Dead Snake

Believe it or not, a snake had not been sighted at Warragal Park since its establishment in 1952/53. That all changed today, during lunch time. Two of the shearing crew were sitting in their ute outside the shearing shed, when they alerted Roger to a large dugite close by. Not having a shot gun, Roger wasn't going to shoot it. The shearer offered to run over it, but missed on the first attempt. The second time the snake was run over, but it crawled up into the wheel arch of the vehicle and onto the motor inside. So apparently the whole crew were gathered around the ute trying to get the snake out. Unfortunately I was not here with my camera to capture the antics in pictures. But I have got a photo of Roger with the snake in the dark which I took when I got home tonight.

Shearing

The shearers arrived this morning bright and early to start shearing about 5000 sheep. We used to shear most of our sheep in January, but we are gradually shifting to an earlier shearing.
Here are some photos of the action in the shearing shed this morning.

And then there is Hugh. Riding his pink bike with the flowers on, and wearing his pink singlet - the hand-me-downs from three older sisters. Note the black tyre on the rear wheel of the bike. It had to be replaced when he blew the old one doing skids (but I think it might have been worn a bit thin by previous users.)

While Mum and Dad were Away

While Mum and Dad were away, Bonnie, Odette and Hugh stayed home with the helpXchangers. They took advantage of our absence to stay up late and have a mock fashion parade, mainly wearing Matthew's clothes I believe. They used the desks in the playroom as a catwalk! Here are some photos that Bonnie took as proof.

Odette, Hugh and Bonnie posing in some of Matt's clothes.

Odette parading one of Matt's t-shirts and a pair of jocks

 

Bonnie showing the way teenagers wear their board shorts

 

A cool dude Bonnie in Matt's gear

 

Oscar makes a pose

Odette looking every inch a model

Hmmm. I have updated to the latest version of Blogger, and my photo formatting is not good. Looks like I have some more work to do to learn the latest tricks...

Matthew's Award

On Friday evening Roger and I went to Matthew's School presentation night. He has been attending MacKillop Catholic College in Busselton, and is just about to finish year ten. Next year he will be going to the WA College of Agriculture in Harvey which is better known as Harvey Ag School.

We had been forewarned that Matt was to receive an award, and he won the Year 10 Award for Outdoor Education. It was great to see him up on the stage receiving his award. The night was well done, with entertainment by the school bands and the year 8-10 dancing students. At the end there was an audio-visual presentation of "The Year that Was" put together by the year 10 media students.

Matthew receiving his Award

  

Matthew on stage with other award winners

 

Matthew and Roger outside the entertainment centre

Orientation Day

Sophie's orientation day at the Bunbury Cathedral Grammar School went well. We met a few of the parents and children who were there, and had plenty of presentations from teachers and staff. While Roger and I were doing that Sophie was off with the new students. She was assigned an older student to be her mentor in the boarding house. 
The Bunbury Cathedral Grammar School is situated at Gelorup, just south of Bunbury, and it is in a lovely bush setting. I attended BCGS for my high school years, and I was a boarder for one year. But the school has grown considerably since I was there. I think there were about 320 students in the whole school when I left in1982, and now there are about 900 students with over 100 boarders. There are many new buildings and stat-of-the art facilities.