Frontier Follies: Adventures in Marriage and Motherhood in the Middle of Nowhere

by Ree Drummond

Overview

New York Times bestseller

A down-to-earth, hilarious collection of stories and musings on marriage, motherhood, and country life from the #1 New York Times bestselling author and star of the Food Network show The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond.

Once upon a time, I lost my marbles and married a sexy, Wrangler-wearing cowboy named Ladd. That single decision would wind up setting the stage for years of rural adventures (and misadventures), and while I can't imagine my life being any different, raising a family in the “idyllic” countryside has not been without a few bumps in the road. (Or were those cow patties? It's hard to tell the difference sometimes.)

I'm excited to share this crazy collection of true stories from my full-of-energy, hard-to-tame, wonderfully wild (and very weird) frontier family. From the unique challenges of being married to a rancher to the blood, sweat, mud, and tears of raising country kids, I'll pull back the curtain and let you in on some of the sh*t and shenanigans that have really gone on here on Drummond Ranch over the past two-plus decades.

You'll learn about marital spats, run-ins with wildlife, ER visits, my parenting neuroses, triumphs, tribulations, love, loss . . . and how manure has somehow managed to weave its way through all of it. To keep things up to the minute, you'll also hear about more recent family developments that have tested my sanity and pushed me to the brink. (And pleasantly surprised me, too.)

This book is both a love letter and a laugh letter, and I hope you get a big kick out of it all: the good, the bad, and the dirty. Mostly, I hope it demonstrates how much I adore this family of mine . . . even if I sometimes have to use rubber snakes to show it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062962751
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	11/17/2020
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	550,098
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Ree Drummond is the author of seven #1 New York Times bestselling cookbooks in the Pioneer Woman Cooks series, the New York Times bestsellers Frontier Follies and The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, and many bestselling children’s books. Her award-winning website, The Pioneer Woman, was founded in 2006, and her top-rated cooking show, The Pioneer Woman, premiered on Food Network in 2011. In the years that followed, Ree launched The Pioneer Woman Magazine, a well-loved line of kitchen and home products at Walmart, and a restaurant, bakery, store, and other businesses in her hometown of Pawhuska, Oklahoma. She lives on a working ranch with her husband, Ladd, and has five adult kids who come home for family meals whenever they can!

Hometown:

Bartlesville, Oklahoma

Date of Birth:

January 6, 1969

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Manage

Our Worst First Year 7

Love in the Time of Rubber Snakes 12

Places to Hide Rubber Snakes (for Your Favorite Sweetheart to Find) 18

I Do Dishes When We Argue 19

All I Wanted Was a Doughnut 24

My Top Five Favorite … 32

Ladd and the Gala 33

Cheatin' Movies 41

The Love Robot 48

Love Robot Chili and Cornbread Muffins 56

Devil Woman 59

What Do You Do with Girls? 66

Twenty Interesting Things About Ladd 74

Motherhood

Pride, Prejudice, and Epidurals 79

Ten More Interesting Things About Redheads 87

Placenta Fail 88

Sword! 95

"Funny" Family Injuries on Drummond Ranch 102

Our Great Homeschooling Experiment 103

Adventures in Children's Time 113

Scaring (and Scarring) the Kids 122

Wrong Mother 129

Mom Report Card 137

Misophonia 138

Wannabe Town Kids 146

Special Deliveries 154

Viral Parenting 160

The Absolute Best Sandwich I Made During Quarantine 168

The Whole Fam Damily

Sugar Lips 173

Drummond Family Nicknames 180

Life on the Farm 182

Did She Just Say "Dick"?!? 190

Hop Aboard the Chuck Wagon 196

A Tale of Two Families 204

A Rich Inner Life 206

Country Life

Anything for a Date 217

I Really Hate Summer 224

Gardening Heartbreak 231

Horses on Drummond Ranch 239

Shopping in Bulk 240

Stockin' Up 246

Bull, Interrupted 250

The Lodge Tourists 255

Dogs, Dogs, Dogs 262

Dogs and Cats on Drummond Ranch 269

Cowboys Are Real 270

Cowboy Colloquialisms 275

New Territory

Pawhuska vs. the Hamptons 279

Behind-the-Scenes Trivia from My Cooking Show 286

Left in a Man Cave 289

Stayin' Humble 296

Say Hi to Garth! 301

Bonus Kid 304

Herman 313

A Funny Thing Happened at My Cookbook Signing 319

A Drummond Family Quiz 324

My Idea of a Good Time 327

Acknowledgments 339

Editorial Reviews

In this celebration of rural America, web celeb Drummond, aka 'The Pioneer Woman,' tells warm-hearted stories. . . . Grab a root beer and prepare to grin.” — Booklist

