Life on the Prairie

 

Lindsay

 

Living on the prairie was hard at best.

Surviving the elements was the test.

 

Ranchers came for open range land.

Cowboys were needed for helping hands.

 

Round-up was exciting, held in the spring.

Riding skills cowboys did bring.

 

Ten-year-old Lindsay was just the right age.

Her independence was center-stage.

 

Rustlers and blizzards she did endure.

Triumph and success made her secure.

 

 

Please note the blog posts on the first and third weeks of the month.

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 want Pa to teach me everything there is to know about ranching.

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

 

 

“Round ‘em up, Move ‘em out”

                                                                                                By Judy

 

Like Lindsay, I helped my family with our cattle. Most of the time our beef cattle were in pastures on the south side of the highway. Several times a year the cattle were moved to the pasture on the north side of the highway. I use the term highway, but actually it was just a narrow, blacktopped road. At most it was traveled by only one or two cars an hour. Still, moving the cows to the north pasture required my assistance plus help from my grandpa, dad, two brothers, my dog, Red, and sometimes even my mother.

 

The process began by placing a couple of bales of hay in the back of our old WWII army jeep which had been painted red. The cows followed the jeep with the hay in it to the gate of the pasture. Directly across the road was a gate to the destination pasture. My brothers, grandpa and I were stationed on the highway to stop cars and to prevent any livestock from taking a “road trip.”  When the gates were opened, Grandpa drove the jeep through the first gate, across the highway and through the second gate with the cattle following. My dad and Red were behind the cattle to push any laggards on their way. 

 

My family moving cattle in Kansas in the 1950’s was much easier than the round-up Lindsay experienced in the 1880’s. One thing that hasn’t changed in Kansas, however, is that on a family farm all the family works. The weather has not changed either. The sun is still as hot in the summer, and the winters can be as cold as they were in Lindsay’s time.  

 

 

Prairie Recipes

Chuck Wagon Recipes

The “Cookie” who prepared meals for a cattle drive or round-up was someone every cowboy on the trail valued. They made it a point to help him out whenever it was possible. If he was a good cook, one wanted him for a friend. The following is a bean soup which might have been served on Lindsay’s round-up.

Chuck Wagon Bean Soup

2 cups navy beans                                        chopped celery to taste
¼ pound salt pork, washed                          chopped carrots to taste
2 mediums onions, chopped                         chopped green peppers to taste
1 pound can of tomatoes                              canned milk

Soak beans in water overnight. Parboil beans and salt pork in water to cover until bean skins crack. Add onions, tomatoes, celery, carrots and green peppers; cook until vegetables are tender. Add enough milk to make desired amount of soup just before serving. Any left-over canned or dried vegetables may be used.

Another variation of beans might have been this recipe with ham.

Southern Hambone Soup

1 meaty hambone                                         1 small head cabbage, shredded
¼ teaspoon pepper                                       1 quart fresh or canned tomatoes
3 onions, chopped                                        dash cayenne pepper
2 medium potatoes, cubed                            salt to taste

Place hambone, pepper and onions in kettle with three quarts of water; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cook for about three hours or until meat falls off the bone. Add potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, cayenne pepper and salt; simmer for one hour longer. Skim off excess fat before serving. Yield: about 8 servings.

This recipe is one of my boys’ favorites. It has many ingredients, but is worth it.

Cowboy Beans

1 pound lean ground beef                                      1 teaspoon salt
½ cup chopped onion                                            1 teaspoon pepper
¼ cup ketchup                                                       2 tablespoons mustard
¼ cup granulated sugar                                         1 # can pork and beans, drained
¼ cup brown sugar                                                1 # can butter beans, drained
2 tablespoons molasses or sorghum                      1 # can kidney beans, drained
1 tablespoon chili powder                                     1 # can pinto beans, drained
¼ cup barbecue sauce                                            ½ # cooked, crumbled bacon

Cook ground beef until browned, breaking up and stirring as it cooks. Add onion and cook until tender; drain any excess grease. Add remaining ingredients, except bacon. Put in casserole or crockpot and top with bacon crumbs. Bake @ 350 degrees for an hour, or cook in covered slow cooker or crockpot on HIGH for one hour, then reduce heat to LOW and cook for 2 to 4 hours.

 

 

 

The Historical Fact

Cattle Drives and Round-ups

The famed cattle drives and round-ups following the Civil War have been romanticized in song and literature. Although the actual years of the cattle kingdom were short-lived, the story about this time in the Wild West grabbed the imagination of the world. The cowboys were young, capable and adventurous. Only the young could handle sleeping on the ground for days at a time and endure the grueling work a drive required.

 

Beginning with the round-up of the long horns in Texas, the cowboys faced danger nearly every day of the drive north. Whether it was crossing swollen rivers in the spring created by torrential rains, or dried up streams and dusty trails at other times, every day could be difficult. Cattle might stampede because of the innocuous howl of a coyote. At times like these, cowboys’ horses were invaluable. Each hand had several horses provided by the trail boss or owner, and their horses’ training saved many a cowboy’s life. Hundreds of cow hands and thousands of cattle made their way north to the railheads in Kansas as Easterners desires’ for more beef increased.

The following sites might be useful for further research:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_drives_in_the_United_States

http://www.forttumbleweed.net/cattledrives.html
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/wy-johnsoncountywar.html
http://www.equitours.com/.../article/cattle-drives-and-roundups-then-and-now

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abilene

 

Abilene

 

For a couple of weeks in the summers over three years, I spent time in the town of Abilene, Kansas. I was one of 30 secondary history teachers selected from across the state to do research at the Eisenhower Museum as part of a federal grant.

 The town still has the flavor of the Wild West. Many old buildings, antique shops and interesting restaurants can be found. The railroad that shipped so many cattle back East still runs near the downtown area. A replica of the old cow town stands on the south side of the tracks near Eisenhower’s boyhood home and museum. Nearby is the Dickerson County Museum providing more history of the cow town days and is well worth a visit.

 Several times since those summers I have wished I lived about 100 miles closer so I could take my classes to tour the area. The people are warm, friendly and great sources of information and assistance. I learned first-hand how interesting research can be.

 



 

 

Family Fun

 

 

 

 

Family Fun in Abilene

                                                                        By Judy

 

“How about we take a mini-vacation next weekend?” I asked my husband one fine summer day. That was how the weekend in Abilene began. I was excited to visit the birthplace of Dwight D. Eisenhower.  My parents and grandparents were strong Republicans, and I remembered listening once or twice to President Eisenhower speaking on the radio. My neighbors across the road even had a picture of Ike on their wall.

I have no memory of the long drive to Abilene so perhaps it was uneventful. The children were three-months-old, three, seven and ten. My husband and I were thirty-four and thirty-five. (Still young enough to think we could conquer the world or at least survive a weekend trip with the kids.) There would have been several bathroom breaks, a couple of stops for the carsick child to vomit and maybe a stop or two to change drivers when the non-driving person might have been too vocal about the other driver’s driving skills. It was, no doubt, a fairly typical road trip for our family. What I do remember is this.

“Mom, I don’t feel so good,” my seven-year-old daughter said about a minute after we entered the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum.

“Are you going to throw up?”  I asked. (That was my go-to-response anytime a child told me they didn’t feel good.)

 “No, but my throat hurts, really bad, too,” she answered in a hoarse whisper.

We did not take many trips when the children were little, and I had looked forward to this weekend. I was not going to let a little sore throat put a damper on our family fun. “You can ride in the stroller,” I told the seven-year-old.  “Your father can carry your little brother, and I’ll carry the baby.” Lucky for me I had brought one of those pouch-type carriers for him. At first, the seven-year-old was embarrassed to ride in the stroller, fearing someone would laugh at her arms and legs dangling over the edges. Needless worry on her part, though, as soon she was asleep, face down on the tray of the stroller.

After a day touring the grounds, my husband was exhausted from pushing the stroller and chasing a three-year-old. My back ached from carrying the baby in the kangaroo pouch, and my ten-year-old daughter was very, very bored. And, she had been very, very vocal all day about how very, very bored she was. The seven-year-old felt great, having rested most of the day in the stroller. “I’m hungry,” she said. Can we get pizza?” she asked. Pizza did sound good. I thought it might be just what we needed to refresh us all.

“Two medium pizzas, one Pepperoni and one sausage. And, bring us a pitcher of Pepsi, please,” I said. We happily colored our placemats while waiting on our order. Our food arrived, and I was pouring the pop into the first glass when one of the children accidently bumped my elbow. The spilled, swiftly flowing brown beverage quickly blurred our brightly colored placemats into muddy-looking blobs. The nice waitress brought us new ones, though, and another pitcher of Pepsi.

One of the children (memory fails me which child it actually was) reached across the table to “borrow” a sibling’s red crayon, and accidently bumped the second pitcher of Pepsi. Again the waitress brought us towels and a third pitcher of Pepsi. I did notice she didn’t seem quite as pleasant this second time. Nor did she replace our placemats. I’m a little unclear as to exactly how the last pitcher of Pepsi got spilled. I just remember I grabbed the baby, my husband picked up the three-year-old, and we told the girls to run for the car.

The “baby” is now thirty-three, but sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night, I’m still haunted by that waitress’s look of shock. I’m not certain if we paid for the pizza or all that Pepsi either. In fact, I kind of remember going through McDonald’s drive-through on the way back to the room. Needless to say, it was several years before we ventured to the Truman Library.