Farm Life

Drunken Weekend Antics 

It’s crazy to think we’ve been on the farm for a month now - that’s four whole weeks of bananas, dirty fingernails, bananas, huge spiders, bananas, drunken weekends and…oh yeah, BANANAS! It’s safe to say that our time here has definitely been an experience to remember, with such a great group of people making a pretty mundane place bearable and fun to be. With not a lot to do, we do a pretty great job of entertaining ourselves, be it scaring Jack as he comes out of the outside toliet, or jumping through his window at night wearing what can only be described as a murdering cowboys hat. We toast marshmallows on campfires under the stars, drive out to lakes and creeks nearby to explore and have had many a drunken time at the weekend - some of which include squeezing ten people into the shower at once, and then all heading up to the roof to dry off (but that’s enough about last Friday…)

The actual work part itself is pretty boring. Boring, tiring, repetitive, monotonous and dirty, to be more specific. On Mondays and Tuesdays the bananas get picked from the paddock and brought over to the shed, where they’re washed, cut off the bunches, de-clustered, measured, packed, and sent off. My job is to stand at the end of the huge conveyor-belt and pack all of the premium bananas (that’s ‘small’ to me and you) in four rows making the weight up to 14.1 kgs. Then I tie up the plastic liner, place the box on the next conveyer-belt and start all over again. TEN HOURS A DAY I DO THIS! By the time 5pm rolls around my knees ache, my shoulder throbs and I’m covered in a ridiculous amount of banana sap, or bogeys as I prefer to call them. I also have the pleasure of wearing an oversized men’s hoody ($15 from Big W, what a snip) and some pretty jazzy trainers… who said farm work couldn’t be glamorous?!