The Chuck Wagon: A Spot of Comfort on the Trail.
howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas where
we are in the middle of a cold front, temps only in the low 90s today!
I've been talking about the cattle drives of the Old West and all of the
"less than fun" experiences which the cowboys had to deal with and
some not even surviving their journeys North.
But today I wanted to talk about one of the most important aspects
of the trail, at least to the men, and that is the only thing on the trail
which represented any comfort at all, as well as nourishment and
rest..the Chuck wagon.
all photos from atexashistory.org
The Chuck wagon was the heart of the operation and the most
important piece of equipment where all the Drover's personal
belongings such as bed rolls and guns were stored.
Well as far as the guns.. they were worn at night by the cowboys on
night watch because of cattle rustlers and also if they knew they were
approaching and would be interacting with Indians.
Generally speaking the cattle drive bosses didn't want the cowboys
carrying their .45's while herding the cattle in case there was an
accidental discharge which could in turn cause a stampede.
The Chuck wagon was positioned at a leading point a mile or two in
front of the herd to stay out of the dust and protect it in case there
was a stampede. I mean that was their "lifeline" so they protected it.
The cooks or "Cookie" as they were typically called also had an
extremely tough job to cook in any and all types of weather conditions
of snow, rain, hail, blistering heat, dust.... power outages, lol just
teasing.
In the Chuck wagon important tools and parts were also carried
like Farrier tools and tack for taking care of the horses, harnesses,
repairs to the wagons and so forth. Firewood was carried underneath
the wagon on hides hung across the bottom.
The canvas top was treated with linseed oil, making it waterproof so
the men's gear and bedrolls wouldn't get soaked. One important
tool was a block and tackle rig, kinda like a modern winch for pulling
the wagons out if they got stuck in mud or on rocks.
The cooks had to guard that Chuck wagon with their lives against
thieves. Bytheway, the cowboys lived by a strict code of ethics and
if those rules weren't followed then the consequences were swift
and severe. One of the rules was justice, patience and tolerance.
But if a cattle rustler tried to steal cattle or horses or God forbid
anything from the Chuck wagon..that person was outright hanged
from the nearest tree! Cowboy justice. swift and simple.
Ok I'm flat out of time here, I gotta run so I'll continue this topic
tomorrow with details on how the Cookies cooked and some great
recipes.
Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck
ps- ya know, you might just be a redneck if:
you're still holding on to Confederate money because you think
the South will rise again!
They ate a lot of beans, but I always wondered how they cooked them. Beans have to cook for so long to soften up yet they move every morning! They must have used a straw box to put the Dutch oven hot all day while they travelled. Or maybe they soaked the beans to an almost sprouted state, before they cooked them.
Of course they always had plenty of beef to throw into the stew pot, or just fry up the steaks....
:)howdy @smithlabs! sorry for the long reply I was held up by @glenalbrethsen reading one of his 500 page posts!
but anyway you are correct sir! they always had beans soaking. I don't know anything about a straw box, I've never heard of that, you makin another straw man argument just to muddy the waters?
No, a straw box is a tool used for slow cooking. A Dutch oven is brought to boiling, and placed inside a box of straw, and left for a day. It will still be too hot to touch that evening, and can be finished over the fire quickly.
A little prepper study of old ways; just in case, the SHTF.
:)lol! thank you sir smithlabs! that is very interesting, and good to know just in case you have to feed a bunch of people in the Apocalypse!
Hay man, that is a secret, LOL! But it is good to know for sure.
I have considered a crock pot with hyper insulation, that runs on 24 volts; using some dump load resistors for heat.
of course you have. lol! but if you would have been back there with those guys what would you do without electricity mr. smarty pants!?
Just use the hay box, until I had time to make my own power, among other things!
:Doh boy... now we got him to thinking how to solve chuck wagon problems from the 1800s!
Now I know you're prone to exaggeration, sir, but that there is an out and out fabrication! 500 page post. I might break four pages, at 250 words a page. Unless you're only counting 20 words per page. Then, I might make it to 500 or so. :) The Maya story I've been serializing is only 320 pages in its unfinished form and it's taken 63 installments of about 4-6 pages each to get it posted. :)
lol! I got your attention though didn't I ? I wonder if there is anyone on this platform who writes the kind of volume that you do, have you seen anyone?
If it's a giant post I usually can't get through it. I mean if it's a big one that you write I will but some of these others, I just start zoning out!
That's just it, though. Mine aren't that big. They generally fall in around 1000 words. Ideally, they would be somewhere in the 800-1200 range in order to cover a substantial topic and not overwhelm the reader with words. Beyond that, especially if it's technical, a reader will get bogged down.
