Days 408-414! Well January is quickly flying by, especially now that every day is pretty much filled up with work! This week I was head first into the world of Macadamia farming and learned a couple of new tasks that will be in my rotation. I also had a couple mishaps with the truck I’m driving… I’m not hurt, no one else is hurt, but some pretty embarrassing things happened on back to back days.

After a fun day of hanging out with friends topped off with a little “party” at the hotel, it was time to wake up for work on the farm! Thursday, February 13th had rolled around which meant time for another early morning.

I’ve been starting on the farm, pretty much every day, at 7:30am, if not a little earlier. This usually means a cooler morning of work, which is very much needed with being outside all day! I said hello to a couple of the horses, who were posing perfectly for me and then drove past some kangaroos who were enjoying the shade on the farm!

I spent the entire morning pruning trees. There’s a section of the oldest trees that have the most skirting (the lower branches of the tree) to prune off. So this task was going to take me a while. Thankfully, it was a beautiful day out and even though it was physical, hot, and sweaty work… it wasn’t the worst thing ever.

While working, I was fighting off the slightest hangover… but nothing fixes that better than sweating it all out.

During lunch, Glen and I went over some safety documents for a chemical spray we would be using the following day. Agris-Fos 600 is a chemical used to combat phytophthora root which is a disease that can wipe out crops in many types of farms, especially macadamia farms.

After that, I went back to pruning more trees for the rest of the day!

I was exhausted by the end of work and had little desire to do much of anything besides rest when I got home. So I did just that! I finished up my blog post for the week prior and played some guitar too before having an early night (which is becoming very common with this new job).

Happy Valentine’s Day! It’s Friday, February 14th… and yet another Valentine’s Day spent alone. But that’s alright! I’ve really enjoyed my own company over the past year plus and am continuing to do so! I always have my grandparents as my valentines every year too.

My valentines this year though were the macadamia trees. I spent the entire morning and afternoon taking care of them with the chemical that combats the major disease.

The beginning of this task was alright… but the sun decided to come out and make it quite unpleasant. But, I kept chugging along like the little engine that could and made steady progress. I was spraying the same section that I was pruning the day before, which is why we’re pruning the trees! It clears up the orchard floor, not allowing for critters to hide, and gives us room to spray and protect the trees.

Right before lunch, I spotted something stripped in a tree. And after closer inspection, it turned out to be a VERY impressive lizard.

After lunch, I continued on spraying and got a lot of the section I was in done. This entire time, I was using the bed of my truck (Ute) to carry the chemicals around and make it easier to put on and take off the backpack. When I unloaded it all at the end of the day, I guess I forgot to put one of the walls of the Ute back up. Each wall can be flipped up, down, and fully taken off.

On my ride home, I got about halfway and heard a loud woosh and clatter. I instantly knew what had happened. Thankfully there were no cars directly behind me and I immediately found a place to pull off and run to get the wall that had just flown off my Ute.

Unfortunately, this was a two lane road, not a lot of room to work with, and plenty of cars oncoming. So right as I got to the wall, three cars ran directly over it. I was able to get it, put it in my car, and make my way back onto the road without any mishaps… but what a close call that was! It could have been soooo much worse.

When I got home, I took the wall out to asses the damage and it wasn’t looking great.

I definitely thought it could be bent back into place and be fine, but I had no tools to do so. So I went to the nearby auto parts shop and asked if they had anything. And of course they didn’t. So I told Glen and Aly. They obviously weren’t happy, but they didn’t show it. They immediately said, “don’t stress about it, you didn’t do it on purpose.”

I really appreciated this attitude on it, it’s definitely how I would view something like this too. But I still felt really bad that they trusted me with their vehicle and only 1.5 weeks in I’d messed something up! Well… this wasn’t the only time this week I’d be having car troubles.

Saturday, February 15th rolled around and it was time for another day of work. It happened to be Glen and Aly’s anniversary, so they were taking the day off to spend it with their kids. So, I’d be on my own today!

There was rain in the forecast today, so there was a chance I’d get rained out of work. But I gave it a go anyways, I would like to wrap up my 88 days as quickly as possible. I loaded up the Ute with the chemicals and pruning tools and set out to the section I’d been working on.

I was about to start spraying, when a little sprinkle of rain came down. Which made me stop and think that I shouldn’t be spraying chemicals if it’s about to rain, since it’d get washed off… so I packed that back up and drove the Ute around to where I finished pruning… or at least I tried to.

I ended up driving over a slanted area making the bottles of chemicals fall out of the Ute. So I stopped to pick them up and figure out a better way to transport them. This ended up being a bad call… because… my Ute ended up getting stuck in the drain line that I had stopped on. I hadn’t realized how close I was to it and all my efforts to get it out just dug me deeper.

I was kicking myself that just yesterday I broke a part of the car… and now today, on their anniversary and family day, I was about to have to bother them to help me get the truck unstuck. And of course, the biggest kicker, it never rained so I didn’t actually need to switch what I was working on.

Luckily, the family day hadn’t started yet and Glen was able to come home after a park run with his son and help me out. While I waited, I started pruning trees and after about 15 minutes, Glen was rolling up in a tractor ready to assist!

After that, no other issues arose and they all went off on their family day. I spent the rest of the morning spraying chemicals and after lunch finished pruning the section.

On my way home, I stopped at the grocery store and loaded up on food. I then showered, sat down for a tiny bit, and then made my way up to the hotel for my night of work there!

It was a very slow Saturday night, but there was good live music and I had fun coworkers to hang with. Even though it had been a long day already, I hung around for a bit, had a beer, and played some pool too.

