Improvements

The past week has brought a fair bit of change to my life here. On Monday I mentioned Richie that I would appreciate if I could get some more hours at work, doing 9 hours a day 5 days a week does not really satisfy me. And it’s not that I am a workaholic, but there nothing else to do here really. J And money is what I’m here for. So, after a bit of thinking and 24hours later I was on my way to Peebinga Park, the third farm we did not go to do the seeding. This time was not going to be working there, but just taking a ca 150km trip there and ca 150km back to pick up the scraper – a piece of machinery to level the fields. It was a nice day on Tuesday, so I could not care less that I took the trip on me beloved 7830 John Deere. J The following weekdays were filled with working on field 34 which due to winds has become really rough. According to Richie it’ll take at least a couple of weeks to get it into a condition that matches his idea of it. And to start with, he just gave me a brief presentation of what to do and what NOT to do. So all I have to do now is find a way to get myself to work and back at times most suitable for me. For that ofcourse I need a car!

On Friday it turned out Pete was heading to Adelaide on Saturday noon as he had a week of vacation coming and had decided to spend it in Melbourne. Good for me I thought, at least I could get to Adelaide with him. I spent the whole evening looking for cars worth having a look at, but due to a very limited budget of up to 2000aud, there was not too much to consider. Finally came across a 1991 Mitsubishi Lancer, 1690aud, having ca 285000km on speedometer but otherwise looked nice and tidy, no rust or problems reported by dealership. I the evening however I was not quite sure I was going to Adelaide. At one point I decided to give a call to an Estonian lady whose contacts I got from home. Tiina is an Aussie born Estonian who unfortunately was not home, but her husband promised to leave a note so she would call me back Saturday morning. All ends loose...

9am Saturday morning I got a call from the car dealer saying the car is available, mechanically checked and in good condition and that they are open till 4pm. Good! 1,5h later received a call from Tiina and we agreed that if I will make it to Adelaide later that day, we’d meet some time during the afternoon. All I had to do was to get Pete come and pick me up. All ends not so loose anymore...

2pm Saturday afternoon and the carpark gate opened in Adelaide airport – I was in Adelaide finally, in the airport and on my way to take a taxi to the other end of Adelaide city to have a look and hopefully buy the Mitsubishi. J To cut the long story short – I got it! To make it a bit fancy – I paid in cash! And to celebrate – I headed to the city, found a nice italian restaurant and enjoyed a great Calzone pizza with a good glass of riesling wine!

I met with Tiina and her husband Kent and younger son James in their home up in the Adelaide Hills. Lucky to have a gps on the phone, because finding your way around in the Hills the first time around is hard to say the least! Tiina’s parents moved to Australia during the second world war, she has only been to Estonia a few times, but I was quite suprised about her still good Estonian. Kent is a native Aussie who had an Estonian friend in the school. The two guys were, at least what I was told, inseparable, except on Saturdays. That was the day all Adelaide Estonians had Estonian school, folkdance and other national activities. A young aussie guy could not understand how on earth an guy could choose folkdance lessons over aussie rules (the local footy (football)). Untill the day he was asked to come along and see for himself! And the rest is history. J We had a nice long chat with a couple of bottles of wine, I got to know them a bit and they got to know me a bit. What an enjoyable evening compared to those back in Nildottie with no-one in the house but me.

But the best was yet to come... After a nice brunch on Sunday I headed to a wineyard with Tiina, she decided to show the one their family likes to most. Shaw+Smith is a small estate that started off when citizens Shaw and Smith decided to realize their old dream of making wine. Having a taste of 4 very good wines, 2 red - pinot noir and shiraz and 2 white - chardonnay and savignon blanc, consider the sunny day and the beautiful surroundings aswell and you’ll have a perfect recipe for great Sunday! After that a quick sightseeing in the Adelaide Hills, went to the Mt Lofty lookout. Also as one of Tiina's friends was located just nearby and she thought it'd would be a good idea to take me there and show a home-made zoo, we dropped by Kathy's place. Home-made zoo is a correct word for it, because there were very many parrots, very colorful, loud and beautiful, a seriouslooking eagle, an emu and some kangaroos. Photos in the album. To sum it up, it was time and money well spent, it was great to be out from Nildottie for a while and especially good to meet some people and have a nice chat.

What is more, I'll be back in Adelaide on July 8 when there's an event at the Adelaide Estonian House. Good on ya mate :)

Mixed emotions

What if I found my way back to the civilization? What if I finished working here at the farm and headed to Adelaide for a month? What if I actually bought a car? How much to spend on it? How much to save for travelling? What if I would not think of those things? What if? And what is going through my mind? The answers to those and other questions cannot be found. Or can?!

The busy days are over, apparently and also confirmed by head of staff, Richie. It’s a good thing on one hand but it is not really why I’m here. I have nothing against starting late and finishing early but unfortunately that around here does not mean a lot of money, yet it means too much free time and nothing to do with it. Also as the irish lads are now off, took them to Adelaide airport this morning, there is noone else in the house which makes it all pretty empty. Moreover as they sold their car to Andy and I do not have any myself, then I need to find a solution to get to work and back. Ok, doable, I’ll find my way around. But to shop?! I need to get there aswell from time to time. Again doable, I’ll find some solution. But for what actually?! I mean if the days will be as long as they have been for the past 2 days – 9,5h of work then it does not make too much sense to just sit around. Or am I being too grumpy and impatient?

