Yikes! It's Spider Season!!

Self-Reliance Activities

Personal Finances

The LDS church has recently released a new self-reliance manual which should have broad appeal to any age, but especially young adults and young marrieds.  It is called "Personal Finances".

This course focuses on budgeting, getting out of debt, preparing for emergency expenditures, saving and investing.

We are facilitating this 12 week course for a group of three friends, one of whom is a church member and the other two who are not.  They all seem to be enjoying the straight-forward, effective lessons.  As is normally the case, each lesson starts with a spiritual principle and then goes on to the temporal aspects of the lesson topic.

A PDF file for this manual and related videos can be downloaded from:

Personal Finances Manual

Pathway

The LDS Church has another program called "Pathway", which prepares adults who want to go back to university or other advanced tertiary education.  It exposes them to several basic, university level courses over a 1 year period, so that they can experience the typical university environment and the kind of effort that they will need to expend to be successful.  There are also some religious study classes included in the program.

While we are not directly involved in Pathway, John did get an opportunity to remember some of his math skills.  He was asked to help tutor students in several study sessions, teaching basic math and algebra skills, with the use of electronic spreadsheets.

Working on Spreadsheet Formulas

Feature Creature - Spiders

We don't normally see a lot of spiders in the daytime, although Jan has seen a couple of "red-backed" spiders (venomous) while weeding in our back yard.  John also has to be careful when taking out the garbage, as they lurk under the lips of the various trash and recycling bins.  The red-backed spiders are about 1 cm in size (or smaller, if you are a male of the species) and so easy to miss - a pair of garden gloves is a necessity in either activity.  The red-back spider is related to the black widow spider so well known in Canada.

Red-backed spider

(photo courtesy of Google images)

We also have a new implement for dealing with spider's webs - a giant bristle-brush designed to clear out webs without getting too close.

Spider-web Cleaner

(This looks like it will be way too much fun!)

Here is an example of the types of spiders with which we deal.  Some are small, like this guy (about 0.5 cm across):

While small, he is nevertheless able to construct this random, chaotic web all over our (outside) water heater:

Who wants to service this water tank?

Other spiders are very large - the following spider built this web hanging between a tree and our house, anchored to a friends car, while they were visiting us inside for a few hours.  He was roughly 80 mm in diameter (3 inches for our US friends) and the web was easily 1 m (3 ft) or larger across.  We had to take the photo using a flashlight, so he looks much whiter than in real life, (notice we are saying "he", but it could just as easily be a "she"):

While we were waving the flashlight around, we noticed a couple of large fruit bats flying overhead.  Good thing that they don't like to eat spiders!  (And good thing their sonar lets them avoid the webs).

We keep our vacuum cleaner handy (in the spare bedroom), since spiders are frequent visitors inside our home, and the practise of gently picking them up in a tissue paper and depositing them outside doesn't really cut it down here.  Sorry to say, they all end up inside the vacuum cleaner.

One particular surprise was when John pulled his towel off the rack to dry his face and a large, black spider dropped onto the floor.  Not sure whether he was friend or foe, but we didn't wait to find out.

Birds

We have seen a lot of water birds at one of our local ponds (Banyule Flats).  Some of them seem quite exotic to us.  Here is one photo of a Straw-necked Ibis - the reason for the name is obvious, but what is also clear is the lovely, iridescent purple colouring of its wing feathers.

 

Straw-Necked Ibis

Another variety of Ibis (the White Ibis) can be quite "tame" around people, in that they are not afraid to approach you at a picnic table and try to mooch some of your food.  We usually forbear, as human food is not healthy for birds (and sometimes it is not healthy for humans), but obviously not everyone does or they wouldn't be so conditioned to people at picnic grounds.

We were really lucky one day to see a Buff-banded Rail up close.  They are an extremely shy bird, to the point of being sneaky and secretive, heading for cover when they know they have been spotted.  The following one was either young and not yet wise (although it has its adult plumage) or we caught it during a daydreaming moment.

Buff-banded Rail

The other unusual visitor to our local pond is the White-necked Heron - a beautiful, large bird, very graceful in flight and patient/deadly in the water.  First, a late afternoon shot of a pair in flight, under gorgeous lighting.

