Monday 2 October 2017

Farm work September - it's not everyday you pluck a rooster!

We spent a day packing up our stuff, we ended up having 2 rucksacks, 2 backpacks, 2 suitcases and 2 bags as we needed to take some food with us as well as our belongings. When we had finished packing it was time to say goodbye to our wonderful hosts and head into Brisbane city for a night in the hostel. I struggled with all my bags so I waited at a bus stop while Joaquín took his stuff to the hostel then he returned to help me.

I had the worst nights sleep ever in a hostel; as everyone in the dorm room seemed to snore! It was up early to catch our bus for the 8 and a half hour journey to St George.


We had to change buses a few times and we stopped for lunch at Moonie Crossroads. Reaching St George at about 4pm, Kate was there to pick us up and drive us out about 30/40 minutes to the property. Where she showed us to our home for the next 3 months, Dave popped in with a beer to have a chat. We spent the rest of the evening unpacking ready for work the next morning.

Week 1
We are working on a 350,000 acre cattle property, I can't even compute how big that actually is but I don't think I will even see half of it while I'm here.

Up bright and early everyday for a 7am start. The first day Dave showed us the animals and then I went over to the house and met the children, Digby (7) and Claudia (5). Claudia's welcome was wonderful...saying "yay, you are my new backpacker. I love you." That came with a hug too! I got a tour of the house and garden - feeding the lamb, chickens and watering the plants.


The children were still on school holidays this means this first week would not be the normal routine, which was nice as it gave me some time to get to know the kids. In the afternoon I went for a swim with them in their pool. Finishing up the day by watering plants and feeding and locking up the animals for the night.

For my second day Kate, the kids and I went into the local town so I could remember the way and know my way around the town. We got a bit of food shopping and headed back.

This first week was mainly learning the routines and the property. My first morning job is to feed the horses and lock them in the stalls, yard or paddock. The 4 horses and ponies in were Luna, Bluebell, Oman and Illusion; the other horses were out in the big paddocks.


I then go to the house to make the kids lunches ready for the day, make sure they were eating breakfast, getting dressed, teeth cleaned and bedroom was tidy. Next I needed to go outside feed the chickens and collect the eggs, feed the lamb, water the garden/plants and check the hydroponics (a greenhouse with a fish watering system for growing herbs, fruit and vegetables). After that and a smoko (that is what they call morning break) I would have time to do another job or two before lunchtime.


As this was not a normal week with the kids off school, I didn't have an afternoon routine as such, yet!

Other things I did this week:
I met the 'neighbours' Dan, Michael, Jesse, Mikey and Annie. Dan works for Dave and him and his family live on the property too. Jesse and Mikey go to school with Digby and Annie and Claudia go to Kindergarten together.

I had to pluck the feathers off a rooster. The 3 roosters were old enough to be killed for dinners so we chopped the heads off (one ran around like a headless chicken), put them in boiling water and plucked them ready to be gutted. The feathers were eaiser than I thought it would be to pluck out.


I did some craft with the children, worked the ponies, burnt rubbish at the dump and organised the fridge.
We get the weekends off so on the Saturday we went into the town. We only get signal just before we reach town and in the car Joaquín's phone was ping, ping, ping...he had forgotten to tell everyone he was going to be unreachable. I showed Joaquín around the town, we did a spot of shopping and then headed down by the river to a local festival where "ABBA" were playing.


Once that had finished we grabbed our food shopping for the week and headed back for a chilled out evening.
We woke in the night to it pouring down so we actually spent the day cleaning and chilling. We were going to head into town for some more of the festival and market.