00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You can't predict anything, all right, man? This is the first this is this is the first session we've ever done to Miles City, Montana. I've sat at this table for a few other sessions before, but not just general generals. Moving to the big league. Miles City town of nine thousand has had nine thousand people living in it for about one hundred years. Just doesn't it just it just does it just doesn't change table place. So the uh, I'm gonna get to who's who? That's my older brother Matt's voice. Um. But first there's order, there's a little bit of business take care of, okay, and then the other thing is I don't know, is a little bit of a uh discourse on the main negatives of um raising game animals for food. Oh yeah, so here's the main negative. There's aesthetics, right, which I care about a great deal. But it's hard to come. It's like it's hard to argue someone from the ground up. Aesthetics is hard. It's it's like it's hard to explain as someone who's asking a pragmatic questions, So we'll leave aesthetics and like matters of the heart and spiritual issues aside um disease vectors. We have a lot of problems with moving wildlife diseases around. Wildlife diseases thrive in densely packed populations of animals that are having oftentimes unnatural contact with one another. Um and the way mad cow disease and other There's some other things that's moved around is between contact from pen raised animals and wild animals. Um, you put a bunch of deer in a farm, they all get sick. Wild you come up, stick their nose through the fence. There you have it. It also raises like some interesting historical questions like you can't just go out and catch a deer. Okay, you can't go out and catch a deer and make it yours. But at a time that happened, you know, so, Um, it just kind of subverts what I think is makes wildlife beautiful. And when you're selling wildlife to people, you're sort of taking a set uh an established thing of value, and it has value to us because it's wild, and you're capitalizing on that value and selling a false version of it. That's the aesthetic part. Yeah, yeah, I never thought about that, but it's very true. Back to Miles City, Son, I'm gonna lay a transition on you guys, is gonna blow your mind to be prepared for that. But Miles City, UM takes his name from a fellow by the name of General Miles. Miles City sits in Custer County, which takes his name from a fellow named George, Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer. And in Miles City is a place called Fort Kyo, which is a Federal Livestock and Range research laboratory. And Fort Keyo takes his name from a fellow by the name of Miles Kio in around the ty of our nations, not around the time during our nation's well about a week ahead of our nation's first centennial in June, late June of eighty six. Um general brigadier general. That means he's not a real general. So there was so much attrition of generals during the Civil War that they had to give some dudes temporary general ships, thinking that they would stock back up. The army I'm talking about would stock back up with real generals. And then you know, the brigadier generals would go back to being whatever they were colonels. So Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer, who everybody knows, has the loss. I didn't know. I never knew it. A brigadier man, it's like a temposer, General FoSER journal General uh Custer coming out of his Civil War fame famous also for having long hair, but had just gotten a haircut, comes out to this area with short hair about you know, a week or so prior to the nation's centennial. In his task is to be rounding up sue in northern Cheyenne Indians who have not come into their reservations yet, and everybody knew that they were fixing for a big fight. Um and Indians who were living on reservations. We're so excited about the upcoming fight that some of them were even evening reservations for the simple thing to go out and fight soldiers who are there to round up hostiles and bring him into the reservations. Just like now in the war in Afghanistan, we talked about the fighting season because the Taliban doesn't fight in the winter generally, UM summer was the fighting season. So Custer comes out to this area, has some crow scouts, some ercorous scouts who were allied with the Whites with our army. Um they were lifelong enemies, historic enemies with the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne. They find a big encampment of Sioue and Northern Cheyenne, so big that UM turns out it was the largest collection of planes Indians to have ever occurred, occurred before or after. The scouts found this, and they're like, man, this way too big. There's no way we can go down in there. Custer didn't. No one knows that he was thinking. Custer rides down in there, a couple hundred of his soldiers, seventh Cavalry under his command, and they just get slaughtered quick the Indians. Later a lot of them became famous who participated the bat And later they said, when we were talking about Custer riding down into our camp after it happened, we all thought the only explanation was that they were all drunk. It made so little sense. A guy named gall they asked him how long did the fight take? He says, it took a bottle long. About as long as it takes a hungry man to eat his dinner is how long it took them to wipe out Custer and his two hundred soldiers. Then they spent a long time, uh mutilating all the carcasses. The next day, when some guys are riding up the valley, they're riding up a little big on which the Indians called the greasy grass, and they get to the battlefield. They're assuming that Custer went in there and one and they look off and they see all these white and red, bloody kind of things going on, and they thought it looked to them as though the white bloody stuff was buffalo carcasses and the brown patches were buffalo hides. And they thought, oh, Custer caught them in the middle of a buffalo hunt and run them off while they were skinning carcasses. And they ride over there, and what they were looking at the brown patches were dead horses, and the white bloody patches were stripped human carcasses. And they would do such things as they would want to make your afterlife miserable. So they would cut your trigger fingers off so you couldn't shoot. They'd gash your thighs so you couldn't run. They'd cut your dicking balls off and stuff in your mouth, so you're just some cold bloody so you couldn't make love. Um. A woman by the name of big nose Kate, Yeah, is here you are every time you go to eat a woman by the name of big nose Kate. Uh claimed that she took a sewing all a northern Cheyenne woman and and jabbed it into Custer's ears um and to to puncture his ear drums because her father had warned him, do not mess with us, and she thought that he would have better hearing in the afterlife if she were to add extra perforation into the side of his head. Other historians think that they could. They didn't know it was Custar. They knew Custar had long hair, but he had just had a haircut. Portrayed with long hair. Yeah, but he went he wrote into that battle with short hair. Remember that, like that beer stand, Custer's last stand. Yeah, over by where was that Belgrade or Yeah? We saw always talk about stealing it. So I think we even went and susted out one time. But it was pretty well fixed, very well fixed, yea Custar. Yeah, and that he had long hair, and movies he's always portrayed long hair. His he cut his hair off and his wife Libby had a wig made from it. M hm um. Point being, there's two bodies that did not get mutilated. One uh was buried under a pile of dead horses, and they think it just was too much of a hassle to drag him out of there and chop him up. Two Captain Miles Kyo hmm was not mutilated. Mm hmm. And here's that transition I was telling you all about. Here's my brother works and works in four Keyo, four Kyo. Do you guys are talking about Miles down there. No, we don't talk about any of this stuff ever. Have you interesting to see how many of my co workers could even um recite half of the facts that you just recited about the history of four Kyo? Um? So, is there any speculation on why why they didn't mutilate Kyo? He um had some He was an irishman, a heavy drinker, and he was wearing some kind of uh Celtic I'd had to look it back up, but some kind of like Celtic Christian E Combo type emblem around his neck, and it's speculated that like like it was like an adorned cry I can remember some kind of adorned cross or something, and it was speculated that he UM, they didn't recognize that. They speculated that he might have been some kind of religious figure. It's one thing that he might have been, that he might have been had some some medicine right, and they didn't and they didn't mutilate him. Now there was So there was a guy, a crow guy named Curly who claimed that he witnessed the battle and escaped. Most people believe that. Um, he left the night before, got yellow and left night before. Gall the guy that said how long it took? That took as long as it takes a hungry man to eat his meal. Um. He later met Curly and he told Curly, if you're telling me that you escaped after that battle, you must have turned into a bird. Is the only explanation. Because he was not buying. He said, they killed everything, but they messed up because a horse got away. A horse by the name of Comanche got away with something like nine wounds. Um. That's where kio I just learned something interesting about. Uh. Was it Brigadier general Brigadier General George Hns John Keo? Was he just a captain? Captain? Okay? So you know, if you think about the years between UM, the Indian Wars in the West and World War One. Like if you think of the year, it starts to bleed together. Oh man, But just