Do You Love Your Country?

[lynn]

She lives in Berwick, BR. I wish I could remember the name of these birds that walk right up on her patio. They are huge, black birds....she laughed because they seemed so personable! And they looked it too! LOL

That is truly my dh's dream vacation. Thank you for that link, BR. I have bookmarked it to share with him later. hugs to you!

MV, we have those nasty copperheads too. Although I am 42, I have never seen one my entire life. As for spiders, yep, my dh became very sick this past summer due to a spider bite. Very nasty indeed. I live about 2 hours from the beautiful gulf of Mexico. We've seen some small sharks there....and lots of jellyfish. We visit St. George Island frequently, the national park area. I love it there, but my dh does not. lol He is a native Floridian and says he wouldn't care if it fell off the map! He hasn't considered that area to be his "home" for many many years.

Thank you both for sharing about your beautiful countries.

[lucie]

Linda, my grandfather lived 30 years in Hamilton in Ontario! He died in his home 10 years ago. I liked Hamilton also!

Well, I sure do love my country! I love living in Canada and I feel safe here. I would love one day to cross the whole country and see all the provinces.... I don't think I would like to live elsewhere...not that the US or other countries aren't nice but I was born here and feel like I belong here. But if I had to move somewhere I would like to move to the US but it would have to be where there is snow in the winter and more in the rural areas.

Oh and I would love to visit all the countries in Europe...and Australia and New Zealand....but I am VERY scared of flying in a plane! My poor husbaand---he works in airplanes and loves to travel and dreams of traveling....I better do something about my problem of flying....or maybe I'll just take a few sleeping pills if I ever do get in an airplane... lol

[braided-rug]

I suffered from travel sickness when I was a child. So when I came back on this small plane from Sydney to Albury NSW which is about an hours flight or less, I took it a travel sickness tablet. They were called Travelcalm which annoyed me, but I was 100% better on the way back.

Berwick I have heard of, I think it is a very nice place, or that is my impression.

Our town was on TV yesterday, they went to alot of trouble with the filming. They took film of the rodeo and the snow capped mountains, it was very nice and even recited The Man From Snowy River poem, one of my favorite actors did it.

On my Great Great Grandfather's marriage certificate it says that he lived in Florence Ontario once so my dh drove out there from Toronto to take photos for me. He missed out on going to the other side of Buffalo to see the Falls. The photos are really nice. He loved going to a town called St. Jacobs another day. The customs people were worried we was going to try to stay as he had been to the States and Canada twice in a row very close together.

Canada is very livable I think, but would have trouble knowing what to do in the cold weather. I don't know if you guys realise, but the nicest thing I find about your countries is the weatherboard houses or clapboard houses, they are very cute.

I live 5 1/2 hours from Berwick I think.

I was really happy my son coped with his flight to China and all the travelling. It would be very hard to see your child on the other side of the world in distress. I was super glad the teacher was such a nice person.

[braided-rug]

Oh, Lynn, you may mean magpies, they are just the cutest birds. Does anyone watch Bananas in Pyjamas kids show? There is a magpie on that as it is an Australian show that was an offshot to Playschool with my favorite doll Jemima on it.

I am very glad my dh grew up near the sea about an hour from Berwick to the West around the bay. Because I don't know which things are poisonous when we take the kids there. It is hard to get to the sea from the North East but we get there when we can. Our daughter is going to Tathra in NSW in a few weeks to a camp. I think I will be packing two kids at once, one for college, but hopefully it falls on different days.

I know rays or sharks sting, but they make nice eating.

I'm sorry your husband got that spider bite Lynn, that would be terrible, a worry. We found a giant dead white tipped spider in the water tank of our little inside water airconditioner this week. They come out on the really hot nights, I don't remember seeing them when I was a child.

[braided-rug]

I have lived all around this area on the map on the link

www.legendswinehighcountry.info/

I live closer now to some beautiful places in the neighbouring State.

www.snowymountains.com.au/Snowy_Hydro.html

One of those huge pipes are only a short distance from my home.

[lynn]

BR, I love that movie, "Man From Snowy River". I watched another one on TV not too long ago about a woman who had several children and moved to Australia and was waiting on her husband to join her and the family. Seems like he was in the states supposedly finishing up some business. After a lengthy wait and many trying conditions, he did not join them...have you ever seen this one? It was very good. I wish I could remember the name of it.

The photos G has mailed me of Berwick are very very pretty. Especially of a park near her home. Very nice. Bananas in Pajamas!!! I loved that show too!!! One of my children, the middle one, if I remember correctly, loved that show. Every time he would hear the bananas sing, he'd get up and dance around...so cute....he'd kill me if he knew I shared that with anybody!! LOL

And opals! One of my fav stones....my birthstone as a matter of fact...do you live near any of the mines?

They may have been magpies. They were big sized birds with huge beaks.

Is Jemima like our Raggedy Ann?

[violet]

Lynn, I've a friend who lives in Berwick, also one of the ladies I volunteered with last year lives in a retirement village there. I didn't think there'd be many snakes around anymore as it's quite built up now, they've been subdividing it for the last 20 years. It's very pretty, a bit village-y.

Both Lynn and Br, Emily was bitten by a white-tail spider at a local park. It took 6 months to heal and now, 6 years later, she still has a series of little white dot-like scars over a six-inch area on her back.

