The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 367: Communicating with the Wives of MeatEater

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

Steven Rinella and Spencer Neuharth talk with Katie Finch, Janis Putelis, Jennifer Putelis, Brody Henderson, Carrie Henderson, Shelby Huber, Kelsey Morris, Danielle Floyd, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider. Topics discussed: Steve’s divorce rate statistics; how hunting and being away causes relationship challenges; Chester being away while Danielle  is in her third trimester; examining the term “hunting widow”; how Jani plans to be a long hunter; Kelsey and Seth’s check in system; how Spencer lives in his hot tub; how Katie and the family sneak farm-raised meats when Steve is gone; Shelby’s nest and Spencer’s love of chores; smooth on the way out and smooth on the way in; the importance of systems; being on the same page; Steve’s 5-hour appreciation window; under-promising and over-delivering; the Rinella’s backyard pumpkin patch; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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First Light. Go farther, stay longer. Tell me when the machine's on, Phil. Machine's on, Steve. You know, I just did a bunch of math in my head, but I screwed it up because I wasn't thinking about how Corinne and Phil aren't married. To each other? This room's full of married people.

That's correct, we are not. This room's full of married people. That's correct. We are not. This room's full of married people. There's 10 married people in this room. But I was counting couples, and I counted Phil and Corinne as a couple. And then realized that 4.8 of us will end up divorced. Who's it going to be? Not me. That was my friend Ronnie once said.

Wow, that's a nice way to set the tone. That was my friend Ronnie once said, I don't want to lose half my shit. You're making Danielle rub her belly. She's rubbing her belly. But you'll be glad to hear this. I just learned that. You know how everybody says half of all marriages end in divorce? That's because like a repeat offenders

so yeah the repeat offenders blow the statistic because every time you get every time you get married you have a much higher likelihood of divorce like you if you if you get married your first time you get divorced it's like you go into it being like oh now i'm gonna settle in for real no the next time it's even better chances that you'll get divorced i'm not gonna mention any names but i know that a few that have skewed those numbers but they think that they're they think they're like getting to the real one now but they're not they're getting they're stepping into hotter waters than they were in a minute ago with their last marriage so i was uh what's what's when you mean when you find out something good heartened is that a word heartened

i was heartened to learn that only 4.8 of us well no that's if you guys were married i was heartened to learn that only four of us are going to wind up divorced huh who is it but if someone said i'm going to come in here if someone said us are going to wind up divorced. Who is it? But if someone said, I'm going to come in here, if someone said, I'm going to come in this room and shoot for you, I'd be nervous as shit. That's got to differ on like demographics though. Oh, it's definitely.

Yeah. Indiana and Louisiana, lowest divorce rates. Oklahoma of all places. And Nevada, obviously highest divorce rates. Oklahoma, of all places. And Nevada, obviously, highest divorce rates. Obviously. And I would imagine that boomers are leading the charge on divorces. No, it's going down. Because younger people are getting married and not getting divorced.

We're here like Gen Z and millennials living in sin before we get married. And so we like suss out whether or not it's going to work, whereas your generation was doing less of living in sin. We're not boomers, buddy. What are you? Why? Gen X, buddy. Oh, Xers.

I'm sorry. Oh, man. I lived in a lot of sin, man. Even with my wife. I know I'm older than you, Spencer, but come on, man. How far from being a boomer are you? Quite a ways. Oh, I'm sorry then. That's not. How far from being a boomer are you? Quite a ways, I think. Oh, I'm sorry, then.

That's not nice. I don't know the age. What are you? Like the greatest generation? Yes, Gen X. Gen X, man. The greatest generation. I'm pretty sure our parents are boomers.

No, I mean like the greatest generation. I was like my old man. Greatest movie or music generation. Yeah, the guys that fought in Whiskey Whiskey 2. Yeah. Either way. Yeah, boomers are about 70-ish, I think, now. You might be sitting there asking yourself, why are all these married people talking and why did this um uh why did my

thing that tells me i got a new podcast if i'm a subscriber to the meat eater podcast why did it say like hey you got a podcast on a not normal day like right now you on mondays you get um the show on wednesdays you get the trivia show but now i don't tell day it is either way uh four out of not monday it's not four out of four out of ten marriages and in divorce two out of seven days will not have this podcast delivered it's not monday or wednesday um the reason that is is because we we have we struck a special deal with t-mobile to explain as my lovely wife who's never been on the show before i feel like me not having a my own microphone is going to get real awkward at some point when I'm pulling the microphone away from you.

Yeah, this podcast brought to you by T-Mobile. So we're doing a special one just for them. So that's why it's here now. And then the thing is, we're going to talk. Oh, you know what else I found out? Doing my three seconds of research about divorce. Guess what the highest divorce months are? January. February, yeah. Some dismal month. seconds of research about divorce guess what the highest divorce months are january february yeah january and february month why january and february after the holidays in the house together

seasons winding down the chickens come home to roost uh so we're gonna we're doing a special episode where we have a bunch of people um and people and we're talking about how not to get divorced because of how to live an outdoor lifestyle and avoid a travel-intensive outdoor lifestyle where one or both participants in a marriage engage in activity that like causes a lot of being gone a lot of things that feel extremely important that probably aren't that important and just like a lot of marital strife relationship strife marriage or not um i can tell you i can tell you totally straight face that it has that that that shit the hunting stuff has caused problems in my relationship um since day one explain that how is hunting caused a problem in our relationship just being gone and having like this thing that seems super important you know it's just like it just causes complications you don't agree that it does this is gonna lead into my this is gonna lead into the main thing here my wife's lat my wife's

speechlessness when i said that the reason that we brought sp in Spencer's gonna ask questions because this way you can like right Steve's words were he wanted me to guide us through the talking points because he has a lot to say which is good because it'll make up for Katie not having

as much to say so we have five couples to talk about and when we talk about this we talked about we brought up a term that no one likes and i've that i pointed i've never used my entire life but there's this term that like it's it gets bandied about um hunting widow okay and then spencer was telling me that shelby grew up because you grew up in ag yeah and you grew up with what kind of widow a harvest widow uh which sounds like a machine it does um i would say i had never heard of a hunting widow prior to this either uh but a harvest widow for those of you that don't know it's a partner of a farmer who essentially lives their life as a widow from September to November because their partners are gone 24-7.

Growing up, I would go weeks with just seeing my dad and passing, even though he was only a mile or two away from me at any given point. He just had no schedule whatsoever um and i think that's been the biggest difference between a hunting widow and a harvest widow is at least i have some idea where and when spencer is and the other difference probably is that there's sort of this like you have to feed the whole nation and like a lot of pressure yeah you know i mean it's like this whole like who can argue with someone like harvesting crops yeah and it's like this whole like who can argue with someone like harvesting crops? Yeah. And it's like it's like the most sort of foundational thing that can't be ignored.

Right. And it's so dependent on so many factors. Right. So my dad farms with his brothers. But then once they're done harvesting, he goes and he helps all the other family farmers and he's's driving truck or he's, they're like bringing crockpots of chili over for their friends. And just because you're done on your land doesn't mean harvest is done. I'm glad you explained that because I think a lot of people would be like, well, how big of a farm does he own? But yeah, like they basically, there's like one combine that serves, could serve hundreds of farms.

Absolutely. like one combine that serves right could serve hundreds of farms absolutely my my dad they own their combine but everyone in like 20 miles uses their combine so it's everyone's taking their turns and then once that's done it's calving so they're very busy then you're a cow widow yes Brody and Carrie. Did you take Brody's name? I did. Nice. Yeah. Only partially, though. Just because she picks and chooses.

Yeah. You found a fence with the word. You take offense at the term hunting widow. It just makes me cringe. Because it makes you seem helpless or what? It does. It kind of comes with that. It just has that feeling of something that maybe I don't have a say in. It's like a sort of like, oh, I'm a helpless sort of, you know, stuck at home with the kids. You know, everybody should sympathize for me. But I don't really think that that's how I think of the whole thing. I mean, the whole hunting and outdoors thing is something we do as a family, and I don't know. We do okay.

You know, when he's gone, it's not a huge inconvenience to me. Nobody misses Brody's with a dragon. I'm not saying that very well, but, yeah. Giannis is here with his wife, Jennifer. Jennifer, you had a take on being a hunting widow. You thought it sells guys short well i mean yeah i guess you look at the flip side of that and uh when i leave for work you know i i kind of expect him to hold the fort down and he does he does okay there's no toilets getting clean but uh

that's that's all right you know the kids are probably fed better than when i'm there and they're alive so uh we're doing pretty good i think on that front and no one says you're a work widower no that's true yeah yeah and i did it to him for quite a few years left in the summer before we had kids and then uh kelsey um our favorite wildlife artist is here, Sans Seth. Yeah, Danielle and I are currently being widowed. And Chester's wife, Danielle, is here, very pregnant, and is currently widowed. Yes. And Kelsey's an artist. Danielle is a photographer.

