Well, my giant branding-day roaster made it through another year, but how is it that I haven’t figured out the right proportion of roast-beef-to-person ratio after all these years of hosting branding day lunch?

Turns out five total beef roasts is too many to feed 23 adults and ten children. And one whole watermelon, two packs of strawberries and two packs of grapes is about five watermelons and five hundred strawberries and grapes short.

Also, I forgot four pounds of slush burger in the fridge, so apparently “Would hate to run out you know,” is the old Lutheran Church Lady proverb that I truly live by.

Yes, we spent Memorial weekend branding our calves and working our cattle with the help of our friends and family. And while a few key people couldn’t make it this year, it’s always so moving to me to be able to look around and realize that if I put my arms out, I might be able to touch everything in this world that’s important to me.

And some of those things are growing up too fast, running down the road to the pens in big girl jeans asking to wrestle a calf, asking for a job, asking to get on a horse, wanting to help however they can in between pop breaks. In a few short years we will be asking our daughters to call their friends to help with the physical work of wrestling and doctoring calves. But for now, my husband and I, we call our friends who, along with us, are getting grayer around the temples, the repercussions of this type of physical work not as quiet as it used to be in our bodies at the end of the day.

This year I realized that one of those friends has been helping us brand on this ranch for well over twenty years. And then it really hit me, like my aching muscles the next morning, how far we are from being the kids of this operation. As if it wasn’t evident earlier that morning when we were gathering the cattle and I happened to notice a handful of cow/calf pairs had found their way to the thickest brush in the corner of the pasture and there was no one within shouting distance to come to my rescue. Maybe that’s the definition of true adulthood…

Anyway, we got the cattle in, and we assigned everyone a different job to form the well-oiled machine of willing hands that always makes the work go smoothly. I hollered at everyone to “Please eat some cookies!” during our breaks and kept enough worry in my gut and eyes on potential safety hazards to delude myself into thinking I have much control over those sorts of things. And then I breathed a sigh of relief and gratitude when we wrapped up our work and everyone made it inside the garage to watch the sky open up and the rain fall, crack a drink and settle into the stories.

“In the nick of time” I said. And then, “There’s plenty to eat! Everyone don’t be shy, dish up!” the same way I’ve said it year after year, making the full and complete transformation into typical ranch wife at the end of the day, mumbling to myself as I assessed the leftover situation with no bachelor in site to force a to-go bag on.

Anyway, happy branding season everyone. May the grass stay stirrup high, may you always have plenty of roast beef and may the work bring together all the most important things to love…