Latest / Ranch Wives Unsupervised / Back in the Pen: Branding, Chili Recipes & Questionable Calf Rides

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Back in the Pen: Branding, Chili Recipes & Questionable Calf Rides · Ranch Wives Unsupervised

• Ranch Wives: When I was like probably like 16, 16, 17, something like that. I went and helped my grandparents and we would just what you call flat ass, quite literally, we would just tackle them, bring them down. Well, I was doing it with my brother's buddy and he chickened out. Like I I grabbed this calf, got it down, and he was supposed to be on the f he was I think on the back or something. Yeah, I think it was because I think I got it down and I crawled up to the top shoulder. Yeah. Yeah. He let off the f the hind legs. This calf got up and it was just perfect enough that I was high centered between the two. Like I couldn't get off this calf. I ripped my sister's jeans. Yeah. And I just rode this calf. Okay, branding. We are branding next week. So my mom was like, Well, what does that even look like? And I was like, I guess we can talk about that. We can talk about that. Okay, yeah, I want to get into this because you guys are totally different than what we do. Yes, so Lazy and I brand very similar. Yeah. Like same, same. Yeah. The exact same basically. But Brianna brands totally different. Okay, so tell tell me the process, tell me the day, what is it and like is there preparation leading up to your guys' branding? What does that look like? Yeah, so like you have to go get meds. You have to go get you have to call the vet for meds. Yeah. What do you think? You have to call your people to see if you have enough ropers. This is the thing. You need enough ropers. You need enough guys who know how to cut, like cast rate. 'Cause it's not just a branding, you're You're processing your calves. Yes. Yeah, they get everything. Yeah, they get everything. And so then you have to make sure you have enough like for us we need the RFID tags or whatever they're called. C C I tags? Yeah, the C C I tags. C C I A tags. Yeah. Yeah. And then 'cause you guys tag With the cow's number most years. Your calf, so you know who it is. And then whatever you're shipping gets your C C I A. Is that correct? Okay. This year they're just getting a tag, right? With the number? Yeah. And a letter. Yeah, so I'm gonna have to I think I'm gonna be the person I'm gonna ask my mother in law to watch my kids all day. Knock on wood. And you're gonna go get high on tagging pens? Yes. No, like seriously, it goes to your head. If you write on enough tags, especially in you got like yeah, no. You feel like you So Kate, hold on, you pre write all your tags. Yeah, because if you do it at a branding, cowboys are not known to be patient. No to have artistic abilities so that you can read the tags. Or take the time or they're just in a rush. It's easier to just have pre written. Everything looks the same as Chicken scratch and then somebody's like, that's wrong and then they cross it out. Yeah. Cow's number plus this year's number. The only thing is I don't know if Joram has all the cow's numbers. So I might just have to be there like somebody will tell me the number and then I'll write it. Yeah. But thankfully it's all the same color of tag this year. Normally we're like, blue tag, it's a seven thirty seven. Yeah, but even in the branding, you won't know who the mom is necessarily. Yeah. Like it would it would take a lot longer to have to pair off. Yeah, we don't a pear and then rope the calf with the pear. Yeah. So when we brand, we also keep the cows in. Yeah. With the calves. Yeah. We have a lot of people who like so. Sorry, and it's such a loud branding. Like the calves I feel like it's a lot more stress on the calves. Yeah. Because they all just hang out with their moms and they nurse and it's the only stress they have is The branding. Yeah. And then they go back and nurse. Yeah. Yeah. They're also way easier to rope. Yeah. This is contrary to a lot of people's opinion. Yeah. But when they're all balled up and there's hundreds of little tiny feet and you can't get them out of a corner because they're all like head jammed in, yeah. You can't catch. Yeah. It's way easier. The risk of roping a cow is much higher. That's true. And it typically happens once during a Normally somebody gets one cow. But it's there's a lot of it's not a big deal. So if you can 'cause you just somebody catches the head or the heels opposite of what was on accident and you lay it down, pull the ropes and carry on. Yeah. So what we do is there's I don't know, like four people on horses. Yeah. And then so then there's one person, like all of your cows and calves are kind of in a corner. Yeah. Somebody goes out there, they go and try and rope a head. Yeah. And then they if they catch it, then they drag it out. You drag it out, and then there's one person on either side, so the header will drag it between the two people. And then if you stay in front of the calf's head, like along the rope, and then you have like a first heel shot person and a second heel shot person. And so The first one will then drop right behind the calf and throw the rope and the second one stays up just above its head so that