Monday, February 26, 2007

Boiling Beans

A camp was simply a half dugout, made in the side of the bank, located usually near a spring or running water. There were a few camps located “on top” where water had to be hauled for camp use, as there were few windmills. Water was sometimes hauled to the canyon camps, when water there would be too “gippy” to use. Soap will not lather in gyp water, and the beans could be boiled in it all day long and still rattle in the pot. We learned, though, that by adding baking soda to it when the water reached the boiling point, and then skimming off the top, it was fit to use. You had to have a large vessel though, or it would boil all over everything.
From The Camp Life of a Cowpuncher by Carroll Doshier as told by Jim Christian

Monday, February 19, 2007

Solitude on the Open Range

Line camps on the open range were lonely places in the early eighties, for there were no nesters and very few towns in the panhandle region of Texas. Supplies for the ranches were freighted in by ox-team from such distant places as Colorado City, Texas, or Dodge City, Kansas. Men in the line camps often went for weeks or months without seeing any one, except for a rare visit from a drifting puncher who stopped by for a meal or a visit or an accidental meeting with another rider working out from his line camp. In the old days news was often months old before it reached the line camp.
From The Camp Life of a Cowpuncher by Carroll Doshier as told by Jim Christian

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Charles Goodnight's front yard

Colonel Goodnight told of his having gone to Dodge City to meet a friend of Mrs. Adair who was coming to the JA ranch for a visit from England. On the way they passed through a gate and Mr. Goodnight remarked that it was the gate to his front yard. After driving twenty-five miles further the Englishman asked, “Well, for God’s sake, how large is your front yard?”
Excerpt from a Laura Hamner transcript


This blog officially opens Feb 17 and will continue through August 19 congruent with the exhibit JA: The Paloduro Ranch. We hope you enjoy these stories from the PPHM archives.