Cooking for the Crew

 Spring has arrived in the desert. The mesquite has leafed out. 

The buzzards have returned. 

Baby calves are on the ground. 

And branding season is in full swing. 

That means I am in the kitchen, cooking for a crew. 

Yesterday I had 20. 😧Since the ranch sold last year, things have changed and one of those things is the size of the crews. For 37 years, DH has branded, weaned, shipped, and generally ran crews of 6-10, occasionally 12. 

But this outfit does things a little differently. They have a lot of ranches and everyone drives to the various ranches to work cattle. It's not wrong. Just different. The breakfast burrito station was open for business at 3 a.m.

 But I was in a quandry about where to put everyone at dinner. I can seat 12 at our dining room table. DH said that other places just eat outside or sit on furniture and the floor, and I certainly don't have 20 chairs. We thought about pulling the flatbed trailer close to the house and just letting everyone eat on it, but I've worked hard to grow a yard here and I'd hate to tear up the grass. I have a set of horseshoe furniture that can seat 8 if someone wants to use that. I did not want to spend our $ on conference tables and chairs, so we asked and the ranch bought them. I'll store them in the bunkhouse and they'll be available for anyone who needs them. I set everything up on east side of the yard under the big trees and that worked great. Those big shade trees are a huge blessing

It was a lot of work shlepping those tables and chairs out and then carrying them all back to the bunkhouse. And before you ask, yes, DH offered to help, but he was leaving at 4 a.m. and we couldn't set everything up the night before because the guineas roost in those trees at night and high winds were forecast overnight as well. I shooed him away after dinner and told him I could put it all away. He still had cattle to sort and a leak to fix and didn't walk back in the house until after dark, with another 3 a.m. alarm for the next morning. If I couldn't do it, he absolutely would have helped, but I am perfectly capable of shlepping. It's a good life, but ranching (and farming - which we don't do)

means long hours, often 18 hour days, 7 days a week, with no overtime pay. So, as a ranchwife, I try to be a supportive helpmeet, but that also means I'm willing to step up and do things by myself when I can. Although I will admit to hollering for him a few days ago when the dang bullsnake scared me to pieces in the nesting box when I went out to gather eggs. 

So, yesterday I cooked 2 big briskets, made Perfect Potato Salad, beans, jalapeno poppers, and corn casserole with Mississippi Mud Pie for dessert. 

It was 96° and I was going to make  gallons of tea but  everyone on this crew lives on Dr. Pepper. The new camp man at North Camp said he drinks 12 a day. I have never bought pop for a crew. I don't even buy it for us,  but the ranch does pay for groceries and DH said that's what they drink everywhere else they work, but I made 4 gallons of tea anyway and it was gone too.

Back in the day, before Covid, we just carried a 5 gallon cooler with water on the branding rig. Now we fill a cooler with bottled water for the crew to drink while they work calves in the pen.

 I'm grateful the weather was nice and that the wind wasn't howling. 

This outfit doesn't really do breakfast either, but I made 20 breakfast burritos and DH handed them out when they arrived at North Camp. A new fella was finally hired, but his fiancé was just moving in so I cooked. After this, she will cook when they work cattle on the north side of the ranch. 

I used to do this for 10 days in a row, 3 meals a day for maybe 8, but the last time I had to do that was 15 years ago. The old gray mare just ain't what she used to be, but what she is, is 60 and tired. LOL.