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Published: October 29th 2006
Carolyn picking snowpeas
Don't I look like I'm having so much fun?Oct 20th: After going to the 'work centre' on wednesday and finding a farm that could take us on full time, we started on there at the McMahon Bros farm. Our starting time is 7am, so our alarm goes off way too early at 5:30am on our travel alarm clock. This is shut off very quickly and then Carolyn's watch alarm goes off 15mins later and that is when we have to be out of bed if we are to make it to the farm with breakfast in our bellys. Carolyn makes the oatmeal and coffee, and I check the oil and water on Betsy, fill up the water jugs, unplug the van, and then warm up Betsy.
Our first job on the farm was picking weed. Yep, weed. I asked myself, 'what kind of farm is this?? But it was not the weed you are all thinking of, but this is what it is called. It is a medicinal plant used in some trial skin cancer drug. It takes 600kg of the weed to make 2g of the drug (no typos)! You have to wear protective glasses and rubber gloves because the plant will really sting your eyes if
Joe picking snowpeas
Picking is fun for about 5 minutes...we did it for 3.5 days... you get it in them. To harvest it, you cut it off at the root with a pair of clippers and then dump it in a tub. This tub then get's emptied into large bins on a trailer behind the tractor. And we both get to drive the tractor! There is something very satisfying about driving a tractor - so much power! You really have to watch out though because some of the other ladies working there aren't very good with them and will run you over if you are not careful! Carolyn was suffering from hayfever allergies by the time we were done filling the bins. Jeff (the farmer), told us that he gets paid $7000 for the 600kg of weed. No wonder some of these drugs are so expensive!
After this we harvested lettuce. It grows in very long rows and is very easy to harvest. You cut is off at the bottom with a knife and then put in it a bin behind the tractor! A monkey could do it really. After lunch we then packaged the lettuce into boxes. We picked 10 bins, where each bin has about 110 heads of lettuce. There are 12
Joe thinning peaches
This cherrypicker made the work a lot more fun! heads in a box, so that makes about 90 boxes. It is amazing to see how fast it is harvested, packaged, and then sent off to the market - really only a matter of hours! That was our first day at the new farm. We were pretty happy about it - very tired, but happy that there appeared to be a number of tasks - which was going to be much better then only picking peas for 8hrs a day! We are going to be working at the McMahon's full time now for as long as we like (could be as long as another month as the pay is decent ($15.50/hr), and we could sure use the money!
Oct 21th - Oct 22: Worked on Lenny's Farm picking peas - 17.5 hours all together. Very tired in the evenings, but getting really good at picking pea's. I asked Carolyn which she preferred - Teaching vs. Pea Picking. She was quick to reply, " Peas don't talk back!". By the end of the weekend though, she may have changed her mind.... That is a long time to pick peas!
Oct 23: Getting used to getting up at 5:30am, even
Carolyn. We have a 20 min drive to the farm from the caravan park - just enough time to drink a coffee and wake up properly. We listen to a few motivational songs on the way there. ACDC, Killers, Bedouin Soundclash... I got to drive the tractor again! We picked some more weed - and then were shown how to thin peach trees. When we were first looking for work we kept seeing jobs for stonefruit thinning, but had no idea what is was. I had never heard of a stonefruit but thought they must be quite heavy! Turns out is just fruit is a pit or a stone in it! (peaches, nectarines, plums)! Who knew? Basically, the peaches grow too close together if left alone, so they crowd each other and hardly any will mature. By removing them so they are about 50mm apart, they can all grow and turn into nice juicy peaches! The whole time we were picking them, Carolyn and I could stop singing 'millions of peaches, peaches for me...peaches come from a can, they were put there by a man...' by Presidents of the USA and '...really like your peaches, want to shake your tree....',
by Steve Miller band. Anyone know any other songs with peaches in them? We could sure use them to keep our minds occupied! Each tree takes about 2 mins to do the bottom (at our inexperienced pace), and when I asked Jeff how many trees he had, he responded, 42 000! At that rate, it would take Carolyn and I about a hundred days - good thing that Jeff has more workers than just us, because they would never get done!
Oct 24: We learned today that the tops of the trees need thinning as well, and were introduced to the cherry pickers! Now these made the job alot more enjoyable! These things are fun to drive! They are powered by 13hp Honda engines, and have a hydrostatic hydralic motor that drives each of the front two wheels. There is forward and reverse control for each of the wheels, but as soon as the pedal is released, the motor (and wheel), stops instantly! This means that you have a very jerky ride, especially when you are not used to the controls and are constanly pushing the wrong pedals or levers, swinging into trees and almost throwing out your back!
Carolyn on the cherry-picker
Driving this thing through the trees remined me of three things...
#1 - the old fashionned cars at Darien Lake because they were so jerky.
#2 - any carnival ride because your stomach did flip-flops half the time you lowered yourself to the ground.
#3 - a moon rover because of the way you drove it. Both Carolyn's and my hips were quite sore by the end of the day from being thrown into the railings on the bucket! On my machine the right tire's reverse pedal kept sticking, so I would be panicking as the machine would seemingly take off on its own and almost crush me into some of the peach trees! Once we got used to them though, they were quite enjoyable to drive and killed some of the bordom of thinning peaches!
Oct 25: More Peach thinning. Both of our backs are quite sore from bending and leaning. Very hungry and relaxed in the evenings though, back in our van in the caravan park. The showers seem to breathe life back into us. We are sleeping very well, and often fall asleep before 10pm - although we struggle to stay awake until then. We are experts at setting up the bed, and cooking is very easily done. Our biggest struggle is deciding what we are going to be eating as we left our dinner book at home! We will have to create another one very soon! We grocery shop about every other day, as the fridge is not very large and
Joe covered in flies
Meghan - you really were right in your warning about the flies...they are relentless! I don't think you really have lived until you are carrying an armful of lettuce, and one flies DIRECTLY up your nose. we cannot stock up that much on items that require refridgeration! Still lots of reading... Carolyn and I have both finished the third Harry Potter - She reads them first, and them I fly through them between my other books! They are a very easy read, and Carolyn likes to talk about the plots and what everything means. We went swimming today again in the pool in town - very relaxing to get into the water and swim lengths after body has been so cramped from working all day!
