Speaker 1: My name is Clay Knucomb and this is a production
Speaker 1: of the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render,
Speaker 1: where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the
Speaker 1: scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast.
Speaker 2: Brought to you by to Covi's Boots. I'm a cowboy.
Speaker 1: Boot man and I've been wearing to Covis for years
Speaker 1: with the most comfortable boot I've ever put on.
Speaker 2: Good boots for good times.
Speaker 1: We have a very distinguished guest with us today on
Speaker 1: the Bear Grease Render. He's been here at least once,
Speaker 1: if not twice.
Speaker 2: We have just once.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have the infinitoue Brad birch Field with us.
Speaker 3: Brad turning your mike up just a little bit for
Speaker 3: me like that.
Speaker 4: Hey, there we go.
Speaker 1: We've brought Brad in for multiple reasons. We have brought
Speaker 1: him in because of his incredible expertise on the American
Speaker 1: Civil War yep at number one, Professor Brad Birche number two.
Speaker 1: If you recognize the name Brad Birchfield from The Bear
Speaker 1: Griase Render, you will know that he is our resident
Speaker 1: snake Man. That's right, and you probably can't hear it,
Speaker 1: but within eighteen inches of my foot. There is the
Speaker 1: rattling of what is most likely a venomous rattler. We
Speaker 1: have a couple of snakes in here. We're going to
Speaker 1: pull him out later. I've also got here Bear. John
Speaker 1: Neukom yep, see Bear.
Speaker 2: Good to be here.
Speaker 1: Josh Lambridge Spilmmaker. This is the final Bear Grease render
Speaker 1: on the American Civil War Summer, the finale. We did
Speaker 1: six episodes. I ran into a guy in the airport
Speaker 1: the other day that was like, hey, Clay Bear Gree
Speaker 1: Civil War summer, and he wanted to make bets that
Speaker 1: the Beargree Civil War Summer was gonna go like eight episodes.
Speaker 1: He was like, he gave me some terminology, gambling terminology
Speaker 1: for like over under, for if it's gonna actually end.
Speaker 1: But I think we've done it because we had a surrender.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys heard the war is over.
Speaker 1: They surrendered, you know, Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomatics Courthouse,
Speaker 1: which interestingly isn't a courthouse.
Speaker 2: Did you know that, Brad? You knew that?
Speaker 1: And you were educated at an American public schools your
Speaker 1: parents were wasn't your mama teacher or something?
Speaker 2: Your wife she taught you a lot.
Speaker 4: Yes, but uh yeah, the same guy's house basically where
Speaker 4: you know he was at bull Run and the battles
Speaker 4: started there and it ended in his front yard.
Speaker 2: That was wild.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So and then uh, now bear you uh would you
Speaker 1: have known that that Appomattox courthouse was not actually a courthouse?
Speaker 2: No clue, Yeah, no clue at all.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna talk about that.
Speaker 1: But there's no way that I'm going any further than
Speaker 1: let's look at these snakes.
Speaker 4: You want to look at snakes already?
Speaker 2: I mean, unless you've got to.
Speaker 4: Kind of feel like we need to build up and
Speaker 4: end with snakes. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Could we guess what's in there that we have a
Speaker 2: rough idea of one? Yes, you you are?
Speaker 3: They both venomous.
Speaker 4: They are both venomous.
Speaker 2: They're both venomous. Yeah, Okay, is the one on the
Speaker 2: orange bucket, timber Rattler, the one in the red bucket
Speaker 2: Western Diamondback.
Speaker 4: No, you're close, you're half right, you on a copperhead?
Speaker 2: Yes, how many snakes do you have?
Speaker 4: I'm really not sure.
Speaker 3: He's not an owner, he's a guardian, that's right.
Speaker 4: They tell me, they love me. I've got I think
Speaker 4: more than forty but less than fifty.
Speaker 2: You're really not really sure. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So they all have names and scientific names. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: they're not having like Larry and Steve and specimens.
Speaker 3: They're specimens.
Speaker 1: Do you mind telling the story of the of the
Speaker 1: old snake that has since passed away?
Speaker 2: Oh, he's right.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So on the original podcast, I brought the big
Speaker 4: timor rattlesnake and that was a doozy yeah, And that
Speaker 4: was over two years ago. And for whatever reason, he
Speaker 4: quit eating, which snakes do that sometimes, and then they'll
Speaker 4: go off feed and they'll come back on feed, and
Speaker 4: sometimes you can do little things. But everything I tried
Speaker 4: over this thing would not eat. But it was so
Speaker 4: massive that it survived. And again it is attributed to
Speaker 4: their incredible metabolism. But it survived twenty twenty seven months
Speaker 4: without a meal, So two years and two months.
Speaker 3: That is unbelievable. Wow, But it would dropt.
Speaker 2: The snake died of old age.
Speaker 4: That's my assumption, because it was old. It was it
Speaker 4: was twenty five plus years old.
Speaker 2: Twenty five plus years.
Speaker 4: I had it for fifteen and I got it from
Speaker 4: the university. It was retired animal that they were using,
Speaker 4: and it was it was probably twenty years old up there,
Speaker 4: so I mean it may have been closer.
Speaker 1: So if you were walking out in the woods and
Speaker 1: you see a timber rattlesnake called up, that snake might
Speaker 1: have been laying there for two years. I mean it's possible.
Speaker 1: I mean he probably would have moved.
Speaker 4: He probably moved, yeah, during cold season and stuff.
Speaker 1: I just think about an animal that just would have
Speaker 1: been right dormant. That was kind of the idea that
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be hunting, and they obviously wouldn't be moving
Speaker 1: around too much because they're probably conserving energy. If they're
Speaker 1: not writing for over two years.
Speaker 4: It would probably stay in their wintertime. Hibernaculum den hybernaculum,
Speaker 4: that's the that's the fancy word.
Speaker 1: Is that a snake word or is that an animal word.
Speaker 4: I think it's a snake word. I don't know though bears.
Speaker 1: Bears have a hybernacil be hibernate, but yeah, you would
Speaker 1: hear the term a den. It wouldn't be a hibernaculum.
Speaker 4: Same thing with rattlesnakes, though we hear rattlesnake den, but
Speaker 4: it's technically a hibernaculum.
Speaker 1: Well, is there a way to trace back who taught
Speaker 1: you this.
Speaker 4: Word of Probably doctor Steve bo Pray from the University
Speaker 4: of Arkansas. Okay, he's fresh on my mind because I
Speaker 4: had dinner with him last night. But yeah, he taught
Speaker 4: me a lot of big words.
Speaker 1: And so you're you are a You're not a trained biologist,
Speaker 1: but you a degree biologist. Correct, you're not a herpetologist.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna I'm gonna what.
Speaker 2: Does the degree even mean?
Speaker 3: Exactly?
Speaker 1: But you've been messing around with snake's your whole life,
Speaker 1: and I mean you're essentially a snake biologist.
Speaker 4: Yes, so yeah, I like to think I play one
Speaker 4: on the internet. But yeah, I'm a I'm an advanced
Speaker 4: snake enthusiast.
Speaker 2: I think would be a good.
Speaker 1: You know, you're the most You're the most normal advanced
Speaker 1: snake enthusiast I've ever been around. And to say you're
Speaker 1: normal is a little bit of a you know, maybe
Speaker 1: a slide of words here, I'll think. But I've been
Speaker 1: around some snake people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I run across these same people in my little circles,
Speaker 4: run across or run with, well sometimes run with. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it just depends.
Speaker 2: But tell us about your trip to South America.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, So I got to go to the
Speaker 4: Amazon rainforest back in February, which it turns out, and
Speaker 4: Peru they don't have like a summer, winter spring. They
Speaker 4: have a rainy season or a dry season. And we
Speaker 4: were there during the rainy season, and we stayed I
Speaker 4: think we were like sixty something miles down the Amazon
Speaker 4: from a Ketos had a little research station and they
Speaker 4: have a generator there and they would run the generator
Speaker 4: twice a day so you could charge your phone. But like, no, no, yeah,
Speaker 4: it was a lot off the grid. Turns out as
Speaker 4: scared as most people are of snakes, I'm that way
Speaker 4: about spiders. And there are more spiders in the Pruven
Speaker 4: Jungle than you can You just can't believe. And some
Speaker 4: of the guys I wait with there into spiders and
Speaker 4: stuff and so they were all excited, but I was
Speaker 4: pretty much terrified the entire time.
Speaker 2: I don't particularly spiders Enema spiders. Yes.
Speaker 4: In fact, I won't get into details on this, but
Speaker 4: all the listeners out there, if you'll go to your
Speaker 4: phone and google wandering spider, wondering spider, it's like one
Speaker 4: of the top three deadly spiders in the planet, I think,
Speaker 4: but it's got a very strange venom. And uh, they're
Speaker 4: I don't say they're aggressive, but they're not. They're kind
Speaker 4: of like a cotton mouth. They don't attack you, but
Speaker 4: they don't back down. I got you. If you run
Speaker 4: across one, they just kind of, you know, bow up
Speaker 4: at you. Are they big wou? Yeah? I would say
Speaker 4: three four inches across.
Speaker 2: That's that's a big spider.
Speaker 4: That spider.
Speaker 2: It's a crazy spider.
Speaker 4: We can get to the Wikipedia and read that. And
Speaker 4: oh yeah, if you think it's worth missing.
Speaker 2: There's a bear.
Speaker 1: Just pull a picture on his phone of a giant
Speaker 1: or ragnet with two arms raised to the heavens, so
Speaker 1: like or you could call it like yeah, raised to
Speaker 1: the heavens, or like a referee calling for a field goal.
Speaker 4: Well, so we're down there with a bunch of tree
Speaker 4: huggers for all practical purposes. So normally, like most people
Speaker 4: kill snakes, I will stomp a spider and get great
Speaker 4: joy in doing so. But I was like, I can't
Speaker 4: really do this, you know, I'm down here. And so
Speaker 4: we had one that lived under our porch. We had
Speaker 4: these steps. It went up to our little thing called
Speaker 4: a tambo. It's basically like a little Gilligan's Island hunt
Speaker 4: and stilts. And at the bottom of the stairs there
Speaker 4: was a large, wondering spider that lived under the bottom stairs.
Speaker 4: And every night I would go out to go take
Speaker 4: a shower or something, and the spider would be there,
Speaker 4: just waiting, and he did not move, and we had
Speaker 4: to We figured out a way to manage it, but
Speaker 4: it was.
Speaker 3: Not pleasant, so killing him wasn't an option.
Speaker 4: No, And one night lifted up toilt lid, big one
Speaker 4: in the toilet hanging out.
Speaker 2: No way, I bet you killed them.
