Good King Wenceslas

How to celebrate Boxing Day.

One of the suggestions is to attend a sporting event. There's one happening this week: The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. But, I digress.








The short version is that Boxing Day is associated with the feast of St. Stephen.


Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even
Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cruel
When a poor man came in sight
Gath'ring winter fuel

Although, there's plenty of sunlight at this time of year here, I'm remembering my favorite solstice hymn:

Time to welcome the darkness
and, know it's the seed of light.
Time to know that the brightest morning
begins with the darkest night.

Here's hope for a peaceful new year. Happy holidays to all.

Wallabies, wombats, and devils

We had a fun time at Bonorong Park a few weekends back. It's a wildlife park where you can feed the wallabies and small kangaroos. The ranger gave a really good talk and demonstration with a wombat and a Tasmanian Devil. Also, he brought out a koala, perched it in a branch, and fed it some eucalyptus. Koalas are not native to Tasmania, so I was glad that they had some to see up close.


Lots of my pictures here. Let me know if you need the password.

We're heading over to the kids' house later today for a sausage sizzle, tea with the wonderful neighbors, and overnight to wake up xmas morning. Then, on Monday it's Boxing Day when some music buddies from the New Sydney Pub are throwing their annual bash. Translation: 5 minutes of eating and 6 hours of jamming. :-)

Hobart Old Time Stringband

The HOT Stringband, or subgroup of, gets most of my fiddling attention these days. Once a week on Thursdays they have a round robin jam or rehearsal for upcoming performances. I got to know them a bit, jammed on the side with founder Fred a few times and chatted with him about putting together some cross tuning workshops when the cold weather returns again. (You know: 'our winter, your summer'.)

Anyway, after getting a feeling for who was jamming when around here, I decided to call some Appalachian old timey jams on Saturdays at noon. I announce it over a list-serve that is administered by the Tasmania Folk Federation, a great resource for finding dances, concerts, jams, and all things folkie. I announce it as Appalachian old time, and publish some links to educate folks about the genre. Haven't had anyone show up wanting to play hard core bluegrass or cowtown tunes yet. I chose Sat. at noon because that is a few hours before some other Saturday jams, and I figured I might get some interest. Yes, indeedy, there's been a steady crew of about 5 people who want to learn more tunes and techniques. We meet at an outdoor location, near the Salamanca market when the weather's nice, and at the Lark Distillery when it's rainy.

[Side story: My umbrella was mangled to bits by a gusty gale. I was walking with some folks from the outdoor venue to the Lark, and I had just announced "Look at the American with her umbrella in a windstorm!" when a good gust turned my umbrella inside out, sideways, and backwards. Now I understand why real Hobartians eschew 'brellies'. They are really useless when there is both rain and wind. Folks tell stories of seeing dustbins full of umbrellas after windy storms. :-) From here on in, it's just me and my rain coat walking to the Lark on rainy days.]

I've recorded some northeast U.S. festival tunes on CDs (loving my Mac) and passed out my tune list to the folks who show up at the OT jam. Also, being without a car, I give some CDs to folks who've been nice enough to cart me around. If you'd like a copy of the tune list and need the password, just drop me a line.

The HOT Stringband have been gearing up for performances at the Cygnet folk festival and the Tamar Valley folk festival. So, Thursdays have been more rehearsals than jams. But, in getting to know them, there have been opportunities to do all sort of other things.

They had a holiday party at a member's home about 30 miles to the south of Hobart. We had great fun jamming. They wanted to play more new tunes and more new tunes. They tend to call them 'American tunes' in juxtaposition to the traditional Aussie tunes. I am careful to call some Aussie tunes from time to time and not monopolize the jams with my overbearing OT emphasis. But, as one of them said 'We're like little sponges!' and they just kept calling the southern US tunes.









Towards evening, though, they switched gears and a guy with a guitar played a whole bunch of traditional sheep shearing tunes.



Another outcropping from the HOT Stringband - Fred suggested that the women from the Thursday group do a set at the festivals. So, we've been having some side rehearsals. They wanted to learn some new tunes so we've settled on Emily's Waltz, Shoes and Stockings, and Ruffled Drawers. We got to trying on some other waltzes, and I wouldn't be surprised if we got around to having some waltz jams at some date. And, there was some talk of the 'Hobart Women's Waltz Ensemble'. We'll see. As long as the gals were learning new tunes, I started calling them at the Thursday night sessions, and guys are learning them, too. They had a little trouble remember the names at first, and so now the tunes are jokingly called "Fluffy Knickers" and "Boots and Socks".

