Riding on the sheep's back

Over at Getting Stitched on the Farm, Kristin is talking about shearing the sheep.

So, Miss Eagle thought, I will talk about sheep and shearing in Australia.

Somewhere, sometime, during the last fifty years, Australia ceased riding on the sheep's back.

This was the phrase which highlighted Australia's economic dependence on wool.

This was the phrase which highlighted our interest in the price of wool.

To-day, it's sharemarket prices and not the price of wool that captures the nation's attention.

Miss Eagle recently spotted this beautiful merino on a gate in Dunkeld in western Victoria.

Did the owners make their golden pile from the sheep's back?
From beautiful flocks like this one, near Dunkeld.

Grazing sheep near Broken Hill in New South Wales is different from grazing in Victoria.
The desert, the rocky outcrops of the Barrier Range.
These pictures were taken in August 2006 at The Nine Mile.

The above collage shows the homestead.

Greg and Mia, the owners, are drafting sheep prior to sale.
They are assisted by Greg's father, John.


This ancient shearing shed is at Acacia Vale now part of The Nine Mile.


This is the interior...
the shearer's stands...
natural light...
the sorting table...


the pens...
another view of the pens...
the view from the shearing shed...
stencils hanging on the wall waiting for use on a wool pack...
the wool press...

The trough filled with artesian water.

Amazing grace and curious wainscotting

Miss Eagle went to a preview screening of Amazing Grace last night. I talk about it over here. At Q & A time with the Panel, one gentleman started to get picky about historical inaccuracies and had to be reminded - indeed, the reminders came from the audience - that it was, after all, a movie and there was a disclaimer in the credits explaining that there was some fictionalisation and some reworking of events for dramatic content.

Miss E's view is that she may have liked things a little better had it been a Merchant Ivory production. Not that there were not some good film settings of historic interest.

But you see, a few months ago Miss E picked up an interesting book at City Basement Books: Saints in Politics: the 'Clapham Sect' and the growth of freedom. Miss E thinks it would have been rather nice to see in the movie the following depicted in a nice Merchant Ivory sort of way:

After Henry [Thornton, Wilberforce's cousin] had married, his house at Clapham was the chosen meetng place of the broherhood, and his famous library, designed by Pitt, oval in shape, and "curiously wainscotted with books" became the G.H.Q. of the Clapham campaigns.

Now, dear Booklover, don't you get carried away into a wonderful imaginary place with that phrase - "curiously wainscotted with books". The Library was designed by a Prime Minister of England, William Pitt the Younger. Surely the house still exists. And, if so, surely The Library must exist.

Well, your correspondent did a search. Miss Eagle has found reference to the house which is now known as Battersea Rise House. There is even mention of The Library:

The Oval Library built in 1797 was reputably designed by William Pitt.

Such images as I can find of the house are poor quality. I can find reference to a photograph of a drawing of The Oval Library. But I would love to have seen it - if not the real thing, then a reconstruction of a magical place - so curiously wainscotted with books.

The Glitter Fairy casts her spell.

Herself has gone all a-glitter. She has fallen under the spell of the Glitter Fairy. Miss Eagle may have to watch out - if she stands still for too long it will be a spot of glue and a sprinkle of glitter!

Herself had previously painted the A, B, and C this lovely warm pink. The paint had been on a special at the paint shop.

I had picked up some sprinkly glitter at the last visit to the craft shop.

So, this afternoon was glue and glitter time.

Here they are. All done and all a-glitter.

And then they made their way into the styling of this corner!

Arty-farty festing in Melbourne

It's on again. The program has arrived.

The Melbourne International Arts Festival from 11-27 October.

So much pouring over.

Much figuring. What can the credit card bear?

BTW, love this Visit Victoria ad.

As readers of this blog will be aware, Miss E loves Melbourne's lanes.

Highest on my list of must-sees is The Temptation of Saint Anthony. This is a musical theatre collaboration by Robert Wilson and Bernice Johnson Reagon (we all know her from Sweet Honey in the Rock) inspired by the text of Gustave Flaubert. Reagon's daughter Toshi Reagon will be a significant presence at the festival. Not only in The Temptation but also with her own band BIGLovely.

Snow snapping cold

Can I have what he's having?