Speaker 4: Nope, I just went to another toilet. No, I just
Speaker 4: abandoned ship. I mean these things they're everywhere. And other spiders,
Speaker 4: like have you ever heard of a bird eating spider? No,
Speaker 4: it's the largest spider, the lithe bird eater. Yes, we
Speaker 4: saw one of those.
Speaker 2: I want to know who came up with that name?
Speaker 2: I don't know, And I think they should name more critters.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 4: There's a glaugh grouper. Yeah, yeah, but we saw one
Speaker 4: of those guys, like it's not a real big one,
Speaker 4: but it was literally probably eight ten inches across that's terrifying.
Speaker 4: It was that a venomous spirab it's a tarantula. I
Speaker 4: mean it's it's just it's venomous, but it's not deadly. Yeah,
Speaker 4: But like saying scorpions, they've got all those. I mean,
Speaker 4: so in my mind before we went, I was like,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna buy my shetty and take my bull whip
Speaker 4: because I do own some bull whips and uh.
Speaker 3: Doora, maybe's not as normal as we think.
Speaker 4: I mean, chopping through the jungle having adventures. And when
Speaker 4: I got down there and saw where like underneath big
Speaker 4: leaves or be nests of wasps, oh, and then scorpions
Speaker 4: and then bullet ants, you'd be like enough against a
Speaker 4: tree and there'll be a trailer bullet it. So literally
Speaker 4: I was walking, you know, yeah, as thinly as I
Speaker 4: could through the trails, just trying not to touch anything.
Speaker 2: It was terrifying.
Speaker 4: But we did find a bunch of snakes. We found, uh,
Speaker 4: I don't know how many. I think total species list
Speaker 4: was of like one hundred and sixty different species of reptiles,
Speaker 4: amphibians and the ragnans and stuff. But we didn't find
Speaker 4: the one snake that I wanted to find which is
Speaker 4: a bush master. It's the largest venomous snake in this hemisphere,
Speaker 4: and it's very interesting. It's a pit viper, but it
Speaker 4: lays eggs. Most pit vipers have live birth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so some snakes have live birth and some snakes
Speaker 1: well lay eggs.
Speaker 4: Technically, they have eggs in their belly and then they
Speaker 4: hatch out and then the live snake emerges from the
Speaker 4: they hatch hatch inside, but we call that live birth
Speaker 4: versus laying an egg and a banding it like most
Speaker 4: snakes do, and then those egg hatches itself. So wow, how.
Speaker 2: Big is a bush master?
Speaker 4: They can get eight to twelve feet, Oh my lord,
Speaker 4: and they're real deadly, very very What was the chances
Speaker 4: of you seeing one? It was really high because this
Speaker 4: group that we went with has they do this every year,
Speaker 4: and they were I think fourteen of fourteen trips where
Speaker 4: they found a bush master and we broke that streak
Speaker 4: for him.
Speaker 2: Oh, massmaster.
Speaker 4: So I did find. The coolest thing I found was
Speaker 4: a six foot Peruvian boa bult constrictor, which as a kid,
Speaker 4: you know, I'd see these nast geographic and me and
Speaker 4: my son were walking and I was it was raining
Speaker 4: because it just comes its rainforest, so it rings and
Speaker 4: I stepped on something and because I was looking kind
Speaker 4: of at the periphery, I wasn't looking right in front
Speaker 4: of me, and like I stepped in something kind of squished,
Speaker 4: and I looked down and there was a six foot
Speaker 4: bowl constrictor. I mean it looked like you know, a
Speaker 4: pet store. You know. It was just awesome to see
Speaker 4: a wild one and city strike at you. He was
Speaker 4: not pleasant. Yeah, it turns out they don't like to
Speaker 4: be handled. I didn't get bit, but had We had
Speaker 4: a good time trying to get it in a bag
Speaker 4: to show everybody else.
Speaker 1: So how so was this like a like an eco tour?
Speaker 4: Yeah, more or less.
Speaker 2: You picked up on the dark web or something that.
Speaker 4: Now I've got some friends some of these people, and
Speaker 4: they do have an eco tour thing there, and a
Speaker 4: lot of the money goes to purchase tracks of the
Speaker 4: rainforest so it doesn't get cut down, and so they're
Speaker 4: preserving habitat down there. So even in the Snake Realm,
Speaker 4: we're big on public lands and saving habitat and all
Speaker 4: that kind of stuff too.
Speaker 1: So you've traveled all across the country here in America
Speaker 1: looking for snakes, like, you know, randomly, you'll be somewhere
Speaker 1: and you'll be like, yeah, I'm looking for this snake.
Speaker 1: You're trying to check off a list, right seeing every
Speaker 1: species of snake in America pretty much or.
Speaker 4: In yeah, call America right now. Yeah, Actually, in Labor
Speaker 4: Day weekend, I'm going south of the border to look
Speaker 4: for the last rattlesnake. That is, the last US rattlesnake.
Speaker 4: It's called a cradulous whittler dye obscurists. It's the New
Speaker 4: Mexico original rattlesnake. And so they occur on two mountain
Speaker 4: ranges down kind of the Boothill area of New mex.
Speaker 2: But they're now what border are you crossing? The Mexican one?
Speaker 2: So it's in New Mexico though.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So there's two places you can find them in
Speaker 4: the US, and they're functionally extirpated from this range. There's
Speaker 4: another range that you can't get on because it's owned
Speaker 4: by the Nature Conservancy and they do research on these,
Speaker 4: so they don't want anybody in there messing with them.
Speaker 4: But across the border into Mexico they're apparently common. So
Speaker 4: we're hooking up with a guy that's been several times,
Speaker 4: and he's assured me everything's good and safe, and so
Speaker 4: we'll see.
Speaker 2: Okay, so when when are you doing that?
Speaker 4: It'd be Labor Day weekend.
Speaker 2: Labor Day weekend.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're gonna have a post mortem. If I get killed, say,
Speaker 4: we're gonna have a moment of silence.
Speaker 1: I will dedicate an episode to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go get killed.
Speaker 4: Okay, but yeah we do. We chase a lot of
Speaker 4: a lot of different snakes in different areas, just like
Speaker 4: y'all do when you go hunting. You want to kill
Speaker 4: a baron basct.
Speaker 3: How many do you like in North America?
Speaker 4: Rattlesnakes?
Speaker 3: Just snakes?
Speaker 4: Oh, I wouldn't have any idea.
Speaker 1: Oh so it's not that's not a goal. Then I
Speaker 1: kind of said that not a goal.
Speaker 4: Now the go is the rattlesnakes, the rattlesnakes.
Speaker 3: How many rattlesnakes are there?
Speaker 4: Uh? Good, you put me on spot here. I want
Speaker 4: to say forty? Wow, that many things.
Speaker 1: They're rattlesnakes and other continents.
Speaker 4: Yes, South America has the it's a new world thing. Yes,
Speaker 4: really Yeah, that's a great segue into.
Speaker 2: My wow flag.
Speaker 4: So we were talking about the Civil War. Eventually this
Speaker 4: actually comes from revolutionary.
Speaker 3: We'll hand that other aside to Clay.
Speaker 1: Let me see here, Okay, get it all on the
Speaker 1: screen here.
Speaker 4: This is what is known as the gads And Battle flag.
Speaker 4: It's made by a dude that was in the navy,
Speaker 4: and it's got a rattlesnake on it that says, don't
Speaker 4: tread on me. It's got thirteen segments on his rattle
Speaker 4: to signify the thirteen colonies. And again this is Clay said,
Speaker 4: rattlesnakes are a new world thing. They don't have these
Speaker 4: in Europe, so no one in Europe had ever seen these.
Speaker 4: And they come over here and they got this crazy
Speaker 4: snake that can kill you that has rattles on them.
Speaker 4: So Benjamin Franklin was big on writing stuff. I'm gonna reata.
Speaker 1: We can just drape this over the siddle here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so get up my cheaters here.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: So this was Benjamin Franklin wrote this in seventeen fifty
Speaker 4: five or something like that. Says, I recollected that her
Speaker 4: eye excelled in brightness that of any other animal, and
Speaker 4: that she has no eyelids. She may therefore be esteemed
Speaker 4: an emblem of vigilance. She never begins an attack, nor
Speaker 4: when engaged ever surrenders. She is therefore an emblem of
Speaker 4: magnanimity and true courage. As if anxious to prevent all
Speaker 4: pretensions of quarreling with her, the weapons with which nature
Speaker 4: has furnished her she conceals in the roof of her mouth,
Speaker 4: so that those who are unacquainted with her, she appears
Speaker 4: to be most defenseless. And even when those weapons are
Speaker 4: shown and extended for her defense, they appear weak and contemptible.
Speaker 4: But their wounds, however small, are decisive and fatal. Conscious
Speaker 4: of this, she never wounds till she has generally given
Speaker 4: notice even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the
Speaker 4: danger of treading on her. So I thought that was
Speaker 4: a really interesting writing Ben Franklin talking about the timber rattlesnake,
Speaker 4: because this is the same rattlesnake that we have here
Speaker 4: in the Ozarks. They have in the northeast, they range
Speaker 4: up into New York Pennsylvania, And like I said, it
Speaker 4: was a good symbol to kind of explain the the
Speaker 4: deal to England at times like don't you know, don't mess.
Speaker 2: With us, or they'll be tread on. The high price
Speaker 2: to be paid yeah, in interesting.
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 2: I was good.
Speaker 4: How about that?
Speaker 2: That was that was really good?
Speaker 4: Yep, okay, So I'm gonna open this okay.
Speaker 1: Oh yikes, look at that guy.
Speaker 4: I'll use this thing here.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So, so Brad has a five gallon bucket and he's
Speaker 1: opened the bucket and in the bucket is a very
Speaker 1: it's a good sized smokes timber rattler that he has
Speaker 1: put on a floor in the office right next to
Speaker 1: our feet.
Speaker 3: Wow. Wow, he's got a heck of a rattle, doesn't he.
Speaker 1: Where's my where's my phone at?
Speaker 2: There?
Speaker 4: It is?
Speaker 1: Okay, So there's a there's a timber rattler on the floor.
Speaker 3: We can get it.
Speaker 2: And they still how old would you say? That snake is? Brad?
Speaker 4: This snake is probably five or six years old to
Speaker 4: be my guess. Wow, it's definitely.
Speaker 2: You better get out the way. Be really still.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna stand real close to Brad because he's.
Speaker 1: Got I've got my boots on, so I'm probably okay.
Speaker 1: There's probably okay, you're probably okay, bear, you're not okay?
Speaker 4: Now, So this is the same snake that they were seeing,
Speaker 4: and it's on that flag. And again, as you can see.
Speaker 4: She's really not too aggressive or striky. It's a female,
Speaker 4: I think, so this one is. And now it's gonna
Speaker 4: take off and vanish somewhere.
Speaker 2: Better seriously move.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's easier just to grab one by the tail.
