The mob's got me pondering

I've always felt close to the sheep in my life. Not that there's been that many, mind.
The first I called Sooky. The same one I lovingly bottle-fed as a lamb then gleefully devoured as a roast.
The other sheep to feature prominently in my past was named Benny and being slightly older when we first met, my time with Benny was a lot more intimate.
Benny was a ram and a proud one at that. He didn't take too kindly to silly eight-year-old girls with bad make-up and pink leg warmers daring to cross his paddock. But then, I don't suppose he much enjoyed being smacked over the head with the sharp end of a cricket wicket by said silly girl either.
It was through Benny's extra curricular activities that I learnt about the birds and bees. Yet it wasn't until he sired three dozen offspring that I understood the true power of nature.
But whatever scars, physical or emotion, were left from our brief relationship, nothing can change the fact Benny was my first real male mate. My liaison with Benny was my first brush with the opposite gender and the bumps and bruises I experienced with him stood me in good stead for the upsets I was to encounter as I navigated my way through early adolescence.
Sadly as time went on, Benny and I found less and less time to be together. Where once I had adored plucking his mud-encrusted dags out with my tweezers, I later found other things to pluck off my own body that not only kept me entertained for longer periods but also involved less physical exertion. I grew up, grew out, moved on and found new friends to play with.
Lately though, I have been thinking about Benny. A lot. And not for the reasons you might expect. No, it's actually news from the mob charged with marketing Aussie wool that really got me pondering.
This particular outfit, commonly known as Australian Wool Innovation, reckon there's gold in them thar sheep fleeces. And they're not the only ones. It seems all the big designers - Akira Isogawa, Miuccia Prada, Stella McCartney even Jean Paul Gaultier - have been giving our sheep the glad eye.
This increase in attention apparently comes down to the fact that wool, in particular Australian & New Zealand wool, is being hailed as quite possibly the best natural fibre on this earth.
Its positive attributes number too many to mention but at the core of them lies the ability of wool to breathe with the wearer's skin, wear well and virtually clean itself. And on top of all this, it actually looks good.
Now just in case you thought AWI was throwing you some marketing curve ball in an attempt to increase its own coffers, its theory has further been strengthened by Tumbaruma-based farmers Garry and Kay Wilson.
Having had their fleeces judged as the world's finest natural fibre, the Wilsons are sitting pretty. Italian luxury label Loro Piana has agreed to pay them a whopping $2,500 per kg for a bale of precious wool so it can be spun and stitched into $15,000 designer suits. All up the Wilsons, who will pocket $232,500 for the 93kg bale, have earned more than $1 million from their golden fleeces after winning the World Wool Record Challenge Cup for the past five years.
Now I don't know about you, but it seems to me whether your flock boasts winning fleeces or not there's much to be said for fencing off your land and maintaining a few sheep. Just as there is much to be said for the value of an easy dollar.
I think it might just be time to bring Benny out of retirement.