John So, Lord Mayor of Melbourne in a traditional Wurundjeri possum-skin cloak (Jiawei Shen, 2005 Archibald Prize Finalist)

In south-eastern Australia, where winters can be very cold, Aboriginal people kept warm with possum-skin cloaks. Check out this ancient craft here. After a life-time in tropical and sub-tropical climes, Miss Eagle still feels the cold in Melbourne even though this is her third winter here. So she could really, truly do with a possum skin cloak.

Forest Glade Cottage, Olinda : St Matthew's Anglican Church, Mount Dandenong


Will this be what it will be like up the road in The Dandenongs this afternoon? Last night, here at Upper Gully, it was like sleeping in a wind tunnel. Cocooned from wind with an electric blanket, a doona, a minky, a Rose and a FootFoot maybe - but oh the howling, noisy wind.

A little while ago it started to rain.

The Age carries this story. They are calling it a cold snap! What do they think we have been having for the last ten days! A fortnight ago from last Friday this was the scene as I breakfasted beside Lake Wendouree. My weekend in Ballarat was oh-so-cold. But here is the picture in The Age to-day just a short step away from my breakfast place:

Brrrrrrrrr!

To-day is another cold/showery/cloudy winter's day in Melbourne and my SAD (seasonal affective disorder) has been responding in its usual way with graduated and increasing intensity all week.

But there is a bright spot this afternoon. My favourite movie of my favourite male star is playing: Cool Hand Luke (made in 1967) with Paul Newman.

What is always of interest in watching old movies or TV programs is to see who was just starting out then and later became a more well known 'name'. Cool Hand Luke is no exception:

Wayne Rogers - five years after this he would become well-known in our homes and hearts as "Trapper John" McIntyre in MASH.

Joe Don Baker - who first came to my attention in the wonderful British drama/mini-series, Edge of Darkness.(1985)

Ralph Waite - who we watched for years and years as the wise and wonderful John Walton Sr in The Waltons.

The ubiquitous Dennis Hopper who was well on his way before this movie.

The big surprise, though, for me was Harry Dean Stanton.

In Cool Hand Luke, Stanton is arguably the best groomed prisoner on a chain gang in the dusty Deep South that one could ever see. He sings "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" while accompanying himself on the guitar. Almost five decades later, we know him in another role with religious overtones as the lecherous, sleazy, corrupt Prophet Roman Grant in Big Love, that story of down-home polygamy in Mormon Utah. If you haven't caught up with this series, tune into SBS on Sunday nights at 8.30pm.

Show and Tell Friday: Wedgwood

OK, OK, I am awake and I do know it's Saturday morning here in Oz but I figure I can still do my bit for Friday's Show and Tell because for Kelli - who hosts it - it is still Friday in Texas, USA. And as Knox City Queen of the Hard Rubbish, Miss Eagle has to say that Kelli's curbside baker's stand is a find. Would love to find one on a curb in my neighbourhood.

This beautiful Wedgwood fruit bowl has been in my possession for more than three decades.

As a young mum living in Toowoomba, Queensland, I used to haunt auction sales.

One auctioneer held regular sales in his own rooms.

There, behind his counter, and along a wall would be "The Sundries".

The Sundries were magic boxes full of heaven knows what.

They could be filled with useful odds and sods

or you might, as I did in this case, find buried treasure.

Then once having found the treasure you would hold your breath and hope that no-one else discovered or wanted your buried treasure.

On this day, no-one had discovered and/or wanted what I treasured.

I paid $2 for my box.

I think there were other useful things in the box but they have faded away in my memory.

This, for someone who did not have much money to spend, was an affordable wonder.

Herself has been styling corners again and this corner includes the fruit bowl full of ornamental glittered pears.

Are you a New Victorian? And a crafty one at that..?

http://www.victorianamagazine.com/

One of the most enjoyable things in my life are the yummy mummy crafty blogs. Quite a few can be found on my sidebar and I have even more in my FeedDemon. These women amaze me. They have husbands and kids to care for. Give or take maternity leave, they have some form of participation in the paid economy. They blog. And they cook and craft. How do they do it? Whether the yummy mummy is a working from home architect or a creative spirit building up work and a portfolio of design, they are admirable.

