00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is me eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening Hunt podcast, you can't predict anything presented by on X. Hunt creators are the most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters. Download the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google play Store. Nor where you stand with on X. All right, we're gonna start out with this is a segment called Love in the Time of covid Um. Joe Frigno Ferronado's it's Joe's middle name. No one knows. Joe Ferronado's middle name is Friggno. Uh. It's a secret that I would like to keep, but you had ruined that for me. Your big wedding. The wedding has been a real problem for me because I wanted to go. I want to go to a wedding. Yeah, I hate, I don't know. I leave very early. I leave weddings real early. But I wanted to go anyway. And then we had a live show which conflicted with your wedding, and the live show got canceled because the global pandemic. Um. If we had the live show, I was gonna have a part of the live show be that Joe streams in from his wedding. We're gonna have we has a screen arranged. What was the what night? What venue was going to coincide with the he was Pittsburgh? Is that what it was? Whatever the hell we're getting We even had it timed out, we're gonna catch Joe around the middle of our show. He'd probably faced one. I could only because it's like nine or ten at night and he's gonna call in. We're gonna we're gonna zap him onto the screen and and see how it was going. See if you had any regrets from earlier in the day when he got married. Hopefully that wouldn't have happened if he'd come out and been like, dude, I don't know what I was thinking. Things have changed, but you still have your tuxs on, Joe, Um, so what are you gonna do now? Like what happens you go down to the courthouse, like, are you gonna have a wedding? Well, as of right now, we're we're still going forward with the plans because I mean, we're getting married up in Lakeside or we want to get married in Lakeside, and uh, to tell people a little bit more because I don't know how many lake sides there are in this lakeside Montana up one more than one, probably quite a few. Real quick. This ties into my wedding and how there's a lot of lake sides. When I got married in Michigan, I grew up in town called Twin Lake. And one of my bodies from New York, like, it's coming to the wedding and we're having like the pre party, what you call the pre party, and he never shows up for the pre party, like Harley should be here, you know. He never showed up. And eventually he calls, He's like, well, I'm in Twin Lakes. I'm like, what do you see? Goes by the water tower, Mike, dude, just the water tower anywhere around here? And he was in the wrong Twin Lake, Like, how wrong? How far away? I think? He's like three or four hours he went to I guess what it was because I didn't even know this place existed. I was from Twin Lake. He went to Twin Lakes. I was like, there's such a thing called Twin Lakes. So ways clarify that before you send out your wedding invitations because you're lakeside people are gonna be scattered all around the country. Yeah, lakeside, Montana, up on Flathead Lake in the Flathead Valley. Um. But yeah, so that's where we're planning on getting married. And as of right now, we haven't canceled anything because, you know, as everyone knows, it's all changing daily and Montana seems like it's in a fairly decent spot and things are starting to open back up. So kind of yeah, well kind of that. I like how they opened uh, I like how they opened gyms but didn't open yoga. It's like so like prejudice against yoga. You could go lift weight, but you can't stretchy. Don't be stretchy. Don't be stretchy. Yeah, So we're waiting until June second. I believe it is the date where we have to tell all our vendors if we reschedule. Oh yeah, are the vendors are cool? Yeah? Are they very cool about it? We found some good Montana folks that it was very helpful a date in mind if this does get canceled. Leg is there a backup plan already in place? Uh? Nothing during hunting season, So we're we're heavily debating on when probably would be, now, do you want to be married or do you want to have a wedding? I want to be married. Yeah, listen, well we I'm married. Phil, you're married. Uh, Steve, you're married. I'm married. Al so good out. So you gotta okay, raise your hand and tap your mic so people at home could follow along. If you think having a wedding is stupid, you have never stay out of this cow. I'm tapping mine, Phil tap time, Spencer not happing. Oh you'd like that, like listen, being married last a long time, Like why kick it off in such an expensive way? It doesn't have to be exp We had a wedding. I just like after I didn't like it passed. I didn't even realize it happened and it was over. Well, the idea is you only do it once, so then it's like not that expensive. You're just gonna do it one time. Oh, because you're like, I'm gonna amortize this across yeah years, Like you know, some people thought about wedding is expensive, but then I only got married twice, and there's people get married five times. That's a different story. If this was like a once a decade thing, no, thank you. But I'm good with it, just like one time. I I enjoy weddings. I enjoyed my own wedding. I'm looking forward to Joe's wedding. See when I get And I hesitate to say this because I, uh, when I get a wedding invitation, Um, Joe's notwithstanding. I'm serious, Joe's notwithstanding because I have zero obligations at Joe's wedding if I was to go to it right, like, no, I have to talk to no one. But when it's someone that you're gonna wind up having to talk to a lot of people. When I get the invitation, I'm not excited to get it. In my mind, I just picture like, oh, there's an evening of small aimless small talk. But that's what the open bars for. I don't drink as much, but it's just one more night on the calendar. Dry wedding. I wouldn't look forward to you as much. I got it. I got married in the in the courthouse. But I love going on other people's wedding. Well, why did you tap your mike? You didn't even get married, You didn't have a wedding because he thought, Yeah, I thought, because I thought it was stupid early on. I mean, I'm glad I did not have a big wedding, but I love it when other other people have big weddings. Had you had you gotten your woman? Um? Was she pregnant? Oh yeah, so you guys ran down the courthouse? Yeah I love it really Yeah, good for you. Hey, thanks in my family. Yeah, that's why cal doesn't get to go to a lot of weddings. They just kind of have they come and go real quick. So so there you are you still gonna You're gonna try to do it? You don't? What are you are you? Um? We were laughing earlier about civil disobedience and Joe was like trying to figure out if he was gonna do civil disobedience. Um, that's what I'm like. Like, let's say they say, you know, no gatherings of blank? Would you cut your list back? Would you be like you that I could have my wedding when they private for my cold dead hands? Like, what would be your attitude toward it? Um, I'd probably cut the list back because I invited a lot of people that I didn't want there anyway. So so sorry for the folks that are listening to this, Well, they're not going to know if them they might have a suspicion. Yeah, well, if I have to cut the list back, they might know. Oh that's a good point. But we'll probably cancel it or postpone it and then go to the courthouse and then maybe just have a party later. Yeah, that's a good way to do it too. I just dig the party part of it. Like I like the open bar. Nobody really cares about the ceremony, right, Like the ceremony and everybody's like, okay, cool, get this over with and now let's go party. Spencer, if you just got invited to an open bar, would that be great? Yeah? Ideal. I like, that's just the invitations open bar, wedding and open bar this location. But you have to dress up. That's okay, It's it's worth it. Some people really like the dressing up. How long you've been dating? Three years? Four years? Four years? People should know that when they write in an email, UM, it might not immediately pass through Joe's hands with a pat When they write an email asking a question or sending like a crazy photo of something, UM, it enters Joe's spear, It enters Joe's sphere of influence. It does and when they he's the gatekeeper. When they send terrible photos, they should put a warning before I opened those. Yeah, you're gonna have PTSD from some of our finger removal photos that come your way. See those aren't that bad. I just hated the chaffing conversation people. What kind of photos again? I got a picture of a dude's gooch like hand covering the balls, Like, look at this chaffing. You didn't afford it to me. No, I didn't spell out of my chair right there next to cal Uh, I'm wishing you're the best man. Well thanks, not the best man, but the best man man. Yeah, I like that. Hope works out. Speaking of the writing and stuff, how many people do you think are going to invite Spencer to their wedding. I'll be there, not like September through December. I'll make it happen. Yeah, if you if you're a little like my exposure to people getting married has been that they're trying to find ways to get out of inviting people. But if you're in a situation where you're trying to like look for people to invite, Uh, Spencer is your man, but don't don't have it. It can't be like a B y o B. It can't be are you are you cool about a tip jar? Or is that just too much that that just really ruins your time? Now I'm going to the tip bar, cash bar, is it's still okay? But like an open bar, no tip jar, not even a tip jar up there, like a no tips sign please. I think that's part of like the open bar because there's usually a tip jar, so you don't mind. What are your thoughts on? Like the oh no, there is just an our complimentary happy hour. You get your money's worth, get your money's worth. This was in college. Um there was a place at every Wednesday night at two furs and like if if we were ever you feel like me and my friends were ever on the fence about going and be like, well you're losing money if you don't go. Uh, And that always worked and so that's that's like that'd be my attitude towards a one hour deal, Like you you really get your money's worth, go hard and then you grab like one or two drinks right at the buzzer of like the last year, and you know you got to like I need a round for me and my six friends. Yeah, yeah, that's the way to do it. So what about are you okay with like free beer and wine and then you have to pay for your own Yeah, that's that's all cool too. That's okay. He just drinks a lot of beer and wine. He comes out of red teeth. That's right. If I don't, if I don't like what's on the menu, then I like it