Huckleberry Dairy

This weekend, I went to my bishop's ranch. It was awesome! We separated the calves from the cows, and then everyone tried to help the Bishop and his other cowboy friends round up and lasso the calves. The bishop's 10 year old grandson called us "city slickers" and mocked us a lot. I never did rope a cow, but I learned the theory behind a lasso, at least.

But we had to brand all the cows, so what we would do is someone would rope their feet and then drag them along until they fell, or mostly fell, and then two or three of us would jump on the cow and roll it over so its its right side was up. The smaller cows needed two people to hold them. One person (me, sometimes) would kneel on the neck and hold the right front leg up close to the body, like a praying mantis leg. The other person (me, sometimes) would sit at the tail end and hold the left hind leg on the ground with their right foot, and grab the right hind leg and hold on for dear life. Then, someone (me, sometimes) would come with the vaccinations and shoot those in the neck. If the calf was a bull, the bishop's daughter came up and neutered it. She would grab the scrotum and cut off the bottom two or three inches of it, and then these whitish, maggoty, slimy testicles would fall out with a lot of blood and fat. They were about three inches long, in thin membrane-like sacks. Then, she would pull each testicle out of the scrotum until it separated from the muscle, and she'd cut the nut (they totally called it that, it was hilarious) away from the fat that was holding it on. Sometimes the whole testicle would just come out when she pulled. And then someone (me, sometimes) would run up and spray iodine onto the bloody remainder of private parts that the poor disgraced bull-turned-steer could call his own. After that, someone (this was never me, I couldn't bear to do it) would come with the branding iron, which was electric, and hold it on the cow's side. All this yellowish smoke would come out, and the poor cow would bellow, and they had to hold it on there until the mark left was pink and raw--otherwise, the brand wouldn't stay longer than a year.

I was surprised, because the bulls seemed to hate the branding a lot more than the castrating. I mean, I know that searing metal held to your skin, turning you from raw to well-done steak wouldn't be pleasant, but it seems like having your balls forcibly removed would be just as bad. And more humiliating.

During the branding, a calf got loose, and a few people from my ward and I chased it all around two pastures before getting it through a gate, and then it escaped again. It was really hard to guide it because it would run away from you, but its direction was unpredictable. If you ever need to drive a calf somewhere, run even with its shoulder, and not right behind it. I was exhausted.

After we branded all the calves--there were about 45--we ate lunch. It was so good, with pasta salads and fresh pork and beef and watermelon. The farm is a dairy farm, and so we had raw milk, which is maybe heaven. And there was homemade strawberry and peach ice cream made with their milk. Also, they grilled the cow testicles. When the actual testicle pops out of the membrane, it's finished cooking, and it's called a rocky mountain oyster. You're just supposed to eat the testicle, not the membrane. I totally ate one. It wasn't bad, either.