White-necked Heron in Flight

The next photo was captured later that afternoon and this bird was entirely still, waiting for an unsuspecting fish to swim by.  It was a photographer's dream, as John could compose and shoot to his heart's content (within the limitations of NOT having a pair of hip waders).

White-necked Heron - Waiting Patiently for Dinner

Finally, we wanted to end up with a photo that has no birds but that we thought was quite cute.  We infrequently see cattle as we are out walking, but one day we caught some in the same paddock as a few kangaroos.  To us, the juxtaposition seemed amusing, although perhaps to Australians, it is just a common occurrence.  I guess we were thinking how incongruous it would be to see these "mates" on the Canadian Prairies :>)

Cattle and Kangaroos

(Not a Canadian Scene!)

Summer is in "Full Swing" (with all its attendant, scary creatures)

It's been a busy month, as you can tell by the fact that we haven't had time to post anything here!

People in Australia take a long holiday over Christmas, as their kids are off school from mid-December to the end of January.  Now that all the kids are back in school, the adults are settling down and self-reliance activities have also picked up in the various wards and stakes.

Jesus' Light Helps us to See Clearly

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, I will impart unto you of my Spirit, which shall enlighten your mind, which shall fill your soul with joy...".  (D&C 11:13)

In our spare time, we like to bird watch.  For many months we've hoped to see a Powerful Owl.  One evening, we were walking in Wilson's Reserve.  The sun was starting to set, touching the tops of the trees with extra light.  It caused us to look higher than we usually do.  And suddenly we saw this owl about 15 meters above the ground!  We felt very blessed to see such a magnificent creature.

Powerful Owl

The lighting conditions reminded us of the Saviour's light in our lives.  When we accept his Atonement and trust in his promise of eternal life, our whole perspective on what life is about changes.  We strive to be like him, to continue to grow and learn so that we can help others to draw close to him as well.

The self-reliance classes draw us closer to God.  We set goals, counsel with one another, and are encouraged as we report back our progress.  We grow in spiritual knowledge and strength, and in confidence to complete our tasks.

The Saviour wants each of his lambs to be invited into his fold.  President Uchtdorf says, "While it is important to have our thoughts inclined toward heaven, we miss the essence of our religion if our hands are not also inclined toward our fellowman.  For example, Enoch built a Zion society through the spiritual process of creating a people of one heart and one mind and the temporal work of ensuring that there were 'no poor among them'… In a similar way, our spiritual progress is inseparably bound together with the temporal service we give to others.  The one compliments the other.  The one without the other is a counterfeit of God's plan of happiness."  (Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "Providing in the Lord's way," Ensign or Liahona, November 2011).

As we have faith in the Saviour, pray, study, and keep the commandments, we can receive help and guidance in many ways in our lives.

Painting by Simon Dewey

(Jan was fortunate enough to teach him some voice lessons while living in Alberta)

Self-Reliance

The Australian Saints are particularly interested in the "Success in School Begins at Home" (SIS) self-reliance class, which helps adults to identify and apply those principles that will let them coach and encourage their children in their school efforts, and prepare them to be successful.  The stated goal of the class is to: "...help parents create a home environment that will help children succeed in school".

Some example chapters are:

*  Learning starts at home.
*  Get all the education you can.
*  Improve reading and writing skills.
*  Learn how to use study groups.
*  Teach children to plan, organize and prioritize, etc.

A full copy of this manual can be viewed or downloaded (in PDF form) from:

SIS Manual

We attended the first class of one SIS group tonight.  It was an extended family group of about 15 people, many of whom are teachers themselves.  There was a good discussion of the ideas in the first chapter, "Learning Starts in the Home".  The person facilitating the class has taught for 20 years and commented that from his experience, the SIS manual has combined most of the excellent concepts and teaching tips that he has encountered in his career.

We get to use our own self-reliance skills in unique ways.  For example, we met a lady (not a church member) who was attending a "Starting and Growing My Business" class.  She was running a home business, selling her products at several local farmers' markets, but also wanted to build a web site where she could promote her business on-line and reach more clients.  John helped her to set up a web site, which describes all of her products and also had a shopping cart that allows people to order from her.

While they were working on the web site, Jan was helping her adult daughter learn how to read music.  Someone had told her that adults couldn't learn to read music.  Once she understood how musical notation worked, Jan gave her some tips on voice exercises.  This was an entirely serendipitous opportunity to help!

