Bear Grease - Ep. 21: Bear Grease [Render] - Navy Pilots, Mr. Peabody’s Coal Train, and Why Dirt Matters

Episode Date: September 29, 2021

On this episode of the Bear Grease [Render], we’ve got a slew of new guests. Terrell Spencer from Across the Creek Farm joins the crew to talk about soil. The discussion goes from Navy pilots sunglasses, to parachutes not opening, to solving the world’s problems with dirt. It’s a fun episode and full of laughs, but takes a serious turn. How do we change the system when the current system is likely to fail in the long run? Human life is short but the life of the soil spans across inconceivable time. Civilizations have risen and fallen based upon soil health. At the end of the episode Forest Teeter sings “Paradise” by John Prine.Connect with Clay and MeatEaterClay on InstagramMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop Bear Grease Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights field wear 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. Guys, we've got an exclusive bear grease discount code for FHF gear.

That's fish hunt fight gear. I've been using their products for the last year, and I love carrying my gear in a chest rig or my binos in their bino harness. It's easier and more accessible than a backpack, and it doesn't get in the way when I'm riding my mule. For a limited time, you can head over to phfgear.com forward slash bear grease, and listeners to this here podcast, get a discount on purchases for your FHF Gear system, and you can see how I build my gear system. So go to FHFGear.com forward slash bear grease for a special code if you're buying stuff from FHF Gear.

Check it out. Fish Hunt Fight, FHF Gear. I don't think that made it to the actual podcast. Oh, it did. Oh, man, I missed it. I made sure it did. It didn't actually make sense. you just kind of threw it in there.

And here's your say, use the phrase code switching. I just wanted out of context. Hear me say code switching and agree that I had correctly labeled what we were talking about. Robert Morgan's so nice. He wouldn't have disagreed. No, no, he wouldn't. Welcome to the bare grease render. My oh my, do we have an eclectic bunch of people here today?

We do. Yeah, man. You got stood up. I'm going to, we may spend like the whole render just introducing people. That's great. Yeah. But all the regulars bailed at the same time. Of course, I guess am I not a regular?

Well, no. I'm just your, I'm just, yeah. You're not replaceable in my book. Thanks, sense. I appreciate it. Only in place. Only in place. No, no.

I recanted that. The old stand by here. No, no, no, no. Thick and thin, no. So, so Gary Newcomb is preparing for the Newcomb family Bear Camp. He's been scouting. Man, it's pretty awesome having a dad like I've got. I sent him essentially some waypoints.

Like I told him some places, and I was like, go see if there's any bear sign there. And so he went and did it, reported back. No bear sign. Saved me a little bit of time. So we're preparing for the Newcomb family bear camp, okay? Yeah. Big deal.

Like within hours from right now at the time of this recording. Me and Isaac will be down there and many others, but I'm going to get to that. So that's why Gary Newcomb in here. Josh Spillwaker, he is just off somewhere, just unaccounted for. I mean, I'm not even sure his wife knows where he's at. No, he's working over at Oklahoma.

Most people are knowing by the Langebridge, though. Yeah, the Land Bridge, if case you're confused. Yeah, and then Dan Roop, man, Dan had something come up that he just couldn't get out of. I was wrecked when I heard Dan couldn't be here. Truly was. Brent is meeting this at the at bear camp tomorrow and could not he he just couldn't come. So anyway, we got a whole cast of characters.

To my left, Spence Terrell Spencer. Man, it's awesome to have you on the render. It's great to be here. Home run, home run performance on the Bear Grease podcast. Yep. Not a hunter, but a fan of soils. Yeah. This is my one time.

And a punk rocker. Yeah. And former punk rocker. You packed a lot in there in five minutes. Can I share a funny story about Spence and Soil? We threw a little shindig down here one time. We were actually celebrating my brother's graduation, and we cooked a pig in the ground.

And somehow in the process, y'all kind of started nerding out on your crop soil, environmental science knowledge. And you guys were working with a third person who had a degree in, classical letters, whatever that is. And do you remember this? Yes, I remember it. And you guys were, and you said, man, I've always wanted my soil science to come in handy.

And here it is. And you guys just started, you know, kind of growing out. Yeah, exactly. Over, over both being soil science. What we had done is we dug a pit to cook a pig in the ground. A great soil profile. Yeah, we're doing a small soil profile. Jail knew I was on the University of Arkansas soil judging team.

Wow. We came in the last place. All the Mississippi schools beat us. It was a rough year. But I am a collegiate athlete. I consider myself. Well, and I mean, I hate to bring it up this quick, but your wife is the Cross County, Arkansas,

Rice Queen, former, former. Yeah. I mean, this is big. Once a Rice Queen, always a Rice Queen. There's no former on that one. It's like being a Marine. And she knows about the Cumberland Gap. Okay.

Is it okay to do that? Yes, I was going to. So we tried to get. Terrell's wife on here. And she, okay, so I cryptically, a couple of podcasts ago, talked about someone that I did an interview with, a question them about the Cumberland Gap,

and they just nailed it. Just bam, bam, bam. Usually I'm trying to interview people that I know won't know, okay? I'm just going to tell you. Now, that's not true. I'm just trying to take a sampling of humanity, okay? Just random sampling of humanity.

So interviewed Carlin, she knocks it out of the park. I mean, it was awesome. Yeah. You told me about it. She told me about it. Yeah. And then it didn't ever But we knew

But we knew All we can do is talk about it And revel in the glory Yeah But for Spence Great to have you here, man Yeah Fantastic

Colby Moorhead Into his left Yep Bear Honey magazine's very own Colby Moorhead Man, I mean I can't talk to you Without saying this

Last time I saw you You were on an altar Getting married True I mean I'm not trying to be dramatic here I'm just telling the truth Yeah

You were crowding this too You were real close Was it two weeks ago, 12 days ago? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the 11th. The 11th, yeah. So congratulations, man. Thank you, thank you. Newly married man right here.

Similating the new life. Yeah, that's fantastic. You're beaming. Good to have you, good to have you. Thank you. To your left, Isaac, first time Bear Gerews podcaster. Welcome, man. It's me in the flesh.

Yeah, yeah. First time on, really excited. usually listen and then text you things unsolicited. I think last time was the guy who commented about the cover photo. I took that personally. I mean, I took that personally. I took that personally. Two translations.

The image that is the bare grease image, that's me and Izzy, my mule. Isaac took that picture. Isaac was a photographer. And the guy said, don't let the cover photo fool you. I stood up. I said, you know, how dare he? Yeah. I didn't stand up.

Yeah. I was offended. That's a great picture. Thanks. Like, I saw that picture. I was like, that's a great picture. It's mostly clay. I mean, to photograph an animal, though, that's like a wild card.

Well, no. So, Isaac is a pro photographer. Yep. Still, still photographer. Yeah. Yeah. Check him out on Instagram. Isaac Neil.

I, uh, I'm an aspiring livestock photographer. I just can't get anybody to pay me for it. So I've got to do. Don't look here, buddy. Maybe you can come take pictures of your chicken. That's where my wife's. That's right. You got a pretty good photographer on your hands here.

Yeah, yeah. Now, Isaac, you just got back from where were you? We did a road trip, North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming, grass hunting. Grass hunting. Yep. Wow. Yep. So we targeted Sharp Tales and Hungarian Partridge in North Dakota,

sage and sharp tails and Hungarian Partridge. in Montana, and then blues and sage in Wyoming. Man, you're talking about stuff I just don't have any reference for. To be totally honest with you, I thought there were like two upland birds until like three or four years ago. And my grandpa's one of the most avid upland bird hunters I've ever known, but I just thought there were quail and pheasins. Come to find out, fessons aren't even American. Right.

Yep. And anyway, just diving into this whole world, it's been incredible. I thought their tail feathers kind of had like the American flag strikes. That's what I was three off. Yeah. Is there anything more American than stealing someone else's bird and making it ours? I think that's very good. That's the best part.

That's maybe unfair. Co-opting. Stealing's harsh. Anyway, yeah, I got the call. You said, I need somebody for the render, so I flew in. I ditched my guys on the Upland Road Trip. Yes. Hungarian partridge.

Are those native? I don't know. I'm not. Not with the name Hungarian. We'd like to call things that are ours American. Right there on the front. I mean, hey, hey, listen, listen, the naming institutions of animals and topographic features in this nation

could come from anywhere. Yeah. I mean, for instance, our very own beloved Cumberland Gap, like we spent a whole podcast talking about, Cumberland Gap was named after the Duke of Cumberland who was, I mean, you know, on that podcast I called him a, what did I call him? An Earl?

No, well, I mean, he's a Duke of Cumberland. I called him a derogatory name. Like a chump. Okay. I believe I called him a chump. Yeah, I think it was chump. And I really evaluated that because I was like, I don't know this guy. But I did some research and he was truly a chump.

He was a real chump. Wait, could you, could you, what are the criteria, what's the criteria for chumpinpin? Well, we better not get into that. Okay. But he was a real chump, okay? You'll film me on later. Yeah, yeah. And a whole massive mountain range is named after him.

So I could see somebody coming from Hungary area. Yeah. And being like, I'm naming this bird after me. Yeah. And my granddad back home, you know? Yeah. So anyway. It's a cool bird.

It's like bigger than a quail, but smaller than a grouse. You all are using dogs? Yep. Yeah, we had French Britneys. German short hair pointers, draughts, Vichlas, a couple of labs. You know what, I think this upland bird stuff is just straight up off the chain.

You know, used to, in the South, we had pointers and setters. Yep. Okay. And the only thing you'd talk about was the difference in the colors and your pointers and setters, whether you had a liver spotted pointer, or, you know, a black pointer, whatever, you know. Yeah. This is getting, this is almost like, like, like, special

coffee. You know, like, are you talking about all these dogs and stuff? Now, you ever hear anybody referred to a bird dog as flashy? Is there any crossover? That's, if you have a liver spotted pointer, is that a flashy pointer? That's a good question. I think flashy is a really good adjective for pretty much anything. Anything, yeah. Yeah, so that's a good question. Maybe we'll start. So. Yeah, hunting behind dogs, it's, it's something that is truly beautiful. Like those guys, you know, I, I get done and, want to get in the tent or whatever, those guys are up for another hour

taking care of their dogs at the end of the night, whatever, get up first, take care of the dogs. Yeah. Remarkable. Yeah, yeah. Still in introductions. I just want to say the Hungarian partridge was introduced from you.

Okay. Okay, good. Nice fact check. Okay, to Isaac's left, Misty Newcomb. Welcome, Misty. Good to be here, always. Yeah, man, your name's been showing up a lot on the iTunes interviews.

Stop it. Stop that. Man, great to have you, Ms. Newcomb. Good to be here. Fantastic to have you. Couldn't do it without her. And to Misty's left, back from the sky, the American skies. Yeah, Forest Heater.

Above generally. Yes. Cloud artist. Good to have you, Forrest. Yeah, it's good to be on here. Have you flown since we last saw you? Not for the Navy. Oh, really?

But commercially, yes. Yeah. Okay. I'm kind of in a weird. You're a passenger. You're right. Yeah, yeah. I flew out to Virginia for a buddy's wedding.

Oh, okay. That doesn't count. That's not. You knew that as not what I was talking about. Of course. But no, not sure. So you fly for the Navy. So just if somebody didn't hear you, you know, I don't know, a couple of renders ago you were on.

So you're a Navy pilot. Now, okay, I'm a grown man and I've known for us a pretty long time. It took me about four or five years. No, he hadn't been the Navy that long. It took me, how long have you been in the Navy? I've been in three years. It took me three years to realize that he doesn't operate a boat. but he flies a plane for the Navy

You've come a long way I mean if we're trying to throw our enemies off If this is like deep military strategy To be like the Navy's coming Yeah They're looking for boats That is brilliant Now when you get on a commercial jet

Are you sizing up the pilot I would be lying If I said I don't turn my head a little bit Like right as we're about to land I'm like we're going to have a nice little flare here We're going to slam it down You come in through that front doorway and the stewardess is standing there, or that's probably not the term anymore, is it? Yeah, whatever.

Anyway, you look in the cabin, like, I don't know, maybe I'll take the next one. What are you looking for in a pilot that you're comfortable with? That I'm comfortable with? Broad shoulders? I mean, just in general, when those guys are thoroughly vetted, you know, they've got plenty of experience to make it to a major airline. But, I mean, I just want a guy who likes hunting, you know, most of all. I want a guy that I can stroll up to the cabin and be like, let me in, man. What would you, let me take the reins?

Okay, you being a pilot, like if you just made eye contact with another human that you were about to entrust your life with 30,000 feet above the air, like what kind of vibes would you want to be getting from, would you want him in sunglasses? Would you want him to look away once you stared at him? Would you want him to give you kind of like a, you know, kind of like an open eye, like green reading. I think sunglasses is a prerequisite. It's like, you just got to have it. Really? You can be hiding so much, though. But whether that movie about the Tom Cruise being a pilot and taking drugs and stuff?

I don't have a lot. I think you're getting a couple movies. For the record, I don't watch movies, okay? I've never seen top. I believe that. This is not a joke. Literally like we are issued sunglasses. Like when in Florida, when we start our flight training, you go and you get your cool gear and like your flight suits and everything. You're like, wow, I'm the best pilot in the world, even though I've never flown a military aircraft. But, like, I'm going to be, you know. They literally give you like these sunglasses. They're nice sunglasses.

They're Randolph, I think, is the manufacturer. So it's like, that's a pre-work. Like, you're going to have those. Really? You're going to have. Well, I think it's kind of, it's functional. It is. Yeah.

Right. I mean, it's not so that you can look like Tom Cruise. It's because. I mean, sometimes the sun's in your eyes. Right. Especially I would think the sun would be in your eyes a lot. Yeah. If it's sunset, you got to fly west, you got to fly west.

sunglasses off, just someone who's cool, laid back, you know? Okay. Someone that when things go wrong, he's coming. Is it true that, I take a lot of comfort in this, is it true that the commercial airlines are so autopilot-ish that there's really a whole lot of human moving parts inside a flying one? Let me preface this by saying, I don't know firsthand, but I have talked to a couple of pilots in my squadron that basically just got their ATP,

which their airline transport pilot license. So they're like kind of looking to transition into that realm. Okay. And even the aircraft that they're flying now, like some of the air buses and stuff like that, almost have an override such that the plane is built for autopilot. Like if you take the yoke and you turn it hard left, the plane's going to stop you at like 30 or 45 degrees

based on whatever speed you're going. So you're not even, the plane has almost more control in that instance than you. So yeah, the planes, again, this is my kind of uninformed opinion. It is my understanding that, yeah, that they're basically built for autopilot. Unless there's a problem. Right.

I mean, I think that that's where you really want, there's probably a lot, it's kind of like me, I'm teaching some of our, or at least driving with our kids while they drive right now. And I've got a car that beeps when you go out of, yeah, and it does all sorts of fancy things. And I'm trying to get my kids not to use that because I want them to develop the skills of a driver, because if there's a problem,

I want them to know how to hit the brakes or to anticipate it before lane assists. And I think that that I wouldn't, I mean, I hear what you're saying. Well, I take comfort in this because to this day, every time I'm in an airplane that went, is this, does everybody do this? Like, when you're in an airplane and it lands,

you're just like clenching the rails, you know, the handrails on your seat? No. I mean, you're not worried about it? Not really anymore. I mean, I'm serious. I'm a long flight. I'll like make sure I'm sitting straight up so I don't like hit my tailbone or something hard.

But you know I've taken off in more airplanes than I've landed in. It makes sense. Yeah, you've jumped out of airplanes. Yeah. He likes the wind in his hair. Fall is more of a. It's not like skydye. So, yeah.

So Spence was in the U.S. military for many years. How many jumps did you make? Man, I did the five to get air. Airborne qualified. Really? Yeah, my last one, my shoot didn't open up all the way. How'd that work out? Well, it came out an inch shorter.

I mean, tell me, I mean. Oh, it was a crazy. Tell me how you don't die when your shoot doesn't work. Well, it's a whole story, but we, I jumped out in the airborne, like, for the Army, which it was really hard. I had kind of bite my tongue when you're talking about the getting issued sunglasses because I'm like, they just issued us body armor. The difference between the Army and the Navy.

There's so many jokes. We get the top gun jacket. Good to go, man. Yeah. So they're like, here's a poncho that leaks. But yeah. Back up, shoot. So when you jump out, you kind of just, there's a way to exit the plane so you don't

hit the side with all your gear and stuff. And you tumble and you're on a line. It's called a static line. And as you go out, you're flipping around and you reach the end of that line and that yanks your shoe open. So you're in like the proper. wash. You know, these big planes.

So the gravity pulling you out of the plane and the line catches. Yeah, it's less gravity as it is stepping out and the plane's going however fast it's going. And then there's the big, the turbines, you know, the propellers and you just go, and so anyways, that did it. But I had a bad exit because I was pushed out. Not because I wasn't ready to go. I was the first guy and the jump master was kind of trying to be funny.

And I was waiting. There's a little green light. And when the green light goes on, you're supposed to say, here, go. And then you jump. And it went green. And I looked at him. He didn't say anything. And then he pushed me out.

Which is, like, terrible. So I hit the side of the plane. Oh, no. Yeah. And I got, when my shoe came open. This is like Rambo. Oh, yeah. It was like all twisted up.

First Blood Part 2. Clay has seen every Rambo movie. Yeah. That was the last movie I watched. Anything's changed since then. I don't know what is. He has seen a lot of Rambo. Hit the side of the plane.

A lot of rainbow analogy is thrown out. Yanked open and my shoot was all kind of twisted up. You know, if you've ever played with like a toy parachute, that's all twisted up. So I was going down and it would kind of inflate. And then I had another guy that was wrapped in my lines because he'd get jumped out. And then when it, oh, and finally I got it up. And you're only about 800 foot above the ground when he jumped. And so I was like, I got it up.

and there's a reserve to, yeah, only 800. And there's a reserve you pull, but if you pull the reserve, it's like a guaranteed broken leg. Oh, wow. Yeah, I mean, it's like... It's just going to keep you from dying. Yeah, because you come down, like, flat on your back because it's on your belly.

And so anyways, I finally got it up about, I don't know, I was about halfway down. I got it to deploy a little bit. Okay, so you got untangled, came off the side of the plane, and then you're just like free falling. It got it. Now, your shoots up in the air, but it's tangled up. And so I was able to get it.

I don't, it all happened very quickly, as you can imagine. And then another guy kept getting tangled up, and he would run on top of my, my shoot. Like, he was coming down faster. And so, like, he would go pump, pump, pump, pump, and it would collapse my shoot. And so we're, at this point, we're about 200 foot above the ground, and it's all trees. We're running out of time here. Yeah. So then I just essentially just hit the ground.

I hit the tree. trees hit the ground. So you didn't pull your emergency shoot? Nope, no. So the shoot must have been opened enough that it broke. It slowed me down. Yeah. And I got it to flare right before I hit.

But I still, it was about the equivalent of falling off like a three-story building. And I went, hit some trees and went head first in the ground. So are you serious? You were shorter? Yeah. Really? Oh, yeah. Where'd the inch go?

I don't know. Somewhere in Georgia. What's the time frame on something like that? From the time you jump out to the time. It's about probably 15, 20 seconds, if I remember correctly. Wow. Because it's fast enough that you have a good chance. I think they want, like, no more than a fifth of the people to be hurt.

So it's fast enough of that. But it's also, but it's slow enough to keep you from everybody getting hurt, but fast enough that it's hard to shoot you when you're going through there. Okay. So there's a practicality. There's some practical. Forrest, when they gave you your sunglasses and top gun, Jacket. Did you have to like do anything dangerous? Well, we did do our parachute training,

which was, of course, us on a zip line doing the completely non-dangerous version of this. So we did the parachute training. It's like, hey man, if you ever eject, it's like, what, feet together, knees together and you kind of just try to like do the worm onto the ground to kind of absorb the impact. Nice. We didn't have to actually jump out of planes. If you have to, as a pilot. That's amazing. Yeah. Army guys had to jump out of planes. Pilots. Got the zip line. Like an amusement park ride. Zipline, sunglasses, and top gun jacket. Did you go to dance school to learn the worm first?

No, we did karaoke training for how to sing, you lost that love and feeling. I like it. I like it. And to kind of tie it up, having made that fifth jump, I got this little merit badge. And then in military parlance, I was called a five jump jump.

Whoa. So bringing it back to the Cumberland. It's a full circle. Everything. Me and the Duke of Cumberland. Five jump jump jump in the Chumperlin. In the Chump Club. So there was just this week, just this week,

the Missouri Department of Conservation says Public Cooperation leads to multiple arrests for gross over-limit of squirrels. I saw that on the meat eater page, yeah. Yeah, is that the charred squirrels? The group of 16 had been hunting for two days and harvested 471 squirrels. What?

Okay, aside from like just the many things that probably were happening here. I'm impressed. If you put me and Michael Lanier and like the best squirrel hunters I know and gave us, you know, how many days? Two days. Two days to kill 471 squirrels,

we'd be scrapping. So these boys are some squirrel hunters now. I think there's many questions like, where do you get you and 15 of your closest friends who all want to go squirrel hunting? Yeah, no doubt. I can barely find one or two. Yeah, there's a lot of unanswered questions.

The picture of the squirrels, they're all like charred. Clearly they're burned the hair off. It looks like. You know, when I saw it, because I actually saw it on the meat eater, Instagram page, and I had a lot of initial questions about what was happening here and why. But I thought, you know, these could just be, because this is Missouri, there's some major cities in there, these could just be some suburban guys who got squirrels.

their attic and got upset. I mean, I think I've had one squirrel in our attic, and I could understand how it would drive you to that level of frustration. And I was so angry. That could have turned 4070 more. You see what I'm saying? There was a clue inside of here is that they were non-resident squirrel hunters. Oh.

Dang out of staters. Do they have dogs? They were out of staters. They were out of staters. They have dogs? Well, I'm wondering if a... It doesn't say. I don't think so.

An urbanite person experienced this, the squirrel in the attic, and then it drove them to the woods. Right. I'm going to take out this aggression. That's exactly what I thought. And it made sense to me how a squirrel could do that to a person, how it could become a personal thing. Man. So what? We've got to get these guys on the podcast.

Hey, not cool guys. It was poaching, but tell us your secrets. Yeah. I've got questions. God. How many squirrels in like an eastern deciduous forest, a healthy forest, in public land? That's a good question. How many squirrels per, like what's the density of a squirrel?

I really don't have a scientific answer for that. But I know that these guys were probably, they were in some real good squirrel country or they were covering a lot of ground. Because there is not, I mean, we have a hard time in the Ozarks killing a limit of squirrels. Which is what? Or knowing that they're there or not. 10 a day, 20 pizzerks. in Missouri. Per person.

So it would be 320, so they were 160 over, 150 over. So other than my theory of just personal aggression, reason. Yeah, why would someone... The squirrel cook off? Yeah, they're getting ready for the Arkansas. They got canceled. Competitive drive.

Is it canceled? Yeah, it's supposed to be this weekend. Oh, that's right, because it's canceled. Dude, you might be on to something. Oh, man. I didn't know that. You might really be on to something. They're stocking up.

My buddy Joe Wilson up in Bentonville, Arkansas, puts on the World Championship Squirrel Cookoff. There's a podcast that. Yeah, yeah, we did a podcast. It's really a cool event where they cook all these squirrels. There are some cultures outside of southern people that deeply value squirrel meat, and I would assume that these people were some of those kind. So they're either. So they intended it to eat it.

Oh, yeah. 100%. They probably were going to. They weren't just going to kill them. The fact that they burn the hair off of them tells you that they were probably going to use the skin in some way. Yeah. I mean, because typically we would skin a squirrel. Yep.

Yeah. You know, the hide would just be refuse. Yeah. You know, so they were going to cook those suckers whole. Mm-hmm. So, you know, put them in their air fire. So really, you're talking like they killed an extra five squirrels a person over two days. Negative.

Way more than that. 16. Well, at the limits. 150. Two days. Five per day. So that's half your. your daily limit over, 50% over.

Okay. So it'd be 15 person a day. They weren't good with math. Pretty complex math for paragraph. I'm just saying, this is a... I'm lost as well. You know, that's the good thing about... Do you think that was the defense?

What's that? I'm not good with math. Is that the defense? There would have been my defense. That's a good, that's a good reason that, like, I don't have to worry about, like, getting over my limit of squirrels. Yeah. Just not that good of squirrels.

Squirrel hunter. Yeah. Just send you off on a mule and say, remember, the same amount as your fingers. Go get them. Yeah, do like a lanyard off of each hand. Just add one of these digits, you go. Well, we're about to start doing some squirrel hunting here soon. It's about time.

Let me know. Yeah, for sure. I got a mule that needs to be ridden. Yes, you do. Yeah, you do. Yeah. I'm taking your mule with me today. Oh, cool.

Yeah, I am. Yeah, I'm taking too. I'm taking Izzy. and ace to to bait our back country bear bait

over there. He's a pretty solid fellow. He is. He is. So one of the mules that I keep here is Colby's

mule. So, yeah. Hey, soils from the earth, the podcast, massive gamble. To have the audacity to think that

we could entertain people. Because I think people come to podcasts, people don't come to podcast just to get taught something.

I mean, you go to college and listen to someone lecture to get taught something. And you have to pay to be there, and that's the only reason you go, and it's not fun. Like, people come to a podcast to kind of be entertained, kind of learn something, but mainly to be entertained.

And the Soils podcast, you know, we've kind of had in the Hopper for a while. But the one thing that soils do is that fits into the bear grease, the idea of bear grease, is that I knew that it would be insightful for people that don't have much knowledge of the soil. Because that's what I do love stuff that when you go into it thinking, thinking you understand something and then really getting some insight out of it. I mean, that was my experience as I studied soils 20 years ago in Dr. Miller's class. It was just like, wow, this is fascinating.

What did you think, Colin? Yeah, yeah, I really liked it. Actually, my wife, which is kind of weird to say, was in the truck with me listening to it. And she's like, man, this is really interesting. She really liked it, too. It was eye-opening. I think the part that I liked the most that was Dr. Woods and just how all the things that he had learned and done just out of his own energy, you know, and to pursue it.

And that was really cool just to hear, like, someone that's doing something. And whenever the, I didn't read the description or anything, but whenever I started listening to it and heard what it was about, I was like, man, I hope Spence is on there. Oh, right. You could You forecasted that he was going to be there. Yeah, when I heard his voice, I was like, it feels good to be right. But, and just like, seeing like what happens to a pasture pre-imposed

Spence bringing his kid of poultry out there, it's really cool to see what changes inside of just like, on a small scale inside of that environment. And so that over several years, it would be really cool to see. I mean, even like thinking about owning land, I'm thinking, man, I'd love to be able to try to do something like that and just make it better than when I took it over, you know, with like that or like the guys at Lannon Legacy with putting in native species and making a cool environment and just controlling that atmosphere. So it was like, man, soils, it's going even deeper than I thought. Yeah.

You know, because growing up, we always fertilized our gardens, tealed it up. It's like no. What did you fertilize with? Triple 13 That's right That's right Triple 13 What is triple 13

It's a mix of stuff It's a chemical It's a synthetic It's the most common Like fertilizer You go to the feed store Okay It's got the NPK

Your nitrogen Phosphorus potassium Yeah I thought it was interesting that I wouldn't have known that Chemical Fertilizers

Nitrogen Fertilizer was developed by the Germans. The Nazis. The Haver process, I think, is what it's called. Yeah. So we didn't even have chemical fertilizers until, you know, the 40s. It's super interesting.

All the things that we got that are kind of a byproduct of that of World War II. Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting because when you think about processed food and a lot of that stuff came from, that same, all that same research that was useful in that context. And then they tried to apply it and make it useful in other contexts. And it's created a lot of problems. Most of the, like all the insecticides, a lot of them were really disturbingly close to nerve gas that was used in World War II by the Nazis and a lot of rebranding there. You know, even getting up to like...

That's one way to see it. He marketed that. You know, and Dr. Wood was a... Dr. Woods. He mentioned that. He's like, in agriculture, that's the big thing. Like, I was listening to a football program, you know, like for the University of Arkansas. And one of the sponsors of the program was an herbicide company, you know, for rice farmers, you know.

And it's just you can't make money unless you're selling to farmers. And so all these things are there to get sold. Well, it's, you know, it's, you can't really talk bad about fertilizer because it's, it's such a complex system. Yeah. And I hope that inside the podcast, it didn't feel like an attack on agriculture. Because, and I thought Dr. Woods did a good job of saying that, you know, these farmers are fitting inside of a system. Just like the chicken farmers are spent. Just like you said, there's, there's people that grow for these big,

organizations and to grow for those organizations, you have to fit inside of this shape of being a chicken farmer. And, you know, you said that you guys are outside of that system. Yeah. And I mean, you know, I've got good friends in the Delta. We all do probably in this room. I'm married into a rice and soybean family. Yeah.

