It can’t be too long before Tahlia Haigh gets to live something of a dream.
The 16-year-old Year 10 Coomealla High School student has just finished a week-long shearing camp at Tapio Station – but her real interest lies in being a rouseabout – just like her mum Jessie, who was away on a three-week run while Tahlia was trying her hand at shearing.
Although she is a ‘townie’ – having lived first at Balranald and now in Coomealla – the shearing shed has been part of her life for a long time as her stepfather Corey is a shearer himself.
“I mostly liked the work as a rouseabout,” Tahlia says.
“I think it is better than shearing as you get to do more with the wool.
“During the holidays I get to go to sheds and work with mum on the floor, picking up the wool, throwing it onto the tables and doing some skirting.
“And I get paid for it, which is even better.
“But the problem I have as a shearer is a lot of the big adult sheep are also bigger than me so I find it pretty hard to catch and drag them and then hold them down, but with some help from the trainer I did okay.”
Fortunately there were some smaller sheep too, and Tahlia doesn’t completely discount the option of being a shearer somewhere down the track.
And with a bit of help, and then practice, she got her time per sheep down to around six to seven minutes for an adult ewe.
“The hardest thing this week for me has been the size of the sheep,” Tahlia says.
And with not a lot of height on either side of her gene pool, she says she is not all that confident of becoming a big, strapping shearer.
But despite all the sweat and aching muscles, there was at least one serious upside for the rousie wannabe.
“The best thing about this is I get to make Mum proud,” she says.
“I see Mum and me working in a shearing team together.
“The longest she has been away is a couple of months but soon I will be able to be there with her, I hope.
“I know it means things like burrs in your hands – I have a few at the moment – but I love throwing the fleece on the classer’s table, helping with the skirting and then getting the next one.”
