00:00:08 Speaker 1: The Hunting Collective is presented by Element. I guess I grew up. Hey, everybody, Welcome to another episode The Hunting Collective. I am Benjamin Patrick O'Brien. We are made it all the way to episode one fifty two and I have COVID. Uh. Phil, we've not talked about this yet. What are you? Why are you worried? Are you what? What are you feeling right now? I'm not particularly worried because I think what you started feeling kind of ill a while ago, right, But things haven't gotten like horrible, have they? Yeah, they'd have been fun, not horrible, like a bad flu. You know. I just figured my brush with Joe Lene might have cost some some sort of illness. Um. Yeah, the first of edit sex Muffins year old sex Muffins from last episode. I figured that might have been the reason for the illness. But now it turns out that Thursday I went in and they tested me, and they said, you got the cocoa, you got the rhona. Uh, you better go quarantine it up. So I've been literally in the same bedroom in my house since Thursday night. And I don't even know what what day is it. It could be any day and there's no way for me. It doesn't matter. Yeah, there's and one thing I've learned is my wife said, how's your vacation? In there, I said, there is a fine line between vacation and prison. In this case, Uh, it's more like prison on day five. So I don't know. Used me as always used me as a cautionary tale. I don't don't go to the Missouri breaks. Try to hunt me there. You might get the cocoa UM. But in all seriousness, I have I've had some bad days, some good days, some some relatively kind of uneasy times with it. Move into my lung is a couple of days ago. So you know, it's not been fun. It's harder on the family, it's hard on everything. So you know, I'm not telling you anybody what to do, but just know my experiences. This is not a not a virus for UH to mess around with. It's not something to take lightly. And no matter what you might hear on the news, it shouldn't be politicized. You should just try to avoid it and try to avoid giving it to everybody else. Because I'm telling I'm on day nine, UM's not feeling great. So various levels of not feeling great, but um, I'm here to give you a podcast that's gonna be a good one, right Phil. You know, I I think that because you're in here, you've got you've got COVID nineteen, and you're still determined enough to make a show. I think it's gonna be a good one. Yeah, I feel, you know, And this is a good time to actually cry for sympathy and virtue signal and tell and see if what I can get out of this deal, um, other than the many vitamins my wife is shoving under the door, the crack in the door every about every twenty minutes. Um, so you know, all whatever I can get from the sympathy, please, you know, cards, flowers, donations to to uh some sort of should we set up some sort of like go fund me account? You know, I think just put your personal venmo account up. Don't don't tell anyone where the money is going to end up going, because it doesn't matter. It's no just just Venmo been O'Brien, whatever you can get him. I'm sure you send the money wisely. Yeah, you don't worry. Was like that. When I'm in Tijuana next week, you'll know why. Um, Well, we got a lot to get to today and all that. Like I said, life joke around, but in all seriousness, coronavirus ain't fun and I'm not having fun in any way shape or for him doing it. But we'll try to have a little fun with you guys for one fifty two, Uh, Doug during the Great and Powerful dug During is coming up. We're gonna talk about all kinds of things, music tastes, the back, forty, working on land farming, what it means to be a farmer in the modern age, and then a little bit on on game cooperatives and what they can mean in the future. To stick stay for duck Dern the email inbox Phill has been hopping, dude. I have been very happy with the effort in the email inbox lately, so thank you to everybody that emailed in over the last couple of weeks. All of them are long, and all of them are thoughtful, and all of them are well written. So keep it coming out there. But we got a lot to get to you, but I will start. I want to start with one from Haze. Hell. Now, how would you say this? H e I L He'll hail hail. You think like as in the Hitler variety. Hyle hyle, He's not He must not be a long time listener because he didn't put it. He didn't put in the pronunciation in his email. Um but, Hayes says, I want to thank you and Phil for entertaining me at work for a few hours a week by both making me laugh as well as embracing some tough to talk about topics that can really make me critically think about the ethical and moral responsibility we have as hunters and outdoorsman. Although my dad is a big hunter, growing up, I spent very little time entertaining the idea of hunting due to competitive sports and complete lack of interest. Now that'll do it. However, since graduating college and calling it quits on my athletic career, I've decided to pick up hunting and fishing to fill the quote unquote void and occupy my free time. I moved to Denver after graduating college, which has made picking up these hobbies very easy, as it seems like we are on the doorstep of everything that hunting and fishing in the wild West has to offer. Um, I just move on a little bit, he says. Because of this, I have been pouring myself into books, videos, podcasts to