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Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Dirk Durham and today on this episode, I have

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Speaker 1: an old friend and colleague, Mark Binelli. He is considered

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Speaker 1: or known as AKA the modern rural civilian. Welcome to show. Mark.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Dirk. I appreciate you having it's

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Speaker 2: good to chat with you. It's been a while.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been a while. I first met Mark years ago.

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Speaker 1: I think it was twenty ten on my first day

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Speaker 1: when I changed careers and went to work at night

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Speaker 1: Force Objects and you know, always starting a new job,

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Speaker 1: you always have these insecurities and unsettling feelings and what

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Speaker 1: the day may bring or if you like anybody there

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Speaker 1: or anything. And I met Mark, and immediately Mark introduced

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Speaker 1: himself and you want to know all about me? Where

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Speaker 1: are you from, what do you do, what are you into,

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Speaker 1: what do you do for fun? What about your family?

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Speaker 1: And throughout the day you introduced yourself or you introduced

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Speaker 1: me to everyone that came through our our work area, like, hey,

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Speaker 1: hey have you met Derek? You know blahlah blah, you

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Speaker 1: know you know you like you. You made me feel

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Speaker 1: at home and and welcome to such a degree at

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Speaker 1: the end of the day, I went home thinking, man,

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Speaker 1: I've made the right decision. I'm in a good place here,

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Speaker 1: and I've always appreciated that.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Derek. I uh, it's been so long ago.

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Speaker 2: I you know, those days were I was, I was

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Speaker 2: really enjoying myself at night for back in the early days,

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Speaker 2: and and to get new faces, and and I know

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Speaker 2: that you had kind of come to us from a

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Speaker 2: sort of a long, a long career in the in

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Speaker 2: the tire industry, and changing changing jobs isn't easy. So

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Speaker 2: I like, you know, all the new folks around there,

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Speaker 2: especially if they had ties to the local area, I thought, uh,

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Speaker 2: you know, it's pretty cool to try to welcome them

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Speaker 2: with the with the most open arms that a guy

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Speaker 2: could offer.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well it worked. It worked, and it also impressed

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Speaker 1: upon me the amount of effort that you'd done that

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Speaker 1: to where anytime anybody knew was hired, whenever I met them,

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Speaker 1: I tried to extend them the same curtesy and just

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Speaker 1: like welcome and you know, show them the same hospitality

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Speaker 1: you showed me. So it was. It was contagious.

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Speaker 2: That's awesome. I love the pay it forward mentality, and

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Speaker 2: and it sounds like it worked back then. That's really

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Speaker 2: cool to hear, especially from from this many years down

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Speaker 2: the road. Derek, that's cool.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Back then we talked about hunting

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Speaker 1: and fishing and cooking and past careers and and not

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Speaker 1: to mention all the humorous jokes and stories share the

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Speaker 1: true there. Man, we had a lot of good time.

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Speaker 1: I felt like we had a good a good working

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Speaker 1: job there.

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Speaker 2: I really loved it. I actually there's there's a lot

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Speaker 2: of times I miss, you know, the hanging out with

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Speaker 2: the guys and and all the stories and the humor

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Speaker 2: that we got to share. And uh, you know, nowadays

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Speaker 2: life is is gratifying in other creative ways, but you know,

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Speaker 2: you just it's hard to replace that, uh, that camaraderie

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Speaker 2: that you have around the around the workplace that you know,

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Speaker 2: it's it's not a part of my my daily routine

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Speaker 2: or life anymore. But man, we had some good times.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, well it hadn't met. You know, anytime you

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Speaker 1: meet people of a certain mindset or attitude or or demeanor,

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Speaker 1: or whether they treat other paid people, it makes you wonder, like,

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Speaker 1: what kind of a family were they? Did they grow

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Speaker 1: up in? What kind of a community were they raised

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Speaker 1: in and tell us tell the folks about, you know,

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Speaker 1: your family and the community you were raised in.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so, man, my my family, my mom and dad

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Speaker 2: are you know, they're there. I suppose you might call

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Speaker 2: them a rarity these days. They're they're still married. They've

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Speaker 2: been married, you know, since there their early twenties, and

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Speaker 2: they both gosh, they both graduated high school in in

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Speaker 2: uh my hometown of Orfino, Idaho, and never you know,

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Speaker 2: never left. They they my dad's been a longer his

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Speaker 2: whole life and worked in the woods for you know,

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Speaker 2: he's now semi retired. But just my parents have always

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Speaker 2: been you know, they were kind of they were kind

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Speaker 2: of at a younger age. For I suppose a lot

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Speaker 2: of my a lot of my friends's parents. And I

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Speaker 2: can't tell you how often growing up I would get

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Speaker 2: the comment from my older friends, they're, man, your parents

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Speaker 2: are so cool. You really need to appreciate your parents.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: They were always reminding me how how lucky I was

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Speaker 2: to have such down to earth and and uh, just

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Speaker 2: just good, good people. So you know, my my, my mom,

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Speaker 2: she's been in the nursing and uh, you know, emergency

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Speaker 2: room nursing field. Her whole life. And uh they they

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Speaker 2: both grew up not far from from where they still

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Speaker 2: live right now, you know, in the in the uh

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Speaker 2: clear Water Valley country, and uh yeah, just just amazing people.

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Speaker 2: I'm super blessed to call them my folks. I'm sure

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Speaker 2: like a lot of us out there were just uh

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Speaker 2: I always I always feel like, if you know, I've

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Speaker 2: got big shoes to fill with with both of the

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Speaker 2: parents that I was raised by, and and for a

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Speaker 2: long time, I'll be honest, I I made uh bast

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Speaker 2: afterwards decisions in order to try to fill those shoes.

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Speaker 2: It's taken me quite some time to hit my high

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Speaker 2: note and really feel like I'm beginning to put a

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Speaker 2: dent in filling their big shoes. So still still hang

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Speaker 2: out with them often, you know, I go down and

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Speaker 2: visit them and or you know, usually every other weekend.

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Speaker 2: Just incredible, incredible family. I have one younger sister, she's

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Speaker 2: three years younger than I am. And yeah, just you know,

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Speaker 2: upbringing was I'm always giving credit back to the you know,

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Speaker 2: we weren't completely like a farm family or anything. We

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Speaker 2: just lived you know, out of town. And my dad,

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Speaker 2: I feel like my dad was never wealthy enough and

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Speaker 2: always capable enough to be able to to to have

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Speaker 2: to choose to fix stuff itself or or or accomplish

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Speaker 2: his goals, you know, mostly with his own two hands.

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Speaker 2: And he always was trying to teach me, you know,

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Speaker 2: to pay attention and to learn this or that, And

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Speaker 2: looking back, I wish I would have paid attention to

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Speaker 2: a lot more. But now with the way I get

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Speaker 2: to approach problem solving on my property and and trying

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Speaker 2: to fix everything in my life, you know, mechanically and creatively,

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Speaker 2: I owe a lot to that upbringing of In one way,

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Speaker 2: I think it's stemmed from not being able to afford

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Speaker 2: to just call somebody and hire, you know, hire the

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Speaker 2: job to be fixed or done. But in a big way,

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Speaker 2: I think a lot of my successes in my in

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Speaker 2: my current life come from the approach that my dad

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Speaker 2: took to so many of his challenges in life and

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Speaker 2: projects in life. So lots of lots of outdoors man,

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Speaker 2: you know, I started chasing my dad around in the

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Speaker 2: woods back before actually, you know, I think back in

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Speaker 2: those days we could only get our hunting license at

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Speaker 2: the age of twelve, and I definitely can remember, you know,

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Speaker 2: hiking around with him in the woods for numerous years

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Speaker 2: before I was actually able to carry my own rifle.

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Speaker 2: So those are probably some of the best, you know,

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Speaker 2: some of the best childhood memories that we shared together.

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Speaker 2: We we, uh, we spent a lot of time in

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Speaker 2: the woods together. My uncle as well. He was kind

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Speaker 2: of a big driving force in the in the get

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Speaker 2: my dad to become addicted to elk hunting and elk

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Speaker 2: camp and anyway, just looking back, I'm super grateful for

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Speaker 2: all those lessons I got to learn through through hands

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Speaker 2: on experience. And and I think sometimes folks think that

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Speaker 2: I had a lot much you know, a more a

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Speaker 2: more rural you know, maybe like a farm life upbringing

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Speaker 2: or something like that. But uh, it was just small

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Speaker 2: town Idahope, you know, as far as I could look

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Speaker 2: back and explain, very grateful for that childhood girl.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I love the level of respect you have for

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Speaker 1: your folks. And man, it seems like today in society

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Speaker 1: we see more and more people, you know that look

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Speaker 1: down on boomers whatever they want to call this older generation.

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Speaker 1: But right that you appreciate the level of respect you

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Speaker 1: have for your folks. And I've Helarad you talked about,

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Speaker 1: you know, your dad's lifelong friends and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: Just you know, it's it's it's neat to see that.

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Speaker 1: Now we're going to dig in here in a little

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Speaker 1: bit about what modern rural civilian is all about. But

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Speaker 1: I still want to. I want to still dig in

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Speaker 1: on like like the what what got you to that point?

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Speaker 1: And before before you you kind of fell into that

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Speaker 1: that role. Yeah, But one thing I always noticed about

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Speaker 1: you at Nightforce and then since we we've both left

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Speaker 1: that place and moved on, is no matter what it

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Speaker 1: seemed like, no matter what kind of hobby or activity

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Speaker 1: you've ever done, you always you just went all in.

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Speaker 1: And I can remember our all some of our long

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Speaker 1: talks we used to have about long range shooting. You know,

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Speaker 1: you were just like a sponge on long range shooting.

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Speaker 1: You'd go home and you'd study, and you would study

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Speaker 1: manuals on scopes, and you would you were picking everybody's

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Speaker 1: brain that you possibly could. You were, you know, you

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Speaker 1: were bugging anybody that anybody that would that would listen

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Speaker 1: or give you the time of day about long rain shooting,

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Speaker 1: which then you repeated and to me and everyone else

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Speaker 1: that would listen. And I always love that, so a

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Speaker 1: lot of my knowledge that I know from about long

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Speaker 1: rain shooting comes from your diatribes that you used to

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Speaker 1: They go down, but I loved it. But I remember

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Speaker 1: one cool memory. Uh, let you know, because this is

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Speaker 1: phenomenally a hunting podcast, I want to talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit about hunting. I remember tell us about long range

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Speaker 1: mountain lion hunting that had some crazy times in the

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Speaker 1: woods with that.

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Speaker 2: It's, uh, looking back, I think about those memories a

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Speaker 2: lot these days, and I it's it's hard to imagine

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Speaker 2: that it was the reality of that of that time

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Speaker 2: frame in life. But probably the best way I can

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Speaker 2: summarize what what we stumbled into as far as the

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Speaker 2: mountain lion hunting and and uh, we had there sort

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Speaker 2: of a honey hole that wasn't too awfully far out

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Speaker 2: from one of my relatives' properties on public public land.

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Speaker 2: And you know, early on from the very the very

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Speaker 2: first time that we had any interaction with the mountain

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Speaker 2: lion was was just hearing this this loud bird type chirping,

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Speaker 2: you know, down in the bottom of the canyon. We

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Speaker 2: we would go out there late season just as much

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Speaker 2: to long range shoot and and practice as it was

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Speaker 2: to possibly take advantage of of any animals that would

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Speaker 2: be in season late, you know, late in the year.

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Speaker 2: This was all uh, you know, I would it's been

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Speaker 2: so long ago, but I would say, you know, after

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Speaker 2: the first of the year up and through up into

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Speaker 2: the March type months, you know, most guys have left

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Speaker 2: the woods for the year, you know. And and once again,

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Speaker 2: like I said, we were just out there to mainly

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Speaker 2: practice shooting, stay consistent with our long distance shooting. And

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Speaker 2: as we're as we're out there with our with all

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Speaker 2: of our equipment and enjoying life, we begin to hear

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Speaker 2: this this uh you know, you've probab probably heard it yourself,

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Speaker 2: and I'm sure there's lots of guys on the podcasts

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Speaker 2: that have. But it turns out it was a female's

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Speaker 2: mating call, which sounds a lot like a like a

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Speaker 2: loud chirping of a bird. And I don't recall how often,

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Speaker 2: you know, we would go out to this spot every weekend,

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Speaker 2: you know, probably two three days every weekend. And from

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Speaker 2: from the very first time that we heard the the

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Speaker 2: vocalizations and we wound up, this went on for years.

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Speaker 2: I mean, like I said, the the lack of hearing

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Speaker 2: this story anywhere else in life makes me just so

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Speaker 2: giddy about the opportunities and the neatness of how this

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Speaker 2: all played out. But to summarize it best I can,

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Speaker 2: and I got obsessed, just like I do with everything

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Speaker 2: about studying mountain lions and their behavior and their habitat

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Speaker 2: and their you know, their habits. But this female mountain

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Speaker 2: lion kind of broke the mold in a sense that

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Speaker 2: she seemed to be very centrally located in this in

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Speaker 2: this small little two mile square you know of Idaho woods,

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Speaker 2: and and she didn't travel very far out of here.

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Speaker 2: But we wound up, of course seeing the female that

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Speaker 2: first year. And we would always joke because we were

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Speaker 2: either you know, we were either riding snowmobiles or four

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Speaker 2: wheelers out from you know, from the closest relativest property

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Speaker 2: there that we would access this place from. And you know,

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Speaker 2: to tell your family you're going out mountain lion hunting

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Speaker 2: without without dogs is kind of a laughing a laughing

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Speaker 2: stock of a joke, even hooking back. But yeah, so

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Speaker 2: it all started out with just the vocalizations. Uh. Eventually

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Speaker 2: it turned into you know, we would spot this lion

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Speaker 2: across the canyon. Uh, I don't communicate a whole lot

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Speaker 2: with the friend that at that time that I was

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Speaker 2: doing all of the all of the adventure and with

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Speaker 2: and and Back in those days, video you know, video

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Speaker 2: equipment was a lot less fancy than than it is now.

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Speaker 2: So we were, uh out there somewhere on earth this

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Speaker 2: video of all of all of a lot of these interactions,

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Speaker 2: but just on like a little handicam you know, I

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Speaker 2: don't I often dream and somehow I could wind up

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Speaker 2: with the memory card out of that thing, because uh,

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Speaker 2: there was there was one spring that we watched this

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Speaker 2: same you know, the same female, uh with three different cubs,

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Speaker 2: you know, just sung yourself in a beautiful grassy green

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Speaker 2: spot on the other side of the canyon. Probably I

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Speaker 2: don't remember for sure, but I would say six to

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Speaker 2: eight hundred yards away. These cubs are just jumping all

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Speaker 2: over her, attacking her, wrestling her, you know, just like

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Speaker 2: a look like a house cat with kittens, but just

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Speaker 2: some of the neatest life experiences when it comes to

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Speaker 2: being out in the woods that you could ever you know,

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Speaker 2: that you could ever bring home stories to mom and

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Speaker 2: dad or stories to your friends. Especially at that time

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Speaker 2: I was working at night Force and you know, looking

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Speaker 2: back and how rare that opportunity was, I'm sure half

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Speaker 2: those guys probably thought I was just uh making making,

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Speaker 2: making this stuff up. But it was one of the neatest,

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Speaker 2: probably the neatest, you know, woods stuff I've ever experienced.

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Speaker 2: Uh I wound up spotting, you know, I think it was. Uh,

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Speaker 2: my family's always been into dirt bikes and dirt bike

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Speaker 2: racing and stuff. And I remember specifically that the day

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Speaker 2: that I shot my male lion from that same spot

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Speaker 2: on Earth that we viewed and you know, witnessed all

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Speaker 2: this neat stuff at about it was four hundred and

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Speaker 2: eighty something yards across the canyon, this lion, you know,

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Speaker 2: the fog was was down really low in the canyon,

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Speaker 2: and you know, we always kind of just played our

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Speaker 2: cards to see if the fog was going to lift

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Speaker 2: to where we could actually see get a good view

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Speaker 2: of the opposing canyon wall. And as the fog began

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Speaker 2: to lift, here is a dead white tail and a

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Speaker 2: lion that's feeding on it. You know, that's that's that's

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Speaker 2: eating his morning breakfast off of this little buck that

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Speaker 2: he had killed in the in the prior week or whatever.

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Speaker 2: And that was the very first time that I think, well,

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Speaker 2: that was the first time I ever got a you know,

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Speaker 2: laid behind my rifle with a with a mountain lion

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Speaker 2: in the scope. It was a pretty surreal scenario. But

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Speaker 2: I do remember that it was the opening day of

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Speaker 2: either Supercross or the outdoor series. I don't recall because

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Speaker 2: I called my dad. I called my dad immediately after

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Speaker 2: I after I shot it, and uh, and I remember

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Speaker 2: he was, yeah, he was. He was watching in the

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Speaker 2: opener of the of the dirt bike season, whichever whichever

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Speaker 2: race series it was. But unbelievable, Like I said, four,

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Speaker 2: I think it was, you know, it was at that

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Speaker 2: time that was a pretty shoot lower. And shooting is

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Speaker 2: such a uh what do you want to call it.

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Speaker 2: It's such a it's such a perishable skill. If you're

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Speaker 2: not doing it frequently and doing it often, you shouldn't

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Speaker 2: be doing it at all, and and especially with an animal,

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Speaker 2: you know, as the target. But those in those days,

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Speaker 2: four hundred and eighty yards was really just uh, you know,

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Speaker 2: kind of getting getting things going. It wasn't too far

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Speaker 2: of a poke. It was it was well within my

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Speaker 2: with in my uh comfort zone, and uh, you know,

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Speaker 2: re remembering the in the scenario. Uh, it was late

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Speaker 2: in the afternoon. It was late in the afternoon, almost

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Speaker 2: getting on the evening. Because as soon as I took

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Speaker 2: I took one shot and uh watched it react and

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Speaker 2: watched it jump up and take a few leaps into

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Speaker 2: the timber. Now that I'm reliving the scenario, it was

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Speaker 2: immediately too dark, you know, it would have it's about Ah,

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Speaker 2: it was probably an hour, you know, hour and a

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Speaker 2: half uh ride on the on the quads or whatever

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Speaker 2: to even get over to that opposite side of the canyon.

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Speaker 2: So we did, we did what I suppose anybody would

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Speaker 2: would do, which was just pull out for the night,

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Speaker 2: not go chasing a cougar through the mountains in the dark.

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Speaker 2: And uh and and then we we showed back up

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Speaker 2: first thing, you know, first light the next morning to

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Speaker 2: go start tracking it. And h unbelievable, you know, it

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Speaker 2: wound up being a big male. I I I got

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Speaker 2: the I've got it wid mounted. It's it's in my parents'

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Speaker 2: log cabin, you know, down the nor Fino and and uh,

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Speaker 2: just such a neat almost you know, almost unimaginable experience.

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Speaker 2: But but but even after I killed that that male,

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Speaker 2: you know, for for many seasons and many years, we

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Speaker 2: would continue to see this female. She had a she

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Speaker 2: had a real large, uh white marking that came high

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Speaker 2: up on her belly and high up into her chest,

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Speaker 2: and and we had her in our scope. But you know,

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Speaker 2: time and time again watching her, we always we always

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Speaker 2: just assumed that she was our She was the reason

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Speaker 2: that these males were coming into the area every spring

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Speaker 2: for for mating. And so we all obviously would would

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Speaker 2: have you know, had no no desire to try to

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Speaker 2: to try to take her as an animal, even you know,

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Speaker 2: even in all the instances that we had her, we

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Speaker 2: just enjoyed watching her and watching her vocalize. And and

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Speaker 2: I don't I don't you know, I don't know if

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Speaker 2: it was the following year or two seasons later, but

340
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Speaker 2: my my hunting partner at that time, Jeremy, he you know,

341
00:21:30,280 --> 00:21:34,080
Speaker 2: we wound up spot in another big lion from the

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Speaker 2: very same shooting location, uh just a little further down

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Speaker 2: the canyon and sunning itself, you know, on this little

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Speaker 2: grassy bench. And I want to say his his shot

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Speaker 2: was somewhere in the about six I think it was

346
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Speaker 2: six seventy five, something like that, and we got his

347
00:21:57,119 --> 00:22:00,479
Speaker 2: whole you know, we got his whole experience on on

348
00:22:00,560 --> 00:22:05,840
Speaker 2: that on that handicam and and uh, it was the

349
00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:09,040
Speaker 2: neatest thing that it. You know, he made a perfect

350
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Speaker 2: shot on it. The lion just kind of rolled back

351
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Speaker 2: and put both both paws straight up to the air

352
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Speaker 2: like it was like it was praying. And and it

353
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Speaker 2: wound up being even a slightly bigger male than than

354
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Speaker 2: the one I had shot the season prior. And so

355
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Speaker 2: to to shoot two male lions from a distance that

356
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Speaker 2: you were able to you know, spot them, and and

357
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Speaker 2: and and one of the neatest parts, Like I said,

358
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Speaker 2: I mean, we're talking about the same twenty foot area

359
00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:47,360
Speaker 2: that we would go set up, you know, to hang

360
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Speaker 2: out in glass all day. We were in the exact

361
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Speaker 2: same spot on earth to have shot both of these animals.

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Speaker 2: And you know, he he I think he just wound

363
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Speaker 2: up getting his I don't think he got is mounted.

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00:23:01,600 --> 00:23:03,960
Speaker 2: He just got the you know, got the hide, uh

365
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Speaker 2: tanned and and but it was it was a monster.

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Speaker 2: I I often wish I had access to my old

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Speaker 2: Night Force email because that was where so many of

368
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Speaker 2: our hunting stories were were photos were kicked around and

369
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Speaker 2: and uh uh that lion was was just a monster.

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Speaker 2: So you know, looking back, I I I feel like

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Speaker 2: I have a certain connection to the mountain lion. I'm

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Speaker 2: you know, I'm always I've always been highly respectful of

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Speaker 2: all of these predators. Even though I'm happy to go

374
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Speaker 2: and and try to hunt them. They just intrigued me.

375
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Speaker 2: Their their power, their their strength, and their ability to

376
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Speaker 2: to make a living in the woods has always just

377
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Speaker 2: just so much respect. So, uh, I'm you know, I

378
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Speaker 2: even though we took two of these lines out of

379
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:03,479
Speaker 2: this canyon and and uh and have these great stories

380
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:08,159
Speaker 2: to tell, I've always researched and read and tried to

381
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 2: learn as much about this particular animal and all the

382
00:24:11,119 --> 00:24:16,600
Speaker 2: apex predators like like them. So anyway, neat very very

383
00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:20,479
Speaker 2: cool mountain lion stories and and uh stuff that that

384
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Speaker 2: you couldn't make up if you tried. I just I

385
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Speaker 2: just wish I had better. Yeah, you know, some days

386
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Speaker 2: I wish that I was documenting that part of my life,

387
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:34,920
Speaker 2: like I am document documenting this part of my life,

388
00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:37,480
Speaker 2: to be able to share those those memories with people

389
00:24:37,840 --> 00:24:41,560
Speaker 2: that uh, just unbelievable neat stuff.

390
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you're right, very anytime anyone that spend a

391
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Speaker 1: lot of time in the woods, then I feel like

392
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Speaker 1: we all have a like some of those crazy moments,

393
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Speaker 1: like man, I wish I had a camera. I wish

394
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Speaker 1: I had maybe sometimes like I've been, I've spent a

395
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Speaker 1: lot of time by myself in the woods over the

396
00:25:01,480 --> 00:25:03,800
Speaker 1: years and just wished I had someone there, you know,

397
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Speaker 1: wish with me to to to see what I just saw,

398
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Speaker 1: Like can you believe that, like to share that stuff

399
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:13,679
Speaker 1: with As much as I love being out alone, I do,

400
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:17,200
Speaker 1: I do kind of wish sometimes I wish I would

401
00:25:17,200 --> 00:25:19,159
Speaker 1: have had someone with me that way, they could have

402
00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:21,720
Speaker 1: enjoyed the same spectacle that I just saw.

403
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Speaker 2: It's it's such a blessing to live in a place

404
00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 2: like this. Over the years since you know, since we

405
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:33,720
Speaker 2: worked together and stuff. I really I had a chance

406
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:36,240
Speaker 2: to travel all over the country on my own, you know,

407
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:40,280
Speaker 2: with a little business that I created. And I can't

408
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:43,399
Speaker 2: tell you how. There's a lot of pretty places around

409
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:46,840
Speaker 2: the United States, but there's hardly anything that compares to

410
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 2: what we've got here, in my opinion anyway, and there's

411
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:58,679
Speaker 2: there's definitely. Yeah, I just am so grateful for for

412
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:03,120
Speaker 2: being being born in this neck of the woods. And

413
00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:09,480
Speaker 2: and to have called this place home. Uh yeah, it's

414
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 2: been unbelievable. And there's a lot of a lot of

415
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:16,160
Speaker 2: a lot of neat memories being being shared every year

416
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:20,880
Speaker 2: by guys like that. Uh but I I I do

417
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 2: often wish I had a little bit better ability to

418
00:26:24,119 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 2: have documented those Mountain Lion stories because it was you know,

419
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 2: once again, it almost it just seems surreal looking back

420
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:32,880
Speaker 2: on it this many years later.

