Shearing

My son, Levi, is shearing at a nearby shed and is staying with Stephen and me for a couple of nights. It is so lovely having him and allows me give him a bit of extra attention that he normally wouldn’t get if the whole family was present.

Having worked in the shearing sheds myself, I know just how much work is involved and how tired everyone is at the end of the day. I used to love it, I loved the lifestyle and the job, but once I had too many children, I was relegated to the cook and I didn’t enjoy that nearly as much.

I had recently received my registration as a nurse, when I went into the shearing gangs for the first time. My boyfriend and I decided it would be the perfect job to save money for our big OE which we were planning to do the following year. In this particular gang, accommodation and meals were provided, so the money we earnt could be put directly into savings. I remember my first day, having come from the artificially heated wards of the hospital to the openness of the shearing shed and loving it, absolutely loving it. I could not believe that someone actually got paid for sweeping the wool away and what’s more, I got more money per hour than I did nursing. That paid $3 in those days, whereas here I was on $3.20. And back then, we worked from 5am to 5pm, giving us nine paid hours every day. The money soon mounted up.  

I went back to the sheds when I returned from my OE some 18 months after leaving New Zealand. I had come back broke and knew I could accumulate money quickly again to get me started on my next venture.

However, there I met and married one of the shearers, which then became our lifestyle for a number of years. The money helped us buy our first farm in 1982, up in the Hokianga, but it wasn’t long before Paul wanted to return to shearing full-time, so we ended up selling both that farm and another we had bought and returning to the King Country in 1987. Soon after this I had our fourth and fifth child and so any shed work I did then, was only cooking. We ended up travelling back up north when Paul got a job managing a large sheep and beef farm, where I ended up rousing again each shearing time.

It was always difficult then, as I would be unfit to the work and had children to contend with as well as cooking for the shearing gang. They were very busy times. Levi says the same thing, how difficult the work is when he is not used to it. Nowadays he runs an avocado orchard with his father, and shearing is just a yearly thing for a few weeks. It takes quite a while to become body fit, and usually this occurs for him just as the shearing is finishing. It is very hard on a shearer’s back having to spend the day bent over shearing the sheep, and then the sheep also have to be caught and dragged out. Big fat ewes are especially difficult.

But I think Levi only has a few days left, so I expect he’ll be pleased to return to the relatively easy (in comparison) work of the orchard. And I know my body wouldn’t be capable of a day’s rousing anymore so I am just thankful that those days are behind me, as much as I did enjoy them at the time.