Edgar’s Mission Passport
Baarack
Baarack
Sheep
5 February 2021
Losing the extra kgs
Getting haircuts
RIP Dear Baarack
Certified true likeness
Baarack’s story

The Unbreakable Baarack!

Updated March 5, 2021

And in this corner, weighing in with an additional 35.4k of dead weight, hailing from State Forest, a fighter with the tenacity to do what it takes to survive – we have the Unbreakable Baarack!!

No longer on the brink of certain death is Baarack. He was pulled back from the edge the day kindness found him, his saviours struggling to comprehend that beneath that convoluted moving mass of matted fleece, adorned with countless sticks, twigs and insects, which caused them to look twice, was not Australia’s answer to the yeti – but a sheep.

He was found wandering amongst the many trees, native animals and perils of a state forest. Each day his wool grew longer and longer, and his plight more desperate, while his chances of survival grew thinner and thinner. But Baarack knew none of this, for all he wanted to do was live. And, seizing each moment, he did.

Having endured such a state whilst the earth completed her orbit of the sun several times, Baarack had somehow eked out an existence from finding nourishment in the tender shoots of grass that had determinedly made their way up through the forest floor whilst seizing opportunistic finds of water pooled in puddles to soothe his parched throat– such is the stoicism of sheep.

Now relieved of that fleece and its 35.4 kilos of burden, Baarack is indeed lighter in more ways than one.

No longer shall he struggle for food and shelter, no longer will he be at the mercy of predators or the elements, and no longer will he be forgotten. And although a few shearing nicks now mark his thin body, along with an ulcer, the legacy of his once wool-blind state, all of which will heal, Baarack can now see the world more clearly.

And perhaps in doing so, he reminds us to do the same as we ponder just how a being who shares so much in common with us could have lived through such uncertainty and mental anguish over so many years, enduring such dire straits and heartache. This is undeniably where we need to take our inspiration from animals and their humble ability to live in the present: to not dwell on the past and the many dead ends to which that leads, or be consumed by the future, for if we do, we miss the present moment, and we miss what is right before us – the opportunity to live.

Baarack the Media Star

Baarack went viral after his rescue story was covered by ABC News.

ABC News
BBC News
Guardian
USA Today
Slate
Daily Mail
Reuters
Live Science
BBC interview with Pam