Sunday 6 March 2016

The One that got away

Do you remember that I wrote yesterday that we were having four sheep killed today?  One of them is over that hill! 
They had been grazing with our mob on one of the leased paddocks near our local town.  When Brian brought them home yesterday he was unloading the four of them from the ute when one busted away from the small mob. It galloped right through some big double gates, into another paddock, kept going until it reached the boundary fence and went straight though into our closest neighbor's property. From there it galloped around their house and out their front gate, down and across the road and busted through a fence into another paddock belonging to another neighbor. I was called from working in the vegetable garden, thank goodness for mobile phones, and hot footed it across the road to open the gates and attempt to cut the sheep off and direct it into our gate while Brian was following it from the other direction.  Well, yes I stood there and when it appeared I made an attempt to make myself appear as large as possible, waving my hands, clapping and "woofing" like a dog.
To no avail though, as it ran straight towards me, leapt into the air as if jumping an imaginary fence, and off it headed up this hill.
 Usually I would take off my jumper or over-shirt to wave about, but as it's so very hot and all I wear is a singlet top over a bra, I thought it probably was not a great idea to strip off and wave my singlet top around in the air, with my woofing and jumping.
Meg was called and off they went in pursuit. I was left on gate and road traffic duty and knew I could be standing there for some considerable time as that is a thirty acre paddock. Very soon I was entertained by a mob of four kangaroos hopping across that picture, but as I stood with my mouth open in delight, of course they were gone by the time I punched in the code of the phone to snap a picture.
Soon they returned minus the sheep. It had joined up with a mob of ewes and new lambs across the hill, and he was definitely not about to start stirring them up to try getting one rogue sheep from their midst.
So there it will stay until our neighbor brings his sheep into his yards some time in the future.
That little hogget has a reprieve until another time, but it makes me wonder why one sheep will, out of the blue, behave erratically when they have all been handled with care and kindness.

I was potting up some of these little succulents for the farm gate stall when I was dragged off to chase sheep.

 And earlier in the day we were surprised by a visit from my niece Kimberly, from Victoria. She's a Rep for a large country clothing and apparel company, and travels constantly all over Victoria and Tasmania. She was on her way to Echuca and stopped off at her old home town to do some visiting. A little out of the way, but it was just so lovely to spend a couple of hours with her.
Now I'm pleased to report that all of the sheep, minus one, are hanging in the refrigerated cool room, after a very early start this morning just on sunrise.
It's another really hot day of temps around 39C, so lunch time is spent watching Landline today. This is the one and only time of the week that the TV goes on during the day and we break all of our rules by eating our lunch in front of the TV.
I hope you're keeping cool somehow if you're in South Australia today. It's a scorcher.

7 comments:

  1. Sally, it is a pity you didn't have time to take a video of all the action. LOL! Yes, not a good idea to take your top off to wave around. I hope you get the prodigal sheep back again soon. It will make for a good story down at the local pub I am sure. Our temps are hovering around 27C every day. That's as hot as I like it. Good old Toowoomba weather.

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    1. Just another day on the farm Nana Chel. I could tell you a few stories!!! ;) Envious of your balmy weather.

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  2. Three friends and I wagged school one day and rode our Honda 70s into the country. We were exploring one paddock with an old underground tank which had been partially filled with all sorts of tin and iron and bricks. We were horrified to see a sheep had fallen in and was wedged in amongst all the rubbish. One of us climbed down (which was stupid) and I sacrificed my shirt to make a sling to haul the sheep out with. I endured a lot of ribbing for the rest of the day for daring to help with the rescue in just a bra and jeans. I smelt a bit sheepy, but it was worth it to see that poor sheep hobble off to join the others. She was thin from her ordeal, and her legs didn't work real well but at least she was free to go get a drink. I'm glad we could help her.

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    1. What a great story Keryn and what a superb job you did in rescuing that poor sheep.

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  3. She lives to see another day ;-)

    The succulents look good in their little cups, what a good idea for a bit of added profit, I must remember that one!!

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  4. There's always one.... We have learnt to just walk away (as you did) and come back to it later, there's no point chasing animals all around the countryside! Once they are worked up, there's no way they will go where you want them!

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    1. Brian doesn't like to give up too easily though. I can remember trying to move three wethers and a ram from a small block in the town. They usually walked up easily but on this day, just because we HAD to get them out on that day, one of them would not play the game. Brian, myself and the property owner, chased it around and around this small one acre paddock until it couldn't run any more. Piled it into the bloke's wheelbarrow to cart it back to the ute. We won that day, but neither could we run any more. :) But you're exactly right Liz, as a kid on my horse, helping our local butcher to bring in steers, if one went through a fence we had to let it go until another day.

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