At Canowindra Cornerstone there is a war in progress. Lives have been lost. Possessions have been plundered. Families have been broken. This war isn't obvious, in fact you could almost say it was hidden. Everyone is fighting in it, though they may not know it. Our side is greatly outnumbered but we have superior weaponry.
My name is Mark Albion and i am a fighter in this war. The allies are my fellow students and various staff members.
My enemy, everyones enemy, is.... MICE!
Encounter One: All Wars Have a Beginning...
The day i realised that i was fighting in a war, was the day that i first found evidence of the enemy encroaching on our land. I sat down at my desk, ready to focus on our daily lectures, when i spotted it... POO! i made a loud exclamation of outrage and ran to get a cloth. and it was then, while cleaning my desk, that i realised i needed to take a more active role in the war i was in.
After making this decision i found my second piece of evidence. The rodents had been behind the allies lines. i found mouse droppings beside where i kept my toothbrush. i threw the toothbrush swearing vengeance.
i knew what to do...
Encounter Two: Skirmishes...
We sat, the allies and i, on the lounge, watching a movie to bond and grow closer together as a unit. But, just when Danielle was about to kiss Prince Henry for the first time (Ever After), we found ourselves under attack. We spotted the first mouse as it sprinted across the back of a couch. At first we tried intimidating it with stomping and loud noises, and for a time it seemed to work, but we soon found that they werent so easily intimidated. The second mouse appeared on the arm rest. The nerve! Sergeant "Wally" Jess, Private Alyssa, Captain "Granny" Amy, Lieutenant "Cantle" Jess and I rose as one, a unit prepared for battle, and took up our battle posts. I grabbed the hardcover Aristocats book, Wally a pillow, Cantle prepared to lift couches, Granny went to her lookout post, Alyssa armed herself with a pillow, and we all went at it. Granny would shout and point when she spotted a mouse, Cantle would lift the couch to expose the critters, and Alyssa, Wally and I would go at it, flailing our weapons every-which-way and direction.
The mice, in the end, escaped however. They were too fast for us and too crafty in their hiding.
That was when the brilliant suggestion was made...
"Traps..."
Encounter Three: Booby Traps and Ingenuity...
We booby trapped the entire centre. every room, every nook, every cranny. Mouse traps were set, bait applied, and we settled in to wait...
We werent kept waiting long
The amount of enemy troops caught were amazing. The dead came in floods. At first i felt regret. They were so cute after all, and they couldnt help their nature. Finding a mouse on my pillow quickly changed that!
General "Boof" Tim was the one who set the traps in our room. And it was his ingenuity that has kept the enemy numbers in our sleeping quarters down. He found the place where all the enemy passed through on their way into our room, and so he set an unbaited trap right in their path. It worked like a charm. Mice don't survive long in our room now!'
Encounter Four: Why Didn't I Pack My Night Goggles?
Somehow, the enemy found out one of our big weaknesses. We are terrible fighters at night. And so they began their nighttime skirmishes...
Rustle rustle, rip tear, squeak, skuffle. These are all the noises of enemy activity. We know by these noises that they are there, but at night we have no will to fight, and can't see enough to be any use anyways. So we lie awake, listening to their noises, picturing them eating away at your clothes, peeing on your socks, running all over your floor, and there is no way we can get to sleep.
Boof our trusty general, however, has learnt how to battle while sleeping. We allies call people with this skill a WalkingSleeper (also known as SleepWalker) and we are fortunate that General Tim has such a skill , however effective it may be. When the noises start, he gets up out of bed, still sleeping soundly, and prowls the room, rustling around in our stuff, trying to scare/find the enemy. When you ask him what he is doing you will probably just get strange murmuring and sometimes you hear the words "mice" and "find". So you know that he is trying to find the mice. He has never found any while Sleepwalking yet, but someday maybe he will...
Encounter Five: Reflexes like Greased Lightning!
