Beware of Bikie Gangs

Bikies ( say as "bike-eez)

It's thirty degrees here now with humidity levels at 61%. I'm sitting here in our air conditioned living room wondering if we might get a thunderstorm out of it. It's a perfectly good time to write a few lines in my poor, neglected blog. Wait a minute…do you write "in" your blog, "on" your blog, "for" your blog?….

Recently I was listening to the premier of Queensland, Campbell Newman, talking about plans to deal with bikie gangs down the Gold Coast. “Bikie gangs?” Somehow, a bikie gang doesn’t sound as tough or threatening as a bike gang but that’s how you would refer to them here in Australia.

Kindergarten-kindie, university-uni, Brisbane-Brissie, Tasmania-Tassie, Christmas-Chrissie, present-prezzy, sunglasses-sunnies, and on and on goes the Australian slang, sometimes with British and American crossover. If you’re taking a “sickie”, you’re taking a sick day though you’re not really sick. Speaking of sick, if you’re ill, you’re “crook” as in, "He was crook today. Some terms are popular over the whole of Australia while others are terms you might hear more often in the country. If you ask someone about what they might be up to in the "arvo", you are asking about their afternoon. 

Certainly as Newfoundlanders, we have much in common with Australia in that we have our own colloquialisms/vernacular enough to fill a thick dictionary! Similarly, many of our expressions would be more common "round the bay" and with older generations than in larger centres and with younger people. My mother had an expression she used if she was upset or mildly angry about something, "Wouldn't that jar your preserves!" That's not one I hear these days but still one of my favourites;-)

Ongoing Possum Visits

Here’s my little possum friend from my first post.She visits the patio most evenings before climbing the trees in the backyard. A couple of nights ago I fed her apple pieces right from my hand. 

Here is a photograph of the baby possum that had to be rescued from under the patio floorboards my first week here. It has really grown in four weeks and mother is happy to leave it on its' own these days.

Wooly Sheep

“Here we are in New South Wales, shearing sheep as big as whales


With leather necks and daggy tails and hides as tough as rusty nails.”

No I’m not in NSW but still in Queensland immediately to the north;-) You may recognize that verse from a song performed by our own Masterless Men though it’s been sung by many others long before.

I witnessed a sheep shearing demonstration recently…now that’s back breaking work! (the sheep shearing demo…not me witnessing it;-)

The belt this guy is hanging over is designed to take some of the strain off the back.  He gave a short but informative presentation about the first merino sheep brought over from Spain 200 years ago and how the industry has evolved over the years.

Not all wool is the same….the characteristics differ according to the type of sheep. Australia produces most of the world’s merino sheep wool, which is a fine wool used mostly for clothing and said to be the best quality in the world. New Zealand is the second largest producer of wool but it is crossbred wool, stronger fibres and used for carpets and upholstery. 

                                                                                           Sheep are usually shorn once a year using ordinary hand shears or machine driven hand-pieces and there are sheep shearing competitions worldwide. It's fascinating to read about the wool industry and the challenges it faces today including competition with synthetics, low market prices and higher lamb meat prices. Lots of info online including this in government document produced in 2010: Australian Wool Industry (AWI) 

The Kelpie

The preferred dog for cattle/livestock work here in Australia is the Kelpie or Kelpie cross. It is said the Kelpie is such an efficient worker, it can save farmers the cost of hiring several hands when mustering livestock which is to gather or roundup the livestock.

They have a natural herding instinct and are able to drive livestock long distances in extreme climate and conditions. It was amazing to see a Kelpie in action as I did at a recent demonstration for tourists.  I've seen Border Collies in Scotland and England herd sheep and again, they are amazing to watch and invaluable to the farmers/graziers.

One special move a Kelpie has to walk across the backs of sheep to break them up in a  jam.

          This sheep might be giving some attitude but the Kelpie is not having anything to do with it;-)

Birds of Prey

It's pretty cool to see how trainers handle birds of prey such as falcons and barn owls which are the only two that come to mind at the moment from this particular demonstration. The birds swoop through the crowd, snatch targets thrown in the air during flight, pitch on the trainer's hand and on strategically placed perches. They'll pretty well spit nickels for rewards of live, chubby, little mice. Got some great shots of the tails hanging out of beaks as the birds gulp down their treat but I'll spare those images here…you wouldn't like photos of yourself eating would ya;-)