Well we’ve been at Koramba now for over a year (apart from the 6 weeks in Alice Springs). Has it changed or has it changed us?
Cosmetically we think so. All the dongers have been painted thanks to Lauren,
the bathrooms are still being done up (only the floor covering to go) which has been a great blessing. The girls now have their own shower instead of having to put out a “shower in use” sign while using the men’s.
But the biggest change is the grounds. You don’t see the change as you go along but when you go back over the old photo’s it stands out.
I’m afraid the garden is in need of TLC. But with all the flooding around the mosquitoes will carry a small child away (some of the roads are still cut off). Aerogad is making a fortune out here. Miss a spot and you will be scratching. It’s quite a feat to go to the toilets as there are exposed body parts that that don’t get sprayed so we have ended up taking the insect spray with us to the loo.
They told us this black soil will grow anything, I now we’ll and truly believe it. I have been watering the garden through the summer heat every day and getting normal size veggies, but when it rains the veggies grow at an unbelievable rate. This is a normal zucchini now look at this one that is 5 days old after rain. Here is a squash. One squash feeds 5 people.
The same seems to affect the cotton. The cotton was much higher this time last year but it seems some farmers prefer to keep the cotton low. More productivity. We will wait and see what their bales per acre are compared to last year.
At Valentines day we had 5 couples and I knew the boys wouldn’t do much as they were working 12hr days. So I bought the girls chocolate roses and the boys got chocolate hearts. They also loved the dessert of Chocolate fondue with different fruit and marshmallows.
People come and people go and some even come back again like us. Our latest returning couple are Lauri and Ingrid. This couple was here when we first arrived back in March and we always thought Ingrid was a great inspiration. Here was this tiny women who ended up driving the tractors “better than most men” as quoted by Dave the supervisor. Lauri, her partner drove one of the pickers last year. So when the farm was working out who would drive these million dollar machines again they rang Lauri up and asked them to come back for this season.
It was great to see them arrive with their smiling faces and I must say their English is perfect now. So at the moment we have 6 from Estonia, 1 from Finland, 3 Aussies, 4 Irish and 2 more Aussie’s will be coming next week to drive the trucks.
We believe the cotton harvest will start next week so it’ full on again. Because everyone will be busy we have decided not to come back home until after harvest. With up to 3 shifts it’s easier for Chris and I to do it.