Stories about New Zealand farm live, Gisborne Les

Visit from Les

I was about 18 and was a shepherd on a station about 60 miles from Gisborne, which was under the shadow of Mt Arawhara.

I’m not sure how big the place was, about 10 or 12 thousand acres, most of which was above the birch line which meant we got some very heavy snow falls at times.

The boss sent me out the back of the place with a couple of packhorses carrying groceries and fencing gear, and explained another chap named Les would be out in a day or two. We were to repair a fence and they all would come out in a week or ten days and would attempt to get some cattle back that had got across the river and stayed there.

I went out, unloaded the horses, packed the tucker away and waited for Les who was a musterer and did quite a bit of work in the area. There were alot of wild pigs in the area. There was a bounty on them for a shilling for a snout and tail, it was a way sore day when we never got at least one pig. Sometimes there were 20 or more and it grew into a sizeable bonus! I got quite a few, also a nice young sow that I dressed for the table.

The hut was the usual station type, open fire one end to cook on, three or four bunks with a sack stacked over for a mattress. A lean to, to keep the saddler and wood in, a dirt floor that had a bucket of water thrown over now and again to keep the flea population down.

I was pottering around doing a few odd jobs when my dogs started to bark, Les had arrived.

He had a cheerful kind face, a person you trusted on sight. He got off his horse, came over and shook hands, “Well Ken, you’ve got the camp nice and tidy I see, how about a cup of tea”.

We had a cup or two and chatted away on various subjects.

“I saw quite a bit of pig-rooting around, the pigs are getting overrun. I’d like a bit of pork”.

I told him there was a leg of pork in the camp oven, that satisfied him. He’d brought some dog tucker out with him so we fed the dogs and did the usual chores before yarning until tea was ready. He was a fascinating chap. He knew all the news and the history of the area.

I’d heard he had a good team of dogs and they looked the part, also a couple of nice looking horses. He gave me several tips on dog and horse care which I’ve always remembered.

Next morning we got onto the fence line, it wasn’t bad, a few broken posts, a few broken wires and several places where pigs had made holes under the fence by poking through.

“This is a piece of cake Kenny my boy, by tomorrow lunch time it will be done”, which it was, he put a dog around a small mob of sheep and brought them down and put them in the paddock around the hut. “Just in case we get snow bound, we’ll at least have meat and dog tucker”.

I grinned, “Not much chance of that”.

“You never know, it will be about five days before the others get here and anything could happen by then”. True words!

That night when I went outside before I went to bed, the wind had changed and it had turned cold.

Next morning it was snowing heavily. Les looked at the weather, let a dog off and brought the sheep down, “We’ll kill three, one mutton and two dog tucker if this weather keeps on, the meat will keep anyhow”.

By midday the snow was six inches deep around the hut, higher up on the hill it was at least eighteen inches, “We are here for a few days now lad, we are snow bound. We can’t get out and no one can get in”.

I was quite excited really. Anyhow we had plenty of meat and tinned food so we wouldn’t starve.

That day started an education I’ve never forgotten. Les had leather tools in his pack. We renewed the stitching on the bridles, girths, saddlebags, stirrup leathers etc. Les made a stew in the camp over then made dough boys.

Scones and damper. He wasn’t a good cook really, in fact some of his cooking was bloody awful. No one could possibly make worse macaroni cheese than he did, but the dogs ate it if we didn’t. I cooked the roast mutton, pork and the porridge. I’m not sure he wasn’t crafty and wanted me to do the cooking.

But he made up for it in other ways. He explained different cures for cuts, galls, bruises on horses. Dogs of course were best left alone if they could lick their wounds, but stitching helped a bad cut. Also how to hold a stick in a dogs mouth so he couldn’t bite when you were stitching it as many are liable to do, especially if you have no help.