Easter Holidays Part I

The much belated Easter holiday write-up will now appear... ta da!
For pictures of the first part, go to:
http://picasaweb.google.com/brigittewiebe/EchucaBarmahForestMurrayRiver#

We spent the Easter holidays (April 4 to April 19) travelling by car (the lovely red Sheila). At times too cramped for the 5 of us and our luggage and an eskie (cooler), we wanted to see bits of New South Wales (NSW), Canberra and Victoria that are too far for a weekend trip. Some of the driving was on divided highways (some new and relatively empty and others shockingly crowded) and some was on country highways. Both have their advantages. Because we don't have a 4-wheel drive vehicle, some of the moutain gravel (unsealed) roads weren't part of the itinerary. We survived the crowding by listening to Barack Obama reading from his memoir "Dreams of my Father" on ABC Radio National's Book Show and by listening to several audio books, including "The Bachelors of Broken Hill", "Muffin Top", and "Blue Shoes and Happiness". Given that Tom and the kids were quite tired from their school term, the drive may have been a bit too ambitious, but we have since recovered and are back to real life in Ferny Creek.

We went north from Melbourne towards the Murray River, on a lovely new highway, watching kangaroos running (or is it jumping, leaping?) along the fence that follows the highway for many kilometres. Our first stop was the lovely little Murray River town of Echuca, where we had a place to stay for one or two nights at the home of one of the exchange teachers. Driving through the town of Bendigo, we realized that this is another spot we need to explore at a later date -- beautiful Victorian architecture, brick buildings, and a large mall (outdoor park) in the style of some of the parks of London. This is accompanied by several huge cathedrals. Apparently the town was quite wealthy during the gold rush days, and there's real evidence of this in the way things were constructed.

It's quite flat there, unlike the Dandenong ranges. Tom thought we might come across Portage la Prairie at some point, but then a flock of galahs (dark pink and grey -- gorgeous) started wheeling through the late afternoon sky. This isn't Manitoba after all, dude. I would like to get a picture of a flock of galahs, but no luck yet.

Echuca is a town on the Murray River, straddling the border of Victoria and NSW. In the days before trains and cars were available for transport, this town was an important port for river transportation, using paddlewheel boats. The paddlewheel boats carried equipment, supplies, and people back and forth along the Murray River before train tracks were built into the middle of Australia. The bigger boats could carry twice the amount of bales of wool as that carried by a modern semi-trailer truck. Several boats have been restored, and are available for river tours. We chose the SS Canberra because it uses steam power exclusively -- the Red Gum that grows along the Murray is very hard and burns very hot, perfect for a steam engine. The boats were capable of cruising for weeks along the Murray, picking up passengers and freight, and managing to move both more speedily than horse or ox carts. The mighty Murray is much diminished now due to years of drought and the locks and weirs that were built upstream. Flood markers along the trestle bridge illustrated how high this river could get, much like the Red River of our home town. The final highlight of our stay in Echuca was an invitation from neighbours, strangers to us, to have a visit. The kids were welcomed into the spa (hot tub), and feted with diet coke and other treats. The adults were invited to partake of a substantial wine collection -- an entire room set up as a wine cellar! We were then treated to a meal complete with several gorgeous local wines. My only regret is that I was having too fine a time to write down the names, so I can't pass on information about the wineries. More fabulous Australian hospitality.

Oh My

Family Life Education (otherwise known as sex ed) started at FCPS this week. The school hires someone to come in over a 3 week period and provide the pertinent facts and information to the students. It's geared to age and development levels. Yesterday the grade 5/6 students had their first session, and the presenter was wrapping up their time together with a discussion about not making assumptions, of making sure kids are open-minded about another person's appearance because they may not know a person's gender, and making sure they remain open to individual, unique appearances. I guess Gabe had a puzzled look on HIS face, because she turned to him and said, "Little girl, do you have a question?" There was a moment of silence in the room and Gabe's teacher Haley had to hide her face. "I'm a boy", said Gabe.

Some of the extras at the school are hired out -- the public school system has had to privatize some of its programming and has to compete with the private system that also receives government funding. Previous federal governments changed the entire education system via legislation and funding to allow the development of private schools. At the same time, funding to the public school system was eroded. So now public schools must compete with private schools for students. Private school education is paid for with after-tax dollars, so you need a good income level to give your children these supposedly more wonderful opportunities. And the private schools definitely try to offer a great and exciting variety of learning experiences (in class and out) to attract students. All schools receive funding from the government based on the numbers of students enrolled, so recruiting is important. Of course, in a recession, with people losing jobs, or getting less money for their work, it can become difficult to pay the extra dollars required. It will be interesting to see if private school enrolment decreases in the present economic climate. Our school is public and is wonderful, probably the best experience Nicole, Gabe and Kai have had yet in school.

