June 14th-16 saw Chapman Valley open our family cattle muster to the public, for the first time ever!
The three day adventure started on Tuesday the 14th, with six fresh faced and enthusiastic riders ready to round ’em up!
Day 1
The first paddock to be rounded up was ‘Round Top’. The cattle were quite hard to find, having split into several mini-herds and spread out over the massive paddock. It took us most of the day to find and bring in what we had – and we were still missing 6 cheeky cows and calves!
After bringing the herd in we decided to get a head-start on the follow day’s muster by bringing in a second herd, “Marsden’s Arm”. They came in fairly easily luckily for us, as it was dark by the time we finished unsaddling the horses!
Day 2
Sore bums and big smiles! After our epic 7 hours in the saddle yesterday, we felt every bump in the saddle when we re-mounted and rode out to round up Clear Farm … but it didn’t take long for our bodies to adjust and settle back in for another long day in the saddle.
Clear Farm held another challenging day for us with the cattle, finding only a third of the herd in the big open space that is called Clear Farm. It was time to “go bush” and find where the rest of them were hiding!
We eventually rounded up a good number of them, but we were still missing a few! The long ride home to base camp was still ahead of us, so we had to leave the stragglers for another day.
Day 3
The riders are a little quieter this morning … maybe sleepy? Sore? Or just a little bit sad that it’s the last day of the muster? Nevertheless, we have two fresh faces that join us for the day, and they soon brighten us up!
First up we need to move the cattle out of “The Hill” (the front paddock) so that we can bring the larger herd from “The Basin” into the yards. Once they were out of the way, it was out in search of the herd. Of course … they were at the furthest point from the cattle yards that they could be!
After a bite to eat we decided to head back over to Clear Farm in search for the strays from yesterday. On our way however, we came across two more cows that must have been hiding from us in The Basin! So in they came … meaning we didn’t have enough time to ride over to Clear Farm and back before dark. Instead, we decided to bring in a smaller herd closer to home – which had a young heifer who was almost ready to have a calf. So it was time for her to come in closer to home so we can keep an eye on her delivery!
Peter, Mary and Jess Chapman would like to say a massive thankyou to our helpers for this muster! It was a great experience and a lot of fun for us aswell! Things never do go quite to plan on the farm, and everyone did a great job at being versatile and helping out where needed. THANKYOU! 😀
See you all in September for the Spring Cattle Muster!
