Okay, so my account of our three weeks of farm life wasn't entirely accurate. There may be less singing and more cow crap than I had previously admitted to.
Lavers Hill is a tiny little town on the Great Ocean Road, so small we actually stopped there, then drove on convinced that we hadn't found it. You can tell it's rural, because the owner of one of the two petrol pumps charges $20 out of hours just to come to the front door and turn on the pump for customers. Genius.
The farm itself is 200 acres, with about 50 cows, bulls and calves; 12 cats; 7 dogs; chooks and geese; 4 sons and daughters; and 2 parents. Rob and Vivien are a lovely couple, Rob is what might be considered the cliched no-shit Aussie bloke, but he's very entertaining and a good host. Vivien is a great cook, and spends her time working in a nearby restaurant, as well as filling us with all manner of good food.
We're tucked out in a room on the edge of the garage, which gives us some privacy. It's a little cool, but we're both pros at sleeping outdoors now, and our bed has the advantage of having two very nice electric blankets. Cat is a little too attached to hers, I fear I will be left behind plugged into the wall when she leaves, with the blanket on the passenger seat next to her, disguised in my clothing.
The weather has been mostly British. Being near the sea but on top of a hill, there's been a lot of rain, and when the fog comes in (and it's done it most days), you can't see your hand in front of your face. You can see it swirling out of the trees at a distance, it looks like a bunch of forest fires, and it's pretty creepy. When there is no cloud cover, the view is amazing, probably 30 or 40 kilometres over hills and farmland on one side, and the ocean on the other. The night sky is amazing - no light pollution at all, one of the benefits of being in the middle of nowhere.
Working days are very reasonable. We don't have to be up early, Rob and Vivien ask us to do a reasonable day's work (not necessarily the 5 hours we supposed to go), and the jobs vary greatly. We're helping with the renovations of Rob's daughter's house, weatherproofing the woodwork out the back and gravelling the drive. We've spent a lot of time weeding. Ragwort is a real problem in this area, and the Council can fine any farm $1000 if they find it on their property. Our weapons of war are weedsticks, sort of a castrated pogo stick (you can't put your feet on it) that you stab the ground with, dumping a load of herbicide on the weed. If you've ever got tired weeding your back garden, imagine hunting down weeds in 200 acres of fields. Needle-haystack issues aside, it's good exercise.
We're also getting to drive the farm vehicles. Cat and I both love the quad bike, which is only supposed to take one person, but with a little careful positioning can take two or three, though the backseat passenger doesn't actually have a seat, so riding across bumpy fields is the equivalent of beating yourself across the rump with a steel pole. Fantastic - normally you have to pay for that sort of thing...
I've also had the pleasure of driving the Ute - which is sort of like a car, except it hates me and wants me to die. It's a manual shift, but has the stick on the steering column, which is very tricky when you've never used it before. Especially when Rob asks me if I can drive a stick shift, and I'm stuck in the driver's seat looking at the gears like a monkey would look at a food processor. And then he takes me out on the road, which given I have to ask him where 2nd and 3rd gear are, seems like a bold leap of faith. Still we live, and now I can drive it, though it fogs up constantly and makes a rattling noise when you go downhill over 40kph, which thankfully isn't very often.
Cat and I have both helped with feeding the cows, which involves using the tractor to spike a bale of hay and driving to one of the paddocks and unravelling the roll. No one is stupid enough to ask us to use the tractor, so instead we climb up on the side and hang on for grim death whilst Rob or 13 year old David drive the tractor, clinging on to avoid falling under the tyre. Tremendous fun, though it gives you an appreciation of life that is hard to beat.
Perhaps our most strange experience was 'dry cow'. When the cows are calving, they give them a couple of months off milking, which doesn't happen naturally, so you have to help it along, by injecting each of the cows with a blue goo called 'dry cow'. Having never even milked a cow before, I can't say I was much of an expert in this activity, but having herded the cows, Rob asked Cat if she wanted to help with the injections. Cat bravely listened to the instructions, then gave me the syringe. The dairy itself has a pit about 3 feet deep down the centre where you stand with cow arse just above head height, which makes milking much easier. It also allows the cow to retaliate if you screw up. Which I do.
You have to insert the plastic syringe into the cow's teet, inject it, then hold the end of the teet and jingle the rest up and down to get the mixture as far into the cow as possible. Four times per cow, for those of you not familiar with bovine biology. This might explain why Cat was unable to perform the procedure. Handing me the syringe was much like asking a duck to do brain surgery. Still, I soldiered on, Rob pointing out the older, more passive cows that might enjoy an injection and a bit of fondling from myself. There were occasional disagreements - more than one cow was having none of it, and one gave me a good kick on the arm. A few wait for you to get really involved and then the peeing or crapping begins, and it's an alert person who notices what's happening 6 inches above their head, when they're desperately trying to jam a syringe in a cow boob. By the time you realise what's wrong, you're rather damp or pungent. Still, I must be getting used to this farming lark, beacuse on more than one occasion I was overly nonchalant whilst rubbing my eye and thinking, "Is that water or cow piss?"
Viven's youngest son David has also been a source of entertainment. He's as cocky as the youngest one always is, is almost as tall as me (at 13), and has no concept of taking no for an answer. Which is how he badgered me and Cat into going shooting with him, rabbits being our prey. The whole affair was a dismal failure, my sneaking ability is somewhat limited, and between me and Cat doing Elmer Fudd impressions, those rabbits could have been on Mars and still would have heard us coming. Still, I did get to execute a cow terd at 40 yards, and it only took me three shots to do it.
We also got to go fishing on a rather cool but clear night - apparently eels are easier to catch at night. Cat was a little squeamish and stood back to watch me and David do the worm/hook stuff, and David do the execution of the eels (which, like chickens, just don't seem to appreciate when they are dead, even after decapitation). Cat was also unimpressed once we got back to the farmhouse, leaving me alone to scoff the eels, which David gutted and Rob cooked in a little light batter. Freshest fish ever, folks.
We're gonna miss this place. The family are great, and if we weren't eager to get moving around Oz again, we would be happy to stay a lot longer (the last guy apparently stayed 3 months). We're quite settled - my beard has grown considerably; when I put my working overalls on, I resemble the bastard love child of Super Mario and Chewbacca. But, as Confuscius once said, "It's time to get to Adelaide and meet up with the distant relatives I've never seen before."
