Jinglebob and Soapweed, I know where you both are coming from~I appreciate both points of view. Some of the best times I can ever remember are at brandings. They were such social gatherings, so much fun!! It has changed, and not for the better. For instance, I work in town and it is a chore for me to get dinner for 30 people. I love doing it~but I don't have the time to spend days preparing what I used to fix. Other women work out as well, so it is harder for them to send food along as we used to do~just to help each other out. Oh, some do, for sure. But I hanker for the 'good ole days' when none of us worked outside the home/ranch. And we did have more time to spend together.

I love good neighbors. They can make your life so sweet. Our neighbors here are very, very good people, but they are more farmers and there is a difference. They mean well, and~here goes, I will get myself in trouble here too~they ride four wheelers or motorcycles  instead of horses and either don't brand at all, or use a table.  I felt real bad about that for a few years, but now it is okay. The horses are better off for it.

In Western Mt. folks didn't really know how to wrestle calves. When we moved there we were basically the only smaller outfit that wrestled them. Others started doing it, but they never got real good at wrestling. I'm not sure they ever really figured it out. There is an art to it~anyway when we moved over here, the wrestlers were GOOD. It was so much fun to watch them work together and get the calf on the ground so readily, because they were a TEAM. My husband got so he didn't like to wrestle in W. MT. because the calf and the other person were both working against you. Now this isn't every person, every place, you understand, but it was more that way than not. Actually, our first branding crew there, there were only two that knew how to wrestle calves. One was from North Dakota and the other was from Ekalaka, Mt. It is just a difference in regions, I guess.

So, at this phase in our life, my husband thinks just like Soapweed. Get it done right, the easiest way possible, with the least amount of dust. I wouldn't think of branding without horses, so Soapweeds invention keeps the horses in the process.  We tried the inner tubes once and I really didn't like that. They were not motorcycle inner tubes and were too stiff. Every calf got up and LIMPED away. So I requested that they stop doing it like that. Since I am the cook, they did heed what I asked. LOL!!!

We are fortunate to have a good crew. And we or he goes to help them back and enjoys it. But it is getting harder and harder to get wrestlers. And harder and harder for the old guys to wrestle. Funny, my husband remarked at one point, "when I was young I wrestled and the old guys roped. Now I am an old guy and I wrestle so the kids can rope."

Actually, since he is the oldest one at the brandings anymore, they take pretty good care of him!

Anyway, we are looking with great interest at Soapweed's gizmo!!!