Flat Jake in Australia March 8 - March 27, '09

Well, Flat Jake finally made it to Australia. And, here is his adventure so far:

Flat Jake started his adventures February 3 by traveling with his grandma’s friend, Mr. Erv Schmidt, to Hawaii for Mr. Schmidt’s month-long Hawaii vacation. Mr. Schmidt was really suppose to get Flat Jake on his way once they reached the Big Island, but he didn’t leave until Mr. Schmidt left. So, he got a late start on his travels, but he sure enjoyed Hawaii. Mr. Schmidt mailed him on to Australia on March 3, when he was flying home to St. Louis.

Flat Jake arrived in Australia and got busy visiting the Browning Family on the farm at Agery, Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. The Browning family crops approx 3000acres with wheat, barley, peas, canola, lentils & oats each year. They also raise some sheep primarily to sell the lambs and also make some money on the wool. They are mainly merino crossbreds.

The Browning family consists of Paul & Tracey & three children, Emma nearly 16 yrs, Nicholas 13yrs & Sarah 10yrs old. Both Nicholas & Sarah attend Harvest Christian School in Kadina and catch a school bus everyday out in front of our house. Emma stays and boards in Adelaide (which is South Australia’s capital city) and attends a school down there in preparation for university.

The first photo of Flat Jake is in Sarah’s Yr 5 classroom. Sarah’s school is a multi-denominational Christian school, and they have lovely small class sizes! Some of these children are keen to write some notes to regular Jake, & Mrs. Browning will post them off (mail them) once she gets them. FJ is also taking a look in our front office at our wonderful triptych quilt that Mrs Browning designed & lots of mums assisted to make over a 12 month period for the school. After this, he had a good look at one of our school buses that transport some of our children over 120km (about 75 miles – 1 kilometer = .621371191 miles) one way to come to school each day. Luckily, Sarah & Nicholas only have 40min each trip on the bus as they lives only 26km (about 16 miles) from Kadina & school.

Next, whilst Nicholas was at his guitar lesson after school, Sarah & FJ went down to the “jetty” in Wallaroo. A “jetty” is “Australian” for what we call a pier here in the states. And a pier is like a bridge to “nowhere.” The “jetty” in the pictures can take trucks, people, etc., to get to the ships that pull up alongside to be loaded with grain from the silos. (Also, you can see the jetty and the silo’s in Mrs. Browning’s triptych* quilt if you look close.) Mostly recreational fishermen are on there. There is also a fenced area closer to shore that is used for the local swimming pool. It is fenced for safety for the swimmers with all the boats & equipment that is also in this area.

You can see the big silos in the background which is where the Brownings deliver all their grain. Wallaroo is a major port that big ships come into to be loaded with grain. They then sail to lots of countries to deliver the grain to people for food & production of other things. The Brownings are lucky that they are not too far from the port to deliver their grain in their own big semi trucks each year.

Not too far from the jetty & silos there is a really beautiful beach that we can drive down onto to go swimming & playing. Last weekend this beach had thousands of people there having a big Beach Day Out festival with fun rides, volleyball games, & cricket games to raise money for the “Make-a-Wish Foundation” for kids. Flat Jake has his “swimmers” on with Sarah, but it was a little cold today for a swim.

We had to get home quickly after this as Paul (the Dad) had to be driven home from Kadina to collect one of our tractors that we use for spraying our fields. We left a vehicle at a property near Kadina so that he could get home after dark later. Flat Jake is inspecting this tractor & even tried to drive it!! Nicholas is supervising in the seat and explaining all the little silos that you can see as they hold all the different types of grain that we use to seed our crops. We are currently just controlling any weeds that are trying to grow & waiting for some opening rains so that we can sow our crops for this year. They are usually sown around April and May and grow over our winter through to September. Winter in Australia is when summer is in St. Louis. Harvest time can start as early as October after we cut & make hay as well. Then we are finished in December when our summer starts. Yes, summer starts in December “down under” in Australia.

After this, Sarah & Nicholas went playing in their haystacks behind their house. Sarah’s cat, GUS, is a ginger cat that is never far behind Sarah ever. He even sees her off on the bus every morning and is there to greet her and Nicholas when they get home at night. He was down there too to say hello to Flat Jake. The Brownings make the big round bales of hay to keep for feeding the sheep in the summertime when there is no feed in the fields as well as some small rectangle bales that are easy to sell and transport to gardens & horse lovers.

Nicholas loves riding his bike and his motorbike as well. Flat Jake got close up whilst Nicholas was going over one of his home made jumps behind his house. Inside Sarah decided to teach FJ how to play the organ. You can see where she has made it easier with the names of the notes! Lastly FJ got to jump around whilst Nicholas was practicing on his electric guitar! He did look funny in those strings whilst Nicholas was playing.

Now Flat Jake is going for another long trip – over 2300km (1,426 miles) north of here to Queensland. It is a lot warmer up there as well.

* I asked Tracey to explain her beautiful triptych quilt creation further. This was her reply:

Our School Community! This 3 part textile mural was designed by me to be displayed in our new administration building, to represent our history & foresight in creating a Christian run & controlled school in our local town. The first panel is representing the different backgrounds our school community is drawn on. Agriculture with cropping, animals, fishing industry, mining industry, olives and farm house & yard. The silos, railway line and a motorcross track! The second panel focuses on our school logo & motto. Our heritage is detailed in accurate reproductions of local buildings and festivals (Maypole at our Kernewek Lowender-Cornish Festival). Also our school oval extends to this panel showing the variety of sports that are represented & our 'house' colours and names. The final third panel is our school and subjects that are covered. The children are dressed in our school uniforms and our pride & joy, the school bus is also featured. The 3 dimensional tree & leaves are representative of God's arms sheltering our school & children. We even have ants & ladybugs on the trunk of the tree, along with many 3 dimensional gum leaves. This quilt was achieved in one year of hard work from a great number of mums who participated! Many had not even had any experience in creating patchwork, but were willing to be involved & learn.

Thank you, Tracey Browning, and your family for hosting Flat Jake!! He had such fun visiting with all of you and learning so much of your country, community, home, businesses, and school plus even playing on the beach.

Please check out my webshots for the pics of his adventures. If I've done something incorrectly, please let me know so that I can correct what I've done. I'm new to this, ya know.