KEN Prato likens shearing to long-distance bike racing.
It's an unusual analogy, but one he hopes will help the non-shearing world better understand what goes on in the mind of a shearer.
He says that shearing is a job in which people race each other all day long.
For instance, in an eight-member shearing team whoever is in fifth place will be pressuring the fourth fastest, while at the same time watching the sixth bloke who is chasing him.
"And so on for the whole shed, little duels up and down the board.
"It's very much like long-distance bike racing, move and counter move happening all the time," Mr Prato says.
"Some bike riders are good sprinters, some are stayers or good mountain climbers.
"In shearing there'll be blokes who are sprinters or stayers.
"And there'll be others who are better in big wethers, or little lambs or whatever.
"The object is to hang in as best you can in some mobs and try to make up the difference when you are doing sheep that suit you better."
Mr Prato, who lives in Wendouree, has just written and published "Sheepshit on the Brain and Other Shearing Tales".
This slim volume has one major advantage over most other books on shearing: it is written by a shearer.
Mr Prato began shearing in 1965.
While not in any way wanting to detract from first-class books on shearing, such as Patsy Adam Smith's "The Shearers", Ken Prato hopes his book will give a different insight into shearing from one who knows the mind of a shearer.
The idea for the book was born when a friend asked him why he wanted to be a shearer.
He started to explain and then thought the best way to present his explanation would be to put it in story form.
The book evolved from there.
Mr Prato also confides it is "basically a story of the sneaky things done to other shearers who were probably faster than I was, but it allowed me to out-manoeuvre them and get in front of them on a few occasions".
The 50-page book, which was printed in Ballarat, contains a selection of short stories and poems.
It also includes a glossary which explains shearing terms such as "polishing them", "snagger" and "cocky shearers".
Mr Prato was born and bred in Ballarat.
"I wandered the country in my youth the halcyon years, I call them.
"I had a lot of fun. However, when you get married and have kids you have to slow down a bit."
After taking up shearing in Western Australia as a 24-year-old, he shore full-time for 10 years, before changing occupations and becoming a carpenter.
He returned to shearing in 1982 when there was a downturn in the building industry.
He then shore full time for 2 1/2 years before becoming a part-time builder and a part-time shearer.
"The best years of my life were those when I was doing six months of one and six months of the other.
"That was back in the early 1990s. It was a beautiful balance."
He has shorn in Western Australia, New South Wales, South Australia and for the past 20 years in Victoria.Nowadays, Mr Prato, who has just turned 64, only shears occasionally.
"Sheepshit on the Brain" is his first serious attempt at writing.
He realises there's more money to be made manoeuvering a handpiece or swinging a hammer, and will be happy if he covers his costs with his venture into book publishing.
"I haven't given up my day job," he says.
One shed at which Mr Prato still shears is Peter Cushing's at Lake Goldsmith, near Beaufort.
Mr Cushing recalls that when Ken first walked into the shed 20 years ago: "I said to one of the lads, `Hell, it looks as though we'll have to get another shearer in a few years.'
"However, 20 years on he's still shearing, and shearing well too.
"He's always been a very reliable man; a good clean shearer who has shorn good tallies."
And what about the somewhat provocative book title?
Ken Prato answers this question by pointing to the glossary, which explains sheepshit on the brain is "an expression for a fellow shearer who thinks, breathes, lives and talks nothing but shearing, sheds, tallies etc. Can be abbreviated to the simple: `He's got sheepshit'."
"Sheepshit on the Brain" is available at a number of places in Ballarat including Bookcity, the ABC Bookshop and Willabaa.