Cotton Farming

---

We started work on the cotton farm on 16th April 2010. We were living in a house (rented by the farmer for us - the farmer lives about 1 hour away from his farm so during the picking season prefers to have a base nearer the farm) and we lived and worked with a couple from Estionia who were really ncie. Initially there was lots of prepartion work to do - re-roping big tarpaulins ready to cover the finished cotton modules, maintainence on farm machinery, cleaning, pulling out old cotton plants, moving irrigation pipes out of the way etc. So we prepared for about a week and then started to pick the cotton. All the picking is done by big machine pickers, so our job was to sit on one of the 4 module builders, and as the cotton pickers tipped the cotton into the module builder, we had to use hydraulic pressers to squah it all down into a very large cube of cotton. Each module was 36feet long by 10-12feet high and about 6ft wide. Each module weighed 12-14 tonnes.
The hours on the farm were long becuase if the weather is good then it's a case of doing as much as possible, so most days we worked about 10-12 hours. At least one day off each week - sometimes 2 days off. And if it rained then we didn't pick any cotton so unless there was work to do around the farm we also had rain days off. Money was good ($18per hour) and rent was cheap ($80 per week each for a lovely house) so between us we saved about $1000 a week - saving for a 3 month stint of "holidaying" over the summer months.
The owner of the farm and his son are really nice - friendly, easy going, chatty etc. There is also a farm manager and a permenent farm worker who we get on with great aswell and went to social BBQ's / dinners with.
The cotton farming was a really enjoyable job - 100 times better than lemon picking. It was a really rewarding job as finishing a module and getting a good and even shape and helping the pick to run smoothly is quite satisfying. Quite an energetic job as you have to jump into the module sometimes to move the cotton about by hand. Whilst on the farm myself and Michael and the Estonian couple had the use of a 4WD toyota which was fun to drive. Also got to use quad bikes and was taught how to drive tractors as each module builder was attached to a tractor so we could move it around. So can now officially dirve a tractor! Plenty of farm dogs / cats / kittens around the farm which was nice!

On days off, there was a few bits to do around Dalby - a big mountain range to visit and walk around, plenty of fates, fairs and country shows. In relation to my Dad and Penny's 'adoptive cat', we also aquired a beautiful ginger Tom cat who appeared to come with the house as was abandoned by his owners 3 months previously. So we took him in and fed him up and looked after him. At the end of the job, my friend Penny (Post Office) from Brisbane came to adopt him.

The cotton pick lasted about 7 weeks and then we worked for a week after to clean down all the machinery and pack things away until next year. Sas to leave the nice house, but pleased we met such lovely people.

---