Farm Experience: Friday, 3rd December, 2004
I really like the Simmons by now. They make me feel quite comfortable here and they are more than willing to spend time making sure that the student they've got gets a good grade on the farm report. They have had students over since 2001, and can remember all of them so far! Gail took out the list of names of students they've had, and started telling me a little about them each. They keep telling me about students who went to their room after dinner and wouldn't interact with them much, or those who did not offer to do the dishes at all. I then started to wonder if they tell this to all their students. I rationalized that they couldn't have... nobody would be stupid enough not to do what was expected of them after having learnt about mistakes that others have made. I'm now helping to dry the dishes after dinner time everyday... they leave their washing till the end of the day before washing all of them at one go. I suppose, to save water, they fill up the sink with water, add some detergent, and washes their dishes in water with a rag, but what disturbs me is that they don't rinse the dishes afterwards, but just simply dry them off. The last farm I went to also had similar practices. It seems to me that the dishes done this way aren't clean enough... I wouldn't like to be consuming detergent left on the plates and in water bottles.
I think I'm getting the hang of things at the shearing shed. I get kept very busy, but the advantage is that time passes more quickly that way. A typical day in the life of a shearer would be as follows:
7am: Len arrives at the shed to prepare his shearing gear and gets ready to shear
7.30am: Shearing starts promptly on time
9.30am: Morning tea break. Shearers pull out chairs, sit down and eat their packed tea.
10am: Starts shearing again
12pm: Lunch break for an hour. Sit around again to eat lunch
1pm: Starts shearing again
3pm: Afternoon tea break. Shearers pull out chairs, sit down and eat their packed tea.
3.30pm: Starts shearing again
5.30pm: Knocks off work. Len goes over to Ian's farm to clean and polish shearing gear before heading for home.
So routine-like isn't it? This whole cycle repeats itself everyday at the same location till all the sheep at the property are sheared. Shearers typically shear approximately 120+ sheep a day, and thus a farm with about 2000 sheep would take up to around 2 weeks for shearing to be complete. Most shearers work only on weekdays and get the weekends off to do work on their own farms. For all hard work that they do, they only get paid $2 per sheep, which in my opinion, isn't quite worth it. No wonder Len said that there is a shortage of shearers now, as there are less people interested in picking up the art of shearing.
I have come to the conclusion that the most 'valuable' item in the shearing shed is the CLOCK. It is the thing that is most looked at throughout the day after all! It really amuses me to see the same few men sit down to the tea and lunch breaks and bring out their food prepared by their wives earlier in the day. First, there would definitely be a sandwich, wrapped up nicely in some cling film. After eating the sandwich, they would open more lunch boxes and bring out some pieces of cake. Following that, biscuits would be eaten along with their coffee or tea. It's pretty standard, with a few variations in food type on certain days. While I was with Len, he would offer me some cake which I would always decline. He must really wonder at how little it is that I eat! He then started joking about how he should give me more work to do so that I would feel hungrier. So while they eat and talk about farm news, I am usually sitting there, staring and observing each one of them, sipping cold water and swatting flies. I like this bunch of shearers. Other than Len, there was his son Ian, and another guy named Mike. Mike was fascinating to watch when having tea. I amuse myself by noticing that he examines his food before taking each bite. It is almost as if he is marveling at the wonder of the food, turning it around for a bit before sinking his teeth into it. I suppose that is just a particular habit of eating, while others look around at anything but their food when eating.
My body aches more each day after working in the shed. It started with a backache from constant bending over every few seconds to pick up wool from the ground, then spread to aches in the arms and legs. I'll probably be all sore by the time I leave next Friday. Ahhh.. I can't wait to go back to Perth even though I'm enjoying myself here more than I thought I would. I can't wait to go back to Singapore and appreciate fully the cleaniness of my house back home! Here, dirt gets into my hands and nails from handling all that driedup shit in the wool. It's really tiring to have to keep running around and juggle your attention between shearers in order to monitor which shearer needed some some cleaning up to do. There is not a single minute that I can sit down and rest my legs. By now I have become quite frustrated from working with Andrew, the other rouseabout. At first he acted quite helpful and did around the same amount of work I did, then he started to slack off and exercise his mouth more than his legs. It's unfair that he does less work and gets paid for it, while I do so much more and would not get paid at all. Because Len is the one who's responsible for my behavior ultimately, I feel that I ought to do a good job to justify his trust in me.
It is tiresome to be the only girl working in the shed when there isn't any toilet around. I was definitely not about to find some bush under broad daylight and pee! The land is dry enough without me killing the grass further. Luckily, Tony offered me the use of his ute to drive up to his house to use the toilet. I decided to take up his offer at lunch time. BIG problem is, my legs are too short. No matter how I adjusted the seat, I just couldn't quite depress the clutch fully, but decided to make do with it cuz I was desperate! Looks like taking those manual driving lessons in Singapore finally paid off. It was fun to be driving a different kind of vehicle. Speaking of vehicles, Gail said that I would be allowed to drive their 4-wheel motorbike one of the days next week. Am I looking forward to that!
I think I'm getting the hang of things at the shearing shed. I get kept very busy, but the advantage is that time passes more quickly that way. A typical day in the life of a shearer would be as follows:
7am: Len arrives at the shed to prepare his shearing gear and gets ready to shear
7.30am: Shearing starts promptly on time
9.30am: Morning tea break. Shearers pull out chairs, sit down and eat their packed tea.
10am: Starts shearing again
12pm: Lunch break for an hour. Sit around again to eat lunch
1pm: Starts shearing again
3pm: Afternoon tea break. Shearers pull out chairs, sit down and eat their packed tea.
3.30pm: Starts shearing again
5.30pm: Knocks off work. Len goes over to Ian's farm to clean and polish shearing gear before heading for home.
So routine-like isn't it? This whole cycle repeats itself everyday at the same location till all the sheep at the property are sheared. Shearers typically shear approximately 120+ sheep a day, and thus a farm with about 2000 sheep would take up to around 2 weeks for shearing to be complete. Most shearers work only on weekdays and get the weekends off to do work on their own farms. For all hard work that they do, they only get paid $2 per sheep, which in my opinion, isn't quite worth it. No wonder Len said that there is a shortage of shearers now, as there are less people interested in picking up the art of shearing.
I have come to the conclusion that the most 'valuable' item in the shearing shed is the CLOCK. It is the thing that is most looked at throughout the day after all! It really amuses me to see the same few men sit down to the tea and lunch breaks and bring out their food prepared by their wives earlier in the day. First, there would definitely be a sandwich, wrapped up nicely in some cling film. After eating the sandwich, they would open more lunch boxes and bring out some pieces of cake. Following that, biscuits would be eaten along with their coffee or tea. It's pretty standard, with a few variations in food type on certain days. While I was with Len, he would offer me some cake which I would always decline. He must really wonder at how little it is that I eat! He then started joking about how he should give me more work to do so that I would feel hungrier. So while they eat and talk about farm news, I am usually sitting there, staring and observing each one of them, sipping cold water and swatting flies. I like this bunch of shearers. Other than Len, there was his son Ian, and another guy named Mike. Mike was fascinating to watch when having tea. I amuse myself by noticing that he examines his food before taking each bite. It is almost as if he is marveling at the wonder of the food, turning it around for a bit before sinking his teeth into it. I suppose that is just a particular habit of eating, while others look around at anything but their food when eating.
My body aches more each day after working in the shed. It started with a backache from constant bending over every few seconds to pick up wool from the ground, then spread to aches in the arms and legs. I'll probably be all sore by the time I leave next Friday. Ahhh.. I can't wait to go back to Perth even though I'm enjoying myself here more than I thought I would. I can't wait to go back to Singapore and appreciate fully the cleaniness of my house back home! Here, dirt gets into my hands and nails from handling all that driedup shit in the wool. It's really tiring to have to keep running around and juggle your attention between shearers in order to monitor which shearer needed some some cleaning up to do. There is not a single minute that I can sit down and rest my legs. By now I have become quite frustrated from working with Andrew, the other rouseabout. At first he acted quite helpful and did around the same amount of work I did, then he started to slack off and exercise his mouth more than his legs. It's unfair that he does less work and gets paid for it, while I do so much more and would not get paid at all. Because Len is the one who's responsible for my behavior ultimately, I feel that I ought to do a good job to justify his trust in me.
It is tiresome to be the only girl working in the shed when there isn't any toilet around. I was definitely not about to find some bush under broad daylight and pee! The land is dry enough without me killing the grass further. Luckily, Tony offered me the use of his ute to drive up to his house to use the toilet. I decided to take up his offer at lunch time. BIG problem is, my legs are too short. No matter how I adjusted the seat, I just couldn't quite depress the clutch fully, but decided to make do with it cuz I was desperate! Looks like taking those manual driving lessons in Singapore finally paid off. It was fun to be driving a different kind of vehicle. Speaking of vehicles, Gail said that I would be allowed to drive their 4-wheel motorbike one of the days next week. Am I looking forward to that!
posted by Min @ 8:20 AM
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