the Farm

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I just left the Farm, where I have found more inspiration for "rtw43" and new very interesting subjects to think and write about. My camcorder and camera were working almost non stop. My aim was to be the guest there for only a day or two, but finally I have spent nearly three weeks on the farm doing the things I have never done before in my life. I was joining the new each day as I was gaining the new experience. The new clear view on today.s denial world substructure and nature. After what I've learned on the Farm I was ready to continue my journey

I left the city life behind. After I have met fantastic, hard working family with big passion for Australian lifestyle. Very friendly, life experienced married couple with a big will to show me how the Farm life and environment looks like. Off course, one farm does not make them all the same but this one was very specially for me.

So let me tell you about the Farm. It is a very nice place. Nice property main gate, quite big sliding one. Long driveway. Beautiful exotic plants, yellow flowers on the both sides of the driveway makes this road even more beautiful. Very high and old paperbark and palm trees gives essential shadow on this part of the property landscape. And there is a dog too. German shepherd. She looked a bit scary but I found her attitude really friendly. Vegetable garden, the old tool shed. Also the shed for the old planks and chopped wood. Chicken cage, goose, pigeons, ducks and the bees. Yes, this is what the farm owner is taking care of almost every day, his beloved one. But his work and real passion is not feeding all the animals on the farm but probably the trucks. He knows how to drive and fix the truck. Well educated vet doctor, experienced mechanic, multitask guy who is running the whole farm as I have described it to his wife: robocop. Only one thing this man is not capable of. He can not sleep. He is working all the time and only sometimes he is relaxing by watching his farm from the different angle sitting on his porch and drinking cold beer.

The house. Very simple structure. Nice, red ceramic not glazed brick, some concrete and wood. No lintels above each window gave me some disturbing thoughts about the architects interesting approach for how to place the roof load straight on to the window frame. But this house has been bought like that so I can not blame the owner. Low sloped roof covered with heavy red roof ceramic tiles. Roof mounted AC unit equipment and AC outlet on the front house elevation hidden behind the grapes climbing up on the special grape structure to the roof a meter of the wall. Big, very big double glazed sliding windows with the tiny bug net, so they can remain open for whole day and night during the summer season. Single story house. Solar panels on the roof for the water heating purpose. Well, and probably to sell the electrical waste back to the city. Good thinking, I guess. Not very big porch, but very cosy. Like the whole house. Especially inside. Well design kitchen with the bar separating kitchen area and dining room. So basically there is no full height wall in between. Very regular kitchen equipment, from my point of view. Nothing fancy and modern. Just what is crucial to keep the food and make it ready whenever it is required. This is what I call space and access balance between necessity and efficiency. Every house user can feel comfort and pleasure living in this house. I am not going to describe what is on the floor, how bathrooms look like, what is the ceiling made of and how many rooms they have and whether it is ok or not, but if I am going to tell you that there is nothing to complain about it.ll should be absolutely enough to accept my state of happiness spending my time in that premise.

...So what happened to the container ship I have planned to board and cross the ocean? I will describe that one later. Otherwise it will be impossible to combine chrono-correct all the project events.
After a short discussion about my travel purpose with "Mr and Mrs X" the family decided to give me a accommodation for longer than I thought. Unlimited time to stay, unlimited food, unlimited drinks, unlimited time to relax, farm and weather observation was included. It was very difficult to reject their ultimate offer. So I have accepted it gladly. I was very happy about all the Farm events overall shape. All the time I have spent here was very productive. Not because of the weather off course but because of many other, very interesting farm life factors.

After my site seeing for almost a week... I found myself relaxing... for the first time in my entire life I WAS TAKING MY TIME to relax. Deeply breathing, closing my tired eyes like in the slow motion I didn.t had to force myself to imagine that i.m relaxing because it was happening - it was for real. Since early morning, sun heat was overwhelming. Each day I was trying to open my eyes carefully sitting next to the botanic garden to see if the sprinkles water drops are going to wet my face if I.ll sit close enough though. I was enjoying every sun ray falling on me from above. You don.t have to believe me and it might sounds funny for you that the guy like me (architect, so seriously approaching his life every day) is sitting in the old white rocky chair in front of the house, feeling every delicate wind blow, trees, listening these cute twinkling parrots voices and other birds songs, like cucabarras funny cartoon scream in the late afternoon, watching goose walking across the veg garden drinking fresh water from the licking sprinkle pipe next to the old tools shed. So there is a guitar sound. Imagine that. Accord by accord changing strings tones. Almost hypnotized, lazy still repeating same tone. My only life reaction was to move my toe from time to time to feel if the grass is wet enough or still dry under my feet. Every breath I took than and slowly after was shallower and shallower each minute. When I woke up, I had a sunburn. Sun hungry me.

