April happenings by Olivia

This has been written with photos selected by Olivia. It was prepared as a powerpoint presentation for her class, and then adapted into the blog format. 

My Latest News From Canada

Butterflies at the Botanical Gardens

We went to the Butterfly Exhibition in the Botanical Gardens.

There were not only butterflies, there were lots of sections that had plants in them, but the main part was the butterflies. There were so many different types. It was a really large enclosed room with lots of plants that attracted the butterflies. The butterflies were flying freely. There lots of flowering plants.  

Some people were lucky and butterflies landed on them. I was scared that they would tickle or hurt me. A butterfly landed on mum’s back.

Maple Syrup Cabin (Sugar Shack) 

We went to a sugar shack for an afternoon. It was a small family owned shack. The dad who owns it was quite old and he loves making maple syrup.

The family had 200 acres with 7000 taps in the trees. The farm didn’t use buckets to collect the sap, they use plastic tubes with a vacuum pump at the end.

We got to help “can” the maple syrup. This means that we put the maple syrup into a can and put the lid on.  I had never known how cans had their lids put on! To put a lid on a can you put the can onto a machine with the lid sitting lightly on top, then wind the can up, press a button and the can spins really fast tightening the lid. The syrup has to be a certain temperature before canning it. Once the lid went on, the can became very hot. You needed to wear gloves to handle the cans. 24 cans of maple syrup went into a milk crate, which was immediately put into a snow bath. The syrup had to cool quickly so no crystals formed.   

Some Maple Taffy photos 

We love the maple taffy! We made some after we had put the syrup into the cans. 

Swings in Town

In the city there are some swing’s that sing. 

 are 21 swings. (7 groups of 3 swings)

When people swing on them they play a note. When 2 people swing, the swings make a tune.

The 2 outside swings make a note but the middle swing does not make a note. 3 people do not have to be swinging at the same time to make a note.

They were so much fun.

Bike Riding

We have just started bike riding.

On our first ride, we did 9km as a family. I did a second ride with Mum and  and we did 13km. We did a bridge to bridge ride along the St. Laurent River and it was fun but was a little hard too.  

I have borrowed a bike from our neighbours and it is much bigger then mine back in Australia. It is white with a few strokes of light green on it.

I love bike riding here in Montreal. 

Change of Weather

The change of weather here is very dramatic! Everyone here says that this is a very long winter. There is still some snow around, but most of it has melted. 

We started to clear the deck a few weeks ago. This was hard work. Once we had clear the snow off the deck and thrown it onto the grass and it had melted,  we started to move the snow from the grass to warmer parts of the grass.

We now don’t have to wear snow pants and boots to school. We only wear a soft shell jacket, (a jacket that has a soft inside and is light, keeps you very warm) and our outside shoes. We don’t have inside and outside shoes anymore. OH YEAH! 

Spring ... but really winter

We think this will be a magnolia tree ... how stunning!

April has come and gone and supposedly, we are enjoying Spring. Our temperatures have hovered around 7-11 degrees most days; with nights down to zero or just below. There has been the occasional day where we experienced 13/14 degrees but they are have not the norm. April has been tough: when leaving Australia in the middle of summer, we comforted ourselves with the knowledge that yes, we would have a few months of cold (extreme) weather, but by April, we would be enjoying the warmer temps again. Instead, it feels like I've gone from extreme winter to a Canberra winter!

The weather is still a common topic of conversation with the Montreal locals, with most apologizing to us for the weather! As much as we feel its been long and hard, these Quebecoise folk had winter start early - the first snow fell in November, which makes it an even longer winter for them!

There has also been an extreme amount of rain and overcast days, so the impetus to get out and explore has still been low. On a positive note, just about all the snow has disappeared, thanks to the amount of rain. We haven't skied at all during April, as most of the snow has turned to mush. Similar to Australian skiing conditions, really!

So ... what have we done? Well here are a few snapshots:

• We've been to see butterflies which are released into a large aviary at the Botanical Gardens. There are thousands of butterflies flying around with many, many butterfly-attracting plants. It was also warm and humid in the aviary! Lots of opportunities for close up photography too. 

• We've been to a "sugar shack" which is a celebration of maple syrup which begins flowing from trees about this time, as the weather warms up. It usually begins in March and the season lasts about 3 weeks. In 2013, the maple season was over by 3 April; this year the season only started on 2 April, which shows the impact of the cold weather. See Tony's blog post for more detail on this. We did get to drink the liquid form of maple syrup - thinned slightly and warmed (better with rum, but we didn't try this form) and of course more taffy - the toffee style on the stick that we all love. Here are some pictures of the canning process: Lach was putting the lids on the full cans. 

• We attempted a bbq outside ... but as you can see, the adults needed coats! It was cold. The 7 children were running around too much to notice. We haven't found a sausage that tastes as good as an Australian sausage, despite trying so many. We miss sausages! We also miss barbecue sauce - its got a very unusual taste here. 

• Tony has taken the children to a few museums which have usually been science based. Lach loves museums and when it rains all day, he needs an outing! There are a good variety around Montreal and even today, we found out about another. Most have presentations in English at some stage during the day and all the hosts at the museum speak English. At some of the English presentations we've been to, we've been the only people in them. 

• The swings! This has been one of those stories that appears on Facebook from time to time: that a bus stop in Montreal has set up swings for the public to use. Well ... this has been a mission since we arrived! It is a spring time event, for the month of April and May. There are seven sets of swings, each set has 3 swings. When you swing alone, the swing just plays one musical note, from a speaker above your head. When three people swing together, it plays a tune. And don't swings make everyone smile? They are at a bus stop right in the centre of town, but in a court yard - not right on the edge of a busy road. 

 It was a rare sunny day, but notice that I am still wearing gloves - it was not a warm day. We have been back most times that we go into the city .

•  This photo just makes us laugh! There are many, many childcare centres around and they still need to get their little charges out ... so they will overcome snow! Here they walking in front of our house, all rugged up with full snow clothes and all "roped" together. You see similar scenes often and it cracks us up!

• De-snowing occurs regularly while there is snow (thankfully no major falls since early April). This photo shows our neighbourhood "snow remover man". Most people employ someone to clear the snow from their property - driveway and footpath. We didn't; instead Tony was happy enough to do it during and after each dump. The photo shows Dave and his machine, doing our neighbours' front path and footpath. Its like a vacuum cleaner that sucks up the snow and blows it to the edge.

• Dave is pretty efficient. These neighbours leave their house at 7am each morning and without fail, if there has been snow overnight, Dave has cleared their driveway so they can reverse out. The neighbours never see him, so we shudder to think at what time he comes! Tony has befriend Dave, as a) Dave is an anglophone so speaks English; and b) Tony loves a chat with anyone doing anything interesting or different!

• So instead of using Dave, we used child labour and handed each child a shovel! We wanted the deck cleared so that we could at least use that. Anything loose was thrown onto the grass below; otherwise we just broke it up as much as possible so that it would melt faster. Once the deck was done, we started on the backyard. 

And then we got to enjoy the deck for lunch!

• Our friends had three spare tickets to see the local soccer team, the Montreal Impact, play Philadelphia. It rained .... but they went anyway. Lach enjoyed it the most; Liv enjoyed hanging out with her friend Maia. 

• Easter was a quiet weekend. We had planned to go to Ottawa for some sight-seeing, but with the forecast of rain, we decided to stay locally. We went to a lovely restaurant for lunch and of course, ate plenty of chocolate! This photo is the next day, still eating Easter treats. 

• Lach and Tony have become ice-hockey fans. The Montreal Canadiens (known locally as the Habs) play in the National Hockey League and have made the finals this year. 

• The finals series is a very complicated process. Round one was the best of 7 games against Tampa Bay, Florida. Tony and Lach went to the 4th game here in Montreal.

• This match was very exciting as Habs had won the previous 3 matches - two in Florida and one in Montreal.  

•  Ice-hockey matches are more like an entertainment show than just a sports game. There was a pre-game light show, music and little machines that drove onto the ice that "shot" packets of puks into the crowd. Huge wow factor! The ice is smoothed out quickly once during each of the three periods of play, done by 4 guys on skates who take about 2 mins to do the rink; then during the breaks between the periods, machines come on to smooth the ice more thoroughly. 

• It was a very exciting game and during most of the 3rd period, it was 2-2. Then with 40 secs left in the game .... Habs scored! The crowd, including Lach, went berserk!

• Habs are now in Round #2 of the play-offs. They are against Boston Bruins, who are an arch enemy! They play rough so apparently we don't like them! Again, it is best of 7 games and it currently sits at one win each ... watch this space to hear the result!

• An aside ... Quebecoise locals laugh when we specifically mention ice-hockey - saying that we only need to say hockey. We need to tell them that "hockey" infers green grass ... not ice! They find that unusual and refer to hockey-on-grass as "field hockey". 

• One of the most exciting things we done recently is see Cirque du Soleil (yes, it rained that afternoon too). Cirque originates in Montreal and each of their new shows begins here. We saw the new show Kurios: Cabinet des Curiosities. The children were amazed and just as they thought the performers had done as much as possible with their bodies, they did something more and the kids' jaws dropped even more! We all loved it and were amazed at how performers can stretch their bodies to such extreme contortions. 

• We have borrowed bikes from the Dostaler family and also the neighbours and have all ended up with awesome wheels! Each time we plan to do a long ride - that is, go somewhere specific and ride for the afternoon, our plans get thwarted by the weather. We have managed a few shorter rides in between showers of rain - one day, the girls and I managed 13kms. In the background of this photo is the St Laurent River, which surrounds the island of Montreal. It is only about 3kms away from our house. We usually head there first and ride along the river. 

• Bike paths are not as good as Canberra. There is this beautiful river so close, yet many houses have built right to the waters' edge, so no possibility of a path. Instead, you need to ride on residential streets. There is a mixture of riding on roads in a bike lane; riding in a bike path that runs parallel to the road and then specific bike paths. When it is a specific bike path, they are well set out, as this photo shows - directions are clear and there is space for the pedestrian also. But this is rare!
  

• Tony and I are exercising regularly and have decided to challenge ourselves with longer distances. With the luxury of more time on our hands, I have decided to enter the Ottawa half marathon and Tony is entering the 10km distance on the same weekend. Neither of us have done these distances previously, so it's a big challenge. I run with a group twice a week who have been working towards the Ottawa half for most of this year. It's great to have the motivational support of a team. Tony is working it out on his own! The half marathon has been on my bucket list for a while now, and with extra time to train, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to attempt it. 

• My parents are coming to visit during in late May, so the next few weeks are very exciting. We are looking forward to weather improving so we can show off Montreal to them! 

• We also have a 4 day long weekend planned to Niagara Falls and a trip to Ottawa (capital city of Canada) for the half marathon. Ottawa is famous for its tulip festival in May, but as I write, it hasn't started as the tulips haven't bloomed! It's due to finish around 19 May (Victoria Day or Patriots Day, depending whether you are a supporter of the Commonwealth or Quebec) but like everything else, the season is running late. We hope we might see it the following weekend when we are there for the running festival. 

Take care and best wishes, Gemma x