Our Town: Yabbie Day

It’s been many a year since we have seen a Yabbie Day around these parts I think the last might have been in 2013. People got busy, no one wanted to organise it, and like many things do, it fell to the wayside. My girls always spoke about the memories they had of catching them in the morning, and heading up to the pub in the afternoon for some fun and prizes while the adults sipped in the beer garden and ate a sausage in a piece of bread. Nothing fancy, but just great memories. The best kind that we have from living in a place like this.

You can read about previous years in these posts:

Yabbie Day 2011
Yabbie Day 2013 (baby Harper!)

Sunday morning there was no time to sit and relax after the show ribbon pick ups and dismay (again) at my cakes so we were off to the creek to try our luck at catching some yabbies for the afternoon.

I had a crack first and managed to get the endangered species that we were NOT allowed to get (so back it went into the creek) Bugger. I used to love catching yabbies at my cousin’s farm outside of Lithgow when I was growing up, some of my best memories.

3 and 4 year olds get bored REALLY quickly when fishing because nothing happens for a long time. My method is pretty fancy: mince meat in a knee high stocking with some rocks thrown into the bottom and then my sieve to scoop them out. FANCY. But it works!

We had to change location after the endangered spices was caught and our new spot had lots of on lookers. This helped with the little ones who could sit and watch them poo and wee (which they do A LOT).

It took about 10 minutes before Maggie fell in. Things were tense you guys…I was solo with 4 kids and not a yabbie in sight. Time was ticking too before a friend arrived for a sleepover…we had to get cracking.

Harper then cracked the shits because she was bored, and hot and just wanted to be with her friend. My patience was wearing thin.

And then! A miracle! Daisy managed to grab two in quick succession and we were done. Phew. Off we went home before heading up to the pub later for the weigh ins, games and a few drinks.

We then drove back down to the creek to release our catches and as the sun was setting in the corn field next to the creek I was reminded, yet again, of how lucky we are that we get to call this home. That my kids will remember days like today and think that they were lucky too. Pure magic I tell you.

Got a simple childhood memory that you remember fondly?

Comments

  1. Funnily enough I grew up outside of Lithgow – in Little Hartley – and used to enjoy catching yabbies too. Where was your cousin’s farm? We probably caught related yabbies 🙂

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