“[A] must-read celebration of the ups and downs of life.” — Good Morning America

“The Pioneer Woman continues her streak of being relatable, funny and so-darn-charming in her collection of stories and musings on country life. . . . A cozy celebration of family.” — E! Online

“In her memoir, The Pioneer Woman, the Food Network star detailed her city-girl romance with a sexy cowboy who lured her to his ranch. Now she’s back with a collection of stories about their raucous life there with four kids. Filled with candor and self-deprecating wit, it’s a charmer.” — People

From the Publisher

In this celebration of rural America, web celeb Drummond, aka 'The Pioneer Woman,' tells warm-hearted stories. . . . Grab a root beer and prepare to grin.

Booklist

[A] must-read celebration of the ups and downs of life.

Good Morning America

The Pioneer Woman continues her streak of being relatable, funny and so-darn-charming in her collection of stories and musings on country life. . . . A cozy celebration of family.

E! Online

10/23/2020

Drummond, author of several books including The Pioneer Woman Cooks, has built a brand for herself based on her popular website, The Pioneer Woman, and cooking show of the same name. This personal memoir tells the story of finding strength and resiliency by living on and with the land. The author shares her struggles of marriage, parenting, and even cooking with humor and reliability, while also spotlighting details of life "in the middle of nowhere" that lend a spirit of Little House on the Prairie—style nostalgia. As on her blog, Drummond candidly shares anecdotes about becoming a homeschooling family, encouraging her children to work on the ranch while accepting that they might not want to, and developing cooking and laundry routines during quarantine. Illustrations by Joel Holland add creativity between chapters. Also included are personal touches, such as a recipe for Drummond's favorite sandwich during quarantine and recollections of both beloved and unremarkable family vacations. VERDICT Quirky and fun, this book offers a combination of practical tips, amusing stories, and moments of whimsy like the author's list of ways to "add sparks to your marriage" by hiding a plastic snake in the house. A treat for fans of Drummond.—Emily Bowles, Lawrence Univ., WI

Library Journal

2020-10-13
More anecdotal tales from the Pioneer Woman.

Best known for her cookbooks and Food Network show, Drummond offers readers a glimpse into her personal life with her family and animals on her Oklahoma ranch. Her latest book, she writes, is “a silly celebration of the everyday moments of my life in rural America, and every single story you’ll read is true.” It is not, she admits, “a sustained narrative, except in the sense that love is woven throughout.” In these vignettes spanning more than two decades, the author recounts a variety of mildly amusing stories: spooking her husband, Ladd, with a rubber snake, as well as the reciprocal tricks he plays on her; why she does the dishes when they argue; nicknames for each other; and lists of 20 interesting things about each of them (“I could sleep in a bed of crumbs and never notice”). On a more serious note, Drummond discusses motherhood and home schooling, the problems with summer on a cattle ranch, and struggling with a sound disorder called misophonia. It’s not long, however, before the author is right back to humorous tales about cows, including the castration of young bulls and how to prepare the testicles. Drummond includes a few recipes, but her aim here is less about instruction than about sharing her lifestyle, which she does with a conversational, sometimes overly cutesy tone. She also includes lists of what foods to stockpile, the names of the horses on the ranch, and why her prized rosebush died: “My poor, beloved plant had experienced death by urine, also known as nitrogen burn….Ladd had killed my rosebush by peeing on it repeatedly.” Overall, the author offers a scattered yet well-rounded portrait of her life behind the TV show and cookbooks.

Sure to please Drummond’s many fans but may not convert those unfamiliar with the Pioneer Woman.

Kirkus Reviews

In her memoir, The Pioneer Woman, the Food Network star detailed her city-girl romance with a sexy cowboy who lured her to his ranch. Now she’s back with a collection of stories about their raucous life there with four kids. Filled with candor and self-deprecating wit, it’s a charmer.

People

In this celebration of rural America, web celeb Drummond, aka 'The Pioneer Woman,' tells warm-hearted stories. . . . Grab a root beer and prepare to grin.

Booklist