MAY 14...The best day's work of any description I've ever done.
I was gardening on one of my client's places and was on the two-way talking about a pump that had failed. The property manager was with the header driver in a sorghum crop and they were looking at pigs. He said to forget work and come up, he wanted them gone.
Got up the road and into the crop and got some directions from header man Dave. Started edging around the stubble as the harvester belted through the crop. Then Dave was seeing pigs weaving in front of him, he was on the two-way, then the manager was on the radio, he'd seen a mob pop out of the crop in front of him and turn back in and there was a good boar with them.
I ran into the crop with Ted (the only dog I had) and he hit pigs and caught a 25kg (guess) boar. He went again and chased another...straight at the header. The pig veered off but Ted was very committed and kept going. Horrifying second or two as Ted seemed to disappear into the header. Actually the tynes on the reel (big rotating bars that drag the crop through the comb fingers and into the teeth) hit Ted on the head and Dave threw it out of gear in the absolute nick of time. I called Ted off and pissed off away from the header and back to the truck. One pig.
Dave's back on the radio and he can see pigs and this time so can I. So it's on, across the stubble racing the header to cut off a mob of about eight. There was another one to the right. Ted went off the truck and got one just through the fence. Might have made 30kgs (dressed). Second pig. The pigs are now charging across an open grassy paddock and Ted's going for it. He's got another one (25). I eventually got there and that was three pigs and one vomit (by me...I was having a go as long as Ted was, but suffering).
He got one more right at the edge of an unharvested crop. And then went in the crop. I threw up again, gave up and started running back to the truck to get ready for some serious pursuit. Hard climb, not steep but long, back to the truck. When I get there the manager is parked about 100 metres away in the stubble. Back near a radio I hear him say he's got a good boar bailed up with the Landcruiser 'I've been campdrafting him...'.
I fly out of crop number one heading across the grass toward the second crop. I'm ready to get the trackers out when I see Ted coming back. He's seriously buggered. Too unfit for proper numbers. And he's carrying one leg, a rock cut from two weeks ago has opened up again from his pad about 11 cms up the inside of his front leg. Manager's on the radio saying have I got the dog 'this is a big pig' . I'm saying yes but he looks done and I doubt he'll be any good. About to find out anyway because the manager is saying let's go. I have a look at Ted, he's sore and fairly hot but he's not breathing so hard so it's on. Boar's squatted in the grass. Ted walks around to him and a top boar stands up and in Ted goes. The boar's belting Ted off every time he comes in, but he keeps coming in. Ted's got nothing much (my fault, poor conditioning) but he keep's going so I drove around to cut off any escape and provoked a charge from the boar. Good hooks hanging out of his mouth, he woofs under the Rodeo two or three times, spins around, Ted goes again and so do I. I fly out of the truck and it's me, the pig and Ted all in about 2 metres diameter. Ted goes in again, boar goes forward and goes for Ted, I grab the bastard's tail. Stuck him standing as the manager watched from the Landcruiser...
The boar dressed out at 82kgs.
No comments:
Post a Comment