‘Alaskan Bush People’: ‘Field of Dreams’ (RECAP)
On Discovery Channel’s Alaskan Bush People episode “Field of Dreams” (Feb. 15), Billy bites off more than they can chew for a last minute barter as the family tries to secure their stores for winter. A rogue bear is playing havoc with Browntown.
Here’s an episode tailor-made for those of us who like to watch the Browns fail at stuff. I really think the producers are making this show more palatable to the very large segment of the audience that hate-watches it. There’s some satisfaction in watching the Browns try to execute impractical ideas and seeing them collapse and crush their other impractical ideas, even if we know that collapse is all part of the act. Maybe that’s why Bam wanted out. He was sick of watching his family being portrayed as incompetent boobs for our amusement.
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The episode opens with Gabe, Rainy and Birdy taunting Sabrina the cow. Gabe seems to think Sabrina can be made to do tricks. “They have, like, circus cows, right?” he asks. They’re playing the who-do-you-love-more game, and Rainy eventually wins. Then Sabrina lets out a long, powerful stream of urine just to show her contempt for them.
[DIGRESSION! I had a wonderful high-school history teacher who urinated on the Berlin Wall (presumably on the Western side) beneath a guard tower to show his contempt for it. My point is that peeing on something is a great way to show contempt for it.]
Noah says he can’t fix the wind turbine that came gloriously crashing down in last week’s episode. He didn’t seem to try very hard. As Brown luck would have it, Brown family benefactor “Haulin’ Paulie” Weltzin says he knows a guy, Wes, who may have some wind turbine parts. Billy tries hailing Wes on his boat, “The Dirty Oar” (Ha! Get it?), for a few days before finally getting a response. Wes has some turbine parts, and Billy offers lumber in a barter. As Brown luck would have it, Wes is building an “outbuilding” and is in need of 7,000 board feet of lumber. This is a tall order, and Billy knows it, and he makes a counter-offer of 5,000 board feet. Wes agrees to 5,000, but only if they can deliver in four days, because Wes understands the principles of Fake Urgency. “I’m extremely concerned about how much wood he wants,” says Billy. Yeah, maybe you shouldn’t commit Matt’s barely functional Bush sawmill to mass-production of lumber.
And why is Bear wearing a sleeveless man fur?
Billy’s hellbent on this wind turbine thing that he’s been talking about forever but we’re first hearing about in Season 6ish. Since his original tripod apparatus couldn’t withstand Bear and Gabe’s overzealousness, much less a wind turbine, Billy rethinks the concept. He buys four 60-pound bags of ready-mix concrete so Bear can punch them open. The good people at Quikrete took notice and posted this on their Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/Quikrete/videos/1496974997044469/
Quikrete: For people who want their terrible ideas to set hard in approximately 20-40 minutes.
Rainy alerts Billy to some beaver activity near Brownton Abbey.
Maybe Billy could put this “Ambitious Beaver” to work milling 5,000 board feet of lumber in four days. The beaver is not the issue, though, as Rain spots a bunch of chewed-up salmon meat along the creek. Billy says there’s definitely a bear around who didn’t get the memo about hibernation. The Browns will have to be careful. Good thing Matt built that bear-proof meat shed!
Oh, so sorry. Matt’s meat shed got ripped open like it was made of plastic wrap. A bear helped itself to the meat, leaving behind the skins, hair, teeth and eyeballs.
Even though I know there was no meat in there and there was no real bear break-in (Wouldn’t they have footage of it from the trail camera?), I still very much enjoy the look of Sad Billy.
And if that didn’t cheer you up, here’s another one:
Matt’s going to remedy this problem in the most entertaining way possible: With a visit to Kenny from the dump! Matt skiffs it into Hoonah (it takes 90 minutes this time) and meets up with Kenny, who is just giddy as all get-out to see his buddy. We discover that Kenny keeps severed deer heads in his truck. Matt then butchers the line from Hamlet:
Kenny has no idea what Matt’s trying to allude to, but he laughs anyway, because Kenny laughs at anything. Then Kenny regales us with what has become known throughout Hoonah and surrounding areas as “The Legend of the Great BA-GOOM!”:
Well, it’s the only way I can protect it out here, ‘cause the bears are freaking running around, you know? I was supposed to go goat hunting and moose hunting, but, like, a day before my partner got chewed up on that mountain up there by a bear. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Good thing there was two people, you know what I’m saying? He had to end up shooting a bear and killing a bear when it was trying to bite him in the head. It had him pinned down and it was gonna, you know, PBHT!, finish him, and his partner BA-GOOM! Yeah. That’s why I didn’t go goat hunting and moose hunting over there.
May the Good Lord bless and keep you always, Kenny. Matt finally gets down to brass tacks and tells Kenny that he’s in the market for a freezer. “Does Kenny take the best stuff from the dump and squirrel it away in his backyard? Of course he does!” Matt says. “I mean, he gets there before the place even opens up!” As Brown luck would have it, Kenny’s got a freezer in the dump that he doesn’t need.
RELATED: Channel Guide Magazine‘s AWESOME And EXXXXTREME Alaskan Bush People Archive
And now it’s time to make your skin crawl, as Asa, Our Dear Narrator, says that “Noah takes some time to advance Browntown in a different way.” Jeez, they’re not going to show us THAT, are they? “I feel a lot stronger for Noah than I probably should at this stage in our relationship,” says Rhain, who plays the part of Noah’s woman with sickeningly feigned gusto. They take a little canoe trip and set out a blanket on the shore, where Noah breaks out the orange cream soda and the cookies. To Noah, this counts as third base.
Bear is busy punching and collecting ice for the new freezer, while Birdy and Gabe are milking Sabrina and sitting in feces.
“I was wondering what was warm back there,” Gabe says. Well, that’s OK. I didn’t have much of an appetite today, anyway.
“Sabrina, the family’s most important achievement of the winter, has slowed milk production and the family is concerned for her health,” says Asa, Our Dear Narrator. Of course, had they bothered to read this newspaper article that says “her milk was drying up,” they might have known that, you know, her milk was drying up. “This isn’t just one cow. It represents the independence of Browntown,” exaggerates Billy. Perhaps Billy can barter the cow for some magic beans. “This cow, it’s a necessity if we’re gonna grow, if we’re gonna continue to live the dream,” continues Billy with his craziness. I haven’t seen anyone with so much riding on a cow since Edward G. Robinson in The Ten Commandments.
Let’s check in on Matt and Gabe, who have cut about 2,000 feet of shoddy-looking lumber, not even halfway to the 5,000 feet that they need to fill their end of the barter. Matt’s saw is literally a piece of garbage, and I’m wondering how the Barter Fairies are going to bail the Browns out this time. They also have a gas problem, in that the sawmill is rapidly chugging down the fuel. Matt went to the dump in Hoonah. Noah shuttled Rhain back and forth from Hoonah. Billy bought sacks of concrete in Hoonah. And NO ONE THOUGHT OF BUYING GAS in Hoonah? Brownton Abbey deserves to swallowed up by a giant hellmouth.
Noah’s hard at work on an incredibly stupid, ineffective project. He’s making an electric fence using PVC pipe, chicken wire and an old battery. (Read this nice how-to on electrified bear fencing at your leisure.) Noah gets Bear to be his guinea pig, and Bear touches the fence twice, getting a nice shock. “The first one stopped my heart and the second one started it back up!” Bear says. The fence may have enough juice to zap Bear, but I’m not sure that it’s going to have much effect on a large bear. I hope the bear shows its contempt by peeing on the electrified fence.
The Browns are concerned about their sacred cow, so Billy gets a veterinarian, Dr. Sabrieta Holland of Knik River Veterinary Services from Palmer, which is way the hell over near Anchorage. (They failed to blur out all of the identification on Dr. Holland’s clothes in every shot.) Palmer is 531 miles away from Hoonah as the crow flies and would take almost 23 hours to drive/ferry there. Palmer is an insanely long way to go for a veterinarian is what I’m getting at. Dr. Holland says the first thing they need to give Sabrina a pregnancy test. “Texans know how cows get checked for pregnancy,” Billy laughs, as we have to watch Dr. Holland go shoulder-deep into Sabrina to determine that she’s not pregnant. Sabrina’s an older cow, and if she doesn’t have a calf every now and then, she won’t give milk. Dr. Holland suggests that they set Sabrina up on a date with a bull on the next island and see what happens. So the Browns arrange for Sabrina to go 15 miles away “to spend 20 days with the local bull.” Now, I’m wondering if it doesn’t make more sense to have Sabrina artificially inseminated. So here I am Googling stuff about bull semen and Google is suggesting I search for “bull semen in energy drinks” and this research is going lots of places I don’t want it to.
In the all-important interstitial segment, we find Rainy, Birdy and Ami making jerky, and trying to remember the ingredients for Teriyaki seasoning. Rain dumps a ton of mesquite powder into a bowl, resulting in lots of high-pitched sneezing from Birdy. And there you have that.
Desperate for fuel to keep Matt’s scrapyard sawmill running, Billy sends Bear to the Integrity to siphon every last drop of gas out of its generator. Then Billy dispatches Imperator Furiosa to get guzzoline from Gas Town and bullets from the Bullet Farm.
Next week, the season finale!: The family’s barter “ends in disaster” as Wes is none too pleased with what Billy brings to the table.
Where’s your messiah now, Billy?
Conversation24 Comments
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Even if their \"mill\" could cut that amount of wood you also have to consider the time and man power it takes to cut down enough trees for 5000 board feet, haul it to the mill\" and prep it before it can be cut. That alone would probably take at least 4 days with the tools and man power they have. I\'m telling you the Hoonah Home Depot made a killing this episode!
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Ryan,
Thanks. This weeks report was painfully funny! The sawmill fiasco is amazing Wes\'s lumber request did not include any dimensions, he would just bush barter for 5000 board feet of fresh cut unseasoned wood for a box of unnamed wind turbine parts. Every board cut on the Bush Mill came off as a slab, yet when Wes arrived to inspect the the boards, the small stack was magically cut surfaced on four sides (S4S). 5000 bd ft equals 417 1\"x12\"x12\' S4S boards. Billy\'s bush calculator fails to provide the correct answer again. But it gets better: let\'s pour a wind turbine (of unknown quality) footing! Back to the bush calculator.
The frame dimensions are 4\'x4\'x8\". This requires 8 cu ft of concrete (at least they placed rebar in the frame). Now a 60 lb of Quickrete is .45 cu ft. Their four bags will create a pad that is 4\'x4\'x1\" thick - OOPSIE! Thankfully, the ParkSlop construction company and building came to the rescue with the additional 7 cu ft of mixed concrete. But it gets better: The bush Einstein\'s forgot to place any type of bolts or anchors to mount their un-repairable wind turbine. I can hardly wait for the last episode of the season - and hopefully the season.
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I noticed that, too! I mean, if you\'re going to cement something into place, isn\'t it customary to put that thing into the cement BEFORE it cures? I wonder if this was a paid product placement for Quikrete. Also, your knowledge of lumber is impressive.
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There was rebar in there? I was looking, but didn\'t spot any.
I guess the tripod is just going to sit on top of the pads, with no physical connection :-)
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If you look at the pile beside their \"mill\" you see a few of their slabs on top but the rest of the the boards underneath look like they came straight from the Hoonah Home Depot. No way their contraption could make close to what they claim. As far as the concrete I was thinking the same thing. I use a whole 60lb bag in an 2ft deep hole for setting a 4\"x4\" post for a privacy fence. A 60lb bag doesn\'t go that far if the job is done right!
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Ryan....I think you\'re spot-on in your opening comment. What little \"reality\" the producers scripted in earlier episodes has morphed into a Three Stooges type of - what can we screw up next, comedy. A steering wheel door opener! As Matt said, the bears know how to claw and push but they don\'t know how use a steering wheel. Excellent Bush logic!
I think we\'ve seen the last of old Sabrina. I\'m sure they have enough extra footage to show her giving countless gallons of milk in future episodes if needed. And, as we all know, that cow is essential to the future of Browntown.
And speaking of essential things, I am amazed at the number of wind turbines in Alaska just laying around unused and available for barter. I just hope Wes is negotiable on the lumber deal and becomes more \"tickled\" as the deal progresses. I\'m sure a little Park Slope cash will seal the deal. That ol\' Billy is a lucky guy when it comes to finding good deals.
I\'m hoping for a new season of this \"laugh-in\" so we can continue to come here and make our snarky comments. I\'m sure the Browns are laughing with us all the way to the bank.
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Ryan, your recaps have me laughing out loud---that is why I want ABP to continue---because I would truly miss your commentary on this absurdity.
I will wager that Billy could have purchased (with money, that is) those turbine parts for what it cost to bring in the veterinarian,and/or any fee that might be demanded from the people who own Sabrina\'s new love interest, or all the gas it cost zooming back and forth to Hoonah, or the price of all the gold jewelery worn by the Brown ladies, or the money they make shooting this show---and the list goes on. Instead, it is Billy Barter Time wherein Billy does nothing, but expects his children to come up with the goods.
My husband is a woodworker and was highly skeptical that the Browns could come up with 5000 board feet in 4 days on that ridiculous sawmill. BTW a \"board foot is actually a measure of volume. By definition a board foot is one square foot one inch thick.\" That is a lot of wood.
This particular episode went out of its way in the gross-out factor, with Sabrina providing the star power in three ways: No. 1, No. 2, and a PG test. Thank you, Sabrina. Of course, let us not forget the deer head or the deer remains from Matt\'s failed meat shed, or the shredded salmon. Hubby and I were wondering what self-respecting bear would only eat part of a salmon???
We were also surprised to see the new wind turbine structure being reconstructed in the same place where the high tides come in. Say what? Wouldn\'t a drier place be better? Wouldn\'t a structure designed by an engineer be better?
Noah\'s electric fence. C\'mon, Noah, give us a break. Are you planning on surrounding the entire complex with a fence because all we saw was one short section. Where will you get all the materials and how much will it cost in gas to run the generator to keep the fence electrified? Do you have any idea what you are doing? (No, you don\'t). I await the season finale to see if Browntown is now secure from bears via Noah\'s fence. I shall not hold my breath. Actually.
