Boxing Kangaroos

They don't wear gloves, but kangaroos really do box. It's a male thing (... oh those boys), and it's purpose is essentially to figure out who gets all the girls (...like most male things).

So this has been one of the things on my "To see" list, and thought I might need to track a mob of kangaroos during breeding season, or something. But no - the other day I was biking home from work and saw a group of roos near the bike path... and then I realized that 2 of them were BOXING!! I stopped and watched until it got too dark (which unfortunately is way too early, now), and I realized there were actually a few different groups of boxers. I think in this case it was a bunch of young blokes warming up their muscles for spring - the fights didn't look as lethal as the real ones sound. So there are a few great things about roo boxing:
1) The Lazy-boy maneuver: while boxing, the roos will actually sit back on their tail - yes, put their full body weight on their tail - so they can kick their opponent with both legs. OK, it's not quite the same as kicking back in a lazy-boy, but I love this move!
2) The Simpson Strangle-hold: I actually don't think they're strangling each other, but when they go at each other, they throw back their heads (which look really small) and their heads roll around a bit, and it looks a lot like when Homer strangles Bart.

While I would love to take credit for this photo, it's not mine (I didn't have my camera) - I stole it off Flickr from a person with the username "aaardvaark." If you click on the title of this entry, it should take you to his Flickr page, where he has some more great boxing-roo photos. Thank you Mr. A!

AU vs. US: Stupid show tricks

OK - this is not really a competition, but there are a lot of differences between the US and Australia, so this segment is dedicated to highlighting those differences.

So this week - stupid show tricks. In the US, you have David Letterman, who likes to drop things off the top of buildings: a 300lb safe, 5000 tennis balls, large pumpkins, old cans of paint. He ropes off a city block in NY and then gets one of his staffers to push things off the roof.

In Australia, you have Hamish and Andy, who decided to drop a car. From a plane. At 14,000 feet. Better yet, this is a REAL person's only mode of transportation (other than her bike). There was a contest for Aussies to enter their car in this once-in-a-cartime experience, and some poor student won. AND, there was a separate contest to select someone to push the car out of the plane, and the person who won was actually a double-amputee who didn't know what he was entering. If the car hit a 1km target from a moving plane at 14,000 feet (supposedly ~30% chance of happening under perfect conditions), then the girl won a new car and the guy won $100,000. So Hamish and Andy set out to select some massive expanse of deserted land where nothing would be hurt if the car missed it's target. Luckily this is not very hard to do in Australia. Then they loaded the car into a plane that was only slightly bigger than the car - a plane which had been dubbed the fridge with wings - and shoved the car out, and it HIT THE TARGET!! (Sorry - maybe I should have given a spoiler alert.)

AU wins this round hands down, and we STRONGLY recommend you check out the Hamish and Andy podcast for Friday 17 April - it's hilarious! You can also check out their website by clicking the title of this blog entry.

NOTE: You are welcome to inform us of any US show tricks that we may have missed, but no matter what you say, AU still wins. How can you top that!?!

Back together again :-)

Guess what - I spent almost a WEEK living at home! With my husband! And my dog!

We spent most of the time playing dueling computers (i.e., working... but doesn't it look like we could have been playing battleship??). Ani was even roped into helping - she helped proof-read drafts of papers for both of us (despite her argument that it was more important for her to try to hold down the bed.)


But even working is more fun when you're together. And then there's all the basic 'living-together' things that you get to do together: long evening walks with the dog, going to the gym... and then having pec wars, cuddling on the couch and watching tv, laughing, cooking (in our own kitchen, where I don't have to worry about sharing the space with house-mates or making a mess or taking up too much room in the fridge).

And we had an eating adventure - we went to a Hot Pot restaurant with Maria. So for those of you who don't know, there's a big pot on a burner in the middle of the table. It's divided in half, with a mild broth on one side and a spicy broth on the other. Then there's this huge buffet of uncooked meats and fish and veggies and noodles and sauces, and you cook everything and mix it all together and pretend to be creative and have a lot of fun. It's kind of like a cross between Mongolian Barbeque and fondue. And it's a bad idea for anyone who's particularly possessive/picky about their food, because everything gets mixed together in the pot. Now we've developed a plan of attack for next time - so come on over and we'll take you there!!

