IT is now over two months since the flock were clipped, and still the wool sheets are stacked up in a corner of one of the big sheds.

There is no sign of anyone wanting to either collect them or ask for them to be taken in. Nobody needs the wool it seems. I have seen an article about wool insulating material for lofts, and even suggested to John that if the worst comes to the worst we could fill our remaining roof space with the fleeces. He was sceptical but had to admit it might not be such a bad idea if there was nothing else doing with the wool.

"It's the foot and mouth you see," the man at the depot explained to John. "They're (no explanation of who they are but I have a good idea it's deadly DEFRA) stopping us moving the wool around." No logical reason here, I sense. After all the wool is hardly going to be put back on any of the sheep, but if there is a genuine risk, then we will have to go along with the movement restriction on wool sheets as well as on sheep.

"Perhaps you could plough the fleeces into the land," I suggested to John. "Didn't they used to call it shoddy?" John prefers to wait and find out what he has to do with the wool, but is finding it a nuisance to have to work round the big bags when we are getting short of space because of harvest. The wheat crop has been one of the heaviest John has combined. "I've had to have her down in the lowest gear," he said. "The corn was queuing up to get into the old dust box." Such affectionate terminology has not always been the case this week. The combine managed to break down after only getting ten yards into the first field of corn, and was then dubbed as "that d... machine."

A lady I met a short time ago, Sue Wiles, does not have the same problems as us disposing of her wool fleeces. She runs a flock of Jacob sheep, and spins the wool herself, either for weaving or knitting. The subtle range of colours her sheep produce make our standard white fleeces look very dull. In contrast to the short life span, and anonymity of our working ewes, her sheep achieve a very long time in production and consequently, each sheep is well known to Sue, and has a name. Recently she lost her oldest sheep, a Jacob ewe called Crystal, who had reached the astonishing age of 19 years. "She had only got four teeth left, had gone very thin, but was still munching away in the field and keeping an eye on the rest of the flock. She has lambed every year up to this one, and I knew that when she wasn't in-lamb this spring, that she might not last much longer. Still, I've had a few jumpers to remember her by and we all miss her."

No such memories for any of our sheep. The one I remember most was our blind lamb, Radar, who could race across the field towards you with devastating accuracy when called, as long as no one had moved a hen hut into the way, or dug a grip to get surface water off. Both of which occasions saw him coming a spectacular cropper. Apart from his blindness, Radar led a very blessed life. With no possibility of him going to market and no one having the heart to eat him, he grazed out his years until he strangled himself in a wire fence. He was buried with his fleece on in the pet cemetery under the lime tree - the most fertile piece of soil in the house paddock, according to John. If nobody wants the wool fleeces, there might be a few more.

Updated: 08:53 Thursday, August 30, 2001