that night, that's fine, I like it. Uh. One time I had to go to a wedding and my wife couldn't go, and so I want my wife's friend instead. And this wedding was early wedding and they were serving drinks before the service. I was this is back when I used like to pull a cork. I was going to do that. I was like, I was full. I was drunk before the wedding started. And that's playing with fire. Yeah, I remember how we calculate this, but I remember thinking that reviewed in my mind the next day, I thought that I had had eighteen mixed drinks that day. Yeah. Yeah, it went in a long time. In fact, someone caught their hair on their their hair on fire at that wedding. You know, they had a lot of hair sprayer something to lean into a candle no harm done though, Uh, moving on, I fear I'm coming off real cheap here, not at all at all. I really enjoy celebrations and parties and saving money, that's right, that's right. Yeah, and and free booze. No, I don't think that that. That doesn't that's not off putting to me. It's like, we get up. Okay, Spencer's gonna else about a Morrell breakthrough which we're following. Uh it was it was on this show that we talked about the man who died under mysterious circumstances. Uh oh shoot, see how I caught myself? Shoot shoot, um, yeah, we need to review that. Do you know about this? Yeah? I was on that. What I had too was like, yeah that was a podcast, but no, it was our We did a live event zoom event on YouTube the internet. Yeah. I want to cover Cow's. Uh. I don't know what it is yet, but I know there's something to do with cowl and some mushrooms shavings. But before we get into that, Cow's my note here is Cow's mushroom shavings. Um tell about We're talking about why Morrel's, like why Morrell's are cool, and we're saying you know they taste good, but beyond that that is cool because they're they're unowned, they're wild. Yeah, you're not gonna like go down to Albertson's, your High v or wherever you get your groceries and just like pick them up next to the potatoes. Good a fresh morale, that's right. Yeah, that's that's part of the mystique and what makes morale such an enigma, and so part of what we talked about on that beers and bowl, which you can go find on our YouTube channel. You you proud to me, Steven to tell me something I don't know about morales, and so this is what I told you, and I didn't know it about. Ronald will do a gig now I know. Ronald o Er he was a grad student at San Francisco State University in two and he cracked the code on morales. He figured out how to grow them when no one else had been able to the world's greatest minds have been at this. Uh, there's like in the world's greatest minds, my cology minds. What is that which which I'm sure everybody from the Manhattan Project actually they got the atomic bomb, they all moved over to Morrel's I would still bed that mycology people are some of the world's greatest minds, so I'm gonna I'm gonna stick with that. They've been working on this. There's been like business interests from places to solve this issue. Universities have have started programs and they crumbled because they couldn't do it. Michigan State was the most recent one. They gave it a shot, and I think after a few years, um, they stopped the refforts because it wasn't happening, Like, Okay, do you have it? You don't need to know this. It's still interesting, but why why is it hard to why is it hard to get a morell to take? Or if I could answer that, then I would grow them. Well, no, because you could say to me like, um, why is it hard to split into atom? And I would say, I think it has something to do with how small they are. That I don't have the answer too, because you can't hit it with an act, that's right. So all these people have tried and failed to grow morales except for Roanoo, where this grad student San Francisco University he figured it out and uh he was the first per in to successfully harvest lab grown morale mushrooms. And this is true. This is true. This is true. But three months before his patent was granted, he was murdered. Yeah, I love it, and uh he left behind by the wild morrel lovers society. Is my I've dug into this store and I wish there were more to I wish I could generate some kind of conspiracy theory that it was like Papa John and Jimmy John and and uh Dave Thomas were after him, but they couldn't do it. But it was It goes that it was teenagers in a park and it was a botched mugging and that's that's what killed Ronald or Yeah, you know what, Jeffrey Epstein hung himself. Yeah, that that's a perfect star to conspiracy. Yeah, so with the grave over too, a good conspiracy theory, Um what a good conspiracy theory needs. It needs that that the dory that there's just always a little part missing right, there's a little something that's not right, and that is the fertilizer of a conspiracy. There, like like why like why did Jack Ruby kill Lee Harvey Oswald? You can't explain it. It's like you can't explain it. So they're in lies the like the thing. Yeah there's other parts but two but like there in lies the like. Until you explain that to me, I will believe everything anyone tells me. And and part of what is like generated more interests around this than that it may be warrants, is that he had a lucrative contract with Domino's Pizza to like grow morales and give them the formula. And like any good patent, he Little Caesars was the little Caesars. They thought those kids, because he's so short. The little Caesar's game must have been it got spear, that little spirit, a little rowe uh and and his patent language was vague enough that anybody can go find it, but they haven't been able to replicate it. So this is what we we talked about last time. He took it to the grave, took it to the grave, took it to the to the pyre. Now, within the last few days, a story out of I think the Des Moines Register maybe has talked about a mushroom farmer um and I think vinter Iowa is what it was called, who is on track to harvest hundreds of pounds of morales. This year, or a hundred pounds of brows of of ones that he has grown. Oh, I just thought he's out at dark Durance Farm. Maybe he's grown them at his farm. And he said he told the reporter that he wants to harvest a thousand pounds next spring and he thinks he can do it. And after we get done with the podcast, and I have a phone call with him to hear about like what if if Ronald Over's patent had any inspiration? If he can tell me any details about what he's doing, Um, how long he's been working on it, things like that. He did say on his Facebook page that he will start selling Morale mushroom grow kids this fall. Whoa which which? But you said that there's a bunch of grow kids on the internet right now. You could go buy a number of different Morale mushroom grow kids. You know, dog seeds, Morrel's dog durn. No, I'm saying not Morel's dog seeds mushrooms. Yes you can, you cannot. Cal was saying that you can take a chainsaw. Tell this, Cal. Yeah, I had folks right in and a couple of folks that I've known for a while that uh, they'll take all their little mushroom trimmings and stuff and put it in blend it up, put it in their bar and chain oil. No, I thought you're saying you put it in canola oil. Well, that's that's for the organic people. Yeah, but that's what are using for bar and chain yeah. Uh. And then when they're cutting stumps, they feel like they're seeding in the right in there. Yeah. Yeah. But there's like there's a big difference between what you're going to talk about, Cal and just like taking the water that you wash morales with and tossing that across your lawn and then maybe having the morale a few morales grow. Like there's a big difference between that and commercial farming them. Absolutely, and that sounds like a morale magnet. Oh if you know about this. But this guy, he finds them where they don't exist. This guy and I will claims you have have done it, and and until until I talked to him even then, and like he does this year over year, I'll be skeptical because cal could go light the Bridger Mountains on fire and then go harvest thousands of pounds of moral mushrooms next year. But that doesn't mean that he farmed them or grew them. This guy just must like could be in uh an advantageous place when he's lighting fires, not in a till the fires, but like, uh, just something stressed out and the morales grew this year and he thinks, oh, uh, you know I did this thing, so this is the result. I can replicate it again next year in the year after that. At the time people hear this, you'll have spoke to this gentleman. That's right. Uh. I have some suggestions the questions I would ask him. Well, I I called him like on my way here because I've been trying to track down his phone number and he was actively picking morale mushrooms but it was raining. He's like, okay, talk, It's exactly what he said. So that's that's why the phone calls. Uh. He's I would be curious about to ask him one you can take care of my question about like um and a couple of sentences explaining me like why is it hard? M not. You don't need to give me trade secrets, but just why is it hard? My next question would be do you fear for your life? Oh? I love that good job. I mean, there's a chance he's never even like he's even familiar with this story. So yeah, better beef up that security, stay out of parks late at night. Um, I okay. One time is at a party I found out that there is a professor of mycology at the same party. I immediately corner that poor individual. Open bar. It was a very open bar, and Spencer, Spencer's he could picture it. I'm in and I'm just peppering him with every moral question I have. And I love picking mushrooms. Um, this sounds like a great party, very open bar. End of mycology person there, believe it somost like it's almost like someone designed him. There were foresters, there were my colleges. It was a great time for somebody who's not any of those things but loves questions, loves asking questions. Um. And I would ask him question about more else and he'd like, well it could be this, it could be that, but you know, nobody really knows. And I have another question, Well it could be this could be that, but nobody really knows. And so eventually I got to the point where I was like, so, let me get this straight. You teach a class and you get paid to do this, but you don't have any answers to any questions. And he's like, Yep, it's a pretty good gig. It's like multiple choice questions, um, like which of these things don't we know? Stuff like that. But as far as like the commercial harvesting goes, uh, I mean there are I have run into like these mega camps of folks that follow mushrooms around the country and commercial pickers, commercial pickers, a lot of people, a lot of people from Southeast Asia. Yeah, and and man, just some real rednecks too. I mean it's it's a colorful American rednecks. Yeah. But you know, I have spots that um are not marked by fire. Most of them would be like old logging operations that have have you know, come back with some undergrowth and stuff that I have consistently picked over and over and over again for five, six, seven years. Um. Some years are better than than others. But you're constantly just paying attention to the weather. Um. And you know, there's just all sorts of things that can kind of make that snap happen and mushrooms start shooting up. So um, yeah, I'm I'm dying to know because yeah, I've spread mushroom spores all over, and like I put down in that article that you helped me with, um like I have when I'm packing mushrooms around, I do my best to let those spores drop on the ground as I'm packing them around the woods before I had head for home. I've heard that, and I don't know where this is that because this is something that I heard a long long time ago when I first started to develop an interest in wild mushrooms. But I remember seeing where someone saying that, like sewing spores. Maybe not hesitate to say this because it's kind of been negated by the fact that you can seed mushrooms, but someone saying that, like you carrying your morals in a basket, say so that the spores can fall out that that that's like it's laughable that that would be effective. And the argument, and I don't I'm not weighing in on this, I'm just selling like an argument that was articulated to me was that their omnipresent. Yeah, so you know they've done these studies. I remember looking at this one time they went and doing a school, okay, and they like came in with some mushroom or and other in a sealed container. And they opened it in a room of the school, and they waited periods of time and took air samples right around the school, and like how long it was till that until spores from that mushroom could be located no matter where you took an air sample in the school. I think I'm getting this right. Uh. And they were saying that it's like all the spores are everywhere. It's just is it suitable. Like the limiting factor is the suitability of the habitat. The limiting factor is not the presence of the seed. But then, um, the fact that I personally know people who seed and yield and get wild mushrooms kind of like flies in the face of that. Yeah. Yeah, and and and this guy, this professor at this party was except for the fact that you're making the habitat too. Yeah, You're not just throwing seeds around, You're making habitat. And and I because the host of the party, um was one of my mushroom picking buddies. And he has like the big custom packed basket. And part of the deal with the basket is not only breathability for your mushrooms so to keep getting all funky, but also to let those spores drop, and he was just like, man, it's like there's spores on this kitchen counter right now, there's spores on the freaking lamp post outside. He's like they're just He's like, they are everywhere. It's like coronavirus. Man. And I have found on those days, you know, it's like good soaking rain and then all of a sudden it's kind of muggy in the morning and eighty degrees. And I have found mushrooms in crazy places because all of a sudden, like god, it's just kind of mushroom weather, and I just look, Yeah, you found one, uh, gravel patch next to a manhole cover in downtown Boise. Yeah, exactly exactly. When I was a tree man, we would now and then find morell's growing out of wood chips. Oh really yeah, And it'd be like you're just being a hard or whatever, or even in a place where like because you tread bark when you're tree man, you just have a lot of exposure to wood chips and bark and whatnot. And now and then you'd see we're almost shredded. Um, you know, an apple tree or cotton wood or somehow there was some mycelium there. I don't really know how it works. And then nowhere near a living specimen of the tree that it would associate with would be a moral sticking out of a wood chip pile. And I always just made the assumption that that was a you know, like an appropriate host tree that has been ground up and carried like the requisite Yeah that, and then it just found the requisite whatever. And then here it is growing in some dudes it makes a shade, sun, heat, cold water. Yeah. Here it was growing like out of a wood chip pile on top of a guy's driveway or something. You know. Yeah, I don't have a lot of faith that like carrying morales in a basket or like a mesh bag will help you probably get more morale mushrooms in the future. Um, I think it's been showing it, like they release most of their spores as soon as they emerge from the ground. But it's like Mark Kenyon talks about with his super extensive set and control process that he does for white tails, to like, if it gives him a one percent chance better odds of killing that deer or something like that, then he's going to do it. And this is just like such a low, just like such a low effort thing to do that. If it helps, awesome, If it doesn't, You're not like giving up anything. When people say like do you really need do you really need camo to kill an elk? I'm like, uh, proved to me that it hurts, proved to me that it's a deficit. You know. Yeah, and where's our definitions of needs right now? Um? But the big thing for me for air, oh you're those baskets and mesh bags and stuff like that, is you will get like if you're not careful, like you leave a bunch of morales in a cooler, uh or a plastic bag or you know, something that lacks that breatheability, you will get within you know, six seven hours, a white mold forming on on those rooms, which which I have eaten plenty of times because I wasn't gonna give up on the mushroom. But um, it doesn't look good. I was actively drying some morrells when I got a call with my dad tell me he has six months to live. That's interesting. He was dead on nuts too, because he died like just right after Christmas Day, so you could go dead, amls. He's like Steve how's this date worked for it? I'll be there and you don't have any disdain for morrels, then, no, I just remember that. I remember like where I was staying, what I was doing. We've taken the like cal we were talking about. We had taken the door off the We've taken the screen door off the house, put it over to saw horses and were drying Morrell's out of it. And the phone rang. That's wild. Oh no, but you didn't explain the mushroom shaving. Oh yeah, So I picked a bunch mushrooms, not a bunch, but my first ones of the year when I was out chasing turkeys around. Uh what were those mushrooms doing? So? Uh? It was odd. So they're real dark, like the mushrooms that you would associate with burn more cell eton or not more cella escalanta. I don't know. I don't know if this stuff is all wise or not. The big yellows, the big these were, these were you know, dark, more towards black brown, more con yep, more coney, more more cell econicas, and they were they were in a I mean old burn. But you know it's coming back. That country burns all the time. Anyway, Um, it was like, oh, that's cool. And and there's a pretty good pile of them. And you know those are leafy tops have that kind of annoying pocket on the inside of them, are leafy you know, three D tops, the first light one. But I don't know, an annoying pocket there. Yeah, it's kind of hidden in there. But it's a big mash pocket turns on. I mean that's pretty and it's real soft. Pretty ideal for packing mushrooms was built into that. Yeah, and the mushroom pocket and then uh and they're like, oh, you must be a turkey hunter. Um. And then the next day complete like you know that clay soil out in eastern Montana. This is on a an old two track that hadn't even been driven on, and all the little like mole mounds coming up. There was some like bright yellow kind of golden morales, two of them growing out of that. Yes. I was just okay, sure, you know, I spent ten minutes looking around and not a mushroom around there. Yeah. But so anyway, um, just enough to eat. Um. So I that chunky albeit that you gave me a long time ago. Yeah. Yeah, last summer, Um, I cooked up the Morrel's and threw them on top of that helbitt and it was real tasty. And then all the little trimmings, including all the you know, the gills on the outside that kind of fell off. I just, you know, I couldn't just throw those in the compost bucket. I just evenly distributed them amongst all the plants that I have in the in the in the house. Because you're trying to spread the love out, or because you're like, who knows, maybe someday I'll come home. There will be a morals If it gives me a one percent chance, yeah, tell me how it would make it less likely that the more grew out of that flower pot. Yeah, yeah, I don't care what time of day it is. I will be calling you and be like, holy you gotta get over here. The ice fishing things, I've had my list of stuff, but what I ever got around you? But I just want to hit on him real quick. This guy's talking about His name is Stu Beard, Like he's talking about fishing. One time and big wind Gus came along and flipped his ice shack off of him. Okay, well, another guy rolled in about his wife. They get that they're moving spots, and they pull all the gear out and he unstakes the shanty and she decides to pee in the whole real quick before they pull the shandy down within the wind. He pulled the stakes out, so then she's in the middle of pe and the wind blows the shanty off. This guy is saying that the wind blows the shanty off, the shandy like grabs his rod. His rod pulls up it's hood the rods like in the shandy. The shanty is blowing off across the lake, but his hook on his tear drop comes out of the hole, hooks the meat of his hand and he's like then attached to the shanty and rod blowing away across the lake. He said that hurt was ask him at quick fish feeling a little helpless. Maybe Another guy says this one. I don't know, man, I want to believe it. He says, he's fishing a hundred feet of water from whitefish, pulls up a rod in real combo and gets it all the way up and there's a dead lake whitefish still on the end of the line. I don't know, I don't know why not. Yeah, I mean, stranger things have happened. And you know how augers are collapsible where you put the shaft into the body and there's like a little turnkey to tighten it. This guy says he didn't do that little turnkey. And um, he says that ugu was good for one hole. He says a minute it punched through and to get that back out there be like threading a needle out just right. That's all. Uh. They're the on the top about this guy wrote in for some advice. This is interesting. So he's speaking of civil speaking of Joe carrying through at his wedding. Unif it's against law. Um, so Ohio? Okay, So he's in Ohio. No, he's not in Ohio. He's in another state, but he has a hunting property in Ohio. The state then says that they are not permitting the sale of nonresident fishing or hunting licenses. So here he is, he's got a hunting he's in Indiana. I think he's got a hunting He signed this letter a disgruntled hunter. Uh, he's in Indiana, has a hunting property in Ohio. Ohio then turns around and says no nonresident hunting. He feels that this is very very unfair because he's paying taxes on that land. And he says he's been calling the Ohio d on R and everyone else who will listen to tell them just how I rate he is. How can someone tell him or he can and can't do on his own land. He even says, I don't have the vocabulary to articulate how mad I am. What are your thoughts my out the line? Yeah, like I would say so, because who cares if you own the land? What about dudes that don't own land, but they were gonna go hunt on their uncle's farm, or they were gonna hunt on some public land, or they were gonna like is it really that if you is it like the like the if you own land, you're more special. But if he's staying there and he's been there for a certain amount of time, I can see why I'd be mad because he didn't say that. No, I'm just going off of a reference, anecdotal evidence, because my grandparents had the same thing happened in Montana. Really, he wants to build a governor for his tax He wants to send an invite to the governor to get his taxes back. Okay, go on, Joe, were saying, do you think it's special if you own the land. I don't think it's necessarily special. But like, if you're staying in the state, like especially when the lockdown happened, and then they cancel hunting seasons for non residents. But say you own this piece of property, you're staying on that piece of property over this certain amount of time and they still won't let you hunt your piece of property. I could see that being frustrating. We'll see you rent it. I can still see that being frustrated. I just don't see. I want to be clear about this. I don't see um. I don't see that the state has an obligation to factor in whether or not you own it, versus that your uncle owns it, that you lease it, that you have a friend who lets you blank. Like, I don't know that the state needs to goal no no, no, But if your name is on the title, now I totally get that, and I like, you just see why he's upset. You know, my grandma was pissed. But this very thing, this very thing happened to Brody. Okay it this very thing happened to Brody. But I don't think Brody went off sending people invoices for his taxes. I think that's taking in a step too far. He didn't take it. He didn't take it personally. He just took it to be like that sucks, yeah for sure, But it wasn't like this is another way the man sticks it to me. And I feel and I feel um on the spectrum of responses to COVID nineteen, I feel that the handling of the hunting fishing end of things has been botched by some states. Hard to see otherwise. I feel that some states have done a real piss poor job. I mean, what a crappy situation to be in trying to figure all that stuff out. But my god, I think it's people. I picture people sitting in the room and they get presented with like, yeah, well what about yeah, but what about And they do that for a couple of minutes and then they're like all right, no one fishes, yeah exactly, and they storm out, you know, I mean, because you're like, wow, you know what I mean, let's say, right, maybe you shouldn't be able to fish in real crowded places. But if it's that, it's like they they probably had that conversation like what about the people that own property here, they all you had that conversation with, And so I got frustrated and stormed out and just said, hell, it's like with your kids. You go from that you can watch TV for like a half hour to like, never mind, no one's watching television. You throw the remote in a drawer. You're like, everybody, getto the rooms. Yeah, like a lot of that happened. Yeah, the you know, it's it's on the passion subjects, right, because that a lot of people right into me on the well I can't now I can't hunt public land. What the hell good is it to me? I'm gonna vote that we sell all this and then we can do that, And I'm like, um, that'll fix That'll fix myself. You know, you can't go into bars and restaurants right now, even should we burn them all down, what do you want to do with those? It's like, yeah, that was a good analogy when you brought this up. It's like, yeah, are you proposing that they closed permanently bars because you can't go there tonight? Damn it? I never want to go there. What good is it to me? Now? Or in Spencer's case, would be like all these bars better to be free when they opened treat me to tonight, just like who wants to who wants to tackle the alarming new rabbit disease? I can live with I can live with the COVID nineteen, but I cannot live with the rabbit. The rabbit hemorrhagic disease to me is alarming. Oh man, But they need to quarantine rabbits. So it's so similar too, And I think that's why this, this person who wrote in it so alarm. So you know, it's a relatively new disease on the scene that ripped through Europe. Um, which I had intended to do a lot more research on this because I wanted to do some right and now you want I sent it to you a few minutes ago, or you've already been looking at this. I think I got it earlier in the week. Um. But I think there's a lot more cultivation of rabbits in Europe, domestic rabbits in Europe. It's like more common to yeah, I have rabbit hunt, you have it like for producing food and whatnot? Yes, yeah, meet your rabbits. Um. Also they were getting hit. Yes, I wasn't even thinking about it from a like a egg perspective. Yeah, I was just thinking about it as a rabbit hunter, and you gotta you gotta think from the egg perspective. Its it's totally catastrophic. Oh that's not there occurred to me. Man. Yeah, people that raise rabbits, they've gotta be sweating. Yeah. Um. So this new variant is r h d V two. I'm assuming that's for version two or variant too. Um. But it is now here in the in in North America, it's in to Mexican state. It's Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and most recently in southern color At a while apparently not a health concern for humans. Reports Uh, this gentleman has received are estimating deaths in the thousands to tens of thousands of animals. Um. And Uh. The basically they want they want some citizens science help on this. And so if you're out anywhere and you see what appears to be an outwardly healthy looking rabbit dead, um, but maybe has a little bit of blood coming out of its eyes or nose or probably any more of us. So there's some places that you can call into. But basically if you just call into your state wildlife, they're they're aware of this disease that's on the scene. And interestingly enough, timing is everything. That was talking with Hansi here in the office, one of our editors and on on the lack of white meat in the wild game diet. If you're a resident of the state of Montana, they're just down and because of this one thing, you can sources cotton tail rabbits and man All through high school, early parts of college, for me, cotton tales were on just an epic population boom in this state, and I would just stack up cotton tales before I'd leave Eastern Montana for the year, and that was they're excellent eating um. But now, ah, I'm all gung ho to go source a bunch of rabbits and then, uh, what did I call our HDV two comes on the scene. Well, this is what I've been thinking about about this because my brother is an avid rabbit hunter as well, and uh, I love to hunt rabbits and he lives in great cotton tail country, and he was saying that like the last you know, they're they're they're cyclical, not as predictably as snowshoe hairs, which run on like a seven year cycle. Uh hold that do you know the cycle of snowshoe hair. Some people attributed even to sun flares and different explanations, but but snow shares has this really predictable up down cycle, and these historians once um went and looked at the relationship between lynks and snowshoe hairs because, uh, links feel the effects of a collapsed resource very quickly. We did a podcast episode the other day with a python expert and the Burmese pythons in Florida, and he was pointing out that like a Burmese python can go so long without eating, like months and months atout eating, that when their pray species collapses, like when they themselves out of house and home, you don't immediately be like, oh and then they'll all die because there's nothing to eat. He goes, they can just go into this sort of state of just like languished suspension and not just fall over dead. But links, when rabbit numbers go down, like links feel it like very quickly, and I think that their ability to to bring to weeen young drops off, and you'll have links that like just are not there's zero recruitment, like they're not able to take care of babies, they're not able to effectively have babies. So in snowshyr hair numbers collapse, links numbers collapse. These historians went into the Hudson Bay Company records and they Huston Bay Company, they kept pretty amazing records, and they were able to show that there was a seven year cycle of lynx hides, yeah, and tie it to the known seven year cycle of snowshyr hair populations. But like my brother was the Avada rabbit hunter was saying, we haven't had a great cotton tail years since two thousand eight in his neck of the Wood's been a long long time. And I got thinking, like about this disease. I've been lamenting the sort of general lack of cotton tails within hundreds of miles a year. Um, they're not gone, but they're not like you like walking through and they're just like sometimes it's kind of you feel like something's wrong. There's so many of them. But then I was like, maybe it's good because if if they're maybe it would make the disease not spread. Well oh yeah, like if there's a ton of them, you'd be like, well, there's so much interconnected. But maybe if this thing rolls through, and I don't know. I don't know if it's I don't know anything about it. I don't know if it stays, if it just passes through, if it's a permanent fixture, I don't know. Let's just say it's the thing that passes through. It have a pretty shitty time passing through right now this neck of the woods. Yeah. Yeah, it can can carry it out from population up to find anybody. But the states you're talking about, they also have to have like a very dispersed cotton tail population. I think about some of the arid places in Nebraska in South Dakota that I've gone, Like in southwestern South Dakota, you could go like dozens of miles without seeing contail, and then if some rancher has a green backyard, they'll be like five cotton tails in this little area. And uh, I imagine that's like a lot of what New Mexico. In Arizona and southern Coline they're still going as well. Oh yeah, there's gotta be big holes in the habitat. It's not like we used to hunt rabbits in southern Illinois and it was just like a continuous it was like all rabbit country yeah, if there was distribution map for cotton tales in Illinois. Just being yeah, ma'am the in those heyday years, UM, I would not pastor a rabbit at all until literally the day I was leaving camp from either just hanging out and hunting there guiding. There's a stock tank right next to a big hayyard, and I drive up out of camp. If all my stuff loaded up, park at the hay yard, pulled the twenty two from behind the seat, walk around the hayyard, get a lot of rabbits, pile them up next to the stock tank, ski and everybody. Give everybody a good rant, pitch bitch mall in the back of the truck. And that was just like the last It was just like a very tidy, efficient grocery run before I headed back to school. And then you go home, make rabbit tempera or whatever it is you're doing. Yeah, I just have a lot of good white meat that everybody thought was chicken. Final thought on rabbits, we some of the biggest rabbit Um, some of the biggest rabbit killings I was ever engaged in were where ranchers had gone in and poisoned off prairie dog colonies, and then those prairie dog colonies would get colonized by cotton tail rabbits. And you just look out with your branoculars across the prairie dog town and every little those little hump holes to be like a pair of ears sitting there, man, and just so many that they're like trying to find any place to get protection. They would just sit down in the they would kind of lowered themselves down to the prairie dog colonies were one time, I mean, my two brothers got thirty five of them out the prairie dog holes. My one brother, Danny, he went late after a while, he went and laid down the back of the truck. He'd had enough, had had enough. Uh, moving on, Spencer, I was putting the heat to you a little bit earlier. Um, we're gonna talk about a handful things Spencer has been working on. But explain it again, Like, what's your problem with turkeys. I don't have a problem with turkeys. I just as far as like hunting my favorite thing in the world, and then like turkeys and just kind of like lukewarm with him, like I could take it or leave it some years. Um, but I don't know. It's it's not a Midwestern white tail, well not just white tails like I would I would pick l coning overhead. I would pick white tails and pick me with your animal or whatever. Rock picking. Rock picking, that's that's been part of it this spring. That's that's been a new interest. But uh yeah, why why the rock picking? No first? Like so turkeys is because because they're cool looking to gobble they walk around on the woods. Like, what do you like about them? Likes I that that could be crazy noise. Don't make your crazy noise. Yeah, that's that's all cool. I dig all that stuff, especially the meat. I wish it was like ten times more of it though, like a deer's were of the turkey broas, then I'd be real motivated, real motivated. I got like forty pounds of turkey breasts, right, I could dig that. It's okay, Spancer, I'm with you on that. I'm I'm about lukewarm with turkeys. So you guys are wrong. My wife, there A Knight told me just last night. She told me that I didn't know you and I heard you talking. I was talking to my neighbor about turkeys, and she said, I didn't know you, and I heard you talking to him the way you're talking to him right now, I would think that you would just kinda have a weird, creepy dude who's got a thing about turkeys. But I know you, and it's She's like, but I know you, and it's cute. It's like, and that's true. So I dig turkeys. They just like the COVID thing. And you know, I had multiple tags in South Dakota that I just never even went back and hunted with because you couldn't right right, And so like I was just like, well, you know, this is maybe a good excuse to uh not hunt very much in the spring and pick up rock picking. Pick up rock picking. That's been a new found hobby. Yeah, but think about your new rock picking thing. And we haven't talked a whole lot about it. Is that I feel as though I'm always suspicious of people who start new things, and I feel as though you kind of like sort of like very deliberately went out and started rock picking. Well, I've always been like interested in sorry, rock hounding. Yeah, that's that's that's a cool thing. Uh, Like, any of you guys here, like if you're out hunting and you come across something cool on the ground, You're like, oh, this is I'm gonna take this with me. I like this. Yeah. So like I've always had that amount of interest. Uh, and then Corona happened. Um and it's just like I'm traveling less and things like that, and and sort of the genesis of it is that, um, my wife who's not really interested in in turkey hunting or fishing or things like that, Like we wanted a way to like do some more things outside and this is something that she was interested in as well. So it was like a good lane for the both of us to go out and do something that she would like equally enjoy those yellow one eggets. So I brought three things because you said we were gonna be talking about new things that we learned over over Corona. So I've got one thing here. It's a piece of petrified wood. It's kind of standard for the Yellowstone and then yeah, and then I've got Montana egg get here, which is unique to the Yellowstone River. And then my piece of wood looks almost the piece of petrified wood looks almost milled. Is that crazy? My my wife had it multiple times where like she thought it was just a standard piece of wood on the ground and pick it up and like, oh, this is petrified wood. That's how like distinct of it. And that's your yellowstone egg. That's he that's a Yellowstone egg it or Montana egg it's Are you gonna cut it? I don't think we will because we haven't found enough. You have a umb yet, I have one running as we speak. Yeah, and then and then the prize thing? Can we can we slow up from him? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah. Uh. I used to hang out. I used to socialize with a guy named Ready the Rockman, and he was an egget collector. He was a commercial egget picker out in Miles City. This guy had five gallon buckets full of mammoth molars and had some bisonantick with skulls. Anyhow, he would get them and cut them to find if it was like gem quality or whatever. And I bought a pair of beautiful egg ear rings for my wife and she still wears them. Do you have interest in like cutting this open and seeing if it's like an earring inside? Not? Not to that level. Like I said, We've only found probably about a half dozen eggs right now, So I'd like to keep them whole for what we have. Well, I think that you're if this is your definition of an egg, I think you're overlooking a lot of shitty egg. It's this is a beautiful certainly on on a scale of one to ten. Like my knowledge of rock hounting is like a three. Well, there's a lot of aggets that are lame. I mean this is like, this is like a a gorgeous egg. Yeah. Well, and it's even prettier if you were in like natural light and held it up to the cell and it just glows. And that's that's how some of the guts are. Never I've never found one like like that. I'd be very eager to cut that open. What you need, like the prime right is like having a core in here that isn't fractured. M That's what Ray the Rockman was after. Is it whether or not it's cracked inside? Yeah, you better tell folks how it gets formed. Still again, I just said I have three out of ten knowledge on this. But my understanding is that like the Yellowstone volcano, when that has gone off, I think during the Pleisto seen era um that left ash and lava spread out all over the Rocky Mountain region, and then when it rained, that rain combined with the volcanic ash and lava is what created these agats. That's not my understanding. I'm I could be wrong. I could be wrong. Go I'm not telling this is what it is. I'm sure we're here about it. Joe, can you watch for the correct answer when it comes in Vieah, Definitely, we'll get it. What I've heard from Rady the Rockman baker, is that the lava flows would engulf chunks of wood. Mm hmm. That wood would burn inside the lava and it would create cavities. Over time, rain water would percolate down through the lava, collecting these cavities, dry up and leave the precipitates in the cavity, and eventually the cavity would be full of the precipitates that came through that rain water. The lava would erode away because it's soft, and would liberate these hunks of what he would call agatized wood. Well, so we're we're not disagreeing on what we said. I feel this is a pretty strong disagreement. You just went into more detail. It's like a combination of volcanic materials lava and ash and then water. And it's funny you talked about the tree thing because as you did say, ash, yeah, this is like so we're not totally in the fight. The most prized thing that we found this is a piece of egotized petrified wood. Yeah. Yeah, you can't see it well in here because this isn't like the best late place. But you go outside and you hold that up to the sung. It's kind of overcast today and you'll see like the orange glow in there. So I have a piece of petrified wood, I have an egg it, and then I have a piece of aggatized petrified wood. Man, this is all just from one spring of being a rockhound. Yeah yeah, it's probably from about eight times we've got out. We probably have pieces of wood, a half dozen pieces of egg it's or the like I think the technical term if they don't have banding and egg it is just kelcetton. So you and Mrs new Heart just head out and the she didn't take my last name, same thing is I ran into that problem just kills me when her mom when uh, when my wife's mother sends her it burns my wife's mother worse than me. When My wife's mother sends my wife a package or an envelope. She messes with her because she'll put down Kate, She'll put on Katie Ronella, even though it's not her names. My wife's mother likes to admonish her for not taking my name. Uh. I was traveling with Steve and his wife and uh we were traveling tight confines and his wife was making a dinner reservation, and I noticed that she then chose to take Steve's last name after the phone call. She sheeps sheepishly turned to me and said, I'm embarrassed, but that's the only time I take my husband's last name in the hopes of getting a dinner reservation. Uh oh, so you guys, go off you and not Mrs Newhart. Um, go off as a little a little cute little couple and go rockhound. Yeah, yeah, I love it. We Uh I threw on my stone glacier. We look up like public access spots on the yellow Stone with on X and then usually it's within an hour of Bozeman that we're finding these things. The best find that we've had um was two egg. It's that we picked up on a gravel bar where we could see the McDonald's at Livingston. So I assumed that like, oh, you gotta get a way far away from stuff because over yeah, that that certainly helps to like get far away. But we had good success, just like very local. Have you been, Um, I'm more of a bone picker than a than a rock picker. Yeah? Have you been checking eroded banks and stuff? Like you roll a bone picking into rock pickers? Yeah? Yeah, I have some bones that I've brought home. But that that's like another level of identification that I'm not down with yet. So I don't know my neighbor. Um my kid told me about this, and I haven't talked to my neighbor directly, but apparently he just found a fossilized tooth under five ft five ft down. He's an earth move equipment. I'm really eager to see that tooth. So and with with the picking, like why we got into it? Uh? I think they imagine there's counting rock counting with with fatherhood that I haven't like ever experience this emotion. But like you go hunting or fishing and you would rather your son or daughter catch the fish or like shoot the turkey, you right, like you that's that's something you experienced. Oh. Absolutely, Yeah, I don't. Like I've never like if I was saying you'd rather see your wife, I'm getting there. So like I I don't if I go hunting and fishing with buddies, or like if I take my ten year old nephew, I'm still selfish enough. They're like I want to catch the walleye, Like I want to be the one who that's like something's wrong with your head. So and I've I've assumed that like there's a switch that flips when you when you become a father, that like your your interest changes and you're like genuinely happy for that person. Yeah. I think it's like a biological switch. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, I think it's just I think it's like sort of while you're in that has to happen. And and this has been a new experience with me for rock counting, that like I would rather my wife pick up every single cool thing we find, and like then me pick up any Like I'd rather her find twenty s petrified, wouldn't me find zero really excited? Yeah? Because what you what you're seeing is your path through rock picking. That's what I'm getting Because you're like if she finds it and gets excited, then I can. Then I'll have more opportunity to go rock picking. It will be less like a favor. It won't be like I'm asking her to go. And that's a lot of the whole thing with kids. You wanted to want to go because and you can go. Yeah, she makes requests like that. We go rock counting and stuff. And this last time we found an egg. It over by big timber and we were like halfway home past Livingston stuff and she was telling me, this has been ninety minutes since we grab that egg. And she's like, I still have adrenaline going from what I found that egg. So that they're so shaky she couldn't pick it up. Yeah, so I I really like, I really dig that. We we took a first time hunter out and it was really cool. It was a great, great trip um, but it was very lean on animals and potential for and like it was just tough that way. But we found a lot of sheds and uh, this is like a true first year hunter. His name was John and he was like, man, I love to find a shid, love to find a shed. And my buddy Tyler and I through a half dozen sheds in front of this kiss and he stepped over everyone and it was finally we got it to happen, and he found found a shed once it hit him, yes, but it was just like it was so funny because we were like, oh, we're doing a good thing here, and then he'd stepped right over the top of the Is he gonna listen to this and feel worse about that shed? Is the shed that he found them that you guys planted or was it his own? Well, he did find it. Spencer explained the folks, what, um, explain the folks now that we've covered your rock hunting turkeys, explain the folks the difference between um, you're very successful franchise the fact Checker and bar room your franchises fact Checker and barroom banters. Fact Checker will take some commonly held belief among sportsmen and outdoorsmen, and then sports people. Sports people investigate whether or not it's true. We've covered this on the podcast multiple times. Examples being like, um, we're great, we're whale stocked in the Great Salt Lake. Um, do box really pay attention to the moon? Yeah? All that stuff. That's the fact Checker series investigating Uh, these long held beliefs, things that we all know are true because we were told they were true. Daddy, long legs are are incredibly poisonous, but they don't have the fangs capable of breaking skin. Things like that. That's a fact checker series. The barroom Banter series is just like wisdom that you're eager to share with your buddies from a bar stool. And so you may not be like book smart or something, but you can be done stupid. You could be downright stupid, but you could seem really educated from my bar stool if you read this series, because you've got these all, You've got these great nuggets of information around the outdoors. He keeps these all in his back pocket for the open bars at the weddings. Yeah, that's right. He bellies up, it's out for the tip for the night, just starts telling stories. Yep, yep, hey, by you a drink. And and the barroom Banter is like a nod to meat eater fans that would appreciate a deep cut because the like, the first time I heard barroom banter was in one of your books that. Yeah, both the small game in the Big Game one they always had like this tidbit in there to be like one sentence about a cotentail rabbit or about an elk that was like barroom banter. And then it was just like this quick hitter that did exactly this. Yeah, so we did. What are you talking about? We have these books are guide book series, which is a few few books ago, The Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering and Cooking, Small Game, The Complete Guy to Hunting, Butchering and Cooking UM Volume one Big Game and then Volume two Small Game. And in these we have these like species profiles all about how to like you know, prepare it, how to find it, hunt for regulatory stuff, and then like the kind of weird ship you couldn't figure out where to put it, we just put it in the barroom banter section. Yeah, and interesting interesting stuff about stuff right over the tens of thousands of words in those books, those are like my favorite sentences or just the barroom banter parts. And so that's that's what kind of the genesis is for the website. Here's a clearing house for all this off the wall knowledge that folks like us have, and it's a good place to share it with media readers. Now, I don't want to start negative. Um, but I want to understand you're thinking. I have now probably ten times suggested to Spencer that you need to do a fact checker or byroom banter. I don't care of something that I know to be true from growing up because people told me it was true. Is there red squirrels or pine squirrels bite the nuts off of the more desirable gray and fox squirrel species and they just that's just the truth? Spencer says to me, well, not enough people think that it doesn't warrant It's not like a thing that people think. But repeatedly the other we were soliciting questions from our listeners. Top of the list, why do pine squirrels bite the nuts off other squirrels? So you don't need to answer why do they do? Do they? But walk me through why that is not a suitable fact checker? It is? It is now I believe you. After the last time I was on the podcast we talked about fact checkers, which was February, I think we requested people to give us prompts for fact checkers, and that was the number one request that I got was what you just mentioned. So you now think that I'm on your side. So you haven't written the piece yet though now it just doesn't seem like an appropriate thing to write in in May this fall, this fall? Do you think about to that level you need to. Yeah, we're not gonna talk about like running white tails. Squirrels are alive right now. Sure we'll we'll get to it, but the we'll answer that question. Uh, have you done any preliminary research? No? No, besides like, how okay, why aren't we do how you're going to approach it? Let's squirrel time. That's that's one of the things that is kind of daunting about something like this. Um, so I don't know to talk to a squirrel. That's right. Well, we know there's cannibalism in squirrels. We know they can have a very diet. Would you like the barroom banter in the Small Game guide book about how how pine squirrels kill Leverett's snowshoe hair babies. That's a good one. Yeah. I like that they did a mortality study on snowshoe hairs, on baby snowshoe hairs, the lead cause immortalities pine squirrels. Whoa one thing for these fact checkers We would like to open up with the origin, Like, where did this idea come from? That's not like and that's that's my concern is that these people writing in like the origin is Steve Ranella because someone told me growing up right, Steve, you's got a Wikipedia page. It doesn't. Yeah, that's that's like the most difficult part of these all the time is tracking down the origin, trying to figure out where did this start. I will tag team this project with Joe. You're a good thing. You're here, Joe. Can you please watch in the incoming emails, Uh, things with subject lines such as, um, squirrels bit and other squirrels balls. Yep. I feel like that will stand out. Yeah, squirrel ball biting, stuff like that. When you see those, you take note and see if people can point to examples that that originate. That will lead us right to the origin that originate somewhere, not with me wondering if that's true. All right, that's covered to our sets, so we can look forward to that. It's it's going to be coming out. Yes, Um, tell us a couple, uh, give us some latest, some latest and greatest barbroom banters, barrow mant as of late, the theme of the ones that I've been writing about. It's kind of just been like northwestern South Dakota it's a really really cool area. How did you so not just South Dakota, but a quadrant of yes, because there's so much cool stuff that happened there. Uh in an example, and these aren't things we've written about, Like that's where Hugh Glass got mauld. Oh that's good to know. Yeah, I damn sure knew it wasn't BC, which is where it happens in that horrible movie The Revenuet R. Right, It's like, that's an example of why northwestern South Dakota is really cool. Um. That is the people often when I say, when I complain about the Revenuet, then I point out that you couldn't have said it in BC, and then where did it happen? And I'm like, I don't know if it wasn't there, that's good. Start telling north it looks way different. If you went to where Hugh glassgowt mauld you could probably throw a rock and hidden antelope. Like that's what kind of country it is. I'm reading