Texas Ranch House 1867 - Anyone Watching?

[Ladskater]

Now this is my kind of reality tv show!!! I just love it. It reminds me of the show 1900 house and the show - Pioneer Quest- about the pioneers in Manitoba.

Here is some more info:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ranchhouse/1867_essay4.html

These kind of reality shows are cool!!!

 

[Piel]

Saw a repeat from "Frontier House" last night on PBS. There was a little boy on there that is a real cutie.

"TRH" premiers tonight!

 

[Jhar55]

Watched it a little it's not as good as Frontier House, and the one from last year didn't like it either.

 

[Mathman]

IMHO, the main problem the ranch folks are having is the lack of leadership from the boss man, Mr. Cook. Between trying to placate his bossy wife, and trying to use his twenty-first century management skills -- "let's have a meeting. I totally understand where you're coming from" -- everything is going to pot. Already two cowboys have been "fired" and left the show.

I thought it was funny when he tried to negotiate with the Indians. He refused on principle to take the Comanche's offer of 25 cattle (he keeps calling them "cows" LOL) in exchange for the four horses that the Indians stole from him and the return of the cowboy that they took prisoner.

Instead, he gave 25 cattle for the four horses and left it up to the Indians good will whether they would release the cowboy or torture him to death.

In the end, the Indians went along, but when the rancher got home he counted the horses -- oops, they only gave him three (along with the horse that the cowboy had been riding when he was captured), instead of all four.

The other subplot is the "girl-of-all-work" who insists on being a cowboy and going on the roundup, rather than cooking, etc. (PBS even interrupted the filming to send her to cowboy school in the middle of the show to teach her how to ride, etc.)

She is insistent on bringing her twenty-first century views of women back to the eighteenth. I can see why no woman would want to go back in time, to an era where women were without value or status.

But then why sign up for Texas Ranch House 1857 if you didn't want to experience how life was back then, for good or ill?

MM

 

[heyang]

In some ways, I think women were appreciated more out west during that time period. There were a lot fewer women than men in the wild west and men appreciated the various womanly skills that were available. If I recall correctly, western frontier states were the 1st to ratify the 19th amendment which gave women the right to vote.

 

[Jhar55]

I didn't catch the whole seson but what I saw yestarday Mrs. Cook and daughter would not have made it in the 1800's. The house and a pig sty all the flies becasue they let the dishes set for 8 days, they didn't keep the garden up food stored on the floor and if the ranch hands arent around then you need to go out and shovel that horse poop away fro the house yourself.
Didn't like Mr. Cook the way he treated the ranchhand selling or trying to sell his horse out for under him after I already made a deal on the price.
Even thouse times were hard back then to what we have now I would love to have lived back then, maybe it's becasue I grew up on a farm and loved the outdoors.

 

[merrywidow]

I hope the Cooke family enjoyed watching the show & hearing what the cowboys really thought of them! I laughed everytime the old man told one of the ranch hands, "I'll have to think that over & will give you a reply later." Then off to the ranch house to get his instructions on what to do from his wife. I saw the Cookes as very lazy, overbearing people & as cheats. He treated the ranch hands dreadfully at pay day.

 

[JonnyCoop]

I've heard many say that Mrs. Cooke would not be able to get away with her -- searching for the word, I'll go with "pushy" -- attitude in 1867. Any thoughts on this? At first that made sense to me, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought there HAD to be some "power behind the throne" wives out on the prairie in the 1860's, hadn't there? It's not like the potential for women to be overbearing just started about 1972, contrary to what many men would like to believe. I'm willing to bet some of these areas would not have been settled at all had it not been for women like this.

 

[Jhar55]

I am sure there were some women who ran the households back in the 1800's, they just had to take a backseat most of the time due to the way society was in that time.
Mrs. Olsen sure wore the pants in her family on Little House
I think poor Mr.Olsen was afraid of her