Uncle Harry Goes Green
7 March 2006


Uncle Harry stared glumly from the kitchen window. Across the sheep yards the wide paddocks of Hardtop farm lay parched and shimmering in the late-summer haze. This was bony country at the best of times but in a drought the only things that grew in Harry’s paddocks were stones. A mob of sheep straggled into view, kicking up a small cloud of dust.

Aunty Gladys bustled into the kitchen with a load of washing. “Come away from the window, Harry Clout. You’ve been stirring that cup of tea for twenty minutes. Go on and make yourself useful. I’ve got a cake to bake – you’ll remember Clayton and Joan are coming over tonight.”

Harry remembered Clayton and Joan were coming over tonight, though the thought gave him little pleasure.

“I’m worried about the hoggets, Glad.”

Aunty Gladys, strapping herself into a faded apron, was having none of this. “I’ve no sympathy for you, Harry. We’ve been through this before and you know where I stand.”
“I’m not talking about the irrigation,” Harry replied, edgily.
“Well, what then?”
“It’s the hoggets. They’ve never known this place when it was green.”
Aunty Gladys snorted impatiently. “The hoggets don’t care about green. It’s feed they want, and you tell me there’s enough of that.”
“Well, yes, strictly speaking.”
“So, get out and feed them and let me make my cake.”

Harry trudged across to the shed, whistling up Rufus. Gladys was right, there was half a silo of barley he’d kept back from last year’s harvest, and the baleage they’d taken off the top paddocks in the spring. It would do them into autumn.

But it was the absence of green that concerned Harry. If the hoggets had never seen green grass how would they know to eat it when it finally grew? His cousin in Toowoomba said he’d seen a three year drought finally break and the sheep, half-starved, standing in green grass up to their bellies bleating for a few sheep nuts or a bit of sorrel. They didn’t know grass was food.

“We’ve got to get them used to a bit of green, eh Ruf.” Rufus wagged his tail appreciatively.

The following day Harry drove into town and spent a couple of hours at the recycling depot. He returned with 30 metres of green synthetic carpet.

He was rolling out the carpet when his neighbour, Clayton Piles, whistled to him over the boundary fence. A couple of years earlier Clayton had moved into irrigation and had been insufferable ever since. Relations between the two neighbours dipped further when Harry’s well ran dry for the first time in memory. Clayton said it had nothing to do with his irrigators, which may have been true, but Harry resented the superior attitude Clayton had adopted since the drought kicked in – as if, watching Harry’s cashflow dry up along with his pasture, he was sizing up the value of Hardtop farm.

“What are you doing with the carpet, Harry?” shouted Clayton.
“Oh, you might call it a bit of ‘future-proofing’,” Harry replied.
“It’s no substitute for grass, Harry. I can lend you some of that. There’s plenty under my centre-pivot.”
“This is not for feeding, Clayton. It’s to get the sheep used to the colour.”
“Or to wrap them in when they drop dead, Harry. Look at the poor creatures. You’ll get nothing for them at the works.”
“We’ve got the wool.”
“You can’t be serious, Harry. Even I’m not making money from wool, and my sheep are in a bloody sight better shape than yours.”
This was too much for Harry. He looked Clayton square in the eye. “I’ll bet you I get more for my wool clip this season than you, Clayton Piles.”
Clayton roared with laughter. “Harry, that’s such a stupid wager I’m not going near it. I’d be taking money off a child.”

So the bet wasn’t made, but from that moment an unspoken rivalry was established between Harry and Clayton.

Harry continued to search the district for green carpet, and gradually a faded patchwork began to spread across his paddocks. He made sure he fed out on the carpet each day, so the sheep would associate green with food.

Gladys was critical. “It’s a waste of good money, Harry Clout,” she scolded.
“It’s not costing much, Glad,” Harry replied. “That last load from the Working Men’s Club was only $50.”
“And it was rubbish - cheap synthetic carpet reeking of beer and cigarettes.”
“Well, I could hardly buy wool carpet, could I.”
“Why on earth not?”
“It wouldn’t be right, Gladys. It’d be like those dairy farmers in England feeding their cows on meat meal. We could end up with mad hogget disease.”
“Oh, don’t be stupid, Harry. The sheep aren’t eating the blessed carpet.”

Harry gazed quietly through the kitchen window. “And that’s where you’re wrong, Gladys,” he said to himself. In the past few days he had noticed some of the sheep were ignoring the barley, and that morning he’d seen a sheep actually nibbling a piece of carpet.

Over the next few weeks Harry quietly phased out the supplementary feed as more hoggets took to the synthetic carpet. Unbelievably, they seemed to gain condition. Most preferred the longer, deep pile carpets – “a staple diet”, Harry joked to Rufus.

Still, looking across at Clayton’s long-fleeced animals Harry knew he didn’t have a dog’s show of matching his neighbour’s wool clip.

The shearers arrived and in the shearing shed all the talk was of the downfall of wool. They reckoned business was so bad they’d all be milking cows within a year. In spite of that they remarked how good Harry’s wool clip looked. The fleeces were bulky, with a fine springy texture unusual for the breed or conditions.

After shearing the drought broke. Harry rolled up the sodden remains of carpet and let the pasture come through. The hoggets didn’t seem to miss their unusual diet, taking to grass with enthusiasm.

A week or two later Harry came in for lunch to be met by Gladys, very excited.
“Joan just phoned. She says Clayton is spitting mad. He’s been following the wool sale on-line and our wool has topped the lot.”
“What?” asked Harry.
“The buyers have gone mad over it. They’re saying it’s the biggest thing for wool since the Korean war and they’re all asking how you did it.”
“Did what, Glad?”
“Produced a natural wool blend off the sheep’s back, Harry. Your wool is 30% nylon!”

Uncle Harry was stunned. “Bloody hell,” he thought. “Now I’ll have to wean the hoggets off grass.”