[Lynn O. Doughty]

All you budding Carvers of the Old West should make sure you watch Texas Ranch House tonight on PBS. Should be lots of reference material to look at along with a bunch of City-Slickers making fools of themselves. You can also goto www.pbs.org and check out the Ranch. Neat site!

[Nancy-ID]

Lynn, thanks for bringing that to our attention. We really enjoyed "Colonial House", so we will be watching this series as well.

[Mottles]

Thanks Lynn, excellent suggestion and link....I have it programmed into my TV. Like Nancy I have enjoyed the Colonial House series. I'm a Texas girl--transplanted to California at a tender age, but do remember some of my Texas history and ranch life.
Kathy

[Kenny_S]

Thanks Lynn. Will try to watch it! We usually don't watch a lot of TV. Not worth the time but this sounds interesting as the Colonial one was pretty good. Definitely A reality show for sure.

[Thomp]

theres too much petty bickering especally the wife,
she fits the part well, but i would love to club her and toss her fanny down the well,
I would think she wouldnt have came back from the ride if it was actually 1860

they definately need better management skills, instead of power struggle of who's gonna be the boss,
he needs to be concerned with the ranch she needs to keep her concentration inside the house!

cowboys sick all the time from bad food and not enough ranching getting done...?

wouldnt most ranches have posted a gard at night? or had several big dogs? to watch the livestock?

[Marci MN]

I got to watch the four episodes last night. They played until 4 am I think. I have alot of questions on texas ranch folk.

Didnt they eat their own beef? Especially if they are that close to starving? I mean.. I'm a homesteader myself and if theres no food in the house and 80 some beefs on the hoove outside my door.. ONE of em is going to end up in the dutch oven and smoker. Lard would be rendered and bones fed to the dog.

And is it too hot to garden at the time they are filming this show? I didnt see a garden of any sort there. But not knowing Texas climate I'm asking on this one.

I do agree on the battle of the sexes tho. The womans job was the house, family, and chicken/gardens. The mans job was the cowboys, cattle, horses ect. The woman made her man look small right off the bat and that made things a whole lot harder for him.

Yes.. its a good show. I'll have to watch the new episode tonight again. Its been fun having talks with my own husband while we agree or dont agree on whats playing out on the television. I think tonights is one of the cowboys gets kidnapped by Indians.

Thanks for the heads up on this show.

[Thomp]

Marci,

they fired the general, well if the boss could have waited till the next episode
when they fired the cook. they wouldnt have been as short, and had a better management in the bunkhouse, the general never needed to sleep in the main house ever. making the girls double up in one bed..

the cook brought on his own problems, with his attitude and bullheadedness.

well they killed the rooster,
i dont think that was much to eat as they said they had to cook it all day becuse it was tough...

There is a lots of modern configns that restrain this type of reinactment,

if they killed a beef for food they would probobally die of tomain, becuse its not a normal practice or knowledge of now a day people to handle a 1200 pound dead yearling beef much how to clean dress and smoke then dry that much meat...
they dont even have a spring house where they can keep milk overnight.

the girls were all about to hurl when they killed the chicken,
and really how many could have fed on one chicken that would have took a lot of taters to feed them cowpokes...

i dont think they render beef for lard for consumption, but it could have been used to make soap instead of buying it for $.50 a bar though, apperently they are burning plenty of hardwood to leach the lie out of ??

whats with these folks?
just city slicker dumb i guess.....

[rick-in-seattle]

I didn't watch it all, but them pigs looked mighty tasty.

I agree the husband was whipped.
The wife had no business at all dealing with the cowhands.

If it were realistic, they would have packed up and moved on to the next ranch.

[Kenny_S]

Haven't got to see it all but the cook, would have been feed for the pigs, for sure.

Funny reading everything here. I wonder how many would have done as good as the Cook family?

However, I do agree on killing a cow and in not seeing a smoke house or root cellar, I wonder if these people were city slickers.
Guess, they was never taught to salt cure or sugar cure their meat.

Prbably will miss tonights if it is on.

[Lynn O. Doughty]

If it were realistic they'd probably all be DEAD! West Texas was Commanche country and as soon as they realized how ignorant these White-eyes were the men would have been rubbed out and the women would be on their way to a pretty grim existence.

I had thought this was going to be about how life really was in the old west. Unfortunately, it's just another poor excuse for a politically correct reality show. In real life that whiney, sobbing Cook would have been lucky he wasn't shot for fixing that poisonous gruel. As far as eating meat, no need to slaughter a beef, that area was abd us full of game. Unfortunately, like previous shows, they were probably forbidden from actually shooting a wild animal or bird for fear of offending some viewer.

I haven't decided whether I'll watch the next episodes. Don't know whether it's worth the risk of my hurling a boot through the wide-screen!