Speaker 1: Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
Speaker 1: from coon hunting to trotlining and just in general country living.
Speaker 1: I want you to stay a while as I share
Speaker 1: my experiences in life lessons. This Country Life is presented
Speaker 1: by Case Knives from the Store More Studio on Meat
Speaker 1: Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast that
Speaker 1: airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair
Speaker 1: or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share.
Speaker 1: The project. Every successful project usually starts with a good plan.
Speaker 1: It kind of goes hand in hand and you think
Speaker 1: it'd become a knowledge, and it probably is the most folks.
Speaker 1: But me and my brother Tim, we ain't most folks,
Speaker 1: and our kind of knowledge, well, it ain't too common.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you how I finally got around to
Speaker 1: making a plan, But this first story will illustrate why.
Speaker 1: The definition of project is an individual or collaborative enterprise
Speaker 1: that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim. I've
Speaker 1: been involved in a lot of projects over the years.
Speaker 1: Some would closely fit that definition I just recited, Some
Speaker 1: wouldn't even come close. Some are borderline unsafe, and I
Speaker 1: doubt I'd have much trouble convincing you to believe that
Speaker 1: a handful were downright psychotic looking back, and fords me
Speaker 1: a clear view of the results of ill conceived calamity,
Speaker 1: regardless of the initial intentions. What it doesn't do is
Speaker 1: explain the thought process that would have allowed a reasonable
Speaker 1: like yours truly to arrive at the conclusion that whatever
Speaker 1: this ridiculous idea my brother Tim would come up with,
Speaker 1: they could convince me to join forces on yet another
Speaker 1: of his inept collaborations. Oh yeah, now I remember. Here's
Speaker 1: how he'd tricked me into helping him with one of
Speaker 1: his crazy projects. Hey, Brent, what want to help me
Speaker 1: with a project? Yep, I want to know what it is.
Speaker 1: Don't care, Let's go. It might be dangerous, expensive, and
Speaker 1: highly probable illegal in some states. Okay, we'll take my truck.
Speaker 1: It has new tires. He would fall just as easily
Speaker 1: to any of my ill fated ideas for wealth, famed
Speaker 1: fund and adventure. And afterwards, when the smoke cleared and
Speaker 1: the bandages had been applied, either literally or figuratively, we'd
Speaker 1: reassess what had happened in and just our future endeavors accordingly.
Speaker 1: Now that's just part of the process for starting a project,
Speaker 1: at least that's how we did it back in the day.
Speaker 1: Doubling the size of our duck camp was a prime
Speaker 1: example of a project that was an unforeseen struggle that
Speaker 1: absolutely no one saw coming, but one person hinted at it,
Speaker 1: and that person was our banker. We were in year
Speaker 1: three or four of guiding duck hunters from all over
Speaker 1: the country, and we hunted public land and private land.
Speaker 1: It just depended on where the ducks were. We hadn't
Speaker 1: advertised at all. The Internet was new, and my first
Speaker 1: experience for the hunting form was weird. I can't tell
Speaker 1: you what form it was because I don't remember. I
Speaker 1: was only there for about twenty four hours before I
Speaker 1: got banned. This website was all about hunting everything from
Speaker 1: squirrels to giraffes. There was a form for everyone. Him
Speaker 1: had seen it while at work, and since the only
Speaker 1: online computers we had access to were at his work,
Speaker 1: he showed it to me one evening when I stopped
Speaker 1: by while on patrol. I dialed it up. That's right,
Speaker 1: dialed it up, and in a matter of minutes, I
Speaker 1: was connected to the interwebs and scrolling through the myriad
Speaker 1: of topics being discussed by my fellow field sports enthusiasts
Speaker 1: from all over the globe. This was going to be fun.