it keeps the calf from like squirting forward to start with. And second of all, if the s first one misses, the second one drops back and catches. Yeah. You're not trying to catch up and run on the calf. Right. Yeah. Right. You're right in position. Yeah. And thankfully it's nice having Joram and Lacey because they're left hand ropers. So then you can always be like they're always on the perfect We're always on the right side. Yeah. Then if you have a right hander and a left hander, then it's perfect. Yeah. Like it's a good setup. But if you have two right, then they have to Then they well then they'll drop back and just either throw a different shot or just scooch across and throw it in as they're scooching across. Yeah. Okay, so you get this so you get the calf down. You've roped it. Yeah. Calf's what do you call it? Flat assed? Flat ass? Flat ass is when you actually wrestle it. hold it. Okay, so anyways, cows calf is down. And then what? Okay, so then the person who has headed has to loosen up. Yeah, and they put the head rope on the two front feet. So then you have people who are like typically your flat ass or people. Yeah. They just come up knock the calf over. They knock the calf over. And set the ropes. So two front you switch it to two front feet and then two back feet. So you take off the head. Yeah, because you can't pull on the head it'll choke Yeah. Yeah. So you put the head rope on the two front feet and then typically there's like a one heel shot. And even if there's two, sometimes you've ran like a lot of rope through. Yeah. Right. So you want to shorten up because the shorter you are, the easier it is for your horse to hold. No, it's just easier for them to hold. So instead of pulling on something that weighs you know, fifty pounds. It just it shortens the leverage and stuff so your horse just doesn't tire out as fast. Right. Yeah. That sense. So then you're so then the cow is the calf is the calf is down. It's roped on both feet. So the people on the horses stay on their horses, don't move. Right. You're like keep it tight. Holding it tight. And then there's normally the easiest is if s there's certain people for certain jobs. So the shot person and then there's like the tag person. There's the branding person, there's the cutting person. Yeah. Yep. And it's just kinda like Like a polite like I don't know, there's not really an order to it. It's just you move out of the way when the branding iron comes because it's hot and you can't stand there. Yeah. So if the iron comes, yeah, everyone backs off. Yeah. Yeah. And everybody just takes their turn doing their thing. Yeah. And then if there are kids in the pen, like watching or whatever, you can get these little like marker things. Yeah. And the kids will run up and like mark the calf and then go back. Because that means it's done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And if they're a little bit older, they like doing like the meloxicam. Yes. Yeah, because what shots you because when you're branding a cap, I'm assuming you're you're giving some sort of Yeah, so we do Malox cam, which goes in their mouth, right? Which is the equivalent of like It's just pain meds. Yeah, so the essentially medicam, but moral metacam. Yeah. Okay. And then we do I think we have a black leg. It's like a live vaccine. Right? Yeah. I'm like, I don't even know. Jorm always orders it. So I'm like, I don't know. And I haven't been, to be honest, I haven't really been in the branding pen for the last couple of years because I've had like babies or I've been pregnant. Yeah. So I've actually been like kind of on the outs for the last couple of years. So this year I'm happy to like, okay, mother in law, take the kids, and I can actually be there for the day. Yeah. And you're not looking after my kids anymore because they're old enough to just be there. Yeah. So it's not like 'cause when we first started, she'd take my kids. Yeah. Right. And then I'd you'd go rope. Yeah. Or whatever. Do something. And the at the best is if almost everyone in the trap ropes. Because then you circulate through who ropes and who's on the ground. Right. And 90% of the time, there are is the person that doesn't rope that's really good on the ground. But generally, if they rope, they're way better on the ground because they know where to go, what what to be, what's helpful, what's not helpful. Yeah. There's a lot of people that like come to work the ground and they don't know what they're doing and they're always in the way. Yeah. Yeah, I probably would be because I wouldn't know what side of the rope where I was supposed to be. Let's just say on the wrong side of the rope. Call back to whatever episode that was. I don't know if they were on the rope. They're gonna let the calf loose and Brianna's gonna be the one that's getting like tricked up. Do you think there's something so funny about that? Yeah. When I was like probably like 16, 16, 17, something like that. I went and helped my grandparents and we would just what you call flat ass, quite literally, we would just tackle them, bring them down. Well, I was doing it with my brother's buddy and he chickened out. Like I I grabbed this calf, got it down, and he was supposed to be on the f he was I