Since the Cygnet and Tamar festivals happen 2 weekends in a row in January, we decided to rent a campervan and spend the week in between exploring around Tasmania. Cygnet is a small hippie village, south of Hobart. The Tamar Valley is in North central Tasmania. So, we'll see a little of the south and a little of the north.

Upcoming, in February, we'll fly to the mainland for an OT gathering near Melbourne. Sounds a bit like our Black Creek, Harry Smith, and Lake Genero gatherings in the states. Then, off to New Zealand until Easter, when we'll return to the National Folk Festival in Canberra. Then, back to Hobart in late April. Music sure is a great way to meet folks, eh?

If you're considering a visit, think about joining us at any of these festivals. After Easter it will start to get colder and damper, and we'll certainly welcome company then, but it might be a little more low key, indoors, bundled up, kind of experience. And, now you know to leave your umbrellas home.

Tasmanian music scene

I've been wanting to post about all the great music that I've been able to dabble at here. But, I've been so busy dabbling, that I haven't gotten to it yet. So, I should probably chip away at it bit by bit. Let's start with a description of what traditional Tasmanian music is like. This site is by one of the directors of a group that has let me tag along. They are mostly teenagers. The directors are professional music teachers and I feel like I get a good lesson each time I rehearse with them.

Southern hemisphere astronomy

Liz mentioned that she thought she saw Orion a few weeks back. So, when we were on Bruny Island, we took advantage of the total darkness and took a star gazing walk. Turns out, you can see Orion here. Upside down (according to a northern hemisphere orientation). We looked closely and sure enough, the 'sword' is hanging upwards in the sky.

I went looking for more info and found a ton. Some really cool links to photos of auroras, like northern lights. And, folks talk about seeing satellites with binoculars. I'll have to head up to the roof more often when it's clear. Not long after we first arrived, I saw a mammoth shooting star out of our kitchen window. Read reports from Germany, Scandinavia, and Japan of similar sightings. Apparently a meteor shower with some big debris was passing by. Don't get me started about UFO's.

And, I have to mention that each time we speak of Orion, we recall a story that we heard a long way back from Jay Goldspinner, the chorus of which goes "Hippolyte - Queen of the Amazons!" Heralding back to the days when the constellation that is known as Orion nowadays went by a different name. So, we pointed to the sky and chanted her name that in the dark night on Bruny Island, but I pretended to stand on my head.

:-)

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

These are a few of my favorite things.

Everyone has an electric tea kettle, or some version of an appliance that heats water super fast. Places like church halls have taps on the wall that dispense boiling water for tea, instant coffee, or Milo. I spend time in church halls with my musician peeps when we rehearse and play for dances. There's a nice routine whereby the people at the Thursday night session take a break and have a hot drink and biscuits (cookies) and actually talk with each other. I get a kick out of sampling different biscuits each week.



Our kitchen sink is designed just perfectly. There's an upper shelf that has a drain in it. So, there's no bother about dishes dripping in the drainer.

I asked Liz this evening if she missed having a dish washer. She reckoned it was no big deal, because we only have about 4 dishes. Ha. Ha. Well, we have a few more than that. But, I reckoned that without coming home tired after a work day, taking a few moments to wash a few dishes is a fine trade off to having a dishwasher. And, then, we have this sink with an extra drain right where it's needed.

I know. I know. Some of you are probably saying, "Oh, sheesh. This is like when she wrote about buying socks!" Well, yeah, but it's one of those things that I'd like to share.

I could've sworn the water went clockwise this evening, after I did the dishes. I'll have to look into that.



The last flight of stairs in our apartment building goes up to the roof. I've been playing my fiddle up there lately. It's higher than most of the neighboring buildings. And, a few of the buildings are not residential, so I don't worry very much about disturbing anyone's peace. There is this nice reminder that the first step is a doozy coming back down, though.



Anna really likes to come visit. Sometimes we bring her up for lunch when we're out running some errands. We have no high chair or booster seat, so she gets to sit at the table like a big girl. She acts all pleased with herself, and is extra careful not to sling stuff around.



And, on this day, she came up to the roof while I hung out some laundry. Aussie translation: Pegged up the wash. Yes, that's me with the clothes pins and do-rag. Just call me Mrs. Lukacko.

Average age of Tassie cars = 12 years

Look at this handy work.



Some old Citroens around.



More on forest activism in Tasmania. The bright green triangle is a symbol of the Green Party which is very active here.



Here's a hybrid itsy-bitsy-SUV.