Stone walls and sheepies

Our hosts at Gypsy Acres, Michael and Renate, were amazing. They were both hippies working on their land, smoking and being happy as can be. Our work was to build a stone wall, not an easy task. We spent our days lugging huge rocks and shovelling dirt. You should see our arms now, they are amazing.

Our other task, which happened by pure chance was to help with the shearing of the sheep. Now, this is something we'd been wanting to do. Big stars have gone next to all of the WWOOF hosts that have sheep. Gypsy Acres didn't even mention their sheep in their listing, so it must have been in the stars. Renate, who is a crazy German woman with bucketloads of stories, has all of their animals named and calls the sheeps sheepies, which is great fun. Sheep shearing day is a big big deal, even though there are only 21 sheepies. They get rounded up and put in a blocked offpart of the paddock to wait for their haircuts. Jen and Michael had the mad jobs of catching the sheep and getting them to Brian, the shearer. Let me tell you, this is no easy task. Michael was doing some tumbling, there was some mild tackling and everybody's hands were well moisturized with lanolin. My job was the gate keeper to make sure only one sheep got out and not the whole flock. My other exciting job was to sort all of the dirty wool out of the clean wool. Nasty, nasty, nasty. I now have a wonderful appreciation for the wool I knit with. This was one of coolest experiences thus far.

In conclusion, the names of the animals I can remember: Phillip- green frog who lives in a pipe and really loves a good scratch on the head, Tony- toad that lives outside the studio, Rulla- wonderful dog that happens to be half dingo, Puglsy- a skittish cat that is afraid of people (thank god), the Kenny family- family of magpies that are always around, Henrietta and Maggie- chooks that weren't terribly exciting, and the sheepies: Fritz, Fat Freddy, Gertrude, Lisa, Alex, Maxell, Matthew and anybody else I would have to consult with Renate as Michael can't really get them straight.