Speaker 1: My name is Clay nukelemb and.
Speaker 2: This is a production of the bear Grease podcast called
Speaker 2: The Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper,
Speaker 2: and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast,
Speaker 2: presented by f HF Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting
Speaker 2: and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as
Speaker 2: the place as we explore.
Speaker 3: Well, here we are, ye, welcome to the bear Grease Render.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, Clay Nukeomb No, actually Clay is gone
Speaker 3: and so we have done a hostile takeover of the
Speaker 3: bear Grease. Actually, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the trout
Speaker 3: Grease Render. This episode will be all about fly fishing,
Speaker 3: so buckle in, get ready to enjoy yourselves. It'll be
Speaker 3: like being on a boat ride. It's gonna be awesome.
Speaker 4: Did y'all notice that at the end he said look
Speaker 4: forward to being on the render with everybody.
Speaker 1: Next week he said that false advertising.
Speaker 3: Yeah advertising, great, gonna be a lawsuit. Yeah, thanks for
Speaker 3: bringing up. Well, let me just introduce. I'm going to
Speaker 3: go from my right to the left here because we
Speaker 3: got a new a first time or here we have
Speaker 3: doctor mister Nukelem Welcome.
Speaker 5: So good to be here, so good to be here.
Speaker 3: This isn't your first time?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 6: Great?
Speaker 3: We have doctor Baron neukelemb yep here doctor. We have
Speaker 3: mister Brent Reeves. Mister this country life Brent Reeves.
Speaker 6: That could be nurse, call me nurse.
Speaker 5: How Bear earned the doctorate? We'll just go with it.
Speaker 3: And last, but not least, we have miss River Newcomb.
Speaker 3: We are outnumbered by Newcombs today everywhere.
Speaker 5: And you really you missed an important.
Speaker 3: Oh that's right down on the floor here we got.
Speaker 3: I am. I am hoping that. Uh today we're going
Speaker 3: to have a little bit of sibling rivalry on the podcast,
Speaker 3: a little like straightening out, like when Bear tells the
Speaker 3: story River will be here.
Speaker 5: Correct, that's not yeah, that's everyone. That's everyone's favorite thing
Speaker 5: to listen to. It's your details. Actually it's not. I
Speaker 5: was actually thinking, will they fight because these two I
Speaker 5: don't really. So there's four new kids.
Speaker 3: These are the two middle ones.
Speaker 5: These are these are middle children.
Speaker 7: Middle and best?
Speaker 8: Wait a minute, is it go ahead? Was that for
Speaker 8: both of you? Middle and best? Or is one of the.
Speaker 3: If you guys ever noticed that that when Clay talks
Speaker 3: about the birth order of his kids. He always says,
Speaker 3: my middle daughter, River. Have you noticed that, not my
Speaker 3: youngest daughter, River. I always wondered about that.
Speaker 5: Because I'm the middle but maybe a counseling session younger.
Speaker 3: Daughter and an older son and a younger son. But
Speaker 3: he always says my middle daughter.
Speaker 5: I've never noticed that either. It would be weird to
Speaker 5: call River young. It's kind of interesting because we had
Speaker 5: two girls and two boys and four kids in five
Speaker 5: and a half years. That was the like Willow was
Speaker 5: five and a half years old when Champ was born.
Speaker 5: So it's not like any of them are massively spaced apart,
Speaker 5: but Willow and River were just really close together. And
Speaker 5: our life, like we moved here where we live now,
Speaker 5: the Newcombe Farm when the girls were babies, and I
Speaker 5: was I was pregnant with bear when we bought this
Speaker 5: piece of land, and and and so there's kind of
Speaker 5: like in the Newcombe family, there's this first five years
Speaker 5: and the girls were apart of both of them, you know,
Speaker 5: about three of those years. And so there's kind of
Speaker 5: like the first era, you know, the prequel to the
Speaker 5: Newcomb Farm, and the girls were part of that. And
Speaker 5: then there was when we all moved out here and
Speaker 5: the boys. The boys came after. And so even though
Speaker 5: they're super close together, it is kind of like River
Speaker 5: and Willow are the oldest kids.
Speaker 3: They're they're collectively the oldest kids. Yeah. Well, the one
Speaker 3: Newcomb who is absent today is mister Clay Newcomb. He
Speaker 3: is currently in.
Speaker 5: Alaska, rained in currently.
Speaker 3: Yeah, unfortunately, Yeah, he hadn't heard today.
Speaker 4: He said yesterday that it was clear and they were
Speaker 4: they stalked one.
Speaker 3: But he's hunting a mountain goat.
Speaker 4: Yep, And yeah, he said he they put a stalk
Speaker 4: on one but didn't get it. He said it's going
Speaker 4: to be really tough. But he said that pretty much
Speaker 4: like with the goat costume that he So.
Speaker 5: I think we need to visit this. Yeah, soture.
Speaker 8: This was in we just got I just got home
Speaker 8: from from Bozeman. We had some meetings up there, and
Speaker 8: Clay went to Alaska from Bozeman.
Speaker 6: Well, they we roomed together, and.
Speaker 3: The morning before he pulled this out.
Speaker 8: He walked around the corner of me and Tony Petershom
Speaker 8: was sitting in there talking, we're facing to go eat supper,
Speaker 8: and he walked around the corner and had this on
Speaker 8: his head.
Speaker 3: So about three weeks ago, Clay said, Clay sent me
Speaker 3: a picture of mountain goat and he said, he said,
Speaker 3: I want you to make me a mountain goat hat.
Speaker 3: I was like, what He's like, I want you to
Speaker 3: make me a mountain goat hat. And so I made
Speaker 3: the mountain goat hat. So it's a white beanie with
Speaker 3: horns and mountain goat ears.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I don't know how you did the sun but.
Speaker 3: And leafy suit and leaf leafy suit and painted at
Speaker 3: white so plain lukem is out wandering the mountains of
Speaker 3: Alaska dressed up in a mountain goat costume. I want
Speaker 3: to call it a costume.
Speaker 6: Anecdotal to the anecdotal to the hat.
Speaker 8: He pulled the white leafy suit out, freshly spray painted
Speaker 8: smell to it. Oh yeah, yeah, Tony and I were
Speaker 8: like sitting in the corner are out behind Walmart, huffing
Speaker 8: paint to a sock. Is what it smelled like. And
Speaker 8: I'm like, when when did you paint that? And it
Speaker 8: was like minutes before he packed. It was like on
Speaker 8: the way on the plane, on the way up right,
Speaker 8: and you've known you've been going to Alaska for how
Speaker 8: many months? But I didn't say that because it wasn't
Speaker 8: my first rodeo, as they say him.
Speaker 3: So he he's in Alaska right now, Yeah, taken over
Speaker 3: the render. We're really hoping he gets a go I
Speaker 3: hope he gets a goat with a hat. I hope
Speaker 3: he can fool him.
Speaker 4: Like yeah, he said, like roughly, it will work like
Speaker 4: two out of ten times a go to.
Speaker 3: Twenty percent of the time it works every time.
Speaker 1: So who knows, maybe he'll get one to think he's
Speaker 1: a goat.
Speaker 3: A goat with a bow.
Speaker 5: It's just it's just really different than what I thought
Speaker 5: my life would look like. I'm just gonna be honest,
Speaker 5: like I'm never I never, as a little kid, thought, man,
Speaker 5: I'm going to grow up and marry a man who
Speaker 5: puts on goat suits and wanders around the woods Like
Speaker 5: that never crossed my mind that that would be a
Speaker 5: part of my life.
Speaker 8: I sent that bitcher to Alexis and he's like, oh
Speaker 8: my gosh, did he lose a bent. That's voluntary.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was his idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So best of luck, Clay Newcomb. We wish you well.
Speaker 3: You want to hear a story about goats?
Speaker 6: I do.
Speaker 8: This made me think of that I was a baby,
Speaker 8: and I don't remember this part, but my grandmother told
Speaker 8: me I was allergic to cow's milk and I couldn't
Speaker 8: drink it for a while.
Speaker 3: So, you know, that's not a thing. Nobody's allergic to
Speaker 3: cow's milk. They just think they are.
