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Speaker 1: Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves

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Speaker 1: from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.

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Speaker 1: I want you to stay a while as I share

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Speaker 1: my experiences in life lessons. This Country Life is presented

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Speaker 1: by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you

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Speaker 1: the best outdoor podcast the airways had off. All right, friends,

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Speaker 1: grab a chair or drop that tail gate. I've got

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Speaker 1: some stories to share eating what you hunt. I have

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Speaker 1: always been a fan wild game and eating while I

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Speaker 1: chase in the field, as at times it's been just

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Speaker 1: as rewarding as the pursuit. Nothing beats the tug of

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Speaker 1: a big bluegill on your line, except maybe how it

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Speaker 1: tastes coming out of the hot peanut oil. We're talking

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Speaker 1: about eating the game we're after in some of them

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Speaker 1: that may not be on your menu. But first, I'm

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Speaker 1: going to tell you a story. Twenty years or more ago,

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Speaker 1: Michael lived not far from my brother Tim and was

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Speaker 1: about the same age as my nephews Will and Matthew,

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Speaker 1: who were separated only by about three years. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: uncommon for him to get off the school bus at

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Speaker 1: their house and play ball or ramble around the countryside,

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Speaker 1: as country boys tend to do, and when school was out,

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Speaker 1: they'd have bicycle track worn pass back and forth on

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Speaker 1: the gravel road that passed by in front of both

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Speaker 1: their houses that were old mile or so apart. Around

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Speaker 1: meal time, they would all magically appear at one another's

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Speaker 1: house to be invited to sit down and eat. The

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Speaker 1: internal clock of young boys taking down the minutes to

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Speaker 1: supper time is highly accurate, regardless of their location or activities.

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Speaker 1: It's a silent dog whistle to a sheep dog. They

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Speaker 1: started making their way towards the source of the call

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Speaker 1: from way down in the creek bottoms or out of

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Speaker 1: the barn, just in time to smash a gallon of

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Speaker 1: milk or sweet tea and to fire a double help

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Speaker 1: in the whatever was coming off the stove or out

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Speaker 1: of the oven. This would be the case the last

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Speaker 1: time Michael would pull up his chair at my brother

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Speaker 1: Tim's house. Tim walked out of his house one afternoon

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Speaker 1: and as he stepped off the porch, he narrowly missed

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Speaker 1: being bitten by a huge timber rattler that was laying

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Speaker 1: at the foot of the steps. A short time later,

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Speaker 1: one of them was no longer amongst living and minus

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Speaker 1: his skin. The incident didn't scare Tim as much as

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Speaker 1: it made him mad, especially with his son's ripping and

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Speaker 1: running all over the country, so he decided to get

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Speaker 1: the last laugh and eat it. After cleaning old jake

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Speaker 1: no shoulders, Tim cut him up, and my saint of

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Speaker 1: a sister in law, Barbageing, fried him on the stove.

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Speaker 1: You would fish. It was a big snake and there

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Speaker 1: was plenty to go around, and with the timing of

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Speaker 1: a Swiss watch, Matthew, Will and their friend Michael came

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Speaker 1: through the door just in time to see her pull

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Speaker 1: the last bit of snake from the hot grease. The

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Speaker 1: talk went to the incident of how they were all

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Speaker 1: about to sit down and eat what Tim had found

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Speaker 1: crawling in the yard only an hour or so before.

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Speaker 1: When Michael said he couldn't stay, Mama told him to

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Speaker 1: be home at a certain time, and the hour was

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Speaker 1: fast approaching. Out the door and on his bicycle and

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Speaker 1: in a cloud of dust, Michael made his way home.

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Speaker 1: Tim and the rest tried the snake and didn't much

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Speaker 1: care for it. I remember Matthew saying it was chewy,

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Speaker 1: thus ending the eating a snake store or so they thought.

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Speaker 1: A Few days later, Michael was once again down at

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Speaker 1: Tims and playing with the boys. No mention of snakes

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Speaker 1: or so up or anything had transpired. In the meantime,

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Speaker 1: Barbijean had fixed supper and walked out on the porch

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Speaker 1: to tell all three of them to come eat. Matthew

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Speaker 1: and Will shot inside like they were starving, while Michael

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Speaker 1: just made his way toward his bicycle. Barbara, see, Michael,

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Speaker 1: are you hungry? He said, yes, ma'am. He said, well,

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Speaker 1: come on in and eat. I fixed plenty. He said, no, ma'am,

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Speaker 1: that's okay. She said, I thought you said you were hungry,

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Speaker 1: Like I said, I am, I don't ever know what

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Speaker 1: y'all are gonna be eating down here. And that's just

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Speaker 1: how that happened. Eating what you hunt and the critters

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Speaker 1: we pursued just goes hand in hand. Catch a mess

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Speaker 1: of fish, cook a mess of fish, shoot a mess

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Speaker 1: of squirrels, fix a mess of squirrels. Almost exclusively, I

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Speaker 1: hunt and fish for with the skillet, I enjoy the

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Speaker 1: taste of whatever I'm trying to hem up long enough

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Speaker 1: to get it skint battered, bake, stew or fried. After all,

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Speaker 1: that's why our species started hunting in the first place.

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Speaker 1: I can hear the cavem in talking. Now, Hey, Bud,

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Speaker 1: see that pterodactyl flying over yonder Yep, let's kill it

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Speaker 1: with a rock and eat it. Bro That sounds radical.

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Speaker 1: Count me in. The next morning, Fred and Barney are

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Speaker 1: sitting out a dozen lizard bird decoys and waiting on

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Speaker 1: sunrise at the local tar pit. That's how it all started,

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Speaker 1: probably well my version of it, anyway, and my family

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Speaker 1: hasn't slowed down since, or so you'd think. But you'd

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Speaker 1: be wrong. Contrary to what one would assume, my dad,

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Speaker 1: Buddy Reeves, a country born and raised rural houndsman, horsemen,

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Speaker 1: and well known pursuer of squirrels, who would easily be

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Speaker 1: ranked near, if not at the top of the list

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Speaker 1: for total numbers of squirrels. Being given a twenty two

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Speaker 1: caliber headache, he wouldn't have eaten one, had even been

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Speaker 1: starving slapped to death. Neither would my uncle jimm Ray

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Speaker 1: nor my aunts are first cousins on my father's side.

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Speaker 1: I took a pole of three generations of the Reefs

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Speaker 1: side of the family tree, my aunts, my uncle, siblings,

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Speaker 1: and cousins. Thirty percent of them eat squirrels. We were

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Speaker 1: all raised right there, more or less within a rock

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Speaker 1: chunking distance of each other, And seven out of ten

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Speaker 1: would not eat a squirrel if they were hungry. And

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Speaker 1: that kind of knocks in the head the old adage

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Speaker 1: of country folks having country ways. Yet hear me and

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Speaker 1: my brothers and all our children sat waiting on the

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Speaker 1: next big mess of squirrels to be brought to the table.

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Speaker 1: Every one of them will smash the sac full of

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Speaker 1: cook squirrels, except my two girls Bailey's and tried them

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Speaker 1: last winter when I fried up a big mess for supper.

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Speaker 1: Now I knew my wife Alexis wasn't going to eat any,

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Speaker 1: but she did try it and said that's as far

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Speaker 1: as she wanted to go. Our daughter Bailey followed suit,

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Speaker 1: but I think her judgment was biased by her mother's

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Speaker 1: hard pass and the fact that she's at the age

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Speaker 1: where girl stuff is more appealing to her than her

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Speaker 1: crusty old pappy's diet. To her credit, though she loves

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Speaker 1: bear and deer meat, can't get enough of it. Now

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Speaker 1: our son Hunter, who's twenty six, cannon has eaten his

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Speaker 1: wait and fried squirrel and squirrel and dumplings all his life.

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Speaker 1: He loves them. But let's go back in time when

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Speaker 1: the oldest daughter, Amy, who at the time was a

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Speaker 1: little younger than Bailey is now. She literally survived on

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Speaker 1: chicken and cold hot dogs right out of the ice box,

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Speaker 1: nothing else. It's a period of time. I like to

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Speaker 1: call her chicken strip era will. Being the diabolical father

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Speaker 1: that I am, I know that if she ever tried

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Speaker 1: squirrel but she'd like it. So I stopped by the

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Speaker 1: local KFC one day and got them to give me

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Speaker 1: a box that the meals come in, and I took

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Speaker 1: it home. I put some leftover squirrel legs in it

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Speaker 1: that I brought home from the camp and sat them

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Speaker 1: on the kitchen counter. Y'all know what happened next. She

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Speaker 1: saw the box, asked if she could have the leftovers,

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Speaker 1: and went around, no squirrel leggs like a ducking on

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Speaker 1: on a roast in there, Daddy, this is the best

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Speaker 1: chicken I've ever ate. She couldn't get enough of them.

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Speaker 1: I don't remember how many she had, but it would

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Speaker 1: have been a good accounting of herself at a camp

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Speaker 1: full of lumberjacks. Look on her face when I told

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Speaker 1: her what it was was the best part. She was

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Speaker 1: like she'd been a gut shot with a cannon full

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Speaker 1: of squirrels. A few months later, I'd get her again

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Speaker 1: with some frog legs, same thing, ate them like a

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Speaker 1: hungry hostage. Does you find out what they were? And

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden ooh, I don't like those? Well,

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Speaker 1: all that is funny, but it shows the bias that

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Speaker 1: we all hold for what we consider to be normal

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Speaker 1: food and how something looks, and not based on how

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Speaker 1: something tastes. I laughed at seeing an animal rights organization's

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Speaker 1: online ad once showing a photo of a puppy and

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Speaker 1: a piglet with the words why I love one and

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Speaker 1: eat the other, to which someone replied, because only one

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Speaker 1: of them is filled with bacon? What about birds? As

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Speaker 1: a society, we eat chicken with reckless abandon We eat

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Speaker 1: it weekly in some form or another. Here my girls

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Speaker 1: don't want ducks, doves or quailed. They'd rather eat chicken.

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Speaker 1: Chickens are everybody as nasty as creature as you can get.

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Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong. Chicken is one of the many

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Speaker 1: food items you could bait a trap with and catch

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Speaker 1: me every time. No one loves chicken more than me,

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Speaker 1: no one. My nephew, Thomas, more specifically, my great nephew,

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Speaker 1: came over for supper last Sunday after church. Thomas is

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Speaker 1: my brother Tim's grandson. I fried up a bunch of

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Speaker 1: fish and some gator bytes for him and his gal

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Speaker 1: pall Emma. At the last minute, I realized Emma wasn't

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Speaker 1: a fish or a gator eater, and we like Emma.

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Speaker 1: So I chunked the old stand by chicken nuggies in

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Speaker 1: with the gator and when everybody pushed away from the table,

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Speaker 1: we were all sporting big smiles and full bellies. Now,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure there are folks out there that don't like chicken,

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Speaker 1: but I'm not sure i'd like to be around them.

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Speaker 1: Chicken is the great common denominator. I want to get

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Speaker 1: someone to try something new. Hit them with the old

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Speaker 1: It tastes just like chicken routine. It never does. That's

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Speaker 1: the old bait and switch that we used to earn

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Speaker 1: someone's trust. Want me to try something, Tell me a

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Speaker 1: taste like antelope or grilled coon. I'm all in fellow,

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Speaker 1: but I've always had an affinity for a while gaming

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Speaker 1: the food that is associated with the South I more

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Speaker 1: or less felt it was my duty to eat it.

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Speaker 1: I know that may sound superficial, but stay in true

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Speaker 1: to the culture of my Raisin has always been important

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Speaker 1: to me. Even though the squirrel eating skipped the generation

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Speaker 1: in my family. My mama wouldn't need it either, but

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Speaker 1: she did fix it for us kids, and we all

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Speaker 1: loved quail. It was a treat to go shoot some

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Speaker 1: early in the morning and come back for her to

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Speaker 1: cook up a big breakfast with fried quail, taters, eggs, biscuits,

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Speaker 1: and gravy. The last breakfast of that was when I

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Speaker 1: was in high school and the quail were disappearing. And

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Speaker 1: she also fixed the ducks that Tim and I brought home,

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Speaker 1: and she made a labor intensive duck and rice dish

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Speaker 1: that would rival anything for the love of humanity. It's good,

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Speaker 1: but ducks and quail are are beautiful birds. In the

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Speaker 1: esthetics of how something looks plays into how it's perceived,

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Speaker 1: especially in food. Don't even get me started on wild

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Speaker 1: versus domesticated turkeys. I'll save that for another day because

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Speaker 1: having to argue the advantages of wild over pen raises

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Speaker 1: enough to put myself into a self induced coma. My

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Speaker 1: dad also didn't care for deer meat. Again, all of

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Speaker 1: his offspring subsist in some degree off wild game, with

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Speaker 1: Tim and I leading the charge. I can't tell you

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Speaker 1: why he preferred farm stock groceries over wild game. In

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Speaker 1: the spring and summer, we ate fish too, and three

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Speaker 1: times a week we happen to be staying at the

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Speaker 1: river fishing. We ate it every day, and not once

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Speaker 1: did I grow tired of it, and neither did he.

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Speaker 1: But my great grandfather, the man who raised my dad,

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Speaker 1: ate squirrels like there was no tomorrow. I've heard my

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Speaker 1: dad tell stories about Grandpa taking the tablespoon on his

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Speaker 1: pocket knife and with a swift blow, cracked the heads

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Speaker 1: open of a cooked squirrel and eat the contents of

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Speaker 1: their brain bucket like it was canny. Me. I draw

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Speaker 1: the line at a squirrel shoulders, I'm not eating anything

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Speaker 1: above that mark or from in between his tiny derido

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Speaker 1: shaped ears. There's also a convenient reason for that. Squirrel

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Speaker 1: brains can kill you like dead, graveyard dead, like groundhogs

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Speaker 1: are bringing you your mail for eternity dead. That reason

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Speaker 1: is called crutch felled Jacob disease CJD for short, which

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Speaker 1: is a variation of mad Cow. Now this all came

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Speaker 1: about in the mid nineteen nineties. Went over a four

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Speaker 1: year period, eleven unfortunate souls in Kentucky all contracted CJD.

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Speaker 1: The only link between them was that they had all

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Speaker 1: ingested squirrel brands. They had all died within a year

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Speaker 1: of contracting disease too. Man, it's terrible. Since that time,

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Speaker 1: cases had been reported in sir states, including New York, Alabama,

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Speaker 1: West Virginia, Mississippi, as well as here in Arkansas. I've

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Speaker 1: never fancied myself a squirrel brain eater, regardless of my

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Speaker 1: family history or the nostalgia associated with it. Conveniently, now

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Speaker 1: I can add impending doom to that list, and for

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Speaker 1: that reason I'm out now lead just about anything. My

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Speaker 1: friend and colleague Spenser new Hearth made a whole meat

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Speaker 1: eater series a while back called Pardon My Plate. He

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Speaker 1: had different folks on each week eating things that most

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Speaker 1: folks wouldn't normally associate with suppertime, like a coyote, skunk, goldfish,

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Speaker 1: and a muskrat, just to name a few. Folks out

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Speaker 1: in Dorchester, Maryland have a whole festival every year dedicated

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Speaker 1: to eating muskrats and crawfish. I may have to slip

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Speaker 1: out there next year and check it out for myself.

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Speaker 1: I ain't never add a muskrat, believe it or not,

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Speaker 1: but I can flat more put a hurting on a

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Speaker 1: sack of muddy bugs, which brings to mind something else

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Speaker 1: you can get out of a beaver pond and take

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Speaker 1: home and put in your belly. Besides muskrats, crawfish, and

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Speaker 1: Giardia castor canadensas the North American beaver, official state bird

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Speaker 1: of Canada. I've read story after story about mountain men,

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Speaker 1: Indians and settlers eating beaver meat. I've never had a

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Speaker 1: hank or two, although i have spent a jitian of

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Speaker 1: them in my lifetime when I was trapping and helping

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Speaker 1: Tim with his trap line. But some of my friends

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Speaker 1: up in New England are making a dent in the

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Speaker 1: beaver population and their grocery bill. Jake DeBow and his

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Speaker 1: wife Riley had built a business around the fur market

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Speaker 1: and have been teaching beaver's how to ride in the

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Speaker 1: back of their truck for the last seven years. They

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Speaker 1: have all the social media platforms, including a YouTube page

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Speaker 1: filled with great how to content that is simple and

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Speaker 1: easy to follow. Long and downright entertaining, from setting his

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Speaker 1: traps to catching, cleaning and preparing the fur. It's New

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Speaker 1: England natural. You got to look it up. The debos

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Speaker 1: are living close to the land and lots of time

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Speaker 1: up there. The land is covered in snow, but that's

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Speaker 1: when Jake and Riley shine the most. Not only are

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Speaker 1: they keeping the beaver population and other fur bearing critters

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Speaker 1: in check, but they also were putting meat up for

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Speaker 1: the winter, beaver meat. I talked to Jake recently and

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Speaker 1: he told me that beaver makes up about fifty percent

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Speaker 1: of their diet. They eat it in one form or

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Speaker 1: another anywhere from two to three times a week. He

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Speaker 1: also told me that if the average deer hunter knew

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Speaker 1: how good beaver was to eat, they'd all be duking

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Speaker 1: it out for trapping permits like folks sit back in

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Speaker 1: the seventies when the fur market was strong. The debos

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Speaker 1: fix it just like you do deer, bear and beef

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Speaker 1: for that matter. Backstraps and surloins in the back legs

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Speaker 1: for the crock pot. Their dog gets raw ground beaver

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Speaker 1: every day. This cuts their yearly dog food bill in

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Speaker 1: half and it's great for the dog. And I'm paying

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Speaker 1: almost seventy dollars a bag for my dog feeding. I

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Speaker 1: think old whaling might need a little beaver meat. Now

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Speaker 1: you think, well, they must have grown up eating it.

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Speaker 1: I know I did, but just like me, you're wrong.

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Speaker 1: When they first got married they decided to try it.

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Speaker 1: Their goal was to live close to the land and

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Speaker 1: by utilizing the meat they were adding to their trapline yield.

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Speaker 1: A beaver is a lot like a hog when you

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Speaker 1: get one. About the only thing you can't eat on

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Speaker 1: a hog is the squeal. It's about the same when

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Speaker 1: it comes eating old Buckie Riley says it compares to

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Speaker 1: lamb and she fixes it with mint chutney. I acted

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Speaker 1: like I knew what that was, so maybe Jake wouldn't

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Speaker 1: figure out how little I know about anything. Jason Ellsworth,

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Speaker 1: what in the world is mint chutney? And would it

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Speaker 1: be good on corn bread? I need to know stat Seriously, though,

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Speaker 1: these folks are putting out some great content that's very

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Speaker 1: educational and well worth the effort to look up my

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Speaker 1: gall Riva is going to help you out and include

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Speaker 1: a link to Jake and Riley's New England Naturals Instagram

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Speaker 1: and YouTube pages. It'll be in the show description where

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Speaker 1: you listen to us from that's good stuff and proof

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Speaker 1: that a country life in New Hampshire is just as

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Speaker 1: important and relevant as one in Arkansas. I've been saying

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Speaker 1: it since the beginning that we can all live a

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Speaker 1: country life regardless of our zip code or whether we

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Speaker 1: live outside or inside the city limits. Jake and Riley

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Speaker 1: Deebo live over fifteen hundred miles northeast of my friends

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Speaker 1: Keith and Lee Brandon in southeast Arkansas. Leave the de

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Speaker 1: Bos in New Hampshire and you'll travel over two thousand

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Speaker 1: miles west and northwest of my friends Craig and Medale

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Speaker 1: McCartney's ranch in Central Mauntito, over Canada. They live their

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Speaker 1: lives much like the Debos, the Brandings, and the Reeves.

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Speaker 1: There's a ton of space and people between those three

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Speaker 1: points on our side of the planet. I'd say the

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Speaker 1: chances are good that there's many more folks out there

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Speaker 1: doing their best to make their way just like we are.

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Speaker 1: Those are the folks I want to be around and

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Speaker 1: the folks I'm looking for. They're my people, and together

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Speaker 1: we can turn the tide on those that are fighting

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Speaker 1: to take away what we all stand for it comes

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Speaker 1: right down to it, there will be more folks out

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Speaker 1: there with more similarities to our own and differences. We

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Speaker 1: just have to talk to each other long enough without

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Speaker 1: getting mad to find out what they are. Now, that's

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Speaker 1: gonna wrap it up for me this week. Thank y'all

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Speaker 1: so much for listening to me in that turkey calling contest.

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Speaker 1: Cheating mule Skinner, hill billy who puts mushrooms in his

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Speaker 1: chili clay bowl nukem. We both really appreciate it. Elk

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Speaker 1: season is right around the corner, and Jason Phelps and

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Speaker 1: Dirk Durham are busy as cats in a sandbox over

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Speaker 1: it Cutting the Distance podcast. Those boys know their stuff,

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Speaker 1: and if you're you're ready for some ELK content, get

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Speaker 1: yourself over there and check it out. Until next week.

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Speaker 1: This is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful