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ASH FLINTOFT
DUCKS ON THE POND! Back in the day, you would hear this ring through the woolshed, to announce the impending arrival of women. Usually carrying over smoko, the swearing would stop and the men would be on their best behavior. Meet Ash Flintoft. She’s not just a little duck on some pond, she’s a woman of the downtube. Ash wasn’t born into a shearing family. In fact, she didn’t have anything to do with the wool industry until she took up work on a sheep station in her late teens. While the station work was all fine and dandy, it was shearing that she fell in love with at first…
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Caleb Morgan
The more I dig into the wool industry, the more it feels like it’s just one huge family run business. You will be hard pressed to find someone working in wool that doesn’t have a family tie to it somewhere. Caleb Morgan falls comfortably into that family genre and his ties run for four generations. The story of wool before Caleb is a long one. His Grandad and Great Papa were both shearers and woolgrowers, mum was a woolhandler and dad is a shearing contractor. It is quite fitting that Caleb would be born into the woolsheds, literally. His story starts with breaking his mum’s waters on the shearing board,…
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Crutching Trailers
Crutching trailers are well known across Australia for making a repetitive and laborious job, just that little bit easier. A mobile plant that has been used in the far reaches of rural Australia, it goes wherever sheep need to be crutched. Parked near a set of yards, the sheep are first brought in from their paddocks and wait to be moved up the line for their turn on the trailer. Helped along by a penner-up-er and their trusty sidekicks, it is a full action, non stop job. Front of the line brings them to the trailer, up the ramp and to the catching pens across from the crutchers. From…
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It’s Not You, It’s Me
Eventually, something would have to give. Over the last decade in the wool industry I have slowly watched my home soil perish. The dirt underneath my feet is cracked and thirsty. Paddocks that were once littered with sheep, are now bare. It’s hard to remember a time during my woolclassing career when the drought wasn’t part of the small talk that I make with farmers. A time when we would worry if we would be able to get out that black soil driveway without getting bogged. Those times of laying in the shearers quarters at night listening to the rain on the tin roof. Hearing those two words that were…
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SEVEN
Every now and then a big personality is born on a farm. Seven is one of them. Born in 2016 as part of a set of triplets, Seven was met with the big wet that had hit his home of ‘Aloeburn’, Boree Creek. Very few paddocks remained safe from flood waters for the lambing ewes and his farmers, Jodie and Andrew Green had some tough decisions to make for the wellbeing of their flock. Both Seven and his brother were adopted by Jodie and Andrew, giving their sister a more promising start at life. The two young rams were added to the poddy mob, they became part of the special…
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MERINO COUNTRY
It was the nineties and the Queensland wool industry was struggling through drought and low wool prices. Searching through stores for Australian wool everyday wear, would have you coming home empty handed. It was a quiet time for Queensland wool, but something was stirring inside of Kerrie Richards. These hard times was the fuel that ignited her idea for merino wool clothing line, ‘Merino Country’. With next to zero traceability of an Australian wool clip from farm to fibre and a lack of affordable everyday wear merino clothing available to the public, Kerrie was smacked in the face with a gaping hole in the Australian clothing industry. Her new business…
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TAMBO TEDDIES
Tambo is the oldest town in Western Queensland with a history overflowing with wool and sheep. Once buzzing with shearing teams and huge sheep properties, wild dogs, drought and the wool price crash have forced most woolgrowers to either sell up, or go into cattle. While most have long forgotten the wool industry in the district, there is a business nestled in the main street of town still keeping locals employed in the wool industry and boosting the local economy. Tambo Teddies is a hot spot for tourists travelling out West, however this is not your average outback store full of tourist knick knacks. This is a teddy bear workshop.…
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THE STEWARTS
It’s all hands on deck for the Stewart family when shearing time rolls around at ‘Riverview’ Evandale TAS. The kids get a day off school and kept busy in their one stand shed. The shearing shed is an extension built off the side of their storage shed and works a treat. Everyone is assigned their own jobs and although only lasting a day, shearing is the highlight of their farming year. Summer, 11, keeps herself busy stamping butts, skirting fleeces and sweeping the board. ‘I love jumping in the butts and polishing my boots with the wool. My favourite thing is having pet lambs. I know it’s not possible to…
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MOLLY CORNISH
Molly Cornish will make you want to get out there and grab life by the horns, or wool for that matter. I caught up with Molly at her dad’s farm, ‘Crenmore’, at Oatlands, Tasmania. In the freezing cold temps she graciously braved them for me to get a few shots and humbly told me about her life, loves and what she’s got in store for the future. When most little girls hit their 12th birthday, planning for their future and laying down foundations for their career path goes as far as declaring that they want to be a vet one week and an actress the next. Something a little more…
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THE BIG DRY
(Image – ‘Cambo’, Mungindi NSW) The big dry. There’s a lot of things you can regulate, influence and change as a woolgrower. But the rain ain’t one of them. Working across Southern and Outback Queensland for most of my working year in the woolsheds, I experience the highs and lows of the seasons alongside the woolgrowers who I class for. Some days work is called off because not even my 4wd can navigate their black soil driveways to start work. But when the big dry rears its ugly head, there is nothing but sunshine. That moisture sucking, dry heat sunshine. The ground under the sheep’s hooves is cracked and patiently…
