Speaker 1: Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
Speaker 1: from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
Speaker 2: I want you to stay a while.
Speaker 1: As I share my stories and the country skills.
Speaker 2: That will help you beat the system.
Speaker 1: This Country Life is proudly presented as part of Meat
Speaker 1: Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast.
Speaker 2: The airways have to offer.
Speaker 1: All right, friends, pull you up a chair or drop
Speaker 1: that tailgate.
Speaker 2: I think I got a thing or two to teach you.
Speaker 1: The World Champion Squirrel Cookoff. I was honored to be
Speaker 1: a judge at the twenty twenty three World Champion Squirrel
Speaker 1: Cookoff in Springdale, Arkansas. Folks gathered from all over the
Speaker 1: nation to share a day of family oriented fun in
Speaker 1: the Ozark Mountains. Were there to compete, some were there
Speaker 1: to eat. Some were there out of simple curiosity and
Speaker 1: admittedly wanting to see the stereotypical barefooted hellbillies of the
Speaker 1: South cooking and eating squirrels. Now, what they witnessed was
Speaker 1: something quite different and surprising to some, including yours. Truly,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about all of that, but first I'm.
Speaker 2: Going to tell you a story.
Speaker 1: Squirrel season many moons Ago opened on the first day
Speaker 1: of October, and every year you'd find me, my brother,
Speaker 1: and various others at our deer camp for the annual
Speaker 1: opening day in early October. The hardwood trees that squirrels
Speaker 1: feed in normally still hold the majority of their leaves.
Speaker 1: This requires us to slip undetected as possible through the
Speaker 1: woods into the tempest, bout the squirrel and take a
Speaker 1: shot at him before he sees us. Most of the
Speaker 1: time you can hear a squirrel jumping from limb to limb,
Speaker 1: or chewing on acorns as they feed. Remarkably, you can
Speaker 1: hear a squirrel cutting an acre or a hick or
Speaker 1: nut for quite a long ways that the wind.
Speaker 2: Ain't blown too hard.
Speaker 1: Dogs aren't a lot of help this time of year
Speaker 1: because the barkin makes the squirrel set still and they're
Speaker 1: hard to find amongst all the leaves. My older brother
Speaker 1: Tim is a very accomplished outdoorsman. He taught me a
Speaker 1: lot about the outdoors, and more than a few of
Speaker 1: my best memories are with him. This is one of them.
Speaker 1: The first person out of the woods with their limb
Speaker 1: of squirrels always drew dragging rights. The contest was narrowed
Speaker 1: further between Tim and I to see who the first
Speaker 1: person would be to kill the first squirrel on opening day.
Speaker 1: The first shot to break the stillness of a cool
Speaker 1: morning and to hear the echo roll through the hardwood
Speaker 1: bottoms was a badge of honor between he and I.
Speaker 1: For three or four years in a row, I had
Speaker 1: been the first to open squirrel season in our group,
Speaker 1: and I didn't care if I got my limit before Tim,
Speaker 1: or even if I killed my limit. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to be first, and so did Tim. The day would
Speaker 1: start well before daylight. We would meet at Tim's house
Speaker 1: for a breakfast of biscuits and gravy and coffee. TAM's
Speaker 1: brother in law, Joe Bryant, who was just like our brother,
Speaker 1: would be there. Tim's father in law, mister Billy Bryant,
Speaker 1: our turkey hunting mentor, and few other close friends would
Speaker 1: sometimes get the invite, but it was basically the Bryant
Speaker 1: and Reeves deer camp crew. We would have our breakfast,
Speaker 1: then drive across the pasture to the edge of the
Speaker 1: creek bottoms. From there we'd separate like a coved quail
Speaker 1: in the darkness, each going to his favorite hunting spot
Speaker 1: to wait for daylight and the squirrels to start stirring.
Speaker 1: It was the official kickoff to hunting season every year.
Speaker 1: It had been our tradation for a long time. Meat
Speaker 1: at Thams, eat breakfast and go hunt. And my brother
Speaker 1: makes the best coffee in the world. I love coffee
Speaker 1: on a good, cool morning. I love coffee on every morning,
Speaker 1: but coffee it hates me every day of the year.