The public schools have had to deal with decreased budgets (via taxes) and parents of children in the public system are generally required to pay for many of the extras -- of course camp was an extra, but at the beginning of the year there were required payments to help support the teaching that the children will be receiving -- supplies, books -- well beyond what we were paying in Canada. I do not mind paying these costs. We are, after all, recipients of an excellent program here at FCPS, and are more than happy to contribute. But the big issue for me is the lack of public government budgetary support, leaving some schools in the lurch. A school in an economically disadvantaged area might not be able to provide all the extras if parents can't afford to pay. Pre-school/childcare programs were privatized as well, made into businesses, and in April, one of Australia's largest pre-school childcare providers went bankrupt, leaving many parents and children in the lurch.

The current Labour government has supplied additional funds for Australian schools in its stimulus budget. This means schools can apply for funding to improve the school grounds/facilities, as long as they use local contractors and workers. This creates jobs, which is one of the goals of the stimulus budget, which has yet to be passed by the Australian parliament. Schools were able to apply for this funding, and are now able to start making some long-needed improvements. FCPS has received close to $2 million to add 4 classrooms, and improve some of the existing spaces. And it's much needed for this growing school community.

One of the requirements of receiving the funding is that the school displays a letter from the Minister of Education. Much has been made of this "abuse of power" by the Opposition, who declared it to be blatant self-promotion on the part of the Labour government. Yesterday, in Parliament, it culminated in some excitement -- the Prime Minister showed some laminated pictures of schools who were benefitting from the stimulus money they'd received. Well, the Opposition couldn't take this sitting down -- after a break they appeared with a 4 page laminated spread with graphs and dollar amounts to chastise the wastefulness of the Labour government. You can imagine the text messages being sent behind the scenes in order to create those charts! The Speaker was not impressed, and required the Opposition leader, Malcolm Turnbull, to sit down, and limited the size of the props to one page only. Scissors were called for, so Mr. Turnbull could trim the pages (quite dramatically) to meet the Speaker's demands.

It will be interesting to see what happens if the budget isn't accepted. The Labour government has a majority in the House of Representatives, so they won't have a problem at the first stage of approval. But the elected Senate, which doesn't have a Labour majority, and is required to approve bills at the second stage, could possibly be a problem, unless demands of certain independent Senators are met. And the government doesn't automatically fall, like it does in Canada, if a confidence motion related to the budget is not passed. But there is a mechanism, called double dissolution, that could trigger an election if the same bill loses at the approval stage for a second time. That is being discussed as a possibility, for the spring.

I'm not comfortable with the thought of privatizing what I think should be public institutions. The health care system also operates on a dual basis -- private and public health care providers function side-by-side. The latest budget seeks to make changes to the deductions people can claim if they pay for private health care insurance, an increase to the retirement age to 67, the development of a funded maternity leave provision (16 weeks), amongst others. It's a completely different mix of public and private than what I'm used to in Canada. It's a great experience to see it from a different angle -- Tom is working in a private school, so his experiences there are different than what he is accustomed to in Canada. And that's why we're here -- to learn and experience something different.

And Gabe is a boy, yes, as is Kai. The woman who delivered the Family Life Education then commented that perhaps the 2 weren't fraternal twins after all... maybe she can start her next session with the topic of mono- or dyzygotic twins and introduce them all to what happens when the egg is fertilised and splits.

Ned Kelly

A huge blustery north wind started up in the night. Much banging and clattering of branches and loose sticks. Great for drying clothes on the line today, and great for blowing all the leaves we didn't rake up/burn/clean up on the weekend to someone else's block (not yard here in Aus, but block). The temperatures are warmer as a result. It was getting a bit frosty during the nights, but last night the temperature stayed at 18 C, a record for Melbourne for the end of May. The non-native trees are just about down to bare branches, and the views between the native trees over the mountain edges are spectacular.

I went "on" (not to, but on) camp with the grade 5 and 6 classes of Ferny Creek Primary School from Wednesday to Friday of last week. The camp had been rescheduled from late February, because of the danger of the bush fires.

