OUT ON THE gentle rolling hills of the Monaro in southern New South Wales, it’s been raining for a couple of days. But at his family property Old Springfield, near Nimmitabel, George Haylock, who is about to start shearing, isn’t too worried. “We’ve got enough dry sheep to last a couple of days at least,” he says, laconically.
We meet up — George and his wife, Mel, and their two boys, Will, three, and Tom, almost one — at the shearing shed. It’s a busy, highly disciplined workplace, yet with a timeless quality that has barely changed since artist Tom Roberts captured this great drama of pastoral life in his 1890 classic painting Shearing the Rams. George, 33, and Mel, 32, carry Merino sheep bred for both wool and meat.…