For almost 7 days I was relaxing. The air flavor, its clearance sort of or maybe there was something in these trees that I felt so calm. For the first 3 days I was healing the consequences of my relaxing time that I had first. After, I.ve decided to not only watch what.s deep blue but maybe help a little bit these people.
I know, that I do have a time schedule but a small plan adjustment could have been considered.
But how can could I say thank you to these people? I can not make them happy by making some under the table quiet payment. That could be just stupid. So I have decided to not only observe but actually become a "farm family" member. I have many magic skills like "liger", the combination of lion and tiger so it allows me to do impossible and gain the crucial power to do incredible things 😊 Yup. Like digging or chopping the tree branches. I haven.t tried these things before (well I know how to use a shovel) but can I use the mechanical saw? Off course I can. I.m a liger! (shoot) But my first task that the family gave me was to just relax again. Stay put, but relax. So I followed their instructions (against myself). That was easy. So what next? I was trying to do something so badly but the only words I could hear from them was - Relax. Ok. Could not be better (I thought). I was drinking water, eating as minimum as possible that is because liger knows... many things how to become a master. But seriously I felt uncomfortable by doing absolutely nothing while all the family members were pretty busy for almost entire day. I became a bit like a shadow of their day, silently following the farm paths with my camera updating my travel diary. Just promised myself to not waste my time as each day events were crucial and creative for the RTW43 documentary log.

My first impression about what I saw was that this family foundations are grounded deep inside their hearts so they can depend on themselves - always. It is sort of unusual impression I got after my first few days of my farm observations. Instead of watching all architectural details (as an architect) my attention was focused on these people.

