ignorance is bliss

I am currently in day 64 of 88 farm days. Sounds like AA, counting the days! I have been living at a farm for such a long time, I don't even know what make up and getting dressed up means any more. Oh, and those fancy dinners in restaurants... I can only dream of that too. All I do is eat beef in all shapes and forms every single day and drink rum "cocktails" and too much wine and don't feel guilty about any of it!I have acquired a certain vocabulary while being here. Darl - darling. That's what I get called all the time. I also get called "love" (not as often as in the beginning but there is no harm intended). The word seems to have a bad reputation from Ireland..

Ag is short for agriculture - that's what the new girl told me when I asked her what she is studying.
Nag - a horse or horses. I was asked a question about them today and I did not know what nag meant. Well, now I know. Not sure if it exists in common English.
Feral - used for wild animals. Also used to describe one's wild daughter who has a strong attitude towards the rest of the world. Don't get me wrong. She is a lovely person and does not have loose manners.
Instead of getting pissed or drunk or hammered or plastered the locals get feral, I mean countryside locals would call themselves feral when they are significantly drunk.
Shit yeah, shit no - very common co-expression around here. Not considered vulgar. I will start using it, hehe.
The English couple that stayed here for a couple of weeks came to a conclusion that you could easily get killed by so many different things that it is unimaginable. I have only recently discovered the threat of swooping magpies during their nesting season. Ignorance really is bliss. There is one living on a tree in the farm. It probably had a go at me and another girl once. Apparently, you are not supposed to run or drive away fast but keep calm and move further away while waving hands  over the head and wearing a helmet or hat and sunglasses or even better - use an umbrella! All this stuff that I wasn't even aware of!
If I were to walk out of the house in the dark I'd get cane toads, geckos, lizzards etc everywhere. Those geckos may be little cute reptiles but they are very loud and annoying. I haven't slept peacefully for the past 4-5 nights ever since I discovered one from my bed while I was attempting to fall asleep. It just dropped from the ceiling! Looks like its boots aren't good enough to resist gravity.
I have unsuccessfully tried to catch them in my room and take them outside so I could sleep at night. After realising that a glass wasn't going to do it I changed it into a larger carton. It gives me reaction time when the gecko moves. They are very fast! I managed to cut off one's tail with the glass and the tail still moved afterwards. Creepy!! Now I've got a tailless gecko living in my room, getting fatter and fatter, feeding on the insects that have also come to live with me! After switching a glass to a carton I have caught two geckos thinking "yeah, I got them all" but my bad luck - I discovered another two sneaking around on the walls.One of them is the big fat tailless one that I really do not fancy! I am on a mission again to catch those culprits. I have found one of their hiding holes on the window and stuffed the whole length of the window with toilet paper. We'll see if that was the place where they sneaked into the house from! That's all the exciting country life news this time!

Beef

We killed a cow on Friday. Well, I did not kill it but it was shot in the head and then its throat cut. This is supposed to be the quickest and most humane procedure when doing it at home. In Australia the law permits killing of livestock at the farm when its area is larger than 100 acres. Not sure if I got 100 right but something similar. This is completely  for personal consumption. And each time farm killed meat is served to guests, they need to be informed. Plus it is  not allowed to remove the meat from the farm and take it to a friend's house for example. Since this would most likely be the only time that I see farm slaughter in my life, I decided to attend the procedure. Obviously, we were not close when the heffer was killed but we were asked to stay inside a room and only allowed to peep from the window. It is understandable as they do not like to do this either but it needs to be done. The killing part was not fun but the rest of it was sort of interesting. Once the heffer was dead and drained from blood it was lifted up by its back legs by a tractor and taken to a specific area where it was laid down on a rack type looking bench. First, the feet were cut off from the joints. I got to cut off one with a knife. It is not as bad as it may seem when reading this.It is actually quite ok. We also got an opportunity to skin the cow. I thought I would pass out or not feel good while seeing / doing all this but it all felt like regular meat handling. Strange. We started off at 6.30am and had the meat hanging on hooks in the cold room by 9am. I have some photos and videos which the farmer asked me not to post online. I respect their wishes and keep these private. They do this usually once in every three months and they do really eat a lot of meat.We also got a very educating lesson of what the four stomachs, heart, lungs, ovaries, liver, pancreas etc look like. One of the stomachs was really hard and had these thin layers in it acting as filters - something like a filter in the vacuum cleaner except there were 7-8 of them (maybe more). I was very proud of myself afterwards for being able to do all this and not act like a total fanny! The butcher arrived on Friday and sorted out the meat into pieces. We spent all morning cutting, packing and freezing the beef. The afternoon was devoted to making around 200 rissoles (to be frozen for a party), maybe more. I prepared a meatloaf to be cooked for tomorrow night. Oh, we minced our own meat too! Felt like a factory worker rolling them rissoles for hours...
Tomorrow is a day off and we can go to the beach and enjoy a day by the ocean. Yayy :)

