Sydney to London Without a Plane by Lorna_North

Zucchinis

I left the farm just before Christmas to go and spend a few festive days with Stokesy who had kindly offered to save me from my “Bondi Orphan” fate and provide me with a surrogate family when mine were so far away.

We spent New Year in Sydney with some friends and before I knew it, my little holiday was over and I was back on that train to Tamworth.

This time I went up with a little more forbodence as this stint on the farm was to be for a longer period of 2 months straight and I would be dealing with something reputed to be far tougher than the snow pea.

This time, I would be picking zucchinis, or courgettes to us.

For some reason, a courgette is a vegetable that always seems to command your respect.  When you are picking one, it’s almost as though it sizes you up, to make sure you will be handling it with adequate delicateness.

They are a vain vegetable.  A beautiful courgette is celebrated like some Olympian deity, fulfilling the credentials of idealistic beauty and God forbid if you leave the slightest mark on it when you extract it from the bush with your knife.

The bush itself is something of a bastard.  Its broad leaves have very fine but very sharp prickles all over them that scratch and irritate your skin leaving you with an enormous red and lumpy rash all the way up your arms.  To prevent this we have to wear a long sleeve top and marigolds and trust me, the last thing you want to be wearing in 30 degree heat is a pair of rubber gloves.

After a few hours work, you take the gloves off and literally pour out your own sweat. 

I’ve never had a job that is so physically demanding.  You spend the day bent over a bush, lifting out these prize courgettes and carefully placing them into your bucket.  Then you walk up and down multitudes of rows, looking into every bush, lugging around your heavy load. 

You certainly lose weight, and probably a bit of your mind.

There is a lot more technique to courgettes than with snow peas.  A courgette any shorter than the length of your hand is too small but you have to make sure you pick it before it gets too big.  Sometimes if you leave it for an afternoon it will be too late as they grow before your eyes.

Shape is as important as size.  Anything with a point is a big “no no” as these go rotten very quickly.  The ideal courgette looks a bit like a big dildo……apparently. 

These are the ones that you must snap out of that bush as they sell like hot cakes, anything under par is thrown off the conveyer belt into the reject bin.

Like I said, courgettes are a vain vegetable.  Especially organic.

I’m now half way though my stay.  I think I will leave around the end of February and head up the coast.

Apart from the savage manual labour and chronic muscle strain, I’ve been having a laugh.  There are three other girls working with me at the moment, one from Holland and two from Germany who have provided a lot of entertainment.

The four of have acquired a bashed up old ute that looks like it was the first one ever invented.  It’s missing the handbrake, its mirrors, actually, pretty much all of the important bits and you have to practically kick the gear stick into place but we love it. 

We all take turns tearing around the paddock in it and squeeze three of us in the front and one on the back along with all the dogs and of course, the precious courgettes. 

The person in the middle changes the gear because they’re legs are in the way of the driver and short people, like me have to wiggle up to the very front and perch on the edge of the seat to reach the peddles.

Even though it looks like the first ute ever introduced to Australia, it’s got character and it goes and makes us four little Europeans very happy amidst the monotony of our courgette picking.