Hangin Around

I keep starting blogs and don't get around to finishing them. The unfinished thoughts sit and stew and turn brown and old and disinteresting to me as I continue to move forward and experience new and exciting things. Looking back isn't as appealing. I guess those stories will have to be the ones I tell over a cup of tea around the fire with you when I get back.

Today is the last of a few days off because of rain. I'm sitting outside in Kerry's gorgeous backyard listening to the chorus of birds and the rush of the light breeze. (There are some parrots here who sound like Bob and Terry from Where The Wild Things Are!! I bet they're cousins.) It's kinda chilly in the shade with the sun already hiding behind the trees, making them vibrantly green, orange and red in the beautiful autumn afternoon.

It's crazy that it's autumn here. No summer for me this year. It definitely gets hot midday though. Yesterday I went for a run in the afternoon and enjoyed all the shades the trees provided on the road, keeping me from melting! During my run a mob of about 25 kangaroos were bounding through the bush and came out onto the road in front of me in small groups of seven to ten kangas! It was incredible to be running along with them! Of course, I couldn't keep up but it was amazing to see the wild ones so close. They were so big! Four of them hopped out and started heading straight toward me until they realized that I was a very magenta looking creature and not a kangaroo so they leapt the opposite way. They're such incredible creatures!

We just finished a lunch of fresh, delicious homemade tortillas (SO EASY!!) and leftover tostada veggies. It's hard to get some of the right ingredients out here on the farm, but we've made it work. Last night we had an exciting poker game with Jon and Karin and a friend of theirs, James, from London. I won!! I've used the money to buy tickets for me and Ben to join everyone at the Melborne International Comedy Festival Tour in Dubbo tonight. I'm looking forward to it very much! (It was so much fun!!!)

Tomorrow we'll go back to work and probably don't have more than a week left with the harvest. After that Harry will head back to his new home in the Blue Mountains (where we'll visit him later on!) and Ben and I will go off adventuring some more before he heads home. We're still coordinating our Great Barrier Reef trip and trying to get into the outback in some way. Karin's sister lives near Aires Rock and I would love to make that trip happen at some point!

I've begun to look for another job- possibly with Kerry's cousin at a macadamia nut plant(??) And I'm still figuring how I'm going to live out of a backpack for the next year. What to keep and what I could really benefit from leaving behind. I think in the name of adventure taking risks and indulging in certain things a bit is definitely beneficial. I'm officially signed up as a WWOOFer and I'm on couch surfing again. There are so many incredible resources for backpackers! Rocko was telling me Australia actually relies on them quite a bit for their harvests because it's such temporary work and farming just seems to be falling to the hands of machines for the most part. I'm very much looking forward to my WWOOF (willing workers on organic farms) experiences. I have no idea what that'll entail!

Just before this last chunk of work we had a few days off to wait for the cotton to be ready for harvest. I learned to drive a manual and love it so much better than automatic!! Ben and I have been practicing footy (Australian football (not rugby)) and we both have our favorite teams now. Mine is Hawthorne, his is Collingwood, who we saw play in Melbourne. Rock took us to see the local teams play rugby last weekend and it was fascinating to be involved with the small country town's festivities. We were sitting right next to the barbie and Rock introduced us to all the locals we came across. I even met Kerry's good friend Susie but I didn't even realize it! There was a sweet little toddler keeping me entertained when the game wasn't. We really had a great time! That same day Kerry and I met Jon and Karin at the farmer's market in the morning. Again, it was such fun to be a part of the little town and meet people who've known each other for generations. I learned a lot of colloquialisms through those interactions. Aussies are so fantastic!

I've also been taking a lot of pictures, for myself and for a photo contest I'm planning to enter on the cotton harvesting industry. (We'll see how that goes..) And I've come further than I ever have on the guitar! Hooray! I think the art of guitar, like tango, is something you can only continue to get better and better and better at. I am so enjoying the process. And damn how I miss tango. Ben led me in a teaser dance just now and it was sooo not satisfying! As soon as we get back to Sydney I'm going dancing! I'll find it, I know it's out there.