The other night i walked past the office where Private Janet was studying. As i passed she says that she believes she saw a mouse run into the paper in the corner. And so, without hesitation, i dive towards the paper. Then, when i see movement as the mouse goes to make a dash for freedom, my hands jerk with lightning reflexes downwards onto the piece of paper above him.
Gotcha!
The next part was easy. A flick of the wrist, a squeak, and then silence and stillness. Another of the enemy is dead.
Encounter Six: Getting Sloppy...
We must have been wearing the enemy down because they began to get sloppy. Maybe they were just getting desperate. Whatever the case, i managed to kill another of the enemy purely by chance.
I had just finished eating the days daily rations and was headed to the boys dorm. I openewhen i took it by surprise. As you can imagine, the shock and unexpectedness of finding a mouse beneath my foot was quite substantial. Needless to say i jumped in fright, like any soldier would. But i had killed it. Fear me, enemy of mine!
Encounter Seven: "Ratatouille - sounds like rat and patootie... who wants to eat a rat patootie?!"
We allies are required to work for a set amount of time on local farms each day. And on this particular day we were working on the Gallea farm. They were also part of the war. They fought alongside us on a different front. We helped them out where we could though, sending allies to help keep enemy numbers down.
Well, we discovered on this occasion that our enemy also had allies. Rats! And they are a lot bigger. Thankfully, though, they arent nearly as fast as their little cousins. Kinda evens things out a little bit. So when they first joined in the battle, scampering across our feet as we picked pumpkins, we jumped in fright and horror. Surely we couldnt combat such a large hideous beast! And, to rub it in, they left poo parcels all over our pumpkins that we had to pick. We were forced to wipe of the nasty things to keep the Galleas happy. Disgusting.
Eventually though, we discovered their lack of speed. And so, at the end of our work day, when "Granny" Amy and i spotted a rat, we took off after it! We flew across the field, jumping, stomping and cornering until we finally caught up with it. It didn't take much after that to kill the beastie.
Big allies you might have oh enemy of mine, but we are still bigger!
We are at war here at Canowindra Cornerstone. Losses of life, possessions and dignity is to be expected. The war is being fought behind the scenes, not noticed by all, but nevertheless everyone is participating. Superior numbers, outweighed by strength and brains.Who shall win this war? Nobody knows. But we can always hope...
The enemy - Mice
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
A List
Ok. First thing to do is write out a list of topics to talk about....
Now, to begin the expansion of dot points...
Wog Night
So a fair while ago Millie and Jane decided to have a "Wog Night" where Jane would cook us all her Maltese dishes and we would stuff ourselves silly and maybe Vince will tell stories about Malta and we would generally have a good time. Oh, and we would wear red and white (Maltese flag colours). Well anyways, we did have a Wog Night, and it was amazing! It was like Christmas where you stuff yourself silly on all the amazing foods, and then you have dessert! Amazing. We ate pumpkin pie, pastry puff things, rabbit (shot by Tim), maccaroni-pasta-cheesey-goodness, ice cream cake, truffle, malteasers, lollies, amazing apple pie!, custard tarts, etc. AMAZING! Stuffed full of yummy goodness. And we did wear white and red. Some of us looked pretty ridiculous. We basically just put on and white and red clothing we had, which meant lots of clashing bizarre clothing lol.
It was a good night. Lots of fun. It was nice to spend time with the Galleas in a non-work atmosphere. Plus, they have an incredible house!
Winter Clothing
It's getting colder. Funny how that happens. One day its warm and toasty like a sauna, the next day you are afraid your fingers are going to fall off from frostbite. Unfortunately i was ill equipped for winter and so buying winter clothes jumped from being last on my To Do List to the very top. The "I MUST GET THIS DONE SOON OR A MIGHT DIE" part of my To Do List. Thankfully we had a Cowra trip due. S,o as soon as we got out of the bus in Cowra, i powered over to the Op Shop. Man on a Mission. I ended up buying a flanny, a warm vest, an amazing jacket for work, work shorts and running shorts. I would have bought more clothes but the shop closed 5 minutes after we got in there. Lame! I got some stuff at least. I didn't get to look at the book section however. Even more lame!
