Thursday, March 28, 2024

A jolly good show | Local resident, chuckwagon owner featured in UK TV series

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THORP SPRING — Blimey! Take a gander at a smashing new United Kingdom series “Rob and Dave’s Big Texas Rodeo." The two-episode special features brothers from Yorkshire, England who travel to Texas — including Granbury — to experience the “cowboy” way of life.

Brothers Rob and Dave Nicholson donned their best cowboy “get-up” and traveled across Texas for their special, visiting North Texas cities that included Fort Worth, Decatur and Graham.

Filming in the Granbury area took place on Feb. 6, at the new wedding venue, Riverview Ranch, owned by Ty and Yoli Harwell.

Granbury native Terry Green starred in a segment of the first episode, where Rob and Dave visit Green at the Riverview Ranch and learn about his chuckwagon.

THE CHUCKWAGON

“This wagon is an 1890 Winona wagon. The running gear, the axles, the wheels, all that undercarriage is original, so it actually was made in 1890,” Green said. "The wagon itself, the sideboards and the running gear, that's all 130 years old and typically would have been pulled with a team of at least two horses and mules.”

Green found the wagon six years ago in North Dakota. He said his chuckwagon has wheels that are taller and bigger than normal, making it easier for the wagon to navigate over huge rocks and rough terrain, which made it more desirable back in the day.

"They all come with lanterns and a coffee grinder — that's the first Starbucks,” Green said, chuckling. “It was a traveling kitchen. It had everything in there that you needed to cook a meal. Anything that you can make in your kitchen at home, a cook could have made here. You can bake, you can fry, you can boil. One of my passions is actually baking. I really enjoy baking bread, rolls, cobblers and you know, being able to bake something on wood fire and some cast irons and it comes out almost perfect is kind of satisfying to me.”

Green first became interested in chuckwagons from his friend and local resident, Homer Robertson, who has been a chuckwagon cook for about 30 years.

“He connected me with a mutual friend that did competition cooking, and we went off and did a few events together, and as they say, the rest was history,” Green said. “I fell in love with it.”

Green competes in about five chuckwagon competitions a year. In 2021, he won the overall championship at the Llano River Chuckwagon Cook-Off, and in 2019, he won the national championship in Ruidoso, New Mexico.

“I enjoy the competition, the camaraderie, looking at all the different wagons as my knowledge has grown about the chuckwagon, learning about it and what all it did,” he said. “I just appreciate going and seeing other people's wagons too, all the work that they do on them. It takes a lot of maintenance, a lot of upkeep. You're always looking for new items for it at antique stores. I can't hardly pass a junk store up when I'm traveling, so I’m always looking to add, upgrade and just make it better.”

Green is a board member of the American Chuckwagon Association, which led to him landing the part in “Rob and Dave’s Big Texas Rodeo.”

"It's a passion,” Green said. “I mean, there's got to be because you don't do this for money. Even if you win at the competitions, it doesn't typically cover your travel expenses, so we do it because we enjoy the cowboy kind of way."

And that’s exactly what the Nicholson brothers were expecting to learn during their “trip of a lifetime” to Texas — the cowboy way.

FILMING IN TEXAS

“Texas is all about longhorns, ranching, the wilderness and cowboy boots,” Dave said, during episode one. “It’s not a question of whether we’re ready for Texas, it’s whether Texas is ready for us.”

During Green’s scene, he had the brothers make “cowboy stew” and bread pudding on his chuckwagon, explaining that cowboys used to make $1 a day, while cooks made $2 a day.

“Here we are today, living the Texas dream,” Rob said.

The brothers experienced everything the way a true Texan should, from riding horses and shooting guns to line dancing at Billy Bob’s in Fort Worth.

“I’ve not done much horse-riding,” Rob said, during episode one. “And the way my hips are feeling, I’m wondering if 53 is too old to start.”

Rob and Dave also tried their hand at archery and auctioneering, even competing to see who could stay on a mechanical bull the longest. Dave won the bragging rights for that one.

As for a true Texan meal, the brothers tried the biggest steaks in the state along with a true southern favorite, chicken fried steak.

“It's the first time I tried it (chicken fried steak) and I really enjoyed it. I was looking for the chicken inside of it, like, ‘Where's the chicken?’” Rob said, with a chuckle. “Chicken fried steak — would that catch on in the U.K.?”

The brothers definitely experienced a different culture coming to Texas, but what they didn’t expect was the warm welcome.

“The people are extremely friendly, very obliging, invited us to different places,” Dave said. “People we had only just met, and it’s not something I was expecting.”

“What? You expected them to be hostile?” Rob asked, with a laugh.

“You know, you can go to England and people aren’t this friendly,” Dave said.

“We expected a warm welcome,” Rob continued. “But what we’ve received has blown our minds. We’ve never met people like it. We’ve made friends that will last beyond this trip, and hopefully for the rest of our lives. We’ve fallen in love with Texas.

“We’ve always been mesmerized by that cowboy dream, but to come to Texas and find out that people are unbelievably warm and friendly, and that the place is so beautiful, you know, it's something we'll take back with us and hold in our hearts forever.”

The two-part series premiered on April 19 and concluded on April 26 in the U.K. As of now, the program is not available for viewing in the United States.