Father: As follows - hard working man. Over 50 years old. Vet doctor. He has a absolute power over the entire family. No, not as a dictator but leader more likely. Sort of the man who left his all books on behalf of hard work to keep his life and his family level higher than average. What.s his profession? Wanted I.d say. Niched. It really does not matter what is he doing for living. What is matter, is his approach for life.
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It.s dark. Friday, or maybe Saturday. We.re waking up at night to start the men.s profession engine. It warm as winter is behind already. Coffee, sandwich (sometimes). No, I.m fine. Sneaking quietly out of a house to let the rest of his family having their eyes closed for the rest of the night. It is not a first time I.m waking up at night. The road is wet. Due point. Lights on both sides of the road, palm trees shadow on the asphalt. White, black, white, black, white, black - middle road lines and no lines. Just black. We are heading north. Among some quiet blocks made of concrete, behind the park next to the wharf is the newspaper agency and distribution point. Gate one, gate two. Disembark. Kiosk with coke and some coffee machine. Maybe one. No, I.m fine. Yellow lights and red vest guys passing in front of my eyes from left to the right doing some paper work. It.s pretty tight here between all these trucks. Difficult do reverse, maneuver backwards and forward if you.re longer than others. Today we.re doing two shifts. One guy has failed so it is required to take his job today. 20 minutes loading approx 450 bags of paper, about 20kg each. Could be quicker but my gloves are too big so my pinky flexes in opposite direction and I can not grab the package correctly every time. I.m causing delays. It.s better to take them off. Same moves but it.s getting tight. There.s no space left to drop the rest of the packages. Decision - one more layer on top of them all. Jump up and lay 3x4 again staring from the sides towards the middle row. My right leg has stacked in between the packs. But its all right. Time is running. We have to get it done within two or 3 minutes. Oh bugger, close the door. Fasten your seat belt. Few quick drops next to the grocery stores and than we have shopping center. Big unload. The long straps on both sides of the truck are being folded. I keeping my camcorder steady thanit.s me again. Count them all so we must be ok with the quantity for the rest of the drop points after, fasten the truck straps and stick the corner metal block pipe tight and we go. Gloves and keeping my camcorder in my mouth recording. Quick look around what other.s doing. Packing all the papers, sorting again and distributing among this neighborhood by bikes and small cars. What a fucking job. It.s 0:15. We.re not late but we.re not done. Back for more. 1:40am and we.re heading up north again. Mountains and the City view. Perth at night. I can see shit, trees are too high and the mirror outside is obstructing the view. Jump off and count 5x12. Than 22 there. Don.t forget to strap the collapsible hood. Wow, the load has moved more to the left and it sticks out. It.s safe for the next 200m. Disembark. Jump in and do 15. Pile 10 here and 5 there. Than this note on top. There are the news. Count again and next stop is petrol station. It.s 2:40am. Coffee? I.m fine. Hungry maybe. Still recording. Engine is still going. Who might still such a car. I would.nt even change it.s gear. Bang bang, closing doors and it.s raining. Next shopping center and back home at 5:00am. Get to sleep so we can wake up at 9am.
Nice try. Tired? I guess so. Want more? I don.t mind so lets go. Next day is full of surprises. Off he goes after I woke up he have done some farm job already. He took a tractor somewhere and brought more vegs to deliver for 8am to the market. Want me to help? - I.ve asked. - No. I just came back. It.s already done. Yup. - So what next. - Build a wall behind the house.
-Ok. Now I knew what is going to be and how it is going to look like. No expression on his face. Just a regular look at the things which really has to be done. Otherwise... otherwise... I forgot to ask. What if. But I will.
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It.s going to be very hot today. Another gloves I.m wearing for another experience.
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He disappear somewhere with his last question, whether he can trust me on this one. Wall is needed for tomorrow. Yeah, yeah. It.ll be done. (I think). - The limestone is behind the second shed so I.ll take the small tractor and bring you 40 pieces so you can start doing foundation. Line it up with the house line, do not dig too deep. Be precise and accurate with all levels and distances.
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After 3 hours I.ve done approx 600kg weight lifting behind in total, number of skin grooves on my hands and legs plus dubs. No biggie. Salty sweat made my sight foggy a bit and wiping that using with my dirty wrist was a bad idea as I rubbed all this mixed dump straight into my eyes. So my T-shirt went off to dry me a bit. The German shepherd was watching for me sometimes either lying or sitting next to me. So I dig. Further and further discovering what.s beneath this sandy layer. Gray, yellow and than red dirt came out among all these intersecting each other bush roots. Red dirt. So same as in Namibia. Blood color. Tape measure and checking the wall next limestone level again. Straight or a bit to high. It.s getting to the right somehow and I need to take 50% of what I.ve done out to do some amendments. Fucking redback spider scared the shit out of me. Appeared from nowhere. I.ve heard about this bastards. One bite won.t kill you but you might be in trouble in general after his piece of heavy sting poison cavalry on your finger action. So I.ve stepped on him accidentally. (I slipped) Good. After few hours I.ve done 15% of the limestone job. I was trying my best. First attempt. First day. Today, I was born again. I have smiled to myself so honestly. With no wonder about my happiness. If someone could have pictured my face than... it was just great pleasure working like that, helping. And I don.t know whether this wall was important for these people or not. It was important for me.
The man of da house came to see my progress. - Want a beer? - yup, why not. - Pure Blonde.ll do; It was so hot that night. But this beer taste was unforgettable. Maybe because it was chilled so well, or maybe I was thirsty, simple as that. But the true reason why it was so good is because I.ve done honestly good job with this wall and this guy told me so. That was important. Everyone went sleep. I.ve stayed on the porch a bit longer, sitting next to the sleeping dog. Looking straight ahead towards the pitch black and listening these strange Australian crickets sounds all around me. Sitting still was my job for the next 40 minutes. Until my cold beer bottle have reached its dew point. This night I have slept like a kid.
Any thoughts about that day? Not in particular. It was just perfect day.
Next day I have finished the wall. I have lifted another set of kilos. Happy about what I.ve done I.ve asked for another exercise. The Farm owner said that some landscape works might be required using some chain saw and some controlled fire after to get rid of all rubbish. But before that some digging is needed to make the external WC hole in the ground wider and deeper so he can put there prepared concrete rings. That.ll be ready for tomorrow - I.ve replied. I took a shovel and jumped into the hole. That is how I.ve met Mr Spider.
I came down to this shallow hole and started to dig. Dig and dig, wave after wave I.ve widened and deepened the hole I.ve been in. It took me like a half a day but I took my time to finish it. 35 degrees at full sun. Just me and my heavy breath. And off course the dog. German friend. Looking at me from above as he was just checking whether I.m doing the right thing or the hole is deep enough. Yup Mr shepherd, is it good for you? Is it deep enough now? Hehe, I guess so. I.ve started to talk to myself like Tom Hanks did in Cast Away. But he had a ball and I had a dog 😊 Both speechless. Especially when you.re trying to talk to a German dog. So the digging time gave me enormous mental rest. All the sweat I left in that sandy hole could be compared to all my tired minds and thoughts. So with the big smile on my face I think I.ve deserved for another bottle of cold bear. Dirty, stinky, burned and tired with that piece of ice in my hand I.ve reached another level of my internal happiness.
When I was hanging around the property I.ve heard some very strange buzzzzz noice. It was me. Farting is healthy. But no... it was soemthing more sophisticated that my fart. It was a bee swarm behind the house. The owner have heard that too and he have run out of a house and asked me for help! Bees went crazy because their quin flew out from a hive and each of that crazy bee just flew after her like a maniacs! So she stacked up on that tree behind the house. What I saw was a huge moving cocoon hanging on the branch just a minutes to fall down on the ground. So Mr Robocop decided to catch them all and put them back into the hive. Ok, but HOW? The question is... HOW? - Do we have any bees catcher equipment like a big sack on the stick? 😊 Haha, omg. We.re going to DIE! @&!^@%! These bees has stings and they.re not going to hesitate to use.em! So, we do.nt need a bees-catch-plan but what we do need is -> evacuation plan! 😊) But Robocop said, never surrender aj. Never give up. We are going to catch them all so you can tell this story to your kids after how brave you was. People going to write books about you. DOn.t tell me aj, that you want them to write that aj architect made a evac "away from the bees" plan instead of catch plan. - Come on for god's sake! These are only the bees mate! They.re like bunnies! So get to work! Bring me a suck and couple of these plastic boxes. - He have piled them up right under the bees cocoon so the boxes were like couple of centimeters under the hanging swarm. The owner asked me to stand next to this box pyramid with the big bag inside the top one. So I was literately standing face to face with these bees, ready to attack me face - When I.ll hit the branch (said Mr Hitman) the whole swarm - including the quin - will hit the bottom of your bag and you need to squeeze the bags corners above so you can tie the bag quick and very tight. And do not let the bees out. Otherwise they.ll get mad!! So let me get some big hammer. - And he disappear behind the bushes. After "zwei minuten" he cam back with the biggest hummer I.ve ever seen. But anyway. He stood up next to me. Waiting for me to get steady. I grabbed the bag corners ready to make a decidable move. I.ve trained this sliding move above the plastic box. It was almost dark so in case I.ll screw up and let the bees out of a bag - we both could get fucked. Proper fucked by the bees. Before zee Germans. GO SKIP! He lifted the hammer above his head and BOOM! Hit the branch where the swarm was hanging!! Like in the slow motion the cocoon is falling down so I.m following the situation with my eyes. 40 percent of all bees falled down to the sack but the rest NOT! I.ve panicked! Automatically I.ve made this mastered move tiding the bag above the box. But Mr. Hitman have decided to HIT THIS BRANCH AGAIN! It was dark and the time was running so slow MY GOD! NOOOO!! He did not seen that I.ve tided the bag already and the rest of the swarm have hit my FACE! FUCK! RUUUN! RUUUUUN! Everybody save yourselves! I.ve dropped the bag, slipped than I felt on my ass! Only one thing I could do is to open my right eye and see what is this guy doing! He dropped the hummer, jumped on top of these boxes, grabbed the bag and using his naked hands he was stripping this tree branch with all the bees on it left like it was butter from a sandwich! MY GOD! I was running forward so I can.t tell you what had happened next. After my failure Mr owner said: We got them. We got them all. - Good, I thought. Jolly good. Hahaha, I was laughing after all. It was very good day anyway 😊