By the way, our Cowra trips are only once a month and we are only given one hour to do all our shopping. All your shopping in one hour! Which, in my opinion, is totally stupid. We should get two at least. Shopping at the moment is just stressful lol. You should see us, we march to through the shops. No browsing for us Cornerstoners. We are Disciples on a mission, getting supplies to survive the next month. Supplies like chocolate, breaky juice, fruit, books, chips, .. you know.. the essentials. :)
Dan & Allee
So turns out Swan Hill got their holidays way earlier than we get ours. Theirs was last week and so Dan and Allee came to visit us, to to rub in the fact that we weren't on holidays yet... nah just kidding. They just came to visit us all i think. Just for the day type thing. It was pretty nice of them. Rosemary (Georgie's mother) also came to visit so George got to catch up with her and Allee over coffee in town or something. Got to hear some of the stuff going on over in Swan Hill. Sounds like they are having fun. Oh! And make sure you wash your fruit always. i didn't know that you should and was freaked out when i heard about the yuck chemicals they put on the fruit. In Swan Hill they were dipping their peaches in chemicals that can stop you having babies. how bad is that lol. good reason to wash your fruit!
Scripture Easter Service
For the last week of Scripture we had an Easter Service thing for all the kids in the church beside the school. We basically just winged it. Like always. I played the donkey that Jesus rode into Jerusalem and had to crawl up between the pews to the front of the church. Yay. Lol, the little boy playing Jesus at first went to crawl along the ground beside me. I had to explain that he had to either lead me or sit on my back. Naturally they decided to sit on my back and pull my hood lol. Then he didn't want to get off. I kind of just got up and let him slide/fall off.
We went through the whole story with them briefly and played games at the same time to keep them interested. And we sang songs between each section as well. They loved "Lord I Lift Your Name On High". The Scripture teachers didn't know the actions so us Cornerstoners had to teach them. I hadn't done the actions for ages and couldn't remember them at first but i just visualised those times leading Kids Church songs and i remembered all the actions lol. The kids loved it. Georgie, Anna, Jewels and I all went up the front and led in the actions and so i got to see them all getting right into the song lol. I love teaching little kids :) So much fun.
We also provided easter eggs for them all. Jewels and Anna bought eggs and cellophane, and Georgie and i made little easter egg bundles for them all. We made 130 bundles in total. Nice round number :) Well anyways, i thought we only needed 100 so when Helen said the next morning that she forgot to get eggs for her class, i offered her the 30 extra that we had. Unfortunately i got to the car and was told that we needed 150 lol. So i had to race over to where Helen was pulling out of her driveway and knock on her window to get her to stop. She was laughing as she wound down the window and she said straight away "You're going to take your gift back arent you?" lol. I laughed and said yes and apologized. She didnt seem to mind. Thought it rather amusing for some reason...
Turns out we only needed 100 anyways. Oh well. Sorry Helen :)
Celebration of Disciplines
At the moment i am reading the best book! It's called Celebration of Disciplines (hence the subheading in bold) and is about Spiritual Disciplines (hence the book title :) ). It's so good! It's easy to read and really engaging. I reckon everyone should read it. Buy it from Koorong. I dare you :)
But yeah its been really good. The introduction was talking about how we often try to fix ourselves up by our own wills, trying to fix us from the inside, which is impossible. It's God who changes us from the inside out. All we can do is change our outsides. eg habits, the way we act, what we read, etc. and these things are all good to change if they are unhelpful, but trying to change ourselves, our real selves, our insides, is actually wrong. the book even went far enough to say that it was Will Worship. like worshiping our wills. its really confusing to explain but the book was really good. you should read it. but anyways, the point it was making was that we need to let God change us. And the Spiritual Disciplines are like a way to put us in a place where we allow God to change us, inviting Him to change us, sitting at Jesus' feet like Mary, etc. They don't change us in themselves but are tools used to help us connect with and learn from and deepen our relationship with God, and so letting Him change us! ... ok im not sure if that made sense at all to anyone but if you read the book you will understand. if what i said sounded wrong and you disagree with what i wrote then you will just have to read it yourself :) so ha! if you like the sound of what i wrote, read it! if you didnt, read it! lol. its a good book.
