Health Care

In general, neither Ben and I have much experience for doctors, and therefore lack much of an understanding about how the system (or the insurance) works. Having been students for the better part of our adult lives (and foregoing all medical attention when we weren’t students), the bulk of our medical experience has been with the infamous school health centres, where they take your temperature, give you a pregnancy test (gender doesn’t matter), and send you on your way. Therefore, it’s hard for us to draw too many comparisons between the health care systems there and here. Australia has publicly funded universal health care, so it is MUCH more affordable (although since health care costs are higher in the US than any other nation, I guess that doesn't say much). Australia also ranks higher than the US on WHO's health system ranking. However, after some recent experience with the health care system here, we aren’t that impressed.

As a requirement for her new job, Kerry had to get a “general workplace medical” – which is apparently quite common here. Maybe that’s common in the US, too, but since I’ve never had a real job there, I wouldn’t know. I showed up for the appointment, and the nurse’s checklist didn’t match the Zoo’s faxed checklist, so she spent half an hour saying “What should we do – I don’t know – let’s do a urine test, that’s pretty common. Sure, we’ll do a colour vision test, too.” Once she was happy with the number of boxes she checked (regardless of which list they were on) she passed me on to the doctor, where I stood on one foot, touched my toes, and received her seal of approval. But the other major requirement for the job is to get a TB test – simple, right? No. Only government-operated chest clinics are allowed to give the skin prick test, and there are only 5 or so in Sydney. Furthermore, the clinics are only open for ~2 hours a day. Consequently, there is a 4-8 week waiting list at most clinics – for a skin prick test! So maybe it’s more affordable, but it doesn’t seem to be more efficient!

Ben actually had a medical issue that needed attention, and the jury is still out as to whether the Purdue Health Centre or the Macquarie Health Centre was less helpful. Some of you may remember when Ben got an intestinal parasite in the summer of 2007 (when Kerry abandoned him to do lynx stuff), and the potentially-comedic-if-he-weren’t-dying situation that it led to. [For those of you who missed out, after 3 weeks during which his GI tract refused to tolerate any outside substances (food, water, etc.) he took himself to the health centre, where, once the doctor finally looked at him, they realized it must be something serious and took every action to help him. They pumped him full of fluids to get him rehydrated, and then did all kinds of tests, including an x-ray. Some spot showed up in the x-ray, which led to this awkward conversation in which the nurse asked Ben if he had any piercings that he neglected to remove, or if he had forgotten about being shot and maybe there was shrapnel in his abdomen (since things like that are so forgettable). In their over-zealous quest to fix him, they latched onto this spot, even though it was unlikely to be related to the problem, and they sent him to the hospital (in an ambulance) where he could get a CT scan that may help reveal what the spot was. Once the scan was finished at 4:45, he was informed that the radiologist was gone for the day and the scan wouldn’t be read until tomorrow, so he was free to leave. Remember, thanks to the ambulance, the car was ~4 miles away. The nurse kindly pointed Ben to the wrong bus stop, and as Ben sat there watching his bus drive right by, he decided just to walk back to campus. On a hot summer day. Sweating out the many dollars worth of fluids he had just received. A few days (and a few thousand dollars) later the doctor decided maybe it was giardia (although that was the one thing they didn’t test for, so there was no way of knowing for sure), and gave Ben an anti-protozoan which seemed to do the trick.]

So now, a similar parasite seems to be back, wrecking havoc on Ben’s body (but at least Kerry was around this time to help). Rather than waiting 3 weeks, we decided to visit the doctor sooner, and luckily, he got right in. They didn’t take his temp (even though he’d been feverish), they didn’t listen to his suggestion that it may be a protozoan – they just gave him the standard issue antibiotic and some anti-nausea pills. So again, Oz wins the cost contest hands-down, but we're not convinced the quality of the care was any better. Oh, the joys!

Fruit of the day: Rambutan

Rambutans are another fruit in that longan/lychee group. They're another step bigger and another step sweeter - quite delicious in our opinion! Plus, their skin is so cool!

CISAB Christmas Party

This actually took place the night before we left on our trip, but since it's Christmas related, figured I could post it now.
Every year, CISAB (Ben's department) throws these great Christmas parties. They are catered (with excellent food!), alcohol is provided, there's ice cream for dessert, and there's an organized Kris Kringle gift-swap ($5 limit). I think everyone's brain was a little fried - I'd be surprised if anyone was that drunk - but the $5 Kris Kringle gifts and the plastic toys in the Christmas crackers proved to be an endless source of amusement for us. Most of it revolved around decorating each other's heads. All in all, it was a really fun night and a great way to relax together.