We bused and drove in a northeasterly direction to a town called Glenrowan, the home of Ned Kelly, and then on to Beechworth, a beautiful, historic mining town. The drive up was through the bushfire affected areas, by Steels Creek and Dixons Creek. Here the road winds up through a huge gully, blackened ground for many kilometres, crowned by green fuzzed black eucalyptus trees before it flattens into rolling hills. The evergreen type trees were either a bronzy, browned colour, or burned and removed. The eucalypts are growing a bright green fuzz of leaves close to the tree trunks, and the ground had some green peeking through, but there was a lot of black. You may remember a picture or story of a wedding party in a pub parking lot, looking toward the huge fires. We drove by the empty yard along this journey. The road also goes through the vineyards of the Yarra Valley, so I did notice some familiar names -- Yalumba, de Bortoli, wines we've either tried in Canada or here in Australia.

There is currently a commission hearing submissions about the February bush fires. This is a way to get at the big picture of what happened, why the emergency calls were diverted to an office that was closed, how the emergency call system collapsed under all the calls, why the bush fire predictions didn't get to the Fire Chiefs in the potential danger areas, why people chose to stay and fight rather than flee. What's horrific to think is that, in some situations, people had no prior warning and didn't know they were in danger until they heard the roaring of the fire, too close to flee. I did hear that the Ferny Creek siren system, which we found quite intimidating at times, is unique to the CFA. Because of the deaths here in 1997, the shire opted to install a warning siren system, and this is now being considered in other areas. No easy answers. But every bit of information will allow such tragedies to be avoided in the future.

Back to our trip... through the fire affected areas and the Yarra wine growing region, on to Glenrowan, the home of Ned Kelly, one of Australia's greatest folk heroes. A while ago, I asked Heather, Nicole's grade 6 teacher, why there is such a huge emphasis on Ned Kelly and the Bushrangers. At the time, Heather didn't know how to answer my question. I was thinking of Louis Riel, and wondered what social and historical impact this Australian criminal had on the history of the fledging country. Riel was branded a traitor, and executed for his efforts to fight the English power structure and prevent the army from taking over what rightfully belonged to the Metis people in western Canada.

The Kelly children were labelled "diseased stock" by the police in Melbourne. A telegram was sent from Melbourne police, warning the police in the family's new settlement, when the Kelly family moved to Glenrowan, into the hills 170 kilometres northeast of the city in the 1860s. The son of an Irish Catholic man convicted for stealing 2 pigs in Ireland (recall the potato famine, the starvation, the English landlords taking over Irish farms), Kelly had little chance to escape the attitudes of the English power structure in Australia. Constantly harrassed and watched by the local police, accused of a variety of crimes (stealing a horse when he was actually in another area), Ned's great act of saving another child's life barely acknowledged. Local English landowners wanted the land in the area for their sheep farms. They didn't want a group of grungy Irish "squatter" families interfering with their ability to acquire all useable farming land and stirring up the locals. The police were more than happy to support the powerful.

Things went from bad to worse, and the Kelly gang and their supporters had to hide in the hills following bank robberies in the towns of Jerilderie and Euroa. In Jerilderie, the Kelly gang took the loan papers from the bank and burned them all! As those were the only copies, the people owing money to the bank no longer had proof of their loans. A murder ultimately did occur -- of a police informant who had infiltrated their gang. His mother's defense of an attack on her daughter Kate by a local womanizer (another policeman), earned her 3 years hard labour with her tiny new infant. Ultimately the gang holed up in Glenrowan, hoping to sabotage a train of police constables from Melbourne. Two were killed outright, and several captured, including Ned. The trial was planned for Beechworth, but authorities realized quickly there was too much local support for him, so hastily moved him to Melbourne, where a kangaroo court convicted him in short order hanging him on November 11 in time for the judge, police, and other friends to enjoy the 1880 Melbourne Cup (the big horse race of the year) the following day. Desecration of his body followed, including the use of his skull as a paperweight by the premier of the state. In 1881-82, a Royal Commission into the Victorian Police Force changed the way police worked in that State. Approximately 80% of the police working at the time of Kelly's death were either dismissed, "retired", or pensioned off because of how they had handled the incidents in the Glenrowan and surrounding area.

In recent years, the case has been retried, with different results. Ned Kelly has moved from being a criminal to a folk hero, identifying issues of race, the way a new Australian state identified itself, social justice, and policing, among others. The Ferny Creek school kids sat transfixed through the presentation at Kate's cottage, a replica of the Kelly home, and asked some excellent questions. Heather and I talked about it later, and she said at the time of my question, she did not have anywhere near the information we received in Glenrowan.

