We now have a week off from the joys of the harvesting season and have come to Brisbane to catch up with civilization after picking and packing zucchini's for 33 days straight! While we have been on the farm we have got to know the group a lot more than on our previous visit, so much so that we have now moved our big tent from the campsite in Texas, to just over the road from the farm - next to where we were first introduced to the mighty 'cottage' some four months ago, although this time we have an arrangement with Neville to use their bathroom rather than the outside ones provided!!

The last month has been hard work but other than the early starts and the kangaroo slalom journey to work each morning it really hasn't been too bad being back with Ray, Kathy, Neville, Michelle, Chris and Grace. Generally, we would be out in the paddock from half past five until it started to get really hot at about eleven and then all file into the packing shed where we could hide from the sun for a couple of hours, and be back at the campsite by two o'clock in the afternoon. Even with the front and back doors and the two side windows of the tent opened up, it was still like an oven inside and there wasn't much we could do in the afternoons due to the heat, although we did frequent the local swimming pool fairly regularly to help cool us down. The first week of February was especially hot as the temperature hovered around 45 degrees and, being inland, there was absolutely no breeze whatsoever. All we could do was sit and melt in the tent, which at least would prevent us from getting badly burned!

We also managed to get ourselves a surrogate pet while we were at the campsite, as the dog of one of the local drunks (seriously) befriended us and would come waddling over every afternoon as we got out of the car, with a stone in its mouth for us to throw. It would even follow us to the shower block and lie down waiting for us with the stone lying on the floor and one weekend we went out and brought a couple of doggie tennis balls for it, in the hope of avoiding the saliva covered offerings it would bring us, but it would only ever chase stones and sticks. We never did find out the dog's name, but to us it will always be known as Mutley!

As the weeks went on we began to help with the preparations for the tomatoes in the afternoons once the zucchinis had been picked for the day, which is when things really started to take their toll. To start with it was nothing particularly difficult as all we were doing was suckering (pulling the lower leaves off of the stems) which meant sweltering in the sun during the middle of the day, but at least Chris finally came out of his shell and started talking to us at long last, instead of the previous attempts at conversations that were almost painful!

After about a week we had finished suckering some 25,000 plants and then it was time for the hard work to really begin!! In order for the plants to grow straight up, we had to run wire along at several height intervals and feed the plants up between them. So while Jen and Neville where tying the wires together around all the stakes (not as easy as it sounds, especially if you want to leave at the end of the day with all your fingers intact) Chris and I had to run a hundred metres or so down each side of the drills dragging wire along and tying it at both ends. The wire was wrapped around these huge wheels, in much the same way as cotton is wrapped around a tube when you buy it (I'm sure there are better analogies but they escape me momentarily), which had to be lifted up by the tractor as they were so heavy. To make things even harder, at the end of each harvest the wire is wrapped back around the wheels for the following season and where it breaks the two ends are just wrapped around together, so that there were little spikes sticking out every couple of metres that had a certain fondness for human flesh. Every so often we would be running down one of the drills and suddenly the wire would get caught on itself around the wheel and would snap back violently, which would result in one of a number of equally pleasing scenarios: 1) an arm would be pulled out of joint as we got jerked back and we would land on our ass 2) we would tear several holes in our hands as they slid along the wire 3) the wire that was wrapped around our shoulder would instantly constrict causing considerable agony 4) all of the above.

Oh yeah, and there were thirteen blocks of seven drills, each drill needing four wires run down both sides of it - that's 728 of the damn things to run!!

After one particularly hot afternoon running and tying wires for the tomatoes, we were invited over to Neville, Michelle and Chris's place for a BBQ for Chris's 17th birthday. Assuming the BBQ would last for a couple hours we went straight over in our lovely sweaty clothes with the plan to go back to the campsite after and shower then. However, we soon discovered that the Kemp BBQ's are a fairly prolonged experience to say the least and it was a few hours before the food was even beginning to be cooked, so by the time we had eaten we had consumed many beers and were in no fit state to drive back to the campsite. In order to accommodate us Neville grabbed a spare 'mattress' out from the shack over the way and we were presented with a nice area of floor in the kitchen to crash on for the night. However, after several hours of not sleeping due to the heat and the bug infestation that leaving the door open during the evening had created, we decided to move into the car and try the back seat. We managed to grab about an hour of restless sleep before Michelle decided to wake us up ridiculously early, so that we could get ready for work again. Not sure she really appreciated the fact that we were ready to go as we were still in our work clothes and had nothing to change into and could really have done with another half hours rest!

The rest of the zucchini season passed by fairly uneventfully but without having a day off in almost five weeks we are looking forward to this week. This morning it took us about three hours to completely unpack the tent and then move it from the campsite to just next to Neville and Co's house in front of the shearing shed. When we finally arrived in Brisbane this afternoon it was with much relief - even if it was raining - and after setting up our little tent with almost no pegs at all (left them all with the other one - clever eh?) and hopping on the bus into town, it feels good to be somewhere again with a population greater than a couple of hundred!!