It was a cross between a flying tackle and a wrestling pin to the mat when I tripped and fell on top of the old ewe I was trying to catch. She’s a 14-year-old with severe cataracts, and she’d gotten lost in Chicory Hill tree reserve a few days ago. It was pure blind luck I found her when I did.

*After the tackle, and with the sheep cuffs on!*

Chicory Hill reserve is my sheep cemetery and hilltop shady place—somewhere the sheep can congregate while they ruminate at mid-day. Sheep like to rest on the tops of hills or at the highest point in their paddocks. I think it’s a predator thing. Easier for the scouts to see any mountain lions or bears sneaking up.

About five years ago I planted 1500 seedlings in the four hectare reserve. And then I watered them. And watered them. And watered them a few more times. Growing trees on hill tops is, not surprisingly, quite challenging.

Once the trees started to mature I decided to make this reserve my sheep cemetery, and had grave sites pre-dug with a big footings augur. It makes burying a sheep easy—I just place them in the hole, then use a pitchfork to cover them with the sandy soil from the hole.

However, over the intervening years long grass grew over the unused graves, obscuring them and making it likely that an unwary sheep (or farm vehicle) could fall in and get caught, like Pooh and Piglet in the heffalump hole. I did actually back the ute into one, and had the devil’s own time getting out again.

So this year, my offsider Brett and I devised a system to cover the holes using fencing wire and netting. We cleared the grass, covered the remaining holes and marked them with surveyor’s flags.

*The posts and flagging tape marking the unused graves. It was a good thing we covered them!*

Last week I finally let the flock into the reserve. It was a lovely moment for me, as the sheep followed me in through the gate quite happily and peacefully, and immediately began browsing the trees. They wandered off through the reserve, just exploring.

Now, there are couple of challenges here I hadn’t completely thought through. First is that before planting the reserve I used a deep rip plow to create a 1 m deep furrow into which the seedlings are planted. This lets the plants get their feet down past the clay barrier layer that resides at about 20 cm.

However, the deep rip plow leaves a huge pile of dirt on either side as it goes through, making it quite tricky to cross the tree lines, even in the Polaris. I’d cleverly designed the tree lines in big U-shaped lanes that take up the full length of the reserve, making it relatively easy to drive through with the firefighting unit when I needed to water. So, I’m limited to going around in big loops unless I’m willing to risk getting high-centred crossing the tree lines. That makes shepherding a job to be undertaken on foot, and even that can be tricky.

*The deep rip lines at planting in 2019*

The second thing I forgot was the old blind ewe in the flock. I knew she was there, as we’ve had a couple of episodes lately when she got left behind briefly. But she was surprisingly good about trotting back to the flock when I turned her along a fence. Cataracts in old sheep are not common, but I’ve had a few cases. My experience is they do better in the flock than if I take them into assisted living, where there are fewer animals for them to stay with. When they are with the flock they seem to use hearing and smell to stay up with the others.

And, like older humans, just because their eyesight is failing doesn’t mean their health is. This ewe and I were a pretty good match for weight, I reckon, and she is in very good nick. If she could have a lens replacement she’d be just fine.

Not long after I put the flock into the tree reserve I realised the errors of my ways—the blind ewe went wandering off, across the rip lines and away from the flock. I turned her back, and crossed my fingers she’d stay with them and exit when they did. She didn’t.

Two days after the flock had left, she was still there, but I didn’t see her when I went to check. After a circuit of the paddock, I was having an internal conversation, as I often do, thinking about how I might escort a straggler out of the reserve if I ever needed to. I figured she would walk uphill and into the wind, and end up on the windward fence line that leads to the gate. That would mean I’d have to circle the whole paddock to come up behind her in the right position to chivvy her along the fence line to the gate.

And just as I was finishing the conversation with myself and starting to drive out, there she was right in front of me. I had driven through that spot just minutes before and I have no idea where she was hiding then. I got out of the Polaris to speak quietly to her: I wanted her to move toward the gate several hundred metres away, not bolt back across the rip lines.

Instead, she turned into the fence corner and got caught in some long sedges—cutting sags, as they’re called here. I managed to get close enough to get hold of her, but I’ve never been adept at the trick of getting a sheep down on its bum. You’re meant to turn her head back to her shoulder and push down in just the right spot to get her to sit.

As always happens for me, my attempt to ‘throw’ her just made her struggle more and try to get away. Hanging on for dear life, I tripped and fell on top of her, pinning her to the ground. As I hadn’t intended to try to catch her, I didn’t have any sort of restraint on me, short of taking off my shoe laces to tie her feet. I took a chance that she was sufficiently discouraged by the take-down, and sprinted back to the Polaris to get my trusty ‘sheep cuffs’ and a bit of line as extra security. Happily, she stayed put till I got back and trussed her up.

I had to leave her where she was while I went home to get the ute with its lift gate. Twenty minutes or so later, she’d been picked up and delivered to the rest of the assisted living group of nine older or otherwise infirm sheep. Several are from her year class of 2009, so I’m sure she’s found friends.