an astounding book right now, but history. It's called Plainsman of the yellow Stone. It's a history of all travel early travel through the Yellowstone Basin, and um, the amount of white and yellow bears, the white and yellow kind that people see rolling around out on the Great Plains is amazing. Man. Yeah, across the plain were many white and yellow bears for the ferocious kind, the white and yellow ones. It's amazing. So northern and northwestern Southdakota are so cool that I'm not even gonna ever cover the huge glass thing because there's just like stories that are way better than that, Even better than a guy getting mauled and crawling his way to safety and not taking vengeance. That's right. You should probably cover that. So people who hate the movie like Steve and go, it's not even based in BC, and then they go, I don't know, and it's not a vengeance tail. It's a tale of forgiveness. That's right. If that movie didn't exist, that would be a great barroom bnter. But now it's just like, have that author on the I'd like to have that author on. I should stop talking about all this. It's hard to get him on. I'd like to have that author and he's actually really interesting, dude. I thought to have him on the podcast. Yeah, that'd be awesome. I've never read his book. I need to read his book because he might be like, dude, I know the movie is horrible. I don't know. I gotta read his book. So. One of one of the things about northern northern South Dakota and northwestern South Dakota that we've recently covered is three Toes, the wolf who, according to legend, was the last gray wolf to roam the Great Plains, and he did most of his damage over about a decade span in the early nineteen tens to the mid nineteen twenties, where he caused all kinds of havoc for ranchers. He was just running rough shot. He's cheap and on things like the hold up before you get too deep. I'm with you. And I saw the article talk like we didn't. You will find that. Uh there's even historians who joke about this. That one guy was talking about the legacy of like, oh, e frame, you know, the last Grizzlies somewhere, and he calculated it out that this bears reign of terror lasted forty five years. Yes, I think I think that was in Colorado. Uh So, like this this story, not this version, but it's been told many times over. There was a wolf in uh, Minnesota. I think his name was like three legs a wolf and he did the same thing, caused all kinds of damage. There was a grizzly in Colorado that had decades where he was just destroying stuff and reeking havoc. But you get the point I'm making. Yes, I'm not accepting this for fact. There there's like the point the point. But what I'm trying to say is just for folks at home. Uh, Grizzlies don't live forty five years, so his reign, it would be hard for his reign, his reign of terror. What was attributed to his to him in all likelihood looking back on it was that there was a but a collection of animals for a long period of time, and every time something bad had happened, they'd be like, damn it, it must be definitely. The record keeping is not very great with something like three toes. Yeah, I'm not gonna mess with but there is one solid and irrefutable fact he had three toes. No, there's a statue. Yes, there's a statue. There's a statue dedicated to three toes in Buffalo, South Dakota. Okay, I want to pull out go on with the story. I just had to get that in there well. And and to your point, I think wolves and captivity can live up to like seventeen years and in the wild it's like a decade is super rare. Apparently three Toes was like fifteen or sixteen years old, long range, long long rain. Yep. So he spent a decade just running rough shot on sheep and cattle surplus killing. Yes, yep. He was notorious for killing, even on a full stomach. Um. And as the tail of three two three toes grew, so did like his athleticism and wits can you dress the toes the toes situation? I'm guessing that's a good question, yep. Three Toes Uh. Prior to starting his destruction and his vengeance on man Uh, he escaped, He escaped a ranchers trap. Uh, and he just left a tee behind and then going forward if and that that that pissed him off? Yeah yeah, yeah. Oh. And also I didn't mention this in here, uh because it was like it was a hard thing to find space for. But apparently the ranchers of northwestern South Dakota had killed three Toes his mate, and that just extra extra it was like a lone wolf. McQuaid when his dog diese a constant reminder of traps. Oh yeah, like every time he forgets about it and chills that he looks and there's his damn foot. He's like, I forgot about that. I don't kill some sheep. And so whenever he would go and he would murder all these sheep and some dusty corral, he'd leave behind this three toed pop print, and that's how they would know, Oh you know, he's just dust awful little area, and just make a perfect little print. Yep. But he was so athletic that he would jump like twelve foot gaps to avoid dogs. And he was so smart that he would intentionally scatter livestock so they would obliterate his trail so he could then escape. And part of the story goes because they asked him what's that? They asked him about it? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. They must have like, you know, the last question for you, why do you scatter the livestock? And he was like, yep uh. And he was so ruthless that once, while he was being pursued, he even stopped in a corral slaughtered fifteen sheep and then just kept going, didn't even have any interest in needing them, just to like prove a point he did. That's a sociopath while he was being pursued. Not a sociopath. There's probably a good Latin word for this to be a fauna path, the sheep a path. So three toes you follow me? Yeah, good enough to do that one out. No, three Toes. Over his thirteen year reign was credited with fifty thou dollars in livestock damage, which if you count for inflation, that's six dollars today. It's a lot of damage. Yep. Uh. Local ranchers tried killing him. There was one case where the I'm gonna butcher the name Havevella boys. Maybe they followed three Toes for two hundred miles. No, no, they never got a shot followed him for two hundred miles. There was someone else that followed him for a hundred forty miles but lost his tracks when he got to the Grand River Um which I think the Grand River's location of or huge glass got mauled. Circle ties it all together, yep. So, finally the state got sick of not catching three Toes, even after having a five thousand dollar bounty on him for years just didn't work. They called in their best wolf specialist from New Mexico, and this is where the story becomes like absolutely true. Yes, there's there's no disputing like this three week period perceptions like yeah, we're making some jokes about it, but the perception like the depredation was real, the livestock loss was real, and it was a very real perception of this being attributable to this one ravenous beast. Yep yep, So Clyde brother or I was actually two of them or not, who knows, but this was the understanding at the time or many. Yeah, that that is like some notorious bluff country up there where something could duck down. You you never know. Even though it's like we talked about were grizzlies and analobre at um, there was likely more wolves at work here. But Clyde Briggs comes in from New Mexico. He is the U s d A S Wolf specialist, and he has a reputation for catching things that are on catchable and he does just that. He spends three weeks there interviewing locals, talking to ranchers, kind of surveying the land. He decides on one specific ranch where three Toes had recently left a track behind. And so I knew you'd want more information on the actual trapping portion of this, but there's like so little available the story gets pretty short after this. Brigg goes out. Briggs goes out and he just litters an area with traps, and he knows that this wolf is so wise and so evasive that he needs to lay traps that if it gets it one leg in and has to get another leg in as well, one one leg on this wolf isn't good enough. So uh, the only details legs, that's right, the only the only information really available is that he just litters like a pasture with the traps, and he catches the wolf on July and he gets out there. Uh and three Toes is like emancipated at this point. He's way past it from having a man's paid would be he let it go out of the trail. No. Uh, three Toes is now only seventy four pounds decite, despite being six ft long from just a life I haven't been on the run, yes, and not eating all the stuff you kill, and and he's and he's just passed his prime. So Briggs has a lot of pride and like he caught this wolf, but he alsto wants to spare the wolf and drive it back to Buffalo, which is the county seat. But on the car ride there, which was only about twenty minutes to get there, the wolf dies. Is this is this credited with being the inspiration for The Crossing by Cormick McCarthy. Not aware The Crossing Court McCarthy part of the Border trilogy. There's a wolf raisin hell with cattle in New Mexico and a kid gets tasked by his father to catch the wolf that had come up from Mexico. That is Earnest Thompson Seaton story Lobo from the book Wild Animals. I have known what is I believe the inspiration for Cormack McCarthy's The Crossing. No, yeah, that's it's ras for that. Anyways, kid catches the wolf, can't bring himself to kill it, decides to bring it back into Mexico. One thing leads you another. Yeah, Briggs had intentions of killing this wolf. You just want to kill it in front of people, Yes, just like show them this live critter. But but three toes died on the drive there instead of treading it into like the July midday heat, and probably being in this trap that had like no shade available or anything that they don't say that's the reason. But this writer, who was a sheep rancher in area, he says, call it a broken heart or what you will, something of this sort is what killed the old wolf. He was resting easily when found. His wounds were superficial, but there was something in his grand old spirit that could not capture, and nature more merciful than than had been every before, granted him his release. Wow. Pretty flowery language. Very flowery, is that? I mean, that's just like Western romanticism. Man. I love it. I love it. You know. It wasn't a trap that killed him. It was getting caught, wasn't the July. It was that his reign was over. Well. So that's three toes. That is that quote from The Outlaw of Josie Wales where he says something to the end to the effect of m guys like you and me, it's not dying that's hard, it's living. I tell that to Yanny all time. How does Yanni respond? He just kind of rolls that, all right? So you, um, that's great, you know, you have standing invitation to come tell us about