Today is the day Mr. Snook’s homebrew club are filling the barrels*, so as chauffeur I’m enjoying some knitting time while smelling the serenity.
* Every year they all brew the same recipe, pour it in a couple old whiskey barrels, and let them age under a guy’s house. Then they all share the results…
While I was at the Show, Mr. Snook was whipping up a Persian feast! He made RecipeTinEats’ slow-cooked lamb shanks, saffron rice (Tachin), and cucumber tomato salad. He thinks the lamb came out a little salty, but it pairs well with the rice. And how good is that crunchy crust? 😍
The Farmyard Nursery on Good Friday was always going to be a challenge, but I started undaunted.
It was a warm day. I spent the first 3.5hrs outside trying to corral the ever growing queue. There were thousands, and thousands, and thousands of people.
After lunch I was on pram parking duty, which mostly consisted of making sure people didn’t sneak through the Dairy to cut the line. I was very happy to see my friend Alice and Luke Eller and their boys. Everybody seemed to be having a good time.
After my shift, I walked around the stadium to check my food options. Deep fried ice cream on a stick? WELL DESERVED, MY FRIENDS.
At $12, I was pretty pleased with this. It was basically a fried doughnut surrounding a puck of ice cream, smeared with caramel sauce. Very good!
I popped into the District exhibits on my way out. Impressive as always!
And then I headed for the train. I survived!! Time to enjoy the Long Weekend…
The Purls of Wisdom romped home to another victory, even with a depleted team tonight! Some of the stumpers we grappled with:
It’s been nearly six years exactly since I met Dr. Linda McIver from the Australian Data Science Education Institute, and I’ve been a fan of her work ever since. Now I’m proud to share that I’ve joined ADSEI’s Governance Board, and I’m excited to help Linda with her mission to build problem solving, critical thinking, data literacy, and STEM skills in Australian students. Expect to hear more from me about this topic in the future!
For the record, I’ve been watching and sharing about the Swedish moose migration for four years now (courtesy of a recommendation from my Swedish colleague Gunnar)! This year it appears to be going viral, with stories on the BBC, New York Times, The Sizzle, and more. Can I take credit for popularising it? 😂🫎
I was shocked to see there have already been 16 moose crossings in the first three days this year. In the past I had to wait weeks to see a moose! Today I was really surprised to see a BEAR, which motivated me to learn about Swedish Brown Bears. (As Rodd pointed out, Björn means “bear” so I really should have expected it.)
Having a brandy and soda while reading Jeeves/Wooster fanfic. I’m not sure Jeeves would approve of these pajamas… #toodlepip #jooster
On this day twenty-three years ago, Rodd and I both got rejected for jobs with the same company in Sydney. Who would it have been? We have no clue, but we’re having fun trying to remember. It would have been a tech company. I would have been applying for frontend or PHP developer at that time, and Rodd was mostly applying for Unix sysadmin jobs. Anybody want to guess?
Today was my first shift in the Farmyard Nursery, aka the petting zoo. Fortunately it didn’t start until 9:30 so I got in some quality lamb time before then. 🐑❤️
By 9:30 we had a massive queue waiting to get in. Our team leader gave us a great orientation and kept us rotating through stations through the day. I started outside, making sure people knew where to go and to finish their food before they got inside. (I got to yell a lot!) Then I helped out in the pram parking, making sure people knew where to park their baby strollers. We had an hour lunch break, and then I had a turn at the entrance gate for the animal enclosure. Mostly that was just controlling the traffic flow to make sure we didn’t have too many people in there, and reminding people to wash their hands when they left. I only had one occasion to shut the gate as a cheeky goat tried to escape. No loose animals on my watch!
After my shift finished I walked through the Sheep & Goats Pavilion, and I managed to catch a judging for some class of sheep.
For today’s food-on-a-stick, the initial plan was to go for the 2 foot Super Dagwood Dog. But when I got to the stand, my attention was arrested by something unexpected on the sign – PICKLE DOG. It said something about being “infused” with pickles? Available for the first time in Australia? SIGN. ME. UP.
I was munching along happily when I had a surprise. There were also chunks of pickle in there, like a shish kebab! I’m not actually sure the pickles added much though. The overall flavour wasn’t especially sour or pickley. The batter was nice though; better than the mass-produced corn dog I was expecting. It was $14 though, which is pretty expensive. I reckon Twisty Potato is still #1, followed by #2 Pickle Dog and #3 Cheese on a Stick.
My name is Kris. I’ve been blogging since the 90’s. I live in Sydney, Australia, and I spent most of my career in the tech industry.
No AI used in writing this blog, ever. 100% human-generated.
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