Little House series: book vs reality

[LucySnowe]

It's http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CousinOliver, named for the character on the Brady Bunch.

Thank you!

[Deleted01]

My sisters and I did our long hair in dozens of little braids overnight to make it super wavy, which apparently was in the books, although I don't recall where. It actually works really well.

I did that as a high schooler, even. Sure, people had crimping irons but we were living on my mom's minimum wage job + minimal child support. Always got compliments on it!

[Claddagh]

This thread brings back a great deal of nostalgia for me. :D I loved the books as a child and always wanted to dress as Laura for Hallowe'en.

As a girl I used to die a pillow case around my head and pretend it was a night cap.

I used to wear my hair in braids like Laura did in the TV show. Like others, once I learned the show was not based on the books I did lose interest. I'll still watch it from time to time but not as much.

[Mythicwings]

:) :) :) Love them so much. My favourites were Big Woods and The Long Winter. And Little Town on the Parie was so fun because she got to be a teenager and her parents encouraged her to be, and it just seemed like so much fun living in town, then summers on the prairie! And it was SO funny that Nellie Olson's family ended up moving to the same place :lol:

When I was 9, I put on long skirts and my night cap (from Williamsburg) and tried to chrun butter by pouring milk in a paper bag and hitting it with a stick! :lol: Mom took a picture.

[jenny_islander]

I have wanted to taste a roasted pig's tail since I read about how that was Laura's favorite part, back when I was a wee sproglet. Some friends bought a whole pig recently, cut it up for barbecue, and saved me the tail. Turns out that modern factory pigs have their tails cut off, so all I got was a measly little stub. Phooey.

[Mythicwings]

When my family moved to the country and did a bit of "homesteading" type farming, we had a pig and dad sent him to a butcher because he couldn't bring himself to kill him, which was a horrible day of course, but then we got 5 PIG TAILS back!!! :lol: And it was because I had told my mother I wanted to roast the pig tail, I wanted to roast the pig tail...so I guess most people didn't put in a special request for the pig tail to be sent back so he sent us a bunch !!! :lol:

I still want a pig that I don't send to a butcher. :heart: I'd name him Wilbur and give him a buttermilk bath.

[Wolfie]

When my family moved to the country and did a bit of "homesteading" type farming, we had a pig and dad sent him to a butcher because he couldn't bring himself to kill him, which was a horrible day of course, but then we got 5 PIG TAILS back!!! :lol: And it was because I had told my mother I wanted to roast the pig tail, I wanted to roast the pig tail...so I guess most people didn't put in a special request for the pig tail to be sent back so he sent us a bunch !!! :lol:

I still want a pig that I don't send to a butcher. :heart: I'd name him Wilbur and give him a buttermilk bath.

Most people send them to butchers anymore, they may cost money, but they can do it more efficiently, and have the equipment to get the cuts that you want.

I don't think it's that much different than having a bunch of people come to help you with butchering one week, then going to help them in a few weeks- with more people you can pool your resources.

I just have poultry, and the only place that takes them wants 12 at a time, so I only make an appointment there if I have a meat pen going that year.

[kian]

We're probably going to raise meat birds next year, but attempt thebutchering ourselves.

I always wanted to try the pig tail and make a balloon from the bladder like Pa did for the girls.

[freejoytoo]

The thing about making a balloon from the bladder always made me feel seriously ill.

[dawbs]

When my family moved to the country and did a bit of "homesteading" type farming, we had a pig and dad sent him to a butcher because he couldn't bring himself to kill him, which was a horrible day of course, but then we got 5 PIG TAILS back!!! :lol: And it was because I had told my mother I wanted to roast the pig tail, I wanted to roast the pig tail...so I guess most people didn't put in a special request for the pig tail to be sent back so he sent us a bunch !!! :lol:

sooo...was it tasty?

did it roast the way she describes?

[2xx1xy1JD]

Ha. The year I was in a DC elementary school I went on a trip to Colonial Williamsburg and got a proper sleeping cap, I was thrilled with it and you better believe that half the girls in the class were buying them purely because of "Little House."

Ah, the 70's...

FWIW "Anne of Green Gables" (a.k.a. 赤毛のアン) is HUUUUUUGE in Japan. Hordes of tourists go to PEI all the time and the whole bit, there is even a theme park of it in Japan.

I've heard about that. Any idea why it's so popular in Japan? It just seems so different.

I read the entire Anne series, but have never been to PEI (although I've been to Nova Scotia).

[Mythicwings]

sooo...was it tasty?

did it roast the way she describes?

I don't remember, the whole thing was a failure. My sister refused to eat him, and I was very devoted to living like Laura so WANTED to but - he was a really great pig to talk to and was always there to listen, so it sucks when you're then expected to eat your friend.

[teddybear]

We're probably going to raise meat birds next year, but attempt thebutchering ourselves.

I always wanted to try the pig tail and make a balloon from the bladder like Pa did for the girls.

When I was small, like before the age of 7, my family still butchered hogs at home. I can honestly say that I have roasted a pig's tail and played with a bladder balloon. My grandparents made the best sugar cured ham and bacon, as well as sausage and lard. Grandma also made lye soap in a big iron kettle out in the side yard.

My mom's parents lived in a tar paper shack in the Ozark foothills. They did have running water in the house by the time I came along, but it pumped from a spring down in the valley below the house. They heated and cooked with wood, raised most of their food and Grandpa was a moonshiner in the 1920's.

[DarkAnts]

The thing I remember most is the time Laura cut her bangs. Her mom told her that she had been chastised in front of the entire school class for being immodest after she cut hers as a child. Her crime was showing her ears and her teacher thought it was the immodest. This traumatized her mom to the point where she would always style her hair to cover her ears.

[Mythicwings]

My least favourite/most favourite Little House episode is on!

Least favourite: it's the one where Laura is pining for Almanzo after Pa tells them they have to wait two years to get married, so Almanzo leaves, and she has to go to him where he lies unconscious from falling asleep in the icehouse, and Houston the wise old coot tells her to tell Almanzo she loves him, and Almanzo awakens from the warmth of Laura's love. GAG

BUT IT'S MY FAVE EVER because it's the one where Nellie falls for Percival, tries to be nice, throws a plate of bread at a surly customer, weeps over Percival's seeming lack of love, then her father realizes she actually has a heart in there and sends her after Percival because he can't let THAT miracle go :lol: I LOVE Nellie lmao! Wish the whole show could have been all Nellie!

[twin2]

My least favourite/most favourite Little House episode is on!

Least favourite: it's the one where Laura is pining for Almanzo after Pa tells them they have to wait two years to get married, so Almanzo leaves, and she has to go to him where he lies unconscious from falling asleep in the icehouse, and Houston the wise old coot tells her to tell Almanzo she loves him, and Almanzo awakens from the warmth of Laura's love. GAG

BUT IT'S MY FAVE EVER because it's the one where Nellie falls for Percival, tries to be nice, throws a plate of bread at a surly customer, weeps over Percival's seeming lack of love, then her father realizes she actually has a heart in there and sends her after Percival because he can't let THAT miracle go :lol: I LOVE Nellie lmao! Wish the whole show could have been all Nellie!

LOL. I'm watching this episode now! I'm OK with the series till the Pa packed up the family and moved to S. Dakota, and half the town followed only to all go back again a few months later, and the town is still the same, just a bit dusty and overgrown. Le sigh. All this shenanigans just to introduce a new character.

Oh yeah, I like Nellie too.

[Claddagh]

Nellie is fun.

I was able to watch part of the episode today and thought "Laura at sixteen wearing her hair down??" I blame that on the reenacting and historical study I've done. ;)

[Convicted Blossom]

I was a huge fan of the books. For those of you who were great fans of Laura's, a collection of her writings as an adult writing makes interesting reading not only for how she and Almanzo fared but also to see Laura emerge as a feminist in her own time. http://www.amazon.com/Laura-Ingalls-Wil ... 56&sr=1-31

Her daughter Rose Wilder went on to become a journalist, she reported on the war in Vietnam.

[YPestis]

I can't believe this thread is still around. It's actually gotten me to re-read the books again. I'm even thinking about buying a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. I'm also reading the Little House books with fresh eyes. I used to think it quaint her description of food and their way of life. Now, I'm seeing it for the hard life that she actually led. I'm also realizing that all the book's talk about having warm house, abundant food was told that way because Laura experienced times when she lived in cold, damp surroundings with poor quality of food. It's made me appreciate the books more, but also appreciate my own life as well.

[missbrooklyn]

This post made me check out Alison Arngrim's (Nellie) autobiography/slash memoir. She had a horrific childhood, but what a hoot she is! I love her insider's take on the series. Forget those saccharine books and read this instead.

[katecake]

This post made me check out Alison Arngrim's (Nellie) autobiography/slash memoir. She had a horrific childhood, but what a hoot she is! I love her insider's take on the series. Forget those saccharine books and read this instead.

Did you just call the Little House books saccharine? Have you read them? People on the brink of starvation...watching a crazy lady threaten her husband with a butcher knife? :shock:

[Loveday]

Did you just call the Little House books saccharine? Have you read them? People on the brink of starvation...watching a crazy lady threaten her husband with a butcher knife? :shock:

I mean, really. For children's books, they're anything BUT saccharine. :o

[katecake]

The only people who think that are people who associate it so strongly with that DAMN SHOW.

Unless you have read them and then I say...please! Defend your position! :mrgreen:

[formergothardite]

Did you just call the Little House books saccharine? Have you read them? People on the brink of starvation...watching a crazy lady threaten her husband with a butcher knife? :shock:

Elsie Dinmore is saccharine! LHP, pretty clear that life was rough back then. LHP show on the other hand, you can call that saccharine all you want.

[Closed Womb]

I can't believe I avoided this thread for so long. I love, love, love the LHotP books; I even made them a part of my Master's Thesis. Seriously, if they had been more respected academically, I think I would have devoted my career to studying them.

My box set is packed away in the garage, but I think I am going to hit the library this afternoon.

I want Mr. Edwards to save my Christmas with a white sugar dusted cake, a penny, a peppermint stick, and a cup. I also want Almanzo's mother to make ALL my meals (although, not my clothes.) Whoever said food porn was spot on!

ETA: I am pretty sure Steve Maxwell would go ape shit crazy with lust over blackberry shaped buttons.

Aunt Docias dress was a sprigged print, dark blue, with sprigs of red flowers and green leaves thick upon it. The basque was buttoned down the front with black buttons which looked so exactly like juicy big blackberries that Laura wanted to taste them. (Little House in the Big Woods, Ch. 8)