A day in the life of the sheep shearing business, this is how it works. Peter Lyons and his wife Elsie have a sheep shearing contract business, one of the largest in New Zealand in fact, shearing 1.5 million sheep per year. They live near the small town of Alexandra where they have several horses, some sheep, and a few pigs. The sheep shearing does not actually occur at their property, but on ranchers property all across Central Otago. These are called “stations” or “sheds.” Across the street from their house is the bunk house quarters, which is where Tony and I live. The first building on the left is the kitchen where “MaMa Lu” prepares all our meals along with the dining room which consists of bench style tables. Then there are a few rows of slightly older buildings that house 4-5 people per room, which is only about 10 sq ft. Clearly these rooms are not large, just enough for a bed and one bag per person, no room for dresser drawers in these palaces. Across the street from these living quarters is a grassy lawn area with a large willow tree and 5 little 8×12 ft cabins, this is where Tony and I reside. Every morning we get up at 5am and walk to the dining room for spaghetti, eggs, and buttered toast. There is a dry erase board under an awning where the daily list of vans going out is posted, we call these “shearing gangs.“ All the employees that live on site or in town gather here at 5am to see if they are working that day. Then you get on your assigned van and ride at least an hour to somebody’s sheep shed, you never know where you will be going or what your day will hold until 5am, but you can guarantee there will be lots of sheep and wool involved.
There are anywhere from 2-10 shearers depending which job you are at, and at least 1 rousey for every 2 shearers. Since each shearer averages at least 50 sheep per hour, this is once orchestrated event. Tony is in the back herding sheep around which can be extremely varied on which shed we are at and how many people are shearing, he is called a “Sheepo”. He has to help move and manage anywhere from 500-6000 sheep per day, constantly filling the shearers pins with these delightful animals. These can include 300 lb sheep that try to charge into him or the wall, terrified and clueless baby lambs that won’t move, sheep dogs that can’t understand his accent and just repeatedly bark at him, and best of all snot and really smelly things. He has finally found something that is even more stubborn and hard headed than me. After he has gotten this all taken care of for at least a few minutes he then proceeds to run back and forth to press the wool when our sweeping pile becomes unmanageable. This is essentially a giant pile of wool that accumulates in a matter of minutes, (thanks to help of wonderful rousey’s like myself). He then stuffs all the wood into a huge machine where it is then slowly pressed and compacted, then he repeats this process until the bail is formed and weighs about 400lbs. Yesterday with 3 shearers, 2 rouseys (me being one), and Tony playing sheepo, we made 5 bails of wool from 450 sheep, that is a ton of hair to deal with, literally. At the end of the day after screaming, kicking, and occasionally biting sheep he is left soaking in sweat, dirt, and smelling like a sheep, with the occasional clump of wool in his goatee. The shearers are going as fast as possible since they are paid per sheep, and the rouseys are gracefully dancing along with their brooms, delicately maneuvering the wool from one area to the other. Then there is me.
It has now been almost a month for me working as a rousey on the sheep shearing crew. Nothing in all my workforce experience, management training, photojournalism days, and college degrees have prepared me for this job. All a rousey has to do is use a flat paddled broom, sweep wool away from the sheerer and separate the pizzle (pee), dag (poo), the good wool, and the face wool. You then put these into appropriate bins or piles, and sweep the heap of good wool to the press, all while going about 90 miles an hour. I am one of the few new people on the staff that has never done this, most of them have the patience of saints for my overwhelming sense of confusion, while others have no clue why I can be so challenged at times. I like to try and communicate properly, ask questions to make sure I have at least a moderate understanding of the process. There training consisted of “If it is yellow, put it in that pile,” which does not necessarily mean the same thing to me. Unfortunately I see about 10 shades of yellow and still have yet to fully understand which yellow is bad, I now have the tendency to just make a quick decision and hope that no one notices if it is wrong or right. At one point my directions consisted of “put that there and this here,” roger that! Obviously these are crystal clear instructions, right? Anyone who knows me realizes that I don’t have a graceful bone in my body, and if you have ever had the opportunity to watch me dance, well you know that I have no coordination. So amidst this synchronized dance, I am the one who is at least two steps out of rhythm, spinning in the wrong direction, and manhandling the wool. I at least can laugh about it, but one kink in their system throws them off balance. Who would have thought that wool sweeping required so much coordination?
At the end of the day, after riding at least an hour in the van to work at 5am (sometimes earlier), having an hour lunch break with the standard issued butter sandwiches, 2 thirty minute cookie and tea filled breaks, and the ride back, our day is pretty much spent by the time we arrive at nearly 6pm (sometimes later). We eat, shower, lie around watching a movie on the laptop rented from the local video store, hoping the hot weather will eventually break and allow some sleep to happen. Yes they have a local video store, Netflix and Redbox are far to advanced for this neck of the woods, but in a way it makes it feel more like an event to go and rent a movie. We rented “Fun with Dick and Jane” from the video store, because the scene with Jim Carey hopping over from the Mexican border and piling into the little ford fiesta with his amigos reminds us of our daily ride to and from work. The vans hold up to 12 people when you cram us all in there, Tony and I are the typical American prudes, being the only ones with seatbelts on aside from the driver, and usually are the only ones who are not smoking. If we are lucky we get a non smoking driver and that makes the day much more tolerable. The ride back usually take longer due to the several stops to the “bottle shops” for cases of beer that are immediately chugged down upon opening. This is a totally different life style and experience than anything we are used to. The amount of cussing cannot be counted, the tobacco cannot be measured, but neither can the kindness or sense of humor from the people that we work with.
0 thoughts on “Lousy Rousey”
Sounds like an experience to me. Hard work! Something to tell your Grandchildren about one day. LOL Butter sandwiches????Really??? Not a healthy diet. Enjoy this part of your lives….sounds like the beginning of a good book. Take care of yourselves and come back home safely. (Sounds like a mother right?)