The Ranch From the Wife's Perspective
I lied… I told you a while ago that it was the last of the association branding…
Oooops!
Found some more! They are from the LONG weekend we had at Locomotive, so no wonder I lost them. I mean, there is so much to keep track of and I’m such a blonde that its totally possible that I would make a mistake and forget to post pictures.
So here you go!
How about a little different post? Still lots of pictures but instead of a wind up with some sort of an interesting story, lets do a commentary. A running commentary to let you know what I was seeing when I took each picture.
Ready?
The Ranch Boss just had his 87th birthday and refuses to stop. He may slow a little, but he is determined to never quit.
I just thought this blaze was funny… Like, bummer birth mark or something…
You find cowboy style and personality everywhere. Some cowboys go simple and some like bling everywhere, even by their horses slobbery mouth.
When I got up close I realized that he had his name on his spurs- AWESOME! And he has some cool red top boots peeking out. That’s like cowboy lingerie, right there!
There isn’t a better place for kids to be than out in the middle of nowhere branding.
The Rancher’s Sidekick always has to be in the middle of it all. At the point in the day he had proclaimed it his job to stand on the leg so it wouldn’t move. Don’t know that we needed it but I’m glad that he found a job he could rock.
The saddle- a cowboy spends many long hours in this seat… It better be just to his liking!
Just a boy giving shots, but once again… its a great place for a growing boy to be.
Sure glad he has a cap on that… Sometimes people get unintentional vaccinations
Thank goodness for back pockets because when your hands get full there is always a place to hang your tagger and your clips.
We always load up toy for the kids. In fact I think there ends up being a whole sand pile worth of toys out there!
And then sometimes they end up hauling more than just dirt. The Rancher’s Sidekick started gathering up discarded nuts and taking them to the dogs. I’m glad that was all he was doing with them…
The Rancher’s uncle… I’ve known him for quite a while and he has ALWAYS had the mustache. The length of the handle bars has varied over the years but it is truly his signature!
I know he wasn’t really posing, but I tease that everyone is so used to striking a pose for me that it is just second nature to stand picture ready!
How many boys does it take get a calf down? Lots… and still the calf will give ’em a run for their money!
It got dusty… no surprise. And it looked cool.
Gathering the herd in for the after lunch branding. Taking a pit stop at the watering hole…
Rancher Sr. doing what he does best. He has become such a great friend. I love having him for a father-in-law.
When you ride next to me you are going to have your picture taken. And I love them even if you aren’t looking at the camera!
Cowboys make beautiful photographs… I love my job!
Cows scattered across the range- this is why we bring so many cowboys. And this was only one small corner of our beautiful world. I love having wide open spaces for an office!
Boys in the dirt… need I say more?
Love the dramatics of the sky. Having a non dusty windy day was incredible!
A look at the scene from herd side…
One of my favorite cowboys.
Every week there are a few new faces around to help and enjoy the cowboy lifestyle.
A different perspective… But appropriately, looking up to a cowboy
Cute. I love cute calves! Especially the baldy calves.
Drug by the heels. If only he knew what was going to happen to him.
Sisters make the best friends.
Her parents had better be ready for this beauty to grow up. Check out those eyes!
A little saddle bling with your brand on it can never be a bad thing.
Just taking a minute to visit with a friend. Kids and horses were meant to be together.
Any guesses what this coffee can is for? Oh, just to gather nuts in… Calf nuts…
Should we be concerned that there are no adults in this picture?
J4… When the ropers bring in a calf they shout out what brand to put on it- Rocking-A, AE, J4 , Bar over the hip, K+… and many more
When you pester the big boys they just might decide to hog tie you. While I was taking this picture I could hear them saying (in more colorful language) that they unfortunately didn’t have enough rope to finish the job on this growing boy… It was his lucky day, that’s for sure!
Chaps- a functional and fashionable part of the cowboy wardrobe…
Checking out the herd…
This girl will show you how its done!
Following the rope back to the cowboy- my cowboy in this shot…
Looking for the unbranded babies…
We brand nearly every weekend of April, and sometimes that even runs into May. With so many cattle spread so far across the range it takes several different days to gather up the cattle to get the work done. The weekend we did so many calves at the ranch and then again at our private ground in Locomotive we still had the association branding to do the following day (Saturday). Instead of driving back and forth so much we decided to just camp out.
We were full of adventurous expectations of shooting guns, riding bikes, and other exciting stuff (ok… so I can’t remember all of the ideas we had but I know they were awesome!) but after two full days of branding we were pooped out. That really meant all we had energy for was to sit and do nothing. Everyone was pretty ok with that… Except there was one thing we all HAD to do. Because although we were camping and roughing it, we did have one admit request of The Cattlewoman- we had to shower! I don’t blame her for not wanting a bunch of stinky cowboys and cowgirls in her trailer so we obliged. And with so many to shower that pretty well filled our day. We showered. We ate. We slept. We talked. It was great fun!
There was a teensy bit of excitement when some of the guys thought they should go hunting for the big rat in old shack. Doesn’t shooting at a rat in a dark shack in the dark of the night sound exciting to you. Mind you that the shack would have fallen down at any time if they hit it in just the right spot… Boys…
The following morning we woke to a wonderful surprise- no wind! That might not sound like such a big deal, but we had been hammered with the wind for days. For just a moment we were able to enjoy a beautiful sunrise without any wind.
The Rancher Princess and I followed The Rancher out to catch horses for the days work. The horses weren’t really cooperating… they ran and ran and RAN! Not the way The Rancher wanted to start his day but it made for a fun little photo shoot for me.
I love rainy days! For so many reasons… Of course because we need the rain- we need the rain SO badly. But I love the rain because then we slow down a bit and I have time to go through the HUNDREDS of pictures that are calling to me. So… without any further time… here are some long overdue pictures. Pictures from our second day of branding.
There’s a funny story that goes along with this day…
Since we were branding out on the range and camping out that night we had a lot to take out and a lot of rigs hauling it all. We all eventually make it and get to starting. The early comers had already started gathering the cattle in so the late arrivers started pulling out the equipments. We think, “everything looks good…” We have half the cows we usually have to do, all day to do them, and lots of good help. This should be a great day!
The herd comes in, the cows go back out and we get the fire started. The Rancher and Rancher Sr. start pulling out all the stuff that they carry around and need for each calf. They sharpen their knives, I fill their syringes, they grab their taggers and tags… No tags! We had no tags! (actually we had like 22, maybe- but still not enough!) Kinda an important part of the day!
We just kinda twiddled our thumbs about it and got started anyway. But uh… no tags, fellas! Eventually we decided that we would tag all that we could and kick them back out to the mommas. Then we branded, vaccinated, castrated, marked- did EVERYTHING except the tags, to the rest of the calves. We held them all until had more tags, which only happened because The Ranch Boss had graciously volunteered to drive home to grab tags to save the day!
The cowboys didn’t mind too much that we had a kink in our day. It meant that we weren’t pushing too hard, which gave them a chance to do a little extra fun roping. They pulled out their fancy big loops once in a while and headed and heeled a satisfying amount. We got the work done, ate some good grub and marked another day down in the books!
Click “read more” below to see more photos!
This last week I had the scariest thing happen… I thought I lost my external hard drive! It stores all of my photos and if it was gone I was gonna be in big trouble. And heartbroken. Mostly heartbroken.
But I found it!! This means I can finally share the many MANY more pictures I have.
Today’s tale and pictures to post- our branding!
With having so many cows at home to calve, we had so many calves to brand here on the ranch. We made a weekend of it, inviting cowboys and cowgirls out to help. Day one consisted of all the calves on the ranch- two heifer groups and 3 cow groups. The nice about when we did these was that they had already been tagged, castrated and given one shot. We sailed through these calves! For most of the day I was giving shots on my own and I could barely keep up! It also meant that there wasn’t a lot of down time to take pictures. So not a lot of day one… Mostly a shot here and there between groups, set up, clean up… But stay tuned for day two!
Ever since I married my cowboy I have wanted to rope. I grew up riding and working cattle, but we never got into roping. We were more on the cutting end of the cowboying. In fact, I still get cranky when I see a cowboy miss a good cut or turn because he was looking for a better shot to throw his rope. However, I do want to be a real cowgirl and learn to rope.
Over the last couple of years I’ve taken a swing or two with a rope at a dummy- some really intesnse cowgirl stuff. But more recently my husband and his brothers have taken it upon themselves to finally get this roping thing down. They have taken me out on some of their less intense branding days, where there wasn’t too much to get down that I could either slow down or get in the way. Actually that’s not true… I know not to try roping on the busy crazy days because I want to get home before dark or we run out of fire!
It was all good and fun but I wasn’t really figuring it out… Until just a few weeks ago!
I was honestly ready to give up and say that I just didn’t have it in me to be a roper. But The Rancher brought me along to one more branding. He gave me the experienced horse that would take his time (maybe he is slightly lazy…), put on my brand new saddle and I strapped on my new spurs. I had everything I needed to rock this branding. Oh wait- I didn’t have a rope!
We show up to our good friends where we were roping. There were 160 calves to brand and we were ready to get going. The Rancher just grabbed some old rope out of the trailer and we headed out. And I was terrible. I couldn’t hardly even keep my coils straight, couldn’t swing the rope to save my life, and missed every calf I tried for. For as many times I threw that rope I should have caught one by accident, even snagged one as it walked over my loop… but I didn’t.
I was ready to turn in and promote myself to the ground crew when one of the cowboys rode up to me, took my rope and traded it for his. He said there was no way in … that I could catch with that thing! He rode off and I figured I oughtta give it one more go, just to humor him. And guess what happened- I caught!
The very first loop I threw caught a calf! I just about forgot to dally because I was so surprised and so elated. I got my horse turned to the fire and drug my first calf in, get congrats and hoorays from everyone along the way- you would have thought I had just won the lottery for as excited as we were! They slid off my rope and I was out for another calf. I had to try again to make sure it wasn’t just luck, although I was sure that my friend must have rubbed a bit of luck on it. But as I kept going at it I kept catching. It was like I was really figuring it out! There was one time I had my arm up just right, rolling my wrist just right, and threw my rope just right. The rope landed right in front of those back feet just like it was supposed to. I was so excited that I totally forgot to pull my slack and actually catch the calf before he stepped back out…
I went home that day floating on clouds. I wasn’t a perfect roper or the best roper, but that day I finally became a roper. Now that I have my own saddle (because one day The Rancher said, “We need to get you your own saddle” and no good cowgirl says no to that!) some sweet new spurs and my own new rope (full of calf catching luck) I am on my way to being a real cowgirl.
*** I don’t have any picture roping that day, but I do have a few from a few weeks later taken by my sister in law, The Montana Girl.***
I already told you how our day ended when we took the heifers to the team penning and branding, and as promised I have pictures of the day. I have to tell you that I LOVED having my new camera! Its amazing to be able to stop a rope mid-air or to get the dirt flying. Mmmm…
When I was telling a friend what we on the summer weekends he couldn’t believe that when we have time off to play, all we do is sort and brand heifers. Yep, we love being cowboys so much that its pretty much all we do!
Now if you’re wondering what a team penning and branding is, I’ll tell you. The first event is the team sort. They throw out 10 heifers (numbered 0-9) and the cowboys are given a number for the first heifer that they sort out first. Once they find her, they find the rest in the sequence until the time runs out.
The penning is really similar. Instead of finding the heifers in a sequence they have to find 3 heifers, all with the same number. Then they push them to the other end where a pen is set up (hence the reason it is called penning…).
And the late (and probably my favorite to watch) is the team branding. The teams have 4 heifers to head, heel, and brand (with pancake mix, of course). There are 4 guys to a team, 2 to rope and 2 to do the branding. They switch in the middle, so that everyone gets a turn to rope… It wouldn’t be fair if they didn’t, now would it!
I’ll admit that sometimes it can get a little long, but there are some dang good horses that can make an awesome cut. There are a few little bloopers along the way that always make it exciting. They did a youth penning team that was so fun to watch. These kids are on the way too be some stinking’ good cowboys (sadly I had my camera put away at this point…). Then we end the day with some dang good ropers! That certainly includes my cowboy, The Rancher… he got 2nd place! Enough winnings to pay for supper, what more could a wife ask for!
We aren’t the only ones busy branding this time of year. And I’m not the only one blogging about it (although with my number of posts over the last few weeks you might think I own the corner on it!). Its always fun for me to see how others ranches do it and the pictures that they put up. And I love reading the histories of branding that they write. Do you check them out?
Its ok if you don’t, because I grabbed a healthy handful of the ones I found lately. You should read them!
Some of these have great photos, others have great descriptions of how they brand. Two are posts from people that don’t normally brand, and its interesting to hear their take on it all!
Hello! I'm Allison, The Rancher's Wife! There's nothing I love more than being out on the ranch with my husband and kids. Join me for a look at what goes on here at the ranch and the life being a rancher's wife!
