A Fine Kettle of Fish

Aussie endangered species - a MyARKive scrapbook

2009-09-06T10:34:00.002+10:00

Aussie endangered species - a MyARKive scrapbook

Shared via AddThis

I'm just having a play around with this website as part of an assignment for my Teacher Librarian M.Ed. This very slick, engaging site offers scrapbooking that I think could be far more exciting than a powerpoint assignment. You can add pictures and movies from ARKive itself and then edit text to go with them. Imagine a Year 8 group putting one together of endangered species in their home state. I need to investigate further to see if you can upload your own photos as well.

Tim Burton ... He's Done it Again!

2009-07-25T08:38:00.002+10:00

And he's done it again with Johnny Depp tho' I don't think anyone will be sighing and mooning over him in this role. All the same, it looks like Mr. Depp has put both boots into it and I love it already from what little I've seen.

Hasn't the world of film been incredible lately. And so much more on the horizon.
Enjoy!

Choose the Moon!

2009-07-13T20:39:00.005+10:00

Just spotted this on Jane's E-Pick of the Day site and thought I'd drop it in here for all you aspiring space cadets out there ;-)

We Choose the Moon is still in pre-launch phase but is a recreation (in 'real' time) of the Apollo 11 moon mission. At this point I was able to listen to JFK's famous speech 'We choose the moon' , see pre-launch photos, and get set up to follow the astronauts and Kennedy Space Centre on Twitter and look at a lot of really cool photos.

I'm sure I'm going to appreciate Apollo 11 this time around a lot more than the first time. I can remember thinking as we watched back then -- "so what's all the big fuss? Did they think they wouldn't be able to get to the moon? The Jetson's live in outer space!"

Hmm, speaking of space cadets ...

Then Buffy stakes Edward. The End

2009-06-27T01:05:00.003+10:00

Love, love, LOVE this very clever mash-up.
Enjoy if you're a Buffy fan. =)

A Tomorrow Movie's in the Works

2009-06-18T16:09:00.008+10:00

Woot!
Some good news from the Read Alert blog - John Marsden's book, Tomorrow When the War Began is being made into a movie. You can read one of the press releases here.

I hadn't heard of the screen writer, Stuart Beattie before this but when I went on a hunt, I found this fascinating video interview and he now has my vote of confidence.

While hunting around for more information about the movie I also came across many fan-made trailers on YouTube for the book like here and here. There are lots more you can watch in the Related Videos sidebar.

From a Teacher-Librarian's point-of-view (multiliteracies focus) I thought it could be interesting to look at these different trailers for comparison and what works best to convey a sense of the book.

Flickr photo from: drormiler's photostream

Back for More

2009-06-10T23:18:00.003+10:00

Nope! I didn't get abducted by aliens or the US military.
Life sometimes pushes our best intentions over the edge and between work, study and family, I admit to having had to give up a lot of life’s pleasures just to regain some footing and that’s included writing here. But I’m really looking forward to being back on my blog and trying to record some of the things I run across/get caught up in as they happen. Cuz of course if I don't -- 20 minutes later I can't even remember them.

Gee! That doesn't make me part goldfish, does it?

Royalty free photo courtesy Matteo Quaglia and http://www.morguefile.com/

Try a Neil Gaiman For Free - Part 2

2008-09-05T12:36:00.003+10:00

Well see now, I knew I wouldn't be the only one interested in this offer of a free book. See who else is a Neil Gaiman fan? Shortly after I posted my last journal entry I got my first visit from the US Military. They will have to check back if they want the corrected URL for that free book from Harper Collins (see last entry).

have a nice day everyone =)

Try a Neil Gaiman For Free

2008-09-04T16:53:00.003+10:00

I love getting stuff for free. I love getting books for free the most. I love getting books by favourite authors even more than the most! Harper Collins is offering one of Neil Gaiman's book free to download for the next few weeks (and one of his short stories in audio if you go to their site). Above is where you can have a look at the book online -- warning it is an exact replica so wade through all the blank pages at the beginning (looks like about twelve before the story begins).

EDITED UPDATE: Here's the updated URL for the book's downloading page

Advice from the experts- apparently you need to have Adobe Reader 6 or 7 or Adobe Digital editions to open the downloaded pdf. Thanks for that Dan Guy!

enjoy!

David and Brian Together Again

2008-08-26T08:58:00.003+10:00

Oh Yay!
Like Christmas has come =) David Byrne and Brian Eno have made a new album.

I wish you could see the size of the smile on my face. It feels like visiting with your coolest old friends when you listen to this.

New Kind of Generation Gap

2008-08-24T12:50:00.005+10:00

Well I never thought I'd say it but there is a generation gap in this family. I thought I was a pretty up-to-date Web 2.0 kind of girl. But today I was cleaning out my son's pockets and found this double-sided note in it ...

I really do not understand what kids are on about these days ...

Who said that? It was a voice that sounded suspiciously like my mother's

Uh, right, yeah ...
Whatever ...

A Chance Tinker Hoist

2008-08-08T10:47:00.003+10:00

What fun!
I've subscribed to my -ahem -39th blog (I couldn't resist) -- The Teacher Toolbox

More fantastic gadgets and ideas for engaging students. And looky here! One of the little gadgets is an anagram generator-- http://wordsmith.org/anagram/

So guess what the title of this blog entry is -- =)

Curious about Inquiry-based Learning

2008-07-17T09:56:00.007+10:00

Curiousity may have killed a cat or two but it lies at the heart of inquiry-based learning. Inquiry-based learning is also a foundation block of our primary school’s curriculum. As a TL-under-construction, my personal growth priority this year (apart from my formal study) is to get to know the school’s curriculum inside out so that my contributions to curriculum planning and teacher collaboration can be of higher quality. I’ve spent the term-break delving deeply into inquiry-based learning. As I cruised the internet tracking down articles, good examples of inquiry-based learning in other schools and names of people who are leaders in this field, I came across the American Museum of Natural History’s excellent educational website and school programs and then John Barell and the many books he’s written. After reading the sample pages, I purchased Barell’s Developing More Curious Minds for the school’s professional development resource collection. I hope the staff read and get as much out of it as I have. Yes, his point of view is very American and obviously the book was written in the 9/11 aftermath, but the book’s premises are still very applicable.

A teacher turned educational consultant for the American Museum of Natural History, Barell believes many students have become too passive in their learning, accepting information and ‘facts’ as presented in textbooks, classes and the media. Students need to treat their life as a never-ending expedition, where they and their teachers are both the explorers and guides.

Barell invites the reader of this book to actively read, to pause and reflect on questions he poses, to journal one’s thoughts and responses (journaling is one of his mentioned recommended practices).

In the first chapter, A Culture of Inquisitiveness, Barell presents four recent events and their circumstances: a bonfire accident at Texas A & M (tertiary studies institution), NATO’s bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, the Challenger explosion and the FBI handling of Zacarias Moussaioui’s case (one of the 9/11 bombers). He poses the following questions. (The responses are my own).

Q. Given the events just described and those of September11, 2001 … do you see patterns in some segments of society?

A. Organizations usually have a hierarchy of authority and it may not be acceptable and/or tolerated that those farther down the line question their superiors. This culture often exists in business, law enforcement, the army, medicine, and in educational institutions.

Q. How would you explain the seeming lack of a culture of inquisitiveness among some of us?

A. I think this may start right back at home when we are very small. Parents may not listen, may not want to answer the million questions kids ask, may respond with “because I said so”. Questions may be viewed as tiring, time-consuming or challenging. This attitude continues on in many schools with the attitude that teachers are not to be questioned or challenged.

Q. Now, why do you think it is important for us to foster and develop inquisitiveness in our children and students? Why do we want them curious about the natural world, life in our democracy and their personal and professional lives?

A. To seek answers and to be curious means that the child is thinking, observing and not just believing. There are a lot of people in the world who would like to be believed (without good reason) for their own purposes. Decisions based on belief rather than evidence can leave one person or a small group of people in a very powerful position — this is when information becomes restricted and individuals can no longer think independently because they have no access to facts.

After some more thought on this question, I also think that if children are not encouraged in their inquisitiveness they will grow up not caring or having any interest in what’s going on around them. People who don’t care are in danger or put others in danger — a good example being apathy towards the environment. Western Society is so removed from the natural environment that ignorance of it breeds apathy. The more you know about something the more you care.

Part of developing a culture of inquisitiveness, I believe, is to hear what others think about questions and issues.

Please feel free to comment. =)

Photo courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stalkerr/527729423/

Am I Old Enough Yet?

2008-07-04T17:12:00.004+10:00

In 1965, I became old enough to attend the East Hill Community Hall Kindergarten. But I was not old enough to cross the big road to get there. Sixth Avenue was four lanes wide with no traffic lights. Mum would look both ways twice and hold my hand to cross. I walked the rest of the way with the little girl from the house with the green glass stucco.

At that time I was desperate to grow up. The countdown for my next birthday began one or two months after the last one. I wasn’t six, I was 6-and-a-half; I was 6 and-three-quarters. I would take a few days to celebrate seven then I could say I was going on eight.

In high school, we couldn’t wait until we were old enough. We wanted to drive. In fact, we didn’t wait. We all had $400 Mazdas, Hondas, Toyotas … bombs purchased by parents who were too nervous (or too wise) to let us learn in the family cars. We boldly lied to them Friday nights saying our 16-year-old friends would drive the cars. Sometimes they actually did drive – it all depended, because we couldn’t wait 'til we were old enough to drink either.

I graduated on to university and became legally of age. But I was one of those kids who couldn’t indulge in any vice or enter any venue without my age being questioned. I didn’t look old enough and I was constantly reminded of it.

Somewhere in my twenties, life got more serious. There was talk of marriage and settling down so I travelled to Japan and New Zealand and Australia to escape. I knew I was growing up because I recognized I was not old enough for that yet.

One day, in my thirtieth year, a telemarketer called. She asked for Mrs. H. This was not my name; it was my mother’s name and I chuckled. But more began calling and asking for the same person. They didn’t have the wrong number. They couldn’t see me over the phone so at least they had an excuse, -- the kid at the Kmart checkout did not. As he dully dragged all the knickers and socks over the barcode scanner and dropped them into a bag, he called me Ma’am to my face.

It was then I realized I was old enough.

More and more emails that I receive from girlfriends are to convince me that we aren’t getting old, we are merely girls with wrinkles but I know this isn’t true. I know this isn’t true because I am old enough to recognize the first signs -- the first signs of what I’ve come to call female fading.

I am waiting to buy bread in a small Saturday crowd at Brumby’s. I am at the front with one hand resting on the glass, trying to make eye contact with the boy in the floppy chef’s hat. A girl steps up to my left just as the boy turns to ask, “Who’s next please.” The boy looks straight at her. The girl looks back at him, she does not hesitate. She gives him her order. And I realize I am becoming invisible.

But I am old enough now … old enough to speak up for myself.

“Excuse me,” I said, “ I think I was next in line.”

“Oh,” the girl squeaks. She looks at me for the first time. I have an uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu; only the vu coming from her perspective. She looks back at the boy to take her scones. They smile. Should I adjust the boy’s vision too, I think to myself or is that the first sign of becoming an old bag. I smile and wait my turn again because I am not sure if I am old enough for that yet.

More Nice Toys to Play with (or learn with)

2008-06-16T21:35:00.004+10:00

Jing is a cool little tool that allows you to capture what you are doing on your computer in either a snapshot or video and then post it. This will be so handy when I start really getting into blogging with the kids at school. Cuts out on all the confused directions on how to do stuff.

Dipity Here's their little blurb.
Dipity is the easiest way to make and share interactive timelines about the people and things you care about. This time line tool allows you to add photos, maps, text. I'm still trying to find out if it allows video footage. I'm playing at the moment with a family tree timeline and adding scanned images of the olds.

Wordle
I caused a bit of a flurry on the OZTL_NET forum this week posting the url for this fun little tool found on weblogg-ed (great class 2.0 blog to follow). It creates arty little word clouds when you deposit text into it. Colours, fonts, shapes of cloud etc are edit-able (is that a word?) A few TLs came back with lovely ways to use this educationally. I think it would be fun to see children's reports and works of fiction converted. Another way to look at what you've done and it's occured to me that is gives a visual impression of a project's keywords. And they are just so puretttty =)

A Crumby Tool You are Gonna Love

2008-06-14T18:31:00.003+10:00

I read about this application, www.iBreadcrumbs.com (for Firefox) just the other day and as I am studying I thought I would try it out ... I'm in love!
When you hit the start button, iBreadcrumbs keeps track of every page you view (like a crumb trail) as you search online and then you can edit, save, share, add and collaborate with your trails. No more searching around for that web-page that had something on it but I forgot to bookmark it problems. There's a short YouTube video about it on the homepage. A real sanity saver.

Stop and Smell the online Roses

2008-06-06T08:08:00.003+10:00

Ahhh, a bit of peace in between semesters. The last research paper has been handed over and with three weeks of freedom thre is at last time to 'stop and smell the roses' -- the online treasures that you come across or people mention but you really can't explore and enjoy when studying.

So here are a few I've been saving:

The British Library's site has a section called Turning the Pages
-- several famous books/manuscripts of works such as the Lindisfarne Gospels, one of Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks, the original Alice in Wonderland have been digitized so you can virtually turn the pages and examine them under a magnifying glass. Broadband works best for viewing these and you need Shockwave. Awesome stuff!

The next site had everyone in the family chuckling -- and those of us who used to sneak a book under our desk or into our textbooks at school can truly appreciate this one -- it's from the New Zealand Book Council. It's called Read at Work .
Even more sneaky than the novel-in-the-textbook, the first window of this opens to a fake desktop with folders offering poetry, NZ authors' works, short stories, classics and more. Click on a folder and these works of fiction are presented in powerpoint programs with snappy bar graphs and truly cheesy photos that will fool the eye of any boss rushing by. And the format adds a whole new twist to the writing too. A bit sad that they repeated the format for several of them but otherwise, what a guilty pleasure this is.

Standards of Excellence and Coupon Realities

2008-05-15T08:37:00.003+10:00

In our last assignment for my uni course on the role of the teacher librarian, we have been asked to examine the ALIA standards of excellence document for TL's and explain how we think they will help TLs do a better job in the schools. I've read them over many times now and have been inspired by them -- who wouldn't want to be that kind of librarian. As to how they would help a TL to do a better job? Well besides inspiring personal vision and goal setting, they are points for reflection after staff meetings when surprise issues like this hit the TL.

The teachers had an issue over Scholastic Book Club coupons. The parent who has run the program until this year had volunteered as a way for the school library to acquire extra books. She donated the loyalty coupons to the library and I would order books with them. They usually added up to about $30.00 a month, a bit more at Xmas time. A nice little bonus for a small library running on a very small budget. It means there are always a few new books to put on display.

