12

The great round-up – from boy scouts to ducklings

It’s one thing to be able to spin a yarn in a warm country pub, rounding up a spellbound audience to hang on your every word. Or sing a cowboy song down the hall on a Saturday night. It’s quite another to be out in the wilds, actually walking the talk and acting out the reality that generates tales to tell and songs of tribulation to sing. Like ‘Going to the great round-up in the sky’, a hymnal mustering classic, up there literally with ‘Ghost riders in the sky’.

Mustering, the great round-up, is a critical component of farming, be it the wide ranging round-up of sheep in the vast reaches of Central Otago stations or the droving of mobs down public roads. During the great musters of Central and other thinly-populated regions, the sky was the limit. The horizon was a haven for mustering gangs and the thousands of sheep in their charge. There were no concerns about public inconvenience simply because there was no public. Rabbits might be put out as the thundering hooves of sheep, horses and dogs sent them scuttling to their burrows, but that was all.

It was nothing like the running of the sheep through Te Kuiti, an annual event where several thousand beasts are released to run, often unfettered, down the main street of the King Country town that gave New Zealand the Meads brothers, shearer David Fagan and, now, the running of the sheep.

Perceptions of mustering usually related to sheep in the high country although, technically, the transfer of dairy cows from farm to farm represented a type of mustering too. Ray was a recent arrival in a dairying heartland. He and his family had fallen in love with a small holding, complete with toppling outbuildings and a decaying colonial cottage that locals reckoned should be bulldozed into submission. Ray retains, as his first memory of living in the country, an apparent stampede of cows cantering past his front gate.

He watched in awe as a blithering bovine hoofed his letter box over, taking it out at the roots, before continuing its mad dash down the road. Hard on the cow’s heels, a friendly young farmer prodded the letter box back into its hole and, on cursory inspection, announced there was ‘no mail today, folks’.

As a result of later enquires Ray learned that the cows were merely transferring to a run-off half a mile down the road, but to a newly transplanted ex-city slicker, it looked like a gang of rustlers was on the loose – or a herd of cows had jointly jumped the fence and were kicking up their heels and rejoicing in their freedom.

Ray had more legitimate concerns several weeks later when a wild-eyed, panting flock of sheep entered his property and commenced munching on the wife’s Sweet Williams. Those were his neighbours’ sheep. His wife had seen them bolting through an open gate. The neighbours were recently installed smallholders too, much inclined to allow the district to pick up on their shortcomings. Their goats, strategically placed to keep the grass down along the highway verge, were often untethered. Ray recalls the time he had to confront a big cantankerous billy goat as it reared up on his hind legs in the middle of State Highway 2, its chain dragging along the white line, while petrol tankers and double-rig trucks swerved defensively. Ray cannot recall how he coaxed the frothing billy off the highway. Nor can he recall how a large haematoma – a horn-shaped bruise that became a badge of honour – came to be imprinted on his right thigh.

Meanwhile, the mob of Sweet William-chomping sheep, at Ray’s bidding, bolted off the property, which should have been the end of the shaggy saga. However, beyond Ray’s place, just a quarter of a kilometre to the east, lay the State Highway. The flock bolted in that direction. Ray could see the headlines, could sense the breaking news on TV: ‘Rampant sheep cause multiple pile-up on State Highway. Police fear many deaths and not just sheep.’

Ray was never slow. He played senior rugby as a wing three-quarter. Utilising his speed, he sprinted out the front gate and ran down the leading sheep just a few metres from the highway, where petrol tankers, milk tankers, innocent tourists, Sunday-driving Kiwis, even Hell’s Angels on Harleys, roared past.

With a desperate, roaring intervention, his arms flailing like an Iroquois, Ray was able to divert the sheep off the side road and away from their inevitably grisly encounter with the highway. Feeling shredded, Ray dragged himself home.

‘Farming is hell,’ he revealed, although he only had charge of a handful of hectares. ‘I think I’ll walk off the land,’ he continued, to which his wife added that if his show of pace in heading off the maverick sheep was anything to go by, he’d be more likely to ‘run off the land’. Ray and his wife laughed. It was a nervous giggle and guffaw. After all, where had the sheep gone to ground?

The phone rang.

‘This is Irene at the corner store. I’d just like to tell you that your sheep have destroyed my flower garden. They’ve even eaten the roses, thorns and all. They are now moving through the herbs and have already wiped out the basil.’

