by You Jin
When the sheepfold’s small gate had been opened, the sheep filed out, one line after the other, group by group. The dogs leapt forward at times, and jumped to the back at other times, barking nonstop, and the sheep followed them without a sound, making their way to the huge green pasture where they could spend a leisurely day grazing. At around nine that evening, when it started to get dark, the dogs would lead them back into the fold again.
“I did not start out with much seed money, only enough for sixty mu of land, so we have to take the sheep out in the morning and bring them back in the evening. Otherwise, they would spread out in every direction around the house at night, bleating the whole time until no one would have a moment’s peace,” Myfanwy said. “There are several wealthy families who stay nearby, and they all have several hundred mu on which they raise several thousand sheep. All summer, they let the sheep roam all over the pastures they own, eating wild grass and stretching their legs. Only in winter do they drive them back, saving themselves a lot of tedious work.”
When we left, Myfanwy, who wore long, plastic boots, was squatting in the cattle pen milking the cows. The rays of the rising sun fell on the snowy white milk, making it shimmer like a precious stone. Her round face revealed a calm smile, just like a tough and extremely beautiful sunflower.
Oceania
The Man Who Lived with Sheep
NIGHT WAS FALLING in New Zealand. The sound of constantly changing whistles was ringing out in the chilly air, distinct, resonant, swift and fierce. Barking wildly, six robust and agile sheep dogs raced on the mountain range, which was exuding a green light. They were fierce, strong, domineering and spirited. There were too many sheep to count running chaotically over the hilltop amid the sound of this barking and whistling. A ruckus of clattering hoofbeats accompanied the sheep as they ran. Their scrawny legs carried the pudgy sheep bodies gradually into the distance, turning them into nothing more than countless patches of white.
There was a pick-up truck behind the sheep, following the ridge of the mountain, jolting about as it progressed. I was sitting in the pick-up next to the owner of the ranch, Graham Wedd.
The sheep ran, the dogs ran, and the pick-up ran. Graham whistled as he drove, like an army general effortlessly directing his troops. The six dogs adapted their actions to his whistles, running and leaping about as they pursued or led the way, each going about its assigned role with perfect precision. In the middle of this lively rumble of activity, Graham stopped the truck and said, “Wait just a minute.”
He rushed past the galloping flock and scrambled up the slope. There, he came to a fat lamb that was stumbling along. He knelt and picked it up, then gently carried it and set it down in a grassy patch and patted it softly. The lamb began to hobble along behind the rest of the flock.
Getting back into the truck, Graham explained, “That sheep hurt its leg a few days ago and it’s moving clumsily now, so it often stumbles.” He started the engine again, moving ahead at top speed.
When this flock of a thousand sheep was back in the fold, Graham did not let up for a single minute. He and his six faithful dogs went to another hilltop to drive the lambs there. He did this over and over until all four thousand sheep were safely back in the fold.
Hard and Soft Training
After feeling like I had been in the middle of an exciting movie, I could finally breathe more easily. I gave Graham a thumbs up and said, “Your dogs are really good!”
“It took a year of tough training.” He reached out and removed his patchwork cloth cap, fanned himself with it, and said, “Training dogs is just like teaching children. You have to use both hard and soft methods, with obvious rewards and punishments.”
Saying this, he puckered his lips and went through a series of different whistles. The six dogs obeyed each command: get up, stand, walk, squat, sit. They obeyed scrupulously, all in neat order. I looked on, dumbstruck and filled with heartfelt admiration.
Graham laughed proudly and said, “Think about it. I’ve got four thousand sheep and five hundred head of cattle. Without these six dogs, could I manage?”
“You don’t have any hired hands?”
“I can’t hire anyone.” He shook his head and, after a pause, went on, “The work is too hard. Not even my wife will help.”
“Your wife?”
“Oh, she does clerical work at a bank in town.”
