Bear Grease - Ep. 176: BEAR GREASE [RENDER] - Montgomery County Shine

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

Clay Newcomb hosts Joe Wilson of the World Championship Squirrel Cookoff and singer, songwriter, and mule man, Hayden Powell who steals the show with his new song, "Montgomery County Shine." Topics discussed: that beeping in Clay’s office, Hayden’s history with music, the orogeny of the Ouachita Mountains, tips on beard trimming, making brisket look good in online photos, opinionated farriers and beekeepers, Clay’s new mule named "Slow Trap," slow wagon drivers, the history of why people think bear grease cures baldness, why we shouldn’t get too comfortable with moonshine, and Steve Rinella and Clay’s new audio book, "Meateater's American History: The Longhunters (1761-1775)." This is a great episode with lots of laughs to start the new year.  Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days in real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season.

Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware Gear at firstlight.com. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual Bear Grease podcast. Presented by FHF Gear, American made, purpose-built, hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Welcome to the Bear Greas Render podcast.

My oh my. What an incredible, that's not a microwave beeping. I thought it was. I've got to figure out how to make that stop, Joe. It's my computer. Welcome to the Bear Grees Render. When people listen to this, this is going to be after New Year's. Did you know that?

First show of the New Year. First show of the New Year. What an honor. And I've got, to my right, Joe Wilson. Wearing the overalls. making up for while Brent's out. So Brent isn't here, and Joe told me that he was going to be wearing his overalls. So he did.

Yeah, and I got two pocketknife. Do you really? Are you serious? Yeah. What are you carrying? Well, I got this one up here. And it says it's a tree brand. Tree brand, okay, okay.

It's a nice little folder, lockblade folder. And then over here, I got that case. double X. Oh, this is your loner. Yeah. Hayden, do you know about that? You bet. Okay, so if you ask Joe for a knife to scratch around on the rims of your truck or something,

he'd be like, sure, use this one. He's kind of like that guy we was talking about earlier. What are you going to use it for? Yeah. Yeah. Well, nice. Good work. Good work.

Yeah. So Joe Wilson, Joe is famous, world famous, for the World Championship Squirrel Cookoff. Not for cooking, but for hosting. Well, he's famous for. a lot of stuff. Just to clarify. And other stuff, too. Podcaster, sheep dog, steak cooking. Bear grease. Bear grease. Yeah, you've been on bear grease several times. So I'll introduce everybody to Joe's right is my lovely wife, Misty Newcomb. Hi, everybody. Great to see you. Good to be here. Looking forward to talking with you. Skipping over our mystery guest, Bear John Newcomb, making his second

appearance on the Bear Gris Render of late. Good to see Bear. Good to be here. Bear's been out. He went on a big expedition the other day. It just like told me, hey, I'm going to be gone for a couple days. I've been admiring those stories.

Yeah. They're true stories. They're true stories. I don't doubt them. They're great stories. Like it or not. Well, I mean, he just told me, he was like, I think that's all he would have told me. I think he would have just said, dad, I'm going to be gone for a couple days.

and just like expected that that was enough information. I'm like, okay, where are you going? Going hunting. I do that to my wife. Yeah? Now that's not good. I was not to say, bear, you've got to break the tab. Before you get married on behalf of your future wife.

I get one of those spot things now so she can track me. Oh, good. That way if I have a meal flip over on me, you know. That's what it's for. Yeah, that's mainly what it's for. I had one do that one time. Our mystery guest, Hayden Powell. You bet. Glad to be here.

Man, so I met Hayden in person for the first time about 30 minutes ago. And so he's been here at the global headquarters, Misty, and I do him like I do every other guest that comes here. They want to talk to me. And I'm like, no, no, no, stop. Don't talk. Now Joe is the one who done that. We think Hayden's only got 30 minutes worth of stories.

Okay. That's about it. So if you're ever invited to this podcast, you're. should come 30 seconds early. And be silent. And then when you walked in, we could just talk. But no, Hayden, great to have you. You're from Norman, Arkansas.

In between there and Caddagap. Yeah, I don't claim Norman. I don't know. Which is, okay, yeah. Norman's like where the big city folks live. Oh, that's the high rollers. You got to watch that. Hey, they got double wides over there.

No tires on the roof. I know he's, we're joking, but we're being. serious. Yeah, I'm being serious. Like, wherever you live, the big city is always just a matter of, yeah, it's a matter of context. You bet. So if you, if you live somewhere, like the big city, Norman's all of 1,500 people? 15,000, 36. Okay. Norman's a little smaller than I remembered. I think it might be 346, maybe. Okay. So what's Caddo Gap? Cat of Gap is 97 and two good coon dogs. Oh, man, all right. So, We were talking, you know, my grandfather, Lewin Newcomb,

pastor to church in Cattle Gap. Okay. Yeah, and so we were talking, and it's possible that his grandfather went to Mount Gileabab's church. Oh, that's fun. It's possible. We're going to do some checking. We're going to check it out.

I actually takes my mom here in a minute, and I'll figure it out. You should have brought your mom. I should have brought my mom. Why wouldn't you have done that? She's in hot spring. So Hayden is the reason I invited Hayden, three prongs. He's a mule man.

You bet. He's a musician. You bet. And he's from my home turf down in the washdaws. That's right. East to west, baby. That's right.

The mountains run east to west. The only mountain range between the Appalachians and Rockies that run east and west. There you go. Joe, do you know the erogony of the Washdall Mountains?

Big word, sounds weird. Yeah, what is that? A powerful word. Break it down. Orogeny is the word for mountain building. Look here, I have a big book up here. Well, they're real mountains. They are mountains, yes.

I have a book about the origin of mountains in America. There's a lot of courts in it, because I see it all alongside the road. Easy now. One bucket for $5. $5. Is that how much courts is? I was going to bring one for you, and I'm glad I didn't. Well, let me tell you, okay, we got it.

We've got to establish this real quick. About once a year on the Bear Gris Render, I like to go into a deep, deep history of the Washdoll and Ozark Mountains. And erogene. In Horagony. Yeah, mountain formation. When the South American continent bumped into the North American continent, it buckled in the Washdaws, and it caused a fold.

And when those, there were sedimentary layers of rock that had been laid down by a shallow ocean. Gotcha. When the continent bumped into North America, it folded causing intense heat and pressure, which makes what? The Washdale Mountains. Quartz crystals was the right answer. Oh, that's the Washdale Mountains. Quartz crystals, metamorphic rock, there's a lot of slate down there. Did you learn that at college?

It's a great place for spring training of baseball, too. For real? Well, yeah, down there in Hot Springs, that's where all the Major League Baseball teams used to. I try to stay west of hot springs. Yeah, man, that's where Babe Ruth used to play down there, all those people. I think they've shifted to Arizona now. Yeah. I don't think we do, really, spring training is huge in Phoenix.

A good year. But it all started in hot springs. Okay, good to know. Well, back to the interesting stuff. So the Washtown Mountains used to be 10,000 foot tall and snow covered. They declined about 9,000. Yeah. Today, they're not quite that big. But, no, so, so, so Hayden is from down there. And, oh, I got, so, so. Oh, come on, not right now. He's jumping right into it.