Spiritual Message - Use Time Wisely

The second lesson in the "My Foundation - Principles, Skills and Habits of Self-Reliance" class is "Use Time Wisely".

The lesson suggests 5 steps that we can follow each day, which will help us to use our time well and focus on those things that really matter:

1. List Tasks.  Each morning, make a list of tasks to do.  Add names of people to serve.
2. Pray for guidance.  Listen to the Spirit.  Commit to do your best.
3. Set Priorities.  Number your top priorities.  Put a "1" by the most important task, put a "2" by the next one, and so on.
4. Set Goals and Act.  Listen to the Spirit.  Set goals.  Work hard.  Start with the most important task and work down the list.
5. Report.  Each night, report to Heavenly Father in prayer.  Ask questions.  Listen.  Feel his love.  Repent.

If you would like to read through the complete lessons, the My Foundation manual can be downloaded from:

My Foundation

and the related video for lesson 2 can be downloaded from:

Use Time Wisely Video

Fun Activities

Australian kids are no different than the kids in Canada - when they are on their summer break, they like to have a lot of fun.  We noticed a group of boys using a river swing (made from an old fire hose) and took a couple of photos of them jumping into the Yarra River.  It looked a bit muddy to us, but if it's hot outside and the water is cold, who is looking too closely?  There are no local crocodiles (they are farther north in Australia), so the boys didn't need to worry too much about reptiles (except for snakes; see below)

Scary Creatures

Did we mention snakes?  We saw the following snake as we were walking along a path in Wilson's Reserve, not too far away from where the boys (above) were swinging / swimming in the Yarra River.  This is a 1 m long Tiger Snake - very poisonous, and can be very fast and aggressive if disturbed suddenly.

Tiger Snake 

We watched him for a while, after which he slowly slithered out into the freshly mowed grass.  Once there, he was nearly invisible (so much for mowing the grass so that we can better see the snakes).  After a few seconds, when he was far enough away, we walked by on the far side of the path from him.  As soon as we came abreast, he took off (in the other direction) at high speed!

An insect we see occasionally here, and which we thought was an ant, is shown below.  But apparently it is NOT an ant!  First, look at the photos...

Someone had told us these "ants" have a nasty "bite" and don't get too close to them.  But, it turns out, they are not an ant at all, but a type of wasp (the female is wingless).  From the Australian Museum (australianmuseum.net.au) we learn that:

"The wingless, ground-dwelling female 'Blue Ants' are bright metallic blue or green, and can sometimes be mistaken for a large ant. However they are a solitary wasp species, with fully winged males, and can often be found on flowers".  We suspect they have a nasty sting rather than bite.

Favourite Birds!

What would our post be without a few of our favourite birds?  This first one is called a Splendid Fairy Wren and earns its name on all counts.  A beautiful, delicate bird with a lovely colouring - blues and cyans are the best!

Splendid Fairy Wren - Male

Splendid Fairy Wren - Female

Another of our favourite birds, but sometimes hard to find, is the Sacred Kingfisher.  We got this shot while trying to sneak up on an entirely different bird:

Sacred Kingfisher

Happy New Year!

Life has been fairly quiet over Christmas and into the new year - many Australians take extra time off  for summer holidays.  E-mail and phone calls drop way off.  Fortunately, we found some things to fill our time (more on that later).

Spiritual Message - Exercise Faith in Christ

We recently watched the movie "Gifted Hands - the Ben Carson Story" (2010; with Cuba Gooding Jr).  It is a great example of someone who combined faith in God with dedicated effort to learn and improve his knowledge and skills (he became one of the world's top neurosurgeons).  The story also appealed to us because it exemplified the self-reliance values of education (including the importance of guidance from parents in the home) and hard work that we are teaching in Australia.  Thanks to the other Melbourne self-reliance couple - the Myers - for a wonderful Christmas gift!

Each of the self-reliance classes that are taught here have a spiritual component as well as a practical component.  There are 12 spiritual principles (for more, see "My Foundation" at this link):

1. Exercise faith in Christ
2. Use time wisely
3. Be obedient
4. Manage money
5. Work / take responsibility
6. Solve problems
7. Become one / work together
8. Communicate (petition and listen)
9. Persevere
10. Show integrity
11. Seek learning and education
12. Stay on task / receive ordinances.