Ray was stunned. He could have expressed sympathy regarding the untimely death of her husband Basil. But he didn’t even know Irene’s husband’s name. He didn’t even know Irene.

Having gorged themselves on Irene’s garden, the sheep were mustered back to where they came from by Ray’s neighbour, who was not apologetic. He was more apoplectic. He rounded, red-faced, on Ray.

‘Sheep know where they want to go,’ he yelled at Ray. ‘You should have let Mother Nature take her course.’ Ray was stunned, again. In one fell swoop he had failed to endear himself to the woman at the corner store, and his neighbour. Later in the day a local farmer, a real one, called in to reassure Ray that he had done the right thing. News travels fast in the country – almost as fast as renegade sheep.

‘Mustering,’ said Ray’s caller, ‘at short notice is all about timing. Speed comes into it too. By the sounds of it, that was one of the best examples of spontaneous mustering this district has seen.’

Mobs of sheep on public roads have often been a flashpoint. Knowing Kiwis accept the inconvenience as the price we pay for our agricultural-based economy. Others champ at the bit at the delay as flocks rattle along the tarseal on their way from pillar to post.

Back in the days when farmers had recently had their subsidies slashed by someone called Roger Nomics, a city executive champed at the bit behind the wheel of his oyster-coloured Porsche. He revved and he ranted. He was late for a Parnell meeting. His input and outcomes were critical.

Meanwhile, the musterers of sheep on a back-country road figured they were well within their rights. Besides, their flock only had another kilometre or so to go. No problem. For the executive however, a shortcut had become a highway to hell. The Porsche, after a series of surges and parps, was now embedded in the heart of the flock, slow-moving and redolent of a time in New Zealand when city slickers didn’t attempt to sneak up the back passage offered by minor roads.

The sheep felt menaced by his incursion. Dust and worse soon plastered his windscreen. The executive cursed the musterers. The musterers smiled down from their horses. The executive reacted grimly and took a tiny gap in the flock, irrespective of where it led. A squealing of tyres intruded on the bucolic sounds of sheep bleating, musterers whistling and dogs barking. As the flock passed beyond the point where the executive and his Porsche were seen to be embedded in the mud of an adjacent stream, the musterers ensured that the impatient driver was in one piece. Apart from shredded sunglasses, muddied cellphone and slightly bloody nose he seemed intact.

Town met country. The musterers, rather than adopting an I-told-you-so air, were most solicitous in assisting the executive back up the bank. A tow truck was summoned, a cup of tea provided in the kitchen of one of the musterers. There would be other Parnell meetings, a musterer reassured the thoughtful executive, who nodded meekly as he attempted to make a call on a phone that looked as if it had been dunked in chocolate.

With some justification, farmers can claim the roads that gird their properties as more their preserve than Joe Public’s. After all, many public roads started life as musterers’ trails, goat tracks and farm access routes. For that reason there has always been a notion of rightful access.

The arrival of the railway also created a few imperatives. Cattle stops indicated that wandering farm animals were not always welcome. That didn’t stop some farmers in earlier times taking advantage of railway cuttings and a generally more direct route when shifting stock. It certainly didn’t stop one farmer from utilising railway cuttings for his own car-borne right of passage, when he had to muster himself home.

It was true that rail services were insignificant on the revenue-losing branch line that, if you’d had one jug too many at the local, served as a direct link from the edge of town to Pete’s farm. It was also true that the lonely goods train was always late. And it wasn’t that Pete took advantage of this hair-raising means of getting home every night. But one night, when he was running late, and the goods train wasn’t, there was a near disaster as Pete took the short cut.

Pete’s Land Rover was making good time down through the cutting when, at the bottom of the grade, the train coming off the bend made its presence known. Luckily the engine was labouring as it attacked the hill and the driver threw out all anchors when he saw the Land Rover’s lights. Pete took longer to stop but did so before a collision ensued. Driver and fireman climbed down and approached Pete with angry torches flashing. Pete, anticipating trouble got his retribution in first.

‘What time do you call this?’ Pete chastised. ‘You normally don’t come through here until half-past.’ (It was a quarter past.)

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing driving along the railway lines?’ The driver was as fired up as his fire box.

