Ladies have the beauty parlor, farmers have the coffee shop, but cowboys have brandings. Brandings are as much a social event as they are a time to work calves. Neighbors and friends that you haven’t seen since calves were shipped last fall come from near and far to drag calves to the fire and swap stories as they fight over the last piece of pie. See most cowboys are kind of like hermits. We don’t get out much. Most of the time our wives are the ones that you will see in town running errands and making sure we have the essential supplies at home. Cowboys usually come to town when they need something at the feed store, are paying their respects to someone that was lost, or are supporting the local high school football team on a Friday night in the fall.
The gathering of several cowboys in one spot usually means there is a branding involved. We share the latest news, lie about who did or didn’t get the most rain this spring, put the youngest of cowhands up to trouble to make their mama blush and spend the day working hard and sharing some laughs in the process. A branding is a time honored tradition in the ranching community. Every area has their own culture, a certain way of doing things, but the fellowship among neighbors is the same.
Watching kids follow the castrator around with an ice cream bucket to collect nuts, or the smallest of helpers hang onto the hands of their parents with a paint stick to mark for vaccines proves that this is a family tradition through and through. Old men tend the irons with skilled hands while eager high school boys try to show off for the girls by wrestling the biggest calves only to be outdone by the girls themselves. Every calf that is wrestled is a chance for conversation to take place. The old men tending the irons will help the kids cook a branding snack on the fire when they come back with their ice cream buckets full of freshly harvested calf fries.
The world could sure take a lesson from the ranching world. We come together with a common goal of helping our neighbors get a task done. We spend the day fellowshipping with one another and our only expectation for pay is a home cooked meal and the return of the help provided when we brand our own calves. We laugh, joke, share stories and put any differences aside to help our neighbors. Wouldn’t it be something if the rest of the world worked this way? What if our leaders in congress had to spend a day wrestling calves together knowing that if the other person didn’t do their job, their job only got harder. There’s something to be said for a day of hard work that leaves you covered in dirt and calf poop.
From about mid April, to the end of June, most weekends are spent helping neighbors get their calves worked and ready for grass. The bonds of friendship that are built on these weekends are the true spirit of our nation. That’s all for this time, save a piece of pie for me at your branding, keep tabs on your side of the barbed wire and God Bless!