fact checkers and barbed banters, but I might revoke it until you get the squirrel nutting wrapped up. We'll put it at the top a little party. When you get that thing wrapped up. You can come on anytime you want, um, but we'll have an open bar. Con we range that account have an open free bar for Spencer after he writes it would be like a bottle in the glass. We'll be laying there at your little spot and you come in and tell us about the squirrel nut biting. There we go, and all you gotta do is I wrap your knuckles on the table and I'll serve you. Uh close out a couple of things. So Spencer, you realize during the quarantine that you're a rockhound? Yes? Um, what the thing you've learned about yourself? Cal What did the quarantine bring out in you? What did you learn about yourself? I have a thing that I learned about myself. Oh man, I I learned that that I need to start training myself to focus, because when I'm trapped at home, I get so many projects going. I have like full blown adult onset a d D. I already knew that about myself. Yeah. The projects are seductive, subductive, they're just you look out your window and it's like some of them. Yeah, I'm gonna hold off on putting the period on this last sentence. I'm going to get this period later. Yeah that flower pot. Yeah, I gotta go bust down four turkeys and make stock and learn how to can real quick. What did you learn? Um, I'll do mine. I was gonna have Joe and feel well. Mind, Now what I learned is this, uh in my I don't know hole. That was maybe around twenty or so I developed I've always had like a real thing about needing to be going all the time, um, doing stuff all the time. In my twenties or so, it turned into a a horrible not horrible, but a really like a really severe wander lust, to the point where I I remember one point in time realizing that I had gone eighteen months without sleeping in the same place seven days in a row. And then when I did sleep somewhere seven days in a row, I was out of town. I just had to be out of town in the same place eight days in a row, and I developed this feeling like a very deep uneasiness about not being on the move to where I felt like somehow if you weren't on the move, you would die or something. And I just very difficult for me. But um, I learned now that I like it waking up same place, wake up with my wife at my house, make some coffee. You're like, oh, this is why we have this place. My kids are there, you know what I mean, And and like after doing that for a couple of weeks, and I recently had to go just eat like a little in state trip. After doing that for a couple of weeks, I really not was like eager to go somewhere. I was dreading going somewhere. I liked it. I liked waking up making coffee. Everybody home loved it too much. Then I started thinking I was getting soft the dude, it's nice to be at home with your family and not to be also packing. Dude. When I moved to you know, living life on the road as a guide, um, doing all sorts of jobs. When I moved to catch them for a sit down on the desk job, Um, you know, I was like, I never hung a thing on the walls, not a picture, not anything. Never know, when you got to get out of there because I was like, I'm just gonna be moving, just gonna be leaving, just gonna be moving. And then like you know, ten years later, I'm like, better, better hang this map on the wall. I think I will have a decoration. When you weren't staying anywhere for eighteen months straight, where did you have like a paycheck send or Oh, I've always had an ad I've always used an address for a long time. During that period, I used the p O box. But I've also during those same periods would use my brother's addresses. HM, that's my port of call. So where did you consider yourself a resident? Like did you have someplace you were like paying I was a resident? Yeah, I was a resident somewhere. But I and I might be like it was mostly in Montana, but it might just be that period was in Montana. Um, and I think when I broke it it was I think it might have been. I think I might have broken earlier something my dad getting sick. I think I might have broken when I went away from my I might have broke my streak going home to be home with my family from home. Um, but yeah, just like but you know, think about it now, like on a weekend comes, I get little like it's hard for me to picture. If I look ahead and there's like a weekend when we don't have the family. Even with the family, we don't have something on the books, I get a lot of antsy. You guys are very good at at making stuff. I have to start planning something because I don't want to die. Joe, what you learned about yourself drinking? You know, so here's the thing you don't die if you just stay home. Really write that down. I learned the exact opposite. I learned I am a very restless soul. Like you're sitting around in the house. It's been like I need to go to that mountain top, like just looking out the window, looking at the mountains. I'm like, I cannot sit here anymore. But you got that wandered lust I do. I just gotta go see something. So I did a lot of shed hunting. Just went and started wandering around the like for antlers. Uh, I found a few. I actually went to the breaks a couple of weeks and only found twenty one antlers. Those really, Yeah, you did, like an actual trip to go shed hunting? Yeah, kind of and a scout first when you find them, do you like, I'm gonna put this into my big pile of antlers? Are are you like selling? Uh? You know where those were? Like, I put this in a big bile of antlers, so you're not like you're not out there selling it for two toys? No, And then none of them were good enough to really sell. But but then I also learned that I really enjoyed trail running. I think for that same reason of you know, kind of wander last Yeah, I just go to a different trail and just start running. You and Maggie and Joanna's got to go on a trail run. Those guys trail run, Yeah, they run out did I did one with him last year and ran h baldly with him and it was miserable. But now I'm actually enjoying you probably able to hold your own. No. Yeah, now I've been running a lot, Like I just picked up one day. I was like, I'm gonna go for a trail run. Ran ten miles. If you do go running with Johnnie, wait till you're good and far into the trip, and then say Yanni. For guys like you and me, ain't dying. It's hard try that out on him, Phil learn anything good about yourself? Bad? I don't care. Yeah, bad that I need a new hobby. I mean, I'm just exactly, I've been sitting here listening to Spencer. I'm getting I'm getting all all jealous of of the stuff he's doing. Yeah. No, I've just been kind of just falling into old habits, like you know, playing well. I mean I was at to say playing with my kids, like it's a bad thing, but I mean like going through routine, just going through routines, like after the kids go to bed, it's like I'll just play some video games or yeah, yeah, I'm still I'm still into that. Yeah, yeah, but you're a brand new outside pooper exactly. Yeah. I wouldn't say I learned how to do it because it went poorly and try. But no, I don't know if any of you guys at this hunting and fishing organization have any ideas for new hobbies. I books, so you can borrow one. I would like if you were out rockhound and Spencer gets to a spot and then sees someone already there rock hounding, and then he'll be one of those guys like this place is gone to ship when I started rock picking out there a couple good mushroom books too. Oh, Phil, that's what you ought to do, because that's the thing is right now, Like Morrel's coming on oyster mushrooms. My mom just pick that's I mean, that sounds great. Yeah, I've been articles getting I mean it's Spencer has been. He doesn't know this, he even talked about this, but I've been reading all of his stuff and and and I just I want to get out there. Yeah, he's getting me good, get me outside. My friend Matt who's been on this show before, not my brother Matt, my friend Matt Um. He was, you know, he was all hold up on his on a property. He has a little farm, quarantining out a farm. And I suggested to him, he's got a big ramp patch, big patch of ram um. I suggested to him, if you really want to inject a spark into the old love life, take your wife out there on the shovel. Digson. Continue, take your wife out of the shovel, dig up some of those ramps. Wash those ramps. Roll the green part of the ramp around the white part of the ramp. So it's a little package, looks like a polish rose. Brush that with olive oil, apply salt and pepper on it, put it on the grill and cook it and then give it to your wife. What is the polish rose? You don't know how polesh rose? No, you can't be like it looks like this thing. When when polish rose is a person's mom makes in the Midwest, when it's when they're having a party. If it's the wintertime. You take a green onion. No, you can do it in summer. Do you guys know this term? Take a green onion. You get yourself some carl budding hammer worn beef like the worst hammer corn most processed worst ham you can find, or corned beef slices. You take a green onion. You smear that meat with cream cheese so that you have it's like a picture of a piece of bread with cream cheese smeared on it, but it's not. It's a piece of ham with cream cheese smeared on it. And then you wrap it around the white part of the green onion and you lay a tray of those out. Now you're talking like that, dude, They vanish, but you you're giving that comparison. It is like counting exactly now due the poles love those roses. I don't know. Is it like a joke. Is it that they can't get nothing right? I don't know. I would rather have that than a rose, So let's think of it. I'm thinking it's laudatory of the poles. They've taken a thing that's stupid, like a rose, and turns it into a good thing to eat. You're already cription of that. Was like Cal and I were doing a video about how to make chiselick and I was trying to describe the size that you want to cut the pieces of meat, and Cal interjected and he said, well, it's about the size of a sugar cube. But I don't think there's anybody like under the age of forty that can recognize what the size of a sugar cube is. I could recognize it. Yeah, I haven't seen one of those in a while. But like when I was a little kid, we're gonna wrap it up here, but we'll end on this thought. When I was a little kid, and you went to church, and then you left church and went over to the annex for like the little social period, you would get yourself some coffee and then you put about eighteen sugarcubes in there, and try to break them up and then drink that sugar. And I don't think I've laid eyes on a sugarcube. Stands all right, Good do they bite the balls off the squirrels. We'll find out. We're gonna find out. Working progress by spencer fire. Alright, thanks everybody,