Days 443-449! Well, I had a good run of about 2 weeks straight of work… and then, more rain came. But there wasn’t just bad news this week. I had plenty of fun afternoons of surfing, FaceTimes with family, and lots of time to read, play guitar, and watch some new tv shows as well! Oh! And I finally got a new pair of sandals too!

With the cyclone out of the way, it was time to keep continuing on with my 88 days of farm work!

For the morning of Thursday, March 20th, I pruned trees. But I was pleasantly interrupted with a family FaceTime for my mother’s birthday!

It’s been a while since my family has all been on a FaceTime together, so that was really lovely! I ended up working while we chatted, but I did take a pause to sing happy birthday.

I kept on with pruning after the call and moved onto putting more screws into the tree as I’ve been doing. All the while, I was getting ATTACKED by mosquitoes. The cyclone really brought them out! There were none prior to it.

I worked by myself all day today. Aly had some errands to run and Glen was back at his other jobs for the next couple weeks.

Post work, I made my way to Pippi’s Beach to catch some small waves in the north side of the beach. It was a super fun surf session where I ran into Julian, the surf instructor I had, and I also ran into French Sammy who I met the day before.

I chatted to him and his friend Jules, who he’s traveling with, for a bit before heading home to make dinner.

While I was relaxing at home, after a few days of internal deliberation, I finally ordered a new pair of sandals! My friend Gabe, from back home, told me about a brand called Bedrocks so I was taking a chance on a new brand. I’ve been wearing Tevas which apparently are notorious for breaking. They were comfortable shoes while they lasted and they’d been around the world… but alas, they did indeed break.

I woke up to a beautiful sunrise on Friday, March 21st. Not only was it a beautiful morning, it was the start of the March Madness college basketball tournament!!

I got to work, which since it was Friday, I was working by myself again today! Well not entirely alone, because I had Evee hanging out with me.

I started out the work day screwing more trees… get your minds out of the gutter… while doing so (yeah I’m a good multitasker), I listened to the first round of basketball games. Specifically the University of Kansas vs University of Arkansas.

The game was still going on at lunchtime so I got to watch the end of it as well. It was not the most fun game to watch. KU got beat pretty badly but there was a glimmer of hope at one point in the game! But that glimmer was extinguished just as quickly as it came. It’s been a long time since KU was eliminated in the first round of the tournament. I believe the last time was actually to Bradley University (my hometown’s university).

For the afternoon of work, I got back to mowing the farm! It’s been a few weeks since I did this last and you can tell. The grass had grown, a lot!

After work, I surfed the same spot as the day before! I’m having a blast surfing the small waves on the protected part of the beach. It’s helping improve my paddling, gliding, and wave positioning.

But unfortunately, surfing today tore off a nice blister on my toe! I’ll spare you the picture… so I hopped over to Coles to grab some medical supplies to keep it clean and protected.

Saturday, March 22nd marked 11 days straight of work! I was looking forward to finally having a day off tomorrow, but I still needed to get through the day first.

Not only was I met with a beautiful morning, but after I cut more plastic bits for the trees, I was met with a few cute kangaroos as I made my way out to the orchard.

I spent the morning screwing and the afternoon mowing. Today though, I finally put on bug spray and who would’ve guessed it, the mosquitos were bothering me a lot less. There were still plenty of brave ones causing a muck… but I was glad it was helping!

After work, I made my way to the same part of the beach to surf. Today though, I met 3 other surfers out, Izzy, Susan, and Zach, who were all very friendly! Today’s waves were also the best of the week so far. Each wave was easy to catch early, gave a nice ride, and then since they weren’t choppy it was easy to get back out for the next one! I probably caught more waves in this hour and a half session than I have all week combined (maybe, it at least felt this way).

I also chit chatted with the other surfers too. Turns out the three of them met in the carpark and were in town for the day/weekend. It wasn’t going to become a fun new friendship, but it was really nice chatting with people around my age and enjoying surfing with other people as well! As much as I love going surfing everyday, it would be awesome to have friends to go with!

Since I had the day off on Sunday, I decided to head up to the pub. It was a DJ night so the bar was pretty busy, which made for some fun people watching. I hung out and chatted with my friends that were bartending and a few times some of the regulars (old and young) came over to chat with me! Eventually one of my friends showed up and I joined him and his friends for a bit before heading back home.