you dont actually have to read it if you don't want to, but i encourage you to do it :)
Snakes
I was bitten by a snake!
nah im just pulling your leg. we do have a brown snake at the center though. it's living under Jons office we think. So far i have watched Sam try to catch it 3 times. And by "catch" i mean "find and catch". He hasnt actually found it to be able to catch it yet. He plans to relocate it to some place way down the road and not kill it. He's a snake lover :)
I'm also now very seriously considering buying a python. Sam has two Children's Pythons here and they are so cute. They only grow to a meter so i don't have to worry about it trying to eat me or anything. And they are totally cool. I think i might get one. What do you think? :)
Samson's
I worked at the Azapardi's the other day and we were doing Samson Pumpkins. (also called Queensland Grey's). Think big, grey, pumpkin. And we were picking and washing them. Picking them is alright. You just snip the stem with the secateurs and put the pumpkin on the conveyor belt. The washing, however, is EVIL. Chris and I alternated unpacking them onto the belt and packing them in boxes. So basically how it works is one of us unpacks the Samson's from big plastic crates onto a conveyor belt ads fast as we can, they travel along the belt and through a washed where four girls stand and scrub them as they go past, and then they move along past the other one of us who then packs them into massive cardboard boxes as fast as they can. It is so exhausting!
Lettuce
If melons are evil, and pumpkins are the evil twins to melons, lettuce is the evil stepmother for sure. They are terrible. It's cold, it's wet and it's very fiddly. I now dream of lettuce cutting. You have to cut the butt's low enough, keep them clean despite the mud, take of bad/dirty leaves, but not take off too many leaves, etc. It's like impossible to do perfectly right. It's sooo stressful. I have been dreaming about lettuce's. Jane even yells at me in my dreams! Then, in my dream i was all of a sudden a amazing lettuce cutter and they were coming up like perfect every time... and she still yelled at me! So stressful. I do it wrong even when i'm doing it right in my dreams. *shake head sadly* why do i even bother?!
We cut two types of lettuce. Iceberg Lettuce and Cos Lettuce. Cos is the easier one to cut by far. Iceberg (the round lettuce that you normally buy) is the bad one. I'm telling all of you now that you need to stop and appreciate the next lettuce you eat because some poor worker (like me) has put up with stress and yelling and mud and cold to get it to you lol. I have a new appreciation for fruit and vegetables since working here. So much work goes into it and i'm very thankful that people are willing to do it :)
Birthday Party
So, the other day it was Oli Wagstaffe's birthday party and i was asked to help out with managing the many kids coming for an hour or so. It meant i would miss out on some of lectures but i didnt mind really coz i got to spend an hour or so playing with the kids lol. Anyways, i ended up going down there right as pass the parcel was commencing, so i just sat down in the circle and joined in lol. I don't like pass the parcel very much because there are always some kids who think that it wasnt fair because they didnt win the big prize or anything. It was pretty funny to watch though. This one little kid would start opening the parcel every time it came past him. I don't think he ever caught on that he could only open a layer if the music stopped on him lol. Poor guy. It was very cute. I think they enjoyed it though. One little girl felt like she should have got another chocolate though lol. Oh well.
