Another great post from "Plants Amaze Me" of her adventures in the Michigan woods. These pictures make me just a little homesick for Michigan in the spring. Especially this dry year in Texas. (But, to be clear, I do not miss the winters up there!) :-) These photos are from the end of April, so they are past this point, but I still wanted to share.
One of several reasons that I don’t enjoy camping – building a fire. :-D
Getting back to photos from our trip to Australia two years ago. We took hundreds – and no, I’m not going to publish them all, but we saw some amazing things. :-) The Brisbane Botanic Gardens at Mt. Coot-tha again.
I included this last picture to give an idea of how tall some of the bamboo is; notice my dad and husband on the path. That may be the giant bamboo on the right; I can’t remember any more.
After the rather serious post on Sunday, I decided to do something lighter for today, or at least different. So, here’s an update on some of the things I’ve done in the monthly challenges.
In May the project I finished was to send some promised packages to two friends. As it turned out, one lady’s elderly mother-in-law was in the hospital with serious problems. I don’t know if she passed on, but it was a stressful time for my friend. So, I kind of managed to do both the challenges, sort of. I’m calling done. :-)
In June I watched the sunset while sitting on the foot of the bed in our 
new guest room on the last day of the month. Well, I watched most of it. My husband came home before it was completely over. :-) Later that same night we went out and looked at the moon and planets (photo above) which were in an unusual position.
In July I took one day or partial day “off”, but instead of doing something I didn’t have time for I think I just rested. Well, sometimes that’s what we need, right? For the other part of the challenge, we planned and took my brother and sister-in-law out to one of our favorite restaurants. Not a very exciting outing, but it works for me. :-)
This month I ate frog legs. It was at our favorite seafood restaurant. They were pretty good with some sauce on them, but not that great alone, and overpriced in my opinion. Let’s just say I won’t be paying to eat them again if I can help it. :-/ I haven’t studied a country yet, but the month isn’t quite over, so we’ll see. :-)
How about you? Would anyone like to tell us some of the things they have done for the challenges? I’d like to hear about it, and I’m sure other readers would be interested too. It would be especially interesting this month to hear your new food and “new” country adventures. :-)
August is a hot month in Texas. This summer has been milder than any we’ve experienced since we moved here, but we are now hitting the three digit temperatures. A lot of places in the northern hemisphere are hot this time of year, or at least as hot they are likely to get. (“Hot” is relative.) :-) The southern hemisphere is still having some winter from what I hear. These challenges will let you stay inside for the most part.
Last month’s challenge was about things we are familiar with – places we like and things we wanted to do. This month we’re going to try another challenge about pushing ourselves out of our boxes.
So, here it is!
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Try a food you’ve never eaten before.
And/Or
Read up on a country that is unfamiliar to you – one about which you know little or nothing.
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Crawfish Etouffee (I made this batch years ago. My family still likes it.)
First of all, I don’t just mean trying a new recipe. We’ll cover that in another challenge, maybe. What I’m talking about is trying some specific food item you’ve never eaten before to your knowledge. This could be an herb or spice, meat, vegetable, fruit, grain, etc.
There are so many different foods available these days; it shouldn’t be hard to find something new to try. If octopus, scorpions or snake aren’t going to work for you, try something tamer. :-) Maybe some new-to-you fruit or vegetable would be appropriate. This is a good time of year to look for different vegetables in the north because harvesting of these things is in progress now. Maybe visit a farmer’s market and look for something interesting – a new kind of cheese, bread seasoned with flavors you’ve never tried, etc.
Red lentils purchased at an Indian store.
Also, don’t forget the multitude of ethnic foods that are now available. My personal favorite is Ethiopian food. (If you find an Ethiopian restaurant near you please be aware that some of the food is very spicy. Ask for advice if you need “mild” food. :-) ) Visit an ethnic market and look for something interesting, but be aware that you may find a lot of “strange” things, and be sure you buy something with English instructions or that you can guess how it should be prepared. :-)
My family has had a lot of adventures in this line because my dad is famous for bringing home unusual foods. I’d have to say that we’d probably have to go to an ethnic shop to find a food he hasn’t tried before. He’s introduced us to a lot of really good things, but he’s also had some real “duds”. We remind him about his horrible tasting shark stew (his own concoction), and also the “jelly grass” which basically had no flavor to speak of. :-) At the very least, trying new foods gives us fun memories to laugh about later.
Nairobi, Kenya. Taken by my Grandpa Hoover in the 1960s.
Learning about a new country should be pretty straightforward. If you have no idea just look up a world map and pick a place about which you know little to nothing. Then begin your search. Google, Wikipedia, an encyclopedia, and your local library are good places to start.
Need some ideas?
Eritrea – formerly a part of Ethiopia.
Lichtenstein – a city-state in Europe with a famous bank.
