April 26, 2010

The insurers came by camp last night. I found it kind of interesting to see. Two fellows showed up with a bottle of booze that they gave to Lee and then then got down to business. They went over a bunch of plans with Jet and a young ringer (he's 16), Nathan, then filled out the paperwork on my kitchen 'counter' aka the deep freeze. They stayed for supper (or as they call it here, tea) and then rolled out their swags and stayed the night.

Breakfast was a disaster today. I misheard the time, partly due to deafness and partly due to the fact that I don't speak Australian. I'm not sure what Jet's excuse is, since he also misunderstood the time. Anyhow, I thought it was supposed to be at 5:45 am, when in fact it was at 5:15 am. I was rather puzzled when I went to the kitchen at a little after 5:00 am and there were people sitting around in the dark outside. Needless to say, no one got poached eggs today.

And now, some pictures of the little frog who decided to camp out in my gravy pot last night.

April 25, 2010

Rainbow this morning. Took some pictures of it, but my camera was dying.



We were talking about education while sitting at smoko today (herbed scones fresh out of the oven with butter) I think the conversations started with some talk of how terrible the food was at boarding school. Jet and our boss, Lee, both went to boarding school as teenagers. That's fairly typical for 'bush kids': they go to the school of distance education for their formative years, and then when they are around 13 or 14 they're sent into town for school.

Back in the days when Jet was attending the school of education, roll call and some schoolwork was done over the radio, with tests completed at home and mailed in. These days, for the most part, it's done online.

Jet says the current school of distance education is prejudiced against bush kids and is more directed at town parents who for one reason or another choose to keep their kids out of public school. When he was a kid, he would always rush to finish his schoolwork as fast as possible so he could go out and help his dad with the work. Nowdays, the school of distance education doesn’t allow that. There are set hours for school, and you have to stay in by the computer for those, just like you would if you were in town attending school.

And now, for some pictures of frogs. In spite of the fact that they clog up toilets, frogs are still my friends because they eat bugs.

April 24, 2010

I have seen 3 dogs wandering around camp this morning… a black dog, a patchy dog, and a brown one. I am not sure if they are ours or not, as I haven’t really taken the time to get to know them all personally. I know that Sarah aka ’Susie’ and Bree aka ‘George’ came by and took some dogs, but I have no idea which ones. Went and looked in Bree’s kennel, and there are no dogs there, which means two of them could be her and Jake‘s.

…Bree came back: two of them were indeed her dogs.

A smell has been wafting into my kitchen all day. It smells like something rotting. I keep pausing to smell myself, just to confirm that the smell isn’t me. I saw one of the random dogs rolling in something earlier, and have to wonder if that’s it.
In other news, the ants have discovered my kitchen. Ants are another thing I have had to get adjusted to. Of course we have ants in Canada… But the ants in Australia, much like the frogs, are of a different breed. I first encountered them in full force while I was witnessing on Long Island in the Whitsundays: if anyone dropped food on the floor, it was swarmed by ants within minutes. It took me a while to get used to the fact that I couldn’t leave a bag of chips on my desk while I went into the other room -- anything not sealed tight or refrigerated they get into. Now they are in my dishes and all over my counters. Jet gave me some heavy duty bug killer, but whenever I spray them, they just divert their efforts in a new direction. Gah.

April 22, 2010

6:30 a.m.
The toilet has stopped working again. F**king frogs.

I also need to figure out what is wrong with my breakfasts. They are barely being touched, and Lee (the boss) hasn’t eaten any since the first day. I could have sworn he said he was a big breakfast eater, too.

I slipped coming down the ramp from the kitchen this morning and all the muffins wound up on the ground. Brushed them off as best I could, but it was dark and I couldn’t see much. I’d say some people will be eating dirt for lunch today.

They came home at around noon yesterday, much to my surprise and dismay. Jet says I am the perfect cook -- that most people whine about being alone in camp all day.
I am not in a good mood.

7:00 am
Just went to the toilet, and it flushed. Looks like it was a false alarm earlier… The frogs must have moved on.

3:14 pm
The crew came home for lunch today. Tomorrow I’m told they’ll be back for coffee breaks or ‘smoko’ as well. Just as the first of the crew -- a likable ’bloke’ known as Lucky -- had arrived I spotted a snake down by the area where I wash my dishes. I went and got Lucky, but by the time we returned, the snake was gone. Lucky asked me to describe it -- brownish, and about three feet long -- and assured me that it was probably harmless.

Half an hour later, I was standing by the kitchen talking to Jet when the same snake or its close relative came slithering up. I am informed that it was not a harmless snake after all, but rather a brown snake, which is quite poisonous. While it will not be bothering us again, I have been informed it quite possibly had a nest somewhere nearby.