But now I'm back in Dubbo. :-(
[Although on the bright side, the weather in Sydney was getting cold and rainy and winter-y, and for right now the weather in Dubbo is still pretty nice.]

Easter

Easter is a big holiday here. And Australia is not a very religious country, so it seems to be more about chocolate eggs & hot cross buns than Jesus. Everything chocolate must be in the shape of an egg – and they can get quite gigantic and expensive. Easter things start appearing in the shops right after Christmas. Craving a chocolate egg the size of a small child for New Years?? Just can’t wait ‘til Easter?? No worries! The whole week before Easter, the vets and I played Easter bunny. Every morning, there was a new batch of chocolate eggs hidden all over. And while there aren’t quite as many hot cross buns as there are chocolate eggs, you can get those just about everywhere you look, too. And I must admit, freshly baked hot cross buns from the bakery down the street are quite nice.

The other thing about Easter is that it’s a 4-day weekend, here: Good Friday and Easter Monday are official holidays. And I swear more stores are closed on Good Friday than on Christmas Day. After a bit of searching, Ben and I finally managed to find 1 grocery store in Dubbo that was open – which was a very good thing, since we had 5 hungry mouths to feed and not much in the way of food. And on Saturday, we had a great pre-Easter dinner... of Indian food. Can't have Easter without camel races or Indian food!

HAPPY EASTER, EVERYONE - We miss you all lots!!

A Day at the Zoo

Slobber, snot, and showers… oh my! So Saturday we headed out to the zoo. I’m finally getting to know some people and what animals they work with, so I was able to arrange some behind-the-scenes stuff – which was probably just as exciting for me as it was for the kids, since I hardly get out of the lab! We fed the African elephants, the giraffes, the black rhinos, and the maned wolves. And in case he wasn’t exposed to enough non-human body fluids, one of the giraffes also sneezed on Danny – yay!




In between animal feedings, we biked around the zoo. Unfortunately, Mr.Golden Sun did not want to come out and play, so our bike-ride was a little wet. And poor Danny, who didn’t really know how to ride a bike, got a crash-course in bike riding. In the rain. Through an obstacle course of cars, pedestrians, and other bikers. He did great, though, and both kids had a great attitude about the rain – despite the fact that we looked a little like drowned rats by the time we got to feeding the maned wolves.

Then, to add to our adventures, we also managed to get locked out of the car (which meant no access to 2 of our raincoats and all of our food). Now this is not to say that we didn’t have the keys – we did. But this is a quirky car, and the keys don’t work to unlock the doors, so you can never lock all of the doors. Unfortunately, we did. So in addition to meeting several animals at the zoo, we also got to meet the NRMA man (which would be similar to the AAA man).

And I swear, despite the way this picture looks, the kids said they had a really great time! They were particularly fascinated with the fact we got into the zoo for free.

Camel Races

Since it’s almost Easter, that can only mean one thing: Good Friday Camel Races in Forbes! That’s right, baby!

Ben had come up with Maria (my personal dresser), her son (Alex), and his friend (Danny) for an orphans’ Easter weekend. (Maria is from Colombia, so she & Alex don’t have family in Australia, either.) After a 2 hour drive and an intense game of word association, we arrived at the races… and it was classic. In one race, only 2 of the camels started (the other three didn’t move); in another race, one of the camels was weaving back and forth across the track like it was drunk. The camels all had great names, like Wanna Noockie. Supposedly you could bet for charity, but not being great gamblers, we just enjoyed the races.

There was a fair amount of time between camel races, and even though there was other entertainment, the kids were more interested in the toy guns sold at one of the booths. In fact, I think most of the kids were more excited about the guns, as several of them had converted the top of the stands into a fort.


And of course we had to get some pictures with the camels.

Ben told this camel a joke...

... and apparently it was really funny!!

