Sheep mustering 101

People in education circles bang on a lot about lifelong learning. UNESCO had a big focus on it in the late 1990s and there are lots of programs aimed at engaging people in different types of learning throughout their lifetime. Given the last few weeks, I think one of the keys to lifelong learning may just be uprooting your normal, comfortable life and moving to an entire different way of living where you have to take a crash course in learning! No abstract, theoretical reading here, just some frantic googling, asking those in the know and admitting my total lack of knowledge about what it is I am doing.

Today we headed into town to look at systems water cartage and pumping. I've been pretty keen since the day we arrived to get a fire pump that can be operated should the power go out and given the heatwave last week, I was even more keen to get this happening. After a bit of quick learning in the store, we headed home with a new fire pump that we can operate from dams or from tanks and a decent length of hose.

Once home, it was necessary for me to get a quick lesson in how to operate the pump and to make sure that I had the muscles to start it as well- turns out it's easier to get started than our old lawnmower in town - who would have thunk it? Our first bit of water cartage was to get some water into the brew paddock (I'm calling it this as I think it is where we will grow some hops/barley for Rohan's brewing), as this was where we wanted to move the sheep. We haven't got our proper water cartage tank yet but we used an old wheelie bin and did some transport from the open stock trough that we're wanting to empty out so that we can move it.

Water sorted and with Rohan confident that I could handle the pump and the hose our next job was a bit of sheep wrangling. They've cleared out the orchard enough that we can safely get in there and we were worried about them stripping the trees totally bare, so it was time to get them into the paddock that had had sheep in it when we first came to look at the house. Rohan had spent the last couple of mornings before the heat struck cleaning up the cattle run, so it was just going to be a matter of funnelling them into the run and down into the brew paddock. Sounds easy hey? In an ideal world, you'd get a dog to help you, but Indy the red heeler was inside sleeping behind my desk and I think her domesticated life has not prepared her for the reality of what to do when confronted with sheep. So, it was just me, Rohan and a couple of big sticks. What could go wrong with that?

It actually wasn't that bad - we only spent a couple of minutes chasing the sheep round the orchard before we both got the hang of it and as the sheep found themselves at the open gate, they looked at suspiciously before creeping in, and then making their run for freedom into the brew paddock. We wandered down and there they were, all three following each other (like sheep?) as they nosed around checking out their new home.

So while we mightn't have taught an old dog new tricks (sorry Indy), it seems you can take a school teacher and an academic and they can start to learn new ways of being and doing. Let the learning continue I reckon!