After the game it was afternoon tea time! So i got to sit there and chat with all the mothers while eating all the amazingly yummy party food. Jewel's is an amazing cook. We had homemade sausage rolls, fairy bread, butterfly cakes, homemade lamington's, chicken nuggets, chips, lollies, drinks, etc. YUM! I'm totally volunteering for any future parties lol. I ate so much party food. There was way too much for the kids so i just got to eat and eat lol. So yummy.
After eating our fill, the pinata came out! That was fun. Calvin was very funny. He decided he wasn't going to have a go hitting the pinata because that way he could be the closest when the pinata broke open, meaning he could quickly grab lots and lots of lollies when they fell. I laughed when he explained. He said it so logically that i couldn't come up with any argument. In the end though he didn't end up the closest to the lollies. The bag broke but didn't burst, so Tim threw the lollies up into the air and let the kids go for them like a bunch of chickens with scraps :) lol. A few kids had to be convinced to part with their excess and share with other children with less, but generally i think they all left content with their prizes :) I love pinata's
Balloon's
The other weekend we had our balloon festival! Not little boring balloons that you hold, but the big type that you can fly in. The other day at work i looked up from picking butternuts to see the air filled with all the hot air balloons flying past. We even had some land in the paddocks beside us. It was pretty cool. We kept stopping work to wave back to the people in the baskets. Lol, at one point Sam and i were cutting ahead while Saerom and Eungeong cut the roadway. One of us kind of wondered aloud to the other "I wonder how the Korean girls are going" and we both looked around to check their progress. And what we saw was both of them jumping up and down waving and yelling "Helloooo!" to a balloon overhead lol. It was so funny. We kind of laughed together and went back to work... But yeah. It wasnt the most productive work day. Balloon's are just too distracting.
We also went on Saturday night to see the Balloon Glow. Basically masses of people all came and gathered on the ovals to buy food grown locally, and then watch all the balloons light up and flash on and off to music playing. It was pretty spectacular. They glow like massive coloured light bulbs. And one of the balloons was a great big kookaburra! They were pretty cool. We all had a great time taking pictures. Looked amazing. Unfortunately children kept running in front of us and didn't take the hints when i loudly commented "I hate it when kids get in the way while you are watching something" or when i said "Children, can you please move. You are in our way" or when i said "Do you MIND?" or "Move children MOVE!". They just stood there and played in front of us. It was even worse when the adults then came and stood right in front of us to have a yarn. You'd think people would be more considerate! Poor Jess W kept taking pictures with peoples heads passing in front of the balloons lol. Oh well. It was still fun. And i actually wasn't that bothered by the kids. They were more amusing than annoying really lol.
Games
Speaking of children, i just love watching the center kids playing their make believe games together! lol it is so funny. One morning i had an amazing few minutes watching Calvin and Reid having a lightsaber duel on the road. Reid had the red lightsaber so i assume he was the bad guy. But anyways, they had this epic fight before Reid finally slew Calving with his saber. But then, somehow, Calvin managed to kill Reid as he fell. I assume he used the Force lol. I couldn't see because he fell out of my view. I just saw Reid suddenly fling back and die lol. It was so cool. I felt like clapping lol.
Here ends my list of topics to speak about.
- Wog Night
- Winter Clothes
- Dan and Allee
- Scripture Easter Service
- Celebration of Disciplines
- Snakes
- Samson's
- Lettuce
- Birthday Party
- Balloons
- Games
Now, to begin the expansion of dot points...
Wog Night
So a fair while ago Millie and Jane decided to have a "Wog Night" where Jane would cook us all her Maltese dishes and we would stuff ourselves silly and maybe Vince will tell stories about Malta and we would generally have a good time. Oh, and we would wear red and white (Maltese flag colours). Well anyways, we did have a Wog Night, and it was amazing! It was like Christmas where you stuff yourself silly on all the amazing foods, and then you have dessert! Amazing. We ate pumpkin pie, pastry puff things, rabbit (shot by Tim), maccaroni-pasta-cheesey-goodness, ice cream cake, truffle, malteasers, lollies, amazing apple pie!, custard tarts, etc. AMAZING! Stuffed full of yummy goodness. And we did wear white and red. Some of us looked pretty ridiculous. We basically just put on and white and red clothing we had, which meant lots of clashing bizarre clothing lol.