like in the in my mind, and I suspect this is the way for others. You think of them as being way far apart. But I guess Captain Kio was instrumental in UH in General Jack persh Ing um, black Jack Pershing UH making his way through the ranks to become the commanding general in World War One. He was like, oh, he's a promising young man. Yeah, because black Jack Pershing is the guy that tried to go down and catch Pancho Villa. Right, they must have um uh collaborated on some kind of project to military projects in the West and UH and Kio was a big advocate for for him. Now if you if you listeners get done with this and you're like, what should I do? Now? If you want to hear a good song, UM, go listen to Tonight We Ride, which is about black Jack person's pursuit of Pancho Villa which proved fruitless. M hm um row downd sent me that song. Yeah, roll down into Mexico into the Mountain range. Known as God's middle finger, the uh Sierra Madre and couldn't find him. Um, and then tonight we ride kind of follows the lives of a number of people who who ride with pershing and UM, don't catch Poncho via Poncho Villa. If he made it, he lived till the thirties and then was assassinated, um in a car so in Mexico. Yes, so, um llamas? How many? How many pag lamas do you own? Right now? Boy? We just jumped right, We just kind of jumped into this because I did a good segue earlier and then I got just tired of segue. I thought it should be like a twenty minute like where we talked about like this my being my first podcast. I was just curious, like did he get edited at all? Now there's cases in which it would get edited, like if I said something extremely racist or something, yes, that would be edited, or if you which I would said something that was like way off and then you said, man, can you take that out? If all of a sudden I realized that like if I started talking about how much I didn't like our mother or something like that, you might know I would unless you change your mind. But let's say, il, mom, I love you. I was just a hypothetical. Yeah, but let's say I went and realized that Kath and Keo in fact had been mutilated and Um had his junk stuff into his mouth. I would then I would try like, man, you guys are responsible like that, and you try to keep it. What will often happen to is sometimes not often, but now and then we'll have like a person on whose job it is to know something and then in in the asking of like a hundred things get rattled or whatever and they'll not know something, and then and then be like, please, it's just so embarrassing. It's rare, and you've demonstrated, you've demonstrated the occasional cost word is not bad. Yeah, but I wouldn't go out of your way. Um, how about like, um, can I sing copyrighted songs? If like, if I take a good question, there's like there's a there's a limit. I know that there's a you know, like, if you quote a song in a book, which I've done, there's a it's it's spelled out in good detail. Um, how many lines you can use under like a fair Now here's the interesting. Here's the interesting thing if you were gonna say, let's say you were in a situation where you were gonna say, you know, it's interesting, uh how llamas have been treated in popular music over the years. And I'm now gonna recite and sing a handful of songs in a way that will demonstrate a point and illustrate something about like the fascial nature of culture and and sort of the collective experience we all have and understanding something. Then you would be able to go and rip through a bunch of copyrighted material and possibly be covered under a fair use thing because I'm using it for demonstrative purposes. You know. Wow, it's very complicated. Yeah, it is, and we don't have that kind of so. I remember once when I was in I would have been my late teens early twenties, I went and saw a Blood, Sweat and Tears reunion concert, and uh, the guy was talking about how Milli Vanilli had just stole one of his riffs and he was all excited because he got enough money from the settlement to redo his kitchen. Is there talk about a Yeah, spinning wheel. Got to go, Oh, I hope that's not too many lines. No, No, you definitely definitely across the line there, and it's usually good practice too credited. So even if you if you're writing a book and you want to share like some lyrics, Okay, when I was doing I did a book and I wanted to talk about the song putting on the Ritz, right, So in there you'd say it like Irving Berlin, Okay, wrote a song and in the song or said these words, and you're attributing it, and then you can there's a then there's a limit on how much you can get away with you. That's like the same way that you can quote. Um, you can quote a book at length, right oh right, yeah, but you can't just like quote be like a dirty trick or you just say like, here's a book for you, here's a quote for you, and then just put the whole book right right. Yeah? So are you? Are you not cool to prost to eve with the Yeah? I only know of one song with the lament. It's a Frank Sinatra song I don't even know the name of. But he says something about lamas in Peru or something like That's that's a good clean segue. Wat's just Johnnie, so our lamas native to Prue. I don't well the fact that you asked me, oh, why, yes, they are. I thought it was a trick question because let me just tell you, because I know that that was quick. But let me just tell you one of the main thing I want to talk about after a lengthy preamble, I want to talk about, um, like you're sort of personal voyage with Llamas. Not that that's the not that that's like, uh, the only interesting thing about you, but I think it's just the thing that, um, I'm comfortable, like the most like aresting thing about like that people just generally do not know about. Oh yeah, yeah. And I think within that, um, there's a lot that brings out a lot of things about your personality, your approach to life. Okay, Um, you're kind you're kind of journey as a as an elk hunter, right. I feel that it's like a thing that sort of captures all that. Yeah. Yeah, Um, do you want me to well, yeah, start with um sciatica. Yeah, I started. Uh. I remember it was after um moose hunt with you and Danny and a couple other guys. Uh. Who's Dan rafferty right, hardcore Jeffie, Yeah, Matt Raffer, Matt Rafferty. Yeah. Um, and after that, I just I thought I had a torn hamstring. And after four or five months of bea that hurt, oh pretty far down your leg from my ass to my knee and my left leg interestingly enough that it's it tends to flick the left leg more than the right. Oh for you or for everybody, because I have pain right now and that you just made me nervous when he said where it was minds my right Well, that doesn't rule it out. You probably gotta hert needed disk, I gotta run. Um. I'm always fascinated by stuff like that. That's like uh um asymmetric in the human in there, I guess in the human body because it's just I know our hearts on one side. And but like, what do you mean, Oh, that that's something with restless legs that would tend to be in a certain leg. Restless leg syndrome is the same way. It tends to be in the left leg. And I'm like, wow, occurs in my right leg. Oh, I wonder if my heart's on their side. That's it? Yeah, that that is that is puzzling. Yeah, but your body is it's weird that your body is like a little out of whack and that your that your heart is displaced off center. Mm hmmm yeah. Um, neck problems are more common on the right. I've learned because I have some neck issues now. I don't know, it's just I'm sure there's obviously there's good explanations for all this stuff, but it just makes you realize that things are more complicated than you. You're at a point in life where, um, where you're starting to kind of fall apart a little bit. Yeah, for sure, for sure, I'm I'm probably well to man I used to be, but that's still most more man than most people. But I don't think you're that low. But just as far as having this disc yeah, that's that's true, then, by golly, you must have been hard to keep up with ten years ago. Yeah. Indestructible, Um, indestructible. No, my problems have been well behaved lately. I'm feeling because for a while Matt his one of his arms shrank. It's still a shrunk. Hasn't come back. I can, like you know how you do those where it's like a football throw where you got your hand behind your head and you're extending your arms upwards with a weight in it. Yeah, on my left I can do ten reps of that with thirty five pounds, no problem. But with my wilted arm because it's my tricept that's wilted, it's twenty pounds and it's a bit yeah you know. So yeah, it's still but the pain isn't as bad. I don't know. We don't have a backup to the sciaticum. So yeah, I uh, I started getting this pain in my left leg. It took a long time to diagnose. And you thought you'd messed it up carrying moose quarters. I know I did. Danny and I Danny and you and I ended up at this moose car because I don't know how. I think he was up there and he shot up off the river. We were camped down and remember river, remember that, and um he shot a moose and I think you and I he came back down and found us, and we all three went up there and carried a bunch out and we loaded up three backpacks. And I don't remember. Somebody couldn't carry E There's and I ended up carrying there's form and we traded, Yes, wasn't me? I had probably Danny? No, really? Yeah, And I was like, I'll show these sons of bitches, and it was we've carried some like yeah, but here's the way I know that you're a little bit messed up because there was no situation where someone went and killed the bull and came back and got people. I am telling you. It was the three of us carrying Danny's moves. He shot the first moose on that land right next to when he shot it. Oh then I ended up too. Oh then he didn't come back