Duck Call Room - Justin Martin’s Game Warden Encounter Nearly Cost Him His License

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

Uncle Si proves that surviving a big storm in style sometimes means staying put and letting everyone else panic, at least until he’s forced to bunk with Phillip for a few days. Martin shares a tense run-in with a game warden and relives his most painful moment after wiping out on ice and sliding all the way into the road. John-David realizes he’s just not built for this type of weather, and the boys offer their heartfelt thanks to the linemen, first responders, and all those who worked tirelessly during and after the storm to take care of the community. Duck Call Room episode #523 is sponsored by: https://ethos.com/DUCK — Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes. Application times & rates may vary. https://smartcredit.com/duck — Get your 7-day trial for just $1 right now! https://buyraycon.com/duck —  Get 15% off and go for gold with the Everyday Earbuds Classic. Thanks Raycon for sponsoring! https://factormeals.com/duck50off — Get 50% off your first Factor box PLUS free breakfast for 1 year with code duck50off at checkout. *Terms and conditions apply - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, no, I prepared. No, you didn't. Yes, I did. Not for that. I prepared for this big storm. No one was prepared. I was prepared. You weren't prepared.

I refuse to. You'll tell me on this podcast and I'll say, not prepared enough. You could not have possibly been prepared for that. You were prepared for a week without power? Yeah. We had just enough firewood. I mean, we ran all the way out. And we had to go get gas several times.

So, I mean, I thought you were prepared. We were semi-prepared. Welcome back to the duck call room. Apparently Hunter just started while me and Philip were arguing on how prepared we were. That's what's going on right. We are in the midst.

Rough around this joint. Well, no, no, no. It's 65 degrees outside almost. Martin? And I still got ice on my house. Can you declare the ice apocalypse over? I mean, I guess it's over. I mean, it's still around, which is what's crazy.

This crap's taken forever to melt. I'm going to have ice for the next week. I've in the shade. Clearly, there's something that I missed in chemistry or physics or meteorology. Well, forget that. I'm talking about just once it gets there. I hate it. Why is it still here?

Go back to where you came from. Why is it still around? Well, do you know that you can start a fire with ice? Hunter just audibly gasped and I wish, I wish Hunter had a microphone because Hunter, when you said that, I will say, it got quiet. Hunter went, well, I'm just saying,

hey, you know, there's a silver lining in every dark cloud. How do you start a fire with ice? You take the ice and you mold it

into a lens with your hand and then let the sun set fire to grass or wood. My hands would have frozen off.

Dear people that listen to this, I've been confirmed to weenie when it comes to the cold and I am not well. Yeah, this sucks. Yeah,

I actually watched a movie where I learned things this weekend. Did he had a lot of free time on your hands, huh? Even more than normal. Here's what you do. You take a leaf off of a tree. Yeah. You put it in water if you want to know what is north, south, east and west. Oh, it's called blippy.

I thought she's just going to find out the leaf floated. The boys like that. And you put a little, what do they call? I can't think of them. It's a little piece of wire. Lay a piece of wire on that leaf. and it will automatically turn north. Really?

Yeah, you rub it with silk. That's what we saw. So in case you're caught in the wild with silk, a piece of wire, and a leaf, you can figure out which way is north. You ain't lost no more. And if you got eyes. You can buy it get bear grillis on the phone.

We've got all those problems. Heaven forbid we look at the sun. And figure out which way north is. Or that big star up there. I believe it has a name. Yeah. You know, when the cold weather starts, started coming in.

I went over to Sy and Christine's, who's been out of their house temporarily while they're getting some work done. And I said, hey, you boys ready? I said, sigh, you ready? Christine, she was like, oh, no, we'll just stay here and ride it out. And Si was like, whatever. He went and got in the bed. He's got the covers all on him.

I said, no, let's go. Come with me because it's going to get back. That's why I lived for about three days. Yeah. It's in the bed. I don't blame. No, no, look, I'm serious. I only got up to eat and use the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of.

screw. I would have done that. Otherwise, I was in the bed with 19 quilts on top of you. That's the smart. You're the smartest person I've heard so far. But it got cold, too cold. It even got where it got cold. So the next morning, Christine called me. She was like, Philip, come get us. Yeah, we're ready. What was the coldest you ever saw it in your houses? In my house now. On the thermostat, 54 was. I'm going to win this. What was my house? Yeah, ours is like 60. No. Well, that's what got me. The house stayed 60 without power? Yeah, because we had a generator and we had a fireplace with a blower.

You were more prepared than me. It was 9 degrees the other day. One chill. Inside my house, the thermostat, I looked at it. It said 34. Ooh. Yeah, that's your house off. That's two degrees above freezing.

Wow. No, I can confirm. That's cold as crap. I was freezing my butt off. That's good. Yeah, your house. We blocked off everything in the living room. Your house can get that air up.

under it. Oh yeah. So yeah. We blocked off everything, had blankets in the air, trying to close off doors and had a fire for about five, four days. So your preparedness program fell through. Yeah, my preparedness program was go to Big Dave's house and then he lost power and I said, oh, crap. Yeah, he could see the power grid and it's gone. Yeah, so we live right next to the substation, close. My dad lives right next to it and we heard it go down. And I said, that ain't good. While on this subject, I would like to personally thank all the people. Amen. Okay, that was involved in anything to do with getting everything.

Poles replaced, wires, hooks back up. Linemen, DOTD workers, whoever was clearing the roads. First responders. Ambulance men, paramedics, firemen, all you people, great. That's right. All the leadership of our. local power cooperative energy. Yeah.

Know this. Try again. Don't try. I don't want them to try again. Know this. You're a love. Y'all failed. And I appreciate it.

The leadership of energy failed. I didn't know we were going there. Well, I don't care. They failed. Your boots on the ground covered your rear end. That's right. They did a fabulous job. The people that I've met around here from Missouri that came to work from South Louisiana,

from Arkansas, from Texas, Mississippi. There was some old boy from Mississippi. There was some old boy from Mississippi. Thank you all for coming. And I'm sorry that the leaders were inadequate for y'all. I will apologize. We were in a bad spot. He'll apologize for it.

And to be fair, nobody could have ever seen. Which is why you keep your mouth shut. You don't tell people two days in that in three days they'll have power. 90% of them will have power. Don't say that. That's dumb. Because we didn't say, hey, we're addressing the problem and working on the situation. Just say, hey, we're doing the best we can with what we got. There was a boy,

they working on that high line. I never want that job. He was up in the air. It was probably 28 degrees at night and they were just shining spotlights up on them and my dad was just watching him from his porch and I was like, which I used to couldn't see him but now that all the trees are gone, I can. Yeah. They're like a rice field now. I'll tell you what. But I checked the map and we got at Oxford, Mississippi. We're brethren now because y'all took it. It was well, Les Monroe and Oxford. Yeah, pretty much if you drew a straight line and up to Nashville. There's parts of Nashville that still ain't got power.

We all took it on the chant. So you draw a line that connects Monroe, Oxford, and Nashville, and it's surprisingly straighter line than you think, because I've looked at it. It's like, okay, that's the swath that took it on the chin. Everybody in that little swath right there just, yeah, but it's fine, man. It was whatever. It's a memory. It's always cool to see community come together.

I said that on my social stuff. It's always fun to watch people help each other. You know, I wish, and there are people, as we're talking still right now, nine days later, that still don't have power. Had people in the store this morning. They're just hanging out in town because they're like, a house sucks. I get it. I've never been more thankful to have a four-wheel drive side-by-side with heat and a cab.

Yeah. I texted Martin and I said, hey, we got sign Christine over here. We may need some stuff from time to time. He said, I'll bring it to you on my side-by-side. Yeah, let me know. I was running all over this damn town. A whole bunch of people were. I drove to this office.

In yeah, that way. But there were people on the interstate stuck for like a day. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently. Oh, yeah. Interstates over to Rustin and that area were trashed. I don't know.

I wouldn't dare going to get on it. No. That was rough. I didn't even like getting on Highway 80 because the problem is, even though I had a rig, I'm still the smallest thing on the road. Like, I was, there wasn't much on the road them first couple days. There was more than there should have been that weren't in four-wheel drive vehicles and out there acting like idiots. People kept telling me, well, the roads are fine.

And then I went, we ventured out to get a few things. And a Chevy Malibu came flying past me with a 75-pound block of ice hanging off the roof. I said, no, I'm going to go back home. Yeah, that was the other annoying thing. People wouldn't clear their cars before they took off. We don't know any better. We are swamp creatures. Yeah.

We're lizards. We do not belong in ice. Well, I just wish we had iguanas here, like them people in Florida yesterday, just went around picking up iguanas that fell out of trees. That looked fun. We were about to have to start eating them. Oh, we would have.

Yeah, we would have. I didn't need to because I had plenty in the freezer that we ate. We ate well. I was just tired of cooking. I had that last shot going. When I got the text that said, Johnny's has a limited menu, I said, I'm going to get me a pizza.

Everybody's running out of everything. We did go to Johnny's and get some. When they had the little four pizza menu? Yeah, that was awesome, man. Just to have one meal that somebody else cooked during that, I was like, oh, thank God. I think that was the night I cooked 150 pizza rolls on a flat top. They were starting to thaw. I said, who wants pizza rolls?

And the kid said yes. Nobody's ever said no to pizza rolls. Watch this. My whole back porch was just a refrigerator slash freezer. Yeah. I just had to move all the food out there, and we just go out there, look around, pick something up, eat it up and eat it. All right, look, springtime is here.

It's warming up. You know what that means. that means more outside cook and y'all know we love to eat beef around here and that's what because of our friends over at tritels beef makes such a good product ain't it good it's so good

our friend sall robinson would say buy on the grill look before we got tritels getting ready for a cookout man somebody had to run the grocery store do all the things grab whatever was left in case you were late in the day and you never really know where that beef come to them but with tritels beef we skipped the grocery store and do it a different way.

Triedails comes from a family ranch out in Texas. They're a fifth generation American ranch, so they've been at it for a while. Now, look, the beef comes straight from their ranch and other ranchers they work with who raise cattle the same way. Their steaks are properly aged and shipped straight from the ranch to your door.

We threw a couple of ribbyes on the grill. Look, salt, pepper, garlic, hot fire, that's all you need. Look, because I'll tell you what, when the beef comes from people who raise cattle for a living, you can taste the difference. the tenderness and the flavor are fantastic. So if you're stocking the freezer for grilling season,

go check out Triedails Beef. I know in size case, Christine loves it, which is just a, she doesn't eat meat. She ain't a big meat easier, folks. Yeah. Just go to trybeef.com slash. That's tribeef.com slash support ranch families and eat some dang good steak.

Well, sign, did you ever fall? Nope. Not at all. Nope. Not at all. I did. I did. I did not.

and bit the dust this morning and I felt terrible about it. Hey, the reason I didn't go out in it. There you go. Wise. Yeah. And they said, hey, look, if you don't have a four-wheel drive, you ought not be out in the rope. Yeah, I saw Stirlington Police Department said they were going to start writing tickets for people

that were out without four-wheel drive. I've got a four-wheel drive, Chuck. But I just still said, no. Yeah, it was crazy. We don't know what we're doing. No. I wonder, though. there's places this happens which we didn't get snow we got what we had is an anomaly the ice doesn't

happen much like you got to be in a bad spot on saturday morning when the lightning started and which by the way is not fair hey here's what was so screwy about that it was screwy it's come from the west southwest what the lightning there's a stupid ice yeah well and then well the thunder the thunderstorm in the middle of an ice storm lord we gonna have to talk about that one. Yeah, I got questions. Both of those are equally as terrified. Why'd you put them together?