Eventful day

I am so tired today. Had to get up at 6am and help semen test the bulls. There were about 10 of them and a crew of 9 people. Well,  9-3 (me and 2 English). The bulls were brought over by someone else and I had to guide a couple to a different yard. I was told to go into the yard and get the bulls to move to a different area. I was also told that I should walk close to the gates in case they start fighting and pushing or get angry with me, so I could quickly leg it. Did not sound very helpful! Luckily there were only two and they did not show any resistance and I got them sorted easily. So the way the whole sperm test works is that the bull chased into a very tight area where it cannot move much. The vet measures the size of the nuts – it ranged between 32-44. Some big balls they have! Besides the measurement they also get a rating from 1-5. 1 being really soft and 5 being too firm. The good range is considered 3-4. The bull’s balls need to be at least 34cm for age 25 months and over when entering it into a show / competition. Measure 32cm is not acceptable, therefore the bull is no good for the show. After measuring the balls the vet stuck his arm you know where and massaged the bull from the inside while his assistant collected the sperm from the penis into a tube. That’s about it, quite simple. There are other bulls who need plenty of foreplay. The vet pulled out a vibrator. OMG, it was a long oval “stick” and probably 8-10cm wide that would have sent electric impulses while inside the bull. In aid of preparation for the oncoming show the bulls got new ear tags plus their teeth were counted also. Usually they have either 2 or 4 teeth. They don’t really want anyone touching them so they get lured into a cage that can lock their heads in. Getting them in there and locking their head is not as easy as it sounds, especially when their head gets stuck and they start struggling. I thought the poor animal was going to tear the whole place apart! That was scary shit that was going on for a few hours this morning. Well, at least I thought that was scary! Come afternoon we were asked if we wanted to see how the bulls get their pedicure done. We thought it would be as easy as getting the horse shoes done. Wrong! I was truly shocked what that procedure involves. I took a video of the whole thing. That explains it pretty accurately. I will have to upload it in a month’s time. What happens is that the bull gets drugged first to make it a bit drowsy. Once it is in the “cage” again it is tied to the wall with two belts across its body. His head it tied up as well, so that it has minimal chances of moving itself. Then, using hydraulics that is connected to the tractor the wall is turned over leaning the bull on its side. The feet are then tied up and nails cut using a circular saw. The smell off the feet is like burning hair. Reminds me of the time when Marju and I were burning hair in school under our desk when we were 14-15. Good old times J

The sight of it all is much worse than the description. Very traumatizing..

Almost forgot, we got to see the sperm under the microscope and a day before we had a look at the embryos under the microscope!

And did I say dogs like to eat freshly cut off horns?

Crabbin!

 I can now say I have built an electric fence! We laid down some posts, got a tractor and a quad and some wire. The tractor was used to push the poles into the ground. That worked very well and it was fast. After we had all poles securely in place it was time to sort out the wires. The system was to attach the starting piece of wire to the quad and slowly drive to the other end while pulling the wire from one point to another. Guess if it went as smoothly as described? Of course not! The wire got jammed, then it would not run properly and it's bloody heavy to hold. There is a rolling device that is used to release the wire but that didn't really work, so we had to do it manually with the hardcore country woman. She wouldn't even listen to our ideas. We just sat back and watched her call the wire with a "c" word... hmmm. It took a lot longer to get it straight using her methods. She just feels she needs to be involved in everything,even the knife I choose to cut pork. It all needs to be done her way. It's her way or no way.

Tuesday morning was something to look forward to. We left at around 11am to catch some mud crabs and got back home at around 8pm. It was a long but adventurous day out and away from the farm. Since we have an English couple staying here too, there were four of us on the boat. The farmer guy and us three foreigners. It took us around 35-40 minutes to drive out to the creek. There is some big ass salt "mining" going on in the area. Fields and fields of salt water creeks. One of the little fields looked pink. It actually looked like a pink lake. It wasn't deep, maybe knee high but so cool :)
The area was so different from where our farm is and it is such a short drive away. There are not supposed to be any crocs around there but there was a sign post asking to report any croc sightings. We did not spot any. We all got on the boat and started our journey towards the area where we could throw pots in. It took around 25 minutes to get there. Of course, the farmer was having a bit of fun and got us all soaked by the time we got out of the choppy waters..It was fun. I really enjoyed it. Reminded me of the speedboat ride we took in Dublin except is was 30 degrees outside! Our aim was to get the pots in at around 1pm when the tide was low. Afterwards, all we had to do was check them a few times and wait for the tide to come in, bringing fresh water and food to attract the mud crabs. So we had lunch and threw in  couple of fishing lines while we were waiting to get the crabs out. We actually caught a few crabs. It's funny, they use king prawns as bait to catch fish. We got around one kg for 13 dollars. Very cheap for aussies. According to the local laws you cannot just catch any size and any gender crabs. The law does not permit to catch ny females (they are supposed to taste better) and males that are smaller in size than maybe 15cm. There was a specific "ruler" that would measure its body width. If the body fits through the area, it needs to go back in the water. Anything bigger is ok. It is allowed to catch 10-15 crabs per person. Well, we got 5-6 in total of which some were probably a millimeter smaller than legal size. Don't get me wrong, we could have got 10-15 each but we had to abide by the law and release all the smaller crabs.
Our way back to the shore we got soaked again but it was fun again. The evening was a bit chilly - around 25 degrees (considering I am used to 36 degrees). I was quite tired by the end of the day despite doing nothing all day! Poor English guy who had to pull out all 16 pots from the water. He was wrecked by the end of it. Not as easy as it looks! I have to admit I did not move a finger. His gf was helping him and it was pretty crowded there on that side of our small boat.
The vet arrived today with his big lab truck. Tomorrow will be interesting to explore embryos under the microscope and see how flushing cows works.

I was told I look like an aboriginal. Sorry, can't hide myself from the sun!

Days drag

I have only been here just a bit over a week and the days really seem to drag. I am checking the calendar every day and waiting for time to move faster towards the end of September! After I get past September, I will only have three weeks left.
I have developed this routine here each morning with Miss Hardcore T (the woman with no manners). After I feed my three horses I will follow her to the dairy shed where she usually gives me instructions what to do next. Firstly, she moves the hay stacks and I cut the strings on them. Fine, I can do that, no problem. Then yesterday morning she told me to go and get the blower. I asked whether she wanted me to take the extension cord with me. She said no. The blower has two cords, so left one behind and took the rest of it to the dairy shed. OMG, when she saw me with the cord, she started shouting at me that I shouldn't have brought it. I said, look there were two of them so I was talking about the other one and brought this just in case. She still kept shouting at me and said it was wrong and that there is one in the shed already bla bla bla. I realised the more I was arguing with her, the more bossy and rude she became and I just said OK! She created a massive problem out of nothing. What a bitch... I was pretty pissed off for a while and was thinking about leaving this place. Then as the day advanced she suddenly became so nice and smiley with me. She must have realised that she over reacted. Anyway, I don't really care about her. She is not my boss.
A few days ago she told me not to eat too many tomatoes since the supply from the garden is running low. Wft, what am I supposed to eat then if I can't even eat free tomatoes. It is not HER garden. And another time she made a comment about me wasting salame by putting it into an omelette. I only used one slice. For my mentail health's sake it is better to laugh at her stupid comments.The farmer man told me that Miss T is weird like that and that I should not take her very seriously. She does not like working with anyone and a few helpers have left because of her. Will see how she treats me in the future. I can always leave too. I don't want to leave just yet as I would like to go and see their 60,000 acre farm in the outback.
At least I am not alone any more. An English couple arrived two days ago. They are staying here for two weeks. That  should make life easier. On our way back to the farm, after picking them up from the bus stop, I was opening one of the gates and apparently there was a huuuuuuge spider sitting on the pole. I did not even see it and I leaned over it casually while opening the gate. Once I got back in the car the English girl told me: "That was brave". I did not even know what she was on about. She said the spider was the size of a hand. I couldn't believe I missed it. It was right in front of me. I would have passed out on the spot there if I had seen it!

A bit of local slang:
Dinner = lunch
Tea = dinner

One week done, 6 more to go!

Thought I should write an update before I forget what has happened in the past few days. Firstly, I should mention that most of the cow / bull jobs here are done by women. There is a lady that works here full time, driving tractors, forklifts etc. Rolling hay stacks. Anything that needs to be done, she will do it. Not sure if I can call her a lady since her manner is quite rude. I am sure there is no offence intended but she just comes across that way. I choose to ignore her communication "skills". She has probably lived and worked in the area for her whole life. I help her out every morning with unpacking the haystacks that she brings over to the paddocks. I follow her on my quad and cut off the strings from the haystacks. Some yards have big bulls in them and they are quite intimidating when they look at me and won't move away. So I try to be as quick as possible and avoid making eye contact with them and get out of the yard just in case. I am sure they are fine but it is slightly scary when a herd of bulls that weigh a tonne each are all standing around you.
I've got three horses to feed now each morning and afternoon. They are beautiful and gracious.
For the last five days we've been running an artificial insemination (A.I.) program. That means injecting the cows hormones twice per day. After they get their shots, they also get stickers on their bums.The stickers are covered with grey layer that rubs off easily (same as the lottery ticket). The stickers are used to see whether they have jumped on each other. Once a cow gets jumped by another and the cow let's another one do it, it means they are ready to be inseminated. We record the approximate time when this happens and then after x amount of hours we can start the A.I. The AI gets done twice and then we must wait for six days until the vet comes to get the embryos out. The AI procedure itself is not very pleasant. The farmer lady sticks her hand up the cow's bum and I have to assist her by making sure the tube stays clean when she pushes it into her vagina. I have to open up the cows vagina to do that. That's pretty much it. I mainly fill in the paperwork for her while she does that or guide the cows back to the yards. We have around 10-15 cows that are part of the program. The goal is  to get 60 embryos which will be frozen and exported to Indonesia.
I also witnessed dehorning of a bull. The horns were tiny and they just chopped them off. Poor thing. I felt so sorry for him. There's quite a lot of blood spraying from the head afterwards and their beautiful while coat gets all red. They add some chocolate powder looking antiseptic on the bleeding areas.
The bull also had 3-4 stitches in his eyelid that needed to be removed. Some hardcore stuff!
Oh, one more thing. They asked me if I wanted to go to a cattle show to Sydney in April next year and help them out. I think I should do that. It could be a great experience to see how all that works!
Temperatures are getting higher now. It was 34 degrees yesterday and 36 degrees today. Strangely, I do not feel that hot at all! I quite enjoy it :)
PS. almost forgot to mention that I saw a calf being born. Had to use binoculars, it was too far to see with naked eye. I have a few photos of the newborn but will have to upload them later.

Gracemere

Ever since I arrived (05.09.13) in Gracemere I haven’t had a lot of work to do. First evening was just amazing fish and chips with beer. The weekend was pretty much morning stuff. We get up at 6 each morning and go to give hormone injections to cows to make them produce more than one egg. That will go on for five days in a row. The injections are given twice per day (6.30am and 5.30pm) and on both sides of their bums.

My  job is to move the cows from one area to another so that the lady can get them into a narrow space and keep them still while she gives them the injections. Apparently, the cows that have not had any calves are called heffers. Not sure if I got the spelling right. Sounds something like that anyway. We use a green stick to move the cows – it looks like a meter long piece of garden hose. They call it wattie.

The injections will be finished on Wednesday. I don’t know what happens afterwards though.

I’ve done a few odd jobs so far. Fed two racehorses, cut strings on hay stacks, washed a car, cleaned out a water troph (again, this word does not seem to exist, so my spelling is probably wrong...). It’s a round concrete “bowl” where cows drink from. They keep goldfish in it since they eat the green crap off the walls. I must take a photo of the goldfish. There was one that was not golden looking but relatively dull like a herring. I named it Albino (for myself of course!)

The weather is starting to heat up. It’s 29 degrees today and forecast is looking around 34-35 for the next few days.

Oh, and there are a lot of weird birds around here. Have to do some research on what they are exactly. Lots of ducks and black swans as far as my knowledge goes so far..
Can't wait to be finished already!! I don't mind being here and all but it is not my business and it is not forever and I do not get paid for any of it. I do get to see a different lifestyle and aussie outback. Apparently, the outback farm is like unreal.. there is no phone coverage, no proper roads, only dirt roads. It takes 6 hours to drive there from where I am now. We will go there at some stage but not sure when yet. This stuff is like from a movie scene! I haven't seen any snakes yet. I am  / am not looking forward to seeing one. I don't mind them outside but anywhere near the house... naaaah. Not liking it!

These hats are like 100 bucks each!

Queensland is calling :)

I spent the last few days travelling from Merriwa, NSW to Gracemere, QLD. I got a bus back to Newcastle on Wednesday and spent a night there in the hostel. Caught a flight to Rockhampton with a couple of hours layover in Brisbane. The bus driver on the bus to Newcastle airport was very sweet and a real gentleman. Instead of letting all other passengers in he got out of the bus and told them to wait and carried my luggage on board. I was very grateful for that! He also moved it off the bus when arriving at the airport and wished me a pleasant journey. There is something there to learn for all the Estonian bus drivers who would just stare at me with an evil look in their eyes when seeing someone with a suitcase. It is highly unlikely that anyone would help you. Not saying everyone is like that but the majority at least..
Before arriving in Rockhampton I sent my new host a text message to say that my flight was on time and that I would be arriving at 4.25pm. I did not get a reply and I was somewhat worried but I was sure she was going to be there since the farm is a genuine business. After I collected my luggage I texted her that I was waiting for her outside. She called me and apologised that she was late. No worries mate, I was not in a hurry anyway!
Queensland definitely looks different that New South Wales. I observed the change in landscape and plantation while I flew a short flight from Brisbane to Rocky. It was only 46 min flight. The climate is a bit more humid and temperatures do not drop that low over night.
Back to my host... she arrived 20 mins later and had a passenger with her - Tanya. A backpacker who takes care of my host's mother who lives in the outback. It is six hours drive inland from where I am staying. They were jusr visiting for a few days. Tanya is doing her 88 days as well. She is Dutch. She sounded Slavic  to me but hey, I was wrong. My host does not resemble to the woman I saw on their website but I do spot some similarities. Must be an old photo. Their farm mainly focuses on Brahman cows. Not sure how else I could call them. I spotted a couple of donkeys and race horses on the property as well. Their house is full of awards that they have won from different competitions. BTW, they kill their own cows and eat the meat. Apparently, in a few weeks time they will kill another one. Ah, and I will most likely get to go to visit the granny in the outback some time too. I was told there is no phone reception. How COOL :) And there's a big party planned towards the end of October. I will get to go there too. Should be fun.
In general, they seem to be more relaxed and less mannered than the family in NSW. I have not done much on my first day here. We went to Woolies (supermarket) in the morning and I spent the rest of the morning blowing out the tree leaves from the verandah. I could barely get started when I was told to go for a smoko (smoke break, also a break for non smokers). My next task was to spray all the cobwebs on the verandah with some insect killing spray. I made sure I was well covered up since all the spiders started to swing down from the ceiling. Disgusting creatures. There were a few bigger ones, striped like wasps, only the stripes were black and white. Not liking it but in the end they all died.
Around 12.30pm I was told to have lunch and chill out for an hour or so. We had some fish and chips yesterday evening - home made by a friend of theirs! They showed their 100k AUD fishing boat that they take out to the reef. All I could imagine was myself on the boat in a bikini and a glass of sparkling haha.
Anyway, the fish that was served was called emperor, we had 4kg of it. It is quite expensive in the shops - 40 AUD per kg and it tastes amazing. It is like chicken fillet, no fishy flavour at all. Defo the best fish and chips I have ever had. Had the same for lunch today. I was told to eat what ever I could find in the fridge. They seem to operate on a principle called "keep looking".Sounds good to me.
I will take a few photos of the place in the next few days. There are plenty of birds and animals around here. I will try to capture them all over the next 7 weeks I'll be spending here.

Bye bye NSW farm

It is time to leave this wonderful farm and head up North towards Rockhampton. I spent 6 weeks in this farm and it went so fast. It feels as if I just arrived and I am already leaving! It was sad to leave as I got to meet wonderful people, passionate about their business, how they do it and how much they care about it. It was great! Some friends have told me I look happy on the photos. It must be true. I feel happy and relaxed.

We had a couple of extra adventures before leaving. On my second last day we finally “picked up” a redback in the paddocks. We went to feed the cows and found a piece of metal which we thought was a danger to animals and vehicles, so we decided to pick it up and put it on the ute and move it out of the way. We did check it before lifting it on the ute but surprise, surprise – one silly redback managed to still get on the ute too! Why-man saw it for like half a second and it was gone. Obviously, we did not find it immediately and continued on with filling the buckets with cotton seeds for cows. We found the redback underneath the last bucket. Luckily, Why-man had his camera with him and we got a couple of good shots of it. Later on I had the honour of killing it. Sad but it had to be done. It was too dangerous not to kill it.

In the past few weeks we have somehow managed to bring chooks back to the house from the stations. Seriously, it never happened before! And now all the time. It only happened when we decided to refill the water tanks. After arriving back at the house we suddenly heard something that sounded like the Troopy’s handbreak squeaking. After a couple of weird squeaks it started to sound more and more like a chicken! OH NO, IT WAS A CHICKEN! It was hiding on the water trailer. Damn. Had to catch it and take it all the way back! The adventure didn’t finish there. I got the chicken but it struggled itself loose and I ended up chasing it all over the place until one of the dogs decided to come and give me a hand. A few seconds later there were four dogs and me chasing the poor chicken and farmer’s son screaming in the background “Oh my god!” There was a reason why he shouted like that. Apparently, once the dogs catch a chook it is more than likely that they will eat it. The sight of four dogs surrounding one poor chook was priceless. Luckily, it got away with just a scare and the dogs didn’t injure or kill it.

The story did not end there. We got the chook but didn’t manage to get rid of the dogs! We had two of them running after the ranger trying to catch up with us. We ended up getting one of them on the ranger and taking it back to the house to be kept on a leash. It was just the way she (Sandy – dog) was looking at the poor bird. Sniffing around, trying to get closer to it..

That was not the only time we brought some back from the stations. Another time, we took the ute out to the stations to refill their calcium buckets. As always, we did not check underneath the car. After arriving back at the house, we heard the familiar voice again. It was a chicken sitting underneath the car on the axis. Guess what? There were two of them!

Oh, did I mention we lost a trailer? Well, we attached it but it was not attached properly by Why-man and it cut itself loose and all I could hear was the other girl saying: “Oh my god the trailer!”. Why-man immediately ran after the trailer and stopped it and properly hooked it to the ute. We were lucky it was empty and that we were not on a hill at the time. The sight of it was rather funny J

Not sure when I am going to be able to add photos since I only have 5GB of internet on my phone that I could use. Will see if I can get a better option at some stage. That would mean doubling my phone bill but internet would be unlimited!