Country Living – Truckie tales

Unfortunately for me, when the gods handed out the virtue of patience they decided to leave me out. I am so void of it that I feel my family will carve the words “hurry up” deep into my coffin lid!

This came crushing upon me the other day when I was left alone on the farm to help load 300 fat lambs on to a three-storey tandem stock truck. The lambs were in a set of sheep yards that I now realise need more maintenance than Rodney’s roads!

To make matters worse, my 4-year-old daughter had snuck up to the yards and opened a gate. This mixed up all the male and female lambs that had been separated two hours before. This meant the boy lambs were now getting up close and personal to the girl lambs.

Once the driver had backed the massive truck up to the loading ramp, I thought it would be best to approach him with outright honesty. I professed to this lovely man that he had stumbled upon possibly the world’s worst sheep handler. So off we went to achieve what seemed like squeezing 300 toddlers into a double-decker bus to nowhere. I was running around like a madwoman, waving my arms and flapping my apron. Our highly-trained working dogs wouldn’t listen to me, ditto for the lambs, my 4-year-old, and, by this stage I’m sure, the truckie!

In frustration, I decided to recite those famous words from the movie Babe. “Baa ram ewe,” I yelled (which by the way sheep actually don’t respond to, but I saw a smile on the truckie’s face). Yep, I had certainly got my knickers in a knot. Hundreds of little toddlers in a small area would surely do that to anybody; not so our truckie. He remained calm, cool and collected.

With the patience of a pre-school teacher and the skill of a gymnast, he hurtled himself over dozens of gates and ramps, tucking about 12 of these little toddlers into each pen. All I could do was stand at the back of the pack and watch, which is probably why I felt about as useless as boobs on a bull. I was puffing and sweating just watching all his hard work.

Anyway, we finished loading that truck in non-record breaking time, and I offered him a bite to eat. But he had a deadline to meet and had to go. As I waved that truckie goodbye, I was left pondering. What an incredibly difficult, frustrating, and skilled job they have and completely underrated in my books. So perhaps we should all raise our “strong arm”, not only to the stock truckies, but to all the truckies out there. After all, they are carrying the weight of this great nation directly behind them!