We will always remember September 11

We will always remember September 11, a photo by Leone Fabre on Flickr.

We will always remember September 11

In the Depths of the Cool Quiet Forest

In the depths of the cool quiet forest,
I wandered thro’ sun-dappled glades.
I rested midst whispering grasses
And heard the sweet sighing of trees,
As they lifted their arms towards Heaven
Singing their hymns of praise.

My spirit lifted within me,
To see all this beauty He gave,
And a peace and stillness filled me,
In place of my sadness and grief.
For the love in this quiet forest,
Had restored my faith and belief

(Elizabeth Anderson 1963)

Photo taken at Singapore Botanical Gardens, Sunday September 9.


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what is a blog?

Recently a few people have asked me about blogging.

Trying to describe "what a blog is" or about a "blog post" cannot be achieved in just a few sentences, so the following - mostly from Wikipedia - will be of help to those that have little knowledge of blogging!

A blog (a combination of the term web log) is a discussion or information site published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first.

Until 2009 blogs were usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often were themed on a single subject.

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blogs can be about whats on in your local area ...

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a blog can be about where you go for a drive or a picnic, other people are always looking for new places to see!

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or about anything you have an interest in ...

Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Blogging can be seen as a form of social networking. Indeed, bloggers do not only produce content to post on their blogs but also build social relations with their readers and other bloggers.

Many blogs provide commentary on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries; (An online diary is a personal diary or journal that is published on the World Wide Web on a personal website or a diary-hosting website.) yet still others function more as online brand advertising (Online advertising is a form of promotion that uses the Internet and World Wide Web to deliver marketing messages to attract customers.) of a particular individual or company.

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you can have blogs about travel, where you have been, complete with images ...

More recently "multi-author blogs" (MABs) have developed, with posts written by large numbers of authors and professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, interest groups and similar institutions account for an increasing proportion of blog traffic.

The rise of Twitter and other "microblogging" (see below) systems helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into societal newstreams.

In education blogs can be used as instructional resources. These blogs are referred to as an Edublog.

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you can find many blogs about cooking too ....

A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (art blogs), photographs (photoblogs), videos (video blogs or "vlogs"), music (MP3 blogs), and audio (podcasts). Microblogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.

As of February 2011, there were over 156 million public blogs in existence.

You can follow where your readers are from, how often they 'visit your pages', what pages are more popular and readers can also become a 'follower' of your blog.  This can be done in many ways ... but by having followers, its also shows how popular your blog or that particular topic is.

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on my stats for today, you can see I have had 1,020 people viewing my blog in the past 24 hours, but in the 5 years I have had this particular blog running there have been nearly 500,000 visits.

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people can leave comments. On some posts there can be up to 30 comments!

Microblogging:

Microblogging is a broadcast medium in the form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregate file size. Microblogs "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links". These small messages are sometimes called microposts.

As with traditional blogging, microbloggers post about topics ranging from the simple, such as "what I'm doing right now," to the thematic, such as "sports cars." Commercial microblogs also exist, to promote websites, services and/or products, and to promote collaboration within an organization.

Some microblogging services offer features such as privacy settings, which allow users to control who can read their microblogs, or alternative ways of publishing entries besides the web-based interface. These may include text messaging, instant messaging, E-mail, digital audio or digital video.

There are many different types of blogs, differing not only in the type of content, but also in the way that content is delivered or written..... as in Personal blogs or Corporate and organizational blogs.
Blogging is a very powerful marketing tool, more so in Asia than here in Australia. Hopefully it will become more so in Australia in the next few years ... if used wisely.

When in Singapore we received invites on a daily basis to visit a restaurant or cafe, an opening of a new gallery, annual festivals, the Grand Prix, many tourist attractions, markets, hotels, garden shows etc ... all hoping that we would do a blog post on their establishment or event. It is a win win situation for all concerned.  But we are careful of what we accept as we need to be considerate of our many readers.

Many of my blogging friends received trips to Thailand, Malaysia, New York and elsewhere, whereby they were expected to do at least one blog post on their very popular travel blogs.

We have two 'personal' blogs and use BLOGGER to publish both. There are others to use such as WordPress, but if you want to start blogging, then you must use what you feel comfortable with.


our two blogs are:

Living in Regional Victoria

Living in Singapore.

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did you forget what today was?

Second Saturday of the Month

Today is the second Saturday of the month and if you missed today's Ballan Farmers Market you are now going to have to wait till next month!

The Ballan Farmers' market commenced in November 2011 in its unique location at Mill Cottage, 96 Inglis Street Ballan.

The first market had 1,000 visitors and subsequent markets are held on the second Saturday of the month from 9am to 2pm. 

Maybe put these dates in your diary now:

• September 8
• October 13
• November 10
• December 8

We were a little late arriving at the market today as we had stayed overnight in Melbourne. But still managed to buy the fresh produce that we needed.

Today we spent some time looking at the plants available as we are now starting to think about the garden and what plants we may need once spring arrives!  This particular stall at the market has plenty of fresh vegetables,  plants and seedlings as well as a good display of cactus as seen in the images below:

so next time you are at the Ballan Farmers Market, do check out this stall. It is located (usually!) way at the back, you cannot miss it:

don't forget, the next market is:

our previous blog posts on the Ballan Farmers Market are here:
1. APRIL

2. APRIL

3. MAY

4. JUNE

5. JULY

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History in the making

The combined churches of St Patrick's Parish in Gordon, Victoria, came together for the celebration of the commissioning of three new coordinators who will oversee the running of the parish.

The coordinators were chosen by a process of nomination and discernment.  The three coordinators are: Lin Bowers (far left), Sue Daly (2nd from right) and John Fabre (far right) as seen in the following article in this weeks "The Moorabool News".

  (image by Leone Fabre)

Bishop Peter Connors led the Mass at St Brigids in Ballan, concelebrated by visiting priest, Fr Shane MacKinlay who offers masses each weekend in the parish.

During the celebration, the coordinators each placed a hand on the Bishop's staff, symbolising the act of shepherding God's people.

Bishop Peter spoke of the Body of Christ and the responsibility for the parish being a shared ministry of service, not to be left to the coordinators alone.  He encouraged the parishioners to be involved and to support those who will act on their behalf in the oversight of the parish.  Sr Pam was noticeably relieved that the coordinators were finally selected.

This bold step will ensure the future of the parish, with support provided by the various ministry groups active in the parish, and a part-time (yet to be appointed secretary).  Sr Pam will retire at the end of 2012.

 (the above data from the website of the Diocese of Ballarat)

(image by Leone Fabre)

St. Patrick's Parish, Gordon was established in 1875 and incorporates a church and school in each of Ballan, Gordon and Springbank. The area consists of many small communities including Bolwarrah, Bunding, Millbrook, Mollongghip, Mt. Egerton and Mt. Wallace.

The parishioners are very grateful for the work and support freely given by Sr Pam, who has led the charge to this new structure for St Patrick's Parish.

website of the Diocese of Ballarat

 

antique, classic, vintage or just plain old?

Am sure no one can resist checking out the 'old cars' at any festival or show ..... and checking them over at the Ballan Autumn Festival was of course - no different!

To be honest, a vintage car is commonly defined as a car built between the start of 1919 and the end of 1930 known as the "Vintage era". There is little debate about the start date of the vintage period—the end of World War I is a nicely defined marker there—but the end date is a matter of a little more debate. The British definition is strict about 1930 being the cut-off, and is widely accepted while some American sources prefer 1925 since it is the pre-classic car period as defined by the Classic Car Club of America.

Others see the classic period as overlapping the vintage period, especially since the vintage designation covers all vehicles produced in the period while the official classic definition does not, only including high-end vehicles of the period. Some consider the start of World War II to be the end date of the vintage period.

A true "classic car" is an older car; the exact meaning is variable. The Classic Car Club of America maintains that a car must be between 20 and 40 years old to be a classic.

To the layman, a "Vintage Vehicle" is just a very old style vehicle regardless of its year of make. To the connoisseur of these fine vehicles it would be sacrilege to call all the vehicles at the Ballan Festival, "Vintage"! 

Many of the vehicles we saw were quite 'young' and so the term 'vintage' would certainly not apply. But no matter their age or condition, everyone enjoyed these vehicles that were on display and some of them even took part in The Parade.  The owners take good care of their vehicles and deserve recognition for the care and attention in takes to keep them in tip top condition.

The following images were taken at The Ballan Autumn Festival on March 25 2012:

Previous blog posts on the Ballan Autumn Festival - 2012:

The Ballan Autumn Festival.

The Quilt Show.

The Wood Chopping Event

the final blog post on The Ballan Autumn Festival will be uploaded within the next day or so and will be of THE PARADE.

let the wood chips fly!!

At The Ballan Autumn Festival last weekend [March 25 2012] we had the pleasure of watching the wood chopping event. Something I had not seen for many years!

It has been said that the sport we now know as woodchopping originated as the result of a bet between 2 men in a bar in Ulverstone, Tasmania [Australia] in 1870. Jack Biggs from Warragul, Victoria and Joseph Smith form Ulverstone, had a wager for £25 to see who could fell a tree the fastest.

