For the third year in a row, our sheep have gone wild. They are roaming the property willy-nilly, but this weekend I plan to stop them in their tracks.
First I will lure as many as I can down around the house. That should be fairly easy - there's plenty of good fresh grass that should tempt even the wildest of woollies. If they see me, they will come.
But some of them will not see me, since they are up in the high paddocks among the gorse. So next comes the hard part. I need to go up the hill - twice. That would be all right, except that the hill is so steep it leaves me in a hot, sweaty heap even in a snowstorm.
A farm bike would be handy, but only once - I'd be too scared to ride it down.
So I will walk slowly up one side of the property, then down again, driving the sheep ahead of me and closing gates as I go. Then it's huff and puff back up the other side and drive the rest of the sheep down.
Sometimes it's not as easy as that, and there can be a bit of toing and froing in the top paddock as I chase small mobs round and through patches of bush. I might have to lure them with sheep nuts, but sooner or later, I will get them down.
They will be closed in together for the first time in ages, ready for shearing.
And that leaves me another big job. I need to clear out the woolshed, which is full of large bales of wool, odd fleeces I have put aside for spinning but not got around to yet, bags of dags which should be the base for a no-dig garden and lengths of timber that are too long to be stored elsewhere.
Some of the timber might come in handy. The shed also needs repair, as a couple of wallboards at the back have rotted and begun to come off. There's no use going to all the trouble of getting the sheep in there if they can just crash out through the wall.
And once I have everything - sheep and shed - ready for action, I will ring Norman the shearer, who will drive up in his wee white jeep with his blade shears and quietly take care of the flock. He will shear them, trim their toenails and check their teeth, and I will drench them and decide who stays.
And that should be my last sheep-related job for 2010. Then I can concentrate on the bees.