Our school works on a negotiated curriculum so I constantly consult with the teachers on book purchases as I don't know what they will teach from one term to the next.
Now a new parent volunteer has taken over and been approached behind my back by the teachers who want to buy books and games for their class or 'just things that we want'. The new volunteer told the teachers to talk to the TL. TL was confronted at the staff meeting. TL asks, "What things did you want? I'm happy to purchase any suggestions you think would be of benefit to the school collection. But if it is for classroom resources, don't you have a budget for that?" "Not that much", is the reply. But at least 4 times the amount of the library budget from what I'm able to glean (not told directly).

When they found out the coupons only add up to $25-$40 a month, they weren't quite so keen and after more discussion a vote was taken that the coupons could still come to the library but if there was something the teachers wanted, the coupons would be put toward that. Hmm, that's what I thought I had been doing all along. Buying books that the school wanted/needed, asking for requests, always looking for connections with current topics of study to contribute to the collection. Do these teachers think I am running a library for my own personal use? That the collection is not there for their use?

This attitude is a direct result of not having had a librarian at the school for many years. In the past, if teachers wanted something for their class to use for projects, they bought it with their own class budget and kept it in their room. Nothing was entered on the catalogue, purchases were not viewed as part of the school collection. I am struggling (still, after more than a year) to locate and catalogue all the past purchases onto the system. For a school to own resources that no one else knows about or is able to access because of this is inefficient and to no one's advantage.

2.1 Learning environment
Excellent teacher librarians:
create and nurture an information-rich learning environment which supports the needs of the school community

3.1 Lifelong learning
Excellent teacher librarians:
engage in debate on educational issues within the school community
3.2 Commitment
Excellent teacher librarians:
are dedicated to excellence in professional service
emphasise a learning and teaching focus in school library programs and services
3.3 Leadership
Excellent teacher librarians:
actively engage in school leadership and participate in key committees
build and foster collaborative teams within school and professional communities
3.4 Community responsibilities
Excellent teacher librarians:
model the sharing of knowledge

Standards of professional excellence for teacher librarians. (2004). Australian library and information association: Policies. Retrieved May 1, 2008, from http://www.alia.org.au/policies/teacher-librarian.standards.html

When the library is just a room full of books

2008-05-13T15:23:00.005+10:00

I was catching up on my reading in the TL forums for the uni course I am doing and the topic was the role of the TL in curriculum development. One of the other students, Kelly, wisely summed up:

• How are students disadvantaged in schools that exclude the
teacher librarian from curriculum development?

Students learn skills in the library that aren’t reinforced back in their classrooms and vice versa.

Students may not have productive and meaningful access to new technologies and information sources.

The library is seen just as a place of finding information; students may be still just locating information and then the copy/paste mentality takes over. True processing and understanding of information is cut short and unable to be fostered due to lack of access to, or time in, the library.

These are all points pertinent to the situation at my school at the moment and much of the difficulty in becoming involved in curricular issues comes from time pressure-- very limited hours - I am hired for only for 5hrs per week. When the librarian is not there it is indeed just a room full of books.
I've watched the library sink back to this from the vibrant learning centre it was when I was in attendance 15 hours a week. Even when I was not available in the library (teaching reading skills) during all those hours there was a sense of purpose to that room, a sense of active learning going on and I could pop in and out and guide -even if it was on the fly. And I realise I got a lot of teaching done during recess and lunch when less organised students were sent to work in the library during their break. There were many opportunities to guide learners in information strategies -- and the teachers too as the staffroom is attached to the library with only a low partition wall between them.

A-Ha Moment

2008-05-10T12:18:00.004+10:00

I love a-ha moments and this one is not getting away. I need it for my last assignment. Of course most seem to occur when driving or in the shower (as this one did) and that's why they need to invent water-proof paper.

Right, so I am reading an article called, "Implementing the Big6: Context, context, context" and have been wrestling with many terms used in this course. I only figured out a few weeks ago what Resource-based Learning was. I'm not dumb, I recognize all the words and what they mean when grouped together. What has been the problem is not being aware of what the alternative is which I now understand is text-based learning. As a long-time member of an alternative school system, not knowing the alternatives sounds like an irony, doesn't it. We never use textbooks at our school and quite frankly I had forgotten how school used them when I attended -- "read chapter two then answer the questions at the end of the chapter". I kinda assumed nobody did that anymore, it was so boring back in the 60's why would they still be doing it? Ahem, pardon my ignorance.

In the Big6 article they are advocating teaching information skills within the existing curriculum by looking ahead and slotting them in to where they will fit best. This involves what is termed 'curriculum mapping'. Another term that I can comprehend but can't really relate to. The article states: "... the building block of curriculum is the curriculum unit. " It goes on to say that mapping Big6 skills into the curriculum means focussing on detailed information about the units in the curriculum. (that's when I heard the brakes in my brain screech).

Here is the core of the problem. Units? We don't have units. Curriculum mapping is almost impossible at our school because we don't have a set curriculum. Our curriculum document states that we have: an integrated curriculum, a negotiated curriculum, a differentiated curriculum. Of course I've known all this since our children started at the school. But again have had nothing until recently against which to compare it. Through this course of study I have come to know the regular school system again and been struggling to see how many of the recommendations and techniques for the TL will fit into our system. Then it suddenly occured to me that I need to get to know our school's curriculum, on a whole new level, more deeply than just the curriculum document. Again this is not as dumb as it sounds. In the article Fenwick English, the guy who thought up curriculum mapping pointed out that curriculum guides the ideal not the actual and I believe this is so true.

I've read the curriculum document (although I must say that it has not been made readily available. I had to ask for a copy of it this year when I began the teacher librarian position and they had to print off a copy for me). But today I sat down and applied the K-W-L questioning technique I've taught the kids to my own reading of this document. What has emerged for me is that there are a lot of statements made in our curriculum document but I don't know what they are based on. Under "An Integrated Curriculum for example:

We do not have a hierarchy of knowledge outcomes; these will vary according to attitudes and aptitudes. ie. environmental influences, personal interests and needs determine the topics covered.

I wrote next to this "so how are outcomes determined? If they are needs-determined, how is it determined what the needs are?"

There are also many statements regarding negotiated curriculum. Again I don't know what they are based on. I guess what I am saying is I don't know the foundations of this curriculum and I now need to have deeper understanding in order to see how I can best serve in my role in this alternative system. So I have set for my school holiday time my own research project, to read up on what others have done or are doing in the areas of integrated, negotiated and differentiated curricula. I do know that this alternative system really works for many children. I have seen so many truly great kids go on to highschool, with confidence and strong sense of self, able to function at a level of maturity I don't see happening in the public system often. I don't doubt its value I just need to know it more like a mechanic instead of like a driver.

Rock Star Baby Steps

2008-05-10T09:50:00.004+10:00

There are moments in their kids' lives that a parent just has to capture on video. First steps, first food all over their faces, first birthday party, first day of school ... first time playing in a band!

The music shop where Boy2 takes lessons organises their advancing students together to try playing in bands for the first time. These 4 girls and two dudes did not know each other before this session. They've each been practising their parts at home and this session was the conclusion of a 2 hour workshop where they put it all together. They've called themselves Tune Up. The lead singer has a fantastic voice but unfortunately had a bad cold so please forgive her very tired voice in the video. And oops, better forgive the camera woman too. The batteries died just before the end, but hey, you get the main idea. All 15 bands from the music school will come together to do a pub night on the 29th of May.

Now I'm sure I'm not biased but doesn't B2 remind you a bit of George Harrison as he stands there strumming away?

Baker's Delight

2008-05-06T20:19:00.004+10:00

wow!

After going to workshops like Jamie McKenzie's, my brain always feels like bread dough. I don't mean gooey and mushy, I mean when it's been mixed and is covered with the tea towel, rising in the pan. I can feel it literally expanding and building and I know I need to let it rest before I knock the air out of it and work it into shape.

And by the way, I have changed my mind about mind-mapping and I want a copy of that Inspiration program at our school. It's like an extension pack for your brain.

Enjoy the cartoon which has nothing to do with anything beyond it tickling my fancy. =)

Mind-mapping and Work-shopping

2008-05-04T13:58:00.003+10:00

I've just had the promotional tour of Inspiration and am now downloading the 30 day trial before I head off to Jamie McKenzie's workshop tomorrow and Tuesday. He will be leading the workshop group through New Century Research -- helping teachers and teacher librarians to challenge students with demanding questions instead of what he refers to as 'hunting and gathering' exercises. Looks and sounds very exciting, I'm looking forward to it immensely. This is my first PD as a teacher librarian.

Inspiration is a mind-mapping tool and I will say now that I've never been too convinced about mind-mapping. I've seen so many people trundle it out and use it badly for so many occasions. I don't know if it has been just lack of understanding how mind-mapping works or if you need really inspired people to get anywhere with it. I've also seen the teachers try to use it with the kids at school and they usually end up with a flower with lots of petals that never gets looked at again. The kids just don't 'get it' and I wonder if the teachers get it. It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow and if I change my mind about mind-mapping.

What the ... ? A very good question indeed!

2008-04-29T19:05:00.007+10:00

Sitting back to reflect on my first steps into information literacy... I've begun teaching information skills (Big6) to three of the four classes at our school.
I introduced the Big6 and Super3 to the teachers and staff at a recent staff meeting, gave them handouts and have followed up with articles attached to emails for further information. I've given weekly updates in the school newsletter but not had feedback from staff or parents about what I'm doing 'til this week ... one teacher has begun to try the Super 3 idea in another area of her teaching so that is very encouraging.

Last week I introduced K-W-L to the two older classes. This is a strategy that helps them to think about what they already KNOW about a topic to ask questions based on what they WANT TO KNOW (or 'wanna know' as we jokingly call it). The children were prolific in coming up with questions about their topic, some fat, rich questions, some standard old 'skinny' ones but I was pleased how easily they seemed to catch on to it and that they would have plenty to work with.

Then came Monday. I spend Mondays with my parent volunteers trying to keep up with the admin side of things but always encourage the kids to come to the library for help whenever I'm there. I was 'swarmed' on Monday ... but not one single child showed up with their questions. When I asked where their questions were I received blank stares ... "you know the questions we worked on last Thursday so you could use them to find information for your projects?" TL encouraged. "Ohhh, those. Do we hafta use them?" So back they went to dig them out of their tubs.

Then back they came. Only this time the real challenge came with them ... the class assistant came in and started insisting at the top of her lungs that they were not allowed to use questions this time to do their projects so she told them to put them all away and come and get information. TL calmly explains that the questions were to guide them in their info search and it is part of their info skills learning. The questions were not meant to be included in the project. Louder insistance from the Assistant that that is not what the teacher wants them to do and that I better go and talk to the teacher so she can explain to me what they are meant to be doing! (I should mention in defence of the teacher that she knew nothing of any of this and was quite happy with what the children were doing when I followed this up).

Oh dear, even though the assistant sat through the staff meeting and took away the reading material, it is an 'old dog, new tricks' (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) situation.
So ... the moral of the story is, heads nodding (at staff meetings) and hands going up (in classrooms) do not signify learning, at least not any kind of learning that stuck.

Whew! That was sure a hot session, did someone turn the heat up in here?

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Boolean Cubes

2008-04-19T08:34:00.006+10:00

LM_NET is the most wonderful lits serv for librarians! Although some people get driven crazy by the amount of postings, once you accept that you can surf for what you want and don't have to read every single post, wow -- 'Oh the places you'll go'.

A couple of days ago someone posted a link and information about Boolify
This very visual search engine is in beta format, being developed by the Public Learning Media Laboratory and is based on the same click-lock puzzle format as MIT's Scratch programming site and Lego's MindStorms robotics programming. It's very easy to use, comes with lesson plans that include a physical activity to help understand the logic of Boolean searching (perfect for primary students). You can see the estimated results right under the 'puzzle' search you've built. Also comforting for teachers is the fact that it's search results are presented through Google's "Safe Search STRICT" technology. The kids will like using it I think because of the puzzle pieces.

Below is the little blurb from PLML's site all about Boolify. Definitely one to try out with the kids at school.

Boolify is a technology to help Primary and Middle School children understand how to construct effective web searches. The technology models web search Boolean with colored puzzle pieces. Each piece indicates a Boolean operator.

By scaffolding understanding of Boolean upon a graphical logic, young people will learn how the search construction impacts the results that are produced with each search.

The project website can be found at http://boolify.plml.org and is expected to launch formally on May 15, 2008 after April beta testing.

Information climates

2008-04-19T08:32:00.006+10:00

One of the readings assigned to us for uni was an article by Penny Moore of NZ about the lack of a role for teacher-librarians within the education system. Instead NZ hires a teacher who's responsible for the library but is not a trained information expert. This is not dissimilar to my current situation - not being an 'expert' yet. What especially interested me in her article was a term she coined the information climate of a school. Moore suggests that rather than the support of the principal being the key to an effective library programme (as suggested by other professional literature) it is instead the information climate that determines the development of information literate school cultures.

Moore defines the information climate as the overall value that a school places on information. This includes:

the range of information sources available inschools and the extent to which information is valued, managed, communicated and used. It includes information traditionally used in supporting teaching and learning and extends to that concernedwith educational theory and practice, curriculum planning methods, educational technologies and specialised subject fields."

This concept helped me to see more clearly why I'm having such a struggle at school with bringing in changes to the library programme. There is only one descriptor that comes to mind when I think of the infor climate of our school -- ice age.

I could dwell on the depressing details of it all -- the library was abandoned at the school for 4 or 5 years before I begged and was granted permission to take it on. I am managing the library on 5 hours a week, 2.5 of which are used in class time, trying to teach IL skills. I have a miniscule budget, the teachers will not collaborate no matter how I try to approach it, they will not use term or yearly plans they can share with me, they do not use the pathfinders I organize for their convenience, they do not attend professional development regarding information or ICT, there is no information policy, they had never heard of Information Literacy and expressed doubt over the students 'getting it'. STOP! (I said I wouldn't dwell).
Anyways I see the big picture more clearly based on the concept of 'info climate' and recognize the literature's point about the futility of one person's effort in being able to turn it around. But better to go down trying so ... what to do?
The principal I still believe is the major factor in the setting of this climate and I'm working in that direction. My top priority at this point is to obtain a written contract! and included in that, a job description. I feel some recognition of the role of the TL in writing will be the absolute first step.

