No matter how boring we feel at times, we all engage in some kind of work or hobby that someone around us is curious about.
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An activity might become so run of the mill that we find it almost ludicrous that someone else would have any interest in seeing it in action or hearing about it in detail.
But as the old-timers have been saying for decades, it would be a boring world if we were all the same.
Sharing knowledge and skills is obviously not a new concept.
It’s what men’s sheds, CWAs, community houses, clubs and hubs run on.
Teachers teach us at school, employers and trained staff teach us in our jobs.
Friends and family quite often teach us our hobbies.
Or these days, YouTube does a fair bit of that.
Some people’s jobs, however, are more than just their jobs.
They’re their whole lifestyle.
And their jobs are so relentless, demanding and multi-faceted that they encompass all their hobbies, too.
Farmers are those ‘some people’. People who live on the land they work.
Last week, my family members in the northern Grampians hosted my boys and me for a couple of nights in a little off-grid cabin overlooking a reservoir on their 2500-acre, 2000-head-of-sheep farm.
The cabin was a kilometre or two down a dirt track from their main residence.
When night fell, our light was from candles, and our warmth from a roaring wood fire.
When it died out sometime through the night, everything became pitch black and the air was void of any sound besides the occasional cracking of leaf litter underfoot of wildlife passing by, a bird call or a distant gunshot echoing somewhere over the hills.
I woke several times in the night fearing briefly in my blurry half-consciousness that I had become blind and deaf, such was the oddness of the absence of the sound and light pollution that exists in suburbia.
It was beautiful, but alien. And, at times, unsettling.
By day we explored, spotted kangaroos, visited nearby towns and landmarks.
By night we toasted marshmallows and told scary stories.
On our last day we’d planned on leaving as soon as we were up and organised, but my uncle had to be elsewhere for a different job, so asked us to help his partner move a flock of sheep 3km down a public road and then with feeding another flock somewhere else on the farm.
The idea excited us, but the stock agent wasn’t due to help with his working kelpie until lunchtime.
I felt I couldn’t skip out on helping seeing as they’d been so kind as to accommodate us, so I whacked on my flannie and hat and settled in for a day of changed plans with a later-than-expected arrival home.
While we were waiting for the stock agent, we got to tour the shearing shed, handle the fine Merino wool that is purchased by upmarket clothing manufacturers such as Armani, and learn about the sheep and the farm.
When the man and his dog, Boon, did arrive and the mustering began, it quickly became apparent we weren’t there to help.
The benefit and the privilege were all ours.
We were there to witness something quite foreign to us from front-row seats.
We followed the stock agent’s ute in our own with our hazard lights on.
Maybe we were useful by providing an extra buffer between uneducated campers at the reservoir who’d come flying up behind us trying to pass Boon’s finely assembled funnel of skittish sheep.
We watched as the hard-working kelpie expertly bullied the flock up the road, clearing his master’s high ute sides onto the tray with ease in one bound off his spring-like hind legs each time he was recalled.
The sheep were moved without incident, no thanks to us, who had no clue what we were supposed to be doing.
With the sheep calm and penned ready for shearing, Boon took a well-earned swim in the sheep’s trough.
They all looked at him while he sweated and panted somewhat disrespectfully in their drinking water.
I couldn’t help but wonder if the dog took some kind of pleasure in rubbing that in their bleating faces. Maybe I’ve watched Footrot Flats one too many times.
I know that’s a very human suspicion and assessment.
Animals are far more simple creatures.
Dog was hot and bothered, dog saw water, dog hopped in water to cool down and rehydrate. Dog only kept his eyes on the sheep because that’s his job. Sheep only kept their eyes on the dog because they bow to his every command and were waiting nervously for his next.
I love a working dog’s attitude and work ethic, its energy and determination, its intelligence and its confidence. Even its arrogance, which is an often unappealing trait in humans, is quite lovable.
We said our goodbyes to Boon and wished the fine Merinos all the best for their shearing day before heading into another paddock where their meaty cross-bred farm mates were waiting to be fed.
My boys rode in the ute tray, stepping onto the feeding trailer when we stopped to release the feed for the eager, overly vocal sheep.
They reminded me of our cat at meal time. She meows as loudly and frequently as she can, even though she’s still got some dry food left in her bowl from her last feed that she could always eat if she was that hungry.
I guess in just three months after being emancipated from the local lock-up where she’d spent her entire six months of life before then, she’s already learned the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
The sheep had been grazing on the ground when we arrived, but if you could translate baa-ing to English, they’d be telling you they were famished, that they hadn’t eaten in an eternity.
We’re all familiar with the sound a sheep makes, but did you know, when you’re standing in the middle of a hungry bleating flock, they all have different voices?
It was like they were a barber shop band singing me several varied bars of baas.
A baa-baa shop band, if you will.
(But you probably won’t.)
Apologies.
I’m not a sheep farmer or a musician, and that evaluation might be laughable to those who are.
But as I’ve said before, when I go to the city, I feel like a bumpkin, and when I go deep into the country, I feel like a city slicker.
As someone who exists somewhere in between, I’m grateful to be afforded tastes of both lifestyles.
But what I’m even more grateful for are the thoughtful and giving people in mine and the kids’ lives.
Our day wasn’t slowed down by “having” to stay and help.
Their work was slowed down by taking the time to share their expertise and introduce us to something we hadn’t had a chance to be involved in before; something we may never have a chance to be involved in again.
If there’s one message I want to ram home, it’s to stay longer, “help” with the chores if you’re offered, and leave the jobs waiting at home a little longer, because ewe just can’t buy authentic experiences like this one.
Senior journalist