From Glenrowan we went on to Beechworth, to our camp home at the Old Priory, a former working nunnery. From the 1850s onwards, a gold rush brought thousands of people to the area. Deaths were plenty, from the violence, filth and squalor of the gold field camps. We had a chance to visit the remains of the gold fields and pan for alluvial gold, view a variety of historic buildings, including the jail that housed Ned Kelly, visit the excellent Beechworth Bakery and the Lolly Shop (too many lollies by half!), walk the trail along the Gorge, and enjoy music and a bush dance one evening, with a disco on the second night. The kids were asleep a lot sooner on the second night, as was I!

Aussie Icons

A recent article in The Age had a picture of three fluffy baby dingoes. Native dingoes are disappearing from Australia, and a couple in this state won the right to legally own dingoes at their Toolern Vale sanctuary. In October 2008, the state (Victorian) government declared the dingo a threatened species. Since then, international zoos and wildlife centres are asking for dingo breeding pairs. It is thought that only 5 percent of all wild dogs in Victoria are dingoes. We have yet to see (or hear) a dingo. Hard to imagine that this iconic symbol is now a threatened species. Hopefully we'll see some when we travel into less populated areas. The inriguing issue, at least for me, is that there are no laws protecting this species -- hunters, farmers, trappers, government parks employees are allowed to trap, poison, bait and shoot dinoes. (Photo from The Age, by Craig Abraham.)

That other icon, the possum, is still very active and busy on our yard and on the front deck. It's a rare night that the thunder of little feet isn't heard either on the roof or running quickly along the front deck. The other night Nicole went out to the car so we could drive to her Girl Guides meeting. As she put her hand on the door handle and flipped the light switch, there was a flurry of the herd (there appear to be 3 of the bigger possums and 2 smaller ring tailed possums) off the roof of the porch. Nicole was startled, and then we both had a good laugh ... we scared the possums! Then on Saturday night, we came home later in the evening following a Footie game at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) -- Melbourne vs. the Western Bulldogs. At least 3 of the big possums went racing up trees as we drove up into the yard. This species is protected -- you are not allowed to kill possums.

Victorians are avid Footie supporters -- we attended the game in the presence of locals, so had the rules and events of the game explained to us. In earlier days, each suburb had their own team, and part of your identity appears to be the support of your Footie team. I've not willingly enjoyed either CFL or other football games -- just find them too slow and cumbersome. However, Australian Rules Football is fun. You can't take your eye off the ball, or you're lost. And the supporters are more than avid. It was great fun! And we'll go again, to enjoy this unique Aussie icon. Gabe and Kai went with some friends to an AusKicks event, where kids gather to play a fun game, introducing newcomers to the game. They enjoyed the fast pace as well. Almost all the teams are male, although there is a female Footie team in Melbourne. One of the first things the Ferny Creek principal, Matthew, asked the kids was which Footie team they were going to support (or to use the local term, "barrack"). Of course, his team, the Geelong Cats, was recommended to us! The Geelong Cats, by the way, are a very strong team, and it's suggested they'll win the (I think) Premiership (the final game) in early spring. The final is always played on the last Saturday of September, and the MCG should be full of 100,000 barracking fans for that event.

My favourite icon is the kookaburra, as I've mentioned before. I still haven't managed to record the gaggle of birds yelling and laughing... every time I walk by with my mobile, they are totally silent. But they're happily eating up the scraps I'm leaving in the back yard, and occasionally bless me with a cackling festival! Other birds can be quite brazen. Gabe had a cookie stolen from a picnic table in front of him by a magpie. Kai chased down the magpie, which couldn't fly away with its burden, and retrieved the cookie, which had been the last one in our picnic lunch.

And Tom had an encounter with a biggish spider one day last week. He and I got into the car, and as I turned my head to shoulder check, I saw the spider standing on the headrest right behind his head. The spider was waving a leg or two in the air which is why I noticed it. We have no idea how it got there. It may have been on Tom's head all along (!), as we had walked under a big old oak tree on our way to the car, or somehow it got into the car on its own. The spider was a lighter grey/brown colour, and I don't know its species, but it was big enough to get us out of the car. I haven't seen anyone move that quickly in a while. "Tom, get out of the car, there's a big spider behind you", was all I had to say, and he leapt out of the car. I had to turn off the engine and engage the parking brake before I could fly out. We got the spider out, and it sat there on the parking lot looking stunned! Like us! This spider was about the size of the palm of my hand, legs and body included. That's about the size of a Huntsman spider that lives between a window and the screen in our living room. Sometimes it comes out, but often it's secreted in one of the cracks. I tried to usher it out the other day, thinking it would enjoy hunting more there, but it seems to be happy in its space.