down that. Okay, I'm just messed up on that. But we were all there at the carcass. Were all there at the carcass. I watched him shoot that. I have no recollection. I still I still remember. Uh yeah, it came from way off. He kept coming coming coming back with a spinal trauma of carrying it like somehow rattled my brain. So you're saying that someone said I can't carry my pack. Yeah I was you. You said, I'm it's coming back to you now. You said, I help take Danny's pack. He is struggling and I took it pack. Well, he took mine. He just ended up with a bigger Oh yeah, okay, that's more plaus and uh it was the next day that I was like, things are different with my body, and you know, I live for that stuff, you know, so for going in the back country and hunting, that's like, that's what keeps me going. So I knew I had to change something. And when I started getting when I started thinking about llamas, I was thinking of them as, um just a quieter version of a quad runner that you could take into a wilderness area. I was thinking of them as, uh, just an instrument for carrying heavy items. Yeah, because you don't have a lick of At the time, you didn't have like a lick of of of live stocky interest, Well you've developed I had at that time. But that I got those llamas, I had two chickens. Oh yeah, that's true, and I fell in love. That's true. I fell in love with those chickens. And you initially kicked around the idea of um more traditional pack stock, did I hear? Did you not seriously consider that? I thought I thought I thought mules thought about mules? Yeah, maybe I don't remember, but pretty quickly settled on Now, what I don't like about a mule is um, I find that that kind of like hunting horses, and mules and stuff is like the kind of thing that if you don't grow up around it, it's very I think it would be very hard to catch up. Oh yeah to someone that did more. I mean, horses I know are from my wife, I know are extremely dangerous. My wife has a guest ranch and she strongly discourages me from interacting with horses for packing purposes. Um because I know, but mules are supposed to be way more dangerous. They could. I guess they have some kind of joint configuration that allows him to kick in not just straight back, but to the side, and I don't know. Yeah, yeah, they scare me. And the thing about it is like in time I've spent with people who grew up around him, when they're looking at one, they're seeing something a lot different than what I see when I look at one that oh I think they're cute, but oh yeah, but they're like, oh no, he's like in a kind of bad moon. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, like he's yeah, you can tell he's got like he's a little bloated, kind of in a bad moon. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, it looks like the same meal that was there an hour ago. Yeah. Um, I was in this guy's shop getting something. Well did if this is like ten years ago and he had all these pictures if he had riding mules that he hunted in the mountains with and uh he I started ask him about them. He said, yeah, last last year, and I don't remember two years ago. He said, I had to get rid of them all. And he he was borderline kind of breaking down a little bit right in front of me. And I just had met the man, and he said, yeah, it's just too dangerous when you're getting a little older and your and your reflexes aren't as good. Really. Yeah, he spent his whole life with him. And he was like, but yeah, it sounds like he's hunting with mountain lions or something instead of one of my earliest what do they call my hunting mentour. But when I moved to Colorado, he was a fellow that owned a small like hunting and fishing shop and uh, like a retail space. Yeah, and he gave me good advice early on to go find some rabbits. One of my favorite fishing stretches bulged his rabbit spot, divulged his rabbit spot, and uh, I think he could have cared less, but he did have a really nice trout river and uh, anyways, he sold his business and I think like within months I was on a horse lost it, hit his head died. Really, Gountil, you got that rabbit spot when you did, he'd have carried it with him. That's coincidence. But you know cruze that point. Um can you, Matt, can you real quick? Can you real quick? This is a this is a segue or not a segue but an a side. Can you real quick explain how you came to realize that, uh that burning a moose dropping smells like like oh yeah, there was no creativity or like, um, sense of exploration on my part. It's not like my try burning let's try burn him to see what it smells like. The guy that the guy that married me and my wife. He's kind of a he's a long time term friend of my life, but he's kind of a grizzled like grew naturalist kind of a fellow and a grizzled, a grizzled fellow who works with grizzly bears. He does work with grizzly bears, not with him, but looks at him. Yeah yeah, um he I was at his house one night and he all night there was this very pleasant smell in the room. It smelled like, you know how willows and aspen had that smell in the spring, like if you go down to a river when they're starting to leaf out, you're talking to Johnny Aspen over here, Yahnny Aspen. And then if you take one of those buds, it's real sticky and you smell it smells so freaking good. That's what smelled like. But this was in the winter. And finally he didn't say anything about it. I just looked and he like lighting one of these things moose pellets. Yeah, um, he's He teaches at a wilderness school and one of his students on this retired airline pilot. Uh. He showed that pilot that trick, and the pilot started a company called Moose Sense in Missoula, Montana, where you can get online, you buy a little incense burner and they send you some pellots. Is your buddy Piste. No, he don't care. He you know, he was he wasn't looking at he wasn't thinking of as an entrepreneurial thing. Yeah. I don't know a whole lot about business, but I mean, I gott that's got to be kind of like a fringe business. I can't imagine he's making more doing that than he was as an airline pilot. That'd be I'd be interesting. So there you were a lot of pain between your ass and neat and not to thinking that the good times are through. Right, had start hunting white tails out of trees, right, if I could hobble up a tree still that maybe I could rescue some fraction of my haunting lifestyle. But then Lamas came to the rescue. Uh. My first two Llamas were Haggy and Timmy, like rescue rescue. You came to the rescue, I came to the rescue. They were uh, kind of an ad hoc Lama rescue center in Idaho, and I started communicating with a woman there that sold Lama. It was called Lama Hardware is the name of the company is still in existence, but as a different owner about I don't know why I started chatting with her about saddles and gear before I even had Lamas. But she was the one that found these two Lamas. They were brother and sister. Uh uh, and those were my first Lamas. I remember, I was with you when I first light laid eyes on them. Over by. We went and went to a fellow named Jerry's place. Jerry Hansen and Billings, Montana lives on the Yellowstone. And if I'm not mistaken, from his window, he was showing us an old spot where he I believe could be wrong. That uh, an old spot where Calamity Jane. Oh, I don't have any recollection of that Calamity Jane had domes siled or something from I could be wrong. And those things came on. They came off that trailer and they were like as wild as if you went down to South America and climbed up into the Andies and found out Lama. And at the end of the day, Jerry had clipped their tone nails, put a saddle on them and walked them around and crossed some creeks, cross creeks with yeah, and uh. Quickly they went from being uh get grasspowered four wheelers four wheelers to being just uh pets kind of. I mean, they didn't think of themselves as pets. They they got tame enough to pack. But to me, I just I just marveled at him. I thought they were like them so much. Yeah, it became and even now it's more this way. And even now, like I do most of my hunting alone, and a big part of the attraction is being out there with my I have four pack llamas now, being out there with my my buddies. Um, I want to get just a couple. I do want to get back to that, but just I want to give people a little bit of a sense here. So you got them because you'd like to hunt uh in the back country? Yeah, and and and and and and there's fake back country, but I mean, like by any like, by any working definition from the lower forty eight, we're talking like some of the most some of the most bad country stuff outside of areas that you might encounter in the Frank Church or Bob markin. Yeah, five d eight mile back like the back in and then you know when you kill out, you're moving. You probably know better than anybody scale you gotta, I gotta, you gotta get the You put some meat on one side, some on the other in a thing called a panier um, and it's gotta be with the llama that you recommend within one or two pounds. Look at that. There's a woman across the street picking wild asparagus. I was gonna ask you if an asparagus must be at her Well, I don't know, I could, but it's somebody else's properties. Matt, just another side, not Matt. You know, no trespassing signs, man, you're on mass property. He put along the road signs and say trespassing aloud. Yeah, nobody has taken me up on that. And oddly he had a hard time finding a sign. Had had to commission his own, the custom maga's own trespassing a loud signs because they are not for sale at Walmart. Now you don't say I pulled up Oh that's yeah. This is the first year I've had those. I've gotten some compliments on them. People kind of understand what I'm going for with him. You know old Man and Eugene Growners, if someone put up no