Lightening Online

Every 2 years, the town nearest to where we live almost bursts at the seams as people flood in for an Agricultural Field Days event.

It’s quite a big deal around here and injects quite a few funds into our community. It also requires ENORMOUS amounts of work so it is a busy time within the community.

There are people to accommodate and feed as well as gates to be manned, sites to be manned, cars to be parked, rubbish to be collected (although this is outsourced now) and so the list goes on. Before and after the Field Days there are tents to be erected and then pulled down again.

It can actually be a bit overwhelming if you’re involved in too many community groups and end up on too many rosters.

But for the most part it’s lots of fun.

For many years it was the only week we had mobile phone coverage. Towers were put up for the Field Days and then taken down again afterwards. THAT was very frustrating. These days we have better coverage out here so that’s not quite the issue it used to be.

On Sunday we went for a little tour of the site and Trailer Boy was pointing out all the tractors and other shiny machinery items he intends to buy. LOL. Not sure where he thinks he’ll get the finance from but he can dream.

Here are a couple of photo’s I took of the Field Days site.

Not that they can really do justice to the size of the place.

What would have been even better was if I’d taken a shot of the site before the tents went up. Each year more sheds and things are being built so it’s not quite as dramatic as it used to be. Once upon a time it would go from looking like a paddock to looking like a temporary city in a matter of weeks.

Of course, all you citified people wouldn’t think much of the size of it. But given our town usually houses only 1000 or so people, it’s a significant size. Funnily enough, two years ago the Field Days fell right at the same time as the Census. I’m sure that made for some interesting statistics.

The main purpose of the Field Days is to showcase new innovations in the agricultural industry. They do also have what is referred to as the “general interest” section (kind of the “farmer’s wives” section really ).

There are also cooking demonstrations, fashion parades and talks on various topics such as gardening and finance.

The kids love going to all the various sites and picking up freebies such as pens, rulers, notepads and hats. Although the freebies are getting less and less each time and with the seasons we’ve been having, I suspect they may be even sparser this year.

On Wednesday the local school closes so that all the students can go to the Field Days. We’ll go as a family on Wednesday but for the other two days, Farmboy and I will be pretty much separate. Between our different shift times (for working on various group food stalls etc) and different interests, we probably won’t see much of each other on those two days. Although we do have a lunch put on by our bank on Thursday that we’ll go to together.

It should be a fun, albeit busy, three days.

I’ll try and take some photo’s to bore you with show you later in the week.

Yesterday my brother brought his two girls down to the farm for a visit. It has been almost 2 years since we’ve seen them. They live quite a distance away from us. The youngest has never been to the farm and the older one has only been to stay once, over 3 years ago.

So we thought it would be fun to show the “city cousins” a bit of what life on the farm is like.

Here are the kids on the back of the ute, ready to go feeding sheep.

My 4 year old niece hanging over the side of the ute watching the sheep eat the grain. The ute is barely moving at this stage (for anyone concerned about safety issues).

One of the great perks of living on a farm is that our kids get to “drive” the ute rather young. Here Farmboy is setting the ute in motion so that our 4-year old niece can have a drive.

“Look daddy, I’m driving”. A is very intense as she attempts to steer the ute over toward the sheep. That’s my brother hanging his head in the window, enjoying the fun his daughter’s seem to be having.

“I can’t believe I’m driving a REAL CAR” says my almost 7-year old niece. Mum might be in China but can you really top driving a REAL car????

Here’s Singstar Princess with her cousin Z playing with a couple of lambs we brought in from the paddock.

Farmboy showed the girls milk coming from the mother of one of the lambs. Later in the day the 4-year old stated “milk comes from a cow, not sheep”, with a very serious look on her face. She must have spent an hour or more trying to process that confusion. It was all rather cute.

Farmboy showed the visitors how a sheep gets shorn. And showed off his growing bald spot for posterity’s sake.

“A” thought the shearing plant was a little loud. My boys are taking it in their stride. Singstar Princess has seen it all before and is playing in the background.

Leighton showing the cousins how it’s done.

“A” decides she would like to have a go. As long as Uncle Farmboy turns off the noise!

Some things are the same - city or country. Cousins dressing up.

I think you could say a good day was had by all.

I wrote most of this post before we went away for the funeral but didn’t quite get it finished. If you missed my first two posts in this series you can find them at Shearing and More on Shearing. Anyway, my apologies for the delay in getting this posted.