Speaker 1: On this particular morning, the moon was large and full
Speaker 1: and gave enough light to move through the woods without
Speaker 1: the aid of a flashlight, and we each made our
Speaker 1: way to our hunting spot, agreeing we would all meet
Speaker 1: back up at the truck before dinner. For those keeping
Speaker 1: score at home, dinner means noon.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I found my way to my spot and I sat
Speaker 1: down under a large red oak tree to relax and
Speaker 1: wait for the sun to come up. There hadn't even
Speaker 1: been a hint of daylight back to the east, but
Speaker 1: you could see surprisingly well in the bright moonlight, especially
Speaker 1: after my eyes got completely acclimated to the dark. It
Speaker 1: was such a cool, clear morning, there was no haze.
Speaker 1: The star ours were nearly invisible because of how bright
Speaker 1: the moon was, and the moon was so clear that
Speaker 1: you could easily see the craters and all the definitions
Speaker 1: of the different shades of gray. I could see my
Speaker 1: breath when I exhaled against the moon.
Speaker 2: It was perfect.
Speaker 1: I was at peace and in one of my favorite
Speaker 1: places on Earth, and with the folks I wanted to
Speaker 1: be with. It just didn't get much better than this.
Speaker 1: Why couldn't mess this up? Tim's world famous coffee?
Speaker 2: That's what it began to stir in my belly.
Speaker 1: The mixture of coffee, biscuits, and gravy was apparently at
Speaker 1: odds with each other. The feeling of the feeling in
Speaker 1: my stomach was a sharp jolt of pain that made
Speaker 1: me sit straight up from my relaxed position against that
Speaker 1: big red oak.
Speaker 2: It quickly went away to nothing that was close. Thought
Speaker 2: I was gonna have an.
Speaker 1: Issue there for a minute, I went back to looking
Speaker 1: at the moon. A few moments later, the next pain
Speaker 1: felt like I'd been gut shot, and relief was only
Speaker 1: going to come by letting nature run its course.
Speaker 2: There was no question it was about to happen.
Speaker 1: The only thing yet to be determined was if I
Speaker 1: was gonna be able to get my overalls out of
Speaker 1: the way in time to keep from having to walk
Speaker 1: back to TAM's house necking, I assumed the position ingrained
Speaker 1: in man from his humble beginnings before the days of
Speaker 1: toilets and squatty potties, and exercised Thames.
Speaker 2: Coffee from my person.
Speaker 1: Now that operation pretty well runs on all the pilot
Speaker 1: and I had nothing else to do during this time,
Speaker 1: so I found myself staring at the moon again that
Speaker 1: was shining so brightly through the hardwood trees. Daylight was
Speaker 1: still minutes from breaking the pre dawn darkness, and my
Speaker 1: belly was feeling in a great sense of relief. And
Speaker 1: that's when I saw a squirrel run out on a limb,
Speaker 1: silhoueted against that big old moon. He had an acron
Speaker 1: in his paws, and he stopped and just sat there
Speaker 1: having his breakfast. It looked like Norman Rockwell painted him
Speaker 1: on that limb. My excitement sword what I'm fixing the
Speaker 1: open squirrel season yet again, and this time I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do it before daylight. Still resting in my baseball catcher's position,
Speaker 1: I reached for my shotgun that was leaning against a
Speaker 1: tree beside me. I loaded one shell, I took careful
Speaker 1: aim and deliberate aim, what mister Bryant always referred to
Speaker 1: as starvation aim. And I knocked that squirrel out of
Speaker 1: that tree. He hit the ground with a thud, and
Speaker 1: the echo of that shotgun rolled down through them bottoms
Speaker 1: like that first clap of a big thunderstorm, bathing slowly
Speaker 1: as it made its way cross the landscape. With my
Speaker 1: overall still around my ankles, I was grinning from ear
Speaker 1: to rear, already the victory in the first squirrel bagged competition.
Speaker 1: That shotgun had announced to the world, but mainly to Tim,
Speaker 1: the eye was the winner. No senner had the echo
Speaker 1: died out. When I heard his response, it was faint,
Speaker 1: but clearly distinct, just the same. He was nearly a
Speaker 1: quarter of a mile from me, still waiting on daylight
Speaker 1: in his usual opening day spot. Two words, one syllable each,
Speaker 1: both of them yelled as loud as he could yell them,
Speaker 1: A colorful yet unrefined description of what is left of
Speaker 1: grass after coursing through the digestive system of a male
Speaker 1: bovine bull.
Speaker 2: I'll spare you the rest. It was Tim's answer to
Speaker 2: my victory shot.
Speaker 1: I finished my coffee purge, collected my squirrel, when it
Speaker 1: got light enough to find him and walked through the
Speaker 1: woods until I met Tim to prove.
Speaker 2: That I hadn't cheated. I had won again. And that's
Speaker 2: just how that happened.
Speaker 1: The World Champion Squirrel Cookoff event was the brainchild of
Speaker 1: my friend Joe Wilson. I don't believe in reincarnation, but
Speaker 1: if I did, my money, all my money would be
Speaker 1: on Joe Wilson being P. T. Barnum. You folks that
Speaker 1: don't know who P. T. Barnum is, remember Google is
Speaker 1: your friend.
Speaker 2: Look it up.
Speaker 1: He has been considered the greatest showman and producer of
Speaker 1: entertainment in history, and that's where the similarity is in.
Speaker 1: Unlike Phineas Taylor Barnum, Joe Wilson doesn't do these things
Speaker 1: to lie in his pockets with cash. He does these
Speaker 1: things and has been doing them for what seems like forever,
Speaker 1: with no other goal than to spread joy, friendship, and
Speaker 1: a shared appreciation for those that serve by serving them.
Speaker 1: He pays for it himself out of his own pockets.
Speaker 1: He's never asked for one bit of help, and that
Speaker 1: needs to change. He does events for law enforcement and
Speaker 1: other first responders, and that's a whole other animal and
Speaker 1: it's a whole other show that we'll talk about another day.
Speaker 1: But Joe Wilson started this thing off with a lie.
Speaker 1: We've talked about it before in detail more than once
Speaker 1: on the Bear Grease Render. If there's someone listening and
Speaker 1: that doesn't know the story, I'll give you a brief
Speaker 1: history lesson. Joe was contacted by a production company from
Speaker 1: California through a series of handoffs that had had him
Speaker 1: on the phone with the lady saying they were filming
Speaker 1: a show in the area and wanted to do something
Speaker 1: on folks eating bear meat and squirrels. Well, Joe thought
Speaker 1: this was a great idea and a great way to
Speaker 1: introduce Arkansas to a bigger audience, and long story short,
Speaker 1: Joe reached out to everyone's favorite bear hunter, my buddy
Speaker 1: Clay bold Nukem, and told the lady that the squirrel
Speaker 1: eating wouldn't be a problem either, because Arkansas just happened
Speaker 1: to be home to the World Championship Squirrel Cookoff. The
Speaker 1: lady was excited and wanted to know where when the
Speaker 1: event was, and Joe asked her, said, well, when are
Speaker 1: y'all planning to be in the area and when she
Speaker 1: told him. He said, well, well that's a coincidence. Well that's
Speaker 1: right when the event is Joe had to scramble to
Speaker 1: make that thing happen. And for the full story on
Speaker 1: how that all came to be, check out episode one
Speaker 1: sixteen of Bear Grease. To hear Joe tell it himself,
Speaker 1: it's quite good. It was on that episode that Joe
Speaker 1: invited me to be a judge, and I gladly accepted,
Speaker 1: not knowing what to expect, but figuring it'd be a
Speaker 1: fun time. I mean, folks are cooking and feeding me squirrels.
Speaker 1: How could that not be good? That'll explain how I
Speaker 1: got Springdale, but gave no hint about what would happen
Speaker 1: once I got there. Eating some of the best squirrel
Speaker 1: I ever eaten in my life was way down the
Speaker 1: list on what happened on that recent Saturday in September.
Speaker 1: I figured Joe was busy with final preparation, so on
Speaker 1: the way up there, I had Alexis text him on
Speaker 1: my phone Friday as we drove to the hotel, what
Speaker 1: time do I need to be there tomorrow? Immediate response
Speaker 1: from Joe as early as possible, As early as possible,
Speaker 1: What does that mean. I was like, Alexis tell that fool.
Speaker 1: I can be there at daylight if I need to be,
Speaker 1: but just tell me a time. She texted him on
Speaker 1: my phone. Joe, this is Brent's wife. He's driving. What
Speaker 1: time would you like him to be there? Immediate response,
Speaker 1: As early as you can, and ma'am, I could use
Speaker 1: your help with an iguana, she read. She read it
Speaker 1: out loud and slowly looked at me and said, is
Speaker 1: he serious? I told her more than likely, and I
Speaker 1: just dropped it.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: We looked up the schedule and saw that it started
Speaker 1: at nine, and I figured any time around nine would
Speaker 1: be good. I kept thinking in the back of my
Speaker 1: mind what Joe had said, as early as possible. The
Speaker 1: next morning, we had a light breakfast and headed out
Speaker 1: to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission JB and John L.