The outcome of the altercation remained a mystery, although Pete appeared to be sporting a black eye the next time he fronted up at the local.

It was one thing to utilise railway cuttings and lines as roads and rights of way. It was quite another to take advantage of actual trains, as a Northland farmer was said to be doing. He was considered likely to be using the single passenger carriage on the Whangarei-Opua mixed goods as a sheep wagon.

The passenger carriage was a token gesture. Towards the end of the mixed goods’ life in the 1970s, few people were availing themselves of the stop-start service. When someone did (much to the surprise of the ticket seller at Whangarei station, who was quite flummoxed as to the relevant charge), they found the carriage awash with sheep’s turds. The black marbles rolled and rattled around the deserted carriage like jaffas down the inclined floor of the local bughouse.

Out of this situation conjecture surfaced. Obviously sheep had been in the carriage and one assumes they did not have tickets. Judging by the amount of faecal matter, quite a few sheep had travelled second class and buckshee. According to some reports, it didn’t need an archaeologist to determine that some of the droppings had seen better days. They were very old. The practice was not new.

It was suggested that perhaps a farmer or two had utilised the carriage to transport their sheep up the line to the freezing works at Moerewa. The flocks had been mustered to holding pens beside the line and when the train arrived they were manhandled up the carriage steps. Such an act was regarded as a bit cheeky. Who would do such a thing? Several local farmers’ names were bandied about. It was the sort of thing Will Burtt would do.

Will Burtt was a bit like a dog. A cunning sheep dog, if anything. He was small and quick on his feet. He yapped incessantly and seemed to spend a lot of time in the pub toilets. At least he didn’t cock a leg and pee on the bar leaner.

Like a lot of short men farming the land in the rugged hinterland, Will had distinguishing characteristics. A smaller bladder, a close-to-the-ground eagle eye. Heightened senses to compensate for the lack of inches that enabled taller, rangier farmers to monitor stock. Will’s sense of smell and sound were acute. He could detect a trapped lamb at a thousand paces. His nose twitched at the astringency of urine. His ears cocked at the sound of rattling dags.

Will was a mate of Ian’s father. Ian’s dad knew a lot of farmers and Ian ended up working on the sheep country holdings of several locals during the holidays. Luckily, Will’s wasn’t one of them. Will was well known for his stroppy behaviour. He laughed at fat people, pushed schoolboys around. He was quite misogynist simply because women tended to be smaller than men. If anyone was going to poke fun at the village idiot it was Will. And he was regarded as a poor musterer, being impatient and loud.

The first time Ian encountered Will was during the university holidays. Ian’s parents were at work and he was delving into a book about Neanderthal man. Anthropology I and its archaeology component dictated such a dalliance. From the dining room window he had an unfettered view of the back section. Ian’s dad had arranged with Will Burtt for half a dozen sheep to be grazed on their overgrown acre. It was free grazing for Will and a way around Ian’s dad’s conundrum of how to keep the grass down now that Ian was not around to manhandle the Masport through the knee-high paspalum.

Ian, looking up from his book, saw a stranger flapping his arms and sheep scattering from the back section. The human figure, short and stooped, looked for all the world like the line drawings of Neanderthal man. Will uncoiled and began yapping in an attempt to coax the sheep towards a trailer parked in the driveway. The white blurs congealed into a bleating phalanx as the sheep thumped through the orchard.

Ian thought it best to venture out. Will could have been a sheep rustler. Ian didn’t know a lot about sheep but he considered them to be out of control. They bowled the barbeque and sent divots flying. Will and Ian locked eyes. Ian extended a hand in a gesture of goodwill. Will turned down the offer and continued to wave his arms, while making sheep-dog like noises, peppered with colourful human vernacular.

‘Tackle the bastards, tackle the bastards,’ Will yelled in Ian’s direction.

‘How do you do?’ Ian replied in civil tones.

‘Round the legs, round the legs, ya bastard.’ The sheep were stampeding out towards the front gate.

‘Tackle, tackle, tackle, ya big girl.’

Ian didn’t know Will from a bar of soap.

‘Tackle the bastards, you long-haired student bastard. Can’t even mow your own bloody lawn.’

Will did his Neanderthal impression again as he skulked along the rose bush line at the front of the property. By now he’d whistled up his dogs, which had been waiting obediently on the trailer, and they completed the mustering exercise. Ian put in a late perfunctory lunge at one of the trailing sheep once the dogs had gained the upper hand.

