Jobs were pretty straight forward. Picking Asparagus out on the paddock which required a knife, belt, bucket and a lot of willpower. You would be in the middle of two rows cutting down asparagus and placing it in a bin that is strapped to you. When it's full, you then transfer it to the paddock bins provided. The paddock bins are then picked up by tractor, weighed, and stored in the chiller. When needed, they are pulled out and loaded onto a belt and washed. Then they are placed on a belt for pushing up so they are cut to the right height, spreading so that they're all single file and taking out rotten asparagus and asparagus with broken heads. Then theres this other spreading job. When in that position you are basically setting everything up. Your grading, pushing up, spreading, and parting asparagus for the person on the ladder, and if they get stacked up it basically creates a chain reaction of stuff ups. You've basically got to spread them out enough so that they fall onto this ladder one in each cup. I found that job to be the hardest. Then theres the Ladder job, where your eyes are constantly looking at this moving belt to make sure the asparagus is pushed up and there is one asparagus per cup. There are times when you get stacked up, and in this case the person spreading for the ladder would take a pile of asparagus off the belt and place it in a stack up bin in order to give the ladder person time to catch up. Generally somebody would stand beside the person on the ladder and take handfuls of asparagus from their stacked up bin and put them into the empty cups on the ladder. They are then scanned for there sizes and carry on down the ladder and are sent to the chutes and tables for grading. Started off with four types of grading: Export, Local, Cannery, and rubbish. You take out the short ones, the really seedy ones with branches, the rotten asparagus and the broken heads. When graded and placed into a bin they are taken to another table for bundling. They are weighed, rubber banded, strapped and packed into bins and placed on this belt for yet another wash. There are times when it's hectic on the bundling table. The belt leads to the chiller and when the belt is full with bins of bundled asparagus, they are taken off the belt and placed on a pellet, secured and loaded into the truck, with the tractor, and taken to it's destination.
I loved the cleaning up after a long day. Clean ups that were to be done everyday would be raking up, sweeping up, emptying bins full of reject asparagus and washing down the machinery.
I did enjoy the time I was there, both the good days and the bad. There are also memories I will treasure forever.
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Packhouse Staff for Season 2005
Brian Elliott (Boss), Kim (QC Supervisior), Pauline (Supervisior), Steve, Nancy, Wilma, Tony, Rowena, Mana, Bronwyn, Pearl, Dawn, Marlene, Carmel, Fiona, Danielle, Emma, Ashley, Carmen, Caroline, Mark, Andrew, Jenny, Georgina.
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I had the pleasure of working with all these people. To me they all have different personalities. I got to know a few of them on a more personal level and respect all of them. It wouldn't be fair to single anyone out because we all worked hard, and we done it as a team. One of the best team's I've ever worked with.
*Naomi*