Next will have to be some sort of information policy and procedures - but I'm not up to that point with my plate full of assignments from uni. I also feel that the teachers need to begin doing some professional reading and get 'with the 21st century'. I've sent articles in the past via email but the response is usually 'Oh, I havent' had a chance to open that email yet'. There is an unspoken smugness about the way we offer an alternative. Do the teachers think they don't need to know how everyone else is doing things, it can't be as good as the way we do it? We are truly child-centred, everyone else just pays lip-service to it has been expressed in the past.
I think I will now look to subscribe the school to one good professional journal that stays out on the coffee table in the staff room.

Image: FreeD igitalPhotos.net

Moore, P. (1997, August/September). Teaching information problem solving in
primary schools: An information literacy survey. In 63rd IFLA general
conference. Symposium conducted at International Federation of Library
Associations and Institutions, Copenhagen, Denmark. Retrieved April 12,
2008, from http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla63/63moop.htm

No Longer Just the Facts, Ma'am

2008-04-06T14:48:00.007+10:00

Today I've been reading J. Henri's 1999 article "The Information Literate School Community: Not just a pretty face". I've been trying to puzzle out what I think the most important role of the teacher librarian is in such an environment -- as part of the paper I am writing for school.
After reading this article I have determined a couple of things:

1) There is no such thing as a completely information literate person or school community. Even schools that spend up big will have issues of change. Change in staff, change in technology, changes in curriculum, changes in learning needs. Information literate school communities (ILSCs) are constant works in progress.

2) Henri clarified for me perhaps the biggest hurdle that prevents schools from transforming into ILSCs and it has to do with what schools believe (consciously or subconsciously) is the definition of information. Henri states:

... when schools perceive information as a thing there is a tendency for learning to become reproduction of ideas rather than creation of meaning.

There is a lot of information out there, so much that it is overwhelming. By treating it as a thing, it will simply pile up! No amount of whiz bang technology will help a teacher or student or school cope better with landslides of information. I think it simply lures people deeper and deeper into the Web. =) In fact I wonder if this attitude "information as thing" is what leads to 'information fatigue syndrome'. People are simply looking at it all wrong.

Henri goes on to quote Kay (1998) who points out that current curriculum emphasises informing via the needs of a learner and lists possible needs as:

needing to plan investigations
needing to conduct investigations
needing to translate and interpret
needing to communicate
needing to predict consequences
needing to participate

Henri points out that in that kind of learning environment, information is not an end to the process or an answer, it is evidence to explore and that the stakeholders' obligation is one of use. Seeing information as some 'thing' to be passed from teacher to student (in whatever manner), he suggests is what squashes the motivation to learn.

This shift in the perception of 'information' seems simple enough but what a mighty step it really is! And I think perhaps the biggest hurdle towards becoming an information literate school community.

Henri, J. (1999). The information literate school community: Not just a pretty face. In The information literate school community: Best practice (pp. 1-10). Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia: Charles Sturt Univerisity, Centre for Information Studies.

Non-fiction Books and Kids - putting 1+1 together

2008-04-03T15:39:00.007+11:00

At the school library I recently cleared a section on the picture book display shelf to put some nonfiction books out. The younger children often do not go to the stacks to browse, they just grab the books that have the covers facing out. I had read somewhere that young boys (even 3-4 year olds) want to read non-fiction about subjects like dinosaurs and sports -- my own keen observations confirmed this as true at our library too ;-) -- they loved the NF on the 'what's new shelf'. I wanted to make sure they were not missing out on all the other great nonfiction we had.

Today I began reading Betty Carter's (2000) article 'A universe of information: The future of non-fiction' (uni reading for Children and Literature). She made some excellent points for the importance of these books that I hadn't considered, especially when it came to books over the Internet for kids under 10.

Beyond the obvious problem of the majority of sites presenting information at a level of detail and language way over their heads, Carter points out that just as fiction books have patterns (beginnings, middles, ends and three wishes etc.) non-fiction books have organising principles or patterns that children need to learn in order to organise their own information. Even if the information changes (like pluto's no longer a proper planet) the pattern that planet books follow remain more or less the same. The tabs, buttons and hyperlinks on websites have children hopping around finding information but unable to organise it.

What stunned me is that I have noticed how disorganised many of the children's projects seem to be but didn't see what the problem could be. I didn't see this despite the fact that I insist the first place kids should look for information is the World Book set (non online) and have pointed out the subheadings as a good way to organise their topics. Now I can see that its the over-dependence many of the students have on the internet for their information. In fact when I think back, some of the students who seemed to have the hardest time organizing did not read books and were heavy internet users (also left things to the last minute). When I begin their information skills sessions this term I am going to make sure we have a look at organising patterns of books and see/compare to websites and have the kids consciously thinking about this as they go into their next projects. It'll be interesting to see if there is any difference. Oh, and I'm going to insist they use at least one book source if possible from now on.

Carter, B. (2000). A universe of information: The future of non-fiction. The Horn Book Magazine, vol. 76, no. 6, pp 697-711.

Animated book courtesy of : http://www.sevenoaksart.co.uk/books.htm

Leaders and Leadership

2008-04-02T15:57:00.006+11:00

The paper I am now working on is a critical analysis of the role of the teacher-librarian in an Information Literate School Community. In between numerous power outages due to very high winds, I read deeply into L. Langford's (1999) article -- Information literacy? Seeking clarification.

Reading all the kerfuffle over just defining the term information literacy (IL) I can understand why many schools are still grappling with implementation -- it reminded me a bit of Joni Mitchell's song 'Both Sides Now' -- I really don't know clouds at all.

Now that there are within the education curriculum frameworks, some working definitions and standards about what is meant to be being taught, the question that occurred to me is why is there still so much talk and so little action? It struck me (mostly from personal observation) that the majority of teachers are being asked to teach skills and knowledge that they themselves don't have. Most are aging (sorry folks!) and do not possess technologically up-to-date skills by a long stretch. In that light, there doesn't seem to be a lot of sense in the government buying every kid in high school a laptop if the teachers aren't going to get them to do anything more advanced than word processing. It would make more sense I think to put every teacher through some training so they weren't miles behind the kids.

So where does that leave the teacher-librarian -- partner, leader, collaborator are a few of the labels I came across in the readings. I didn't like the idea of teacher-librarians being information literacy (IL) leaders too much. My experience is that people often translate leader into responsible party, they think you have that area 'covered' and they needn't worry about it. Also within a school setting the leader is in fact, the principal so it is tricky to lead when you are not the leader. But then the power went out again so I started to read Fullan's "Leading in a Culture of Change: Personal Action Guide and Workbook". He clarified for me that there is a difference between a manager/administrator and a leader. He and Heifetz (whom he's quoted) both see leading as not about solving problems but about helping people to confront problems that haven't been successfully addressed yet. If that's the case then its a role that teacher-librarians can definitely take.

One other point from Fullan's book that stuck with me was:

... true leaders commit themselves to continually generating and increasing knowledge inside and outside the organisation. (p4-5)

Hey I thought that was the role of a teacher-librarian! I guess I learned something today even though the lights were out. =)

Langford, L. (1999). Chapter 4: Informations literacy? Seeking clarification. In J. Henri (Ed.), The information literate school community: Best practice (pp. 43-54). Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia: Charles Sturt University, Centre for Information Studies.

Fullan, M., & Ballew, A. C. (2004). Leading in a culture of change: Personal
action guide and workbook. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Down the Rabbit Hole -- Digg it style

2008-03-31T08:43:00.004+11:00

Last weekend I took a minute (an internet minute that is!) to go back to R.A. Meyer's wonderful blog The Internet Can Change Your Life.
Each blog entry is a chance to play with some Web 2.0 gadget, widget, applet and once you start, you never know where you will end up. So follow me like the March Hare down this rabbit hole and see where I ended up!

I'd worked my way through Assignment #17 a while back and wasn't interested in #18 which is some real estate prediction device for the US market so moved onto #19 which is to have a look at Digg. Now this type of bookmarking isn't new to me -- I have a Del.icio.us account which I don't use much anymore but thought it would be a good thing to look at another for comparison's sake.

The adventure began when I clicked on the last Digg that he had on his list --
http://digg.com /playable_web_games/Doodle_in_3D_with_this_incredible_web_toy
A nice little toy but doesn't really do much (how many toys we can say that about!) then a comment caught my eye. Someone mentioned Teddy, a modelling program that changes 2D doodles into 3D drawings that you can rotate, edit ... now this is a cool toy!
B2 and I could see the applications already -- we've been drawing animations to experiment with a visual novel engine -- Blade Engine -- our characters could really come to life with this tool!
Then of course like shiny things do, something caught my eye in Teddy -- a mention that some Teddy users made characters to use in Alice -- "a 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web." **eyes bug out then retreat** -- Did I mention Alice is free?

So you see this is an "Alice" story after all and I can only add, thank you R. A. Meyer for putting together all those great challenges -- and thank god there is nothing on TV anymore cuz I've downloaded Storytelling Alice (modified version for upper primary students) and am hard at work on a story about a trouble-making cheerleader stirring a dumb jock for fun. (Where do these ideas come from?) I'll post when the masterpiece is complete.

Writing Papers and Cowboy Behaviour

2008-03-25T08:17:00.004+11:00

It is only 5 days until my first paper is due for my M.Ed (Teacher Librarian) course and I have discovered a change in my study habits. Back in the 80's I remember studying and reluctantly churning out the assignments without much care -- I needed to be spurred along by the threat of the due date the next day, and with too many cigarettes, cups of tea and chocolate.

Now I find I need to rein myself in (oh, and have given up smoking decades ago!)

I've read far too much, I've read far too widely and I have worried over the definition of each keyword and every other word in the general instructions as well as the task.
What do they mean by critical analysis? What do they mean by professional literature? What exactly is postmodernism? What do they mean in contrast then by postmodern literary theory? What are multiliteracies? In contrast then what is visual literacy? Gardner's multi-intelligences?

Well you begin to see the problem ... I started panicking weeks ahead and have slaved over this paper like Elizabeth Taylor training National Velvet. What's happened to me? Have I grown up? Is it because I care greatly about this profession? Whatever it is I hope it settles into the corral and lets me settle into the saddle.

Bruner and our School Philosophy

2008-03-20T11:04:00.006+11:00

I recently began reading Bruner's (1996) The Culture of Education. Partially because of something it connected with in my ETL401 course (the concept of scaffolding knowledge I think) but more importantly because our school's philosophy was built on Bruner's earlier conclusions --

"We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development.
It is a bold hypothesis and an essential one in thinking about the nature of the curriculum. No evidence exists to contradict it; Considerable evidence is being amassed that supports it."
J.S.Bruner

The Process of Education, Harvard U.P. 1960

I was curious to see what he had to say about knowledge, learning and schools more than 45 years on. We have often discussed at our school the problem that Steiner School's have that cling on to a philosophy conceived so long ago. Did we need to pull the log out of our own eye? Was the foundation of our school philosophy still relevant, I wondered. I found his first references to it in the preface --

It now seems to me in retrospect, ... that I was then much too preoccupied with solo, intrapsychic processes of knowing and how these might be assisted by appropriate pedagogies. (p.xi)

Acquired knowledge is most useful to a learner, moreover, when it is discovered' through the learner's own cognitive efforts, for it is then related to and used in reference to what one has known before. Such acts of discovery are enormously facilitated by the structure of knowledge itself, for however complicated any domain of knowledge may be, it can be represented in ways that make it accessible through less complex elaborated processes. It was this conclusion that led me to propose that any subject could be taught to any child at any age in some form that was honest -- although "honest" was left undefined and has haunted me ever since!(p.xii)

Bruner goes on to talk of how in the 1950's and 60's school reformers didn't at first recognize the influence that the culture at large was having on education.

It was the "discovery of poverty" and the civil rights movement ... that woke most of us from our unthinking complacency about reforming education -- specifically, the the discovery of the impact of poverty, racism, and alienation on the mental life and growth of the child victims of these blights.(p.xiii)

Bruner says this brought about programs such as Headstart and began his increasing interest in how culture affects the ways in which students learn. Recent projects Bruner had been involved with suggested that "a culture provides models of identity and agency to its members"(p.xiv). Bruner's big question in this book is --

What does it take to create a nurturing school culture that empowers the young effectively to use the resources and opportunities of the broader culture?(p.xiv)

I feel that we should be asking this same question at our school. Our information technology is only beginning to be updated. The educational attitudes towards Web 2.0 and the multiliteracies that need to be acquired need to be urgently addressed too. If we don't do it I feel we are in just as great a danger of being a dinosaur as other alternative educational options.

Bruner's book promises to provide some direction. I read on ...

Bruner, J. The culture of education: Harvard U.P., 1996.

Founder's Day Raft Race

2008-03-01T11:38:00.002+11:00

In celebration of the completion of my first university assignment (three days before the deadline) I've decided to spend some time with the photo collection. this is from last weekend's Founder's Day Raft Race. It was teams from throughout the district. B2's team came in third. Enjoy the epic journey, complete with soundtrack!

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

The Halls/Hauls of Academia are Long

2008-02-24T08:27:00.004+11:00

I've started a post-graduate degree after more than 20 years away from universities. The Cert III course in Library/Info Services I took last year was so useful for efficient running of the day-to-day tasks in the library - cataloguing, acquisitions etc and was very good study discipline for me.

Entering the Master's course in Teacher/Librarianship is a whole
NEW KETTLE of FISH.
I was thinking last night that it is difference between doing the dishes out back in the kitchen (my regular work) then being invited to sit in the big hall for the banquet. You are excited to say YES!, you wouldn't miss it for the world, you're overwhelmed at the table by the choice and the quality of the offerings, you dig in putting way too much on your plate, you try to eat everything, you hope desperately that your ignorance and country bumpkin ways aren't showing too badly.

I am very grateful that I took advantage of the Study Skills course offered by the University during the summer holidays. The uncertainty when facing the first major assignment is not so dreadful and according to my recommended text by Kuhlthau (2004)uncertainty and anxiety are necessary ingredients in the process of constructing my knowledge and to be expected so I guess I'm on the right track.

The ETL401 unit -- "The Role of the Teacher-Librarian" asks for a weekly journal entry examining and reflecting on our own learning experiences. I think I'll plop that in here as well as all the other bits that make this a fine kettle of fish.

Kuhlthau, Carol Collier (2004). Seeking Meaning: a process approach to library and information services. London, U.K.: Libraries Unlimited.

2008-01-12T17:01:00.001+11:00

There are a thousand things one can do rather than what one should do. Rather than finish the rough draft of a 'critical analysis of the tobacco industry' essay for Study Skills, one could for instance find out which daemon one would have if one lived in the world of Phillip Pullman's "The Northern Lights".