Speaker 1: I moved the cursor along until I found the duck
Speaker 1: hunting part. I clicked in there, and a seemingly endless
Speaker 1: list of topics ready to duck hunting appeared. Holy Moses,
Speaker 1: I could spend the rest of my shift right here
Speaker 1: talking to all these wonderful people who like duck hunting
Speaker 1: just like me and Tim, instead of fighting crime. I
Speaker 1: asked him how to write something on there, and he
Speaker 1: explained how to register to get access to a post
Speaker 1: or a topic, or replied to one that was already there.
Speaker 1: It seemed silly to a lot. I'm sure that there
Speaker 1: was a time when we didn't all automatically know how
Speaker 1: to do that. It's also something unusual seeing Tim was
Speaker 1: ever in a position to give anyone advice on how
Speaker 1: the Internet works. Anyway, after he showed me what to
Speaker 1: do and I created and registered my Aol email account,
Speaker 1: I got on there, and in two or three topics
Speaker 1: where folks were asking about places to hunt ducks, I
Speaker 1: took it upon myself to post something akin to my
Speaker 1: brother and I guide for ducks and flooded Timber in
Speaker 1: Arkansas message for details. The registration information for the hunting
Speaker 1: site advised against publishing your phone number at any time,
Speaker 1: so I didn't art, but I wanted to. But people
Speaker 1: could send you messages through the forum. Wow, this is cool.
Speaker 1: I went back to the radio room to tell Tim
Speaker 1: that I figured the clients would start rolling in after
Speaker 1: I'd made those posts, and he agreed. I told him
Speaker 1: i'd come back later that night and check it, or
Speaker 1: if I had a bunch of reports while on patrol
Speaker 1: that I just checked the next day. When I started
Speaker 1: my shift the next evening, I swung by the headquarters
Speaker 1: and went to the Spare office to dial up the
Speaker 1: rest of the world on the Hunting Forum website. As
Speaker 1: soon as I logged in, I had one message in
Speaker 1: my inbox and nearly a hundred responses to what I'd said. Oh,
Speaker 1: this internet thing is gonna make us rich. I checked
Speaker 1: the responses to the topics I'd posted, and all I
Speaker 1: saw was little pictures of cans of spam, one after
Speaker 1: the other, spam, spam and more spam, some with cuss words,
Speaker 1: others with acronyms and abbreviations. For cuss words and phrases
Speaker 1: i'd never heard of. I know what spam was, but lol,
Speaker 1: rofl and others I won't mention were all new to me.
Speaker 1: But it must mean something good, because spam is good,
Speaker 1: alas it did not. The message from the admin infored
Speaker 1: me that I had been banned for two weeks for spam.
Speaker 1: I walked in the radio room where Tim was and asked, Hey,
Speaker 1: what spam? And he said, no, one knows for sure,
Speaker 1: but I wish I had some frid right now. Why?
Speaker 1: And I told him about what happened. He accused me
Speaker 1: of talking ugly on the forum. I said, I didn't
Speaker 1: say nothing ugly, and I didn't say anything about spam.
Speaker 1: I would learn that what they were referring to was
Speaker 1: advertising for free and that wasn't allowed. I didn't realize
Speaker 1: what I was doing, but I was just as incensed
Speaker 1: that anyone would defile the good name of spam as
Speaker 1: being anything but wonderful. How do I know spam is
Speaker 1: like manner from heaven? Because my city mouse wife, who'd
Speaker 1: starved slapped to death before she knowingly had a squirrel.
Speaker 1: Now I noticed, I said, knowingly, we'll wreck a plate
Speaker 1: of fried spam as quick as I will. So not
Speaker 1: only did I learn what spam means on the interwhells,
Speaker 1: I also got a crash course on cyber bullying and
Speaker 1: keyboard warriors. Why are all these folks so angry that
Speaker 1: was over thirty years ago. Well, guess what, they're still mad,
Speaker 1: and they've recruited help. Anyway, our business didn't need any advertising.
Speaker 1: Word of mouth was getting us booked beyond anything we'd
Speaker 1: ever imagine. We needed to enlarge our camp, our project.
