The Good Life
Country life means looking for lost cats and herding rampant sheep.
We have been living in the country for nine months, but it wasn’t until I interviewed Katie Milne, the president of Federated Farmers, for last week’s Listener, that I realised I’d never really known any farmers.
Now we know quite a few, but none better than Miles, whose prized milking sheep graze our paddocks, and Carolyn, who is his shepherdess nonpareil.
Miles has been raising sheep for only a bit more than a quarter-century, so he very much appreciates my tips. Why, I asked, didn’t he move the mother sheep away from the lambs she’d rejected so that they couldn’t hear her being motherly to the lambs she hadn’t rejected? He said he’d give it consideration but – and I can’t think why – I have a feeling he may just have been humouring me.
Miles loves his sheep. The other week, while we were out, one of them became cast – which means it got stuck on its back and couldn’t get up – and died. This was terribly upsetting, not just for us, but for Miles, who, you’d think, might be used to cruel old Mother Nature.
He is, I think, far from the stereotype of the farmer that I, like so many townies, carry about without thinking much about it. Mostly, you only hear about farmers and their relationships with their animals when things go wrong.
Farmers are not soppy about animals. Miles and his wife Janet caught three feral cats in a cage that was supposed to catch possums. Miles has never had a cat. He now has three. His favourite, Santa, disappeared for 11 days. Miles and Janet bombarded the neighbourhood with flyers and Santa was discovered locked in a shed at the neighbours’, who had been away on holiday.
The cat survived the ordeal and you have never met a happier man than Miles when it came back. Spitz was bitten by a rat and it was touch-and-go, and Blackie was hit by a car and had to have a leg amputated.
I once knew a chap who wanted to call his cat Vet’s Bills. Janet said: “We’ll have to take out another mortgage.” Miles’s sheepdog, Red, has her own chair in the living room. See, not a bit soppy.
Carolyn, who pretends to be as a tough as an old elephant’s toenails, takes sick lambs home. She has been known to tuck them into bed with her. One of her sick lambs died in the early hours of the morning, in her arms, and she couldn’t go back to sleep for crying. She buried it.
“I hate farming,” she said. She doesn’t, of course; she loves it, except when her baby lambs die, but of course most don’t because she puts them in bed and nurses them. She doesn’t know this, but I have heard her talking lovingly to the sheep in our paddocks.
Iam missing my favourite ram, the obstreperous Roger, who headbutted any other rams wanting a head scratch from me. I had nagged and nagged Miles about getting the lambs into our paddocks. Well, they’re awfully sweet, aren’t they? Ha. Be careful what you wish for.
A particular lamb, which we call Son of Roger when we are not calling him far ruder names, has figured out how to get out of his paddock and into our garden. He has, over time, collected a harem of four lady lambs, and entices them to join him on his forays into greener pastures.
We have to herd the buggers back, up to five times a very hot day. We chase them with sticks and expletives. They call us names too: “You baastards.” They meander back, stopping to snack on trees and to take a drink out of the bird bath. Greg said: “It’s like running Mt Eden prison and we’re Serco.”
I have a grudging admiration for Son of Roger. He is cunning and tenacious. I said, knowingly, to
Miles, because I have nine months’ experience in sheep breeding: “I think you’ve got a good ram there.” He said: “He’s certainly good at leading others astray.” That, I told him, is what they used to say about me at high school. “Did they really?” he said, feigning surprise. I am beginning to learn quite a lot about farmers.
Carolyn takes sick lambs home. She has been known to tuck them into bed with her.