Yarns from the farm
Share in the moments of joy and sorrow, frustration and hilarity as I learn to grow the finest wool in the world in the most sustainable way I can.
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Snakebite, Lightning Strike and Gunshots
This is how conspiracy theories get started—in the vacuum of verifiable causes. I know this because recently I created my own conspiracy. Three weeks ago, three perfectly healthy ewes simply laid down and died within a few hours of each other. The circumstances were similar and puzzling: sudden death with no sign of stuggle or evidence of disease or pregnancy. Only two sheep have died here in the past 12 months, making this a clear case of something—but what?
A Bonza Year
I first encountered the word “bonza” in Nevil Shute’s wonderful story “A Town Like Alice”. (And no, Alice the sheep is NOT named after the town of Alice, but after Arlo Guthrie’s song “Alice’s Restaurant”—the line about “You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant—excepting Alice…”).
The Nature of the Game
Nature is certainly a game-changer. While we struggle to adapt to one set of conditions, she simply crooks her little finger and, wham! a whole new scenario is in place. At this point last year, I had just sold half of my flock because there simply wasn’t enough feed to carry them through winter without significant rainfall before the end of the growing season. I experienced the first major grassfire on the property since I bought it in 2000, and even with the reduction in flock size, was not entirely sure the property would carry them through.
Fresh pastures - welcome to the new website!
After a gestation long enough to produce a lamb, let alone a website, I’m equally relieved and delighted to invite you to visit the shiny new White Gum Wool site. And if that wasn’t enough to make me smile, the new “dyed-in-the-wool” she-oak heather yarns arrived this week, too!
One Flock, Indivisible
Those of you who know me personally and through reading the Yarns will have a pretty good idea of the horrified fascination with which I watched the US election campaign—a bit like watching a forest fire raging out of control—and the dismay I felt at the result. Until yesterday, I hadn’t found the words I wanted to write, but after watching changes in flock behaviour after I re-united the “mothers-to-be” with the main flock, I was inspired to share the following perspective with you.
Separation Anxiety
In the past, October has been lambing month on my farm. Logically, it makes perfect sense: mid-spring (April equivalent for you in the northern hemisphere) with plenty of new growth for the mamas to make milk. However, year after year, September has seen reasonably settled weather and October has been truly awful.
Sheep Crocodiles
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?
Offsiders
Although I’ve lived in Australia for 20 years, I will never have an Australian accent. This is not so much because it’s hard to put on an Australian accent, as because it is difficult to get away with it. Australians have an uncanny ear for accents, and can distinguish a faux Aussie from about a kilometre away.
Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,Thou art not so unkind As man’s ingratitude…
—Shakespeare As You Like It Act II, Scene VII
I have to take exception. With all due respect to the Bard, especially on the 400th anniversary of his death, the winter winds here have been exceedingly unkind.
Animal Wifery
We've had 3 ½ inches of rain in May (hooray!) and the property is looking better than it has in months. Admittedly, it looks better from a distance than at worm's-eye level, where there is too much bare ground showing. However, the lovely spring green look is most welcome, along with the beginnings of run-off.
Come Shepherding
Come Shepherding is a new initiative I’ve started, designed to give readers a more personal experience of shepherding, White Gum Wool style. Each time I do a shepherding circuit, I first post the map and plan for the day on the Come Shepherding blog, then provide a few photos via Instagram as I’m shepherding. At the end of the day, I write up my notes and add them and the photos to the Come Shepherding post for the day.
Six Impossible Things
As often happens to me, I mis-remembered this quotation. I thought it was about doing six impossible things before breakfast, thereby revealing my lamentable tendency to jump into things with all four feet without due consideration of the consequences. Believing six impossible things is a lot harder, I think.
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say
that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.
Robert Frost
Flies and Spiders
Devoted Tolkien fans will recognise “Flies and Spiders” as the title of the chapter of The Hobbit wherein Bilbo and the dwarfs enter the dismal forest Mirkwood on their way to reclaim their hoard of gold from the dragon Smaug. In Mirkwood, the flies are a nuisance, but the spiders are a fatal menace. This season in Tasmania, the roles are reversed.
Bonus Track: How long is a piece of string?
This is a mini-skein of a Yarn, one I wrote alongside “Epiphany”. Although I wanted to include it somehow, it would have made Epiphany much too long. So you’re getting it as a bonus track. I didn’t take any photos of this episode—I was too busy trying to manage it. Instead I’m giving you photos of wildflowers blooming on the property at the moment, in defiance of extremely dry conditions.
Epiphany
Not the religious sort, more the “uh, duh” sort. Wikipedia describes this kind of epiphany as “an enlightening realisation that allows a problem or situation to be understood from a new and deeper perspective”. Sounds better than “uh, duh”, huh? It started a few months ago, though I didn’t recognise it for the turning point it has turned out to be.
Trip Report: Bendigo, Design Spun and Hinewai
Life on the farm was pretty intense all winter, and particularly so after my trip in July. As I finally sit down to write this, shearing has come and gone and four tiny cygnets are swimming with their parents on a much-depleted Swan Lake. I’ll give you the shearing and end-of-winter shepherding report in the next Yarn, hopefully fairly soon. Meanwhile, here is the belated trip report.
Winter Shepherding
The Zen of Winter Shepherding seems to be another “stay in the moment” imperative: do not let the weather forecast fake you out. Of course, you need good gear in order to not be afraid of what the elements could throw at you.
The White Gum Wool Working Dogs
The working dogs are so much a part of my everyday life on the farm that I’ve neglected to give them their own Yarn. A friend recently asked me how the dogs were coping with the abrupt onset of winter (two big snowstorms in the last 2 weeks), and particularly whether the dogs were allowed in the house. They aren’t. But their kennels have floor heating, so I don’t feel guilty. Plus, Oscar and Skye, the house cats, would have plenty to say, none of it politically correct.
You Don't Sing that Note, Either
Continuing my jazz and shepherding analogy (new subscribers click here for the previous Yarn), there’s a wonderfully apt line from “Birth of the Blues” (1941), set at the turn of the century. A ridiculously young Mary Martin is quizzing Rochester about how to sing the new jazz and blues. Rochester says, “Well, it’s like this. You listen for a note, and when you find it…you don’t play it. Instead, you listen some more, until you find another note…but you don’t play that note, either. Eventually, you find the right note to fit into the music.”