421
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Speaker 1: Yeah. So at some point you and I both left

422
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:49,159
Speaker 1: Night Force and made a decision, you know, like you know,

423
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:52,399
Speaker 1: life's decisions, you know, you they say, they say the

424
00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:56,800
Speaker 1: most the most, the biggest decisions are some of the

425
00:26:56,800 --> 00:26:59,880
Speaker 1: most life changing decisions are when you buy a home

426
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 1: and when you change careers. And I've bought a few

427
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:06,679
Speaker 1: different homes, and I've changed careers a few times, and

428
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: you know, you've you've done some stuff like that too.

429
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:14,959
Speaker 1: So it doesn't come without its level of anxiety. But

430
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 1: you you left Night Force and you went to pursue

431
00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:22,280
Speaker 1: a passion that most people might scratch your head. I

432
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Speaker 1: don't know, you folks might even scratch their heads a

433
00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:28,080
Speaker 1: little bit. And you're like hairstream campers, what, yeah, what

434
00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 1: are you thinking? Man? Tell us, tell us about what

435
00:27:32,119 --> 00:27:34,639
Speaker 1: sent you on your next path. Yeah.

436
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:38,879
Speaker 2: So, you know, I've always had a really a really

437
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:46,000
Speaker 2: strong creative it's to scratch and and I tried my best,

438
00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:52,399
Speaker 2: you know, at nightforce and through. I've always needed to

439
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 2: feel real connected to whatever is consuming my life, you know,

440
00:27:56,359 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 2: as much as a career would. And so even at nightfall,

441
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:02,639
Speaker 2: you know, I found myself really trying my best to

442
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 2: contribute to the success of the company and what we

443
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:12,240
Speaker 2: were building and doing, and and you know, the company

444
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:15,160
Speaker 2: was growing fast and they're really you know, I wasn't

445
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:18,439
Speaker 2: hired to be any sort of research and development, but

446
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:24,199
Speaker 2: I really had sort of ambitions to try to at

447
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 2: least I could feel twinges of those being passionate desires

448
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 2: that I wanted to, you know, I wanted to help

449
00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:36,399
Speaker 2: shape what was happening. And the more the company grew

450
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 2: and the more I felt like a lot of you know,

451
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:46,520
Speaker 2: it started out as a very small group group of

452
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 2: folks running the company, and of course just through the

453
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:55,560
Speaker 2: success of the product, it grew pretty rapidly. And for me,

454
00:28:56,800 --> 00:29:00,920
Speaker 2: I could see my my career was becoming more and

455
00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:05,680
Speaker 2: more computer computer oriented, you know, more more even the

456
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:08,959
Speaker 2: even the talk of cubicles down down the road and stuff,

457
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:13,320
Speaker 2: and that that at least, for whatever reason at that

458
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:15,920
Speaker 2: time of my life, I just felt like, that's going

459
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 2: to be hard for me to swallow if I don't

460
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 2: make a change now and and you know, start to

461
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:23,480
Speaker 2: chase these these these dreams that I've got sort of

462
00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:27,480
Speaker 2: bruined inside me. But I didn't have an exit strategy,

463
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 2: and I didn't have a real great you know, I

464
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:33,200
Speaker 2: formed one, but I didn't have a big, a big

465
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:36,480
Speaker 2: plan as to how I was going to pursue my

466
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 2: own my own creative dreams. And uh, there in the

467
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 2: last couple of years of working at Night Force, my

468
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:52,480
Speaker 2: my lady Heather, and I we we sort of fell

469
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 2: victim to these old vintage Airstream travel trailers. We we

470
00:29:57,160 --> 00:30:02,880
Speaker 2: bought a nineteen sixty six Airstream. I realized even back

471
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 2: then that there was sort of a cult following around

472
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 2: these old pieces of of you know, Americana. I you know,

473
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:15,479
Speaker 2: we were on vacation someplace clear across the globe, uh,

474
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 2: you know, discussing our future and discussing our life, and

475
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 2: and uh it just sort of click, you know, I thought, well,

476
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 2: this is a big passion in our lives. It's not

477
00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 2: something that I do for a living, but it's something

478
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:33,520
Speaker 2: that i'm very I'm I'm drawn to and I realize

479
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 2: that there's a value in them. And so we kind

480
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:40,600
Speaker 2: of made a made a pact together that I would

481
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 2: you know, maybe work probably another year while I got

482
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 2: my ducks in a row to try to you know,

483
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:53,080
Speaker 2: try to organize putting together a vintage airstream restoration company.

484
00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:57,040
Speaker 2: And I gotta I gotta admit, once you start to

485
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:02,840
Speaker 2: let those wheels turn in your head, a year seems

486
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:07,400
Speaker 2: like an awfully long time. And it didn't wind up.

487
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 2: I wound up tapping out a little bit earlier than

488
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:15,400
Speaker 2: the year that we set. Then we then we specified

489
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 2: and agreed to. But I went right into you know,

490
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 2: starting this, this self employed business all, you know, by myself.

491
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 2: It wasn't like I was going out to hire a

492
00:31:27,920 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 2: group of guys to do this. This was going to

493
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:33,040
Speaker 2: be something that I did on my own. My my

494
00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:37,479
Speaker 2: my ambition was to go and find these you know,

495
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 2: old antique airstream trailers out in the country, which you know,

496
00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 2: just like I'm sure you're aware, but you see these

497
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:47,320
Speaker 2: types of things rotten away out in fields all the time,

498
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 2: and so away we went. I I, you know, I

499
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:57,320
Speaker 2: began to to and even at that time, I had

500
00:31:57,360 --> 00:32:01,280
Speaker 2: been really sort of drawn to the idea of beginning

501
00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:05,200
Speaker 2: to document my my life and document my passions through

502
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 2: uh social media and through you know, through video and

503
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:12,280
Speaker 2: and photo I guess as well back in those days.

504
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:17,480
Speaker 2: But I began to study social media a lot, and

505
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 2: and early on began to recognize that that it was

506
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 2: going to become more of a thing than than it

507
00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 2: was at that time, and that that there were I

508
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:30,880
Speaker 2: guess I just got to give credit where credit's due.

509
00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 2: There's a there's this lunatic out there named Gary Vee

510
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:38,720
Speaker 2: that I began to study at least catch whims of,

511
00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:42,400
Speaker 2: and and to me, he had a lot of uh,

512
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 2: pretty pretty bona fide thoughts going on with you know,

513
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 2: you can make a career out of niche interests if

514
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:54,719
Speaker 2: you're able to document them and begin to show the

515
00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 2: world these passions that you have that aren't so mainstream.

516
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 2: But but so all this began to click in my

517
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 2: head and started the airstream business, thinking that it was

518
00:33:05,720 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 2: going to be a you know, I'll go find one

519
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:11,480
Speaker 2: or two of these a year and begin to restore

520
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:14,800
Speaker 2: them on my own. I've always I've always loved building

521
00:33:14,840 --> 00:33:19,400
Speaker 2: stuff and bringing something back to life. I've always appreciated

522
00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 2: made in the USA manufacturing and things that the style

523
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:28,520
Speaker 2: that went along with manufacturing back in those days. You know,

524
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 2: it seemed like art and beauty was more of a thing,

525
00:33:33,920 --> 00:33:36,720
Speaker 2: you know, back in the forties and fifties and sixties

526
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:41,800
Speaker 2: than we know we know of it now. So the

527
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 2: neat thing about the airstream business is what started out

528
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:48,880
Speaker 2: is I'm going to I'm going to restore these things

529
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:51,400
Speaker 2: one at a time and then you know, find a

530
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 2: new owner for them. Wound up that I wound up

531
00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 2: having just a knack for finding them out in the country.

532
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 2: And you know, my, my, I suppose my comfortable mindset

533
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:09,759
Speaker 2: with talking to strangers and knocking on doors and and

534
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 2: you know, striking up a conversation about are you you know,

535
00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:15,319
Speaker 2: are you ever going to do anything with this thing?

536
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:17,400
Speaker 2: And would you ever want to sell it? You know,

537
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:20,759
Speaker 2: and and all those things came really natural to me.

538
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 2: And so what started out as a restoration business turned

539
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:29,280
Speaker 2: into sort of a rescue business. I met some pretty

540
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 2: well not I met some extremely successful business owners down

541
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:38,640
Speaker 2: in southern California that were you know, had been restoring

542
00:34:38,719 --> 00:34:42,839
Speaker 2: old airstreams for you know, for for decades and had

543
00:34:43,640 --> 00:34:46,640
Speaker 2: long lists of people lined up that wanted to have

544
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 2: an airstream built. But the bottleneck for them was that

545
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 2: they had sort of picked all of the old airstreams

546
00:34:54,120 --> 00:34:57,600
Speaker 2: out of the fields down in that neck of the woods.

547
00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:02,280
Speaker 2: So so the the availability of trailers that they could

548
00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:06,520
Speaker 2: tear apart and restore had dried up to a point

549
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:10,040
Speaker 2: where all they wanted from from a guy like me

550
00:35:10,280 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 2: was to bring them deliver a trailer to them that

551
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:16,120
Speaker 2: I had just found out in the country in Idaho.

552
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:19,800
Speaker 2: And you know I was I was making good money

553
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 2: from from buying them from a very fair price, oftentimes

554
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 2: as being laughed at by the you know, by the

555
00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 2: original owners saying, are you sure you want to pay

556
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:32,600
Speaker 2: this much for this trailer? You know, it's it's been

557
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:36,600
Speaker 2: it's just been a mouse home for the last twenty

558
00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:41,400
Speaker 2: years out in this field. And and you know, I

559
00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:44,920
Speaker 2: always tried to approach it with with good karma in mind.

560
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 2: And so anyway I would offer a fair price. I

561
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:52,480
Speaker 2: would I would get them you know, roads safe and

562
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:57,640
Speaker 2: travel ready, and then I would I developed all these clients,

563
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:04,400
Speaker 2: these restoration clients in oftentimes southern California, big hot rod scene,

564
00:36:04,640 --> 00:36:09,440
Speaker 2: you know, just big uh uh restorations. You know that

565
00:36:09,560 --> 00:36:13,360
Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of people having things built.

566
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:15,879
Speaker 2: But you know, you kind of just drew drew over

567
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:22,640
Speaker 2: from from North Idaho. So I got to I got

568
00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:25,399
Speaker 2: to wind up just delivering these airstreams that I would

569
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:27,920
Speaker 2: find and and buy out in the country of Idaho

570
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:31,280
Speaker 2: down to down to that area of the country, drop

571
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 2: them off and and uh I laugh. Now I kind

572
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:39,759
Speaker 2: of explain it like like sort of a my own

573
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:44,160
Speaker 2: version of American Pickers, except for I included the delivery

574
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:46,920
Speaker 2: and the and the road trip to you know, to

575
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 2: deliver the trailer down to the new owners. And uh,

576
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 2: it was a really neat chapter of life. I didn't.

577
00:36:55,120 --> 00:36:57,920
Speaker 2: It just goes to show you you you can. You

578
00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:01,120
Speaker 2: can start out with a plan, but you should always

579
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:05,000
Speaker 2: be flexible with what you with, with how it how

580
00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:09,040
Speaker 2: it plays out. Because I would have never dreamt that

581
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 2: I could just sort of do the funnest part of

582
00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 2: airstream restoration, which was driving around the back roads of

583
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:19,760
Speaker 2: the woods and in Idaho and finding these old things

584
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 2: and buying them and bringing them home. You know, the

585
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:26,879
Speaker 2: hunt for them was was really just a fun part

586
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:30,440
Speaker 2: of life for me, and that's really what the business

587
00:37:30,520 --> 00:37:37,960
Speaker 2: turned into. So I'm grateful for that that chapter of life. Uh.

588
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:43,480
Speaker 2: And back in back in twenty twenty one, prior to that,

589
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:45,960
Speaker 2: I had just i'd just had a brand new shop

590
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:49,680
Speaker 2: built that I would, you know, later down the road

591
00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:52,560
Speaker 2: plan to you know, to begin to build the air

592
00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 2: build some airstreams in and and do my airstream work

593
00:37:56,120 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 2: in and yeah, I'll let I'll let you lead the

594
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:05,200
Speaker 2: conversation there. But that was about when the airstream business

595
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:07,840
Speaker 2: took the back seat to this new life that we

596
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 2: that we've you know, began to create. You're out on

597
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 2: our rural achorage.