Speaker 1: We decided to double it. We went to the bank
Speaker 1: and sat down with our banker, mister Freddie Mobley, the
Speaker 1: husband of my sixth grade teacher, Mary Anne Mobley, who
Speaker 1: I've talked about on here before. Anyway, we told him
Speaker 1: what we wanted to do, and he looked at us
Speaker 1: and said, well, y'all have been doing pretty good. I
Speaker 1: hear he did some clicking on his keyboard and looking
Speaker 1: at his monitor. I see you've been making you payments
Speaker 1: in advance. That's good. You have a lot of folks
Speaker 1: book this coming year, Yes, sir, what about the year after? Well,
Speaker 1: people usually coming at the same time every year, and
Speaker 1: we're growing fast. That's why we borrowed the money from
Speaker 1: you to buy the camp in the first place. We
Speaker 1: couldn't hold them all in that place we were renting,
Speaker 1: and now we're running out of room in the place
Speaker 1: we bought. He slightly nodded his head in approval. He
Speaker 1: got quiet for a moment, and we could tell he
Speaker 1: was thinking years in advance of the next duck season.
Speaker 1: And even though he was a duck hunter himself, he
Speaker 1: wasn't thinking like a duck hunter. He was thinking like
Speaker 1: a businessman. Tim and I were not. His eyes darted
Speaker 1: back and forth to me and Tim over his computer screen,
Speaker 1: and back to us. He folded his hand together and
Speaker 1: he said, what if the ducks don't come? That was
Speaker 1: a question I was not prepared for. He might as
Speaker 1: well ask me what if the world stops turning a
Speaker 1: the blink of a ny I was running a million
Speaker 1: scenarios through my head of what I thought could possibly
Speaker 1: stand in the way of mister Freddy denying our loan.
Speaker 1: The absurdity of the ducks not migrting was on the list,
Speaker 1: but it was way after meteor striking the eleventh Biblical plague.
Speaker 1: Tim and I both literally lo eled when he said that,
Speaker 1: And by then I knew what that meant. Why would
Speaker 1: the ducks not migrate? They've been doing that ever since
Speaker 1: ducks grew feathers. He didn't laugh, he just smiled, and
Speaker 1: then he said, what if people quit booking? This dude
Speaker 1: was a laugh a minute, a straight up comedian. He
Speaker 1: missed his calling by going into bakon when he should
Speaker 1: have been doing stand up. Well, we guide a lot
Speaker 1: of corporate groups and business folks, and they're the ones
Speaker 1: book in a year or more in advance. He loaned
Speaker 1: us the money and we got two years into having
Speaker 1: our duck camp doubled in size when the economy took
Speaker 1: a nosedive, and believe it or not, the migration started changing. Now.
Speaker 1: I don't care what you call it, global warming, climate change,
Speaker 1: freaking nature, years of bad hatches, loss of habitat, rest
Speaker 1: areas up north, holding all the ducks, whatever, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: What matters is the duck hunting got worse, and businesses
Speaker 1: cut back on corporate entertainment due to the economy, and
Speaker 1: some of them stopped it altogether. That was the biggest
Speaker 1: project we'd put together that required a total reassessment of
Speaker 1: how we did the admin's side out of our guiding business.
Speaker 1: That project was that big, kicking the breeches before it
Speaker 1: ever got squared away, And that was one of the
Speaker 1: many reasons that guiding a duck hunting in general started fading.
Speaker 1: And it's lure to me. I couldn't do one without
Speaker 1: the other. If we were to keep that place, we
Speaker 1: would have to work for it. There was very little
Speaker 1: room for recreational hunting. We'd have to hustle up business
Speaker 1: now before we were having to turn it away. At
Speaker 1: any time your fund gets like work, well, it ain't
Speaker 1: fun no more. We retired, we sold it, and then
Speaker 1: a few years ago I started going again a little
Speaker 1: here and there on the cash with my friends at
Speaker 1: the coon camp and own some private land. And then
Speaker 1: I went with the r into some public land last
Speaker 1: year that I used to guide on and I killed
Speaker 1: ducks both places, and I didn't have to do any
Speaker 1: racing because I didn't want to go to the places
Speaker 1: where people race. There's still some spots out there that
Speaker 1: are good that don't get of a lot of attention,
Speaker 1: and those are my favorites. But beyond anything else, I've
Speaker 1: always wanted to develop and manage a place from start
Speaker 1: to finish. A project of habitat enhanced for ducks that
Speaker 1: will benefit all the creatures on the landscape that lived there.
