Limes, lambs, and a day at the races

Time is flying. Again. It's hard to believe I've been on the farm for over a month. It seems simultaneously like no time has passed at all, and that I've been here forever. I feel right at home, sleeping in a freezing cold room, cooking in the kitchen where the oven takes 10 times longer and only a couple of the hobs work, and showering in a hut that looks as though it is about to disintegrate.

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT to start with… I am now a proper farmer and I can drive a tractor! It’s the best part of picking, driving the full bins back to the shed, either driving the tractor or sitting on the bins as we bump along.

It’s been a long few weeks on the farm, and I’ve been up to a lot, even in the middle of nowhere! I’ve been picking, sorting and packing limes and oranges, picking up sticks ready for a new irrigation system, and now I’m back to picking them again.

Time always goes slowly when you’re working in the packing shed. The bins of fruit are tipped into a huge skip, then make their way up a conveyor belt. The bad ones get thrown out by the person sorting, then they get washed before tumbling into spinning barrels dependant on size. We then pull them out of the barrels and pack them into boxes ready to be delivered to the supermarket.

When you are sorting you can’t take your eyes off the conveyor and after a while you can’t see individual fruits any more. You have to keep shaking your head to wake up. Packing is very fast paced. Different sizes are packed in different formations and you quickly get into the rhythm.

At the minute there are 5 of us picking 32 bins of oranges on the Williams’ farm. It takes all of us between 30 and 40 minutes to fill a bin, and we’re doing maybe 8 or 10 a day – it’s great because we start early and can be done by lunch! The owners of the farm are away at the moment so we are in charge. Normally we’d be picked up then driven home, but as they are away John has given us his car so we have so much more freedom. We can stop off in town on our way home, or start a little later if everyone is in need of a bit more sleep.  

And I have an extra little job which I LOVE! I am in charge of the animals. So I feed the 2 cats, three dogs, and the little lamb, Dotty. She is the cutest thing alive and I absolutely love her. She was left all alone on a neighbouring farm and John and Cathy took her in and hand reared her when she was only 10 days old. She drinks milk, but she’s classy so she has it out of a wine bottle – 2014 Chardonnay darling =]

This weekend a lot of us had a day off so dressed up fancy and went to Leeton Races. It was great to see everyone looking nice for a change, normally we have twigs in our hair, dirt on our clothes and mud on our shoes! And the sun came out for us too. We lazed on the grass with far too much bubbly, bet on horses that never even started the race and went dancing with the locals. Luckily we started partying at about 11am so by 8pm we all think it’s about 3 in the morning, so we were home by midnight. Which is pretty important when you start work at 7am the next morning. Though it was a very quiet day, everyone picking with their headphones in…