Hey what's the big idea! A Chimp? Well its got 12 days to settle so please comment on the accuracy. I promise not to use it in my final essay draft. =)

Feb - my daemon has settled into the form of a ladybird. I can live with that =)

Christmas Day

2008-01-05T08:51:00.001+11:00

I'm on holidays but still playing with the web toys and animoto is one of my favourites. This time I paid the small fee they charge to make your videos longer than the 30 second freebies.

Hope you all had a good day as well --

2007-12-21T00:37:00.000+11:00

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

Thing 8: a Bloglines Account for RSS

2007-12-02T10:39:00.000+11:00

This assignment from the Canberra Learning 2.0 online learning program asks me to set up a bloglines account to keep track of all the websites/blogsites/news sites to which I subscribe or read on a regular basis.

I haven't done this on bloglines before because I already have one set up on my igoogle desktop which opens as my home page when I log on. I liked the option that it gave me to have certain feeds show up on my homepage in a constantly updated state or to click on the newsreader option and see a list of my subscriptions and how many items are unread in each one. There is a little tick box at the bottom of each item to mark as read.

The beauty of bloglines however is that it is available for others to see on the sidebar of one's blogspot. I'll set one up here too. It's always fun to see what other people are reading, kind of like snooping on someone's bookshelf. And I have picked up many valuable sites that way.
So have a look on my sidebar, some are for my own professional development, some are for my own interest/hobbies, some are just random delights.

A little while later ....

Hmmm, well I must say that bloglines is not as easy to work with as googlereader. When I subscribe to a new blog or site there are so many options of which I have to preview then say 'not this one, not this one, THIS one' ... if you're not careful you end up subscribing to everyone else's comments about the website you meant to subscribe to.

I'm now investigating a way to move my google reader list to my blogspot. (This is like a little safari through the dense HELP jungle. ;-)

A very little while later ...

Got it! and Google let me make the blogrolls according to my tags. Much simpler than bloglines. But a worthwhile comparison exercise in user friendliness.

Snap Happy Holiday

2007-11-30T00:02:00.000+11:00

Q. what happens when you put a husband, a new digital camera and a three week holiday in New Zealand together?

A. 1000 pictures for his wife to weed through, rotate and journal - gak!

I'm not sure how much of New Zealand Bob actually saw without the lens ;-) .
I will post the photos as soon as I can.
The trip was wonderful, we marvelled at the sprinklers flinging water about as well as the beautiful waterfalls, greenery etc. A lot has changed in 20 years - since my good friend and I did our big hitch-hiking adventure in the '80's but none of the charm of NZ has changed.
This time we drove and camped in a Britz campervan and hiked and the boys biked and we read a lot of books (amazing how literary we can become when there is no TV)
We came home re-energized and tanned and already making plans to go back to NZ as soon as we can.

Blogging about Technology

2007-10-27T07:35:00.000+10:00

(B1 builds his first computer)

Canberra Learning 2.0 Task No. 7
"Task For this thing, simply blog about anything technology related. Yes, it can be anything that relates to technology! You just need to share a few thoughts."

I live in a house full of men and technology. Two computer nerd kids and a husband who designs printed circuit boards, but I am no expert when it comes to technology. I must focus very hard when they get into conversations about .... see what happens! My eyes glaze over and my hearing fades out. But I think it's not the technology that causes that, it's really the terminology. Too many abbreviations, too many acronyms, too many letters not enough words. I am one of those people who just want to drive the 'car', I don't want to care about the 'mechanics' too much. Web 2.0 was built for people like me and I love it. I can push the ON button and drive anywhere, do almost anything ... and it looks cool! It's impressive! Look Mum, I'm driving! No Hands!

Learning More about My Friend Flickr

2007-10-23T20:17:00.001+10:00

Shelves 1
Originally uploaded by cathyinoz

I've had some experience with flickr already (see my side bar) but Canberra Learning 2.0's assignment for this week (for me) was to experiment a little further. So I thought I'd take some photos of my own book collection and upload them tagged (as requested) with Canberralearning2.

The shelves used to be double rows with more stacked on top but I've done some massive re-arranging and some culling. Kids books now must live in the kids' room. And I made BH get rid of a bunch of his (muahaha - not mine!) But honestly, he hasn't read a book since his mid-20's, he's strictly into technical journals and on-line stuff.

I should mention a most important point about my shelves -- only about a quarter of these books will stay. As an active member of bookcrossing
I read then release books into the wild.

7and 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful LIfelong Learners

2007-10-16T21:30:00.000+10:00

I've just finished watching a tutorial on the seven and a half habits of highly successful lifelong learners . This is part of my Learning 2.0 experience.

I'm having a lot of fun with it but sometimes it feels like my brain is going to bust!
and I must return to the real world and watch TV or play with the cat or read books.
For those of you who may not know what these habits are (and for those of us who will forget them in the next 24 hours in the chaos of everything else), I will record them below.

7 ½ Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners

Habit 1: Begin with the end in mind
Habit 2: Accept responsibility for your own learning
Habit 3: View problems as challenges
Habit 4: Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner
Habit 5: Create your own learning toolbox
Habit 6: Use technology to your advantage
Habit 7: Teach/mentor others
Habit 7 ½: Play!

As part of the learning exercise I am also to record which habit I find the most difficult and which is the easiest for me.

Well, that's easy -- Playing is the easiest and I spend a lot of time doing that here on the internet. That's why I never get anything else done.

The hardest is probably formulating a learning goal for myself. This is easy of course when you are doing a course (the goal is obviously to finish!) but as far as having a goal for learning 2.0 and the web 2.0, play doesn't usually have a goal it is a process of discovery. So I guess my goal is to discover as much as I can (without having my head explode!)

Speaking of playing --

Here's all the rest of the family Simpsonized -- mmhpfht! Be amused too.

What I did on my School Vacation

2007-10-14T09:31:00.001+10:00

The big event of the school term break was the Australian Bookcrossing Convention here in Melbourne. I've been on the organizing committee doing bits and pieces - it was the first BC convention I've been to but certainly won't be the last. The people were a hoot, the guest speaker, Shane Maloney witty as ever and the trivia night competition rigorous!Combine that bunch of fun with my little online tinkering hobby and you come up with ... TAH DAH!This little thang!

Simpsonized!

2007-09-15T20:13:00.000+10:00

Cathy Simpsonized

Well this isn't educational but it sure is fun! I always wondered where all those Simpson people came from. Now I know -- you can get yourself simpsonized here.

What good fun! If any of you do Simpsonize yourself, email me a copy OK? (I'm so easily amused!)

I made an mp3 file!

2007-09-13T23:51:00.000+10:00

Those of you who know me know I am not a technical (or mechanical) person. And don't even get me started about puzzle-y things like rubic's cubes ... but I do love using gadgets.

I'm still working on the Internet challenges I mentioned in my last post. And woo hoo! Challenge #8 is great. You make your own mp3 file! (I can hear you all echoing that woo hoo - or is that a huh?)
Earlier today I was in the library listening to the kids reading each other stories they had written. Wonderful stuff.
I was thinking 'I gotta learn how to make mp3s so they can record these things when they get their blog up and running'. But the podcasting tutorials I had listened to so far made it sound like something better left to the computer nerds in this family (three guesses who they are!)

Well I did it myself and I'll play with it a bit more then post a link up here if I can.

I feel like I did the day I got my driver's licence --
Yeah, like that ... stunned and really thrilled!

Oh, The Places You'll Go!

2007-09-05T20:46:00.000+10:00

Remember that book? One of my favourite by Dr. Seuss.

I was cruising around on my public library's site (as one does!) and found a section for the librarians called the Learning 2.0 Challenge. Oooh, a challenge with 2.0? That's my favourite number! I'm a lone librarian in a small primary school so am always looking for a way to hone my ICT skills. Could this be IT? Well it could! The librarians are taking the challenge on R.A Mayer Anderson's blogspot THE INTERNET CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
Mr. Mayer Anderson is a reference librarian and the byline for his blog is - "series of Daily Assignments designed to teach the newbie all the wonderful things the Internet has to offer". He is already up to daily assignment # 153 but hey ... I may be a relative newbie but I'm also a quick learner.

My favourite thing about this site? The last word in each entry is PLAY! and that is exactly how I learn best. (rub, rub my hands) so here I go. Be prepared for anything. I'm takin' the challenge!

Assignment #1 - Create a Flickr Account

Hey Ho! I did it. So far only some photos of historic sites around Melbourne from my Markeroni safaris.

Meet the Ancestors Part IV -- The Allens come to Coal Mining

2007-08-18T21:33:00.002+10:00

Finally got back to this. I wanted to finish recording the information I've found about the Allen branch of our family so far.

I was hoping this little fellow (below) was my great-grandfather Simpson Allen as a child. Simpson Allen was born in 1859. This boy looks to be about 5 or 6 years old which would have put the year at 1866 if it had been him.

According to the 1871 Census, Simpson (12 yo), was already working in the coalmines as a trapper. Deemed by Tony Robinson's acclaimed show as one of the Worst Jobs in History
(children went on to become hurriers), in Victorian times children as young as 5 might start at this job. Trappers went down the mines for 12 -18 hours a day, sat in the pitch black, opening and shutting the doors that regulated the air in the shaft tunnels. It was important for the doors to be closed except when the hurriers came past with their carts of coal to minimize the movement of gases 'damp' that caused mine explosions. The trapper had a length of rope attached to the door which they pulled when they heard someone coming.

Unfortunately the photographic process, card backing and the style of clothing put this child later in the century -- perhaps near the turn of it so its not Simpson. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, photographs would have been very expensive back then. Probably too much of a luxury for coal miners.

If you are interested in trying to determine dates of photos try:
Family Chronicle
The Costumer's Manifesto: Links for dating old family photos
One of Family Chronicle's articles on children in photos was most helpful.

The photo below is of my great-great grandfather John Allen. Great-great grandfather John Allen was born in 1825. The photograph was meant to have been taken around 1875. If so, he would have been about 50 years old!!
Notice the open book in the photo. Photographers at the time did this to allude to literacy. I wonder if he could actually read. Many miners could not, although John Allen's children were all listed on a least one census as 'scholars'.

John Allen must have been one tough cookie because in the 1891 census, at the age of 64, he is still listed as a 'Coal Miner'. The 1901 census lists him as 'retired'. His wife Jane passed away sometime between the two census.

The first English census that John and Jane Allen show up on is the 1851 census. They are listed as having come from Ireland (no area more specific than that). They lived at No 68, Shadforth Village . The census lists other family members that must have immigrated from Ireland with them -- William Allen, brother, 24yo; Isabella Allen, sister, 20yo; and Patrick Loughlen, uncle, 42yo. John and William are listed as Coal Miners, Patrick as an Agricultural Labourer.
By the time the 1861 census came around, Patrick and Isabella were no longer living with them but William (single) was ... and they'd all moved to New Pittington.

Tracing the Allens in Ireland is going to be harder. I know mum told us that they came from the north of Ireland and had immigrated there because of the Scottish lowland clearances. Not knowing which county, having a really common name and the fact that most of the Irish census records were burned in a fire sounds like I need to brush up on some history and maybe get in contact with some other relatives to find out if they can pin down a county in Ireland for us.

I've just begun reading "Ireland's History in Maps" more specifically the section on 'Ireland: The Famine Years' as this is the time when John and Jane Allen came over from Ireland.

For an interesting item in Go Ireland on the origins of Surnames - specifically the Allen's, click here.

A Quiet Weekend

2007-07-21T17:51:00.001+10:00

Well we won't be getting much done around here this weekend.

Enjoy! And let me know what you thought of it when you get done reading. =)

Taking the Live Earth Pledge

2007-07-10T08:24:00.001+10:00

Nothing to do with Live Earth Day - just a recent pic of stuff happening at the scout hall

On 07/07/07 several of the families associated with Scouts met at the hall as part of Live Earth Day. We had a second watch of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and discussed what we were doing and what more we could be doing towards reducing global warming (no heaters on for the night!). We played a few theme-based games and then more importantly we were encouraged to go to the Avaaz website and sign a pledge, here is the site -- AVAAZ

After reading the below pledge I thought - Yeah -- a pledge will take us the next step, it'll focus our efforts beyond just lowering our own personal output, it's time to start writing to politicians who WON'T READ THE WRITING ON THE WALL and give them an electoral shove. So here is the pledge, read it and please consider what you are doing and what more you could be doing. You may want to sign it as well --

I PLEDGE:

1.To demand that my country join an international treaty within the next 2 years that cuts global warming pollution by 90% in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy earth;

2.To take personal action to help solve the climate crisis by reducing my own CO2 pollution as much as I can and offsetting the rest to become "carbon neutral;"

3.To fight for a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store the CO2;

4.To work for a dramatic increase in the energy efficiency of my home, workplace, school, place of worship, and means of transportation;

5.To fight for laws and policies that expand the use of renewable energy sources and reduce dependence on oil and coal;

6.To plant new trees and to join with others in preserving and protecting forests; and,

7.To buy from businesses and support leaders who share my commitment to solving the climate crisis and building a sustainable, just, and prosperous world for the 21st century.

So what am I doing next? Well first on the list is renovations here and some letter-writing - we'll keep you posted.

Well I'll be Steeked

2007-07-09T18:49:00.000+10:00

I did it. I cut through the yarn after sewing just like they said and hey! the sky didn't fall ... and the vest did not fall apart. I finished knitting the vest on the weekend and have worn it for a couple of days. Nice and warm =)

I'll take a photo of the finished product when its daylight.The flash makes the colours all weird.

Makin's and Doin's

2007-06-23T09:02:00.001+10:00

I've had my eye on this pattern from knitty.com for a few months but the yarn (Noro Silk Garden) was really hard to find. I finally gave in and ordered one of the colours from an onsite store in Canada and the other from a shop in California . =)
I started on June 7th and ...

as you can see I've been a little obsessed with getting it done. Partly cuz its so cool -looking and partly cuz I'm freezing down here! The weather has been below zero every night and only about 13 or 14 in the daytime.
Now, I can hear you Canadians guffawing from here but you try it without central heating or insulation in roof, walls and floor. (More about this in another entry) When its 4 outside overnight, its only 9 inside in the house. Brrrrr! And work's no better. The school building is an old portable with no insulation and the kids and teachers leave the door open constantly -- so much for all the hot air(excuse the pun) that was spouted when they studied sustainability last year.

Vest -- yes -- what I'm looking forward to/dreading is the neck part of this pattern, it involves a Scandinavian technique called steeking that I have never tried before. You can read about it here in an article from Knitty.com
I'll take photos when I get there.

