Shearing Video

I posted a little video last weekend where I showed you all the animals that I come in to contact with on a regular basis, which you can view here.  In it I introduced you to the dogs, the horses, a rabbit, a cat, my cow and her calf and also our sheep.  I promised I would show you a little video of my husband shearing, so today here he is!  As well as doing this during the week as a job he is often found on weekends shearing a few, either ours, his Dads or his brothers.  In this video he had a little weekend job for a neighbour of my Dad.

It's pretty self-explanatory but if it's not something you see everyday it can be kind of interesting!

I hope you like it and maybe learned something new!



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Lanolips

You know when you find one of those magic products and you get kind of excited about it?  Yep, well this would be Lanolips.  Ok, so I was initially attracted to the packaging (like I always am with cosmetics....I mean, come on....it has a sheep with lipstick on the tube!!), but it is the 101 uses of the Lanolips 101 Ointment that is a big winner in my book.

Now I'm pretty accustomed to lanolin.  I mean my husband brings it home on his dungarees (shearing pants) everyday from work.  It coats the front of his dungas and is a big horrible sticky mess and is quite hard to get out in the wash (I've discovered you have to spray the fronts with stain remover to get rid of it properly). 

The lanolin is what is within a sheep's wool, and if you've never picked up wool straight off the sheep's back, it is greasy and quite sticky, but after you've been handling it you have lovely soft hands. 



This is not the grade of lanolin that is in Lanolips 101 Ointment, but rather an Ultra-refined Medical Grade lanolin, but it is still essentially the same stuff.  And it's fabulous to use on everything from chapped lips, torn cuticles and really dry or even itchy skin. 

It's very thick in the tube, but you simply squish it around to warm it up between your hands and you're good to go.  I love it.  It's also good for babies, including newborns.

This being the original product that started it all, there are a few other bits and bobs in the range, the ones I have included are the Intense Hand Balm with Rose Oil and the Lemonaid Lip Aid with Lemon Oil, which is delicious!  Not that I eat it, but it does smell like homemade lemonade!  Yum!

The Intense Hand Balm is the best hand cream I've come across in ages.  You don't need very much and it doesn't have a really strong rose smell, which I like.  It goes on really thick, and for a few seconds feels a little sticky, but almost immediately my skin drinks it in and my hands feel soft straight away.  I have really really dry hands.  They are in and out of water (having to change nappies still I wash them like ten thousand times a day...), and I'm out in the dirt and muck at the farm with the horse and the sheep etc.  I'm so glad I tried it because this is going to remain in my cupboard for good.

The Lemonaid Lip Aid is very thick too, which means this little tube is going to last you an age.  As mentioned it reminds me of homemade lemonade.  It's really conditioning and leaves a lovely shine.  It's a got a handy twist on lid, which sounds a random thing to mention, but I hate lids popping of lip balms in my bag because they end up with fluff and dirt stuck all over them, so this is not an issue here.

 

Apart from this being made in Australia, I love how founder Kirsten Carriol thought back to the days on her Grandparent's South Australian sheep farm and remembered the simple benefits of the lanolin from the sheep.  There's also no nasties in these products, like parabens, petrolatum, mineral oil or sulfates, and they are also animal friendly. 

 

Being around sheep and a shearer I am aware that lanolin is an animal friendly product, it certainly doesn't hurt the sheep to be shorn, it's a necessity (not just because we want the wool), but it stops them getting fly blown and full of maggots (err, gross I know).  The lanolin comes out of the wool and is removed once the wool is off the sheep, so all the sheepies are none the wiser! 

 

Such a versatile animal, and great to have use for another product from sheep!

 

www.lanolips.com







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The Perks of Being a Writer/Photographer

Out of all the jobs I've had in my lifetime there are two that have really stood out as my favourite. 

One was where I worked on a property in Barham in New South Wales which had sheep and cattle.  This is my 'office view', mustering sheep on the motorbike.  My boss was horrible (think 70 something year old creepy guy that used to put his hand on my leg whilst in the ute and slap me on the butt on a regular basis), but the job was fantastic.  We lived in a house on his property.

