15 Selling the wool

I asked Johnny how to sell the wool. Take it into TWG on Polo Flat in Cooma, ask for an estimate and if you don’t like it take across the road to the other agent. What should I get? Should be a fair amount, he said, because it’s beaut wool, about 19 micron. I borrowed John’s trailer and with some difficulty rolled the bale and bits up some planks onto it. It looked strange perched up behind the Alfa.

I recalled Garry’s story about when he sold his first wool clip, just 3 bales, and driving into the Agent’s car park and queuing behind semi trailers stacked high with wool. How much you got they asked. Three he replied which they mistook for 300.

The agents weighed it, opened it and pulled out a few hands full. Nice wool! Who’s your shearer? I told them. How did you get him they asked, he retired? Did he class it? I said he and John did that. They approved. It seemed both were well known and considered good enough to delve no further. I had been in good hands. Paper work was filled in with unit, price per unit, amount and total. There were 3 categories and it all came to $1210.

Inputs were $850 for the sheep which included the agent’s fees and delivery plus $45 for insecticide and $100 for shearing so I was $215 ahead in just 3 months of farming. Plus I still had 34 sheep, mainly carrying lambs. I would have maybe $1600 income next year. Farming was money for jam.

13 Shearing

It was three months after we had bought the sheep and it seemed time to make some money instead of just spending. I had no idea how to go about shearing. Davo had introduced me to my other near neighbour John who Davo declared was uncrowned Creewah Mayor; certainly royalty. I asked him for advice. John was a man of many parts who together with Jill had lived several previous lives. Among these were policeman, postman, shearer and gardener and landscaper. They ran sheep and cattle on their place. John’s favourite greeting wasn’t ‘Good morning’, but ‘Do you want a hand?’ These few words kept the royalty very busy.

He reckoned we should ask Johnny about shearing. He lived with his partner Rosie in the small stone house by the river where it was crossed by New Line Road. The corrugated iron sheds opposite his place were shearing sheds that had been built by his father and grandfather. They had owned much of the land around the area. Johnny had been a shearer but had retired to concentrate more closely on more serious things in life. Davo’s comment was ‘He’s a wreck’.

Johnny didn’t look a wreck. He had sharp eyes, black hair with no trace of grey and a slender body that looked about 40. I had seen him and Rosie several times as we drove past their place. I had thought Rosie might be his mother. They liked to sit outside in the sunshine and take in the view while they enjoyed liquid refreshment. They waved at everyone who passed. Johnny agreed to come out of retirement and shear the sheep. It would likely take him two days as his back was stuffed. He would start on Saturday about 8.30. Put them in the sheds late Friday so they’ll be dry to shear, he said.

When John said ‘Do you want a hand’ it often meant he would take charge and you would give him a hand. He came around with his dark brown Kelpie-style dog called Tuffy on Friday afternoon and it was on. The dog without much help had the sheep in a tight controlled group in no time and we set off to walk them through Gordon’s then Johnnie’s place to the sheds. The sheep were coaxed into the pens in the sheds to spend the night.

I like to be early for anything, so she and I arrived at the sheds at 8.15 am to check out the poor sheep. They were standing quietly, stirring a little as we came in. They knew more about what was going to happen than we did. Johnny appeared a little after 8.30. We had to move the big diesel generator from his house to the sheds. It would drive the shearing gear. That completed he turned on the radio to country music, set to sharpening blades, oiling and assembling his handpiece and attaching it to the driving arm.

What do I do I asked? Sweep the floor, he said, and make sure it really is clean and then clean the table and move it onto the floor. The wooden slatted table was where each fleece would be thrown so the oily edges could be removed as second class wool. She and I followed the instructions. Rosie appeared and told us about classing and pretty much everything else about the process including that some of our sheep would soon be lambing. You have beaut sheep she said. Nicest around here.

Johnny went into the pen, grabbed a sheep by its front legs and dragged it on its back to lie quietly between his knees under the shearing gear. The starting string was pulled, the handpiece started rattling and humming and within seconds the sheep had had a haircut and its rear end was scalped. The bits were on the floor. They had to go in separate empty fertiliser bags hanging on the wall. Meanwhile the fleece came off. It was beautiful to watch the long gentle strokes that peeled the wool away in one big piece. The sheep was mesmerised by Johnny’s touch. It seems I was now supposed to pick up the fleece and throw it onto the table like a sheet onto a bed, outside up. I needed a lesson. It hit the roof, landed upside down in a crumpled heap. Rosie reckoned it wasn’t too bad for a first try. I didn’t get any better though.

Luckily John and Jill arrived at that point. Do you need a hand? Silly question. He took over throwing, string pulling, bagging, fleece pressing in a wool pack suspended in a green machine in the corner and probably lots of other things I didn’t notice. It all went really well until Johnny stopped the gear at about 10.30. It was morning tea time. Rosie brought out the thermos and Johnny went for a leak and for his own private tea over in the house. We only found out much later that food was our responsibility. We didn’t have a clue. Rosie knocked up some thick sandwiches.

It all started again about 20 minutes later. The sheep were even more relaxed in Johnnie’s hands than previously. It seemed he only had to breathe on them to make them almost comatose. We were supposed to spend two days on the exercise but it was finished before lunch. The retired shearer had done a brilliant job and the sheep were now shining white without a trace of blood anywhere. The dog could take them back home. One wool pack was bursting full of fleeces and there were a few bags containing the dags and other extras. Johnny said come over tomorrow with the cheque.