I'd agree with Br that the birds would be Magpies. We have them here too and they sing in the mornings, I love it. There was one on our back deck a couple of weeks ago when dh was out there. He grabbed a piece of bread and sat quietly with his hand outstretched, and to his surprise the bird came and gently took it. The only downside to Magpies is that in spring, when they're nesting, they'll swoop at your head and can cause some quite nasty injuries......sorry lynn!!

[lynn]

I think I could manage the birds...lol but not those nasty snakes. And I do realize that most of the snakes would be in the outback....but wouldn't you know it, that IS exactly where my dh would want to be??

Oh poor Emily...bless her little heart. I know that must have been very painful for her to endure. My dh was bitten in July. He ran fever and had these gruesome looking streaks running down his leg...he too, still has a scar.

[braided-rug]

LOL Miss Violet. I have been out in the shed with dh debating whether to tell Lynn that or not.

Your friend will have to try feeding one Lynn. People train them to take food from their backyards I think. DH's cousin had one like that when they lived up here, or north of Albury.

I haven't been "swooped" thank goodness I wouldn't like it very much, but I saw one boy get swooped on this bike near a paddock near school last spring. The sound magpies make is very nice and the babies are darlings.

Lynn, if you can ask your ds if he remembers Maggie from the show, I don't know how you could bring it up, well I mentioned it first so it would be OK, she made the sound MV was describing.

I am going back to the link your dh would like Lynn.

Lucie, have looked at our Walmart map. Hamilton is on the road to Niagra. We have a few photos of Ontario, they put themselves out to go to a Blue Jays game.

DH went nearly all the way to Detroit. Then went back to take his workmate and friend to St. Jacobs as he saw a brochure. I loved it because I was interested in Amish.

I do get jealous of Lucie and Heather, so maybe Canada is somewhere I would like to go.

I do remember seeing KY on TV and thinking how idyllic it is. They did discuss lack of work at the time and the mines. Still it looked lovely to me.

If anyone is watching DVDs of Little House On The Prairie which is filmed in California instead of MN, take note of the track that leads up to the farmhouse. It is in alot of shots. That so much reminds me of my childhood, it could be the tracks around our family farm. I spent time going along them, as our farm was made up of farms we bought from others so there were tracks between them.

[braided-rug]

MV is Berwick one of those lovely Melbourne suburbs that has a country feel? I must go check maps again!

No wonder I am not familiar with it, it is sort of on the Princess Highway.

Has your friend been on the Puffing Billy Lynn?

I want to go there as a train that went to a nearby town where I grew up on the farm was taken there to keep, called the Spirit of Salts.

My husband loves Sth. Gippsland.

We lived on the northern outskirts of Melbourne in 2003, it was fun.

[braided-rug]

MV that must have been terrible for Emily, white tipped spiders are very awful.

Let me know what dh wants to see Lynn, we are in a remote area, maybe there is something here that would interest him. Once you go over the border the country opens out to wide spaces, that is only 5 minutes away.

The snakes have seasons, a few weeks in autumn and spring mostly. People keep grass short everywhere so that helps.

One thing we like here is the parrots.

The Man From Snowy River was filmed at Mansfield. The Man From Snowy is buried in our town and they have a festival every year to celebrate him. He actually lived near here rather than Mansfield. The blue color of the mountains is the same. I grew up with those, and I know you have them too, and I had missed the blue of the mountains. We have a view of one out the front of our house now.

[braided-rug]

I apologise for my memory today girls.

Jemima is a rag doll like Raggedy Ann. She has a smaller head with brown or black straight hair in pigtails with a ribbon each side. She is dressed mainly in yellow overalls and a blue gingham shirt. She has a nice smile like Raggedy Ann. I have a thread about her, I wish she was in my hand like Raggedy Ann, they are more alike than I thought.

A couple of days ago dh found a video of Raggedy Ann at goodwill and brought it home.

I read the books when I was young and bought them again 3 years ago on ebay.

Did you read them Lynn?

dd12 read what I wrote. She made up her bed this morning and put her new Raggedy Ann quilt over it, I have just been to inspect, looks good.

[violet]

Br Berwick was a country town but is being steadily developed. Melbourne is creeping outwards!

Now what can we say to Lynn, apart from buy some nice, high, solid hiking boots, to convince her to come to Australia? When I landed here in 1973 I was overwhelmed by the blueness of the sky, it was beautiful. Then again, we'd come from LA!

I always thought it was a bit like the States but sparsely populated, and drier, but that's nearer where I live. In the warmer areas there are some magnificent beaches. The sand is white, fine, and the ocean looks vast.

An area I love is northern NSW, very lush country, with gorgeous beaches, pretty towns, very laid back. Most Americans seem to like it here because it's different, but not THAT different, in terms of day to day life. Maybe a bit behind you all.

[braided-rug]

cgi.ebay.com.au/RAGGEDY-ANN-10-removable-wall-stickers-2-sheets_W0QQitemZ7736884816QQcategoryZ37635QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Here is a picture of the quilt on the bottom right. DD is thinking of getting more books and some stickers for her wall.

What I noticed in Victoria and especially the town I came from is that we try very hard to be up with things like the States. But in reality the States has places that are behind, not sure which town I am thinking of though.

[braided-rug]

Here is a magpie picture, they look cuter walking around on the grass.

www.calm.wa.gov.au/plants_animals/bird_magpie.html

The man from snowy river scene is at Craig's Hut. It is a daytrip up the Maroonda Highway from Berwick I think.

www.highcountryscenictours.com.au/

So Lynn I have it all planned out, morning tea with MV after the airport, Berwick and Craig's Hut in a 4x4 so you don't have to get out of the car. Now to get you to my place!