The last two days here in Australia have been exhausting, educational, and entertaining, to say the least! Faith, Anne and I had the opportunity to spend two days at “the farm,� located about 100km from the Christian Outreach Center in Darwin. The farm is one of the many fundraising projects operated by the COC.
Here’s a little taste of life on the farm on our second day of work.
We wake up early in our air-con trailer room. We actually have to turn the AC off because it’s too cold! That’s what happens when air-con is a rare commodity.
Pastor Merv calls to us from the kitchen that breakfast was ready. We had to dodge Tinky – the giant pot-belly pig that tends to park herself in the space between the bedroom and the kitchen.
We come into the kitchen, where Pastor Merv has cooked up a wonderful concoction of eggs, cheese, and the leftover veggies from last night’s dinner. We enjoy some great tucca (food) and get ready to head out for our second day of work.
Aaron, the field hand, arrives around 7:30, and we pack a cooler full of cold water and load up the truck with fence-building supplies. Faith is going to stay back with Pastor Merv and feed the pigs. Anne and I head off in the truck with Aaron to continue work on the barbed wire fence that will separate the farm property from the national park. While we drive around, we see heaps of kangaroos and wallabies!
The first thing we have to do is lay out the pickets. Anne drives the truck along and Aaron drops the pickets off the back every 8 meters. Then comes the hard part – slamming the pickets into the ground. To do this, we use a dolly, or a metal tube with two handles. The dolly itself weighs about 23 pounds! Just carrying that around is enough of a workout! The three of us take turns slamming, although we are a little slower at it than Aaron. Fortunately, it’s still the cooler part of the day, so it’s not as exhausting. . . yet.
After the pickets are in the ground, it’s time to tie the wires up and put in the spacers, or droppers. We get back in the truck and drive along the fence, dropping the ties and spacers along the way. Then comes the easiest task of fence building. It’s basically like putting up wire with a bunch of twisty ties. The spacers took a little more work, but not bad.
That was only one section of the fence that was over a kilometer long! Once that section is finished, we start on another. Meanwhile, the sun is rising in the sky and so are the temperatures. We take a quick break for morning tea and gathered a few more supplies; then it’s back to work. We finish off another section before lunch time.
We arrive back at the barn for lunch. we discover a frog living in the toilet! And Pastor
Merv has to kick Tinky out of the kitchen, because she’s trying to eat out of the trash can again! During lunch, a few friends of Pastor Merv stop by and bring by some giant fresh mangos – mmm!
On the way back out to the field, Aaron drives us back down to Hardies River to see if we can catch a glimpse of some crocs! We’d been out at night Thursday night but had no luck. We hoped to catch them sunning themselves in the daylight. No luck, though. Out bludging (doing nothing) is over, so back to work it is.
We work all afternoon. We learn later that it was over 100 degrees out there! We finally finish the whole fence section just as the sun is beginning to set. We hope to finish with a little light left to try and spot the crocs again.
Aaron tells us what what a great job we did with the fence. He tells us we made the work go twice as fast, as he normally works alone. (This sounds like a compliment, but let’s do the math. There’s three of us and one of him, and we made the work go twice as fast? Hmm. I think he enjoyed the company, anyhow.)
We head down once more to the river, where “heaps of crocs� live, according to Aaron. After about twenty minutes and driving the truck straight through the river in the truck, all we see are one pair of beady little eyes sticking up out of the water. Oh well!
We head back to the fence, where Pastor Merv has come looking for us on a 4-wheeler. We literally ride off into the sunset after a hard day at work!
