I love rain days. It means I get a day off to just sit around and watch North American sports like  the Stanley Cup Playoffs! This last week has been pretty busy for me, sowing chickpeas and wheat. I started on Thursday and spent four days straight planting a 900+ acre paddock of chickpeas. Then right after that we switched from the tine planter to the disc planter that has the sweet name of “The Bullet”. Its called that because you can sow at pretty high speeds. We were going 8.5 kph with the tine planter but with the Bullet we were going 17 kph. You definitely cover a lot of ground when you’re going that fast. 

Once the chickpeas were done we started planting wheat on the promise of rain. Put in just over 1500 acres of wheat in 27 hours, we went at it pretty hard! The rain came this morning so the boss man was happy about that, the forecast is for 2 to 4 inches of rain this weekend. Terry took off for town this morning so that she wouldn’t be stuck out here for a week or however long its going to be. So it looks like John and I will have to make our own meals for a few days, oh well I think we can manage that. 

I had been looking to get a nice backpack to replace the wheeled luggage I came over with and on monday I bought a trekking pack online, hopefully it gets here next week sometime. I think its a really nice one, the video advertising it was very convincing anyway! I will have to donate some of my clothes to Mission Australia because I won’t have space to pack everything I brought. Now I just have to decide which I really don’t need, but since I am planning a trip from tropical Darwin to snow and sleet Adelaide, I am going to need a range of different clothes. I made a bucket list the other day while I was on the tractor, I won’t say whats on it but it does involve me conquering some of my fears thats for sure! But thats what this year is all about isn’t? All I need is a enough money to do those things, which is easier said than done at times but I think I’ll get it done. I do wish that I didn’t have to make car payments but that is something I have to live with I guess. Unless someone wants to buy my car! I might buy a car with the guy Im traveling with, see what we can find.

But anyhow I am running out of things to say even though Im really bored with this baseball game Im watching until the hockey comes on a 10 am. 

Its a different world over here. I’m sure you all knew that but figured I could tell you again. We tried to sow chickpeas in a few different paddocks today but everywhere it was far to dry. The seed was about six inches down and still not in the moisture, very different from at home. We did finally find a paddock where it will work but we need to spray it first and then wait a few days before we can sow there. But the beans we planted a few weeks ago are up so thats good, just enough good news to keep my boss happy.

I have been learning a lot about Australia while I’ve been here, there are a lot of similarities to Canada. The government structure is the same and we both are commonwealth nations. But the Australians have kept the English traditions much more alive than the Canadians, still have tea instead of coffee breaks. The aboriginals here are often on welfare and have a lot of drug and alcohol problems. Its really sad actually how they just seem to have no ambition to better themselves, but why should they? the government buys them new cars!  That information was for the people who have been studying Australia lately, you’re welcome. 

I went to the Walgett show this last weekend and had a really good time! Its a small show but they get a lot of horses and other livestock out from all over the state. They also had a couple of rides for the kiddies and such. One of the vendors made wood fired pizzas, they were amazing! I hadn’t had pizza in a few months so that could have had something to do with my amazement haha. I met a whole bunch of nannies this weekend, so many of the farmers have nannies for their kids! That was something that I did not know about these Aussies. I haven’t heard from Englishman Joe in a while, he has very limited service where he is so its kinda difficult to plan our trip. I also have a real beef with MasterCard, I can’t do any online purchases! I called them and was told that there is no problem with the card and I should just buy from different sites. But the real problem is that I am trying to put more minutes on my phone cause I ran out a week ago, and the Telstra site doesn’t take my card! Of course I could just go to the nearest Telstra shop and do it in person but, its over 200 km away! So that is my big issue this week. 

Smells like dinner is almost ready to go, lamb chops, potato, pumpkin and some other vegetable. Apparently Australians like to have three veggies and one meat for dinner every night. I could use a Flamethrower burger from DQ by now, haven’t had fast food since I was in Dubbo two months ago, I miss it! Although I’m sure its good for my health to not have any fast food. But, looks like its time to eat so I gotta run. Later everyone!

Ahh rural Australian life, four hour blackouts because a tractor ran over a power pole in the  middle of a paddock somewhere. How is everyone? I am fantastic now, was a little down for a bit but I’m good now and ready to continue this adventure I am on. The last little while has been pretty busy but busy is good. The shearers finished on monday afternoon so thats one big thing off the to do list. It took them only three days to shear just over 1600 sheep, that is a lot of work for four guys! The money is good doing that but its backbreaking work in the dust and sheep poop, not my idea of fun. On monday Richard and I brought the cattle down into the yards to wean last years calves. There has been an awful lot of mooing around here but its getting less and less everyday. There were eight calves from this year in the mob as well so they needed ear tags and castration for the little boys. We tried to put them in the cradle to work on them but some of them refused so I got to play cowboy for a bit and throw em to the ground the old fashioned way! Those little guys never stood a chance when I got hold of them!

We are going to finish harvest tomorrow, still have a few hundred acres of sorghum that needs to come off. But that will be a days work tops so then we have to find something else to do. Hopefully we get some rain here shortly so that we can start sowing some more crops, its to dry for sowing as it is. 

Went on a bus trip with the rugby team last weekend, went over to Bourke to take on the Rams over there. Which is kind of funny since the Walgett team is also called the Rams, I guess that tells you how big sheep farming is out here. The Walgett town show is this weekend so that could be interesting, everything is agriculturally oriented. There are fast shearing competitions and things like that, snake man is coming to show us all about the creepy devils that live in the grass around here. Richard killed a huge red-bellied black snake yesterday and narrowly missed killing an even bigger one, at least six foot something. 

Now that we have internet again I can update my blog! Last month we went over the limit so they cut us off for almost a week. When you’re this far from everywhere it seems pretty isolated even though I’m not that far from town. 

Anyway, thats me right now, hope to hear from you all real soon!