Cowcamp Cooks, part 1

The best cook in the world!  No one could cook like Tom.

I guess I'll have to do this in parts. And I haven't even really got to the stories yet...

Up until 1990 we used a cowcamp that consisted of an old homestead cabin that doubled as a cookhouse and cook's quarters, a couple of outhouses that were full of bullet holes, an ancient long, low rambling so-called barn (full of rats), pole pens, a tiny little old bunkhouse, and a quonset shed. Six single cowboys would live there from mid-February to the first part of July when they would move to another cowcamp until November. We would also park a couple of little camp trailers there so the cowboys could spread out a little.

There was no electricity, and the water came from a pump in front of the cookhouse. We had propane refrigerators on the rickety porch. One had to be cranked up to use for a freezer. There was a propane cookstove inside, a barrel wood stove for heat, and propane lights. The original settlers must have been pretty small, because the cupboards and sink were back-breaking low. There was also a little old set of kitchen cabinets that good cooks would clean the mouse droppings out of prior to filling.

Cowboys were pretty easy to come by then, but finding a good cook to work under those conditions was a little trickier. A cook set the tone for the entire spring. A good cook that was easy to get along with meant we'd have a pretty content crew. A bad cook could lead to disaster. Obviously we tried to avoid young single women. Usually we'd try to have a married cowboy whose wife would cook. More often than not we'd end up with some guy who was half crazy, or a drunk who needed a job for awhile to dry out--or a combination: A half-crazy drunk.

The "living quarters" consisted of a cramped little room in back with an old double boxspring and mattress that mice always lived in the rest of the year. There's a head and shoulders hole in the bare wallboard where Harold tried to put Virginia through after she'd put away most of a bottle of whiskey--which they weren't supposed to have in camp in the first place...

To be continued...

*Between part 1 & part 2, on 6.7.11, Ray retired after 37 years. It was time.*