The Southern Yarn’s February – March 2019 issue is ready for your reading enjoyment again. Here’s the editorial to get you started:

Thanks to Jenny Gates for typing up the Getting to Know feature for this issue – about “Two-Up” (p.6). Now, I think there needs to be some explanation for readers who have never attended one of our events here in Winnipeg.

We play Two-Up at many of our gatherings – it is easy and fun for all ages, and results in a winner in just a few tosses. So, here’s the explanation: the way we “place our bets” is to stand up and place both hands on your head, or both hands on your butt, or one hand on your head and the other on your tail. Everyone who doesn’t match the result of the toss of the two pennies (yes, we use genuine pre-decimal Australian pennies) is out and they sit down. Those left standing place their bet again and there is another toss. It usually only takes three or four tosses to get a winner. So, we’re not really breaking any laws; and, in fact, we’re upholding a long-observed ANZAC Day tradition.

There is a charming 1937 book titled The Lore of the Lyrebird by Ambrose Pratt in which much of the credit for advancing the knowledge of lyrebirds is said to be due to an amazing friendship between a male lyrebird and a widowed lady named Mrs Edith Wilkinson, who, at that time, lived hermit fashion on one of the higher slopes of Mt Dandenong, Victoria, Australia. Since then these birds continue to fascinate and impress and have become superstars through YouTube and David Attenborough documentaries. They are also the subject in this issue’s Birds I view (P.8).

Thank you this month to Jude McCudden, Jenny Gates, Chris Brasher, Malcolm Whyte, Judy Powell, Peter Munn, Terry Delong, Murray Burt, our advertisers and you, our readers!