Sunday, October 11, 2009

Sheep work ...

We have just got back from helping John shift some sheep from our place to the farm across the road. It all went very smoothly, Jack and Lachlan walked behind the sheep for a little way but it is a warmer day here today so then they got into the car for the rest of the trip!




Our barley crop on the farm across the road.

By the end of the trip Jack, Lachlan and Hannah had stripped down as they were hot!!
I enjoy helping with the sheep.
When I was a child I lived on a sheep and cattle station in the north of South Australia. Dad was the manager for 20 or 25 years (need to check on that).
So we would help him at shearing time and mustering time to yard sheep, draft sheep and shift sheep around the station. It involved lots of long slow trips to muster - the station was 1,00,000 million acres in size!!
We learned to drive a Diahatsu ute one summer because the overseer was away and he needed help. I can't remember how old we were but I couldn't get it into reversed (it had a weird push down manouevre with the gear stick that I couldn't master) so I remember driving through a clump of bushes as I couldn't reverse!!
Before learning to drive the ute we got a big surprise one day when Dad can home with a motorbike for us - very exciting (a little 75). Looking back we were pretty lucky being that we were a family of 3 daughters!!
Eventually we progressed to the bigger bikes when we had to help him!
We were never really into horses - we did have a pony and a horse but the motorbike was always more popular.
I must try and find some photos.

3 comments:

Fran said...

I LOVE these photos!! And funny to see where your crops are compared to ours - we are thinking of taking a sample into the bin in a week or so just to check - and yours are so green!
And omg a million acres - I'd get SO lost out there!LOL. We are only on a quarter of that here and even that has a 300km boundary - and I think THAT's big enough for me!

SueP said...

Lovely photos Meredith!!!.. i wanted to get one of our sheep when we bought them home for shearing....but i wasn't home that day...shorn sheep just aren't the same!

KathrynD said...

Hi Meredith, just dropped into your blog whilest "surfing about". I just love these photos. The crops look so thick. Having not grown up in this area, it just fascinates me with farm life. Admittedly I'd be a crap farm girl, but it intrigues me all the same. Anyway, look forward seeing you at the mini retreat!! Kathryn :)