Richard hands back again

After my last night shift in the milk tankers I managed to finish early and was home in bed by 3.30 am. A couple of hours sleep and I was up to the hunting block to drive the tip truck moving material for the digger on my new building site. Later that day I was expecting Richard as he was coming back again to give his two dogs, Keith and Snow another run on the boars. Because Richard had been in before he knew how I trained dogs on the pigs so I said he could go and put muzzles on his dogs and take them for a

run while I carried on carting stuff away for the digger. A while later on Richard turned up with a smile on his face and a beer in his hand. At this point it was tempting to have a beer myself but I had to keep working until the digger driver wanted to finish. At 5.30 the digger driver finished up for the day and said that he would be back at about 10.30 in the morning, which would give Richard and I some time to do some training and catch up on some gossip. Back at the hut the first priority was to sit down and have a beer and a yarn. The last time Richard was

here he was impressed on how well the muzzles worked but the downside was that they where only plastic and could break quite easily. With him being an engineer he said he would take away one of my broken ones and see if he could make up one out of stainless steel. So while we where having a beer Richard gave me a brand new Stainless steel muzzle that he had made up himself. He had used it on one of his dogs, Keith earlier when he came into the block and there was no wear on it and it had not effected the way that Keith had hunted.

I wanted to drive up to the top of the block to check on the cows as they where due to have calves. One cow had had a calf the day before but I could not find it so it maybe dead. On the way up the hill I noticed my son Bryce driving up he had obviously spotted us and was heading up the hill. He had come to collect Jeff the possum dog as he was going out night shooting with his girlfriend Gemma and mate Chris. They ended up getting 38 possums for the night.

There where no more calves so we headed back down to the hut and said good bye to Bryce and his crew then headed up into the block with Richards two dogs. We only had to walk inside the gate and the dogs knew exactly what they where their for and took off in search of a pig. It was then that I realised that I had left my camera back at the hut so I was not going to get any photos tonight. There was always tomorrow I guess. The dogs had a good run and Snow had stepped up from the last time he was in as he did not need to be encouraged to go and do anything.

By the time we left the block it was almost dark. As we came back to the hut the lights where on and there was my other son Sloan with his girl friend Natalie and one of their mates Luke. So it was good to get to catch up with both of my sons in the one day the only family member I would not see today was my wife. It was getting on when Sloan and his crew decided to leave and that was when Richard pulled out another surprise, a big feed of whitebait. I think it was about 3 am when I final got to sleep.

Next morning was not an early start, but I knew that the pigs would be waiting for us. When we got up into the block the two dogs tracked away right from the gate again and only went out to 120 meters and bailed three boars together who had obviously been sleeping until they where rudely awakened. The dogs had been bailing for about an hour when I heard the digger start up so we called the dogs off and started heading out. As we got near the gate the dogs went again and bailed the black and white boar. This boar is new to the block so it was good to see how he reacted to the dogs as he has never had dogs on him before that I am aware of. The boar did not want to stand for the bail and every time he went to turn and run one of the dogs would touch him on the nuts with their muzzle and that was enough to get him to turn back on the dogs. So it was a bit of a game of I chase you then you chase me. Finally I think that the heat got to the dogs and they came off and we lead them out. Richard was packed up and heading out in no time and I was back up the hill in the dump truck helping the digger driver.