The amount of wood that the clunes had was truly pathetic. Sure Mr. Clune, you have a lot of food, but how the hell do you plan on cooking it? Their wood wasn’t even quartered. I hated the way that rationalized everything. Maybe you can rationalize it you yourself, Mr. Clune, but that will do you no good when after one storm you and your family have frozen to death due to no wood.
I did love the way that the Brooks turned out. They were great. The mice thing was pretty funny.
I thought that the way that Mrs. Glenn talked to the boy about the death of the pig was terrible. I almost cried when he said to his mom, “I am going over to the Brooks, they will know what to say to me.” That was so sad.
Oh, and it was Mrs. Clune doing the laundry. I thought about the washer and dryer, too. In all fairness, she wasn't the one who set it up like that. The decorators who were setting up the house while they were gone probably did. Maybe She just hadn't had a chance to move them back yet.
Gotta disagree here. The teenagers were plenty old enough to pull their own weight. From a manpower perspective they should have been better off than the Glens. Their problems in that department were neatly summed up by one of the girls when she was telling us that haying was actually her favorite homestead job. She added something like - I’ll do if but only when I’m in the right mood. Ummm… the point of the exercise is that in order to survive the winter you have to do a lot of work regardless of whether you’re in the mood.
The kid who got attached to the chicken (clune) was crying when it was killed. What did mom do? She told him to stop crying and that they would get another. Your kid is grieving! What the hell? If I were her (and I am actually a 17 year old guy), I would have reassured the kid that he raised it just the right way, that he did everything right, that the food was going to feed them, that they needed to, etc. What a poor mom.
The Brooks had it really figured out. Looking at them and how they made it through, I see them as a couple that will be happy in all aspects of life. What a nice group of people. I’d love to have them as neighbors.
They would still have 6 mouth to feed…I’m not saying the Clunes are competent (they are not) but they were also the more disadvantage, needing the most of all the basic necesities (and a better leader). I’m starting to think that maybe all the families would have made it if it was just a couple…except the Glenns, they would’ve kill each other…
I see your point about the Clunes having six mouths to feed, but the final report acknowledged that Mrs. Clune had done the best job of stocking food supplies for the winter. However, the wood was the main problem, and in terms of heating your cabin, it doesn’t matter if you’re one person or six people. I wasn’t sure what sending half the family away would accomplish if Mr. Clune and the older boy – Justin? – froze to death.
About Mark Glenn, I’m pretty sure he didn’t say he didn’t want stepchildren. He said being a stepfather sucked. And I think that he meant that the job of stepfather is a no-win situation. And if you ask any stepfather, you will probably hear the same opinion.
Not to mention the constant under-cutting of him by his lovely wife in front of her kids- like they would listen to him after seeing that all of the time. I predict lonely cat-lady spinster-hood for that harpy. It is sad as I liked her kids quite a bit and hope they come out ok.
Damn I am impressed with the activity on this thread. Thanks To all.
My local station will be rerunning over the next few Sundays and I still want to hear from you who havn’t viewed yet. I’ll be checking back, so don’t hold back!
I didn’t see the wood issue as necessarily a big problem. Unlike hay, firewood can be collected year-round. Granted, it wouldn’t be fun gathering and chopping wood in four feet of snow, but I think it’s possible. It could even help alleviate cabin fever. What is Mr. Clune going to do during the winter anyway?
I was wondering about the same thing - why the $#@! was it so important to get all the wood in the summer? I can see always wanting to have something like a 7-10 day supply on hand in case of blizzards that last several days, but aside from that, I see no reason to have firewood cut in the summer for the entire winter. Maybe I’m remembering incorrectly, but I seem to remember my father often cut wood in the winter in upper Michigan, where I’m sure the winters rival Montana winters. Not as fun as the summer, but do-able, certainly.
Anyone know the reason they were so big on firewood? I’m going on memory here, so I could be wrong about my Dad cutting firewood in the winter.
It’s a hell of a lot easier to do it in the summer. In the winter you have to worry about big frickin’ blizzards. Can’t go out during a blizzard, and even once the sky is cleared do you really want to slog through three feet of snow, without a snowsuit, to chop wood for several hours and then haul it back inside? That’s why my dad always made sure we had plenty of wood BEFORE the winter (of course, since we only used our fireplace during blizzard-induced power outages, we ended up having five years’ worth of cut logs in our woodpile).
Does Montana average three feet of snow in the winter?
Think Donner Party.
Yes, yes, the Donner Party was in Nevada, but Nevada’s SOUTH of Montana.
As for Papa Glenn. During the show we see comments like “pussy whipped” and “wuss.”
After he got back to Nashville I’m rethinking this. He fits the description of a true lost soul.
How could he have been a Father figure to the kids with Mrs. Glenn constantly tearing him down in front of them?
But the point is that if you needed to cut wood to avoid, say, death, you could. Even in 3 feet of snow. Or, as Doug Bowe pointed out, much more. If you assume that there’s enough wood to last through a biiiig blizzard, wouldn’t they be able to cut wood during the non-blizzard days?
I don’t think the ‘without a snowsuit’ thing would be as much of an issue as you’d think. A person will stay plenty warm doing hard work outside in the winter, and as long as there’s a cabin nearby where a person could change out of sweaty/wet clothes and warm up, I don’t see that as an issue.
I don’t want to be dogged about this, but it seems to me that even though cutting wood in the winter may be fun or easy, a person certainly could do it if the alternative was dying. I tried to call my father earlier today to see if he could shed any light on the matter, but he wasn’t home. I’ll keep trying - he spent many years working as a lumberjack in harsh winters back in the 40’s and 50’s, as did his father before him. He’ll know the dope on wood cutting in the snow.
Consider how much time he had to spend to chop the wood he had. Let’s say that wood lasts for the length of the first big snowstorm. He then has to cut the same amount of wood, in much less time. That is why it is so important to have a store saved up. Either that, or get Half-Pint Laura out there twisting hay for the fire.
When that teaser for the second night came on, something about their having to earn money through illicit means, I thought maybe they were going to send Aine and Tracy to the local brothel.
Hey, it ain’t backbreaking work, and they’d get to wear all the makeup they want
When that teaser for the second night came on, something about their having to earn money through illicit means, I thought maybe they were going to send Aine and Tracy to the local brothel.
Hey, it ain’t backbreaking work, and they’d get to wear all the makeup they want
They don’t have to burn nicely chopped and split logs. Remember all those branches that came down in that one snowstorm? As for the wetness issue, Papa Clune could have erected some kind of lean-to for temporary storage. A bigger problem might be the greeness of the wood. Ideally they would find dead trees and branches – admittedly harder to do in three feet of snow.
OK, finally talked to my father. Had to wait all day because he was up at our cabin, cutting wood.
His response? “If they think saws don’t work in the winter, they’re wrong.” He went on to talk about when he was 12 years old, he was the “head heat man” for the kitchen at the lumber camp where his mother worked as a cook and his father as a lumberjack. This was in Michigan’s upper peninsual, sandwiched in between Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. It gets 200" - 300" of snow every year up there - sometimes, like this year, even more. I’d wager it’s similiar to a Montana winter.
He said it’s not a lot of fun to cut wood in the snow, but it’s possible. I asked him if he tried to cut most of the wood in the summer. He said no, he did it in the winter and built a sled to get it home with. When I asked about whether or not it needed to dry, he said they either burned it green, or his mother would put a pile of green wood in the cookstove overnight and the residual heat of the stove dried it out overnight, so she had at least enough dry wood to start the fire in the morning.
Remember, this was when he was twelve years old. I’m thinking the ‘experts’ on Frontier House are underestimating what a starving pioneer will do if the choice is death or getting their butts out and chopping wood.
Oh yes, before I forget - another thing he said: “Be very happy that you don’t need to know how to do this kind of stuff.” Yes, Dad, I’m very happy!
