click - Parish of Greater Whitbourne

turn to take them back to the farmpaddock close to the farmstead.Sheep farmers welcome a cold frostyspell during the lambing season. Oncethe ewe has cleaned the new bornlamb it will stay dry, and much toyour delight you will soon see themin small groups scampering and dancingon any tree stump or embankmentwhile the mothers quietly graze.If a lamb was weak, small or lookingsickly you would bring it home, withits mother, into the farm housekitchen with an infrared lamp hangingoverhead, to give warmth, andregularly feed it with milk and glucose.When the lambs had reached fourteenweeks old, they were separated fromthe ewes for weaning.Come early June and the shearing oftheir fleeces would commence. Theshearing machine once had to beturned by hand in former days, butnow a belt pulley had replaced thehandle. Dad’s ingenuity came intoplay, for the two-wheeled tractor, theAutoculto, was lifted off the groundand placed onto a pair of fruit boxes;the pulley belt was attached to theshearing machine, and then placedaround the one tractor wheel.It was a legal requirement that theflocks are dipped to prevent pestsattacking them, such as the blowflythat lay their eggs and hatch intomaggots. Dipping begins with onefarm hand catching the sheep andgently letting it down backwards intothe tank. The sheep would automaticallywant to swim to the exit side ofthe tank, so Dad with a speciallymade dipping tool, would gently andcontinuously turn their heads as theysought to swim to the exit. The sheepweighed down by the liquid wouldemerge from the tank with the dipgushing from the fleece. When thepen was full you needed to judge theright time to release the sheep, becausethe sheep would give an almightyshake of her body showeringeverything within a four to five footradius.Towards the end of the summer andinto the mid-autumn, as the lambsmatured they would be graded andsent to market.There is always one in the flock whoseems to think that the grass on theother side of the fence is better. Oncethe escaped sheep were back in thefield, you would hastily go into thecoppice and get some nice long piecesof hazel branches and weave theminto the butt of the hedge to fill thegap.Having regularly attended Sundayschool my family had shown me thatwe all like sheep have gone astray, weare really born as orphans, without aspiritual father. Through watching thebehaviour of the sheep I realised thatwe all have the option to return toGod’s fold under the care of Jesus theGood Shepherd. At the age of elevenit was very simple for me to ask theGood Shepherd in prayer to come andtake care of me and guide me throughthe rest of my life. The hymn writerhas summed it up beautifully as herelates the love of the Good Shepherdfrom Psalm 23:(Continued on page 14)13 November 2012