A Survivalists Tale Read Online Free PDF Page B

climbed a rock close by and said she couldn't see them in the valley, but just then she said wait there they are, they were running back and forward between the ways out. I had to warn Joe and Clair, I said you do realise how lucky we were there, if that barrier hadn’t been behind us, they would have knocked us flat as they ran right over the top of us. They asked what do you suggest Rick, so I said the only way I can see this working is if we take these back to camp and two come up every other day and catch however many you can, but leave the main flock here for as long as possible. We hobbled the ones we had and tied them by the horns to three others, even then leaving straight away, we reached camp after dark, we released the young ram as these were all ewes and we had got his fleece. I thought he would run but no, he ran about a hundred yards, saw no one was chasing him and stopped to eat grass.
    We left them tied as they were for the night and went to bed, very early the next day we were up and sheering sheep we started with the ones that were older and we didn’t want. You have never seen sheep so butchered, talk about a bad hair day, they had turfs of fleece and small cuts everywhere. I had made up a type of disinfectant and had been putting it on the cuts, to help keep the flies from laying maggots in the wounds, once the older ones were done we let them go, and again they ran for a short time and then hung around like they were totally confused. I realised to late what was happening and just as I shouted to hold the sheep Clair and Joe both finished and re-leased their sheep, I hoped that the sheep I was thinking of wasn’t one of the ones re-leased. Unfortunately it was, we could only watch as they vanished over the bloody hill, damb we had for a short time had the lead ewe, well back to the hard work.
    It seemed forever, just sheering sheep and turning the youngest sheep we were keeping into a new and stronger fold, we had to build a new shelter to keep the fleeces dry and safe from blowing away, our hands were killing us. I had never napped as much flint in my life, even the flint had trouble sheering sheep, but here we were six days later with all the sheep sheered and twenty two sheep to build a flock with. We had kept six of the best rams and the rest were one to three year olds and looking bloody terrible with their new haircuts. I noticed that night before we turned in, they looked a bit down, so I asked them what was wrong, they both said at the same time, they weren’t looking forward to hooking the wool and the sheep down to base camp. I cheered them up saying we weren’t doing it by ourselves, we would build sleds and the sheep would be helping that way they will be as knackered as us at night. The last day they had gone up for more sheep they had found the valley empty, a bear or something had basically crashed its way through the barrier. The sheep that were left had taken advantage and shot through, I was kind of glad for we only lost six or seven and if I had sheered another sheep I'm not sure my hands would have ever worked again. We packed up camp and had taken down all the barriers, but just put them to the side, just in case we needed them in the future. We had four sleds full of fleeces and another with fat and skins from the animals we had trapped while there, I showed them the best way to hitch the sheep to the sleds so they wouldn’t get hurt and would have no choice but to pull. Two days later, we pulled into a much different camp than we left, the team had been busy, we had communal ovens and toilets and showers thank goodness. It turned out Sharon had been a bit of a roman engineer, type historian, for she had built a bath, and not just any bath but a heated bath. She had the water running from the stream, to fill it and some type of fire under the bath to heat it. All the huts were built and finished with dirt floors and a fire pit inside, the toilets were brilliant they had wooden