“Peter greeted us as we reached the shed, and we all piled into the back of his white Ute and headed over to the Baby Cos Lettuce Fields – where we helped him do a special small order.”
These animations were drawn by Gold participant Fabian Hernandez. Fabian made these short films with the help of the Gold crew after our first visits to Boree Creek and the Hume Weir.
Fabian arrived from Chile a year ago and is currently doing year 12 at school. Over the past 12 months Fabian has worked with Gold, learnt English, and has found lots of good things have happened in his life. He is a talented artist and is interested in graffiti and street art. For these stopmotion film Fabian decided to experiment with charcoal and enjoyed shading with this medium. As Fabian drew from memory a single image was captured every 4 seconds while the drawing progressed.
The film below was made after the Gold team first visited Grahams farm ‘Oakvale’ in Boree Creek, NSW. It was the first time that Fabian had been to a farm in Australia. Two big differences he noticed were the drought tolerant saltbush shrubs in Grahams garden and the tractor out the front. These things are different to farms in Chile where its green and mountainous and where they mostly use bullocks and carts.
‘Spirit Gifts’ was made after Fabian and the Gold team first met Ray, a farmer and Gold participant from the Hume Weir in Victoria. Fabian chose this image because he felt it captured the ideas that Ray was discussing at the time about what the earth gives us and what we have to give back to maintain the balance.
Over dinner the previous night, we had asked Ray if we could come a visit him the next morning. I hadn’t been to his farm before so I was looking forward to it. We had had a discussion after dinner where I was converting some of Ray and Franks Imperial measurements into Metric for Bronwyn. Some of the measurements I worked out on my mobile phone, which Ray thought was really funny.
So we had to get up at 7 – 7.30 and had very short showers due to there being very little rain in the Weir lately.
We then had some brekky that included some very delicious muffins and scones that Frank made. He made a big scone for me but instead I ate a little one.
Ray has been farming on his property (across the road from Franks) all of his 86 years. The only time he has lived away from the Hume Weir was when he went to the army.
Once we were ready we headed over to Ray’s farm to be there by 9.00 am. Ray was nowhere to be found.
We had a look around the farm to try and find him and we saw an interesting sign. (I asked Ray later why there was no bull in the paddock and he laughed and said I had given him an idea) There were a few other ones as well that were really funny.
We went down the back to the weir. You can see the water lines on the banks and the dead tress of where the water has been previously, and it was amazing how low it was. It was a cold day but Frank had lent me his green jacket so I was warm.
Savvy and I stayed up the hill a little bit and had a good old yarn. It was good to see Savvy again because I have not seen her since the last trip to Boree Creek . Savvy has worked with us on the Gold project for the past few years and has now moved to Wagga. We had a few good conversations about things happening around the place. There was a lot to catch up on, with what’s been happening at Gold and everything in our lives. Eventually we went down to where everyone else was. Davo and Jasmine had been doing some time-lapse photography.
Ray finally arrived and we went back up to the top of the farm and grabbed some hoes (for some weeding).
We helped hoe the weeds because Ray finds that most sprays don’t work or that Roundup which does work kills absolutely everything there. Ray said that I was doing a good job so I told Ray about hoeing the weeds outside my flat. I can’t even imagine weeding a whole farm the way that Ray does.
We took it in turns hoeing and interviewing. We must have been hoeing for at least half an hour I reckon.
Savvy had to go so Davo took her back to the house and Frank took her off to the train for her trip back to Wagga. We were in the middle of our interview with Ray so I didn’t get to say goodbye.
Jasmine gave Ray a box of chocolates and Bronwyn joked that she would leave me there to hoe with Ray until the next big hART visit in July. I wasn’t too impressed with that idea. We went back to Frank’s farm and had some lunch, packed our bags and then did some cleaning. I had to clean the bathroom, which I wasn’t too impressed with.
It was just starting to spit with rain when we packed the trailer. We then put the tarp over and completely waterproofed it so our luggage wouldn’t get wet. Frank had one last go at fixing the indicator lights on the trailer by playing with the cords and although he got the left indicator working again the right hand indicator stopped working.
We then went to Wodonga and dropped Paul off at his great grandmothers house. Paul was happy to see his grandmother and great grandmother again because it has been a few years since he had seen them. We went to visit the butcher Michael to buy some saltbush sausages made with lamb produced by Graham in Boree Creek. It was good to go to that butcher because he had all sorts of different types of meat that is not found at other butchers.
We got some fuel and went shopping at the Salvo’s shop in Wodonga.
While we were at the Salvos we bought some presents for Davo but I cant list them because her birthday is not till tomorrow (May 7). I saw James looking at one thing but he left it there and I said to him that he should buy it because Davo would probably like it.
On the way home we got lost in Albury. When we finally got on track we went through Burrumbuttock (which James had fun with again). We then stopped in Lockhart again for toilet break and stretch of legs.
Then we drove through Leeton, which James thought was good. We went pass St. Francis College, which is a Catholic boarding school that I went to for three years and also went past the Roxy theatre and watched the sunset, which was absolutely awesome.
We then headed home and arrived in Griffith at 6:30.
So overall I though the trip was awesome, amazing and would love to do it again some time soon. I would like to thank Holly, Davo, James and Bronwyn for taking us there and organising the trip. I would like to thank Frank for letting us stay with him, Ray for letting us interview him and hoe his weeds and Jasmine, Paul, and Savvy for just being with me at an awesome trip.
We all got out of bed between 7am & 7.30 for the day. We had breakfast and Frank, James, Davo, Jasmine and Paul went and loaded the sheep into the ute so Frank can go into the Wodonga markets.
Then James and Frank went into Wodonga whilst everyone else came back to the house. Once they were back we finished breakfast and sat in the living room and planned the day.
We planned to to document eight themes that Bronwyn had wanted us to do. They were shelter, refugee, love, friendship, food, water, animal and loneliness. We had to document them using the sources of photo, video and sound.
We headed off to the butcher in Wodonga but ended up in the wrong one which was on the main street. We then rang Graham who is a farmer in Boree Creek who sends his saltbush lamb there. We did a tour of the butchery and took some photos and interviewed the butcher Michael.
After that we went up the main street of Wodonga. Holly and I bought some coffees and stopped at the Red Cross op-shop which we linked to the theme of “shelter”. I have no idea what the other people did though because I was not with them.
After that we headed went to Paul’s Great Grandma’s house. After Paul visited his Grandma and Great Grandmother we headed back to the farm for lunch.
For lunch we had different types of salami’s from the butcher. After lunch we went out the back and interviewed Frank whilst he was getting rid of some dead sheep.
After that we went and fixed some of the fences
and burnt some trees.
After our little burning session Frank and James in the cabin of the ute drove us (Savvy, Paul, Davo and Jasmine who were on the back) around the farm over some hills and down some hills.
Once we had finished we went back to the house, had some afternoon tea and then discussed the themes from this morning.
Once we had finished our discussion we went to the Hume Weir Wall and did some photos, sound recording and video recording.
Once we got back we had to bring some wood to the verandah for the fire. We all took turns looking after the lamb who had lost its mother. We fed it milk and gave it lots of cuddles.
We then had dinner with Ray who is a farmer near Frank’s farm.
After dinner Jasmine did the washing up whilst Davo, Ray, Frank, Bron and myself had a yarn at the table. Lucky Me had to convert some Imperial measurements into metric for Bron.
Then we sat in the living room whilst I wrote this blog and everyone else did their stuff. James showed us photos he had taken of the stars.
Robert Brewer
GOLD Blogger
22:40 completed
30/4/08 (Day Two)