Speaker 1: Oh my lord, Brad, Wow, okay, we're app We're completely
Speaker 1: wrangling this snake.
Speaker 3: We're wrapped up in wires here.
Speaker 4: Okay, so now we can kind of control it.
Speaker 1: So she's i'd say, is she four foot long?
Speaker 2: Four and a half foot long?
Speaker 4: Probably close?
Speaker 3: Why where'd you get her?
Speaker 4: Uh? This was actually a Arkansas game and fish caused
Speaker 4: me now to do removals and actually kind of a
Speaker 4: wayward home for ownerless snakes. The owner of the snake
Speaker 4: apparently committed a crime and is going to spend some
Speaker 4: time at a state facility, and they wanted the snake gone,
Speaker 4: and so I ended up with it. But now this
Speaker 4: is going to be the one I use in my
Speaker 4: snake programs.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 4: But as you can see, when.
Speaker 3: You say snake programs, what do you mean?
Speaker 4: I do educational program for schools and boy Scouts?
Speaker 3: And how many students have you lost?
Speaker 4: We've never had a problem yet, but you know, there's
Speaker 4: always that.
Speaker 1: So this snake looks really bright, the skin looks really.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it just shed recently?
Speaker 2: Did it just shed?
Speaker 3: How often do they shed?
Speaker 4: It depends on how much they eat in captivity. With
Speaker 4: the way I feed these about once every month, it'll shed.
Speaker 3: Oh really that often month?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, I get them on a pretty regular eating
Speaker 4: schedule in the summertime, and then like say, in the wintertime,
Speaker 4: they go off feet.
Speaker 1: That snake has a bunch of rattles. One't have that many.
Speaker 4: Not usually. Usually they're going to break off. They crawl
Speaker 4: around and rocks and stuff, and they get brittle and
Speaker 4: they'll break. But in captivity they just usually retain them.
Speaker 4: And it's funny because some species. I've got this big
Speaker 4: diamondback that I brought last time, and it loses rattles
Speaker 4: all the time, so it doesn't have a very big
Speaker 4: string of rattles. But the snake itself is almost six
Speaker 4: foot long.
Speaker 1: So you had to go out and get this snake
Speaker 1: from this person's house. Yes, can you tell us about that?
Speaker 4: It was a little sketchy the house. If I was
Speaker 4: a snake, that's probably where I would have stayed because
Speaker 4: there was a lot of junk ling around, a lot
Speaker 4: of car hoods and overturned and shed and you sort
Speaker 4: of a lot of stuff to hide under. And this
Speaker 4: one he had built a big box in the back
Speaker 4: of the trailer house and had like a glass door
Speaker 4: as a lid, and so he had this big box
Speaker 4: with us in it in the copper head.
Speaker 2: Mmm.
Speaker 4: So but the uh, I guess the people that own
Speaker 4: it did not want the snake. So here we are. Wow,
Speaker 4: it doesn't like the bucket. I've noticed some snakes go
Speaker 4: right in the bucket, some don't care for it.
Speaker 2: He doesn't like the bucket, stay in there. And you've
Speaker 2: never been bitten by a poisonous snake?
Speaker 4: No, no, I'm pretty careful.
Speaker 2: Okay, that was snake.
Speaker 4: So now everybody's heart rates on.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: So okay, So when.
Speaker 1: When people are around equine animals, when I first started
Speaker 1: being around mules and horses a lot, I was very
Speaker 1: conscious of being behind them for getting kicked because Juju
Speaker 1: Nukeom told us about well, we knew a girl from
Speaker 1: my hometown that got kicked in the face. She was
Speaker 1: about my age and really really hurt or bad, and
Speaker 1: so Juju Nukem was worried about getting lockjaw from rusty things,
Speaker 1: falling through ice, kidnappers and getting kicked by horses and
Speaker 1: for with the recks. Those were the big fears that
Speaker 1: we had. But now that I've been around equine animals
Speaker 1: a lot, I'm not really that worried about getting kicked
Speaker 1: by them.
Speaker 2: I just kind of you know, you just kind of.
Speaker 4: Understand understand body language, body language.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the same way with snakes. Like you're very
Speaker 1: comfortable with it, and uh and and like I'm I'm
Speaker 1: maybe more comfortable than some because I handle a snake
Speaker 1: or two, but it's still like, hey man, that's way
Speaker 1: too close.
Speaker 3: Yeah, have you had any close calls.
Speaker 2: I actually think Brad's just reckless.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we could say that, uh the never. It's funny
Speaker 4: you say that, though, because I've noticed, like with my
Speaker 4: non venous snakes, same thing always equated to like a horse,
Speaker 4: a horse can tell when you're nervous. You get on
Speaker 4: a horse and you're nervous, the horse is going nervous.
Speaker 4: Snakes are the same way like my non venous snakes.
Speaker 4: If you just reach in them, grab them, just nonchalantly,
Speaker 4: just open the cage and pick them up. Fine, But
Speaker 4: if you go slow and you think well, I'll just
Speaker 4: act make my hand and let it bam. You'll get
Speaker 4: bit really every time?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what are the chances you could just reach in
Speaker 1: that bucket and pick that Oh no.
Speaker 4: Not going to find out.
Speaker 2: Okay, what do we say?
Speaker 4: This is just a copper head?
Speaker 2: Oh good, you know what.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought a copperhead. I actually thought about
Speaker 1: telling you to bring one.
Speaker 4: Hopefully these this will be more calm. This one tesfully.
Speaker 1: So we have We've got a nice, probably thirty inch
Speaker 1: long copper head.
Speaker 4: So the reason I brought the copperhead, I'm not sure
Speaker 4: if you're aware of the copperhead movement in the Civil War?
Speaker 4: Ooh oh do you remember in the eighties there was
Speaker 4: a commercial for time Life's books on the Civil War
Speaker 4: and there was the Old West. Well, I remember the
Speaker 4: Civil War one. It always said the copperheads and I
Speaker 4: was like, what is that? So w I went to college,
Speaker 4: had to do a paper and they're like, what subject
Speaker 4: do you want to do this on? I was like
Speaker 4: the copper heads because I'm thinking it's got to be
Speaker 4: some like mercenary band of bad guys that are you know.
Speaker 4: It turns out it was just some peace Democrats that
Speaker 4: didn't want to find the war and they called them
Speaker 4: the copperheads. I was very disappointed, but they were very
Speaker 4: anti war. And basically it's kind of started up in
Speaker 4: the Ohio River Valley area and I think they ran
Speaker 4: a guy for president or maybe vice president with McClellan,
Speaker 4: but didn't really gain much traction. And that was the
Speaker 4: copperhead movement. And that was interesting though. There was a
Speaker 4: case where there was a mail bag that came from
Speaker 4: one of the states that had succeeded and they opened
Speaker 4: it and it had a box in it. The box
Speaker 4: hit the floor and busted open and there were copperheads
Speaker 4: in it, two copperheads that they quickly dispatched, and so
Speaker 4: that kind of got tied in that they thought, you know,
Speaker 4: maybe these guys had done this or something. But anyway,
Speaker 4: little anecdotal story.
Speaker 1: It's the range of the copperhead.
Speaker 4: Copperheads or they have a huge range. They've ranged from
Speaker 4: West Texas all the way to east coast up into
Speaker 4: New York. This scientists change things all the time. We
Speaker 4: now have an eastern copperhead and a broadband and copperhead.
Speaker 4: I can't remember, but they basically split them. Used to
Speaker 4: be split up into a northern coperhead, a Southern coperhead,
Speaker 4: a Transpacos copperhead, a broadband and copperhead. But now they've
Speaker 4: kind of lumped them all together. So this is basically
Speaker 4: an eastern copperhead. Is what they call this MM is
Speaker 4: a copperhead, a pit viper, it is.
Speaker 1: What's the most interesting thing about this, like the copperhead,
Speaker 1: how they make a living, what they do where they live.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're just really good at pest control. They eat
Speaker 4: warm blooded prey, the lead mice and rats and you know,
Speaker 4: ground squirrels and stuff, and a lot of people like
Speaker 4: I can get on a rant here about all these
Speaker 4: hunters and conservationists that love the stuff and then they
Speaker 4: go out and they see a snake crossing road and
Speaker 4: they get out and beat it to death with the rock. Yes,
Speaker 4: And I just can't get my head wrapped around that,
Speaker 4: because these guys do a lot of good. They eat
Speaker 4: squirrels and rats and stuff that have ticks and ticks
Speaker 4: cary tick borne illnesses. And interesting about copperheads, they have
Speaker 4: a component in their venom that they found out has
Speaker 4: a very powerful treatment against breast cancer cells. Really, and
Speaker 4: like I say this is the redneck version. Basically, the
Speaker 4: cell it stops up to sell the cancer cell on
Speaker 4: both ends, so it can't get rid of waste and
Speaker 4: kills the cell. Unlike luke or what do you call
Speaker 4: the radiation stuff chemotherapy therapy where it attacks the whole
Speaker 4: body and you know, wrecks your whole system and the
Speaker 4: cancer cells. This is a very specific thing that only
Speaker 4: affects the cancer cells. But what they found is the
Speaker 4: component that venom in the venom is so small and
Speaker 4: minute that it would take you know, every copperhead in
Speaker 4: the Southeast United States to create a dose of this
Speaker 4: that would work. And so they're now they're working with
Speaker 4: the bioscience people trying to come up with a synthetic
Speaker 4: version of it. So the copperhead may be the cute,
Speaker 4: you know, one of the things that helps cure breast cancer.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they beautiful. See they have a place. And like
Speaker 4: I say, I tell people, like the best, the only
Speaker 4: dangerous snake out there is the one you're messing with
Speaker 4: if you just leave them alone. Yeah, like this one.
Speaker 4: But you know, if you see a snake, just leave
Speaker 4: it alone, It'll go about its business. Now I get it.
Speaker 4: If you know it's crossed upon your porch and you've
Speaker 4: got a three year old that runs around. I understand
Speaker 4: that kind of stuff, and that stuff happens, but the
Speaker 4: vast majority I just get sick because my Facebook feed,
Speaker 4: you know, I see a lot of people with their
Speaker 4: prize and they've killed a big rattlesnake and I'm like,
Speaker 4: the poor snake was just out there and just had
Speaker 4: to be crossing the road or you know. And these
Speaker 4: guys with deer feeders put their deer feeder out and
Speaker 4: attract squirrels of nice and that's what these guys eat,
Speaker 4: So they go their deer feeder, like this rattlesnake was
Speaker 4: waiting to get somebody. It's like, no, the rattle snake
Speaker 4: just figured out there was an easy place to get
Speaker 4: a meal, and so best just left alone. But copperheads
Speaker 4: one of them, Like I say, they're so common, they're
Speaker 4: just you bickoed us here and uh but it's just
Speaker 4: one of the most beautiful snakes. I think they just
Speaker 4: love it.