I think you need to feel like you read something, though. That there was thought and care and information provided. I suppose everyone is diferent and has their own way of going about things.
Mine aren't that technical, and while I'll throw in a vocabulary word here and there, I do try to keep them readable. So no zoning out!
There are a few, though some of them aren't writing so much any more. I probably average a little higher on the word per post scale, but some people either make it up with volume, or come close to it. Anyone doing three or more posts a day that are more than just photos or short video summaries will outdo my post volume.
Comments can be another story, but there, my word count can be all over the place. :)
wow @glenalbrethsen now you make me wonder if I'd doing enough writing, like my post today about the Chuck wagon, I have no idea how many words that is, is there an app or something that tells you or does Steemit tell you somewhere?
maybe mine are too short, I thought the one today was a little short.
I think your's are about right, some people's go on forever, can I name names? I guess it doesn't matter.
your's are maximum for a redneck, lets put it that way!
No, Steemit doesn't have a word counter. That would be nice. I'm more or less eyeballing it, but there are sites on the web that you can paste your post into to see word count length. Or Word or some other text editor on your computer could do it (Word for sure).
I thought the length of the article was just fine. Really, you want to cover the subject with the information you have, and overdoing can be worse than not having any information at all, so I think you covered the subject well.
Another thing is style. If the post is compelling, people will read more. If it's not, length wouldn't matter anyway.
So, there's always more to consider, but it's not just rednecks that might have issues with attention spans. :)
ok Glen, thanks for all your help and advice!
I'm sure @janton will be along to answer, but my wife cooks up beans from scratch and does soak them for three to five hours, at a minimum, so she can cook them up for dinner. So, I'm agreeing with the idea of the soaking but not necessarily so close to the sprouting state. Still, a lot of planning and understanding of what was going to be needed went into all of this for sure, right down to the cooking of the beans. :)
Soaking is a good start. I wonder how long it takes to cook after soaking? Thanks for the reply @glenalbrethsen.
:)Well, I don't know how long it took for them to cook the beans they had. In my wife's case, it's about an hour, hour and a half, give or take. I think she lets the water get to a decent boil and then turns down the heat so it's a little softer, but still plenty hot and then let's them go. It also depends on what else she's doing, because sometimes she cook them a little longer. Generally when she's doing this it's to go with Mexican food, so we'll eat them whole or she'll mash them and refry them. In that case, she might leave them in a little longer cooking.
I usually pressure cook beans from dry, but they did not have that option.
:)howdy Glen..yes sir, they were very well organized and skilled at what they did. ya'll are gonna love some of the recipes tomorrow like Spotted Pup, Hoe Cake and this one's for Glen "Morman Johnnycake" lol.
Nice glimpse into the chuck wagon and its importance. The food part of it was obvious, but I didn't know about all of the other things that would commonly be carried or stored there. I guess that's what would make it a prime target for all kinds of human varmints. :)
It's amazing how much planning it seems would go into those trips. You think about cowboys roughing it a lot, and compared to what we deal with they most certainly did, but they didn't go without some kind of preparation, and I imagine, the more veteran the team, the more they knew what to expect and to prepare for.
yes sir, prepare for those human varmits! lol. I like their code of justice if they caught someone stealing horses or cattle. no time wasted on lawyers.
they did plan the best they could but like I talked about in one of my posts it was the surprises that killed alot of them like lightning, drownings while crossing the rivers ..that was the big one because there were holes in the riverbed that they couldn't see and sometimes quicksand would take them down and quite a few were killed in stampedes or when they got thrown from a horse and hit their hit, some died from a simple cut that got infected or from pneumonia from exposure to the elements because they had no anti-biotics.
some were also killed by rustlers.
I'm not sure if I would like capital punishment for corporal offenses. Sounds a little too Old Testament. But I understand the idea. The less that a court has to be involved, and justice can be served, the better. When it's more about the paycheck or the reputation than it is about getting to the truth and starting the restitution process, then the whole system fails.
I'll have to try to get back to that post. I'm still behind since last week somehow and I'm afraid I'm not going to catch up. I'm usually behind coming back from taking Sunday off, anyway, but this last week I got behind before that. Probably trying to post a bunch at the end of the week. :)
I could see where surprises would bring about the demise of any of us. Especially being exposed to the elements most of the day. Now, we spend so much time in controlled environments that barring a major earthquake or storm, or some manmade disaster, we're not as likely to die from crossing rivers or lightning. Which is a good thing. :)
lol. yes sir..people don't think about the fact that there were NO bridges over rivers in the West and they were bad enough if it was dry but after a rain storm, man! and if it's a lightning storm we're inside, those guys had to stay with the cattle no matter what the condition.
talking about natural disasters and such, the Mormons are famous for being prepared, are you some level of prepper?