Imagine, how I could meet such a situation in my life without this fantastic opportunity as traveling is? So you got the answer. And I had more opportunities like this one to taste totally different flavors of life. Perfect days. I.ve rescued a lizard from the fire we.ve made to burn all landscape rubbish. There was a Scorpio too. My relative. We have tried to fix the broken fridge. We tried. Good luck 😊 I.ve fixed the main gate motor engine after a quick instruction book study. Ask me how much do I know about electronics? Well... But I.ve done it successfully. And by the end of every hard working week we had a barbecue with the all family members. So good. Cold flat beer. Warm nights. Silence. All these kind words people talk to you. It is unforgettable. Their hand shakes. Smiles. True eyes. Their stories about who they are and where they came from. It was good to be here.

When I have decided to stay on the Farm as long as it will be required I did not realized that It.ll open the totally new RTW43 opportunities and have widened its horizons. It was time for me to move on.

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Photos

heat
the heat dream team

happy sun burn
never enough

the Farm
location

the wall
good shepherd

scorpio
relative

truck view
1:15 awake

sunrise
another perfect day

swarm
bee there

the tree
honey heaven

spider
web communication

chain saw
landscape adjustment

fire
flame action control

lizard rescue
finding the way

refrigerator
equipment maintenance

scheme lesson
gate engine

well done
perfect BBQ

just me
somewhere there

different perspective
good job - I.ve been told, than all the rest became clear

Comments

[Antos]

No Antos??
Wasupp Azamat Bagatov.. haha nice comment on the liger! wheres the legend about ''Anthony'' the person who did'nt just let go of the bee sack and run like a little girl, but stay on the pyramid holdng it up by myself??? ahaha

[extremewalk]

Azamat :)
Hi Azamat! WhooHoo! I got to amend this section about Antos the Greatest! I'll forward you an email about it once it going to be done. Basically I need to create a separate Antos section to describe the BIG GUY and his quad ;)