As I held on to all four legs of the squirming, hapless young kangaroo, all I could think was. “WTF am I going to do now?!” With my five working dogs swirling around me, I couldn’t let the little bush kangaroo go—they’d already had him up against the fence once, which is how I finally caught him. Three of the five dogs were intent on finishing the job I’d so rudely interrupted.
For the third time in seven years I have reason to be grateful to our local volunteer fire brigades. My farm borders the Midland Highway for several kilometres south of Oatlands, on the downwind side of westerly winds, leaving me vulnerable to fires starting from a careless cigarette, or in this case, apparently a fault in the power line running alongside the highway. The third fire was started by lightning, back in 2019.
I’m starting to think about writing the book I’ve been thinking about for 10 years. Only this time, it’s serious enough for me to gather all my source material, create a timeline, start re-reading the 100+ Yarns from the Farm and Come Shepherding posts, and sketch out different themes in my head. Why now? Well, in the process of accepting that I’m not going to live forever, I decided to question what I want to do with time I have left—which I’m hoping will be a good 20 years, nearly as long as I’ve been farming.
Long time followers of Yarns from the Farm will remember Davey Carnes as the kind, gentle old-school shepherd who taught me so much about the care of sheep. Davey died peacefully at the age of 97 in October. Davey came out of retirement (which he loathed) at the age of 75, to help me through a rough patch for a few months just after I bought my farm. He stayed for 13 years, retiring for the second time at 87. In the intervening years he not only taught me much of what he knew from his past experience, he also stayed open to new ideas and approaches and supported my experiments as I gained confidence as a woolgrower.
We’re still celebrating White Gum Wool’s 10th birthday, and we’re just delighted Pip Courtney of Landline had the same idea. ABC TV’s Landline, Australia’s national agricultural tv program, recently produced an update on their WGW story from 2013. Pip posted a lovely ABC News article promoting the show this morning.
For those of you who don't speak British Commonwealth idiomatic English, a crocodile can also mean a line of school children. The relevance of this term to the real topic of this Yarn will become clear later. (If you are one of those who read the last chapter first, skip to the video at the very end of the Yarn.) The real topic of this yarn is "Do sheep work?" More specifically, do my sheep consciously choose to cooperate in the work of the farm?