7 Herding the sheep

I was actually more experienced in handling sheep than I pretended. Once, at thirteen, when I was working on a farm in the Yorkshire Dales during school holidays, I had been told to move a flock of about 100 scraggy Yorkshire sheep from one field, down a lane, across a road and into another field. Just find the leader, grab hold of his ear and the others will follow. I was nonplussed thinking I would be helped by a dog, but that was it. I decided in retrospect this was an initiation ceremony and that the farmer and all the hands were killing themselves laughing behind the hedge.

I started by walking the route and opening the gates in readiness. Which was the lead sheep, they were just a bunch? I grabbed hold of the ear of a big one. It just shook me off and took off in the wrong direction. Meanwhile behind me the others were streaming out of the gate and down the lane. The cars stopped when they crossed the road and that was it. They didn’t need me at all.

A week after ordering my new flock, we drove down our farm lane arriving from Canberra, and parked the car. There was a flock of sheep in the River Paddock grazing peacefully just like sheep are meant to do. We leaned on the gate, took in the scene and the sunshine, and felt a relaxed achievement. The note from the agent accompanying the all-up bill of $850 said the 34 animals had been drenched and crutched and were ready to roll. I actually counted 35 so we had a freebie, but was later told by a neighbour that farmers count sheep by summing the legs and dividing by four, so I could have my maths wrong.

The reason for putting them in the River Paddock was because there were small yards and a race in one corner where they could be handled. The next day we decided to yard them so we could have a better look. My long experience told me they would go in there without trouble.
Just in case of having minor difficulties I asked the neighbours, father, mother and two kids if they could help. The plan was to make a line across the 300 metre-wide paddock and slowly walk the sheep towards the yards. Joke. Almost 50 m between people was a steal for the sheep that poured through the gaps time after time. They were much fitter than any of us and much better at bisecting angles. After 2 hours we gave up. The sheep won. The yards were in the wrong place.

Everyone knows sheep are dumb. She and I discussed the plan for tomorrow. We would win. First part was to erect a long fence that funnelled the sheep towards the yards; a right-angled corner was useless. Second part was a movable fence that would close off the head of the funnel once they were in. Third part was to have two herders, she and I, and take it quietly. We went to bed confident; after all I had been master of 100 sheep in my youth.
My fencing was architecturally unattractive but the plan worked perfectly.

In the yards came a revelation. All the sheep were ewes and the freebie was a large lamb to one of them. Time to try Plan B.

6 Ordering 30 merino wethers

I had to get serious about sheep to fulfil the Tax requirements. My work colleague Murray, a farmer himself by upbringing over near Ardlethan, told me I couldn’t go past Merino wethers, boys that would never grow into rams. Get a certain-number-of-teeth wethers. I wrote that number down. They will give you a good wool clip for about 5 years and you’ll be way ahead. Ewes can be a pain.

Following the advice I fronted up at the Stock and Station Agents in Bombala. I asked for what Murray had told me, about 30 fine-wool merino wethers. I had memorised it beforehand from the piece of paper. Where’s your property, what’s it called, how long you had merinos, how many microns, who’s your shearer? I admitted to not being a farmer but that I was very excited about getting my first flock of sheep and I was totally in their hands. No worries the agent said, I’ll drop them off in the next couple of weeks. I gave the instructions to leave them in the River Paddock. No price was discussed, he would look after me. She looked worried.

4 The business plan: mixed farming

She kept asking how my business plan was progressing. I said I was working on it mentally. It was pretty obvious that if I could be considered a Primary Producer by the tax department we would save heaps of money because our loan would be tax deductible. This was well before GST during the time of cheap diesel and the superphosphate bounty for farmers. Farmers also got huge tax reductions on purchases of recognised farm machinery. Some four wheel drive cars fell into this category, though the pansy 4WD vehicles that rich people parked on their front lawns to test out their off-road capabilities were excluded. The list of potential benefits was long.
I did a bit of reading. We would need a largish flock of sheep, or cattle, or we could plant lots of pines or grow lucerne for stock feed. These were all recognised tax-deductible activities for our area. None fitted; the part of the property that could be used for these activities was too small. Most of it was native trees and bush and even if cleared it would be too steep for arable farming.
Leo, Spanish by birth and always lateral, reckoned I should grow chestnuts. Australia imported the vast proportion of its chestnuts so there was lots of space in the market. A decent chestnut tree at 10 to 80 years will produce far more than 100 kg nuts each year. Nuts sell at $4 per kg, towards $10 for best quality material, so each tree would yield at least $400. 100 trees would bring in $40,000 annually for almost no work. The investment required was only $15 to 20 per grafted tree.
Because the lead-in time for profit from chestnuts would be 10 years, I would need a small flock of sheep to provide cash flow in the meantime. A small flock meant at least 30.
The Tax department liked this plan and approved my detailed 5-year schedule as being suitable for the area and the size of the property. Suddenly I was a Primary Producer with the world and a real farm at my feet. She reminded me a few times I didn’t know anything about chestnuts or sheep. She was right. I looked pretty stupid later when her brother asked me the DSE for my property. What’s DSE? He looked concerned too in a ‘my sister married a black sheep’ way.