on the griddle half of the barbie (don’t put it over open flame) and it 1) keeps the griddle clean, 2) prevents sticking, allowing you to cook damn near anything, and 3) probably causes cancer. So that is how the bok choy, the oyster mushrooms, etc., got done. The first time he used it, Dan put some oil on it…big mistake, as the fennel was sliding around so much he could barely get it off the griddle!

Three vegetables we have been eating a lot are pumpkin (butternut so far, will experiment with the other, bigger ones eventually), kumara, and fennel. These are all things we could get in Edmonton but didn’t eat often. Not sure why on the first two – they are great! Fennel we love, but it was very expensive in Edmonton. Here, a huge bulb that will do us for 2 meals is about $1.50 – $2 depending on where you shop; that same amount in Edmonton would have been in the $8-10 range.

The kumara and pumpkin we’ve been roasting; kumara in foil, pumpkin just on the top rack of the barbecue. Not sure why the difference in method…maybe we’ll switch it up soon. We’ve found some good spice mixes by a company called Herbies, and found that the Persian mix is good on kumara.

There have been some pretty amazing meals done on the barbecue. Steak, potatoes, and pumpkin was an early one; not long after that were lamb chops marinated in yoghurt infused with cardamon, fennel seed and coriander, served on a rice pilaf with cashews and peas and the Persian spice mix (the rice was done on the stove). But the real winner was also the most experimental: duck breast with a spiced orange sauce (bought), served on a bed of bok choy, with oyster mushrooms and sugar snap peas (peas done on stove). It was a challenge, but absolutely fantastic.

The next big experiment, however, was pizza. This is the ultimate Aussie pizza. Kangaroo mince and kumara, with beet and macadamia pesto for a sauce and a local(ish) goat cheese. Crust came from The Artisan Baker (great French baker in town!), and it was all done on the barbie, then topped with rocket (arugula for all the Canadians).  The picture on the right, if you haven’t figured it out, is a few steps along the way: browning the kangaroo and roasting the kumara, starting to cook the crust, with the toppings on the barbie, and then finished with rocket and being cut to serve.

How was it? A good experiment, but not one of our best meals. It will, however, get perfected.

Posted in Australia, bogans, cooking, cultural differences, food, language, Riverina, sausage, small town culture, wagga | 7 Comments