Musings of a wanderer

Its another rest day and so today I'd like to write about my outfit and gear when I go to work. Most of my work gear I leave in Abby's boot for convenience. Here's what they all look like - got most of these stuff from Kmart and Bunnings. In addition to work gear, I will also pack lunch from home for the 30min (paid!) lunch break that we have at around 11am ish.  For my top, I usually wear 3 layers in the morning (pre-lunch) for the grunt work and picking. After lunch, when the sun is out I'll usually remove the outer-most layer for another hour of picking and then packing.  I usually wear an inner, relatively fitting long sleeve T-shirt followed by a outer long sleeve button-shirt with a breast pocket. Because it is chilly in the morning with temperature in the 10 deg C range + winds, I will add on a third layer I call my 'woolies'. 3 layers of top, 1 rabakz pants and my black work boots. For my bottoms, it is just 1 layer. I call them my rabakz pants ($35 from...

  As mentioned in the previous post, one of my job scope included opening and closing the tarps that shielded the strawberries from the elements. There are 2 different types of lanes in the farm - the regular ones where the iron pickets holding the shelter come up to waist level, and the tractor lane, where the shelter is right above the strawberry plants and the iron pickets are equally low. These are lanes on which the tractor have the clearance to drive across to spray fertilisers or for whatever other reasons. Every 5 regular lane is a tractor lane. The first gif above shows me pulling open the tarp for the tractor lane while the second one shows the regular lane, the method to open and close the tarps are different and frankly, I much prefer working with the regular lane tarps. I thought it to be funny that a member of the strawberry generation (me) would be working in a strawberry farm. After slightly more than a week here and killing myself physically, I find it quite ironic...

 Today is my first off day. I quite needed it given the beating my body has taken over the past 3 days. We rest for 2 days (Tue and Wed) and then start work again on Thursday. Hopefully I get the coming Sunday off. Would like to visit the Canningvale market to stock up on fresh produce for the week. Given that it's my rest day, I thought I'd reflect on what I have done and learnt so far. It's not been long, but there is so much that is new to me and it's truly been a real eye-opening experience. I usually arrive at the farm at 7.25am. 5 minutes before my start time. I've picked this up from the other 'casuals' (the term we are called, since we can usually come and go as we like and we are paid by the hour) at the farm. Why be there any earlier or any later if you are not getting paid. There is usually not much conversation as we arrive, each driving our own car. At the very most, a customarily nod of heads towards each other as we acknowledge the other's...

 I think we have a somewhat romanticised idea of what being a farmer means. Back home, I used to hear from students or friends that their dream is to retire and be a farmer. Grow crops, not having a care in the world. After 3 days of being a farmhand, I can assure you that it is anything but rainbows and butterflies. I have never felt such pain in my life. I have never known some of these muscles that are aching now. I had thought that I would end the day tired. I see myself fitness-wise as slightly above average - I do weights once in a while, I swim/ run at least once a week, my BMI is in the healthy range (not obese nor sickly thin). I had done 2 years of NS, clearly remembering the field camp and SOC days. I thought I would end the day tired, I didn't see myself being completely wasted. After my first day, I was in so much pain in so many areas of my body I didn't think I would be able to get out of bed the next day. I was contemplating sneding a message to the boss telling...

We have decided to name our new drive, Abby, a literation of the road we keep traversing - Albany Highway. As we start to familiarise ourselves with Abby, we also start to notice some issues with him (just because). One of the biggest issue is the lock mechanism at the passenger seat - sometimes it locks with the rest of the doors when the master lock is engaged, sometimes it doesn't. And so while it is a significant flaw, it can (and should) be easily resolved with a double checking of the doors whenever we get out of the vehicle. Another issue with Abby is his keyfob. The lock button cannot be depressed. In our excitment and anxiety of getting a car, we didn't even check these basic stuff. Nonetheless, Abby will always have a place in my heart as the first car I own - despite his flaws (hopefully, not ever-increasing).

 

We had expected to take about a week to settle in. So while we sort of had a good idea of the administrative stuff we had to do, we gave ourselves a lot of buffer time for the unexpected. Boy, was I glad we factored in a generous amount of buffer time.  We sort of knew that there was a rental shortage all around Australia but we didn't expect it to be this problematic. Or rather, given that we did not have to face such issues in Singapore, we did not factor our context (short term rental, budget, preference of whole place but no need multiple bedrooms) into the equation. Actually it is the first point that was the most problematic for potential landlords. No one seem to want to deal with the hassle of finding new tenants again within 2 months. Over the past 5 days we had to do at least 2 weeks worth of research and were faced with so many big decisions to be made. I'm glad we had saved up prior to this adventure - for the flexibility to be able to adjust our budget by 10% or so...

 I got judged by an Australian (Vietnamnese) farmer today - because I am Singaporean. A few weeks ago, prior to coming over to Perth, I put myself out there on a Facebook post - basically marketing my services to anyone who could be bothered. I had asked if there were any farms out there willing to take a chance with an inexperienced worker who essentially spent the last 8 years not doing any form of manual labour. A lady pm-ed me over Facebook messenger saying they were looking for a male worker and if I was still looking for work after I arrived, to hit them up. She gave me an address. There were others who responded to my post but a number of them were actually agents rather than actual farms. After we had settled most of our smaller admin tasks (1. Setting up a bank account, 2. Getting an Australian number and data, 3. Applying for a Tax File Number (TFN) which allows me to look for work legally) yesterday, it was time to get cracking on the more major admin tasks. And so today...

 Sunday. 2 days to departure. Looking at all the stuff strewn across the floor in my room. Its been in this state for the past five days. Its the weekends and the excuse for procrastination is gone.  I've got a 20 kg check-in + 10 kg handcarry to work with - that, in my head, means a luggage and a 45+10L backpack from my younger backpacking days. Oh, and the 10 kg hand-carry includes my laptop bag. My cupboard is wide opened, all my winter wear is out, piled up on the rattan chair in the room.  Large ziplock bags scattered on the floor - each had a dedicated function of storing a specific type of clothes a long while ago, pre-COVID. One of the things I hate the most is packing - I'm not good at it, doubt I'll ever be. Used to come up with a packing list and go with it. But then always ended up over-packing, although I never did have to pack for a year. The last time I packed for a long trip was 10 years ago, for my INSTEP exchange. I think one of the reasons my mind subco...