learn as much about what I hope to eventually be doing, so that I have a thoughtful and well educated approach to hunting and why I do it. I also live near downtown Denver due to as proximity to my office, so things like hunting can be a bit taboo around these parts and ways. I was listening to your most recent podcast with Robbie Kroger. I came up with a few questions and thoughts. I wanted to run buy you as one of those residents of Denver that you talked about and to two to recap for folks that um maybe didn't listen last week or our needy little recap. Robbie and I were talking about how you know, political lines not only affect elections, but they affect they affect the ballot box biology and specifically in terms of wolves in Colorado with the ballot initiative that was one fourteen proper one fourteen that was on the ballot this year and passed to reintroduce wolves into the state of Colorado. Again the idea that most of the state is read, but small pockets of high population centers like Denver Colorado springs are blue. Um seemed to have tipped Prop One fourteen in favor of having wolves coming back. Um but Hey says, I came up with a few questions. First of all, I completely agree with you and Robbie that this proposition has no place even being on the ballot. This decision seems like something that should be made by the biologists at CPW, not the general public, who was largely uninformed on the on the subject. In contrast, Secondly, I think I should note that this is an incredible herd incredibly hard proposition for me on which to vote. But I felt that it was my duty to come back with a decision on this to get this out of the way. I voted yes on proper and fourteen. My reasoning for voting yes relied on a few things I found in my research. One, gray wolves were at one point native of Colorado, and as an overreaching theme of conservation, it seems to me that having gray wolves returned to Colorado is quote unquote doing right by nature. Two, Although CPW seems reluctant to admit it, it's widely known that a small group of wolves have migrated down to northwest Colorado, from the greater Adeostone ecosystem naturally and supplementing this population cannot be a bad thing. The language of the proposition is confusing, but ultimately this is not a yes or no on wolves in Colorado. Immediately passing prop One fourteen forces CPW to come up with a plane to reintroduce them, which may be forcing the issue a bit. He's a little bit long with stick with us, he says. This brings me to my questions and thoughts. I know you mentioned that media just supports this, but I believe that will should be in Colorado, whether I yuppie from Denver ever see them or not, as they are historical part of the state. I agree with you that I sympathized with sympathize with farmers in northwest Colorado as wolves are a vicious species that will kill their livestock without second thought. Also, as a member of Colorado Elk Hunting Facebook group, I saw overwhelming displeasure with Proper one fourteen, as wolves would kill all of our elk and that it's already hard enough to kill big game here as it is. I am aware of the repercussions of wolves and their effect on servits, as well as the battle that recreating a public lands can be. But isn't big games hunting supposed to be hard. Isn't that the whole point that you spend all of this time and effort to harvest this animal for you and your family to enjoy, and sometimes it just doesn't happen. Colorado has the largest population of elk in the US. Wouldn't it be all right to potentially lose some of those to bring back a native species at the cost of some hunters not getting an elk? And he goes on, but hey, he's had some good questions, some good things to bring up. Um, let me just start. Let me start by saying, I believe um what you're saying. You're the reasoning that you're using. While it may be sound pays, there's no way for you to know unless you go drive over across the Continental divide and and over to where the wolves would be hanging out and find yourself a rancher to talk to, or somebody that manages a large track or small track of land that has livestock or wild mulde or elk that they'd like to keep on that landscape. It's hard for you, even if you've done research. You listen to podcasts like this one, it's hard for you to really have a perspective of what it means to live with wolves. It just is. It's not your fault. It's nobody's fault. The dichotomy, the difference between the Grand Canyon sized gap between what it means to vote yes based on the reasons that you did, and what it means to vote no based on the reasons that most of the right cleaning ranchers out there and Kylorado might vote. Um is. It's tough to understand, but living around wolves is so much harder than it is, especially when you're talking about reintroducing them. So when it was that argument is gonna fall flat with somebody who owns land, it's gonna fall flat with somebody who manages cattle. It's gonna fall flat with someone who has to balance these populations. And as you mentioned, that's why I'm against having these types of ballant initiatives out there for people to vote on. I think the North American amount of conservation, I don't think. I know the North American mount of the conservation doesn't allow for citizen based biology to come into play. We trust our biologists and the scientists