Goodbyes

My final weekend at Northey Street City Farm came more quickly than I could have ever imagined. My time in Australia was over and I wasn't even aware how quickly it had come and gone.

My last Friday was spent finishing up my work on the Market Garden. I wanted to create an easy way for Simon to access and present the inofrmation to others. It was his job to find funding and volunteers for the garden and I could only hope to help. After a few hours work, I explained to him how to use Prezi and gave him access to the presentation I made, which can be found here.

Saturday came and went, business as usual in the Nursery. Slow after the Winter Solstice Festival, there were few customers and the day was spent simply planting seeds and weeding.

When the Sunday Markets came around, it was a bittersweet moment for me. I knew I would only be back at Northey Street in order to talk briefly with Murray and I was sad to have to say bye to Peta. Luckily, the markets were busy and I was able to occupy my time until the time came to close up the nursery for the last time.

Winter Solstice Festival

Though it is sunny and warm in Arizona, Australia just experienced it's winter solstice about 2 weeks ago. Boy oh boy, has it been cold at night! The house that I have been living in doesn't have heat and it's nearly as cold as it is outside. Brisbane has never gone below 3 degrees Celsius but it feels so much colder than that compared to the warm daytime sun!

As the solstice approached, Northey Street began geering up for it's Winter Solstice Festival which was scheduled to take place the Saturday after the solstice. When I arrived on the farm on Friday the 22nd, Simon approached me and asked if I wanted to do something a little "different" that day. Hesitant and unsure of what was about to unfold, I was led to the Northey Street Kitchen. There I found about 20 kilograms of onions that myself and a volunteer were given the task of frying. Not exactly what I had in mind for the day, but it allowed me to cross one of the things I wanted to do off my list: Cooking at Northey Street. (The onions would later be made into a soup for the solstice.)

After an easy Friday, I wasn't sure what to expect on Saturday. I always struggled through my Saturdays because of being so tired. I never worked at my restaurant job on Friday's so took advantage of a free evening and night to go out with the people I lived with. This usually caused me to be extremely tired the next morning at the farm and even more so by the time I made it to work in the evening. My day in the nursery was rather uneventful. There were few customers during the day and Peta anticipated that most of them would be coming later during the Solstice. This didn't help my exhaustion.


Luckily for me, Peta told me that I may be able to stay home the following day. After the Solstice the Nursery was bound to be slow and I was able to take Sunday to sleep in.

This was the bonfire that was built for the Winter Solstice Festival.