Prairie Girls

 

Lindsay

My name is Lindsay Martin, and I am an independent cowgirl on the prairie in the 1880’s. Ma and Pa own the M Cattle Ranch. Charley and Layne, my brothers, work on the ranch after school. They got to go on the annual spring round-up when they were ten-years-old. Now that I am ten, I want to go along, too.

I’ll tell you more next time about my adventures on the ranch.

 

Chores

Ten-year-old Lindsay was anxious to do chores on her family’s ranch. As a young girl I wasn’t anxious to do chores on my family’s farm. In fact, I did not like feeding the chickens, gathering the eggs, cleaning out the nests, weeding the garden, digging potatoes, well, you can tell there were a lot of chores. However, anxious or not, I had to do them. One chore which I did enjoy was going to the pasture with my dog, Red, to herd the milk cows to the barn for milking each evening.

Four o’clock most evenings found me walking through the barn lot down a narrow, fenced dusty (sometimes muddy) lane to what was called the milk cow pasture. These cows grazed in a different pasture than the ones where the beef cattle were kept. Getting the cows was an easy chore because my dog Red did all the work. I would simply call the cows and say “Go get ‘em boy”, and Red would circle behind the six or eight cows, nip at their legs a little and bark. The cows would then slowly walk toward the barn.

A lot of evenings I walked barefooted enjoying the feel of the fine dust on the soles of my feet or the softness of the green grass. During those walks I often thought about what my life might be like when I was grown. Sometimes I thought about my school lessons. Other times, I just enjoyed the sound of the birds in the trees and the beauty of the wildflowers. Most springs I enjoyed eating the wild strawberries or blackberries I picked along the way. Oh yes, I much preferred getting the cows to feeding, or as it was called then, slopping the hogs.  

 

 

Prairie Recipes

Meat Dishes

Sometimes cooks had to hurry things along when preparing a dish in order to save some time and trouble. Since it often took hours of cooking to develop flavors, this special sauce was compounded and used to add depth of flavor to meats. This 1879 recipe is similar to “brown sauce” in a bottle today.

Meat Sauce

2 cups chopped onions                                        1 tablespoon of dry mustard

3 pods of red peppers, chopped                           1 teaspoon turmeric

2 tablespoons brown sugar                                  1 teaspoon black pepper

1 tablespoon celery seed                                      1 teaspoon salt

Put all in a quart jar and fill with cider vinegar. A tablespoon of this mixed in a stew, steak or gravy, will impart not only a fine flavor, but a rich color.

 

The following is a typical way to cook beef. The recipe is over 100 years old.

 Boiled Beef Dinner

4 to 5 # beef brisket                                            1 small cabbage sliced

1 large onion                                                       1 ½ tablespoon butter

4 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced                 1 ½ tablespoon flour

4 carrots, peeled and cut                                      ½ cup chopped parsley

4 small onions                                                      salt & pepper to taste

4 small turnips, peeled and cut                            1 egg, beaten

Place brisket and large onion in a kettle in water to cover; place on high heat. Bring to a boil; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, for two or three hours or until tender; add water as needed to maintain one quart liquid. Place potatoes, carrots, small onions and turnips in kettle the last 30 minutes brisket is cooking. About ten minutes before brisket is done, add cabbage to the kettle. Remove brisket, cabbage and vegetables from kettle; drain. Place brisket and vegetables on platter; keep warm. Melt butter in saucepan over low heat; stir in flour. Gradually pour one to one-and-one half cups broth from brisket into flour mixture, stirring constantly to make gravy. Add parsley, salt and pepper. Before serving bring two cups broth to a boil in a saucepan; stir in egg, salt and pepper. Serve egg soup, vegetables and gravy with brisket. Yield: 4 servings.

 

A much simpler, but just as tasty version can be made in the crockpot.
 

Smoked Beef Brisket

4 to 5 # brisket                                           ½ tablespoon garlic salt

½ tablespoon celery salt                             ½ bottle liquid smoke

½ tablespoon onion powder

Place brisket on large piece of aluminum foil. Sprinkle seasoning all over meat; add liquid smoke. Carefully wrap foil around meat sealing it and place in large crockpot. Cover and cook on high for one hour; then drop temperature to low and cook for eight to ten hours. May be sliced and served immediately. My family likes it cooled, sliced the next day, and reheated. Barbeque sauce may be added after the eight to ten hours cooking time.

 

 

 

The Historical Fact

Cattle Ranching

Raising cattle on the Great Plains began in earnest following the Civil War. Many Southerners left their homes and headed west to Texas. There were areas of Texas where wild cattle roamed free and were easy to take. Several sold them for profit, others started ranching and raising their own stock, while many drove the cattle north into Missouri and later Kansas. From there the cattle were shipped by rail back East to cities hungry for beef.

Ranching was vastly different from raising cattle on small farms where crops were of primary interest. Conditions were favorable for producing cattle in Texas. Then they were moved north to the lush grasslands of the Great Plains to be fattened for eventual sale. From 1866 to about 1890 nearly five million cattle were produced, sold, and shipped back East for a good profit. The practices used in raising cattle in the latter 1800’s were not much different than what ranchers do today.

Sources abound about this topic in American History. The following would be helpful to find more information.

http://www.laits.utexas.edu/jaime/cwp4/ckg/Cattle.html
http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/livestock/14196
http://www.americancattlemen.com/articles/cattle-ranching
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_ranching

 

 

 

Story Teller's Corner

Ranchers in my Family

 My grandparents worked on a ranch in Oklahoma when they were young; in fact, that is where they met. Grandpa was the foreman, and Grandma became the cook at 16. She prepared three meals a day for 30 hungry cowboys.

Red-headed Grandma (as we affectionately called her because she always wore a red wig), was an excellent cook. She kept an angel food cake in the kitchen in case someone stopped for a visit. I don’t remember watching her cook or at least I didn’t pay attention. I do know she never measured anything. The only cooking mistake I recall her making was later in her life. She had purchased a chocolate cake mix and became upset when it didn’t rise. Upon inspection and after tasting it, she discovered it was actually a brownie mix. I certainly have had more cooking flops than that.

Grandma was probably the closest to a pioneer woman I ever knew. She picked cotton as a young girl, kept an immaculately clean home (she removed all of the varnish from the door frames because of her frequent washings), grew beautiful flowers and was a magician with a needle and thread. She was a survivor and never forgot the Great Depression. She reused aluminum foil and throwaway pans, plastic wrap, bags and plates until they fell apart.

We ate our Christmas Eve supper at her house every year until she died which was long after my husband and I married. I regret not asking her more questions about her life and her growing up years. I realize how difficult her life was, and I know she had a story to tell.

Up the Family tree

 

 

 

 

 

Nana’s Challenge

                                  By Judy

In August I asked my four-year-old granddaughter if she was ready for school. Her family had relocated, and she was attending a new preschool.

“Don’t say that, I don’t want to talk about it,” she answered.

“Oh, you will have lots of fun. You’ll meet new friends,” I said.

“I don’t want new friends. They are mean. Why do I have to go?” she questioned.

“You don’t know anyone in your class yet, so you don’t know they are mean. You have to go to school so you can learn to read and do math,” I answered in a convincing tone.

“My mom can teach me to read, and I don’t like to hear you talk like that,” she said.

It was at this point I gave up. After all, I have argued with four-year-olds before. I am now a grandmother, and I know they can outlast me and sometimes even out reason me. As a young mother, though, I knew I had to live with them as teenagers. I knew it was important I convince them I was the authority figure early.

As Nana, though, I knew I would not have to live with her during the long teen years. I would not have to discuss clothing styles with her. I would not have to listen to reasons her curfew should be extended. As Nana I had the privilege of not winning the going-to-school argument. I got to be the good guy. I also knew her parents had her backpack ready by the door. Oh yes, she was going to school.

The school year is now several months along, and I recently had the opportunity to take the same granddaughter to preschool for a week while her parents were out-of-town. Her mother had told me while not overly anxious to go, the child was going to school without any…I believe the term now used is “meltdowns.” (My children had good, old-fashioned temper tantrums.) Would she do the same for me or would she remember our conversation from the beginning of the school year and attempt to convince me she didn’t need to go to preschool?

“No, I’m not going. You’re not the boss of me,” my young granddaughter stated early Monday morning.

Well, I wasn’t born yesterday, or even within the last fifty years, and with Mom and Dad out of town, I was the boss. I’m happy to report, too, that my little four-year-old granddaughter went to school every day without a peep. I simply explained to her the importance of having fresh breath if she wanted to make friends. Sure, some might consider giving her a couple of candy breath mints before school bribery, but not me.

After all, good grand-parenting is good grand-parenting.