Here it is.

 

And this is the view that I had from my veranda...

 

 

Our couch didn't fit in the house so it is there on the veranda.  Actually it was the perfect place for a nap on a warm day, which is something I did quite a few times.  Yes, it was a good life.  Despite the horrible boss.  I also got to attend The Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show where I showed his Border Leicester sheep, something I had never done before.

 



 



A few of the other random things I have done in my lifetime have included this..

 

 

I wasn't brilliant at selling lingerie, as you can tell by my slightly stunned expression.

 

I also run a little online store for a while...

 

 

Actually I look a little stunned here too.  Could be that I was enormously pregnant with my third child.

 

Other professions have included my first job, and my longest lasting, working at my Dad's picture framing business, various receptionist and secretarial positions, working in a bookstore and a swimwear shop, and most bizarre, working on the door of a strip club.  Yes, I did say strip club (and no, I never took my clothes off...trust me, no one would pay me to take them off.  Maybe pay me to put them on....)  Oh..and I worked in a British pub..in St. Kilda.

 

Just before I met my husband I started working as a farmhand and cattle fitter (someone that breaks in cattle for shows) at a Limousin cattle stud, and after I got fired (because of my husband actually!), I had a job as a farm manager on an Angus cattle stud.

 

This is me breaking in a Murray Grey bull for my Dad..

 

 

And here I am showing a heifer at The Melbourne Show..

 

I really enjoy showing cattle.  This is my happy face.

 





This one was in Labertouche, the farm that I managed, which got burnt to the ground a few months after I started there in the Black Saturday fires.  Lost that one due to there being no farm left to manage. 

 

 

This is me after fighting fire at that particular farm on the Friday after Black Saturday.  This was my relatively new ute that forever more smelt of bushfire.  It's probably hard to see but I was covered in soot, and later when I got home and had a shower I discovered my white underwear had turned almost black. 

 

However this leads me to my current job as a writer and photographer.  I got to thinking this morning about all the perks involved.  As well as being able to do something I really enjoy, and actually get paid for it for a change, there are a considerable number of other perks as well.

 

The first of these would include the morning teas.  Err...yes!  I'm talking scones and jam and cream while interviewing a lovely lady about her alpacas, (all while sitting in her gorgeous home with the beautiful view across the valley looking towards the Baw Baw's)....

 



....Gingernuts and a cuppa on a farm in Korumburra after a bracing walk through the paddocks surrounded by happy free range hens....

 





 

and even a free latte in The Red Fox Cafe in Drouin. (I'm not a coffee drinker but it was rather fun anyway.)

 

 

As well as the food and drink I also get to met some fantastic people, go to different places and experience different things.  For example...

 

 

To get this shot I was riding on the mobile starter gate at the Warragul Harness Racing Cup.  Now that was an experience...and kind of scary!  I'd never been to the harness racing either and I also got to go to the special members lunch with famous old AFL footballers and Koko the Clown (what the..?)

 

This was a lovely couple I met at Amber Creek Farm (which weirdly is my name.. Amber..my surname is not Creek Farm.)

 

 

They have the most gorgeous paddock raised pigs.  I swear, I've never seen such happy pigs.  See...

 

 

I had to go down to Fish Creek in South Gippsland for this story, but I've also been out to Toongabbie for my shearing story (which meant I got to visit my husband at work!) and later this year it looks like I'll be heading all the way out to Bairnsdale to do a story on a winery.

 

I love writing, as is evident due to having a blog for my work, as well as a personal blog page at www.mummywhispers.wordpress.com but I really love taking photos. 

 

This is me at work...

 

 

 

 



I was the school photographer in Year 10 and majored in photography at university, but I never thought I would actually ever be paid for my photos.  I have had a few photography jobs in the past doing family and children photography, although I've never done a wedding.  That, I think would be the pinnacle, even though, no doubt, it would be stressful.

 

My job, in a nutshell, is freedom and creativity and travel and fun and meeting people and eating cake and not using punctuation when I should and getting away from the kids AND having a fabulous time.  I hope there are more of you out there that enjoy your job as much as I do!