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I spent way too much time trying to determine if the car battery Noah hooked up to the chicken wire could produce enough juice to zap a bear. It sounds like it doesn\'t take much voltage if the bear touches the fence with its nose, it will probably run off. But Noah clearly doesn\'t have enough wire or juice to encircle all of Brownton Abbey.
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The device on the tree with the flashing lights is the controller that creates the \"shock\" pulses. A battery connected without it would do nothing at all. Speaking of flashing lights, why don\'t they just use Duh Vinci\'s alarm system from a couple of seasons ago?
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Yep that\'s the charger not a battery. You can see the electric cord for it running off into Noah\'s tent. The shock only needs to be enough to temporarily make the animal uncomfortable. I run an electric wire around the bottom of my fence to keep my dogs in and it only takes one time and they won\'t go near it again. Honestly based on the size of the charger he might have enough juice to encircle Brownton Abbey. 1 joule can cover 25 miles in ideal conditions. But what I\'m saying it isn\'t ideal conditions! Chargers are expensive too. You don\'t find working versions of those lying around in the dump!
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Ryan, almost to the end and what a job you have done week after week with your hilarious recaps.
Really only one question on this last show. How were the cement pads going to be used for Browntowns lectricity thingy? I would have thought they would have been used as anchors for that turbine thingy that old Noah was puttin\' together all by hisself plus 20 head scratching Discovery staff. Problema, unless I dozed off or went to hurl cookies, is I didn\'t see any place for the turbine supports as all I saw was a smoothed over pad with no hole for the support.
Enough on Sabrina. If old Billy is from Tejas (some what of an embarrassment here, as I be from Tejas as well) and can\'t tell if a cow is preggo or why her milk is drying up, well.......
Lumber? Yeah, right.
That freezer that old Matt found with Kenny at the dump sure looked more than spotless on the inside considering it was a dump find. Guess it doesn\'t really matter since I am sure it runs on 220 and I imagine the best they can hope for from the turbine is probably gonna be around 27.5. But we shall save that for another day.
Can\'t wait for Noah and Rhain to live in sin right under Ami\'s nose. They probably upped Ami\'s salary.
Do believe that Bear is wearing Cupcake who met her death when Matt mistook her for a........take your choice.
C ya, B ya.....gonna back to the desert.
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This show is all bovine scatology. I am uncertain how these people live with themselves with the amount of fantasy that they put out weekly.
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Discovery\'s 30 day lease on Sabrina must be coming to an end. Curious to see how they \"off\" her.
I still think Bear got his fur from Joe Namath...
And why does Noah keep getting all the chicks? I mean, the dude just brings WEIRD into a whole new level of weirdness.
Ryan, we need another loser show for you to recap when ABP is in hiatus, how about \"The Curse of Oak Island\" ?? I still don\'t get that one.....men wandering around Nova Scotia digging for a treasure that obviously does not exist??
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Rhain makes no sense. Maybe she just went for the lowest-hanging fruit in Noah. Maybe the producers were like, \"Sure, you can be on the show, but you have to date Noah.\"
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Also, I had been trying to do recaps of A&E\'s \"60 Days In,\" but they weren\'t getting as many views and I couldn\'t keep up with the show. I\'ll look for something new during the ABP offseason and alert you guys.
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Also we\'ll pay you an extra 10% for you know hazardous pay!
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How about people wandering around the country looking for an animal that does not exist?
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Come on now we all know that Matt, the brainless twit, piece of crap contraption wasn\'t cutting more than a few logs- if even...this show is just stupid and I wish they would stop insulting people who actually live in the bush. Also any place that would be used to store food would be high off the ground. I commend you for these recaps because this show is hard to watch once let alone a few times to recap it!
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Thanks! I usually only watch an episode once, but it probably takes me two hours instead of one because of all the pausing/rewinding I have to do.
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Assuming that the \'mill\' can cut 2\" thick boards, and that all of the board are 12\" wide (which they did not appear to be), and the boards were 10 feet long (OK, maybe), they need to cut 500 10ft long boards for that barter order.
That\'s a stack that is 1000 inches high, or 83ft tall.
Stacked realistically (10 boards wide), that\'s a pile that is 10\' by 10\' by 4\' (roughly)
The pile of boards we saw on the preview was a LOT less than that.
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Wes is not gonna be too tickled with the amount of wood they\'ve got.
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Yup. They never gave a good view of the total amount cut, but it looked to be maybe 50 boards?
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Use em, abuse em, poke fun at em, and get rich off em. Oh yeah reality shows are so like real Hollywood. Yep, that\'s how we do it, after all its entertainment.
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Are you related?
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