Speaker 1: Hunt Family Ozark Highlands Nature Center. The name is impressive,
Speaker 1: but the nature center is unreal. Holy cow. If you're
Speaker 1: a resident of Arkansas and anywhere within a day's drive
Speaker 1: of this place, you should load the youngins up and
Speaker 1: head that way. It's really nice, very educational, and a
Speaker 1: great spot for any of it, but one like this man.
Speaker 1: It was Taylor made. As we drove closer to the
Speaker 1: nature center, I could see why Joe kept saying as
Speaker 1: early as possible. The crowd at nine fifteen, fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: after it started, was all ready big and getting bigger
Speaker 1: by the minute. They had an organized parking system, with
Speaker 1: buses coordinated bringing folks from parking areas and dropping them
Speaker 1: off at the front door. I heard a few grumbles
Speaker 1: about parking from people after the fact on Sunday, but nothing,
Speaker 1: nothing but happy smiling faces.
Speaker 2: All day long.
Speaker 1: On Saturday, some folks told me that they skipped the
Speaker 1: bus ride all together and just walk with their family
Speaker 1: soaking in an Arkansas Saturday morning in the Ozarks. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm all about appreciating where you are and taking advantage
Speaker 1: of an opportunity to be one with nature, even better
Speaker 1: when I can share it with my family. I'm also
Speaker 1: a flat land so if I hadn't found one of
Speaker 1: the two last parking spots close to the building, I'd
Speaker 1: bet on that bus. Appreciating a diesel motor and a
Speaker 1: padded bench seat. I met so many great people, a
Speaker 1: lot of them there were from the Bear Grease in
Speaker 1: this country life circle of folks, and none of them
Speaker 1: were the same. It wasn't a copy and paste event.
Speaker 1: There were a few people there that I talked to
Speaker 1: that had never eaten a squirrel in their life and
Speaker 1: didn't plan on eating any during that event. Some of
Speaker 1: them had never eaten it before, and that day would
Speaker 1: be their first attempt. I didn't talk to one person
Speaker 1: that said they wish they hadn't came. Every one of
Speaker 1: them that I talked to that tried it told me
Speaker 1: that they had a better appreciation for how good it
Speaker 1: was and if they'd eat it again. A few even
Speaker 1: told me that they were going to start hunting on
Speaker 1: their own and learning how to cook them, and they
Speaker 1: were going to include their kids and their grandkids. Good Night, nurse,
Speaker 1: What more could you want now? I don't know how
Speaker 1: many people I talked to, but from the time we
Speaker 1: got there a little after nine until we left around
Speaker 1: four or so, it was one glorious conversation after another.
Speaker 2: I loved it.
Speaker 1: Folks showed me their bear pictures, their kids catfishing. I
Speaker 1: looked at pictures of coon dogs and squirrel dogs, some
Speaker 1: that were just getting started and others that had passed
Speaker 1: on but were kept alive by talking about them. To
Speaker 1: someone that can see the value that these dogs, places
Speaker 1: and events had in their lives and the meaning that
Speaker 1: they held in their hearts.
Speaker 2: Man, it's good.
Speaker 1: There was one break that started at twelve and for
Speaker 1: nearly two hours, all the judges were sequestioned in a
Speaker 1: big room. There were twelve of us, divided into two
Speaker 1: judges teams of six. The plan was to take the
Speaker 1: thirty five entries into the contest and number them one
Speaker 1: through thirty five. One table would judge even numbered dishes
Speaker 1: and the other table would handle the odd numbers. The
Speaker 1: other five at my table included a professional chef, a
Speaker 1: high end kitchen knife maker, another podcaster, a marketing guy
Speaker 1: for an air rifle company, and an orthopedic surgeon. Now,
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, this ought to be interesting. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you could have come up with a
Speaker 1: more random table of people. It was kind of like
Speaker 1: joining the service. One day, everyone's doing their own thing
Speaker 1: in their own place, and the next you're sitting around
Speaker 1: in a mess hall with no hair, eating food you've
Speaker 1: never seen before and wondering how you got there. And
Speaker 1: yet here we all set across from one another, six
Speaker 1: complete strangers, voluntarily waiting to share seventeen dishes made from
Speaker 1: squirrels by seventeen teams of peace people we didn't know,
Speaker 1: some from right down the road and others all the
