G’day!

I hope this post finds everyone well. We’ve made it through another week or so and are happy to say that for the most part, it’s been a non-eventful stretch. Tim is home, Edie seems to be processing food at a reasonable rate and I’m still kicking. All in all, we’re making it I think. It’s an amazing time of year to be in Queensland right now as the scorching heat of the summer months is over but we’re still enjoying 25-28°C days, the nights are cool now as well. It’s kind of like the perfect September days that we get in Canada where everyone just wants to be outside, but unfortunately are supposed to be in class...I also associate this weather with playing soccer as it was always a fall sport for us…It’s a lovely time of year. We don’t get the fall colours here though, I suppose it doesn’t get cool enough in QLD. They do enjoy a change of colour in the leaves further south though.

Having been through our first full summer in Brisbane (aside from December, when we were in Canada) I must say that I think it’s probably my least favorite season here. It’s pretty dang hot, but that’s not the worst thing. It’s the ants. Yes. Ants. When we first looked at this house to live in back in February ’08, I remember asking the landlord if ants were common in all houses. I come from Canada. Ants should be outside, not inside. In fact (and this might be why I dislike ants so much), when I was younger, the wood providing the foundation for the front sunporch in our house became infested with carpenter ants. You couldn’t tell by looking at the surface, but when we started tearing out the walls the beams were all bored out and there were (I’m sure) thousands of ants just going about their daily business of destroying. Hughhhh, it gives me the willies just thinking about it.

I understand that not all ants make homes in posts and beams, but it’s hard to shake that image of teeming ants just everywhere. In fact, in the summer of 2007, Tim and I noticed (what we thought were) carpenter ants in our kitchen on Wesbett St in Fredericton. There might have been one or two ants/day that we saw there. I was so nervous that they were eating away at the structure of our house that we called an exterminator and paid almost $400 to get rid of them. It turns out that the treatment was not that effective, but removing the kitty treats that had been pushed under the fridge by Tictac our kitty, was. So they weren’t after wood at all, just seafood medley kitty treats. I wish I could get that $400 back. I actually think that had I lived in Australia before living on Wesbett St, I wouldn’t have been so nervous about a couple of ants in the kitchen. There have been hundreds of ants in this house almost everyday this summer, with no way of getting rid of them. The ants we see in our house aren’t carpenter ants though, they’re actually called black house ants (Iridomyrmex glaber) and they’re much smaller. They will clean anything up so if we’ve left any kind of food scraps/crumbs/drippings at all, there will be a long line of ants marching to it by the end of the day if we’re not on top of it. They also will go for the laundry basket if they happen to scout out food on clothing, hence, doing the laundry is a big part of my day. If I happen to find the hole that they entered the house in from (there are lots of holes in Aussie houses) and plug it up, guaranteed they will find a new way in within a day. Actually, I used to be quite diligent in trying to keep them at bay…I’ve now realized that there are many more of them than me and they will find a way no matter how hard I try to keep them out of our stuff. So now we do what we can to keep them out of the important things (like laundry and the pantry) and co-exist with the ones that want to hang out in less important areas. There is actually a group of them who are working on a piece of foam which is located within the strap of a bookbag we brought from Canada. Go to it ants.

So the house ants have become a part of our daily lives, and we more or less co-exist happily. It’s the nasty greenhead ants (Rhytidoponera metallica) that get my goat. They lurk in grass and gardens and they inflict a nasty bite that, I kid you not, can keep you in extreme pain for over an hour. They suck the fun out of being outside pretty quick. I’ve gotten bitten on my feet a number of times and I’ll say that it’s nothing like being stung by a bee…It’s a hundred times worse. And when the pain stops, you get a nice welt that itches like the worst mossie (aussie-speak for mosquito) bite you’ve ever had for 3-4 days non-stop. Greenhead ants have no redeeming qualities in my books. Last week I was bit on the knees 3 times and I’m just getting over the itchy welts (see picture, mind the knobby knees). Grrr. After reading up on greenhead ants, I’ve learned that it’s not their bite that is so painful, it’s the stuff they spray onto the wound from their abdomen after biting. Not cool. Try to avoid them when you come and visit us!

So, our Saturdays of late have been spent at various soccer pitches (which the Aussies call ovals) for my league games. Edie and Tim have been faithful followers despite our teams’ poor standing (we’re 2 and 4 now). I’m working on making games more fun to come to by winning. Here’s hoping. Our season lasts until the end of September, so we’ve got lots of time to turn on the jets. Our major hurdle is the fact that the team itself has moved into a higher division this season, where for years prior we were on top of the division two standings, we’re now at the bottom of division one due to this move. It’s quite a mixed bag of girls, probably the most unique group I’ve ever met, but it’s fun. Overall though, women’s sport in Australia is sadly unsupported. My first taste was going to buy cleats at a sports megastore. The store carried probably 60 different styles/brands of men’s cleats and 4 women’s, and only 2 of those women’s came in my size. I’m not that much of an anomaly, I’ve got big feet I know, but I know lots of girls that play soccer who’ve got bigger feet than me. It seems that despite the fact that lots of girls do play sports, there really isn’t a big push for stores to carry women’s gear. I didn’t realize that we’d had it so good in Canada. It may speak to a larger phenomenon of general chauvinism here in Australia, but I’m not equipped to support my niggling suspicions with empirical data so I’ll leave that one alone for now.

Edie’s turned a corner on the sleep thing, cross our fingers…Tim and I have been holding our breath because she’s actually slept through the entire night for 6 of the past 7 nights. We find ourselves waking up during the night just out of habit, which is a bit weird, but Edie doesn’t seem to be stirring. She’s sure to change things up again soon, but I must say it’s been a nice week. We feel, dare I say, almost normal. And she’s got the crawling thing almost down pat. Just today she’s been working hard on the pike. Now all she has to do is be able to lift those legs at the same time as moving her arms. She gets around either way. Rolling can be quite effective I’ve learned.

We picked up a 2nd hand jogging pram and a new mobile phone for Edie this week. Both will make life easier around here! Oh, and Edie’s new favorite thing is a carrot stick. She loves them. Her former favorite thing, Sophie, has been seen crying giraffe tears ever since carrot entered the scene.

And I’ll leave you with that for this week. Enjoy the pictures and keep in touch.