I tried to sleep in as much as I could on Sunday, February 16th. But eventually the sun was bright enough to pull me out of bed. I also had plans to go to the beach with some friends today for one of their birthdays!

My friend Tom, who works at the hotel as well, brought a bunch of his friends together to hang out on Convent Beach. We bodysurfed waves, played spikeball, and I got to meet a bunch of new people. One of which was from Italy and she gave me the confirmation I needed about the hours I was working for my working holiday farm work.

It was a blast to have a group to hang out with on the beach, but I had to cut it a little short. I had another night of work at the hotel. So I went home, did some laundry, and then headed up the hill for work.

Yesterday was slow… today was extremely slow. So after a few hours of work, I got to go home to get some much needed sleep to get ready for my day of work on the farm the following day.

We kicked off work on Monday, February 17th with a whole lot of picking up nuts. There’s a section of trees that’s a part of a university study. Apparently the university hasn’t been doing their part, so we needed to pick up the slack. I also had the task of rewriting on some tags that had rubbed off at some parts of the orchard as well.

Unfortunately, in this part of the farm, there were a ton of a weed called “farmers friend.” They are not our friend… they are very prickly and stick all over your clothes and hairs. Quite unpleasant if I do say so! But the farm puppy, Evee, got the worst of it and had to be fully shaven to get them all out. Poor pup!

The afternoon was where the fun began! Glen taught me how to use one of the sit down lawnmowers. There were some safety things to go over, how to properly start the mower (some specific parts need to be in certain positions as a safety measure), and it also was steered by the back wheels.

I got the hang of it all fairly quick and had a blast riding around and mowing the grass. Totally beats walking around and picking up nuts!

This is one of the tasks I’ll be doing a lot of over the next few weeks! And eventually, I’ll work my way up to driving one of the big tractors which is similar to driving this mower! The child within is very excited about that idea!!

After work today I finally forced myself to go surfing! When I was at Convent Beach the day before, the waves were really good for beginner surfing! So I decided to try my luck there and sure enough, there were some decent waves.

A couple of my friends also happened to be there too! So I got to chat with them a little bit before I hit the waves.

The problem at this beach was they were very close to the point break and rocks… so I strayed a little away from the best part of the wave and unfortunately didn’t really catch any. I tried my best, but the fear of bashing into rocks got in the way.

I might not have caught any waves, as much as I tried, but the highlight of this surf session was the dolphins! I was within inches of a pod of about 5! They were having fun playing in the waves, eating, and bopping around all the surfers.

It was wonderful getting into the water after a long day of work. Even though I’m tired, I’m going to try to go surfing after work as much as possible!!

When I got home, I had a very nice FaceTime with my parents and we caught up on each other’s week! They’re having a blast in New Zealand and will be back in Australia soon.

For work on Tuesday, February 18th I started my day spraying more chemicals. But today, I was given a pair of sock guards! Basically ankle skirts to keep the farmer friends and other equally annoying plants out of my shoes! They were not only fashionable, but VERY practical and helpful.

The afternoon was spent doing more mowing of the grass! My next lot of work shifts will basically be pruning or chemical spraying in the morning and then an afternoon spent mowing.

Mowing is fun… but there’s of course the downside of a lot of grass and dust flying into my face. But I think the pros of siting and riding around out way that!

Hot, sweaty, dirty, and tired, I made my way home and immediately set back out on my bicycle for another afternoon of beaching!

I tried my luck at convent again, this time venturing closer to the rocks and where the waves were breaking. This time, I was the only one surfing, so I felt more comfortable trying these waves. I caught one and pretty much had to bail after a second or two to avoid going into the rocks. Otherwise I did a lot of paddling for not a lot of wave catching.

I gave up after a bit, the swell was nowhere near as big as the last couple of days, and decided to go back into the water for some body surfing!

The waves close to the shore were breaking really fast and big so I had a blast getting dunked into the bottom of the ocean by the waves I was catching.

I decided I wasn’t in the mood to cook dinner for myself, so I tried hitting up some friends to see if any wanted to grab some with me. They were all busy and I realized one of them was at work at the hotel. So I went up the hill for a beer and to enjoy a parmi while I chatted to him as he worked.

It turned out this was a good call because my friend Sarah (my manager’s daughter) was leaving tomorrow! So tonight was her last night in town. Paddy, Sarah, Simmo, and I played a few games of pool before I called it a night and said my “see you laters.”

I woke up to a wonderful overcast sky on Wednesday, February 19th! It was going to be a nice and “cool” day at work. Glen had headed off to his other job for the next two weeks, so work today was just Aly and I.

We had separate tasks to do today, so I spent the morning pruning trees on a different block of the farm. I jammed out to music and got sprinkled on by little bits of rain here and there all morning.

The afternoon came and I started mowing a new part of the orchard. I almost finished it up by the time it came to wrap up the day, so I’ll finish it up tomorrow!

I wanted to go to the beach, but I was tired and had some admin tasks to get done. So I wrote my blog post for the week and then looked into how to apply for a temporary Australian drivers license. I can only use my US one for a few more weeks, so I need to figure this out ASAP!

Overall, it was a good week! I had the couple of car mishaps, but luckily I have two great bosses who understand both incidents were accidents. But I’m going to try my best to not let any more happen! Work is really tiring and working both the hotel and the farm is taking its toll. So I have a feeling I’m going to take a break from the pub sometime soon. But for now I’ll keep chugging along!

I’ve also been writing more music and I’m going to try and look into if there’s anywhere I can get some produced! It’d be really cool to be able to come home, with the EP I’ve been working on, ready to listen. But as always, we’ll see!

See you next week!

– Elie

(If you’ve read down this far… what do you think of the beard? Too patchy or does it work? Just trialing it out right now… I feel more like a farmer with it)