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I Support The Wool Industry

Ok, so I don't normally get all fired up about these sorts of issues, you know, the ones where uninformed extremist ridiculous groups jump up and down and cause a stink but this one is close to my heart and everything else.  It is what keeps me and my family fed, clothed and a roof over our heads. 

 

This gorgeous shearer here is my husband....mutton chops and all.  This is what he does for a living.

 

Here he is again.  Looks pretty damn uncomfortable doesn't it.

 

This is a photo of him dragging out the next sheep to be shorn.  Heavy?  Yes.

 

Then this is what he does next...after dragging it out...

 

Ummm....look familiar??!

 

So....take the catching, dragging and shearing and multiply that by say...ummm...200 times in a DAY...yes, I said in a day, and that is my husband's job.  This is the job of shearers everywhere.  Doesn't look easy now does it.  Once my husband did this 280 times in a day, his current best day, and no doubt one day he will hit his 300.  (I'm so proud of him!  He works so hard.)

 



 

You also need to understand how difficult it can be to shear.  The sheep weighs a lot, and I mean a lot, and then it will wriggle when being shorn, which adds another level of difficulty on to the process for the shearers.  In Summer it reaches unbearable temperatures in the shed, it is back breaking work and the sheep don't always behave.  Come on, they are sheep.  They aren't that smart.  This is the reality.  Then put into the equation that the shearer has a handpiece in their hand that has sharp cutters on it.  Then add the fact that this handpiece is switched on and is actually quite dangerous.  (ie. I have heard a story about a shearer who was working and the sheep kicked his hand, which was holding the handpiece, which then stabbed into the shearers neck, and he bled to death on the boards.)  Tell me now, if the sheep is wriggling and kicking and is a risk to your well being are you going to give it a pat and ask it nicely to calm down?

 

No, there is no need to bash the crap out of the sheep but a certain element of man handling has to happen, not only for your safety but the safety of those around you.  This includes the rouseabouts, the wool classer, the other shearers and anyone else in the shed.

 



It annoys me when groups decide to sneak in and collect footage over months and try and find the isolated incidents that make shearing and the whole wool industry look barbaric.  You know what would be barbaric?  Having no wool industry.  Not only would my family have to go on welfare (would you, the taxpayer, like to pay for me to live??) but these sheep wouldn't fare too well either. 

 

Have these animal activist people thought about what would happen to all these sheep if the wool industry was banned?  I highly doubt it.  Do they realise that farmers wouldn't let their sheep roam free growing all the wool they liked so they resemble hippies with dreadlocks?  All that wool would be really really heavy, hot, uncomfortable and not to mention maggoty.  Do these people understand what flies do?  This gets back to the whole mulesing debate really but when flies lay eggs they hatch in to maggots, which get into the folds of the sheep's skin, and then they have a good old munch on the sheep.  While it's still alive.  Nice hey?

 

The reality is that if the wool industry is banned then all the sheep would have to go to market to be sold and then eaten..but of course the market would be flooded so they wouldn't be worth anything and it would cost the farmer more to send it on the truck to the market to be worth bothering with, soooooo.....all the sheep would be systematically shot.  In the head. Having seen this done dear animal activists I can tell you, it's not pretty.  It's also pretty traumatic for the farmers who have to carry out this horrible act.

 

As well as shearing we also earn an income from our own flock of sheep.

 

They are well looked after.  This includes my husband shearing them (started yesterday so that he could give them a de-lousing treatment..which was expensive, but we care about the health of our animals and the quality of the wool they produce), and when they are lambing he will go out at night in the cold and shoot any foxes that are trying to nab the babies. 

 

Farmers care about their livestock because this is where they make their living.  They are not going to mistreat something that provides them with their income otherwise it will stop providing them with an income.  If this sounds like we are 'using' animals then get over it.  This is a fact of life.  The alternative is the pointless slaughter of countless numbers of animals.  If animal activists what to get active about something then why not worry about the human race instead.  Go help the enormous amount of homeless people or sick and starving children in Third World countries.  Get your priorities straight for goodness sake.



 

 

 



 

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