think on the back or something. Yeah, I think it was because I think I got it down and I crawled up to the top shoulder. Yeah. Yeah. He let off the f the hind legs. This calf got up and it was just perfect enough that I was high centered between the two. Like I couldn't get off this calf. I ripped my sister's jeans. Yeah. And I just rode this calf. Like I and I was backwards. So like the calf's head is through my legs and running this way. And I'm just like hanging on, like, ha ha ha. Like, you wanna hear me nervous laugh? Yeah. And that people like my grandpa thought that was the funniest. Yeah. They all laughed about that. And I was like, I Sometimes we get kids who will like Yeah, I was gonna say we always sat on them Yeah growing up and waited. And then you get your ride. Yeah. Yep. So that's what happened. I learned and I was so mad because Brad's like, Don't chicken out, don't chicken out. He chicken out. That's so that calf up and I was just like the perfect size that I couldn't get to one side or the other. Yeah. Got caught up. So I guess another part of branding for us is like the food because we have so many people come. Typically it's like my mother in law, me, and my two sister in laws. Sometimes my other sister How many people are coming to one of these for you guys? Roughly. Ours very So there's like the husband. Like my sister will come. Yeah. Everybody's coming. Everyone's coming. Joram and all of his siblings are coming. I would say like in the branding trap, you probably have like what? Six to eight people? Well, Joram, two brothers, sometimes his dad. This person, this person. This person. I'm like, I don't wanna name names on the podcast. Yeah, okay, like eight. Yeah. And then your kids sometimes and yeah. Nine if David makes it. Yeah. It's a rare it's a rare he's the other thing that happens. Every year at Drama Trinity's branding is you go out, you bring the cows in, and then it rains. Yes. And everyone goes for like coffee in the barn. Yes. To wait out the rain. And then we go out and and start the cows. Like three or four years? Yeah. Like and they've been dry years. So this year, like it's gonna rain. It's gonna rain. Is it projected to rain? You're doing Friday? Next day. Wednesday next week? Let's see what the projections are. Let's see how accurate the weatherman is going to be. So that's like a whole week. So it could be accurate. I feel like it's just like part of branding now. Like if it didn't rain we'd be like Wait. Truman, you guys pick the only day all week next week. That's that's gonna rain. Not quite. So okay. See? I you I called it. It's like five yeah, we're supposed to it's like seventy percent chance. Five mil. So funny. Seventy? Seventy percent chance. I'm gonna tell Jorm that. Yeah. Five mils. We need to change our day. Well the forecast will just change. I mean it's fine. Yeah. I mean that's the thing. It's tradition. It's like we're gonna be like, no, it's gonna rain on Wednesday. We pick Tuesday. It's still gonna rain on Tuesday. Yeah, the rain changes to one day brand. It doesn't matter. That's funny. Every time. I wanna come just to see. Yes. Yeah, you should. I'm not gonna rope. I'm I mean, I was gonna say I could be good in the on the foot, like on the No, you're shots and stuff, but not roping. I don't want no I don't even want to be close to a rope. Me and ropes this year have not been. We ain't good. You're not friends. We're not good. Yeah. What is your branding look like? yeah, ours is totally different. So like if we're just doing branding, we don't brand our calves. We brand our yearlings. So I just I just brand my replacement heifers. So how many is that? And then obviously you run them through the shooting. Yeah. So this year it's only it's gonna be like forty-five. We'll run them through the shoot. They're out to breed right now, we'll run them through. So I guess they're like a year and a half when we run them through. Is that right? Yeah, like a year and a half when we run them through, because we normally do it like September ish, September, October ish. We just run them through a chute. It's me, dad, and Keith and mom sometimes. It's not like a big to do thing. No, branding is our calves though, processing calves. That's our like big to do that we generally do at the end of September. Which is probably closer to what you guys would would be doing. Like so we'll we'll round up all the cows. Generally the night before and bring them into a field that is relatively close. Close because we have not in a some years we don't, and then it's like we had some all the way up north. Yeah. Right. And we have like pretty much the same crew. We've had the steady same crew for like a while. Yeah. but yeah, so like we'll bring in, bring in the front field, bring in through the corrals. This will be the first year that we have the corrals. set up in our new system. So it'll be different. So before previous years we've always like brought them in. We separate the cows out. No, we pull our bulls, that's what we do. Pull our bulls, a group will walk the bulls up. and then whoever's left back will separate out calves from cows. Split and then and anything that needs to be doctored. Yeah. If there's a cow that's in there that like needs