I'd say yes, but we could certainly do better. A lot of what we have for longer food storage is in freeze dried cans. The food is all right, and we open up a can here and there to try it out. I think were about 10 years into a 20-25 year shelf life.
Then, we have some freezer food and some other things that should last us well beyond a three day period.
The one thing we need to figure out is water. We have some storage barrels, we just haven't filled them up. Living in Oregon, you don't have to travel far to find water, so I've been lazier with that aspect than I should. But we do have the means to cook or sterilize, and so forth.
What about you? I find this to be common sense, given how many times I've been unemployed or under employed in my lifetime. Doesn't need to be a local disaster. It could be a personal one.
hey glenalbrethsen .. the thing about living in Oregon and water..you have rivers nearby or a lake?
we have two ponds and could probably stretch our food for 6 months.
It SHOULD be common sense but I don't think that people think that way for future events.
It should be common sense, and people should learn from what happens to others on the news. We recently had a water contamination problem with an area north of us. The problem was, the agency in charge of emergencies for the state sent an alert to everyone north and south of the area, most of which weren't affected. And didn't state what it was about, so we were left thinking for a while we had a terror alert going.
Well, thanks to social media, we were able to figure it out, but all the stores in our area were sold out of bottled water, and we heard that the stores north of us were, too, even though most of those folks buying water weren't affected. Then some turned around and tried to sell water at exorbitant prices.
I'd love to be on a piece of property with its own well (which I know can have its own issues and expenses), just because the well at least here is less likely to dry up than there is to be a water problem with the public water system, since they would be more of a target.
We've got two rivers really close by. They come together at some point up the road. There's a manmade lake not too far from here, and if worst came to worst, during the winter time we could probably get water from the runoff from our roof! :) Okay, maybe not that, but hey, it's an option.
so all you really need are some containers and a big Burkey water filter!
see you write a page and I write one sentence, that's why I'm not in your league!
The spirit of states rights BETTER rise again, or we are all screwed!
The old "prairie schooner," eh? Any movie with those in it, is still a friend of mine!
lol! well Texas used to be super independent but i don't think they're as much anymore with all the influx of liberals and such coming in.
Westerns yes! but almost none are made anymore.
I heard alot about Hostiles being very good and accurate so I'm seeing it on video sometime.
What's "Hostiles" about?
what the??? where you been boy?? oh..NOW I know how you get ten posts a day out and you are all over Steemit posting comments. You don't watch tv.
The ads for that movie were constant a couple months ago.
It's a big movie starring Christian Bale and is a very realistic view, Michael Medved says, about the cruelty of both sides in the Indian Wars.
I can't wait to see it. But like I said before, our Army didn't start being cruel until they saw their own and settlers being butchered and tortured.
There's a remarkable book by a Texas lady who was captured by the Indians, lived with them and wrote a book, there's a couple of them actually, that I want to get and read.
Interesting that some of the women who were captured elected to stay with the Indians when given a chance to go back to the whites, this one lady was like that and gave birth to a boy who became one of the most famous Comanche warriors and Chiefs. I got some good posts coming someday.
Yes, and some of the people who had it the worst were the so-called "half breeds" who often caught flack from both sides. My Gramma on my father's side was a "half breed."
I'll keep an eye out for that movie on Netflix, or wherever...
oh!!! what nation was she? and that makes you ..what? do you know what percentage?
I'm 1/8th Blackfoot or Sioux...we aren't sure which...
I'm 1/8th Bigfoot and I've been sued.
Love the photos! Interesting.
howdy there @iambraveandfree! thank you..if you like the old photos like I do, my series on cowboys has many interesting vintage photos in them, the series starts with the one about Black Cowboys 4 days ago and that one is interesting because alot of people don't even know that there were Black Cowboys and I have some interesting photos of them in that one.
but what about you? I see you are from Ohio! what city? my wife and I just moved down here from Akron about 2.5 years ago. you're brand new I see, welcome. you are following the Farmers couple yay, they're amazing and wonderful.
Anytime you have questions or just feel bored and want to talk ..contact me. thanks so much for commenting! God bless!
I had no idea there were black cowboys! How cool! I will check out your series on them. How did you get interested in old photos and writing on them?
