Japanese knives

I am a bit worried about a Japanese guy here who has a very specific set of cooking knives.. or should I say butcher's knives. Apparently, he likes to cook when he is stressed. He is this type of guy who has no emotion on his face. Creepy. I managed to upset him this morning already. We were lifting boxes filled with eggs and apparently my lifting was not stable enough and I could drop the box. I did not agree so I carried on lifting them my way. I think he just could not believe that a woman could refuse taking his instructions. I told him if I drop the box it will be my fault, not his. He does not seem to be a bad guy but very, very strange. He is always wearing black sunnies, so I can never see his eyes. He does not talk to anyone but the other guy since they are sharing a room together. He stopped talking to the other girl a few days ago. He is ex military too.. Luckily he is leaving on Thursday.

When I got a along with him in the beginning I made some beef stroganov and he said it was a amazing and wrote down my recipe (I just made a random one on the spot). Two other English loved it too. It must have been really good :P

I have now officially driven a quad bike and a 4WD jeep in the middle of nowhere. It feels so cool to cruise around with 1000 eggs in the car and hope that they won't break in such a variable terrain...

I am getting a winter tan on my arms at this stage. The days are 20 degrees and night is close to zero. Our walls are like paper and I sleep under 5 blankets + clothes. Sounds like camping except that I have a double bed and 4 walls surrounding me. Oh, yes I also have a heater in my room. At least I am warm going to bed. The only thing that motivates me to get out of the bed is the fact that it would be warmer outside in 20 mins time than in bed.

Photo of the day below. It was just as fun as it looks! 

Chicken are cannibals

They eat each other, pick their heads off plus they eat their own eggs! If you want them to be quiet for 10 seconds, just throw an egg and they will all storm to eat it.
Today was the first morning that was not sunny but foggy. It ruined all our Sunday plans of walking into town for a beer. The afternoon was nice again but we had our daily duties that needed doing.
Now I am really starting to smell the chicken shit everywhere and all around me when I wear my work clothes. The smell off my gloves was just unbearable. Gave them a good wash but still not as good as new!
Our daily egg pick up finished off with a lovely sighting of a couple of roos who decided to jump along our troopy:)

Juliet - this dog breed shows her teeth when she is happy. Couldn't get her to "smile"!

Joe & Juliet

Daily egg transport, ca 1000 eggs

The weekend is the same as every other day

I’ve been getting my hands dirty for the past few days and gotten to know the difference between darker and brighter looking eggs! The colour of the egg is determined by the age of the chicken. The darker the egg shell, the younger the chicken and probably also better quality. I have seen some really weird shapes and colours of eggs, “half laid” eggs and also twin eggs. It is pretty cool what the chickens can create. Every day there is something different to look at and pretty fascinating how it all happens. I must not mention the never changing weather around here. Not a single cloud in the sky. The nights get pretty cold, down to 2 degrees and days get up to 20 degrees. I am starting to develop a tan on my arms, so I will definitely be tanned by the time summer arrives!
We’ve had such a wonderful day today. Did not do anything different, same routine but the ability to soak up the sun and enjoy the day is the best experience you can get.
Saturday is usually a cleaning day. We still need to get up and be ready at 8am as the chicken need to be fed and checked up on. Afterwards, we should be cleaning our house. The gilrs (two of us) took up the kitchen and it looks now as if it has been renovated! Sparkling clean and white. The farmer’s wife Di baked us a chocolate cake and left a “thank you” note on the box for cleaning everything around here. It did look like this place had not been cleaned for a long time.
Tomorrow’s plan is to do our morning duties and then head off to town. We might just walk, it is about an hour’s walk. I am sure we will all enjoy it. Afterwards, we will sure have a pint in the pub to celebrate Sunday. Sounds like a great plan as the forecast is looking clear for tomorrow with temperatures up to 21 degrees. Mmmmmmm!

Some pics of our sparkling clean kitchen and my bedroom (which is a bit messy)

Sandy

Flip

Garden in progress

Flip again

Clean kitchen

my bedroom

Merriwa, NSW

I have made my way up to NSW from VIC and landed in a farm just 8km outside of Merriwa. The farmer picked me up from Merriwa and drove me to his place where three other helpers were already waiting for me.
There are two English (guy 19, girl 23 and a Japanese guy 29). The Japanese guy has been here almost three months, so he is about to leave at the end of July. All he needs to do is a handover to us. Since my arrival yesterday I was shown around what they do and how they do it and I managed to already help them out all day. It was a long day to start with considering my day started at 6.45am in Newcastle!

The average day looks like this:
Ready to work at 8.00 am
Check on the chicken that are currently near the house and at three stations that are located a few km away from the farm. Obviously in the middle of nowhere. We need to check that they have clean water, enough food and whether there have been any fatalities. If yes, we need to pick up the chooks and take them to the "cemetery". We just throw them in specific area on the field where wild animals come to eat them (foxes, pigs etc). There is also a designated area on the field where we take all the broken and "no good" eggs that are considered waste and would not even be given to the dogs to eat.
After all this is done, we go back to the house for our morning break which lasts about an hour or so.
After the break we generally do some gardening duties, like looking after the veggie garden and doing some digging and weeding until lunchtime.
After lunch we go and pick up the eggs from the stations (not before 2pm) and record the quantities picked from each station plus record fatalities. That's about it. I haven't done anything else so far. An average per day is around 1800 eggs. We store them in the shed and some part time local ladies come to pack then each morning.
About 5pm we collect the eggs from the chicken in training at the farm house and train them to go on the bus for the night.
I know there are cows somewhere as well because we brought some cotton seeds (I think) from a shed and took them to a different field for the cows (or bulls) to eat.

A station itself is made of an old school bus that has been converted into a chicken shed. Before taking the shed on the field, the chicken are trained for 10 days to get used to going into the bus for the night. Today was our second training night. Well, not our training but training of the chicken. Each station has two buses.

Apparently, the snake season starts in October and it is quite difficult to spot one during these months. Our Japanese guy hasn't seen any during his three months. I guess I should be happy but I would still prefer to see at least one. Ah well, I still have a farm in Queensland to visit :)
That's briefly what has happened so far. I've got my own room with a double bed, such a luxury. The house is cold though and we really need to wrap up warm during early mornings. For example, the temperature in the kitchen was +2 degrees this morning. The tea in the cups outside was slightly frozen...

Get out of your comfort zone!

It is time to get up off my arse, get out of my comfort zone and get out of Melbourne. I think I used the word "get" for three times in one sentence. If my Estonian language teacher witnessed that, she'd probably hang me for not having enough vocabulary to use!
I am feeling slightly anxious the night before departure and not knowing what exactly is going to happen in the next few months. I guess I will have to adjust to the new situation and I am sure it will be just fine.
It will be an adventure of a lifetime with plenty of colorful memories.

I took a few pictures while walking towards the train station from work. The Australian sky has always something to offer, be it morning or evening, good or bad weather. The playful pictures of cloud and sun in the sky are just amazing. I saw the biggest ever rainbow last week. In fact, it was a double rainbow, starting from one tip of a skyscraper and ending on top of another one. Beautiful!!

Last week at work

I don’t remember the last time I laughed as much as I did today. The boys at work have really taken their toll on me after finding out I am going to work at the farm. I am a bit worried about the snakes and spiders but they said I should be more worried about the crocs than snakes! I guess that’s the fun part in working with sales guys, they can’t stop slagging each other and now me too. Calling themselves with names like Teflon Terry and Souvlaki. My nickname has been transformed from Ozi to Farmer Dorie. I might get a cork hat for my farm adventure on top of it! Apparently, I will become the real Aussie once I get my farm work done. They have kindly offered me to work here in the office for free so that I wouldn’t have to leave. They said this is a farm too. They really are a nice bunch and they expect me to return after three months. We’ll see about that!

I have already been offered another job 3-6 months by the agency with higher salary but it would be part time only. I have to complete my farm work, so cannot afford to keep working until the end of my visa... Once you get your first office job, all other agencies will immediately want you to work for them. Easy life.

I must take a picture of the team once I finish up on Monday.

Footy

Last night we went to see a footy match between the top two teams in the league here. Geelong vs Hawthorn. Footy isn't the normal football / soccer. It is something similar to GAA. The stadium was almost full. The screen showed 85,157 spectators. The capacity of the MCG is apparently 100,000. To my surprise, the crowd was not going crazy and there was very little cheering going on. I was really hoping for amazing atmosphere but I had to be disappointed. Overall, the experience itself was good. We seats with excellent views so definitely worth a visit!
The locals usually have the full season or even lifetime passes and reserved seats for each of their team's matches.

From 23rd of July I will be moving on to do some regional work. I will stay at a farm in NSW (about three hours drive from Newcastle towards North inland) for 5 weeks and then move on to another farm in QLD which is located just near Rockhampton. The one in NSW mainly deals with chicken and open range eggs plus additional cattle of around 1000. The second farm mainly deals with breeding and selling cattle. I will probably get to see artificial fertilisation of some weird looking cows. By weird I don't mean ugly, just different from the ones I am used to!
Once I get there I will write about it in more detail.
The work that I will be doing is pretty much voluntary in exchange for food and accommodation. I might even get paid in QLD farm but not yet sure about that. I need to work in the regional area a total of 88 days to qualify for my second year working holiday visa. I believe doing voluntary work would give me a much more valuable experience from the real Aussie families and lifestyle. Ultimately, they invite a random person into their home and treat you as part of their family. I think this could be an amazing experience provided everything works out well between me and the families.