Now dear yummy mummies, draw close.
Miss Eagle has a question for you.
Are you a New Victorian?

The Gen-X style, the Sex and the City style, seem - according to Lizzy Rattner - to be going by the board. They are old hat. Still seems, though, that the idea is "to have it all" but it is well planned. And this quote Miss E found interesting:

From the time they were tykes, New Victorians have been bred to ace exams, master extracurricular activities, land a coveted spot at a prestigious college, and then go forth into the world, ready to achieve. “This generation has been more strategically educated than any other generation,” said Mike Sciola, the Director of the Career Resource Center at Wesleyan University.

Mmm......perhaps this is what we are seeing in Australia as parents across the socio-economic scale flock to private schools if they can rustle up the readies?

This phenomenon is pretty amazing to Miss E too. While she could be said to be privately educated - just the local convent school full of working-class Irish Catholic kids - and while she might frequently plead gender discrimination in education and opportunity, the fact is neither boys nor girls in Miss E's neighbourhoods were strategically educated. In fact, in Miss E's home town one did not have all twelve years of education available. In the whole of North Queensland there was not one university. One technical high school in Townsville. Trade apprentices had to go away in blocks of study periods. No government seemed to think of investing huge amounts of money in the education of North Queensland kids in Miss E's generation.

Anyway, enough of the 'plaints. Times have changed for most - if not all - of us. But some things remain and there are marvellous clusters of women keeping the feminine traditions of home and hearth on the boil. But what gets me is the craft.

Once upon a time, craft and associated skills were part of the domestic skills necessary to feed and clothe one's family and to stretch the domestic budget further. In a time when after-marriage female participation rates in the paid economy were low and there was no television and life had a slower pace, women filled their hours with all manner of craft.

One would have thought that women's craft would have diminished with increased prosperity and the availability of mass-produced goods. One would have thought that increased participation of women of all ages in the paid workforce would have meant virtually no time for craft. But this has not happened.

While there is still an air of thriftiness in what is going on in lots of crafts, other traditional crafts have assumed the status of art forms and may require quite an investment in skills and materials. Simply amazing! And most encouraging to Miss E's simple female heart.

Italianate and lakeside in Ballarat

The one thing I really loved about my recent visit to Ballarat were the houses and the most beautiful collection of houses I found were the houses of Windouree Parade looking across to Lake Windouree. Go here to see them. Of all these beautiful homes, the one I fell in love with was this modern but classic Italianate place. Please excuse Miss Eagle, while she indulges in an orgy of photographs of this glorious, white house.

Where those we love abide...

Tell me, gentle traveller, who hast wandered through the world,

and seen the sweetest roses blow, and brightest gliding rivers -

of all thine eyes have seen, which is the fairest land?

Child, shall I tell thee where Nature is most blest and fair?

It is where those we love abide.

Though that space be small, ample is it above kingdoms;

though it be a desert, through it runs the river of paradise,

and there are the enchanted bowers.

Ibn Ahmed Attar, 14th Century Persia

Away: at Sovereign Hill, Ballarat

Into each life a little life must fall - and Miss Eagle has had more than a little life in the weeks of her absence from this blog. But she is back - with hundreds of pictures! News of her doings is spread across the blogs - 100% of the dear Readers are not necessarily interested in 100% of Miss E's doings.

There is the establishment of Dawn of Life. The organisation of a Prayer Vigil around the UN's Millennium Development Goals, Global Warming, and Make Indigenous Poverty History. The booklet for the PV can be downloaded from The Eagle's Nest and Desert. Eating is discussed here. The Conference I attended at Ballarat will, in due course, be written about at Desert. The tourist photos will appear here at The Trad Pad.

The Conference at Ballarat was preceded by doing the tourist bit - Sovereign Hill, the Gold Museum, the Eureka Centre, and the Fine Art Gallery. The, after the conference, Miss E came home on The Great Tourist Road through the Grampians and The Great Ocean Road.

For those who want to look at all the pictures of Sovereign Hill, you can go here. But if you don't have time for this I have put together themed collages below. Click on the picture to enlarge with the option of opening in a separate tab.

The Animals of Sovereign Hill

The World of Kitchens

Fences and Gates

Warmth and Light

Signs - English and Chinese

Windows and Doors

Happiness is......on your face?