Speaker 1: How many copperheads do you think are within three hundred
Speaker 1: feet of us right now?
Speaker 4: Probably a couple of dozen at really, Oh yeah you
Speaker 4: think so? Oh yeah, let me tell you this Brett.
Speaker 4: We're at the global headquarters here and I can count
Speaker 4: on one hand the number of times in twenty years
Speaker 4: that I've seen a copperhead on this property.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what does that mean?
Speaker 4: They're very good at hiding, very Uh what did you
Speaker 4: call bears crepuscular?
Speaker 2: Crepuscular?
Speaker 4: They are very crepuscular, so they're just.
Speaker 2: Not out during the daytime.
Speaker 4: They just hang out.
Speaker 1: The puscular means cracka dawn and in the evening, right,
Speaker 1: so they're nocturnal more, is that what you say?
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, And like I say, they're very camouflaged and
Speaker 4: they don't require much so you don't see them out.
Speaker 1: So you do think that there's a bunch around here
Speaker 1: even though I'm not seeing them.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, And like say, they keep things in check,
Speaker 4: like you know, chipmunks, little ground squirrels and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: But they on eat frogs and stuff like that too.
Speaker 4: They're pretty optimistic.
Speaker 3: Would that snake strike only if it was feeling threatened?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so right.
Speaker 3: Now, I mean, if we didn't make any sudden movements.
Speaker 4: Or you could crawl over your feet, it wouldn't care.
Speaker 4: But if you reach down and grab it, then it's
Speaker 4: gonna be like, whoa, what's that? Probably turn around a strike. Yeah,
Speaker 4: they're very deceiving. They like to lull you into a oh,
Speaker 4: this one's not very body. You have to fight that
Speaker 4: urge to pick them up, because yes, it can end badly.
Speaker 2: Do you think snakes have feeling?
Speaker 4: I don't know. That is a good question. Do snakes
Speaker 4: go to heaven?
Speaker 1: I'm misty Misty Nukem who tries to convince me even
Speaker 1: though it's not biblical, there may be some biblical loopholes
Speaker 1: about animals in the next dimension. She's like, I think
Speaker 1: dogs probably probably are up there. I'm gonna be like, well,
Speaker 1: if dogs are there, snakes are there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there might be some biblical loopholes in that,
Speaker 1: now that I think about it exactly.
Speaker 4: But yeah, they're they're very common. And like I say,
Speaker 4: these are they're not considered mildly venomous. But if you're
Speaker 4: gonna get bit by something venous, this.
Speaker 2: Is the one one.
Speaker 1: This is the snake that I envision if I were
Speaker 1: bit by a snake, this is probably what it is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, these are probably the crew account And what would
Speaker 4: be your symptoms? You would burning sensation, to you know,
Speaker 4: hold out the bite at the bat side. Yeah, that's
Speaker 4: very well up common with pit viprum venomations. Yeah, a
Speaker 4: lot of pain at the baite side, a lot of
Speaker 4: swelling and uh, basically what happens is that the venom
Speaker 4: breaks down the red blood seals ability to carry oxygen,
Speaker 4: so you kind of have some you know, some respiratory
Speaker 4: side effects and uh.
Speaker 1: Oh really so if you if he bits you on
Speaker 1: the ankle, you might have a hard time breathing.
Speaker 4: You're gonna, yeah, probably have some trouble, you know.
Speaker 5: And would they administer anti venom for a for a
Speaker 5: copper head bite.
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely, And yeah, it depends on severity of the bite.
Speaker 4: What all do you usually do is monitor you for
Speaker 4: They're supposed to monitor you for eight hours to make
Speaker 4: sure the venom's not progressing because it'll start swelling and
Speaker 4: they can mark you know how.
Speaker 1: Now would probably be one that would be like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's not that big a deal to get bit by
Speaker 1: a copper head.
Speaker 4: If it was a copperhead, I might attempt to write
Speaker 4: it out unless I thought it was severe enough that
Speaker 4: it was gonna you know.
Speaker 1: Is that something that could backfire on you though?
Speaker 2: It could.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like just all of a sudden, you just go downhill.
Speaker 4: The the phrase is time is tissue. So the longer
Speaker 4: you go before you get anti venom, the more tissue
Speaker 4: damage that could occur. But you know, like say so
Speaker 4: many times snake bites and like I say, there's not
Speaker 4: really a you know, uh in stone formula for this,
Speaker 4: but like you know, if you just surprise the thing,
Speaker 4: like if I reached down and picked up the snake
Speaker 4: and it bit me, it's not that it's not agitated.
Speaker 4: It may just be a hey, leave me alone, and
Speaker 4: he may not inject any venom. All dry bite might
Speaker 4: be a dry bite. It might just be you know, slight,
Speaker 4: so that's possible a dry by. They could strike you
Speaker 4: and not inject any venom. Yeah, yeah, they can control
Speaker 4: the amount of venom that they release. But if it's
Speaker 4: you know, agitated, or if it's stepped on or you know,
Speaker 4: then it may be really upset and really sock it
Speaker 4: to you. But you'd be able to pretty much tell.
Speaker 1: And you've never been bit by venom, not.
Speaker 4: By venomous No, No, it's uh, like I say, it's
Speaker 4: one of those deals where you know, if you play
Speaker 4: with fire you're probably gonna get burned at some point,
Speaker 4: so I mean, I'm ready to accept responsibility for that.
Speaker 4: But I do everything I can to midicate it, you know,
Speaker 4: using tools instead of my hands, and bring them in
Speaker 4: buckets instead of bags. You know, there's a lot of
Speaker 4: safety things you can do. And like I say, I
Speaker 4: work with these guys in my snake room all the time,
Speaker 4: so I kind of understand their body language and stuff.
Speaker 4: So very interesting animals, highly underrated.
Speaker 2: I know a guy who is shooting his trid bow,
Speaker 2: missed the target, went under the target to grab his arrow,
Speaker 2: got bit by a copperhead, and he went to the
Speaker 2: hospital and they just had him wait there for eight hours,
Speaker 2: I guess. And he said it swoll up all the
Speaker 2: way to his shoulder.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That they never they never gave him any any venom.
Speaker 2: That's interesting, and it can swell down and he has
Speaker 2: some kind of nerve damage on his finger. But oh really, yeah,
Speaker 2: for the most part, it is all right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's the thing with doctors. I mean, they
Speaker 4: cover this, I'm sure in one class for one test,
Speaker 4: but they're not familiar with dealing with snake bite. So
Speaker 4: a lot of doctors are kind of like right, they're
Speaker 4: probably looking, you know, they're going to google and how
Speaker 4: to treat snake bite. Yeah, exactly, that kind of stuff
Speaker 4: because they just haven't treat them. There's a couple of
Speaker 4: guys that that do that have a Facebook page called
Speaker 4: the National Snake Bite Support Website and it's very fascinating
Speaker 4: cause it's only it's controlled by doctors and you can't comment.
Speaker 4: You can just see what if you have a live
Speaker 4: bite situation, people will send them a message and then
Speaker 4: they'll tell them what to do and tell the doctors.
Speaker 4: Do you know if they if they're not if they
Speaker 4: feel like they're not getting treatment, Like the guy you're
Speaker 4: talking about probably should have been ad Minister Danti Vinam
Speaker 4: if they if the swelling progressed that much, somebody should
Speaker 4: have been like, okay, yeah, that's a that's a pretty
Speaker 4: solid invenomation.
Speaker 2: Brad.
Speaker 1: These we forgot to mention that you're in the toa
Speaker 1: covi's hot seat.
Speaker 4: Yes give us indeed or not?
Speaker 1: These these to COVID's boots right here. Uh, they're on
Speaker 1: the the the rough, outside.
Speaker 2: The leather.
Speaker 1: What are the chances he bites me and it goes
Speaker 1: through that?
Speaker 4: Not at all?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so those are going to be snakes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: if you're certain of that.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 1: What are the chances that he would bite me above
Speaker 1: the boot?
Speaker 4: You know, I want to say seventy percent. Doesn't say thirty. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I'd say seventy they don't. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So these are just standard sized boots and there's a
Speaker 1: chance that that he he could bite me up that high.
Speaker 2: Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 4: Good a snake that sass could but it would be
Speaker 4: an odd thing.
Speaker 1: He would probably strike you like there, but you would
Speaker 1: feel like one hundred percent like he is not going
Speaker 1: to bite through that leather.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: Whenever we well, it's interesting that you say that because
Speaker 1: you're gonna get a pair of Ta Cos boots which
Speaker 1: we have here and we would like for you to
Speaker 1: put them on. Let that snake bite joke you he
Speaker 1: is going to get it to got to tell you that, No,
Speaker 1: you get a pair of Co's boots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we forgot to tell you that we.
Speaker 5: Have a great partnership with the Covis and for being
Speaker 5: our guests, you will get a pair of boots from them.
Speaker 2: Awesome. Okay, Well, thank you, Brad. You told me a story.
Speaker 2: Whenever we were snaking last year about maybe it was
Speaker 2: one of your buddies or something who had a rattlesnake
Speaker 2: tripped on a green brier through it.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, buddy of mine did get infentimated by a
Speaker 4: large Western diamondback finnomated.
Speaker 1: That's like her hybernaculum. Yeah, snake guys trying to impress us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, one of my best friends did get bitten by
Speaker 4: a large rattlesnake and it went south very quickly. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, long story short. He got bit and it
Speaker 4: didn't look like it wasn't.
Speaker 2: Too tell us a little bit about how he got bit.
Speaker 2: I mean, well kind of just did.
Speaker 4: I wasn't there. I was up above, So, like I said,
Speaker 4: this is just kind of really he had a rattlesnake
Speaker 4: there that he didn't see, and he was looking at
Speaker 4: another one, and he came around this rock and it
Speaker 4: was right there, and it he went to move and
Speaker 4: gut in some green briers and it struck and only
Speaker 4: one thing hit his leg about right here, which again,
Speaker 4: so then.
Speaker 1: It was a snake. He should have known was there
Speaker 1: or y'all were looking for snake. He had one, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it just happened to be there was another one.
Speaker 4: There was another one. Yeah, and everybody says, oh, they
Speaker 4: traveling pairs. They don't traveling pairs. This was at a
Speaker 4: den sight where we would expect to see Mont. So anyway,
Speaker 4: the snake bites him and we all were like that
Speaker 4: I wasn't there. I was thirty yards away, and so
Speaker 4: we all rushed down there.
Speaker 2: It counts as you being there.
Speaker 4: Brad pretty close and he said, I don't think it
Speaker 4: bit me. It's not burning or anything. And we're like,
Speaker 4: we'll pull up your leg, your pant leg, and he did,
Speaker 4: and there was a very little slit. It looks like,
Speaker 4: you know, a brier scratched him, and I mean it
Speaker 4: wasn't two fang marks, you know, it wasn't a traditional
Speaker 4: looking snake bait. And we were just kind of looked
Speaker 4: at it, and then you start seeing the blood started
Speaker 4: to drip out of it, and it looked like diluted
Speaker 4: red kool aid. It was like really thin, and so
Speaker 4: we're like, yeah, you got some venom and he's like, well,
Speaker 4: it doesn't burn, it doesn't hurt. And at this point,
Speaker 4: you know, we've done this stuff. We knew to get
Speaker 4: to the hospital. So we had about a probably three
Speaker 4: hundred yard four hundred or walk down a hill to
Speaker 4: get to my truck, and then we took off and
Speaker 4: called nine to one one, and as luck would have it,
Speaker 4: there was an ambulance that just went back really and
Speaker 4: they stopped and he was in the hospital from the
Speaker 4: time he got bitten. He was in the hospital probably
Speaker 4: twenty minutes later. So as far as a snake big goes,
Speaker 4: that's like best case scenario. And of course I couldn't
Speaker 4: go back in the emergency room. So I was in
Speaker 4: the waiting room and the nurse said, you know, you know,
Speaker 4: we're gonna take care of him. You just wait out
Speaker 4: here and get his insurance stuff and all that. So
Speaker 4: I'm waiting around and so I call his wife and
Speaker 4: I'm like, hey, a little accident today. What you've been
Speaker 4: worrying about all these years is finally come to Fruition.
Speaker 5: Find out snaking with with Brad's you come. And my
Speaker 5: wife gets a call from Brad. She knows something's up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, and I said, don't think it's that bad.
Speaker 4: We got in the hospital. Everything's, you know, as good
Speaker 4: as it could be. And I hung up, and she
Speaker 4: was a ways away and she was going to make
Speaker 4: her way there and then the nurse comes as he say,
Speaker 4: we're we're going to life like him to Tulsa, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, oh, okay, And so yeah, I got
Speaker 4: to call her back and say, well, actually it's a
Speaker 4: little worse. It's a little worse than we thought. But
Speaker 4: he spent three I think three, and ICU and Tulsa
Speaker 4: got multiple doses of anti venom, which shows to me,
Speaker 4: if you got bit by one of these big rattlesnakes
Speaker 4: and got a good two fangs into the muscle, it
Speaker 4: might have ended a lot differently. But yeah, it was
Speaker 4: touching go there for a little.
Speaker 3: Bit of a big snake.
Speaker 4: It was about a five foot diamondback rattle snake.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: Is a diamondbacks venom different than a timber rattler?
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 4: It causes more tissue destruction and probably more of the
Speaker 4: antiquaglant than the blood and you know that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: And the amount is the big issue. You know a
Speaker 4: lot of people say baby snakes are more venous than
Speaker 4: and the babies can't control their venom. All that's complete bunk. Yeah,
Speaker 4: the only thing that really matters is how big the
Speaker 4: snake is. And this one was a big its head
Speaker 4: was big as my fist. Wow, So it got you know,
Speaker 4: and like I say, the wound it made it must
Speaker 4: have just been a you know, very minute amount, but
Speaker 4: it's that potent.
Speaker 2: And it put him in ic for the it is
Speaker 2: it was. It was scary.
Speaker 4: But timber Rattler has a neurotoxin right, right, They have
Speaker 4: some neuro toxic yes, yeah, they have some different stuff.
Speaker 4: The neural toxins affect your nervous system obviously, and like
Speaker 4: it's a lot of the respiratory stuff, like it'll just
Speaker 4: you it'll send a message that says, you know, die,
Speaker 4: frame quit working and then you can't breathe or kidney
Speaker 4: shut down. You know, there's a lot of a lot
Speaker 4: of other stuff with tim rout So really, you know,
Speaker 4: what's the most dangerous snake out there, Well, it's the
Speaker 4: one you're messing with. But if I was gonna get
Speaker 4: bit by something, snake at our feet.
Speaker 3: Exactly for the last fifteen minutes, we.
Speaker 1: Are all dancing within the timber rattlesnake in half of
Speaker 1: itches is wing to the hospital except for those of
Speaker 1: us wearing that's right.
Speaker 5: And his nikes there for a disaster and Brad.
Speaker 1: Why does a timber rattler or a diamondback need that
Speaker 1: high potency venom to kill a squirrel.
Speaker 4: Just so they don't have to chase it down and
Speaker 4: waste energy? Oh, I got you. It's just depends on,
Speaker 4: you know, the size of their food. And like I said,
Speaker 4: big diamondbacks when they eat big things like big squirrels,
Speaker 4: like a big fox squirrel, and that's gonna take a
Speaker 4: little more.
Speaker 2: And remember the video.
Speaker 1: I believe I sent it to you, I may have
Speaker 1: posted it. It was two falls ago.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 1: It was in October, and I came across a big
Speaker 1: coiled timber rattler as big as the one you just
Speaker 1: pulled out, and it had eaten a squirrel and was
Speaker 1: so immobilized it could hardly move.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because they digest so slowly. If they eat a
Speaker 4: big meal like that really puts them in danger because
Speaker 4: they can't really crawl off and hide somewhere. They just
Speaker 4: had to kind of lay there until they digested enough
Speaker 4: to be able to move.
Speaker 2: So that was pretty neat.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was a cool video.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could tell you could just almost you
Speaker 1: could all but snake you saw. Yeah, Yeah, you could
Speaker 1: all but see, you know, like the squirrel's paws, like
Speaker 1: I mean, just like the snake was shaped like a squirrel.
Speaker 3: You know, how often will a snake eat a meal
Speaker 3: like that?
Speaker 4: They're going to be opportunistic as many times as they can.
Speaker 4: They're kind of like a bear. They try to get
Speaker 4: as many calories they can during this season so they
Speaker 4: can overwinter, you know, you.
Speaker 1: Know, but they could live off if maybe they just
Speaker 1: caught one one thing a year.
Speaker 4: Yeah. With doctor bo Prey up at the university, they
Speaker 4: had an animal at their study site in Madison County
Speaker 4: was a timberrettlesnake and it ate a single squirrel in
Speaker 4: a calendar year one meal, So I mean, and it
Speaker 4: was absolutely fine. Yeah, I didn't lose any mass.
Speaker 5: It was just Yeah, the snake that you lost that
Speaker 5: didn't eat, he clearly lost some mass eventually.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And like I said, I'd assume his body was
Speaker 4: just consuming itself over that time. But but yeah, very interesting.
Speaker 3: This this one will also eat roadent some Yeah.
Speaker 4: I feed this one nice that are pre frozen often.
Speaker 2: You feed this one.
Speaker 4: About once every two weeks.
Speaker 1: It's a frozen it's a it doesn't have to be alive. No,
Speaker 1: you just drop it in there and he just throws
Speaker 1: the town yep.
Speaker 4: Which is funny because you know, the in addition to
Speaker 4: the venom being used to kill the prey at them,
Speaker 4: it's also a digestive thing. It kind of starts jesting
Speaker 4: it from the inside out. So technically it's probably better
Speaker 4: if it strikes the prey at them and gets that
Speaker 4: venom inside of it, because it starts breaking down the
Speaker 4: inside of the mouse, and then when he swallows it,
Speaker 4: he goes through his gi quicker like say, so it
Speaker 4: can be back on the move.
Speaker 3: So he will strike a frozen mouse.
Speaker 4: Uh if I dangle it in there and go make
Speaker 4: little sounds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like what happens if you don't make the sounds.
Speaker 3: I like a video that next time you're doing that.
Speaker 4: Sometimes I drop him in there and they just kind
Speaker 4: of look at him and they crawl off, and then
Speaker 4: I'll come back and you know, an hour later and
Speaker 4: it's eating. But sometimes I feel like I have to
Speaker 4: do the little put them on the I got some
Speaker 4: long dance hemustats and I kind of dance them around
Speaker 4: and kind of get them to strake. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, m I heard a story the other day a
Speaker 2: guy that I Knew found a tree with the big
Speaker 2: cicada hatch two years ago. I found a tree that
Speaker 2: was just covered in them. Yeah, he said they were
Speaker 2: like fifteen copper heads around it eat tearing up those cicadas.
Speaker 4: Yep, that's they get the more the most protein they
Speaker 4: get for the years from cicadas really really, not from rodents. Yeah,
Speaker 4: really copperheads. That's the anytime you have a big cicada hatch,
Speaker 4: copper heads get relactive because that's what they do. They
Speaker 4: have to eat them right when they come out of
Speaker 4: the shell, when they're like post molt and they're softer
Speaker 4: and that they eat tons of cicadas. But yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 4: Where was it at.
Speaker 2: I think it was down in, uh, kind of near
Speaker 2: a little rock area.
Speaker 4: There was a place up in Yelle County where a
Speaker 4: guy has a tree in his yard and a bunch
Speaker 4: of copperheads were coming up every year, like hundreds really
Speaker 4: and uh yeah, they did some work on it and
Speaker 4: really haven't never figured out what was going on, but
Speaker 4: they thought it was cicadas. This is the original hypothesis.
Speaker 5: But if you had hundreds of copper heads coming up
Speaker 5: in your yard, Brad, what would you do?
Speaker 4: I would celebrate. I'd be out there every night with
Speaker 4: a flashlight and flip flops and a beer, like, let's
Speaker 4: catch the copper end now. I would find it interesting,
Speaker 4: and I would tell my kids and my wife don't
Speaker 4: go out there at night because there's coprehads everywhere. But
Speaker 4: that's you know, that would be very fascinating.
Speaker 1: Do you have a water moccasin? I do, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: thought about time you have to bring in.
Speaker 4: Yeah. There. It's interesting because these are the same the
Speaker 4: same genus, which is uh their cousins coperheads and common out.
Speaker 4: They call this an upland moccasin is one of the
Speaker 4: old terms.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And where does the term moccasin come from? Because we
Speaker 1: think of a moccasins, I mean like a shoe shoe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I would assume the way that you know, they look brownish, leathery,
Speaker 4: and maybe that I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's a good question.
Speaker 4: Maybe they bite you in the feet, well that could
Speaker 4: be it.
Speaker 1: To the foot, Yeah, they bite you in the moccasin.
Speaker 4: Back to boots. So I have another friend, one of
Speaker 4: those people, and he was down in Louisiana and he
Speaker 4: found a huge cotton mouth and uh, he didn't have
Speaker 4: his camera, and he didn't have his stick or something.
Speaker 4: But he had the old knee high rubber green laossuits
Speaker 4: or the cross boots or the green lacrosse, which is
Speaker 4: what I wear. And I feel like I'm you wear
Speaker 4: something if I'm in a swampy area. Yeah, that's use
Speaker 4: what I'm wearing. But he didn't have anything, and he
Speaker 4: was forced to put his foot on it to hold
Speaker 4: onto it till the guy could get back with the
Speaker 4: camera and the stick and everything, and it bit through
Speaker 4: the top of that rubber boot into the top of
Speaker 4: his foot and he got to go to the hospital. Really,
Speaker 4: they can penetrate rubber boots. After I heard that story,
Speaker 4: I was a little more leery to wear those and thinking.
Speaker 1: I'm the only time that I have been unintentionally struck
Speaker 1: by a snake, and honestly, the only time that a
Speaker 1: venomous snake has made contact with me in a strike
Speaker 1: was one time I was wearing lacrosse green boots. I
Speaker 1: was on the Quintin Farm over here in the Ozarks,
Speaker 1: and I was just walking and I just just felt
Speaker 1: something just tap my leg and I stepped on a copper.
Speaker 2: I didn't step on it it was.
Speaker 4: Just like close enough that it struck.
Speaker 1: It was about twelve inches long and it just hit
Speaker 1: the side of my boot. I mean it didn't even Yeah,
Speaker 1: it did nothing. But it was the only time in
Speaker 1: my life that I got struck completely by and didn't
Speaker 1: know it right or wasn't messing with one like I.
Speaker 1: You know, I've had them to strike at boots and
Speaker 1: stuff kind of messing with them.
Speaker 3: I think I'm learning this this snake's method because I
Speaker 3: last two minutes I was sitting here listening to you
Speaker 3: guys talking, I forgot there was a venomous snakes hereby.
Speaker 4: You would do well at my house. This is like
Speaker 4: my living room.
Speaker 2: Does that snake have nostrils behind its eyes or those scales?
Speaker 4: No, through little.
Speaker 1: Dots back behind its eyes on top of that half.
Speaker 4: So that's an interesting thing that pit vipers have. Timber
Speaker 4: rattlesnakes have it as well. And there's several different papers
Speaker 4: about it, and I'm not an expert on any of them.
Speaker 4: Some of them think it is a a an eyeball
Speaker 4: thing to scare a bird or a raptor or something
Speaker 4: that they would think that's eyes. And other people say
Speaker 4: it's some kind of sensory organ that you know does
Speaker 4: something with lights.
Speaker 2: No, we don't know. No, some but it's not me,
Speaker 2: not us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but yes, they all have these two little dots
Speaker 4: on the very top of their head.
Speaker 1: They're tight, they're they're small. Yeah, but I could see
Speaker 1: how if they were bigger, you know, I could make
Speaker 1: sense of it looking like a yeah, a mimicry of eyes.
Speaker 4: Right, but yeah, I think it's some sort of sensory thing.
Speaker 4: But I'm not, honestly not sure.
Speaker 1: Do you okay? This is this is a question like
Speaker 1: a seven year old might ask or a five year
Speaker 1: old do you think of if a rattlesnake.
Speaker 2: Bit of bear?
Speaker 1: Would the bear get hurt just like a human?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, if it was a serious bite, yeah it could. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't know that a bear would die. That's a
Speaker 4: big animal, and it can. You know that venom is
Speaker 4: going to be diffused throughout its system. It's not like
Speaker 4: you know, the two hundred and fifty pounds bear, three
Speaker 4: hundred pund bear. But yeah, definitely so interesting thing. I'm
Speaker 4: working on a project with doctor Bill Pray. We everybody
Speaker 4: you know, all these hunters again, I can I'm a
Speaker 4: hunter too, just not like you guys. But we decided
Speaker 4: to put some game cameras at a diamondback rattlesnake den
Speaker 4: and it's been very fascinating to see the interactions with
Speaker 4: other animals. And one of the best ones is a
Speaker 4: big black bear. There's about a five foot dimond back
Speaker 4: rattlesnake and he's up on the shelf on this bluff
Speaker 4: and this bear comes up there and he's sniffing around,
Speaker 4: and then he kind of starts raising up and he
Speaker 4: gets about eye level with this diamondback and the rattlesnake
Speaker 4: literally just goes just a little bit and that bear
Speaker 4: almost does a backflip off of that bluff. I mean
Speaker 4: he is, Wow, I'm out of here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he took all his interesting It's really fascinating.
Speaker 2: I bet bears get bit I would think, think about it.
Speaker 2: If they've got four paws on the ground, ye, they've
Speaker 2: got twice as much, and they're in snake country.
Speaker 1: Percentage wise, we got two feet, they got four.
Speaker 2: Where you go to find a black bear in the
Speaker 2: woods is about where you'd go to fight, and a
Speaker 2: snake too.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The first bear I ever shot, when I was tracking them,
Speaker 2: I got on the north face of this mountain and
Speaker 2: it is real thick. And I got to the point
Speaker 2: where I was looking around for blood and I just
Speaker 2: noticed something on my foot and right at my foot
Speaker 2: there was a copperhead about an inch from my boot,
Speaker 2: and it was just it was just good snake country.
Speaker 4: I bet that I would assume that bears can smell them,
Speaker 4: and yeah, they would have that, wouldn't they They do.
Speaker 4: I'm sure amid an oldor knife, they're irritated, they'll all
Speaker 4: musk and let out this really pungent musk.
Speaker 3: Do all snakes do that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, but some of them are supposed to deter predation. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it deters.
Speaker 1: Me from picking them up sometimes because I just don't
Speaker 1: want to get it on my hands. It's it's a
Speaker 1: nasty smell.
Speaker 4: Yeah. They cotton MOUs are notorious for doing it. You know,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of old wives tales that I debunk
Speaker 4: and my snake talks, but one of them is you
Speaker 4: might be able to smell a cottonmouth where you can
Speaker 4: see it. That's one hundred percent true, because I've been
Speaker 4: in areas where you know there's cotton mouths and you're
Speaker 4: messing around and you haven't found when yet but also
Speaker 4: and you smell this really pungent old than you you know,
Speaker 4: there's cotton out there. But like I say, I would
Speaker 4: assume that they, you know, Americ could smell them no
Speaker 4: when to avoid him. But it was very interesting because
Speaker 4: this one was up on a rock, so I'm guessing
Speaker 4: maybe he couldn't really smell it until he got eye
Speaker 4: level with it. But the snake rattled very subtly to
Speaker 4: that bear, just like wow, he was gone.
Speaker 1: He knew to get out of there. But well, that's
Speaker 1: very interesting enough snake snake talk, very interesting.
Speaker 4: Listeners are asleep now.
Speaker 1: Well, this is the the final episode that we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about the American Civil War for now. Who knows,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll they we'll do it again Rekindle, Maybe we'll
Speaker 1: do do a completely different episode and dip more buck
Speaker 1: inside of the Civil War.
Speaker 2: Probably not.
Speaker 1: But this last episode, what what stood out to you?
Speaker 1: Did you learn something stood out to you? Joshua can
Speaker 1: start with you.
Speaker 5: Well, I think, like like I've said, I didn't know
Speaker 5: a whole lot. I think just that I was really
Speaker 5: interested in the interactions between Grant and Lee at the surrender.
Speaker 3: I mean, there seemed to be this.
Speaker 5: Almost reverence that Grant had of Lee, but at the
Speaker 5: same time, it was just like, we're done. You know
Speaker 5: what I mean, We've dominated, We're here to end this thing.
Speaker 3: But I respect you, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: And and I think that that seeing I have this
Speaker 5: growing appreciation for Grant, because it seemed like at that
Speaker 5: point he was like, it's done, you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: I don't have to We did the total war, it worked,
Speaker 5: and now let's just get the union back together. And
Speaker 5: I think I really liked hearing that interaction between those two.
Speaker 1: It was it was it was a fascinating interaction. And
Speaker 1: the typical narrative is that Roberty Lee kind of blew
Speaker 1: off Grant a little bit, which I think that's it
Speaker 1: feels like that may have been what he was trying
Speaker 1: to do. But it was also probably the worst day,
Speaker 1: maybe not the worst day of his life. I don't
Speaker 1: know what the worst day of his life was, but
Speaker 1: he was not in the mood for pleasantries. But I
Speaker 1: do I Grant was living rent free. The Roberty leeds.
Speaker 3: Head did he say, I've tried to remember.
Speaker 1: He actually maybe in a way a little bit of
Speaker 1: a maybe it wasn't a slight. Maybe it was just
Speaker 1: him just being as a matter of fact, you know,
Speaker 1: just like you know what, I've tried to remember you,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't. Maybe he was just being honest, or
Speaker 1: maybe he was trying to put him in his place, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't remember you.
Speaker 2: It's a little bit.
Speaker 1: It's probably it's probably not okay, or whether I'm accurate
Speaker 1: or not in like the way we perceive it and
Speaker 1: kind of like the worst possible version. What do you think, Brad, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you think probably it.
Speaker 4: Was Yeah, I don't think it was a slat okay, Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't know the uh this, you know, it's very
Speaker 4: interesting because, like I say, the the North just didn't
Speaker 4: seem like they thought it was gonna be that hard,
Speaker 4: and the South was in it all in from.
Speaker 2: The get go.
Speaker 4: And you know, when you get a series of generals
Speaker 4: in the North that are kind of sissies that like, well,
Speaker 4: if I just had one more day, or if I
Speaker 4: just had some more men, I would do this. But
Speaker 4: and then Grant, you know, comes along and just this
Speaker 4: is the the whole concept of they're gonna get it done,
Speaker 4: regardless of.
Speaker 1: How you've known much about Grant. Yeah, but you're you're
Speaker 1: kind of a history buff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was telling Josh the only thing
Speaker 4: I remember aou Grant from my Civil War class in
Speaker 4: college was that his wife was cross eyed.
Speaker 2: Yes, so yeah, but that interesting it was.
Speaker 1: That was one of my favorite episode when he when
Speaker 1: his wife when he became president.
Speaker 2: She said she met with a surgeon attempts to get.
Speaker 1: Her eyes mixed, and he's like, those are the eyes
Speaker 1: I fell in love with.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but the you know, just the whole allure around.
Speaker 1: A cross eyed woman, the whole lover with all your
Speaker 1: heart allure with Robert E.
Speaker 4: Lee, you know, because he was a good general and
Speaker 4: you know, very tactically sound. And had Jackson not died
Speaker 4: after Chancellersville, do things go different way? I don't know.
Speaker 1: You think there is a case to be made if
Speaker 1: if Stonewall Jackson had lived that it could have been different.
Speaker 4: I think, yes, I don't know, maybe not different, but
Speaker 4: would have probably ended up the same place, but it
Speaker 4: may have took took longer.
Speaker 1: He was that influential. Oh yeah, we really didn't cover
Speaker 1: Stonewall Jackson, so.
Speaker 4: You could do a whole thing on him. He's a
Speaker 4: very interesting cat. Yeah, but he was definitely Lee's right
Speaker 4: hand and after Gettysburg, I felt like the South had
Speaker 4: been gut punched and was just kind of stumbling, wait
Speaker 4: and get knocked out at that point.
Speaker 2: You know, Bart, what do you think? I also thought
Speaker 2: that the surrender interaction was pretty interesting. One part that
Speaker 2: I found really interesting was Grant's thoughts on the war
Speaker 2: being over and Roberty Lee being a valiant enemy. I
Speaker 2: can't remember how he worded it, but like how Grant
Speaker 2: almost felt depressed from he felt melancholy.
Speaker 1: That was the word of the age today, it's like
Speaker 1: mental health and depression. They use the word melancholy back
Speaker 1: in those days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought that was really interesting and it I mean,
Speaker 2: I just kind of tried to put myself in either
Speaker 2: of their shoes and just think about that, Like if
Speaker 2: your whole mission for years was to end this war
Speaker 2: or to win the war, And it's kind of like
Speaker 2: in a way, it was like Grant versus Roberty Lee
Speaker 2: with their armies, and Robberty Lee was Grant's enemy. Then
Speaker 2: for that to be finalized like that, that was probably
Speaker 2: his whole purpose in life for a long time. For
Speaker 2: that to be finalized would have been quite the I mean,
Speaker 2: I can kind of see how Grant would have gotten
Speaker 2: to that place a little bit. But yeah, I thought
Speaker 2: it was interesting his respect for his enemy, but also
Speaker 2: it said that he didn't he couldn't imagine a worst
Speaker 2: cause to be fighting for. Yeah, so yeah, it's it's
Speaker 2: kind of interesting to look at wars like that from
Speaker 2: a long time ago, because there was a lot more
Speaker 2: I don't I guess the word could be like chivalry
Speaker 2: or just chivalry. Yeah, it's just it's just interesting because
Speaker 2: that's not at all how it would be today.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, they say that the Civil War is one
Speaker 1: of the first kind of modern wars.
Speaker 2: But these guys would.
Speaker 1: Have been trained and kind of grown up with this
Speaker 1: heritage of this chivalry inside of you know, like this
Speaker 1: this meeting, this surrender, even though it was an unconditional surrender,
Speaker 1: it's still probably had remnants of kind of an older
Speaker 1: era that really wouldn't happen like that again to my knowledge,
Speaker 1: at least in American history, where there would be a surrender.
Speaker 2: Quite like this. But I thought it was I thought
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 1: Interesting and how Grant was like, don't celebrate, like telling
Speaker 1: his guys not to celebrate, which was so consistent with
Speaker 1: who he was so misty. And I have been listening
Speaker 1: to on on tape on tape it's not it's not
Speaker 1: tape on eight on the eight track. We've been listening
Speaker 1: to Grant, the book by Ron Cher Now Ture.
Speaker 3: Now that's a book.
Speaker 1: The book is a thousand pages long and it is
Speaker 1: forty eight hours of audio. Wow, and it is it
Speaker 1: is fascinating. I listened to it while I was bulldozing
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, and it goes into like
Speaker 1: enormous detail that we weren't able to get into. But
Speaker 1: you get this picture of Grant who he was. And
Speaker 1: Grant when he was twenty, I think would have done
Speaker 1: the same thing as the Grant that was forty when
Speaker 1: he beat his enemy. He was he was like, we're
Speaker 1: not going to celebrate. He had empathy for defeat, you
Speaker 1: know that kind of you know, you can be so
Speaker 1: clinical and introspective on somebody and you know, like try
Speaker 1: to attribute things and maybe there's connection there or not.
Speaker 1: But what they say, what Chure now says, is that
Speaker 1: Grant had experienced so much defeat in his life, you know,
Speaker 1: and all of Grant's thirties were just this like failure
Speaker 1: after failure after failure, basically left the army because of
Speaker 1: his alcohol abuse. Didn't really get kicked out, but kind
Speaker 1: of got kicked out hard to say, business failures, all
Speaker 1: this stuff. And so in the moment when he actually
Speaker 1: won and this guy on the other side of the
Speaker 1: table was the one that failed, he kind of had
Speaker 1: he showed some empathy. Because there's a hundred different versions
Speaker 1: of that story. I mean, it's the one that we have,
Speaker 1: but there's a hundred different versions of that story where
Speaker 1: you know, the victor goes, you're going to prison or
Speaker 1: you know what, we're gonna go put you in the
Speaker 1: gallows this afternoon, and he probably would have been justified
Speaker 1: in doing that. But Lincoln's leadership and then grants just
Speaker 1: the history of who he was, you know, that didn't happen.
Speaker 1: And I felt like that that was I'm not an
Speaker 1: expert on.
Speaker 2: Other wars of the world.
Speaker 1: Perhaps, and certainly there are examples of this kind of
Speaker 1: thing happening in other places where you know, a general
Speaker 1: in some way shows mercy towards this vehement foe. But
Speaker 1: it feels like that that is at least the ideal
Speaker 1: that we would have as Americans. Like this moment kind
Speaker 1: of shows that a little bit.
Speaker 4: I'm reminded there's a scene in the series Band of
Speaker 4: Brothers at the end of the war. There's a general
Speaker 4: that's submitting his sight arm to Winners, the main character,
Speaker 4: and he tells him to keep it. And I think
Speaker 4: it's kind of the same thing. Who's like, you know,
Speaker 4: surrendered with dignity. He wasn't going to rub his nose
Speaker 4: in it, and he let him keep his pistol. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's kind of the same thing. M classy, classy, And
Speaker 4: Grant's is such a just an amazing story because, like
Speaker 4: I say, comes from nothing and as the president much less,
Speaker 4: you know, winning the Civil War. It makes you wonder
Speaker 4: if Grant was there instead of McLellan or Mead or
Speaker 4: any of these other guys earlier the things. Yeah, if
Speaker 4: he had gotten noticed earlier and was in the East
Speaker 4: with things have been different. I don't know. Yeah, but
Speaker 4: he definitely had a different outlook on, you know, how
Speaker 4: to maintain the war and prosecute it, and you know,
Speaker 4: totally different from the other guys.
Speaker 1: You know, he was only the lead of the army
Speaker 1: for two years, yeah, about two years, so yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, so we painted this picture and told a
Speaker 1: version of the story that probably tilted the scales towards
Speaker 1: really positive.
Speaker 2: Things about Grant.
Speaker 1: And I did that because, I mean, that's just the
Speaker 1: story that I that I heard and I felt like
Speaker 1: was accurate. But also I think it probably had to
Speaker 1: do with how little I knew about Grant, and as
Speaker 1: I learned about him, I was just like, Wow, look
Speaker 1: at this guy. This is pretty incredible. But there's a
Speaker 1: version of the story that all these wonderful things that
Speaker 1: we talk about Grant aren't really that relevant. And basically
Speaker 1: they just had twice as many soldiers and twice as
Speaker 1: much supplies and that's why they won.
Speaker 2: What say you, I mean, I'm sure that's part of it.
Speaker 3: That helps. I didn't hurt.
Speaker 2: That helps. I didn't. I didn't actually realize that the
Speaker 2: union had that much of an advantage until this podcast series.
Speaker 2: But I mean, yeah, it definitely feels like that would
Speaker 2: be a big part of it. But huge good good
Speaker 2: leadership does have to be does seem like you would
Speaker 2: also need good leadership. Well, the fact that.
Speaker 1: It was kind of a stalemate until for a couple
Speaker 1: of years. Anyway, even in the midst of this this
Speaker 1: this difference in supplies and men tells you that leadership
Speaker 1: maybe did have something to do with it. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: if you know, they were just they just continued to
Speaker 1: not be able to defeat the South, not be able
Speaker 1: to defeat the South, and then but eventually they just
Speaker 1: kind of wore them down. What did you think about,
Speaker 1: Brad The last section of the podcast where I read
Speaker 1: from McPherson's book, where he basically says, everybody says that
Speaker 1: the South was just outnumbered and they got beat and
Speaker 1: that was kind of part of the part of the
Speaker 1: narrative of why they got beat. But then he's like,
Speaker 1: but history tells us that they could have won.
Speaker 4: What say you you know, the thinking about Shelby Foote,
Speaker 4: you know, talking about they talked to some Civil War
Speaker 4: soldier in Virginia or something. He says, why are you fighting?
Speaker 4: Is like because they're down here, you know, So the
Speaker 4: South kind of had a different I mean, I know
Speaker 4: slavery is the key issue, but the South was fighting
Speaker 4: for different reasons, you know than the North. I don't
Speaker 4: know that's a that's a deep thought, but.
Speaker 1: Well, what did you not to if you want to
Speaker 1: complete your thought? Complete it? But I've got another question
Speaker 1: for you, and what's that? What did you think about
Speaker 1: my Rambo reference?
Speaker 4: I caught that.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed it. Yes, you like me? Are Rambo ficionado?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? Yes, But yeah, the I don't know, there's a
Speaker 4: you know, it's interest. There's so many layers the Civil
Speaker 4: War and like a lot of people in South were
Speaker 4: descended from Scottish and Wales and the you know warring
Speaker 4: tribes of back then. Those are the people settled in
Speaker 4: the South, and you know, they had a whole different
Speaker 4: They're a lot more aggressive and I think that, you know,
Speaker 4: versus the North, which is kind of like, I don't know,
Speaker 4: the military wasn't as it was more of a profession
Speaker 4: than you know, I don't know where I'm going with this,
Speaker 4: but but you know, it was almost like a religious
Speaker 4: thing in the South to fight against this, and then
Speaker 4: in the North maybe not so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard that before, and sometimes I wonder if
Speaker 1: if that's true or not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: I know, as you get older, you start seeing how
Speaker 4: history is, it's always written by the winners.
Speaker 2: What about what about the lost cause?
Speaker 1: Would that have been a phrase that you would have
Speaker 1: known grown up down in the South of your whole life.
Speaker 4: I'd never heard it till I took that class in college,
Speaker 4: so you do. Yeah, but yeah, I was aware of that,
Speaker 4: but and then like I never realized that's you know,
Speaker 4: we still heard echoes of that in the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 2: Just a good old boy, that's right.
Speaker 4: I mean, how could that be bad? I mean, but uh,
Speaker 4: that is interesting how that's morphed over time. But it
Speaker 4: really comes from a kind of a dark place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, what else anything else stand out to you?
Speaker 2: Josh?
Speaker 1: The whole series. Now we're we're we're we're done, the
Speaker 1: whole series.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I feel like I'm saying goodbye to a relative, like
Speaker 5: a you know, a new relative.
Speaker 1: You're finally gonna have to put the Civil War behind you,
Speaker 1: Josh years.
Speaker 5: I know, Okay, literally, like you meet this this this
Speaker 5: family member, and you really like them, and now they
Speaker 5: got to leave.
Speaker 3: So I think I think.
Speaker 2: You want to crank out another one?
Speaker 3: Yeah, one more, just one more for good old times.
Speaker 1: We'll do we'll do a encore. What do you call
Speaker 1: it when the band comes back out?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I think I think for me, I just have appreciated it,
Speaker 5: just learning the history of the nation I was born in,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean, And and being able to
Speaker 5: to uh value the lessons learned and and see how
Speaker 5: it's kind of shaped our country for good and for bad.
Speaker 5: But to be able to discern that from these historical
Speaker 5: events I saw.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate that.
Speaker 5: I've I've gained new appreciation for different players inside of
Speaker 5: the war, you know, Grant being a big one. I
Speaker 5: think even hearing new things about Lincoln that I didn't
Speaker 5: know about kind of put him in a different light
Speaker 5: to me.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, I think it's been really great.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm, mm hmm. What thoughts on.
Speaker 1: Me saying that we've kind of left out the story
Speaker 1: of the.
Speaker 2: Of the of the slaves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would have did it.
Speaker 1: I didn't want it to come across as like a
Speaker 1: virtue signal of like, but but but I felt it
Speaker 1: was actually true. We tried to find, well, there there
Speaker 1: is literature out there. There's there's maybe not a lot
Speaker 1: as compared to the volumes that are just about the
Speaker 1: actual war, right, but I did think it was important
Speaker 1: to say that.
Speaker 3: Because that'll be Civil War Summer Part two.
Speaker 1: Well, it's it's we are going to talk about reconstruction
Speaker 1: at some point, which I may have mentioned something in
Speaker 1: the vein of that, but I think the reconstruction era
Speaker 1: and leading up to today, I mean, like this war
Speaker 1: had massive consequences that just rippled through through America and
Speaker 1: I think maybe.
Speaker 2: Even continues to do so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: The economics of the modern South are still impacted by reconstruction.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: And and if you want to look at economics, education,
Speaker 1: all the things that you hope that your state would
Speaker 1: be at the top of a list of fifty, most
Speaker 1: of the Southern states are at the bottom of all
Speaker 1: the important stuff. And there can be a barely coherent
Speaker 1: line drawn back to reconstruction.
Speaker 3: Well, don't give away everything.
Speaker 1: You know what, We're not even gonna do the episode anymore.
Speaker 1: You already know what's going to happen. Uh No, And
Speaker 1: that's that This is these are questions that I have.
Speaker 1: This that's a I have a general understanding of it.
Speaker 1: But but but at some point in the future, we're
Speaker 1: going to come back to this.
Speaker 2: Sound good, be it's.
Speaker 1: Okay with that, Yeah, okay, it's fascinating story.
Speaker 4: It really is like, say, you get a more of
Speaker 4: appreciation for not to get emotional, but when the flag
Speaker 4: flies and you're saying the pledge of allegiance that means something,
Speaker 4: you know it doesn't this, don't take that lightly.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Yeah, a lot of history.
Speaker 1: Well, closing comments, don't try, Brad, what's the most interesting you?
Speaker 1: You were burn us with all kinds of interesting facts.
Speaker 1: You're on your way today to where.
Speaker 4: To the Levon Helm exhibit?
Speaker 1: And you were very disappointed that I didn't know who
Speaker 1: that was.
Speaker 4: Listeners, Clay Nukeomb did not know who Levon Helm was.
Speaker 4: So I've tried to educate him about Levon Helm and
Speaker 4: the band and romping Ronnie Hawkins and all the musical
Speaker 4: history that Fateville has, and uh so hopefully he'll start
Speaker 4: listening to some music and doing some documentary watching and
Speaker 4: learning about the band and Leavon Hilm of Arkansas and
Speaker 4: his legacy.
Speaker 1: So you're going to see some of his uh yeah.
Speaker 4: Some of his memorabilion stuff. So there's any traveling exhibit
Speaker 4: apparently up in Fateville, Arkansas right now and kind of exciting.
Speaker 2: Take these snakes in with you.
Speaker 4: I've actually got a place to take him. I was
Speaker 4: going to ask you if I just leave him here. Oh,
Speaker 4: but then i'd have to come all the way back
Speaker 4: down here. And you know, so I got a spot
Speaker 4: in Fateville.
Speaker 5: I can leave it like a doggy daycare for snakes boarding.
Speaker 4: If that had blown up and this had blown up,
Speaker 4: then I was going to throw me in a pillow
Speaker 4: case and throw me a backpack and then walk around
Speaker 4: with a backpack full of rattlesnakes. But that was my
Speaker 4: last resort, So.
Speaker 2: Wow, I don't have to do that.
Speaker 3: Flag.
Speaker 1: What's the wildest carry a snake in an odd place
Speaker 1: story you have?
Speaker 4: Up at When I went to school at the University
Speaker 4: of Arkansas, I can remember multiple times of having a
Speaker 4: snake in a backpack that I found on the road
Speaker 4: on the way to school. And one time a guy
Speaker 4: called me is like, hey can catch this, And I
Speaker 4: didn't have time, so I just put my backpack and
Speaker 4: like I would sit on the floor and then I
Speaker 4: would notice the snake would be moving. And one time
Speaker 4: a girl's like, why is your backpack movie?
Speaker 2: It's like, I'm not sure.
Speaker 4: And we just left it at that. Yeah, I have
Speaker 4: carried snakes into some odd places. Funny story. Where I work,
Speaker 4: it's a big company and they have a room where
Speaker 4: all the servers. Are it stays warming, They're like seventy
Speaker 4: five degrees. Well, I had a snake program in mid December,
Speaker 4: and I lived about thirty five miles from work, so
Speaker 4: I didn't want to have to come back get my
Speaker 4: snakes go back over there. I thought, I was take
Speaker 4: them with me and I'll just stick them down there
Speaker 4: in that server room because nobody goes down there there.
Speaker 4: So I took all my venless snakes and put them
Speaker 4: in there, and then I got a panicked call about
Speaker 4: eight thirty from a guy saying, Hey, I need you
Speaker 4: to come down here right now. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 4: let me finish it. He's O, no, I'm serious, right now.
Speaker 4: You need to come right now. And one of the vps,
Speaker 4: vice president of the company had for some reason went
Speaker 4: down there and saw these buckets and was like, what
Speaker 4: is this and opened the lid and found the rattlesnake.
Speaker 4: He was not a snake guy, And so I had
Speaker 4: to put them in my car and let the car
Speaker 4: idle for four hours.
Speaker 2: Did you get in trouble?
Speaker 4: No, I mean other than don't you ever do this
Speaker 4: again or we'll fire you.
Speaker 2: Do you actually have to talk to the VP?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, he wasn't happy.
Speaker 4: He was not impressed. No, and so yeah, so that's yes,
Speaker 4: snakes have put me in some odd situations. But it
Speaker 4: was like they're in buckets. I should have put a
Speaker 4: do not and in fact I think I did. I
Speaker 4: had a note this said do not touch.
Speaker 2: Obviously he opened the bucket.
Speaker 4: Well it's not yours, don't test, you know, don't.
Speaker 3: Touch it, especially if it's rattling.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so.
Speaker 1: Legendary newcomb lore story. When I was a kid, I
Speaker 1: remember it so vividly because I was just a kid,
Speaker 1: so I was impressionable. But my dad Garble LIVERNUKMB and
Speaker 1: John Mesco, doctor John Mesco were out riding fo whelers.
Speaker 1: They came across a big timber rattler and now my
Speaker 1: dad is an advocate of snakes and didn't didn't like
Speaker 1: to kill them, but this group and they decided they
Speaker 1: were going to well, they were gonna mount this snake.
Speaker 1: John Mesco was gonna mount the snake. It was a
Speaker 1: nice one and so he took a little switch and
Speaker 1: just popped it on the back of the neck. There
Speaker 1: was a period of time when that was a way
Speaker 1: to kill snake and maybe it still is, but I
Speaker 1: remember at the time it was like, oh yeah, this
Speaker 1: is the way to do it with I don't mess
Speaker 1: it up without hurting it. So he pops this snake
Speaker 1: on the back of the neck, supposedly breaking the spine,
Speaker 1: and the snake's dead. This was also the period of
Speaker 1: fanny packs in the late eighties and early nineties, and
Speaker 1: so John had.
Speaker 2: A real tree, real tree bark.
Speaker 1: Big fanny pack like for hunting, and he puts this
Speaker 1: big snake in the fanny pack. And Dad says they
Speaker 1: went riding for several hours and the snake came alive,
Speaker 1: came back to life.
Speaker 2: Maybe never was.
Speaker 1: Dead, you know obviously, and it's it's you know, wiggling
Speaker 1: around on him. And they go to the text termist
Speaker 1: Larry Hobbs, man named Larry Hobbs, and Dad said, John
Speaker 1: walks into Larry Hobbs little bitty he just had a
Speaker 1: little portable building, you know, like ten by twelve that
Speaker 1: was his. And he said, John walked in and unzipped
Speaker 1: that fanny pack and just flip that snake out in
Speaker 1: the midst of all three of them sitting in there,
Speaker 1: and that snake just you know, and there was a
Speaker 1: big story so yeah, John Mesco, did you hey, did
Speaker 1: you see my snake up there?
Speaker 4: No? Sorry, man, that's a big one. Yeah, that's nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't have anything to do with that.
Speaker 4: I was about to say, where did that come from?
Speaker 1: It came from Arkansas, Howard County.
Speaker 4: Oh. I was about to say that looks like South
Speaker 4: Arkansas to me. M hm, just because the amount of
Speaker 4: chevrons and the.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do have a big, big snake skin in
Speaker 1: this office.
Speaker 2: Big. It was a good one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks thanks for coming, Brad. Thank you really appreciate it.
Speaker 4: I enjoyed it. Bear.
Speaker 1: Hey, what about the channel? What's coming up on the channel?
Speaker 4: Mm?
Speaker 2: Well, this week the video was uh making a fishing
Speaker 2: lure using only a leatherman. So I went and cut
Speaker 2: down a little piece of river birch, made a fishing lure,
Speaker 2: caught some fish on it. Next week we're doing We're
Speaker 2: bringing back another cooking with Mom. Oh crowd favorite, Yeah,
Speaker 2: crowd favorite. Mm hmm. So be ready. You don't have
Speaker 2: any them egg rolls, do you? Wills? That looked good?
Speaker 2: They were.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I've really enjoyed your videos. I watched them religiously now.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah, I appreciate it nice good stuff,
Speaker 2: good nice, nice nice.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks for watching, everybody. We're out of the bar
Speaker 1: Greece Civil War summer. So the next Bear Grease is
Speaker 1: just complete mystery what it's going to be about.
Speaker 2: The war is over, the war.
Speaker 3: Over unconditional surrender, all right.
Speaker 1: Keep the wild places wild, because that's where the Rattlesnake's
Speaker 1: comprehends lives