If you look carefully at the first picture, you might see Keith waiting to be fed - only kidding! The guy then brings in the sheep and the shearing begins.
This is the sheep getting sheared! It's quite amazing how it just sits on its butt as placid as can be while it gets a shave. It reminds me of how I had to sit for my school haircut down Pallion when we would visit 'The Pole' - no that's not the name of the shop, it's the nationality of the Barber! He couldn't speak English, so whatever you asked for didn't matter, you ended up with a short back and sides!
This part was amazing - the border collie (just visible behind the sheep) waits to hear just one command from the guy. So the farmer was in front of us talking about everything and the sheep were all in the distance grazing in the field. The border collie never took its eyes of the guy. All he said was 'Ok get them'. The dog took off - jumped clear over the fences and raced off into the field - within 3 minutes it had all the sheep gathered in front of us at the pen. When they get to the pen they need some more 'encouragement' to enter the pens, so the farmer unleashes his secret weapon 'Bruce'. Bruce instinctively stands on sheep (no training necessary) he's breed includes a part dingo and this is how dingo's bring down their prey by getting on top of them. So Bruce runs along the backs of the sheep forcing them into the pens and the border collie stays behind them in case any sheep decide to turn around. It was very impressive. The border collie was amazing, the farmer said the only training he has to do is to tell it NOT to get the sheep in - otherwise it would instinctively gather them in without a command. My friend Peter Marley had a border collie - alas all it could do was gather the remote control and eventually died from too much love.
We saw this 'claim to fame' on the door when we went in to buy our tickets. Free cup of tea to anyone who can 'authenticate' this story in the Guiness book of records (or by Goggle Paul!) They did confirm it was 'our' Sunderland i.e. in England!!
Ps Didge - I (Keith) remember been taken to the Saturday morning ABC picture club (you weren't that kid with all the coloured badges on were you?). I always loved it and thought it was very generous of my parents to take me - until I later found out that my Mam and Dad just wanted rid of us for a few hours peace!
4 comments:
Erm, what exactly do you want us to do for the cup of tea exactly? Prove that the plaque is a true claim? That it's our Sunderland that it's referring to? That it's in the Guiness Book?
Another couple of questions...do they have a Sunderland in Oz, and does it really snow there...enough to cover a bloomin sheep??
All right, thanks for editing the blog so that we followers koow what you're talking about, man! It's up to you now, Paul, I've done all the preliminaries for you to ...go to...that "Goo-ru"....that you do...so well.
"Would you like another schnitzengruben?"
Very Good Hedley Lamarr. Clearly you have the same taste in classic films that your brother has.
Well, I count no less than 7 Sunderlands in the US (greedy buggers), 1 in Canada, and a Sunderland Bay near Melbourne in Oz - although I can't believe it snows at all there, or ever has.
And before you ask, I didn't use Google. I used Google Earth.
There's nothing on t'Internet regarding the name of the guy that found the sheep and Sunderland. There is mention however of the same sheep story but it doesn't mention the lcoation. However, the 'claim to fame' mentions the River Skinsdale and it does exist. It's in the very North of Scotland - a wee dram more likely to get snow deep enough to lose a sheep than Oz, AND it's in "Sutherland", not Sunderland. So I reckon it's a spelling mistake and K&S should head straight back to the sheep-shearers and let him know.
So whilst I don't deserve the cup of tea for authenticating the claim, I deserve the pot of tea and should keep the pot for correcting it.
Paul.
P.S. Here's a strange one. I managed to get the Blog address mixed up with K&S's email address and ended up at http://keithandsuz.blogspot.com and it's a real blog. AND the first picture I see is a picture of a couple with a kid called Rylan (not Ryan) and a Train Driver - yes a Train Driver with a Train Driver's uniform and everything. What are the chances of that? And I'm getting wrong for purposely mentioning trains.
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