Christmas Day with the Harveys

Our wonderful neighbors, despite have a total of 15 siblings, happened to be celebrating Christmas at home by themselves this year. So they adopted us, and - although the original plan was just to go over for a light lunch - we pretty much spent the whole day there - it was great! It was a beautiful sunny day, but not too hot, so we hung out on their back porch and ate and laughed - just what you should be doing on Christmas.

We started with a big pancake breakfast at 11:00 - they made pancakes, we made pancakes - there were pancakes everywhere! We brought some fruit confits made from native Australian fruits, of which they had never heard. We also brought some "brandy custard," which we discovered next to the egg nog and decided we should try (it tastes pretty much like vanilla pudding, in my opinion). After Round 1 of stuffing our faces, we took a break for naps/walks/etc.

Then Round 2 began at 5:00. They had prawns and oysters for appetizers, and we brought 2 bottles of wine that we got on our trip, so we had a little wine tasting.

Playing in the club house between stuffing our faces

Ann decided we'd be her guinea pigs for dinner, so she made snapper 3 different ways: thai-style, panfried with mango chutney, and lettuce-wrapped on the grill. They all tasted wonderful - we couldn't decide what our favourite was. Rob said his brother declared him a "lousy poof" for having a fancy, Sydney-style seafood dinner rather than the traditional meat and potatoes. But we enjoyed it! And Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without Christmas crackers - these wonderful 'exploding' tubes filled with a plastic toy, a paper crown, and a joke.



There was also an enthusiastic family sing-along when Slim Dusty's music started playing - Ben and I even knew one of the songs! In this pic, the song is about a mighty footy (rugby) player, so they're all flexing their muscles accordingly. Eliza, being her father's daughter, was certainly the most enthusiastic about this footy star.

We ended the night with some of Ann's terrific homemade pavlova and a game of Scrabble. However, with 3 math/engineering brains and 1 tired brain, there weren't that many impressive words on the board - we thought we were doing good when we got 4 letter words, and eventually started allowing 2 letter words and letter-swapping.

Happy Christmas, from the land down under!!

Most people here say "Happy" rather than "Merry," so:
Happy Christmas to you, from the Fansons on the bottom of the world!! We miss all of you lots, and hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year.

(... and here's what we look like from our point of view, rather than a Northern hemisphere point of view)

Ani says "Merry Christmas, OK?!? Now let me eat my rawhide!!"

We're dreaming of a purple Christmas

Remember the jacaranda trees? Remember how many millions of purple flowers there were on each tree? Now all those purple flowers are making their way to the ground, and they look really cool (except on the sidewalks where they get trampled and turn brown). Underneath each tree looks like a little purple-snow globe scene. Who needs snow for Christmas!?! Instead of reindeer and snow, we have kangaroos and jacaranda flowers!! And I hear snow is harder to shovel. (...sorry, I know I shouldn't rub it in...)

Christmas Trip to Victoria

We're home!!! We had an awesome trip down to Victoria and have mixed feelings about being home, but since we're back in touch with cyberspace the blog is now active again. Being a little intimidated about recapping 10 eventful days and uncertain if our blog can handle all the photos, I've decided it's time to introduce a new tool: Picasa. So you can get a verbal recap of the trip (with a few pics) here, and you can get a visual recap on Picasa (just click "Picasa" and you should get there).

We basically just worked our way along the coast, heading south then west, until finally we needed to head home. Here's a map of the route we took, more or less, with the little letter-bubbles indicating our campsites:

View Larger Map

We camped the whole time, which worked out really well with Ani - and we only had to pay one night! And it's just so nice having the kookaburras serenade you in the evening, watching the moon rise, knowing kangaroos are hopping around you. Since this was our Christmas trip, we decided it was only appropriate to have some Christmas decorations.

The weather was not quite what we were expecting. We had this vision of a warm, sunny, coastal trip - tank tops and shorts - never using the tent's rainfly. We shouldn't have been so naive - someone who lived in Melbourne for 10 years and Sydney for 5 told us that Melbourne is grey-er and rainy-er and just not nearly as sunny as Sydney. And indeed, we had various degrees of rain and wind for several days. We saw a weather report in a local newspaper that said "some showers then rain," followed by "rain then showers." And it never got very warm until we got away from the coast the last 2 days. So we ended up getting sun on our faces and our feet (walking barefoot on the beach), but everywhere else is still pretty white. Luckily, most of the rain was intermittent, the clouds made for nice sunsets, and the wind created some great waves, so the weather didn't interfere too much.

The wildlife was great. We saw a few black wallabies (one of the many kangaroo-like creatures, aka macropods, here), echidnas (the only egg-laying mammal other than platypuses), little (or fairy) penguins, emus, AND we saw our first koala!!! So I feel much more at ease with the title of our blog, now. Ani likes the kangaroos and seagulls the best - they're the most fun to chase.

We also saw some beautiful scenery. The Great Ocean Road drive (a stretch of coast west of Melbourne) has recently been voted the #1 thing to do in Victoria, and it was definitely stunning. But there were lots of pretty coastline views, plus waterfalls and rocky outcroppings and rolling hills - lots of great scenery.

And, since everyone needs to eat, we decided to incorporate as much local food as possible. Therefore, we stopped at dairies/cheese factories, fisherman co-ops, fruit stands, mustard makers, and wineries. We missed out on the olive groves and the pick-your-own blueberry farm, which was a bummer - just need to go back! We also enjoyed our fair share of coffee on the trip, flat whites to be specific, but I'll explain more about coffee in another blog entry. But it was a great way to warm up or get out of the rain or eavesdrop on local gossip in cozy little cafes.

The one most unexpected and disappointing adventure of the trip revolved around the camera. As you may have noticed, my prose is not exactly something to brag about, so I really depend on my camera for helping share our experiences with y'all (and to help us remember stuff, as our memories aren't what they used to be, for which we blame grad school). So, Day 4, after the pelican feeding, the camera battery died. No worries - we have the car converter-thing to charge the battery. But it doesn't want to work. So the next morning, we hit a mall, buy a plug adapter, and hang out in a cafe for 2 hours so we can charge the battery in an outlet there. Great! Then, no more than 1.5 hours later, the camera manages to fall out of Kerry's pocket on the beach. Again, it's all good - it's an empty beach and we can follow our footsteps back to the camera. To celebrate finding the camera, we take a happy photo of us - and when we turned the camera off, there was a painful grinding sound and the lens jammed. The camera - our wonderful new, blue camera, should still be under warrantee, but we need a camera NOW. So we head to the nearest little coastal town and buy a mini screwdriver kit, find another cafe to settle in, and begin the operation. But it doesn't work. The Olympus is beyond hope, I start to get the shakes from shutterbug withdrawl, and some of the prettiest coastline is yet to come - so we go in search of a disposable camera. We find one for AU$20 at the Post Office - yes, they sell everything. But right as we pay for it, we notice they also have digital cameras (including a respectable Canon) for AU$120, which is only like US$80, or something. So, we ended up with a new digital camera and proceeded to take 276 photos on it - way more than the 24 shot disposable. And the blue Olympus is at the doctor, now, hopefully getting fixed. The Olympus people here were wonderful. Keep your fingers crossed that the warrantee will cover it and that it's fixable, because even though we got a new camera, I still miss my blue Olympus!

OUT OF OFFICE

Yep - we're out of the office and on the road... movin' right along! The laundry is done, the house is clean, the lawn is mowed (with our fixed mower), the Christmas tree is decorated... time to leave home! So we're taking a week to explore Victoria (yes - Ani, too). No blog entries for a week, but we'll fill you in when we get home.

Spider update

Since you met all our spiders a few days ago (well, some of our spiders), I'm sure you're dying to know how life is going for them. So here's the update:
Big Mama - all her kids appear to have left home. Big Mama is still hanging around, but seems pretty sedate. Can't tell if she's about to pull a Charlotte (no, not writing things in her web), or if she's just resting up for her next brood.

Sheila - still hanging around and seems to be doing great. She might have more kids than we initially thought, and we still help her feed all those mouths by throwing various prey items in her web.