This next picture is - no, not my breakfast - but a small masterpiece by number 1 son. He's studying Food Sciences in Year 9. They did an assignment about food stylists that involved cooking an item then styling and photographing it (along with a written explanatory piece). So he made the blueberry muffins and then took heaps of photos out the backyard. This is the final chosen one -- not bad, eh? and the muffins were great too!
This week Number 2 son earned himself an electric guitar, this is his first strum of it. He has been taking acoustic for a year now and been working so hard and doing so well, we thought he deserved to go electric. Everything sounds waaaaay different on this thing. Even Molly Malone sounds cool. Now I reaaaaalllly need that garage finished out the back. The amplifier (and the sound) simply do not fit in the lounge room. =)

RIP Sigmund

2007-06-11T18:34:00.000+10:00

Sadly we had to say goodbye to our beautiful Ancona rooster Sigmund yesterday. The winter cold finally got to our old gentleman. He was 7 1/2 years old and lived a good life. He leaves behind in mourning his two wives/grand-daughters Selma and Patty (they were very quiet today, but not off their food). He also leaves behind the human caretakers who will miss his cock-a-doodle-doo and his assistance in the garden. He was a true defender of the girls, a keen wormer, and remained an active scratcher right up until his death.

When we got home from the movies yesterday he was lying in the straw in his coop and couldn't rise to his feet. (We had been expecting it as he has been eating a lot but not holding his weight and had become quite stiff getting down from his perch of a morning.) I picked him up and he was gurgling and breathing heavy. I told him what a good boy he was and he looked at me with his orange eye. I stroked him for about five or ten minutes and talked to him. He heaved a last breath and was gone. =(

Quick Update - Village School Building

2007-05-28T08:38:00.001+10:00

Thought I'd upload a couple of pictures of the classrooms being built at Village School where I work. The first was taken on the 24th of May

the second on the 30th of May, just after the big gale storm we had on the 29th. They couldn't have timed putting the roof on any better.

The winds on the 29th got up to 98km/h. Scary! Part of the roof blew off the old Mail-sorting depot in the city and landed on top of a taxi driving down the street. It closed traffic down in the centre for a few hours.

A piece of the roofing caught on the tram wires.

Lots of broken tree branches around home and the school but no damage anywhere. We didn't even have a power outage =) a rather usual occurance in our part of the suburbs whenever there's a storm.

Saturday in the City - May 5th

2007-05-20T13:48:00.000+10:00

Saurday May 5th was a very important day -- Free Comic Book Day -- an international event where participating comic shops have boxes full of special comic books to give away to patrons. We couldn't miss that!! So we hopped on a train to visit Classic Comics on Bourke Street.
I played tourist and took photos of our day in Melbourne.

This is looking towards the CBD from the Batman Bridge (honest!). The train lines go into Flinders Street Station. The building on the left is the Ian Potter Gallery - NGV.
Click on the photos to enlarge them!

This is something new they've set up along the riverbank in Birramar Park.
It looked so strange rising up behind the hill.

After scoring all the comics we could carry (I bought graphic novels for school) we decided to walk back to the gallery to look at an exhibit .

The gallery in the first photo is part of Federation Square in the centre of the city. It is one of our favourite places to visit when we come to Melbourne, mostly because of the ACMI (Australian Centre of Moving Images), a gallery for audio/visual art -- but we had other plans today so were just going to cut through the square via the Atrium.

We forgot that on Saturdays they have the Bookseller's Market on in the Atrium.
This is a terrible trap for the likes of me --
but we managed to only sidetrack for about 20 minutes.

The international gallery of the NGV is across the road and the river from Federation Square. This was the last week or two of an interactive installation by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. Made from 400,000 white Lego blocks, visitors can sit (for 15 min blocks) and build/rebuild the fantastical city skyscrapers.

(Loxinsox and friend conspire and construct)

(This was taken from the outside of the gallery through the famous Water Wall near the entrance)

On the way back to the station, I had to stop and take a photo of this mosaic. I've been meaning to do this for months. The land that the Arts Centre and the NGV Int'l are built on has a history of being an entertainment site. It was originally owned by the famous circus family The Wirth's of the Wirth Brothers' Circus (something many Melburnians are completely unaware of -- so glad they finally put this up). The plaque next to it has a bit of the history and was erected in 1998 - to mark the 150th year of the circus in Australia.

(Another little pet project I have, the history of circuses)

Meet the Ancestors Part III -- More Census Details

2007-05-14T23:50:00.000+10:00

I found this photo stuck in behind the framed photo of Kitty Allen at age 18
I'm hoping this is a photo of Simpson Allen but have no others to compare against.
Cool find tho'!

The 1901 census lists the Allen family as living at 3 East Row in New Herrington.

When the 1891 census was taken the Allen family was at 3 Old East Row, New Herrington (probably the same residence). At that time Simpson Allen (32), his wife Elizabeth (26) and their first three children lived in the house along with Simpson's parents John (64) and Jane (66). John Allen's occupation is listed as Coal Miner so he had not yet retired.

It is also interesting to see that at No 1 Old East Row, a 14 year old Joseph Wake is listed as the nephew of the head of the household (John Leadbitter). Joseph's occupation is listed as school teacher. Could this be the Joseph Wake whom Elizabeth Allen later married? (He was not residing at that address in 1901).

1881 census shows the address again being 3 East Row, New Herrington with John Allen listed as the head of the house. Simpson (22) is not yet married and living there with his parents.
Also listed is Simpson's sister, Mary (19), her husband, William Murray (19) whose occupation is listed as Puddler and they have a child (under 1 month) named Alexander Charles.
Also recorded on the day of the census was a visitor, Mary Ann Murray, William's 23 year-old (unmarried!) sister. The two Murray's place of birth is listed as Newcastle, Co. Durham.

In 1871 The Allen family are residing in Newbottle at 3 Jane Pit Houses. John and Jane Allen have three children living at home at this time -- Margaret (17), Simpson (12) whose occupation is listed as Trapper in Coal Mine and Mary (9). It's interesting to see that Simpson's place of birth is listed as Pittington, Co Durham but that both the sisters were born in Shadforth, Durham. And hey, he had an older sister. Presumably she married between this census and the next and so moved in with her husband's family.

I'll put a bit in the next entry about the occupations of Puddler and Trapper (I've been studying up!)

Varekai

2007-05-02T20:16:00.000+10:00

The blog is getting a bit behind life so this will be a quick catch up entry.

This Xmas past I had the bright idea of buying an 'experience' instead of stuff for the kids for presents. We bought tickets for our family and the in-laws to go see Cirque de Soleil when they next came to Melbourne. We went last Friday to see Varekai and I swear I clapped and whistled sooo hard, the lady in front of me looked like she was ready to smack me. I had the best time of my life!!
Awesome is a grossly overused word, breathtaking just doesn't do it, astounding -- neh, way better, gob-smacking (a lovely little Aussie saying) -- probably one of my top five highs -- that's about as close as I can describe it. You are guaranteed to walk out of that really cool tent after two hours with renewed faith in the truly wonderous abilities of the human race. If people are capable of the feats we saw -- a bit of greenhouse gases restraint should be a piece of cake.

If Cirque de Soleil comes anywhere near your hometown -- GO! That's an order.

Oh, and yeh -- the kids had a really good time too =)

Cirque du Soleil

Meet the Ancestors Part II- Photos of Simpson Allen's Children

2007-04-29T17:05:00.000+10:00

From the back of photo:
("Your beloved brother James climbed on to the henhouse to have his picture taken")

Simpson and Elizabeth Allen of West Herrington had 10 children. These are photos of some of them at various stages of their lives. Many of the photos have names on the backs but some do not. I'll post them up anyways in the hopes that some one else might recognize them. I'm including dates of birth, who they married, and children's names where I can.

William was the oldest, born in 1886. In the 1891 census, William was listed as 5 years old and a Scholar. In the 1901 census he was fifteen and his occupation is listed as a Coal Mine Driver. In Betty's Germain's family history she records that he married a woman named Sally and they had 4 or 5 children.

Jane "Jennie" was born in 1889. Occupations for girls and women were not listed in either the 1901 or 1891 census. She married Alan Cummings and they had several children. They resided in Success not far from Herrington.

Next born was John "Jack". The 1891 census lists him as being 8 months old at the time.
He married a woman named Leila and they had two children -- Zeena and Peter. Jack served in the British Army and family stories tell that at some stage before the end of the Great War there was a fight in a pub with a superior officer. Jack changed his name to Allen Advice and continued his army career in India becoming a Major. He married there and after the Second World War moved back to the south of England.

(On the back of photo: Darjeeling, 20-6-1928)

Fourth in line was James or Jim. He was born in 1892 and passed away in 1967. He married Flora Sibbald and they had three daughters - Agnes, Elizabeth and Katherine.

(Jim and Flora)

(Jim and Flora -- May 1919)

Joseph "Joe" was born in 1894. He married Millie and they had two children -- Alec and Kathleen. He and his wife and son immigrated to Canada for some time before returning to England during the depression. Kathleen was born in Canada.

(Joe, Millie and child taken at Darlington during the strike)

Ann (listed as Annie on the 1901 census) was born in 1897. She married George Hall and had two children - Nora and Edna. Betty Germain in her family history remembers visiting them in their home in Blackhall.

Edith was born in November 28th, 1898. She married my grandfather Harold Gillespie on February 13th, 1919 before he was demobilized from the Canadian army. They had 3 children - Brian (1920) who died at 10 days old, Sheila (1921) and Allen Clive (1925). Edith died in 1954.

(Edith and Sheila about 1925)

Elizabeth "Betty" was born in ?? . She married Joe Wake and they had three children.

(On the back: Taken in garden Nov 2nd, 1938. Robert aged one year + six months)

Katherine "Kitty" and Robert "Bob" were twins and born in 1906. Kitty married Reg Fawcett and they had one child, Allen.

(Katie "Kitty" Allen)

(Aunt Kitty and son, Allen)

Bob married much later in life after having served in the British Army for many years.

Below are some other photos of family members with no identification on the the backs.

(From the back: Taken in Herrington Woods)
I think James is in the back row far right.

(On the back: "This is the man next door and I taken at Leamington Park)
This looks like Joe Allen

(This is obviously in England but persons unknown)
Perhaps Joe's son Alec

Iris thinks one of these girls is Edith, the other perhaps Annie?
This was in Grandfather's war wallet.

Meet the Ancestors - 1901 Census

2007-04-22T14:39:00.000+10:00

There's nothing like school projects to get me hunting/finding amazing things and this year has been no exception.

Tanya, our grade 5/6 teacher at school decided that the theme for Term 2 would be 'Growing Up in Victorian England'. Her students would choose a type of child from that era and research/write about what life was like. Their choices ranged from children of the nobility to domestic servants, coalmine workers, streetsweepers, chimney sweeps etc.

And so the librarian (that's me)was off! ...
We had only a few books in our library to research from so between Ward Sagar (the wonderful school library bookshop in Eltham), abebooks.com, Joan's Old Bakery Cottage Bookshop in
Warrandyte and the public library I found more treasure.

Gary Crew, a fantastic Australian author has just published a new picture book called Automaton
It's been short-listed for the Crighton Award for Illustration and is about a young boy working in a factory producing an invention by Thomas Edison. Very dark and focuses on issues of humanity. Snapped that one up!

I then ran across this publication -- Children of the Dark: Life and Death Underground in Victoria's England by Alan Gallop.
This non-fiction book is about children working in coalmines; the second half of the book specifically to do with a mine in Yorkshire (Silkstone) where twenty-six children died in a mining accident in 1838. This accident sparked a Royal Commission into children working underground and resulted in the Mines Act of 1842. The publication is a mixture of fact, extracts from the Royal Commission and historically-based fictionalized excerpts of a young boy who worked in the mine but escaped the accident. It is a powerful, haunting read.

It got me thinking about my family. My maternal grandmother came from a coal mining family in England. A relative in Canada had recently done a bit of a family history and I have bits and pieces of my own so I've spent the weekend 'family fossicking' on the Internet - I love the Internet - and through bundles of photos and postcards I have here.

Stop reading now if you aren't interested in family history!!!

Grandma Edith and Grandfather Harold on their wedding day

Edith grew up in West Herrington, Co Durham. She was the seventh of ten children. Her father Simpson Allen was a coalminer. Each of the brothers in her family began working in the mines when they reached the age of 14.

(St Aidan's Church in New Herrington -- a postcard from grandparents' collection.

The Allen family attended this church and it was a social venue for them as well)

(Southburn Terrace, New Herrington -- postcard from grandparents' collection.
Two buildings have been marked in this photo, reason unknown)

Miner's Welfare Hall and Tivoli -- New Herrington

(This is a much older photo -- the bottom inscription reads 'West Herrington 8 '.
This photo has been well-loved over the years,
the card on the reverse is dark with fingerprints)

England's census details (the actual records) are released to the public after 100 years and can be viewed on-line. Try a three day free trial from ancestry.com like I did, you will be amazed at what you'll find!

The most recent census available is the 1901 records. In that year the Allen family was living at 3 East Row, West Herrington. Besides Simpson (42) and his wife Elizabeth (37), there were the seven children -- William (15), a coal miner/driver, Jane (12), John (10), James (8), Joseph (6), Annie (4), and Edith (2) and Simpson's father, John Allen. He was 79 years old and listed as a retired coal miner. (This is a ripe old age for coal miners. Most died before their time due to work-related afflictions).

I've recovered details from the 1891, 1881,1871,1861,1851 censuses too. With some surprising results -- lost relatives! More next blog.

Cheers!

School Under Construction

2007-04-22T13:51:00.000+10:00

There is a lot of excitement at Village School of late. The school is about 25 years old and we've made do with secondhand buildings for most of that time (altho' I believe the kitchen/office building was new).

Now the grants have been finalized, the plans have been finalized and the first stage of the new buildings is happening! This particular construction is going to be two classrooms joined in a 'pod' with shared kitchen, toilet and cloakroom facilities. The two older groups will occupy them.

The builders made a pretty quick start in late April, this was all happening on the 26th of March.

The kids invited a politician for the official start of the new buildings and buried a time capsule nearby. The metal posts were installed the day we broke up for Easter hols.

When we got back, the builders had made a start on the timber framework and this went up very quickly (2-3 days). This photo was taken on the 20th of April.
Can't wait to see what's going to happen next.

The Warrandyte Festival

2007-04-07T18:47:00.001+10:00

(some of the kind people who run the Neighbourhood House)

Just a few scraps from the local festival that just took place.

We set up a BookCrossing table at the Warrandyte Neighbourhood House stall, hoping to

encourage people to linger and find out more about WNH. We had lots of books go to good homes but I am still driving around with a box of leftovers in the back seat,
dropping them off at bus stops and park benches.

(the Children's Market on Sunday)

On Sunday, the kids are allowed to run stalls and sell of all their excess/grown-out-of stuff. I picked up some wonderful books for our school library. Most in mint condition -- with loving inscriptions from grandparents -- (Sorry Nan and Pop!) They will be appreciated in our library.