trespassing signs, they would go and just take them down. Well, it was ridiculous up where up for this guy. We This is a guy we idolized his children. He was a just a crazy, uh, funny as hell guy that was kind of a hunting fishing mentor to us. And he had a cabin quote unquote north from where we grew up which seemed like you're driving. It seemed like it was a million miles into the Great Beyond. It's like we're away, and uh yeah, you're It's like you drove to Alaska there and then now when you drive your like this is. I went there a couple of years ago to see the old cab and but those guys were ridiculous. I mean they had a no trespassing sign on every freaking tree on the border of their land. Yeah, um um yeah. So. And you know what I think about the other day is how crazy it is that how quick it is that when you eat asparagus it smells in your pee. It's like twenty minutes. There's something in there. I've read it's related somehow. And Harold McGee's very wonderful book, Um The Science and Lore of Cooking, He talks at length about why asparagus makes your pist smell. I have the same thing with coffee, though, do you have that makes you pis smell like asparagus? My first peet every morning? If I just left, you'd go in there and be like someone poured a cup of coffee and really, yeah, you're leaving a lot of coffee goodness. In the on the table. It sounds like, remember it's still brown. You know why beer goes through you're so quick, right, because it doesn't have changed color? All right? So yeah, how many pounds and out? So because I'm saying because you know better, you know everybody speculating, but you have to measure your out. I used to say all the time, I've never gotten a big bull, um, but a young bull, like a four point five point youngster maybe two three years old. Uh, two pounds. I've shot two bulls boneless, bone less meat. I shot to a little older bulls six points that we're two fifty cows typically one sixty. And That's what I've been saying for the last several years. And so you're talking, um, all the meat off the bone, so boning out all the ribs, not taking anything, packing the heart bones about it, packing the heart out and then gross shanks. Yeah, leaving on the ground guts bone yeah. Um, and uh that I do love it. If you were listening, if you you hear people say like, oh I had a hunter pound pack, a hundred pound pack a lot. Yeah, you can do it, you can do it. We used to do it one home. I know I didn't even know what they weighed when we were doing it, but now I know because we would move. We would would take out a whole elk. We would move a cow elk and our camping gear in a trip. No that's not true. No, we'd always go back for our camping gear a couple of weeks later after we could walk again. Yeah, you know what, I remember one year we left it and wait and didn't go get it till rifle opened or something like that. Yeah. Um, then to eighty pound packs, then six, Well, but we carried out bulls in one trip. Really yeah, now you're taking out antlers and yeah, yeah, so I think that first bull you got with your bowl that was seven miles and we took out the whole animal and one trip and came back for the gear a different weekend. And remember, oh yeah, that was a different one. I would say that was the one where we went back and grizzlies had eaten all that. That was a different one. Yeah. But that so people say like, oh, I had a hundred pound pack. Yeah, it is possible, but it's it's like it is not good for you. There is no noo. Guys in the military carry that kind of man. They should change that, like there's it's just you're compromising your later years. Yeah. I think they say in the military that you're expected to carry a happy body weight. I think I felt one, especially those areas where you gott to carry out of water where they're carrying water and and you can just imagine, I'll expense how heavy ammunition is, you know. But um, when when you first moved out here, we were so excited to hunt in the mountains and we just didn't care painful pack of man. It would be like you'd get to a thing. It used to happen us in the area we hunted. We had to drive. It was probably about maybe like a thirty or forty minute drive to the closest gas station, and you'd get down to the trailhead and like load your elk into the rig, get in and then and then drive to the gas station and you'd oftentimes be locked up. You'd be stove up by the time you got there. I remember walking this lodge for dinner and you're like walking like a cowboy going to a gunfight, you know, like very hard to get out of the vehicle, very hard to go in there and order. Um being burrito and the gatorade at the at the brown food station of the gas station, and um, yeah, it's grueling. Man. If you ever heard that story, like Ryan Callahan's on your podcast, A lot I know about um a guy I think it was. He was an outfitter that Ryan used to work for that shot a mountain goat. Oh you've got to hear that story. I can tell right now. But to take three minutes and then heavy pack outs and sued, yeah, is it worth it? Oh, it's such a good story. Um So, I don't really give a sh if we covered his lama thing, but I would like to wait, how much how far are you in? Are we now? At? All? Okay? Um So, Ryan, this boss shoot some mountain goat eight miles back. He told me this at the cabin when we were fishing last summer. Shoots a mountain go eight miles back in the mountains. And he's going to carry the whole sun of a bit out, which we all three knows a lot of weight if you're taking the high and he but he's like, I'm gonna take my time, you know. Um, And he's because he just did not want to walk back. Well, I didn't want to walk into her sixteen miles, you know, for a second trip. Um. So he's finishing up and processing it, getting it packed up, and here comes a grizzly bear and he puts his pack on it, starts to get out of there, and that bears following him, and that bear merciless. Merciless, he followed him the whole eight miles back to his car. Huh smelling that blood. Yeah, so they instead of taking his time, the guy was like, uh, I'm gonna, I'm freaking not stopping, gets back, gets in his car and drives into Uh. Oh, it's right by Clearwater Junction where my wife's ranches outside of Missoula. Why can't I um think of the name of the town but her her stag No, it's just east of there, like Connor. No. Oh, it's ridiculous, but anyway, it's the it's the it's the second closest bar to the ranch, and her staff goes there. There's a bar there called Tricksies. Not not Greeno. No. Um, there's a bar there called Trixie's. In this little town. That's where all her staff goes. They always have bands there and stuff like that. And you go there yeah. Um, I remember when we got married. Fits and Pooter, your college roommates went there and they thought it was like Dusk till Dawn and the bar and dust till Dawn, that Quentin Tarantino movie. Um, and uh, So he pulls in there and it's in the fall when nothing's going on and sunset, no twin creeks, no van. Oh yeah. So he pulls in the driveway and his legs won't work at all, and there's no one in the bar. He can tell because there's no cars in the parking lot, and he lays on the horn and the bar keep comes out and he has her, has her get him a six pack, and um, she goes and gets it. He pays for it, and she sits in the truck with him, just chit chatting, and they end up becoming a couple. Really. Yeah, that's a good story because yeah, yeah, are they married? Now? You know they ended up splitting up. I was hopeful when I asked, did they get married? No? I don't think so. Oh yeah, um yeah, why is it? Why is it that makes the story just a little Yeah, I can stick about it like you'd be like, oh yeah, you know this old you know this guy and he goes like what I was in World War Two, I'm just making this up right, gets gravely injured, and this nurse comes out and slowly nurses him back to health right towards you, and you're like, oh, so they yeah, but now they got nineteen grandkids for it. And You're like, no, no, they dated and broke up. It's just like it just doesn't have the punch. Yeah. I love my wife very very much. Um, but even if I didn't, I think I try to make it work just so could have a romantic ending. You know that we because you would want people to be like, no, I'd be for myself, just my own myth. You know that we pulled it through and made it work. I don't know. Do you remember when you drew of course you remember you drew him out. Speaking of long walks, you drew a mountain goat tag many many years ago, and we got up pretty early at a trailhead. Mike Mullen. Interesting fellow, this Mike Mullen, because he came to my wedding. That was the first time I've seen him in twelve years. Just a couple of years ago. I stopp talking about marriage and being I'm sorry, Yeah, mentioned is about your wife, So that's good. So I want as much as I love her, I'm not gonna I'm gonna try to abstain from mentioning the rest of this conversation. Interesting fellas. Mike Mullen and I just gonna touch on this before I talked about the Mountain goat. You you got everyone knows now because of like grizzly berry issues and grizzly berry recovery and whatnot in the greater Yellostone ecosystem. But then you guys here like it's like, ah, I call it one of those like Malcolm GLADWELLI and phenomenons are people I love to act, like, oh, it's really going out with grizzy berries. You see who's Malcolm? Oh he writes those books where he's like, oh, if you want to understand the whole world, you just gotta understand like dog leash that you know, or like whatever I've never heard of. I could picture that. It's like he traffics and he's like the sum of knowledge through Yeah, like oh, everything you ever want to just got a hockey right out. So he um um. He had a he had a he's very popular writer. He's a lot smarter