Speaker 1: That's the new project and an unforeseen opportunity that of
Speaker 1: all people, my daughter Bailey arranged for me to have
Speaker 1: through her love for competition dancing. Remember the episode where
Speaker 1: a lot of us went to New York City last
Speaker 1: year for the girls to see rockets and took enough
Speaker 1: kids and parents for three basketball teams. Well, among those families,
Speaker 1: as well as a few more, we've grown particularly fun
Speaker 1: and close to. And when I say family, I mean
Speaker 1: the whole family, brothers and sisters, grandparents, friends, the whole
Speaker 1: circle of them. Their friends and family have become irish
Speaker 1: and vice versa. I talk about them all the time.
Speaker 1: But the guy that used to be known as Avery's
Speaker 1: dad is now known to me as John. John and
Speaker 1: I have become friends. Our girls initiated this a dance,
Speaker 1: then we all tagged along. Now we all have a
Speaker 1: standing date every Wednesday for supper. We used to go
Speaker 1: out and eat, and we still sometimes do, but mostly
Speaker 1: we take turns cooking for each other. It has become
Speaker 1: one of the favorite parts of my week, a standing
Speaker 1: supper date with a family and a bunch of people
Speaker 1: who I look forward to see him at every opportunity.
Speaker 1: John likes to hunt and I like to hunt. John
Speaker 1: builds houses and has a dirt business, both of which
Speaker 1: take up a lot of his He told me I
Speaker 1: could have the run of his properties. In the last spring,
Speaker 1: I walked onto a piece of bottom land property that's
Speaker 1: as pretty a patch of woods as there is. There
Speaker 1: was a little turkey sign here and there, but not much,
Speaker 1: but I was thrilled to see enough squirrels there to
Speaker 1: wear out a tree dog. There was water standing from
Speaker 1: recent range. As I waited along with the ankle deep
Speaker 1: water and swatted mosquitoes, and I saw how it looked
Speaker 1: like the flooded timber that Arkansas is famous for, you know,
Speaker 1: the duck hunting kind. Well, months passed it. As John
Speaker 1: and I got more acquainted, I learned that he liked
Speaker 1: the duck hunt and sold his oldest son, Ethan. Ethan
Speaker 1: works in the family business with his dad, and they
Speaker 1: have a lot of equipment, excavators and dump trucks, skid steers,
Speaker 1: and bulldozers to do the jobs that they do. One night,
Speaker 1: we were all eating supper at John's house and he
Speaker 1: started telling me about a piece of property where he
Speaker 1: used to duck hunt several years ago. It was the
Speaker 1: property that I'd waited on back in this spring looking
Speaker 1: for turkeys. I told him where I waited to that day,
Speaker 1: and he mentioned that where I had turned around to
Speaker 1: walk back out of the water was close to where
Speaker 1: he used to hunt ducks. I wasn't discounting John's duck
Speaker 1: hunting a buildy or knowledge, but duck hunting in any
Speaker 1: area that I've never been to, or much less even
Speaker 1: heard of in Arkansas always makes me wonder how good
Speaker 1: could it really be? What are they comparing it a
Speaker 1: quality to not hunting at all? Well, I didn't know,
Speaker 1: and I didn't judge either. One man's trash being another
Speaker 1: man's treasure is never more true than when talking about
Speaker 1: duck hunting. There were times in my youth when I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have walked across the road for anything less than
Speaker 1: the limit of green heads in the timber, never thinking
Speaker 1: about the folks who felt fortunate just to see a
Speaker 1: wood duck buzz through at daylight. He kept telling me
Speaker 1: about this property having ducks on it, and how he
Speaker 1: and the fellow he got it from used to duck
Speaker 1: cut it, and I asked him finally, Mallards. Yeah in
Speaker 1: that timber, Yeah, over there where I waited water in
Speaker 1: that flat last spring. Yeah. And I've always wanted to
Speaker 1: develop that into something good for ducks and wildlife. I
Speaker 1: have the equipment and the desire to make it something special.
Speaker 1: I just need someone with the knowledge of the animals
Speaker 1: and the trees. Would you be interested in helping me?
Speaker 1: I had to fight the urge to do a backflip.
Speaker 1: Not that I can or could ever do one. I
Speaker 1: just had to fight the urge to try it. Yep,
Speaker 1: I sure would. And with that conversation from a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago, we began to plan. Now here's the advantage
Speaker 1: of doing anything with a house builder. They don't do
Speaker 1: anything without a set of plans. Tim and I learned
Speaker 1: that lesson the hard way when we didn't have a
Speaker 1: planned for a downturn in the commercial hunting business. Now,
Speaker 1: the best thing about making a plan with John is
Speaker 1: that the equipment was already there. There was no overwhelming
Speaker 1: initial investment for a kabillion dollars and stuff to work with,
Speaker 1: most of it was sitting on that property. There would
Speaker 1: be nothing to invest other than sweat equity, and what
Speaker 1: brain power I could muster to start a planning Before
Speaker 1: we ever moved a teaspoonful of dirt. We walked the
Speaker 1: land from corner to corner and studied the topography and
Speaker 1: John's extensive knowledge of the land's history, how rainwater moved
Speaker 1: naturally along the flooding that they had taken advantage of
Speaker 1: in the past. We researched the permits, the rules and
Speaker 1: regulations about flood control, pumping, water levees, and everything that
Speaker 1: a builder would have to research before starting construction on
Speaker 1: any piece of ground for any kind of building. Now,
Speaker 1: wouldn't you know it already holds every license required. How fortunate.
Speaker 1: Several trips to those woods, long conversations on the phone,
Speaker 1: and it supper had us last Saturday, starting early, clearing
Speaker 1: the whole of infear and non acorn producing trees. Hackberry, ironwood,
Speaker 1: and sweet gum were removed and stacked and set ablaze,
Speaker 1: along with a massive red oak that had fallen due
Speaker 1: to a windstorm a couple of years ago. It's what
Speaker 1: led us to survey that spot, which is close to
Speaker 1: the center of the property and not far from where
Speaker 1: they eight hundred years ago. That big red oak hit
Speaker 1: Mother Earth. The loss of that canopy opened up a
Speaker 1: hole in that timber that was right for just a
Speaker 1: little tlc. It's a natural opening that would attract ducks,
Speaker 1: and there were native grasses growing in that open that
Speaker 1: had flooded. The ducks would have surely found. By opening
Speaker 1: that canopy even more, we were going to let in
Speaker 1: more sunlight. Now. Initially you think, ah, the ducks will
Speaker 1: have more room to fly in and land, which which
Speaker 1: is true. But that's only part of the reason. Sunlight
Speaker 1: on the floor is going to help tremendously with what
Speaker 1: we're planning next year. You get the grocers on the
Speaker 1: ground that they like to eat, and the size of
Speaker 1: the opening won't keep them out. Ducks will start dropping
Speaker 1: in a coggleline, wearing safety goggles and tolding the hatchet
Speaker 1: if they have to. I still hadn't been completely sold
Speaker 1: on the mallards in that area. I never doubted John's word,
Speaker 1: but still, this ain't the River bottoms where I grew up,
Speaker 1: or the Mississippi River Delta, you know what, They ain't
Speaker 1: far away. So I sat on my computer a couple
Speaker 1: of nights before we were set to start clearing out
Speaker 1: that hole, looking it all X and getting the lay
Speaker 1: of the lad with the photography and how the water flows,
Speaker 1: and what creeks slews or bios that would be close
Speaker 1: enough to be our co conspirators, and the flooding. John
Speaker 1: talked about shooting ducks in years ago and that I
Speaker 1: witnessed the spring. That's when I saw it. I'd been
Speaker 1: living here for over a decade oblivious to some key features,
Speaker 1: and that it wasn't like I didn't know where they were.
Speaker 1: I just I just hadn't paid any attention to them.
Speaker 1: As far as waterfowl go. I have places to do
Speaker 1: that that I've been going to forever, way before I
Speaker 1: ever moved here, and those are the places that I
Speaker 1: go because I didn't need anything else. Then, after looking
Speaker 1: at the satellite view of the natural land features, the creeks,
Speaker 1: the rivers, and the boos, and the government waterfowl rest
Speaker 1: areas and the thousands of acres of rice, soybeans and
Speaker 1: corn that surround that spot, it became abundantly clear that
Speaker 1: John knows exactly what he's talking about. I'll tell this
Speaker 1: a little funny on the both of us as to
Speaker 1: how excited and dedicated we are to be working together
Speaker 1: on this project, but John running the heavy equipment, Ethan
Speaker 1: and I were in charge of running the chains all
Speaker 1: getting the fire started on the brush he was piling
Speaker 1: up in the middle of that hole. The morning turned
Speaker 1: into afternoon, and afternoon turned into night. We continued on
Speaker 1: through the night, watching the fire as it slowly ate
Speaker 1: away the brush, limbs and logs we piled on top
Speaker 1: of each other. Ethan took off around one thirty the
Speaker 1: next morning. I'd gotten up the day before at four thirty,
Speaker 1: and not on purpose, just by sheer excitement and enthusiasm
Speaker 1: to get started. I couldn't wait to get in there.
Speaker 1: Twenty hours in and I was starting to feel the
Speaker 1: drain on my batteries. At three am. We'd been sitting
Speaker 1: in silence for quite some time, staring at the flames,
Speaker 1: a glance occasionally at John and looked just as tired
Speaker 1: as me, but never mentioned or made a move. The
Speaker 1: call of the day and go home. The fire couldn't
Speaker 1: get out. There was nothing for it to burn and
Speaker 1: nowhere for it to go. We've seen to that well
Speaker 1: before we struck the first match. I wanted to go home,
Speaker 1: rest awhile shower come back, but John he didn't budge
Speaker 1: if he stayed. I'm staying. It's a privilege for me
Speaker 1: to be there. There's no way I disrespect him or
Speaker 1: what we're doing here by suggesting we go home. We
Speaker 1: were leaving Bee when John said we want three thirty three,
Speaker 1: forty five finally four a m I was gassed, still excited,
Speaker 1: but plumb wore out. John been a long time since
Speaker 1: four thirty yesterday morning. Yep. A few minutes went by
Speaker 1: and I got the gumption to ask him, how long
Speaker 1: do you want to stay? John looked at me quickly
Speaker 1: and said, oh, I'm here for you. Love it, madity.
Speaker 1: We could have been home hours ago, but neither of
Speaker 1: us wanted to be the first to holler cafro. I
Speaker 1: was as wolved as a rended mew. And we saddled
Speaker 1: up and we went to the house seven hours later.
Speaker 1: Who are right back at that project. It's gonna be fun,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna get funer. And I hope y'all enjoy
Speaker 1: the reports from this endeavor that I'm going to bring
Speaker 1: you throughout the years we worked through the different stages
Speaker 1: of preparation and anticipation of next season. Thank y'all so
Speaker 1: much for listening, and if you really want to help
Speaker 1: meet Clay at Old Lake, just consider writing her. If
Speaker 1: you were better, still sharing our shows with others you
Speaker 1: think might enjoy. Until next week, this is Brent Reeves
Speaker 1: signing off. Y'all be careful.