Speaker 8: Anyway, my grandmother, the liar that she is, apparently, was
Speaker 8: getting a good deal on goats milk. That's what the
Speaker 8: doctor prescribed me and drink. And she said it was
Speaker 8: canned goats milk and it was the foulst stench of anything.
Speaker 8: And this is a lady who we were. I mean,
Speaker 8: we raised chickens. We had two big chicken houses. And
Speaker 8: aroma is putting it mildly. What a chicken. You have
Speaker 8: never been around a chicken house. It smells like everything
Speaker 8: the chicken laid except the egg. It's that times ten thousand.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 8: So she said I had to drink goats milk, and
Speaker 8: she said she would open it with them with a can.
Speaker 8: Thought they call the church key, you know, you poke
Speaker 8: holes in the can for she said it was.
Speaker 3: Just they call on one side.
Speaker 8: Fast forward fifty something years and a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 8: I'm down at some friends of mine down in the
Speaker 8: south end of Bradley County on the Slain River, and
Speaker 8: they are living what they call the river stead life.
Speaker 6: They're right there on the river.
Speaker 8: They're raising goats, chickens, rabbits, they're making sausage from wild
Speaker 8: hogs they killed.
Speaker 6: My buddy's a forester. He works from home.
Speaker 8: She's a educational educational consultant that contracts with different school
Speaker 8: districts and stuff. So a lot of the stuff that
Speaker 8: they do they do at home and they live there.
Speaker 8: And I think she told me they figured eighty five
Speaker 8: percent of what they consume they either want to catch
Speaker 8: it or grow it there on their place. And they
Speaker 8: have goats. My only reference to goat's milk is the
Speaker 8: stories from my grandmother. And she said, we went out
Speaker 8: fishing that morning. We caught a bunch of fish. Would
Speaker 8: come back. She said, put some brownies in. They should
Speaker 8: be read. Let's go in and have some brownies and milk.
Speaker 8: And I'm like, you had me, Let's go in and
Speaker 8: eat regardless, Let's go and we get in there. She
Speaker 8: pulls out these big plate of brownies and poors me
Speaker 8: a big cold glass of milk.
Speaker 6: And I took a bite, and I thought boy, this
Speaker 6: is gonna be good.
Speaker 8: And as I'm getting that glass to my lips, I'm
Speaker 8: thinking this came.
Speaker 6: Out of a goat.
Speaker 8: I'm sure they came out of a goat, but I
Speaker 8: can't smell it. I don't smell anything. So I took
Speaker 8: a sip and I'm like, I didn't die. I'm gonna
Speaker 8: get a bigger drink. I took a drink and it
Speaker 8: tasted like milk, and I said, lee, Is, let's go
Speaker 8: to milk. She said, oh, yeah, from this morning. It
Speaker 8: has been long enough. She gets up at like four
Speaker 8: and right milk pours it filled coffee filter, sets it
Speaker 8: an ice box or refrigerator, and man, I could not
Speaker 8: tell it didn't come from Elsie herself. It was tasted
Speaker 8: exactly like so brownies.
Speaker 3: And so when I was when I when we first
Speaker 3: moved to Arkansas with fourteen r and neighbor had a
Speaker 3: goat dairy and she I think she had like sixty goats.
Speaker 3: She'd milk every day and people would come and I
Speaker 3: remember she gave me. She gave me a gla and
Speaker 3: I didn't know what to think, like I didn't know
Speaker 3: what to expect. And I took a drink of it,
Speaker 3: and I was like, this is delicious. I loved it.
Speaker 3: I thought it was great.
Speaker 1: So does that mean the milk you were drinking you
Speaker 1: were a kid was just like it?
Speaker 6: Probably I figured come out of a hog or something.
Speaker 8: Who knows you put a label on anything. But now
Speaker 8: I had a neighbor, a neighbor who is an absolute
Speaker 8: health food nerd. He's probably one hundred and twelve years old.
Speaker 8: He looks like he's forty. Yeah, but he walks up
Speaker 8: and down the street every day. And he asked me
Speaker 8: about goat's milk. I told him the story I told
Speaker 8: y'all about when I was a kid. And he said, well,
Speaker 8: it's better than that. It's better, he said, I'm going
Speaker 8: to bring you something. He brought me a gallon of
Speaker 8: goats milk. But it was so sweet. I couldn't harder
Speaker 8: drink it. It was like drinking really simple syrup.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 8: I said, man, I can't drink it. It's just too sweet.
Speaker 8: And I you know, I like sweet teeth. I couldn't
Speaker 8: drink it. And he told me, and I told him
Speaker 8: the deal about the goat milk smelling and stuff. He said, well,
Speaker 8: it only tastes like that if you shake it up
Speaker 8: and I'm like, okay, so if.
Speaker 6: You're on a level of playing service, I've.
Speaker 3: Already called people liars, said, I'm not I'm just telling you.
Speaker 6: I'm just telling you what the man told me.
Speaker 8: But it was the sweet I told him, you can
Speaker 8: take it back, you can put it back in the goat.
Speaker 6: I don't know whatever whatever you do with it.
Speaker 8: But the milk I drank at quite a visual at
Speaker 8: Lee and Keith's house, Lee and Keith Brandon down there.
Speaker 6: It was. It tastes just like cow's milk to me.
Speaker 3: To go Lee and Keith, I got some good, healthy goats.
Speaker 5: When we first moved here, I was really nervous that
Speaker 5: we were gonna they were going to annex the house
Speaker 5: in city limits, and I was nervous they wouldn't let
Speaker 5: us keep animals. If they did that, it took years,
Speaker 5: there was no rush, but I was nervous it was
Speaker 5: gonna happen really fast. And so basically the week after
Speaker 5: we bought this land, I went on the Craigslist and
Speaker 5: bought a goat, just one single, so that we could
Speaker 5: be considered. And we got at home and we asked
Speaker 5: the girls. I don't even know how we got the
Speaker 5: goat here. But we asked the girls. The girls were
Speaker 5: two and three, and we said what should we name it?
Speaker 5: And they said, their name's Willow and River, and they
Speaker 5: said we should name it after the one boyfriend that
Speaker 5: they had, which was Josh's son, David.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 5: We had a named David.
Speaker 3: Your dog John was your son Fair.
Speaker 7: And we had the pig names after Uncle Jo.
Speaker 5: That's right. So we had a go named David. And
Speaker 5: that sucker was mean, and he hated women, and he
Speaker 5: hated children, and he hated anyone that had any visible
Speaker 5: weakness whatsoever. You would walk up, I mean he he
Speaker 5: men he was good with unless they had a limp,
Speaker 5: and he would go after him. Women he would the
Speaker 5: second I mean they he was at. He was a
Speaker 5: very mean, aggressive goat and he just smelled awful. And
Speaker 5: then we go to some fans he placed a couple
Speaker 5: of years later. David wasn't well loved. I mean, I
Speaker 5: don't know if you could tell David the goat. David
Speaker 5: the goat was not well loved, and he actually ran away.
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't know, he's like probably wandering jumped him.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 5: He just one day he was gone, and I was like, well,
Speaker 5: good ridding, and and we could never find aggressives.
Speaker 7: We had roosters and we had got captain.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of aggression, a violence.
Speaker 1: It's true.
Speaker 5: We had these turkeys that were just mean as can be,
Speaker 5: Tom and Albuquerque, and they were they were a big
Speaker 5: name Jeff and a goat named David. These are our
Speaker 5: early new Conformed days. And they got to where they,
Speaker 5: you know, they would roost out here Clay wanted. They
Speaker 5: looked wild, you know, but they were domestic turkeys. And
Speaker 5: one of them went to our neighbor house and their grandma.
Speaker 5: They were moving grandma in and she had a cast
Speaker 5: on her hand, and the mean turkey saw that and
Speaker 5: just went after and the neighbors thought they were wild turkeys,
Speaker 5: and so they killed them. And the other neighbors saw
Speaker 5: all this and ran out and said, that's Glay's turkeys.
Speaker 5: Those are pet turkeys. And so they come to our
Speaker 5: house like head in hand, Mary, ashamed of themselves turkeys,
Speaker 5: and they're like, we thought they were wild. We were pomped.
Speaker 5: I mean, I guess it was turkey season. I don't
Speaker 5: know they were we were.