It was a good night. Lots of fun. It was nice to spend time with the Galleas in a non-work atmosphere. Plus, they have an incredible house!
Winter Clothing
It's getting colder. Funny how that happens. One day its warm and toasty like a sauna, the next day you are afraid your fingers are going to fall off from frostbite. Unfortunately i was ill equipped for winter and so buying winter clothes jumped from being last on my To Do List to the very top. The "I MUST GET THIS DONE SOON OR A MIGHT DIE" part of my To Do List. Thankfully we had a Cowra trip due. S,o as soon as we got out of the bus in Cowra, i powered over to the Op Shop. Man on a Mission. I ended up buying a flanny, a warm vest, an amazing jacket for work, work shorts and running shorts. I would have bought more clothes but the shop closed 5 minutes after we got in there. Lame! I got some stuff at least. I didn't get to look at the book section however. Even more lame!
By the way, our Cowra trips are only once a month and we are only given one hour to do all our shopping. All your shopping in one hour! Which, in my opinion, is totally stupid. We should get two at least. Shopping at the moment is just stressful lol. You should see us, we march to through the shops. No browsing for us Cornerstoners. We are Disciples on a mission, getting supplies to survive the next month. Supplies like chocolate, breaky juice, fruit, books, chips, .. you know.. the essentials. :)
Dan & Allee
So turns out Swan Hill got their holidays way earlier than we get ours. Theirs was last week and so Dan and Allee came to visit us, to to rub in the fact that we weren't on holidays yet... nah just kidding. They just came to visit us all i think. Just for the day type thing. It was pretty nice of them. Rosemary (Georgie's mother) also came to visit so George got to catch up with her and Allee over coffee in town or something. Got to hear some of the stuff going on over in Swan Hill. Sounds like they are having fun. Oh! And make sure you wash your fruit always. i didn't know that you should and was freaked out when i heard about the yuck chemicals they put on the fruit. In Swan Hill they were dipping their peaches in chemicals that can stop you having babies. how bad is that lol. good reason to wash your fruit!
Scripture Easter Service
For the last week of Scripture we had an Easter Service thing for all the kids in the church beside the school. We basically just winged it. Like always. I played the donkey that Jesus rode into Jerusalem and had to crawl up between the pews to the front of the church. Yay. Lol, the little boy playing Jesus at first went to crawl along the ground beside me. I had to explain that he had to either lead me or sit on my back. Naturally they decided to sit on my back and pull my hood lol. Then he didn't want to get off. I kind of just got up and let him slide/fall off.
We went through the whole story with them briefly and played games at the same time to keep them interested. And we sang songs between each section as well. They loved "Lord I Lift Your Name On High". The Scripture teachers didn't know the actions so us Cornerstoners had to teach them. I hadn't done the actions for ages and couldn't remember them at first but i just visualised those times leading Kids Church songs and i remembered all the actions lol. The kids loved it. Georgie, Anna, Jewels and I all went up the front and led in the actions and so i got to see them all getting right into the song lol. I love teaching little kids :) So much fun.
We also provided easter eggs for them all. Jewels and Anna bought eggs and cellophane, and Georgie and i made little easter egg bundles for them all. We made 130 bundles in total. Nice round number :) Well anyways, i thought we only needed 100 so when Helen said the next morning that she forgot to get eggs for her class, i offered her the 30 extra that we had. Unfortunately i got to the car and was told that we needed 150 lol. So i had to race over to where Helen was pulling out of her driveway and knock on her window to get her to stop. She was laughing as she wound down the window and she said straight away "You're going to take your gift back arent you?" lol. I laughed and said yes and apologized. She didnt seem to mind. Thought it rather amusing for some reason...
