Shorn Back and Sides

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Day 427

Yes, again we wake up to the most beautiful morning, sitting at the breakfast bar sipping my favourite aperitif, (well ok, strictly speaking it is not an aperitif, least of all would I be drinking alcohol at this time of the morning, the word just rolled off my tongue as I was sipping my tea) I was listening to the radio, the station was ABC, the weather came on and they said that the next couple of days was going to be somewhat more than toasty warm in fact today was going to be about 40 Degree’s today and tomorrow Sunday and Monday are going to be about 42 may be more.

Helen said that she felt she needed to get out of the house for a change of scenery and needed to go to Junee, I asked if she wanted me to drive and she said that would be good, so when we were ready we jumped in Helens car and drove off into the direction of Junee to do the chores Helen needed.

Caroline opted to stay back at Woodstock as she was on a roll doing some job searching, and was happy to stay doing some research into our next major challenge, getting work.

We get back to the farm, I think that Helen is thankful of the small amout of help we provide, so after a quick cup of tea we wander over to see the Woodstock boys working in the shearing shed.

Jason, “Lucky” O’loghlin is Helen and Roberts “Off Sider” or right hand man, who by now on the blog you must know is working grading the wool, whilst Jeff who works at Woodstock a couple of days a week, is working on the wool press, which puts together a maximum of 204 Kilo’s of wool before it is bagged in a special bag and stenciled as to what grade of wool it is, when it was shorn, and what farm it comes from, then basically it is put on a truck and taken and sold, before being used to make the garments we all wear.

The shearing shed is hot, it is raised above the ground by about 8 ft and the doors are wide open so cool fresh air is being blown in, what little cool air there is anyway.

Helen and Robert have got contract shearers in, there are three of them and a “rouseabout” who does all the collecting of fleeces and manual work that is not at the shearing stand, this means that the shearers basically just concentrate on the shearing and speed through one straight after another.

Please note, we do not try to be smart arses using words like Rouseabout, but here in Australia they are just words that are used all the time, so we will occasionally toss them in for your interest, there are other words like Jackaroo and Jillaroo, but they are not used in this blog entry.

Anyway, the shearing hand clippers are in full swing and we watch with amazement how each shearer gets his sheep, sort of wrestles it so it is sitting on its bum, looking forwards and off they go, I wouldn’t like to say if the sheep enjoy the experience but they just sit there and have all their coats taken off, they do look a little bewildered at times.

Helen told us an interesting fact that, the shearers, who used to be a bit of a militant mob in general and about 30 years ago shearers used clippers that were narrow and someone invented a wider cut, well shearers were up in arms about this and went on strike all over Australia, in fact Nangus was a very busy sheep shearing area and Robert and Helen at this time had a contract shearer who also went on strike all because the sheep clippers blades went from a narrow to a wide blade, but just imagine shearing a sheep with manual clippers which are just like scissors.

Helen and Robert had 1600 sheep that required a hair cut and it took 3 men 2.5 days, here is an interesting fact about “Jackie Howe” who was once the best in the world, shearing sheep with hand shears.

At the end of the 19th century Jack “Jackie Howe” was legendary rose to fame in 1892 when he broke the daily and weekly shearing records across the colonies, he shore 321 sheep in 7 hours and 40 minutes (at Alice Down Station) the week beforehand he set the weekly record of shearing 1,437 sheep in 44 hours and 30 minutes. Howes daily record was beaten in 1950 however by a man using machine shears, but the weekly record remains unbeated as of 2005.

There is a pub in Blackall once ownded by Jackie Howe, there is now a statue in place of him holding a sheep. His name was also given to navy blue singlet tops as legend tells us that this is what he was wearing on the day he broke the shearing record, and still popular today.

The next bit is amazing, the sheep are pushed down a chute which exists underneath the shearing shed, into a holding yard, where Robert gathers them all up then he and the dogs take them back to their alloted paddock, they just appear at the bottom of the chute, gain their composure and then just trot off, as if this was just a normal occurance, but I suppose getting your hair cut is.

As we had cleaned and disinfected the shearing shed a couple of days ago, you get to know all the nooks and crannies, and therefore understand, when the shearers have their breaks and stuff like that, also each shearer has a back support that is hung from a chain on the roof of the shed and is like a swing that supports his back as this is where the shearers suffer the most.

We take some photo’s and leave them to it, the day is hot and we feel for everyone working hard in this searing heat.

On my way back from the shearing shed we fill the little 5 litre petrol can for Helen which is for “her” tractor mower.

What can I say another lazy afternoon followed? We did some chores but the temptation to nap was too much, Caroline actually managed half hour on the Wii fit, she was pleased with the results, considering she has not done much over the Christmas break she still managed to lose 0.7kg and has kept her Wii fit age down.

We couldn’t walk Toby and Tiny as there are sheep in the paddock that we would usually take them too and it would prove to be too much for Toby he would want to go after them and round them up which is not the done thing when they just need to be left to pasture.

There was not much on TV tonight, we were all sitting and reading and half watching, I don’t think anyone could really be bothered to change channels so one program ran into another and we ended up watching the film “Flightplan” with Jodie Foster. The film finished at 10.40 so time for bed, Robert had long gone, but Helen persevered to the end.

However it was a warm evening so Helen suggested leaving the cooler on, we checked the temperature outside and found that it was still 28.1 degrees C.

The weather is set to get hotter in the next few days the temperatures are predicted to be well into the 40’s we all hope that it does not get as bad as it did back in February when the temperature on the veranda here reached 47 degrees. Back then Andy and I stayed indoors underneath the blowers, we could not do anything while the sun was up.

Until tomorrow bloggers.

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Photos

The holding pens
Under the shearing shed

Shearers clippers
These wide bladede clippers are