Speaker 7: All pokemon cards. They were like, here, you got to
Speaker 7: pay for it.
Speaker 5: And I wasn't a huge Pokemon fan, so I was like,
Speaker 5: I just want the feathers, give me the feathers, and
Speaker 5: y'all can you know me? Well, I did want the meat,
Speaker 5: but they did attack their grandma, you know, so I
Speaker 5: felt like we were kind of But I went to
Speaker 5: a fancy restaurant a couple of years later after we
Speaker 5: had David, and they served goat cheese and everyone was
Speaker 5: talking about how great it was and I got I
Speaker 5: put some on my plate and it smelled like David.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And when I took a bite of it, it tasted
Speaker 5: like David smelled. And I was like, I am not
Speaker 5: interested in this business at all.
Speaker 8: She made some cheese down there, it was had no
Speaker 8: odor to it. I mean, these folks are I mean,
Speaker 8: they're not doing this stuff. They're giving lessons on the internet,
Speaker 8: they're not taking them off of there. They but I
Speaker 8: ate cheese. See had jalapeno goat.
Speaker 5: Cheese and it didn't taste like David smell.
Speaker 6: No, And I never smelled David, but it didn't smell.
Speaker 5: Like you smelled David. I mean it's it's it's a
Speaker 5: pretty standard smell, but.
Speaker 6: No, it really wasn't.
Speaker 8: I mean, I don't know what she's doing down there,
Speaker 8: but I mean it was the only thing between me
Speaker 8: and the goat was a coffee fielder and ice box.
Speaker 6: Or otherwise it was.
Speaker 8: You could have said I got it out of the goat, right,
Speaker 8: but that was it.
Speaker 5: I've never I've never eaten meltain goat, but I am
Speaker 5: a little bit nervous that it's gonna taste like David.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I'm hoping you get the opportunity. Yeah, Bear,
Speaker 3: show us your latest project.
Speaker 4: Okay, So I made the bow. That's what I showed
Speaker 4: the last couple of weeks. This week, I've got the arrow.
Speaker 4: So this is a river cane arrow that I cut down.
Speaker 3: That shaft looks good, very much.
Speaker 4: So I cut down probably forty shafts, and only about
Speaker 4: twelve of them work after drying them, and so this
Speaker 4: one was pretty dry. Well, whenever you put them out
Speaker 4: in the sun to dry, at least the ones I
Speaker 4: cut down.
Speaker 1: If they're too small or if they're I really don't know.
Speaker 4: Exactly what the issue is, but they'll shrivel up and
Speaker 4: then you bend them and some of them will just
Speaker 4: break and then some of them will bend and pretty
Speaker 4: much they're pretty straight right off the bat, but you
Speaker 4: have to like really micro straighten them or else still
Speaker 4: fly weird.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this one point?
Speaker 3: Did you make that stuff point?
Speaker 1: That's a stone point?
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 4: These are turkey feathers from the bushwhack turkey that I
Speaker 4: killed this year. But yeah, this is the second one
Speaker 4: I made, so it's not quite hunting worthy, Like there's
Speaker 4: some imperfections in the the fletchings, but arrows are tough
Speaker 4: beat not yet. I made it like last night. I've
Speaker 4: got some helix in that on the feathers there helix.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, helical. Yeah, there's because you have to use
Speaker 4: all the feathers from the same wing because the feathers
Speaker 4: kind of curve and have like a natural helical to them.
Speaker 1: But have you learn that YouTube?
Speaker 6: He's a doctor.
Speaker 3: Now, Yeah, it's fantastic. What's what where'd you get the sinew?
Speaker 1: No sinew in this one?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 4: Actually you're like this this is a what I don't
Speaker 4: know what size it is, but this is a thread
Speaker 4: I type flies with. I gave this arrow a whip finish. Yeah,
Speaker 4: very nice, but yeah it's not I don't have any
Speaker 4: real sinew on there.
Speaker 3: But what's holding the stump point on.
Speaker 4: That is pine pitch and charcoal. Charcoal kind of hardens
Speaker 4: it in the pine pitch is kind of just like
Speaker 4: natural glue. But yeah, I've been using on the other
Speaker 4: one I made, I used squirrel and testings that dried
Speaker 4: out and it was actually pretty strong, and use that
Speaker 4: as kind of the cordage. This one I just used.
Speaker 4: I didn't have any left.
Speaker 3: So you're you're gearing up for deer season.
Speaker 1: Yeah, deer and bear season. Some hunting a bear this year.
Speaker 4: With the self bow and a stone point and probably
Speaker 4: either a river cane or bamboo arrow. But these are
Speaker 4: some of the points that I've made that I'm gonna
Speaker 4: probably end up shooting them with. I'm gonna get the
Speaker 4: arrows figured out a little better before I use these.
Speaker 4: But there's so this one's a Clovis, which is what
Speaker 4: they would have used.
Speaker 1: Yeahs site is what that stone is called.
Speaker 3: But just is this a local stone or is this
Speaker 3: a stone you got?
Speaker 1: That's a stone I bought.
Speaker 4: I don't really know where to get it, but that
Speaker 4: style of point is what they would have used to
Speaker 4: kill wooly mammoths. Clovis, And so I might want to
Speaker 4: kill a bear, or I might use this one. I
Speaker 4: don't really know what style that is.
Speaker 3: But that's a good looking stone point bear.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that one is probably more effective than that one
Speaker 4: the Clovis, but.
Speaker 1: It would be cooler to kill one with the Clovis.
Speaker 6: This looks like the ones you see out west.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, sharp, it is sharp.
Speaker 3: How long does it take you to make.
Speaker 6: One of those?
Speaker 4: Probably thirty minutes. Well that's not bad, yeah, but to
Speaker 4: make like.
Speaker 1: This arrow takes like three and a half hours.
Speaker 3: So how many arrows are you gonna have made for
Speaker 3: hunting season?
Speaker 4: As many as I can, but I need at least
Speaker 4: probably five five.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it look like David when he gathered stones.
Speaker 6: What's your yah? Yeah, roc, what's your max range? Uh?
Speaker 4: With carbon arrows? Like fifteen yards right now? I'd like
Speaker 4: to work out to twenty. But just so that shooting
Speaker 4: fifteen yards is easier because with the self bow, everything's way.
Speaker 1: Slower than a compound, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4: And you gotta have heavier arrows because it isn't as
Speaker 4: powerful and you need more penetration. And so like you
Speaker 4: shoot a deer at twenty yards, it's like like the
Speaker 4: one that bounced off. It's like forty yards away by
Speaker 4: the time the arrow gets there. But or yeah, bounces off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well that's awesome. That looks great. Hey, I was
Speaker 3: I was reading about hunting this week and I was
Speaker 3: on the Boon and Crockett website. Yeah, I got a
Speaker 3: little trivia for you guys. Top three states for white tail?
Speaker 3: Who has the most boone and Crockett record deer? Top
Speaker 3: three states? Kansas, bear says, Kansas, Jesas, Kansas, Texas.
Speaker 1: Non Iowa, Iowa?
Speaker 6: Yeah, Iowa.
Speaker 3: I bet that's number one, Iowa. You think Iowa was
Speaker 3: number one?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Any others? Just three? Okay?
Speaker 3: So I just want to say that that Isaac Neil,
Speaker 3: when I asked him this question, he named all three.
Speaker 6: Yeah, doctor Neil.
Speaker 3: So number three is Iowa. Iowa has over eleven one
Speaker 3: hundred boone crocket deer. Number two, anybody want to change
Speaker 3: your guests? Hmmm, Delaware definitely rode out of Number two
Speaker 3: is Illinois. Illinois has over thirteen hundred boona Crockett deer.
Speaker 3: But number one, number one is none other than the
Speaker 3: cheese state Wisconsin. Wisconsin has over eighteen hundred boone and
Speaker 3: Crockett deer pretty crazy one hundred yep. I would have
Speaker 3: thought Kansas would have been in there.
Speaker 8: Well, I know a guy that a friend of mine,
Speaker 8: Josh Jensen, lives up in Minnesota, the Viking. I called
Speaker 8: him and he makes a yearly pilgrimage to Wisconsin the
Speaker 8: deer hunt over there, and he sent me.
