An expert at branding

...One of these times was up in Kispiox, he said, when he and the truck driver arrived to find nothing more than a two-wire fence and a ditch for a loading zone. The two ranchers just told the truck driver to back his rig into the ditch, and once done placed two two-by-fours down, with a piece of plywood down to make a ramp, which started one of the most interesting brand inspections that Kerr had ever done. “Gee, I thought, like they’re going to be walking across that plywood into the truck,” Kerr said. “Let’s dream again.” But the two seemed determined, he said, placing two more pieces of wood along the side to guide the cattle into the truck. It was one of the few times where he’d ever wished for a video camera. “There’s just no possible way that this could work,” Kerr thought at the time. Told to watch the bull as it had a tendency to charge, the two ranchers went in, laid some feed across the planks, and lo and behold, Kerr said, “if some of the cattle didn’t come munching, right over the plywood and into the truck.” “I’m just sitting there, wondering how this happened,” Kerr said. And so it went, until just two remained — the two-year-old Hereford bull and one cow, which so far had done all in its might to avoid the truck and feed-covered plywood. While the two ranchers began loading the bull into the truck using two sticks as a make-shift corral, Kerr and the truck driver headed over to the cow, who by this time had managed to escape the fence line, and was staring at the procedure from the road...more