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.
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.
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