When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness . - Albert Camus

Are you happy? Do you show it? What does your face say? What does your body display? Clive James, Australia's ageing wunderkind, is discussing this phenomenon. Miss Eagle is conscious, as Clive James has been made conscious, of what is conveyed to others.

Some years ago in a certain place of employment, Miss E was engaged in conversation with the singular and quirky Margaret, the cleaning lady. Marg mentioned that she had seen me around before I came to work there and thought how hard-faced I was. Miss E tried not to look shocked as Marg went on to explain that she knew me better now and that was not a true indicator of my personality. Phew! Coz Miss E regards herself as a generally happy, cheerful and optimistic person. But it appears the face may be giving a different opinion.

This reminds me of the one justifiable case of botox injection that I have heard of. This was a woman who had always had frown furrows between her eyes. She had a responsible decision-making position and realised she had to do something when, after she had read a business document, she was queried about why she didn't approve. This was not her view - and she realised how this had been conveyed. The disapproving look of the frown furrows. So to botox she went.

Happiness is much under discussion these days - and so it should be. The happiness of individuals; the happiness of communities and nations; the economics of happiness or the happiness of economics. Academic studies abound. Check here and here. And there is The Happiness Institute. Over here, they say their purpose is formed with the mutual mission to give your mind a peaceful break with a smile on your face. A positive mind is the first step to happiness. This site helps you get on board.

Over at yarnstorm, Jane Brocket often tells us about her happiness guru - and probably everyone elses's - Alain de Boiton.

And...just to get you in the happiness mood here are some quotes. And to put a smile on your dial, pop over to cheezburger!

Time flies - and it's heading out the door!

Over at Pea Soup, Suse has been catching up with us all on what she has been up to. We have missed her - particularly at the meet up which she helped to promote. But she has been busy. Miss Eagle hasn't kept up to date on The Trad Pad because she has been blogging her fingers to the elbow over at The Eagle's Nest. Now don't go there if you are not prepared for a rant and rave of the current affairs variety. This is why Miss E splits up her blogging interests. Not everyone has the same peculiar mix in their head as Miss E. This is why - and also for Miss E's own sanity - she tries to keep The Trad Pad as a rant free zone. You know the sort of thing, dear Reader, a place of prettiness, creativity and calm. Well, Miss Eagle tries.

Miss Eagle has to report, though, that she is feeling a bit chuffed to-night. One of her posts, she discovered in the subscriber edition of Crikey, has been given a mention. Miss E is all a-tingle with this attention and the consequent traffic appearing at The Nest.

But that's not all Miss E has been up to. Parish duties have called. Miss E in collusion with friend Phyllis have established a group for widows and widowers, named Dawn of Life at St Thom's at Upper Gully. Ten of us turned up and had a great morning. Now Miss E is up past her elbows planning a Prayer Vigil in relation to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals for next week and all the while planning and preparing to take off for a few days in Ballarat to-morrow.

A church conference starts Friday - among a distinguished list of speakers, the estimable Veronica Brady will be doing environmental workshops. That woman just doesn't stop. Talk about nuns-a-go-go! What's the betting that Judith Wright will rate a mention? Short odds, Miss E thinks. Miss Eagle will be looking forward to meeting Veronica again. It is nearly six years since they met at the Shared Meanings Conference Retreat in Canberra. Miss E will be toddling off early to Ballarat to see the sights so watch this space next week for photographic evidence after a few days of Miss E being missing in action.

Have you noticed how some of our female blogging friends are into washing lines - different styles, clothing hanging thereon, etc. Suse has had a couple of her pictures used at this blog.

Dancing Leaf Farm is a very pretty blog. Miss E has no intention of trying to keep pace with this indoor/outdoor sport but is compromising with a previously posted picture of The Trad Pad's laundry.

Bewitched in the bleak midwinter at the winter solstice

Yesterday, was a trip ten minutes up the wind-y windy road to Sassafras and the beautiful blue Dandenongs to some lovely jollities. Well, the beautiful blue Dandenongs were not blue. It was the bleak midwinter Dandenongs, the coldest place in Melbourne, at the time of the winter solstice. At the bottom of the hill, Upper Gully was overcast and cloudy but clear. Sassafras was in a shroud of thick pea soup fog. With village shops and Miss Marple's presence in the main street, it could have provided the atmosphere for an Agatha Christie novel.