There are two facts I learned about snakes during my first week in Australia:
1) the only snake is a dead snake
2) it is illegal to kill snakes

Here is another fact that I learned about snakes while on a hike in the Grampians in Victoria, Australia. While mature snakes are more poisonous, baby snakes have more venomous bites as they release all their venom in one bite rather than striking several times as their adult counterpart does. Jet says he has never heard that fact, and since he has never heard it, it must be bullsh*t because he knows everything.

Time to go check on my pot roast.

A few of my cooking experiments... The first is a meat pie with the name of the contracting company we are working for on it.

April 21, 2010

6:00 am
Everyone’s headed out for the day, and I have the camp to myself… Just the way I like it. I had a slight explosion at breakfast today when one of the girls asked if I had any more lettuce… It appears the first three people used the whole bowl in their sandwiches… I put out another bowl, but I think people may have been too scared to touch it, as it was pretty much all still there when I put everything away. Jet told me it was all right -- it’s good to put a fear of the cook in ringers.

Ringer is another word I hadn’t heard before I came to Australia, at least not in the sense that they use it here… A ringer, as Jet has explained to me can mean several things: in a shearing barn, a ringer is the fastest (sheep) shearer, or in other words, the one who runs ‘rings’ around the others. In an extension of that, a person who is the best or most experienced at their job can be referred to as a ringer. A ringer can also refer to a person who is a kind of jack-of-all-trades. What we are currently doing, as contractors for the station, falls into the last category of ringers.

8:30 am
A fellow came by and fixed the toilet just now… And why was the toilet not flushing? Too many frogs in the tank. Another problem I have never encountered before. He pulled three big ones about the size of my head out of the tank, and said while there were still quite a few little ones in there he was pretty sure these ones were the problem.

10:30 a.m.
The laundry is hanging to dry; the corned beef is boiling, and the muffins are out of the oven. I think I may make cookies also, in a few minutes. And I may get started on the spaghetti sauce and baguettes.
In the meantime, however, here is how you make corned beef:
Put a big thawed out or raw slab of beef in a pot full of water. Add vinegar (which keeps the meat soft), a handfull of sugar, some salt and any other spices you think might be nice. Cover the pot and let it boil a few hours. The meat is done when you jab it in the middle with a sharp object and no blood leaks out.

11:00 a.m.
Decided against cookies. They can wait ‘til tomorrow. Don’t want too much food going to waste, and they’re more likely to take the muffins if there are no cookies. It’s possible I should make quiche or some sort of healthy thing, though.

April 20, 2010

Last week, I was with Jet and his dad mustering their cattle at Ballater. Anyhow, the lady of the house, whose name I cannot remember, though her husband’s name was Alastair, told us a ‘funny’ story about a friend’s new hired couple. The girl apparently was dumb as a post. One day, when everyone was down at the stockyards, she was sent back to the house to fetch a water bottle. The girl took the owner’s four wheel drive back to the house, and when she returned, she had an empty water bottle and a flat tire. Everyone laughed at the story, including me, but my laugh was fake: while I would probably know to bring water back in the water bottle, I can see myself driving on a flat tire and wondering why it was steering funny. Plus, what would I do if I did notice it had a broken tire? I know driving on one spoils the rim, but what would my option be? If I just walked back, would they laugh at me?

…There are a lot of things in the outback that I don’t know about.

Today, my problem is meat. I have steak out, but I only know how to cook it on the barbecue, and I already did that for breakfast today. Was going to maybe make a casserole, but I am very unclear as to how one make such a thing, and the cookbooks seem to just assume I know these basics, as all the recipes they offer me, even in the bush cooking one Jet‘s mom gave me, call for loads of ingredients I don’t have.

And now, a picture of my laundry room...

First day of work... a new adventure begins!

April 19, 2010

So here we are at Magowra Station. It's a beautiful day, that looks like it's working itself up to be another scorcher: the sun is shining, the dogs are barking (as they do pretty much continuously), and the birds are chirping.

We're camped beside Magowra station's homestead. There are nine of us in all. The youngest two (both 16) are sleeping in tents while the rest of us sleep in our hrse trailers. This is not nearly as primitive as it sounds -- at least not Jet's and my case -- we have a double bed with a mosquito net canopy, a large fan, a bedside table, shelving and a 'walk in closet.' There is a fairly nice vacant house right beside our camp. We use the toilet and the shower in there: the toilet is not flushing, which is kind of annoying. We have to use a bucket to flush it manually.

We've been here at Magowra for two days now, but this is my first day of work. I’m alone in camp, as everyone else has headed off for the day. On the schedule for today:
-clean the shower and the toilet
-make corned beef
-bake cookies or cupcakes
-make dinner: shepherds pie and a dessert, maybe?
-write
-play the mandolin
-do laundry

Gosh, I lead a hard life. By the way, I'm a cook, if you didn't know.

And now, for our photo of the day, a Kelpie puppy that is tied up beside the kitchen: