Your TKG Sunday: How to Count Sheep - Real Sheep
Yes! It has nothing to do with sleep. And everything to do with counting.
We used to call this UBIPI ‘Useless But Interesting Pieces of Information’.
I have used this technique across my teaching and farming careers. Counting kids is much the same as counting sheep after all!
You might find it useful.
When I was very young we were at a sheep station - visiting or working I cannot remember - we always worked on the farms when we visited so it was all the same. I was a kid for a long time and don’t always remember all the details. But I do remember with absolute clarity the yards. The yards are the gathering point for stock. The yards are like a series of corridors and pens made of closely spaced horizontal rails to prevent sheep from escaping or getting stuck - they are being rushed through an unfamiliar space so everything is finely managed for animal safety. There are multiple gates of all sizes and pens for sorting and holding small or large mobs of sheep. (Or cows but those yards are built differently). It was like a wooden maze. We began the day stood on the railings lining the race watching the farmer draft the sheep waiting for instructions. Maybe they were bringing them in for shearing - I can’t remember.
The rails are built in such a way that kids and grown-ups can sit on them to watch. Or stand up on them with your feet tucked between the slats, if you are over-confident. Soon we would have our instructions. They worked us kids like dogs!
The farm manager was like the conducter of the people, dogs and sheep. He would weave all of us this way and that re-assembling into new groups. The air was heaving with the sounds of sheep anxiously baa-ing, dogs barking, farm bikes (motorbikes with crates on the back for tools, or lambs, or dogs) roaring away, dust from the sheep’s hooves flying up, the wind in the poplars, the farmers shouting to the dogs “get away behind” or to the kids “get away behind”, kids kept mostly quiet - this farmer had a short temper. We did exactly as we were told. There were no sweet pleases and thanks yous in the yards.
The farmer was focused and stern, a bit frightening and absolutely in his element as he directed hundreds of sheep with just a couple of men, a string of sheep dogs and those bloody city kids. In his woollen trousers tied up with baling string and a great checkered shirt over a black singlet. On his head was a sailing hat to keep the autumn sun off his ruddy outdoor face. His hooked lamb crook was leaning up against the fence beside him. His hand on the upright handle of this little gate that he swung one way or the other sending animals into one pen or the other.
The work was fast. Furious. The animals moved at speed.
But always they needed to be counted, they were often brought down out of the hills and if a group were missing the boys on their bikes with their dogs were sent back to find them, so the farmers counted sheep all the time.
As the dogs and us children herded the sheep through, (dogs more useful than kids) the farmer was counting the sheep as he drafted them. He counted them in groups of two followed by three making five. So his count went up in increments of five.
A kid stood next to him to put a mark on paper for every hundred.
Basically you are thinking in groups of five but counting two units aloud then three units silently to make up the five. He would name the two then see the three and go up by five. The plus three is not spoken or even consciously thought, because these sheep were moving fast and they were drafting fast Lots of noise and dust and that wooly smell and the poplar trees so high and straight catching just a breath of hot Hawkes Bay summer breeze.
He counted out loud and it sounded like this: “Two, FIVE. Two, TEN . Two, FIFTEEN. Two, TWENTY. And so on. Very fast because the animals running down the race were flat out.
Each time he hit 100 the kid next to him would make a tally-mark on a scrap of paper that the farmer later jammed into his deep pockets.
He chose me to make the tally-marks that year (probably why I remember this moment in that summer) and I called out the numbers under my breath with him and have never forgotten how powerful I felt to be noting such important numbers.
It had rhythm. And weight. And success.
I tried to show you a little of it in the Walk About. Did you get it?
On the farm blog the other day we were having a conversation about how our phones have everything in one place. This is how they are designed of course. But it is SO distracting! (We have great conversations there on the blog though we are not physically at the blog we are physically on the phone tapping away so yeah - I do see the irony). But I go to the phone intending to open a certain app (let’s say to check the weather) looking for one thing then wake up twenty minutes later mindlessly scrolling though another app.
Having everything in one place is not always better. We go for the sugary treats every time.
But in the interests of streamlining. And creating a simpler life. What would you delete? The flashlight? The camera? Notes? Facebook? Linked In? How could you simplify your phone. Decluttering the phone is not as easy as it sounds either. But I bet there are a few apps on there that you no longer use that are using storage space aka energy to remain on your screen.
Mobile apps contribute significantly to energy consumption.
In fact it is estimated that the carbon footprint of your smartphone usage is 63kg (138 lbs) of CO2 annually. As a comparison: in one year a mature tree will absorb 21kg (48 lbs) of CO2 a year.
Reducing the number of apps you have on your phone will help a little to enable us to sustain this level of energy consumption.
And. Yeah. Plant trees.
Remember that part of your subscription of $5 a year goes to planting trees here on the farm and every where I travel. I have lots of room. If you don’t have space I help offset your carbon footprint I do.
Small video of big pigs sitting on command.
Straight after this Jude wacked FreeBee for taking too much bread. Thankfully the camera was not running.
I am getting very tired. This summer has been hard. A lot of work. I loaded and unloaded over a hundred pumpkins the day before yesterday (for pigs, chickens and cows) and I can still feel it.
We are getting as much food as possible into my farm hands freezer and the freezers of my husbands family. But even though I have help for three mornings a week, most of the work is alone. Beginning early and ending late. And I am tired this year. Not tired of farming. Tired of doing it so alone.
But we all work mostly alone right? No-one tells us as kids to practice playing and working alone.
Now, for the World Famous Farmy Walk About. UN-scripted. Un-edited. Just me, you and the farm.
The Cows
The cows are out there somewhere and very grateful for the dip in night time temperatures.
They are tortured by flies in the summer.
Wai and Tima
Wai has been locked up due to corn in the field thievery.
So now he and Tima get to sleep together and keep each other warm. Wai hates pigs. But Tima does not care. She is a heat seeking missile of a pig.
The White Chickens
This is their last week. They have done so well.
Practice your 2,5. 2,10. Counting on this photo! Go fast!
The Layers
Eggs. As the days shorten. So does their egg production. Sigh
The Turkey
Although very photogenic- I have decided to sell the turkeys.
They are just too much trouble on our little farm. Too big. Too aggressive. Too boisterous plus they poop all over my porch.
Frankly I would rather have peacocks.
The PopPops
The PopPops also are causing trouble just because of their size. They burrow and force themselves out of the smallest gaps in the fences. I am set up for bigger pigs. Pigs that grow faster. So their continuous escaping is proving dangerous to their health and safety.
Though, to be fair, I laugh every time they appear next to me out in the fields. Once the white chickens and the charlottes have left the property I will regroup and replan their living quarters.
The Charlottes
Also on their last full week.
Pork is my main barter. So I will be paying off all the summer debts soon.
My favorite photo of the week.
Your reward for getting this far in our newsletter!
A few of my favorite reads this week
Go HERE to find out about Pickled Tomatoes. You know the little green ones left on the vine when the frosts are imminent. Mad is one of my absolute favorite food bloggers. Have a look!
And this was an interesting read:
Have a fab day!
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Take care and Talk Soon
Celi
will the obnoxious turkeys be thanksgiving fodder?
Thank you, Celi! And counting sheep does sound pretty interesting. 😁