A day in the life: poo girl

Well, today it's spit girl. So so in addition to other excreta, you can also measure hormones in saliva. I had a few extra spaces on a cortisol (stress hormone) plate, so I decided we should see how stressed our vets and vet nurses are. They all got into it, which was fun! One of the vet/vet nurse teams was doing a big procedure that didn't go as smoothly as they hoped, and you can totally see their stress levels shoot up - even the nurse, who was just standing by as the vet was doing stuff! All kinds of fun projects in a hormone lab!

Requests from North America

Since Tamara is back in Canada, now, she was asking everyone if there was anything they wanted her to bring back. So what does America have that Australia doesn't? What do people who have been to the US or Canada miss?

Turns out most of it is food. Ben and I miss bagels, Farina, Breyers ice cream, and Taco Bell (...well, Taco Bell is mostly Ben). Unfortunately, you can't bring any of those things into Australia. Despite reassurances from Christina, we've found that Mexican food/restaurants are surprisingly absent here, which is a bummer. And pierogies - none of those here, which is especially hard coming from Chicago where there were lots of great pierogies. A big thing that other people requested is Reece's Peanut Butter Cups. They don't have any equivalent chocolate/peanut butter candy, here. Also, Tamara decided to bring back stuff for s'mores, because they don't have graham crackers or the right marshmallows, here. The other thing we miss is Trader Joe's, but I don't think Tamara is fitting one of those in her bag! I'm sure other things will emerge as we're here longer. Of course we miss all our family and friends, but I don't think any of you would be happy to have Tamara cram you in her luggage.

Fruit of the day: Quince

So while Ben was up, we discovered quinces in the supermarket. They're related to apples and pears, and they tasted like a combination of the two. The information said they were a bit sour and should be cooked, so we threw them in the oven with some butter, sugar, and cinnamon, and cooked them up a bit. Then we packed them for our camping trip, and they made an excellent dessert as we were sitting in our tent, hiding from the mozzies and checking out the stars.

Lawn bowling

Well - I'm one step closer to becoming an Aussie! I've now played lawn bowls! Every year the Australian Society of Zoo Keepers has a bowling charity event for some species. Each zoo organizes their own bowling event and chooses whether they want to go lawn bowling or 10-pin bowling. So this year, Western Plains Zoo went lawn bowling for Philippine crocodiles.

The basic idea of lawn bowls is that you try to roll these asymmetrical balls (bowls) as close to this white ball (jack) as possible. If you want to know more about it, you'll just need to come over. And while this is a quintessentially Australian thing, there were lots of Aussies who had never played before, so I was in good company. And my team won!! Probably because I was with the zoo's bowling expert... but I did manage to score 1 of our 7 points!

We had a barbecue before hand, so we could stuff our faces with snag sandwiches ... which is exactly what I'm doing in the picture below. Then there was an auction afterwards, which was also lots of fun. I didn't buy everything, but it was fun to sit and watch.

Only drawback of the night was that it was a cold, drizzly, windy night. I think Jo (one of the vet nurses that I work with) was one of the cutest cold people.

Joint Custody

So as we were nearing the end of our bush-land meanderings and I was lamenting the pending disappearance of my 2 favorite animals, we realized that one of them (Ani) didn't actually need to leave. Since I'm at Tamara's right now, Ani is allowed to stay!! (Technically she's allowed at Kristie's, too, but only in the backyard, and we all know our spoiled little indoor dog would not tolerate that.)

So Ani and I are kickin' it together in Dubbo for 2 weeks until Ben comes back! I told Ben I felt a little like we were figuring out a joint custody arrangement, and he said "This must be the most peaceful/friendly custody discussion EVER."

There are several great things about this arrangement for Ani: she gets long walks off-leash, she gets Underwear Boy's cooking scraps (and since he cooks a bunch of meat every night, she has a nice stockpile of bones and lots of grease to lick off the floor), and she gets to live with 2 cats (although she's very good about not harassing them too much).

She also really likes using the cats' bed, which isn't a big problem since they don't seem to use it, but she doesn't really fit in it.

However, there are a few bad things, too - mostly the evil prickles we encounter on walks. We've started to figure out how to avoid the evil prickles, but early in the week we hit this horrible patch and the poor little girl just looked so pathetic! She'd hold out one paw and I'd clean it off, and then a few steps later she'd need another paw cleaned off. It meant she was really good at staying close, though!