Okay you cwuddy wabbit, I know you're in there, come on out

We have rabbits at our place. Lots of rabbits. When I walk around our paddock around dusk I see litterally hundreds of the cute little bunnies. Rabbits are a big problem in Australia. English settlers, trying to turn Australia into England, introduced rabbits to the landscape. Only problem was, contrary to England, there was no natural predator so the rabbits did what they do best: they bred like, um, rabbits.

Thing is, rabbit meat is really yummy. So, in my new incarnation as a "gentleman farmer" I've decided to do something about our rabbit infestation while providing good tucker for the family. My solution was to build a trap. Not a leg trap or anything cruel like that but rather what is refered to as a live trap. Besides, I don't want to end up harming any native wildlife (although it would be cool to catch a bandicoot so I can see one close up before releasing it). I based my design on something I found here and this is the end result:


I put the trap out last night but I haven't caught anything yet. Maybe tonight I'll get lucky.

Of course, catching a rabbit is just the first part. Then, you have to, gulp, kill the cute little fella and then skin and clean him. I've only ever killed bugs, fish and when I was about 13 or 14 I had to kill one mouse that my Mother had captured under a pot in the kitchen sink and accidentaly ripped off it's leg - I chose to drown him by holding him down with a straw in a margarine tub filled with water. So, I'm not sure how I'll fare and I don't think a rabbit will fit in a tub of margarine. I guess I'll try to wring it's neck... As to skinning and cleaning, well I googled and came up with this lovely pictorial essay. We'll see how I go!

In the meantime... I'll keep you posted. If anybody has any useful tips or suggestions, please leave them in the Comments section.

Update:
This evening, we noticed that Terrapine was scratching around her ears and face. Upon inspection, we realised that she had a sudden flea infestation. Later on I found a headless bunny in the basement. My guess is that Terrapine caught her first (?) bunny and while chewing off it's head caught an entire flea circus.

Result: Terrapine 1 . . . . . . . . . Marc 0

Oh, and don't worry about the fleas. Terrapine gets a regular dose of flea meds so they will die disappear.

Bedaine de laine et bedon rond!

Yes, I know, it's about time I publish something for my family and friends back in Canada!

Where can I start? I'll be 37 weeks through my pregnancy tomorrow. This means, theoretically, only 22 days before the baby arrives. I feel enormous and I'm getting quite restricted in certain movements, but apart from that, I feel great! Marc has at least one good laugh a day: when I get out (or try to get out) of bed in the morning. Don't laugh, it's not funny turning a 10 kg belly around! - actually, it is! What else? Oh yes: colleagues usually find it funny if I drop something on the floor. But there's always someone kind enough to pick it up for me. Well, good incentive never to become obese!

Here is a photo of me, taken a week ago. You must admit I don't look that pregnant:


Now, have a look at this one, taken 30 seconds later:


Impressive, isn't it? Marc and I both have a feling it's a baby boy, probably because we call it le bébé. Or maybe it's all those kicks in the ribs, and huge tidal waves through my belly during meetings when I wear stretchy tops. No one has ever noticed or admitted to noticing, but I'm still getting paranoid! So, what do you think: boy or girl? Use the comments section to tell us.

Choosing a name is quite a challenge given the dual-citizenship, bilingual background the baby will have. Must spell the same in English and French, sound OK in both, and what about family name: between the 2 of us, we have 3 last names! I think we'll take the baby name book with us to the hospital. One thing for sure: you won't know the name before the baby's born. Tell me how you chose your chilren's names. Any interesting stories?

French Polynesia

In June, Edith and I decided to get away for a couple of weeks so we went to French Polynesia since we have friends who live in Papeete on the island of Tahiti.

We spent a few days in Papeete and while there we popped over to Moorea which is just a 1/2 hour ferry ride to stay with new friends at their beach house. Then we flew to Fakarava, a tiny atoll in the Tuamotu archipeligo. On that island we stayed in a tiny little hut right on the water (see pictures). The lagoon was gorgeous and so full of fish. I did four dives in the Pass (where the lagoon connects to the sea) and saw the most amazing variety of corals, plants, fish and... sharks! Next we flew to Rangiora which is the principal atoll in Tuamotu. After Fakarava, Rangiora was a bit of a disappointment but beautiful none the less. We took a boat across the lagoon and went to the "Blue Lagoon" which is basically a lagoon within the lagoon (I love that word, lagoon).

You can see some of our pics if you really feel like it.