Well, in my house, it's surrounded by super tall pine trees. So the branches are just snapping left and right. And you just, it's all, every 30 seconds, you hear. Mm-hmm. And then you hear it fall, and then the ice shattering makes it even louder. That's what got Christine. Yeah. She's out on the porch.

Yeah. She was out on a perch. She said, you wouldn't believe. She said, you wouldn't believe. I would have to. I have one. Like fireworks. Crassing off of these streets.

I said, oh, yes, I would. I said, because most people, there's two things that most people don't know are. It's real, real dangerous. Ice is one of them and water is another one. You're in flood stage? Okay. Soft and hard water. I don't even like steaming water anymore.

Never will see it again. No, but I woke up at 4 a.m. to the loudest thunder I think I've ever heard. and then all I can, I'm looking at my back window and I just see limbs falling and then thunder and then lightning and I was like, this is it. We had our couch over in the corner and I'm just. Yeah, who doesn't piss else off, right? Yeah, and I'm just shaking. I've never been, I've legitimately, I'm not trying to joke.

Like, I've been through hurricanes. What I text you said, this is so scary. I said, no, that is scary. It's terrifying. Before the power went out, I was watching the news. Shocker. No, no. And they was warning about exploding trees.

Yeah, that was up north. I don't think, well, I got one branch that I do think explode. There's something about, hey, it gets below freezing with ice, okay? Yeah. The tree actually shrinks from the bark, you know, from the bark in, it's shranked, and it just blows up. Are you around a bunch of pine trees? I used to be. Oh, yeah.

Did you? Were you around to lunch for Patsy? He's got one. I was looking at it today when I left. He's got one and he's got about two little limbs at the top. Oh, I got a stuff that broke off. I got a 75-foot stump at my house now.

I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. Yeah, it looks way more like a telephone. That's about what feels, God. He's got two little limbs. I've just never experienced that much noise. And it was dark. I'd been without power about. Does it make noise?

Yeah. Because they always asked that, hey, if there's anybody there not to listen, Does a tree make noise when it falls? If it's got ice all over it, it makes way more. It makes a bunch of record. I'm telling you, that is the scared of weather I've ever been in my entire life. Because I was like, trees about to come on top of me, gang. Hey, and let me tell you something.

Y'all know these ads we read in here? One of your generator companies need somebody? Holl at you boys. That's right. Because I need one. Holl at you boy. Yeah. Holl at you boys.

So the scariest that I have been is when my mom called. all men said, we're, you know, our generators out of gas. It's fixed them to be out. I need you. So I had gas, but I couldn't get it to her. She only lives three miles from me. It took me two hours to get there, and the roads were ice. I mean, there's nobody on the road, nobody, except me on a four-wheeler with a box full of

of firewood and gas. You weren't on a regulation four-wheeler? Yeah. Oh, you was cold. And a saw. You were cold. Oh, yeah. The windmill was a little colder on him.

After it all hit. After it hit, Sunday it was ice and you couldn't drive on the road. Oh, you couldn't get nowhere. Yeah. So there was trees down everywhere. I was cutting my way to our house. Yeah. I was just like.

And praying, Lord, help me, you know, because there's limbs falling all around me. My dad lives a half a mile from me. Yeah. By road. It took him three hours on a tractor to get to pushing stuff out of the way just to make a path to get to my house, which cleared up a lot of the neighborhood. Shout out Big Dave. But, yeah.

It was the, and that was on, I don't even know what day it is. Yeah. Now that's how I guess. Okay. It was the weirdest, wildest. Yeah, it kind of caught in like a weird funk. Like, we got power back after five days at my house or going into the city. I don't know.

I lost count in there. I don't even remember what day of the week it was. But I remember thinking, like, when I got the text from my neighbor that said we got power, because we all bailed and went to my mom's house because she's got, it's not quite a whole home generator, but it's easy. Like you plug, she had her house wired for a transfer switch. So you plug a big dummy cord from the generator into an outlet on the outside of the house.

You turn off everything and you turn on the generator breaker. So it feeds the house pretty much, the whole house. But so that's where when it started coming down, I said, we're out of here. Like, we'd have, we've never lost it in our neighborhood. But I just saw that stuff and I was like, babe, we got to. go. We got to go while we can go. Let's.

And let's go. Willie and Big David haven't lost it since Willie built his house. Yeah. Because it's right there. It comes from behind. It's underground. And they've lived there for 10 years. Had lost power.

They were, they went out. Because that's where I was headed. And then Dad was like, oh, we're out of power. They said, well, those stinks. Yeah. Willie said he'd never been so cold in his entire life.

But the problem with that was what got us in there was then the lines fell. And the one connected my mom's to the main was like windshield level with your truck. So you couldn't go in a vehicle out of there. So that's why I thank God I had that Kawasaki. But when we got that text that the neighbor said we got power, I said, okay, I'm getting rid of that line. I don't know how, but I'm getting my truck out of here. You're brave. Now the line is hanging down. It's caught up in some tree limbs. Like it's completely, it's flat on one end and it's still hanging in some tree limbs in front of my mom's out. Wait a minute. And I just, you did you go up and touch it no i wasn't dare going to touch it what did you do i i took a saw

to the limbs and just prayed and uh the first time that it it kind of fell a little bit because it's on three of them so i cut the first limb and it dropped a little bit and i didn't see no sparks or didn't hear nothing i said oh we good now so then i really got brave and cut the rest of them down you're brave and got it on the ground and then drove my truck over it and was like okay here we go let's go we're getting out of here we're we are going to my house then he texts me he's like hey man i got power if you need a shower at that point i was about 20 minutes from my house because i had abandoned ship yeah i was out i was going to friend's house with power yeah i'm gonna sleep in a guest bed somewhere tonight that first hot shower back in my house was that's a good feeling

bingo man it was such a good feeling like it was like oh my well we never lost hot water because we got gas so we had hot water so we had hot water water. Yeah. We had TV, the internet. We had our freezer and refrigerator and the fireplace is below her. Yeah. So,

but that was, well, I was just up all night filling up the gas, checking. Well, that was same thing. Well, I was there,

I was every, I started because I didn't know how big the tank on her generator was. And I would start every two hours, I would just get up and put gas in the generator and put logs on the fireplace. Because the generator wasn't quite enough to run her big heating unit. So, uh, to run it full of space.

speed, it would run half of it. So that was a, but with that, she's got one of them old school buck stove insert. Oh, yeah. Is that what you got? No. No, but it's kind of like that. Yeah. But it's got a fan on it.

So when it kicks on, I looked up one time a thermostat at 80. I said, oh, praise God. Yeah, that was not. I was in there sweating thinking, yes, thank you. I ain't seen 80. Does it first two nights were so cold before we got all that stuff figured out. I was like, oh, my goodness gracious. I mean, I built a roaring fire in there.

I had a roaring fire, got the house up to a nice 46. Yeah, you got to get a open fireplace. It don't do much. I don't know about this. There was some birds happy on my roof, I guess. I don't know about this endorsement, but they're whatever she gets. And I don't know if they still make it, but it's called buck stove. My parents had one growing up.

Yeah. Yeah. When it reaches a certain temperature, it turns a fan on and blows that hot air out into the house. Yep, that's what I said. It kept her whole house more. We were able to turn her heat off and then we ran the rest of the house. like ran washer, dryer, everything. All right, look, it's a new year.

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Your results will depend on your unique credit profile, but I think you'll be excited to see how many points smart credit estimates that you can gain. Results not guaranteed cancel anytime that's smartcredit.com slash... Darkcredit. Smartcredit.com. So I called it to get where you and Christine were before y'all came over. Co.

Co. Real? No. I didn't look at no temperature. I lost, I had to turn my water off because it was like my attic was 31 degrees at some point and all the pipes up there, I said, we're out. So then it was, then it got colder

because we didn't have no water. Well, last summer for some reason, oh, I know why, because I was tired of paying them stupid electric bills in the summer for my air conditioner. I had them re-blow the insulation in the top of my house. I was like, no, y'all come back and do that again, whatever that was. So our house only got, there was nobody in it, but it never got below 54 degrees, even in all that stuff.

So it was like, hey, all I got to say is we raise Sadie Robertson Wright. Sadie Robert. She texted my wife and said, hey, we have a generator. It's running the house. So if y'all need a shower or anything, y'all come over and we're like, ah, we don't want to intrude, you know. And then they changed the day back to three more days. I said, we're headed over, Sadie. Yeah, we'll see you in a minute.

I took a shower, one of her kids' showers. I was like, this is the best. It's amazing out of all of them. Sadie's the only one that said, I need a generator. I've been saying she's the smartest one all of it. Hey, but she, for real, she had everybody in the neighborhood. Everybody related to her. Yeah.

I was like, y'all come on, warm up, get you a cup of coffee. Oh, yeah. Once we got power back, I was like, come on. Anybody that wants it get it. And then I started duck hunting. So I was like, look, the house is going to be empty from like 11, because I was hunting in the middle of the day. forget that early cold stuff i don't have enough of that i was just hunting midday i was like

look house will be empty from like 11 to 5 go it is your house go do whatever you so desire in that house and just know that i'll be back about 5 or 6 o'clock and this was a great time to for people to be servants and to offer hospitality without grumbling like first period of 4 says because i've struggled with that i've offered hospitality i've even told zy in the past i can offer hospitality. I'm great at it. But then I get to grumbling because something goes the wrong way. But not this time. I did really good. I helped everybody I could. And without, without grumbling, but look, it's just right there, you know, you're ready to grumble about something. Yeah, I just looked at it like, and I got fuel for everybody multiple times. Once stuff opened,

I was delivering sausage biscuits to people. I didn't care. Whatever. You know, it's just money, man. At this point, it's like, that's true. Like, I'll, I'll recoup it somewhere else down the road, but I'm about trying to be a good freaking human. And you know the smile on somebody's face from just a warm sauce of the biscuit that they didn't have to cook is like. Warm food went a long way in this. It did, man.

And so just like little acts of kindness doing stuff like that. I was at the gas pumps taking pictures with people like, you know, because I mean, then I guess word got it. Well, of course, social media was still the thing. So I guess everybody saw me driving around town. So when they'd see it, they'd flagged me down. Somehow our neighborhood lost cell service too. Oh, it took out a tower.

I mean, remember, I, you were texting me. I could barely text you. And then one of my neighbors said, well, we got the generator running the Wi-Fi. I said, well, that still works if you can get it turned on. He said, yeah, I said, and it hit me that Allison's car has a little 110 plug in it. So I had a 100 foot of extension cords. By then we had a TV. We had Wi-Fi.

and we could communicate. It was great. That's all it could run, but it was running that. Yeah, I had to run mom's TV from the hot spot of my phone. Xfinity went down and all that. My mom's still doing that.

Yeah. Our TV would work, the Wi-Fi would work, and then it'd go out and it'd sit there and just spinning. Si would say, Spending, spending. Spending.

Stop, but I got a question for Cy, because I feel, I know I'm soft, but, like, we all panicking because we don't have Wi-Fi and coffee at the touch of a button. What would have happened back in your childhood had this happened? Nothing.

They'd have killed everything inside. We'd break out, we'd break out the hickonuts, cheese. But you'd have went hunting. And fresh fruit. And like Marta says, and like, you know, it didn't make any difference what the weather was. Yeah.