The World's first woodchopping championship was held in 1891 at Bell's Parade, Latrobe, Tasmania. This event was celebrated and commemorated with the selection of the site to be the home of The Australian Axemen's Hall of Fame and Timberworks.

Woodchop or wood chopping is a sport that has been around for hundreds of years in several cultures. In wood chopping competitions, skilled contestants attempt to be the first to cut or saw through a log or other block of wood. It is often held at country festivals and agricultural shows.

The following images were taken at The Ballan Autumn Festival on March 25 2012:

above: getting ready for the event.

below: and off they go .......

and 23 seconds later he steps away from the block and is finished!!.

If you ever have the opportunity to watch such an event, do so. It really is amazing to watch!

Previous blog post on the Ballan Autumn Festival HERE

Introduction to Wood Chopping - NSW axemen

Wikipedia - wood chopping

Melton Leader article on the Wood Chopping event at Ballan

ShaneWombat's blog post on the Festival

Ballan Autumn Festival website

further blog posts will be on The Parade, The Quilt Show and the Vintage Vehicles ..... stay tuned!

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Ballan Autumn Festival - 2012

Last weekend - March 25 - was the Ballan Autumn Festival ….. it is held each year, but this was the first time we had attended the event.  According to the website there was much on offer, the Quilt Show, a book bazaar, an Art Show, a pet parade, a photo exhibition, a talent quest, wood chopping and of course the main event was the Street Parade.

On the website it has:

As a community, Ballan is proud to showcase our town one hour west of Melbourne, off the Western Freeway, between Bacchus Marsh and Ballarat.

The Ballan Autumn festival has been held annually for over 30 years and this year will be held in the main street of Ballan.

It is a fun day for all the family where Ballan comes alive.

There will be bands performing on the main stage; a parade of community groups and floats; vintage cars and motor cycle riders; the local pet owners will proudly parade their animals around the ring for judging in the pet show. Ballan Art and Craft Society and Ballan Quilt and Craft both put on hugely popular exhibitions.

Photography Competition encourages anyone with a camera to illustrate the Festival theme.  Many stalls of all varieties including food.

Visit Ballan and join in the fun.

Take a walk around the town and enjoy the beautiful autumn weather; stop in at the many events held during the festival.

By 9.30am all the street holders had set up their stalls along the main street (Inglis St) selling their wares. Which was anything from Baked Potatoes to Jewelry, from knitted caps to scented soaps ….. it was there ready for you to purchase.

We went down fairly early hoping to avoid any possible crowds. We arrived just after 10.00am and many people starting to arrive already.

The following images - taken along the Main Street at the start of the day - will give you a glimpse of the Ballan Autumn Festival :

Check back in a few days for further blog posts on the Street Parade, The Vintage Vehicles and of course the Wood Chopping!



please note we are available for any Social Media work. Be it Galleries, bakeries, restaurants, wineries, Festivals, cafes, coffee shops, or anything that needs to have some focus and would be of interest to others!!

email:

Leone and John Fabre

driving through Castlemaine ......

Last weekend we had an overnight stay in Bendigo (Central Victoria) and on the way home to Ballan we drove through the township of Castlemaine.

Castlemaine is the main town, officially a city with a population of 8000, of The Shire of Mount Alexander, in Central Victoria, a 120 km driving distance from Melbourne as you can see by the map here:

It truly was a lovely drive through the Australian countryside, something we had missed in the 5+ years we had lived in Singapore. It is now Autumn, but the leaves have not fully changed as yet ..... the change has started, but will take another week or more before we see those beautiful gold and reds of the autumn.

 

The historical town of Castlemaine began as the centre of the Mount Alexander gold fields in 1851. It was briefly larger than Melbourne, as that city's population moved to Castlemaine to seek it's fortune.

Castlemaine exists on the traditional lands of the Dja Dja Wurrung people, also known as the Jaara people. In September 1851, three shepherds and a bullock driver discovered gold in Specimen Gully, about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) to the north-east. Within a month the alluvial bed of Forrest Creek was being worked with 8,000 miners on the field by the end of the year and 25,000 by March 1852.

The following images were taken as we entered Castlemaine from the north and of the town itself before we headed south to Ballan:

 

Below are a few URL's that relate to Castlemaine that may be of help when next you visit:

Castlemaine ONE

Castlemaine TWO

Castlemaine THREE

Castlemaine FOUR

Castlemaine FIVE

stay tuned for further blog posts on Castlemaine.

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