Farming

I’ve been living the farming life for about three weeks now. It’s been quite an adventure. My friend I traveled here with, Jessica, wants to stay in Australia for possibly two years. The rule with the visa is that if you work at a farm for three months than you’re automatically granted another year visa. (A ton of backpackers do this so there are so many that come to the farm constantly throughout the day asking for work. I can tell that they get sick of them coming.) Jessica wanted to come to Bowen because she had friends living here that we can stay with and there are farms that she can work at here. I wanted to come because it was a beach town and close to the Great Barrier Reef – which I'm going to very soon… Anyways, somehow while I was going with Jessica to contact a farm and get a job I winded up working as well. The owners of the family farm are super nice and they were really interested in chatting with me because they’ve never seen an American here before. I guess when you only have 2.5% of the American population owning a passport the chances that any go to a small farming beach town is slim to none.

Anyways, I’ve been working a variety of different jobs at the farm even though I was hired mainly to work in the shed. They like to have me around doing other things like cleaning/planting/seeding. The farm that I’m at is currently producing capsicums. I’m in charge of the end of the assembly line in the shed where I weigh the boxes and make sure they all look good before they get sent off to our customers. It is really interesting to work there and learn about what goes on in the production of vegetables here in Australia. My job in the shed allows me to have time to sit and chat with the owners (I think it’s the easiest job in the shed or at least the most fun).

Working in the nursery with Lindy this super funny, inappropriate at times old aborigine grandma.  

It all got started by grandma and grandpa 40 years ago with 10 acres and one tractor and now it’s expanded to just under 400 acres of land and a ton of machinery. Grandpa Clive still comes to work everyday and pretends to be the big boss and in charge of everything while grandma only comes for a half day twice a week working in the shed next to me, she’s so sweet. She tells me she’s sick of this and wouldn’t be sad if her farming days were over. I mainly work with one of the sons Greg, his wife Kate, and the other son Bob’s wife Camilla. Camilla is from Sweden and came here as a backpacker then ended up getting married and staying here. They’re all really nice to me. The grandpa however is the funniest by far; he’s a huge chatterbox. He really likes talking about politics, which isn’t my favorite subject, and he says he watches fox and that’s where he gets his political persuasion from so you can just imagine some of the things that he says. He’s quite hilarious and doesn’t hold back from saying many of his beliefs.

Good looking capsicums aka bell peppers

My primary job is to weigh these bad boys...

The break area in the shed

The storage for the capsicums

The end of the production line with my two buddies Rye and Nathan

It’s fun working here in Bowen for these folks and I really enjoy it but I'm starting to make a move back home to Minnesota to get home in time for the arrival of a new family member. I decided I should be home for the birth of my new nephew in about a month. I may be back here to Bowen sometime in the future but time shall tell.