Well, I want to ask you about the jar by your feet. I don't, I don't want to tell you about it, really. My buddy Ben Cogburn, I, well, let's back up. Me and my boss, Rusty, we were, uh, he was, he, lives over in the Ozarks but we were talking about I told him about coming here and uh we were talking about coons because me and him both trap mm-hmm and I said a coon is practically a small bear and he was like yeah it is so then I started doing research and you can use the fat off of a coon just like you can a bear I believe that so my buddy Ben Cogburn he caught me too while I was at work. And that is what is in this jar.

You rendered some coon grease. It looked a lot better than that yesterday. Have you been drinking it? You should start a spur-off podcast called Coon grease. Well, if I knew how to do it, I would. I'm not very technical savvy. Man, bear, describe what that looks like. Just take a swig of it.

Yeah, just take a big drink of it, bear. Does not look palatable. It looks like really watery. Don't judge a gravy. Don't judge it. Watery brown gravy. Yeah, it's kind of a chocolate brown. We were discussing how it looks compared to bear grease.

Bear grease is, it looks different. I don't know. It's a little darker, but it has a great smell. You wouldn't smell that grease and think, oh, that's a coon. Now, that's what it looked like yesterday. I'm going to go ahead. Oh, it looked really good yesterday. It was like beautiful.

So, Coon grease. Nice work. I'm going to, if you don't mind, I think I'll rim this lid. Stick your finger. Stick your tongue off in that thing. Okay, Joe's got the lid, and he's. Got a nice little dallop. Stick your whole finger in that jar.

Come on, get the good stuff. You got to go in deeper. There you go. Okay. God. Kind of got to knock the chunks off of it. Don't worry about that. It's just some hair. Licking the finger.

It's a fairly dry grease. Now, what does that mean? Yeah, what is it? It looks awfully wet. Well, so it's almost, like, I don't know if you'd put it in a hinge on the door. It's not sticky. It's not sticky. duck fat is a dry fat.

It's supposed to be good for conditioning boots and stuff. It's doing a number on my lips. What's wrong with it? No, it ain't tingly or nothing like that. It's just, like you're going to go home and render some coon fat. I could say it would make a great lip bomb.

What's that guy's name who does the bee wax? Mine are a little chat. Bird's bees. Yep. I think we got Hayden Coon. What did it taste like? What did it taste like? It's a real dry fat, man.

I could tell that you probably overcooked it. I mean, it was fast in a Dutch oven. It was quick. I think Clay's the bare grease mastered. It might get uppity here, Joe. No, I'm not trying. I'm not trying to be. I'm just saying I could

it tastes like whenever you've got your drippings from your bacon inside the skillet, you could still taste like the crackling. That's, so this is a quart-mason jar and it's full just beyond the halfway point. That's quite a bit of

Koonfam. to make that. I mean, I really didn't go just crazy on it. But I mean, like, you started probably with over a pound of, would you say? There's probably a pound. Probably a pound. That's pretty good yield, I'd say. Yeah, there was a lot.

When they started floating, I was like, golly. Yeah. Did you eat the crackling? My bloodhound did, yeah. Gotcha. He got to him before I could. Yeah. It's not bad.

I think you can make some chocolate chip cookies or something. Okay. I think it's browning. That's good. Joe, you were going to give me some fashion advice before we started. Well, I did something. I've been bald a long time. Okay.

And I'll just tell you, there's great pleasure for a man going to a barbershop. You get to sit there, watch Andy Griffith on the TV, read an ancient magazine, hear the local folklore. And since I went bald, I just kept my hair myself. And I do have this shrubbery on my face like you, Clay. That's a handsome beard, Joe. Well, Tuesday I treated myself to getting a barbershop beard trim. Okay. Ooh.

Lasted 20 minutes had my eyes closed the whole time. Really? Well, I just, I wasn't used to people jacking around with my face like that. And, you know, they put that scold and hot rag on your face and a whole nine yards. And I was told not to trim it myself for three weeks because I'd already screwed it up. Hmm. So, wait, before? I just been doing probably what you do.

You get some wild hair and you knock them. I feel like you're making a lot of assumptions about my beard. He's definitely making some assumptions. There's a lot of inferential things happening here. Look, it's kind of like saying. I took a whole finger at Bearcum grease a minute ago. I'm just telling you for all the men out there. Okay.

If you got an extra 20 bucks, go in, sit down in that chair. Who did it? Some old gal at the barbershop. Okay. I don't know. It's one of those richie plays. places there. Well, yeah, what barbershop was it?

Hawk something? I've got a friend, a friend of the podcast here that I've never, shamefully never gone to him. I'll just be honest. I feel a responsibility to kind of calibrate everything that's being said for Bear John and just let them know, not a good idea to refer to women as some old gal. Some old gal. Especially women who get to hold razors close to your face when your eyes are closed. Well, your beard looks really good.

Hudson Hawk in Bentonville. Okay. Yeah. Okay. They did a fine job. They're nice lady. Do you think? That old gal did good.

If you rub some of that coon grease on your head. Oh, boy. Maybe that cures baldness, too. Have you tried bear grease? On my, oh. To eat? No, to cure baldness. I'm going to be honest with you.

There's a lot of advantages to not having hair on top of your head. All right, let's hear them. No kidding. You don't have to go get a haircut. Number one. You ain't got to wash it. Number two. You don't wash your head?

You don't have to comb it. They didn't have to wash his hair because it's not there. The water just beads off the top, man. I've got an indoor shower. Let me, I want to give a little bit of information about what you just said, the foundations of it. Because I just learned this. You know, they say that bear grease, the folklore around bear grease is that it's a cure for baldness. That's a long time folklore.

It's in the literature. It says it on the shirt. Yeah, it says it on the Bear Grease shirt, good point. Yeah. I learned where that came from is that when the Europeans first started interacting with Native Americans, the Native Americans, Bear Greece was a major part of their economy for all kind of different reasons. And they extensively used, especially the tribes in the Southeast, that's where this came from. But probably other tribes.

use bear grease in their hair. Like they greased their hair. Like that was a major deal to bear grease their hair. And Native American men had incredible hair. You bet. That is a true story. And so the white guys that came over here, the Europeans that were all going bald

and saw these Native Americans with big, beautiful hair, they assumed that it was the bear grease that kept from going bald. I'm willing to be your test, dummy, but I'm going to need a lot of pillowcases because I ain't sleeping on some greasy pillowcase. I feel like you got to catch it before you go, Bob. Is that what it is?

You don't think it'll regrow hair? I don't think it will. I don't know. I'm concerned now that I know the history that this is a correlation, not causation. Well, and it lasted long into folklore. I mean, I've had people. We've sent some Barry's home.

with people. And it's gone around the world. I've had more than one person not from America contact me wanting bear grease for baldness. Really? No doubt. Have you done muck tuck? Negative. Next time I'm up, I'm going to break. I have, I've eaten it. I mean, I'm not, I've got a nice head of hair, Joe. I'm not. I'll tell you what that muck tulle do. It'll make you lose weight. Oh yeah? Yeah, because once you swallow it, whatever you had yesterday will come up with it. It is... It's tough. Mucktuck, where we go up in Alaska, the Inuits.