Speaker 6: He sent me pictures for.
Speaker 3: Just I think they've got huge numbers of deer and
Speaker 3: huge deer. Yeah, so anyway, I thought that was pretty interesting. Also,
Speaker 3: did you guys hear about this this guy at Yellowstone?
Speaker 3: Let me see, I've got it.
Speaker 5: Uh, pretty crazy.
Speaker 3: I forgot the name of the actual guyser.
Speaker 8: It wasn't birtha was it wasn't it a Jeff? Jeff
Speaker 8: to guy that it could have been an old meal
Speaker 8: something else, dumb Yellowstone.
Speaker 3: The the pictures are pretty crazy. It's it's uh it
Speaker 3: was sapphire pool and biscuit bacon, biscuit basin that'd be
Speaker 3: delicious of.
Speaker 1: Bacon.
Speaker 3: It's about two miles from from Old Faithful. It blew up.
Speaker 3: I mean it looks like someone dropped a bomb. It
Speaker 3: said it through stones that were hundreds of pounds and
Speaker 3: if you look at the pictures. The walkways are just
Speaker 3: like obliterated. It looks like Vietnam. I mean, just it
Speaker 3: was crazy.
Speaker 5: I took fifty kids over there last year.
Speaker 6: Did you go to that?
Speaker 5: We were really close to that one, and I think
Speaker 5: one group actually went to that one. But I'm just
Speaker 5: kind of what would have happened if they were even
Speaker 5: baking biscuits down there, and.
Speaker 6: It would that's what would come up out of it,
Speaker 6: this biscuits.
Speaker 1: And wouldn't like.
Speaker 5: Nectar.
Speaker 4: Was there like a scientific explanation that we know of
Speaker 4: yet for why it?
Speaker 3: Apparently it builds up pressure every now and then, and
Speaker 3: all those guys ares and it's it's so infrequent that
Speaker 3: I guess they don't worry about the people on the walkways.
Speaker 3: But seems like.
Speaker 1: Maybe the Little Old Faith will ever do.
Speaker 3: That they say it has in the past.
Speaker 5: Was there a warning? I mean, were there? Surely it
Speaker 5: wasn't just a situation where there was no one there.
Speaker 3: They most most of the people had cleared out, But
Speaker 3: I don't think it was.
Speaker 6: It was. I saw video of it. People were like, yeah, well.
Speaker 3: It was for people to get away, but not they
Speaker 3: hadn't like evacuated the area, so they wow, yeah, I
Speaker 3: think it was. It was it was more active than
Speaker 3: they expected it to be, and I think people people
Speaker 3: got away from it pretty crazy, pretty well crazy any
Speaker 3: hunting exploits lately.
Speaker 1: Bear, I've been hog hunting with the self bow. Basically.
Speaker 4: I had know a guy down here who's got some
Speaker 4: big hog problem on his property and it's been real dry,
Speaker 4: and he's got two old saddler's ponds, just little mud
Speaker 4: holes out in the middle of the woods that are
Speaker 4: just covered with hog sign But I've been going there
Speaker 4: the last week, sitting on those mud holes, and then
Speaker 4: like late afternoon, I'll just start slipping down roads and
Speaker 4: I've seen hogs every time I've went. Actually shot at
Speaker 4: one and missed him. I was sneaking in on this
Speaker 4: road and I just hear a bunch of racket up
Speaker 4: the road and I sneak up there and there's a
Speaker 4: big group of them and I'm filming this for a
Speaker 4: real and I set my camera up on the ground.
Speaker 1: And this hunt, I didn't have a very good setup.
Speaker 4: I just kind of had like a phone holder, and
Speaker 4: I snuck into like seven yards from this little spotted hog,
Speaker 4: and I look back to make sure my camera's going
Speaker 4: and it had fallen over, and so I sneak back
Speaker 4: over there. I set the camera back up and kind
Speaker 4: of get it situated a little better this time. And
Speaker 4: as I'm sneaking back into where I was, I think
Speaker 4: there was one up above me like that I didn't see,
Speaker 4: and it either saw me or smelled me or something,
Speaker 4: but it just took off and all the other hogs
Speaker 4: took off with it. And this little hog runs out
Speaker 4: to like twenty yards and stops and there's basically like
Speaker 4: a pocket, you know, he's covered in brush, but there's
Speaker 4: a pocket just right over his vitals. And I was like, well,
Speaker 4: if I can get an arrow through that pocket, he's dead.
Speaker 4: If I don't, it's just going to hit a limb
Speaker 4: and miss him.
Speaker 6: They're going to wound him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so and I can kind of shoot at
Speaker 4: twenty yards, but I'm not you know, like I wouldn't
Speaker 4: shoot at like a deer or something, but in base
Speaker 4: of hogs, I'll take a shot at them. And I
Speaker 4: drew back, and right as I committed to the shot,
Speaker 4: the pig starts running and I shoot and I hit
Speaker 4: right in the pocket. But it just at that point
Speaker 4: it was like, yeah, it was right behind him. So
Speaker 4: I didn't get that one. But two days ago I
Speaker 4: was out there and just saw a ton of hogs,
Speaker 4: a real big one, big tusks, and there was probably
Speaker 4: a group of like twenty of them, and I snuck
Speaker 4: into about thirty yards from them. They were crossing this
Speaker 4: road and I was just slipping in and I see
Speaker 4: where three big ones cross the road, and I looked
Speaker 4: down the mountain and there's the real big one with
Speaker 4: the tusks coming up that same trail. And so I
Speaker 4: slipped trying to get to where they crossed, and my
Speaker 4: wind wasn't very good.
Speaker 1: It was just kind of like barely.
Speaker 4: Missing that hog, and so as it would move, I
Speaker 4: would move to kind of try and keep out in
Speaker 4: front of it. But the wind's just not that predictable.
Speaker 4: It kind of shifts. And I got like twenty yards
Speaker 4: from it before it got to the road, and it
Speaker 4: smelled me, and you know, it stuck its head up
Speaker 4: and it kind of blew like a deer, which was weird,
Speaker 4: but it kind of weird. Yeah, it just kind of
Speaker 4: and turned and started walking away. Yeah, had like ten
Speaker 4: piglets with it, and they eventually and I tried to
Speaker 4: kind of follow them, but I just couldn't walk as
Speaker 4: quiet as they could walk fast.
Speaker 6: My uncle killed this one just now even before.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 8: His hog, Yeah, it eased up into his or has
Speaker 8: been rooting up out in his pasture where his horses are.
Speaker 8: I mean that that filled up the bucket on that
Speaker 8: track right there.
Speaker 5: Is that.
Speaker 6: Large yeah river.
Speaker 3: Have you ever killed a hog? I did.
Speaker 5: I killed a hog when I was twelve with what.
Speaker 3: With dogs when you were twelve?
Speaker 5: He's wild girl, teenage girl like out there with a knife,
Speaker 5: spear and.
Speaker 3: Pigs making nervous No, I was.
Speaker 7: I didn't think I was going to get to kill it.
Speaker 7: Me and Shepherd were like left behind, and I put
Speaker 7: Sheppard on my back because we couldn't keep up and
Speaker 7: we were running through like bamboo.
Speaker 1: It was so hard.
Speaker 5: And I got there and Dad was like oh.
Speaker 3: And I was just like okay, without hesitation, you had
Speaker 3: to quick.
Speaker 7: There was the dogs were yeah. He was like oh
Speaker 7: quick and I ran. He was in like a little ditch,
Speaker 7: so it was an easy spot to get.
Speaker 3: Oh, girshocker knife.
Speaker 6: The first time I met.
Speaker 8: Clay was the first time to be video and and
Speaker 8: on a hall hunt one hundred. I mean a bear
Speaker 8: hunt one hundred years ago, and River was probably nine
Speaker 8: or ten. And we went up to this this one
Speaker 8: place where we could call home from in the mountains
Speaker 8: up there, pretty scenic view there, and I was calling home,
Speaker 8: checking on Alexis, and Bailey was just a little baby
Speaker 8: back then. Rivers off in front of this wall where
Speaker 8: this walkway is, where this view is, and she's just
Speaker 8: running around all over the place.
Speaker 6: Like a monkey. Everywhere.
