Flanking 101

This is what I know about life: 

There are two sides to a pancake.
There are at least two sides to a story.
There are two sides to a coin. 

With all of that life experience under my belt, I could assume with confidence, that like a coin, there are two sides to every baby cow.   Heads and tails. 

I would assume wrong. 

Instead of heads or tails, it’s tail or rope, and the rope is the tail, and the tail is first the tail, but then the head.  Understand? 

If yes, skip to section II.

Section I
I’ll try to make this as simple as possible.

Step 1) At a cattle branding, a person, preferably a cowboy, ropes a calf by a leg, preferably two, and drags it towards the branding fire.

Step 2) One person, a flanker, grabs the ROPE that is tied to the calf’s leg (or two).

Step 3) Another person, a second flanker, grabs the calf’s TAIL.

With great physics involved that I an unable to explain, they get the calf on its side.

Step 4) It is at this crucial point, that the person who grabs the TAIL, lets go of theTAIL, and holds down the calf’s HEAD.
 

Step 5) The person who had the ROPE puts the calf’s legs in some sort of fancy jujitsu hold and unties the ROPE. 

Step 6) As the flankers hold down the calf, a very equipped crew comes in and “works” the calf with a variety of torture tactics.  No, no, just kidding.  Please don’t call PETA.

Section II
Now being the astute observer that I am, I should have understood the art of flanking.  But I don’t seem to pay attention when things don’t concern me, or even  when they do, so I hadn’t been watching much of the details of it all.  My job was to keep up with the nut sacks.  It’s probably the most important job of the entire operation.  I’m not sure how cattle operations survive without it.  Yes, and I was the holder of this most coveted job. 

Fine little furry soft satchels are my friends.

These girls are making me look bad.

I’m not holding my breath for the Top Hand Award.