Monday, November 20, 2006

real work

of course i dont mean that rounding up sheep is the only real work in the world, and of course im not doing it for a living (although i would drop everything right now to be a proper sheep farmer, drought, flies and all) but it always brings me back to earth to go hang out in a hot and dusty paddock workin' sheep with me dawg :)

here are some pix of the weekend.

day one: possum goes crazy and kylie has to 'get after her':


everyone watches kylie get after her:


thats chance and chloe the dogs, with georgina and will on the ground, john, robert (mr-instructor-australian-champion-we're-not-worthy), nathan and michelle on the fence and pete with matty. i suspect they are very busy dissecting what im doing wrong. thanks guys.

day two: things are a little calmer and possum and kylie discuss tactics for dealing with this mob.




in the background are the other people working with jenny in the ring - possum and i have progressed to the paddock where everything you dont know is amplified six hundred percent.

here is possum contemplating her sheep:


and here is possum going toe to toe.


i wonder if this is the sheep who took off later and bashed into me with his devilish cloven hoof. i have a huge bruise over my ribs. possum also ripped open her shoulder while scrambling out of the water trough which she insists on jumping in for a drink even tho its too deep for her and she just about drowns. so we are the walking wounded, but very pleased. even tho things didnt run as smooth as they did last time at michelago, it was good because i managed to work through her craziness and get her to work real nice and soft for me on sunday. im getting more confident and learning to watch the sheep more, and we're still aiming for a trialling debut in march, so alls good.

had a bbq at jo-the-vets place sat night and watched michelle drink too many jim beams and do some bootscooting and tell us how when she was born she fell head first in the toilet. explains a lot. but we love her really.

great fun. exhausting. i do have some knitting to report on but will save that for tomorrow.

k xx

7 comments:

Taphophile said...

crikey - herding as a contact sport. Hope you and Miss Possum heal quickly.

DrK said...

roflmao, i know it got a bit wild there. tried to grab some fleece on the way past but it was too quick dammit!

Fernicle said...

I love the idea of Miss kylie out in the paddock with possum!! Having grown up on a sheep farm, and with an uncle totally into the whole trial herding gig (Richard Puddicombe, keep an eye out!), I am well familiar with the joys of random sheep runs - sorry to hear you got hurt though. Must respect the sheep! Did I just say respect the sheep?? Kisses...

DrK said...

hey miss fern. did you know your uncle has been NSW yard dog champ? of course you did. im training to do the same kind of trialling as him. cool! although i dont expect to be winning anything for a while yet :) i find it hard to respect a sheep that insists on jumping at me when i am actually holding a gate open for it - twit! i am getting better at watching them instead of my dog tho :)

Denise said...

Hope you heal quickly - that's a drastic way to get fleece! There are these places called Yarn Shops, you know... LOL!

Glad you had such a good weekend :)

Denise said...

Lulu says "Maaaaaaa, well done sister sheeeep! Fight the big nasty dog things!"

happyspider said...

wool gathering eh? heal fast :)