With a final injunction to "go forward and serve".

We are going to include a short quote on one of these principles in each of our following posts.  For "exercise faith in Christ", we like this quote from Elder David A. Bednar:

"Taking action is the exercise of faith. The children of Israel are carrying the ark of the covenant. They come to the River Jordan. The promise is, they will cross over on dry land. When does the water part? When their feet are wet. They walk into the river--act--power follows. The water parts.

"We oftentimes believe, "I'm going to have this perfect understanding, and then I'm going to transform that into what I do." I would suggest that we have enough to get started. We have a sense of the right direction. Faith is a principle--the principle of action and of power. True faith is focused in and on the Lord Jesus Christ and always leads to action".

Another quote from Elder Dietr F. Uchtdorf emphasizes this principle in a humourous manner:

"When our wagon gets stuck in the mud, God is much more likely to assist the man who gets out to push than the man who merely raises his voice in prayer - no matter how eloquent the oration".

Birdwatching and Teaching with a Purpose

Some of you may think that we spend a lot of time watching birds in Australia!  Aren't we supposed to be working down here?  Well, we do need the exercise, but we are working (and exercising faith) while we are walking.  We find the people in Australia are very friendly and like to stop and talk, especially when they learn we are from Canada.  We go prepared to share a short gospel message with them - that could be a self-reliance principle or a spiritual thought - because we know the Lord will lead us to people who need our help.  On occasion we have invited people to attend self-reliance classes, since they are not only for church members.  We often leave them with a card which can direct them to information about church doctrine and self-reliance teachings.

For example, we recently met a lady who had returned to Australia after spending 10 years in India and was looking for a job.  We are teaching her a concept called "Accelerated Job Search", which shows how to effectively present yourself and how to develop a strong network of people and resources that work for you.  We have seen the quick results when others have had the faith to try this approach.  It takes work to get work, but it is effective!

We also sat in on a "Starting and Growing my Business" class recently, which was about half way through the set of 12 lessons.  Each lesson is run as a class discussion with a facilitator, and attendees are invited to consider and discuss various business principles, sharing experiences and helping one another learn from the other attendees.  We met a lady (who is not a member of our church), who wants to improve a business that she has of making and selling candles.  She had a number of questions and the class members provided some good suggestions as part of the lesson discussion.  She knows about the value of web sites and on-line sales, and wants to develop those tools but needs some assistance.  This is an area in which we can help and so we are meeting her this coming week to get her web site up and running.

It is exciting to us to see the impact as people apply self-reliance principles.  We were also excited to learn that this initiative is being introduced in the U.S. and Canada in 2017 - we believe there is a great need for these classes all over the world, no matter how apparently affluent a country or society.  Once we learn these principles ourselves, it help us to encourage and lift others in their journey to self-reliance.

Christmas Break

We had an opportunity to do some traveling around Melbourne with two other senior missionary couples between Christmas and New Years.  This included:

1.  Hiking through the Dandenong Mountains through old growth eucalyptus tree and fern tree forest.  The vegetation along the creeks in this mountainous area is lush and beautiful.  This area is also about 5 deg C cooler than in downtown Melbourne, so it is popular with residents as well as tourists.
 

A beautiful view of the forest floor, covered with ferns and fern trees (above).



The photo above shows a typical hiking trail, well-populated during the holidays (note the lack of snakes!  We guess they don't like humans that much).  Despite the number of people, we did catch a glimpse of the reclusive lyre-bird.  It loves to skulk in the underbrush and is well known for its ability to mimic almost any other bird and a number of other sounds, such as train whistles, chain saws, etc.  What lengths will a guy go to, to impress his girlfriend!  (Note: the lyre bird was too quick for us to photograph, so the following image is taken from the web - Wikipedia).

Superb Lyre Bird

Some tourists were taking an intimate photo of the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (below).  They couldn't have gotten any closer!  John was enviously eyeing their Go-Pro camera.

2.  A trip to the "12 Apostles" and a drive along the Great Ocean Road east from the 12 Apostles park to near Geelong.  The day was, on and off, hot, wet, windy and a combination thereof.  But we had a great time viewing the ocean, beaches, and local fauna (Koala Bears on Eucalyptus trees along the highway, and of course birds) and flora.

