As I mentioned in last weeks missive, the sheep have had their annual visit from the shearer. It was a little earlier than I would have liked, but grass cover in the front paddock (the only paddock with a pen suitable for sheep containment) was getting sparse.

Now, moving the sheep is one of those chores that can take mere moments or, if you don’t nail it first pop, the best part of your morning . They’re wily beasts. Luckily, I had the Tiny Housers on hand; you know, just in case…

And you know, I was so close…rattling the feed bucket, I did a brisk trot around the paddock with the flock following me in a manner as to make a laughing stock of Mary and her paltry one lamb. Heading down the home straight with the pen in my sights, I broke into a rather shambolic jog, skipped through the gate, joyously chucked the feed nuts on the ground and counted sheep, literally, while I caught my breath and gained composure. Five and sundry lambs; that’s but half the flock. Of course it was Orla who put a spanner in the works; this was not her first rodeo (so to speak), she has a very long memory, and this extra feed in the morning looked just a little too good to be true. We managed to up the pen count to six by wafting around a bit of feed wheat – Eleanor can’t resist the stuff. Then, after way too long running in circles, Colin was pressed into service – on a lead, I hasten to add – and it all worked like a dream. All he needed to do was sit and look menacing (which he did beautifully) and Amanda was quickly added to the pen. We decided to cut our losses and capture the last three where they had set up camp.

Luckily our shearers are understanding blokes.

On Saturday, we spent the afternoon preparing the front half of the goat paddock for their arrival as per last year. Electric fencing is great but, like shepherding, always takes a great deal of walking, guesswork and bad words before all is as it should be. On the positive side, as we did this four months earlier in the year than last time, the sun is still low enough in the sky to allow for all day shady patches thus negating the need for creative sunshades.

On Sunday, we undertook the move. Now, this is a high stakes manoeuvre as it requires the eight ewes and their eight lambs (Fred and his paddock mate were destined for the back paddock) to exit the sheep paddock, run across the front of our driveway, and enter the goat paddock. To ensure our girls don’t take it into their heads to hit-the-road-Jack, the homestead fleet is parked strategically blocking off this option and creating a walkway from sparse paddock to lovely, ample feed (sorry, no photos – its a high pressure undertaking). For a little perspective, I had to slow my journey home recently as our across the road, real deal farmer moved may ten times the amount of our flock out one gate, ten or so metres along the road, and into another gate with the help of one dog.

Still, all our preparation paid off. Four of the lambs did get a little befuddled by their mothers kicking up their heels and heading for pastures new, went down the vee between open paddock gate and fence, and had to be chased down and carried to their kind-of-worried-but-this-grass-is-good mothers but all in all we chalked it up as a success.

After all that excitement, things have settled back to what we laughingly call normal.

Smallscale Shepherding: a workout for body and soul.