Back in the day, a long time before I was born and an even longer time yet before I started messing with cattle, branding was done differently.

I’ve read of how an entire summer was devoted to the weaning and branding process.  Cowboys and the mess wagon would start ranging out from the home ranch, across thousands of acres that comprised the ‘free range’ area where their ranch boss’s cattle roamed together with cattle from other ranches.  As the days passed, the drag net of cowboys that had fanned out in a wide circle slowly came in tighter and tighter until one big rodeo was about to take place with the gathered group of calves and their mama’s.

Some ranches were lucky enough to have corrals to run the stock into.  Others used a live corral of constantly circling cowboys. 

The cows, with calves by their side, were identified by ranch brand and were sorted off accordingly.  A fire was lit, and a short iron rod with the brand welded to the end of it was placed, brand first, into the fire. 

Next, those calves that had been sorted off where team roped.  One fellow tossed a loop over the head, the other tossed one that snared one or both hind legs. 

The calf was stretched out just a bit between the two horses to keep accidents and deaths from happening.  And accidents and death did happen, out there on the range; it wasn’t uncommon to come back to the home ranch at the end of a summer with those stoved up and lame, never to ride the same again.  And, if things went terribly wrong, and your horse and the bull calf you had dallied onto got into a storm, then when the first ranch supper was had at the end of the summer roundup you’d be missing, and there would be a small stone and a fresh mound of dirt out on the range to mark your new whereabouts.

Once the iron was hot enough, a third fellow retrieved it from the fire and applied its searing heat to the side of the calf that was roped.  And once branded, the calf was turned back out to winter with the rest or brought to the home ranch and started on one of the famous cattle drives of the west or, in later years, driven into town and loaded on a stock car for the nearest big yard and auction.

There are some guys around here that still do the branding process much like it was done 200-300 years ago. 

They do it for old times sake, obviously. 

I applaud them.  

For two reasons. 

The first being that they have mastered an art that I couldn’t begin to master.  If they happened to see me out riding, just riding and nothing else, it would cause them a great amount of pain. (from laughing so hard) With my arms all akimbo, my knees flapping like low slung wings, and my head cracking back and forth, particularly out of time with the steed under me, causes pain to anyone looking on, as much or more as to me and my horse.

The second is, it honors those who have carved this country out with brute strength, sweat and fortitude.

And I think honor, or respect to the traditions and men who made them, is a fast-fading thing these days.

*****

For the most part, today’s branding operations take place in a squeeze chute.  One by one the calves are moved into the chute, head locked in the head stanchion, and the branding iron, heated either with an electric element or, as in our case, a propane torch, is applied to the side of the calf in the same way it has been done for hundreds of years.

Now it so happened one day that we had a larger than normal group to mass treat with meds, eartags and brand.  As we were getting towards the end of the group, I noticed the propane torch (weed burner in our case) was burning a less than optimum flame. 

And it was on the next calf that Austin started branding that I heard myself saying the words that have been common to cattlemen for years.  And in our genre, we use that phrase to describe both the branding process and other aspects of life.

“You’re working a cold iron,” I told Austin.

He was pushing the branding iron against the side of the calf.  It was smoldering away there, the calf was bawling, and when he pulled it away to look at the brand, there wasn’t much of a brand.  He reapplied it, hoping to get what little heat was left in the iron to work and get the brand to take.

But it didn’t take.

The only recourse was to step back, reheat the iron, and then, carefully, not cruelly, apply it. 

The brand always takes with a hot iron.

*****

And it’s no different in life. 

I may not say those exact words, either to my boys or myself, but you can be sure I’m thinking them when I see us haggling away at a project with subpar results.

I remember times when I have been frustrated with the job at hand, or the behavior of those I am responsible for, and the general outcome of such.

It’s often that a guy works a cold iron far longer than necessary.  And the results in life are the same as they are in the chute.  Neither side is okay, and all you end up with is an unsettled mucked up mess.  You are frustrated and upset, and the other side is cagey and defensive.

Such a situation does an injustice to both sides.

The answer is the same in life as it is by the chute.   Step back, rethink, and then apply the iron carefully and decisively.

The brand will take and both sides will be the better for it.

Don’t work a cold iron.