Country Living – Shear madness

Catering and cooking for shearing gangs should have been the easiest task afforded to someone like me in my farming career. Unfortunately though, I have always had this uncanny ability to over-complicate everything in my life, and this was no exception. I had already driven myself nutty trying to provide gourmet meals before the penny dropped, and I realised all they needed was a couple of scones and bacon and egg pies. Even then, I always managed to stuff the scones up. Once they got nailed to a wall they were that hard; I was so embarrassed.

One year, any sensibility I had must have walked out on me when I decided to make a fiery hot lamb curry for lunch. Did I really think that was appropriate when shearers spend all afternoon bending over within a metre of each other? For sanity reasons I eventually put them on “full contract”, where they provide their owns meals, and I decided I would only cater for the end of shearing and give myself the title of “cut-out queen”. I’m quite the recluse on this farm, so I looked forward to a little shindig, and they deserved spoiling after all their toil.

Shearers love a beer or three at the end of the job and rightly so. My most memorable time was after a main shear and the long, hot, dry summer had just given way to a heavy rain. I have the fondest memories of that hazy, late afternoon; the perfume of rain on parched soil permeating the shed, sweaty bodies collapsed in relaxed positions, uncontrived simple and wholesome Kiwi banter and laughter.

The beer flowed and my cooking was well received and, ever so perfectly, the songs of the 1960s rang out. Mr Allan Piggot was a steely ole bugger and our left-handed shearer. For me, his life story seemed to fall out of the pages of an old cowboy novel. Allan and I danced the night away. I knew our dance moves were full of fault but that mattered not, because I knew that little dance opened the pages of two opposing life stories, and that perhaps these two little novels sat more closely on the shelf than they had thought. Then just like tired eyes, those books of life were shut when I proceeded to go outside to the toilet. The rain on the shearing shed steps, a ridiculous pair of shoes and one or two many beers saw me tumble six steps into a pile of mud at the bottom. I am sure it would have been a hilarious sight if it hadn’t hurt so much.

The repercussions and rants from that little episode lasted about a month, but I didn’t care. They say some lessons in life are more memorable than others and this was a page I felt comfortable slipping into my life’s manuscript. Anyways, that concludes my series on my non-farming career, perhaps it’s safe to say I am a better writer than a farmer? Nevertheless, I’m still here to tell the tale, so it’s onwards and upwards to some new rural life adventures.

Julie Cotton
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