than I am. But um uh, Mike Mullen, oh sorries people talking about grizzlies. The thing they like to bring up is that that the grizzlies don't have access to cut throat trout anymore. And then always struck me like, well, okay, yeah, you gotta Yellowstone Lake. He's have a population of a nadrumous cuts right there would come out of the lake and arout the rivers in the spring and grizzlies and eat them. And every his eye was like, oh, that's why the grizzies are you know whatever. They never make it because lake trout got turned loose and Yellowstone Lake and the lake trout desk, you know, non natives are getting testy because they don't have anymore. You don't know, you don't know this whole narrative. Yeah, I'm just helping you. Oh yeah, okay, yeah, So Lake Chalk introduced and Yellostone Lake, they decimate the cutthroat population. And now people talk about this like thing that like, you know, this big driving factor and grizzly dynamics as the lack of cutthroat trout that are coming up out of that lake. And turns out they had done some analysis on this and about ten percent of the bears in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem might have utilized cut through. So I didn't know that part. So because that it was struck me, like you hear the same thing about pine nuts from white bark mine, which is much more plausible. I never I could never get on board with the idea that that that losing an ephemeral like like some small fish for a brief period of time, being available in a stream, in a couple of streams. I'm like, that can't be enough now pine nuts. I was like, if you'd told me that every bear is gonna when the pine nut epidemic rolled through that region, if you just said all bears will die now, would have been like, yeah, that sounds like right right. I agree with that. It's much more widespread food source that's available for potentially a longer period of time. It's incredibly important, but I think it's not important if you listen to the man. They're too adaptable. They got problem. There's they have vulnerabilities, but that's not one of them anyhow. So there's a big thing to like go kill off all these lake trout and they dropped. There's no bag limit, no close season, and I think you're not even supposed to. Yeah, you're not even supposed to turn one of these lake trout loose if you catch him. And Mike Mullin gets win to this big late trout epidemic and what's it called? When it's too much of something? You wouldn't call the epidemic, would you? What would you call like a swarm of locusts? Yea? And that not that doesn't work happen, We'll just call it the weather works not. We'll just all agree that it was a lake trout epidemic. Mike Mullen gets a winto this and goes down and he's like, well, I'll do my part, and it starts going down there and catching a lot of lake trout. But then realize he likes lake trout fishes so much. He starts to worry for the future of these lake trout which everyone's trying to get rid of. And one day I'm talking to him and he's talking about how he caught a couple and turned a bunch of lewis. I said, I thought you weren't supposed to turn those loose, and he told me, well, I'm just real afraid of damage in that fishery. He came with us on this goat hunt and we walk Who else is there, Colonel Matt Moyson, Oh, yeah, that's right. It wasn't Yeah, absolutely right. And we got up pretty early and walked nine miles and climbed a lot of footage, and I remember getting I remember getting where. I felt like by the time that goat was on the ground, I was feeling like I was gonna vomit. Yeahs, but setting in. But the magical thing about it, I don't want to get too much way, but there's an area that has there's an area where Matt still frequents a little bit that. Um if you go in this area in like September, say, there are no elk there. No, And we've made a mistake of think this is an interesting story. There are no elk there. Okay, they're just not I've gone in there twice now, they're just not there. They're not there. But then the first week of October, there they are. And we discovered that when we were up goat hunting at goat at ten thousand feet in the mountains, like in this like, no, we discovered we did they when? And how right? No? No, no, that's when we discovered that it even happened. Absolutely because my girlfriend after that hunt, we're like all day were up there at ten thou feet in this craggy pass where no elk ever lived. They would just go through there. They would just there and it was snowing and it was foggy, and we're going to go over and we're gutting that that gutting that got and skinning it. And you could hear do it Johnnie the way off Bugle. I'll buy it. Yeah, it sounded like the Rickle a guy a little bit with that. Wasn't your best. No, you go doing it as because you know me do it. He can do it. Way Off Bugle is a good caller for anything, very good caller. Do one more yeah, way off Pgle And through the fog and snow, we see l going over that pass. That will always remember that now. And then the next weekend I hiked into where I thought they were going with my girlfriend and it was Elizabeth and um, Elizabeth Roberts, think about you once in a while. I love you a baby, That's not true, but um uh. So we hiked in there, and you and I had already hunted in there because we went in there in June and there was alcohol over the place where the oh this is the place to go el conti And that was when we first moved out. And then we were right now, you're right, you're right now. And then we went back and we sat there one time and counted we were back in June. We're leaning against a tree that had a chickadee hole in it, saw a black bear. Counted like girlfriend counted, counted two. You saw a mountain land streaking down through there. And then we went in there and tried to We were like, oh, this is the spot where all the elk live. And we went in back in there in September. There was none because they just are there in the spring in the winter. Yeah, that's right, that's right. And then we found so uh, what I want to talk about that is that night we went up and didn't want it grizzly to get it, so we wrapped that goat up in the tree up in a subalpine fur yeah, right by our camp. But it got real cold and that goat hide froze up in the tree. Do you were how long we're up there climbing up that tree trying to get that thing back. Now it was stuck to this we had all wrapped up in the hims and it froze like a rock and we couldn't get it back down. No, I don't remember that. I remember we were packing out. We ran into four dudes up there that we're fishing those lakes up there. I don't remember that. I was like, really, you guys came all the way up here into freaking fridges to fly fish. Yeah, not even a goat tag in their pocket. Another quick gold story I like chairs. This happened to a friend of ours come out of the Air Force named Chuck Roberts. He shot a goat and it spilled off a cliff, and um as their wanting to do and and uh. He started trying to climb down there to try to get where he's going. So he came up one drainage, went to the ridgeline, shot the goat, and the goat fell off the other side. Starts climbing down trying to go down and find the guy again. Remember that dude. The first time first, I think it was the first time we ever went caribou hunting on the north Slope. That dude out of the Air Force. He used to pay, Yeah, he used to pay. Yeah, he used to pay b twos. And he wouldn't answer any questions about b twos because it was all classified. But how have you fitting one of them? B twos? Chuck, don't know? That guy was an accomplished outdoorsman. Man. He was. He had all he like, his gear was impeccable because he had worked, he had worked packing moves for a guy out in the peninsula. I thought he was good, not an experience, not an experience outdoors. He had spent some time. Good guy. Maybe not experienced, but good. Yea. He might have just had been good from the he had gone out and packed meat for an outfit or out on the peninsula. Remember he had um he had what surprise me is I remember he had a loophold spot and scope and some loophole knockers, which is yeah, yeah, um he You know. I hunted with him, just him and I for a couple of days, and he was definitely the boss, like I deferred to him, like I was just doing what he told me. I'm not trying, I'm not trying to say anything bad about him, but anyhow, tries to go down to get the goat, and the climns climbs, clients climbs, and uh, it gets dark and it was so steep where he was that he took some paracord and tied himself to some alders to sleep. Wow and send up Wow gets daybreak, continues down looking for a state, finds that there's a bear had just eaten it. Oh my god, really punch his tag and now he's in the other drainage. So he's like, I o to hell him. I could climb back up and go back the way I came, and walks out that drainage and why I can't already said? He winds up thirteen miles from his truck or something man and its peeled way off went off some other direction. My father in law, um, the father of a person. I'm not going to mention the US this conversation. Uh, he shot a goat in the Louis did really in the This is like six seven years ago now, in the bare tooths and freaking he was Dad, try to go, yeah, it's in their house mounted like the head. I mean, not that it's surprised when he's not a he's like a tea. Yeah. Yeah, he's more of a cowboy than a hunter type dude. He does a little of the hunting. So he went, like, I got to put in for a tag drawing with a friend of his. They went back on horses. He shot this goat and like as soon as the thing hit the ground, there was a grizzly on it, but they ran it off and got it. They got it. Yeah, I had to go fall twelve feet. Yeah, yeah, I know you did. It was like you told me that. It was like a bag with bone fragments and