So that’s why there are some questions in my mind. A wise idea would be to figure out what I, me and myself actually want and the rest is just a consequence of the pieces of thoughts that go through the mind day in and day out.

Taking the trip to Adelaide this morning was interesting. First time on public roads with more traffic, driving the Mitsubishi ute, right hand side wheel with manual gearbox, taking it through Adelaide. No big deal to be honest. J And did not get lost either. But that’s not important. What is more important to me is the feeling of being in a city, after a long while. And today Adelaide felt different. Maybe it was because of the nice sunny weather, maybe because I was driving, maybe because it was a city with all the nice things you can find there. Don’t know, but it felt good! And I understood right when I crossed the last intersection with trafficlights that I miss it. The city, the livelyness, socializing, people. I am not saying I am that homesick, though it will be indeed splendid to come home for a while, but I am saying that it might be time to move on. Let’s see... J

Oh, I almost forgot. I had a birthday a couple of days ago. It's now 27 years in the making and still not satisfied with the result. J Thank you mom and dad and Mattias and Merje for the package! And thank you all for all the good words! And thank whatever I did not have one of those 16-19 hour days! J However to be honest, this time around the day did not have it’s glance. It was indeed overwhelming to receive all those best wishes and to see how many people are or might be thinking of me that day, but there was something missing – the joy! Don’t worry because I am not, it’s called life and I chose to take it by the horns. J

But that evening gave me a nice shot!

Back from Parrakie (12.06.11)

To be honest, I liked Parrakie – the house was nicer, yet awfully cold, it was clean because the guys living there take good care of it, the job was easy aswell as the fields were smoothly ploughed and north-south lines were long enough so I didn’t need to make turnarounds constantly. Within 5 days I covered 909ha, out of which about 650ha was seeded and the rest sprayed for general weeds and volunteers (the potatoes which have been left on field and have started growing again). The days were long, about 14-17 hours, but the job was done and it’s still all about the money.The only thing that made working there a bit harder, were the pits that are dug in the fields because occasionally it gets horribly wet there. As the soil is not very deep and below you either find clay or rock, then the water has nowhere to go and it just floods the fields. So the pits were to lookd out for. And ofcourse my beloved centrepoints with watertaps. And ofcourse we did not manage without troubles there either. Monday to Wednesday went allright, we were having a great pace which could have allowed us to return to Nildottie already Friday morning, but just as you start thinking such thoughts, accidents start to happen. Thursday and Friday gave us 5 problems – a blow up airpump on seeder, 2 flat tyres on seeder and tractor, a snapped wheelhandle on sprayer and a snapped aircon belt on the ute. The worst thing was that the tractor tyre broke just after Dermot had finished seeding and was on the way back from the field to the yard. On the other hand we were even lucky to have that puncture – otherwise they would have still needed us in the third farm! Fortunately we got everything going again and after hard weeks work managed to get back to Nildottie safe and sound on Saturday afternoon. As a compliment to our good work we were given the opportunity of a nice meal and couple of drinks at Swan Reach pub, regardless of the utter tiredness it was an enjoyable evening to get away from work and the house and do some socializing.

I’ve added some photos here, but as usual check the albums on picasaweb for more, if you like ofcourse J

Long hours, nice income (07.06.11)

There is a reason why I haven’t posted any lines – I’ve been working! Indeed it has been hard, but the benefits are there – income. As there is no other reason for me to be here, then I am all pretty happy with it. Last week I did 70 hours in total. This week I actually had a rough ride, 93,5 hours summed up! Not bad considering there’s 168 hours in a week. J FYI a working week starts on Wednesday and finishes on Tuesday. Dermot even managed a 101h week.

To start up we (me, Pete and Dermot) were told we’ll be heading to Parrakie next week (06.06 – 12.06), so that meant we had to finish all seeding and spraying in Nildottie farm before that. Note – both farms are owned by same guys, who also have a third farm where we were supposed to go but fortunately do not have to. So knowing the above there was a long week ahead. Wednesday started off with 15 hours of work, followed by Thursday and Friday with 14 both. Nice, isn’t it?! J Considering this Saturday was a bit tiresome to start with. I have no idea what happened, did I step out of the bed with a wrong foot, but it just was not my day! Even before I got to start working, I had to

take a 3 hour break. Reason – flat tyre! Fortunately the repairman did not have a day off. Tyre fixed, off I went, for about 1km. Then there was another stop. Reason – loose pipe and a small fountain of chemicals bursting out of the pump. Luckily it was nothing to worry about and 5 minutes later I was on my way again.

Everything went smoothly untill a couple of hours later another fountain occured. This time on the field and it was a nice big one. I had hit the field centrepoint and the watertap broke. Thousands of litres of water later we got it fixed, actually Pete and Richie, our farm manager did, and I was back doing another load of spraying. Partially because of those

timeconsuming failures my day actually turned out not to be long, but extremely long. I started off at 5am and finished at night, 22hours later.

On Monday morning we made our way to Parrakie, a nice 5 hour journey.