Last Saturday looked like being a really good day. The plan was to drive up to Chidlow to our friends' party, stay the night and head home Sunday morning. R was particularly excited about it- after shearing and harvest and farm lease stress he was almost jumping up and down with excitement at the prospect of an afternoon celebrating with friends, no long trip home at night, just pure relaxation.
But before we could leave, there were a few things that needed doing, including moving a few lambs from the south east block on the home farm to a northern paddock. To do this, they had to be mustered from a couple of really scrubby paddocks and taken a short way along the bitumen road and then across a few more paddocks to their final destination. Normally we try to do any summer sheepwork in the cool early mornings, as soon as its light enough to see, because by midmorning the sheep just want to camp in the shade and refuse to walk. Unfortunately on Saturday we slept in, so there was a mad rush for R to get the dogs, the bike and out to the paddocks. When livestock have to be moved along public roads, we need to put up signs and have a vehicle driving ahead of the mob. So after pouring a still-sleeping BabyJ into his carseat I sat in the Subaru and waited for R to get the sheep down to the road.
We read books and newspapers.
We watched the trucks go past.
We were bored.
The first mob came down slowly. They were lambs, they were feeling the morning heat already, and they didn't really want to move anywhere except into the roadside ditches, thick with vegetation.
The odd one lay down in the bushes and tried to camp:
And a few tried to opt out of mob life and chose freedom in the ditches. Charlie talked them out of it eventually.
Charlie:
And then we lost Muddy.
R and his dogs took that first mob back across the farm, and he suggested that while I was waiting, I could muster the second mob and get them collected by the gate, ready to go down the road when he got back.
That sounded a lot more fun than sitting in the car for another hour, and hey, it was only 700 lambs, small paddock, how hard could it be? So we took the Subaru out into Flatrocks paddock to look for the lambs. Flatrocks is a long narrow strip of land between the road and the creek, only 70 acres and maybe a few hundred metres at its widest point, and as its name suggests full of flat granite outcrops. Unsuitable for cropping, it's only minimally cleared and the shelter of the many trees and rocks makes it a wonderful lambing paddock. It also makes it a bit tricky to muster, with many hiding places for sheep, and very difficult to negotiate by vehicle.
We found the first of the lambs at the far end of the paddock, already starting to camp in preparation for the heat of the day. Driving behind them, I sent Bill out on the left, creek side and Muddy out on the right beside the road, and we started to push them down the paddock. Before long I had to detour the car out onto the roadside fenceline to get around an outcrop, and lost sight of the sheep. When I caught back up with them, they were stringing out, the lead trotting down the slope towards the creek and the stragglers dropping off in ones and twos, ducking behind trees and rocks. Bill kept stopping to try to coax these out, leaving most of the mob to disappear in the direction of the creek where the paddock widens out and the trees and rocks are too thick for a car to get anywhere near.
Slightly stressed, I got out of the car and tried to send Bill after the leaders, but he went down two-thirds of the way and then turned back after more stragglers, which just pushed the shoulder of the strung-out mob further down towards the creek. My cries of "Round, round, ROUND, Bill!" got shriller and more hysterical, and Bill got more and more confused, not willing to leave the few dozen sheep clustered in front of us for the main mob, now maybe 300m away and almost out of sight down the thickly treed slope.
But as I gave up and started back to the car, I saw Muddy swinging around behind us, racing wide out to the left down to the creek. He had obviously taken my flanking command himself, and after he disappeared down the slope I caught a glimpse of him coming up ahead of the leaders on the creekline, turning them back towards me and then loping quietly behind them as they turned back up the hill. It's not a phrase you hear much around here, but "Thank God for Muddy!" I muttered as I leapt into the car and drove along the roadside where the car could get through, headed for the western end where the paddock narrows and flattens and the trees thin out.
We arrived just as the main mob emerged from the trees beside the creek, plodding over the hot ground and pausing at every stand of trees, trying to camp in the shade. They kept moving out of the cool shaded vegetation, so Muddy must have been somewhere behind them. Bill helped me collect each group of campers and push them on towards the gate end of the paddock, and R and his dogs arrived just as we had the whole mob gathered. They started to take the sheep down to the gate, and I looked around for Muddy.