God, this whole ranch depended on just one man! He had graduated from New Zealand University with a degree in Agriculture and Livestock. Going into the work he loved, he had devised a system to manage the livestock.
Graham divided his sheep into four groups to be cared for. Those that were less than a year old formed one group, those a year to two years old formed another, from three to four years a third, and finally those five and six years old.
“I have about fifty hectares on my ranch, with a mixture of good and bad pastures. I often take special care of the lambs under a year old, leading them to the best pastures and the tenderest grazing fields.”
In order to keep careful account of his flocks, Graham usually counted the sheep on alternate days.
“Count?” I couldn’t help but ask. “There are four thousand sheep. How do you count them all?”
“I close the big gate on the fold and only leave the small one open. The small gate lets only five sheep through at a time, so I count them in groups of five,” he said casually. “Whenever I count, I keep several small stones in my hand. When I count to a hundred, I toss away one stone, so when I’ve discarded ten stones, I know that’s a thousand sheep.”
Well, if it were me, counting that many sheep would make my eyes heavy.
The most troublesome part of taking care of the sheep was giving them their regular injections and preventing the spread of germs in their mouths.
“In summer, every twenty-one days, I give them an injection. In spring and autumn, when the weather is cooler, I can cut back to once every five weeks. In winter, when it drops below zero, the germs freeze and I can stop the injections.”
Besides the vaccinations, Graham also had to give the sheep vitamin injections from time to time to supplement them with the minerals they didn’t absorb from the tender grass.
What I couldn’t figure out was how Graham knew at a glance which sheep belonged to which age group. When I asked his secret, he pointed to a sheep’s ear. I looked, and couldn’t help but laugh. The ear of each sheep was irregularly shaped. But amidst the irregularity, there was a mysterious pattern.
“Wedd is my surname, so when the lambs are born, I cut the upper part of their ears with a W to show that they belong to my family. Then when they are a year old, I cut a triangle below the W. When they are two, I add another triangle, and so on each year. So, I just need to look at how many triangles a sheep has on its ear to know how old it is.”
The Ear Argues the Age
Looking at the teeth-like cuts on the sheep’s ears, I couldn’t help but stroke my own unmarred earlobes. I asked stupidly, “Doesn’t it… hurt them?”
“Hurt them?” A smile came to Graham’s blue eyes. “I haven’t ever asked them. But next time I cut them I’ll ask on your behalf.”
When he said this, he brought his face nearer to mine, looking carefully at my ears. He asked, “Do you wear earrings?”
I shook my head.
He said, “Cutting the sheep’s ear is not much different from women who get their ears pierced. It doesn’t hurt. They always stand obediently and let me cut, not running or making a sound or even struggling.”
When it was a year old, the fate of a sheep which had its ear cut was decided by its own “performance”.
“If it has thick wool, and maintains a fat body, I’ll keep on rearing it. If the wool is sparse, and it’s thin, the lamb will be used for food.”
The lambs that continued to be reared were expected to grow thick wool every year, in exchange for their chance to stay alive. If the wool grew sparser as a sheep grew older, it would be sold off at a
low price. People who bought the older sheep usually slaughtered them to make lamb stew, or they processed the mutton to make dog food.
“Over the past several years, the cost of lamb has been affected by the global economy, taking a big hit. Three years ago, veal sold for six Singapore dollars a kilo. Now, it’s two dollars a kilo.” Graham sighed. “Ah, it’s a tough way to make a living.”
It was starting to get dark. Graham closed the sheepfold’s gate and said, “Let’s go.”
Sitting in the truck, we bounced over the uneven ground, making our way back slowly. This ranch was in the middle of New Zealand’s North Island, about twenty kilometres from Rotorua. The scenery was surprisingly beautiful. There were green rolling hills as far as the eye could see, like continuous green waves. There were numerous golden broom-like trees on the slopes, a blaze of yellow blossoms in their branches, like brushes of yellow flames turning the green fields bright.
As the truck made its way up and down the slopes, the ground levelled off and then finally stopped in front of a beautiful house. A middle-aged woman with a wide mouth came out to greet us, smiling.
“Oh, honey, you’re home,” Graham called cheerfully. “Come meet our guest.”
This woman was Graham’s wife Alice. The couple and I had never met. Based on a friend’s recommendation, I had called and arranged a time when I could spend a couple of nights on their ranch. It cost fifty New Zealand dollars per night (equivalent to fifty Singapore dollars).
When we had exchanged greetings, Alice said, “I was just going to the slaughter house to get some meat.”
“You just got back from work. Relax for a bit,” Graham said thoughtfully. “I’ll get it.”
I went with him. We walked for about twenty minutes, then saw a small wooden house tightly closed up. Graham opened the door to walk in, calling anxiously back to me, “Hurry, don’t let the flies in.”
I rushed in and closed the door with a thwack behind me. The whole place was full of the smell of raw meat. When I looked up, I was frightened by the sight. Right in front of me, there were six skinned lambs hanging upside down from hooks. Their eyes bulged out, looking at me intently.
“I kill sheep once a month. We’re over two thousand feet above sea level here, so even in summer, the temperature is cool. Take today as an example. It’s only about three degrees. When we kill the sheep and hang them here, the meat won’t go bad even if it hangs for a week. And this meat isn’t frozen, so it’s at its freshest and tastiest stage. After a week, I’ll have to freeze it, but it will really mean a loss of flavour.”
As Graham spoke, he expended some strength to lift a sheep down from its hook before flashing a knife to apportion it. I suddenly thought of the famous cattle chef named Paoding in ancient China, and realised that this cattle-herding fellow was really just a “Western Paoding”.
That night, we sat at the table eating grilled mutton chops, braised mutton, and fried mutton cakes. Seated at the dining table, Graham wore a long-sleeved red sweater and black trousers. He looked like a completely different person from the one in tattered clothes who had been working in the fields earlier.
The décor in the house was very modern. There was a light purple carpet and a leather sofa set. In the living area, there were sound systems, a television, a video recorder, and all sorts of electronics. In the kitchen, I saw a refrigerator, microwave, dishwasher and all the furnishings. The walls in the dining room were full of oil paintings of the countryside. Bunches of floral arrangement graced the table, brightening up the whole room.
“I never imagined that a ranch house would be this beautiful!” I said.
I meant it as a compliment, but it provoked Graham to complain.
“Ranching is my profession, my lifelong career. I work seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Don’t I deserve to have a beautiful house? Tell me, surely it’s not just engineers or lawyers or doctors who can live in nice houses?” His tone sounded like he was displeased. “Surely those who work with livestock don’t have to live in ugly or slovenly houses all their lives?”
I didn’t know what to say after such a powerful retort. My intended flattery had really backfired on me.
Alice, a gentle woman, interrupted with a more conciliatory tone. “We had to save for a long time for this house.”
Saying this, she got up and went to the living area, picked up a stack of photos, and brought it to me. In the photo was a small wooden house, very plain and dilapidated, standing lonely and helpless in a bare stretch of land. All around it, the ground was bald, with no trees or flowers at all. Eleven years earlier, Graham and his wife had borrowed seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars from the bank to buy this piece of land.
The Rancher’s Dark Cloud
Tracing their history with the ranch, the couple seemed to feel sad to recall those times.
“Living in that small wooden house, in winter, you felt like you were submerged in cold water. Sometimes the cold would wake us up at night, and a bone-chilling wind would dash towards our bodies like a huge wave, sweeping over us one after another. Each blast was like a knife, the cold lashing us so bad it hurt.”
They gritted their teeth and bore with it for many years, until finally they had saved a little money and could build a six-room bungalow on the site of the dilapidated wooden house. According to the Chinese saying, this was “the light of the moon breaking through the clouds”. But when I mentioned the phrase to Alice, she immediately disagreed.
