Well, branding went just peachy! No one got hurt, we had plenty of food and drink, it was a cool, overcast day, and the rain started after lunch! We were a little short on help since it was on a Wednesday, but the 21 people who were there stepped it up and handled things well. We had planned on branding, eating lunch, and then finish branding, but with rain clouds looming we branded everything and just ate later. Which left me with enough food to feed more people, but that was the original intention.
Thanks to .6 inch of rain yesterday, we virtually had the day off, although cleaning up after branding is still a chore. Daniel and Vernon went to Frannie, Wyoming and bought Daniel a new saddle… He has been riding his grandfather’s old one, but it needed serious repair, and so they decided to purchase a new Billy Cook. Daniel rode it today, but was not impressed, guess it needs some serious breaking in…
Today we sorted off different pairs out of the branding bunch to go different directions with different bulls. We sent 55 green tags to the upper end of Violet’s, 49 Y8’s to the feed grounds, and Vernon, Daniel, and Shelley gathered the Joe Henry Allottment. We still have to take the Y8’s to the Mills place. We have yellow tags to take to the Richie pasture. We have other green tags to put in the horse pasture. Sigh.
But let me entertain you with the story of Daniel and the bull’s tail. The day I spent cooking for branding, they had to move some pairs down to the branding corral. As they went along, two bulls got in a fight and Daniel took down his rope to break them up. Using the end (not where the loop is), Daniel proceeded to beat as hard as possible on one bull to distract him and make him quit fighting the other bull. Somehow his rope got tangled in the hair on the bull’s tail and wouldn’t come loose! He dropped his end and followed the bull. Shelley rides up and Daniel gets off his horse, grabs his rope and hands it to her to dally up. She does, turns her horse, and tries to pull the rope off. But poor Shelley and her horse just end up getting dragged backwards as the bull isn’t stopping… he has quit fighting the other bull, but is now determined to leave the country! It was quite the picture, I guess, Shelley pulling on one end of the rope, the bull pulling on the other end. Now Vernon appears on the scene. He proposes cutting the bull’s tail… the end is just long hair, so they regroup. Daniel is still on the ground, pulling on his rope. Shelley dallies up again. They both pull on the rope as hard as they can. Vernon bails off his horse with pocket knife in hand. One swipe of his sharp knife and Daniel is on his back with his feet in the air, but his rope now unattached to the bull. Daniel is unhurt, but shocked his Dad’s knife was that sharp – he assumed a couple of swipes or some sawing would have to take place, but it sure didn’t! The entire time the bull didn’t stop. Thank goodness he never went on the fight with them.
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