The Sheep Who Taught Me Everything

 

-  The Sheep Who Taught Me Everything

I arrived at my partners Stanthorpe property knowing absolutely nothing about sheep.

Nothing about shearing sheds. Nothing about mustering. Nothing about feral mobs or drought feeding or the peculiar madness that comes with falling in love with livestock.

What I did know was that I’d just moved to a rundown property at the start of what would become a ten-year drought, inherited a mob of completely feral sheep, and didn’t even own a working dog.  It was, in hindsight, a bold life choice.

Our shearing shed was over a hundred years old and held together by little more than rust, hope, and Cobb & Co twitches. We weren’t on any shearing contractor’s books, but a local bloke named Jim, and a mate kindly fitted us in between other jobs. For over six years we hand-fed stock. It was a baptism of fire — and dust — and exhaustion.

Yet somehow, I fell in love.  Not immediately. Sheep are not naturally charming creatures. They don’t rush up for pats. They don’t make flattering noises. Mostly, they run away from you, occasionally straight into fences.  But slowly, quietly, they worked their way into my heart.

I moved out there with my Pit Bull, Khadizia, much to the horror of the neighbours.  “She’ll rip your sheep to pieces,” they warned.

Threats followed. Dire predictions. Dark looks. So we watched our dogs like hawks.

Jessie, our elderly Blue Heeler, was nearly blind. Samantha, an Irish Wolfhound/Bull Arab, had been bought by my partner’s son for pigging. And Khadizia was my beloved Pit Bull — soft-eyed, affectionate, and apparently destined to become a mother.  Not to puppies.  To lambs.

Khadizia fostered four poddy lambs: Bob, Emma Louise, Oliver James, and Boo. She washed them. She de-fleaed them. She took her role very seriously.

She was deeply offended when, as they grew, they began to resist being pinned to the ground and licked into submission.

I will never forget the look on her face the day Oliver James — nearly full-grown — barrelled straight into her and made it very clear he was no longer interested in maternal hygiene.

Another surprise arrived in the form of our first working dog, a Border Collie pup named Fiesta Anna, bred by local identity Dan Bougoure from excellent trial lines.

There was just one problem.  Anna was white. The sheep, after careful consideration, decided she was one of them.

Complications increased when I acquired a poddy lamb who happened to be black.  The sheep concluded, quite logically, that the black creature was the dog.

Mustering days became exercises in surreal chaos: sheep following the white dog, fleeing from the black lamb, and me standing in the middle wondering how my life had come to this.

Poor Midnight, the black lamb, was completely ostracised. Eventually, we placed her in the home paddock with a collection of misfits — a couple of feral goats - Sacha and Tenneille, a rescued Shetland pony - Fernando, and two ancient wethers – Bones and Hornless that everyone told me weren’t worth saving.  But I couldn’t let them die.

Those two old boys — Hornless and Bones (plus a third later dubbed Hitler) — became the turning point.  They came when called. They followed me like dogs. They responded to the rattle of a corn tin and a cooee. Before long, I discovered that if the lead sheep moved, the mob moved.

One afternoon, I stood on the front verandah and called my three boys…. And seven hundred and forty-six sheep came with them.  I didn’t feel clever. I felt… trusted.

Over time, we added more dogs. Buster, a second-hand Kelpie who would only muster right-to-left because that was all he’d ever been taught. And later, a little red Kelpie pup Ralph Patrick, from our Tenterfield shearer.

Ralph’s life was heartbreakingly short. We believe he picked up bait regurgitated by a crow — something we never used on our property. Losing him hurt.

But that place had a way of doing that…. It burrowed under your skin.

Life has moved on, as it always does. I no longer live at Springdale.  These days my “sheep” are a mob of OAPs in an over-55s village.

They are hard to muster. Bloody intractable and some definitely have attitude problems.  So, really, not that different.

But every so often, when I hear the wind in dry grass or smell dust after rain, I’m back on that verandah, rattling the corn tin, calling my boys, and watching a mob of sheep walk towards me.

And at that moment, at that time, I am happy, and I smile.

IMAGES

Maureen Clifford © The #ScribblyBarkPoet

 

 

Are they being mustered silently beneath a silver moon

by dogs long gone whose spirits still remain?

Can you hear the thrumming canter?  Mobs of sheep upon the move

unseen by us, but sensed, crossing the plain.

Do you hear the bull whip cracking in the dark deserted night

as long departed stockmen move the flock?

Do you think you hear a bridle’s jingle coming up the track?

Are spirit horses pushing up the stock?

 

Could these paddocks tell a story?  Well, they’ve seen a thing or two -

they’d tell of sparse treed hills and dusty plains.

They've seen so many perish from the fires, and droughts and floods,

  their bones now ground to dust, all that remains.

And the ghostly wraiths of dogs are here.  Miss Jess and Ralph and Sam,

 old Blacky.  All those dogs who’ve gone before.

 So the image is not hard to see when at night they arise

all keen to work the ovine flock once more.

 

It’s been sold once again this place and stands here lonely still,

no warming fire’s reflection in the house -

and sad the love that made this dwelling a welcoming home,

has gone –it’s now abode to rat and mouse.

The ghostly dogs are lonely.  Loyal hounds - they linger near,

they’ve never wandered off upon their own.

They are listening in the darkness.  Each one cocks an anxious ear

for sounds to tell them they are not alone.

 

A cold wind's beating on the hill, flogging the frosted plains,

 its icy fingers tap on windows bare.

I recall ghostly animals still yearning for their home,

abandoned, left behind with none to care.

When thinking of those better times, my wandering mind goes back.

Such memories I have, they will not pass

with sadness I recall each much-loved animal’s sweet face.

In peaceful sleep at rest beneath the grass.

 

I hear the muffled bark, the clank of harness

and in the night see coming down the track,

the sheep, my dogs and horses.  Cherished memories

are all that's left for there’s no going back.

 

 

…  My Lost Place.

Are places ever truly lost if they remain in someone’s memory- in someone’s heart?

My lost place is an old sheep property-my home for only five years, yet my karma.
The place my heart and soul had been searching for-finally found, fleetingly lived, and now lost to me.

Traprock country, though harsh and unforgiving in drought, is magnificent, beautiful, and resplendent in good times. New grass cloaks the land in green, dotted with white wisps of Merino sheep, and scattered with hard, unyielding grey granite boulders that litter the slopes like a giant’s marbles. Above, in brilliant azure skies, bronze Wedge-tailed Eagles ride the thermals, surveying the land below for rabbits or weak and newborn lambs - food for their survival and for their young.

Towering hill crests are guarded by ring-barked gums that stand like sentinels, pointing the way to who knows where. Cleared acres of open space give way to hills thick with scrub. Deep gullies cradle waterholes edged with shivery grass beneath eroded granite cliffs. Steep, snake-like tracks wind down to the sweet waters below. Paths worn over time by thousands of sheep, deer, and feral goats on their daily trek to quench their thirst.

Sundown National Park, with its heavily wooded slopes, granite boulders, hidden waterholes, and secret tracks, and its mystic spiritual links with the Dreamtime, sits right on the doorstep of ‘Springdale’. Hidden caves hold rock paintings of roo and snake. Echoes, faint and imagined yet remembered, of tribal songs and ancient voices. The scar of the dingo fence is always visible, winding its way through the trees, a useful landmark if you’re bushed.

The sonorous rumble of ewes emerging wraithlike through early morning mist, calling their lambs to follow them for their first drink at the dam. They leave silver trails in dew-drenched grass as they pass in single file, nose to tail, heads nodding in time with their steps.

The rattle of gravel. A cloud of red dust. The rumble of wheels across the grid as a neighbour heads for town - always accompanied by a beep-beep of the horn, or sometimes a shrill whistle. Three days now and no other vehicle has passed the gate.

Roos-big greys keeping pace with the car along the roadside before bounding effortlessly over barbed wire and across the paddock. Cute, pretty-faced wallabies - small, dainty, sweet. They stand with heads up, ears pricked, watching your approach, then bolt into the scrub hell-for-leather seconds before you reach them.

And the reality.

Sadness.
Despair.

Lambs lost. Babies who had barely drawn breath, killed by fox, pig, crow, and eagle despite every effort to keep them safe. Old ewes weakened by drought and mired in mud; eyes taken by crows-a bullet their last mercy. A harsh country where each death equals dollars desperately needed.

The misery of losing a dog-a four-legged mate. Heartbreaking, yet almost inevitable. Working dogs are worth two men. Without their willing, eager help, no farmer can manage this country. They are controllers of the flock, guardians, loyal, loving, faithful companions - sometimes your only mate for days on end. Some never understand that snakes can kill. The curious succumb.

Wild pigs - always a problem, fear nothing. They kill lambs and weakened sheep. Carrion eaters. Silent, stealthy, deadly. They flatten fences, root up good pasture, ruin grain fields. Cunning enough to drop behind a fallen log until the hunter passes, then explode into motion and flee. Fair enough.  The fight or flight instinct. A smart dog will bail them until the farmer can dispatch them with a well-aimed bullet. But many a game dog, too cocky, too slow, or not pig-smart has been lost to these black bulldozers.

This is my lost place. My country.

I grieve for her every day - but she lives forever in my heart.