“Anyone who earns a living from livestock always has a dark cloud over his head. Just think, Graham goes out every day at six in the morning, and he comes back at six in the evening, working twelve hours a day. When he gets home, he still has lots of administrative matters to settle. Several years ago, lambs fetched a good price and we had a bit of surplus. Now, the prices of both meat and wool keep going down, so even though Graham works day and night, he earns just enough to put food on the table.”
Alice got animated as she chatted, and brought up many things about the past. She wrinkled her eyebrows and said, “Back when we were in university, I studied accounting, and Graham studied agriculture. His results were very good, and he was invited to stay on as a researcher, but he was adamant that he wouldn’t do that. Choosing to be a rancher really does mean he has a tough life!”
Graham, who had sat by quietly listening to his wife grumble, spoke up seriously at this point. “Back then, I worked hard to learn theory at university. Wasn’t that for the sake of putting it into practice now? If I went and hid in an air-conditioned lab after graduation, my university degree would have been no different from waste paper.”
“Humph!” Alice sighed heavily, then turned back to me and said, “It was because of his persistence that I gave in. Though making a living on livestock is a difficult life, it makes him happy and satisfied. This is our only comfort in life.”
There was reason to believe that compromise was achieved after many bitter conflicts. It was also built on a firm relationship, on a deep understanding between the couple. So when troubles came, they were not likely to part like a flock of birds scattering in all different directions when startled.
It was nearly nine when we finished dinner, and Graham tried unsuccessfully to stifle his yawns. I quickly said goodnight.
Early the next morning, after we had finished our breakfast, I got happily into the pick-up with Graham and went to watch the shearing of the sheep. Each summer, shearing season came in December, so I was lucky to get to see it.
The sheep were all prepared for shearing. On the previous day, they had been driven to the shearing house. They fasted for a day, mostly to make them a little more docile so that it would be easier for the shearers to handle them, making their job go as smoothly as possible.
The wooden shearing house was two storeys high. The lower floor was used to house the sheep, and the upper floor was the area where the shearers worked.
I followed Graham up a wooden staircase. As soon as t
he wooden door was opened, I was greeted with an overwhelming smell of sheep and the sour odour of sweat.
Shearing with All His Might
The six workers Graham had hired were already inside hard at work. Three workers were shearing sheep nonstop. One worker was sweeping up loose bits of wool with a broom; another was quickly picking up the pelts that had been sheared and putting them on a platform where the superintendent checked it.
Once before, I had seen a commercial sheep-shearing performance in a magnificent hall. The feeling then was that it was all very pretty. The performers moved gracefully to shear the thick wool gently from the sheep. The animals seemed to enjoy it immensely, looking almost like they were smiling the whole time.
Now, standing so close to the shearers, I saw the raw reality, it was one struggle after another, fraught with sweat and blood. The shearers weren’t top-notch, hand-picked staff, but just ordinary workmen, common people labouring for their three meals a day. To them, shearing quickly and shearing more sheep meant earning additional income, offering them a more comfortable life, so they worked with all their might.
They pulled the sheep out roughly, laid them on their backs with legs in the air, holding the animals’ heads tightly between their iron rod-like legs. The sheep bore some pain, and they struggled to escape, but to no avail. The worker grabbed the sheep’s legs with one hand, and with the other picked up the electric shearer and cruelly cleaned every last bit of wool from the animal’s body. The blades on the shearers were very sharp, and even though the workers were very careful, they still left nicks and cuts all over the sheep’s bodies. In serious cases, the blood would drip, trickling out nonstop. It was a horrible sight.
The more experienced workers needed only a minute and a half to shear one sheep, whilst the newbies needed twice as long. The faster workers could shear about four hundred sheep in a day, the slower ones about two hundred. For each sheep sheared, the worker earned ninety cents.