Once upon a time you didn’t only feed the shearers during the day but they stayed on your property overnight. Around here this is less common these days although in station country it still happens (shearing works a bit differently on stations to farms).

Nowadays, even feeding shearers is becoming less common. Some people are making use of contracting shearing teams which will often include a cook as well as shed-hands and a wool-classer. The farmer pays the contractor a flat rat per sheep shorn and the contractor then pays everyone else and deals with things like workcover, tax and superannuation.

We still pay each of our shearers and shed-hands individually and have to deal with the tax etc side of things ourselves. In some areas, even if you do employ your shearers individually they bring their own packed lunch.

Part of our issue here is a shortage of shearers. It’s in your best interests to keep your shearers happy so they’ll continue to come back to your property. When you need to leave home at around 6AM, not having to pack your own lunch is a definite bonus. And as I mentioned yesterday, if you don’t feed them you need to pay them a lunch allowance which is a reasonably substantial amount. So we still feed our shearers.

The Shearing Day

The shearing day is divided up into 4 “runs”. Each run goes for 2 hours. So the day has a set timetable that looks something like this:

7.30 - 9.30 Run 1

9.30 - 10.00am Morning smoko

10.00 - 12.00 Run 2

12.00 - 1.00pm Lunch

1.00 - 3.00pm Run 3

3.00 - 3.30pm Afternoon Tea

3.30 - 5.30pm Run 4

One of the things some Farmer’s Wives find hard is the stringent timetable. When you’re trying to feed babies and work a day around children, it’s not always easy to have food ready by a set time.

Actually, most shearers are pretty laid back. It’s the farmers that can get testy if things aren’t running to schedule. Fortunately for me, Farmboy isn’t like that. And I tend to leave myself plenty of leeway when preparing food to allow for interuptions and delays.

What Do The Shearers Get Fed?

I was thankful that my MIL gave me some kind of guide as to how much food she prepares for shearing. What shearers get fed will vary from shed to shed and how much they eat varies from shearer to shearer (actually it’s often the shed-hands that eat a lot as they don’t have to bend over like the shearers do).

There is some kind of standard when it comes to food. I think it’s 2 biscuits for morning and afternoon tea and a couple of sandwiches for lunch. Something like that anyway. But I don’t know anyone who only provides the “minimum”. I think you’d get grumpy shearers if you did.

The following is basically the guide my mother-in-law gave me. I tend to provide just a little bit more than this (just in case).

Morning Smoko

1 and a half sandwiches per person or equivalent in other savoury items (eg party pies, pizza etc)

2 slices of cake/bun or equivalent in biscuits (I usually double the quantity for biscuits) per person

Tea & Coffee

Morning Smoko is often the first food shearers eat for the day. It’s common for them to skip breakfast so by Morning Smoko they can be a tad hungry.

Lunch

Lunch varies a lot depending on the location of the shed (some are close to a house and some not) and the weather. Things like salad rolls, cold meat & salad, lasagne & salad, quiche & salad, pies & pasties, yumbos (ham, cheese & pineapple melted in a roll) etc.

Dessert is always provided. I mostly keep it light by making it fruit based. Fruit salad, jellied peaches, fruit crumble. Generally with cream as that’s easier to put on the table and allow them to serve themselves than ice cream is. Not all shearers will eat dessert but I always provide it anyway.
Cold cordial and tea & coffee for beverages

Afternoon Tea

3/4 of a sandwich per person or equivalent in other savoury items

1-2 serves cake/bun. I usually do 2 different items but they might be smaller slices or I’ll add something like biscuits as the second item.

My kids LOVE shearing time as I tend to over-cater “just in case” so they enjoy the leftovers. In fact, Leighton was so used to going to the shearing shed only during food times that I’m sure he thought the word “shearing” was synonymous with “eating”.

My biggest fear with catering is not having enough. Often I’ll also do a container of fairly plain biscuits that get used as “extras” for the duration of shearing, just to be sure there is enough food. It’s pretty unusual not to get something come back from the shed but it does sometimes happen, although Farmboy will sometimes confess to having finished off stuff toward the end of the day . He doesn’t eat very large serves of the evening meal during shearing.

Cut Out

During the warmer months we provide cans of soft drink for the end of each day. Many sheds provide beer but we don’t drink it so stick with soft drink. Some shearers will bring their own beer but this is rare.

Cut Out is more commonly referred to when the shed is finished. Some sheds will provide a bbq and “booze up” at the end of shearing for the shearers, shed hands and neighbours. This isn’t a tradition that Farmboys father ever kept so we’ve never really worried. Our shearers seem just as happy to get on home as they are to hang around for a free “booze up”.

Here’s an image of Lamingtons for Maggie:

* image courtesy of www.questacon.edu.au

Lamingtons are well known as “shearers fare”. I’m too lazy to make them myself but will sometimes buy them for shearing. Mostly our shearers get an assortment of cake and bun. Sometimes homemade and sometimes bought depending on how busy things are leading up to shearing.

Footwear for Shearers

Just for Kelley, here is a photo of what most shearers wear while shearing:

* image courtesy of www.austshear.com.au

I don’t think they’re going for “style”. More comfort, non slip and functionality. These are only worn INSIDE the shed. Generally they arrive wearing something else (like thongs with socks *giggle*).

I was going to take a few more photo’s to show you a bit more about our shearing shed. However, I’ve found a few trawling the net that work just as well to give you the idea (and save me having to go up there again - it always stinks for the first few minutes when you’re in there, especially close to shearing time).

SHEARING EQUIPMENT

This image shows a close up of what a shearers handpiece today might look like. There are a number of different brands which vary slightly but the overall idea is the same. The vertical section clips into the shearing plant in the shed and the shearer holds onto it behind the comb on the section shown as horizontal in this image. Most shearers use a “rug” to cover the metal section they hold onto. That makes it more comfortable to hold and also reduces the amount of heat the hand is exposed to (the metal can get rather hot). The “rugs” I’ve seen look a little bit like a stubby holder type fabric.

* image courtesy of www.shearoutback.com.au

This image shows what shearing blades used to look like before sheds were connected to electricity. They’re still used in some places but are not very common anymore.

* image courtesy of www.leaderproducts.com.au

The skill involved in shearing a sheep quickly with a set of these must have been absolutely amazing.

SORTING THE WOOL

In my post yesterday I posted a photo of farmboy and his brother loading wool into the wool press. This is what the bales look like when they come out of the wool press.

* image courtesy of www.woolisbest.com

These are not our bales so the name on them has nothing to do with me (just an image I flogged borrowed used without permission with acknowledgement).

You might be able to see “AAAM” stencilled to the side of the bales (you can click on images for a larger view). This is pronounced “3AM” (just like the time) and is the mainline of wool from that propery (ie what you’ll get most of your money for).

By sorting out the “not so good” stuff from the “good stuff”, you improve the quality of your “mainline” and therefore get paid more cents per kilogram for that.

Heads and bellies - I made the comment in yesterdays post about the wool from the top of the sheep’s head and the belly being kept separate from the rest of the fleece. Both of these sections of the wool are shorter and the under-belly often gets matted and burred. Mainline wool has a minimum length it must be.

Classing wool is quite a complicated task and you are required to be registered and include your classing registration when selling wool. The margin of error allowed is quite small. Not only do you need to keep the pieces that are shorter separate but you’re only allowed a certain percentage of non-wool matter (such as dirt and grass) in with the bale.

Things like fleeces with a break in the wool (caused by illness or some other stress in the sheep as the wool is growing) need to be kept separate and sometimes you’ll get a sheep with a different wool micron (don’t ask me to explain that one!) so that gets separated from the mainline as well.

HOW MUCH DO SHEARERS EARN?

Shearers are paid per sheep they shear rather than an hourly rate. This means that the faster you shear, the more you earn.

The current rate we pay a shearer per sheep is $2.50

Now a learner shearer “officially” gets off their “L-plates” at 100 sheep in a day. So you could say the “base rate” for a shearer is around $250 per day.

An “average” shearer is likely to fall in the 125-200 sheep per day so around $300-$500 a day.

A “good” shearer can shear 200+ per day (some will get up around 250-300 but there are a lot of factors that will determine how fast the sheep are shorn). So anywhere from $500 - $600+ in a day.

Sounds alright doesn’t it? Bear in mind that this is a “before tax” rate AND shearers don’t always get paid superannuation (it depends how much they earn in a particular shed as under a certain figure in a month employers don’t *have* to pay superannuation). You also don’t get paid holidays, sick leave or public holidays. And most shearers shear for a maximum of 6-months of the year (picking up other seasonal type work in between).

Most shearers leave home around 6-6.30AM and get home around 6-6.30PM and then have to spend around an hour grinding their cutting gear ready for the next day. It’s certainly not a job for the faint hearted.

Next Instalment (if you’re not all totally bored already?): Feeding the Shearers