To our Australian friends.

[Andre]

Man I would love to come out and see you sometime Andre. In a Non Gay Way.

Of course.

[Sharla]

I think country WA is a lot like country SA and well most relatively remote and especially dry farming areas. My bros always shot things growing up but as savage as it sounds if they didn't the very small amount of greenery (and our cops) would have been eaten in about 5 mins and then everything would have starved to death anyway - along with our livestock.

I never did any shooting - left that to my brothers - but I know in some places in Australia where rabbits, kangaroos, mice and galahs tend to breed up to plague proportions so quickly and so often it is neccessary.

If you like physical work and I mean really HARD work I can put you in touch with one of my older brothers Booze. He's a shearing contracter. He lives in Finley NSW.

I don't get to see him often because I live in SA but he's a smart businessman and will often have reasonably well paid work for anyone willing to sweat for a while. Of course I warn you I mean REALLY hard work but you'd work for a week and earn enough to suvive for 2 or 3 weeks I think.

[boozeboxer]

Hey Sharla,

Yeah contract shearing has to be a very hard job. We have cattle and we used to have sheep on our farm and it was quite a deal whenever they sheared them.

I think it is very odd that you all don't have alot of natural predators to keep all the rodents in check? But I doubt rabbits were native to Australia either so I am sure people brought the problems with them.

[Sharla]

Not enough predators to keep control of the rodents. I think sporadic rain events don't help either. Things get all green temporarily and rodent numbers just boom but the rain and that extra vegetation isn't around for long.

Well since you come from a farming background I think you'd be fine with the work. There's not just shearing work but rousabout work etc so you wouldn't have to know how to shear.

If you do decide you wanna spend some time working in country NSW I can get some info from my bro about whats around at whatever time of year you'd be considering. I guess I could just give you his contact details and you could discuss it with him yourself.

Last i heard he had just bought a block of land to set up living quarters for his workers and he drives them out to farms now in an old limo but is upgrading to a minibus so he can carry more people.

[donnydarkoIRL]

I used to work with Shearing Contractors a lot.

Got offered a few jobs in WA at it too.....Probably would too, but I'm dodge with Marinos.

[Sharla]

For some reason i had it in my head that most sheep were in Australia and NZ and just didn't think of there being many elsewhere. I'm kinda suprised you guys both have that experience! At least you both know you're qualified for a working holiday in Australia any time!

[boozeboxer]

Yeah Wyoming has many many sheep. There also used to be range wars where the cattle and sheep guys were very hostile to each other because they thought the sheep at the grass to short