(Actor, Reg Evans reading a highly entertaining piece by Dylan Thomas)

(Writer John Jenkins reads a very clever piece composed of Australian slang)

On the March 27^th, local writers and literary folk gathered for the annual Grand Read at – where else – the Grand Hotel! The crowd was larger than last year, and the entertainment was quality – including poetry, comedy, fiction, interviews and essays.

Our writing group once again took part with some original work, and I didn’t even turn red this time in front of the mike (I was assured!) – boy -- Rescue Remedy really does work! Now that it’s safely over I’m looking forward to next year – I’m determined to have a short story ready for then not just vignette pieces.

(Rubber Ducky race)

Each year there is a chance to bask in fame – by becoming the winner of the Rubber Ducky race. Very popular with young and old, numbered ducks are purchased and decorated for the big race. The release is performed by a local rescue worker hung out over the river on a flying fox with a net full of the ducks. A net is set up at the finish to trap ‘em all up again. The water level was very low this year and many ducks got stuck – them’s the breaks! Fun to watch.

Water

2007-04-06T15:12:00.000+10:00

Here it is! The most rain we've had in 13 months. We got the same again two days later. That of course did not save us from going to the next level of water restrictions. But the state government (in classic politic style) did not move us to Level 4 restrictions but invented Level 3a restrictions. This means we may use mains water to water in the garden Wed and Sunday from 6 - 8 am only.
We have a small tank now to hook up to the down pipes and collect water-- sigh - if only it was the self-installing model. The 'help' around here won't even work for expensive chocolate and I'm afraid of heights so can't climb up on the roof to do anything about it. Hmm, never thought I'd have to climb the roof to be a good gardener.

The Shot Tower

2007-03-02T18:00:00.000+11:00

This tall building has fascinated me for years. You can see it as you drive into the city on the Eastern Freeway and it sticks up like a .... well whatever. I knew it was called a shot tower but didn't really understand what that was. So a couple of weeks ago I took a side trip to have a proper look at it. It has a Heritage register plaque attached to the base of it -- always helpful with facts and enlightenment. =)

Built around 1882, this shot tower stands at 160 feet tall and is probably the largest shot tower in Australia.

Lead shot was produced by dropping molten lead through sieves at the top of the tower into water vats at the bottom. The height was necessary to allow the shot to form correctly before hitting the water at the bottom.

Impressive!

Rogues Gallery

2007-02-19T18:19:00.000+11:00

The kids are grown up so now I can make toys for me-he-hehe maw-haw-hawhaw.

There is no shortage of strange and warped patterns out in webland to draw upon. Below are just a couple.

This is the psychotic tomato pattern from http://www.monstercrochet.com/TomatoPattern.html

I originally made him for Halloween and took him to the school library where I work. I left him on the circulation desk and told the kids he was there to keep an eye on the place . Every time I went back to the desk he was turned to face the wall. The kids said he was TOO freaky.

Maw-haw-hawhaw. Oops, I mean "Oh you poor darlings!"

This little dude is Bruce. I've forgotten where his pattern came from. I'll include a link when I find it.

This last one I didn't knit. In fact he had US in stitches.
Terry Pratchett came to Melbourne this week and we went to hear him speak at the little theatre in the State Library. We're so lucky! Here he is signing the many Discworld books we bought.

Jambouree 2007 - Elmore

2007-01-09T09:26:00.000+11:00

Well here are the photos of THE event of the year -- AJ 2007. The lucky families gathered at one of the carparks at LaTrobe University at 7:30am on New Year's Day to send their little darlings off for two weeks of adventure (and dust as they discovered upon arrival).
I think 74 buses left from this point in Melbourne and there was another drop off on the south side of Melbourne.
AJ2007 was attended by over 9000 scouts and over 4oo0 organizers from all over Australia and the world!

There were three subcamps set up around the perimeters of the site and each troop had their own set-up within the subcamps.

This was the one the boy's were in --

The amount of organization that went this event was completely astounding. The site had been worked on for over a year to meet water restriction regulations and to provide all the services needed for the large number it had to accomodate. So many people, so many hours of volunteering. Scouting is a truly awesome movement --

There was an on-site hospital (very busy place with everything from broken leg to outbreak of gastro), historical pavillions, scouting store, circus tent, daily onsite newspaper, jambouree radio station, giant water slide, ....

This is the 'phone-home' tent. There were landlines (kids weren't allowed to bring mobile phones) and internet access. Also in here were old couches and TV's for chill out time. Not that it was chilly! Sunny and high thirties into low forties every day ... and massive amounts of dust due to the drought.

There were events on at the arena every night including several nights of concerts ...

There were off-site activities like trips to Echuca (that's the paddle-steamer from Echuca on the Murray River).

... team-work activities in the town oval ...

.... "Bushwhacked" activities at someone's farm property ...

... "Wet, Wild and Windy" activities ...

And some really great stuff to do on-site as well ... including learning to fly small aircraft and learning how to drive!

Winners of the 'good question' competition got to speak to the astronauts on the space station when it went over one night ... a boy from our group was one of the lucky winners! ('Course that's not him in the photo -- he's in the line-up waiting his turn).

The last night the troop elected to sleep out under the stars so they could pack up the day before ... for many it was their favourite night ... they'd never seen so many stars!

... then homeward bound, back to their mums/dads, their own beds and ... laundry service!

Bendigo Walking Tour - just a quick one

2007-01-09T09:19:00.000+11:00

This is the Bendigo Town Hall, built in 1859 with bits added in 1883-85. Still in use as the town hall.

The Mechanics Institute and Free Library -- now part of the TAFE (Technical and Further Education) college. Mechanics Institutes were often set up in a town/area with an industry as a way for working men to learn further skills which in turn would advantage the company. They also were often the local meeting hall and lending library.

The Shamrock Hotel. The verandah wraps around the side too. Open for business since 1897! (This is the third hotel on this site, they often pulled down the original wooden buildings here to build classier ones).

This is the big fountain in the middle of the city. It's not going of course cuz of water restrictions. Sad thing is that I haven't seen any fountains running anywhere in Victoria for years.

Bendigo for the Weekend

2007-01-08T14:02:00.000+11:00

We travelled north to Bendigo for the weekend cuz the boys are at Australia's Scout Jambouree for two weeks and its being held just north of Bendigo and they had an open/Market day on Sunday and we had to have a sticky beak!

I love this old city. We hadn't been here in many years so I'd forgotten how nice it really was. It has my favourite building in it too. It floats on the top of the hill as you drive into the city and has a presence no matter where you are in the main part of the city.

Bendigo's current population is 86,000 people but when they had a boom-time in the late 1800's, they sure knew how to BOOM! It was gold of course. Check out the heritage buildings we visited over the next few posts. (I think I wanna retire here with all this ostentatious architecture!)

Sacred Heart Cathedral is one of the biggest churches in Australia. It's 75 metres long and has a ceiling height of 24 metres. The main spire is 87 metres high! (That's the one you can't really see in the back of the photo - darn!) The outside is made mostly of sandstone and local granite.

Its construction was mostly made possible through the estate of Dr Henry Backhaus (1811-1882). He was a German from Paderborn and the first Catholic priest on the Bendigo goldfields. Backhaus was very skilled in financial matters and accumulated considerable property - not least through encouraging his gold-mining parishioners to contribute some of their findings to the work of the church. Backhaus acquired the land the church was built on and left his wealth for the benefit of the church which enabled the Cathedral, among other things, to be built.It took 82 years to finish this church. There were no funds available from 1908 to 1954 so the final stage ( the main spire) wasn't completed until 1977 but it was all done close to the original plan.

The floors, altars and font are made of marble.

The pews are made of Australian blackwood. The hammerbeam roof from oregon and kauri wood. (If you click on the photos you can enlarge them and see the angels in the architecture - roof).

16 master craftsmen, mostly from Italy were brought over in the late 1800's expressly to work on the details of this church.

Snarfing Markeroni

2007-01-01T14:34:00.000+11:00

Here are just a few photos of some of the areas we've visited locally since we started snarfing.

A local miner's slab hut (circa 1850's),

This was on the beach drive down in Dromana where we went for Boxing Day,

this is one of the local shops which turns out to be a former Wine Hall from the turn of the century,

Shillinglaw Cottage, next to our local library - one of the original homes in Eltham (1859). Relocated brick by brick in the 1960's to this spot, it was occupied by the Shillinglaw family for 80 years before it was given over to the shire and is now a great little cafe and larder.

Isn't it cute!

Best Christmas pressie ever

2007-01-01T14:27:00.000+11:00

Hah! Forget Xmas at the beach! We got rain for Christmas!!!!

Actually we got rain starting Xmas eve and continuing most of the next day. 38mm in all - better than the beach! And by the way we went to the beach on Boxing Day instead.

Here's a lovely photo of everyone with their mouths full of left-overs.

Adventures with Markeroni and Cheeze

2006-12-25T11:30:00.001+11:00

This is Cheeze. He was named Cheeze because as it was suggested...
"You can't have Markeroni without Cheeze."

And what the ... is Markeroni?
My lastest diversion thanks to WhiteRaven.

http://www.markeroni.com/

Its a website dedicated to Landmark Hunting in your local area and farther afield. When you visit a landmark site or sight, a photo of the landmark is taken and details are logged into the website. Snapping a landmark is called 'snarfing'.

What fun! We've lived near the old gold mining area near Melbourne for six years now and not really got around to visiting the sights. We went on our first 'snarfari' yesterday.
Look what we got up to --

See that big hole over the kid's shoulder?
That's Pound Bend Gold Diversion Tunnel.
It was excavated in 1870 by the Evelyn Tunnelling and Mining Company.

The river was partially dammed at Pound Bend near Normans Reserve at its eastern entrance and near Bob's wetlands at its western exit. Miners blasted a 300m long tunnel through solid rock. Newspaper reports at the time say it was done in 3 1/2 months and cost £2,100.

The river was then fully dammed at the entrance and exit to the tunnel and water was diverted through the 300m tunnel (estimated to discharge 15,000 gallons of water per second) and out the other side leaving an estimated 4 to 5 kms of riverbed around Pound Bend exposed to the sun and the miners. The bed was thoroughly worked over but not as promising as they had hoped. They ran up against pockets of silt 45 feet deep that had to be dredged before they got to the deposit layers and there were also periods of flooding. The river actually diverted itself past their cofferdams at one stage. Company shareholders never fully recovered their investments.

This view was actually taken from Norman's Reserve and coincidentally close to the same spot where this old drawing was made. The river levels are at a ten year low ATM so you can see more of the tunnel than usual. Unfortunately a lot more dangerous than it looks, the current is strong in this part of the river and a young man lost his life trying to go through the tunnel in a blow-up toy dingy in 2005.

A beautiful place to walk, there is a track all along the river.

Waiting at the Gate

2006-12-24T21:10:00.000+11:00

If you live in a bushfire high risk area like we do, the sound of sirens is not a welcome one.

Except today!

Look who's here!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

Gold Bars at the IGA

2006-12-23T09:30:00.000+11:00

They may look like bananas to you but they are gold bars from heaven for everyone living here in Australia!

I went into IGA yesterday and **whoop, whoop!! eyes pop out of head ** bananas are back down to $4.99/kg!!

Stop scratching your head if you don't live here. There is an explanation.

This is Larry. Cyclone Larry. On March 19th this year he swooped down on Queensland and trashed $300 million worth of fruit. Queenland grows 95% of Australias bananas. Larry trashed between 90 and 100% of the banana crops in Queensland. He was very neat about it -- sheared them off and laid them over.

Banana prices have been as high as $27.99 this year and we simply couldn't get them for a few months.

I heard one child throwing a tantrum a couple of months back in the supermarket. She wanted one and she wanted it NOW!! No, not lollies or sugary breakfast cereal .... "I waaannt a banana!"
I felt like joining her. What are cornflakes each morning without sliced banana? (Well they are cornflakes with peaches in mango -- we adjust).

My local fruit and veggie shop owner has a great sense of humour. There was a sign on her front window --
No Bananas Kept on Premises Overnight

-- or maybe it wasn't a joke?

Getting Ready for Stage 3

2006-12-17T22:02:00.000+11:00

Bureau of Meteorology --

The severe drought affecting many parts of Australia has tightened its grip. In Victoria, the last decade has been the driest on record. River flows and reservoir levels are at all time-lows.

The current drought is in its tenth year and has severely reduced the amount of water flowing in our rivers and streams and the level of water stored in our water supply reservoirs.

We've had only 4mm of rain in the past 5-6 weeks.

Here's an updated photo of the potato patch. I took it a week ago as the plants are starting to die. The dirt is so dry from the heat and lack of rain that even days when I can water them (watering allowed on odd days for odd no. house addresses) the water doesn't really penetrate. The soil here has high amounts of clay that must be broken down over time with the repeated addition of organic material or it repels the water. Ive got compost dug into the dirt, and 4 inches of horsey poo (from school) and pea straw mulch over the top. Most of the moisture still stays on the surface of the dirt.

But...I had a plan!!

This is the newest garden bed I've built.
That's blue slotted pipe left over from someone's pool set up (love those hard rubbish recycle days!) My handsome assistant dug a trench down the middle of the bed.

The pipe is longer than the bed so there are bits sticking up at each end. He covers it over..

We've planted some of the heritage tomatoes into the bed. And staked out straight away cuz I always leave it too late.

The blue pipe means I can stick the garden hose down it and get water to the root zone instead of watering the surface.

We won't be allowed to run any sprinklers after Jan 1st when Stage 3 water restrictions come in, only hand-watering.
I have no idea if this will work but it all looked good in my head. I'll keep you posted.

Potato update -- I dug up half the patch as the plants continue to die and because I want to make potato salad for Christmas lunch. I went for the Ruby Lou potatoes and will add their portrait here --

Hot and Smokey

2006-12-11T17:18:00.000+11:00

Yesterday was the hottest recorded in 53 years for the 10-DEC-06. It reached 45.5C about 3:30. I had to go out every hour or two and hose down the chicken run to cool them off. They look so pathetic with their chests caved in, their wings lifted out and panting. Thank god, no wind and no fire sirens -- at least here in Warrandyte.

The picture below is a satellite picture printed in The Age. It was taken on the 9th I believe and is smoke from the bush fires currently burning in the east of Victoria. The blue horsehead shaped bay is Port Phillip Bay where Melbourne is located. The big chunk at the bottom of the photo is Tasmania.

This is what we've been breathing for the past 2 or 3 days. The cool change came in late yesterday and has blown away most of it. But no rain.

Its going to be a long summer. :-(

What Went Wrong at the Factory?

2006-11-15T17:33:00.000+11:00

Well, it ain't called the silly season for nothing!!
I can only imagine what kind of promotion the resourceful person from K-Mart will get for trying to recoup losses from this monstrous screw-up at the factory. Can there be any other explanation?

If you've got one I'd love to hear it!

Odds and Ands

2006-10-22T14:07:00.000+10:00

Well, YAY!! We enjoyed heaps of blooms this year from the Papa Meilland Rose bush out the back. The weather (altho' there was one record-breaking hot day already) has been cooler and the roses haven't cooked on the bush.

This is another little distraction I've been working on. I couldn't resist the pattern when I saw him on someone else's blog. There are sooooo many talented knitters and crocheters out there. Very comforting. I am now working on a fantastic crochetted 'psychotic tomato' for Halloween.
I'll post when it's finished.

I am still studying. Finished the first two units of the Cert III Library course and enjoying it immensely. Who knew the history of libraries could be so interesting? I'm also working on a unit all about paper, ink, glues etc. A very depressing read -- the process of making paper is such that most books won't last more than 150 years. All the more reason to read and release through www.bookcrossing.com

The Australian Bookcrossing Conference is taking place this weekend in Adelaide. The voting just closed last night for the host city next year and **drum roll** OMG!! It's Melbourne. So guess who is going to be one of the busy little bunnies organizing that -- c'est moi. I'm excited. We'll have authors, chocolate tours and I'll finally be able to meet some famous/infamous bookcrossers AND get to sleep in my own bed at night. Who could ask for more!

How the Garden Grows

2006-10-09T06:53:00.000+10:00

Just some quick shots of the potatoes now they've shown their leaves and the trellis bed. We had our second only hard rubbish pickup in the Shire -- big event let me assure you! There were so many utes with trailers cruising the roads it was impossible to get anywhere in a hurry. Those not dropping off were picking up. Being the good permaculturalist that I am, I scored these pieces of fencing from the neighbours -- a perfect fit! Also scored two huge rolls of chicken wire from down the road so I can finish fencing off somewhere else :-)

I've attached the fencing wire to two sections of guard fence so it makes a horseshoe shape over the top of the bed.
I've planted snow peas in here along the sides and am hoping to get something else in under the wire - gotta check the companion guide, but I'm thinking lettuce as I'll finish off the lettuce in the full sun bed before it gets really hot and let the bed fallow.

Last shot is of the Elkhorn Fern in our side garden -- its huge!!
I took the photo cuz I've decided to sell it on Ebay, its not in an ideal environment for ferns on the top of this hill. It needs to be enjoying somone's cool, damp shady courtyard.

Distracted Gardener with a Camera

2006-09-18T11:20:00.000+10:00

The weather has been so fantastic I haven't had time to sit at the computer, but have worked and roamed with the camera.
This blossoming is very exciting for me! This is one of our heritage apple trees, it hasn't bloomed before altho' its been in the ground for two years. Its called "Catshead" and is a large cooking apple. I can hardly wait --
but I never count my apples before they are picked.

Lochlan and Callum planted heritage seeds up for the veggie patch: Tomatoes - 'Earliest of All' and 'Black Prince'. 'Black Prince' are dark, almost purple and very sweet. The beauty of them was meant to be that birds were not attracted to them cuz they weren't red. Nobody told the currawongs who feasted on them last year even thru the netting. I'll have to think of a better deterent this year. Also planted a blast of a little capsicum plant called 'Bishop's Crown'. Part sweet, part wallop of chili. It's perennial and fruits prolically. Eggplant -- 'Early Long', Rockmelon (cantaloupe) 'Hale's Best', an unnamed watermelon that my gardening mentor Neil grew (now known as 'Neil's Mutant') and 'Greenskin' Zucchini (OMG - not MORE zucchini! - see posts from last summer).

One week later the rockmelon, tomatoes, capsicum and zucchini are up. I'm wondering about the viability of the eggplant (saved the seed myself) and the watermelon. A few days later I did a replant. Now we wait and see.

A before and after weeding /pruning of the turning circle.

Before and after weeding, feeding/mulching out the raspberry canes. We checked the sprinklers at this point and replaced damaged sprinkler heads. We turned them on for a couple of minutes to readjust the angles of the sprays and would you believe some dumb ***** who was walking by our house reported us to Yarra Valley Water for breach of water restrictions!?! We received a warning in the post two days later saying we were observed using our sprinklers out of the designated hours. They received an email back from me - pointing out that I'm not able to check my sprinkler system between midnight and 4am cuz I can't see in the dark!

Brother! Or should I say Big Brother!!

The Distracted Gardener Day 4

2006-09-18T11:16:00.000+10:00

A before and after photo of the south-east side of the house.

This is a bit of a no-man's land. The plants against the wall are Young Berries and a grape vine - a cutting from Michael's vine two years ago. The grape vine's never flowered but the berries were prolific last year. Lox was out picking them every morning ... with his bowl of cornflakes. I've fed them with liquid dynamic lifter and then mulched them with pea straw. I found one cane that had already taken root in the lawn so replanted it in the pot. I'll start more this year cuz this is where the extension is meant to go on the house, the berries will have to move.

Until then, we've bought a huge blow up pool for the summer and want to put it right where that pile of dirt on the left was. It's been moved and the grass has been cut as short as the mower will go. The boys want to level it out next weekend with a load of sand for the pool base.

The Distracted Gardener Day 2 and 3

2006-09-12T12:47:00.000+10:00

Here's what Lochlan did today (day 2) Nice job ... bottom level is a grapefruit tree he started two years ago from seed.
He cleaned and mulched all the beds and got the steps weeded too. But I've decided to change our deal from an hourly rate of pay to a rate per job. Fast help is hard to find around here! **Note about bricks in garden beds -- those are chook-stoppers. The chook squad hang around while we garden then go in and mess everything up as soon as you move to a new spot. I'm sure they think we've missed some of the good bugs. Day 3 we had to stop and net up the north garden bed. The chooks can get airborne and fly over fencing -- they finally figured out we had lettuce and silver beet (Swiss chard) and they didn't! We got sick of chasing the chooks out so we netted.

While Lox did the stairs, I did this! My new potato patch -- King Edward's on the left and Ruby Lou's on the right. I mulched this out with spoiled straw on day 3 and watered it up well.

I've spared you photos of the chook house job. The bits all went into the compost heap. And , mmmmm! I could smell it all starting to heat up today. Really! It doesn't smell like old food and chook poop, it smells like warm dirt and green grass.

Day 3 was a slow one. We had several side-tracks -- grocery shopping, and a heap of time on the computer answering queries and packing orders for books for Bidgee Widgee Books (my little online sideline and growing passion). Photos don't include the navel orange tree that's been fed and mulched or the Papa Meilland rosebush that's had the same plus a tip prune. It's got buds so if/when they come out and DON'T get burned black by the sun (like last year) I'll photo them. Jnr gardener weeded the raised bed along the carport where the pink daisies and the passionfruit vines are.

I did get another area cleared ready for more garden beds ... starting tomorrow. Photos ... tomorrow.

The Distracted Gardener -- Day 1 PM

2006-09-10T22:08:00.000+10:00

That's better! Right -- back to work. Oh, I forgot to mention, we made a quick trip to the garden supply shop for stakes to make raised beds in the side garden and for the mower petrol plus milk for tea.

** sound of mower** Now that's more like it ... but don't look too far down the yard cuz I only mowed the front half. I'm using the mower clippings and some of the straw to build a new compost heap.

I had to drill drainage holes in the bottom of this tool box that was kicking around. I'll fill both containers with compost tomorrow. I haven't actually got tomatoes to put in them yet. Gotta grow them first! So there's no hurry to go any further.

While I was mowing I noticed one of the lilacs has had a lot of die back from the drought. Now that it is at leaf burst I can tell what's dead and what's 'wick' (refer to Burnett's "The Secret Garden if you don't know the term).

I've given it a partial prune with the saw and will climb up the ladder and tip prune tomorrow ...

Now back to the pumpkin patch! Seven writhing barrow-loads of compost and worms later and ... voila! ( or as the americans say "wa-la")

Not too bad for one day! See what happens when the kids go to an all-day scout activity?
I don't know about you but I am pooped. I sure hope I can still move tomorrow. They are predicting sun and 23C -- perfect for gardening.

Plans for tomorrow:

raised garden beds in side garden
clean out chicken coop (I'll make sure I get photos of that for you!)
tip pruning lilac and roses

And hey, I have my apprentice helping tomorrow!
Better get the laundry in, the shadows are getting long.
See ya tomorrow!

The Distracted Gardener -- Day 1 AM

2006-09-10T16:59:00.000+10:00

Right! First day of the school holidays (we can't count Saturday, too full of commitments) -- now where to begin? **rub gloved hands**

I know the most obvious choice would appear to be the overgrown lawn, but there's no petrol for the mower and it costs $3.00+ in petrol to drive to get petrol so I'll do the environmental thing and wait 'til we go somewhere and combine the tasks.

Next -- a pumpkin patch. I've been thinking of constructing a strawbale patch halfway up the yard, near the fruit trees. Pumpkins take up so much room I don't want them in my side garden running all over the place. I'll fill it with compost to feed the trees up as I grow the pumpkins. Only problem will be keeping the chooks out of it -- I'll think of something to outwit them -- they are only chooks after all!

I had 20 bales of straw delivered the last week of school -- some pea straw to mulch/feed plants and some to build beds or to sheet mulch with. For confused Canadians, the only soil here is the soil you make yourself -- by composting.(or have shipped in, but that's cheating!)

Here's a batch of compost we prepared earlier! And wow, look what I got -- WORMS!

So with those bales and this compost I'll build right here.

(Please notice I've also done a load of laundry today!)

The noise under this plum tree reminds me of the church fete we went to recently. Little old ladies selling home baking can create a hum just like bees !

Lots of bees = lots of plums, but only if you can minus lots of birds from the equation.
Another day I'll show you Callum's clever bird scarers.

Now while I lug bales, I'm looking for a place for big pots for planting tomatoes, I have 3 or 4.
The first distraction is stopping to weed out a couple of those spots .. but I prefer to call it pacing myself from hauling bales.

This spot has been annoying me for a while. I can't get the mower into it and its right next to one of the veggie beds so out comes the grass and weeds. Some paper down (now I know it doesn't actually work on smothering grass, but will let it know it's not welcome) and a bit of bark mulch so it looks a bit better.

STOP!!!!
It's lunch. Be back later......

Bidgee Widgee Books

2006-08-05T22:42:00.001+10:00

I read somewhere (and ended up believing) that whatever you are doing at the age of 46 is your life's work. Funny that! Cuz here I am up to my eyeballs (literally! and yes pun intended!) in books. Avid bookcrosser, trainee librarian, wannabe author, and now ...

In my spare time (didn't know I had any, but I do -- er, did) I set up an on-line book store on abebooks.com and it's really fun! It's called Bidgee Widgee Books. Business is slowly picking up and I can troll through opshops and garage sales to my heart content. And I don't have to worry about reading all the books that I buy.

I'm learning a lot. I now know bookshops put remainder slashes along the bottoms of books when they sell them off cheap. I know what a free end paper is. I know books don't have covers, they have dust jackets (dahling!) I know that dust jackets get price-clipped and that drops the value of a book. I can tell a first edition when I see it. I'm learning how to haggle (such a nasty word!). I'm becoming aware of authors out of my genre zone. I can tell you all the postal prices of packages without looking them up anymore.

The down side I suppose is that I've become a book Nazi. Spine cracking, underuse of bookmarks, dog-earring, and stacking books on their page ends have become punishable offences here and at school.

Oh ... and what's a Bidgee Widgee? It's an Australian plant with little seeds that stick to your socks when you take a walk. Why would I call my bookshop that? All is explained on the storefront page, you could always take a look and find out ;-)

Arabian Nights

2006-06-23T10:20:00.000+10:00

Click on the photos to get a slightly larger version

Its taken a few days of school break to recover from this one! Village School had their annual Whole School Performance and it was the grand-daddy of them all. Arabian Nights was the tale and with the integrated curriculum of our school, not only did the children study the history and politics/religions of the Middle East but they learned to belly dance as part their 'sport/physical education' program -- boys and girls! (Not teachers TG!) The final few weeks of term were devoted to almost non-stop rehearsals, prop-making and sets. The place was a bit of a mad house but the performance was stellar as usual.

This is backstage before we started the dress rehearsal.

A market scene from Aladdin

It was a particularly complicated performance this year as there were stories within stories -- Scheherazade and the Sultan's story then the stories acted that she narrates to him -- costume changes had to be organized backstage for the first time ever.

You can see the Sultan and Scheherazade upstage in the semi dark as the tale unfolds.

Three tales were told in all (a 3 hour performance!) -- Aladdin, The Snake Queen and Ali Baba.
the older students take the main parts and are also expected to sing a solo or a duet within the performance. Lox played the parts of Aladdin and Ali Baba (it's his last year at Village). You can see him in one of the photos with the little servants and the magician. He's wearing striped black with the head band (you may have to look hard!)

Parents form a band to accompany the play (10 piece this year including cello, trombone, violin, guitar, bass, trumpet, percussion, sax etc.) Bob, Callum and I assisted running lights and sound.

We are now resting on our laurels and re-energizing for August when the seniour children resume their roles and perform the choreographed (short!) version at the Juniour Rock Eistedfodd.

Making Waves

2006-06-06T18:16:00.000+10:00

On Saturday, our writing group got together at a local recording studio and put down the spoken word piece we wrote for 'The Grand Read' in April. Jeremy, (who's a journalist for the local paper) runs this studio and is going to pedal the production around to ABC, PBS and a few other radio stations. A fun and interesting process.

When I Grow Up I Want to Be a ...

2006-05-25T07:25:00.000+10:00

There has been a silence on the blog. This is usually a sign of something happening. And to be sure, there is ... a couple of things afoot! The first one that's come to fruition (well kinda anyways) is my sudden re-entry into tertiary study. I'm about to start a traineeship (study through work) Certificate IV in Library Information Services. Now I don't know how many of my friends and family are aware of my secret desire to be a librarian. Sounds crazy I know, but in actuality with so much more than books involved these days, there are a lot of exciting things to learn. I have been the self-taught librarian at the school now for about 6 months (well, an attentive parent to lots of things Jenny showed me a couple of years ago too). The government side of the traineeship(they are paying the fees for me) came out for an interview yesterday. The trainers (academic service providers - don't you love the jargon!) should be out next week to set me up with my workbooks etc.

Two weeks ago I had no idea this would be happening. It all came about by chance when a piece of mail was handed on by the principal because it had the word library on it. "You might be interested," she said casually.

