Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Shepherd Tools


There are several things that I have found indispensable to my shepherding. My back pack is definitely one. While lambing I carried a lot of babies in it who needed to get back to sheep camp either to become orphans or because it was getting dark and they were just too young and we had too far to go. The one in this picture was a triplet who was so tiny. Each time I'd check on her in the field, she'd be trying to find her mummy, so I'd help reunite them. I wanted her to get a chance to get some colostrum before I took her to be an orphan - her mamma was just too old to manage triplets, and actually I ended up taking another of hers, because she could only manage one. During lambing my back pack carried my elastrators and elastics, spray paint for marking the lambs with the same number their mammas had, ear notchers for the twin ewe lambs that we would possibly keep for replacements, my binoculars, twine, camera and water. Now that I'm done lambing, I just pack stuff that I'll possibly need while out shepherding - water, a book, my crochet project, my binocs and until recently, bugspray.

2 comments:

Evelyn said...

Wow, what a handy backpack, indeed! :~)

Theresa said...

It fascinates me to read about all you do. I think people get the idea that you are out just having a leisurely stroll watching sheep if you are a shepherd, but it;s really quite a lot of WORK! Love the lamb in the back pack.