Finally, the kids' school, Ferny Creek Primary, held its annual fundraising disco on Friday night. They are fundraising for the grade 6 grad, and this is another of its iconic events. Kids had to dress as something starting with the letter "P". Nicole went as a Party Girl, Kai as Peter Parker, Professional Photographer (Spidey's alias), and Gabriel as Pooh's friend (Winnie the Pooh). I saw a priest, several police, princesses in large numbers, pajama clad kids and teachers, and Matthew, eschewing the Principal role, came as Peter the Painter. A sweet event, including dry ice fog and a rocking beat. Much fun was had by all, but when I suggested the "P"arent could take part, I was gently advised it wasn't for me.

Q&A - ABC TV

I have started to devote my 9:30 p.m. spot on Thursday nights to an ABC television show called Q&A. Insanely interesting, with a variety of talented and opinionated people discussing pertinent topics. (And they've just moved Medium, the only American television show I've followed for a few years to the same spot...sigh)

This is public television at its best. I am really seeing a huge difference between my own beloved CBC and the Australian Broadcasting Commission. Part of this has to do with funding, and although they've apparently denuded its budget, the ABC still provides a quality of information, thought-provoking and entertaining radio AND television that we haven't seen on CBC in years. I mean, enough of the Air Farce, in any format. The studio audience covers the entire age spectrum, and the topics of Q&A shows are lively and wide-ranging, and people are clever and creative. I don't know how they stacked the audience last night, but they were all relatively young and too smart for words. Excellent questions. The shows span local to international issues.

So, go check it out. If you're intrigued with the way we can talk about our world, this is a great venue. There is a spot at the end devoted to "mashups", which are clever sendups of Australia's events or leaders.

http://http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/

Passionate about Passionfruit

This is a slimy, acidic, weird fruit to eat. The outside shell is wrinkled and hard. The inside is slimy in texture, and slips down your throat. There are strange crunchy seeds. But the flavour... to die for! And it's in yogurt and gelati and I love this fruit in and with almost anything! Just gorgeous. The fruit came originally from South or Central America, and does quite well in sunny locations in Aus. I'm sure I've seen it in Winnipeg, but that's been transported way too far.

Susanna Voth Wiebe, my mother, suggested I talk about food in one of the postings. We discovered different flavours when we arrived in New Zealand, especially in the milk products, a favourite of the younger threesome. I think it's because the animals that produce these products spend all their time outside, not in factory farms. And the light cream they use (the kids do like it on their morning oatmeal!) is always thickened, another new texture. But we were blown away by new taste sensations.

Then we encountered the meat products (most of the gang in our home like their meat but I have been a more reluctant convert). Again, the flavour is awesome. I think it's because it isn't factory farmed. The egg yolks are bright, golden yellow. The chooks forage outside. Lamb is a real treat. The variety of sausages (snags, bangers), made by local butchers, is outstanding. A barbecue isn't complete without snags. You can see and taste the Mediterranean's European influence in the sausages. We've tried barbecued kangaroo, a dark, lean meat.

No Australian meal, at least a more formal one, is complete without a serving of pumpkin, which is squash. Pumpkin turns up in a variety of soups -- pumpkin and roasted red pepper; pumpkin and carrot. The carrots we've eaten taste like sweet carroty carrots. Don't know how else to describe it. Probably relates to the soil type and the climate, but I don't remember such tasty carrots in the shops. We had to buy some from a local farmer in Manitoba for that great taste.

Foods of the more "processed" variety, such as crackers or cookies, don't contain the high fructose corn syrup that is now so common in North American processed food, so you can actually taste the ingredients that went into the item. There are fewer drive-through food places, although there is no lack of local take away businesses, selling everything from fish and chips (big chunks of potato, no little measly french fries), chicken and chips, to made-to-order sandwiches, and Asian noodle dishes. There is less of the American influence in food (over-processing, weird and strange additives), and that's fine with us. Sea food is everywhere -- in Apollo Bay, we were able to buy fish and a lobster from a local fishermen's coop.