to be doctored, we'll leave it. Yeah, like we have extra meds for like if something It's not often, but sometimes like I think last year we had a really bad case of like pink eye. So we just like did her and something something else. I can't remember what the other one was. Yeah. And so then we load the calves up in to a separate pen and then they we run up through a chute and into a cat like a little calf squeeze. Yeah. You have like a tipping table? yes. Yes, we do. But most all of ours are already cashered unless we miss if something cast you do that. We band. Like we do it right off the bat. Yeah. So that's the other part that's different. So like we'll run through, I'll get I'm normally doing shops. We want no prairie oysters. I like prairie oysters. We used to have them when I was a kid. We do you cook Like sometimes we have. Depends on who's there. Yeah, it also depends who cooks. If there's a kid that loves them and they run around with their little pail of water. Yeah, yeah. So like We that's kind of what happened at my grandparents' place. Like my sister's little siblings would like catch them. Like run around with a pail and then bring to grandma and then that kind of thing. Anyways, yeah, so like we run through the chute and run through the squeeze. So like somebody so normally my brother in law runs the head gate, I run the shots and the recording. And we do Ivermeck. Black leg and one other one. We do three shots, which seems like a lot. and then we record their tags because I want to know who's gone through the shoot. Because that's also that's also how we know who has survived grazing tenure. Yeah. yeah. So we tag them with their mom's numbers now. We run them through. And then that way if there's any missing, and if we don't see them when we sell, that means something has happened. So it's like the easiest way to see. I mean, yeah, that's typically when we like double check our numbers. Yeah, and see who's who in the zoo kind of thing. See if anybody lost a calf or whatever. Yeah, and then that's kind of if there is something with that needs to be cashered, the boys will tip and Keith or Dad will cut. Right. But we nor we have like a a decent crew because to do it efficiently, you need like two or three, two loading in the back and pushing them up. Yeah. And then we've got like three or f three or four people running poles because of the old system, there was no way to like keep them from going down. Yeah, there's a lot of poles in the middle. So we run poles through the chute. Yeah. And then yeah, but then recently one of my girlfriends in her hubby has come out to help and she records I this is somewhere where I control very heavily. I don't want any details missed. Yeah. I need to know and like if something gets an extra shot for whatever reason, yeah, I need to know all of it. Like this is my jam, this is where I thrive. Is she good at that? She's really good at it. And I was like, you can take this over. Thank you. So now I just so now I'll do like two shots and another girlfriend of mine will do So do you have a spreadsheet or what? Yep. I have a spreadsheet with who like I have their tag number, who their mom's tag number, if they're like what breed they are. heifer, sear. And then like notes or whatever. Notes. Anything that I need. Cause like I'll throw there, like there's one out here that like had a testicle that is just like super weirdly shaped and we couldn't get it properly banded, so we'll have to cut it. Yeah. So I'll have like needs to be netted or like I don't know, another tag. we we tagged one with like a replacement tag this year that we're actually not gonna keep. So we need to like re tag her right with a ship tag. Cause so when in the spring we tag them and anything that we're shipping automatically gets a CCI tag off the bat. Because if they lose one then I know the CCI tags generally stay in. I've lost very few. Yeah. Not at that stage. And so yeah like we run it's a pr Pretty big crew, but it's in some sense there's times where there's almost too many of us, but then there's times where we need more. Like last year we probably had more help than we needed, but it ran super efficiently and people were like able to like trade off because we have like coffee and treats and like whatever else. But last year was the first year since we've been out here. We didn't finish in the dark. What a beautiful thing not to finish in the dark. That's funny. Normally we're done around what, like three or four, typically. Yeah. Normally you guys break at night. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, ours is normally like an eight after work. Yeah. Yeah. But but you're only doing like forty head or thirty head. So yeah. Fifty. Even fifty head, you're still swinging out a lot faster. And you're doing it when the days are longer. yeah. That's the other thing. If you're doing it this time of year year, ours are shorter. Yeah, you're and you guys probably aren't pulling bowls. Do you pull your bowls when do you pull your bowls? Well, they're not I guess it doesn't matter. They're not in there. Yeah. See and part of us What holds us up is A where we place in the night before the or the day leading up. Yeah. But also having to sort our bowls out because there was one year we sorted out early. Yeah, we will pull the bowl. If there if the bowl isn't there, then we'll pop it out. Yeah. But do you guys walk all the way up. Like for us, we put in the pen beside and then put back in the cab when we're done. We might be able to do that this year, put them in separate pens, but our curl system couldn't hold the bowls. long enough. Like if they got fighting in our corral system, but they were gonna take out the corals. So we would pull them right off the bat, even if we could like avoid them going in fully to the curls, because there's like a separate pen that's like that wire stuff or whatever. We'd sort them out. Push them up the creek. So some things are fast, some things take a while. Mm hmm. It also depends on your crew though. Yeah, totally. Like we now have a pretty solid crew that knows where they need to be. Yeah. And who's doing one? So do do you do you use like quads or anything? Or everybody's just walking? To round up? Yeah. We have a group that comes like earlier, There's like two guys that have always come earlier of Keith's buddies. Yeah. And so it's like me, Keith, Dad, those they come help us bring in. Okay, yeah. And then everybody else kinda starts showing up to show up. Yeah. Because otherwise again, if you get too many people in there, but it's also fun too 'cause a bunch of our friends like bring their kids now. So then the all the kids will be like playing. Yeah. And like the one the one was like just snacking that kid was at the snack table all day long. Like so good. that's normally where the kids are. yeah, hundred percent. So yeah, that's kind of like been really fun to do. And I guess for us, like and you guys too, is like we use a fire. So if it is raining, you cannot brand in the rain. Yeah. Yeah. If it's sprinkling, it's kind of okay. Yeah. Yeah, 'cause otherwise they don't it doesn't heat up, you can't get going. So have you guys ever been rained out? Do like because you've had brain, have you ever had it where you're like, no, I think we've always just We've always persevered. We always look at like the weather app and we're like, okay it's gonna be done in half an hour and then And then we just wait it out. Wait it out. Yeah I don't think we've ever had to No we've never like changed the day. No. Because getting the coffee coffee between has sometimes been longer than others. Yes. Yeah depending like depending on how has been waiting out an hour to two hours We've made the call. We we have the people there. We're like, no, we don't And it's not because normally like we'll start at like and we'll yours we start at seven in the morning. Yeah. Yeah. And so And like we'll check the weather the day before too and be like, okay, it's literally gonna rain all day. Like then we would cancel it. But if it's like it's gonna shower for half an hour in the morning, then obviously we're gonna keep on. Right. So like let's say so the crew that you have, is it just the people on horses bringing the cows in, or you have everybody bringing No, just the people on horses. Horses. Yeah, okay. Similar to us, we just do with quads. Yeah. Because otherwise there's too many people. Yeah, no no no. No makes no sense. Yeah. It's just whoever brought a horse to rope and then they rotate through the branding thing. Who's yeah, in the branding trap. Yeah. That makes sense. And what kind of food are we all? my my go to for for that day, not for branding, but for processing, I'll do like a big chili because I can do it the night before in the crock pot. or crock pot, insta pot, whatever. And then mom generally brings down like buns or something. Buns and a salad, buns and something. Yeah. Last year was probably the most prepped I'd ever been. I had like a bunch of s like baked goods prepped. I had the chili prepped. I made these like peanut butter rice crispy squares. And they're like my child's. No, but I tried to set I didn't have what's that called? It's white. corn syrup. yeah. Didn't have it. I don't cook with it. Corn syrup yellow? The bottle is yellow. Yeah, the bottle's yellow. okay. Anyways, I don't cook with it. yeah. Well, there's there's like the yellow corn syrup. yeah, there's golden white. There's the golden Rogers golden syrup or whatever it's called. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Anyways, but I didn't have it, so I was like read up online that you can substitute honey. Well, no, that's a lie. They were so crunchy, they were rock hard. It like eating hockey puck. But the taste was good. It just like really broke your teeth to get in there. Yeah. Anyway, so I I do like Yeah, it's like a peanut butter rice crispy with chocolate on top. yeah, yeah, yeah. Super good. And then I always do like juice boxes. I did cookies. Girlfriend of mine brought out like a veggie tray or something like that. And then mom normally does a big dinner for the branding crew afterward. We'll like roast beef and mashed potatoes and like she does like a huge dinner for everybody, which is really nice. I feel like that's why our crew comes back because they eat good. Yeah. Yeah, if you want that's the thing, yeah, if you want yeah. You feed them. Yes. Especially because like the first couple years, we did it