Mom’s First Branding Lunch

From 1942-1947 Dad managed a small cattle outfit in the western foothills of the Ruby Mountains near Lee, Nevada. It was his first job as a ranch manager.  As well as being schooled by trial and error, both Mom and Dad  acknowledged the debt of guidance and friendship owed to their neighbors, Bill and Jo Kane.

Mom loved to tell about the first time she had to fix a branding lunch.  She didn’t even know what that meant.  I can hear her voice.  She always told the story the same way:

“That first spring our neighbors, the Kane’s, offered to help your Dad with the branding. I think there were other neighbors who came, too. I was to provide lunch, but that’s all I knew.  I planned to make fried chicken, potatoes and gravy on the old wood stove.   I knew how to cook, but I had no idea how to cut up the three whole chickens laying there on the kitchen counter.

I couldn’t call Fred in from the corral to come cut up the chickens.  I also knew there were half a dozen cowboys out in the corral looking forward to a hearty meal.  Finally, I just took the clever and started hacking those chickens, crying as I hacked away.  Somehow, I got the meal together for those men.  I’m sure it wasn’t very good.”

Mom would always stop at this point in her story to remember the kindness and wisdom of the Kanes in helping this young couple learn about ranch life.  Often, she said,  there was teasing in the process.  And some testing.

Mom would go on to say, “Later, after I became good friends with Jo, she  kidded me about that first branding lunch.  ‘Helen,’ she would say with a bit of a grin, ‘ The wives are all expected to pitch in and bring a dish for the branding lunch.   Because you didn’t ask,  we figured you were a college girl who just didn’t need any help.’

If Jo enjoyed telling that story about Mom, my mother had her own favorite story about Jo:

 “We had a party telephone line.  You know, everybody had a different ring, so you knew who was getting a call by the ring.  You weren’t supposed to listen in.   The ranch owner, Ralph Pitchforth, who lived in Craig, Colorado, liked to call Fred often and always before five a.m.

 One time Jo said to your dad, ‘Fred, I sure wish Ralph Pitchforth wouldn’t call you so darn early.  My feet get cold on the linoleum floor.’”

You know how it is.  Mom told these stories so often– sometimes to my annoyance–that I know them by heart.  I’m glad she did.