Tonga – an Island kingdom in the south Pacific that crowned a “new” king this year.
Andorra - a tiny country with one of the highest literacy rates in the world.
Belize – the only country in Central America whose official language is English. [Photo: King Tupou VI]
Nope, I didn’t give any links. The point is to find the information yourself. :-)
Enjoy the challenge! (And hopefully the food you try. ;-) )
If you don’t know what the challenges are about, please read the first one. :-)
Are you enjoying the challenges? I’m finding it quite…well, challenging, but in a good and sort of exciting way. I’ve made a long list of possible challenges, so it’s also interesting to decide which ones I should use each month.
This month’s challenge is a little different. The point in this one is to get us to expand our local horizons a bit, to learn a little more about our own local area. If you have kids, grandkids or nieces and nephews old enough to enjoy the challenge you choose to do, I recommend you take them along and expand their lives too. You could also do this with a friend or your spouse or, in some case, with your pet. The more the merrier. :-)
Here’s the challenge.
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Explore a road or street you have never been down before.
And/Or
Visit a shop, park, cafe or a small museum that you have never been in before.
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When I was a kid my dad would every so often say, “Let’s go on an explore.” Sometimes he would do this spontaneously when he saw a road he wanted to investigate and he had an idea where it ended up. Other times it meant he was going to take us somewhere that he had been recently where he found something interesting. Occasionally it was a longer trip that took up more of the day and a picnic lunch was involved, or maybe eating out somewhere. It was always more or less exciting, though sometimes I felt a little uncertain about it as I got older, being a rather unadventurous type myself. :-) But, in retrospect I know it was good for me, and I saw some things that were really neat and even awe-inspiring. Our family found some favorite places due to his eagerness to “explore”.
I remember some of them well.
Sailor’s Pines near Croton, Michigan was breathtaking. It is an old growth forest of white pines that is privately owned, but the public is welcome to come and see this living history. [Photo from Plants Amaze Me.] We found violets blooming there in autumn!
Camp Newaygo Wetland Trail near Newaygo, Michigan was a favorite destination because it was close and not overly long. We took friends there more than once. [Photo from Plants Amaze Me.]
I don’t remember for sure who first found the Roane County Park near Harriman, Tennessee, but it became a favorite place for my family to go when we lived near there. My husband and I had our first date there. (I like Texas, but I do miss that park.)
My dad and mom were also inclined to explore some shops and try interesting restaurants. I remember a few places, including an amazing toy store in Michigan, some great restaurants, Indian and Asian shops, and a fascinating small town museum. Then there was the Roy Rogers Museum that we used to visit when we lived in California. Lots of great memories. :-)
In March 2014 my husband and I explored some of the country roads in our own local area. One that was a little farther afield was really interesting. After growing smaller and smaller and rougher and rougher, it opened out into a nice street with a number of large modern houses on it. Those people are probably not bothered by a lot of unwanted traffic out at the end of that country road! :-) (See photo at the top of this post.)
We also accidentally turned onto a dirt road right behind a water truck, which, as it turned out, was going to spray the road! Yuck!
This is what our car looked like when we got home. At least we got a laugh out of it. :-)
So get out there and do a little exploring this month, if you’re up for the challenge. You may find a treasure, some great memories, a great “special spot” for repeated visits, or a funny story. :-) Even if you’ve lived in an area for a long time you may find some little nook you never knew about before. If not, you can share something you know about with family or friends.
Enjoy!
Ecclesiastes 3:11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
Brisbane on another day. Notice all the solar panels on the roofs in the foreground.
In trying to think of something to post on the blog today it occurred to me that it might be interesting to see what we were doing a year ago today. A year ago today we were still in Australia visiting my brother and his family near Brisbane. In some ways it’s hard to believe that was a whole year ago, and yet it seems much longer than a year because so much has happened since then!
At any rate, I got out the journal that I kept of the our time there and looked up September 30th. That turned out to be the day we all went into Brisbane to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary! :-) We chose to go there, at my sister-in-law’s recommendation, because they had a large collection of Australian animals only. We figured we could see a regular zoo any time, but seeing as many Aussie animals as possible at once seemed a better use of funds and time. It turned out to be a very good investment for us.
We rented a wheel chair for our entire time in Australia so that my mom
wouldn’t be so limited in how much she would see.
I’ll give some excerpts followed by some comments in purple from my present perspective.
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Mon., Sept. 30 – Got a slowish and somewhat hectic start to go to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.
[That’s fairly normal for day outings when you have a group of 8 people getting ready in one medium-small house. :-) We went in two cars as well, a rental and their family car. The four of us “visitors” were all in the rental together with my husband driving. Exciting times.]
