Ewe beauty: Living the ‘Kiwi as’ life

A New Zealand farmer’s creative way to herd a sheep from a paddock has been labelled one of the most “Kiwi as” acts of all time.

Josh Jackson was trying to round up one particular sheep on his Taupo¯ farm when he decided to take a slightly different approach. Not wanting his dogs to scare the sheep, he decided to let his woolly friend ride shotgun, putting him in the passenger seat of his Polaris Ranger.

“I had the dogs on the back and I didn’t want to be too rough with the sheep and tie it up or have the dogs stand on him,” Jackson told the Herald. “So I thought, oh well, I’ll try stick him in the front seat and see how that goes. I put the seatbelt on him and it held him in there quite well and he didn’t kick or anything. He seemed quite happy so I just went with it.”

Jackson’s image, which was taken in 2016, re-emerged after it was entered in a Polaris photo competition to win a new Ranger XP 1000 HD EPS.

The photo has put a smile on many Kiwis’ faces, with some poking fun at the moment. “You drive, no ewe drive!” one person joked. Another wrote: “Dogs herding sheep in New Zealand, the easy way.” One fan declared: “Life is good in New Zealand. Hard case!”

Jackson, who now lives in Whanga¯ rei, has been a farmer for seven years and admits it’s not the first time he’s given one of his animals a ride.

“You got to make your job as fun as possible I suppose, and the sheep didn’t seem to mind.”

The Polaris competition was created to celebrate 20 years of the Ranger and 1 million of them sold, according to the company.

— Heath Moore