Priscilla - our little drama queen has had an eventful few days! A few days ago, we noticed Prince Charming trying to sweep Priscilla off her feet... without getting his head bitten off (maybe that's how all guys feel). He's been hanging around since then - either mate guarding or waiting for the right moment - so if everything continues to go well, Priscilla may have her own brood, soon. However, the same night that Prince Charming showed up, she also lost 2 of her front legs. Don't know who attacked her (bird? bat? not Mr.Right - she would have eaten him if he tried that). We're curious to see how she copes, but so far she seems to be doing OK. We've started feeding her, too. She just looks so pathetic there in our kitchen window, and Ani has trained us that food is always a proper response to the Pathetic Look.


And we have a new addition, although we won't give her a name because, as excited as we were to see her, we hope we won't see her regularly. But we saw our first Red-back!! These are considered one of the most deadly spiders in Australia, although that doesn't mean that much. I know what you're thinking "Doesn't mean much!?!? In that Land of All Things Deadly, this is one of the worst and that doesn't mean much!?!?" But here's the deal - there are very few spider-induced deaths at all. With red-backs, they suspect that venom rarely gets injected when they bite humans, and if it does, they've developed an anti-venom. There have been no red-back deaths since the anti-venom was created in 1956. Nonetheless, bites are supposed to be incredibly painful, so we'll leave her alone in the crawl-space under the house.

Fruit of the day: Durian

Ah, the durian - King of Fruits.
So we went to the fruit market in search of something new and fun. We had seen the durian around before, and decided it was finally time to give it a try. So we bought ourselves a durian, lugged it home, and then turned to the internet to figure out what to do with this giant pokey fruit. We discovered it's highly coveted in Asia, and people will pay lots of money for it. Alfred Russel Wallace (the guy who almost beat Darwin to the punch) famously described its flesh as "a rich custard highly flavoured with almonds."

And here's what else we discovered. It smells. No - we hadn't quite discovered this for ourselves, yet, because our durian was frozen and well wrapped. We just thought there was someone with bad b.o. on the train. But the smell is both powerful and distinctive enough that it has been the subject of endless descriptions - several that are quite amusing, but none are very favourable. It has also led to the banishment of durians from public places in Asia. We've decided it smells like a combination of natural gas, garlic, and feet. Yum!

We tried eating it 3 different ways: plain, simmered in coconut milk and served with rice, and blended into a shake with mango and banana. The taste grows on you some, but I don't think either of us is addicted. And the smell never grows on you. In the end, I think we'd have to admit defeat by the king of fruits (just couldn't quite eat it all), but we put up a bloody good fight!

I spy: Bare feet

No shirt? No shoes? No worries!!
Shoes are much more optional here than in the States. When we go grocery shopping, we never fail to spot at least one person walking around shoe-less. I even saw one person walk into the grocery store with shoes on, and then proceed to take them off as soon as she was through the door. We've also seen people walk barefoot across the gas station to go in and pay (they don't have Pay-at-the-Pump, here).

Yes, I did take that photo while we were standing in the check-out line. I did my best to be all slick - turned the sound off on the camera, pretended like I was looking at pictures, used Ben to block me... and then the flash went off!!! whoops.

Bio-Nerds, part 2

We have some great spiders around our house, so we decided it's time to introduce you to them. (We have some other arthropods, too, but the spiders are the coolest, and also the most permanent, so they get this blog entry.)

Big Mama
Big Mama is grey house spider and a very busy mum! She seems very patient, and had no problems with me taking pics of her and her kids. Good thing she has so many eyes to keep track of all those little ones!



Priscilla
Yes, as in "...Queen of the Desert," because she's quite showy. Priscilla is a St.Andrews Cross spider. She lives outside our kitchen window, so we see her all the time. She changes the number & thickness of the zig-zags in her web, so it's fun to check out her design scheme each morning. No kids for her, yet. There are some other St.Andrews Cross spiders in the neighborhood, but they're all much bigger (but not as pretty), so we think Priscilla is just young.



Sheila
Sheila is a common black house spider, and you actually met her on the last Bio-Nerds entry. She's still around, getting bigger, and now she's started a family. "Sheila" is defined by the Aussie slang dictionary as "a common term for an Australia female, usually single and probably good looking." Since we actually have a few black house spiders in our back porch, we decided to use a general Aussie name for all of them, but Sheila #1 is still our favourite. She's the only one we feed. The big black dot in front of her is a fly we threw in the web; the little black dots are her kids.



Powerful females of the Fanson household

Fruit of the day: Riberries

Riberry trees are native to Australia, and are common "bush tucker" (tucker=food and bush=outback - basically bush tucker includes things you could live on out in the wilderness, but some of them have become gourmet items). We didn't pick these ourselves, but they're still really good! They're kind of cinnamon-y and really grow on you. They're great on crumpets and brie, or just plain. They awake that ancestral Gatherer in me and make me want to find someplace we can pick them!! (For those of you who have witnessed my compulsive berry picking, this will come as no surprise.)

Starting from scratch

OK, so when we left the States, we got rid of most of our stuff and decided to start from scratch. This wasn’t so much a ‘decision,’ as it was a simple matter of reality – it would have cost thousands to ship everything, and it was only worth a couple hundred. But here’s the problem – the cost of housing jumped 20% between when Ben got the position and when we arrived, our income dropped 60% since Ben no longer had a lucrative position with pharmaceutical company, and thanks to the market, our savings diminished 175%. :( So how do you furnish an entire household as cheaply as possible? Especially when essential items include a refrigerator and a washing machine?

1) E-bay
E-bay is kind of like Craig’s List, here, although you still bid on things. But many of the items are ‘pick-up’ only, so it has a very local feel. If you’re patient, you can find some really good deals – we’ve gotten almost all our furniture through E-bay. You have to add the cost of a rental truck for big items, but you get to check out some really nice houses! And if you happen to be picking up an item from someone moving overseas, then they might give you a bunch of kitchen supplies, too!

2) Dumpster diving (well, council clean-up days)
All the different neighbourhoods have designated days when you can put out big things for them to take away. If you go to the nicer neighbourhoods, you can find great tables, chairs, bookcases, etc. Julie got most of her furniture this way, and when Sam was living near a posh neighbourhood, he got a few great couches this way. We haven’t gotten anything from council clean-up days, yet, but we’re keeping our eyes peeled for a TV table and a bookcase.

3) Dollar store
This option works just fine for some things, but not for others.
Perfectly fine for: hangers, coffee machine (Grandma might not believe it, but we swear it’s true!), pots but not frying pans, dish towels
Marginally acceptable for: silverware, spatulas, wine glasses
Not worth it for: umbrellas, q-tips, 2-cycle motor oil

4) Garage sales
So theoretically, this would be a great place to get stuff, especially because in the newspaper, people will say “moving overseas – getting rid of everything.” So you find ads for some garage sales in nicer neighbourhoods and develop your plan of attack for the weekend. But here’s the problem: there’s all these professionals who will go to the house with their big truck before the garage sale starts – even the day before – and they’ll take anything they can refinish and resell. So by the time you show up (even if you show up exactly when it’s supposed to start), all the nice stuff is already gone. We did get several little things from an unadvertised garage sale in the neighbourhood, though.

Fruit of the day: Mangoes 2

Mission accomplished!!
Yes, we successfully polished off a whole crate of mangoes before they went bad! I had printed out all these mango recipes to help use them up, but we actually just ate most of them plain. However, we did use the last few mangoes to make a mango tart. I think we're ready for our next crate of mangoes!

I spy: A new building!

We've mentioned this briefly in the past, but when Ben arrived, his office/lab was in temporary housing while a wonderful new building was being built. And now it's finished (more or less, depending on who you ask) and we've moved in!

Entrance to the new building - you can see the old trailer-office in the background.

It's very spacious and clean and bright, and we don't have to walk to another building to go to the bathroom. But my favourite part (well, right after the big huge windows) is that when you enter the building, you flash your card and then the double doors automatically swing open for you - I don't know if I've ever felt so special! (OK, I probably have felt more special, and in all honesty, I think it's a bit of a waste of electricity, but it still spices up the morning routine a little!)

So the only drawback to the new building is that after spending twice the proposed time and 3 times the original budget, it's far from ideal. The idea was to build a nice lab building with a few offices attached. So the university hired a company that has never built a lab, and they decided to build an office building and oh, maybe throw in a few empty spaces that they'd call "labs." So they did things like cut out the insulation and sound-proofing material (for the thermal and sound chambers, respectively) and instead, they used the money to install $500 door handles. (Yes, that cost is PER handle - and they keep cutting up everyone's knuckles because they're installed too close to the metal door frame.) The other charming feature is that they installed all these fancy monitoring devices, like a motion detector in the animal room (because birds never move, so you'd want to know if they did!), temperature sensors in the uninsulated thermal chambers to make sure temps don't fluctuate too much (guess what - they do!) and a smoke detector that was installed right next to the exhaust outlet. This means that alarms are going off all the time! Luckily we can mute them, and hopefully it will get sorted soon. I won't recount the myriad other problems, although there have certainly been some ridiculous ones. But all-in-all, we're enjoying it - and we even have some Christmas decorations up!