It crossed your hands. Thanksgiving day. Hey, we're going duck hunting. Yeah. Yeah, it was. which it was a good time to be a duck hunter if you could get there. There's a lot of ducks that come down here on that. So I want to know the best thing that happened.

Tell me the best story that happened during this ice storm. I like the story about Martin falling down. Oh, yeah, that was not a good thing. I mean, looking back on it, it was hilarious, and I'm convinced that cold concrete is harder than regular concrete. Tell us how what happened. So you ain't been to my house, I don't think. But Phyllipas, Gianni Diaz, so my driveway is steep.

Big hit. Like it's pretty much straight up. Like to back a trailer up it, you got to have a tire in the grass side of it to get up the deal. So it's pretty steep. So at 4 o'clock, we finally got power back. I finally had to beg bar and steal to get my mom to leave her house to get away from the noise of that generator and putting a log on the fire every two hours to just come have a night, right? Like just come spend the night, take a hot shower, do all the things.

Stay with your grandkids, like, you know. But I get it. she didn't want to leave her stuff. Like, it's, that's mine. I won't make sure everything's fine. Because my aunt wasn't so fortunate. My aunt had a waterline bust and completely flooded their house. Oh, yeah.

I mean, I'm sure by the time insurance gets done with it, they're going to probably tear down the house and start over if I had to guess. Because they were staying outside in a camper beside their house because it had generator and power, heat, everything. So, so mom hears that story. So she's paranoid as she should be, right? Like, I mean, you hear that kind of stuff when it hits that. post on but she finally came so I said what I'll do before I go duck hunting as I'll go fill up your

generator that way you can keep sleeping and you don't have to worry about it like it'll still be running by the time you wake up and get back to your house no problem well so I woke up early earlier than normal to go duck hunting to go so I had plenty of time to do that well walking down my driveway I'm still about half asleep and the night light that I got right there is just right you know like on the you know neighborhood lights or whatever I got night light in front of my house for one of them. It was right in my eyes, so I'm kind of like half asleep, got my eyes closed. Well, apparently that snow and ice and crap had been melting and seeping out from under

one of the seams in my driveway, one of the seams in the concrete. Yep. And I'm walking down and I never see it. And, you know, it was 22 degrees or whatever it was, 20 degrees. So that was no longer water. Yeah. It was ice. Yeah.

And both of my feet left out from, I didn't even have a chance to stumble. Like both. It was just one end. Gone. Boom. I was there and I was gone. And I landed, and I did. I throw on Brittany this and it was crazy because I have fallen a lot.

I'm a professional follower. I'm pretty clumsy in the grand scheme of things. So the only thing I could think about was don't put your arm down because I did that one time and broke my wrist. Yeah. So trying to catch. So I just tuck my arms in real tight as I'm falling and I landed right on my right hip. Well, I land on the ice.

I slid the rest of the way down my driveway out of control until I ended up with my legs under my truck in the cul-de-sac. Did anybody see it? I asked the neighbors if they got it on their camera and they never sent it back to it. I said, if that thing catches the corner of my driveway, buddy, you need to watch it about 4.20 a.m. Because there's pretty good thing that happens about then. And he takes me back. He said, oh, no, did you eat it? I said, buddy, did I eat it?

Like I ain't falling. So I'm just laying there under my truck, half under my truck. And I'm like, what just happened? I mean, I felt like I got hit with a baseball bat. Just somebody come up and hit me. But I look back and then when I look back this way with the nightlight behind me, I can see the shine of the ice. Yeah.

Like it was very obvious what had just happened. Yeah. Dang. And but that, you know, that driveway was not slick, was not ice free. Buddy was it. Oh, man. Ain't nothing ice free yet. No.

I don't trust any. I mean, Brittany, it's been half a day shoveling that thing, getting ready for power, you know, hoping that power would come back. Oh, because somebody said something about that. I thought I'd never see it. And I said, what's that? He said, somebody that was a snow shoveling slover and I was trying to get ice off of a driveway. Yeah.

In Westman Road. Which our neighbor. My neighbor that just moved, we just got a new neighbor not long ago, Mr. Clint. He moved down here from Colorado. So he let me in on the juice of that. I know next time not to leave. He said, as soon as it stops, you get out there with your shovel. He said the minute it stops, get out there with your shovel, he said, it'll all come right up.

Because his driveway was free and clear. I said, how'd you do that? He said, the moment it stopped, I got out there with a shovel. And so he said, if you let it stick, it's going to stick. And then you're going to fight what you all. Get it up. Yeah. He said, you're going to fight what y'all did all day to day out there doing that.

I said, yeah, I should have seen his picture of a guy standing there with a propane bottle with a flame throw on a torch. I saw that, yeah. You know, I need, melt in his driveway. Yeah. Boy,

I could have used that. If I'd have had that that morning, I'd have blown up my whole driveway. After a week of no electricity and kind of being cooped up, we were able to get out a little bit. Alicia grabbed me and she pulled me the side. She said, I need some normalcy.

Take me to Academy. I took her to Academy. She was shopping and buying some shoes or whatever. And we got a phone call. Hey, the electricity's back on. And that was like the happiest little moment for me. I was like, sweet. Thank you, Lord.

I wish Carter was more afraid of things. He can't want to go look at the wind. Oh, look, Dad, limbs fall. And I said, get away from the window. Yeah. He was fired up about it. I was like, I'm scared to death. Yeah, the boys were just, they could make it outside in that crap for about 15 minutes.

And then they're like, let's go inside. It's too cold. I felt that. Our kids are, I mean, our yard's just a disaster, and there's still limbs to this moment hanging up there that you can tell. They're coming down one day, so it's like, hey, y'all know the snow days y'all have heard about? Yeah. Today ain't it.

