The sheep wait at the gate ready to be let out onto the common. The dogs are watching them, laying on the ground, their heads moving in every direction where there is movement in the small flock. They are accustomed to this routine as are the sheep, and I walk down through them and prop open the gate with a stick that is always there for the purpose. Then I walk out the drive, onto the road and ensure that there are no other sheep on the common with which ours might be boxed. I hear the wind in the trees along the main road this morning while watching the woollies come through the gate, counting them after confirming that the ground where they will graze for 9 hours of the day is empty, except for an odd kangaroo.
This is a morning routine but not the last we will see of the sheep, for they cannot be left alone on the unfenced common, there are many dangers, man created and those that nature presents even as they graze. The cars that travel the main road adjoining the common are of the mainstream, they race everywhere, even if they reach their destination and then only have a cup of coffee and a gossip, or just wander round wondering what they might do now; they are always in a rush. While we of the alternative lifestyle walk the 3 kilometres round trip to ensure the sheep don't go onto the flat that will invariably lead them onto the road. The sweet briar without any foliage grabs at our clothes as we walk, as if asking us to top a moment and view the scenery round us. It holds us only a moment. Long enough for us to realise that we might have missed something on the walk and we take stock, glance around again over the path we have travelled and the path we have yet to tread. The dogs quarter the ground as we venture out, we can smell the musky scent where the fox has marked his stops on the nightly journey. Even though we will make this trip at least twice, sometimes up to 4 times a day, the dogs will find new scents and sights to investigate every time, new things, as we do ourselves.
Some of society would say that walking 3 or 4 kilometres every day to check sheep is a waste of time, the tasks that shepherds perform have never been valued highly. In the corporate world there is too much to do to waste time like this, hence the great haste to drive everywhere quickly, and yet - in the corporate world people need to jog or join a gym or do some other often unnatural and gratuitous action for exercise. Much in the corporate world has been said to be high pressure, and that suits some people, but even those it suits need to wind down and are finding life not as fulfilling as they had imagined. In the world of living simply there is no time wasted, because the walk is exercise and suitable because every minute is interesting and quite often new. Places reached, things seen, observed and noted for future reference. There is the company of others, dogs, partner, that walk as well and the discussion regarding grass length, paddock suitability or tree growth are the subject of conversation, or if there is no conversation, it matters not at all. Because the mind is presented with something to think about at every step. New and fresh wombat diggings, rabbit scratchings and squats, the fox track, the places where the deer have been grazing on the last of the blackberry leaves during the night hours. The strange weather conditions which have left the blackberries with leaves this late in the season and made the daffodil bulbs shoot months too early and the unusual behaviour by trees, flowers and have caused people to suddenly, probably too late, worry about the way they have degraded the atmosphere.
The mainstream people are really in trouble and look forward to holidays and weekends or when they are trying to enjoy themselves on these days find they cannot and are actually looking forward to get back to the routines and environment where they think they feel comfortable and in control. The Alternative lifestyle people never feel the need to be in control, just to be awake.
The dogs move down the slope onto the flat and bring the sheep slowly up from where they might just trespass onto an area that could mean their death and we watch as they are again moving in a direction that will take them to graze on other grasses, possibly not as good as the ones from which they have been slowly guided, but good enough for their needs and growing in a much safer place. Then we start for home again, and we can get other things done before we once again engage ourselves in this valuable but involuntary exercise and learning.
