Life on the farm

Life on the farm is good. We've just completed our first week and it's just flown by. It's hot and hard work at times, but it's enjoyable stuff and we've both settled into the life here nicely. The weather sits around 33 degrees throughout the day and this time of year is known as "the build up," as it's the transition between the dry and the wet season. The clouds start to form, the humidity rises and then by November time, the tropical storms start and the rains continue right through until March-April next year.

We'll be gone by the time that happens, which is a shame because it'd be great to see a good tropical storm. Nevertheless, we've still got a hell of a long way to go and time is running short.

So we've been working on the farm all week. Charlotte's mostly spent her time in the nursery sorting out the new plants and I've been fixing leaks in the irrigation system. We've also been doing various other jobs around the farm, and today we've been clearing branches ready for the harvesting tractor to come through.

We've also learned that this farm is quite unique. There is just one other cashew farm in Oz, and this one is essentially one big pilot project. None of the nuts will be sold or eaten. They're all collected and the nuts from the strongest trees are grafted onto others to try and create the ultimate super-cashew. Or something.

We popped to the shops on Tuesday night to collect some supplies. Popping to the shops is a 5 hour round trip from here, so we collected a lot of supplies.

And last night, Bob (the man who owns the place) arrived and took us all out for a meal and booze. We like Bob.

Who knows what we'll be doing tomorrow...