Prairie Pastor

Periodically, I will feature snippets of life that can only be found and seen in our corner of the prairie.

If you have seen it somewhere else, please let me live in blissful ignorance..... we like to think that we are unique and special 'round here.....

This week, we are featuring the Prairie Pastor--

He doesn't know I'm doing this.... he, he, he!

Yes, this was his choice of costumes for Halloween.... and yes, that's a poodle skirt....

He promised to pay for therapy for my kids..... I'm holding him to it, cuz they will need therapy...... and hey, someone's gotta pay for it......

This is the vehicle of choice for the Prairie Pastor----

This is the Prairie Pastor's church and how the Prairie Pastor dries his laundry.....

(It's our church too......just thought I'd clarify)

This is the Prairie Pastor's hobby.....

Don't you wish you too had a cross-dressing, truck driving, pistol packing, Prairie Pastor?

Well, sorry, you can't have him.....

He's all ours......

Actually, for a six figure salary with benefits and paid vacation, you probably could have him.....

Let's just say that is not what he gets out here.....

You wouldn't really take it, would you, pastor? Pastor.... Pastor?!

He is never gonna let me take pictures of him again.....

Cowboy Key Lime Pie

It's sweet, it's easy, it's out of focus- make it anyway!!

Recipe here- Cooking with Loving Hands

Branding

Aaaahhhh!!! Sniff, sniff....

Branding day- the smell of burning hair, the bawling of calves, the chaos of people and cows and branding irons and vaccination guns, all in close proximity.

Did I mention HOT branding irons?

Note the flame coming off the hide of this poor calf-

I could pretend to be all politically correct and worried about the pain that the calf is going through, but, it's a necessary fact of life for these calves, the pain is momentary, and within moments, it's done and they are off to mama.

Yes, occasionally someone gets stuck with the vaccination needle- but its's ok- they are guaranteed not to get blackleg or rhinovirus for at least a year-

In this yearly event, all the community that is available participates, moving from ranch to ranch, often branding 300 calves in just a few hours.

Cow/calf pairs are rounded up from the pasture by 4-wheelers and horses, brought into the corrals, sorted and seperated. Groups of up to 50 calves at a time are run into a corral filled with people. Two folks pick out a calf, grab it from the group, wrestle it to the ground, and while one person sits on its head and one holds its feet, it is systematically vaccinated, branded, and if need be, castrated.

Hence the Rocky Mountain Oysters: Castration is done by the older guys with a knife and their fingers- generally the knife is held in the teeth inbetween cuts-

No, I am not joking- it's the way it's done- The cool thing is, the kids are brought right into the middle of things- this is my girl, barely 75 lbs, sitting on the head of a 200 lb calf that she brought down (with help!)

Castration was not something my kids learned how to do that day, but eating calf nuts fresh fried on the branding iron was not an experience my 12 yr old son was able to pass up!

Sorry, no pics of that one!!

At the end of the morning, an enormous feast is spread in the ranch house- 5 main dishes in enormous crockpots, huge baskets of bread, 5 different kinds of salad, iced tea and lemonade, and 10 different kinds of pie.

That, and the unlimited beer (come on, this is ranch country-beer is water here), are all the pay that the folks get.

Then onto another day and another ranch, 300 more calves, more beer and more food---it's a good ranch life!!