Lingo Lessons: whingy whiny wanker

I just like this phrase. “To whinge” is to whine or complain. “To whine” – well, I’ll assume you know that one. And a “wanker” is someone who is self-centred or egotistical. So next time some whingy whiny wanker gets on your nerves, you can think of this phrase and smile. ☺

Peek-a-boo

Or "Help - this leaf is attacking me!"
Or come up with your own caption!

Errands

We came home a day early, but that doesn’t mean we went back to work a day early! Instead we spent Tuesday taking care of odds and ends that we’ve been neglecting (I know, so exciting). So here’s our To Do list:

1) Take the car in. Since we got a used car that’s been passed from grad student to grad student, we’ve been meaning to do this for a while just to have things checked out. But when we lost the belt that controls a/c and, more importantly, power steering during this last trip, this suddenly moved to the top of the list. Fansons - if you thought steering the truck was hard, you ain’t seen nothin’!!

2) Fix the washing machine. The cold water decided it should just come out in a little trickle, which was a really bad idea because it made the machine beep all the time and took FOREVER to do a load of laundry. Luckily, after a little tinkering, we figured out we could swap the hot and cold wires to get it to work. And now we know more about washing machines – and we didn’t even electrocute ourselves!

3) Get the lawn-mower fixed. Apparently, the dollar store is not the place to buy 2-cycle oil. It gave the mower really bad indigestion, but it was still cheaper to fix it than to buy a new mower. And it was worth it just for the experience! The 2 guys at the shop were kind of “Click and Clack”-ish, but not brothers. They greeted us with a jovial “Hey mate, how ya going?” (That’s the standard greeting, here – not “How are you doing?” or “How’s it going?”) Other questions that came up during our conversation included:
-“So do you do all the mowing?” (this question was addressed to Kerry, and was apparently in an attempt to figure out why it took 2 of us to drop off a mower, because it was followed by “…or are you just here to make sure he doesn’t mess this up?” Later, when discussing the decompressor valve, we were told “This is to make the mower easier to start, so the women can do all the mowing while the guys sit back and drink their beer.”)
-“Why don’t they pronounce it CHEE-ka-go?” (when we said we were from Chicago)
-“What do they have in the water over there?” (this was referring to fluoride, and was followed by the comment “You have great teeth” …from a big manly-man with greasy hands)

4) Take Ani to the vet. After a solid year of vet visits in preparation for moving, we thought we were done with vets for a while. But since her vaccines were the first thing we did at the beginning of the year, that means it’s time for her to get vaccinated again. Luckily, the vet is a 20-min walk from our house, and the vet was great.

5) Fix our camping stove. Although gummy, luke-warm pasta was unforgettable, we decided it’s not that addicting. So the stove was dismantled and cleaned, and will hopefully work better next time!

Bir-niversa-giving Trip IV: Ani’s Adventures

Since the race was in a national park, Ani had to stay behind. Luckily, we have great neighbours who were willing to look after her, so Ani was able to stay at home with a queen-size bed all to herself, lots of entertainment each afternoon, and 4 extra pairs of hands giving her treats. She went to Eliza’s Oz tag practice (which is like flag footy/rugby), and was a hit among all the kids. Ann said she’s the most well behaved dog she’s ever met, but we didn’t let Ani hear that (we didn’t want her to get a big head – she’s already getting a big belly!). I think she was actually a bit disappointed to see us come home.

Bir-niversa-giving Trip III: Big things

So they like big things here. It’s kind of like the ode to gigantism that has been erected throughout the western US. On this trip, we saw (rather unintentionally) 2 of the 48 big things: the big trout and the big merino. Very exciting!

It was thiiiis big! Really!


[As a side note, they like to make their big things anatomically correct, and they generally prefer to make them male. Bill Bryson amusingly describes a pair of big bull balls that actually swing up in Queensland. And yes, the ram was indeed anatomically correct.]