After an evening of cruise control and Hot Nicole and 2am breakfast at the Longhorn in Dillon, Montana, I arrived at the Frenchie with my cousin Dayne and his buddy Jake just in time to lie on the couch wide awake for a couple hours. As I was lying there thinking how I was ever gonna get up and brand cattle all day, I overheard the toughest cowboy in the West say, while starting to cook up some omelets, “Oh they’ll be fine, they’re tough.” Well if Grandpa Art says we’re tough, we better be tough!
Starting 9 or so days before I showed up, Grandpa Art, Dayne, Vick, Jeff, Mick, and whoever else moved the cattle from the Frenchie way over past the old ghost town of Bannack, with more than a couple late nights in the dark. Dayne told me he ended up repairing a gate at 3 in the morning one night because somehow it got smashed up by a drunk hay trailer…
Vick, who I don’t think had ever moved cattle before, had a good story: They were trailing some cattle and all of a sudden Jeff and Dayne took off and yelled back at Vick to push the cattle down the road that they were coming up to. Well Vick wasn’t sure which way to push, he thought they wanted him to go left but the cattle went right so, well, so they went to the right. After trailing ‘em for about 3 hours he was pretty sure there’d be a search & rescue party out hunting him down pretty soon. Instead, him and his herd ran up on a gate. Not sure what to do, he sat there for a bit and lo and behold, about 10 minutes later, here comes Mick trailing a herd over the hill yelling, “What are ya doin?! Open that gate!” And about 5 minutes later Jeff and Dayne come up over another hill trailing their herd! Vick was amazed and glad to see everyone and they were all pretty surprised at how nicely timed they were. It’s not too often you all meet up within 15 minutes of each other.
Back to the branding… we got there about 9:30 in the morning and the riders went out and rounded up the herd while we set up the corral with moveable metal fencing in order to separate the women and children, cows and calves.
Once the calves were “cut” from the cows and Dayne came back from a nearby ranch to borrow propane torches we’d forgotten, we started brandin’! Here’s how it works: the ropers go in to the calf pen on their horses and lasoo the back legs of a calf. They quickly drag the calf out, which is helpless only while they drag, and we’re sittin’ there ready to anchor their head down with a metal trap.
Sometimes you miss or the calf squirms and knocks the trap off before it’s tight and locking them down so you gotta run over real quick and hold it down old school. Once the calf is trapped and pretty helpless, a few things happen. You give it a shot of some medicine. You brand it. You snip the corner of its ears, as another form of identification. And if it’s a bull, you “dehorn” it by burning the horn stumps with a hot metal rod similar to the branding rods, and then cut off its nuts for rocky mountain oysters!
For all you animal sympathsizers and pansy girls, I paid attention to how cruel the branding process isn’t. The whole process from the time you rope the calf until you release it from the trap is about 1 minute. Wam bam thank you ma’am. Cattle are tough, it amazes me how tough they are. I remember thinking that when I was at the Frenchie in minus 20 degree weather. They’re just out there chillin’ and eatin’ no worries. Back to branding, they are more scared than anything because they don’t know what’s going on, but some are still pretty chill. I think the older they are, the less chill they are. There was one big guy that took some extra TLC, as in roping the front legs as well as the back with a pile of us trying to hold her steady. Good times! They always yell when the brand is on them but immediately stop when you take it off. They surprisingly don’t always yell when you snip their ears. I didn’t do any castrating but I’d bet you they yell when their nuts are cut off…come on you do have to sympathize with that a little. You generally have to hold each piece of the brand on them for about 5-15 seconds, depending on how tough their hair is. So after a brief minute of burning, snipping, injecting, and nad-wackin’ they’re released to run off and swap war stories and B.S. with their cattlemates.
“Your brand sucks compared to mine.”
“Argh, that’s ’cause dimwit cowboygirl with the fauxhawk over there did mine!”
“Yeah, I got lucky, that hottie Beck branded me up good.”
“Well, at least my ear snip came out well. And no matter about the brand, I’m totally the hottest cow here. Oh, hey you know they’re holding some meetings for dealing with transgender issues in the next few weeks if you have any depression or insecurities about losing your manhood.”
“Ugh, I can’t stand those rehabs, they’re such bull, I swear they have one for everything nowadays. Whatever happened to personal responsibility to overcome life’s struggles and grow up?”
“Oh wow, so deep. Gag.”
“Well, I won’t make you gag anymore.”
“Thank goodness.”
Unbranded bull calf yells from inside the pen, “Nice tats!”
“Uhhh, I hate boys.” Yells back as he gets roped and starts dragging, “Haha have fun becoming a girl!”
While we were branding, the kids rode horses around. It seemed like Logan was on a horse all day!
Toward the end, the wind picked up and started sandblasting us, I was glad I had sunglasses and that I’m tough as nails and rugged as rock. So is Jake.
Like I said, tough as nails.
All the branding photos are here.