Twice a year, spring and fall, the sheep came up to be sheared, dipped and counted. Father usually attended to the count himself as he could do it without confusion. He would stand by a narrow passage between two corrals, and as the sheep went crowding through he would keep tally by cutting notches in a willow stick.
During shearing time we heard new noises out in the dark at night, after we were put to bed, the candle blown out, and the door to the upper porch opened. Always there were crickets and owls and howling coyotes, and overhead the scurrying footsteps of some mouse on its mysterious business, or the soft dab of an errant bat on the window, but now was added the unceasing bleat of thousands of sheep in a strange place, and separated, ewe from lamb, lamb from ewe.
Shearing began on Monday morning, and on Sunday the shearers would come in, a gay band of Mexicans on their prancing horses, decked with wonderful, silver-trimmed bridles made of rawhide or braided horsehair, and saddles with high horns, sweeping stirrups, and wide expanse of beautiful tooled leather. The men themselves were dressed in black broadcloth, ruffled white shirts, high-heeled boots, and high-crowned, wide sombreros which were trimmed with silver-braided bands, and held securely in place by a cord under the nose. They would come in, fifty or sixty strong, stake out their caballos, put away their finery, and appear in brown overalls, red bandanas on their heads, and live and work at the ranch for more than a month, so many were the sheep to be sheared.