Following are a couple of photos taken at the 12 Apostles park.  These are pillars of rock sticking up from the ocean, not too dissimilar to the "hoodoos" back home, although in this case more impacted by differential water erosion at their base than from wind erosion.

John and Jan pausing for a "photo opp".  Despite looking wet and wind blown, you should keep in mind that the temperature was nonetheless at about 35 deg C.  It was difficult to know what to wear to "protect" ourselves, but at least we didn't have the sun burning directly down on us!!

John was thrilled to have this (male) Australian King Parrot fly down onto his hand.  Of course, there was some incentive - some bird seed artfully hidden behind his fingers.  Normally a shy, quiet bird, their friendliness in this case was a real treat!

The following photo shows a ubiquitous flower that grows along road sides all around Melbourne.  Mostly blue, with the occasional white, flower, it is a welcome sight.  Our originally from South African friend Jeremy says it's a Blue Agapanthus (thanks!).

3.  Touring around Melbourne and Williamstown - we spent the day in down town Melbourne, wandering the streets, looking at impressive architecture, and getting overheated!  It's difficult for a Canadian, used to cool temperatures, to understand how carefully you need to protect yourself against heat stroke.  John discovered one quick way to cool down your body - order a milkshake in a metal container and then just sit with your hands wrapped around it, having your partner stir occasionally to keep the walls of the container cold - works wonders!

We took a person-ferry down the Yarra River to Williamstown, which is a pleasant 1-hour trip with good views along the river banks.  While in Williamstown, the sky darkened.  While waiting for the ferry to return, just before it berthed to pick us up, we were deluged with a 1/50 year rainfall.  It doesn't sound like much unless you are caught in it.  Even with umbrellas, we were soaked to the skin.  There was also a lot of flash flooding in Melbourne.  Cars were floating in the street near the Rosanna Library, which we often attend.  Here is a photo of the area around the Williamstown pier, just before the sky opened:

4.  Trip to see the Penguin Parade at Phillip Island.  This was the highlight of our Christmas break, traveling south and a bit east of Melbourne to Phillip Island.  The island and surrounding area has great birding habitat, but is most well known for the "Little Penguins" that arrive out of the surf each night at dusk, run across the sand, and climb the nearby sand banks to find their burrows, where their babies are eagerly waiting.  Their choice to leave the water and rush across the beach is a wonderful example of "decision making by committee", with numerous attempts by leader to entice them counteracted by the stragglers who always want to dive back into the water.  In the fairness to the stragglers, they are exposed to predators in the air who would love to catch them for supper!

We were not permitted to take photos of the penguins, since photo flashes disturb them and contaminate their environment.  However, the Australian parks people very kindly make some photos available for download from their mobile phone app (e.g., search Penguin Parade, Phillip Island in the iTunes store).

Mystery Animal - Starting with a "W"

On our December 8 blog, we showed a photo of a "mystery animal", whose name started with a "W". We only got one entry for its name "Warthog".  We think the Wombat might have been insulted to be mistaken for a warthog, but maybe not - maybe it thinks of the warthog as a sort of super-hero.

You can find more about wombats in this Wikipedia article.  Here are a couple of exerts:

"Wombats are short-legged, muscular quadrupedal marsupials that are native to Australia. They are about 1 m (40 in) in length with small, stubby tails...They are adaptable and habitat tolerant, and are found in forested, mountainous, and heathland areas of south-eastern Australia, including Tasmania..."

"Wombats dig extensive burrow systems with their rodent-like front teeth and powerful claws. One distinctive adaptation of wombats is their backwards pouch. The advantage of a backwards-facing pouch is that when digging, the wombat does not gather soil in its pouch over its young...They are not commonly seen, but leave ample evidence of their passage, treating fences as minor inconveniences to be gone through or under, and leaving distinctive cubic faeces..."

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

We would like to wish our family and friends "back home" in Canada and the U.S., and our friends here in Australia, a very Merry Christmas.  May you enjoy some quiet time with your friends and family, and feel the Lord's Spirit as you contemplate the birth and life of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.  This is a special time of the year, when all of our hearts are softened and when our thoughts turn to those we love and to the ways in which we can be better people.

