Sheep sharing

Today our sheep were collected, by local young farmer members and taking away to be sheared (as a fundraising venture) . While they were not at all impressed with the rather primitive mustering (it was a bit of a mission, even with five of us on the job)  and being (literally) thrown onto the trailer (not very animal friendly I'm sure, but they really were most unobliging !!), nor was they trailer trip quite to their liking , not to mention the act of being shared, but I think all has been forgiven now, especially with the (oh so slowly) raising temperatures, yes they appear content out there grazing , many kilo's lighter and much cooler.

It was certainly an adventure, it started with the gathering and getting them into our yards, well this was an interesting exerise for just me and Bec... but we manged to get 5 of them in by ourselves. Then help arrived ,the young farmers that came to pick them up came out to help... the sheep were all suitably flustered by this point, so it was a bit of fun, but we eventually got them in and with a ,lot, of manhandling they got them into the trailer (all needed to be pretty much lifted and thrown in) then they were off...

Watching the proceedings very intently

Becca making the approprite sheep herding noises

Anton performing his key role as 'gate shutter' with timely precision

A team debrief

After a trip to town to do some stuff, we called into the shearing sheds on the way home, and had a great time hanging out with a cool bunch of people and watching what went on... the kids had such a fantastic time ,watching the shearing first.. checking out exactly where the sheep go when they are pushed down the shoot... and watching the processing through different yards and the drenching etc.... They got involved in herding sheep around different yards and up the ramps, and really enjoyed being part of the process.... it was a great place to hang out for the afternoon......

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So much to watch and see........

and help with......

and even a really really cute puppy to play with...

Arwen was given the best seat in the house in the shearing shed.....

(apparantly she wasn't too keen on the noise...., never complained though, too interested in what was going on)....

tired little children bundled into car and off home...