Speaker 1: way from Alaska. Now I've been to Alaska. Those folks
Speaker 1: put in some effort just to get there. Promptly at
Speaker 1: twelve o'clock they started bringing in the groceries. I ain't
Speaker 1: never seen squirrel fixed, all the different ways they were
Speaker 1: making it. Lots of Messican flavored dishes, some Asian influence,
Speaker 1: and other places from around the world, but none of
Speaker 1: what I was expecting. I figured I'd be eating fried
Speaker 1: squirrel with biscuits and gravy about nineteen times that day,
Speaker 1: which is my favorite, or squirreling dumplings, or squirrel mulligan,
Speaker 1: maybe a squirrel taco or two. I wasn't even close
Speaker 1: to what we had to eat. I can say this
Speaker 1: most assuredly, though, but it was all good. I would
Speaker 1: eat every dish I sampled again. There wasn't a dud
Speaker 1: and a bunch, But just like most things, some were
Speaker 1: just better than others. The best thing of it was
Speaker 1: the dishes. They weren't judged against each other. Each dish
Speaker 1: was competing against themselves. By presentation, use of the required ingredients,
Speaker 1: overall score, and of course the taste. But there was
Speaker 1: also a side dish that had to be scored down
Speaker 1: to a decimal point, which serves as a tiebreaker in
Speaker 1: the unlikely event that that should happen. Unlikely event that
Speaker 1: always makes me think about those flight attendants demonstrating those
Speaker 1: oxygen masks that are supposed to fall from the overhead
Speaker 1: compartment if the airplane should suddenly lose cabin pressure. Those
Speaker 1: things like they were made by Fisher Price. Come on,
Speaker 1: oxygen is flowing, even if the bag ain't inflated.
Speaker 2: Whatever. With a tally.
Speaker 1: Finally, in some folks from the great state of Kentucky
Speaker 1: walked away with first place, But I tell you everybody
Speaker 1: there was the real winner. On a random Saturday in September,
Speaker 1: literally thousands of people from all walks of life gathered
Speaker 1: in one spot to celebrate cooking a squirrel. I never
Speaker 1: heard a harsh word, an argument, or the first political statement.
Speaker 1: It was just people being adventurous, some being nostalgic, some
Speaker 1: being inquisitive, all of us being respectful. I wish you'd
Speaker 1: been there for those of you that weren't. I hope
Speaker 1: you'll make plans to be there next year. For those
Speaker 1: that were, I'm gonna be watching for you. You better
Speaker 1: come on back. Now here's something else you probably don't
Speaker 1: know about Old Joe Wilson. He started this thing by
Speaker 1: taking advantage of an opportunity that presented itself to showcase
Speaker 1: not only Arkansas, but his way of life, A way
Speaker 1: of life that represents people gathering together over a meal
Speaker 1: of any kind to fellowship and share stories about the
Speaker 1: things that are dear to them. Now that ain't just
Speaker 1: in Arkansas. That's in every state of this nation. And
Speaker 1: it's time we all got together and supported one another.
Speaker 1: Whether it's squirrels in the Ozarks, or the Muskrat Festival
Speaker 1: in Maryland or the Walleye Festival in Ohio, invite someone
Speaker 1: to share that experience with you, preferably someone that most
Speaker 1: likely would not do it on their own. We got
Speaker 1: room for them, and we need all the folks we
Speaker 1: can get on our side. I get some great invitations
Speaker 1: to go hunt places all over this wonderful country. I
Speaker 1: get so many that I could never go to all
Speaker 1: of them in five hunting seasons, much less one. So
Speaker 1: that's your challenge this week. If you was going to
Speaker 1: ask me to go on a cool hunting or a
Speaker 1: fishing trip. Ask someone to go in my place that's
Speaker 1: never been and send me the pictures of what I missed.
Speaker 1: You're going to make a new friend and we're going
Speaker 1: to get another person on our side except bo hunting ELK.
Speaker 2: Don't ask the other guy, ask me. I'm going on
Speaker 2: that one. Now.
Speaker 1: I'm doing all this on my own, and Joe's gonna
Speaker 1: hear about it right when y'all do. But if there's
Speaker 1: a business that's interested in helping sponsor next year's world
Speaker 1: champion Squirreld cookoff, my faithful sidekick, editor and sound engineer
Speaker 1: Rever Hanson is going to post Joe's email in the
Speaker 1: show description.
Speaker 2: I thank y'all so much for listening. My bellies full
Speaker 2: of squirrel. I got a big smile on my face.
Speaker 1: This is Brent Reeves signing off.
Speaker 2: Y'all be careful