Sheep Tales

By Margaret Minchin

A woman's story about living in the country in and looking after sheep on a small New Zealand 20 hectares farm in recent times. The care of the sheep during and the uncovering of their personalities over a year and their needs during that time. See sheep from a different light. It's all included in this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Margaret Minchin
• Release date: Sep 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310086137

Margaret Minchin

In the 1980's, after a lifetime in the city, Margaret Minchin decided to move to the country and purchased a small holding where she raised sheep. A prolific writer of habit, her experiences as a city dweller and its contrast with farming life inspired her to publish the first of her journals, "Sheep Tales".

Book preview

CHAPTER 1. A NEW CAREER IN THE COUNTRY

I have been caring for a few sheep for about 20 years and I want to tell you about it. I had a great time and I learned a bit about life. This activity was something to do all day after the children grew up. I was working for nothing on the farm and keeping myself amused and being active. It was a subsistence life style imposed on many of my generation in New Zealand by political decisions of a conservative labour party in the 1980s.

My primary and secondary education was at private schools. These were religious schools which I have no reason to complain about. It was not very expensive.

As a nurse I received a small allowance while I was training. I worked for 5 days attended lectures for one day and had 1 day off per week.

When I was at the Post Office there were training periods as the service changed I took 6 months maternity leave from the service to have a baby. During the time I was there I worked on the counter, in the telephone accounts department, and at compiling of the annual telephone book.

At the post office I found that I could not work and look after my baby. It was unfair on my mother who was in her forties and ready to go back into the work force. I gave up work and became a pauper and had 2 more wonderful children.

I could see that there were not going to be any jobs for me in my mid forties after my three children grew up so I had to adopt this life style. My husband divorced me when I was about 36 years old.

The parliament of the day granted me a subsistence allowance to live on, as I was without income at that time and I will be grateful all my life.

The next part of my life was as a single woman who had a sheep farm as a hobby. I was able to express my anger by being a farmer. It suited me down to the ground. I had a beautiful location to live in. There was peace and quiet and not much else. I had 20 hectares of land which was a dry river flat. The altitude was about 200 metres above sea level. It could be cold with snow in the winter.

When I fill out a form asking for my occupation now, I can put retired farmer. Before I came out here I had no such label. I did not know what I wanted to do with my life apart from rearing children. I was interested in finding out if I could tame the sheep. This would make it easier for me as I did not have a trained sheep dog as I could not afford one. My teachers were all nuns and so schooling taught me to be nice to people. My children grew up and went away to work. I had the sheep to look after and it filled a gap in my life and I did not have an empty nest.

At the time I started with the sheep, I had moved to the country to try to improve my health. I travelled to Christchurch to work in real estate part time. The trip was 110 kilometres per day. My health was terrible and I had to carry a nebuliser in the car, at work and in the house as my asthma was uncontrollable. I was trying to hide my asthma, but it was difficult especially at work. I was admitted to hospital a few times by ambulance, in an emergency because of my asthma. My peak flow in my lungs was only 200 and it should have been 400. I had come out in the country because I thought that it was fresh air that I needed. One night in winter I had one of my frequent attacks and I was drinking black coffee to try to make myself feel better. My youngest daughter came into the kitchen to find out what I was doing. She had to phone a doctor and an ambulance as I fell on the floor unconscious. She gave me mouth to mouth resuscitation. When I had recovered she told me later me what she had done, as I did not remember anything. In the morning she got up had her breakfast and went off to high school in the town on her own She was a brave girl.

I got the sack from the job that I had in Christchurch, which was a two-hour drive each day, and it was tiring anyhow. I had not sold enough real estate in three months, so that was that. Interest rates were too high for people to buy a house anyhow. The crowd that I was working for are no longer in existence. I enjoyed working with the people to find them houses. At the time I used to think that I would have managed better if I had help in my house, when I got home at night and on the farm. It was tiring.

Five years later I was given an operation on my stomach, called a Nissan fundoplication. There were a lot of consultations with the doctors and surgeons about how to stop the stomach acid getting into my lungs especially at night. Acid brought on the asthma. My asthma improved and as the years went by, newer drugs gave better control of the disease.

They did not tell me that one of the side effects the operation was to prevent wind or flatus coming up my throat. My interior was sewn up to keep the acid out. This caused years of discomfort. It seems that I may have developed this problem after pregnancies.

I bought my sheep through a newspaper advertisement. The seller was a member of a fundamentalist Christian group. His wife had long hair in a bun and I met her at their home in a country town. They were older people who had retired to a townhouse and did not live on the farm.