Yeah, I put. We're just hanging out inside. There's a big pasture right by mom's house, so I put the rig in two-wheel driving. We may or may not have went and cut some donuts. Well, you got to. We may or may not have done some breadneck stuff, you know. Well, I loved watching side watch. movies you know and and and he saw the whole book of David what's it called on

Amazon Prime yeah David yeah so anyway and we're cartoon no no the oh the real one the real one the cartoon just came and so when a Goliath was out there yelling you know and talking about Smith I was sick of it he was like that's it somebody needs to shut him up and here comes David and I mean it was like he was calling a ringside fight side his commentary it's good one I wish I I had a camera. I was good. I was,

I was tired of hearing Goliath, the Philstein, yeah, running his mouth. Yeah. Well, had you read the book?

I said, Dave, you need to hit that donkey a couple of times and make him speed up before you get over here and kill this sucker. Yeah.

I'm tired of him running his mouth. A wop. That was good. Well, that was a good show. They did a good job on that show. It was good. No,

but I don't know the best thing. I don't, I mean. When the power came back on it? Yeah, I mean, that was a good one. That was probably the best feel.

When Allison, Allison went home, it was, you know, probably 40 in the house at that point. And our house was, I mean, we'd all been living in the living room,

nothing working. So our house was a disaster. Yeah, and that first morning, duck hunting back once we got power was pretty good. Because I wasn't going to leave. I knew we had ducks. I got trail cameras out watching them.

And I knew they were everywhere. But I'm not, I just wasn't going to bail on my family with no power, no, you know, none of that stuff. Like in not a for sure way, but I knew as soon as we got power back at either my house or my mom, I was going.

He was gone. And so that happened and I was able to just sit there and enjoy the sunrise. I was like, okay, this is all right here. Yeah, because there's a lot to be thankful for. I mean, it was terrible. It was an inconvenience. But for us, yeah, and there's a lot of.

None of our stuff got damaged. Like, my house is fine. Do I have a mess? Absolutely. Does mom have a mess? Absolutely. But nothing was on a roof, nothing flooded. nothing broke like well and there's there's some hurt people there's legitimately been a lot of injuries in our town there's yeah two linemen i think got electrocuted yeah there was a little kid named wesson if you're listening to this throw a prayer up for him he's doing better there's a young man uh cleaning up his yard who who touches duck commander because his mom is the uh one of the camp caretakers pretty much camp chioca caretaker limb fell on him broke his back he had to have emergency surgery not i haven't been looking at

him for an update. The two year old, I was driving home and all of a sudden here, you know those not a fire truck, but they weren't for the fire department. The F-2-50s come flying. And they're, they got an ambulance in between them. I was like, oh, no, what could that be? And unfortunately, they were cleaning up their yard and the down wire that'd been dead for two or three days was back. And that little two-year-old got too close to it. But we're praying for a full recovery, but I mean, there's a lot of, there's been a lot of scary, scary situations because like, we're not, our energy people aren't prepared, our lines aren't prepared, our trees aren't prepared, and we ain't prepared for this.

No matter how prepared we are. Yeah, that's right. And I was one of the few in my little group that thought this was going to be pretty bad. Like most time we get this. You had convinced me. Yeah, most time we get these forecasts and it's like, ah, man, you know, whatever, it's not going to be that bad. Like, you know, because that crap kind of dodges. A lot of people.

thought that but I'll say this I follow a lot of online people and there's a couple of them that they're really good at the meteorology game and as Ryan Hall is if you need to know about weather that that that that fellow right there our local guy that's Jared Floyd yeah and he was up all night updating us digital weather desk that's his deal he kept telling you what you needed to do I was he'd be like I'll be back at one I was like let me I'm gonna come back at one. But that Ryan Hall guy... Got to juice up something and watch it again.

That Ryan Hall guy called it earlier than anybody for our area of major damage. But what's crazy is you go, you know, 20 miles away. You ain't even got to get 20. And they're like, they came in the store that they're like, man, y'all got nailed. And I was like, yeah. We got nailed. And they're like, no, but everybody lives right around us is like shell shock still. Yeah.

I mean, they're going to be some PTSD from this one. Oh, yeah. And one thing that really helped me, and Si, I don't even know this, but, you know, with all this going on, you start feeling sorry for yourself a little bit because you're having to do some things and, you know, everything's uncomfortable. And Cy was like telling me a story about his mom. And she told him when things get bad, you really need to stop and think about all your blessings, you know, which really helped me through it, Cy. Yeah. Well, that's what I was saying. I mean, I just looked around and I was like, yeah, even just on my mom's road, like, our, again, major mess, lying down, whatever. But towards the end of the road, a live oak split in half and ended up on the people's houses. A pine tree fell on another guy's truck. Yeah, I saw a lot of that. Like our temporary inconvenience, theirs is going to be a lot longer. It's not going to be permanent, but it will also, it's a longer temporary. So like in the In the grand scheme of things, we were fine. It just, man, you, there's, but it's human nature, right? There was so much then that's out of your control.

You just kind of feel like you're spinning. Did y'all walk outside Sunday morning? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was 26 degrees and just pouring rain. Yeah, yeah. It was crazy. It was just like, we're all sitting here.

Our minds are blown. Yeah. So it was hard for me not to be like, This is the worst day of my freaking, this is misery. But then I'm sitting there, I'm like, you know, the closest branch to my, my fence is in trouble. But, you know, my house, my porch, there's a branch about six inches from it. House is good.

Kids are good. What more could you ask for? Yeah. We'll get, I got a shovel and my dad's about to buy another chainsaw, so we're going to have three. Yeah, my mom's neighbor. I don't care if I ever see a chainsaw again. I'm done.

I'm about to have to use one for the next probably. I bet it'll take us a month, if not longer, to clean all that junk up. So it is, it is a extreme blessing looking back. Oh, yeah. I mean, there's guys in the store back in 94. I was like, when I'm your age, I'm going back in 26. My butt hole was so tight that night. Listen to the lightning and branches falling.

