My oldest daughter, Cora, is 12 and is a solid cowgirl. She was invited to her first branding a few weeks ago – a rite of passage for any young cowgirl who doesn’t grow up on a ranch. We have cattle, of course, but our brandings (and our ranch, for that matter) tend to feel more clinical than cowboy. We know the invitation was a social gesture, not because Paisley’s family actually needed her help. While Cora is an excellent rider, she is likely more help in the pasture than in the pen. With a dad who is a veterinarian, she does know how to give an injection and refill syringes like a pro. She can rope decent on the ground, but not off her horse. She’ll get there – and I have no doubt that in a decade, she will keep as many spring Saturdays full with brandings. On this day, however, she was there for the laughs, Paisley’s friendship and the lunch.

Speaking of the branding lunch: The first branding I attended was the year I started with Farm Credit. The relationship manager I worked with, Bill, had a few customers he would help during branding season, fulfilling one of our semiannual “farm visits.” Bill invited me to tag along that year. While Bill roped calves, I watched with fascination as teenagers stretched calves, and the Peruvian ranch hand, Alejandro, would cut the calf’s scrotum, bend down and suck the testicles into his mouth and pull tight, stretching the vas deferens until it broke from the body. It was horrifying. Alejandro would then spit the testicles into a 5-gallon bucket that a kid, running around the pen, offered to him. Unsurprisingly, those testicles were battered and fried on a camp stove and served alongside the potato salad and ranch water for lunch.

All these years later, this scene has stuck with me, and while I have attended a fair few other brandings, I’ve not seen such a tactic repeated. Ostensibly, most cowboys prefer a sharp pocketknife. The horror of watching Alejandro spit those testicles into the bucket has worn off. And today, I love that story because I love to share it, often during lunch at other brandings, my paper plate precariously perched as I squat around a makeshift campfire.

If you have never attended a branding, worm your way into an invitation – it will be a treat. It’s work, but it is also cowboy-style camaraderie. It’s chaotic fun disguised as a job. The coordinated efforts of the neighbors who volunteer, the paid cowboys, the cattle ranchers and not to forget, the most important character, the granny who prepares lunch, create a distinct Western scene – one that embodies our culture. A Western scene where Cora had her inaugural experience this year at the Davis Ranch. Cheers to many more.