Speaker 8: Her shepherd was there, Bear John was there. They're just
Speaker 8: everywhere like squirrels turned loose. And I'm talking the phone,
Speaker 8: I'm looking down there. I'm like, dang, it's some broken
Speaker 8: beer bottles down there. Look, and then I see River
Speaker 8: going right through them, probably barefoot as a duck.
Speaker 6: Back here, back to there. I'm like, I gotta go,
Speaker 6: I gotta get this kid out of this glass.
Speaker 8: River, get up out of there. And my, oh no,
Speaker 8: she was stepping all through it. No, no problem.
Speaker 5: Was barefoot all the time. I mean we it was.
Speaker 5: It was Actually I was the principal at her school,
Speaker 5: and the teacher's parent teacher conference would come around, and
Speaker 5: one of the issues was we just can't ever find
Speaker 5: her shoes. She takes off when she gets to school,
Speaker 5: and we just need her to keep her shoes on.
Speaker 5: I'm not kidding, And it was she was in her feet.
Speaker 5: Can I tell about your feet? Yeah, they got they
Speaker 5: developed like a big space in between them.
Speaker 7: If you walk on cold She to me this, if
Speaker 7: you walk on cold floors long enough, your toel.
Speaker 1: That's just what your feet do naturally together.
Speaker 5: Now, right, because you wear shoes.
Speaker 3: You're back to normal.
Speaker 1: I don't know, normal is what she was doing exactly. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know if the cameras can see, but mister.
Speaker 6: Over here shoes at home.
Speaker 8: But I'm just saying I do. I don't walk through
Speaker 8: glass with them bare feet.
Speaker 5: We tried not to let her walk through glass either,
Speaker 5: just in case anyone's listening that wants to take her
Speaker 5: kids away.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: One of the reasons that we have Miss River Nukeom
Speaker 3: on the podcast today is because of the topic of
Speaker 3: the Bear Grease podcasts.
Speaker 5: Is the Buffalo National.
Speaker 3: Buffalo National River, which.
Speaker 5: She is a little bit named after that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, tell us about that. So Clay and.
Speaker 5: I we had our kids when we were young. We
Speaker 5: were in college and we would literally take our willow.
Speaker 5: We would meet at the parking lot of the university
Speaker 5: and we'd swap the car that had the car seat,
Speaker 5: and I would take her home and he would go
Speaker 5: to classes and then he'd go work at a grocery store.
Speaker 5: And the year that I was pregnant with Willow or
Speaker 5: with River, he got a new job and that job
Speaker 5: had weekends off, and we never had weekends off before,
Speaker 5: and so he had we off. So on the weekends
Speaker 5: after church, we'd get in this cheap Cherokee and we'd
Speaker 5: go to the Buffalo River almost every single day that summer.
Speaker 5: The very first, uh, the first my first trimester of pregnancy,
Speaker 5: we went and hike twks Mill Crag because it snowed,
Speaker 5: and we took Willow out there.
Speaker 3: Which is if you've not been Arkansas, that's definitely played
Speaker 3: that hawk unbelievable.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And that was my first time to ever go
Speaker 5: and I was I just remember I have a picture
Speaker 5: of Willow all wrapped up because it was snowing outside
Speaker 5: and we put her in a backpack, and I was
Speaker 5: pregnant with River, and that was my first time to
Speaker 5: ever go to That was I think my first time
Speaker 5: to ever go to the Buffalo National River. And then
Speaker 5: after that, we just we took advantage of every every
Speaker 5: Sunday after church we'd go and we were trying to
Speaker 5: figure out what to name her, because we had no
Speaker 5: intention of having a theme, right, and it wasn't even
Speaker 5: until we named Willow. Willow we named her that for
Speaker 5: because of the meaning of the name. But then people
Speaker 5: were like, oh, and your husband's name is Clay and
Speaker 5: your name is Misty, so kind of an earthy theme,
Speaker 5: So like Clay, Missy Willow and Amanda, I mean, I
Speaker 5: don't know, like it just didn't seem like you kind
Speaker 5: of had to be a little bit more thoughtful about.
Speaker 5: So we kept trying to figure out what to name her,
Speaker 5: and you know, we had kind of some pictures in
Speaker 5: our head of and just feelings about what what this
Speaker 5: this one would be like. And we were going out
Speaker 5: to the river and I remember one day we were
Speaker 5: at church and I had written a name in my
Speaker 5: journal and I just thought it was a little bit
Speaker 5: too wild. And we were at church and Clay looked
Speaker 5: at me, I know, he was thinking about going to
Speaker 5: the river afterwards, and he wrote the exact same name
Speaker 5: down and I was like, I've got that name written down,
Speaker 5: and that's what we named her River River Precious and
Speaker 5: you know, it was inspired by the Buffalo National River.
Speaker 5: We loved that place. We loved we loved it, and
Speaker 5: now we know that our our joy came at a cost.
Speaker 6: That's right, And there was most things.
Speaker 3: Tell us here to somebody telling me your impression about
Speaker 3: the about the podcast, it's kind of heavy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it is. It's it's I'm really conflicted because of
Speaker 5: what I just shared. You know, I mean, we have
Speaker 5: we we love our family kind of made a commitment.
Speaker 5: I was one of those people that said I want
Speaker 5: to go to every National park where the kids and
Speaker 5: we drug you guys along, and so instead of Christmas presents,
Speaker 5: every Christmas we would take the kids to.
Speaker 3: Get in the car and make regardless of what the
Speaker 3: weather was, we take often shoot.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And I remember going to Utah and the guy talking
Speaker 5: about the land. I remember just being at a gas
Speaker 5: station and we were we told him what we were
Speaker 5: doing there, and he just kind of started talking about,
Speaker 5: well this, you know, glad you are doing that this land.
Speaker 5: And he started telling us that this land was taken
Speaker 5: and that they're taking more land and uh they we
Speaker 5: didn't understand what he was saying, right, And now I
Speaker 5: kind of want to go back and research that because
Speaker 5: I'm wondering if it's not a similar.
Speaker 1: Grandpa's that's it, but it is.
Speaker 5: I felt very conflicted about it and just kind of
Speaker 5: really realizing the the cost that these things have. It's
Speaker 5: it's something that I mean, I have my little public
Speaker 5: land owner shirts and I'm sure I tell I take
Speaker 5: kids out in national parks all the time, not just
Speaker 5: my own kids, but now other people's kids. Do you
Speaker 5: know at the school I work at? Because I just
Speaker 5: think this is this is one of the greatest things
Speaker 5: that that we have.
Speaker 1: This is our land, and you think about the.
Speaker 8: It is sad, man, it is absolutely a sad story.
Speaker 8: It's a it's a wonderful way that America looks at
Speaker 8: conservation of parks and places, but you never hear the
Speaker 8: tale the cost of it. It's like, man, we're letting
Speaker 8: the prisons are over crowded. We need more prisons. You
Speaker 8: want more prisons, I absolutely do. We're gonna put one
Speaker 8: in your house, your town, not here, you know, it
Speaker 8: needs to be somewhere else. And you have such strong
Speaker 8: feelings about that. And I listened to that stuff. I
Speaker 8: listened to mister Thelines, and I knew the story of
Speaker 8: Granny Henderson, which will be more dealt into the next
Speaker 8: part of it.
Speaker 6: I was very familiar with her.
Speaker 8: I wasn't mister Thelions, but I had heard that Merle Haggartson.
Speaker 8: But you think about that and you put yourself in
Speaker 8: their place, you know, And I think about, like on
Speaker 8: all the stories and stuff that I tell, it's all
Speaker 8: connected to place and where I grew up that belonged
Speaker 8: to our family, you know, as they stuck dur And says,
Speaker 8: it's not ours, it's just.
Speaker 6: Really our turn.
Speaker 8: But in our turn, we had this special place at
Speaker 8: the river bottoms of the Slane River, which you know,
Speaker 8: it would be terrible to have thought about them coming
Speaker 8: in and moving my grandparents out of there, forcibly removing
Speaker 8: them from some place. And that podcast was three minutes
Speaker 8: into it when I was thinking, yeah, yeah, not not
Speaker 8: only did we do that to the folks in the
Speaker 8: Buffalo River, we did that to the natives years before then.
