Grain Farming

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So....... Job number... ?? This one was on a grain farm to assist with the harvest of barley, wheat and canola. We were staying in a small town called Jerilderie which had the basics but was still at least 1 1/2 hours to a BIG town / city. A nice little town, a few pubs etc. We were staying in a caravan park in a little cabin (courtasy of the farmer) so atleast we were "in town" and when we had time off we could go for little walks out and about. We were also close to the pool which was nice but closed until mid Decemeber due to recent flood water contamination.
Recent flooding in the area had caused this harvest to be quite late. They were normally well and truely finished by Christmas, but were very behind. The farmer we were working for (Troy) had lost about 1000 acres of their crop due to floods, and a lot of the other paddocks were still to boogy to reach.
So we commenced the harvest. Michael mainly drove a tractor with a chaser bin and collected the grain from the combine harvesters and then distributed it to silos / truck / storage bins etc. Some long days (15 hours), some short days and some days of no work. All very weather dependent. Any small amount of rain caused days of chaos. Lots of bogging tractors etc. Slow work. I mainly helped out to do odd jobs - run around in a farm truck testing grain samples for moisture and protein content etc. The farmer also owned a fertiliser company and shop in town so sometimes I helped out there and in the office. The farmer also had a wife and 4 children, so there was also some childcare duties involved (great for me becuase they had a swimming pool so I just took the kids swimming all the time!) and so on. Some of the work was really boring - they got me to write and hand deliver 300 company christmas cards. Not one of my happier moments!
At the start of Decemeber, we had a long weekend off due to rain, so took a trip to Adelaide where we camped and watched some of the ashes cricket. That was really good fun. Unfortuantly I also got ill and had bad tonsillitis mid Decemeber and therefore had to go to the hospital for anti-biotic injections. Life still continues over here I guess!
We left this place on 23rd Decemeber as we'd pre-arranged to spend Christmas in Brisbane with Penny. Due to return to the farm on 28th December.

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