598
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:16,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think we all have, like we get

599
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:20,879
Speaker 1: these passion projects that we begin, and there are these

600
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:27,360
Speaker 1: some unintended consequences that we find. Uh. For instance, you

601
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:31,239
Speaker 1: got to be really good not only find these things,

602
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 1: but you got very good at documenting your journey and

603
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:37,480
Speaker 1: documenting your life and and everything about that, which I

604
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:41,759
Speaker 1: think spurred more opportunity for you as well. But then

605
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:46,840
Speaker 1: that that you know, becoming so good at that helped

606
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:49,959
Speaker 1: in this next transition to the next part of your

607
00:38:50,480 --> 00:38:53,840
Speaker 1: of your life, which you just alluded to. Ye Like,

608
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:59,320
Speaker 1: at some point whenever your business couldn't look any cooler,

609
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:04,440
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, an airstream life. Yeah you completely do

610
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:08,799
Speaker 1: something different, because yeah, something completely different, and you you

611
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 1: doubled down on homesteading and document on that journey and

612
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:15,960
Speaker 1: lifestyle and what what sent you that direction?

613
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:20,919
Speaker 2: Okay, so once again I got to give credit where

614
00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:25,480
Speaker 2: credit is truly due, and for me, I was I

615
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:28,080
Speaker 2: was finally feeling like, all right, this business you know

616
00:39:28,160 --> 00:39:32,880
Speaker 2: that I've created, which I I've always had high hopes

617
00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:35,120
Speaker 2: and big, big dreams of it. But I've also been

618
00:39:35,160 --> 00:39:37,600
Speaker 2: I've always been a very humble person to think, you know,

619
00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:44,839
Speaker 2: maybe this just isn't so popular that the widespread draw

620
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:47,760
Speaker 2: to it is going to lead to, you know, big

621
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:53,040
Speaker 2: self employed success. So I've always you know, I've always

622
00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:56,640
Speaker 2: been I guess I've always surprised myself in the end

623
00:39:56,719 --> 00:39:59,759
Speaker 2: sometimes because I'm not I'm not assuming that I'm just

624
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 2: going to to get a home run every time. I'm

625
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:08,440
Speaker 2: staying extremely humble. So if I if I screw it up,

626
00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:10,960
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't let myself down too much. But

627
00:40:12,719 --> 00:40:16,960
Speaker 2: at that time, my now fiance Heather. You know, her

628
00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 2: and I have been together since back in the Night

629
00:40:19,239 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 2: Force days. We're coming up on eleven years now. She

630
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:28,120
Speaker 2: and I had a place in the Loose Orchards at

631
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:30,200
Speaker 2: that time in life when I was doing the airstream

632
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:32,480
Speaker 2: stuff and for the last couple of years at Night Force,

633
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:41,160
Speaker 2: and she was the driving force who recognized through basically

634
00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:46,160
Speaker 2: what was going on with with people trying to relocate

635
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 2: all over the country in a big way, I think,

636
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:54,399
Speaker 2: you know, COVID started started to you know, shift people up,

637
00:40:54,440 --> 00:40:56,759
Speaker 2: and a lot of folks wanted to move further out

638
00:40:56,800 --> 00:40:59,920
Speaker 2: of the more populated areas you know, I think probably

639
00:40:59,880 --> 00:41:03,680
Speaker 2: all across the country. But in our case, you know,

640
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:07,120
Speaker 2: the real estate market in in our little neck of

641
00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:12,160
Speaker 2: the woods just probably not unlike any other way any

642
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:15,440
Speaker 2: other place around the country, but it just went crazy.

643
00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:19,680
Speaker 2: And so this home that we had been you know,

644
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:24,160
Speaker 2: always making, always making improvements on and making sort of

645
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:27,319
Speaker 2: our we we definitely didn't want it to be our

646
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:29,920
Speaker 2: forever home, but we were we put the love into

647
00:41:29,960 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 2: it as though it was going to be our forever home.

648
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:37,440
Speaker 2: So we were, uh, we had made a really pretty

649
00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:41,800
Speaker 2: three quarters of an acre property out of out of

650
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:44,920
Speaker 2: the spot up in the list of orchards and and Heather,

651
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 2: you know, she came to me one one night and said,

652
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 2: I know you're not going to be able to swallow

653
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:55,720
Speaker 2: this very well, but I think that if we wanted

654
00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:58,480
Speaker 2: to sell what we've got here, we could, you know,

655
00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:01,280
Speaker 2: we could buy acreage in the country and we could

656
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 2: we could do what we've always dreamed of, which is,

657
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:07,960
Speaker 2: you know, not have any neighbors and and start over

658
00:42:08,239 --> 00:42:11,880
Speaker 2: out you know, out in the country. And that's how

659
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:14,320
Speaker 2: it all started. It was, it was purely her idea.

660
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:17,120
Speaker 2: I was. I was pretty happy with how the airstream

661
00:42:17,160 --> 00:42:19,879
Speaker 2: stuff was going. I had a brand literally a brand

662
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 2: new shop that I hadn't even built a single you know,

663
00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:26,279
Speaker 2: I hadn't even tackled a single airstream project in in

664
00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:30,480
Speaker 2: yet my dad had come down and helped me finish

665
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:36,719
Speaker 2: out the the interior. I was. I was the hard

666
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:39,520
Speaker 2: one to condense to do anything different at that stage

667
00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:43,920
Speaker 2: in life, because, uh, I had just reached some some

668
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:47,279
Speaker 2: pretty big goals and in the self employed world in

669
00:42:47,320 --> 00:42:51,719
Speaker 2: my mind. And but that that's what started it all.

670
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:54,960
Speaker 2: She she started putting the bug in my ear, you

671
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:57,680
Speaker 2: know that that we could do something different. We could buy,

672
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:03,520
Speaker 2: buy land, start over fresh. And so we began to

673
00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:09,719
Speaker 2: we basically began to shop for acreages that were we

674
00:43:09,719 --> 00:43:12,080
Speaker 2: were just window shopping, you know. We didn't we hadn't

675
00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:14,240
Speaker 2: sold the house yet, so we didn't have this cash,

676
00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:16,560
Speaker 2: you know, this chunk of money that we could go

677
00:43:16,640 --> 00:43:21,520
Speaker 2: and buy something new with. But we we started to, uh,

678
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:25,759
Speaker 2: basically just shop what was available. And and we were

679
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:28,719
Speaker 2: only looking for for a property that was kind of

680
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:33,719
Speaker 2: within driving distance, you know, maybe maybe an hour at

681
00:43:33,719 --> 00:43:37,800
Speaker 2: the most from from where we were currently living in

682
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:43,160
Speaker 2: in Lewiston. And so we shopped all over, you know,

683
00:43:43,239 --> 00:43:47,680
Speaker 2: anywhere from uh, you know, downriver to to or Fino area.

684
00:43:47,880 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 2: And yeah, we wound up we wound up hiking a

685
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:57,560
Speaker 2: lot of properties. And and back in those days, we

686
00:43:58,400 --> 00:44:01,319
Speaker 2: I think we had high hopes that we would take

687
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:04,480
Speaker 2: that money by the property and be building our house

688
00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:09,960
Speaker 2: within you know, a year or two afterwards. But the

689
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:13,080
Speaker 2: reality of all that is that I'm just I guess,

690
00:44:13,120 --> 00:44:18,160
Speaker 2: a glutton for punishment. I've decided through this journey and

691
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:22,040
Speaker 2: through being able to to help teach the world about

692
00:44:22,080 --> 00:44:27,760
Speaker 2: how this how this process goes, I haven't I haven't

693
00:44:27,800 --> 00:44:30,279
Speaker 2: decided to hire anybody. I don't want any you know,

694
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:32,320
Speaker 2: my dad comes and helps me every now and again,

695
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:35,919
Speaker 2: but I really want to build this property all on

696
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:39,080
Speaker 2: my own, you know, just Heather and I my own

697
00:44:39,120 --> 00:44:41,160
Speaker 2: two hands and a little bit of help from family.

698
00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:46,480
Speaker 2: And as gratifying as I know that'll be, you know,

699
00:44:46,640 --> 00:44:50,760
Speaker 2: ten years down the road, looking back, it's a humbling

700
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:57,439
Speaker 2: experience also because you're you. I'm a positive guide, I've

701
00:44:57,520 --> 00:45:01,560
Speaker 2: got I've got high ambitions, but uh, you know, two

702
00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:04,799
Speaker 2: hands doing all the work just it's it's a lot

703
00:45:04,880 --> 00:45:11,120
Speaker 2: slower than you think. So this is now our uh

704
00:45:12,239 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 2: you know, beginning of year. We're about three and a

705
00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:19,960
Speaker 2: half years in and we're still just loosely planning you know,

706
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:23,880
Speaker 2: the forever home build. But so far we've we focused

707
00:45:23,880 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 2: on all the infrastructure of of building semi off grid

708
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:37,359
Speaker 2: you know property out here that's where all of the

709
00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:44,359
Speaker 2: modern rural civilian developed. You know, I I had sort

710
00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:47,480
Speaker 2: of an identity crisis early in that first year because

711
00:45:47,520 --> 00:45:51,400
Speaker 2: I was trying to share one, like you said, just

712
00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:54,880
Speaker 2: document my journey. And I still sort of had a

713
00:45:56,560 --> 00:46:00,800
Speaker 2: social media platform name that represented the airstreams and traveling

714
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:05,279
Speaker 2: across the country and and and uh, yeah, and so

715
00:46:05,600 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 2: I just I had I had some some nights with

716
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:13,520
Speaker 2: my notepad and and trying to figure out how I could,

717
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:17,400
Speaker 2: you know, build a platform that could include all of

718
00:46:17,440 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 2: my varied passions, whether whether it be at that time,

719
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:26,520
Speaker 2: I was still really into restoring old Ford trucks, and

720
00:46:26,719 --> 00:46:31,560
Speaker 2: UH had started to old Ford truck build all this

721
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:35,759
Speaker 2: homesteading stuff and UH and then the self sufficient side

722
00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:39,920
Speaker 2: of of beginning to create a property that the high

723
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:42,440
Speaker 2: hopes that this property will sort of, you know, do

724
00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:44,640
Speaker 2: its best to take care of us as much as

725
00:46:44,680 --> 00:46:46,920
Speaker 2: we take care of it, you know, down the road.

726
00:46:47,200 --> 00:46:51,080
Speaker 2: And uh, modern rural civilian was was born on a notepad.

727
00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:55,759
Speaker 2: And so I changed all of the all the all

728
00:46:55,800 --> 00:47:02,719
Speaker 2: the social media names to that probably two and a

729
00:47:02,760 --> 00:47:09,120
Speaker 2: half three years ago now. And I I really can't

730
00:47:09,160 --> 00:47:13,719
Speaker 2: say how fortunate we've always been to just be sort

731
00:47:13,719 --> 00:47:16,800
Speaker 2: of a two steps ahead of where the world seems

732
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:22,360
Speaker 2: to be wanting to go. And with with with you know,

733
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 2: the the commitment to selling all of our stuff in

734
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:30,920
Speaker 2: order to to buy this acreage and and start this

735
00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:36,799
Speaker 2: whole new this whole new lifestyle change. I I never

736
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:40,400
Speaker 2: would have dreamt that there would be so many anticipating

737
00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:44,200
Speaker 2: eyes wanting to see how this all plays out. Uh,

738
00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:50,000
Speaker 2: you know, from a di license, but modern rural civilians

739
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:56,880
Speaker 2: started as you know, you know, a few thousand people

740
00:47:56,920 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 2: paying attention. And at this point, you know, across all

741
00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 2: the different platforms, there's there's more than there's pushing two

742
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:08,880
Speaker 2: and a half million people watching watching all of this

743
00:48:09,800 --> 00:48:14,920
Speaker 2: homesteading development unfold by my own successes and failures.

744
00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:21,440
Speaker 1: So that's incredible. That's incredible. The uh one thing you said,

745
00:48:21,520 --> 00:48:24,160
Speaker 1: you know it, man, these two hands, It takes these

746
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:27,319
Speaker 1: two hands a lot of time to get these projects done. Yeah.

747
00:48:27,360 --> 00:48:31,719
Speaker 1: But on social media, yeah, the the content you share,

748
00:48:31,719 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 1: because you share all the time and do such a

749
00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 1: good job of like documenting and explaining your your way

750
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:39,520
Speaker 1: through what you're doing. You know, you're you show the

751
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:43,319
Speaker 1: videos of these different tasks you're completing and doing it

752
00:48:43,360 --> 00:48:45,520
Speaker 1: and why you're doing them. Do such a great job

753
00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:50,000
Speaker 1: at that. But man, it makes it look really easy. Yeah.

754
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:54,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I know, and I can I can defend

755
00:48:54,080 --> 00:48:57,600
Speaker 2: the same angle because you know, I'm not a professional

756
00:48:57,600 --> 00:49:00,480
Speaker 2: in any of what I'm doing. I really probably not.

757
00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:05,000
Speaker 2: Unlike anybody in our you know, sort of age genre,

758
00:49:05,520 --> 00:49:08,440
Speaker 2: we all turn to YouTube to try to learn these

759
00:49:08,480 --> 00:49:12,120
Speaker 2: tasks that we're unfamiliar with. So if I've got to

760
00:49:12,120 --> 00:49:14,320
Speaker 2: fix something, if I've got to make a repair, or

761
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 2: if I've got to tackle a task that that I'm

762
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:22,400
Speaker 2: unfamiliar with, then I'll spend a fair amount of time

763
00:49:22,520 --> 00:49:28,960
Speaker 2: obsessively researching that through you know, through YouTube mostly, And

764
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:34,000
Speaker 2: that's where that's where the the the illusion begins to form,

765
00:49:34,160 --> 00:49:37,640
Speaker 2: because you get to watch these guys or gals that

766
00:49:37,640 --> 00:49:43,920
Speaker 2: that you're learning from tackle these tasks, you know, and

767
00:49:44,080 --> 00:49:46,320
Speaker 2: showing it all wrapped up in an hour long video.

768
00:49:47,200 --> 00:49:49,799
Speaker 2: And so, you know, I'll go to Heather and I'll say, hey,

769
00:49:49,960 --> 00:49:52,319
Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna start this project, and you know,

770
00:49:52,360 --> 00:49:54,960
Speaker 2: I think it'll probably take probably take me a couple

771
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:58,200
Speaker 2: of weeks. And and uh, she's at the point now,

772
00:49:58,280 --> 00:50:01,000
Speaker 2: she said. She says to me often if I say

773
00:50:01,040 --> 00:50:03,120
Speaker 2: it's a if I if I give her a quantity

774
00:50:03,160 --> 00:50:07,680
Speaker 2: of weeks, she just converts that to the same number

775
00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:11,200
Speaker 2: of months. And so so so if I say two weeks,

776
00:50:11,200 --> 00:50:14,400
Speaker 2: she says, Mark, you you've lost your mind again. You know,

777
00:50:14,520 --> 00:50:16,600
Speaker 2: it's we're going to be You're going to be finishing

778
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:20,200
Speaker 2: this up two months down the road from now. But

779
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:25,440
Speaker 2: but it really does come from basically, I mean in

780
00:50:25,520 --> 00:50:27,880
Speaker 2: a big way, a positive outlook and a lot of

781
00:50:27,920 --> 00:50:31,359
Speaker 2: ambition to you know, kick button take names. But then

782
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:34,319
Speaker 2: on the on the the reality side of it. You know,

783
00:50:34,960 --> 00:50:37,919
Speaker 2: if you've ever built anything or tried to DIY much

784
00:50:38,040 --> 00:50:42,640
Speaker 2: in your life, you it's just never as easy as

785
00:50:42,640 --> 00:50:44,520
Speaker 2: you haven't sliced out in your mind.

786
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:47,320
Speaker 1: So oh yeah, every time I try to do anything

787
00:50:47,400 --> 00:50:49,719
Speaker 1: di y, it's like, all right, I'm gonna make one

788
00:50:49,760 --> 00:50:52,400
Speaker 1: trip to the hardware store and buy some lumber and

789
00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:55,440
Speaker 1: buy a few screws and some stuff, and then seventeen

790
00:50:55,480 --> 00:50:58,200
Speaker 1: trips later, I'm finally Yeah, I've had to go back

791
00:50:58,239 --> 00:50:59,000
Speaker 1: an times.

792
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:03,040
Speaker 2: It's it's so true. Uh, and and it's it's really

793
00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:07,560
Speaker 2: humbling and and I I try my best to show people,

794
00:51:08,280 --> 00:51:12,040
Speaker 2: you know, the ups and the downs, and and uh,

795
00:51:12,120 --> 00:51:15,480
Speaker 2: I've learned that, you know, social media is such a

796
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:22,080
Speaker 2: can can be such a polished, sort of skewed view

797
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:27,040
Speaker 2: into the world that I I've really found that there's

798
00:51:27,080 --> 00:51:29,520
Speaker 2: a there's a large number of folks out there that

799
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:33,560
Speaker 2: want to see the realities of some of this stuff.

800
00:51:33,600 --> 00:51:38,680
Speaker 2: You know, the more the more challenging parts of it.

801
00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:44,120
Speaker 2: So I've learned, I've learned through good audience reinforcement that

802
00:51:44,239 --> 00:51:48,400
Speaker 2: showing the failures along with the successes is uh is

803
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:53,680
Speaker 2: pretty important people like you know, the authenticity is is

804
00:51:54,080 --> 00:52:00,359
Speaker 2: a huge priority for me, and staying vulnerable through all

805
00:52:00,640 --> 00:52:05,839
Speaker 2: is has proven to be a really good route to take,

806
00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:09,400
Speaker 2: at least in my experience, because I'm really good at

807
00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:13,760
Speaker 2: researching and I and I, like I said, I definitely

808
00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:18,960
Speaker 2: dig in, you know, to the extreme when it comes

809
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:22,560
Speaker 2: to a new topic that I'm trying to learn, just

810
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:25,600
Speaker 2: like I did back then with long range shooting. I really,

811
00:52:26,080 --> 00:52:29,360
Speaker 2: I really try to set myself up for success with

812
00:52:29,480 --> 00:52:32,040
Speaker 2: the knowledge that it takes to handle some of these

813
00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:36,839
Speaker 2: things you know at the very beginning stages. But you

814
00:52:36,880 --> 00:52:39,799
Speaker 2: can never you can never predict all the things that

815
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:43,520
Speaker 2: are going to go wrong. And and I've felt, I

816
00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 2: found that the world is appreciative when you do show

817
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:50,960
Speaker 2: them also the things that are going perfectly. There's there's

818
00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:51,880
Speaker 2: some triumph in that.

819
00:52:52,480 --> 00:53:09,319
Speaker 1: Right now. I think, I think homesteading and that type

820
00:53:09,360 --> 00:53:14,399
Speaker 1: of lifestyle is definitely you know, attractive to sports, money

821
00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:18,880
Speaker 1: and hunters because I feel like to at least I

822
00:53:19,080 --> 00:53:22,800
Speaker 1: kind of feel like this. I feel like people that

823
00:53:23,040 --> 00:53:25,680
Speaker 1: enjoy the outdoor and stuff. We all kind of want

824
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:29,879
Speaker 1: to gravitate to living in an area, you know, kind

825
00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:32,040
Speaker 1: of like what you're doing, you know, semi off grid.

826
00:53:32,120 --> 00:53:33,879
Speaker 1: You know, let's get out of get out of town,

827
00:53:33,920 --> 00:53:37,759
Speaker 1: get away from neighbors. And I think, you know, like

828
00:53:37,840 --> 00:53:40,879
Speaker 1: our podcast says, cutting the distance and trying to cut

829
00:53:40,880 --> 00:53:43,560
Speaker 1: that down for you. So I feel like if there's

830
00:53:43,600 --> 00:53:47,640
Speaker 1: anybody that's looking to do homesteading, I think they should definitely,

831
00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 1: you know, go watch your stuff. You know, it's it's

832
00:53:52,120 --> 00:53:55,240
Speaker 1: some some amazing stuff. For instance, I can imagine probably

833
00:53:55,239 --> 00:53:58,200
Speaker 1: some of your most popular material is your ram pump

834
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:01,919
Speaker 1: that you set up. Yeah, and you I mean when

835
00:54:01,960 --> 00:54:03,799
Speaker 1: you first start doing it, it's like, oh man, this

836
00:54:04,560 --> 00:54:08,040
Speaker 1: this seems easy and cool and and everything. But as

837
00:54:08,080 --> 00:54:11,120
Speaker 1: as time goes by, it's not a there's there's little

838
00:54:11,200 --> 00:54:14,080
Speaker 1: niches in the armor here and there, like it's like, oh, well, yeah,

839
00:54:14,120 --> 00:54:15,960
Speaker 1: we have to do this to keep this thing going.

840
00:54:15,960 --> 00:54:17,680
Speaker 1: We have to clean it, we gotta you know, we

841
00:54:17,760 --> 00:54:20,520
Speaker 1: have to do all these different role things maintenance. So

842
00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:22,480
Speaker 1: it's not a it's not perfect, it's not it's not

843
00:54:22,520 --> 00:54:26,160
Speaker 1: a one done situation, right, And I think you back

844
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:28,319
Speaker 1: to your point, like you try to show your you know,

845
00:54:28,400 --> 00:54:32,319
Speaker 1: trials and tribulations along with your wins. I think that's

846
00:54:32,400 --> 00:54:35,280
Speaker 1: good because you know, the ram pump, it's it's really cool.

847
00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:37,960
Speaker 1: But you know it's not a one and done thing.

848
00:54:39,040 --> 00:54:41,560
Speaker 2: No, no, and none. None of this is you know,

849
00:54:42,200 --> 00:54:45,600
Speaker 2: I I totally agree with you. I think that outdoorsmen

850
00:54:45,680 --> 00:54:49,360
Speaker 2: these days and sportsmen are you know, back when we

851
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:54,920
Speaker 2: grew up, it was still we had uh what I

852
00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:59,200
Speaker 2: see trending through throughout uh, you know, I'll just call

853
00:54:59,239 --> 00:55:05,080
Speaker 2: it social media depending on the format or whatever. Outdoorsman

854
00:55:05,160 --> 00:55:09,279
Speaker 2: and and and avid hunters. There's also sort of a

855
00:55:09,800 --> 00:55:12,799
Speaker 2: link into the health and fitness world now that I

856
00:55:12,880 --> 00:55:16,440
Speaker 2: didn't see when I was a kid growing up, which

857
00:55:16,719 --> 00:55:20,600
Speaker 2: which also in my small corner of of what I

858
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:24,839
Speaker 2: do here on the homestead lends itself, you know, down

859
00:55:24,880 --> 00:55:28,400
Speaker 2: that same healthy road. Uh. You know, we're we're trying

860
00:55:28,440 --> 00:55:31,400
Speaker 2: to grow a fair amount of our of our food

861
00:55:31,440 --> 00:55:34,000
Speaker 2: in the garden that we you know, that we produce ourselves.

862
00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:38,640
Speaker 2: We've we've created uh something that that you're probably quite

863
00:55:38,640 --> 00:55:41,600
Speaker 2: familiar with a lot of small town folks that grew

864
00:55:41,640 --> 00:55:45,160
Speaker 2: up around the grandparents. But we've built a root seller,

865
00:55:45,320 --> 00:55:50,160
Speaker 2: you know, a place to store our our all of

866
00:55:50,160 --> 00:55:52,440
Speaker 2: our all of our food that we grow, you know,

867
00:55:52,719 --> 00:55:57,359
Speaker 2: without without taking a bunch of electricity. You know, it's

868
00:55:57,360 --> 00:55:59,480
Speaker 2: not like a walk in cooler that that. You know.

869
00:55:59,640 --> 00:56:08,000
Speaker 2: So I think that the homesteading an outdoorsman world definitely.

870
00:56:08,280 --> 00:56:11,120
Speaker 2: I can see how it blends itself together these days.

871
00:56:10,960 --> 00:56:14,239
Speaker 2: It's just a healthier way of life. It's it's a

872
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:20,799
Speaker 2: more it's it's a it's a more self guided way

873
00:56:20,840 --> 00:56:24,400
Speaker 2: of of of trying to exist in on a on

874
00:56:24,440 --> 00:56:28,080
Speaker 2: a real healthy level. And you know, you see so

875
00:56:28,200 --> 00:56:33,680
Speaker 2: many big names in the outdoor world really talking about

876
00:56:33,680 --> 00:56:35,560
Speaker 2: how healthy. You know, a lot a lot of guys

877
00:56:35,560 --> 00:56:41,640
Speaker 2: are are eaten nothing but nothing but game meet that

878
00:56:41,800 --> 00:56:44,160
Speaker 2: you know that they're they're killing out there on a

879
00:56:44,239 --> 00:56:48,440
Speaker 2: yearly basis, and and are are real strong advocates of it.

880
00:56:48,520 --> 00:56:53,880
Speaker 2: And the more you learn about you know, just I

881
00:56:54,200 --> 00:56:56,920
Speaker 2: I don't ever take the extreme approach. But the healthier

882
00:56:56,960 --> 00:57:00,720
Speaker 2: I get, the the more I've been saying and often

883
00:57:00,800 --> 00:57:03,080
Speaker 2: and saying this more and more lately, is one good

884
00:57:03,120 --> 00:57:07,719
Speaker 2: habit leads to the next. And so so as I've

885
00:57:07,719 --> 00:57:13,360
Speaker 2: discovered a more healthy and clean way of living, those

886
00:57:13,560 --> 00:57:17,240
Speaker 2: those sort of small winds have have been feeled the

887
00:57:17,280 --> 00:57:21,360
Speaker 2: fire for the next little level of of becoming more

888
00:57:21,440 --> 00:57:25,720
Speaker 2: capable and more more healthy. Man, I want to live.