Turns out we only needed 100 anyways. Oh well. Sorry Helen :)
Celebration of Disciplines
At the moment i am reading the best book! It's called Celebration of Disciplines (hence the subheading in bold) and is about Spiritual Disciplines (hence the book title :) ). It's so good! It's easy to read and really engaging. I reckon everyone should read it. Buy it from Koorong. I dare you :)
But yeah its been really good. The introduction was talking about how we often try to fix ourselves up by our own wills, trying to fix us from the inside, which is impossible. It's God who changes us from the inside out. All we can do is change our outsides. eg habits, the way we act, what we read, etc. and these things are all good to change if they are unhelpful, but trying to change ourselves, our real selves, our insides, is actually wrong. the book even went far enough to say that it was Will Worship. like worshiping our wills. its really confusing to explain but the book was really good. you should read it. but anyways, the point it was making was that we need to let God change us. And the Spiritual Disciplines are like a way to put us in a place where we allow God to change us, inviting Him to change us, sitting at Jesus' feet like Mary, etc. They don't change us in themselves but are tools used to help us connect with and learn from and deepen our relationship with God, and so letting Him change us! ... ok im not sure if that made sense at all to anyone but if you read the book you will understand. if what i said sounded wrong and you disagree with what i wrote then you will just have to read it yourself :) so ha! if you like the sound of what i wrote, read it! if you didnt, read it! lol. its a good book.
you dont actually have to read it if you don't want to, but i encourage you to do it :)
Snakes
I was bitten by a snake!
nah im just pulling your leg. we do have a brown snake at the center though. it's living under Jons office we think. So far i have watched Sam try to catch it 3 times. And by "catch" i mean "find and catch". He hasnt actually found it to be able to catch it yet. He plans to relocate it to some place way down the road and not kill it. He's a snake lover :)
I'm also now very seriously considering buying a python. Sam has two Children's Pythons here and they are so cute. They only grow to a meter so i don't have to worry about it trying to eat me or anything. And they are totally cool. I think i might get one. What do you think? :)
Samson's
I worked at the Azapardi's the other day and we were doing Samson Pumpkins. (also called Queensland Grey's). Think big, grey, pumpkin. And we were picking and washing them. Picking them is alright. You just snip the stem with the secateurs and put the pumpkin on the conveyor belt. The washing, however, is EVIL. Chris and I alternated unpacking them onto the belt and packing them in boxes. So basically how it works is one of us unpacks the Samson's from big plastic crates onto a conveyor belt ads fast as we can, they travel along the belt and through a washed where four girls stand and scrub them as they go past, and then they move along past the other one of us who then packs them into massive cardboard boxes as fast as they can. It is so exhausting!
Lettuce
If melons are evil, and pumpkins are the evil twins to melons, lettuce is the evil stepmother for sure. They are terrible. It's cold, it's wet and it's very fiddly. I now dream of lettuce cutting. You have to cut the butt's low enough, keep them clean despite the mud, take of bad/dirty leaves, but not take off too many leaves, etc. It's like impossible to do perfectly right. It's sooo stressful. I have been dreaming about lettuce's. Jane even yells at me in my dreams! Then, in my dream i was all of a sudden a amazing lettuce cutter and they were coming up like perfect every time... and she still yelled at me! So stressful. I do it wrong even when i'm doing it right in my dreams. *shake head sadly* why do i even bother?!
