Branding

For Memorial Day weekend we went up to Snowflake for a fun-filled weekend. We got up there Friday night (packing for kids takes me forever, by the way), then late Saturday morning Josh and I went and "helped" with the branding while David and Mary went to visit Grandma Wiltbank.

It's funny because our branding days now have more people than calves (maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but not much). Back in the day we would have several--probably 6 or 7, if not more--different locations where we would brand around 200 calves at a time, but now we only have about 35 calves...a much smaller scale! But at least we get to let our kids experience some of the things we grew up doing. Josh wasn't to into the whole experience this year, he was more interested in playing with the other kids and in the dirt...maybe next year! Here are some pictures to document our fun:

Josh and Trey are deep in conversation about the intricacies of branding calves:

A line of cousins watching the action. From L to R they are Taden, Manasseh, Trey, Trevin, Josh, Bryant, Spencer and Addie, and Taryn is on the ground. You can tell that Spencer is really enjoying the pleasant noises:

Rend, Tori, Travis and Crystal working hard...don't mind Travis' hands:

Uncle Brandon was nice enough to take Josh for a little ride on Bizness:

I even participated a little:

Back in the day we would often ride the calves out of the chute. Here Kayla is getting ready to re-live the memories:

She didn't quite make the 8 second mark:

Josh found Aunt JenMarie's drink sitting on the trailor and decided to help himself. Nice position there buddy:

Back at Grandma Flake's we went for rides on Chester--the favorite horse who is getting really old, so he probably won't be around for much longer. :( You can tell that Mary was really having a good time.

And just for fun, I swiped these pictures taken in 1999 from Mindy's blog. We were branding at Monument Hill and I would have just graduated from high school:

My nephew Louis getting ready to ride a calf out of the squeeze. Louis just graduated from HS this year:

Tyler manning the chute:

Darin keeping tally and me doing vaccinations...this was my usual job after I graduated from putting ear tags in the taggers:

Wynn and Mindy running the squeeze:

Wynn and Brandon dehorning a calf:

Kayla putting up a good fight with Wynn and Tyler as they try to throw her into the drinker during the lunch break. I think she kind of started a water fight earlier:

Mindy posing for the camera:

Here was Mindy riding a calf out of the squeeze, but whoever took the picture didn't get the calf in it: