How To Do Everything - Volcanoes and Roosters

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

This week from the archives: how to make s’mores with a volcano. Plus a barn animal sanctuary worker wants to know how to live harmoniously with roosters.You can email your burning questions to [e-mail]. How To Do Everything is available without sponsor messages for supporters of Wait Wait…Don't Tell Me+, who also get bonus episodes of Wait Wait Don't…Tell Me! featuring show outtakes, extended guest interviews, and a chance to play an exclusive WW+ quiz game with Peter! Sign up and support NPR at plus.npr.org. How To Do Everything is hosted by Mike Danforth and Ian Chillag. Technical direction from Lorna White.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Wildcard is where big name interviews feel like conversations with a friend. I mean, I can't believe how lucky I've been. You didn't say goodbye the right way, McConaughey. She told me, I don't think you're Princeton material. I'm nothing if not open, I guess. I'm Rachel Martin. Watch or listen to Wildcard on the NPR app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, it's Ian and Mike.

We're here to tell you, as we always do, that this is an archive. show. But that shouldn't diminish your enthusiasm for it. I'm super excited about it, Ian. I feel the same as I always do. Usually when we play these episodes, we remove the old ads from the episode, but we decided to leave them in this time. So keep in mind the promo codes from nine years ago may no longer be active. And know for sure that we're not collecting any advertising revenue. Now, when you are on the volcano, you actually sometimes forget that you are in such an amazing place. You might be sitting in your tent.

You might be surrounded with the toxic gases. It might be just, you know, pouring with rain, with the acid rain. The voice you're hearing is Bradley Ambrose. He is a photographer, and he spends a lot of time camping out by active scary volcanoes. And it's just nice for your mind to wander and just find something exciting to do when you are, you know, back out there in the fine weather. A bit of chocolate, a bit of marshmallow. So recently, Bradley was going to repel and camp by a violent lake of lava in Benbo Crater in Venuatu. And that lake of lava, keeping track, is more than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

So Bradley decided he could use that heat to make s'mores. We should say there are easier ways to make s'mores. A microwave. The marshmallow might have been a little bit too large. I don't think it's too bad for my first smores. So, Bradley, I have to ask, I think one of the worst human experiences is when you have a chocolate bar and you put it in your pocket and then you take it out and it's all melted. This lake of lava is even hotter than the human body. How did you keep the chocolate from melting?

I don't think there is a way that you can keep it from melting. When I opened up the packet, it was misshapen. The heat had actually got to it. But I was able to just, you know, it was still relatively flat, so I was able to just shove it inside the cracker and throw the marshmallow on top. It's probably worth pointing out we got in touch with Bradley because we wanted to talk about how to make s'mores by a volcano. But from this point on, the interview stops being about s'mores. So, Bradley, I have to ask you this. you spend a lot of time close to the lava,

deep in this volcano. Have you ever peed into it? Okay. The lava lake that I've been the closest to, Benbow and Murram are side by side in Ambram. And I've been down to the lava lake in Murham 21 times, which is pretty much the unofficial world's record. And there may have been an attempt, but there's a lot of tornadic winds that come out of there

with the cooler air that comes down and the super-heated gases and the wind that comes out. There's a lot of splashback. But I have, you know, I did do the first nudie run down in the Marum crater, but inside Benbow there was too many people to do that and you know I don't want to ruin their trip yeah yeah sure and of course those photos will never ever come to light it's that deeply locked away in my vault I guess that's true you've roasted marshmallows you don't want to roast any weenies yes well the photos do show me running up and I am actually holding on to myself and the main reason is because of the heat and then I did the

obligatory hands up in the year yelling woohoo and that only lasted a few seconds before I had to protect myself you know the heat of the lava lake itself is about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit but the radiant heat is a is a lot less but still enough to cook a few nuts Hey, Charlie, what can we help you with? Well, so I work at a farm animal sanctuary from time to time, and it's just changing food for birds and changing water and occasionally giving a goat a cracker, and it's all very lovely. I'm sorry, you said giving a goat a cracker?

Yeah. Okay. So the problem is with the roosters. Sometimes they're really aggressive with me, and I would just like to know how I can lead a more harmonious life with the roosters. First of all, I want to say this sounds like such a fun thing to do until, I guess, it's rooster time. Yeah, they can be pretty surprisingly scary for how small they are. And if you get kicked, it's pretty painful.

They kick you? Yeah, yeah. They run up to you. They give a little flutter to get a bit in the air, and they'll kick you right in the like they jump kick you yeah yeah describe um what it's like to be attacked by a rooster

um so they'll usually build up to it a little bit they have uh they'll sort of peck at the ground and scratch a bit in a way that is slightly different from the way that they normally do that they give you a bit of a stink eye and walk up to you and then run up to you um not much vocalization

it's a pretty silent attack How many roosters are there? There are three at the sanctuary now. One of them is a little nicer, and then two of them are just real jerks. Yeah. What are the names of the jerks? That would be Henry and Robbie. Robbie?

Yeah. All right. All right, Charlie, we're going to look into this for you. Well, thanks very much. Full disclosure, I think, before we help out, Charlie, I should tell you that Mike has a gecko at home, also named Robbie, so he may be biased

towards the angry rooster. Robbie's a great gecko. I feel like we should say that. On the line with us now is our animal expert, Kevin Fitzgerald. He's a vet in Colorado, and also we should say a former roadie

for the Rolling Stones. So, Kevin, you heard Charlie, what do you think? Well, male roosters are terrifically terrifically territory. territorial, okay, and protective of their own females and their little turf. A lot of this, you know, chicken behavior is really showy stuff, and there's not a lot of substance to it. So it's kind of like closing time at the bar when everybody, you know, you know, it just stands up

and shows off their belt buckle, you know. So there's not, there's not a lot to it, you know. And so what's happening is our friend Charlie's experienced kind of a, turf war, where these roosters are seeing him as a rival or a threat. And I think spending some time with them outside of, you know, taking them to a neutral place, not his own little pen, and feeding him. You know, oftentimes, you know, with feeding, they'll warm up. But a lot of times with just the territorial things, I mean, these guys are hammerheads.

I mean, you know, they're roosters, and they're only for one. one thing, and that's for breeding. And so they are really jazzed up hormonally, and, you know, they're always at the top of their game, you know? The other thing you could do is he could eat them. Well, that would show them his boss, I guess. That was a joke. That is a bad joke.

Well, he ate one of them, that would convince the other one not to mess with him. Maybe he would make an example of the one guy. And no, there's not a real easy answer with these guys Because over, you know, thousands of years I've learned they can get what they want by all this, you know, bravado, you know So a lot of it is just show, but man, it is quite a showy display And if you've not been around it, it's scary What I find strange is, do you think there's something about Charlie?

I can't imagine that a rooster sees him and thinks, you know what, he's competition for these hens, for the affection of these hens. No, Charlie's a good guy. He's not anything about Charlie's. You know, they go, geez, I just don't like this guy. What is it? You know, maybe he has thin, cruel lips or a gummy smile, is how you're thinking? Well, I don't know.

Maybe there's something about him that's rooster-like, where they're like, we have to, you know, we have to worry about this guy. Well, maybe does he have a mullet? Oh, we didn't. mask. No. I'm sure Charlie is... He's an animal, though. He's trying to help at the, you know.

But I think, you know, the other thing is he has to realize that a lot of it's just this showy display, and if he stands his ground, they're not going to do much, you know? And so, and he can back them off. Would it be possible for Charlie to get some kind

of, like, a chicken pheromone to cover himself in? And they kind of take advantage of the randiness of the roosters? To disguise himself as a hen, you mean? Yeah. Well, you know, depends what Charlie's into.

I think disguising yourself as a hand and then coming in, he might get more than he bargained for. Kevin, thank you so much. All right. Keep the faith. I'll talk to you. Take care. Bye-bye. This message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees.

Join millions of customers and visit Wise.com. T's and C's Apply. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Dignity Memorial. When you think about the people you love, it's not the big things you miss the most. It's the details. What memories will your loved ones cherish when you're gone? At Dignity Memorial, the details aren't just little things, they're everything. They help families create meaningful celebrations of life with professionalism and compassion.

To find a provider near you, visit DignityMemorial.com. Keeping up with the news can feel like a 24-hour job. Luckily, it is our job. Every hour on the NPR News Now podcast, we take the latest, most important stories happening, and we package them into five-minute episodes, so you can ease it. squeeze them in between meetings and on your way to that thing, listen to the NPR News Now podcast. Now. Hey, it's Ian and Mike here in the present day.

Just once again reminding you this is an archive show with archived ads. Now is the part of the show where we tell you about our sponsors. And today, we want to tell you about stamps.com. When it feels like there aren't enough hours in the day, you can't waste time. making trips to the post office. Use Stamps.com to buy and print official U.S. postage for any letter or package right from your own computer the instant you need it.

When it feels like there aren't enough hours in the day, consider that maybe the earth has sped up and that is spinning faster than it should be. So there's something seriously wrong? Yeah, that the universe is possibly spinning out of control and our world is about to end. This is the perfect time. You really can't go to.

to the post office then. Yeah. Yeah, you should, what you should do is you should send a letter to 911. You can even get special postage discounts you can't find at the post office. Sign up for stamps.com today for a four-week trial. If, if indeed we do have four weeks left as a planet. The outside, at least. And a special offer, including postage and a digital scale.

Go to stamps.com, click on the microphone, and enter everything. We also want to thank our sponsor, Casper. They're an online retailer for mattresses. Casper mattresses are American-made and obsessively engineered for comfort. They use two technologies, latex foam and memory foam. That gives you just the right amount of sink and bounce. And they have a risk-free trial. You can try out your Casper mattress for 100 days

if indeed we have that much time left as a race of humans. We're spinning closer and closer to the sun. With free delivery and returns. It's outrageous comfort at a polite price. So go to casper.com slash everything to check out their options. And they have a special offer for listeners of this podcast. Use the promo code everything to redeem $50 towards a Casper mattress that works for you. Bearing in mind money is a man-made concept that no longer has any relevance in,

the remaining chaotic days of our society, you might as well just burn your money to keep warm. Or use it to buy a mattress while you still can. Because it's good to get a good night's sleep and have some back support. It's possible that as society collapses, we will move to a mattress-based economy. And if you have a Casper mattress, you may become king, or at least the leader of a powerful team of bandits.

King of Sink and Bounce. Terms and conditions apply. These are our final days. These are our final days. The earth is indeed, as you well know, from the violence and madness that has consumed all nations of the earth, the final days of the human race are upon us. We're talking hours here, really.

It could be 48 hours, it could be less than that. Because of the rotation of the earth, a day now is but three hours long. Three hours long. And what that means is that we're getting closer and closer to the sun. Yeah, the increasing speed of the spin of the earth. has created a gravitational anomaly, which is just sucking us closer and closer towards our molten death. Not unlike the smores we mentioned earlier in the show. Bradley's probably gone at this point.

One of the first, no doubt, but he knew it was coming. He was prepared. The mattress-based economy, at first, it seemed like a good way to continue commerce on the planet. It turns out to be an inconvenient currency. It's really fallen short. No wallet is, it turns out large enough to contain a mattress. There's no way of carrying your wealth with you, which has led to one of the more brutal and violent global conflicts.

Let's just say it. It's the most brutal and violent global conflict we've ever known. I also feel like there's a premium placed on memory foam at this point in our society, which I think is unhealthy. I would have liked that at this point we would have unified as a species and faced our final days as one turns out the memory foam faction versus the conventional spring mattress folk. I have to say it's pretty sweet though

that you can have a glass of wine on one side of the bed and lean back and really relish the comfort and that glass of wine won't move. At this point I think it's probably safe. to say that Charlie won't have to worry about Robbie and Henry. He's got bigger fish to fry. Literally. We hope, yeah, well, given that the ice caps have melted

and most of the earth is covered in water, fish are everywhere. I hope at least that maybe some of the marauding cannibals that have claimed the earth as their domain attacked with jump kicks and so Charlie at least was prepared to fend them off at least a little while

Well wherever you are we'd like to thank you for continuing to listen to podcasts Yes We couldn't do it without you And we're doing it for you

Yeah Hidden Brain I know many of you listened to, became, in the last few days, once Shanker Vedantam was taken by the others, it became a podcast that seemed mostly focused on finding hidden brains for food. A zombie treasure hunt. But as I understand, a lot of four and five-star reviews on iTunes from cannibals. The advice, while a month ago might have seemed almost repulsive to humans,

Yeah. Now does seem to be useful. Well, I think just in the time we've been talking here... It's three days, actually, gone by. Well, given that days are now just two minutes long. That's right. And the earth is consumed. It's already tomorrow.

It's already tomorrow. The time that you started that, it is now tomorrow. And now that's yesterday. I think... Tomorrow. I think in the years we've been doing this ship. So I just want to check in really quick. Are you okay?

Or are you suffering from sleep deprivation, a stack of bills, or political propaganda? If so, you may be stuck in the parent. trap. On the It's Been a Minute podcast, we're diving head first into the anxieties of modern parenting and how that trickles out to all of us, even if you don't have children. Come find some relief. Listen to the It's Been a Minute podcast on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Making time for the news is important, but when you need a break, we've got you covered on all songs considered NPR's music podcast. Think of it like a music discovery show. A well-deserved escape with friends.

And, yeah, some serious music insight. I'm gonna keep it real. I have no idea what the story is about it. Hear new episodes of all songs considered every Tuesday, wherever you get podcasts.