Oct 26th: More peaches, also picked some more weed. We are making some friends on the farm. Jeff and his wife Rosemary are quite nice. We met Paul and David, two of their sons who are teenagers. We are working with Ronan and Alana (from Ireland - very friendly and fun people!), Perry and Maggie (from Sweden - a little more quiet, but still quite fun), and Nils and Astrid (from Germany - english is not great, but understandable). We all take our breaks and lunches together and sit at a table under a large tree that provides some respite from the sun. Really good to hear stories and differences
between all of these countries - so good that the breaks fly by way too fast!
Oct 27th: Finally Friday. It has been a while since I have felt relieved that it was Friday - Guess that is what it means to be working again . We picked snow peas again at this farm. These peas were much more difficult to pick because they were not tied up very well and you had to bend over a lot to find them. It did make the work a lot faster with more people picking though!
The Germans left us today - they had originally been planning to spend 2 months on the farm, but have decided that the work is not for them. Astrid was having a hard time of it, and they decided to head back to the coast. This farm life is a far cry from the life on the coast, although enjoyable for different reasons. It is certainly not the life for everyone though. Made tentative plans to go for drinks with the Irish couple that evening in town, but we all decided to stay in and have a few in the park instead. Too tired.
Ride 'em cowboy!
It is SO hard to take a good action shot in the evening! Some things about working on the farm: The heat is at times almost unbearable. Even with 30 SPF sunscreen and brimmed hat you feel like you are being attacked by the sun! A couple of the other workers have taken off their shirts thinking of getting a bit of colour. We'll see how long they do this for - they will be tomatoes in no time! The other thing is the flies. I have never seen anything like the flies they have here - and it is said they are going to get worse as it moves more into summer here. They look like the same houseflies we have in Canada - absolutely harmless... physically. I am sure they have driven a number of people absolutely bananas though! They swarm all over you - preferring your face and ears - anything with a little water really. They land and then fly away again. There are so many, you don't even consider trying to kill them; besides they are quite fast! I have a bit of a sweating problem, especially in this heat, so now I have a bit of a fly problem! They don't seem to bother Carolyn too much.
I am starting to get used to them - just let them be.
Oct 28th: We could have worked for Lenny from the pea patch this morning, but opted out of it. We had been working for 8 days without a break and also wanted to go to the Rodeo in Warwick (60kms North) later in the afternoon. We had a lazy morning, reading and drinking our coffees sitting in the sun. Carolyn's family called and I made a few phone calls home as well. We talked to the Irish couple, Ronan and Alana, and they were also heading up to the Rodeo, and were bringing along Perry and Maggie, who don't have their own vehicle. Carolyn and I went up a little early to do a bit of shopping at the Big W (like Walmart) and several other stores that they don't have in Stanthorpe. We met our new co-workers/friends at the gate of the Rodeo and got to see a lot of cowboys and wild bulls and horses! We were kicking ourselves for not having picked up some cheap cowboy hats, as we were the only ones without them! The warwick Rodeo prides themselves on being the most famous Australian Rodeo (I am not sure how much truth there is to this), but it sure was quite a show! We had some pretty good seats in the bleachers and it really is amazing how close some of those riders get to being trampled! I can't count the number of times a rider's hand would get caught in the rope and all the Rodeo clowns would be in there trying to get him free. Those animals are ferocious! One of the Clowns went down really fast when he caught one of the bulls hooves right in his chest! I thought he was a goner, but he got up after a bit - just winded, and probably suffering from internal injuries (although he didn't let on!).
Our favourite was the wild horse races: four sets of three cowboys tried to get a saddle on a wild horse and ride it through two barrels! Hilarious to see them get dragged all over the place! One would get on and just as soon get bucked right off! You couldn't pay me enough to try to get on one of those things! It really was a fun night - and then we set off home where we had a few hiccup's with Betsy along the way. We definitely have some problems with the engine - when we would hit a hill the engine would start chugging a bit and backfiring. We are also using a fair amount of oil, but it is not burning or leaking it. If I hold a paper towel behind the exhast pipe, it dosn't take long to turn black with carbon. Oh well, we'll get this looked at soon enough! In the meantime, I just keep adding oil and being nice to her.
Oct 29th: Lazy morning again - Carolyn is reading a book called Vows (soap opera type book about a lady and her life - she's told me all the details, but I'll spare you), and I'm almost through Oliver Twist. We have come to an internet cafe in town, and are going to bike up to a damn on the other side of town soon. Supposed to be about 5kms. We are going to make sushi for dinner tonight, and are both really excited about that! We even splurged on some nice chopsticks! Tomorrow it is back to work - and I have a feeling that this week will be similar to last. Our arms and legs are getting very brown; Carolyn is sad about the farmer tan she is starting to get! It was very nice to cash the cheques for last week though, and are looking forward to the next ones. We are booking our flight to New Zealand for over Christmas where we are going to meet up with a few friends and see as much as we can of that country in the 6 week (or so) window that we are going to be there. We are going to be flying from Cairns to Christchurch on Dec 19th. But we still have 1500 kms of coast to explore before doing all of that! Here we go...
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Rachel
non-member comment
Joe and Carolyn, I hope you're having a good time, it certainly sounds like you're having a good time. We miss you. See you sometime bye! Rachel B