It felt like newborn stage for me again because, like, it was the every two to three hours deal of building the fire, putting gas in the generator. I was doing. That's what I was doing. And for that for like, I don't know, three or four days, I was like, at the end of it, I was back to that zombie stage. I'm zombed now. I'm so tired.

It's just, I've gotten a good night's sleep the last two or three nights and I feel worse when I wake up from these nights sleep just because my body's readjusting to that. And then now it's like, oh, but I need more to make up for whatever happened. My sleep deal on the garment was hilarious. like because it was like great total sleep completely interrupted like you did not get like where it says like recharge level it was like two i never even got great total oh no no one day i woke up in the garmin said you got less sleep than normal you might notice you're more tired and irritable today than on normal days i was like yeah no crap man like scientists yeah appreciate you i am more tired and irritable as my one hour naps in this recline

wasn't enough to tell me that, right? Well, hey, I saw something coming when Si ran out of tea, which, you know, you don't want you saw it run out of tea. So Alicia, she was like, my sweet wife, she was like, oh, I'll fix him some tea, I'll take care of it. And I'll just turn my head. I was like, you're not going to be able to, no.

I had about a half a glass about just much left in here. I was like that. I was like an idiot. When Alicia fixed it, I said, well, let me top it all. And I put it in, you know, fill it up with ice and lemon, crystal, all that, and taste it and said, so good. I rushed his tea. I said, this crap that the Lisa cooked.

I said, I appreciate it, darling, but I said, that crap ain't worth drinking. Yeah. Look, I had to make a trip in the ice. Oh, yeah. Go get his y'all's sweet tea. He was like, yeah, go get it. See, hey, we've been without power for five days. Yeah.

I'm amazed you made it that long. You know, this is, the tea's been out in open. Well, hey, that's the best thing about y'all's tea. The rest of it, I don't care, if Lifting, whatever, who it is. That's what she made. Right, right. By two days, you leave it out, it's going to be sour. You're supposed to drink it, by the way.

So, hey, y'all's tea, hey, it lasts, oh, what, seven days, because I drank the last little bit of mine, you know, put it, and then ruin it with that tea that Alicia took it. Sorry, baby. But she did, she did order some on Lice. She's like, I'm ordering some at y'all's there. And Phillips said, well, I don't even know where to get it. And I said, hey, Amazon.

Yeah, we got it. You can get advertising. It's on the way. Y'all sweettee.com slash duck. That makes it work. But it's just got a, hey, it's got a good flavor. Darian, come on back, man. Go see us.

Yeah, Darian, come on back. Hollar at us again. That was funny. Yeah, but I'm glad it's over for the most part, kind of behind us. I was mixed to say, when y'all asked about what was the best thing that happened. I'm curious. The best thing what happens is it always amazes me

when stuff like this happens and then you see the height that the human being can reach. Yeah, when everybody all of a sudden ends up on the same playing field, it's a pretty cool deal. Well, it's what God, I know God smiled

during this ice storm for one reason because he's seeing his children turn and actually love each other and help each other out in a bind that's right we had a lady in my neighborhood i never needed it so i i didn't participate but she she was literally putting on our neighborhood facebook page i'm coming home hot meals let me know how many you need yeah they'll be at my house just come pick them up well i've seen so many people when philip was driving around we was doing

stuff that we need to do that was stopping and telling the line went out there freezing their butt off. Hey dude. Thank you. Thank you for your freezing your butt off out here at night. Yeah. Okay, by a stupid flashlight trying to get us powered back on. That one dude. We appreciate it and hey, you're loved and really thought about. So we were pulling onto a road and side said, stop and roll the window down. I said, what are you doing? I want to talk to these linemen. He said, hey, I appreciate what y'all are doing. You know, he started telling thank you and stuff. and they waved and we were driving off and they said, was that,

they're telling, I was talking to each other, was that uncle, sir? You know? Get that power back on. I'm up the road. Yeah.

I'm just right here. Yeah, it was, no, it is cool, man. It's, it's cool to watch everybody.

It was, Hunter even offered me to come to his house, take a show. Well, it's a good, just something good to know. I was going to. Hey,

you know, all the bad things you see on the news and always hearing it, you know, people killing this to all this job. There's still a lot of good people out there. that care i found out one concerning fact during the whole thing as i pulled into my neighborhood because i just go and check on the house and i clay met me there my buddy clay because he brought 15 gallons of gas uh for us because he was like i'm coming back through do you need anything i said

man if you want bring me some gas and save me a trip i'll show i'll show take it so he met me there and while we were sitting there talking a uh a game warden pulled up and i was like oh boy So he got out and we're just tall. He had his wife and kids in his truck and everything. They were just going around and doing kind of welfare checks on people or whatever. And I say, yeah, man, I just hear check on my trees. And he's like, yeah, man, I was stunned to see they made it. And I was like, oh, this punk knows where I live.

Like, I'm out now. It is. They're watching you, Mark. Yeah. They come find out. Well, he lives in the neighborhood too. I keep to my own over here on this side. I don't really.

Yeah. I'm like that. I'm not one to just. kind of gallivant through the neighborhood and meet everybody. But he lives there. And so he got me again. He scared me to death the night. I come back from duck hunting.

And I had my ducks, Brittany's ducks, and the other person's ducks. I had them tag and everything. But I stopped to get fuel for mom and the generator. And I hear him come up behind me. And I know his voice at this point now. Are you friends with the game warden now? Well, apparently. We're close.

They're getting there. I like him. I mean, he's fine, but then I thought to myself while I'm doing this, crap, I have got 12 miles. I've got 12 ducks in my truck. And I do not know where the tags are. Now, we do tags because we hunt in Arkansas and we bring them, we were hunting in Arkansas and bring them back home.

