Sheep wool for oil spills

Last week we had the very unpleasant task of sorting through urine and poopie soaked wool from untainted wool. We undertook this task not because we wanted to make nautical themed pashmina afghans (sorry, SNL I'm on a Boat,reference there) but because we planned to box the wool up and ship down to the Gulf Coast to soak up all that oil. We also had two volunteers coming to help pack them up and we did not want to expose them to the yucky. This is a task better suited for interns. At least my boss, Dave, helped too. As for why the wool was in such horrendous conditions, it was because the bags were stored underneath rabbit cages!???

So we boxed up all the good stuff and on Monday we drove the dozen plus boxes to the post office. I could tell the cashier was inwardly groaning when he saw three of us bringing in all the boxes and at the same time was curious about their contents. Eventually he said "you guys moving or something?" No, I answered, we are sending wool down to the Gulf Coast to help soak up the oil spill. Then, they will take the wool back to some lab and inoculate it with some type of fungus which will eat up the oil. The grand total to ship the boxes was well over $200. I asked jokingly if we should just send the bill to BP. The cashier said we were doing more for the oil spill then they were.