For now I'm happy enjoying the beautiful farm surrounded by nature. It's given me a lot of time to reflect and appreciate who I am and explore who I want to be. It's wonderful to be with such an incredible family to share a home, food and laughter with. I love having amazing people to connect with and learn from. It's amazing to hear what I have to say sometimes and I've really been enjoying hearing different perspectives as well (and yet, they're so similar.) It's fascinating how like attracts like~ even over long distance, obscure connections like Jon's brother's ex-girlfriend's best friend's mutual friends.

More To See Than Can Ever Be Seen

(These blogs are written over the course of a couple days so "today" is not always accurate but for the sake of not confusing things we'll just pretend it was a REALLY long day!)

The adrenaline and thrill of this new work has worn off but there are still lots of things to keep me entertained all day as I tramp cotton over and over again (plus whatever break down there is for the day -more than any other harvest so far and we're only 2 weeks in!)

Probably the most entertaining is my own mind. The things that come up, memories and ideas, people I haven't talked to in a while, those I have... I sing to myself, (songs I love and made up songs) I retell stories in Spanish, or think about what to include in my next blog. There's also a lot to look at around me on the farm.

We've actually just switched paddocks so the scenery is different now but the land out here is really incredible. My view is basically the cotton in front of me, the field, trees, brush and sky.

It's also fun to keep an eye out for the wildlife. If I keep a look out I may see a mama kanga with a joey in her pouch. I haven't seen many kangas out here yet but there are two living at the house and I sometimes see them from the truck (or "ute.") Lots of birds fly over probably wondering what in the world the big machines are doing down below!? At one point I was parked next to a small pond and there were a couple of gorgeous black swans! Their beaks were incredibly orange and they were both so graceful. They didn't seem to mind the noise of the tractors. (They are tiny in the picture I've attached.) We've also seen some beautiful hawks and on the drive home one night we saw a gorgeous white owl!

Kema, the border collie on site, is the most consistent "wildlife." Actually, she is hilarious to watch! She's Chris's dog and when he drives the picker she follows him up and down the rows barking and jumping at the machine. Jon jokes that each day she wakes up thinking, "today I'll bring that thing down!" She's a riot. I saw her racing down the road one day and realized she was chasing a hare! It was a big one and was nearly flying with Kema on her tail! Rabbits have that quick dart to the side skill though leaving Kema looking behind herself at the rabbit's escape! I also saw Kema hunting out a fox that escaped her on the opposite side of the field right past my builder!

The sky of course is constantly changing which is entertaining all on its own. At one point when I was ahead of things and had already laid my strings inside the builder, I waited for the next load sprawled out on the cotton. I looked up at all the clouds in the pure blue sky watching them shift and change. As one patch of clouds floated across the sky it looked like hair in water. It was interesting to see what I "saw" in the clouds because it all came from my imagination of course. I mostly saw faces and animals and when I challenged myself I saw letters. I wondered if I could ask the clouds a question (like when you flip to a page in a book to find guidance) but right after I asked my question in my head, I answered it as well. Perhaps I'll ask a harder question next time.

Supposedly it's going to rain tomorrow and the clouds turned from fluffy and white to heavy bottomed grey clouds. It was actually really cool because they were spread pretty evenly across the sky and all about the same size. It looked like they were all hanging by the same length of string, like lamps from the ceiling of a big dining hall. Nature is so amazing.

The trees are beautiful to look at. I've always been a fan of trees, their colors, the shapes of the branches, their strength and the way they seem to be constantly reaching up! (I accidentally took out a 30 ft branch moving the builder today. The way Ben described his experience watching it happen is hilarious like a cartoon but really I just feel bad. Apparently Jon was warned but forgot to tell me! We tried to drag the branch out of the way into the brush but it was too heavy! Jon might tow it later. Poor tree. (There aren't any more trees to "jump out at me," everyone is teasing, for the rest of this paddock anyway.)

The treetops close by are amazingly green, especially with the way the sun shines on them in the late afternoon just as it begins to fall in the sky. Their branches twist and turn in beautiful ways reaching up and out and over one another. The trees along the horizon all blend in together like a lush green boarder. This morning the tractor leveling out the land in one of the paddocks was creating a lot of dust and it was hazing over my view of the trees. From so far away it didn't look all that different from the image I have memorized in my heart of the bay area skyline on a slightly foggy day. I could almost see the water glistening and feel the wind blowing on my face.