ANZAC Day

2006-04-25T15:52:00.000+10:00

ANZAC Day occurs of the 25th of April each year. It's purpose is to commemorate the service and sacrifice Australian and New Zealand Army Corp members have made to their country.

The tradition stems from the Gallipoli campaign, a tactical disaster of the first world war. Australia had the highest casualty rate of any military involved in WW1.

The Scout group we are associated with has a tradition of participation on ANZAC Day. They are invited to attend the dawn service at the Simpson Army Barracks then they return to Montmorency to take part in the local ANZAC parade.

Just some thoughts I wrote down afterwards for writing class.

It is not necessary to be Australian to be touched by the pathos of ANZAC Day.
We park on the side street for the parade. Many people are locking their cars, gathering together, hurrying toward the main street. Young couples, clods of teenagers, mothers with toddlers attached to the handles of strollers. No one wants to miss the march.
I think, "It would have been just like this when the men left for war." I blink a few times.
We line the footpath, bumping shoulders with strangers. There is laughter, but there is an equal measure of solemn silence. We make room for flag-waving children to sit on the curb. The first drones rise as the pipers fill their bags with air. There is a sharp dragging in my chest.
A commanding voice requests all returned service men and women to take their places. Thick old men move forward. The ribbons of their medals are yellowed, the metal pendants flash out from their lapels like they are signalling to each other. They form up in casual lines but they haven't forgotten how to stand at attention.
Two children are now off the curb immersed in an exciting dual with their flag sticks. The view becomes a little blurry as I watch some of the old men watching them.
There is a call for the Scouts to fall in behind the marching men and women. I see my own two sons. They are tired but excited; their chins riding slightly higher than usual.They are looking over the crowd hoping to see us watching. An old thought comes back to me then. A childhood wish for no sons. They might have to fight in a war.

A Grand Read

2006-04-21T18:20:00.000+10:00

The final event of the annual Warrandyte Festival is "The Grand Read". It is an intimate gathering (altho' open to the public) of locals who enjoy good stories - published or not. Amusing, reminiscent, serious or touching, each piece read out on Tuesday night was a morsel to be savoured.

The writing group of which I am a part, made its debut this year, reading a woven voice drama of poetry and prose. Written over the three months of our course, the theme was "Our Town" and included the approach to the town, the main street, the river, a memorable person, a celebration, old buildings or landmarks. We ranged from prairie town to orchard town to gold rush cum tourist town (our own Warrandyte, that one). We were warmly received and no one fainted during the performance. Since then we've had much positive feedback and have been recommended by a local writer to further edit and submit it to Radio National for consideration on "Airplay". We thought it would be a valuable exercise so the re-edit will begin next week.

Pastel Group

2006-04-02T08:05:00.000+10:00

I worked on this for two hours in pastel group. While it looks like its nearly finished I was tired when I went to class and the painting is feeling overworked. I added highlights that were too warm and ended up removing them. I'm leaving it to have a think and regain a fresh 'eye' for it before I finish it.

Temptation under Construction

2006-03-23T14:49:00.000+11:00

Its school holidays and I've had a chance to work into this piece. Its become a lot more 'wild' than anticipated but ... who knows how it will turn out. Certainly not me!

Temptation

2006-03-22T17:48:00.000+11:00

I've begun work on a piece for the Monsalvat show. The show's theme we've decided will be "Behind the Red" I'm working from a black primed A1 sheet and have begun with a ocean green drawing. I'm at the blocking-in stage and planning on leaving a thin black gap around the drawing to enhance the colours.

My Favourite Poet

2006-03-20T17:48:00.000+11:00

After the crap sleep I had last night I can't think of anything to blog that Billy Collins hasn't said far better in this poem.

Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.

Billy Collins

Looking, Looking, Looking

2006-03-20T11:59:00.000+11:00

Looking, Looking, Looking

Our pastel group is in the early stages of our first proper exhibition. We’ve chosen a theme, are compiling a portfolio to persuade the owner of the Monsalvat Artist’s Colony that we are good enough to exhibit at their venue and now are working on pieces for the show in 2007. Each piece we show must be accompanied by a 100-word explanation of the work. We also agreed to produce large format paintings, as the venue is a barn (literally) with a soaring ceiling. Small works would be lost on the walls.

I’ve agreed to put together an elaboration on the theme (to be revealed once its been revealed to me!) and also a written piece on the purpose of the group.

So back to more looking now that 'Lochlan in Red Hat' is framed and ready for show.

Mary Cassatt has long been a favourite impressionist of mine. Originally from USA, she lived her professional life in France. She was a close friend of Degas and moved from oil to working more and more with pastel as he did. Both liked the immediacy of the medium, no mixing before applying to paper. Her subjects were mostly women with their children. She too employed the drawing-painting method. Her skin tones are beautiful, glowing. I am particularly interested the blue undertones of her skin colours and in the lost and found edges of the skin in her paintings.

Joseph Plaskett is a Canadian, originally from BC. He’s spent most of his professional life in France as well. I like looking at his work from the sixties. His drawing histories are vibrant and in his work he uses black or dark papers to enrich his colours. His panel work is astonishing but not something just anyone could get away with.

Australian Reader's Challenge

2006-03-13T15:14:00.000+11:00

Since taking on hours in the library, my top priority has been to increase use of the library resources amongst the students and staff. If students are reading more, their reading and comprehension skills improve. If they know how to access and are using the information resources more, their information literacy skills improve as well.

So first to get the kids reading! The Australian Reader's Challenge came to my attention through bookcrossing an on-line reading group I belong to. The ARC stretches people’s reading horizons by offering a list to read from. Many kids find an author or series and can't imagine reading anything else. This challenge introduces them to many other authors while still allowing scope for choice.Each successfulparticipant must read 10 books (7 from the proscribed list and 3 free choice)in a 6 month period.

The response at the school has been wonderful! We have 29 of the 62 students taking part and 9 adults as well. The money goes towards supporting literacy in Aboriginal communities in the far North through the Fred Hollows Organization and Ian Thorpe Youth Trust. The library is like Grand Central station these days. We even had a scuffle break out in the library over a new book. Now that’s exciting! (But not to be encouraged of course.) One student has reached the halfway mark in the challenge already; many of the kids who are reluctant readers are showing their competitive sides and reading in their spare time at school.

Cathy's Progress in the Australian Reader's Challenge

1. Postcards by E. Annie Proulx (completed on 11/03/03)- free choice

2. The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto (Che) Guevera (in progress)- free choice

3. In the Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall-Smith (in progress)- list

4. The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville (on deck)- list

What You Will Come Back to

2006-03-06T12:17:00.000+11:00

You begin this way.
You wake up each morning
and stare at your favourite part of the ceiling.
You wonder
what that funny sound is outside.
Your listen
for the tink-tonk of your father's spoon
making the rounds of his coffee cup.
You smell the toast pop.
You elbow your sister for half the sink to spit into.

Your world stretches.
It stretches all the way
down the street to the new school
with smooth-topped desks
and rubber-backed carpet.
To Mrs. Peet
with her hair piled high
and her special long chalk-holder.
You dream of adulthood.
Your own hairdo,
your own life.

Another stretch
and you're out of town.
You're laughing
as you trace his name
in the condensation
from your beer glass.

Strawberries

2006-03-05T09:58:00.000+11:00

I am now going to subject anyone brave enough to continue with some poetry. Our writing group last week amongst other things looked at patterns in writing and we were given homework. We had to come up with something from the natural environment, incorporate the repeating pattern, wave our magic wands and make poetry.

My attempt

Strawberries

Strawberries are not school lunches
Strawberries are uncertain gems hiding from currawongs
Strawberries are rhubarb's best friends
Strawberries are the wild red hearts of jam
Strawberries love being discovered by small boys

Strawberries are not leftovers
Strawberries are perfect endings
Strawberries are prima donnas of the fruit salad
Strawberries are punnets of warm reminiscence
Strawberries love cool vanilla

Stawberries are not fast food
Strawberries are ruby-ripe nipples of summer
Strawberries are tintinnabulations of the tongue
Strawberries are garden temptations Eve never noticed
Strawberries love it when you call them fraises

Only Minor Adjustments Left

2006-02-23T20:58:00.000+11:00

It's nearly done. I need to make a few minor adjustments around the nose and to the shading on the hat. I really like the effect of the black outlining and I'm now planning to do another, maybe including more of the human figure -- 3/4 view or something like that.

Lochlan in Hat pastel

2006-02-10T06:58:00.000+11:00

My first try at using the drawing - painting method I've been studying.
I pulled out this canvas paper I bought for my first oil painting dabblings. I like the texture on it, a fake weave. I'm hoping the pastel will grip well enough and yet let the texture show through even if I push the pastel in with my fingers.

The first pic is of the underpainting and the underdrawing. The underpainting is pastel applied to the page then washed in with a wide brush. I wanted the strokes to show too in an outward motion away from the face. I then drew the subject in charcoal.

I didn't get back to this painting for two weeks, but it sits in the living room so I look at it a lot. I made some adjustments to the line drawing then blocked in the main colours. I'm fixing the pastel heavily because of the weave.

I'm hoping to get this finished next week and get it framed in time to enter it in the Warrandyte Festival in late March. That is if nothing stuffs up between now and then!

What Am I Looking At?

2006-01-31T19:30:00.000+11:00

When I visited the excellent exhibition at Regina's McKenzie Gallery in 2005, I found myself reading a quote by Clement Greenberg. I cannot remember who he was but his words impressed me so much that I wrote them down.

Every artist has a family of artists that they admire and use a models, and as you mature (as an artist), you must gradually kill off your family and find your own form of expression.

I'm not ready to terminate anybody yet but I thought I'd like to record who I'm looking closely at right now.

This pastel work was done by Sally Strand. Her depiction of light cutting through her paintings is awesome. Her strokes are loose, her characters are solid. She uses the the 'Painting-Drawing' method in this piece. I'm exploring this method in my own painting at this time. Kitaj, the artist of the next painting named this method in an article on the net I read a couple of weeks back. The 'Painting-Drawing' method is one he became interested in after studying Degas, Cezanne, Van Gogh and Matisse. In it, the artist does not paint over the history of the drawing of the painting.

GadZucchinis!

2006-01-28T10:25:00.000+11:00

Don't they look innocent? Well they're not!

While we dream in our beds at night, they double in size in our garden beds!
But....!
We have recipes for dealing with the likes of them.

Zucchini Burgers

4 small zucchinis (to make 2 cups grated)
1 red capsicum (bell pepper)
1/2 cup rice
1/2 cup finely chopt parsley
1Tbs lemon zest
salt, pepper
2Tbs fresh thyme
1Tbs chives
1Tbs fresh chilli
1/2 cup bread crumbs
2 eggs beaten

Grate zucchini then squeeze out as much juice as you can with a strainer. Leave in strainer. Cook 1/2 rice in stock of choice. Cool (or use up leftover rice). Add finely chopt capsicum, herbs,chilli, bread crumbs and zucchini. Add eggs and have some flour ready to coat the patties. Shape patties and cook in preheated oven (180C) for 40 minutes. Turn halfway.

Curried Creme of Vegetable Soup

2 leeks, chopt
2 medium potatoes, chopt
1 celery stick, chopt
30 g butter
1 tsp curry powder
250g zucchini, chopt
1 L stock
a bit of milk (or if youre into it, 1/3 c cream)

Gently fry leeks, zuccini, and celery in butter for 5 minutes. Add curry powder, potatoes and stock. Bring to the boil then simmer 30 minutes. Blend. Reheat. Add milk or cream.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

2 1/2c all purpose flour
1/2 c cocoa
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
3/4 c butter
2 c sugar
3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp orange rind, grated
2 c zucchini, grated
1/2 c milk
1 c walnuts, chopt (optional)

Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, soda, salt and cinnamon; set aside.
Beat butter and sugar together 'til creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well. Stir in vanilla, orange rind, and zucchini. Add dry ingredients alternating with milk, stirring 'til smooth. Add nuts with final flour addition. Pour into greased and floured tube/bundt pan. Bake at 350F/180C for 45 mins til done in middle. Turn onto rack to cool. May be glazed.

Freezes well.

Have they invented Pet Zucchinis yet? Maybe we are onto something.

Total Fire Ban Today

2006-01-22T12:55:00.000+11:00

Yesterday went up to 37C and most of Melbourne had a 4 hour power outage about 4 pm cuz of the overload on the sytem. Today it was 35 by 9 am and on its way to 43C.

These are the days when you sit on the edge of your seat in Warrandyte. Being surrounded by bush is so beautiful the rest of the year but not today! Today everything is crunchy, brittle, peeling, wilting. The wind is gusting and blowing from the north and is so hot it feels like you've opened the oven door. There is a constant buzz of helicopters and airplanes flying overhead, firespotting.

We put our fire plan into effect first thing this morning. We block the eavestroughs and fill them with water. We fill the bath tub, washing machine and all the sinks and buckets with water. We pull in the door mats, dampen down all around the house with the sprinklers. We strain our ears all day for the sound of the fire station alarm. The country fire authority website is so bombarded I can't get the page to load to see the current incident reports.

I check on the chickens every couple of hours to see how they are coping with the heat. They are up the back with their feathers pulled in tight, wings lifted away from their bodies, their mouths open, panting. The goldfish died yesterday, the water got bathwater warm and she couldn't cope with the rapid change.

The weather bureau is predicting thunderstorms and a wind change this evening. If there is rain we'll be right. If there is only lightening the poor volunteers with the CFA will be getting no sleep. They are the real heroes on days like these. All local people, all trained volunteers. The local highschool kids all go through the fire training. Its one of their compulsory subjects.

The photos below were taken on the front lawn of Cam and Janette's resort in Dinner Plain two years ago when the fires went through Eastern Victoria and the Victorian Alps.

Intelligent Shoes

2006-01-19T18:12:00.000+11:00

This was a bit of fun from a book of writing exercises by Australian children's author Andrew Griffiths. It asked you to list shoes from most to least intelligent. How could I resist?

Types of Shoes Listed from Most Intelligent to Least

Oxfords: highly educated at the best institution

Nurses’ Shoes: medical background

Go-go Boots: know where it’s at and what’s happening, man!

Running Shoes: been around the block a few times

Pumps: work out so must be in good shape which assists ability to think clearly

Penny Loafers: lazy but don’t have to worry, they have pennies for thoughts of others.

Stilettos: experienced!! Street smart.

Mary Janes: only been to primary school

Gumboots: took a trip but never left the farm.

Thongs: are usually tied down. Don’t get out much.

Baby Shoes: new but willing to learn

Mules: too stubborn to learn

Clogs: too plugged up to learn

Fuzzy Slippers: Duh, huh?