How odd that he hadn't arrived behind the last sheep... Maybe he'd gone into the creek for a drink- it was getting up into the mid-30s already, and Bill was puffing like a steam train. We waited a while, and still no Muddy, so I drove down as far as I could along the creek, calling and whisting. Maybe there were a few stragglers, or a sheep had lain down or got caught in the fence, and he was stopped with it? Maybe he'd brought the sheep up to the gate and, not seeing my car, headed back to where we'd last been?
R took the motorbike all the way down the paddock on the creekline fence and I went back on the roadside, calling and whistling, but Muddy was nowhere to be seen. It was getting into late morning, the temperature must have been climbing up around 35 degrees, and I started to panic. Maybe he had run into something or got caught up on a fence? Maybe he'd gone into the creekline and been bitten by a snake? We had seen a little mob of roos earlier in the morning at the end of the paddock, but Muddy wasn't at all interested then. Maybe they'd reappeared and surprised him from the bush by the creek and he'd given chase?
The Flatrock paddock is part of 800 acres we have on that part of the farm, including a fair area of uncleared bush, and bounded on two sides by fairly busy local roads. Every nightmare scenario possible (and some impossible) started emerging from my mind.
Any residual plans for our afternoon in the city evaporated as we scoured the surrounding paddocks, drove back and forth to the main farm and the house, hunted through roadside ditches for a kelpie corpse thrown aside by the grain or stock trucks that thunder past regularly. No sign of Muddy.
By 6pm we were sunburnt and frustrated. I was nearly in tears, bemoaning the loss of my wonderful "right hand dog", without whom I'd be unable to do anything on the farm (amazing what apparent loss of a previously disparaged dog will do for their reputation and ability), and R was experiencing similar grief at the loss of his afternoon of relaxation. In all seriousness, we were most worried about how we'd explain Muddy's loss to my dad, who has recently been pretty unwell and loves Muddy to absolute bits.
As the shadows lengthened and the sun descnded towards the horizon, we tried one last longshot. We went home, assembled the 5 noisiest dogs available (Angus, Ziggy, Bonnie, Blue and Bindi) and drove back to the dam at the far end of Flatrocks, where we hurled sticks into the water for Bill to fetch while the canine choir yapped and shrieked with excitement and Angus ran noisy boglaps of the dambank. In theory, if Muddy was still in the land of the living, there's nothing- no distance, no grave wound or illness, no team of wild horses that would keep him from a dam-side barkfest. After 15 minutes or so, I'd begun to give up hope, but then...
Waaaay off in the distance, over the creek, past the bush paddock, up at the top of the hill by the Middle Yards, I caught a glimpse of movement, a dark speck flashing between the trees. Down the hill it came, towards the creek, over the cocky gate and up the hill: Muddy!
He was fine, although instantly demoted from "world's greatest kelpie" to the "bloody frustrating little twerp" he'd been before his disappearance. I was unbelievably relieved, and just managed to dissuade R from strangling the little b@#$%^. We spent the last of the evening light by the dam, watching the dogs swim, play and bark. And bark. And bark. And for the first and last time ever, I was heard to thank the Lord for Angus and his very special voice.
The cause of Muddy's disappearance is still a bit of a mystery- he's never been known to leave sheepwork before. But the next day R's dad was driving through the next paddock up the hill, by the Middle Yards, and found a group of about 30 lambs that seemed to have knocked through the fence and crossed the creek. It's possible that Muddy saw them and went after them, and possibly headed for the Middle Yards hoping we'd turn up there. Whatever the reason, he'll be watched like a hawk next time we're out that way.
So the good day gone bad turned out okay in the end- until the Coke can in the front of my car exploded in the heat and coated the dash and gearstick. And then to top it all off, all the bumping around in paddocks caused a bin full of sheep poo to topple over in the back.
I'm not sure how I feel about that- right now, it's smelly and messy, but if I ever decide to turn the Subaru into a herb garden, it's already fertilised.
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