So when I transport them across state lines, bet you're bottom dollar, even mine are tagged. Yeah, they're tags. Because I don't even want to know, but I was just like, oh my goodness, where did I put those tags? as I'm bent over filling up gas cans, not even looking. I know it's him, and I'm like, well, he just sees the ducks. And now I'm about to get one of them technicality tickets.

I always thought that I always said I'd never get because it's a technicality. And then I look back, I look this way to look at him. I'm like, I'm in my mom's truck. We're good. So I didn't, you know, because I'm just bent over. I'm not even paying attention. I think that I'm in my truck and like those ducks are back there. And I'm just like, oh, man, how am I going to explain this one?

And I got to find these tags and everything else. But then I was like, oh, thank God. I don't even have to worry about it. Look at God, man. Look at God. But, yeah, so he, yeah, we said he said he busted some boys earlier that day that it was four of them. It had killed 74 ducks. Dang.

And I said, did they say why? And he said the same reason everybody says, it's been a tough year. And we finally got them. So we just, we couldn't stop. Couldn't stop. Four was 74. 74. That's over the limit.

I said, you know what I said. Oh, they didn't do bad. That's about 50 over. You know what I said? You know what I said? Well, what kind were they? Where are they? He said, heavy on the pintails.

I said, oh, heavy on the pentails. Not only are they over the limit. They over the limit. Yeah, wrong species. Yeah, okay. It's bad enough to be over. But when you start doubling over the limit ticket, that's a problem. You, you, them boys ain't going.

they won't have to worry about duck hunting next year nope they're out yeah they may be on a little five year hiatus they could have lost their guns their pickups the boats I didn't ask what all he took yeah I'm telling you it's a great

that turns into an expensive little adventure yeah that turns into a big whoopsie yeah there for a minute that's one of them don't do this no I just you're talking about that me and him and Scott was in on dog bowel you and Martin and your son's got.

Me and Martin and my son. We got banished. We're in the scaffold on Dogbile and we hear, well, you think it was 150. It was three guys canvas backs. Well, he called them in and we raised up, killed all three of them.

We shot them in front of us. They bounced and hit the levee down 150 yards away. That's very good. They were on a roll when I called the shot. I was like, I don't think they're coming back. let's kill them right here. And everybody killed, well, it was funny. And we killed the one in front of it.

Because they were in a line. So whoever, I killed the lead one. So I killed the middle one. And Scott killed the last one. And they skipped all the way. Buddy, they was looking at each other. I said, I said, is that, was that all of them? I said, that was only three of them.

He said, I looked at all sky. He said, there was only three. Yeah, I kept looking for more ducks after hearing all that. He was saying there had to be more. Yeah. It was wild. I said, nope. We only had,

I killed a big bull canvas back in this little. Oh, I did down in Honey Break. This little, this little nonsense. Big, beautiful. And then boys told me, hey,

you can't kill a little bit of 28 gays. It's out there about 60. About 60. About six. One of these days, they're going to listen to us. One of these days, they're going to get tired of getting their brains beat in by the 12 gauges.

The morning started off as they was talking about, you know, somebody who's stone handing me in my gun. I said, what's this? He said, this is a new gun. he says it's yours i said really he told you and then uh jordan told me he said we're doing

the thing on 28 gates yeah he said oh okay so i was sitting there and first duck to come by was a jack he was rolling hey jack and i raised up you just back yeah he got out there about eight well i watched you kill that pin tail that bull sprig with it oh yeah with mine well no no because i i i i i shot it 10 green wing till. Singles. They just come by and that, boom, when I was talking about, I'd look at that gun,

I thought, what's wrong with you? I'm, sure, well, Martin was back here laughing, and they wasn't going to say that because he, that was the only choke

you had, you know, a full choke. I'm shooting a full choke when I'm normally shooting an open board. You're an open bore kind of fell on.

No, I was wondering because then I, then the pent table would come flying by. He's out there about 65, maybe he's up to 80. You just, fold him.

you know what I'm saying? Why am I killing this pen tail? I wasn't going to say that because I didn't have nothing to fix the problem with me. I said everything's coming by. I said, I'm killing it all except the teal. And I said, that's where I usually shine the best. It's on teal. And I said, I shot at 10 and ain't cut a feather.

So we got back, Mark, I started talking about it. And he said, oh, he said, I know why. And I said, why? He said, that's 28. He's just mine and it's got a full choke in it. He said, you're not used to it. Yeah, it happened. He said, that's why you just killed the pintails at about 80.

Yeah, it happened. Oh, okay. Oh, well, that was fun. A little ice storm recap. Let's go clean up. Thank y'all. And look, I know there's a lot of people on social media that follow us and have reached out asking how everybody's doing, sign, everything, and offering up your prayers.

And some of even told us your kids were here working in the alignment. And I've tried to reply to all of y'all, but thank you all so much for the prayers you threw up on our behalf and in our community. I know our community appreciates it. And again, just to reiterate what I said, to the linemen, thank you all. To the DOTD people clearing the roads, thank you all. To the cops, the ambulance, the fire trucks, anybody who was on the front lines of this that may be in a department, I don't know what your letters are. Thank you.

Thank you very much. You know who you are. You are appreciated. You are very much appreciated, and we thank you, and to your family as well, thank y'all for lending them to us during that time. So they could have done anything, and they chose to come help. So thank you all, thank y'all, thank you all. What's the Almighty going to leave with us, J.D.? Well, Philip sent me what he wanted.

You wanted? You want me to take it? No, go ahead. First Peter, 4, 7 through 11. The end of all things is near, therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray, above all, love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins, offer hospitality to one another without grumbling, each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various form. If anyone speaks, they should do as one

who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ to Him be the glory and the power forever and ever amen. Amen. Amen to that one. Ever. Amen. Amen.

That's right.