Packing, Picking and Pepes

How does the song go? Tumbled -out-of bed-stumbled-to-the-kitchen,pour-myself-a-cup-of-ambition-and-yawn-and-stretch-and-try-to-come-alive ! ........?

I have a few more experiences I can put on my resume now. I'm a strawberry packer, an asparagus picker and I watch over the pepes (babies) in a Maori daycare. Not all on the same day mind you. I have a neat schedule where I have alternate days with the fruit and vegetables and usually Fridays I'm at the daycare.

To pack strawberries I drive one hour south to Wanganui. I arrive for 9 o'clock and usually work in the packing shed until 3 or 4 o'clock. We have a 10 minute tea break and a half hour lunch break.

All of the pickers are men and the packers are women. We women range from white NZ gals who are university students or young mums to German backpackers and to the retired age crowd. There are also the Fijian women who have left their families in Fiji and send money home.This group has taken me in and call me over to their lunch table everyday. It might be because I said," Bula!" to them, I'm not sure.

The bosses are Maori women who have a great sense of humour and are very kind. One is Mareanna and the other is Bubs.

The guys start to pick in the fields at 7 am.

 The berries are of a high quality and even though they smell sweet and are a bright red colour I haven't had a nibble once. Honest!

I pack bowls, punnets and family packs. The above picture is of a bowl. They consist of the biggest and best strawberries. They are 400 grams. "Make them look pretty girls!" is often heard in the shed. Or,"Watch what you're putting in the bowls, girls!" Which isn't a lot of information for us but we're guessing a few mushy ones got in there by accident.

The family packs are the funnest to pack because the description the Maori bosses told us was," Imagine kids opening the pack up." So the medium-to small size goes in there and they are just tossed in. There is no order to packing them. They ring in at 365 grams. The last size of packaging is the punnet. They are med-large and one needs to pay more attention as to how the berries are laid down. The green tops need to be covered. They weigh 260 grams.
So that's about it. It took 5 minutes to explain to us how to do it but even on my 6th day I still had questions!
On my 7th day I had beginners placed on both sides of me (the German girls) and I was told to teach them the art of packing strawberries. So the teacher in me gave a mini lesson and said to go for it. I only tweaked their style a little bit, but they were fast learners!

The hardest part of the job is how to manage standing in one spot for a long time. I often roll my head around every so often and roll my shoulders back and forth, and lift my knees up and down. This often draws the question from someone,"Are you alright?"
The saving grace is they blast some great reggae and radio tunes over our heads and the time actually flies by.

When I'm not packing, I'm picking. This is only a 10 minute drive from home or a 40 minute bicycle, through the hills and dales that are just out of town.

I have a great view of the mountain while I'm picking and I can never get enough of that!
I pass this fence on the way to the fields. It is draped with goat and pig skins. I also pass the remains of a pre-European Turuturumokai Pa. The name translates to 'stakes for dried heads', which were used to ward off potential attackers. I always peddle a little faster in this area.

 I arrive at 7:30 am. My tools of the trade are a white, square bucket that I strap onto my waist and an exacto knife. We put in a new blade each time we pick. The labourers pick every second day from late Sept to late December. I was just recently called up since a picker was off to Canada of all places for a two year trip.

We start at one side of the field and walk down a row slicing the asparagus that is 20cm or taller at the soil level. The right hand slices, the left hand gathers and then lays them down in the bucket that is on your left back side. Each time you slice it is actually a lunge so I try to change my forward leg each time so I don't develop a huge gluteus muscle on one side. The bucket is quite heavy when one reaches the end of the row. I then pull the bucket to my front and lay the asparagus down into a green bin. I have a number chip (my # is 10) and I put this down on top. Technically, when I fill a green bin I earn $12.25 NZ.

Then I start down another row where at the end there are some more green bins. A tractor comes round every hour and collects the bins. There are 6 pickers and sometimes when they pass each other there is some small talk but mainly folks are listening to their ipods.
After about 3-4 hours of picking, everyone meets at the shed for a coffee and chitchat. Then the shed work starts.
There are 4 jobs along the assembly line. The first job is putting the asparagus onto a moving belt that goes through a washing machine. The second job is when the asparagus comes out of the washing area it travels a little faster and the sorters pick out the seedy ones and puts the heads down on the track.
The third job is to stand by the cutting blade and the sorters pull out the pencil sized ones from the bigger ones.
The last job is to put the asparagus into bags of 500 gr or 1kg for the farm shop or the stores. The farm shop is by the honour system. People just put their money in a jar, take change if they need it and take a bag from the fridge. Yeah! We can still have faith in people! It works!

My last job is as a relief worker at a Maori daycare. When I arrive they all say either Kia Ora or Morweena Fia Sarah! That means 'Good morning Aunty'. Anyway they are always smiling and the kids seem pleased to see me too.

I work with the Pepes and two and three year olds. They say a Maori prayer before their snack (Kai) and lunch. A favourite sandwich for the kids is toast with marmite and grated cheese. Meat pies and a mash of pumpkin, potato and carrot and silver beet are other common dishes. And every child has bag of chippies to finish off their meal! The kids carry their dishes to the food cart and wipe their faces and hands with a warm flannel (face cloth). They pour their leftovers into the piggie bin. Yes! There is a Pig Man that comes everyday to pick up the bins for his pigs!

Other than that it is like our daycares with playtime, books, singing time, nap time, walks in the neighborhood and painting and playdough. They have planted strawberries, silverbeet (Swiss Chard) and carrots for gardening projects. They have a cockatoo and guinea pigs and fish too.

At singing time they do have a song that we wouldn't sing back in Canada. It is the Earthquake song. It talks about  whether you have big shakes or little shakes one is to crawl into a ball like a turtle in it's shell. And they are not to lift their heads until they sing the Jack in a Box song. It is a bit surreal and it reminds me of the school drill of sitting under your desk at school in case of a nuclear bomb.

So there we have it. I'm kept busy and out of trouble. I'm happy to try jobs that are new to me and they are all satisfying in their own way.
Thanks for reading!