Actually it was quite a windy day today which can make things very difficult. It blows the cotton all over which is especially frustrating when we're trying to rake! It also blows the cotton out of the builder and blows the tarp like crazy when we try to tie it down! I came up with an awesome idea (as I often do!) to tie the back end of the tarp down before we start pulling so that as the tractor pulls the tarp over all we need is a person on each side to hold the sides down. It's worked really nicely when we've only had two guys to do the pull. I'm getting better every day at driving the tractor, especially parking. I was super proud of my perfect parking job today, especially in comparison to Jon's awful one! Even he admitted it was terrible, it was undeniably bad.

Jon has decided to officially hand the work over to us, as we clearly have it under control. With my tractor driving (this was prior to tree smashing) and Ben's consistently even cotton dumping/tipping (fun fact: their dump/landfill is "the tip") into the builder being at perfection, there's nothing more for Jon to offer! Actually, he is really great to have around. He's a very fun spirited guy with a fantastic sense of humor! Even when we've had a rough start or tricky moment in the day, he'll bring light to it and we all keep moving. I wish everyone had a boss like him! (I've definitely had some great bosses!) He's also an incredibly helpful extra set of hands and quite handy at fixing all the stuff he breaks(!!)

Friday I got to play Ben's role for a bit while he sat and tramped cotton on my builder. I was responsible for directing the driver of the ball buggie to line up alongside the builders and dump in the cotton evenly from back to front. (These are big machines we're talkin' about here.) I got a perfect tip on the second go! I love learning new things. It was also my responsibility to rake up all the cotton that spilled out of the builder, bag it in huge burlap sacks and heave it up to the top of the ladder to dump back in. Whew! Ben's job is certainly more physically demanding than module building. I wanted to prove that I could do it though because Jon told me when he was looking for workers he wanted someone who was "really fit" to do Ben's job and I wanted to make sure I fit that description too! I've only had a couple situations were being a girl made this job slightly more difficult. The whole gender equality thing has so many dimensions...

The majority of my days are spent staring at the cotton in my builder. Watching it go from a huge fluffy pile to a smashed loaf-looking pile. (The edges really do puff up making it look like a loaf of bread.) Then it's a fluff pile again when a new load gets tipped in. Each finished module is about 5 1/2 packed loads of cotton and takes about 2 hours to make. With two builders our goal is 8 modules a day...we could do it if we would stop having so many breakdowns! Sometimes when I'm staring at the cotton it looks like a pile of clouds. Other times it seems like I've got a huge pile of Muppets in my builder! I'm not sure where I got that image but I feel bad smooshing it down when it looks like Animal and Fozzy and Big Bird and that shaggy dog! It feels especially muppet/puppety when Ben flips cotton into the builder with a take and the rake pops up against the side! (I've included a picture of this..in the background you can see a line of finished modules with blue tarps on them.)

Each day has definitely had it's own adventure and excitement. I'd love to write it all but then I'd never get a blog published! So the details like getting lost on our way to the job site and fearing my life in the back of Harry's ute get left out.. Most importantly I am having an incredible time and am truly amazed at times that I'm actually here and not back home working in the preschool classroom. It's like I've finally realized the door of my life has opened to infinite possibilities and it's all at my fingertips! Especially in this landscape, I really feel like I can turn 360 degrees around and freely choose to walk any direction I want. *There is more to see than can ever be seen, more to do, than can ever be done. There's far too much to take in here. More to find than can ever be found. The sun rollin' high through a sapphire sky keeps great and small on an endless round...it's the circle of life! **see kangaroos hopping past..(fade out)

Oh Lordy, pick a bale'a cotton!

I wish everyone knew sign language. At least all the workers here around such loud machinery and across long distances. I was trying to signal to Ben to see if they needed my help at the other module -Jon's climbin across the top of the tramper and Ben and Harry are lookin up at him (not sure if they were doing anything useful) and I wondered if they needed me but Ben couldn't decipher my message. So I've walked back to my own empty builder waiting for a load, which will take about twenty minutes. There's nothing else to do so I thought I'd catch up on this.

