Some Apple Picking

Two Aussies, 38 Polish and 1 German (the boss)
Living at the apple farm we didn’t initially realise how outnumbered we were, not only on our farm but seemingly in the entire region. We were introduced on the first day of work as ‘international guests’. We were placed in a group with what seemed to be the lazier ones of the workforce, but never working with any of the other groups we never discovered the work ethics of anyone else.
In the beginning there were a few women in our group, but after a few days, or maybe a week, all the days fused as one very quickly, the ladies were all bunched to form a separate group that worked in the packing shed, or on their own area of the orchard with Sebastian (the guy with the best English) as their driver.
We started at the south end of the farm picking ElStar – a smooth skinned pinkish coloured apple to which we became very attached, picking them for what felt like nearly our entire apple picking career.
Each day brought new instructions on what IS red and what IS NOT.  Sometimes it became easier to differentiate the shades, and for a while I used the technique of watching what others were picking, but that quickly became troublesome because for some reason when we picked a vividly red apple, it in fact was NOT red, according to the Polish leader of our group who couldn’t really explain what colour red we actually needed to pick.
During the day our group of 10 was split into two smaller groups. Luckily for us, the people we found most offensive were in the other half of our group. One guy could actually make a whole sentence from 1 swear word, amazing. And even more astonishing was that the other members of our group looked up to him.
After a while we decided that there seemed to be little pattern in how / which apples were picked, so we just waited for the instructions and did what we were told. I didn’t realise it beforehand, but there is actually quite a lot of technique required to pick apples. There was a minimum size, you had to check for blemishes, make sure it was the correct shade of red and pick 2 or 3 in each hand, then place the good ones in the big crates; blemished ones in the smaller boxes. And all of that happened every few seconds for 10 working hours every day. There was an extra challenge for shorter workers, in that the crates for the apples were tall enough that, depending on the position of the tractor, we had to lean quite awkwardly in order to place our apples safely in the bottom of the crate.
We worked for around 40 days in Jork. The days started as long and sunny, but by mid October had turned quite cold and grey. Some mornings we were reaching through branches that still had ice on them. It was like picking ice blocks off the trees. Miraculously, the cold didn’t affect the Polish too much, not that we could understand what they were yelling at each other, but us Aussies were wondering whether our limbs were going to drop off! I suppose it might have something to do with the fact that they’ve grown up with snow and ice in their backyards every year.
We finished the season at the start of November and at times we wondered if we would make it to the end. We probably learnt more Polish than German, and I’m very happy that I completed my time there without developing asthma. After all, I think there were some workers I barely saw without a cigarette hanging from their mouth. Sometimes I was completely surrounded by smoke and had to evacuate to the end of the tractor in order to breathe some fresh air.
The night before our last working day, the boss provided some tasty food and drinks for the whole crew to sit and enjoy together. It was the first time I’d seen some of the people without hats or beanies and found it quite tricky to identify a few of them.
The last day of work was complete at midday and it culminated with everyone converging on the same group of trees to be picked of their last apples. With everything picked, the crew of 38 Polish and 2 Aussies rode on the tractor trailers back to the shed one last time. We bumped and bounced along the track together, as we had done every morning, lunch time and evening during the last one and a half months.
The following day many of the Polish had returned to their homeland and the busy atmosphere that had surrounded the farm the previous day all of a sudden become much more relaxed. We spent the next 2 weeks unwinding, searching for a new job and contemplating how we would move to a new place after somehow acquiring a few extra belongings since settling in a couple of months ago.

Also, you might notice that the last couple of blogs have been lacking in photos. This is due to a technical issue of a buggered camera card, and will hopefully be fixed when we get home. Sorry about that.