Australia - Six states..and that funny little island.

[Rachel96]

I assume that you're from Victoria, Ducky... my condolences.

I actually haven't been to the Show for a few years (only been about three times in my life, actually), but I used to put things in the craft section regularly. I stopped after one year when I was the only 11-13-year-old to put a formal dress in... they didn't even give me First! They just disqualified me on the grounds that there were no other entries! But I'll put some craft in this year and hopefully some eggs or fowls.

I think I fell in love with Frizzles at the Show. It was the first time I saw them (I was about eight) and have wanted to get some since. I didn't find out what they were called for another two years and my mother kept calling them 'those electricuted chickens'. Well, my dream has finally come true...

Well, my sister's at Urrbrae now, so at least I'll have a leg in with the chicken-holding section (For those who don't know, Urrbrae is the agricultural high school... they have a farm at school! How cool is that? Wait... so do I.) They've severely bugged me other years by not trusting me to hold or catch a chicken. Well, the catch I can understand, that's their job, but when you have a random kid who doesn't really know how to hold a chicken trying to tell you how to do it...

Anyway, here are some pictures. I think they might all be of the same bird, but I'm not sure... they wouldn't stay still long enough to photograph, so I ended up just taking lots of pictures of the one I was holding (who keeps escaping).

 

[wooklet]

Maybe it should have been" Australia-6 states and that magical green island which is the closest thing to Paradise that you can get !!! "

TinaK - I have been having a look around and have found quite a few feathers,if you pm me your address I will pop them into an envelope on Monday and post them to you-don't worry about postage,I'm sure that it won't break the bank!

Rachel96 Don't worry I find chickens SO hard to photograph for the same reason as you. Lovely birds though!

 

[Fierlin1182]

as for the Show, I never knew there was a section where you could enter craft. I might even be interested. What kind of stuff does it involve?

I know urrbrae. I think it's a good idea, most schools are so focused on sports and academics, it's good to give students who want to do that sort of stuff a chance.

Lovely pictures, Rachel. I enjoy seeing different kinds of chickens.

 

[Rachel96]

Yes, you can enter all sorts of things. You have to ask for a category books but there are thousands of categories divided by age and often the description of what you're allowed to enter is pretty specific. There are different books for different groups of categories - like craft and handiwork, poultry, art and photography, cooking, et cetera. I was going to see if I could find a link but I can't seem to. It may be easier to find closer to the time. I think you've got to pay to enter something though.

For the craft and handiwork section, which is the one I normally enter in, it's divided by age group. Some of the things are like 'casual clothing, machine-sewn', or 'quilted cushion, hand-sewn', and so forth, and it might tell you what other requirements there are (buttons, zips, lace) and what's no allowed (lace, velcro, iron-on). The same with cooking and cake-decorating, and art and photography. It's hard to describe and the website isn't at all helpful.

I guess having an agricultural school is a good idea, because so many schools are so focussed on academics. Not that academics are a bad thing, but sometimes I wonder whether people who live in the city and haven't had any exposure to animals or livestock or growing would actually ever know about these things...? It's good for a school to teach all sorts of subjects. I know Urrbrae also has a good multimedia section.

And thanks! I'm fascinated by different breeds of chickens, too. It's probably a side-effect of not realising that there were any sorts of chickens other than ISA Browns until a few years ago.

 

[Fierlin1182]

I might tell my friend about this, she adores making her own clothes. She's already planning ahead to our formal, and wants to make my dress too.

I'm more of an art rather than craft person. Perhaps I could enter one of my pictures, or something like that. I don't expect it'd get a prize, but it'd still be cool to have something displayed out there.

I like silkies. I've never seen a silkie in reality, but plenty of picturse. I think they're cute.

 

[duckyfromoz]

Craft entries at shows are really hard to work out. Many years ago my brother put weeks of work into making a life size ET and used a refrigerator box to make a background for it. It got a highly commended- not even a place... And the winner for that section?? A peg rocking chair.

Quote: lol wooklet...we will continue this conversation when you get up here to lovely Melbourne so you can be reminded of the fact that it is far closer to paradise. Just how cold does it get down there in Winter ??

 

[Rachel96]

I used to have a couple of Silkies, but they're wimps and the fox got them. I'm locking in further Silkies in somewhere fox-proof at night. At the moment, I have a couple of Silkie/Frizzle cross ('sizzle') chicks, some look really Silkie and some look really Frizzle and some are in between.

Here's the Silkie-est.

He/she/it is a little over 3 weeks. The six chicks go from that to looking pretty much like a Frizzle, which is interesting, but she looks pretty Silkie to me.

If you go to the Show, there's bound to be some Silkies there.

Don't most formals happen at the end of the year? I'm in Student Voice and we're already planning because we had to book ahead - late November. I haven't been to the OAC formal (don't plan to until Year 12, next year), but I went to the Homeschool formal last year (15+ age group) which was pretty fun. I made my own dress for that and I'll probably just keep this formal dress for a while now... I don't see the point in getting a new formal dress when I have a perfectly good one already. The formal was originally just for my area group, but homeschoolers from all over the state came! There were about 50 youths there, which was pretty good, I thought. I think it will be a little awkward at the OAC formal because hardly anyone's met each other face-to-face before, whereas we meet up with the other homeschoolers regularly.

I just thought, does everyone know what OAC is? Is anyone reading this? Probably not. But for anyone who is, OAC is basically School of the Air for high school. Well, Correspondence or Open School is SOTA High School, each state has their own and SA just happens to have OAC. NT has the Northern Territory Open Education Centre (NTOEC), which OAC has a lot to do with (they share subject - NTOEC does music, OAC does languages), Victoria has a SODE (School of Distance Education) which is the same thing, and so forth. I expect that since this is an Australian thread, everyone should know what SOTA is. And I should really stop babbling.

'Bye!
Rachel.

 

[wooklet]

Craft entries at shows are really hard to work out. Many years ago my brother put weeks of work into making a life size ET and used a refrigerator box to make a background for it. It got a highly commended- not even a place... And the winner for that section?? A peg rocking chair.

lol wooklet...we will continue this conversation when you get up here to lovely Melbourne so you can be reminded of the fact that it is far closer to paradise. Just how cold does it get down there in Winter ??

You will be able to find out for yourself when you come down won't you?

I've edited this to add that I love your little sizzle chick,Rachel! I used to have a white one,she was beautiful and her feathers were as soft as ducks'down!

 

[Fierlin1182]

Rachel - very cute little silkie!

Our formals usually happen around the middle of the year, term two or something strange like that. I always thought it made sense to have them at the end of the year too, but I guess the year 12s are very busy with exams around then.

I might've seen silkies at the show last year, but if I did I don't remember. There were just too many birds there. I only remember some of the game birds well, because I got a chance to hold one.

 

[Rachel96]

Craft entries at shows are really hard to work out. Many years ago my brother put weeks of work into making a life size ET and used a refrigerator box to make a background for it. It got a highly commended- not even a place... And the winner for that section?? A peg rocking chair.

lol wooklet...we will continue this conversation when you get up here to lovely Melbourne so you can be reminded of the fact that it is far closer to paradise. Just how cold does it get down there in Winter ??

If you ask me, both places are just cold and wet... rather like England, actually, and that's why my father left the country... Come to South Australia!

I agree, it can be difficult to know what might win. Not just craft, though - I entered something in a German language competition last year which I thought was pretty good (400 words of diary entries with pictures and lots of glue) and I think the only reason it didn't win was because it was hand-written. But my teacher had told me that the year before, the judges had preferred handwritten stuff. I'm a bit annoyed about that, as my entry had better literature.

So anyway, this funny thing happened this morning. I took a chicken into church (yes, believe it). That wasn't the funny thing though. One of the ladies who is also in my homeschooling group is selling chickens for TearAustralia - you know, from their 'arguably the world's best gift catalogue'. She does it especially around Easter, to convince people to buy two chickens for 5 buck-buck-bucks to send to someone in need, rather than buying chocolate eggs. Anyway, last week, she took in one of her own chickens but it wasn't very well behaved, clucking through service and didn't like being held. But she knows that I have a very placid chicken who doesn't mind being poked at patted by children because I took it in to homeschooling group the other week, so she asked me to bring it along. So I did. It's a buff über-curled Frizzle. Lots of interesting comments about that and a couple of people asked (I'm not sure whether they were jesting or serious) whether they could borrow the rooster for stud purposes! A couple of ladies also thought I got up really early this morning to put it's hair in curlers...

from Rachel.