Sheeps!

Brigitte, Ben and I left school at 3:00pm sharp on Wednesday to have a little mid-week adventure. Having a ‘city slicker’ at Morven seemed like a good excuse to venture out to a sheep station for a bit of a perve at some freshly sheared sheepies.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect… perhaps something like the photos in the brochure for the Australian Woolshed, but I wasn’t banking on it. Considering Morvenians call the ‘airport’ a strip of red dirt out the back of town, I’ve learnt not to assume anything.

We rolled up and headed up to the main shearing shed. Apparently, this is one of the smaller shearing stations in the area. There were just these two ‘blokes’ doing the deed and giving the sheep a nice early Christmas present. They were pretty quick, actually. They would go over to the pen and tackle a sheep so they had it on its back, and would drag it out by the front legs. Then they would hook themselves up to a harness-type thing, designed to take some of the strain off their backs. They would then shear away and have the sheep bare from head to toe in less than a minute. Surprisingly, after they were tackled, the sheep hardly reacted and just lay back and enjoyed the haircut (perhaps these were veteran sheep who knew that resistance was futile?). Most sheep were sheared perfectly, but a few had some blood marks from the razor. They were actually quite sad and ridiculous looking… these dazed, now-naked sheep wandering around looking like they’ve just seen Jamie Oliver mak e a sheep and mushroom stew. There was then a ‘collector’ (or at least that’s what I’ll call her) who would go and quickly grab all the wool and would take it over and throw it up on a big, steal turn-table thingo, where two ladies (a mother and daughter team… ‘cause everyone has to be related in some way out here) would pull the crap bits of wool off and would determine the quality of the rest. They would then roll it up and chuck it in one of four bins, depending on its quality, so it’s ready for packaging.

The two shearing guys looked pretty mean and angry. They were probably both in their 30s but had aged terribly, and looked as though they had been doing this since the day they were born. They were both really red in the face and looked in desperate need of a beer. One of the guys was really tall, and when he got out of his harness, he looked like a long boomerang, with a permanent bend in his back from his bending over attending to the sheep for such a long time. Poor guy. I’ll take a year 4-7 class at Morven State School any day, thanks!

Inside the shed was quite pleasant at 4pm on a Winter afternoon, but doing this in 40+ degree heat in the Summer would be something quite different. I’d imagine it would be like the hottest hot-box you’d ever been in, and I’m sure all the wool and the heat from the razors wouldn’t help the situation. The sweat. The smell. The blood. Yuk…

We ventured outside and around the rest of the property for a bit. Apparently they were also in the middle of ‘weaning’ a herd of cattle, and had separated the mothers and the calves into separate paddocks. Consequently, every freaking calf was calling for its mother cow, and every freaking mother cow was calling for its calf. The result was a “moo-athon” of ear-splitting proportions. I’m sure us strange folk getting up close and taking photos didn’t help the situation either. We could only stand it for so long before we felt enough was enough!

Afterwards, we all felt exhausted after seeing all these country, hard-yakka people working so hard, so we thought it was only appropriate that we head back home and have a drink or two at the pub in their honour. So we did.

School’s going well. Only 4 days left now. Quite amazing really how the time has flown. As part of our Food Science unit, we did the experiment how you put a celery stick in blue-coloured water and see how the leaves turn blue. Here’s how they turned out. The kids thought it was pretty cool. We had a “School Outside” day today as part of Education Week. The idea was that we’d pull everything out of the classroom and set it up somewhere around the school grounds and have a day outside. It was heaps of fun. However, of course, the only day in about 3 months there has been any rain out here was today!! Good to know the Weather Gods have a sense of humour!!

Looks like my long weekend will be spent working my butt off. I still have two uni assignments that I need to finish by the end of next week, so that, combined with planning for next week, will keep me well and truly out of mischief!