And coffee. If you like good coffee, you've come to coffee heaven. Few drive-throughs, like the Canadian Timmy's outlets, but every little town, park, neighbourhood has a cafe serving hand made individual coffees. There are very few Starbucks outlets (we found one in Napier, NZ, of all places -- they are franchised individually, which is unique to NZ), at least in our part of Aus, but no fear... great coffee is everywhere.

One Canadian product, maple syrup, actually cost less in NZ (and sometimes less in Aus) than in Canada. A real treat in NZ consisted of pancakes with fried bananas and maple syrup, and bacon on the side. A wicked combination. The bacon is gorgeous, and this is from someone who hasn't enjoyed bacon, ever. Food costs here are generally higher than in Canada... not sure why. Someone suggested it's because things are transported over greater distances, although you'd think that would affect costs in the centre of Canada as well. I think it's because we're competing with the U.S. market, thus the value or the price paid is driven down. And without knowing what farmers and farm workers are paid, their wages may be higher here in Aus. I would have to check into that before I make such a sweeping statement.

The fabulous desserts we have tried are worth trying. Pavlova stands out: A meringue base, slathered in fruit (anything you like, anything in season), covered in whipped cream. Either served as individual little cakes you try to pop into your mouth without it breaking all over you, or a big cake which you slice carefully. And eat carefully. Anzac biscuits, a classic served around Anzac Day (April 25), but a treat anytime. These biscuits (cookies)were developed by the mothers, wives, and girlfriends of the overseas Australian and NZ troops. The goal was to create a treat with nutritional value to make up for the slop being served to the troops, that could then sustain several months of transport on ships that had no refrigeration. People love their slices (squares), and when it was Tom's turn to bring 2 items for morning tea last Friday, I made Susanna's (mom's) pineapple square and a carrot cake.

We attended a barbecue in a small town one evening, and one of the women who had prepared the food said to me, "I just love a sweet after my meal, so I thought everyone else would want one as well." The sweets she provided included pavlova, custard and fruit, and a trifle. Hard to turn anything away!

Harvest

On Saturday morning we drove down to Kallista, just a few kilometres away, to check out the market which takes place the first Saturday of every month. We found an electic blend of stalls selling the work of local crafts people and artists, gardeners, and others waiting to engage passersby in causes such as solar heating and the work of Amnesty International. Clothing, jewellery, pottery, a variety of hand made objects gave us what we have started to call our "art therapy" experience. Tom loves to check out what is being made locally, and this is a great little market. It captured a nice blend of funky, arty, back-to-the-land products with people who wanted to talk about their work. And the ubiquitous little mobile cafe was on site, so Tom and I had great coffee while we strolled around. The kids found little pancakes, Poppeljes (if I get the Dutch spelling right), to eat!

At another fruit and vegie market we found recently harvested tomatoes, potatoes, apples, pears, those autumn fruits and vegetables. At the Kallista market I got some gorgeous, and superbly tasty, beets and cabbage, and will use them, with the tomatoes, to make borscht for our evening meal. Last night Tom prepared one of the meals his father used to make -- potatoes, beet greens, and hard boiled eggs. These are our own little historical rituals, bringing the past of our parents and their cultual and familial communities into our lives in Ferny Creek.

At night I was thinking about the rituals and events I attach to the seasons. Some, like Thanksgiving, we have attached to the harvest season. And Christmas coincides with the days getting longer in the northern hemisphere, as our northern hemisphere ancestors took to lighting fires to welcome back the sun. As the days get darker and colder here in the southern hemisphere, we have started lighting candles and fires, our usual response to the onset of winter's cold and darkness. We prepare foods based on the autumn harvest.

Because it's getting colder and darker, I have to detach myself from thinking Christmas is just around the corner. Giving the month its label, May, makes me think it should be spring. I remembered events related to my work -- summer session is starting for the University students. Canadian schools and teachers will be directing their energies on the end of their academic year in June, and Tom and the kids have all talked about the school year's end. Tom has thought about planting tomatoes, because it's May, just like he would in Winnipeg. It's intriguing to think that some of these remembered events do not coincide with "their" seasons.

Apparently some people in this area have a winter Christmas during June and light up the local communities. Most of these folks were born here, but these rituals have their roots in the northern hemisphere season of darkness, and even though we've dated something like Christmas to December, it feels intrinsically right to celebrate when the days are at their shortest. Some of this must be related to the fact that there are actual seasons here around Melbourne -- closer to the equator, the seasonal effect wouldn't be as strong, and the dry and wet would be more of an issue.