You'll see them in Anchorage. I'll be on the side of the road with a butter knife, a big chunk of well fat, and some ritzcrackers. Oh, my gosh. And they love it. So I've made friends with a couple of Inuits, and as a going home gift, they gave me a big old chunk of well fat. I keep it in my freezer just to torture people when they come by the house. Now I'm going to have some well fat and some... some green grease.

You take that home with you. You can have it. So I have had Mucktuckuck one time. It was beautiful. It was this cream white with this black. Like a wet suit on the top of it. Yep. And it was the skin, I assumed.

Am I right? And it was cut real thin. And it was like the coloration was beautiful. And the consistency was like rubber. And I ate it. And I've never. I've never had a food that, like, lit up my world with exactly what I thought it would taste like. You thought it was going to be fishy?

I mean, it tasted like the ocean. Yeah. Like, it wasn't fishy. Like, a fish, it's like, that tastes like a fish. Mucktucket-like the ocean. Like, my world just lit up, and I saw, like, it was almost like an out-of-body experience. I'm kind of exaggerating. Yeah, I was thinking so.

But it tasted more like the ocean. Like, when you eat a daze. deer, like it doesn't taste like the woods. Like, you don't. Yeah, anyway. Anyway, that's perfect. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed. And there was a pool of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried. under brush and silence.

Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwards. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments, and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of a being able to be.

honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, I Heart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, Hayden, you're a musician?

I play music, yes. Play country music. How long have you been playing music? There's a picture of me with a guitar when I was like four. Did your parents, were they musicians? My dad plays a guitar. Mom and dad both sing in church a lot, so. Okay. I don't know where that came.

Did you, you grew up on a cattle farm? Yeah. Is that right? Hey, my dad looks practically identical to Randy Owens of Alabama. Okay. Well, he did when he had hair. He,

he suffers from his. He needs the same. He's a good man. So you came from a family of musicians. Yeah. Yeah. And you're, you're 24 years old.

Yes, I am. But my uncles on my dad's side, it would be my Granny's brothers they played in Patsy Klein's band Who again now It would be my great-uncles

So it's on my dad's side It's my dad's mom's brothers Okay So there's some family heritage Inside of music Yeah And Granny she was the only girl A lot like my family, Hayden

You know I'm glad you brought it up But I come from a long line Of talented musicians I can't wait to do you just one in the line. We'll talk about you, though. Go ahead.

Golly. So, but you play, like, classic country music. You sound like George Strait. Country music. Is that... George Strait, yeah. Like, if George Strait and Ronnie Dunn had a child,

I feel like that would be me. Am I wrong in saying that? It's possible I have the wrong country music scene. I've not heard him to... Oh, he's a little more twangy. I'm twangy. I'm pretty twingy. Who am I thinking of then?

I feel like Ronnie Dunn. Maybe Ronnie Dunn. I've been told I sound kind of like Ronnie Dunn, just not as good. I think we ought to hear it. We will. We're going to get you to play something later. Okay, tell me about, so you, at one time when you were in Nashville for a while, like, what's, where are you at with your music?

I've been quit for the last year. Okay. Just because I was in Nashville. I didn't live in Nashville, but I went to. there a lot and uh i went to a lot of award shows and stuff got nominated for a few things and uh just wasn't the life that i wanted you know i hear you the big city and uh drugs and alcohol all around i just didn't want that so yeah came back home started writing a lot more and uh made a lot of good friends uh merrill haggers league guitar player joe hampton we're really good friends

Keith Whitley's son, Jesse, we're pretty good buddies. And I've met a lot of big timers. So are you still pursuing? Like, I don't, if you're not, I would love it if you just said. I actually have a lot of respect for people that try to go down a road that's really hard and then just admit that it's like, hey, this isn't the pathway for me. That's the thing is I was doing it and everybody was kind of on me. Like, you've got to do it, you've got to do it, you've got to do it.

And one day I was like, I don't want to do it. I don't think I want this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we were playing every weekend and stuff, and it was just, it was getting hard. It was becoming a job. It wasn't fun anymore, you know. So I pretty well quit. But then, this is no kidding.

Two weeks ago, I've been praying about the last two months. I'm a religious person. I've been praying about the last two months. I finally quit the way I pray, and I say, Lord let your will be done in my life Instead of Lord, give me music, I want it so bad I've changed it And then all of a sudden, you know,

Clay Newcomb invites me to come play some music on a podcast So I mean, we might be getting fired back up This might be the top of it here I hear you, but you're writing you're writing some Yeah, so you, you, you, uh You still, you still playing some. I play. I enjoy writing more than I do.

I'm a lyricist. Like, if a song don't make sense to me, I don't really like it. I like, I like wordy stuff. Yeah. Willie Nelson, he had a lot of wordy stuff, but he can't hardly sing very good. So, but he had wordy stuff, and I liked it. But Dean Dillon, one of the best writers ever wrote for George Strait. You bet.

And he's a wordy and melody-type person. that, I mean, heck of a rider. So what does somebody do when they try to get into the music industry? Like what was your pathway? I fell into it. I won a state beta convention. I went up there and sang a George Strait song. See?

I was right. Yeah. And I went to nationals and we placed like 10th, I think, maybe in that. And then here it came. And everybody started calling, and we created a band and hammered down. And I went to Nashville playing all those award shows and decided I didn't really like it. I liked riding my mule being away from people more than I do. Well, you know, today more than ever probably is a space for people that don't have to,

me and produce music wherever you live. Yeah. You can distribute music wherever you live. Yep. You know, there's so many, you know, channels these days for distribution of music, it feels like with some of these guys, they haven't gone the traditional route. Yeah. Through Nashville or other hubs.

A lot of them, I mean, don't even, they haven't even played in the bar and got beer bottles thrown at them, you know? I think it would surprise people how little money these musicians are chasing. You know, whenever it's costing them money. Oh, yeah. And some good friends of mine, you know, they'll go all the way down from here to Florida to play for 300 bucks. And they were getting paid? They got paid. Wow.

They got paid. But, you know, you do it because you're paying your dues, right? And you pay your dues until you get to the point where someone gives you a contract. You hope that that contract is legit. You're not going to get rolled over on that deal. I had a contract. contract offered to me. And I rolled it around and got to looking at the fine print on it. And they were wanting me to wear skinny jeans and stuff.

Wait a minute. What? And loses the cowboy hat. And it ain't about that. I think you could get real pretty if you, I think I could. I mean, you could get that barber I went to the other day. Get my hair cut. Call her by a right name and who knows what you might come out. I just called her ma'am, Missy. I just called her ma'am, missy. I just could. I'm going to go with ma'am. I'm going to say, hey, old Joe told me to see an old gal in here that we could cut my hair. I'll tell you this, y'all. I'm thirsty, and I want to drink that water, but I'm afraid that coon grease is like rainex all through my mouth or something.

She's going to beat up. It's still there. Oh, it's with me. It's with you. Does she not leave it anytime soon? No, it's here with me. Is it good? Tell me about your meals, Hayden.

How many meals you got? Does your family have? I own two meals, two hud. Of course his dad has two mules. He had three. He had a team. One of them just died. She was 33.

34. Really? Yeah. A team. So they pulled a wagon? Yeah. He's all about the wagon stuff. Really?

Yeah. He's been wanting me to break one of my mules to pull with his other mule. Does he ever go to the wagon races up here? No, he's pretty laid back. He don't like going fast. Yeah. Imagine that. Somebody with a wagon.

Yeah. Not wanting to go fast? It's weird. So you Did your family grow up with meals? Did you have meals when you grew up or horses? I listen to this. My dad, just like any five-year-old, I want a horse, you know.

So he goes and gets me a horse. He paid $100 for this horse. And he got a sack of feed with it. So he comes back and it's this paint horse that is a bag of bones. and he's a stud and he's never been rode. He said, here you go, here's your horse.

So that's when I started riding. But he was so poor, you could get on him, and he couldn't buck. That's how poor he was. Heck, you were five and flexible. You bet. I bounced.

But he threw me up there and I rode that horse. I gave him to a kid. That horse ended up being a heck of a horse because I rode it every day. And my dad ended up getting it cut because he was pretty study. But I wrote it every day, religiously every day. And I ended up getting mules and other horses and stuff.

And he was getting up in his teens. And a boy was splitting wood for my dad. He was probably 10. And he was wanting a horse bad. And he was out there petting that horse one day. And I went and talked to his dad. I said, you mind if I give him that horse? And he's like, yeah.

As long as it comes with a bag of feet. Yeah. So, ended up, I went over there. That boy was petting on it. I walked up to him in the field, and I said, if you want that horse and go ask your dad, you all can have it. And he's still got it now, and that was four or five years ago, probably. Okay.

He's a good, and his name was Doc. So what kind of, what kind of described to me your mules? Well, they got long ears. And that's a good alarm. Heads. I've got Kate. She is 23. Wow.

She's 22. She's 22. She's 14 hands, pretty small. 22 years old. She goes where you point her. That's right. And she'll go anywhere you point her. And you can shoot off over. You can shoot a gun off of her.

You can shoot your bow off of her. You can stand up on her. And do whatever you want. I packed out. two pigs on her. We were hog hunting down in Archadelphia with my buddy, Aaron, and they had a, a boy was dragging one that was alive behind his horse. And my mules, I guess she hadn't ever seen one.

She went up there and sniffed of it, and then she went to Paul in the heck out of that booger. Is that right? Yeah. And everybody was making fun of me, because I showed up with them loaded in the back of my truck and got out, and everybody's making fun of me, calling me dumb and stuff. Because I ride a mule. Oh, man. Where do these guys live?

Yeah, we're going to go find them. They live amongst and double whites. Let's pause your story just for a second. Remember where you're at? We're at the hog story. I remember. I was reading a book yesterday. I woke up real early yesterday for no good reason,

before 4 a.m. and just couldn't go to sleep. And so I woke up and I started reading this book I'm reading. I won't tell you what it is. but the guy in this this is a true story this guy he was a drug dealer okay true story and he was using an Appalusa

horse ranch as the front as the front of his of his marijuana growing operation and right there in the pages of that book he said that he was going to buy a horse and he said it said it was so ugly

it looked like a mule oh man and I gasped in the like I was trying to be quiet and I just went oh my what just I literally gasped and underlined it in a big question mark and I said what but the book was written back in like the 1990 well it actually was written

in the early 2000s but he had only been a horse breeder from back in the 80s so I think he hadn't been updated that mule are now like really cool. Oh, they're top of the line. The cowboy Cadillac. Yeah.

Is what I call them. So when did mules jump to the top of the line? When me and Hayden started to ride. That's right. I just want to make sure. I just want to make sure for all the listeners that everyone understands when that turning point happens. Mules are worth more than horses right now.

We might very well be in the midst of a revolution. That's right. I'm saying it right now. It is. Everybody's going to be riding mules. Yeah. And the next. It's cool to go backwards now.

Yeah. That's what I'm trying to do. Is that all part of this? green initiative. Like once we... Eco. If we're not going to have that battery powered rig, we just got to go straight

to a mule. You got to have a mule. I got you. Okay, back to your story. So you're, uh, you're, you're hauling, these guys make fun of. Yeah. And we're gonna, me and you're gonna go,

I mean, I'm not a violent person. I've actually never been in a... You'll use your words. You'll confront them with your words. Well, or we might just fistfight them. I mean, I mean, the one, he's, uh, he's like six, He's got so much to clear out. Oh, really?

And he was, he's been overseas. So we'll try to steer clear at him. Okay. But he made fun of your mule when you pulled up. Okay. He's kind of odd, too. Me and him, he wasn't actually making fun of me. The other guys were.

Okay. Nathan Wales. We'll give him a pass. We'll give him a pass. We'll mention no names. We'll give Nathan a pass. No, Nathan's the bad one. Aaron was a good one.

Oh. Oh, okay. Got it, got it. Yeah, they made fun of me, and as soon as old Kate went to whacking on that hog, I think one of them asked how much would you take for her? Oh, really? Changed their mind right there. Changed their mind. Bean burritos.

Yeah. So Kate is your 22-year-old meal. You got another one? She's a baby. Crash. Oh, wow. That's not a good name for a meal. Well, he was named before me, so what do you do?

Okay. You can't change him. Okay. You know that, right? Yeah, I pretty much knew that. It's bad luck. It's like a boat, right? You can't rename a boat either.

Yeah. I didn't know that. Hey, when you get done, I've got a little update on my mule. So you have a mule named Crash. Yeah, I do. He's like 13-2 hands. Okay, so that's small. He's getting pretty small.

A hand, a hand is four inches. A hand is a finger, a finger, a finger, a hand. That's how I've always met. Because everybody always says he's 13. He just did his fingers like one, two, three, fourth, he says a hand. There you go. Everybody always says this horse is 14.5 hands. There's no such thing as a 0.5 on the hand.

There's only a 1, 2, and a 3, and then it's a hand. So you got 141, 14, 14, 2, 14, 15. Got it. Yeah. That drives me crazy. That's a good description. but it does. So 14 and a, if somebody said 14 and a half, they would be saying 14, 2.

Yeah, I guess. I've been guilty of that. I've been guilty of that before. I was actually bringing it up because of you. You wanted to control him. I get it. I get it. I get it.

No, Crash, he's 13 and he's a pack mule. You don't ride him? I mean, you can. He's just plow rainer, really. He's not. He's kind of weird about people being behind him, too. You know, meals are a little odd, peculiar. But the good ones, you've got to break that peculiar out of them.

See, Grady Hawthorne told me, and he lives over there by David Albright. Okay. They're next door neighbors. Oh, yeah, yeah. Grady told me there's good mules and there's bad mules. There's no in between. I mean, he said that's it. And he's broke him.

He's 82, I think, and he's broke him his whole life. Yeah. And he said there's nothing better than a good meal. And he said there's nothing worse than a bad mule. Yeah. And that's the truth. But Crash, he's in the middle. He's not bad or good.

That doesn't even exist. I know. That's what I'm in a dilemma right now. He has an existential crisis. Missy, I'd say that meal probably is worth even more money since they're so rare. Well, I think, I think the one in the middle is on its way down to a crash. Yeah. It's on its way down to a wreck.

That's right. Maybe that's why his name's Crash. I don't know. So, so I, so here's my mule update is that I got a new mule. I'll show him to you. The little one out there? Yeah, the one in the corral out there. How old is that?

eight months old okay um and uh it's it's a pretty black mule with four white sock feet yeah good looking yeah we were gonna we thought we had many names i got the mule from and the guy didn't name it he was just like the mules kind of had my name on it for a while and so he the he weaned this mule and got it was eight months old and uh i was good i thought about naming it jet um um We thought about naming it another name that was of a family member that we can't. We decided not to name it after the family member. But I accidentally still call it. But I was, the mule's name is slow trap.

Smooth. I mean, like you're talking about a mule and say that's a old slow trap. And I know, I know the name doesn't like roll off the tongue. but it came to me again on an early morning reading session and I just woke up and I just like declared it and there was no debate. Before the mule's name I was asking the family like, what do you think?

You think we should call it jet? Should we call it this or that? And I just like woke up and I was like, the mule's name is slow trap. And where'd you get slow trap? Slow trap was a good friend of Frederick Gerstocker. I reread my Gerstocker book, this book, Wild Sports,

which is probably one of my favorite books in the world. I've got that book. It's about Arkansas. A lot of the adventures in this true story take place in Arkansas. And one of Gerstocker's dear friends, and I had forgotten about him because he's not a central character, but his name was Slow Trap. And he was from the Fush Lafay area,

the Fush Lafay River, is south of the Arkansas River, runs into the Arkansas, in the Wash. And Slow Trap was like an eccentric but very skilled woodsman. And anyway, Gershiker talks about a lot of really unique stuff about Slow Trap, which we won't get into. But when I read it, I was like, that mule's name is Slow Trap. I mean, but for short, you just call him Slow Trap.

You don't have to say Slow Trap. That's a good. I hadn't even thought about it. We'd call it trap. That's like my dad's mule, she's a black male. she's a black meal that's got white stockings and her name is fancy and he was trying to change it to something else I was like you can't do that her name's already fancy you can't do she's 13 years old what if you what would you do if your name was changed whenever you're fancy old gal well he started

calling her there you go he started calling her fan fan or fanny so okay I mean that's that's fair game I call her fancy okay uh do you do you ever shoe your do you do you shoe your me Not personally, but are your meals shot? Yeah, one of them is, yes. One of them? Kate. Just one you're using a lot? She's got bad feet, yeah.

Oh, really? The guy that had her before me, kind of let her feet go, and we're working on getting her built back up now. Okay. Do you ever shoe your meals? Me personally? Yeah. No. You don't do any fairer work?

I would say the name of the guy who does it, but he said he doesn't want any more work, so. Okay. But he's an exceptional. a great job on him. Well, let him know if he needs any tips for me. You can give him my phone number, okay? Hey, they make those Velcro boots. You slip over them now?

I've heard those are pretty cool. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called Prime Cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. but when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for.

I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com.

I think you'll be glad you, you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. Now, Joe, there's

many things in this world that a man shouldn't bring up publicly or post pictures of what he does. I've probably done them all. Well, the list is long. We may be thinking about two different times of us.

On the short list, on the short list is doing anything with the foot of an equine, like putting shoes on it. People, they come out of the woodwork. The second one is anything that has to do with bees. Yeah, the bee people come out. Apiary? Apiary people. Well, yeah, beekeepers. Bekeepers.

Very passionate and dogmatic. Passionate and unableness. and unable, like incapable of just seeing somebody do something a certain way and not telling you or whoever else how it absolutely should be done. The world view of every beekeeper, whether it's the same as the beekeeper to the next of them, is absolutely rigid and absoluted. It's like cooking brisket. Okay.

Okay. Tell us, we didn't know that. Oh. Well, do you post, I mean, but when you post a brisket, you, you know, but when you post a brisket, like a picture of a brisket, people don't criticize you, do they? My briskets? No. I'm kind of a master of the filters on that iPhone.

Okay. I could do some shading. Okay. Kind of crop a little bit. Do some work. Okay. I mean, I can make a four-pound bass look like it's big as a treat. I've got some skills in it.

But brisket cooking is the same deal. Okay. Because you got to have that color of the bark, right? Right. Then it goes all the way back to the trim. Oh, you should have trimmed it a little bit. Yeah. Barbecue guys are that same deal. They're a lot like a beekeeper and they never even knew it. They didn't know. They didn't know until they had. I had no idea. It was the most overwhelming thing in the world to me. I was so excited to, you know, keep my first bees. And we, Clay, I didn't put a picture. Clay put a picture up. And I mean, people came out of the woodwork. Otherwise, kind people came out of the woodwork to offer all sorts of advice. someone heard I was keeping bees.

They said, well, you know this, you know that. You know you're supposed to do this. Rules. It was overwhelming. Are you better at it now or are you just give up? Well, no one's rules are the same. That's true. I mean, there's...

And we've still got bees and we've got honey. There's not a set way to do something. I'm a minimalist in everything, it turns out. That's important. And I think I'm actually... I don't think I could market myself as a minimalist in the way that people do, but at my very core, I think I'm more minimalistic than anyone I know.

I don't, I genuinely don't like this. I'll give you this, Missy. When you cook that brisket, send the picture to me first. I'll filter and crop it. We'll put it out there. And see what happens. We'll make it work. Okay, all right.

The critiques will be way down low. Okay. Nice. I got a question for the singer over here. Yep. He's looking over his shoulder. Do you wake up to a song? Like, do you dream about a song?

Have you ever woke up and written down? Yeah, absolutely. What you were dreaming about. There was music. I recorded a song that I had a dream about and woke up in the middle of night, 10 minutes, wrote it. There it is. It's called Rio Grande.

Really? It's on all the stuff. There's a lot of people who will sit for hours. I can't do that. Drive in a song, you know, try to build a song. And then there's guys that just, there's songs. I think God gives you your songs, the good heartfelt songs, minus Rio Grande.

Because Rio Grande's about killing people, because it was a Western, it's a Western themed. And ends up this guy's wife who the man got shot, she and ends up killing the guy who shot her husband. Wow. I got dark quick. Yeah. I'm not sure this is BG appropriate. Yeah.

I mean, we're talking about Coongrease, so everything's appropriate now. It's a fair game after that. Yeah, I have a lot. Yeah. I wrote one the day after Christmas coming from an old cabin. I sent you a picture of it. Uh-huh. Coming from an old cabin.

The story to that, can I tell that right now? Sure. The story to this cabin, it's on National Forest. So he sent me a picture of an old log cabin. Yeah. Well, it was built in like 1918. All right. So that's over 100 years ago.

I was riding mules and I found it. I was like, what the heck is that? I just seen the roof of it. Found it, walked up there, and I was like, I don't know what this is. But automatically I start thinking moonshine, you know. It's on Forest Service. Right. Arkansas Mountains.

Can't not be. So I go to thinking about moonshine. And this was last winter that I found it. And I've been thinking about it ever since. And Dalton Hill, a buddy of mine in Glenwood, he told me, because I told him about it, I was like, have you ever seen that? Because he lives over there pretty close. I was like, have you seen this cabin?

He said, yeah, it's got a crazy story behind it. I was like, what is it? He said... There was someone there named Rio Grande. Yeah. And his wife. No. He said that a man come out there with his daughter and was building that cabin.

And this ain't no like, it's bigger than this place we're sitting in right now. It ain't no 10 by 10. It's like a 25 by 20. It's a big cabin. And a man and his daughter were out there and he was building that cabin for them to live. and this is from Glenwood being 1918 it would take an hour and a half to get to Glenwood by wagon or a mule or whatever so depends who was driving the wagon yeah if it was my dad it would take like three hours yeah if a chuck wagon guy it'd be like 15 minutes but there you go uh his daughter was playing around

and she ended up getting rattlesnake bit so he picks her up and takes her to the nearest dock or wherever that may be in 1918 and never show back up. So the government, I guess, took the land, and they haven't done anything with the cabin. It's just, but if you get on onyx, you can see like an 80 that is thinner than the rest of the forest. It's pretty sweet. But I got to think about moonshine, and I was over there.

You should have been thinking about rattlesnakes. Yeah. And I was over there this last, the day after Christmas, Christmas, and I was like, man. Then I started writing a song. And by the time I was home, which took 15 minutes, the song was written. Oh, really?

Yep. I think, like, you know, you got that audio book coming out this week. Yes. Yeah, that's right. I haven't heard about that. And so, but for a guy to write a story like they've written, it's the same thing. I'm sure you probably woke up to paragraphs that you needed to add, right?

Not on that deal particularly, but yes, 100%. Just when you're writing in general, yeah, you kind of have moments of clarity that you try to capture because they escape quickly. They can. So when you guys, both of you, when you thoroughly wake up, like you woke up at 1 o'clock in the morning and wrote this song down, and then you wake up at 6. Yeah. Is it just a mess or is it really there?

I've thrown a lot of stuff over my shoulder. Really? Yeah. I think storytelling and songwriting kind of parallel each other in a lot of ways. Because a good song is a story. It's just a story. I've learned that you have to capture stuff quickly. Sometimes I write notes on my phone, like when I'm talking to Misty about stuff.

And I have to tell her, hey, I'm not texting. I'm writing stuff. Because to me, it's the... junctures of connection between two things. Because inside the kind of writing that I'm doing for different things, you have actual data that you're not creating. Like if you're talking about history, you've got some data. Yeah.

But then you have this other piece of data that might be, sometimes the uniqueness comes in how two things are connected. Or how you would bridge from this thing to this thing. Or it might be the events in someone's life, how you tell the story and get from here to here. most of my creative moments that I have to capture come in ah that's the connection

and then but and you kind of think that you're going to be able to remember it and you're not and so maybe it's my age but no I think I think what you're saying is right it down yeah

I have to do the same thing and I'm how many years younger than you I would think that the listeners of Bear Grease because they're all fans of how you're telling the story. Yeah. I think that the listeners, because the way that you put words together

are different than anybody else. Yeah. In podcasting, as far as I know. That's the difference between me and him. It's like, he's good at telling stories and sounding good and using big words. I'm pretty good at putting it in a song because I can't talk very good.

So it's like, he's good at storytelling. I'm good at songwriting, which is a story, but it's just short. Hey, what's your tracking on there about songwriting and writing and be the same? I told, I've said this to Misty before. If I could sing, probably as good as Hayden,

if I could sing as good as Hayden, there wouldn't be a Bear Grie's podcast. I would be a musician. Let me just say. Oh, thank God Clay can't sing. No, because the desire to storytell and music is kind of the, It's kind of, there's a link there.

I might play the moonshining song. It's called Montgomery County Shine. No way. You bet. I live in Montgomery County, by the way. I want to hear. I think I'm in on listening to it. Well, let's hear it.

Now's the time. Now's the time. Yeah, yeah. I'll brag on Clay while you're getting that get fiddle out of that case over there. I might have to tune it. Hey, I'll tell you what, we, we're going to have to. We're going to have to take a full time out, though. So you just wrote this.

This is the first time you sang it. I sang it just to myself and my wife. In your head? Well, I had the guitar with me. I'm kidding. In my head, yes, also. Oh, I can't wait. On the way at home, it was nothing but in my head.

Yeah, I didn't have a guitar. I was driving that old Dodge pickup. Coming home from this old cabin. Yeah. Are you ready for it? All right, let's hear it. First time ever been played publicly. There's an old abandoned cabin.

On the section line, they used to run it out. The old moonshine until they shot him down, shot him from behind, all for that Montgomery County shine. Like it. We can't grow crops. On the ridge lines, and there ain't no work. You can't make a dime. It's all that he knew

Pappy passed it down the line All for that Montgomery County shine Oh, hey, they're gonna find you But not today All for that Montgomery County shine I like it When searching high But Grand Pappy left

Like a foxes slide And 10 year old me, I wouldn't catch a knife running that Montgomery County shine. Well, they found us one day. I held my hands up high. I watched it all go down. I watched my papy die. And 20 years later, I'm on the outside. Still running that old Montgomery County shine.

Oh, hey, they're going to care. I'm not today. Oh, I'm all for that Montgomery County shine. I was running that Montgomery County shine. I'm running that Montgomery County shine. I'm going to go ahead and say that. That's probably the best, real close, but probably the best song ever sang on the render.

Yes, no doubt. I love it, man. I can guarantee it's the best song on the 2024 model. So far. Hayden, that's great, man. It really was. See, my voices changed quite a lot

my style in the last two years, really. Riding Mules will do that to a man. It does. Yeah. But, uh, it does. You're stud, man. That's great. That was great.

That was great. Don't you think Bear should pick up the guitar and learn to play? I feel like he should play this one. I think he looks like a real natural. with it. Yeah. I caught him the other day

strumming on a guitar. Hey, Tim McGrawls played that one. Oh, nice. There was

to know who that is. No, no clue. No, that, okay. Now, I got to bring this up because this,

so we're, typically on the render, we're talking about the episode that just came out, and here we are in our in and we haven't even

talked about it. Montgomery County Shine, though, Louie Dell and Charlie Edwards, one of our, one of our most listened to series, genuine outlaw series, Louis Dell in the 1990s, I think 92 or 91, got arrested for making moonshine. And happens.

