Whoa! I don’t what’s going on here. I didn’t post anything the entire month of April and now I’ve posted twice in three days.

Saturday we branded calves. In the old days, when Nate and I were first married, branding calves meant a bed of coals had to be kept hot to heat the branding iron. Now we have an electric branding iron.

These days we’ve replaced the fire with a few extension cords

stretching through a couple of corrals,

across the road,

into the barn,

and finally an outlet.

With the cows and calves separated and the branding iron hot, it’s time to begin. Tyler (one of Nate’s coworkers) came to try out some ranching. He’s the one pushing the calf up the chute.

Matt and Nate pull the chute closed and

flip it into table mode. Then my niece gets to decipher the tag number.

Maybe you can help her.

She records the number in the notebook and also notes if it’s a heifer or (soon to be) steer.

Matt gets his knife ready to make this young bull into a steer.

After making the cut, Matt finds the goods and uses this tool to pull them out one at a time. You’re not a real cowboy unless you’ve used your teeth as the pulling tool. Rest assured we only have real cowboys on this farm.

Rocky Mountain Oyster anyone? Anyone?

Now it’s time for branding.

And my cowboy knows just what that means.

You might think he’s hiding from the smoke, but it’s really the smell more than anything. That smell that doesn’t leave your nostrils all day after branding. That smell that clings to every piece of clothing and hair it touches. (Note Tyler, the epitome of the modern cowboy, on his cell phone in the background.)

After these modern cowboys finished up at the farm, they came back to our barn to try their hand at a little old school roping and branding on the two calves we’re bottle feeding.

They’ve got him all ready for Matt.

Oliver and Sunday were a little wary of us at their next bottle feeding.