October 2014

01 October 2014

This month starts with us back ready for work with GrainFlow and so with us starting work shortly updates will probably be few and far between.

27 October 2014

Well its been quite a while since we have posted anything on here and that is because we have had nothing too exciting to tell. Arriving in Talwood nearly two weeks early we sat around enjoying the last of our lazy days off before being asked to come in and help prepare the site for the harvest and then the harvest started.

Barley was starting to come in and wheat just a dribble. This years workforce is made up half and half of returns and newbies and we were glad to see some people we knew and could rely on. The first week was only one shift per day from 7.30am to around 5pm and then as the tonnage started to rise (so far we have taken just over 28,000 tonnes) we have split into two shifts. Joanne is back on the E1 panel taking charge of the silo, conveyor belt operations and tipping of incoming loads and I am Team Leader on the dayshift running the shift and relieving the manager of some of the responsibilities on the ground.

The weather has been good so far but yesterday it really turned hot which is good for turning the crops but not for us. Being in long trousers, long sleeved shirt, safety boots and helmet in 43 degree heat and walking around on bitumen sure makes one drink a lot of water (7 litres yesterday), the payoff however was the double time rates and the photo's of the clouds as they form.

Clouds and Silo

This cloud looks like it is about to burst.

H2 on Bunker 1

Wheat and clouds.

31 October 2014

With the harvest around here in full swing there has been lots of working hours and lots and lots of hot, humid weather to make life interesting and to help us shed those kilo's we put on while we were enjoying ourselves over the past three months. It seems that what harvest there has been in this part of Qld and Northern NSW is all coming to Talwood, mostly because the other area sites are closed and GrainFlow's competitor Grain Corp is also closed everywhere and that all bodes well for us.

So, onto November...

Mark Twain once said "...years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do that by the things you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - and so we will.