We cut two types of lettuce. Iceberg Lettuce and Cos Lettuce. Cos is the easier one to cut by far. Iceberg (the round lettuce that you normally buy) is the bad one. I'm telling all of you now that you need to stop and appreciate the next lettuce you eat because some poor worker (like me) has put up with stress and yelling and mud and cold to get it to you lol. I have a new appreciation for fruit and vegetables since working here. So much work goes into it and i'm very thankful that people are willing to do it :)
Birthday Party
So, the other day it was Oli Wagstaffe's birthday party and i was asked to help out with managing the many kids coming for an hour or so. It meant i would miss out on some of lectures but i didnt mind really coz i got to spend an hour or so playing with the kids lol. Anyways, i ended up going down there right as pass the parcel was commencing, so i just sat down in the circle and joined in lol. I don't like pass the parcel very much because there are always some kids who think that it wasnt fair because they didnt win the big prize or anything. It was pretty funny to watch though. This one little kid would start opening the parcel every time it came past him. I don't think he ever caught on that he could only open a layer if the music stopped on him lol. Poor guy. It was very cute. I think they enjoyed it though. One little girl felt like she should have got another chocolate though lol. Oh well.
After the game it was afternoon tea time! So i got to sit there and chat with all the mothers while eating all the amazingly yummy party food. Jewel's is an amazing cook. We had homemade sausage rolls, fairy bread, butterfly cakes, homemade lamington's, chicken nuggets, chips, lollies, drinks, etc. YUM! I'm totally volunteering for any future parties lol. I ate so much party food. There was way too much for the kids so i just got to eat and eat lol. So yummy.
After eating our fill, the pinata came out! That was fun. Calvin was very funny. He decided he wasn't going to have a go hitting the pinata because that way he could be the closest when the pinata broke open, meaning he could quickly grab lots and lots of lollies when they fell. I laughed when he explained. He said it so logically that i couldn't come up with any argument. In the end though he didn't end up the closest to the lollies. The bag broke but didn't burst, so Tim threw the lollies up into the air and let the kids go for them like a bunch of chickens with scraps :) lol. A few kids had to be convinced to part with their excess and share with other children with less, but generally i think they all left content with their prizes :) I love pinata's
Balloon's
The other weekend we had our balloon festival! Not little boring balloons that you hold, but the big type that you can fly in. The other day at work i looked up from picking butternuts to see the air filled with all the hot air balloons flying past. We even had some land in the paddocks beside us. It was pretty cool. We kept stopping work to wave back to the people in the baskets. Lol, at one point Sam and i were cutting ahead while Saerom and Eungeong cut the roadway. One of us kind of wondered aloud to the other "I wonder how the Korean girls are going" and we both looked around to check their progress. And what we saw was both of them jumping up and down waving and yelling "Helloooo!" to a balloon overhead lol. It was so funny. We kind of laughed together and went back to work... But yeah. It wasnt the most productive work day. Balloon's are just too distracting.
We also went on Saturday night to see the Balloon Glow. Basically masses of people all came and gathered on the ovals to buy food grown locally, and then watch all the balloons light up and flash on and off to music playing. It was pretty spectacular. They glow like massive coloured light bulbs. And one of the balloons was a great big kookaburra! They were pretty cool. We all had a great time taking pictures. Looked amazing. Unfortunately children kept running in front of us and didn't take the hints when i loudly commented "I hate it when kids get in the way while you are watching something" or when i said "Children, can you please move. You are in our way" or when i said "Do you MIND?" or "Move children MOVE!". They just stood there and played in front of us. It was even worse when the adults then came and stood right in front of us to have a yarn. You'd think people would be more considerate! Poor Jess W kept taking pictures with peoples heads passing in front of the balloons lol. Oh well. It was still fun. And i actually wasn't that bothered by the kids. They were more amusing than annoying really lol.
Games
Speaking of children, i just love watching the center kids playing their make believe games together! lol it is so funny. One morning i had an amazing few minutes watching Calvin and Reid having a lightsaber duel on the road. Reid had the red lightsaber so i assume he was the bad guy. But anyways, they had this epic fight before Reid finally slew Calving with his saber. But then, somehow, Calvin managed to kill Reid as he fell. I assume he used the Force lol. I couldn't see because he fell out of my view. I just saw Reid suddenly fling back and die lol. It was so cool. I felt like clapping lol.
Here ends my list of topics to speak about.
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