Yes, I am new and still trying to figure stuff out. I am sure I will have more questions. I have asked the Farmer tons of questions. The Farmer’s Wife and I used to sing together and we are friends with them.
Thanks for reaching out and I look forward to interacting on here!
howdy today @iambraveandfree! so good to hear from you again. Yes Ma'am many people are surprised to learn that there were Black Cowboys, in fact the famous Cattle Drives were composed 30% of Blacks because they were freed from slavery after the Civil War and many went to work for ranchers.
Well, if you are friends of the Farmers then you don't need me, they are doing GREAT!
But is your mom in Akron, OH?
where are you?
we moved from Akron almost 3 years ago.
where did you sing with thefarmerswife? don't tell me she is from Ohio?
It would be a different world if we go by the code of the cowboys of justice, patience and tolerance and hanging.
This comment was made from https://ulogs.org
howdy there @leeart! good to see you here. yes sir we've lost core values at least in this country, the cowboys had an unwritten code which I may talk about more. But I like the way they treated horse thieves and cattle rustlers. very efficient and didn't have to fool with lawyers!
Interesting stuff indeed. We could do worse than to follow the cowboy code of ethics. Justice, patience, and tolerance are something we could do with a bit more of these days.
howdy again @deirdyweirdy! Yes Ma'am we sure could, there were other very honorable things in their unwritten code that I'll probably get to later but they were honest, hard working, loyal in addition to what you mentioned.
what about their code of justice in regards to horse thieves? do you approve of that too?
thanks for commenting deirdyweirdy, it's good to hear from you!
I didn't realize that the cowboys didn't carry their guns all the time. It makes sense though. No sense starting an accidental stampede.
I also didn't know they carried the firewood under the wagon. Or drove the chuck wagon ahead of the herd. Good things to know.
I don't have any confederate money. I don't think the south is going to rise again either.
haha! Texas is rising! we can carry the rest if they want to come along.
yeah the Check wagons carried wood but it was also the job of the Drovers to keep an eye out for dry wood pieces and such and bring them back with them when they changed horses, and to split the wood into small pieces for Cookie.
does anyone in your group collect bills that you've heard of? Confederate bills are very interesting but I don't have any. they take alot more care than coins obviously.
oh, the lead rider whose job it was to find water and the best route was always armed. he was a couple miles ahead.
Being a driver just sounds like a lot of dangerous work. I just liked camping. :)
I'm sure there are some who collect bills too, but a majority are just into collecting silver and gold. I've seen some platinum and copper, but not much other than that.
howdy today Blondie! good to hear from you. hey I don't even like camping!
yeah does anyone collect platinum and is it very expensive and do they make platinum coins?
I like being home too. It's nice to have the comforts of home, but it's fun to get out into nature sometimes.
Some people collect platinum and palladium. They're actually not as expensive as gold. They make coins and/or bars of both. They're not as common, but they're out there!
so Blondie, if they aren't as common, shouldn't they be a very sought after metal?
Sorry, I meant that the people who collect the coins aren't as common. Also the coins aren't as common either. I can't speak to the relative availability of the metal they're made of though. I'm not sure how common the metal is as I've never really looked into it. I stick with silver for the most part.
Blondie...don't you think you should expand your horizons a little bit into the other metals so as to be an authority figure and inspiration to young Numismatists or whatever they're called?
hey, did you like the looks of that Calf's Head Soup? lol!
Amazing piece of history to learn out of and looked like a great idea, Is it still preseved in such remote area or just in the history museums ? And, Good article @janton (y)
howdy there @hananali...hey that's a great question, you are really going to catch on here soon. well you know what? they actually still have Chuck wagon cooks and they have Chuck wagon cooking competitions which I'll talk about in one of my posts. so yes they are still around.
Thank you @janton how you doing today?
If these are still around then they are preserving it well. Its something new for me. Glad to know that and will love seeing more about it if you plan on writing more about this
I just posted another post about this subject today hananali.
I have checked it and its interesting. Thank you
Ahhh the wagon trains with the cookie wagon!
I love reading historical books; whether fiction o non-fiction, about the 19th century. Always had a fascination with the chuck wagon
howdy today @goldendawne! well it was a very interesting job and task that the Cookies had. I'm putting some original Chuck wagon recipes on today's post, I wonder if any of the homesteaders out there will try any of them and report back?
Wow. This series of posts just has me captivated. I had no idea how interesting this would be. Yes, please continue!
howdy today @squirrelbait! thanks so much, I'm so glad that you are enjoying them, most people find history to be boring.
these would be better if I could take more time with them but I've been kinda rushing through them. someday I'll spend more time on them.
thanks so much!