Speaker 8: You know, So who in turn did it do whoever
Speaker 8: else had it before they got there? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 8: so it's just a long line of egregious behavior.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but man.
Speaker 3: It's so I'm with Misty. I've been you know, I've
Speaker 3: I've talked with Clay a lot about this podcast while
Speaker 3: he's been working on it, and it's such a there's
Speaker 3: such a turmoil inside of me because I value It's
Speaker 3: almost like I feel this sense of ownership of it
Speaker 3: myself now, but it's really it wasn't mine to begin with, right,
Speaker 3: and uh, you know, I think I think there I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't know if there's a right answer. You know,
Speaker 3: there's there's places that we've visited, like you know, if
Speaker 3: you go up into into southern Missouri, there's Elk River
Speaker 3: there and it's absolutely beautiful river, free flowing river, but
Speaker 3: it's just like you got these bars on the river,
Speaker 3: you got people partying down the river all the time,
Speaker 3: and it's just it's overrun with with just commercialism. And
Speaker 3: I think, man, what I have wanted the Buffalo River
Speaker 3: to to turn into that? Absolutely not, but it actually
Speaker 3: might have exactly exactly, And I think that was the
Speaker 3: part of the concern. You know, we can't there's a
Speaker 3: lot of should have, would have, could a or speculating
Speaker 3: on what what could have happened. But I'm I mean,
Speaker 3: at the same time, I'm like, man, I'm grateful that
Speaker 3: I can go down to the Buffalo and I've got this,
Speaker 3: for the most part, pristine river that is beautiful. I
Speaker 3: can hike Goats Bluff and it's absolutely breathtaking. It's it's it.
Speaker 3: Like Clay said in the podcast, it's it's the crown
Speaker 3: jewel of Arkansas.
Speaker 8: We also have the aspect of people's enjoyment is different.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 8: I love and my my friend buddy of mine, Michael Mechs,
Speaker 8: and I used to camp up in a wildlife management
Speaker 8: area along to Buffalo and we for twenty years in
Speaker 8: every spring, that's where we started.
Speaker 6: Turkey season was up there.
Speaker 8: We got a lot of turkeys and I think about
Speaker 8: that place and I think about what a great place
Speaker 8: to kill a turkey. And there are some other folks
Speaker 8: that have access to them, like, oh my gosh, I
Speaker 8: can't believe those people are killing turkeys up there, But
Speaker 8: they they're enjoying that same stretch of property. So your
Speaker 8: interpretation of it is really, you know, to each individual.
Speaker 8: You know, people like us that would enjoy harvesting game
Speaker 8: from the land, and the other folks that also have
Speaker 8: access and like being there, would think, oh, that's a
Speaker 8: terrible thing to do. Don't kill those animals. You can
Speaker 8: go buy an animal, a dead animal at the store,
Speaker 8: and so a lot of people have a lot of
Speaker 8: different ways, but it's all connected to that one beautiful
Speaker 8: place up there. And I had never thought about the
Speaker 8: differences really of how people perceive things, because forever, growing up,
Speaker 8: I thought everybody grew up like I did, you know, yeah, right, so,
Speaker 8: but people look a look at the same place, have
Speaker 8: a familiarity with the place, and then look at it
Speaker 8: in interacting with it in two different ways or a
Speaker 8: lot of different ways.
Speaker 3: Really, I think as I was thinking about it, I
Speaker 3: think the thing that we have to recognize is that
Speaker 3: regardless of whether the land was taken around, these people
Speaker 3: made a sacrifice. It's a sacrifice that we benefit from.
Speaker 3: And unfortunately the sacrifice was forced on them, you know,
Speaker 3: but I think, you know, there's not anything we can
Speaker 3: do about it now except say thank you, you know,
Speaker 3: thanks to the Thelions family, thanks to these two thousand
Speaker 3: families up and down one hundred and fifty six miles
Speaker 3: of river that that had to make that decision. And
Speaker 3: you know, it's interesting because I, you know, I didn't
Speaker 3: grow up in one place. You know, we we moved
Speaker 3: a lot I don't have a history that's tied to
Speaker 3: a place or a land. You know, all my all
Speaker 3: my my families from up north, up in Michigan, and
Speaker 3: uh and so I think, you know, when I moved
Speaker 3: to Arkansas, I felt like this is home to me.
Speaker 3: You know, I felt this immediate connection to the Ozarks
Speaker 3: and uh and I you know, I've talked about to
Speaker 3: some friends about the adoptive nature of the Ozarks, how
Speaker 3: it really draws you in and makes you a part
Speaker 3: of it. And I think about that for the for
Speaker 3: the Buffalo River, and uh. You know, I appreciate the
Speaker 3: fact that willingly or unwillingly, that that these families have
Speaker 3: have made the sacrifice for me to find a new home.
Speaker 9: You know, yeah, River, what do you think?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 7: I agree is what Mom said, that these National parks
Speaker 7: have been such a big part of our lives. And
Speaker 7: we've gone all over all over the country going to
Speaker 7: different National parks, and the narrative around it, and the
Speaker 7: narrative that I heard growing up was that this was
Speaker 7: like the preservation of American land. This is our land.
Speaker 7: And you hear about like Theodore Roosevelt when he started
Speaker 7: the National Park System, and that's the narrative that I
Speaker 7: was taught in school and that that I've experienced, and
Speaker 7: I never I never even thought about about the people
Speaker 7: that lived there. And so then the other thing I
Speaker 7: was thinking about is how do you compensate people for that?
Speaker 7: If somebody came and to take the house that Dad
Speaker 7: built when we were little kids, tue no amount of
Speaker 7: money you could give me that would be worth that,
Speaker 7: And so I just can't imagine if you had generations
Speaker 7: and generations, and so it's interesting, it's interesting to hear
Speaker 7: that side of the story.
Speaker 1: And just so there's two truths, right.
Speaker 7: And not even sides, But there's a truth that we
Speaker 7: love this land and it does feel like mine and
Speaker 7: it's part of our lives in our history now. But
Speaker 7: then there's the truth that it was stolen.
Speaker 8: And hard it's hard to one hundred percent celebrate the
Speaker 8: acquisition of the land without mourning the laws of yeah family.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you know. In my conversations with Clay, Clay really
Speaker 3: felt a sense of being a steward of the story
Speaker 3: of the of the people from from the landowners. He
Speaker 3: really wanted to just portray what they've done in a
Speaker 3: in a really honest way without without you know, celebrating
Speaker 3: the public lands without recognizing their story. And I think
Speaker 3: that's one of the key things that we can do
Speaker 3: now is just honor, honor them and to tell the
Speaker 3: story so that people are aware.
Speaker 8: So yeah, because you can't. I mean, there's there's no
Speaker 8: change in it. It is what it is. What happened happened,
Speaker 8: And the only disser of us we would do is
Speaker 8: to not talk about those folks and what they did
Speaker 8: and went through.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that that's the I think that's one
Speaker 5: of the values of Bear Grease and and things like
Speaker 5: it is it tells. It's a it's it's a storytelling platform,
Speaker 5: and that's that's what it is. And and it allowed this
Speaker 5: side to be heard, this side that a lot of
Speaker 5: people don't know. It allowed that to be heard. And uh,
Speaker 5: and you know, there's well we'll continue to be told.
Speaker 5: There's more coming up.
Speaker 3: What are your thoughts.
Speaker 1: We've got a couple of points.
Speaker 3: Because Tess has got some thoughts to ye.
Speaker 6: If I had thumbs, I let myself out. Well.
Speaker 4: So I was on that meal ride with Willard the
Speaker 4: lines going through there, and it was pretty wild. It
Speaker 4: was exactly how my dad described it on the podcast.
Speaker 4: It was like seeing like a lost civilization, you know,
Speaker 4: like you'd go you know, like we'd be online trails
Speaker 4: that like people would hike, like real common trails, and
Speaker 4: then they just jut off and we'd go two hundred
Speaker 4: yards off the trail and there'd be like this like
Speaker 4: perfectly intact barn, but it just had vines growing on
Speaker 4: it and trees were over it.
Speaker 1: And even a lot of places that like.