meat inside of Ye, it's it's The horns were on, the head was split open um, the brain was gone, The lungs were tucked up in the between the shanks and the hide. The hide was completely loose. You just had to make your opening incisions in the hide fell free. Yeah, abs not just you know what. I took that hide, so we went, we dug through it and got a little game bag full of meat and whatnot out of there. You know, it is burger. And I took that hide and soon to be destroyed, and I went we went down and I threw that hide and a creek and threw a big rock on it. And we had found an old uh an old plaster. Why did you do that? Because it was just it was like all that was was just gravel. I was trying to tell what was going on. I mean, it was just gravel, and we like drug it down. It was just like gray. We couldn't find goat because the goat had turned the color of the and it landed down and like the screen slide tapered out and like became more granular, you know, and at the bottom of the screen slide was just like a pulverized shale and the goat's hide. I was just so impregnant with that stuff. And we found an old band and plaster mind and took him uh pro pain tank and had a weed burning torch on and we were aiming it at rocks. We're aiming it at rocks. We get the rocks for hot and bring him in our tent to warm up. But anyways, um, it wasn't just like there, Yeah, you get it high, but it wouldn't last. But uh So, after a while I dragged that hide out and the funny thing about it, the hide was angelic and not a nick on it. Oh really it Yeah, it looks great just but everything else is just trash. Didn't Chuck end up getting married or getting a girl pregnant and marrying. Everybody didn't really like her very much. That rings a bell. It was shortly after. Yeah, it was like some kind of like, uh, I don't know, a prognosticative thing that him hanging off a willow tree. Maybe he should have thought about the way his life was going. I don't know, um, but uh, I really like the like the child a lot. Yeah, because he moved. He reached out to you not too long ago, didn't he And then years now, but he moved to portland' um so, how many pounds of a llama carry? Eight? I put eighty on mine. Be way more conservative than that. No, the first Elk I packed out with my lamas, with Timmy and Hagey, they carried eighty pounds apiece and they were carrying it down. Something was like it was so freaking steep that you're more sliding down it then walking down it. I remember you saying that, Well, that mountain that you killed your first bull with with a bowl, I killed my first bull with a bowl. Freaking fifty yards from that same spot, Remember that mountain, Remember that the sound of Timmy and Haggis hooves man freaking. I remember that we made the mistake on the next hill over of putting boned out meat and game bags and thinking we'd roll them down the hill. Yeah, and one of them bursts, and we spent a long time looking at you to meet up and down that hill. And so you got to realize about a lama pack lama is that you told me once that a lama will go pretty much anywhere you can go where you don't have them to use your hands. And I think what you have to realize about their psyche is that it it defies like um human constructs. It's not. They're psyche is just so different than the human beings that it takes a long time to be all to identify with them. We're talking about an animals is not snugly, doesn't want to be touched, hates people, and I don't give a ship what anybody says. I feel like if I you know what I'd like to do sometime is have they make heart monitors that you can hook up to cattle for research purposes. I know this because of where I work as a cattle research place. I think that if you hooked up a heart monitor to my one of my llamas and I go off hunting in the morning and you graph it that they're the I could be wrong. I could so easily be wrong, But I think that their heart rate goes up a little tiny smidge maybe one two beats per minute, and then in the evening when I come back to camp, it goes back down. Yeah. Oh, by that, I think there's more to it. These are animals that when I try to catch them, they try to run away from me and I have to corner them in the pasture. But they probably there's probably a big gray area between being around you and being touched by and being like tied up to a roun. Yeah. I think that's like how many dogs want to be out and around, But that doesn't mean you want They want you to grab them and shove in the box right right. They don't. Yeah, Um, they know it's work time. But I think that they and and another component is the same animal that like wants to run away when I'm trying to catch it. Um doesn't want to be pet man. There's pride and workmanship with those things. I swear to god, you're getting way too complex. Did you get this game face? It's almost imperceptible game face when you put weight on their back and I feel like you're miseraching. Probably know you brought up about lamas a long time ago, and we used to do a little turkey hunting with the llamas more for like, No, it was nice because you could bring some nicer camp stuff, but a big motivation for it was you gotta exercise them. That's us. I don't believe that anymore. No, like you damn sure you used to believed. But now I just say this. I just say what it really is. I like hanging out with my llamas a little bit. So you don't think that a llama needs to get the exercise these four I have right now, all say do well. Either they're at peace. Most of time they're at peace, but I'd say ten percent of the day they're wrestling, and that wrestling is way more energy expending than pack and stuff. I mean, they go and they're trying to bite each other's nuts off and rolling on the ground, twisting their necks around each other, putting in one neck. One puts its neck underneath another one lifts it off the ground. So they're they're doing a lot more than if you just took him out for a hike. Oh yeah, But the thing I was gonna say is on these little jaunts we would do for turkeys with the lamas carrying pretty nice can't you can bring like beer? And you know we'd bring fresh fruit instead of backpack food. Um. I remember you saying that, uh, that that you felt that they kind of liked just being out walking, and think they do. And the thing that you brought up is that that that you can one way to read a llama and the only that's really you probably have many cues you're looking at, but for me, I'm looking at it's ears. Right when he's got his ears cocked back, he might be fixing to spit on you, which is awful. They spit like a They spit their stomach contents up at it smells. It's horrible. I only had to happen one time where I really caught one flat ass square in the face because at each other all day long, right, they spin each other each other down. But the longer these four I have, now it's like all you do is fight, Like if I stop on the trail, they stop, start fighting. Yeah what it was four or five days? If you're hiking there, five you stop and give him two minutes and they're like, oh, I guess I'll start a fight. But that's what that's what I say. Like walking on the trail with them, they get their ears forward and they're like they're not like moving like a lot of times a law was moving because you're behind it, right, and he's like what it? So he moves, you know, but they kind of like get going down the trail and he really looks like a dude walking down the trail who's real on going. Like picture you're walking down a long trail. It's all shitty and you're just some thick timber. And then you get out like some big metal you know, along the stream right and there's trails and you can find look around just like that's what the llama is seening. Oh yeah, he's like yeah, yeah, to see something. Yeah, And he's four. I like, unlike my first string um, who like sometimes sometimes weren't real anxious to go, these four I got now. God, there's I don't even know they're back there. They're just always loose rain, right, there with me. They just want to freaking make tracks. What's a lama? What's a good race? Ready lama? Cost? Because you had some shitty lamas and then you got good lamas well. I don't know. Hagy was my probably my favorite. She was fifty bucks from that rescue center. So Haggy proved to be a good lama. She was fabulous. She was as good as the high test lamas that you have now, Yeah, my least good lama. Haggy was everybody as good as the ones I have now, but you pay considerably more. Now, Well, it depends on which one we're talking about. I got one of them out there. I paid an eye popping freaking hundred dollars for remember that. And he's, uh, he's probably the worst one. He's the cutest one, and so I really I adore him. He's super cute and he's got a lot of character. But in terms of a pack lama, he's good, but he's not any better than the other ones. One of them I got for free. One of them I got because I lent my llamas to a guy for the summer, so that lama packing business and lives up in the tea towns no, no, no, that was a different company. Um, that was Haggy. They got it still living at large in the Ta Tons. But uh, that's given her the benefit of the doubt. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah it is. Um who's a pile of bones up in the t tows for one. People just gave to me. These people lived up by Seattle, just gave her kim to me. J they called they named him journey Is. I think that's dorky. So I called him j Um for free. They said, quote unquote, you needed a job, um, And uh, it's funny. I went over to get him. They were he lived up by Seattle. You drove over there to get at I did. I drove to. I drove. They're like, well, we're gonna go to court a lane with our llamas. Ah. This was summer two thousand sixteen, and um, so I was like, oh, bring j and I'll get him there from you then, because that's way closer twelve hour drive still. And what I did is I didn't want to take my horse trailer all the way over there, so I took the back seat out of my pickup truck and drove over there. And the reason they were there is they were carding their a llamas. It's all these retired couples. What's carting Alama? Means like they got little lama chariots and drive them around this this fart which I got to do and was a freaking blast. And when I'm a retired person, that's gonna be my stick totally. Yeah. Oh yeah, shifty girl. Oh this one woman had a little part. You're not allowed to have dogs off leash of this park. It's like a huge park with trails all over for horse riding and there's like lama signs like this is a Lama trail, this is the horse trail, which I couldn't believe. She has this little arm cutting off her cart with a clip off of it and it was for her dogs side car eccept the dog had to run, you know. It's like but um, so that's where I got j for free. One of my Lamas got for free because the people sucked at carting. No, they never tried him, calm um. He just wasn't being used for anything. Well you met that guy that was his owner. Remember I had you give him some seafood for that guy? Yeah? Um soh yeah nice guy, yeah, super nice guy. What Arni bucks Uh, no wonder I liked Arnie tad j a saka food tad I would have bought for a thousand, but people bought hundred. But people bought him for me because they lost Hagi. Um Jay was free and Louis I got for free because I lent my other llama, my llamas to a guy for the summer. Did you name that llama after your father in law? No, he came pre named. I guess is he named after Louis? And have you ever named a llama? It would be a good name. It's it's like he is. If I had to pick a llama that is like my father in law, I would pick him. Though my father's full blood Filipino and so he's short, but he's like very he's in his mid stuff seventies, but he's very athletic and tough and this and this is like a short, squat little llama. Loui's not squappy. Is lamas short when he says he looks like a hippopotamus dot gon and I mentioned my wife again. Um, but he's super tough. He does remind me of Louis. Yeah, he's cool. I was Louis. I haven't met Louis the Man, but Louis Lama is my favorite. And then I think that Arnie was my second. Now, you used to have a Lama that had gotten hung up in a fence, Majel and got his jaw jacked out of alignment. You know, awesome, awesome Lama. So I there are pictures. If you want to see pictures of mass lama is, all you gotta do is go by the Complete Guy, the Hunting, Butchering, and Cooking Wild Game, volume one, and you'll see that that's our guide book. That was kind of a sly little play. Yeah, yeah, Majel. When I got all these boys, and I got four boys, it would have it would have been a they because they don't know that they're fixed. Oh man, they would They're always wrestling and fighting. Now if you put a girl out there, it would be game on. They don't know they're fixed. So it does it takeaway urge? No, No Arnie. For a while I had Arnie and two girls. Oh man, he just freaking ride him constantly. So in the old days, when they would make Unichs, they would take humans and make Eunichs to guard harems. The Unich would feel all those urges. Oh, I don't know about that. Maybe something's different with the camel at physiology. I don't know. I'm just saying. Alls I know is Arnie is a freaking stud without balls. Yeah. Um. So Now when you're out hunting and you kill, when you're by yourself and you kill a bull, like when you're walking into the mountains, you're not carrying ship, just your boone arrow. Well I got my camp. But why why do not have the lamas carry? They're not carrying anything? Oh me personally? Yeah? Yeah, like you walk, I carry a backpack and with a few like because if you take a bunch of ship out of one pan, you're then you gotta balance amount and all that. So anything I need for the day, I have it on my back. And when you kill it out, if you got four, you can move one by yourself with how many llamas and not have to carry anything? Well except your camp. I've done it with two, like I say to me and Haggy. They packed out my first archery bull. But it felt a little bit um irresponsible, too much weight for but three, no problem. Now I got four and if that feels rocks, So if one of them died, would you replace it or would you be like sweet threes? Good? Oh wow, I think I I think it's always I think I would always have four. It's just no harder to have four in that way, if some one of them get sick or um, you know, just a little bit of it, it's it's just not not any more hassle to have a fourth one. I feel like one time we took those llamas and carried out three deer on them in Don Custer Forest. Yeah we're going somewhere. I remember you shot a white tailed dough on the way in Yea. Then we killed a buck, shot some other deer, put him on there, got dark, had an argument about how to get out of there, swung through and picked up that dough. I think we had three deer and our backs. Now transporting the llamas. You used to carry your lamas around in a van, a twelve passenger vans. All those retired people when they were when they were doing that lama cardinglat summer, all of them had vans to carry the mama vans, Mama vans, and my van tricked out ones like but I want okay, go ahead, but my yeah, we'll get back I might cover this in the course of this, So yeah, I want to cover how pists flows through a ya lama vans. Oh, we're not gonna get into that, because what I was gonna tell you is, yeah, my my van was full of piss and ship but um but yeah, they're basically just like what you'd call it a kind of line, right because it was a dodge, But yeah, like line. I got so much attention on the Expressway and that thing at gas stations, I'd have, dude, if you gas you had to plan on having a marathon bullshit session was at least four or five guys just though, just getting gas and getting gone. Um. Yeah. And they're like on the interstate, you know, you'd see somebody coming up to like pass you, and then you'd lose. You'd lose. I'd lose them in my blind spot for like a minute. And it's because they're like just freaking at the La Llamas. And but these people, these retired couples, they had nice fans, carpeted and these lamas because they spent so much time with them, it was like compared to my llamas, these lamas were like it's just ridiculously tame but they and they asked it. They must have gasketed the they take they take their lamas out every two hours at rest stops and let them go. But the area because like you know the picture of van with no pickup truck bed with no liner, it's core. It's like it's not corrugated, but it's like a corrugated like there's troughs well to put it in rifle terminologers, lands and grooves right, and remember you text you tech screwed the piece of angle iron across there, But it didn't. That wasn't. That wasn't to keep urine out of the front of the van. Oh, that was just that was because I had an expanded metal grate between me behind the seat to keep them the llamas from like slamming into the freaking uh, I don't know the front of the van if we if I hit the brakes real quick. Yeah, so if you had what I had was laying I had along that piece of angle iron. I had some beach towels, that's right, to try to keep you if you're and started riding up that way. He slammed the brakes and the year and to kind of come up and get up and then you take off, you flow back away from you. The thing I like about this I feel like your first date and I'm bringing her up this time, your first date with your wife. Did you show up with that van ful a llamas? She met me at a motel and I had the van there and I had the llamas and a corral outside the motel. And her first date, she guys were introduced by friends. And your first date, she got into that vand fill those llamas and you guys went up and killed the bowl. No second date, we killed the bowl the first date. We struck out. That's pretty interesting. But she grew up around livestyle horses, high test horses. She loves the llamas. Um. I'm often like, why don't we because I'd like to do it, like go on horses once, just to see what that's all about. Like, and I was like, why do we take some of the horses and go and she she can't even conceive of that. She's like those horses that way because there using day ride and it's She's like, why in the world would we do that when we can take the llamas. She likes llamas, she's just they're too much work and she's right. You know, a horse, you gotta take it to water twice a day. Llamas don't give a ship man. I've had my llamas out for eight days at a time, and I always lead him to water once a day, you know. Um, but I've had him out for eight day trips where they didn't drink a drop. These lamas, they're happy if you park them next to like a standard dead juniper like or like dead tree, like, I'll just eat these twigs. That's cool. Do you have you ever had like a train wreck? You know, people talk about like and I've seen it with like pack strings right where. I never did too much of the packing, but the wrangler would be packing up gear clients as the base camp, and we'd be hunting the meadow and you'd see him ride through, and then like an hour later, all of a sudden, here comes Zippy the mule with you know, the lead rope dangling in the wind, stuff just coming out of paniers, you know. And then like an hour later, here come to the wrangler and we'd help him pick up the trail of stuff like our lam was capable of. No. No, the most drama I've had is Hagy used to when she would get loose, she thought it was funny to run back to the car. And if you could be way back in there, three miles, and you could hike in there, the whole way freaking off trail. What time I was in a boat. I put him in a boat, Timmy