Tis the Branding Season!

Branding Time is my favorite time of year! The company, the cattle, and a little bit of hard work!  I feel really bad for all of the kids that have never done this.  The work is good and fun, and the conversation is usually very entertaining, and the food is phenomenal!
This last weekend I got to meet a ton of new people and I even learned a few things.  Friday, The Boy and I, took off for Cody and Lodgepole Nebraska to help some of his friends out.  We didn't take horses but we did throw some saddles so we could help gather and rope!  We get to the first ranch that we were headed to and this ten year old man says
"I suppose she can ride HB."
He looks straight at me and goes
 "Do you know what HB stands for? "
 I kind of laughed and said " No what?"

 "Hell Bitch" 

 I'm just sitting there thinking holy shit, what did I get myself into. So I get the old grey mare saddled up, (after they had to rope her to catch her, of course) and after helping the rancher get his feeding done, we load up and head to the pasture to get started branding.  I get her bridled,and swing my leg over.  Turns out they put me on the slowest, plow-reigning old girl on the entire place.  I felt like an old chicken shit.

The second branding we went to I saw something new, that I hadn't heard about before, which was pretty neat.  They castrated the calf with their teeth.  The man bit the nuts off of roughly 90 head of calves.  Talk about a rough day.  The only thing they used the knife for was to cut the hair off the end.  He then proceeded to suck them out.  Been doing it for 36 years he tells me.  I was impressed so were the guys until one of their girlfriends tried it out for herself.  Needless to say I think he will be nicer to her from now on. :)