Speaker 4: You just go to and it would look just like
Speaker 4: a cedar thicket or something they would you know, that
Speaker 4: was like an old field. And it was interesting to
Speaker 4: see that because then I kind of think about like
Speaker 4: the places that I hunt where I have heard about
Speaker 4: the people that you know, either got their land bought
Speaker 4: out or taken from them, and it's just like these
Speaker 4: cedar thickets with houses in them, and it's just like, oh,
Speaker 4: that used to be a field. And so it was
Speaker 4: pretty crazy to do that, and to go up to
Speaker 4: Willardvillne's old home place and seeing the foundation that they
Speaker 4: tore down and that old cellar. It was just kind
Speaker 4: of crazy because it was like usually whenever I go
Speaker 4: to the Buffalo River, you know, like if you're going
Speaker 4: like on like the trails and looking at the bluffs
Speaker 4: and stuff like you're kind of a spectator of it.
Speaker 4: But whenever we were actually there with like the locals
Speaker 4: who have and you know now they lived like just
Speaker 4: outside the park, right, it was it was like it
Speaker 4: was just a different perspective on the Buffalo River because
Speaker 4: it was just like people that actually live there and
Speaker 4: have lived there and Willardville lines, you know, he lived
Speaker 4: there until he was like I can't remember, but until
Speaker 4: he was a you know, I think he was ten.
Speaker 4: But it was just it was a unique perspective just
Speaker 4: because they would that was like it would be like
Speaker 4: coming back to this house that I've lived at my
Speaker 4: whole life, but just seventy years later and everything's torn
Speaker 4: down because they tore his house down, right, Like there
Speaker 4: was just it was just an old rock foundation. There's
Speaker 4: still a smokehouse and like a cellar, but it was
Speaker 4: just kind of I would just have to imagine that
Speaker 4: would be pretty crazy, like just to actually experience that.
Speaker 4: But what else was crazy is like he took us
Speaker 4: over to like the schoolhouse, and you know they told
Speaker 4: us about how like this kid, thirteen year old kid
Speaker 4: burned the schoolhouse down like two times and then they
Speaker 4: built it down by the river and then the river
Speaker 4: washed it away. But like you see like the foundations
Speaker 4: of the old schoolhouse and we actually walked like he
Speaker 4: took us on his route.
Speaker 1: To school every day.
Speaker 4: Oh really, And I mean he literally had to cross
Speaker 4: the Buffalo River every single day to get to school
Speaker 4: and then go up one of those big mountains, go
Speaker 4: over it down on to the other side, and he'd
Speaker 4: be at the school. But it was three miles, like
Speaker 4: it was literally the three mile walk to school, and
Speaker 4: if the river was high, they'd take horses or float.
Speaker 6: Or if he saw smoke, he turned around and go back. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he said he set it on fire because
Speaker 4: he didn't want to go to school. Same but identify
Speaker 4: with Yeah, and uh, it was kind of My dad
Speaker 4: asked Willard if they ever like really recognized, like if
Speaker 4: they ever really looked at the land as like for
Speaker 4: that for its natural beauty, that we would all look
Speaker 4: at it, you know, through that perspective of you know,
Speaker 4: there's these big bluffs in it's this incredible place. And
Speaker 4: I think he was talking particularly about the waterfall.
Speaker 1: What's the waterfall called on foot?
Speaker 4: Yeah, he said they used to he said him and
Speaker 4: his dad would go ride mules up there, and they
Speaker 4: always just thought it's just the waterfall.
Speaker 1: They never really thought much of it.
Speaker 4: They just viewed the land more as like a just
Speaker 4: like a provider almost.
Speaker 3: Because they, you know, a resource.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it was kind of interesting to see that
Speaker 4: perspective because like, whenever I walk around just the places
Speaker 4: around here, the woods that I mosey around in, I
Speaker 4: never really look to it as like, I mean, I
Speaker 4: do recognize that it is like an incredible place, and
Speaker 4: it's like just really anytime you're in the woods, like
Speaker 4: just something that's untouched is always pretty incredible. But it
Speaker 4: kind of shifted my perspective a little bit on the
Speaker 4: way that I would look at the places that I
Speaker 4: use as my resource, you know, like the places that
Speaker 4: I hunt. It's like if that was and it very
Speaker 4: I mean, like it's really is like the plate the
Speaker 4: ozarks are just an incredible place with big rocks and
Speaker 4: trees and overlooks, and it's like, I don't know, it
Speaker 4: was just kind of cool to see them the way
Speaker 4: that they looked at that. And now he said his
Speaker 4: dad never looked at it that way. His dad always
Speaker 4: just looked at it as is the land we farm,
Speaker 4: this is how we live. And he said once they
Speaker 4: kind of started to you know, once they made it
Speaker 4: a park, then he said that he you know, mister
Speaker 4: Willard could kind of he started seeing it as this
Speaker 4: beautiful place. But he's even still like you could tell
Speaker 4: his perspective was way different than ours because he was
Speaker 4: actually a part of it.
Speaker 1: He wasn't a spectator.
Speaker 6: And you're so familiar with it too. I mean, it's
Speaker 6: something he looked at it every day.
Speaker 8: You see a bright shiny object once a month, you're like,
Speaker 8: oh wow, yeah, that guess my intention.
Speaker 6: You look at it every day. It's just something you
Speaker 6: walk by.
Speaker 5: Yep, you know, it's interesting. I wonder how much of
Speaker 5: that is also a generational dynamic. I think I just
Speaker 5: think about even your your parents. I think, God help us.
Speaker 5: But I think about all the all the effort that's
Speaker 5: gone into making sure you do appreciate.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the.
Speaker 5: Little I mean I get nighttime, when we'd get when
Speaker 5: we'd come home from nine events, Clay would stop the
Speaker 5: kids going in the house and just say, guys, look up.
Speaker 5: Not everyone gets to see stars stars like this because
Speaker 5: it there's not a lot of lights out here and
Speaker 5: you can really see it, and I just think, I
Speaker 5: wonder how much of that, Yeah, it is as a
Speaker 5: result of what happened there and kind of being able
Speaker 5: to see it through everyone else's eyes kind of creates
Speaker 5: a shift. And how much of that is a generational shift,
Speaker 5: even from Willard and his dad to the subsequent generation.
Speaker 8: When you're sitting on the front porch and looking down
Speaker 8: the hill at the beautiful stream down there, you think, man,
Speaker 8: that's pretty. But when you get down to the bottom
Speaker 8: and you're toting two buckets of water back up, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 6: God, I wish we lived so yeah, exactly.
Speaker 8: So perspective is relevant, I guess to where you're standing
Speaker 8: a lot of it.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 3: How about Brooks b Loven's, man, he has a great
Speaker 3: way of putting things in perspective. I was with play
Speaker 3: when you did that, when you did that interview, and
Speaker 3: it was kind of like a side note where he
Speaker 3: talked about his grandparents being there. His grandparents lived in
Speaker 3: the land that is now Norfolk Lake, and the story
Speaker 3: of them toting off his great grandparents. I thought it
Speaker 3: was funny. It's like I just picture them playing, but
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's really sad and and you know,
Speaker 3: I think Clay mentions it in the podcast. It's like
Speaker 3: it's like, you know, yeah, they they did take the land,
Speaker 3: they did turn it into a park, but it could
Speaker 3: be underwater, you know what I mean, and never geta falls.
Speaker 5: Exactly where there's just like merchants everywhere. And I mean
Speaker 5: that was that's why they created the National Park System
Speaker 5: is they didn't want to they didn't want it to
Speaker 5: be commercialized, beautiful places like that to be commercialized, like
Speaker 5: Niagara Falls was.
Speaker 8: Yeah, there's a place out and that we used to
Speaker 8: go to and in uh Edistowe Island, South Carolina is
Speaker 8: a place that we would vacation in the summertime and
Speaker 8: that there's there's no city water there. If you the
Speaker 8: potable water that you get to drink and cook with,
Speaker 8: you have to go to the center of town and
Speaker 8: they have a big well we used to call them
Speaker 8: water buffalo is in the service. But it's a big
Speaker 8: tank with different with spigots in it that you get
Speaker 8: city water out of. And they won't put any kind
Speaker 8: of commercial watering system there to keep that kind of
Speaker 8: stuff from happening. There's like one grocery store. It's a
Speaker 8: resort place. The people that beach houses and homes there
Speaker 8: that they enjoy, but they keep it from there's no motels,
Speaker 8: no condominiums, no stuff like that to keep down that
Speaker 8: footprint so small that people are coming in they want
Speaker 8: to come in and enjoy, yet not enjoy the motels
Speaker 8: and hotels arcades and there's nothing like that, And so there's.
Speaker 3: A little bit of a you know, there always is
Speaker 3: a trade off. There always is a trade off, you know.
Speaker 3: I think I think, you know, we've got these lands
Speaker 3: that are underwater now. Beaver Lake and Arkansas has has
Speaker 3: four I think four big lakes, Bullshoals, Beaver Wash, Taw,
Speaker 3: the Gray, the Gray, and uh, you know, that's all
Speaker 3: land that will probably never see again. At the same time,
Speaker 3: it's like I'm a trout fly fishing guide to make
Speaker 3: part of my living. I make part of my living
Speaker 3: under that damn you know.
Speaker 9: What I mean.
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, I mean, there's always always a trade off,
Speaker 3: and I think I think one of the biggest things
Speaker 3: we can do is just recognize it and just recognize it.
Speaker 3: I wanted to, uh, I wanted to read an email
Speaker 3: I got from a listener really great. I think, well,
Speaker 3: written email. He he is a road engineer and uh,
Speaker 3: his name is Nash. I don't know where he's from.
Speaker 3: I didn't say, but he said, uh, he said, hey, Clay,
Speaker 3: loved the episode on the Buffalo River. I'm a roadway engineer.
Speaker 3: In my field, we constantly have to consider the pros
Speaker 3: and cons of the roadways and intersections that we design.
Speaker 3: At times, we do have to look at the displacement
Speaker 3: of businesses or family homes. We have to decide whether
Speaker 3: one home or business is worth preserving over the efficiency
Speaker 3: of travel through an area. This is not an easy
Speaker 3: decision to come to, and it can be easy for
Speaker 3: the outside. From the outside to look in and say,
Speaker 3: why is this road so important? And as roadway engineers,
Speaker 3: it's our job to explain it. Every project has its
Speaker 3: own specifics. But take for instance, the interstate system we've
Speaker 3: built in this country. Now, this project was way before
Speaker 3: my time, as I'm only twenty four, but could you
Speaker 3: imagine the time it would take to get good ship
Speaker 3: across the country without the interstate system, and with this
Speaker 3: time would also come huge price increases. It would be
Speaker 3: easy to see how much more expensive going to the
Speaker 3: grocery store would be for every American. The interstate system
Speaker 3: undoubtedly displaced many Americans and cost billions of dollars in
Speaker 3: tax payer money, but it's done so much good for
Speaker 3: the American people personally. When designing a project, I always
Speaker 3: look at the project from every angle and alternative I
Speaker 3: can before deciding to displace a business or home. But
Speaker 3: sometimes why the cost and benefits, the greater good ends
Speaker 3: up being to displace. A few years ago, I worked
Speaker 3: on a state project that split a large family property
Speaker 3: directly in half. The poor lady that owned the land
Speaker 3: was so upset with the project and gave the construction
Speaker 3: workers and inspectors myself included a hard time when the
Speaker 3: project was being constructed. The state attempted multiple times to
Speaker 3: have conversations with her to design the project in a
Speaker 3: way that would satisfy her, but she would refuse to
Speaker 3: cooperate negotiations, and eventually the state would use eminent domain.
Speaker 3: It was such a sad story, but the project was
Speaker 3: has reduced the congestion in multiple nearby towns and has
Speaker 3: shortened the time that the workman has to get home
Speaker 3: to his family after long day of work. I love
Speaker 3: the work that I do and hope to make the
Speaker 3: best judgment, calls to help the best, to help the
Speaker 3: communities as a whole. But it's always a difficult decision
Speaker 3: to take away a home land or business places. I
Speaker 3: just think, you know, it's a tough position to be in.
Speaker 6: You know, somebody's got to do the job.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm glad it's not again, I'm glad it's not me.
Speaker 5: Real I thought the comments on the podcast really if
Speaker 5: you look on Instagram when Clay posted, I just kind
Speaker 5: of wanted to see if people would say things like that,
Speaker 5: you know, that's a good I hadn't seen that email.
Speaker 5: That's a good email, that's a good It's a different perspective.
Speaker 5: What it seems like is that people are saying, overwhelmingly,
Speaker 5: we were caught up in this this you know, this
Speaker 5: happened to my grandparents, This happened to and and a
Speaker 5: lot of people across the US have that story and
Speaker 5: and so yeah, it's these are tough trade offs, and
Speaker 5: I think it's it's meaningful to people to be able
Speaker 5: to let their story be told unfettered by the context.
Speaker 3: I really I'm looking forward to this next next podcast
Speaker 3: because I think it's going to be pretty pretty revealing
Speaker 3: and and I have to say, like the way that
Speaker 3: things were handled, I think in a large part we're
Speaker 3: not good at best. And you know, I think there's
Speaker 3: plenty of stories that even we didn't we weren't able
Speaker 3: to capture where things weren't handled in the best way
Speaker 3: and people were taking advantage of. So I'm excited to
Speaker 3: hear what's coming next. Same any other thoughts, Brent.
Speaker 8: When Misty was making her last point there, I got
Speaker 8: to think, I wonder how many people, if you're not
Speaker 8: so connected to the land or not so familiar with it,
Speaker 8: I wonder how many people would pass by and think, well,
Speaker 8: that place has always been.
Speaker 3: There, right, Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 8: You know, you never give a thought to to the
Speaker 8: people that were there beforehand. And we've talked about in
Speaker 8: several episodes in history booking School about how the Native
Speaker 8: Americans were treated. But how many of you know, until
Speaker 8: I got old enough to really figure out, well that
Speaker 8: that's only been there forty years, wasn't there somebody living there?
Speaker 6: You know, what happened to them?
Speaker 8: Or the story of the TVA, you know, the Tennessee
Speaker 8: Valley Authority all the there was even a scene and
Speaker 8: what is that old brother where Art they when they
Speaker 8: flooded that. I mean, you know that that stuff really
Speaker 8: happened to homes. And there's places on Hebrews uh at
Speaker 8: gris Ferry Lake, you know, and and those big lakes
Speaker 8: were good fishing spots. And you can see now through
Speaker 8: sonar and stuff that you can get on the boat,
Speaker 8: you can see that's a house down there.
Speaker 6: Somebody lived there, their kids played in that yard where
Speaker 6: that where that structure is.
Speaker 3: Love to think about, you know, I think I think
Speaker 3: we have a responsibility to tell this story so that
Speaker 3: the mistakes of the past aren't repeated. You know. I
Speaker 3: think that's one of the key things that that's that's
Speaker 3: really important, because you know, you can just keep doing
Speaker 3: the same thing over and over again. But you know,
Speaker 3: we want to we want to make the right decisions.
Speaker 8: And so anyway, Yeah, I noticed one thing, no one
Speaker 8: was interrupted telling the story.
Speaker 6: Especially interesting.
Speaker 8: Just saying I don't know the common denominated I don't
Speaker 8: know if there is a common denominator there.
Speaker 6: But there was no interruptions today.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 6: I love it.
Speaker 3: Maybe we'll just kick Clay off a podcast. Clay what Clyde.
Speaker 5: He's a good, good, good talker.
Speaker 3: Well, I want to thank you guys for being here.
Speaker 3: Appreciate it. I felt like it's been a great podcast,
Speaker 3: great great render. Clay should be back on the next
Speaker 3: one in his goat hat will I.
Speaker 5: Hope he where's the goat hat? The entire next render?
Speaker 5: I think he owses that for the false advertising.
Speaker 3: That's right, So it'll look good. We'll make him wear
Speaker 3: the leafy suit and the hat and he can.
Speaker 5: We might not want him to wear the suit. Probably
Speaker 5: still small closed.
Speaker 6: In opening wind.
Speaker 3: All right, well, thanks, thanks everybody for listening. We'll see
Speaker 3: what what's the tagline, keep the wild places wild because
Speaker 3: that's where the bears are, and it goes