Last night my builder needed a fix so I was helping pick up the cotton around Harry's module. Once I had most of it picked up off the ground, I went over to the actual crop and started picking just to get a feel for what it might've been like in the old days. It's definitely a hell'uva lot slower and I did get pricked a couple times in 5 minutes..so imagine doing a whole field! Mostly it just hurt my back to lean over like that. I'm certainly thankful for technology, even if in this case our technology is old rusty tractors! Which I'm really enjoying driving by the way! It feels great when I've successfully lined up the huge builder alongside the crop just so. Apparently this'll be the last year of it though because they've bought a picker that does all the work! It picks, packs and loads! So we're the last team of cotton pickers on the Elder farm.

The days are long but some points feel like they go by quicker than the others. The morning disappears pretty fast and the evening after the sun has set is my favorite because the day is almost done. Other than whatever breakdown happens for the day, each day is basically the same:

First I wake up earlier than I need to so I go back to sleep (we need as much rest as possible, these days are exhausting.) When I do get up, I go and have a'cuppa (tea) while I make our lunches, which are generally about the same: sammies, fruit, a bar of some sort and some bickies or other treat. Jon comes and picks us up and we grab tarps for the day and drive out to the fields. Then I check the oil and water on the tractors and start em while Ben and Harry grease everything up. Then, we wait.

Once the pickings started it's on! At some point mid morning I slip in a break for lunch. After the first couple modules have been built, pulled and tarped, the excitement of a new day sort of wears off and the afternoon sets in.

First it gets really hot! I have lots of sunscreen and a hat and sometimes a light layer when it's really bad. (Last night I had a small, thin line of sunburn by my sleeve and one by my collar-today I was more thorough!)

Then it's the time of the day, as it seems to be a trend in most jobs, where the afternoon lull makes me sleepy. Sometimes that's when I'll have second lunch, or "tea." Actually I make some lady grey tea in the evenings which I pour into a tub with a block of ice and it stays pretty cold until I want it at 3. Around 4:30 or so the sky starts changing colors and I look forward to the sunset at 5:30. Then the bugs set in! Time for another layer! I've got bug bites all over. (It couldn't have anything to do with my sweet tooth I'm sure.) Yesterday afternoon I got stung by a bee but heeding everyone's warnings that things in Australia are deadly poisonous (during our Great Ocean Road trip I was wandering the beach and Ben said, "if it moves, it kills you!") when I felt the sting/bite I started freaking out and nearly tore my shirt off! It was in the middle of my back so I'm sure I looked like a lunatic. No one saw though, and it turned out it was just a bee sting. Damn bees. I do love em but not their sting. I also had a grasshopper hang out with me for about half an hour yesterday. She was beautiful! Eventually another load got dumped on her, I hope she climbed out okay. There are, of course, plenty of spiders too. The bug I see most often are dragonflies. They hover here and there above the cotton, always escaping the tramper. They're fascinating to watch!

Time to get to work!

Anyway, after the bugs comes dark and I'll have another snack to tide me over til hot homemade delicious dinner at 9 (It's what I look forward to all day!) We work in the dark until about 8 or when Chris calls it quits. I don't mind though, when the sky is clear the stars are amazing!! The milky way goes all the way across and is fascinating to look at! The southern cross is very bright and Orion is quite upside down. It's also fun to watch the moon phases and see how it's slightly different every night. As long as the sky is clear nighttime is really lovely. Actually the sunsets are best with a cloudy sky. There are incredible colors and light plays off of and through the clouds, it's so beautiful. It has been getting a lot colder in the mornings and evenings and I'm coming out with 4 layers on and thick pairs of socks!

The last few nights as we've cleaned up for the day I've been helping clean out the picker. It has four sections of two mud and grease filled compartments where the gears and prongs run. It's a disgustingly fun and satisfying job! Playing in the mud for work! Yay!

So that's what I do for 12 hours a day. It's such an amazing experience.