We got “lost” in Brisbane in our car and had a rather distracting time finding our way back to where we needed to go. It’s a very confusing city and the map was rather confusing to Daddy at times, as well. We finally made it, but Dad and I both were rather anxious and I was fighting motion sickness. Driving in Brisbane is much like riding the “Tilt-a-whirl”. :-P
[Brisbane is very hilly, with twisting roads - and one way streets thrown in to confuse tourists, I think. We almost ended up in the downtown area, which probably would’ve been quite “interesting”. Of course, driving on the “wrong side of the road” all the time only compounded our confusion at times. I can chuckle about it now, but at the time it was rather more excitement that we wanted. I’m glad my husband, Peter, was able to deal with driving there. :-) ]
The Koala Sanctuary was quite interesting and almost all Aussie animals, which was nice. Better than a zoo and less expensive, though not cheap. Took lots of photos. Saw quite a few things.
[Quite a few of the animal and bird photos I’ve been sharing over the last year in my “Australian Memories” posts were taken at the LPKS.]
Mom and Dad saw the “Birds of Prey” showing and some of us saw a less-than-satisfactory sheep herding demonstration.
[The sheep were so used to the routine it appeared they could’ve done the demonstration without the dog, who was doing a less than great job at his share of the program.]
The rest of us joined them looking at the birds of prey
after watching most of the sheep dog demonstration.
[We took LOTS of water! :-) The second photo was taken by my brother on his camera.]
We ate our picnic lunch in the “sanctuary”, then we split up. Peter and I saw the “roos” and emus and wombats and a few reptiles. Then I was so done in we rested on some benches in the shade while the others looked at those and headed back and got ice cream.
[This is a bit confusing. I think I meant that the others looked at those same things that we’d looked at, or at least they mostly did. We had looked at the monitor lizards and crocodiles, which were outside. I think I was having a touch of heat sickness as it was a very warm day, so when we went into the snake room I couldn’t handle it and we had to come out. It was dark in there and just plain creepy with all those live snakes – even if they were behind glass! We rested because I was feeling overcome by the heat.]
We shopped in the gift shop and got some nice little things to take home for us and as gifts. The others joined us there and Peter and I also got ice cream.
[Hooray for ice cream on a hot Australian afternoon! :-) I really enjoyed it that day! We did take plenty of water, but the sun in Australia is just plain stronger than it is in the U.S. We don’t appreciate the ozone layer enough here.]
We finished up and headed home. The return trip was…less trouble than the one in. We got separated and they actually beat us home, though we’d been leading.
Dan and Clara went out and brought back “fish and chips” for dinner/tea. Peter and I got some raw items with ours that we didn’t expect to be raw! Otherwise it was tasty and another good Aussie tradition. :-)
[That was another surprise that day. We picked out what we wanted from a menu before they went to get the food. We none of us realized that when it said “fresh shrimp” that it wouldn’t be cooked! The oysters were not surprising, but we didn’t expect the shrimp to be raw. I’ve never heard of serving shrimp raw here in the U.S. We didn’t eat the raw things, but my brother Dan cooked them up the next morning for some of them to eat with their breakfast. My nephew asked for the shells from the oysters and was happy to be “gifted” those. I don’t remember if my niece took some of them too or not. The food was very good, though.]
[Sulphur-crested cockatoo. Very noisy birds.]
I finished up with some more comments on the sanctuary:
The koalas were surprisingly smelly animals, but really cute too. The birds and things in cages were hard to photograph, but some were so pretty. We did get some very nice photos of other creatures. The wombats were much larger than Peter expected. We’d been warned that the platypus was quite small, which it was. They were also very active, and in a dark room/tanks. The emus and kangaroos were very tame, but I didn’t avail myself of the chance to pet one. Neither did Peter.
[I’m glad I mentioned the smell of the koalas or I wouldn’t have remembered that. They were really fun to look at. We could’ve had our photos taken with one, but at $20 a pop and not being allowed to take our own photos but only to get the one provided by the park, we decided it wasn’t worth it. I wasn’t sorry later after we saw one koala get angry with another one and “roar” at him/her. They are not always as docile as they look and can be dangerous animals!
The wombats were surprisingly large, but also sleeping, so we didn’t get any good photos of them as we could only see them through glass in poor light and rather unflattering positions.
The platypus was in a darkened room and it was posted not to use flashes in take photos, so it wasn’t possible to get much of anything. I did get a photo of a skeleton display, though, and was surprised that the “beak” is not like a bird’s beak at all, but part of their skeletal system.
Platypus Skeleton
I’m a little sorry I didn’t pet a kangaroo. They were all in an enclosure where people could walk around and “visit” with them and the emus. Well, I guess just being there was adventure enough for me that day, and I didn’t want to have to go wash my hands at the exit sinks I suppose. :-)
Overall it was a very interesting experience and if you ever visit Australia and are going to Brisbane, we would recommend the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. It was worth it for us. Be sure to wear hats and carry water!]
Wearing my husband’s hat and smiling after being refreshed by ice cream!
