A Different Branding

Branding is a big part of life in this cattle country that we live in. New Mexico takes brands very seriously, and everyone who has livestock needs a brand. We even had to register for a brand with our tiny sheep flock.

Because of the number of cattle ranches here, and the number of calves born on those ranches every year, every year sees a lot of branding. It's most commonly done in late spring, mostly May, and those weekends get very busy as every ranch brands all their calves.

Sometimes, however, there are summer calves that need to be branded in the fall. That's what happened for a small part of our friends' herd this year. I got a call on Thursday that they had about a hundred small calves that needed to be branded and they were hoping we could bring the boys to help flank on Sunday.

Flanking refers to grabbing the calf and flipping it onto its back, and then holding it, so the branding, vaccinating, ear tagging, and castrating (if necessary) can all get done. Flanking is a two-person job. The person in the back grabs one of the back hooves and holds on so the person at the head can flip the calf onto its back by grabbing the opposite front hoof. Then the front flanker pins the calf by its neck while the person holding the back hoof hangs on and leans back. In this way the calf is (mostly) immobile for the people with the branding iron, needles, and knife or bander (depending on if the castrating is going to be an immediate cut-'em'-out or a banding job) move in to do what needs to be done.

Flanking is very hard work. It's dirty, physical, and somewhat dangerous, especially with bigger calves. Mostly when the calves are bigger, the preference is to have draggers on horseback. They rope the calf around a hind leg and drag it to flankers to hold and flip.

These calves were very small, and this ranch doesn't use horses, so these calves were just grabbed and dragged by the flankers. This process is known, amusingly, as "mugging."

This ranch is owned by a family we know fairly well. Their son is just a little younger than our youngest son, and he wanted to try flanking for the first time. He wanted our youngest son, who is now almost 12, to try for the first time too. Our older two boys have flanked already, although always with horseback draggers. So we brought everyone down to the ranch right after church on Sunday to help.

This ranch is waaaay out on a dirt road. We drove 40 minutes from the village on a dirt road before getting near the branding pens.

Adventure Van has a very dirty windshield.

Our son's friend came to meet us on his four-wheeler when we were close to the turn-off to the pens, so he could lead us there.

Follow the four-wheeling leader.

The pens were just in the middle of the range off a dirt track.

Good old Adventure Van, still adventuring.

The calves were split into two groups of about fifty each, in separate pens.

The second group waiting their turn.

There were a lot of people in the work pen. Besides three teams of flankers, there were two older men who helped with the more frisky calves, and about six women and girls who did various jobs like vaccinating, a nasal spray of some kind of medication, castrating, ear notching (to identify steers and heifers at a glance), and ear tagging.

Crowded in there.

Because there was no electricity there, the branding iron was heated by a generator. What with the bawling calves in the pens, their mooing mothers outside the pens, and the generator, it was very, very loud. Also very dirty and smoky, as the crew working in the dirt pen kicked up dust and applied the smoking brand.

Our older two boys worked as a team, younger at the heel, older at the head.

Workin' hard for the money.

The youngest boy and his friend worked as a team, too, with the smaller calves. They learned how to grab and flip the calves pretty quickly, but they were too light to hold the calves themselves. The older men stepped in to help with that. Weight is important when one is wrestling and holding an animal.

Poppy got conscripted into notching ears. She could only do this with the heifers, who apparently had thinner skin. The bull calves were harder. A slightly older girl did those, along with the ear tags.

A. and I were pleased to stand outside the pen to watch the action and hand over water to the children at intervals. Until just after the second fifty calves were in the pen and the eldest son got kicked in the hand by a calf. The hoof hit right at the base of his thumb, and then he couldn't move his thumb at all.

Dang it.

Injuries are not uncommon at brandings. Almost everyone winds up with a bruise from getting kicked. Some people get broken bones. We were really hoping this wasn't a break, given the small size of the calf that kicked him, but of course, the only way to be sure was an x-ray.

A. stepped in to take his place as flanker while a lady who does wilderness search and rescue splinted son's thumb with a cleverly cut piece of a water jug top and some bandages. By the time we got him splinted, the branding was almost done, so we waited until the last few calves were done before driving to the hospital to get his hand x-rayed.

Of course, driving to the hospital was not as quick as it could have been, given our location. We had to follow that same dirt road another forty-five minutes in the opposite direction before getting to a paved road, which we drove on for another forty-five minutes before getting to the small city that has an ER.