‘No wonder you got dropped from the first fifteen, short-arse,’ Will yelled at Ian. ‘Just wouldn’t tackle. When you did it was too bloody late. And get a bloody haircut.’

Ian offered to make Will a cup of tea as the sheep were secured and the dogs settled.

‘We’re shearing this lot later. I’ve a good mind to round you up for a trim too, ya bastard.’

Ian took that as a ‘no’ and returned to his study of Neanderthal man. He figured he’d just witnessed a display of Neanderthal-like behaviour that represented an excellent field study to augment his book-learning.

The incident reminded Ian of another mustering exercise he had been privy to in the days when he was a boy scout and his troop had set up camp at Cooper’s farm out near the ‘six mile’. Old Cooper had a booze problem. His wife had shot through and the whiskey was never too far away. He arrived home from the pub in his Land Rover and proceeded to speed and swerve towards several scouts meandering through his paddock. The instinct to muster surfaced, or was it just the whiskey? Scouts scrambled in all directions, a supply tent was levelled, sending Weet-Bix packets flying. Some toggled lads dived into the stream.

Scouts continued stampeding until the scoutmaster coaxed them on to a grassy knoll that used to be a pa site. Heads were counted. Nobody had died. Eventually old Cooper’s head, covered in hay, was counted too. His snoring was audible above the throb of the Land Rover as it lay neutralised in a haystack. The ‘muster of the boy scouts’ was over.

Mustering didn’t have to be aggressive. Often it demanded a gentle, deft touch, depending of course on what was being mustered, coaxed or simply shadowed. Ducklings were a case in point.

Pete remembered reading about the mother duck and her ducklings in built-up Boston. Make way for ducklings the children’s book was called. Now here in built-up Hamilton the same scenario was unfolding. While out walking his dog, Pete came across a mother duck and nine ducklings waddling down the middle of the road. They were heading for the Waikato River, having emerged from wetlands half a mile away. Luckily the side road where Pete first encountered the endearing entourage was bereft of traffic, but soon busy River Road would be upon them. The morning rush hour was still playing out its congested passage through constricted arteries. If it wasn’t silver-coloured cars with honking single occupants, it was threatening trucks and impatient truck drivers with grim smirks and sleeves rolled up to their necks.

Pete had now been joined by his neighbour, on foot and available to assist. Pete’s dog, a good one, sensed the situation did not require his help and hovered on the footpath. Mother duck was on a mission. She was hardwired to get her fledglings to the river. The small matter of a thousand vehicles was something the gods would have to deal to. At no stage did she slow the entourage down. The sheer inevitability that she would, in a matter of seconds, be guiding her flock across River Road created imperatives.

Pete and his neighbour, aware that they had a better chance of staying a tsunami, changed up to plan B. The traffic had to be stopped. With a furious sprint the two men entered River Road. Pete took the right hand option, his neighbour the left, both waving down traffic from the side of the road, until the tide was stemmed and they were able to march safely with arms raised down the middle of River Road.

‘What’s up mate,’ a truck driver yelled down.

‘Ducks – and ducklings,’ Pete yelled back.

Horns stopped honking. No one cursed. This was rush-hour traffic. People who weren’t already late for work would almost certainly now be. A gaggle of power walkers, all elbows and knees, were mustered into a driveway. Joggers pulled up wheezing. Two cyclists slowed down, beaming. It was the darndest thing. Mrs Duck and her ducklings waddled untrammelled across the now quiet road. Pete and his neighbour stood their ground. A handful of pedestrians stopped to watch. When the last of the ducklings had made it across they applauded before setting off for their central city workplaces.

Pete and his neighbour shook hands. It was a very formal moment although neither of them knew quite why. Mother duck and her ducklings made it to the river. The traffic began moving again. Drivers had smiles on their faces. There was less jostling for position as vehicles returned to a rat-race that was less frenetic for a while.

Wherever animals have to go. That’s what mustering is all about, be it sheep, cattle or ducklings. It’s a timeless component of life on the land and whenever animals come to town. It can be time-consuming too. But the natural rhythm of man and beast moving across braided rivers, tumbling downlands and purple plains are as Kiwi as a can of Watties’ baked beans. The rounding up of boy scouts by Land Rover is less common.