Thread: When men were men

Malc with one after we had been crutching all day.
We were always after the extra dollar.

They had to have the ears on to sell them. I still leave the ears on whole deer. They seem naked without them.

This a photo I took years ago from one of the clearings in the Opa,Bullring area.
Pretty much what a lot of the area looked/looks like.
It was a neat spot and handy to home if you were prepared to hoof it a bit.


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Say hello to John from Mike and Paul next time you see him - he knows us well. Yes we did alot of hunting with the local farmboys in early years. Great to see pic of Opa area

When my dad died in 2016 at 95, five of the boys who came out with us shooting on the tractor-trailer trips 55 years ago were present at the funeral. A cool reunion - showed the depth of relationships forged as youngsters hunting together a long time ago. Ernie - John and Malcolm both there..

Meat hunting days relived. Me yesterday. I took 3 very slow trips to get these out in the morning - then the cocky said "seeming you are here I will get in a mob to dock this afternoon". Bloody hell.

I have never liked docking.
The old man used to time lambing so docking was the school holidays.
We used fight, squabble and moan in the hope we would get sent home.
Letting the scrim go at the right time might work or "loosing" control of a dog sometimes worked.
Liked fencing and using a handpiece more.

Docking, drafting, lambing beats, crutching, milking etc - all the farmboy jobs.

Old man was a dab hand at docking. Dock anything that moved. We had a farm tomcat that was getting a bit stroppy, so old man says 'come and help'. He managed to push Tom (very original name) head first into a gumboot. Back legs in too so only his tail and his nuts sticking out. He says 'hold that gumboot closed boy'. Whip, whip with his pocket knife and cat lets out a hell of a screech, legs in overdrive as he scrambles backwards, I drop the boot, and he clears the back fence at about 100 miles per hour. Never saw a cat move so fast. 2-3 days later he came back.. he was quieter after that. Not surprised really....

A last farm tale.... always makes me chuckle. We had an Auckland city boy Peter come to stay on the farm for a week. Had never been out of the city. Old man's doing some drafting in the yards, finishes, and me and 3-4 other local farmboys now sitting on the yard fence. Old man goes into one of the pens, leaning down checking the ewes.

Peter: "What are you doing Mr Anderson?"
Dad: "I'm checking the ewes for lumps in the udder"
Peter: " Can I help?"
Dad: "Yep - you go and check them in that pen"
Peter - keen as mustard, leaps off the fence into other pen. Grabs a big sheep and grapples its back end... "Mr Anderson ..Mr Anderson..this one's got great big lumps in the udder"..

Great hilarity ensues .. old man grinning, and 4 farmboys falling off the fence with laughter. The pen's full of rams..

Back to the hunting stories..

yes supplejack sure does hurt......very good at keeping young folks in line.