However, back to the jollities. Miss Eagle was there to meet Brownie of Bwca Dysthymia - who has been sojourning for a few weeks at Kalorama - and that well known amateur thinker, JahTeh of CopperWitch at The House of Coffee who had visited from the Inner East to survey the mountain tops. The conversation was wide ranging, the laughs were plentiful and the getting to know two fellow bloggers a warm and joyful experience. Luvved ya, gals!

And the clever CopperWitch had brought a gift of her own making. This delightful work of art, embroidered in the teeniest, tinyiest stitches mounted on velvet. Note the mounted deep blue gemstones on either side. And all mounted on a beautiful, beribboned cushion.

What a delight!

And, next door to the House of Coffee, at Antiques at Sassafras, Miss Eagle made a purchase. You will recall, dear Reader, Miss E's recent visit to Sassafras. She remarked - and photographed - at the time on the Paris rubber stamps. She resolved on this visit to bring them home with her if they were still available. They were there. Now they are here at the Trad Pad. Herself thinks they are wonderful. Gift wrapping and carding will have a Parisian flavour for quite a while, methinks.

Daydreaming cat

Photo Friday: Dream

Rose the SpartaCat: Daydreaming

Blogging company

I am sitting in the office/work room at the computer. But Miss Eagle has company.

Rose has esconced himself on some wadding on the worktable.

FootFoot is on my lap in front of the computer. Currently he is spread out on my lab with his chin snuggled in the crook of my left elbow. He is alseep and snoring.

A Sunday in Melbourne: Part 2: Bloggers meet

Call Miss Eagle a female chauvinist if you will, but one has to say - aren't women interesting creatures!

Miss Eagle joined a number of other female bloggers in the city this afternoon. Present (and, dear Reader, you will have to find out which was which for your very self) at the meeting were:

• an architect
• a tap dancer
• a printer
• a policy analyst
• a production manager
• a primary teacher
• an ex-librarian (there were two others there as well)
• a public servant
• a community activist

Individual doings included:

• preparing for the imminent birth of a child
• preparing to return to work from maternity leave
• preparing for a photographic exhibition
• crafting all manner of clothes and objects
• devising knitting patterns
• participation in a book club (there was more than one participant)
• preparing art work for the Sacred Space at a local hospital
• designing and printing business cards (more than one)

There were nine of us as can be seen - and that was difficult enough to get to know one another and each other's interests.

Blogs represented (besides Miss Eagle's) were:

• Clementine's shoes
• muppinstuff
• fripperee
• Stomper Girl
• Girl Printer
• soozs
• Only books all the time
• Turning Japanese

A Sunday in Melbourne: Part 1: Brenda Blethyn

Miss Eagle was off to an early start this morning to fit everything into the day ahead. It was the 8am service at St Thom's here at Upper Gully instead of mooching around and doing the 9.30am. Then zooming along the Monash Freeway into Toorak and the Palace Como to preview Brenda Blethyn's movie, Clubland, with Brenda herself doing an interview and Qs&As afterwards.
Clubland is a tour de force for Brenda. If she was starting out on her career, Brenda Blethyn could use this film as a portfolio of her work in various genres - comedy, drama, pathos, sentiment. While Brenda carries this Australian movie, she has a wonderful cast of well-known and experienced Aussies supporting her: Frankie J Holden, Rebecca Gibney, and Phililp Quast. The movie is a showcase, though, for up and coming talents: the fair and beautiful Emma Booth, Katie Wall, the brilliant Khan Chittenden, and do character actors really come as young as Richard Wilson.

This movie is both a passing of age and coming of age movie. Brenda's character, Jean, has seen better days and is trying to reclaim them. Her sons, Tim and Mark, are making their own individual ways to manhood: Tim battling his shyness and Mark grappling with his brain-damaged-at-birth hurdles.

The post-movie interview was conducted in expert fashion by Peter Krausz, Chair of the Australian Film Critics Association.

The director of this movie is Cherie Nowlan who also directed another brilliant rite of passage drama, the multi-award winning mini-series Marking Time, in which Katy Wall (Kelly) had a role. Marking Time is a great favourite of Miss E.