In the, yeah, you'll have that on the big jobs. He got arrested for making moonshine right on the border of Montgomery County. Like the Polk side of it? Yeah. I mean, like, for real. Those Polk County people, you've got to watch them. Anyway, Montgomery County Shy, man. Think about Louisdale and Charlie Edwards.

But, like my, okay, I got to say it, though, because we've been talking about moonshine, my buddy T.L. Jones, East Tennessee, who was Barry Tarleton's grandson. If you remember, we did the thing about the plot hunt, the plot hound sheriff in East Tennessee. T.L. Jones, he kind of frowns on me. He was against it. Well, he just says we treat moonshine way too lax. you know like back in back in the days like these were things that wrecked communities just like the song Montgomery County Shine

he got killed yeah so TL you were right he got shot in the back oh wow yeah the first line right there you know no that was a good it's a good story I like it appreciate it cool man

so the last bear grease will be the last time in the foreseeable future that we do a classic Okay. Yeah. Man, I'm very excited.

Well, we could have spent this whole time talking about the Daniel Boone series. I said it in the intro to the rerun of this classic, that when I made that first Daniel Boone episode, I did not think people would like it, Joe. It was too, compared to what I had done and it was early. It was like episode, maybe it was episode 14 or something. It was a lot of history. Yeah.

But told in a way that common folks like myself could sit there. And man, you're doing play-by-play on these things. Like, you're having, since it's just your voice, you're having to build the picture of what I'm listening to. And you sell it well in that. It takes a lot of talent to build up a story like that. Yeah. I mean, because it's hard to do.

Tell a story to where you're like, all right, what's going on? kind of just given a little peek behind the curtain, I made the decision I was going to do a podcast on Daniel Boone. And so I start reading everything about Boone. I didn't even know Robert Morgan was alive, to be honest with you. Robert Morgan wrote me and Steve Ronella's favorite rendition of a Boone biography called Boone by Robert Morgan. I didn't even know if Robert Morgan was alive. and I get on the website or get on the internet and I find him and he lives in New York and he's a

former Cornell professor. Very gracious. And I contact him via email and he's just like, come to my house. And at that time too in the Bear Greas world, I had never really traveled a whole lot for just a one shot deal. And I remember calling my overseer at meat eater at that time. and was like, hey, dude, is it okay if I go to New York for like a two-hour interview and then just like come home? It's cheaper than a moose tag.

Yeah. Yeah. And my overseer wasn't Steve Ronella. It was somebody else. Good, great person. And they were like, go for it, man. Heck yeah. And so I just think, like now I do that all the time.

I've done that now for three years. Like we work pretty hard to get interviews with people. But at that time, it was like we were all like testing the boundaries. Because always inside of anything, it's like how much energy and effort do you have to put towards something and is it going to be well received? And so I interviewed Boone and then I interviewed Steve Renella. And I put these two guys together and it was so much detail. And I got done with an hour long podcast and I'd done like, hardly any of Boone's life.

Right. And I was like, shoot, I'm going to have to make this two episodes. Yeah. And then I do two and it's like, heck, I'm going to have to make it three. And I remember thinking, are people going to be bored with this? Are people going to, and it ends up, I mean, the short version is that ended up being. One of your best? Well, and a template for the future of what Bear Grease would be would be kind of a history podcast in some ways, not always.

But I recall the anxiety of just waiting like for part two, right? I mean, really, I think most of the listeners, and I speak to everybody as a listener of the show, I think we just look forward because the buildup, there's not like a real big teaser at the end, like in a corny movie or something, but there's enough of a teaser to say, and on next week's show, we're going to go through this. And so it keeps the listeners going. You've had a lot of series like that. Yeah, yeah.

And we learned that we can do series, and you have to. I mean, you just can't accomplish a big section of history in a 50-minute podcast or an hour-long podcast. But Boone was, that was neat. Yeah. It was good. But to give a teaser of what's coming, poachers. I like the poacher stories. It is, it's interesting.

I like the poetry stories. Every one of them, from the game warden's side to the outlaw side. Okay, I'm not going to give it away, but we have yet to hear this story from this angle before. Untold story. Untold. It's really unique. Yeah, you better not talk. Yeah, Clay is the worst about giving away surprises.

You think so? Forshadowing. Like, I don't think he could surprise me. I don't know that he actually... You just wait. One time he has. One time he has. He's going to surprise you when he puts a big old kiss on you with some coon grease.

Coon grease lip-bub. Not interesting in that surprise. TBH. Not interesting. Huh. And the book. The audiobook. Yeah, man.

So if you're listening to this podcast, today it comes out, I believe the date is January the 4th. happy 2024. Yep. And the audiobook will be released on January of the 9th. And the Longhunter's, Mediator American History, the Long Hunters. And it's, I think it's about six hours long. And it'll be, it's, I'm really excited about it.

You'll know more about the Longhunners than anybody on planet Earth, other than the people that listen to it before you. And Longhunters, It was just the distance and the time they spent. Well, it was a name that was given to a style of market hunting. And the reason, the only, we don't even really know where it came from. We just know when it showed up in the literature. Some guy probably woke up in the middle of the night like he was going to name a mule.

Yeah. And says, the long hunters. No, it's assumed from the context of where it was written. And it wasn't like a poet that wrote it. It was, it was somebody say, It was a historical person during that time that referred to the long hunters. And the long hunters were packs. It wasn't like an individual, right?

A long hunter could be an individual, but it had to do what they went on big extended market hunting trips. Big campaign hunts. Yeah, they would, like in Boone's historic two-year trip into Kentucky was kind of the iconic definer of the, of the long hunters because it was a long hunt. Right. But it's all about the deer skin trade.

So the market hunters were heavily involved in the deer skin trade. They weren't trophy hunters. They weren't hunting because they thought it was fun. These guys were destitute and we're trying to find a way to make a living. And you could go into the, you could trespass into areas you shouldn't have supposed to have been legally. Like people in the colonies. were not allowed to go beyond the Appalachian Mountains. And I mean, Boone and those guys, they trespassed into Kentucky

and could basically make a solid year's income in three to four months of trapping or deer hunting. And then bring those hides back into the colonies and sell them. And so, I mean, just like today, if you could go Hayden make 80 grand in three months. You bet. I mean, you'd probably, there's probably, especially if your prior option was to make 20 grand working 10 hours a day. You'd probably do, you'd be surprised at what you might do. Yeah. And so, oh, we go into the deer skin, like who was buying deer skins, and they were all going to Europe.

And there was a, it was a fashion trend. it was a functional trend Deerskin at that time was basically the denham of today So is it like roughout leather? Is that what they were? It would have been smooth buckskin leather like the tan deerskin leather gloves Which would have a roughout side just like a leather today. It's got a smooth side and it's got a rough side.

