The working life on Werona was centred around the annual sheep husbandry activities: shearing, dipping, crutching, lamb marking and ear tagging. From when we were quite young we all had some helping role to play. Most tasks required that the mobs of sheep be mustered and brought to the yards adjoining the wool shed. When we weren’t old enough for the full day of mustering on horseback we kept an afternoon lookout from the back of the house for the incoming sheep. We were then allowed to ride out to help pen them up.

When there was an orphan lamb we got to fight over who gave them their bottles of milk. A large empty beer bottle with a teat on it was just right for the job. You had to hold the bottle firmly as all but the smallest and weakest lambs ‘butted’ the bottle as they sucked.

Sheep need to be dipped with insecticides that control fly strike or lice. Up near the pig pen, a short distance from the sheep yards, there was a disused old plunge dip that we were supposed to not play anywhere near. By the 1960s the work of dipping was done in the yards in the ‘new’ spray race. Our job here was to “stay right back away from the spray” and to help to keep the sheep moving up through the race.

Whenever sheep had to be moved through the pens we were allowed to use some ‘special tools’ that were kept on a high nail in a shed post. These valued, handcrafted objects were sheep rattles. They were constructed by first punching a nail hole into the centre of several of the tin lids from Log Cabin tobacco cans. Then a length of fencing wire was treaded through them and closed up into a circle about 12 cm in diameter. When it was shaken this made a fantastic low level rattle noise that moved sheep along without startling them.

Getting ready for shearing involved quite a lot of work. The wool shed and the shearers quarters all had to be cleaned and properly equipped. We had the important job of chasing the huge flock of resident pigeons out of the wool shed. Needless to say it was only ever a temporary eviction. As soon as the activity of shearing ceased the birds moved back into the shed and nested again in the rafters. While they made an awful mess with their droppings, and it took days to scrub out the shed, I still loved watching them. I thought, and I still do, that the rings of green and violet iridescent feathers around their necks are mesmerizingly beautiful.

Apart from shearing the sheep, there is a need for crutching them to prevent them getting flyblown. Crutching removes the wool from around the tail and between the rear legs of a sheep. When crutching is being done the sheep are often given a ‘wigging’ as well. Wigging removes wool from the head of sheep to prevent the wool from covering the sheep's eyes and making them "wool blind”.

Dad often did the crutching and wigging on his own, or with just one other man to help him. A benefit of this for us was a relaxation in the level of restrictions that were in place at shearing time. When there was a full shearing team in the shed we were always told to “stay out of the way of the men working”. Crutching time meant that we were allowed to be in the holding pen inside the shed and to help grab the next sheep to be shorn. 

Crutching time also often afforded a splendid opportunity to raid the treacle tin. It was normally kept up on a high ledge near the engine that powered the overhead gear needed for the operation of the wool clipping handpieces. There was a long wide belt that ran in a loop from the engine to the end of the overhead machinery. In order to prevent this belt slipping Dad used to brush it generously with treacle. We were told “don’t eat that stuff it could give you a bellyache,” but of course we often did sample ‘just a bit of it’ if the tin was left down and we could get the lid off it!