Wedding photographer. Is that winding down or kicking ass right now? Oh, it's kicking ass. Really? But I see a lot of marriages, and i see a lot of you know that's my job is to see witness that divorce rate it's good for your business do you um do you go to some do you go to photograph some weddings and think there's no way these people should be getting married um i think i think honestly i've noticed in a couple weddings that yeah not just

like oh they shouldn't be married but but you can kind of tell the connection. And especially when I'm photographing them one-on-one, it's just super – you can kind of tell the couple that just are – I'm really bad with words. They have a symbiotic relationship. Yeah, thank you. Like a morel and a cottonwood. And get to really document them just being themselves. Versus there's other people that still have chemistry. But just need more guidance with like intimacy. And like how to be intimate in a photo. Without being intimate you know in a way.

So. I don't know what that means. I don't either. I have also photographed some weddings. And I think one of the biggest indicators that I've noticed. Granted I have not seen any of these people actually get a divorce. But is how much they fake it for the photos. Yes. Absolutely see so many that's what I was trying to get at you can kind of tell like the true genuine like wow these guys are meant for each other and then also you

can tell like oh maybe a year maybe two years you know right you can I haven't really experienced a lot of it because a lot of my couples have just been awesome and like very much there and present which is amazing but i have a question based on steve's statistic have you ever photographed a couple and then later photographed one of the couple with a different spouse no but i i have photographed a wedding and then they um broke up that night so the night of the wedding? It's happened. It happens. It was the first time I've ever seen it. That reminds me of a great joke.

Man, I want to tell you about it so bad. I'll tell you the punchline. He's so drunk, he thinks he's me. It's not. It's not funny when you tell about jokes and you don't tell the joke. That's his new thing, Katie. It's at funny when you tell about jokes and you don't tell the joke.

The thing about it. That's his new thing, Katie. It's at a wedding. That's not new. Hey, you know what? I give those people props for that evening to know that, you know what? Let's not drag this out for a year or two. Yeah, I give them props for being able to step it up.

They went out having a party. It's kind of nice. Did everybody know that night That they were splitting up? No, it was very like What? Okay, but like I think that there was A lot of things that were happening behind Yeah, he had a hunting trip he had to go on

So you don't think it was because of the photography session? I don't think It was my job, no I mean, I kind of called it I just had a feeling that there was Something going on I don't think it was my job. No, no. No, but I mean, I kind of called it. I just had a feeling that there was something going on and it wasn't, you know, wasn't anything I could do to help it. Because a lot of times brides get nervous, which is normal, and I can kind of flip them. I can kind of make them feel at ease and confident that they don't have to worry about a lot on their day.

Because a lot of people are more nervous about the wedding than the marriage. Like, god I have to host this party versus like being more nervous like wow like this is my person forever and like it's true even before Chester and I decided to get married we talked about our different lifestyles work I don't hunt but he does and when we first started dating he said like just so you know this is my main thing it was fishing and hunting because he used to be a fishing guide so he was gone all summer. And he's like, if you can't handle this, then I can't change. And so we went through a lot of test trial runs. We broke up a couple times.

And when we got married, I accepted him for who he was. And I loved him for, you know, what he does. I can't tell him what not to do because then he won't be the same person, you know. But then I have my things that I love to do that he doesn't like. So we kind of like balance each other out in a way. So I hope that was the answer to your question. You're not going to like what I'm going to say next because it would be very bad for your business. My advice to people getting married is don't have a wedding.

Yeah, weddings can be very stressful. I mean, I love elopements too like i photographed a handful of elopements and i love the intimacy of like they still want to like have a really good they're there for each other you know not just for the party um but i mean i do see i see both sides on that too you know obviously for my job it's i loved what i do so i love being able to be a part of a wedding that's excited to have it be a wedding and not just be a party and someone goes, oh, I'm a single parent this week. Right. You're not a single parent.

Your spouse is gone. It's really different than being a single parent. Being a widow for a short period of time is nothing like being an actual widow. So I find it, I don't know, mildly offensive, even though I'm not a single parent or a widow myself. I do think there's something odd about the term. Probably because you're raised by a single parent. Maybe. No, you saw firsthand what that shit's all about, right?

It's like hard. Yeah, for sure. And it's not that it's not hard to take care of your whole family while your spouse is gone and while that support that you normally count on isn't there. But it's not the same as day in, day out, year after year after year. That's like a completely different psychic load. Yeah. No, I agree. People ask that all the time. Like, how do you do it? You know, but I always have in the back of my head, I know eventually he's coming back because like I said, we didn't do this. We were away a lot from each other before we had kids. And now it's kind

of on me where I used to leave him for the whole summer. And now he's gone in the fall, you know, and then throughout the year periodically. And, you know, I always know he's coming back at some point and I'll get a little bit of that load off. So it's doable. You know, it's a little more doable because of that. I'm going to be a long hunter one day is what I'm aiming for. So I'm just sort of prepping everything. What does that mean, long hunter? Steve, tell Jennifer what a long hunter is. The most famous long hunter that most people will know about would be Daniel Boone.

And they would go on hunts that were a year or two. If you can just wait for 12 years, that would be great. Now, whalers had it even worse. A whaling trip would be two years. Right, right. Yeah, no communication. Yeah, probably dead. I don't know.

Yeah. I'll point out that Boone, when you look at when Boone was home and when he was gone and you look at when his children were born, one ain't his. It's rumored that it was his brother. Never came up though. No. Okay.

Well, you don't have to worry about that. No. Who don't have to worry about that? We don't. Oh, good. I don't know about all the rest of you guys.

All right, Spencer, you ready to do it? Yeah, for the rest of the show, we've got some prompts to go over. I hope that this is entertaining. Maybe it's therapeutic. Maybe we could use that because when Corinne started trying to organize this podcast, she asked all of us men in the room, said, can I get your wives' phone numbers? And three of us responded,

giving Corinne our own phone numbers, which is like terrible. That's not true. You misread my phone number. Okay, Yanni, I totally misread because I already had Jennifer's in my contact list

and I saw Putellis and I didn't, I was like dyslexic, I guess, and I saw, I didn't notice that it said Jennifer as opposed to Giannis. So that was my problem.

So then, but two out of you put your own phone number instead of your spouse's phone number. Yeah, I'm curious. Spencer, call yourself out, buddy. Like Spencer,

you wanted to like, you wanted to vet it. No, I just wasn't thinking. I gave, I said, here is Shelby's phone number and I wrote down my phone number. You're like, anytime someone wants to get a hold of my wife, I always have them call me first. Right, I was curious.

Go through me. You got to go through me first. Right, if he made himself Shelby's secretary or what. But it was Spencer and Brody, guys. Oh, good job, Brody. Really? Yeah. All that's to say is we could probably use the help in communication. So the first thing is, on average, how much communication is there while you're on a hunt?

And how does it differ when you're in the backcountry versus car camping versus staying in a hotel? Giannis is someone who's probably going to do all three versions of those this fall. What is a normal amount of communication? And I'll tell you, Jennifer is shaking her head. I don't think she's going to agree with your answer. Oh, she will. I will. We all have a plan.

There's no plan. Well, no, there's the reality. There's like what it is and then there's what it ought to be. And what you believe it is might be different than what it is. When it's been about four or five days and I go, you know, we haven't talked to Giannis in a long time. And then I'm like, okay, maybe he's going to call. And then typically he does, you know, by four or five days. I have more reason to call now because my kids can actually like communicate on the phone.

When they were real young and you're just kind of listening to, I love you guys like, okay. And you're on a satellite phone. I love you guys too, you know. But now it's cool because they're like, what are you doing? You know, what happened? Or whatever. You can ask him about school.

He didn't care to talk to me and see how I was doing. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I've gotten a few of those texts over the years that have been like, you want to know how I'm doing too? I'm okay. But i don't i don't know i'd say probably any one of those it's just going to be a couple three days um i use like when i'm if i have a satellite or in reach is my only form of communication i use it for pretty much emergency port purposes or to let someone know like a change in plans or that the plan is going to continue on as it is not so much. It's kind of

been, I noticed this last time I was in Alaska just a couple of weeks ago, it was a tiny bit annoying. Again, I'm not going to name any names, but every used to be where like we had an in-reach amongst the crew. Now everybody's got their own little mini in-reach. And you're sitting around in beautiful Alaska trying to enjoy it. And you look around and everybody you're with is on their phones texting. And you're kind of like, really? Because everybody's got the unlimited in-reach plan. And whether it might just be I love you too.

There's an unlimited in-reach plan. I'm unaware of this. This is going to be so revealing but you know somebody might be like trying to buy a house right and so they're like going through inspections or or you know working on documents um but yeah it's i don't know i like those things yeah steve is pointing out before that like you could curse the technology and that it's like with you in the woods or you could appreciate that it allows you to be out for six days instead of three uh because you're just like more connected to everybody that's the thing is uh i remember this doesn't have to do with trying to stay married but it has buck bowden um a friend of ours who's a hunting guy in Alaska, he, like many people who've been in Alaska a long time, all have a very crystal clear idea of what ruined Alaska.

If you go back far enough, it was aircraft. Snowmobiles ruined Alaska. Now, everybody's committed that it's airboats. Airboatsiles ruined Alaska. Now, everybody's committed that it is airboats. Airboats have ruined Alaska. And ATVs. You're going to hear about this next week where you're going. ATVs have ruined Alaska. Buck Bowden told me that inReach devices are the things that have ruined Alaska.

I thought it was a sat phone. Yeah, well, sorry. Because it used to be that you went and it was a 10-day trip. And you got dropped off or rode in on horseback and he had his clients and they were gone. And if they killed something on the first day or the second day or the third day, they were on a 10-day trip and people could get lost in the experience. Now, some guy gets his sheep on the third day. He wants his ass out of there right now. Before the guts are out of

it they're making the phone call they're already fretting about getting the airplane in there to get them so he said that but i i only meant i only meant to counter the point that it could be let's look at it this way it could be that there were things you've always wanted to do but there was just like no way you were going to go do it because you couldn't you had young kids whatever like you couldn't be out of the game for that amount of time and feel comfortable about it but at least knowing that like everyone's alive everyone's healthy if something catastrophic happened right you'd know that alleviates a ton of like it alleviates anxiety and lets you kind of relax in a situation that might otherwise be, like, really uncomfortable.

Yeah, just having the ability to know you can, you know, get in touch if you have to is, they're worth their weight in gold, those inReach devices. I'll say the one time I don't turn mine on is if, like, we were camping this weekend, me, Katie, the kids. I mean, I had to turn it on because I had to text my buddy Dave something. No reason to.

Yeah, but there's nothing that would happen that I would care about. Yeah. I mean, I try to be courteous and send a quick one before I go to sleep if I'm out there. You know, like, all good. Every five days or so. Yeah. Chester doesn't have one, actually. So when he's gone, he's gone.

He usually will text me from his phone occasionally, like, hey, how's it going? So what's a normal amount of communication then, Danielle, with Chester? Like sometimes about three days. Yeah. Every other, you know, every three days. But I also know that on these trips, they're busy. And I think also they just did a show at our house recently, and I got to, like, watch how they work. And you are busy. Like, there's just so much that I don to like watch how they work and you are busy like

there's just so much that I don't like I'm not at home just like oh why doesn't he call me why doesn't he text me hello but um being pregnant I think has changed a little bit like I'm more like oh god I'm gonna check in a couple days I think the Steve and I the years, we've been together 16 years. How? I know. Amazing. Forever. Was part of that living in sin?

Part of that two years was living in sin, man. Good for you. Yeah, we got engaged at six months or something like that? Yeah, like way. We didn't even know each other. It was ridiculous. But he was traveling all the time. Rolling the dice.

The point being, we stayed engaged for forever. Yeah, we were engaged for – we got married on the two-year anniversary of our first date, which is very cute. That is cute. So cute. We didn't plan it like that. It just worked out that way. But so we've – I've gone through periods of being pissed off that you haven't been in touch and then periods of like you know it's fine if you're in touch every five days or whatever I think even more so than how frequently like the expectation is um of being in touch it's more the thing that gets me is that

Steve wants me to answer if he calls he's like if I not going to have much service. Like, make sure to pick up the phone. It's like, well, how do you know what I'm going to be doing? Like, I could be needy in a work call or with the kids or whatever. Probably at the spa getting the pedicure. Yeah, exactly. But that's part of it that I think if there's anything that causes tension, it's the expectation that I will be available when he needs me to be, but not that he needs to be available or should be in touch on any kind of regular cadence. Kelsey, how about you? What's like a normal amount of communication with Seth? Seth and I actually have like a complete system that works for us and we like took a lot

of time to come up with this and it's you know kind of maneuvered over the years but we do have a system and that alleviates like all of the stress over um hey you didn't talk to me enough like we know what to expect we set out our expectations early on so um like could be a little meat eater handbook yeah yeah he like i am to hear that he is safe at the end of the day through his satellite device and i am to um update him periodically throughout the day on if I'm like going to do something and the reason why we have the system I think actually like our situation is kind of flipped the anxiety of like safety and the other's well-being is actually more on his end for me, I think, because I do a lot, like I do everything alone. I'm operating a public business alone. I go do outdoor stuff alone without like a satellite device. So he's

not checking that throughout the day, but when he turns on the satellite phone at the end of the day if he sees that I went trail running and it's at night and I haven't told him that I'm back he'll know to like up to reach out to a friend and have them check on me like that's our system so that we know each other safe there's no we do not at all talk about our days like when he's on a trip there's just we don't expect each other to have the time to do that. But that's our system so that we know to like, if something happened on a mediator trip, I would know whether it was him telling me or not. But if something happened to me at home, nobody would know unless he caught it right away because of our system. So this is going gonna sound a little bit fatalistic sure but no no i'm saying like like when it comes to communication if you're gone

you're never gonna i don't think you're never gonna scratch like the itch all the way there's never gonna be a way whether it's through an inreach satellite phone let's say you're in somewhere where you have like regular cell service and like everybody's tired you know people are like trying to deal with kids you whatever you're never going to get all of the communication out of the way so it's kind of like i just want to like i just want to know is everybody mostly okay like nothing catastrophic has happened yeah because any amount of small talking it it's like, it doesn't amount to, it doesn't alleviate anything. Like, you could small talk for five minutes,

and when you hang up, it feels as shitty and incomplete as if you didn't small talk at all. Our expectation is no small talk. We don't imply that to each other that that is a thing at all. We'll do that. We'll catch up on what happened when he's back. Like, we actually don't,

neither of us take the time or want to take the time to do that while he's gone. That's our system. I disagree. If Spencer is not, I'm obviously the outlier here, but if Spencer is not texting me

at least once a day, I am super concerned, probably a little bit mad. Like, if you're not dead, why the hell haven't you texted me? You better let me know where you're at. I'll confirm that. Yeah, that's true. But I think it's also with like, communications become very different between different generations too. And here's an example of what I've noticed is that if I'm with someone who has kids, they are FaceTiming like every night. Like that's what happens in place of a phone call.

Shelby and I never use FaceTime. It's like FaceTime is exclusively for hunters that have children at home. And I just like don't notice that being used otherwise. But we use Snapchat a lot. Like you do? Yeah. I don't know. Maybe that's very't know maybe that's very is that like a like that came out when i was in high school well no no i know what snapchat is i'm old but i'm not that old but what do you do like on snapchat oh it's no like actual communication it's just like he found a piece of petrified wood or saw a porcupine. And I'll send him a picture of the cats sleeping on the couch.

Sleeping on the couch. It's very exciting. But I think it's just like I know he's alive. I can see that he opened the Snapchat. I know where he's at within reason. It's not like full on checkins, but we get an idea. That is if you have service, if you're somewhere with internet. Yeah.

I would imagine this room has a lot of FaceTiming being done. None. None. No? Zero FaceTiming. Really? FaceTime. That technology is like, us boomers can't figure it out.

I guess Giannis is a little younger, right? So Giannis, are you FaceTiming your children? That technology is like us boomers can't figure it out. I guess Giannis is a little younger, right? So Giannis, are you FaceTiming your children? Yeah, a little bit. When he's got a story, obviously, yeah, it's not every night. But when they're staying at hotels, yeah, maybe one of the nights or something like that. Kids on FaceTime are so annoying. Yeah, they wander around and then they'll like start doing something. It's intolerable

to FaceTime with my children. They're just, yeah. Our kids are talkers now, though. They want to talk and they'll tell him exactly what they did today and exactly what they, you know, what happened.

They'll do that on the phone, but they like get a, you know, if they see themselves on a screen, they need to add those dumb stickers or whatever yeah don't show everything around them like take a tour of the house yeah are there any rituals you couples have while your partner is gone for example i know that if i'm gone hunting for a few, I'm going to get a ring doorbell notification that DoorDash is dropping off food for Shelby.

Spencer is my cook in my defense. So when he's gone, DoorDash is my cook. I fully support that. Yeah. Thank you. Also, when I'm gone, Spencer, I get home and he's like a shriveled up little raisin that smells like chlorine because he's like lived in the hot tub for four days. That's good. I'll also confirm that.

That's true. That's amazing. These guys, you know, I'll speak for Katie and say that they like to go get farm raised. They like to eat farm raised meats while I'm gone. Oh, yeah. They like to get chicken. The first thing we do is we get a rotisserie chicken. Really?

We get some lunch meat. Was it ever a secret? Yes. But, well, just more like eat it before dad gets home. And then we don't need to talk about it. We have a friend actually here, a neighbor, that keeps ham at her house for our daughter. Because she'll just go over and ask for a piece of ham. That's great. Because she knows she can't get it at our own house. go over and ask for a piece of ham. That's great.

Because she knows she can't get it at our own house, which is sad. Give the girl some ham. I think your brother Danny said it. He'll allow bacon. He paraphrased it, but I think it was something

along the lines of like, yeah, one thing that nature cannot produce is like a nice oven roasted chicken. Yeah, bacon and a rotisserie chicken are like two meats he'll allow to be brought in on occasion my if it doesn't happen to me as much as it happens to katie but my like if she's gone i don't even want to say this to her in the room okay we're all learning this together is that okay if she's gone my goal is to make it seem like shit is tight to make it be like can't be that hard so i bust my ass and i clean that house

people are in bed super early like shit is tight it seems as though this isn't a secret this is you think you've been sneaky about this? It is very obvious when they try to make it look pristine right before you get back. The house is spotless. And truly, you come in, he's kind of like, oh, no big deal. I don't know what you're always so stressed out about. I scream at the kids. I'm like, you got to get this place cleaned up. Everybody get in bed.

Your ma's coming home. This is gonna look like our program is tight. You gotta talk about the flip side of that that you mentioned to me before the podcast, though. There's no flip side of that. When you get home... Oh. All right, I don't know.

I'm gonna say this, and then I'm gonna be done talking about the subject. A huge problem in my marriage is when I get home I kind of want to piss on the old post a little bit and I'm like who took the tools out and left them in the yard

no one ate the green beans why is this like someone didn't water the thing uh the bird feeder's empty what do you people do oh yeah not i mean that's just like the beginning of it you're like oh and it seems like no one's helping do x y and z and what you know it there is not a, that's the other thing. I don't care about the traveling, but it would, extra appreciation when you get home for all the things that have happened in your absence. He's kind of canceling out all the goodwill he builds by making the house spotless. I got to be careful about going in that direction too.

I love this. But then she'll be like, you've been on vacation for a week. And I'll be like, oh no, I love this. But then she'll be like, you've been on vacation for a week. And I'll be like, oh, no, I haven't. I'm glad Seth isn't here. This is like so quickly turning into a couple's counseling session. Are there any rituals the rest

of you have that happen while your spouse is gone? One I just learned about when we were talking about recording this was that Shelby will bank up shows that she wants to watch that I won't participate in. Yeah, second that. And then those get watched in October through December. And so I learned that one like just yesterday.

Yeah, but then the worst thing is sometimes I think you'll like them and he won't watch them with me because I've already seen it. Like Fleabag, for example, I banked that one up. And then I was like, you have to watch it. Such a good show. Right? It's so good. You're going to seen it. Like Fleabag, for example. I banked that one up. And then I was like, you have to watch it. Right? It's so good. You're going to love it. And then he just like sat there and played on his phone the whole time. And then I was mad.

Mine's more like a work related. I know it's not maybe a good routine, but when Chester leaves, I feel like I could really sit down because I have to. When I shoot weddings, like I have so much editing. Like it's a lot of my time. But when he's home, I like to like, we'll go out to dinner and that's me not working or we'll, you know, have a slower morning together. So it's not me, it's me not working. So when he's gone, I'm like, oh, I get to edit and just watch my chick flicks in bed, my air conditioner and drink, drink. Well, now it's, now I get i gotta drink sparkling water not my beer but you know i'll say it's funny because i look at it more of a work standpoint like oh i can get so

much done when he's gone yeah that's the first thing i do is clean and organize the house the way i want it to be yep and then he comes home and it lasts a second dumps all my shit all dumps all his shit on the ground like when they don't unpack their bags from Alaska, like Chester's bag from a while ago was still downstairs. I'm like, well, you're going to Alaska again. Are you going to unpack that one? Throw him under the bus. I know.

I can't believe Seth and Chester aren't here. We could really do this. We could really have Matt. Because where are they now? They're basically almost in the backcountry. We're widowed. Yeah, they have two weeks to not know what we have to say. Yep, that's right.

They have two weeks. He said, just don't throw me under the bus too bad at this. When I told him I was doing this, he's like, just be careful. Are there any rituals you guys would like to develop that you think would make these trips easier? One that I learned about myself was that I like to come home to like a very tidy house and so now whether it's me leaving on a trip by myself I will clean up my areas like the dishes are clean the garbage is out my office is clean um and we go on a trip together I'm like making you clean with me for the last hour uh that we're at home and that's something I would love for us just to become a standard thing we do when we're

leaving home. It's funny you say that because Chester and I literally just had a grown-up conversation about that this weekend because Kelsey and Seth went fishing. And where was it? Beautiful. I'd have to kill you if I told you. Oh, yeah, that's right. OK.

They went somewhere beautiful. And Chester really wanted to go. And I was totally OK with it. But at the same time, I was like totally okay with it but I at the same time I'm like there's just so much stuff around the house I wish you could help me because you're gonna be gone for two weeks so we compromised and he he didn't go fishing um but he actually did his part and really helped out around the house and I feel way better about him leaving now I feel like hey at least he helped out he stayed this week now I feel like I have a fresh start and bye Felicia I think Spencer's gonna leave this podcast thinking that uh he has it

the worst I'm worried um I am such a pig when Spencer is gone I make what he calls nests and it's just like empty coffee cups and blankets and I bring all the pillows into one room, and then I'm quickly scrambling to clean it before he comes home because he's a bitch for chores. I don't know why he loves chores so much. Can you teach Chester some stuff? Yes. It's reminiscent of, like, when I was a junior in high school and my parents were gone for the weekend, and there's, like, a party that just happened to happen at home, and I'm i know their eta down to the minute then that's how shelby operates when i'm not around because she's like scrambling to clean up that day

hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning gps with hunting maps that include public and crown land hunting zones aerial imagery 24k topo maps waypoints and tracking that's right you were always talking about uh we're always talking about OnX here on the MeatEater Podcast.

Now you, you guys in the Great White North can be part of it. Be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on

products and services hand-picked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Danielle, how are things different this fall with you being very pregnant

and Chester still needing to travel for work? I imagine there are a lot more considerations when Chester is like planning a 10 day trip to Alaska. And meanwhile, you're in your third trimester. Yeah, I'll say it's different, but it's not because last year was a really busy year also for the crew. I mean, they were gone a lot. So I was already like, OK, this is what I had to kind of acclimate to and like reference to because I was new to him being gone so much um but I kind of I kind of like we both just had like a group agreement about like you know put your head down and work and do your job and like be supportive of each other there's times definitely where I'm upset and like being

pregnant I'm like oh maybe not travel in the third trimester just in case you can't get around but um I guess it's not a lot is different because I'm just as busy as he is. We both work really like a lot weird hours. So I don't know if that helps or not, but I don't feel like a lot has changed. I'm maybe just being more nervous. Like now that I'm housing a human, it'd be nice to have him like want to check in more on him, you know, and me. And is there any advice our parents in the room would have for the expecting parents when it comes to navigating this part of raising children? Like Steve Giannis Brody, do you have anything for Chester? And Katie Jennifer Carey, do you have something for Danielle?

Yes. Before, that's very important. But I think there's still a disagreement that Steve and I have about something that I feel he did was egregious when I was pregnant with our first kid. It involves Ronnie Bame going on a hunt. He ended up coming home early because I called him and basically said, like, we're getting a divorce if you don't come home. I was so sick. And we know Ronnie has impeccable advice because he said he doesn't want to get divorced because he doesn't want to lose half of his shit. So Steve ended up coming home because, I mean, I was really sick. Steve had been working. Then this was a fun hunt that you went on and you came home.

But you still feel that it was unnecessary. Like I was being unreasonable that i asked you to come home just curious for a couple reasons i guess i feel that way for a couple reasons there was nothing i was gonna do that was gonna make you feel better the other thing is that is so messed up we were like we were just kind of dicking around, but, like, we'd gone up through Maine and to hunt grouse in New Brunswick. Like, it's not, you don't just, like, decide to all of a sudden come home from there. I didn't all of a sudden just decide to get pregnant either. Like, we were.

And it was, I was sick when you left. Yeah. And I just got madder the longer you were gone and the longer you were driving. But I'm just curious you felt more alone no i think that was bad i do think now looking back on it that was bad i think that i mean from my if i were you i'd be pissed only because like also when you're pregnant you're it's not the guys don't get to experience it really honestly i feel bad that they don't get to experience what we experience until the baby's there because that's when I feel like maybe the men connect more to it but like growing a human I mean I've knock on wood have had a really

great pregnancy but if you have a tough pregnancy and you're alone and they're gone you feel even more alone and your hormones are all over like it's just one of those things it's hard for even guys to understand really what you're going through so I think if Chester were to like dip out for fun I'd be like, you're not coming home. Unless it's in a body bag. You know, when you're, I don't know this personally, but when you're pregnant,

you get a period where everything smells real, like bad, like garbage smells horrible, like way worse than all that. So she was pretty pregnant one time. And me and my buddy, check this out though, me and my buddy were going to do this thing where we wanted to

we dug we were in Brooklyn and we dug a big hole we had a backyard and we dug a big hole in the backyard and we're going to bury a pig

in this hole in the backyard and we started getting this fire going good and it looked like a scene from like Baghdad the black smoke coming out of this

thing and pretty soon sure enough woo woo woo I mean three ladder trucks It looked like a scene from like Baghdad, the black smoke coming out of this thing. And pretty soon, sure enough, I mean, three ladder trucks, firemen coming through our apartment. They're like, that's a great idea, but you got to put that shit out, you know? So then we had this pig and we, so we'd been making this fire all day and digging this hole. And then we took this pig to my buddy's restaurant and cut it up and cooked the pig in pieces in his ovens, brought him back home, and I climbed in bed. She's like, are you honestly

not going to take a shower? That is so sweet. You would stink. And then what? Yeah. And he didn't. He was going to leave that part out. Oh, man. I still have yet to hear any parenting advice for Chester and Jamie. We haven't had a chance to get there yet.

Like, well, I can't, like, you know, as far as the pregnancy thing, I'm not going to weigh in. But, like, we had our first kid end of September, so it was hunting season. Yep. Second kid. Yeah. Conley, after he was born, I think you went turkey hunting the day after I got out of the hospital. Yeah, because like

the first couple months, there's nothing for me to do anyway. There's nothing you could have done to make her feel any better. That's right. I mean, we had a three and a half year old and a three day old. No, I'm talking about... There's really nothing you could have done. There's just not much the guy can do when they're just little, little.

Yeah, you know, my lovely wife did observe after a couple months after we had our first kid, after a couple months, she was like, there really isn't anything. Like in the middle of the night, you kind of get up because you feel guilty and you sort of stand there watching them feed or whatever. And she's like, just don't

pretend to be helpful and then have it be that you're all tired tomorrow. Just like sleep. Tomorrow in the daytime, you can do the helpful stuff. Eventually, you gotta step in too, right? But there's a period of time where there's

you know. Brody, you are so wrong about that. You've said it. You know, those first couple months, there's less they can do. They can support you. Yeah, it takes a lot. They can support you and take care of you. Especially after the nine months you already housed the human.

Yeah. You get sleep deprived. Well, I don't know yet, but I'll let you know. I just didn't catch a lot of flack for going hunting. I mean, good for you on that. Like, that's a win. But... So your advice to Chester is just like, he doesn't

need to be around the first couple months. Not at all. There's not a lot they can do for the baby, obviously. But you can, yeah, clearly clean and do other things that you're not doing because you're taking your time, taking care of a baby. If it's an either or, and I don't think it is. We're talking about something that plays out over the course of many years.

It's not like he's like, oh, I'm going that like our kids now are entering an age where I feel like. Yeah. That shit becomes really important. Right. Like having exposure to these different figures in the household and like putting all that together. Yeah. But it's hard to like present it as a borrow, like a, like a give and take arrangement between the present and the future. Right.

You know, if you hunt a lot now, it's not like you're going to not want to go hunting later. You're going to want to go hunting even worse later. Exactly. But eventually you'll take them both with you. We're only like four years from that, right? And then I get a whole weekend alone. Maybe that's what the only time in my life that I feel absolutely like perfection would be that to be gone out messing around outside with all my kids. Because then I'm doing what I want to do and I don't have any guilt about not being a good dad.

Also, you're showing your kids. I think that's so important. A lot of kids now are like always just, I mean, on their phones or on their cell phones or on Twitter, Instagram. You bring your kids out. I even told Chester, I'm like, we need to be like that. Being a kid, be out in nature and get off the grid just to be a kid and not worry about social media and what other kids are doing. Especially as they get older, especially in school, like little girls, especially seeing other girls, although they're doing that.

So I got to do that. So they're out in the woods, just not even, not even acclimated to that. Like that's, I think that's amazing. Yanni, Jennifer, parents of two, do you have any advice for Danielle and Chester? You want to go first? I guess probably one of the hardest things, I think, for the longer trips was because I stopped doing fieldwork once we had kids. Because I used to do a lot of fieldwork and was gone for full summers at a time. And then, you know, once that flipped, yeah, I was definitely unhappy for the first couple of summers realizing that that relationship had changed and that, you know, he was the only one getting to do the field work

and a lot more of it. But I think the hardest thing is definitely the back end, the front end and the back end of the trips, like the two days after he leaves just because we do things differently. You know, I parent a little differently. I keep the house a little differently. I put him to bed differently, those kind of things. And then Papa shows up.

What's up? You know, he's in the house. It's all fun and games. It's a fun and game. You know, I'm just going to read you a book and ice cream. Yeah, exactly. And, yeah, so that's challenging. And I realized today that he had no idea that that was a thing because, yeah, you said that to me earlier that, really?

There's a problem there? And I was like, oh, yeah. Do you guys see that? It's hard. Okay. Yeah. You get your routines and your, like, patterns with the kids, and then all of a sudden it just gets – it's not a bad thing. It's just a different way of –

It's different. Yeah. Doing things. But it's frustrating sometimes for sure. I feel like the kids definitely act up. Yeah. On the front end. And then, you know, Janice will show up and be like, what is going on with the kids?

Why are they acting like this? It's because I'm a bad parent. That's why. That is the reason. So, yeah. That's one of our challenges, I think. So what was the advice? That, I mean, just be aware of it yeah that it's a thing

um and you know it's not insurmountable you know you can you can get get by it but just know that it's tough on the kids yep for sure but i mean you know like he was saying today there's there are plenty of fields it's not hunting necessarily you know i'm an ecologist and when I leave for you know a training for a week it's it's tough the day before and they're like mommy is leaving you know and you know it's it's a little different kind of thing do you think that's harder on them or harder on you guys like oh I think it's harder on me I would say than the kids I think they're pretty adjusted to it like After the first day, maybe they're sad, then they're out doing their thing. Yeah. But you're, like, still doing your routine alone.

And now they're at an age where they value it. Like, they know, like, dad's out doing cool things and, like, they want to be there, too. So there's a—as they get older, it's easier to me, anyway. It's good to know. For sure. Steve's about to go on a trip tomorrow and I am really looking forward to the lack of kitchen grease all over the kitchen.

Like literally, like he was like, oh, I know you're sick of me and my kitchen grease. He was walking around the kitchen yesterday, but there really is something nice

about when you go and you're doing something you love and the house is in order in the way that I want it to be. But I think, Jennifer, your point about being aware of that and being aware about the return to like we made it we made a sort of a policy a long time ago that there wasn't going to be. We're not going to make a huge deal. It's not going to be a big traumatic event every time Steve leaves, but then there can't be this big whoop-de-doo party every time he comes home. It's like, it has to be normalized in some kind of way. When we first had kids, I would, if I was going out of town, I would sit in the bathtub with them and cry.

And she's like, yeah got to pull it together. Like, you're going to, you know, you can't be doing this kind of stuff. And she said, you got to be like out, kind of like smooth, and come back in smooth. It's not like cakes and signs that say welcome home and shit. You know, it's like you got to figure out how to get in and get out. Oh, yeah. With no one noticing. I get a little jealous when I walk out those security doors, you know.

There's a couple other kids standing around with a little poster board. I'm like, what are these times? Sorry. But now they get up in the morning and they'll come down or come upstairs for breakfast and they'll go, where's Papa? Oh, hell, he's on a 10-day trip. Oh, okay. You know?

So they're 8 and 11 now, so it's much easier. But yeah, you still see, you know, they're 8 and 11 now so it's much easier but yeah you still see you know some subtle changes but when they were younger it was it was much more difficult but sorry babe for like less i'm just gonna slip it in but just some general marriage parenting all-around advice would be to and it's hard to see into the future, but there just are topics that you, that everyone knows if you're thinking at all about that, you're going to have to discuss. And very early on, like when you're just at the wedding, everybody's just all in love and it's gravitas and it's going to last forever. But you just haven't even thought to discuss like,

what are we going to say to them when religion comes up? Or is it going to be public or private schools? Or there's just things that you could like very easily discuss ahead of time and don't have to come to a conclusion, but just start the conversation so that later you're like already kind of like you've been formulating a plan and maybe even coming together or you've decided that now we're just going to, you know, parent differently on this one thing or whatever. but just like it's so much easier to

think about it ahead of time than to like when all of a sudden it's like the heat of the moment you're like how on earth did we not think that um trying to come up with a good example of uh something oh yeah like being shot we haven't i haven't had that problem like but i see it with people like they're shocked at something they find out yeah well we have about like a pretty predictable thing that would come up do you know i mean like like you're saying like a like private school or something you know so how did like sort of like the rough outline of that not come up and all the years prior yeah and that was so important to you you know we actually did marriage counseling before our wedding which which I was like, well, because it was required

because we got married through the church. Obviously it was required, but I was actually really excited about it. It was during COVID, so we had to do it in our house. We had to sit in the house all day for two days together and talk through hard things that you would never want to talk about in general.

When you got to a date night, you don't want to bring up the hard stuff. And when you – because you don't see each other all the time. You want to have a good conversation. But it kind of like taught us how to have these discussions. And it did flat out ask about kids, religion, parenting. And like I feel like there's definitely going to be things that we disagree on, which is that's obviously normal and it's going to be challenging. But hearing each other out on how you're going to move forward and how you both can compromise and like, okay, I can do this if we can. I don't know.

I think that I'm glad that we did do that because we've talked about a lot of hard stuff. There's still stuff I'm like, I don't know what to do. I'm already nervous to breastfeed and lot of hard stuff. There's still stuff I'm like, I don't know what to do. Like I'm already nervous to like breastfeed and do all this stuff. But like schooling, I'm like, oh, my God, what about school? Like obviously you take it day at a time. But I'm glad. I do suggest anyone out listening, do marriage counseling before you get married. Steve and I did that.

We got the pre-canon questions from a Catholic friend, and we went through those. Do you remember that? Obviously, very impactful experience for you. I honestly don't. It was like a questionnaire? Yeah. It had like, I can't even remember. It was like 36 questions.

Yeah, it was a lot of questions. I think it was a lot of questions. And a lot of deep questions, not just like, how do you like your meal cooked? It's... Be like, would you pull wet pine squirrel legs that your kids shot and throw them in hot oil

and splatter that shit from one end of the... No, I would only eat a rotisserie chicken. All right, Spencer, go ahead. Here's a good example. It's like how stern

your parenting style might be are you going to spank or take your belt off and whoop your kid if he does X thing or not you know that's a one that we went into it spankers and all of a sudden there's a spanking

but we went into it spankers and then agreed at about the same time that we were out of same here we're out of the spanking we got out so it's like we would have never predicted right that's why there's a little bit of sort of like finding a reasonable person like earlier i was just saying like how could you not talk about the main stuff but isn't it weird that we would have both thought in principle that like spanking was the way to go and then around when they're two being like the return on investment and

spanking, it's like diminishing returns. Like, are you really going to keep, like, are you really willing to, to get into arms race with how hard you're going to smack your kid's butt? Once they started to like,

you spank them, they kind of look at you like, the hell was that? The last time I spanked, the last time I spanked one of our kids is when they turned around and laughed at me. And I was like, okay, well clearly that's not hard enough. I don't want to figure out what the right heart is.

Like that's just... Just picturing you spanking your kids right now does make me want to laugh. Because you're so sweet. Because you're so sweet. I couldn't imagine it. They wouldn't even know what to mean by that. Because you're so sweet. I couldn't imagine it. They're way too old. They wouldn't even know what to make of that shit anymore.

All right. You've now made our listeners perfect parents. But let's go back to when there's traveling happening around hunting. What are the specific anxieties you have when your spouse is gone? Like, is there a certain hunt or a certain situation that stresses you out more than others? I know what Shelby's answer is going to be to this. Yeah. As you might have predicted, it being very on brand for Spencer to be incredibly cautious. He is so risk averse. He'll like pull me away from edges on hikes.

And he's ridiculously careful. Yet he still managed to fall out of a tree stand and cut open his side and then when he calls me about it he's like oh i'm gonna drive to a hospital in our insurance network like are you are you stupid yeah no way you are driving to the small town er that's 10 miles away and I won't hear anything about it. And then he agrees a little too quickly, and I'm like, oh, it's bad. So, you know, even with Spencer being safe, it's dangerous. Like, you guys are in a very compromised situation. Yeah, and I recognize that when I'm now going on a hunt where it's like involves getting up in a tree, I get more be carefuls and are you okay?

Uh, then, then any other time that I'm out. So what about for the rest of you? What are like the most anxious trips? I mean, I think we had a conversation a long time ago about like being in the back country and it's dangerous. And then we came to the conclusion that it's more dangerous to get in your car and your driveway like it's just not something i mean i'm not like i don't know what you think about that anymore but yeah i think it evolves over time i mean we've been together a while now um so how long carrie i think 20 years. Yeah, 21, but who's counting? Together, we've been married. We lived in sin for a while. Oh, how long? About six years, I think.

I actually think that's the best relationship advice is to live in sin for a while before you decide to make it legal. Yeah. I think anytime you're out alone, you're always like, and now that we can communicate via inReach or even if you're out of service, that changes that a little bit. But Brody's also very safety conscious. So that gives me a lot of, I don't get as anxious as I probably once did. I'll say for me, like thinking about it on my own end is single engine aircraft. Still, like it's still in the back of my head. Looking the other way, I don't want to get into too much details here because I want to like pick a fresh scab.

One time I'm out of town. For who? No, you're going to think you're going to take this the wrong way. You're going to take this the wrong way. One time I'm out of town recently and I get back and Katie's telling me me about meeting some guy in a restaurant i'm like how in the world how in the world did you meet a guy in a restaurant she's like he just came up and started talking to me and she's like telling me about some other unrelated thing but i'm like focused on what do you mean he came up and talked to you do you know what i mean and not that i'm like

worried about what i'm just like what is in his mind that shit bugs me that stuff bugs me okay that is really off topic and ridiculous and we'll definitely pick that up later but that scab is gonna be yeah that's right but the I honestly don't like to know where Steve is or what he's doing like most most of the time people say like, what's he doing? I'm like, I don't know, the calendar says like moose, you know, or whatever. But I don't like to know because for long enough, I worried a lot. And especially without hearing from him on any kind of regular basis, I just didn't, like, I don't want to live like that. And so knowing now there is a newfound passion or relatively newfound passion for spearfishing,

which is he's learning and is dangerous. Free diving. Free diving. Fine. I don't want to know. Like, I would rather just be like, you go, you have fun, you make your best decisions. I've told him that if he, that I want him to think about, like, I want in his mind, if he has a moment, like underwater or whatever, like I can do this thing and that seems risky, but I think I can do it or, dies, I am going to take his life insurance money and all of his hard-earned savings, and I am going to marry a guy that he would despise. And I'm going to spend that money doing things that he would hate with this man and our children. I told her when she was laying this out with me the other day,

I told her, I just figured you'd marry my buddy, Pooter. Paint a picture for us, Katie, on who this new husband would be. Like what would be his hobbies? Big sports fan. We'd go to lots of sports games. We would ski probably on weekends. Golf? We would definitely golf. Live on ski probably on weekends. Golf? We would definitely golf.

Live on a golf course, maybe. We would probably move to a golf course. We would go and stay at resorts. Would you start decorating your home with those signs that say, like, home is where the heart is. Cook people good food, make people laugh. You know what?

I respect people's design choices. If that's what they want to do, that is fine. But I would take all of Steve's skulls and we would get rid of all of them. All of the hides would be gone and the kids wouldn't hunt and fish anymore. Is this sinking in, Steve? Oh, yeah. There'll be some fish 70 feet down and I'm like, yeah, that fish can... I'm just going to let him be. Oh my gosh.

I don't need to go down there looking for that fish. It sounds like we would get along well with this Steve 2.0 that you've curated. I might have met him at a restaurant. Jennifer, is there an outing for you that bothers you more than others when Yanni is gone?

You know, I have to be honest, we lived in Colorado for years and years and I did a bunch of field work in the Sierra, and the grizz thing definitely gives me pause because we never lived in grizzly country until moving up here to Montana. And it seems that even though Montana is a very large state, when Yannis likes to go archery hunting, he picks the most grizzly infested watershed in the entire state. And it's like, that's where I'm going to go. Like, really? That one? Right beside ****? Okay.

That's fine. Great. Really spot burning there. We might have to bleep some of that out. So, yeah, those are the ones that give me a little pause. And he's had a couple of interactions with Grizz. That one makes me really nervous, too. Kelsey, for you, is it boats? Is it planes? Is it the back country? What does Seth do that makes you nervous? I don't know if it's a bad thing that I'm pretty calm about all

that. I really, it doesn't bother me. I trust him. And I also understand that it's a high risk lifestyle and it's, you know, accidents are prone to happen, but, um, you know, I trust his capabilities and I don't worry about it too much. The only thing that does freak me out, and this has nothing to do with him and I don't even really know like how safe this is or not. It's just me projecting. I, ice freaks me out. Ice fishing. I don't know.

Totally reasonable. Yeah. Now, it's obvious how, like, a family is impacted when a significant other has gone haunting, but what about the reentry into the home?

We heard, Katie, you talk about how, like, Steve is not getting the welcome home that a soldier would after being in Iraq for a year. It's funny you mention that because my mom said,

you're lucky I'm not in the army. She's like, what are you even talking about? What is the thing that you think your spouse does well when it comes to these trips happening? Like where's an area that you think they are excelling that you like feel very good about

what they're doing before a trip happens, after a trip happens, during a trip. Danielle, you have anything that Chester's really nailed? Yeah. Honestly, I feel like when he first started working for Eater, I think he didn't know what to expect. And so he was really nervous, obviously. And from what I've seen him, where he's at now after working here for I think two years now he I feel like has become way more organized in a way I think he's nailed that because for his job particular you have to be organized you have to man you have to be able to manage a lot of different things going on and that was not his when I first met him oh I was like wow

this is gonna be good for you you're gonna learn And I will say, honestly, I'm very proud of how he manages what he manages. And when he gets stressed, how he manages his stress. And obviously, I'm just like super rooting for him just to keep going and working hard and just learning different techniques to even perfect even more like and one thing about him is like you know sometimes he um if he doesn't know how to do something or he feels stuck he wants to figure out himself versus just asking for help which I'm opposite I'm like okay I need some help you know so I love that he's like learning to um just you know keep getting better and like learning different skills. Kelsey what is Seth doing well when it comes to leaving for trips like this? Well, one thing that as I'm sitting here thinking about this episode, I think is important to note

is we are talking about this from a work perspective. Most people listening to this are thinking about hunting as like the extracurricular there it's not like they're nine to five um but with that being said what Seth does well um and this has been key for us and this is he like systems are very important to us in our relationship and that's something that he fostered in the beginning so like we have very clear expectations, very clear systems. We know what we're getting into as far as communications. Like we are very good with the front end stuff. Like Yanni, you were talking about, um, talking about all that stuff ahead of time. That's something that is very important to him, um, that he's brought into our relationship.

Carrie, what does Brody get right when it comes to leaving for hunting? Yeah. I mean, a lot of the same stuff. Leaving a hunt plan. I know exactly where he is. I get the on-ex point. Really? Yeah. Is that commonplace for everyone here?

No. No. That's a good market for on-ex, man. Market that to spouses. To the what? Yeah, they should have on-ex marriage. Where are they all the time? On-ex off-road, on-ex marriage. You can track them. There's a tracker on X marriage. On X off road.

You can track them. There's a tracker on your phone. That's just not something. No, it's not. She goes to a restaurant. I want to know about what's going on. I want to know about guys. I'll drop some way points for Jennifer.

Trailhead. For me, it's more so that if, if Shelby didn't know where I was hunting, she would know who to ask who would know where I was hunting. So she would, like, contact my buddy Dylan, who would know, like, the exact tree I'm in or the exact drainage I'm in or where I'm camping. But usually you just know that I'm in, like, a state somewhere. Yeah, we should probably let Dylan in on that part of, he's like part of our system here and he should probably know that.

But yeah, I like to know general, but I would also be a nervous wreck if I knew specifics. Jennifer had to leave, but she wanted to chime in that she'd like it if like all the dinners were pre-cooked before I left. But what would she compliment you on? What do you think from her perspective? You skipped ahead. She wasn't interested in that question. Oh, boy. I don't know if I'm going to be able to answer that for you, Spencer.

What would she compliment me? What do you think you do well? Too modest. What do you think you do well? In getting ready for leaving on a trip. Or when you come back, like, what are you, what do you do well? You know, I think you feel as though, like Brody said, it's not like you've been on vacation for a week. You come back, you're tired.

But yeah, there's no like going and being like i'm gonna sleep in tomorrow morning you got to just get up at six and start making breakfast and get the kids up and just you know roll roll right back into the zone which i think i feel like i do that you know i don't i'm not gonna be like lazy around the house for a day katie do you have any compliments for steve on on what he gets right he gets the first like five hours home really well. Like you nail it. It's like you're so excited to see everybody and you missed everybody and hugs for everybody. And then you start, you know, as in your words earlier, pissing on the posts all over.

Takes about usually you get home at night. So it's like you go to bed and then you wake up and then you start tinkering around. But those when you first get home, you are delightful. And then I get up and go out in the garden. I'm like, sons of bitches. Nobody's done any weeding. What about where could your spouse improve on making these trips easier? I don't get to say what.

Oh, sure. Go ahead. What you do well. Please. No, I get to say what... Oh, sure. Go ahead. What you do well. Please. No, I want to say what my wife does well. Okay, yeah. So, you know, like, we're always mad at each other about something.

What's it right now? Just, like, stupid shit. You got it at the restaurant? But, no, I was mad about that a long time ago. But here's the thing that I think is important, the main thing. It's like,

there's no one in the world that I trust more than my wife. Like, if something really bad happened, that's absolutely who I'd call.

There's no one I'd rather have, like, my kids or, like, an eye toward what they needed or like she would take a bullet for him if I had an enemy she'd want to cut their fucking hands off do you know what I mean yeah like it's like that's right yeah like that's the main thing and all the stupid

fights and shit I mean they just come and go but like the main thing is like, do you like who's the main person you would trust to like have your family you? You know, I mean like who's at the wheel? Yeah. I've heard Steve. And if I ever felt like that, like if I ever felt if I ever doubted that aspect of like, do I trust the driver? Right. It would make all that other stuff very different. Yeah. But it's always

there, right? I've heard him talk about this before. There was one time we were out having a nice dinner and everyone was having a nice evening until Steve started asking people what the best part of their marriage was. And then someone asked Steve, do you remember what your answer was? No, I don't remember this.

Was this the night I got in a fight with Cal? Yes, and it was the night that Cal got in a fight with Brody. There's many uncomfortable people there. The drama. Geez, where was I? Anyway. Let's not dig up the past. It was when, I think it was when Campfire Stories.

It was the celebration dinner for Campfire Stories. And there was like a couple fights one of the main fights that brody and cal got in over was the elk management plan it got like really heated and personal and people started kind of looking around like jesus really yeah i love it yeah steve was asking everyone passion everyone what the best part of their marriage was. And Steve's answer was that not only are Katie and Steve on the same page, but they're on the same word on the same page when it comes to parenting and just all the things around that. And so that was exactly what you just explained again. You feel the same way about that, Katie?

I do. Yeah. again you feel the same way about that katie i do yeah i think i mean not to just we are getting very personal but not to get super personal about our relationship but the i think we our fights stem from where we perceive weakness in one another which is you know. Oh, everybody does. Not for sure. Don't get married to her ass and then get a little sick. Get married to her and then catch COVID. Holy shit, dude. It's like you had an affair. But the flip side of that is that, like, I trust him.

He's strong. He's capable. He's loyal. Like, things that I know he feels about me. And we expect, we have very high expectations of each other, sometimes punishing, punishingly high expectations of each other. And most of the time that is to a good end. Sometimes it's punishing. Now I want to hear about where we can improve as the person leaving home to go hunting.

And I want us to predict first, like what our spouse is going to say that we could be better about. I think that Shelby would say I could improve on getting her a more firm schedule. Oftentimes it'll be like I'm going in mid-October to Wyoming to Antelope Hunt. And I'll be like, I will be gone sometime between the 10th and the 15th and get home sometime between the 20th and the 25th. I recognize that's a very hard thing to plan for when you're the other person in the equation, not knowing like what this five day window is in a 15 day stretch. So I think that's something that if you could make a request would be that I get better about my scheduling and giving you more firm dates. Yes. I don't think that's realistic, like at all. So many of your hunts depend on the hunt prior,

right? Like whether or not you're even going to go to Wyoming. Depends on if you get your archery book in South Dakota or whatever. I guess if I had to pick one thing I wish you were better at, I wish I just got to do more fun things with you in the fall, right? Like we do fun things all the time. We'll go camping whenever we want. We're very not tied down to anything. So we get to be a little spontaneous and I don't get to do the cutesy fall things, right? I don't get to go apple picking, right? We've never carved a jack-o'-lantern. I want to do that stuff.

I'm not happy about it either. I know I would love a Halloween costume contest. You'd do a pumpkin spice latte. Yes, I would hardcore be into it if it wasn't in November. So that's just the reality of it. Danielle, what could Chester do better when he listens to this episode? What's he going to learn that he could improve on? This is a tough one.

He's that good? Or there's a lot of things that he could improve on. No, I mean, like, I think, well, he doesn't hunt as much as he'd like to. It's mainly, everything I've talked about is work because that is like, it's on a hunt. A lot of you guys, a lot of your troops are hunts. So that is what I consider his hunt schedule. When he's home, he doesn't really hunt. At least he hasn't in a while.

He just fishes all damn time. Okay. Yes. I like to refer, just fishes all damn time. Okay. Yes. He fishes all the time. For all you guys who are hunting, it's fishing for Chester. So he fishes all the time. So I guess, to be honest,

now that just all clicked. I would say a schedule is great because he's always like, he always comes up to me and he's real nice. He's like, do we have any plans this weekend? I don't think we did because I was going to go fishing. But if you don't want me to go, I'll stay. Like, I wish I just knew more of like, I know there's spontaneous trips and you can't control it.

But it is nice when like, especially for my schedule, because I'm so busy as well. It'd just be nice to know like, hey, I'm going to be gone for five days this day fishing somewhere. At least I knew like, okay, sweet, you'll be gone. Let's try to get, let's try to do something before you leave. You and Kelsey should share a calendar. So then instead of like getting 80% of the picture from your husbands, you'd get 100% of the picture. No, we do. We do that. You do? Yeah. Yeah. Because they always fish together. Half the time they're fishing together anyway, so you'd have a lot more visibility. Always. Yeah. Yeah. Now we do that. Kelsey, what could Seth do better? Um, well, I've been talking about like our systems and our plans and everything that

actually has worked out to the point where I don't have a lot of gripes. Um, the only thing that's been like a problem and this only applies to meat eater work trips. Honestly, like I, I love to hunt too. So when Seth is hunting personally, I'm there. So this is like not a personal hunt problem, but when he's going on a work trip, it's very, a lot of times the turnaround between these things is like one day. So it just naturally happens. And it's a lot of times not not this is out of his control that there's like a tornado of shit left around the house just because he's like in and out uh that only one person is left to like handle so that's the only thing that gets to me sometimes but we talk about

it and it's gotten a lot better carrie tell brody how he could improve well the the stuff lying around the house when they get home where like the dump, that's a big one. But he knows that. But, you know, I thought of one other thing that Brody does really well. Brody might just dump it out in the yard. I do when it's nice. But then that's still got to be cleaned up. Well, like under the awning or something.

I don't know. Why you got to dump it in the house? But you know what Brody does? I'll try that next time. Thanks for the advice. We're all learning together. One thing he does do well is he puts equal energy into planning outings and doing things for our family and getting those trips together. And that means everything.

You're supposed to be talking about something bad. I know, but I missed that part earlier. But it is. And it's really like when we're doing trips which we do all summer long we do all fall he really puts like he puts the whole thing together he gets the food together he does a lot of that that's that work and that's a important to our whole family it really is we base our a lot of our fun and good times and memories around that yanni we're gonna need you to role play here what would your wife say that you could improve on

when you're going on a hunting trip? Just have the whole house spick and span and have seven meals pre-prepared with little instructions. Is that a real request? Is that something that you could pull off and that she would use? Dude, imagine how that would change

the whole dynamic, man. I know, but it might be like Yanni needs a whole extra day before a trip to do it. Oh, multiple. Yeah. That takes a long time. Yep. Yeah, that's a lot of work to make meals, you know. What if you just make a double batch of things when you're-

We do that. Triple, and then just save one for the trip. We do that. This is from someone who doesn't cook, so I don't know. Just suggest. You know like when someone dies and your neighbors bring over like a thing, it's got, it says like 300 degrees, you know, at 20 minutes, 300 degrees and shit. Just do all that, Yanni.

A meal train. That's what they call it. Yeah, you just have a special drawer to put them in, in the freezer. Yeah. Monday drawer, Tuesday drawer. That's right. Put them in in the freezer. Yeah. Monday drawer, Tuesday drawer. That's right. I always said that we should start a little meat eater spin-off reality show called Wives of Meat Eater.

Yeah. What would people witness? What would be like the entertainment there? Oh, man. I don't know. It actually would probably be very boring in reality, but. I like it. Katie, what can Steve improve on for these trips? I think

extending that wonderful five-hour appreciation period to just when he's home could be nice. But I do think the thing that he does well, which is also a tip

that I think has changed are at least in the planning, which has been so hard to know. Like, okay, he always puts things on the calendar at the – he like over promises. What am I trying to say? He under promises, over delivers. He will say, I'm going to be gone for 10 days. And then sometimes he'll come back in eight. And then it's always like, oh, that's great and unexpected. Not when you have a nest.

You need time to clean it, Katie. That's true. Well, that's true. Yeah. No surprises. I love that you guys are opposite. But that has been, that's actually been a big game changer for us. Because when it was eight days and he didn't get it done and needed to stay two extra, those two extra were like the straw that broke the camel's back.

So always, you know, fudge it a little and then come back early, even if it was never planned. You do that a lot. What? You come home early, usually. You'll promise more. You'll say you're going to be gone longer than you are. Yeah, that's just being smart, though. That's a nice little hot tip.

It took 10 years, 15. And I blame Shelby for when I do that. If I come home after three days and I'm supposed to be gone five, I tell her she made the home too comfortable. That makes me not want to leave it. It's her fault. It's her fault. It's her fault. That's cute.

Do the rest of you spouses get to participate in Halloween costume parties and carving pumpkins and Christmas shopping during the fall? Or is that also just like off the table? Dude, this year I grew the damn pumpkins. Are they coming along? Oh, yeah. They're not like state fair winners, but...

But you did it so you didn't have to go to the pumpkin patch with me. That's a hot tip. No, because she likes to go to those places where you go like, you know, get your, like, whatever. Pumpkin patch. The corn maze. Yeah, I'm going to make her a little. Those are amazing.

I'm growing her pumpkins. I'm going to make a little scavenger's hunt for her in the yard. Her friend was saying I should do like a little face painting booth and face painter and have like my own little Halloween thing and then I don't need to go. I'm going to have like cider and shit and then I can just get all that taken care of at my house and I don't need to go to some fake pumpkin patch. You are all invited and

we can do it when Spencer is around. Yes. Can we have that schedule? Yeah, I don't even I don't have any I don't have any... I don't really honestly see any real areas for improvement. I mean, no, no, no. I have massive...

No, no. No, no. I have massive areas for improvement. I don't really... I mean, I have little gripes and stuff, but there's no sort of fundamental thing that ought to be different. You know? I would disagree.

Our most recent argument where you just were like, you're being a bitch. Stop being a bitch. And I was like, you're right. I'm being a bitch. So just in the general sense of... Yeah. That was a baller.

You appreciate being called out sometimes. No, it was about figuring out our fish shack. It's just a lot of complicated accounting at the end of the summer. It takes a lot of balls, though. I've never actually used a B word. Yeah, you've got to pick your moment for that. Well, no.

I want to wrap it up. It was only after I called him a word. People are going to be trying that. She called me every name in the book and was like insulting. I'm like, like the dumbest guy on the planet. Cause I can't figure out certain math things. Right.

And, and I like gave her a little taste of her own medicine to which she said, you're right. Eventually. Took some convincing. That's kind of an awkward way to end it Spencer sorry about that it's good just choose your moment to

call your spouse a bitch maybe it'll work don't do that Carrie if you miss an animal the word she called me I was like later she's like I said you're being a and I said that you know you left off you left off the being a you said you are yeah she said you are a and i was like but i was saying like i if you said you're being a that's totally fine but don't say i am a because that feels like

really like oh that cuts we all have areas for improvement, obviously, Steve and I in particular. Alright, there you have it. 40% of all marriages. But not yours. Not mine, man. I'm in it too deep now. Yeah. I honestly think that

there's a lot of things that come out of uh i think if you travel a lot and do and do stuff i i feel like there's probably plenty of people who can't manage their marriage and they never go anywhere yeah do you know what i mean yeah i just think it's like it's like trouble's gonna to find you, and it's going to find whatever thing you have going on. Yeah, if you allow hunting to cause a bunch of big problems, you're probably in trouble already. You're probably in trouble already. But I think I've shared this perspective from, and Katie totally disagrees, me and my friend Tony one time were taking all of our kids clam digging.

How many kids do they have? Four or three. He's got a bunch of them. We took clam digging. This is the funniest thing. On the same trip, he had his kids in one of those backpack deals. I forgot to buckle it in. So, a little kid. And he bent over to dig a clam.

That kid's right on it. Right into the water. But anyways, you're like, you got to say an early, I always feel good if I'm out with all my kids. Cause I feel like I'm not doing anything bad. Right. So I'm being a good dad.

We're outside. Like you, it's just that you feel great. Um, and then we were gone super late. And I remember got pulled over by a policeman. And we both got in a little bit. We both got kind of yelled at over the phone.

Like his wife called and kind of yelled at him. My wife called and kind of yelled at me. Your kids were little back then too. And Tony said to me, Katie hates this quote. Tony said to me, man, if we were the way they wanted us to be, they wouldn't like us. I think we'd like them a lot more, actually. But yeah, it brings up, I don't know. I think it brings up interesting stuff.

Marriage is fun, though, man. I'd hate to. I wouldn't want to go through life not being married. Not to hack on people that aren't married. I mean, it's great. But I'm just saying for me personally, I think it'd be miserable want to go through life not being married. Not to hack on people that aren't married. I mean, it's great, but I'm just saying for me personally, I think it'd be miserable. I would be miserable not being married.

So have a good hunting season. Don't ask to try to stay married. Use all these tips. Use Yanni's tip where you bake all these special dishes and leave instructions on them. Use Brody's trick where you come home and put everything neat and organized outside where no one has to deal with it.

Yeah. You know, Spencer's trick where he comes and just lays in the nest. Talks about how great the nest is. I don't embrace it. He despises the nests. And, and everyone,

everyone will be fine. All right. Uh, thanks tuning in as always. And, oh, you know what? I forgot to give the best marriage advice ever. Cormac McCarthy doesn't actually say this, but Phil's rolling his eyes.

It wouldn't be an episode of the Meteor podcast without a Cormac McCarthy quote. Even one brought to you by T-Mobile. It's not a Cormac McCarthy quote. It's a way that things work in Cormac McCarthy's books. The worst thing you can do as a character in a Cormac McCarthy novel is act as though you didn't make a decision that you made. Once you make a decision and go down a path, there is no room to later sort of act like you hadn't made that decision.

You cannot live a false reality because you'll die violently in his books. In real life, you'll suffer mightily. That's all. Wait, what's the advice for that? Own it. Own it. Own it.

If you make a commitment, you made a commitment. A lot of good reasons for people to get divorced if they choose to do that. But yeah, own it if you can. Sure. We somehow made a more awkward ending. After talking about how you should call your spouse a bitch. No, be in a. Be in a.

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