Check out what greeted me when I went to the toilet this morning:



Jet and I moved house a few days ago. We are now living in a very nice three bedroom house (which we have all to ourselves!) on a cattle station outside of Julia Creek. Our new employers seem like private people, so since this blog is open to the public I'm not going to say the name of the station, nor our employers.

I am mostly working with the lady of the house: I do some cleaning, cooking and yardwork. I spend a lot of the day outside, which is the way I like it!

My new employer tells me that most nights she goes outside with a bucket of hot water and gather up frogs. She says it's a good day when she boils 20. I'm not too keen on it, but Jet has told me not to think 'cute frog' when I look at the frogs, but rather to think 'snake,' because where there are plenty of frogs, snakes will soon follow (as I learned in my kitchen in Normanton!). Yesterday morning, Jet told me he saw a frog cruising down our hallway when he opened the bedroom door, and this morning there was one sitting by the front door waiting to be let outside.

Anyhow, enough about the frogs! Here are some pictures of our new house:




It's a nice old house: very open with lots of windows! In the Australian outback, most cattle station jobs come with some sort of accomodation. The house is ours, free of charge, for as long as we work for the station. The freezer is full of meat, which again, is ours free of charge. There's a veggie patch at the back of our house, just adjacent to the laundry. It's too late in the season to plant anything now, but I'm hoping we'll be here next year.

We went to races last week, and it was quite the experience. I’d never been to anything like it. To get there, we drove for over three hours, over extremely bumpy dirt roads (I’m short, and was wearing a seatbelt, yet I kept hitting my head on the ceiling as we went over ruts). Anyhow, eventually we reached the middle of nowhere, and there it was: the Oak Park races. Hundreds of people were milling around in their very best clothes.

We spent the weekend camped out there, living in tents, sleeping 'swags' (bedrolls) and cooking our meals over an open fire.



You know the song Waltzing Matilda? "And he sang as he waltzed and he waited while his billy boiled..." That tin can off to the side of the fire is a billy.

In our two days at the races tracks, I caught exactly one horse race:



Jet bet on Like a God, and I bet on Gellato. Neither of us made any money.

It quickly became clear to me that the races, though, are more about dressing up than they are about horses. In fact, in between races they have something called 'Fashions of the Field' wherein people compete for best dressed awards.

Getting dressed all fancy-like in a tent that you can't stand upright in took some doing, but somehow I managed. Jet's sister Kat made me a lovely 'fascinator' to go on my head.

Here I am, with my future sister-in-law and mother-in-law.



I got engaged at races, too!

In keeping with the name of this blog, I have a new picture to post:



I haven't seen many of my froggy friends of late; I've been told the weather is just too cold for them. This little guy has been hopping up and down the hallway in the house for a few days now, though. Jet's mom, Min, is very worried that he is going to hop into the kettle, and checks it every time she goes to boil water.

And no, this is not some strange Aussie species of hairy frog: Mr Frog spent some time hopping around in the laundry basket, too.

I spent this morning following behind Jet as he hacked at exposed tree roots with an axe and I gathered up the severed roots and dragged them off to the side. Jack, Jet's dad, has already tilled the area with his tractor. He'll be using the area to train a few horses for the next week or so, and then I have been promised that I can plant some pumpkins and potatoes.

We've been taking a lot of walks, lately. Here's what we came across on a walk a few weeks ago:



Birdseye peppers. Boy, oh boy are these things hot! Out of curiousity, I split one open and licked it and it burned like anything. They are what gives Olga Martell's Tomato Relish its lovely zing, though. Jet and I made three big jarfulls of it, and in the course of a week have gone through one and a half.

I'll close this post off with a picture of the present Jet brought me from his visit to the garbage dump last night:



So to sum things up, I am becoming a real stick-picking, preserve making, wildflower-wearing pioneer woman.

We went for a walk in the winter sun today... While walking through the pasture, we saw a few roos:



I haven't seen many in the past few months... They were all over the place when I first came over here. An old fellow who stopped by the house last night was saying he had shot six earlier in the day, though, so it would seem they are back.

In addition to kangaroos, the pasture also held a few horses, who came over to have a quick looks at us.



I do enjoy sunny days...

Australia has a lot of very odd allegedly-edible objects (I am told they are fruits). Jet's mom, Min brought one home for us last night:



Behold, a Custard Apple. It is quite good. Earlier this year I was introduced to a wonderful fruit, the lychee, that enjoyed a special place in my affections until it abruptly went out of season. While I somehow doubt either of these fruits grow in Canada, I am sure they must be available somewhere. Clearly, I have been moving in the wrong circles.

In other fruit news, the banana tree behind the house is in the process of creating bananas:



Jet tells me that it is also in the process of creating rats and snakes, and that I am to stay far away from it. In order to extend the working holiday visa that I am currently over here on for a second year, applicants must work for three months in rural Australia. Many of them choose to do this by picking fruit. Many of them wind up in the hospital picking fruit -- of course, not all of these get bitten by rats: some, like my friend Dave, who I worked with in Banff, simply fall out of trees and break their tailbones. (I have already completed my three months by cooking up north and waitressing in the Whitsundays, so will not be forced into the fruit picking slave market just yet).

It's getting cold in Australia, which is somewhat upsetting. I was sorely deceived! It may be winter, but this is supposed to be a warm country. Jet dragged the space heater out of the shed yesterday, and he and his dad have been walking around wearing toques, or 'beanies' as they call them here.


Jet was trying to look menacing in the above picture. I am afraid he failed.

In other news, the weaners have been taken to Ballater to join the rest of the cattle. Jet and his dad have gone there for the day to do various cattle-related tasks, which means I have the house to myself.

I'll finish this very boring post with a picture of Jet's dad on his horse Hagar, rounding up the weaners to send them to Ballater: