So far I have not named any of our stock. I think I’m getting the hang of the farming malarky.👍 The next step was to get our ewes pregnant. So in February we bought a couple of rather strong boys! Yip, they were going to cover 110 ewes over the next couple of months and 4 months later we would hopefully have a field full of beautiful little lambs. We let the the boys roam the hills for a couple of days to get used to the farm and then it would be off to work!
The next task on the list was to drench the ewes. So T and I decided we are going to bring the girls in, I mean how hard could it be! Well…we failed! Thanks god no one was filming us. We would have taken “the dumbest bunch of farmers on the planet” award! After 3 hours of trying to get these bloody sheep in, we had to admit defeat! The worst part of this entire episode, was that the sheep were all in 1 paddock. We just needed to get them through the bloody gate and into the yard! It was not like we were bring them in from the hills! But you could actually see this little shites looking at us, as they stood in a tight group, plotting their next move. They had us on the run for 2 hours now and they were no finished with us yet!
With Dot being head honcho ewe, she told Ethel to head left, taking a pack of 50 girls with her and then told Doris to head right, taking 30 girls with her and she would head straight down the middle towards us with the rest. OMG.. in seconds they scattered – it was like a Black Friday sale! sheep bloody everywhere! T and I didn’t have a hope in hell of getting these girls in on our own. What we needed was a sheep dog, or as they call them here, a heading or eye dog.
So we went and first found Jess. A 6wk old Huntaway pup that supposedly came from very good stock. But being a pup, the only thing Jess knew how to do was chew my shoes and play with Maggie, so she was not going to be any good with the handling of the stock. We then decided to find a retired working dog. I was at the vet with Maggie when I read a post on their notice board about a retired 9yr bitch looking for a home. I was onto T right away and the following day, we went to fetch Ned. How she got the name is beyond me, but hey! We tried to change it but in the end, she was Ned and that was that! A trained heading dog from a large working farm…. all our worries sorted. Or so we thought!
A fun run in the field for Jess 
Ned’s 1st day 
Jess & Maggie
The following day, we headed out to the sheep again but this time we had increased our arsenal by calling Ned in. Yip.. Ned the “experienced” heading dog was a tad confused by my commands and I don’t blame her. I was pretty shite at telling her to fetch the sheep! She just stood there with a blank look on her face. I guess my accent didn’t really help either. Being with one Kiwi farmer all her life, I have no doubt, coming over to us seem like start French Lessons at the age of 63 – it aint gonna be easy! Then Terry came down with Jess who just bounces all over the place (Jess not Terry). Jess saw the sheep and was very enthusiastic! So enthusiastic, that she managed to get out of her collar and had a field day chasing the sheep around. What a mare!! But once T got her back under control and Ned sort of figuring out what she had to do, they finally got the sheep into a corner & we moved them into the yard. Then the fight started. Human vs sheep! Having never drenched sheep before, I was all finger and thumbs. 2 hours later we won…we were done! 110 sheep drenched in the rain and now happily grazing on the hill await the Rams the next day! We ended up drink a couple of bottles of well deserved wine. The following morning…OMG… I was sooooo stiff and sore..could barely walk. This farming malarkey was going to be hard work! 😊🍷😌
From Glamour To Gumboots 