later. Like we didn't pull our bowls till like Thanksgiving weekend, so like October That gets cold. 10th ish. It was cold. And like things were not that your needles are freezing, but things are cold. Like they're just not working. Yeah, that doesn't sound fun as efficiently. So we we've slowly every moving it up. Yeah, like we'd move it up every couple. Yeah. Ever a few days every couple of years or like every year. So now we're finally like we found a sweet spot. In September. In September. That still could be cold though. We haven't it's not compared to October though. yeah. It's amazing what two weeks can do. It is actually and then also doing it on Thanksgiving weekend was hard because everybody was so busy. So trying to arrange help was such a pain in the butt. Yeah. Because Yeah. You just didn't have we got snowed on the one year. We it was cold. No. So cool. Yeah, I'll stick with our rain roping rain. What do you make, Blacey, for your Yes. Okay, wait, what did I chili? The other thing, hold on. The one thing I want to try this year, cornbread. Cornbread and chili is like a staple. And I I wanna make cornbread this year. I should probably switch it up, so I'm I'm curious to hear what you guys are making. Okay, go, sorry, I interrupted. I normally just have like a drinks cooler out there and then sometimes snacks. For kids, most of the adults don't actually eat the snails. Yeah, and you always do evening, so it's kind of And then yeah, like later afternoon, evening. So sometimes I'll do like burgers. Right. Something easy. Yeah. Just do burgers or something, but Yeah. Yeah. Ours is a whole day affair, typically. So it's like in the morning. Typically we have we always have coffee there. It would have to be a half day affair if it didn't rain. If it didn't rain, it would be a half day. Yeah. Exactly. And then we do like handhelds for lunch. Like a sandwich or something? Just like a sandwich. So we do like my sister in law will do like little mini sandwiches and then I did like what did I do? I did like wraps. Yes. Yeah, like chicken bacon ranch wraps. And then my other sister in law will do like a different type of sandwich. Okay. So people have options. Yeah, so that people can just like grab and go, basically. And then we do kind of like cookies or squares so that throughout the day people can just snack on whatever. And then like a couple bags of chips are always out there. And then we have a drink cooler too that's got like Gatorades and then water. Water. Yeah. And then for supper, normally lately we've been doing chili and hot dogs and hamburgers. And then Normally like the wives of the guys who are coming to help Who'll bring a side. They bring a side or dessert or something. Is that just like an unwritten rule? Sorry, is that just like an unwritten rule that if you're coming out you bring something? Or you've asked. Because every time I get invited to like other people's brandings, I typically try and bring something. Yeah. Yeah, you kinda like Lacey. I think it's like like I wouldn't expect Lacey to bring anything. Like because she's helping. Yeah. But like if the wives are coming later. Then typically they'll like bring something. And that's what I do too. Like if I get invited to a branding, I'm not there the whole day. I'm not helping. I'm with my kids. So then I'm like, okay, I need to bring like a dessert or something. Yeah, when we did I do sometimes. It depends on when and when what we're doing the day before and what I could bring that could sit out. Yeah. Cause that's the other problem. Yeah. Like when we show up at seven, it's got a whole day. Yeah, yeah. It can't be like melting in the cooler. Yeah. Yeah. It's not. Halfway through. Cause sometimes it's very hot. I'm hoping like once we build the shop because we're gonna put like a kind of like a kitchen area in there. I don't know necessarily that we'll come in, but to like to like hold everything. Like for certain things that don't need to sit out and tell. We do supper in the shop. Yeah, which we might be done, yeah. We might do that. Like well, cause it rained in the morning. And like sprinkled in the morning, and then it was like raining. It also like I feel like there's And so we did supper in the shop. some of them that come and like branding in the summer, they like normally it's kind of the same people that go to brandings because they want to rotate. Yeah, you kinda rotate. But it's like their social event. Yeah, too. Right. So like we can be done branding early and then everyone hangs out and visits for like a couple hours. Yeah, totally. Depending on when you get done. But like maybe hang and socialize. Two weekends ago and we were like, Yeah, you hang out and socialize for another like three hours. Yeah, like for us, like honest last year's the earliest we've been done. I think we were like eating dinner at six. There was sometimes we didn't eat dinner 'til like Just because like cows were we start at seven a.m. Yeah, we we were starting at eight. But because if the cows weren't where they like part of it it was like just ill planning and not having a system that could keep them Yeah clean in where they needed to be. So like gets a little chaotic. Yeah, totally. Also sometimes there was one year I think that the bulls just like didn't can't remember who are no, I exact it was like It was Nitch and Jack. I'll just name them. I don't care. Shout out to them because they come out every single single year since we've been together and help us. They've always come out. Yeah. But I don't know what happened. The bulls, I don't know if we were sending them across. I think we went to send them across to the creek. And for some reason, it just did not go as planned. And so it was like Nich, Jack, Keith, and Dad, I think, who were. Or Nick and Jack and D Keith? I can't remember. Anyways, they had gone like instead of going up t through the gate, they went down the creek bed. Like just straight down. And so they were chasing well, they those boys ain't never been to that side of the Yeah. So they don't know where they're They don't know where they're going. So Keith is like Jack's like trying to get a hold of Keith. Keith has very minimal service, if I remember correctly. Nick is just like doo do do to do living his life, doing whatever. And like it's so funny because they're one of our like They've been doing it with us for so long that we've like a really good system down. But I kid you not, the first year that Nitch pulled up, I'm gonna shout him out for his outfit. This was farm wife worthy outfit. This band shows up in cowboy boots, greasy sweatpants from work, like a like a hoodie, something else. And I was like, Nitch, he's like, I'm ready. Like he was so anyways, so totally besides the point, but such a funny thing. And like, anyway, so. They but everything went wrong. Yeah. So trying to and then we had bulls like come back and it was just like done at ten PM. like it was so late and like nobody knew where they were supposed to be to be because that's it just hadn't happened and nobody had been in that area. yeah, when it's that late, it's so dark. Yeah. Yeah. What the very first year we ever summer brandings are just so nice. But again, we like processing in the summer. So nice. But it's so early for us to process. Well, I guess it is for you too though. But when do you guys sell your calves? We sell them in like I don't know. We've done like so many different months every year. We're not like every January we sell. We're like whole prices. Like our thing is lower. We're selling we want to do it before they go out to for us at least, we need to do it before they go to some pastures because they gotta get the black leg shot. Right, because your guys' area is really bad for it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it wasn't until all of a sudden one year then all of Then it was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's true. Yeah, I don't know. We just I don't know. It like for us it doesn't even really matter when we sell. We just do it. Yeah. Yeah. Typically we do it end of June, beginning of July. That's fair. Yeah. And it it doesn't even matter really how old the calves are. My brother's. Obviously not like a week old, but yeah, no, you gotta like way harder on them. suckers. Poor guys. Too much stress on those. Yeah. Yeah, no kidding. It is it is like a lot it's probably my favorite time of the it's one of the most stressful times of the year because every you have to like for me I have to have the spreadsheet ready. I get all the meds going, I have all the needles. I have like a little it's like a little toolkit. I'm so proud of this for some reason. I don't know why. I will. It's like a little toolkit and it's got all my needle sizes in it. It's got all my syringes in it, it's got my transfer needles in it, and then it's got like what do you call We bought those what are they called? I don't even know. Like syringe things. It's like a syringe, but you can reload the whole vaccine on the top of it so you don't have to load the needle. We just got one of those last year, the year before, and I was like, Why have we never used one of these? This is brilliant. I don't know why we always just use like five mil needles or six mil needles. That's so painful. You don't have like the gun that just like you put like a You can you You can get a gun that like you load it. And it has yeah, no you said it's good You said it for like your two mil or your five mil. Episode 18: Okay so we had a power outage, That's that. That's kinda that, yeah. I guess if you have any good branding stories that are completely opposite to ours or how you do it, please let us know. We're very curious about how everybody else does it. Totally. Yeah. I think Or recipes that you use for branding. yeah, definitely give us all the recipes for branding. We need recipes. I like that chili is in both of ours, but I do feel like we need more. Yeah, we do chilies and then yeah, mainly like hot dogs and hamburgers though for supper. Yeah. 'Cause it's just easy. And chili and chips and cheese. and hold on. Yeah. Alright guys. Thanks for hanging out with us today on Ranch Wives Unsupervised. If you've enjoyed the chaos, hit that like button, drop a comment with your own ranch story, and subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. And follow us on social media at Ranch Wives Unsupervised for more unfiltered fun. We'll catch you next time. Stay unsupervised, ladies.