3BrNBBRz4UYdo+!~~60_7.JPG "chameleon54"){kind=avatar}
I shore a pet for a neighbour last week in exchange for the wool. It took a bit longer than five minutes to shear though, as the sheep is huge wether ( desexed ram ) that is fed a bucket of pellets each day and weighed around 100 - `120 kg.........
Another neighbour had a property that adjoined a rangy, scrubby mountain. There was a single feral sheep that lived on the mountain and used to get through the fences occasionally onto his property. He managed to round it up into a yard one day and asked me to come over and shear it. It had 3 or 4 years wool on and looked like a cotton ball on legs. The sheep was fairly wild and took 20 minutes to shear. It was half the size when we finished.
We gave it a full veterinary work over, worm treatment, lice treatment, foot trim etc. and then he let it go, back to its mountain. Every twelve months or so the neighbour would catch it again and call me over to shear it and give it a check up. This went on until the sheep was very old with no teeth left etc. The sheep doesnt call into the neighbours anymore, but I like to think he lived a long and healthy life on his mountain, with beautiful views over the green valley and creek below.
Reminds me of a story I read (probably Readers Digest) some years ago where an owner of six sheep needed to get his sheep shorn, and unbeknownst to him, had phoned up one of the biggest sheep stations in the area to enquire.
The sheep station owner said it could be done and then asked, 'How many sheep?"
'Six.' replied the caller.
There was a long pause, and then he was asked, "And what are their names?"
@zanadoo_56 wrote:Reminds me of a story I read (probably Readers Digest) some years ago where an owner of six sheep needed to get his sheep shorn, and unbeknownst to him, had phoned up one of the biggest sheep stations in the area to enquire.
The sheep station owner said it could be done and then asked, 'How many sheep?"
'Six.' replied the caller.
There was a long pause, and then he was asked, "And what are their names?"
'Twas a Dave Allen yarn, about his time in OZ, when he leased out a weekender on the NSW South Coast.
'Twas a Dave Allen yarn, about his time in OZ, when he leased out a weekender on the NSW South Coast.
I can quite believe it, but I read it originally decades ago - definitely in print - and probably added it to one of my scrapbooks of favourite humorous stories. It will be there somewhere but I have five heavy books of clippings and it would takes me ages to find it. The version I have definitely wasn't by Dave Allen though. That I would have remembered (like his routine re the Rev Paisley, or poking fun at Strine, or the walking on water sketch among other things).
