Physical toughness

How tough do cowgirls have to be? Surprising, they have to be tougher than what most people think.  A weak little girl would not be able to walk out onto a ranch and handle the physical work cowgirls have to do.  Cowgirls have to be physically fit to keep going without injuring themselves that would prevent them from working.  An example of physical toughness would be brandings.

            At brandings, the neighboring ranches get together and round up the cattle herd. They drive the herd into a coral and sort the cows out of the pen, leaving just the calves. Once all the cows are sorted out of the pen, they start the branding stoves to warm the irons up. When the irons are warm, a small group of people, on horses, ride into the coral to rope the calves and drag them out. When the ropers are dragging the calves out, there are a group of people standing outside the pen getting ready to flip the calves. The partners flip the calves then hold them down while other workers take the hot irons and brand the calves. Other workers take vaccine and vaccinate the calves and castrate the bull calves. When they are done the partners let the calves up, so they can go back to their moms.

            I have worked at many brandings. At first, vaccinating may seem like an easy job, but it takes a certain physical toughness to handle the task. At brandings, the host has asked me to vaccinate. After the host of the branding asked me to vaccinate, I would go to the pickup and get the vaccine to fill up the syringe. The syringe usually was connected to a bottle of vaccine, so I wouldn’t have to refill after every shot.  Once, I had the syringe ready, I would go from one calf to the next giving them a shot. To give a calf a shot, I had to stick them with the needle in a certain area. My mom taught me, that the area to correctly vaccinate a calf looks like a triangle located from the slope of the shoulder to the middle of the neck. I had to be careful sticking the calf with the needle, to make sure I didn’t accidentally stick one of the wrestlers, when the calf moved. Once the needle was in the calf, I had to squeeze the syringe, so the vaccine would be injected into the calf.  After the vaccine was injected, I would remove the needle from the calf’s skin and move onto the next calf.  This may seem like a long process, but it only takes 5 seconds to vaccinate one calf. It takes a physical toughness to vaccinate a calf because I could have ended up stabbing a wrestler with the needle or myself and I have to be physically fit to run from one calf to another so I wouldn’t get behind and have wrestlers waiting on me. Also, wrestling calves would be another job that acquires physical toughness.