Jeff’s Posts

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The year is rapidly coming to a close.  Some months have passed since my last update – and its now not far off Christmas!  In this time, we have managed a visit back to Canada (now that it has warmed up!) to visit family and grandchildren in Vancouver and explore the wilderness in the Rockies and Inner-Passage in Alaska!  More on that later!

It has been another hectic time for evaluation and it brings some fascinating trends.  There is significant interest at state and national industry levels on developing Monitoring and Evaluation Frameworks for guiding investment and reporting back on that investment.  It reminds me of the early 1990s when there was widespread interest in state governments in having Extension Policies and strategies.  I was involved in developing the Extension Strategy Statement at the time for the then Queensland Department of Primary Industries and this turned into my PhD on the ‘meaning’ of an extension policy.

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Well the year is racing.  It seems like I was just on the Christmas trip to Canada holidays and now it’s Easter!  The last blog was just before Christmas and I included some snow shots from our trip.  There were of course many other snow photos – hard to know when to stop when the landscape is so different to what you are used to. One more that I will put up is of our daughter and grandboys ice fishing!  That was a new experience – and not something you get every day in sunny Queensland!

On the way back to Australia, we stayed over in Hawaii to catch our breath, calibrate the time difference and of course warm up!  One of the warm up exercises was to go and visit the volcanoes for which Hawaii is famous.  It was a little disappointing to be so far from the action – but we could see the red glow in the evening – and walk over the relatively recent lava flows which were extending the island!

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And the year ends – not with a bang but in white. Just days off Christmas and with the world not ending – despite the dire predictions around the Mayan Calendar!

In my last blog I described visiting Rouyn Noranda (Quebec province, Canada) – then in the summer – and looking for a Moose.  The end of the year finds us back in RN visiting our daughter Jocie, her husband Pat and grandsons Alex and Beni – but with a very different landscape!  Everything is just white!  Snow is covering cars, houses, roads, lakes and trees – and is still falling.

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Travel has been a regular theme of my blogs – and this one is no different!  The last few months have seen me back in Chile running some enjoyable workshops on extension (“but what do we do differently in our extension work once we arrive at the farm?”).  I also had a good excuse to visit the Netherlands to take part in a PhD ceremony – this time on the examining committee’s side (last time was my own public PhD defence in 1994!).  We also managed to go to the Dutch Floriade – a once in a decade flower expo!

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It’s already April and getting cooler.  Leaves are already falling from the few deciduous trees we have in Toowoomba – not quite New England in the Fall!  The year started on the run and hasn’t really stopped.

I’ve found myself (more) involved in two local groups.  I have been in Toowoomba Landcare Group (http://toowoomba.ddrlandcare.org) for a number of years and am now doing my stint as Chair!  It changes the way you are involved when you have the extra responsibility – and have to face issues like getting funding needed to continue the work!  But it is great to work within your own community with a group of people who have the same aim – improving the environment of our community.

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