Branding 2010

Some of my son-in-law's family owns a ranch in Northern Montana. Each year a weekend at the end of April is "Branding". It takes quite a few people to make it happen. So for the past several years our family has been helping out.

First the herd is rounded up and put a corral. That in itself is fun to watch. It's mostly done with horses and a couple of ATV's. The cows don't particularly like it, especially when they are separated from their calves. When that happens, the cows and calves start bellowing. Its amazing how they can find each other later when the calves are released.

Once all the cows and calves are in different corrals, the cows are then herded tightly into this shoot where they are inoculated. This is Stan's sister, Sue. I usually spend much of my time jabbing cows with needles, that's when I'm not poking myself. I'm sure I'm now immune to all sorts of cow disease.

The family puts on this huge lunch for all who have come to help, during which my grand daughter, Saray, came up to some of the ladies with this snake. Her Aunt Macy jumped up on the picnic table screaming. As Saray continued to approach her, Macy jumped off the table, ran around the trees and into the house. I wish I had my camera ready.

Wranglers, I think that's what they're called, go into the corral with the calves, rope them and bring them out one at the time where they are wrestled to the ground and held there.

Once the calves are controlled on the ground, they are given shots, ear tags, branded and whatever else is needed. It looks like pandemonium with lots of folks running around, but pretty much everyone knows what to do. In case your wondering, the lady with the white bucket is collecting "Rocky Mountain Oysters" from the bull calves.

This is Suny, Stan's best friend since they were small kids, and now his brother-in-law. Suny usually is one of the wrangles, among other things.

This is Stan "horsing" around.

This year there was a lot of wind blowing most of the time, which stirred up a lot of dust. The only way to escape it was to go inside.

My daughter, Michele, who usually is out there wrestling calves down, this year became an observer because "she just had a baby". But even she couldn't escape the dust.

Here is one of the next generation of wranglers.

After the work is done, most of us can hardly move, but some of the "boys", the ones who never grew up, go out and play "OK Corral" or commandos with their paint ball guns. This is no small event as they talk about it for months before, buying new "weapons" etc. Erica, one of Michele's best friends, took this picture as I had to leave right away to head to Seattle. That's her husband, Andrew, on the far right next to Stan.

As hard as the work can be, this is still fun and we all look forward to it each year.