Nothing much lately has happened in my life hence the reason why I have not posted anything for a while. This past weekend I was getting tired of always doing the normal clean the house, do the laundry, and study and gladly welcomed the idea of going to a ranch in Klondyke Arizona to go and brand some cows with Jon. This branding experience was much different than a lot of other experiences I have had in the past.
It all started Friday night when we were trying to get out to Klondyke. Jon had asked me earlier if I could have everything packed and ready to go by 7:30 p.m. so that I could just come pick him up at work and take an hour off of our long drive there. I told him no problem but I guess I spoke too soon because come 7:10 I start taking things out to the car so that I could head out and pick up some dinner on the way to his work and lots of problems start to arise.
The first thing was that as I was driving out of my apartment complex and got to the exiting gate, I realized that I had forgotten something at the apartment (my cord to plug my ipod into the car) so I had to go back and grab that cord because for the past couple times we have forgotten my ipod and this time I finally remembered the ipod but not the cord and that was not going to happen this time. We were going to have music and so I turned back. Well after getting the cord, I started to exit the gate again and once again I remembered something that I had forgotten. This time it was my boots and I was not riding a horse all day without my boots. So I went and got those. By this time it was 7:25 and I was running a little late trying to get to Jons work on time and I still needed to get some dinner.
So on the way to Jons work I stopped by McDonalds because it was the easiest accessible restaurant on the way there and I pull up to the drive through. Now I do not go out to eat much and I never really go to McDonalds so I have no idea what is on the menu to order and when I get to the drive through line, there is a huge semi truck off loading supplies that is blocking the menu. Great! I had no idea what I wanted to order but there was some advertisements on the little ordering screen so when the lady asked me for my order I had to tell her I would order what I saw on the screen. Probably not what I would have ordered for myself but what else could I have done. So that was a bit frustrating to me. I got my food though and it was about 7:35 and it takes about 20 minutes to get to jons work so I was doing good I thought until I got lost trying to find his work at night going a way I never have gone before. So this set me back some and finally after getting directions from Jon I showed up ten minutes late. Bummer.
Jon jumps into the car though and we head our way over to his parents house so that we could pick up our gear (saddle, chaps, ropes etc.) but when we got there he realized that he did not have his keys on him. UHOH! He had no idea where they were either so we started searching frantically for his keys but they were no where to be found. Jon had to call his work and ask them if he had left them there or if they were out in his car but they could not find them so we were forced to drive 45 minutes back to Tucson to search for his keys. GRRRRRRRRR!! We were getting so frustrated. Nothing wanted to go our way that night. After our journey back to Tucson we pulled up at his work and looked around and found them sitting on an AC unit outside his work where he was waiting for me to show up.
Now that we are happy that we found the keys we get back into the car, have to fill my car back up with gas, and then hit the road so that we can get to Klondyke. Remember though how I had said earlier that I went in to get my ipod cord so that I could plug it into the car and listen to music? Well I did have the ipod, and I did have the cord this time and I was super excited about all this and then I turn my ipod on and go to the playlists, and I find out that all my songs have been erased off of my ipod for some unknown reason while it was charging earlier that day. Oh I wanted to throw my ipod out the window I was so mad. So much for remembering the ipod and the cord this time right? So we were forced to listen to the radio and trying to find stations that play out in nowhere land as we traveled.
After a LONG ride though, we end up arriving at the ranch at 12:30 a.m. Yay! We head into the cabin and find a bed to sleep in but the bed we were going to sleep in had a surprise inside it that freaked me out! I pulled the blanket down and saw that there were little worm like things crawling all around in it. I think they were weeiles or something. It grossed me out and I told Jon there was no way I was sleeping in that bed. So we went to another room that looked better and I slept on the couch while Jon slept on a small single bed. We finally get to sleep about 1:00. That night I kept falling asleep and waking up every hour and it was getting so annoying and 5:30 rolled around too quickly.
I was exhausted when I had to wake up but I did and we started our day rounding up the cattle from off the mountains. We were accompanied by 2 other people who came to help us out that day. After gathering all the cattle we penned them up to start the branding. I was scared the whole day though while branding because a lot of these calves were kind of big and they were intimidating to me more than most of the calves that I have branded before. So my job that day was to give the calves some shots. Let me tell you, it sounds like an easy task, but cow hide is so thick it is so hard for an amateur to get the needle into his skin to inject the shot. It took all day before I was sort of getting the hang of it.
We get finished with our first bunch of calves and I feel the effects of heat stroke. So I was sent to the cabin to drink lots of cold water and cool off while they were bringing the second batch of calves in to brand. I eventually cooled off and was back to normal and started giving shots to the calves again only these calves were bigger and I was much more scared. I felt like I was the one being herded around as the calves were scrambling out of the way of the rope being flung at them. I did not want to be trampled by one of these monsters and I sure did not want to be the one having to tackle those things to the ground. Luckily though, I did not have to. :) After an hour and a half we finally get to the last calf and I got to brand my first cow! This thing was a monster of a cow, but I pulled my courage together, grabbed the iron, positioned myself properly and branded that cow like a pro. I was so scared that the cow would knock me over as I was branding it making me brand myself, but this cow was very calm and did not kick one bit while I was branding him. It was pretty amazing that the cow just took the pain for me. But my brand turned out so beautiful. I think everyone was impressed with how well it turned out. :)
We branded a total of 32 cows that day. Not bad for a full days work with 4 people working. But when it came time to quit and drive home I was very happy. We started driving home at 7:30 but we had to drive about 45 minutes to fill up on gas before we could drive straight to Tucson. The drivers side window had bug guts all over it so I decided to get out and clean the window while Jon filled up the car and then off we went.
When we started for home, I looked over at Jon and told him I would be amazed if I made it home without falling asleep because I could barely keep my eyes open any longer and he just laughed at me and how pathetic I was because he was not tired at all. But about 5 minutes down the road I had fallen asleep without even knowing that I fell asleep. Now here comes a funny story so brace yourself.
Jon did not know that I had fallen asleep because we were just barely talking to each other a couple minutes ago but I was and I was dreaming. In my dream the cow that I had branded earlier was mad at me and wanted revenge for what I had done to it. So this cow was charging at me trying to hit me and hurt me in my dream. I was so scared that I tried to run away but right as the cow hit me in my dream, Jon had put his hand on my leg and I let out a scream and threw my hands up in the air and Jons face was priceless when I looked over at him after figuring out what had happened. I started laughing so hard because of how scared I had gotten and I told him about my dream and how his hand was the cow that had hit me in my dream. We laughed for a good 5 minutes about how scared I had gotten and I felt bad for Jon because he only wanted to thank me for cleaning the window yet I gave him such an interesting reaction when he touched my leg. He says that he will never thank me again for cleaning the window. LOL. So this was the scare of my life. I do not know if I have ever gotten so scared because of a dream and woke up screaming but now I can say that I have done that.
I was so happy to get home take a shower to get the nasty cow poop off of me that was flung around all day and lay my head down on my nice soft pillow. I think that was the best nights sleep I have had in a very long time. I was happy for the adventure of the weekend, but when I finally got to lay down in my own weevil free bed, I was glad the weekend was over and for a good nights sleep.
