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Authors: Chris Stewart
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a shepherd and his sheep. So we stuck it out and at last our constancy was rewarded. The end of the job was in sight.
Paco didn’t seem to share our relief, though, and was moving morosely around the flock, counting anxiously under his breath, as he appeared from the pen with another creature for me to shear. I grabbed hold of it, flexed my shearing arm ready to make the first blow and then stopped. ‘Bloody hell! Paco,’ I called above the buzzing of my partner’s shears, ‘I can’t shear this one. Take it away!’
‘Why, what’s the matter with it?’ he muttered,
‘It’s a goat, man. I’m not going to shear your goat!’
Paco looked – and there is no other word here – sheepish, then rallied. ‘No, Cristóbal, that’s no goat,’ he insisted, fixing me with a bloodshot look. ‘That’s a sheep.’
It wasn’t, of course. Goats can look a bit like sheep and some even have a certain ovine demeanour, a sheepish gait that at a distance – say, peering from one mountainside across to another – can lead to confusion. But there was no confusion at all about the particular specimen that wasstanding right before me. This wasn’t just your run-of- the-mill , undistinguished goat; it was a goat’s goat, with horns and a beard and all.
Paco reluctantly led the goat away and returned with another animal.
‘Paco, what the hell are you up to? I’m not shearing that!’
‘Why not?’ asked Paco sulkily. ‘It’s a sheep, isn’t it? Even you’ve got to admit that.’
‘Yes, it is a sheep, Paco – but it hasn’t a stitch of wool on it. I sheared this one half an hour ago!’ We examined the naked sheep, with trail marks from the shears on its flanks, standing forlornly in front of me, and I cast a glance at José, who had let his last sheep wander off and was rocking helpless with laughter. ‘It’s the numbers, Cristóbal,’ he gasped. ‘Haven’t you been counting?’
Of course: once you get beyond two-hundred-and-fifty sheep the price per animal goes down by a small percentage which has quite a significant effect on the whole day’s pay. One or two short and the shepherd misses out on the price drop, while one or two over means that the shearers take the hit. It might seem a rough way to cost things, but that’s how it’s always been. Astute shepherds often borrow extra sheep to take them over the threshold, but poor Paco, who was almost a dozen sheep short of a discount, probably hadn’t a clue that he’d lost so many of his charges until he brought them out for shearing.
In fairness, it is tricky to know where you are, numerically speaking, with sheep. Cows are easy to count, but not so sheep. With all that wool you get an impression of a numberless mass, and then, although I hesitate to say this within earshot of the animal, they are somewhat…dispensable. If you have a big flock you can lose half a dozen without even knowing it. Sheep are very prone to dying of one thing or another – The Diseases of Sheep is by some way the thickest book in our library – as well as getting lost or straying into another flock. Of course, the converse is also true, and if you’re lucky you may actually benefit from strays who unwittingly – and unwitting is the way of sheep – swell the numbers of your flock. Or you may get prodigal sheep that return to the flock: a ewe may lamb alone out on the hill somewhere, and trot back to the flock months later with her lamb in tow. All of which is to say that counting sheep is far from being an exact science.
I placed my shears back on the board and turned to face Paco. ‘Look, let’s split the difference,’ I said. I might on another day have offered the full discount, but the heat and exhaustion and the farce of the goats and shorn sheep had got to me. And, for this day, at least, I had had more than enough.
Normally, at the end of a run of shearing, you can throw yourself down in the pile of wool and there subside limp and drained, contemplating a
Paco didn’t seem to share our relief, though, and was moving morosely around the flock, counting anxiously under his breath, as he appeared from the pen with another creature for me to shear. I grabbed hold of it, flexed my shearing arm ready to make the first blow and then stopped. ‘Bloody hell! Paco,’ I called above the buzzing of my partner’s shears, ‘I can’t shear this one. Take it away!’
‘Why, what’s the matter with it?’ he muttered,
‘It’s a goat, man. I’m not going to shear your goat!’
Paco looked – and there is no other word here – sheepish, then rallied. ‘No, Cristóbal, that’s no goat,’ he insisted, fixing me with a bloodshot look. ‘That’s a sheep.’
It wasn’t, of course. Goats can look a bit like sheep and some even have a certain ovine demeanour, a sheepish gait that at a distance – say, peering from one mountainside across to another – can lead to confusion. But there was no confusion at all about the particular specimen that wasstanding right before me. This wasn’t just your run-of- the-mill , undistinguished goat; it was a goat’s goat, with horns and a beard and all.
Paco reluctantly led the goat away and returned with another animal.
‘Paco, what the hell are you up to? I’m not shearing that!’
‘Why not?’ asked Paco sulkily. ‘It’s a sheep, isn’t it? Even you’ve got to admit that.’
‘Yes, it is a sheep, Paco – but it hasn’t a stitch of wool on it. I sheared this one half an hour ago!’ We examined the naked sheep, with trail marks from the shears on its flanks, standing forlornly in front of me, and I cast a glance at José, who had let his last sheep wander off and was rocking helpless with laughter. ‘It’s the numbers, Cristóbal,’ he gasped. ‘Haven’t you been counting?’
Of course: once you get beyond two-hundred-and-fifty sheep the price per animal goes down by a small percentage which has quite a significant effect on the whole day’s pay. One or two short and the shepherd misses out on the price drop, while one or two over means that the shearers take the hit. It might seem a rough way to cost things, but that’s how it’s always been. Astute shepherds often borrow extra sheep to take them over the threshold, but poor Paco, who was almost a dozen sheep short of a discount, probably hadn’t a clue that he’d lost so many of his charges until he brought them out for shearing.
In fairness, it is tricky to know where you are, numerically speaking, with sheep. Cows are easy to count, but not so sheep. With all that wool you get an impression of a numberless mass, and then, although I hesitate to say this within earshot of the animal, they are somewhat…dispensable. If you have a big flock you can lose half a dozen without even knowing it. Sheep are very prone to dying of one thing or another – The Diseases of Sheep is by some way the thickest book in our library – as well as getting lost or straying into another flock. Of course, the converse is also true, and if you’re lucky you may actually benefit from strays who unwittingly – and unwitting is the way of sheep – swell the numbers of your flock. Or you may get prodigal sheep that return to the flock: a ewe may lamb alone out on the hill somewhere, and trot back to the flock months later with her lamb in tow. All of which is to say that counting sheep is far from being an exact science.
I placed my shears back on the board and turned to face Paco. ‘Look, let’s split the difference,’ I said. I might on another day have offered the full discount, but the heat and exhaustion and the farce of the goats and shorn sheep had got to me. And, for this day, at least, I had had more than enough.
Normally, at the end of a run of shearing, you can throw yourself down in the pile of wool and there subside limp and drained, contemplating a
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