“Can you hear that?!” There was fear in Emily’s voice. “Guys…there’s something in my row…I can hear it moving…. “
We all put down our clippers and hobbled our way over to Emily (holding our broken eggplant picking backs) as she listened intently to the strange squelching sound coming from the plastic underneath her plants. Sure enough there was an odd noise. Now let me tell you, when you’re in a country where every animal, insect and breathing organism has the potential to kill you in the blink of an eye strange deathly sounds on a farm are not amusing. Especially when you have your face near the ground covered in bushes. Obviously we were all very concerned about the noise but also intrigued so we carefully circled Emily and did what most sane people would do which was prod the plastic to see what happened. Naturally when it moved making a slithering noise we shit ourselves. But this was simply not enough so we watched in anticipation as Emily prodded it again and its head popped up through the hole. The first thing I saw was the snakes eyes and I can safely say I hurdled every row on that field in less than a millisecond.
“SNAKE, SNAAAAAKKKKKKEEEEEEE. Run for your lives!!!!!”
The other girls did the same skidding on mouldy eggplants on the way and screaming so loud Lyvette heard us 2,046km’s away in Sydney. And yes I did just Google that distance.
It was a very dramatic reaction and I’m sure we scared the toad senseless. We now refer to this incident as the Toad Snake Incident. To be fair though it could have been a snake and we could have died. Only a week later Gemma and Maja were working on another farm where they came across a brown snake (the second deadliest snake in the world) less than a metre away from them. They ran back to the shed so quickly they actually travelled faster than sound. The farmer then went out and killed it with a shovel and announced that if they had been bitten they would have been dead within 15 minutes. Que selfies with a dead brown snake.
Anyway apart from the Toad Snake Incident my rash has eased off – mainly because I leave no part of my body exposed. While everyone is busy getting there tan on doing their farm work wearing shorts and vests I wear long sleeves, leggings and even long socks over my arms. Which is extremely comfortable in 30 degree heat, as you can imagine. I also now have a numb middle finger and moving my wrist sends shooting pains up my arms from gripping my clippers. Henceforth this ailment shall be known by all farm workers as Pickers Wrist. This probably isn’t helped by the fact that some of the eggplants are the size of small children and it takes two hands to cut them and a forklift truck to lift them off the field. And then there’s the sore back which was mentioned previously. The eggplant girls now refer to this as EPB – Eggplant Back. Despite all of these issues there’s one thing that offends me more than anything else and it’s something that no-one tells you about. THE WHITE FLIES. The bain of my life. I don’t know what they are and at first I just thought they were chemicals but they live on the eggplants and attack your eyes, mouth and throat at every opportunity. And let me tell you now – when you get a white fly jammed in your trachea you know about it. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve been keeled over, close to death, on the side of the road wretching on white flies. I hate them. More than Toad Snakes.
White flies. Just another deadly species in Australia.
As you can see life on the farm is very exciting but to be fair we do get each other through it and have a giggle. Like the time Ellie threw a mouldy eggplant at Emily and it exploded down her bare leg. So Emily retaliated with an equally mouldy eggplant, hitting Ellie square in her back. This was deemed acceptable until we realised she had maggots stuck to her back and she ran around in a frenzy (anyone would have thought she’d seen a Toad Snake). So there we were watching Ellie attempting to thrust maggots off her back and Emily trying not to vomit as mouldy eggplant dripped down her ankle towards her infected ingrowing toenail. Then German Maja almost ran Swedish Maja over in the ute (mainly because German Maja has limited spacial awareness, absolutely no concept of speed and thinks she an eggplant picking ralley driver). Life on Sibby’s is always a joy. I now even have a Batman bag for work. Oh and I got severe chaff again and had to go commando but this time the cat didn’t run off with my knickers.
Then came the sad part. Swedish Maja got a new job planting and left us and even worse German Maja finally left Ayr to head home. We miss her but we all feel extremely happy that she will no longer have EPB and Pickers Wrist. We’re also relieved that we don’t have to worry about being hit by the ute or catapulted off the back as she re-enacts a scene from Grand Theft Auto.
Other than that life in Ayr continues to be a rollercoaster. I have witnessed numerous breakdowns, tantrums and tears but at the same time I can honestly say I have laughed more in Ayr than I have throughout my entire time in Australia. Like the time Andrea got high and had the munchies so bad she ate everything in the kitchen – including the sink. She crawled into bed and said “I’m so full, so so full, I literally feel sick”. Thirty seconds later… “I think I need some pasta”…and up she jumps, back to the sinkless kitchen. Then Izzy found a dead cockroach in her bed which didn’t go down well…
“What if it’s got friends? Where did it come from? Will it come back? (No Izzy it’s dead) OMG what if it’s laid eggs?!” Just another dramatic night in Ayr.
Then the boys in the garage (yes they actually live in the garage) aka the Garage Gang decided to gradually break themselves. Will got in a fight and broke his nose, Josh broke his wrist playing football and the next day Mitch severed his toe on a rock. As you can imagine they looked like a right motley crew limping through the hospital. I can only describe it as resembling a scene from The Inbetweeners. Will couldn’t see through his black panda eyes and Mitch was staggering around dragging a severed toe that appeared to be hanging on by a thread of muscle tissue and (very unthoughtfully) leaving a trail of blood behind him.
Also my bed seems to attract things. And when I say things I mean objects, belongings and not necessarily mine. First I woke up with a bum bag in it that was so dirty it could only have travelled from Asia. Then came the tupperware box full of candles. Then the suncream, shampoo, numerous electrical devices, shoes…you name it I’ll have it. If anyone has stuff missing it’s usually in my bed (and no I don’t put it there). It’s now a well known fact that my bed needs to regularly be checked for missing items and if it can’t be found it’s definitely not coming back.
On another note I now have exactly 1 month left before I can get signed off. Don’t ask me what I’m going to do after that because I’m not sure. I know it will involve meeting up with Lyvette again at some point – so long as she’s not too busy falling asleep in fire exits and whale watching in Sydney. But in the meantime I’m just going to continue being at one with (and skidding on mouldy) eggplants, laughing with my farm family, hoarding crap in my bed and most likely scratching my rash…