To start this blog, we'd like to share an article that we wrote in the December self-reliance newsletter for the Melbourne area.  It is a bit long, but worth reading (we think).  You will find other information and photos after this Christmas message.

Jesus' Pattern for Self-Reliance

During this Christmas season, it would be good to contemplate the life of our Saviour, and see what we can learn about him – his acts, his character, his love for all people, and ultimately, his Atoning Sacrifice.

If we truly understand the doctrines of self-reliance, we will know that as we become more self-reliant, we first provide for ourselves and our family, then we strengthen our ability to serve others, and eventually we become more like Christ. In fact, Jesus is the perfect example of a self-reliant person and thus examining his life will be of great value on our path to self-reliance.

Elder David A. Bednar has taught on several occasions about the character of Christ and about how his character was a necessary precursor to the Atonement. He quoted Neil A. Maxwell that "There would have been no Atonement except for the character of Christ". This makes our study of His character paramount. There are several aspects of Christ's character that we would like to highlight here.

Firstly, Christ stayed extremely close to his Heavenly Father throughout his life, always striving to hear the Spirit and to do God's will. He was so successful in this effort that he told his disciples "…he that hath seen me hath seen the Father…" (John 14:9). We know that in part this ability to know the Father's will came from keeping the commandments (always) and a lot of prayer. As we apply the principles of faith in Christ, scripture study and prayer in our life, we can also feel and follow the Spirit, and be close to God and Christ. Thus, these principles become the foundation of our spiritual self-reliance.

Secondly, an aspect of Christ's character on which Elder Bednar focuses is Christ's ability to always "look outwards". He said: "Perhaps the greatest indicator of character is the capacity to recognize and appropriately respond to other people who are experiencing the very challenge or adversity that is most immediately and forcefully pressing upon us. Character is revealed, for example, in the power to discern the suffering of other people when we ourselves are suffering; in the ability to detect the hunger of others when we are hungry; and in the power to reach out and extend compassion for the spiritual agony of others when we are in the midst of our own spiritual distress. Thus, character is demonstrated by looking and reaching outward when the natural and instinctive response is to be self-absorbed and turn inward. If such a capacity is indeed the ultimate criterion of moral character, then the Saviour of the world is the perfect example of such a consistent and charitable character". (Italics and colour emphasis added)

Elder Bednar goes on to discuss examples of Christ's character from the New Testament and the Book of Mormon, which are multitudinous and show how he constantly and consistently helped others to become better, both spiritually and temporally. As we study and ponder these examples, we will come to understand what we must do to become more like Christ and thus more self-reliant.

To start, we can reach out to others as Christ reached out to them. We can set aside the natural man, and our "natural responses", and instead look around us to see how others are feeling or even suffering, and then act to relieve that suffering.

Then, we can invite those people to learn spiritual and temporal doctrines and principles that will help them to be more self-reliant. We have seen many church leaders attending self-reliance classes – not only are they learning good principles for their own lives, but they are supporting other class members by sharing their thoughts and experiences. Some of the people attending the classes are not church members or are new members, some are returning to church activity, and some are there to improve their standard of living (spiritually or temporally).  All benefit by learning together.

As we participate in self-reliance classes, we grow stronger in our faith, in our understanding, and in our love for others. Thus, self-reliance is both our pathway to becoming like Christ and an expression of our discipleship and our commitment to the gospel.

We invite every one of us to study Christ's life in the New Testament, with an eye to recognizing his character and his constant example of charity and "looking outward". As our understanding of Christ's life grows, so too will our understanding of his perfect pattern for self-reliance.

Christmas Activities

We attended "Carols in the Cathedral" a week ago Saturday, at St. Paul's Cathedral in downtown Melbourne.  It was a wonderful program of readings, solos, children's choir, and a combined tenor/adult choir, all accompanies a brass and percussion consort, and with a wonderful organ postlude.  We "discovered" (for ourselves, at least) Dimitry Bortniansky (1751-1825), a Ukrainian composer, singer and music director.  Bortniansky at one point was staff composer and director of the Russian Imperial Court Choir, as well as a piano and harpsichord teacher to the Royal family.  His choral pieces have those wonderful, deep Russian bass parts which are so thrilling to listen to.