And I mean, so that's why I said that really what needs to happen is a reformation. A reformation is not just, let's do things. things different. It's let's change the whole system. And I mean, that's a big bite because there's all these farmers that have their whole lives and their whole everything they do is built inside of a current system that does work for them financially. Right. And that that actually came from its own, I mean, the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug won a No Mel Peace Prize because some of like genetically modified wheat so that it could feed more people. The idea behind some of these things was to actually feed hungry, a growing population on planet Earth and in places that didn't have

optimal weather conditions. And it has had byproducts. But, I mean, originally the motive for some of these things, some of the things inside that system were actually humanitarian. They're wonderful things. So how do you, how do you do that? That was really a question that I kind of had even after this research for this is like, what do you do when a system, is not really sustainable, but it fuels everything right now in the present. Because what we're saying when we're looking back at civilizations in the soil

is that the current way we're doing things is pretty much guaranteed, you know, at some point in the future, the system's going to break. Yeah. I mean, is that your interpretation? Yeah. I mean, if we're talking about 10 years, no.

Right. But if we're talking about civilizations like Babylonia and Mesopotamia, These guys did stuff for a thousand years, and this baseline kept moving of what was normal. And here we are this extremely young nation. I mean, we've been having agriculture for 150 years or so in this country. And it's... Depends where you're at.

Yeah. I mean, big Midwest agriculture, for sure. You're talking about... Yeah. But, I mean, in Dirt, that book that we were talking about, Dirt, the Erosion of Civilizations by David Montgomery, I think is his name. He correlates the rise and fall of civilizations, not so succinctly with just erosion, but he said it's, you know, we look, major civilization lasts a thousand years.

And they erode their dirt in about a thousand years, right? And then he brings it up to present and says, we're on track to do it in about 250. Which starts making you. I mean, this, I was thinking about this on the way down here, the idea that we have removed ourselves as a culture from the way we, produce food. And this is something I've talked about a lot with hunting where it's like, I think you should participate. If you're going to eat meat, you should participate and know what it feels like to kill something because that has a weight and a gravity that will make you cherish this product. It will make you understand everything that went into it. And in the same way,

agriculture, it's like, we're eroding, eroding soil. When the soil's gone, we don't have food. When we don't have food, we're gone. Like, it's a very big problem. Yeah. But I think what you're looking at, though, it's not just agriculture. It's a human problem. It's that we're like blips on, I mean, just our lives are like flashes and our capacity to radically alter the system that moves on just a completely different time scale. You know, like, and whether it's agriculture, whether it's education, whether it's politics,

whether it's like the national debt in America. I mean, all these things we know, like, this isn't sustainable. this isn't sustainable, but we're kind of, it's that what, the sunk cost fallacy or there's an economic term where we kind of just put so much into it. We can't turn around now. We can't turn around now, you know? Yeah. So I don't think it's just, it was interesting to look at it at the lens of agriculture,

but I think you're just looking at a human problem. And you have a book up there on the shelf called The Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry, and he talks about renewable energy. This book was, by the way, published in 1977, and it feels as relevant today as it, I'm sure did back then. But he talks about renewable energy, and him and his friend were having a conversation like, is nuclear the way, is solar the way?

And Wendell's takeaway was like, we'll find a way to kill ourselves with whatever. Consumption is the issue. Well, it seems to be a consistent problem. You know, what you said about a human lifespan is the issue at hand. because we are, and I think that's what fascinates me about looking back at history and about seeing all these, these old guys and studying them and studying about the earth, is that we are just, it sounds cliche, but it's true. We will, we are here for such a short, short time.

It's kind of like a grassfire. Think about a, think about a grass fire. A grass fire, there's this one small little edge that all the attention is on, and it's moving across the landscape. and everything behind it's burned and everything in front of it is not burned. And if you were to turn loose people to deal with it, all you could think about would be that edge of the grassfire. You wouldn't be looking ahead. But how do they put out grass fires? A lot of times they go way in front of the grassfire and fix a break up there.

But now this idea of reformation is a word that we use sometimes, just about how the system is, broke. And man, that's a hard thing to say because, I mean, I'm thinking of people's faces and names that I know that are farmers, that they're making a good living. They're happy inside of the system that, but it's not, it's certainly not the best system. But, well, I even think of like, we, it's kind of like not knowing you're sick. Especially with Dr. Woods, he talked about, you know, settlers, they, when they walked across, or when they, they could ride their horse through the woods and not lose their hat.

Because the trees are so high. Because a chestnut. If you're out of mule, his ears block the limbs. But you know, like you think of the chestnuts. And when you hear like what forest look like or the woods 200 years ago, it's radically different than what I would consider, oh, look at this good stand of hickory and oaks out in this holler. You know, and it's like we're trying to preserve things.

that we don't even know what they were. We have land on one of the rivers around here, and there's a huge erosion problem. I've got farmland with the cut bank, and it's costing me thousands of dollars a year. We knew it when we got it. It's just, you know, we're trying to figure out how to deal with that. And my whole viewpoint was radically shifted

by this 84-year-old cattle woman who still builds her own barbed wire fence. We're on the other side of the river, and we're talking about the river and the gravel mining that had set all this off. And she's like, oh, well, you know, the river didn't even used to be here, right? She's like, I learned to swim, and she points across the valley to the other, like, side of the, where the ground goes up, you know, or the ridge. She says, I learned to swim there in the 40s. And that's where, that's where the river used to be.

And then they were digging all this gravel, and the river jumped, and it's been like that for decades. But there were no, like, aerial maps back then. Yeah. Or, you know, or if they were. The river meandered a lot. They dug gravel. They were digging gravel next to the river. Oh, so it cut in Oxbow.

Yeah, and it just hopped over to where man had been. So on your land? Yeah. So the river wasn't even there? It wasn't. And like, it's mind-boggling to sit there. Because there's like beavers and there's, you know, it's real pretty and we want to restore it. But the thing is, it's like you're not really restoring it.

Yeah, you know. So it's just all these are, they're not black and white questions. They're like even, and I thought, and it's good. to think about these things. The other part to that, it was just so fascinating to me, is that the Ozarks were terraformed by Native Americans

before Europeans got here. So this, like, even that picture that we were getting back to was, like, carefully managed by seasonal burns and the undergrowth. What you mean about terraformed? Shaping the Earth. Okay.

It's, so, like, when the Europeans got here, there had not been, and Brooks Blevins talks about this in his book, but there wasn't any year-round people living in the Ozarks. They were just coming in. But even so, they were changing the landscape to aid them in their hunting and their gathering. If you take out the undergrowth from trees that produce mass crops, you can graze animals under there. It's just like, so we walk in and I heard somebody describe it as we thought we were in an Edenic paradise.

But really, it was just the hard work of the Native Americans who had come before and then we extirpated them. and then we're like, this is perfect, and then everything changed. And... Yeah. Which is not... It's not to say any of that as bad. It is to be... For me, it's like, be cognizant of the good ways that you can steward the land.

Because there was a sustainable system in place that we've... I mean, I was just out west and there's wildfires everywhere, but we've sort of eschewed the use of controlled burns. I don't know. Yeah. Seems like a great tool to mitigate some of that fuel. Yeah. Yeah.

What made you want to do this podcast over soils? Like you said it had been in the hopper a while. Well, just my initial fascination with soils in Dr. Miller's class. Like I said I came into his soil. I said I studied soils almost by accident, which was very true. Man, I didn't even want to go to college. I really didn't. Like, if Gary was here, he could tell the whole story.

But, I mean, in our family, you went to college. And that was because my grandfather, Lewin Newcomb, was the first Newcomb that ever went to college. And it was a big deal back in the 40s to go to college, you know, these poor rural people in Arkansas going to college. Well, he came out very adamant with his kids about the way you make yourself in this world is go to college. So he just pounded into Gary Newcomb's head. You got to go to college. And so Gary Newcomb pounded that into me such that it almost, I didn't want to go almost in probably not rebellion. It wasn't straight rebellion, but it was just like, I'm not sure if this is as important as you think it is.

You didn't want to be shackled. Well, and then I got married and I decided that it was good for me to go to college. And I went to college. And I never really used my degree for anything. because when I got out of college, I started working for myself, and I worked for myself until a year ago, when I started working for meat eater. But that college education was incredible for me.

Truly was. And I, you know, you might get the sense that me and Dr. Miller are, like, best friends. He didn't remember who I was. Like, I walk in his office and he goes, I mean, you know, I had emailed him and been like, hey, I'm a former student. You were my advisor, you know. I'd like to do this podcast with you. And he was like, sure, come on.

And I get in his office and he goes, yeah, I think I remember you. And I stood down with him. But he was deeply influential. Not for soils. His engaging style of lecturing. And I remember, he was one of the first classes I took. And I liked the way the guy talked. And years later, I would say that I learned how to talk when I was in college,

just by being around educated people that were using words on purpose. And Dr. Miller was the first one of that. I didn't really tell him that. So if he listens to this, Dr. Miller, thank you. I didn't say that to him. I mean, I didn't want to weird him out too much. Like, you know, because he didn't remember who I was. I think I was.

I wasn't a good student. Got a whole wallet home. Yeah. Pictures. You've cut out of me in Dr. Miller. I don't even know who you all. He's a cool guy.

He really is. But when I took his class, and you know who picked my degree for me? Like literally picked it out of a book. Like I was like, man, I don't know. Misty Newcomb. So not replaceable. So not remissible. She, I came home.

Anybody could have done that. I came home and she said, I think you needed to get a degree in crop soil and environmental science. And I said, sounds good. to me. They didn't have wildlife biology here. Yeah. That wasn't an option here.

It was a minor by the time I was kicking around. Was it? All right. I almost had a minor in biology. I also was the one that kind of encouraged Clay to drop out of college the first time. It's like, you don't have to go to college. I mean, we met, we were young and you can take that out as well. But.

No. So to answer your question, when I went into Dr. Miller's soils class, I had no idea that I was going to learn something. so fundamental to the human experience. I thought... Oh, I'm sorry. Not all, I'll go. I thought it was really interesting how when he was talking about

the Roman Empire in Italy, where they basically just eroded all the soils away down to rock and how that literally shaped the culture of what we think of when we think of Italy in Italian food. He was like, all they had left was rocks, so they planted what they said, grapes and olives? What is Italian food? I mean, it's in wine and it's like,

it shaped the culinary, history and how we even perceive Italy as a country. Italian food, because that's what they had. That's what they did. At the end of the Roman Empire, it was illegal for a farmer's son to leave the farm to pursue another career because it was so desolate. Like nobody was staying on the farm and they couldn't produce any food. They had to have someone there.

Yeah. They're like, nope, you've got to go, even though you're producing like nothing. That's crazy. Mandatory service. Like in the Middle East, talking land. flowing with milk and honey and all these like areas that we look at that are desolate now like what do they look like yeah back you know and i and i think what's what's someone a thousand years from now going to think about you know the planes of the u.s you know like i've seen pictures of from the

the dust bowl and it's it's a it's mind boggling like i saw this one where there's one like blue stem plant or it's some prairie grass and it's on a three foot pillar of soil and everything else around it is gone. So the root system. The root system. This one holdout plant. MVP of the prairie. But I mean, it's like it's a chest high on a guy that's walking by.

Wow. But all that like Dr. Miller said, two feet of soil in like a day. That's pretty crazy. We actually watched a documentary that there's a Kim Burns documentary on the Dust Bowl. And you know, Kim Burns spares no detail. his, they're very in-depth documentaries. And it was so, so interesting how just a man-made disaster, it was pretty wild. And, you know, if you're from these parts, then you would know, like my great-grandparents

traveled to California for work. They weren't from Oklahoma. They were from this area, but a lot of people moved, moved to, Oki's from Moscow. That was the, it was like a derogatory, a derogatory term. I remember just such a tragic. There was a whole Arkansas, Oklahoma to California. Yeah. You know, like just a huge migration of people.

And it's Woody Guthrie. I mean, like, every other song is about the Dust Bowl. Merle Haggard's parents. Yeah. You know what? The one thing that we did, talking about massive amounts of soil erosion, like what happened in the Dust Bowl, and then talking and bringing it also back to,

Dr. Woods talking about five tons per year per acre on average flowing off of fields in Iowa. We just didn't have time to get into this, but soil going into water systems is massive, massive levels of environmental degradation. You know, I remember just being shocked. And Dr. Miller was the one who talked to me about the dead, the 200 square months. mile dead zone. The zone of hypoxia. In the mouth where the Mississippi River flows into the Gulf of Mexico. I mean, I really wonder how many people actually know that and believe it.

I mean, like, you know, 20 years ago, there was no such saying it's fake news. So when someone told you something that was true, you just were like, oh, okay. You know, you say it now. You say it now, and people are like, ah, that probably, it's, you know, some political agenda. Cite your sources. Man. But so just to, because we didn't get to get into it on the podcast, nutrients and soil, into water systems and become nutrients and water systems that promote algal blooms and other types

of plants growing in water that suck away oxygen that kill animals. So essentially, you know, I want Spence to say what he's going to say because I'm interrupting him. But I just wanted to say that real simple thing, like nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus in your water, you might as well pour diesel fuel in it. Yeah. And that's interesting that you bring that up because that's a good example of the synergistic negative effect that human actions have, right, of good intentions. So what did we do to the Mississippi? You know, Mark Twain, you know, used to be a steamboat captain and all that, and it was a specialized thing. Well, we channelize that, more jobs, more people. Look at a map from the 30s of the coast of Louisiana. And now go Google Earth and zoom in. And there are lakes, like, you know,

how they'll put the name of a lake. And it's just like out in the Gulf. Like they lose like, I don't know, I think it's like a football field, a minute or something down there, a wetlands that's been going on. That the ocean is overtaking. Well, no, that. So what happened is that soil that washed down, that's a natural process. And it would go down, but it would all slow down when it hit the delta. Okay. And it would have the speed of the river and it would like just settle out.

And then marshland would grow. And that protected like from hurricanes and just like that was, that's what, you know. Yeah, and Louisiana on their license plate, sportsmen's paradise, you know, that's where all your shrimp, all these industries, right? Well, because of the oil industry, which is huge down there, and that's not a knock on them. I drive a car. I put diesel in my tractor, you know, like if you look, there's all these channels. They cut all these channels to make things go faster and barges. But what that did is it pretty much made a shotgun effect of all those nutrients and all that soil. So stuff like phosphorus, it's sticky.

It sticks on soil. So when it goes in the water, it's attached to that soil. And so instead of going out and slowing down, and you've seen it on creeks and that kind of stuff, you know, where a flood will happen and the smaller stuff is up closer to the bank and then the bigger stuff down. So that would fan out and then you get like all these marsh plants would grow up. Well, we have like channelized that and turned it into a big shotgun. So where is it used to meander? now it's straight as an arrow and it just

whom! I mean it's like a luge out there and all that stuff blasts out and it fuels what you're talking about so instead of getting fuel and plant life and doing that it goes out and it's just bacteria they eat all the oxygen,

they grow, they die, they turn toxic and it kills everything. So there's a 200 square mile area in the Gulf of Mexico that has no aquatic life basically. Wow. We just hunted that in January and it's just like,

like you get in the boat and drive for 16 miles in a straight line. It's a river, but kind of instead of being curvy. Yeah, it's not a river anymore. It's just a channel that they have like straightened and engineered. Yeah. Wondered how that happened. That makes sense. When you drive into the, so where we're located, we're real close to the Oklahoma,

actually Oklahoma and Missouri boundaries. And when you drive as a, our kids' play basketball across state lines a lot. They go to small school and they play smaller school just across the line. And when you drive from Arkansas... Spence is our legendary former basketball coaches. State champ. Somehow I knew that was going on.

State champ. Flipper. Flipper. I was in the crowd. Me and Spence. Okay. You don't want me and Spence coaching against your boy. Go ahead, Misty.

All right. We're going to have a whole other pie. You can't go. All right. See, you drive across the straight line and there's a big sign. We have a really great play, Isaac, called flipper. Sorry, Mrs. It's an inbound's play.

And, man, we scored more points off flippers. And big coaches would yell at children. We've got a hand signal that we do from the bench, little, little dolphin flippers and all the boys, I mean, it's like, we're about to score, boys. Go ahead, Mr. Thichel. There's a sign on the order. Man that dolphin could just go right up the Mississippi River. Does that get us back?

No, that doesn't really get us back. But as you're driving, the kids always ask about this sign. There's a huge poster that says, stop Arkansas farmers, chicken farmers from poisoning Oklahoma waters. And they're talking about that. They're talking about the runoff. Illinois River stuff. Yeah.

I just bring it up because I wish they had a sign that said, welcome instead. Is that all? They just threw us up the bus. You don't have any reviews we're going to get now if people said, oh, wow, they got all political. Take her out. The Arkansas chicken lobby is going to come down on you hard.

Oh, man. We're in the heart of the matter here, too. There goes our ad space. They're going to be picketing deep. What I was going to say, this is kind of moving away from, and when Grant Wood said that oranges have 10% of the vitamin C they used to have, or he started going through spinach was 40% less iron than what it contained 30 years ago. Yeah.

That's not even long ago. Like that's recent. Yeah. That's got to be the difference of the soil. I mean, that's got to, I don't know what else could account for. Just the taste difference that you're dealing with there. Someone's variety and harp. But yeah, it's all true.

You know, like, there's this myth that this stuff isn't sustainable. But like when you look at, like, if you look into food systems of like, in Europe in like the 1850s, it was all based on horses and mules and transportation. Because instead of exhaust, when you think of like transportation 200 years ago, what was the byproduct of that transportation? Maneer. So what fueled agriculture? Maneur.

When you go to Europe, there's actually like soil types that are because of manure. You can identify where over centuries the manure additions. And so, like, it's not that humans can't manage and can't live without being destructive. We can. It's just not the way we're doing it now. Yeah, I see. And so there's just these qualities of flexibility and change and just being cognizant of what you're aware of the impact we have. And a lot of those things, you find them in the hunting community.

I don't hunt, but I know a lot of hunters. You took a swing at it. I took this. I dinged a dough. And then I was like, I could grow a lot more chicken than what I've spent on dingin this dough in the time. I think it's kind of, I mean, because we've seen it over thousands of years, it's just antithetical to human nature to kind of be conscious of what's going to happen after we die. We just people don't want to do it.

And that's what it takes. You know, like you said, people in Europe have, you know, had that sustainable, that sustainable, I guess, lifestyle and the way that they operated because of the byproduct of, you know, their transportation, things like that. But, I mean, the things in Iraq from thousands of years, people moving, moving, moving, and turning them once the fertile crescent, the cradle of civilization and turning into a wasteland, it just takes a conscious effort from people. It's not what we're wired to do. I don't think is to think beyond our lifetime. I'm glad you brought it back to death because I thought the green burial was super interesting. And I'm considering it. I'm considering getting rid of the coffin from under my bed.

I just don't know what I'm going to mess with your kids and your grandkids. Yeah, I'm going to have to find a new napping spot. I just have a hole in my field. I pop out of me. That and when I shock, like, I shock gobble my domesticated turkeys. Hell yeah. And so the big joke with one of my, with my dogs. daughter is, hey, hey, you know how I make my turkeys gobble?

She'll be like, no, daddy, don't do it. And I do like a super loud crow call right behind her. That's funny. Those are mine. Yeah, I like green barrels, though. Jokes aside. I didn't realize it was a thing. I was, well.

What was so ridiculous about it is that we even thought anything about it. I mean, how do you think they buried people? I mean, yeah, the Egyptians mummified people, and we've had some kind of embalming thing for like a very short part of human existence. most humans that have ever been born on this planet died and within 24 hours they're in the ground. Yeah. And that is true.

Or like a lot of sky burials from certain native cultures. Okay, that's right. Just all very natural, though. Yeah. I had a buddy just died unexpectedly recently and the hoops that his wife had to jump through to not go to a funeral home and stuff like that. Like the cemetery wouldn't dig a hole for him

because they're like, we're not going to do it if it's not going through a funeral home. Wow, this got really deep. Yeah. Because it pollutes the ground. We got to hear more of this story. It pollutes the ground. They finally found a cemetery.

And incredibly, they dug the hole with his own backhoe. It was incredible because if you knew the guy, it was like, this is perfect. Because the only regret other than him dying was that he was not able to tell the story because he was one of the best storytellers in the world. Wow. This is an old guy or young guy? Young guy. Really? Yeah.

But, yeah, he had loaned his backhoe to somebody. He had broken down. They had just gotten it fixed. Found a plot. His buddy built a pine box, basically, put him in it. Had to rent a U-Haul truck to get it over there. We had to figure out how to get them in the ground with toe straps. It was like that weird laugh cry thing where this is ridiculous and somebody's going

to fall in the grave trying to get the box in here. Wow. You were there for this? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Anyway, let's just flow through this like, this is no big deal, Isaac. But it was a cool experience because it was like an alternative to what I had seen model, but it was also just kind of remarkable.

Because, I mean, it did, it happened, I think, you know, 36 hours after he had passed. So like having to make that happen because he wasn't getting embalmed and all that stuff. But it was kind of weird to think like to just do it naturally or relatively naturally is. a burden. Yeah. Well, and it goes back to Clay, you talked on the Daniel Boon, like people just, they were comfortable with death. Yeah.

Like in society now, we insulate it all, like whether it's food. Like, one of the big drivers to people not eating meat is thinking that an animal has to be killed. When you put that animal out in the wild and you think me with at the process and plants bad, you should see a raccoon. Yeah. You know, I mean, like, take it in the face by nature.

Yeah. And it's just, it's not human. You know, I mean, like, there's something missing from the human experience. And I think that's what I got out of this. Like, you did this beautiful reading from Hulel, who was the author, out of the earth. And, man, when it talked about Adam and Eve. Yeah. And, I mean, it's just, there's something when you hear that, like, in my,

heart at least, there's something like, this is like base level humanity. It's like that, that phrase deep calls the deep. I mean, when I hear that stuff, you know, and it like when I'm out my field and I'll just sit down with the birds or the critters or probably when you guys are out hunting, like I used to quail hunting a lot, gamble quail in southeast Arizona growing up, or I'd go fishing with my grandpa. And it's that same thing. It's like to just feel that you're context. I mean, because as much as we don't, as much as modern life, it's like an illusion, but humanity has been intricately connected and still are.

Absolutely. Like everything that we all are soil. Yeah. You know, it could come in a plastic package, but it started off on the ground. Yeah. And someone tended that thing by hand at some point. Yeah. I think these things just hit on basic humanity.

That's what this was. Well, that's why at the end of the podcast, and I hope people listen to the end. But, you know, there was no call to action, so to speak. It wasn't like, go join this organization or go do this or do that. It was just like, hey, if you're a human, this is stuff all humans ought to know, number one. And then number two, my only call to action was next time you're out in a wild place, scratch back the leaves, scratch back the dirt, pick up a handful of soil. look at it compare the ancientness of that soil to your life and then know that the very atoms of your body will one day be soil and just see how that makes you feel when you think about that you know because it's true and there was a real interesting part of um there was a real interesting part of uh the interview I did with Dr. Miller that I did not put on there where one of my first soil classes

at the university, I vividly remember. I remember who said it. Remember where he was, but he said, it wasn't Dr. Miller. He said that the very carbon atoms that are in our body, which carbon would be in all types of different arrangements in our body, but a carbon atom itself or any kind of atom that's in the elemental table would of itself be this building block that could not be altered. But, you know, carbon hooks up with all this other stuff to make different stuff, okay.

But the very carbon atoms that are in our body could have been the very carbon atoms that were in T-Rex. Like they would have changed constituency. T-Rex died, his flesh rotted into soil. Some of them became fossils

in the fossil record. But that fossil, isn't the carbon atoms that were in him. Anyway, just a wild thing, a wild understanding that mankind is intricately connected to the soil. And it's a baseline understanding of a civilization's health is how they treat their soils. And to me,

that's massively connected to being a woodsman. I mean, I am not interested in being a soil scientist. That's just the truth. I mean, if I was, I would have been a soil scientist. You may get an honorary degree after this, though. Yeah, that would be really great. No, my main interest in life in terms of passions and things I'm doing outside of family and different things is being a woodsman in understanding animals and how those animals live, but also the flora, the plants and trees and their cycles and all that's so fascinating, deeply connected to the soil. So, you know, to be, to me, to be a woodsman is to understand the big picture.

of what's going on, not just being able to go out and kill 417 squirrels. Man, that was impressive. You should not talk about how that's impressive. But it is. It goes against that.

Values in here. Do you guys agree? Like, you have this overarching picture. I mean, and to me, if you don't value, just do a hat tip to soil, then you ain't no cowboy. Well, it comes back to, too,

like in the whole... You ain't no woodsman. You ain't no woodsman. Yeah. Y'all see where I was going with that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It goes back to the, you know, and I don't know if you covered in the podcast or not, but in the Hillel book, he points out that there's kind of two sides of the coin when it comes to Genesis in the book of Genesis. There's this aspect of man like, you know, dominate nature. Yeah, you know, you're in charge. It's for your use. But then there's an aspect of steward. And management. Mm-hmm.

And like when I heard Dr. Woods talk, I don't know what 120-inch deer rack looks compared to a 170. Mm-hmm. I mean, what's the biggest buck you've ever killed? What would it have? Right there. And what would that be? Right at real close to 170. 170.

And so most Arkansas deer are like what? Not that. Not that. So, you know, but all it was was, it's like there, it comes down to management to get the gains that humans want working within the system, right? Because he just manages his land and the potential's there to get what he wants working within the system. That's what I thought was so cool about hearing him talk is he's just staying within the

systems. You know, he can see the boundaries and I'm going to stay in here. And then you see this flourishing where the deer go from like, what do you call them, shepherd, where they're the size of German shepherds, to monster bucks, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting, the evaluative tools. There would be a hundred different ways to evaluate an ecosystem. ecosystem. But our interest is in white-tailed deer in a lot of ways. And so, you know, he's looking at an ecosystem based upon antler growth.

Hey, I'm going to close with one thing and then I want to hear Mr. Forrest Teeter sing us the song. Why don't you get your Git Fiddle out. Get fiddle. Hey, when Forrest was going to come, like, I just said, you got to bring a song. So this song, I don't even know what it is. I just trust. Hey, here's one funny thing. I wonder if anybody picked this up. Dr. Miller's talking. I guess it's because I know Dr. Miller that this was funny to me, but he said, and then that organic fraction, very interesting. He's just like, he's just like, you can just see his eyes almost roll in the back of his head

when he said, very interesting, organic fraction. And I was like, no, it's not, Dr. Miller. But it is because you told me it was. And I believed you 20 years ago when I was so impressionable. But yes, it is interesting. Forrest, what are you going to see? Oh, man. I'm got the old iPad

You didn't catch that one Dr. Miller kind of Oh yeah Did you? Yeah I figure that's where you lost Like half your audience Yeah

Is this total voice Is total voice change? Yeah. You need the sunglasses. Yeah What are you going to think For us for us? Yeah, this is anchors away

No, I'm just kidding I don't even know what that is. That's a Navy joke It's got to be a Navy joke That's like the Navy song That's like the Navy anthem. Oh, really? Yeah.

There's like the official song of the Navy. Boats. Not planes, not planes. But planes for me, but normally boats. Yeah, this is a song called Paradise. It was written by John Prine. And there's lots of bluegrass versions that are really good that I really like. But it's relevant to what we're talking about.

Is it? Tell us how it's relevant. It mentions Kentucky in passing, which Daniel Boone, a little throwback. But also just about this guy wanted to go back. and see kind of the promised land where his parents had grown up and they said it's all gone coal company voted up took it away this song it's true story yeah they literally just removed the mountain yep this is very very applicable yeah I and I didn't you know that's why that's why they pay me the big bucks you guys all right like said got the iPad crutch here since I was I was short

notice performer here when I was a child my family would travel down to western Kentucky where my parents were born there's a backwards old town that's often remember so many times that my memories are warm you know I've been sing with you Daddy won't you take me back to New Lumber County down by the Green River where paradise like I'm sorry my son but you're too late and asking mr. Peabody's cold trains hauled it away Sometimes we travel right down the Green River to the abandoned old prison down by Adri Hill Where the air smelled like snakes and we shoot with our pistols but empty pop bottles was all we would kill

Daddy won't you take me back to Muleinburgh County down by the green river where paradise lay I'm sorry my son, but you're too lame-masking, Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away. Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel, and they tortured the timber and stripped all the land. They dug for their coal till the land was forsaken, then they rode it all down as the progress of made. Mmm.

And Daddy, won't you take me back to Muleenberg? County down by the Green River where Paradise lay. Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late asking. Mr. Peabody's cold train is hauled it away. When I die let my ashes float down the Green River, let my soul roll on up to the Rochester Day. I'll be halfway to heaven with Paradise waiting, just five miles away from wherever.

I am. Daddy, won't you take me back to Muleenburg County Down by the green river where paradise Lake. Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late asking. Mr. Peabody's coal train is hauled it away. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.

Oh, that was a perfect song, man. It ended up being all right. Oh, dude. Perfect song. Glad I could provide. Excellent. Well, thank you. you guys for coming. First Lights field wear 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 and 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.

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