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The “tip” is Aussie for the “dump” – and curiously, it is a fun place! How can it not be when this is the entrance:

The dinosaurs were made out of material from the tip – very cool, and the signs next to the dinosaur display are also educational. I can honestly say, I have never seen a more entertaining entrance to a dump :).

I think this might happen at home too – you can take gently used items to the tip and they ensure they’re in decent condition and move them over to the recycling store on site. So we’ve been dropping off some old window coverings and things from our house that we aren’t keeping, but yesterday we finally wandered over to the recycle store on site to see if they might have a wheelbarrow. And I did something I still can’t believe I did. This is something that most definitely does not happen at home.

At the entrance to the recycle store, there is a sign saying you must have closed shoes on – but I just had my thongs on (no, I’m referring to my shoes – “thongs” is Aussie for “flip flops”). So I was going to stay behind while Hugh got to have fun wandering around (it’s 90% outdoors and extremely well organized with lots of stuff in good shape). However the lady running the store pointed out that they had closed toe shoes at the front for people to use (good planning, giving the prevalence of people in thongs or simply barefoot here). I thought, gross, no way and politely declined. But she came back a minute later and pointed out a nice pair that would fit me, and I was getting jealous of Hugh roaming around while I stood at the entrance, so I did it – I stuck my bare feet into some random pair of shoes! Still can’t believe I did that, especially after getting a lovely pedicure on Friday, but so far fortunately nothing disgusting has happened to my feet. And – we got an awesome wheelbarrow for $10 and fabulous hedge shears for $2! Piles of good kitchenware there too, so if the damned shipping container never arrives, we know where to go to stock up :).

(We heard nothing from the moving company this week, so no idea where our stuff is.)

Speaking of kitchen stuff, Hugh is doing a really outstanding job making his own pasta:

(He was at Vinnie’s aka thrift store awhile back and couldn’t resist getting this chef’s hat. Oy vey.)

Hugh has been continuing to experiment with making sourdough bread here and is still struggling a bit with getting it to rise properly. He’s booked into a sourdough class on Aug 20 so hopefully he’ll get some tips on managing in this humid environment. If that doesn’t work, he’s going to call his favourite sourdough guru Tom and see if he feels like coming to Australia to problem-solve!

Hugh continues to make great coffee and he’s been working on making a heart pattern for me when he makes mine:

And yes, that’s an awesome Aussie mug that we got from Salvo’s! (Salvation Army thrift store)

I know everyone looks forward to the latest bird information and we will not disappoint this week! This is called the Little Friarbird:

He’s toward the bottom right – see if you can zoom in, he has very cool eyes and a long, curved beak. When I first saw him, I didn’t have my camera on me and he was right close tugging away at the red brushes on the bottle brush tree. By the time I got my camera he had moved here, not nearly as good a picture, but you can still see him anyway.

I’ve previously talked about the Kookaburras and their crazy monkey-sounding laugh. We heard them all the time when we were staying at the Airbnb, but since moving to our house, we had only occasionally seem them on lamp posts. This week, they’ve been having their laugh-ins at 5:45am, arrggghh, and one landed on the fence in the front yard later one morning:

They’re super cute and fuzzy looking!

And I know last week I posted an audio clip of the funny-sounding crows here, but this week I caught one on video! He starts off standing tall and then he gets lower and lower as he gets toward the end of his song:

 

We did manage to get out a couple times this week, in between watching birds. Friday was the kick off to the 9-day CQU Village Festival – check out the amazing line-up of events, with most being free! On Friday night, we went to the Comedy Lounge with our friends Leigh and Darren. Anna Brennan was excellent and the headliner, Greg Sullivan, knocked it out of the park! I don’t know if he ever performs outside of Australia, but if you see his name – go see him, your face will hurt from laughing! Today we went to Blues at the Beach down in Emu Park with our friends Rob, Barbra, Geoff, Sharyn, Alanah, and Banjo the dog. So nice to listen to live music outdoors under the shade of a magnificent pine tree! Photo credit to Barbra – and by being in charge of taking photos, she managed to avoid being in one :).

Normally I would include a link to the pine tree here so you could learn about it, but native Aussies Geoff and Sharyn failed me in my quest for Australian knowledge – when I asked them what the tree was called, they just shrugged and said “pine tree?” Not very helpful, Geoff and Sharyn, not very helpful at all. It might be a Bunya Pine, but I’ll confirm next time I see one with someone more reliable :).

This morning, Hugh and I went to Tanby Garden Centre to look at native plants. Hugh contacted the Livingstone Shire Council to see if we could get permission to rip out all the grass on the council land in our front yard and plant gardens instead. Everyone we talked to said it would be unlikely for the town council to approve the request, but they did! The only rules are that we must plant native Australian plants and we must maintain it. No problem! So we wanted to start checking out options for native Aussie plants and shrubs – there are piles to choose from so it won’t be hard at all. But while we were there, we saw a section with Banksia plants:

The word “banksia” sounded familiar to me but I couldn’t think why. Hugh reminded me. Our friend Malcolm (my 2nd favourite woodturner) turns banksia pods! This isn’t Malcolm, but you can see an example of a pod being turned here. Everything Malcolm makes is absolutely beautiful and Hugh can’t wait to brag that we can grow our own banksias here :).

Pineapples (often called “pines”) are everywhere here and SUPER DELICIOUS! Hugh discovered this hidden treasure on a side street and it’s our go-to place for pineapples now:

It’s an honour system – you leave $2 in the lockbox and take a pineapple. I’ve been wondering if having the cross on the structure helps keep people honest :). Every single pine we’ve had from here has been large and super sweet – very good value!

It continues to be hard to believe that it’s “winter” here right now. Here is the forecast for the week:

Absolute weather perfection! Well, except that it’s a bit chilly at night, you need to put a sweater on. I think it’s going to take a long time to get accustomed to saying winter for Jun-Aug, spring for Sep-Nov, summer for Dec-Feb, and autumn for Mar-May. When you look at a globe, there really are very few countries in the southern hemisphere:

So I guess I’m in good company with billions of others who struggle to think of this time of year as winter!

Now I must go double check one more time that my feet haven’t suffered any permanent consequences from their time in a random pair of shoes from the tip. I have noticed that there are A LOT of podiatrists in Yeppoon. Hmmm.

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