A. dropped the patient and me off at the ER and took the other kids to the Sonic right next door for lunch.

The hand was duly x-rayed.

On a nifty mobile x-ray machine.

It wasn't broken, just sprained. Thank goodness. He got a brace and a pain pill and we were out of there within an hour. 

Despite the unfortunate injury, everyone had a good time. Brandings are actually pretty fun. Kind of like a work party. The kids love them, and I'm sure we'll be going back there again in the spring for their bigger branding.

We'll just hope there aren't any high-kicking calves with good aim next time.

Snapshots: Flowers and Flame

We have far too many boxes of macaroni and cheese, thanks to commodities. I tend to use the pasta from the macaroni and cheese and not use the packets of cheese powder. So the last time I dredged pork chops in egg wash and flour, I mixed the extra egg and flour with some of those extra packets and microwaved it quickly, topping it all off with some nasty grapes. For the chickens.

Surprisingly colorful. They loved it.

 It was quite cloudy and dim on Wednesday morning when I woke everyone up for school.

And that means breakfast candles!

I like it when I can have both fresh flowers and candles on the table. The light from the candles is much more mellow and orange than it shows in the photo, and it lights up the flowers very nicely.

The next morning, the older two boys left at 4:15 a.m. to go with their FFA chapter to the New Mexico State Fair. I didn't have to get up with them, but I can't sleep if there's movement and light in the morning, no matter how early. So up I got to say good-bye to them. And then I had a LOT of time for my coffee.

No sign of dawn out that window.

I am pleased to tell you that Odin's gross wound that he kept licking has healed. It required several sessions in the dreaded t-shirt. He kept getting it off, and then we'd have to put it back on and try to pin it more securely. Eventually, everything healed up enough that he stopped fussing with it.

The great Odini, happy to be wearing no clothes whatsoever.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Extra Desserts

Friday 

Short version: Fish, leftover mashed potatoes, leftover coleslaw at home; KFC on the road

Long version: This was the day I drove almost 500 miles roundtrip for a football game. There were already mashed potatoes and coleslaw in the refrigerator. We have a few packages of wild-caught cod fillets that came from commodities in the freezer. I took one of those out and A. breaded and fried them.

The football player and I had KFC on our way home, because it was one of our few options. It was not inspiring.

Saturday

Short version: Toasted burritos, more leftover coleslaw

Long version: I used two pounds of ground beef and a can of black beans to make taco meat, which was in turn used to make toasted burritos.

It's important to put coleslaw in a separate bowl, or else you end up with coleslaw juice soaking into everything else on the plate.

Sunday

Short version: Rooster rice, frozen peas, mini pies

Long version: I took out two of the roosters we butchered last week to thaw. A. thought they were young enough to roast, but it was too hot to have the oven on at high heat for that. So instead, I pressure-cooked them in the morning until I could pull the meat off. Then I used the resulting stock to make rice so I could make this, using some of the caramelized onions I still have in the freezer. It's very fast to make when the onions are already caramelized.

I had made baking powder biscuits for after church, and while the oven was on, I used the same bowl to make a single recipe of pie crust. I rolled that out and cut out small circles to fill with plum butter my sister had made. Then I folded them over, crimped them shut, put on an egg wash and sugar, and baked them all.

Slighty overbaked, actually, but oh well. 

I make these very rarely, because doing anything individually like that takes a lot longer than a whole pie or whatever, but my family was very pleased with them.

Monday

Short version: Pork, butter-soaked biscuits, green salad with ranch dressing, rice pudding

Long version: Poppy requested that I make these butter-swim biscuits. The only meat I had in the freezer that really went well with biscuits was pork, and that was only in the form of a giant pork shoulder.

It was too hot to be cooking that, but I did anyway. I had planned to cut it into chunks, so it would cook faster, but it was still almost entirely frozen even after sitting out to thaw all night. So instead, I started it in my biggest casserole dish in the oven, in which it barely fit and the liquid kept boiling over. 

I had rice pudding in the oven with it. When the rice pudding was done, though, I took the pork out and cut it into chunks after all, putting the chunks in an enameled cast-iron pot on the stove to simmer. And the bone, with quite a bit of meat on it, in another pot to simmer so I could get the meat off of that. After I pulled all the meat apart, I mixed it with rendered lard, spices, and maple syrup before putting it under the broiler for a few minutes at dinnertime.

That means I used a total of four different pots, casseroles, and pans to cook this one piece of meat. Irritating. I am so ready to have weather in which I can run my oven comfortably.

I baked the biscuits after taking the pork out--and turning up the heat--in the morning, so that at dinnertime I could re-heat them right in the pan in the oven while the broiler was on. This works very well and makes the biscuits not quite as greasy because all the butter is absorbed during their rest.

Biscuit dough swimming in butter before baking.

Tuesday

Short version: Leftover pork, faked beans, porky rice, cucumber salad

Long version: I had quite a lot of pork left, which I just fried in more of the rendered lard in a cast iron skillet.

We got two cans of pork and beans in the commodities last time. This has tomato and some sugar in it (and not actually any pork except pork fat) and the beans are small white beans. Perfect for making not-baked beans. I just dumped both cans into a bowl, added ketchup, molasses, mustard, and maple syrup until it tasted right, and microwaved it.

After removing the lard from the top of one jars of liquid I had saved from cooking the pork, and using the lard to fry the leftover pork, I used the liquid to cook rice.

Cucumbers courtesy of the lady the older boys work for. All I did with those was slice them and add in pickled onions, the last of the ranch dressing from the previous night, a little extra Greek yogurt, sugar, and vinegar.

Wednesday

Short version: Chili, cornbread

Long version: It was finally cool enough that chili didn't seem like a completely ridiculous idea. Which was handy, because I had more of the pork braising liquid to use up. Stock of any kind--chicken, beef, pork, even lamb--makes chili so much better.

I also did the extra step of softening a couple of whole dried red chili peppers and then blending them with my immersion blender before adding that. 

It was really good chili.

I need to make more cornbread and corn tortillas to use up some of the ten pounds of masa we got in the school food boxes last month. I should probably come up with some other ways to use it, too. Any other ideas for masa?

Thursday

Short version: Cheeseburgers on homemade buns, leftover baked beans, pickles, strawberry-rhubarb crisp

Long version: Eldest had made a bunch of hamburger patties awhile ago and froze them so he would have something easy to cook when he was hungry at lunch or whatever. He forgot about them, though, and they were getting a little freezer burned, so I decided to make hamburger buns when I was making bread and use the hamburger patties this night.

I made a LOT of pickles the day before.

The cucumbers I pickled came from the agriculture teacher at school, who in turn got them from her husband's grandpa in the southern part of the state. Well-traveled cucumbers.

I had made the crisp Sunday when the oven was on for the after-church biscuits. I didn't need the crisp for Sunday dessert, because I made the mini pies. I had thought I would serve the crisp the next day, when we had a guest with us for dinner, but then I made the rice pudding. So the crisp waited patiently in the refrigerator and was finally served this night. We'll say it was to celebrate the end of the school week.

Refrigerator check: 

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?

Recipe Improvements

I made the butter-swim biscuit recipe from The Kitchn website yesterday, at Poppy's request. I was reminded as I was reading it how stupid the first instruction is in the recipe.

You're supposed to melt the large quantity of butter that goes in the baking pan. The recipe suggests microwaving the butter or melting it on the stovetop.

But the oven is supposed to be heating up to 400 degrees, and the melted butter is immediately poured into the baking pan and then swirled around to coat the pan.

So why, in the name of all that is efficient, wouldn't you just put the butter in the pan and put the pan in the heating oven to melt the butter instead of using a whole other dish and another step? 

Silly.

I will give credit to that same recipe, however, for listing the ingredient amounts in the instructions. I dislike having to look back to a separate ingredient list to find out how much of anything I need to add as I'm going through the recipe instructions.

Do you have any recipe pet peeves?

Snapshots: Very Away Football

If you've ever wondered what it might look like if you forget about eggs you're hardboiling for over an hour . . . 

Do not recommend.

Those went to the dogs, who did not complain.

I subbed at school for one of our special ed. teachers on Thursday. I thought these were funny.

I think the administration gave one of these to every staff member during last year's difficult move into the new school building.

This is in the math classroom. Our math teacher is a man, which makes this make more sense.

Yesterday was the first football game of the season. It was an away game. VERY away. Exactly 223 miles, one way. I went mostly so our junior high player could come home after his game, instead of waiting to take the bus after the varsity game and getting home at 2 a.m.

The first 100 miles of my drive looked like this.

The last 60 miles looked like this.

The intervening miles didn't feature much more of interest. New Mexico is a startingly empty state.

I did stop once in a random village to look at their church.

Unfortunately, it was locked, so I couldn't go in.

Cool stonework on the outside, though.

The athletic facility at the school I was going to was surprisingly nice for such a small school.

I particularly liked the roses that were planted all under the stands.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Many Fish Cans

Friday 

Short version: Fish patties, mashed potatoes, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: We had a lot of cans of fishy things hanging around. I buy 12-ounce cans of chunk white tuna; we got a bunch of small cans of chunk light tuna from commodities and the random boxes of food they're started sending home with the kids from school; and I had one old can of salmon in the pantry.

Sounds like fish patties to me!

The many cans I opened. I figure after cleaning up the salmon and draining all the water in these cans, I ended up with around two pounds of canned fish.

My family can eat astounding numbers of these patties, but one boy wasn't feeling well and another had been working all day in the heat and wasn't all that hungry, so we had a couple of leftover patties this time. That rarely happens.

Saturday

Short version: Western wedding food

Long version: The day we went to the ranch wedding and ate ribs and stuff.

Not elegant, but delicious.

Sunday

Short version: Italian sausage, pasta with pesto, radishes, pots de creme

Long version: The basil was trying to flower again and needed trimming, so I made pesto and then built the rest of the meal around that.

Pots de creme because I didn't feel like baking. Again. It's a theme in hot weather. I had just made it a couple of Sundays previous, but no one minded eating it again. Plus, Poppy helped me make it this time and one of her brothers helped me make it last time, so I'm passing down a very important family recipe.

Monday

Short version: Beans and rice with leftovers, canned peaches

Long version: Someone we know incubated a bunch of eggs and ended up with a lot of roosters. She asked us if we'd like them. We can always use home-raised chickens, but this was a LOT of roosters. Eleven, to be exact.

Butchering that many chickens is no fun. Especially when it's hot. Blood and feathers everywhere, the disgusting wet-dog smell of scalded feathers . . . yuck.

Anyway. We did it this day, and then no one was all that enthused about dinner. Certainly not for chicken. Plus, I was exhausted and in no mood to cook.

I made it easy on myself by thawing leftover pinto beans and mixing them with some rice I cooked. I also added the last diced-up link and a half of Italian sausage from the night before.

No vegetables, just canned peaches for a fruit/dessert.

Tuesday

Short version: Bacon cheeseburger sandwiches, cucumbers, ice cream

Long version: I only used one package of ground beef to make burger patties, but I made them as thin as I could and then gave the bigger eaters two patties on their sandwiches. The bacon helped to stretch them. I hadn't made buns, so I just cut the fresh bread I had made the day before.

I had been to Walmart this day, where I bought a gallon of Neopolitan ice cream, more than half of which was eaten after dinner.

Wednesday

Short version: Chicken-fried pork chops and gravy, mashed potatoes, sauerkraut

Long version: It turned out to be lucky that one boy was sick and didn't eat, because I only had five pork chops. Normally, I wouldn't eat one, but since there was an extra one, I had half of that. They sure are good cooked this way.

A. looked at this and asked, "Are we in Indiana?" He was referencing this sandwich, which I have never had, but I'm sure is delicious. And comically large.

Thursday

Short version: Leftover-leftovers with sausage, raw cabbage, ice cream

Long version: I subbed at school all day. Luckily, I had enough for the leftover rice and beans, to which I had already added leftover Italian sausage once to the leftovers, And then I used those leftovers for dinner, with the addition of a tube of Walmart's premium breakfast sausage. 

Low-effort, but filling. In other words, perfect for a work night.

Refrigerator check:

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?

Check This Out

Remember when we talked about how Double Stuf Oreos now have as much of the cream filling as regular Oreos used to have in Ye Olden Days? And how many of you agreed with me about that?

Well! Here's an interesting new wrinkle. These are the Walmart brand Twist 'n' Shouts, with double filling. 

Well well well. Would you look at that.

That actually is double the amount of cream filling as the name-brand "Double Stuf" Oreos. 

Nice to know that Walmart, at least, isn't trying to cheat us out of our cream filling in their Twist 'n' Shouts. 

Oreo, take note. You're being outclassed by Walmart.