Everything went well except that Edith's ankles got swollen on the way over and she struggled a bit with the heat. But it was still a wonderful trip.

By the way, I didn't buy Edith the necklace she is wearing in one of the pictures. I couldn't quite get the $200,000 together. Maybe next time. She had to settle for an ordinary old pair of perfect tear drop pearl earrings. Poor girl.

The Natural Edge Project

Yesterday evening, I took part in a tongue in cheek debate sponsored by Engineers Australia. The subject was "Engineers created Global Warming". I was second speaker for the affirmative and we won! I'm sure it was my dazzling rhetoric which made the difference. Or was it my use of the phrase "Society's Master Integrators" when referering to Engineering. I even got a nice bottle of Semillon out of the deal.

The really interesting part though was the opportunity to meet and discuss with Cheryl Paten. This incredible woman is a member of The Natural Edge Project, a think tank that deals with sustainability issues in Australia and abroad. She is the Education coordinator of this group which I gather means she travels around and talks to organisations about sustainability (rough job, eh?). What is really interesting about this group is that they are all young(ish) professionals who come up with alternatives to the way things are running now. They have a volunteer 6-month internship program which performs all sorts of research. I've put my hand up and I may just be doing a bit of work for them next year.

For such a new and young group, they have an amazing reach and audience. They are remarkably well respected and received everywhere from government, technical bodies to industry and political movements. I think the secret to their success is that they tell the truth while backing it with cold, hard facts. Also, they propose solutions which are practical, realistic and more importantly allow people to make money. Being largely comprised of engineers they are very much interested in innovation and re-design of processes rather than band aid solutions which don't really work. One of the things she said last night which really struck me was that as engineers, it is our role to innovate humanity out of the pending crisis (or is it here already) related to GW.

If you're interested in this type of stuff, you can also visit Treehugger, a webzine which deals with new products which are aesthetically pleasing, innovative and environnementally conscious.

Welcome to Edith and Marc's new blog all about our life here in South Arm, Tasmania. What can you expect to read here? We'll tell you about what we've been doing, life in general here in Tassie, birds, our cats, and of course Edith's pregnancy (35 weeks so far) and the soon to arrive new member of our little family unit. I may also subject you to my musings with regards to the state of the world, the state of my mind and whatever else I feel like since this is my (I mean OUR) blog.

Where is Tasmania? Well, it's not in Africa (you're probably thinking of Tanzania). Tassie is the island state to the south-east of Australia.Where is South Arm? Just across the Derwent River from Hobart about a half hour drive from the cbd. Here is a Google Earth pic of South Arm:



If you've got Google Earth installed you can actually see our property (well not really our property since we rent...). It is 7.5 acres right on the beach. Right now as I sit at my desk I can look over the monitor and see the water and Tinderbox on the opposite shore. Life is good.

We moved to Tassie nearly three years ago from Montreal, Canada and moved here in South Arm back in May. We moved out of the City and chose to live in a more rural area just because we could. I mean, where else in the world would we be able to afford to live on such a huge beachfront property in such a massive house and only 30 minutes from the city? If you know of such a place, let me know! Here is a picture of our house seen from the paddock (Australian for a huge field):

In the foreground, the little shed is in our soon to be veggie patch. Actually, this afternoon I'll be going out to plant our spinach, endive, celery, broccoli, dill, chamomile and sage. If I have time I may even plant a patch of shallots and spring onions. So far this season, I've only gotten the garlic in but our hope is to have a really large garden which I'd like to run year round. I'll keep you updated with pictures and if I get around to it I may even draw up the garden plan in Visio and post it. Here is me examining the garlic patch about a month ago:

One of the issues we've been struggling with about the blog we've been meaning to start for ages is what language to publish in. You see, we are both from Québec and prior to our life in Tassie our day to day language was French. At home, at work, and out and about in town. But if we write in French then none of our English friends in Canada, the US, Australia or wherever will be able to read us. And what about our European friends: German, Spanish etc? We had thought of having an English and French blog with translated posts but this seemed like a way of killing the project before it even got off the ground. And besides "Notre vie dans le Bras" doesn't quite have the same ring to it. We think pretty well everyone is able to understand English and like it or not English is the lingua franca so English it is. However, feel free to post in the comments section in whatever language you want. As we go forward, we will see how things evolve and we may choose to publish in French sometimes and English the rest.

That's about it for now! We will try and post a few times a week. In closing, here is a picture of Edith which I took on Fakarava in French Polynesia when we were there in June: