In my neck of the woods, every Saturday and Sunday from January through March is reserved for someone’s branding. So, when it came time to brand my calves every available day was already spoken for. And no one dared jump on another rancher’s day for fear of being excommunicated. This meant that someone either had to die or quit ranching in order to claim their day. So, for the first five years my wife and I had to brand our own calves which meant we worked them on a calf table. But please don’t tell anyone because this is a sin worse than jumping on someone’s branding day.

We finally rose to number one on the waiting list and when a rancher sold out and moved to Nebraska, we grabbed his day. This despite a hotly contested debate about whether the day actually belongs to a person or did it belong to the ranch? Lucky for us the new owner of the ranch wanted to raise yaks, buffalo and ostriches, which I don’t think require branding.

So, we got our own branding day although it was not a very desirable one, the last Sunday in March. This meant that a rustler would have three extra months to steal our “slick” calves and by the end of March even our poorly calves would be pushing 400 pounds and no one wants to wrestle those monsters.

There has always been an informal competition amongst ranchers as to who could provide the best meal after all the calves were branded. This could get very expensive by the time the rancher filled his truck at Costco with beer, beans, beef and bread. There are two schools of thought but the multi-generation ranchers believe you should spend the price of one calf on your branding dinner, while the more recent and richer ranchers say you should spend the price of two calves.

There were only two exceptions: my friend Pete cheapened back by serving chicken, and myself who believe you should spend the price of one leppy lamb.

For our first branding I took the whole crew down to the Dairy Freeze and told them they could have anything they wanted under two bucks. Drinks and dessert were not included as I didn’t want to have to buy anyone’s root beer freeze, pistachio milk shake, vanilla cone dipped in chocolate or banana split.

There were several complaints after the meal and a boycott was threatened if we didn’t up the quality of our barbecue. So, for our second year we decided on something a little different... serve-yourself tacos and chips. On one table we had big containers of ground beef from a cancer eyed cow, chopped lettuce, cheese, macaroni salad slightly past it’s “Use By” date and a couple bags of Doritos. For portion control the wife handed out two tortillas to each adult and one for every kid. For drinks we bought an all-new garden hose.

The following year we waited and waited but no one showed up to our branding. The problem was that a gynecologist had bought a ranch in the area and brazenly jumped on our branding day. He hired a caterer to serve filet mignon steaks, five kinds of salad, corn on the cob and french bread slathered in butter. To drink there was every kind of soda imaginable along with expensive wine, local artisan draft beers and drinking water from Fiji. They had real linen table cloths and napkins and real silverware instead of the plastic kind that always broke. The silverware selection consisted of three forks, two spoons and a sharp knife so that the ranchers didn’t have to cut their steak with the same knife they’d been castrating calves with. Dessert consisted of all-you-could eat homemade ice cream served atop apple pie or delightful berry cobbler.

There was even a place to wash up that included hot water, Lava, two types of French smelly soap and there were his and her portable bathrooms with high dollar toilet paper.

Needless to say, my wife and I were back to branding our calves on a calf table. But as a reward for my hard-working wife and to prove I wasn’t totally heartless, I took her to a free gourmet mid-day-meal... over at the gynecologist’s place.