It was nice to have a night out but I’ve become less and less of a fan of going out and drinking in excess. Which is definitely a good thing! I do enjoy this town a lot, but unfortunately, the pub is one of the only places to go and hang out at night.

At least there’s beaches to enjoy during the day!!

I didn’t get up to too much on Sunday, March 23rd. I started the day by heading out for a surf after I woke up. The waves were terrible today and it wasn’t worth it to have gone out. But at the very least it got me out of bed and active after a late night out.

I spent a lot of the day reading, playing guitar, and watching TV. I also picked up more surf wax since I had just ran out and made my way to Coles for some groceries!

I got up early on Monday, March 24th ready for work… but as I was eating breakfast, I got an unfortunate text saying my farming would most likely be cancelled for the entire week.

Since we’re nearing winter, more and more rain events are bound to happen, which isn’t helping me in my efforts to work 88 days. But I was optimistic it’d be a false alarm.

So instead of working, I did more reading, tv watching, guitar playing, and relaxing. It did rain on and off all day, the problem is the weather in town isn’t always indicative of the weather at the farm… which is wild. I guess the ocean probably plays a factor in it, but the farm is only 20 minutes away, so I’d assume it’d be the same. It can rain in town and not rain at the farm and vise versa!

Not having work gave me some time to FaceTime my parents! We had a nice chat catching up on each other’s week and talking about the fun stuff happening in the US at the moment… I’m very fortunate and privileged that I can be out traveling the world at a time like this!

Tuesday, March 25th came… and it was another day of no work. Unfortunately, even though it wasn’t raining at all in town… it was down pouring at the farm on and off all day.

But, that did mean I could take a break of sitting and reading in my room and that I could go enjoy some time on the cloudy beach!

I didn’t get to enjoy for super long since a storm was rolling in (as you can see in the background).

When I got home, I ended up binge watching the show Adolescence. Which was intense and incredible. It’s not a show I’d suggest for everyone, but the videography was incredible (each episode is shot in a one shot method which is wild to watch) and the acting was also incredible. The story is about a child that gets accused of murder and basically shows the events of what happens to him, friends, and family over the course of 4, hour long episodes. As I said, intense and not for everyone.

Wednesday, March 26th had snuck up on me, marking another week checked off of traveling the world! Unfortunately, I still didn’t have work for the day… so I read for a few hours and played a lot of guitar for the morning.

Out of the blue, I got a call from Aly asking if I wanted to come work for the afternoon. Apparently there was a clearing in the weather, so I should be good to work for a half day.

I of course said yes, made some lunch, ate, and headed over.

I spent the first 2 hours in the orchard putting screws into the trees. But then I ran out of the plastic bits I use, so I made my way back to the shed to switch to mowing. The weather looked alright… but of course right as I finish the first row of mowing, a storm rolled in!

So I zoomed back to the shed and got drenched on the way. It cleared back up soon after, but I decided to just spend the rest of my half day cutting more plastic bits for (hopefully) the following day.

I stopped for some groceries on the way home. But when I got home, I was met with a package which I wasn’t expecting to have received yet!

These sandals are referred to as “zero” shoes. Meaning they have zero drop from toe to heal. These shoes emulate walking barefoot, which is something I’ve come to enjoy over the past year! But, lots of places don’t appreciate that, so this’ll have to do for now.

I was a little concerned about the comfortability of going from no toe strap to having one. But these sandals are super comfortable! I’m sure that I’ll get used to the toe strap pretty quickly since it’s just like a flip flop (or as the Aussies say, a thong).

One of the biggest perks of these is they’re super lightweight. Which means they’ll be great for carrying in my backpack when I’m wearing shoes!

I spent my night watching a show called Severance. This is another highly acclaimed show at the moment, so might as well catch up on a little pop culture while I have rainy days to do so!

I’m hoping that I’ll be able to work more this week, but it sounds like there’s just more rain on the horizon… hopefully I’ll have enough time to finish my farm work, but we’ll have to find out together!

Unfortunately, I also found out my friend Nathan, who’s been helping me produce music, is now busy with footy coaching! So I’ll need to figure out a new path to producing the music I’ve been writing. But I’ve really enjoyed working with him and I want to keep making it, so I’ll figure out something!

We’ll see what next week has in store… I’m hoping clear skies, working, and surfing can be in the mix.

See you then!

– Elie