July 16, 2007
The last week has been tremendously busy for us on the farm. All the ewes and lambs had to be gathered in from the hills. The ewes were to be clipped (shorn) and the lambs sorted, drenched and vaccinated. On top of this our 71-year-old Scottish/New Zealand friend, Bill, visited us for three days. 

Gathering sheep off 5,500 hilly acres is quite the adventure. At 6am sharp we set off in search of sheep; Kelvin with Blade and Angie with Meg, and Bailey along for the wander/rabbit chase/drive of sheep every once in a while. Sometimes Bailey pops up at the most inopportune moments in front of the sheep we are attempting to drive and stops the whole mob.  But, we didn't buy a pet dog to sit on the couch all day while we are out enjoying the great outdoors so we live with those things and she loves being part of the team.

This week our dogs met a whole new world of sheep herding.  The terrain is steep and rocky and there are no carefully crafted moves as the dogs navigate tussocks, burns (creeks), scree slopes and huge areas of dense bracken fern. The dogs have to take the initiative for what moves to make rather than waiting for our command. The bracken fern is tall - 2-3 feet in some places and over our chests in others. One hopes not to get sheep into the bracken but if this happens, and it does, we have to leave a lot to the dog as they disappear and you can't see them until you see sheep moving.  After a couple of days both dogs have got used to this type of gathering and seem to see or smell (or something) the sheep and extricate them from the bracken.

Angie and I spend our time running up hill and down dale checking where the next little packets of sheep are and move them along. There are no quad bikes for us as we prefer to do our work the 'old-fashioned' way - on foot. The sheep gradually congregate in the base of the valley to be driven (by the dogs) in one large group (usually in the hundreds) down to the pens at the farm. There were usually 2 or 3 sets of sheep to collect each morning. 

We have settled into the process and the dogs are handling the task quite well given that this is much more challenging than anything they have done previously. Of course it has not been without incident including one morning having a cantankerous ewe who took it upon herself to jump in the burn (creek) and not give in to any efforts to get her out of the burn and back with the rest of the flock.  Even when the flock was brought to this one ewe, she would not budge from her position in the burn. After dragging her out (picture two peewees inching a ewe about the same weight as us out of the burn and slowly dragging her up a very steep incline - all the while thinking that the farm owner, Hugh, is going to be wondering what we bumbling idiots must be doing out there) and letting her rest for a while, she raced back off across the burn and hightailed it to the top of the hill about a mile away. We had visions of her becoming the Scottish equivalent of New Zealand's Shrek. There have been some great photo-ops (no camera of course).

Gathering sheep is usually three hours of rollicking around the hills with each other and our beloved dogs. One takes pause at times to think of all those Londoners, New Yorkers etc hurtling in tin cans (a.k.a. trains/subways and cars) towards the city to get to their jobs in high rise buildings with artificial lighting. It begs the question "who is richer?" After a quick break for coffee, the rest of our mornings are spent in the pens moving groups of sheep through the chutes to get them drenched and vaccinated. 

This task is not for the faint-hearted, or easily bruised.  Angie has, for the most part, been smart enough to keep out of the chutes. She maintains the flow of sheep in to and out of the chutes (so she is essentially a human sheepdog - she says she practising the international shed).  In the chutes we make our way through the sheep vaccinating (a jab in the shoulder) and drenching (a shot of medicine down the throat) every lamb.  The lambs are with their mothers who are 200+ pound horned beasts who are as happy going through you as around you.  Kelvin has well bruised legs from being run into by horns - war wounds/battle scars! The day is done by about midday and we head home for lunch. 

Most of the ewes have also been clipped (shorn) this week so Angie helped in the afternoons packing away the fleeces. We arrived on what is probably the busiest week of the year for this farm so I think the extra help was a bonus. In addition to sheep work, the silage was done as well.

Just in case anyone thinks we were slacking off, this week we have also managed to lay a new wood floor in our living room of the cottage!Thank you Bill for helping us finish that.