and Hagy in a boat when we drove five freaking miles and packed in three miles, and she got loose and she ran back to the boat. I remember losing that. Yeah, I think there's no way found that car. Yeah, yeah, but no, nothing like that I saw. Yeah, was it? We had these guys, these horse guys coming through, and we still we got we're backpack hunting. And we got up the hill of the trail like you're supposed to do and got clear, and their horses got even with us. And this is they were all khunting. The last one was a mule, the one that free freaking freak, and I mean rolling down the hill, ship flying everywhere, wooden pans, winging off the tree, splintering wooden old school wooden pan. He's just bursting. I remember, do you remember what that guy yelled up the hill? What the fuck you guys got on? Yeah? So something. You would know something your horse wouldn't know what smelled like. I think we actually said that. Yeah, it's funny, man will freak a horse out. I've heard that many times. I feel bad. I don't mean to be laughing at the brother's misery, but his response of what we got on as though there was like something like deeper explanation. Yeah. I think he was an outfitter and he was trying to be like to his clients like my they these guys are messing up. It's not my lot stock that's messing up. Our brother, our older half brother, who was uh elk, and he was an elk guy, but did a lot of other kinds of you know, auxiliary hunts. He was saying that when they would kill a lion, um he would do lying. He had a houndsman that he worked with, and when they would kill a lion, those horses would not want to pack that lion. Obviously you don't. They don't want to lie on guid lion hunters. They he remember him telling me that they would cut a track and now I know, now I got to know guys to do this. Him saying, oh, yeah, we won't call the clients, will we cut a track. I remember him calling telling me that he had a client in Dallas called that guys as to cut a track. The guy flew up, but he was saying they would just go he'd go up to the lion or whatever and just get his hands drenched in blood and then go up and rub that on the horse's face because then he can't tell where the smells coming. Then once he calms down, you can put the thing on his back because he just can't tell like what he's trying to get away from anymore. Have you ever had a lama and they didn't want to pack me? Lamas don't care about that at all. They'd pack a lot, but that's bad. Yeah, you could put Satan himself on a llama's back. He would not care. Man, they don't care about that, all right. Man, we've only got a third the way. Um, we've talked a lot about lamas. No, I know, but not all that. And you know I don't usually like to mix a business and pleasure. But I'm I'm here with my older two youngsters and I need to go and get them. Oh, I thought you were saying we hadn't talked about lamas. No, No, no, No, I want to talk about I would continue to talk way more about Llamas. But my my, my, my, my boy and my girl are are with one of my closest friends. Yeah, and they're here to fish catfish with their uncle Matt, and I gotta go fetch them. Um, you guys are definitely gonna be fishing catfish by the looks of the time that river is. It's good though, it's good yeah, for catfish and for I think we're gonna catch the sturgeons. I'm optimistic matter urgin. Yeah, high water, good sturgeon fishing. Shovel knows not palets. Yeah, concluding thoughts, that was it? That was your concluding thought? Yeah, yeah, Yannie was um you know, Yannie's a Rocky Mountain squirrel foundation. He was scouting, um, scouting squirrel spots today. Yeah, man, yeah, And I'm how far is that? That's probably thirty no, an hour from here or not. Even if it was foresight, there was no I'm farther. Don't be telling No, it wasn't that place. Why we name in town, that's stupid. Yeah, we're gonna to bleat that out. Uh Yeah, but anyways, Yeah, I found squirrel sign and turkey sign. Mm hmm, good Matt. Concluding thoughts, We don't know, we didn't get we didn't cover everything. No, this was fun. I thought that we would. I was afraid that we wouldn't have anything to talk about. No, no, no, that don't happen. Something about putting on a headset and having to be official like other people might listen to it makes it makes you a little chattier. Yeah, it does, and then that has the quality of pardon me, I'll be here to say that it does not make you guys any chattier. Oh really were like this normally? You know, mhm, pretty chatty, gentleman. You got any concluding thoughts? That was it? Well? That was including Yeah. My concluding thought is, um, I think it's pretty polite of you to ask if we had concluding thoughts. Oh yeah. There's a lot of times something you want to say that you just can't quite wedge it in there, you know, and you do it. But um, my concluding thought. I had an interjection I want to drop in earlier, but it didn't quite get a chance to say when we were talking, been about how you guys thought you guys were going so far when you're going up to that guy's cabin. Nor So last weekend, we're telling our kids we're going camping to Lewistown or Lewiston. I don't know how you pronounced. Why are you drop? Why are you dropping? Like every single Oh yeah, what's the deal with Lewistown, New Hampshire. Right, you can go camp lewis Ton, Idaho. Okay, but you know what I'm saying, like camp a million places in this state. They all have names. Um, so we're just going camping. Everybody go camping in Lewiston, Okay, But we're telling our kids were going camping in Lewison. And my youngest is, uh, is that North America? Yo? Yes, it is Montana, North America. I don't think I have Yeah, I mean I got, I got, Like it doesn't count. I have two weeks including thoughts because um, I feel like we didn't we didn't get everything. But but I would like to say that it's been really fun. Two. It's been fun to watch all the all this Alama stuff take place over the Yeah and being started out. It started out with like they started out his instruments, and then it became a like a just part of the family to Yeah, and you've just learned so much. Yeah, yeah, I feel like now yeah, but I feel like now, um, you know, I feel like now you've gotten to a point where you're almost like, uh, probably finding out things abottom the people don't know or that Americans don't know. Right, I feel like I've got some insights on there that I couldn't have got from my lama mentors, you know. And that's the interesting thing, like in in the field of like, like when discussing just the idea of expertise, it's interesting one when to see someone crossed the threshold where you you spend a long time accumulating what's known, right, and then you start to delve into and then you cross this thing and you and you start being able to say, like what you found Yeah, eventually because the interaction between the way your brain works and I guess in this case, the animal you're dealing with, you know, which is unique to you. You know, it's not something that can be taught anymore at that point. Um, And talking to Kevin Murphy, I know, it's like I know that he has found out things, like he knows things about squirrels and squirrel dogs that are not known by individual, and I become friendly with a guy named Tommy Eidsen in Seattle. We started out as email and text buddies, but we met recently and like, he likes to fish croppies, even though he's from the Pacific Northwest born and race, likes to fish croppies, and um, talking to him about croppies, You're like, he's crossed that threat. He knows stuff about croppies. The other guys. Yeah, Like he's found out stuff. And then you could be the kind of jackass who thinks he knows stuff about the other people don't know, but he don't, which is insufferable. Yeah. I don't think there's any motivation for me like that. With me and my llamas, I'm not trying to prove anything to anybody. I'm never even around other a llama people. You just want my llamas to be happy and well cared for that. So, but you use the term the llama community. Yeah, but you talked about being ostracized, not that you were, but that it would be used to talk. I've had a few that I had to get rid of because they didn't work out. About all his pack llamas, and you had a lot of anxiety that they'd be hard to get rid of that turnout to not be true, you'd be ostracized by that. I was like, man, I and I have to butcher this thing and put in my freezer, which would be heresy in the Lama community to eat one. Did I tell you that I ate Lama? Yes, you did. Stringy as it was just like in a. It was in a. It was in an Andean It was outside as salt to Argentina, and it was in like an Andean version of I'm space and name what's that dish? Uh? You know people associated with like Mexican food. It comes wrapped in the corn husk. It was in like, yeah, very good. It was in a sort of Andean Tamali with kind of an Andian spin, I guess. And there was Lama meeting there, And I mean it could have been a person's meeting there. You wouldn't have known it just being stringy and light's not offensive. A regional chain in town. There's a restaurant's part of regional chain chain in town of Miles City here called the Ribbon Chop House. And I remember, and once in a while they'll have something out of that ordinary. I had alligator there a few years ago, but I know it. For a while. They had lama on the menu a couple of weeks. Yeah, I ate some horse once. I'd like to try that. Everybody says that's delicious, all right, Yeah, any last little did you pick up any last little concluders? Matt, you good, I'm good. Thanks for joining us. Man. This has been a great uh discussion, and I would like to um resume. Yeah, we should definitely continue in the in the in the near future.

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