Farm Chick!

No, I’m not talking about chickens, it’s me. I still have a lot of catching up to do. At the moment I just don’t have the time for it. So I decided that I’ll upload the story about me and my Sydney life, after the road trip, when I have a bit more time on my hands.

I’ll give you some insight on my whereabouts and my new daily routine. No, not in Sydney anymore, I’m in Singleton. What? Yes, singleton. It’s a place in the Hunter Valley, the horse, wine, and mine region. A few days after the farmer had called me, I packed some bags and left Sydney. This farmer has a son Marcus of 23, who has his racing stables in a place nearby. The horses that are on a break, that are not in training, are on the farm (Windflora lodge) where I’m staying.

The family:

-         Farmer John (kijkt elke dag veeeeel te diep in het glaasje, wisselende stemmingen

-         Son Marcus (zo vader zo zoon, in een paar opzichten, gelukkig niet in de ergste)

-         Mom Bernie, who only comes ‘home’ twice a week. Ex-wife??? (mierenneuker, zeurkous)

-         Spencer (big dog who stays outside)

-       Bags (Tiny dog, not bigger than my handbag, spoiled and has to hear the following sentence more then 100 times every day: ,,Who is the  

         best doggy in the world?!”)

-       A bunch of chickens, referred to as “chucks” by the farmer                                                         

-       23 Horses

-       Heaps of other creatures, that you’d rather not see.                                

Chris, who organises the jam session, was so friendly to drive me to singleton with his car. This because I had the feeling that the farmer had used the word ‘darling’ way to often. It was darling this and darling that. I slept through half the journey, but we had a good times when I wasn’t sleepingJ

The next morning I woke up at 7 because it was Friday and I had to go for a run. Well you all know me, can’t really call it running. After that we started feeding the horses. Had to fill 23 buckets with three different ingredients, more time consuming that I thought. After that we jumped in the pick up truck and drove around the property to feed them all.                                                                                                        This has been the routine in the morning ever since. The only difference is that on the second day I had to do it all on my own, since the farmer and his son went to a horse race. There are actually a few more differences. He now leaves it up to me to make the buckets ready. But the worst thing is that I never know when he wants to feed the horses. He does whatever en whenever he feels like it. So most of the morning I’m waiting for him. Waiting and waiting, never knowing when it will be, that he’ll finally wants to feed them. Then in the afternoons I either clean parts of the house, or (most times) I’ll be in the garden. There is a lot of weeding to do. Basically I do whatever I think needs to be done, and let  me tell you… there’s more then enough to do. I don’t get money, they only provide accommodation, my own room in the house, and food.

                                               Like the dutch people could read in between the lines, it’s not wonderland here. Luckily Cora, a german girl who lives here too and helps Marcus in the stables, shares the same opinion. We share each others pain and frustration. (Gedeelde smart is halve smart). I’ll just keep it to that for now. (Je weet maar nooit wie er van de family mijn naam googled en meeleest)

Here in Singleton I already realised after just a few days that I am a city girl. I need to have people around me. It is pretty lonely on the farm. Cora leaves at 5 in the morning, with Marcus to work in the stables and comes back at 10am. But then quite often she’s tired and will sleep a few hours. Just after 2 they’ll leave again and won’t come back until 6pm. Have accompanied her a few times. The farmer does his own thing, watching tv, sitting behind his computer, or takes the car to I-don’t-know-where. I’d rather be in Sydney, back to my crazy busy Sydney life. There I really felt alive! There weren’t even enough hours in a day!

Sure, I’ve been into town here at night. Cora came with me once, but hates her language barrier, and lend me her car on other nights. Made some ‘friends’. But the people here are different. Let’s put it this way. I wouldn’t hang out with my dad in the pub, my dad wouldn’t get wasted and I for sure would never call my dad a dickhead (x5). Here… it’s normal.

Another thing I found out here. They did supersize everybody here. In Sydney there are a lot of successful business people, who are health freaks. Here it’s Mac Donalds, Mac Donalds, Kentucky fried chicken and the Pizza Hut. But you’ll see that on the photo’s too!

 It’s bed time now. Tomorrow there will be another day of waiting, feeding the horses and weeding. Luckily there will be an aqua blue sky tooJ

(2 days later) Singleton now belongs to the past. The day before I left Robbie took me to see Lake St. Claire. He was one of the people I met on a night out in town. He had only lived there for two months himself, and was going out to meet a lot of new people too. I asked him, for I really wanted to see it before I’d leave and since I didn’t have a car either… It was beautiful over there! Saw the lake as well as the dam at Glennies Creek.                                           

  Another memorable moment was when the farmer and his son were on a day out to Sydney and weren’t there when two horses were being picked up. It was raining and I was looking from a small distance how this guy tried to lead the horse inside his horse trailer/truck. The horse refused to go inside. After more then 5 minutes, the guy signalled for me to come over. ,,Oh shit”, was what I was thinking. When I’d walked over, he said ,,Could you lead him in?”. Silly me didn’t say that I’d never done that before, but I kept my mouth shut and took the lead over from him. It would’ve been embarrassing having to say that I’d never done that before… So I kept my fingers crossed and kept on thinking ,,Please, don’t let me down”, while I took the lead. The horse didn’t think twice and simply walked straight in. I thought it was pretty funny!

This sums up the good experiences…

Next time I’ll write about my whereabouts now. Luckily that’s not in Singleton anymore… I’ve moved on to a better spot!