surviving smells

as i drove into the farm yard and stepped out of my car, i knew that something was going on. anyone would have known; the heifers were billowing like there was no tomorrow. then there was also the smell... imagine the smell of burning your hair with your curling iron... it isn't a pleasant smell. now take that smell and amplify it by about a million. that, rambling readers, is the smell of branding cattle. while helping my aunt and uncle work cattle last saturday, i quickly learned that the smell of branding isn't something that sits well with me. i was dubbed "lever girl" when we started, which had me opening the shoot to let the cute little calves into the "shoot of terror"... in the shoot they got 3 shots, branded, and the boys lost a little bit of them selves. i did fine and dandy for awhile; i got complimented by L, then closed her butt in the shoot (oops), then realized that the smell was too much for me. so i became "herd the calves girl". my cousins, C and G, and i were a good team. we got all the calves through the shoot... all except one. this little guy (C, G, and i named him sleepy):

sleepy wouldn't get up for us. most of the other calves were at least a month or two old. he was two days old. he didn't have to endure the shoot.

after sleepy was returned to his mom i was able to take some more pictures of the other cute calves.


i also had some time to take some others

the horses grazing in the yard

doc vernan resting after taking away the bull calves' manly parts

the roster walking around the yard

the sunset behing the elevator in my little town

the sunset was very distracting while driving home. luckly there isn't much traffic.