You'd think you'd want to rough out out on pants. I sure would. Unless you're wearing Buffalo briefs. I may get chafed for it. some of them bucks, yes. And if you, look, can I say something about how to, how to, how do you get, how do you get on Audible? So it's an app. The first thing you want to do is, it's an app that you download. So you, you, you, you go to your app store on whatever phone you have and you download it. You can create an Audible account with your Amazon account. So if you have an Amazon account, use that to, to create your profile.

Because that's the second thing you're going to have to do. and then you have to pick your Amazon plan. Oh, wow, this is complicated. It's a little bit complicated. It's a little bit complicated. It is more complicated to listen to a podcast. It is more complicated. But let me just say it's not as hard as you might think.

So I've seen a couple comments. I'm a dinosaur. I don't know how to do this. That's right, doctor. It's, it's, you got this. Download the Audible app. Create an account. If you have an Amazon account, you can already,

you can just use that account. and number three You pick a plan And you've got several options And you'll get The way it works on my account is I get credits And I can use those credits So you have a plan

You can get so many books on tape And let me tell you how I use I listen unlimited I enjoy listening to audio books When I'm on long trips Because a podcast on a eight or nine hour trip Or whatever You know just goes by pretty quick

But you put on a book And you can listen to it And you can listen to it however you want. But some people have been like, when do you have time to listen to an eight-hour audiobook? And it's like, well, I don't just like sit in my office and like listen to an audio book. You know what I mean? You can do it when you work in the garden.

You could do it when you ride a mule. You can do it on a road trip. I'm leery of having ear pods in when I'm riding a mule. Are you? Yeah, you bet. Something might happen. I don't know. You can do it when you're, you can do it as you're, I'm just trying to help you out here, Newk.

You can do it on your car. commute to and from work. I do it at my in-laws. You do it. Okay. Joe. Is that bad? Joe!

And you're just sitting over. You call your mother-in-law gal. Old gal? There's old gals in the family. There are a few. And it's in my line of work, that's a sign of love. It's a term of endearment. That's what my dad is.

Yeah. He's called my mom woman for 36 years now. Woman. My woman. That's what he called. My woman. That's just what it is. Okay.

It's another song right there. It's a love. There you go. It's not disrespectful. It's just a, I don't know. Not tomorrow. Joe. Sir.

What do you want to tell us? Like we're closing down here. Man, I like, closing thoughts. Tell us what you want to tell us. I usually start the podcast when Joe's on and just go, welcome to the Bear Bearers podcast. Joe, take it away. Yeah, that's kind of what we were planning today.

That's kind of what I'm doing now. We didn't press. We are closing down. So. I can talk a bit. Man, September 7th, 2012, we're bringing back the squirrel cookoff. It's going to be at the same place. September 7th.

That's a good date. September 7th, I arranged it, tried to get it in there amongst all the hunting seasons and everything. So no one would complain. There you go. Hunters are a lot like beekeepers. Okay. Okay. You know, they'll complain a bunch about stuff.

Yeah. There's like two people go teal hunting. Uh-huh. You're a fool for having squirrel cookoff on the same day as deal season. So we've got that. Good job, Joe. Man, I would tell people that, you know, listening to your show is an educational deal. It doesn't have any boundaries of age or anything like that.

I meet more people who have young kids, eight, nine years old, who enjoy listening to the Bear Grease, both shows. are all three shows. This country life and burgers. Yeah. This country life's solid, right? If you want something that's completely different, I've got a podcast.

I was wondering where this was going. It's called cooking up a story with Aaron and Joe's, and we have a new show come out every week. We don't typically do parts. We'll go three hours if we got to. Yeah. And we talk to common people, and hear stories from struggle to success.

Yeah. And in my free time, I'm going to start listening to Hayden's music. You bet. Yeah. Heck yeah. Boy, sings like a bird. Awesome. Like a bird being choked by a bobcat.

He sing like a bird. Joe, we've had a pretty active holiday season as a family, and we've got some squirrels in the fridge. And Clay's mom, Judy, had a little tradition of making egg rolls around New Year's Day every year on their break. and we kind of adopted that because her egg rolls are incredible. Squirrel egg rolls are good. That's what we're going to try. We're getting ready to try it. And something that I think everyone should know is that Bear bought himself a pan this week that I am not allowed to use.

Oh, really? Yeah. Did you really? Yeah. Bear, you're being kind of quiet over there, buddy. She always gets mad at me for boiling deer skulls and stuff in her pans. In my house. I feel like that's a completely.

reasonable thing to do. So you bought your own pan? I haven't heard about this yet. We'll have to cook over like a fire and stuff. The first thing he did when he walked in, I said, how was your trip? He said, good, I bought a pan and you can't use it. Wow. Did you get you got a bought or a skillet or what you get?

Not quite that aggressive. It's just like a skillet pretty much. Just like a cheap skillet from Walmart. $10. I think it's a big move, though. It's his first pan. It's his first personal. Bear, I'm going to make you a promise next time I come up here.

I'm going to bring you I'm going to bring you a couple good ones He'll do it too He will I'll bring you a couple good ones I think Hey you know what we ought to do on a podcast Cook some stuff

Live cook something Joe's got to be there for that Well I mean he would do it He's a man Yeah No I Wholeheartedly you think You could just be talking to us

Joe So what we didn't say about Joe Which people would know is that he's a, well, he did say it. He's a barbecue expert. He's cooked for thousands and thousands of people. Or at least he's a cell phone filter expert. Yeah.

I could Photoshop. Yeah, no, we fed over 45,000 people a ribby steak across the country, you know. And so we do a lot of cooking. And I just think that if you're out hunting, fishing, learning how to cook it. Yeah, not to cook. Because one of the flaws in being a hunter, and a fisherman is people will tell you there's trash fish or there's trash ducks.

I'm a firm believer we can make anything taste right and people can eat it. It can cook it right. It just takes a little bit of time and a little bit of effort, maybe some decent seasoning. Yeah, the tinderizer. But you can turn, man, I've cooked porcupines, I've cooked moose heads, I've cooked everything that you can cook. If it's in the state of Arkansas, I've probably cooked it. And as a young guy, listening to Bear's stories hanging out on the creek and doing weird stuff with his clothes and all of that.

The next step is making it taste good. Hey, we're going to do it. We need to figure out the logistics. So thanks for coming, Joe. Yeah, you bet. Appreciate it. Dr. Newcomb. Thank you for being here.

Mayor, thank you for being here. Hayden, thanks for coming up, man. I'm glad to be here. It was really great. Really love the song. You bet. Where can people find all your stuff? Anywhere you can find anything.

Apple, Spotify, Pandora. It's all up there. Okay. No, I mean, Montgomery County Shine isn't out there yet. Yeah. It might. It might be. Might be.

It's out now. It's actually on the Cooking Up Story Facebook page. Well, it probably is now. Come on, Joel. And I'll be selling the rights to it to you. Okay. Yeah. I'll sign the copies.

Yeah. Well, happy New Year to everybody. I can't wait for you to hear the next bear grease. It's going to be good. It's going to be a good year. It's good. Good bear grease year. All right, guys.

On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag. And there was a full of blood. Oh, my God. He doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors,

where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are. no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together.

He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.