889
00:57:25,840 --> 00:57:32,800
Speaker 2: I want to live along you know life that that yeah,

890
00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:36,640
Speaker 2: I just I see so many folks that that are

891
00:57:37,560 --> 00:57:42,240
Speaker 2: having health issues that that you know, I'm just trying

892
00:57:42,240 --> 00:57:44,280
Speaker 2: to do what I can at this. I've started sort

893
00:57:44,280 --> 00:57:47,560
Speaker 2: of late in my in my journey, but I'm trying

894
00:57:47,600 --> 00:57:51,240
Speaker 2: my best to to eat a clean diet to to

895
00:57:51,400 --> 00:57:58,360
Speaker 2: recognize the value in in if we can't raise it

896
00:57:58,360 --> 00:58:01,280
Speaker 2: ourselfs and provide it for our self, then I'm looking

897
00:58:01,320 --> 00:58:04,680
Speaker 2: for a small ranch that I can try to support

898
00:58:04,760 --> 00:58:10,040
Speaker 2: to you know, to get beef that that is straight

899
00:58:10,040 --> 00:58:14,240
Speaker 2: from the farm. You know, the things that there there.

900
00:58:14,360 --> 00:58:16,880
Speaker 2: There's a lot of a lot of information out there

901
00:58:16,920 --> 00:58:21,240
Speaker 2: these days on our food system and and how you know,

902
00:58:21,840 --> 00:58:27,120
Speaker 2: somewhat sketchy it is. And uh and so the homesteading

903
00:58:27,200 --> 00:58:31,560
Speaker 2: lifestyle just lends itself to a really overall healthy and

904
00:58:31,680 --> 00:58:36,480
Speaker 2: capable way of living. And and and on top of that,

905
00:58:36,560 --> 00:58:39,600
Speaker 2: you're you're busting busting your butt every day, you know,

906
00:58:39,760 --> 00:58:45,720
Speaker 2: doing physical tasks that I've I've never been happier or

907
00:58:45,800 --> 00:58:51,440
Speaker 2: healthier and and this lifestyle has given me more fulfillment

908
00:58:51,640 --> 00:58:56,440
Speaker 2: than most anything in my life, you know, the accomplishments

909
00:58:56,480 --> 00:59:00,520
Speaker 2: that come with like you mentioned the water system. All

910
00:59:00,600 --> 00:59:05,040
Speaker 2: use the water system as a good example. But finding

911
00:59:05,760 --> 00:59:08,000
Speaker 2: a mountain spring that's you know, seeping out of a

912
00:59:09,360 --> 00:59:16,360
Speaker 2: rock face and studying and learning how to successfully turn

913
00:59:16,440 --> 00:59:18,760
Speaker 2: that into your water source. And then we you know,

914
00:59:19,360 --> 00:59:21,640
Speaker 2: that's exactly what we did here on this property. And

915
00:59:21,680 --> 00:59:24,520
Speaker 2: we took a sample of that water once we had

916
00:59:24,560 --> 00:59:27,320
Speaker 2: it sort of developed, and took it to a lab

917
00:59:27,400 --> 00:59:31,760
Speaker 2: to have it checked out. And this water that comes

918
00:59:31,840 --> 00:59:34,560
Speaker 2: right out of the mountain on our property is as

919
00:59:35,200 --> 00:59:37,880
Speaker 2: better than bottled water you could ever buy out of

920
00:59:37,880 --> 00:59:41,160
Speaker 2: the grocery store. It's safe to drink just as it is. Yeah.

921
00:59:41,960 --> 00:59:50,520
Speaker 2: And and to to turn that sort of mountain resource

922
00:59:50,640 --> 00:59:54,200
Speaker 2: into something that sustains you your life and maybe even

923
00:59:54,240 --> 00:59:57,920
Speaker 2: future generations of our you know, kids and grandkids on

924
00:59:57,960 --> 01:00:03,160
Speaker 2: this property has brought more joy to my short lived

925
01:00:03,200 --> 01:00:06,480
Speaker 2: life than I could ever imagine. I think, uh, I

926
01:00:06,800 --> 01:00:11,920
Speaker 2: sometimes begin to imagine what, you know, what our great grandparents,

927
01:00:12,520 --> 01:00:15,720
Speaker 2: the joys that they would get out of creating their

928
01:00:15,760 --> 01:00:20,160
Speaker 2: farm or creating their property back back in the earlier days.

929
01:00:20,280 --> 01:00:23,160
Speaker 2: And I feel like I'm I'm being blessed with a

930
01:00:23,160 --> 01:00:26,800
Speaker 2: lot of those same emotional connections, connections to the land

931
01:00:26,880 --> 01:00:30,400
Speaker 2: and and too to a life that we are slowly

932
01:00:32,720 --> 01:00:37,840
Speaker 2: departing from on a daily basis, you know, in modern living. Yeah,

933
01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:43,040
Speaker 2: the kids, the kids these days are hard pressed to

934
01:00:43,520 --> 01:00:48,800
Speaker 2: want to stay too much time outside in general, let alone,

935
01:00:49,120 --> 01:00:52,840
Speaker 2: but you know, uh, figuring out how to to turn

936
01:00:53,280 --> 01:00:55,960
Speaker 2: turn spring water into your into your farm water.

937
01:00:56,120 --> 01:01:00,240
Speaker 1: So yeah, so I kind of talked about though ram

938
01:01:00,240 --> 01:01:03,520
Speaker 1: pump a little bit. Can you can you give a

939
01:01:03,560 --> 01:01:07,720
Speaker 1: quick rundown or what a ram pump is? And yeah, absolutely, Wyatt,

940
01:01:07,760 --> 01:01:08,680
Speaker 1: Why it's so cool?

941
01:01:09,560 --> 01:01:14,160
Speaker 2: You bet so? A ram pump is a it's a

942
01:01:14,200 --> 01:01:19,360
Speaker 2: mechanical device that can pump water up a mountain without

943
01:01:19,400 --> 01:01:23,200
Speaker 2: any electricity or any gasoline. So it's basically a water

944
01:01:23,320 --> 01:01:28,400
Speaker 2: pump that runs off of water power. And when I

945
01:01:28,440 --> 01:01:30,920
Speaker 2: first started to research this is probably as much as

946
01:01:30,960 --> 01:01:34,040
Speaker 2: the audience might listen to that and think you are

947
01:01:34,080 --> 01:01:39,360
Speaker 2: absolutely crazy, it's it's the most magical thing to see

948
01:01:39,360 --> 01:01:44,000
Speaker 2: in action that you could ever imagine. The parts, the

949
01:01:45,040 --> 01:01:48,480
Speaker 2: parts that make up the functioning parts that make up

950
01:01:48,480 --> 01:01:54,000
Speaker 2: a rampump are just two check valves and a a

951
01:01:54,000 --> 01:01:58,560
Speaker 2: pressure tank. And what's required to operate a rampump is

952
01:01:59,480 --> 01:02:04,920
Speaker 2: three flowing water with elevation drop. So if you had,

953
01:02:05,360 --> 01:02:09,360
Speaker 2: you know, a stream that's got a good like like

954
01:02:09,440 --> 01:02:13,400
Speaker 2: a little you know, a little set of waterfalls, or

955
01:02:13,840 --> 01:02:16,520
Speaker 2: if you had even if you had a culvert that

956
01:02:16,640 --> 01:02:18,760
Speaker 2: comes out of the upper end of a cut bank

957
01:02:18,840 --> 01:02:21,600
Speaker 2: and then the water drops, you know, steeply down the

958
01:02:21,640 --> 01:02:25,600
Speaker 2: cut bank for ten fifteen feet, you know, you can

959
01:02:25,680 --> 01:02:28,240
Speaker 2: run a rampump off as little as about I think

960
01:02:28,280 --> 01:02:33,680
Speaker 2: about six feet of elevation drop. But I guess I'm

961
01:02:33,680 --> 01:02:37,200
Speaker 2: trying to paint a picture of the scenario that is

962
01:02:37,280 --> 01:02:40,240
Speaker 2: required in order to operate one. But if you have that,

963
01:02:40,440 --> 01:02:43,680
Speaker 2: if you have that scenario, and then even more importantly,

964
01:02:43,760 --> 01:02:46,880
Speaker 2: if you have a water source that you have access to,

965
01:02:47,080 --> 01:02:50,640
Speaker 2: but it's it's not let's just say like on our property,

966
01:02:50,800 --> 01:02:53,520
Speaker 2: that water source is down below the site that we

967
01:02:53,560 --> 01:02:57,760
Speaker 2: want to build our home on. So so you know,

968
01:02:58,120 --> 01:03:02,680
Speaker 2: the ram pump is a way that we can take

969
01:03:02,720 --> 01:03:05,880
Speaker 2: that mountain spring that I've developed into a water source,

970
01:03:06,560 --> 01:03:09,560
Speaker 2: pump it into the ram pump, and it uses it

971
01:03:09,680 --> 01:03:13,960
Speaker 2: uses about seventy percent of the inbound water to cycle

972
01:03:14,200 --> 01:03:19,000
Speaker 2: the two check valves, therefore pumping about thirty percent of

973
01:03:19,080 --> 01:03:21,680
Speaker 2: the overall water that's you know, that's running into it

974
01:03:21,800 --> 01:03:25,360
Speaker 2: up the mountain. So a lot of people make the

975
01:03:25,440 --> 01:03:30,680
Speaker 2: mistake a saying that it's a wasteful way of pumping water.

976
01:03:30,760 --> 01:03:33,760
Speaker 2: But the reality of it is that you've got this

977
01:03:34,680 --> 01:03:37,640
Speaker 2: constantly flowing water source that's going to run over the

978
01:03:37,680 --> 01:03:40,560
Speaker 2: mountain whether you put a rampump in its path or not.

979
01:03:42,080 --> 01:03:44,320
Speaker 2: And if you do put a rampump in its path

980
01:03:44,760 --> 01:03:49,040
Speaker 2: like we have here on this property, that pump the rampump.

981
01:03:49,200 --> 01:03:54,160
Speaker 2: The system that I've designed is using eighteen feet of drop.

982
01:03:55,320 --> 01:03:59,000
Speaker 2: It's it's being fed by about four gallons a minute

983
01:03:59,160 --> 01:04:03,520
Speaker 2: of constant flow, twenty four hours a day, and it's

984
01:04:03,640 --> 01:04:08,080
Speaker 2: moving water up the mountain one hundred feet in elevation

985
01:04:08,320 --> 01:04:13,200
Speaker 2: rise through six hundred linear feet of pipe to a

986
01:04:13,280 --> 01:04:18,360
Speaker 2: giant two thousand gallon you know, holding tank. And then

987
01:04:18,400 --> 01:04:20,120
Speaker 2: the way that I've got our system set up is

988
01:04:20,160 --> 01:04:26,360
Speaker 2: then that two thousand gallons of of rampump delivered water

989
01:04:26,520 --> 01:04:30,600
Speaker 2: at the top of our mountain sits at least fifty

990
01:04:30,600 --> 01:04:33,160
Speaker 2: feet above any of the areas that we use on

991
01:04:33,200 --> 01:04:35,720
Speaker 2: the property. So then the water that comes out of

992
01:04:35,720 --> 01:04:38,280
Speaker 2: the bottom of that tank is then routed into a

993
01:04:38,320 --> 01:04:44,040
Speaker 2: complete homestead or farm distribution underground distribution system. And so

994
01:04:44,920 --> 01:04:48,400
Speaker 2: when there's no electricity involved in the whole system, so

995
01:04:48,640 --> 01:04:52,520
Speaker 2: the rampump moves the water up the mountain, up far

996
01:04:52,600 --> 01:04:55,720
Speaker 2: above where we use the water from. And then when

997
01:04:55,760 --> 01:04:59,959
Speaker 2: we turn on a spicott down here in the guard

998
01:05:00,160 --> 01:05:03,520
Speaker 2: or whatever, the gravity pressure from that tank being so

999
01:05:03,600 --> 01:05:08,640
Speaker 2: much higher than where we're sitting gives us. You know,

1000
01:05:08,720 --> 01:05:12,440
Speaker 2: it's not it's not like a fire hose type pressure,

1001
01:05:12,480 --> 01:05:17,959
Speaker 2: but it is extremely significant water pressure. And and there's

1002
01:05:18,000 --> 01:05:20,280
Speaker 2: not a there's not an ouse of electricity or field

1003
01:05:20,320 --> 01:05:23,360
Speaker 2: being used for the whole system. So it's a I

1004
01:05:23,400 --> 01:05:26,560
Speaker 2: didn't invent any any of what I've just described, but

1005
01:05:27,320 --> 01:05:30,720
Speaker 2: it's one of those niche tools that I think were

1006
01:05:31,040 --> 01:05:35,800
Speaker 2: maybe a lot more common one hundred years ago on

1007
01:05:36,120 --> 01:05:39,800
Speaker 2: properties where spring water was more valued. You know, in

1008
01:05:39,880 --> 01:05:42,960
Speaker 2: these days, it's so common that a person would buy

1009
01:05:42,960 --> 01:05:45,440
Speaker 2: an acreage and just immediately go have a well drilled,

1010
01:05:45,680 --> 01:05:52,360
Speaker 2: and I think, you know, a century ago, I think

1011
01:05:52,400 --> 01:05:54,800
Speaker 2: that was far less realistic. I think you were looking

1012
01:05:54,800 --> 01:05:57,760
Speaker 2: for a water source on your property that was that

1013
01:05:58,200 --> 01:06:01,120
Speaker 2: was surfacing, like a like a spring or an artesian well.

1014
01:06:01,760 --> 01:06:08,920
Speaker 2: And so I've become fully obsessed with with rampump technology.

1015
01:06:09,080 --> 01:06:13,800
Speaker 2: It's it's uh, you know, it's it's nothing new, it's nothing,

1016
01:06:14,560 --> 01:06:17,280
Speaker 2: but but it is hard to believe if you just

1017
01:06:17,800 --> 01:06:20,000
Speaker 2: hear it for the first time, that that you can

1018
01:06:20,080 --> 01:06:25,600
Speaker 2: do this or that it's possible. So yeah, a big uh.

1019
01:06:26,080 --> 01:06:29,439
Speaker 2: I'm really just documenting the projects as they come and go.

1020
01:06:29,520 --> 01:06:31,800
Speaker 2: But I'm I'm much slower than I wished I were

1021
01:06:31,840 --> 01:06:35,960
Speaker 2: when it comes to, you know, bringing this property towards

1022
01:06:36,040 --> 01:06:38,880
Speaker 2: the ultimate dreams that I have for it. So a

1023
01:06:38,920 --> 01:06:42,640
Speaker 2: big part of the of the content that I've produced

1024
01:06:42,720 --> 01:06:46,600
Speaker 2: on homestead development has been the rampump driven water system

1025
01:06:47,120 --> 01:06:50,880
Speaker 2: just because it's it's physically taken me a lot of

1026
01:06:50,920 --> 01:06:53,440
Speaker 2: work to get it to where it's at now. And

1027
01:06:54,360 --> 01:06:56,960
Speaker 2: but I shake my head at it every time I

1028
01:06:57,680 --> 01:06:59,440
Speaker 2: every time I use it, and every time that I

1029
01:06:59,520 --> 01:07:04,240
Speaker 2: see it in action. It's, uh, it's like magic. It

1030
01:07:04,280 --> 01:07:06,440
Speaker 2: really is like magic. There's no there's no other way

1031
01:07:06,480 --> 01:07:10,120
Speaker 2: to describe it. So but but I've completely built the

1032
01:07:10,120 --> 01:07:15,080
Speaker 2: pump out of nothing but you know, brass fittings from

1033
01:07:15,320 --> 01:07:18,640
Speaker 2: from the hardware store or in maybe in some cases

1034
01:07:19,320 --> 01:07:23,160
Speaker 2: fittings that I've ordered offline, but nothing that's nothing that

1035
01:07:23,200 --> 01:07:27,200
Speaker 2: I've went and contracted a machine shop to build or

1036
01:07:27,240 --> 01:07:29,600
Speaker 2: anything like that. It's all parts that you that any

1037
01:07:29,640 --> 01:07:32,720
Speaker 2: one of us could go and research, you know, the

1038
01:07:32,760 --> 01:07:35,800
Speaker 2: design of a rampump and put one together. And uh,

1039
01:07:36,160 --> 01:07:41,440
Speaker 2: you just have to have that that landscape that I've described, basically,

1040
01:07:41,480 --> 01:07:46,560
Speaker 2: that falling, constantly flowing water, and you can you can

1041
01:07:46,600 --> 01:07:49,960
Speaker 2: pump water uphill without you can pump water uphill by

1042
01:07:50,160 --> 01:07:54,320
Speaker 2: the force of water, far far beyond your wildest dreams.

1043
01:07:54,360 --> 01:07:55,360
Speaker 2: It's it's crazy.

1044
01:07:56,080 --> 01:07:58,360
Speaker 1: And our our forefathers were pretty smart.

1045
01:07:59,080 --> 01:07:59,680
Speaker 2: Oh my god.

1046
01:07:59,760 --> 01:08:04,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, they knew how to like do the unthinkable with

1047
01:08:04,400 --> 01:08:07,120
Speaker 1: very little. You know, the technology they had back then

1048
01:08:07,200 --> 01:08:11,520
Speaker 1: versus today is incredible. But how they eat down a

1049
01:08:11,520 --> 01:08:15,680
Speaker 1: living in those those wild places is is downing. And

1050
01:08:15,720 --> 01:08:19,280
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you're able to have to research that

1051
01:08:19,320 --> 01:08:23,439
Speaker 1: and and share it with everybody on your platform as such,

1052
01:08:23,960 --> 01:08:28,160
Speaker 1: modern modern rural civilian. I mean it kind of like

1053
01:08:28,320 --> 01:08:31,280
Speaker 1: it's a very good it's a very good name, and

1054
01:08:31,320 --> 01:08:34,000
Speaker 1: you're sharing, you know, in modern times, these rural things

1055
01:08:34,040 --> 01:08:37,320
Speaker 1: and and all these like maybe some of this lost

1056
01:08:37,320 --> 01:08:39,760
Speaker 1: technology that not a lot of us know about our

1057
01:08:39,800 --> 01:08:42,880
Speaker 1: everyday lives. Yeah, so I think that's really cool.

1058
01:08:43,439 --> 01:08:46,639
Speaker 2: It's neat to you know, at this point, I get

1059
01:08:46,680 --> 01:08:50,639
Speaker 2: messages and feedback from people all over the globe about

1060
01:08:50,880 --> 01:08:53,479
Speaker 2: the ram pump experience that they've had, or the ram

1061
01:08:53,520 --> 01:08:55,960
Speaker 2: pump that they've seen when they were a child, or

1062
01:08:58,320 --> 01:09:03,960
Speaker 2: you know, in lesser developed places on Earth. There's unbeknownst

1063
01:09:04,000 --> 01:09:06,599
Speaker 2: to me before I started this, this you know, this

1064
01:09:06,680 --> 01:09:09,280
Speaker 2: whole journey and trying to share it with everybody, but

1065
01:09:10,000 --> 01:09:15,320
Speaker 2: there's you know, there's villages in very remote places, uh,

1066
01:09:15,439 --> 01:09:17,760
Speaker 2: you know, all over the all over the globe that

1067
01:09:17,920 --> 01:09:22,280
Speaker 2: are their lives have changed because of the you know,

1068
01:09:22,360 --> 01:09:26,439
Speaker 2: somebody explaining to them, hey, we can we can build

1069
01:09:26,479 --> 01:09:28,880
Speaker 2: a rampump system, and we can build we can bring

1070
01:09:29,320 --> 01:09:33,479
Speaker 2: this water that you guys pack for you know, a

1071
01:09:33,560 --> 01:09:36,479
Speaker 2: mile in buckets, we can we can bring it right

1072
01:09:36,520 --> 01:09:41,240
Speaker 2: to your right to where your village is. And to me, uh,

1073
01:09:41,840 --> 01:09:46,880
Speaker 2: I just think it's amazing. But uh lesser obviously, you know,

1074
01:09:46,960 --> 01:09:49,360
Speaker 2: you'd have to choose to want to do this with

1075
01:09:49,400 --> 01:09:53,040
Speaker 2: all the options that Americans have as far as technology

1076
01:09:53,160 --> 01:09:58,080
Speaker 2: and things go. But I'm always trying my best to

1077
01:09:59,439 --> 01:10:03,320
Speaker 2: whenever I come to crossroads about this is the amenity

1078
01:10:03,360 --> 01:10:07,679
Speaker 2: that I'm trying to develop on our homestead property. How

1079
01:10:08,680 --> 01:10:11,679
Speaker 2: how was it done, you know, one hundred years ago

1080
01:10:11,840 --> 01:10:16,240
Speaker 2: versus what's what are people doing now? And if there's

1081
01:10:16,240 --> 01:10:19,599
Speaker 2: a way that I can combine the two and get

1082
01:10:21,080 --> 01:10:23,120
Speaker 2: you know, I don't predict that the world's going to

1083
01:10:23,160 --> 01:10:27,200
Speaker 2: fall apart or that we're all going to be you know,

1084
01:10:27,280 --> 01:10:30,440
Speaker 2: I don't fall victim to this doomsday sort of outlook

1085
01:10:30,520 --> 01:10:35,479
Speaker 2: on where the world's at. I'm a very positive person,

1086
01:10:35,600 --> 01:10:40,439
Speaker 2: but we did see some disruptions and supply chains, and

1087
01:10:40,479 --> 01:10:44,240
Speaker 2: I'm always trying to on this homesteff property develop an

1088
01:10:44,280 --> 01:10:49,439
Speaker 2: off grid alternative to a grid powered comfort that we've

1089
01:10:49,479 --> 01:10:53,959
Speaker 2: all become so spoiled by. You know. So the rampump

1090
01:10:54,000 --> 01:10:58,639
Speaker 2: set up is my answer to having an electricity free

1091
01:10:58,680 --> 01:11:05,719
Speaker 2: water system that will keep our farm irrigated and keep

1092
01:11:06,120 --> 01:11:09,000
Speaker 2: fresh the best water I've ever drank, you know, coming

1093
01:11:09,040 --> 01:11:12,719
Speaker 2: out of all of our faucets all the time without Yeah,

1094
01:11:12,920 --> 01:11:14,680
Speaker 2: just it's just wild. You can do that with no

1095
01:11:14,760 --> 01:11:15,920
Speaker 2: electricity these days?

1096
01:11:16,280 --> 01:11:20,720
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, Well, daughter's life, yes, sir. Yeah, Now you

1097
01:11:20,760 --> 01:11:23,960
Speaker 1: have you have this quote quotation that you like to

1098
01:11:24,000 --> 01:11:27,559
Speaker 1: share on your page. A lot it says it's better

1099
01:11:27,640 --> 01:11:31,320
Speaker 1: to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener.

1100
01:11:31,040 --> 01:11:31,360
Speaker 2: In a war.

1101
01:11:31,479 --> 01:11:32,200
Speaker 1: Is that how it goes?

1102
01:11:32,479 --> 01:11:38,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep, yep, yeah. And you know, I don't even

1103
01:11:38,240 --> 01:11:40,559
Speaker 2: know if anybody can say where that quote came from.

1104
01:11:40,600 --> 01:11:42,880
Speaker 2: I think it's thousands of years you know, a thousand

1105
01:11:42,960 --> 01:11:47,599
Speaker 2: years old and interpreted from other languages. But a big

1106
01:11:47,680 --> 01:11:53,360
Speaker 2: part of my carryover from the exposure that we got

1107
01:11:53,400 --> 01:11:57,280
Speaker 2: to the precision shooting world and to the firearms related,

1108
01:11:57,720 --> 01:12:01,080
Speaker 2: you know, precision shooting sports and all of what I

1109
01:12:01,160 --> 01:12:05,400
Speaker 2: became so highly addicted to through our years at nightforce

1110
01:12:07,160 --> 01:12:10,000
Speaker 2: has continually been a passion in my in my life,

1111
01:12:10,280 --> 01:12:15,160
Speaker 2: you know, here in the country, and I always love

1112
01:12:15,200 --> 01:12:18,200
Speaker 2: to shoot, just to shoot, to be proficient at accuracy

1113
01:12:18,280 --> 01:12:22,800
Speaker 2: and be challenged by the technology that goes into it

1114
01:12:22,840 --> 01:12:27,320
Speaker 2: in the science. But I think for me that quote

1115
01:12:28,080 --> 01:12:32,880
Speaker 2: ties back into, you know, there's a certain aspect of homesteading,

1116
01:12:33,240 --> 01:12:41,920
Speaker 2: in in modern homesteading that is tying into protecting your family,

1117
01:12:42,040 --> 01:12:46,400
Speaker 2: protecting your property, protecting just just being a protector in general.

1118
01:12:46,840 --> 01:12:51,519
Speaker 2: And you know, I never would have dreamt that that

1119
01:12:52,560 --> 01:12:57,200
Speaker 2: all of these interests and super you know, very very

1120
01:12:57,360 --> 01:13:01,320
Speaker 2: pronounced passions in my personal life would would all sort

1121
01:13:01,320 --> 01:13:06,080
Speaker 2: of melt into this modern homesteading movement. But but it's big.

1122
01:13:06,200 --> 01:13:09,919
Speaker 2: Like you know, I know that you you probably remember

1123
01:13:10,000 --> 01:13:13,599
Speaker 2: and and we're quite well aware of all the Special

1124
01:13:13,640 --> 01:13:17,759
Speaker 2: Operations groups interactions that we had through through Night Force

1125
01:13:17,880 --> 01:13:22,600
Speaker 2: and and you know, you see a lot of those guys.

1126
01:13:23,640 --> 01:13:29,439
Speaker 2: I've become. This platform bridges the gap unfairly. I got

1127
01:13:29,439 --> 01:13:33,879
Speaker 2: to tell you, you know, I'm not oftentimes I'm humbled

1128
01:13:33,960 --> 01:13:38,320
Speaker 2: by the relationships that I've been able to form, uh

1129
01:13:38,560 --> 01:13:42,160
Speaker 2: you know, through through the success of the Channel and

1130
01:13:42,479 --> 01:13:46,360
Speaker 2: what modern rural civilians has become for folks out there.

1131
01:13:46,720 --> 01:13:51,000
Speaker 2: But there's a lot of uh retired you know, there's

1132
01:13:51,040 --> 01:13:54,679
Speaker 2: a lot of retired Special Operations guys that are big

1133
01:13:54,720 --> 01:13:57,599
Speaker 2: into the homesteady movement, just like there are a lot

1134
01:13:57,600 --> 01:14:00,879
Speaker 2: of a lot of sportsmen, you know, are beginning to

1135
01:14:00,960 --> 01:14:04,880
Speaker 2: sort of it's all, it's all melting into one pot.

1136
01:14:05,040 --> 01:14:10,439
Speaker 2: So I like to back in those Nightforce days when

1137
01:14:10,479 --> 01:14:15,559
Speaker 2: you and I first met, I was very obsessed with

1138
01:14:15,680 --> 01:14:21,160
Speaker 2: long range you know, shooting. But one thing that I

1139
01:14:21,280 --> 01:14:25,439
Speaker 2: was and when we were growing up, you know, I

1140
01:14:25,600 --> 01:14:29,400
Speaker 2: I had the awesome experience of of taking a lot

1141
01:14:29,439 --> 01:14:32,919
Speaker 2: of my first animals, you know, offhand at one hundred yards,

1142
01:14:33,040 --> 01:14:36,120
Speaker 2: you know, with with with my dad's rifle, and uh,

1143
01:14:37,720 --> 01:14:42,519
Speaker 2: but I never tried to be good at shooting close

1144
01:14:42,640 --> 01:14:46,880
Speaker 2: range and training training with firearms in a different in

1145
01:14:47,200 --> 01:14:51,920
Speaker 2: the opposite regardless long range shooting. So now, yeah, so

1146
01:14:52,040 --> 01:14:54,559
Speaker 2: I get a lot of enjoyment out of flat range training,

1147
01:14:55,560 --> 01:15:01,599
Speaker 2: you know. Uh. I was never a an obsessed pistol shooter,

1148
01:15:01,920 --> 01:15:05,160
Speaker 2: you know. But but those are all interests that I've

1149
01:15:05,520 --> 01:15:08,400
Speaker 2: you know, sort of graduated onto now with with living

1150
01:15:08,400 --> 01:15:11,880
Speaker 2: in the country and being able to to get out

1151
01:15:11,920 --> 01:15:16,400
Speaker 2: more and and so yeah, the the quote that you

1152
01:15:16,520 --> 01:15:19,679
Speaker 2: mentioned it's better to be a warrior in the garden

1153
01:15:19,720 --> 01:15:23,320
Speaker 2: than a gardener in a war is just simply I

1154
01:15:23,400 --> 01:15:27,280
Speaker 2: resonate really strongly with it, because we are trying our

1155
01:15:27,320 --> 01:15:32,280
Speaker 2: best to to continue to be protectors in this environment

1156
01:15:33,120 --> 01:15:38,760
Speaker 2: and to be capable when it comes to uh the

1157
01:15:38,840 --> 01:15:41,479
Speaker 2: whatever warrior means in your in your you know, in

1158
01:15:41,520 --> 01:15:46,519
Speaker 2: your lifestyle. But the the quote just is a is

1159
01:15:46,560 --> 01:15:50,160
Speaker 2: a really cool quote that I've always gravitated towards. So

1160
01:15:50,320 --> 01:15:54,280
Speaker 2: I like to share that I've got some I've got

1161
01:15:54,320 --> 01:15:58,360
Speaker 2: a new apparel design that even uses that same phrase.

1162
01:15:59,280 --> 01:16:02,120
Speaker 2: In the bottom of the of the design coming out

1163
01:16:02,200 --> 01:16:05,200
Speaker 2: so very cool. I love that. I love that quote.

1164
01:16:05,920 --> 01:16:08,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it too. Well, man, I can't tell

1165
01:16:08,800 --> 01:16:11,000
Speaker 1: you how happy I am to have you on the

1166
01:16:11,000 --> 01:16:14,080
Speaker 1: podcast and catch up. And it's been a long time.

1167
01:16:14,160 --> 01:16:16,240
Speaker 1: I mean we saw it the gas station here a

1168
01:16:16,280 --> 01:16:19,519
Speaker 1: year or so ago. But yeah, but it's just in passing.

1169
01:16:19,560 --> 01:16:22,640
Speaker 1: But it's good to catch up and and uh but

1170
01:16:22,720 --> 01:16:24,680
Speaker 1: I feel like I keep pretty good tabs on you

1171
01:16:24,760 --> 01:16:26,840
Speaker 1: on social media and you, I'm sure the same, you know,

1172
01:16:27,120 --> 01:16:31,880
Speaker 1: single share. But how can folks best find you if

1173
01:16:31,920 --> 01:16:34,040
Speaker 1: they want to look you up on the interwebs or

1174
01:16:34,080 --> 01:16:38,880
Speaker 1: the Yeah.

1175
01:16:37,479 --> 01:16:39,960
Speaker 2: Like you've mentioned a number of times, you know, the

1176
01:16:39,960 --> 01:16:45,160
Speaker 2: the the Modern Rural Civilian is the name of my platform.

1177
01:16:47,040 --> 01:16:51,200
Speaker 2: I'm I've I've begun to share content on every major

1178
01:16:51,320 --> 01:16:55,160
Speaker 2: social media platform, whether you know, be from from Instagram

1179
01:16:55,160 --> 01:16:59,640
Speaker 2: to Facebook to to YouTube, all all of those platforms.

1180
01:16:59,640 --> 01:17:02,000
Speaker 2: So even if you just uh, you know, We've got

1181
01:17:02,000 --> 01:17:05,040
Speaker 2: a small website, Modern Rural Civilian dot com that I'm

1182
01:17:05,439 --> 01:17:10,400
Speaker 2: beginning to grow to try to share plans and design

1183
01:17:10,520 --> 01:17:12,600
Speaker 2: knowledge of of you know, some of the things that

1184
01:17:12,600 --> 01:17:16,800
Speaker 2: I've accomplished here on the property. But just type in

1185
01:17:16,840 --> 01:17:21,960
Speaker 2: modern rural civilian on whatever whatever sort of entertainment device

1186
01:17:22,040 --> 01:17:24,599
Speaker 2: that you use, and you should come up with something.

1187
01:17:24,760 --> 01:17:30,240
Speaker 2: So it's humbling too to have seen it grow like

1188
01:17:30,320 --> 01:17:36,000
Speaker 2: it like it has. And yeah, I'm I'm always, uh

1189
01:17:36,800 --> 01:17:40,960
Speaker 2: so so proud of of watching your journey as well, Derek.

1190
01:17:41,120 --> 01:17:44,439
Speaker 2: I I think that I was just talking to Heather

1191
01:17:44,479 --> 01:17:49,439
Speaker 2: this morning about just kind of the neat correlations between

1192
01:17:49,680 --> 01:17:53,439
Speaker 2: you know, uh, chasing, chasing our dreams and and going

1193
01:17:53,520 --> 01:17:56,360
Speaker 2: after something that you know, for some people seems a

1194
01:17:56,400 --> 01:18:01,559
Speaker 2: little bit unrealistic and maybe like like you know, like

1195
01:18:01,600 --> 01:18:06,519
Speaker 2: waste of energy. Uh. And I just really appreciate watching

1196
01:18:06,720 --> 01:18:09,640
Speaker 2: your your journey and how much you get to do,

1197
01:18:10,280 --> 01:18:13,559
Speaker 2: you know, what you're passionate about, and what your life

1198
01:18:14,000 --> 01:18:18,040
Speaker 2: has grown into outside of where we want scout to

1199
01:18:18,040 --> 01:18:20,479
Speaker 2: see each other on a daily basis. It makes me smile.

1200
01:18:20,960 --> 01:18:25,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, thank you. Yeah. I think I think the

1201
01:18:25,160 --> 01:18:28,599
Speaker 1: big correlation there is we both are doing something that

1202
01:18:28,640 --> 01:18:31,400
Speaker 1: we love and we would we would still be doing

1203
01:18:31,400 --> 01:18:34,240
Speaker 1: it whether we had an opportunity to document it or not.

1204
01:18:35,240 --> 01:18:39,320
Speaker 1: Now you'd still be doing hard work and doing these accomplishments.

1205
01:18:39,400 --> 01:18:43,360
Speaker 1: And you know, somewhere along the line, you built a

1206
01:18:43,439 --> 01:18:47,920
Speaker 1: knack for sharing that with folks and engaging that and

1207
01:18:47,920 --> 01:18:51,240
Speaker 1: and I feel like for myself it's kind of the

1208
01:18:51,240 --> 01:18:54,680
Speaker 1: same thing. If if I I would, I'm gonna ill

1209
01:18:54,720 --> 01:18:58,240
Speaker 1: count till the day I die, hopefully yeah, years old or.

1210
01:18:58,160 --> 01:19:03,160
Speaker 2: Something absolutely absolutely either either way, you know, I think

1211
01:19:03,200 --> 01:19:05,479
Speaker 2: that's I think that's one of the biggest things that

1212
01:19:05,520 --> 01:19:07,720
Speaker 2: people are missing out on these days. And age is

1213
01:19:09,160 --> 01:19:12,439
Speaker 2: chasing after something so hard that you find, you know,

1214
01:19:12,479 --> 01:19:14,639
Speaker 2: you find some success in it to a point where

1215
01:19:14,680 --> 01:19:17,760
Speaker 2: you realize, Man, I would be doing this, whether it

1216
01:19:17,800 --> 01:19:19,760
Speaker 2: was just on the weekends or not, I would be

1217
01:19:19,800 --> 01:19:22,320
Speaker 2: doing I'd be doing this if there was no success

1218
01:19:22,360 --> 01:19:27,200
Speaker 2: in it, no nobody watching. But to turn your you know,

1219
01:19:27,600 --> 01:19:29,479
Speaker 2: even to turn just a sliver of what you call

1220
01:19:29,560 --> 01:19:32,160
Speaker 2: your career into something that you'd be doing for free

1221
01:19:32,280 --> 01:19:36,240
Speaker 2: outside of it is a blessing beyond anything that I

1222
01:19:36,240 --> 01:19:39,760
Speaker 2: could have ever imagined. And I'm just really humbled and

1223
01:19:39,800 --> 01:19:45,280
Speaker 2: grateful for for the life that I've built and watched

1224
01:19:45,320 --> 01:19:47,000
Speaker 2: you build, you know, in the same.

1225
01:19:46,760 --> 01:19:51,040
Speaker 1: Way, Man, I love it. Thank you so much that

1226
01:19:51,560 --> 01:19:53,439
Speaker 1: I think we'll call it at that. I mean, I

1227
01:19:53,520 --> 01:19:55,640
Speaker 1: think you wrapped that up and framed it perfect. For

1228
01:19:55,800 --> 01:19:59,919
Speaker 1: some last words, there and and so yeah, I appreciate

1229
01:20:00,120 --> 01:20:03,840
Speaker 1: coming on, and uh, we'll catch everybody on the flip flop.

1230
01:20:07,880 --> 01:20:07,920
Speaker 1: H