The inside of St. Paul's Cathedral is very beautiful - here is an HDR photo that attempts to capture some of the richness of the colours:

A choir in which we sing participated in the Mount Martha Annual Carol Concert last night.  It was a fun evening - we sang "Mary Did You Know" (words and music by Mark Lowry and Buddy Greene), "What Shall We Give?" (Catalonian carol; english text by David Warner), and "The First Noel / Pachelbel's Canon" (A traditional english carol combined with the Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel; arranged by Michael Clawson).

This was an outdoor concert.  Now, in case you are imagining choir members bundled up in heavy coats, mitts, scarves and toques, let me remind you that this is Australia!!  First, the crowd (around 500 or 600) attending the concert had just walked up from the adjacent beach and were still in their bathing suits and shorts, sitting in family groups on their beach towels.  For the first part of the concert, we were actually worried we would get a sunburn, but as the evening wore on, the sun got less intense.  Here is part of the concert crowd, along with the "bandstand" (much more casual than the concert at St. Paul's Cathedral):

The kids here must be tougher than in Canada - they don't need snow to slide down a hill.  And they must be accustomed to it, as they all came prepared with their pieces of cardboard.  The photo below shows a few (of the hundreds of) kids sledding.  Keep in mind, it is about +35 deg C out when the photo was shot!  We have several videos, which are much more interesting, but can't seem to get them to load to the blog properly :>(

Another event for the night was Santa Claus arriving in a local fire truck - that made quite a "splash" with the kids.  Santa was dressed traditionally (the poor guy; it was still about 30 deg C out).  He handed out sweets and all sorts of glow sticks.  The latter caused a mobbing; he must have wondered about "volunteering" for the job :>)

We wanted to post the lyrics for another Australian Christmas carol.  This one is called "Christmas Bush for His Adorning" and the words are by John Wheeler (the same person who wrote "Christmas Day", in our last post):

Christmas Bush for His Adorning

All the bells are gaily ringing.

Birds in every tree are singing;

Let us in the golden weather,

Gather Christmas Bush together.

Christ is born! The angels thunder

Through the Heavens their tale of wonder,

While we pluck for his adorning

Christmas Bush this hallowed morning.

Christ has conquered Evil’s power,

Hear the bells rock every tower;

Birds and beasts lift up their voices,

Freed at last the world rejoices.

Onward with triumphant chorus,

Following the road before us,

Singing through the golden weather,

Gathering Christmas Bush together.

Clearly, these people have never pushed through waist deep snow!  Their Christmas songs reflect the land in which they live and the weather at that time of the year.  Here is a photo of the Christmas bush referenced in the song, along with one of our favourite birds, the Galah:

Birds and Animals

Our blog entry wouldn't be complete without some photos of birds and animals that we have encountered recently.  We'll start with the platypus, an unusual water mammal that is hard to find near Melbourne.  We were lucky one day, walking across a pedestrian suspension bridge over the Yarra River, we spotted this fellow:

He looks rather scary in the above photo, and he does have poisonous claws on his back legs, so we're not going to argue with him too much!

While walking in one of our more isolated areas recently, we came across a pair of black swans with 6 cygnets.  They were pretty shy and kept trying to hide from us, but with some patience, we managed to find a natural bird blind from which we could take this photo:

Another day, while we were out walking, an Eastern Robin (not like our North American types, but smaller and with a yellow breast) flew up onto a branch.  We were so focussed on getting a photo of the robin that we almost missed the Wallaby crouching in the background!  While kangaroos are fairly common around Melbourne (you can see them in the parks early or late in the day, much like deer back in Calgary or other cities in Canada), the Wallaby is much less common, so we were happy to get this photo:

We want to finish off with a photo of a tree, but a very unusual one, called a Jacaranda.  This tree has been mostly invisible up until now, as it has been bare of flowers or leaves.  But about mid-December, it first develops all these gorgeous, purple flowers, and then later some lacy leaves.  Some of our friends from Africa will probably be familiar with this tree - we understand it is seen at least in South Africa.  Here it is, in all its glory:

OK, two more photos of the two of us, off on one of our birding walks.  Don't get the impression from this photo that all we do is wander around the Australian bush!  We also work very hard on our self-reliance calling!!  One thing we have learned, though, is that you have to be prepared for anything - sun, rain, heat, humidity, and bugs (more flies than mosquitoes).