On the subject of babies…

We’ve finished lamb marking. It took R and the team a week, give or take a day or two, up to two thousand a day, and they’re all done. So now we stand a chance of being able to make Dowerin trial next week!
There’s nothing like moving mobs of ewes and lambs to cause hair-pulling, voice-raising, sanity-shredding frustration. But this year I resolved to remain Zen about the whole thing, to only take dogs with half an idea what they’re doing, and to go at lamb pace, no matter what the rest of the family say. It worked reasonably well most of the time.

The Team- Bill and Queani

The Opposition- Ewes and Lambs



It’s surprisingly difficult to film and work sheep simultaneously. I always get lots of quick cuts to my boots, the grass, my boots tripping over the grass, and the underside of the Special New Ute as I drop the camera climbing back in. Here’s a little clip of sheepwork- Queani casting and bringing the mob down the paddock… she's the little black dot you can see behind the sheep if you hunch up by the screen and squint.  And here’s Bill deliberately misinterpreting my request to “Load back up on the ute, Bill!”- “Back? Did you say ‘Back’? Of course I can Go Back!”. He's the big black lunk leaping around in the foreground.

There’s always one, isn’t there?


Bill:




Queani:



One thing about lambs is that they like to climb things. Regardless of the situation, if there are lambs about, they will be climbing on something. Much like small children, really.

One lamb.


Two lambs.


Many lambs.


My favourite flavour- ginger lambs!


And just in case that wasn’t enough lamb action for you, towards the end of the week I took my camera along for another lamb-venture, moving a mob along a couple of kilometres of roadway to the yards for tailing the next morning. 

Some dubiously fenced crops and creekline along the way, one man with a deadline and an aching ankle, one woman who kept stopping to take photos and remind the man about “the Zen of sheepwork” and how to make more speed, less haste, a couple of hungry human children in the ute, the sun beginning to set…

Family bonding time at its best!