and the state game management agencies to do this work for us on our behalf. We can challenge that certainly in the public or private forum if we wish, but that's how we've enacted game management in our space. But again I will tell you, Hayes, that there is almost no way unless you go find somebody and and really hear them out for you to understand they am the real impacts that this has on on people in the ranching community that there's I've talked to them. I just had um an uh close encounter with wolves taking down cattle and the place where I hunt, and I was able to think about the U. S d. A Aphist trappers that have to come in then possibly trap these wolves or kill these wolves, UM, the ranchers who lose money and then have to go to the state, UM or the federal government to get reparations for the loss of cattle. And so this is twisted up. It's not as easy as yes, I want wolves back their native to this landscape, and then you know, trying to raison your way into wolves in terms of hunting them hunters and hunting itself. I I would imagine the impact to elk herds is probably the least of the worries to start. Um, but I'm I'm glad. I'm very glad that that the the one fourteen has a lot of provisions to protect ranchers financially, and it also has a lot of provisions for public comment throughout a three year process that will get us to having wolves back in Colorado. I as I said last week with Robbie, I want wolves in Colorado. Um, I want them there, but I don't I'm not blind to the fact that there are a lot of people that don't want them there, and they don't want them there for really good reasons. It is hard to cohabitate with wolves. They are meat machines. They are meat processors with four legs. They do not think about blog game management when they are taken down the food that they need to survive, and sometimes that the food they don't need to survive. So lots going into it will continue to discuss it. Fil Do you have anything from a non hunters point of view here? Uh? No, not at all. Do you have you ever seen wolves around Montana? I'm trying to think. I don't think I've seen I don't think i've seen wolves. I don't think i've seen a wolf in the wild. Wolf. Yeah, as I've said on the podcast before, the spot that I hunt south of my house here where there's plenty of wolves around, plenty of wolf sign heard them, seen him on trail camera, see their tracks, seeing their ship, all of it. There, they're they're hanging out in the strange where I hunt. As I drive north back to town from my hunting spot where there is wolves, there's a big billboard that says stop trapping wolves, you know, stop the violence or stop the suffering. Oh yeah, on the way, Uh, just Gallaton Canyon right there. I know what you're talking about exactly. So it's it's funny how these and then talking to a U. S. D Aphist trapper who potentially has to come in based on some evidence that I gave him from my trail cameras and trap some of these wolves so they stopped killing these cattle. Um, the the the iron. He's not lost on me there that there are really two different sides to this particular and it's it's it's no different than grizzly bears. There are two different sides I think to these particular arguments and it certainly goes well beyond Hey, if you hunt, just eat it. Um. This goes well beyond that, UM in terms of how we look at it. So we'll keep talking about it. UM. Appreciate the thoughtful email, Hayes, and man, you're not wrong. Um. Nobody here's gonna say that you're wrong for for voting the way that you did. But I would say that it's important for you to find, maybe wherever you can, some perspective of someone who will actually be dealing with these animals on a day to day basis, because you will not, admittedly, So so seek those people out, find their perspective and see if they can educate you a little bit and what what they'll be dealing with and why they would vote no UM for Prop One fourteen, which was an extremely close vote, I mean extremely close vote in Colorado. So onto something a little more lighthearted. Phil our friend a b Rich remember a be Rich? Yeah? He uh, he contributed to the draw Phil contest. I feel like he had was he that the hand turkey guy? I'm no, this is not the hand turkey guy? Okay, I'm trying to think of like Greg Morris. There's so many favorite teach the listeners that are in the cult. And we haven't decided on the cult name yet, but I'm still leaning that way. Um, but so many cult members and what a B. Rich drew a one of full version of you. In fact, I have it. I'm getting ready to hanging in the new THHC office here at my house. It's a wonderful version of you looking very handsome from earlier this year in our episode one giveaway. But a B he came correct, he created and he beautifully photographed, by the way like professionally photographed the salty Vegan, and he created the the wonderful presentation. He has all the right in my opinion, all the right ingredients. Um, so you know, round of applause, Fill round of applause for I'm gonna need you to do some clapping. Yep. Thanks round of applause for our friend A by Rich. And thanks to the folks at element as always drink element t dot com slash meat eater for sponsoring this year program and the title position and making sure we can do what we do. So just like a B go over there to drink element te dot com slash meat eater, get yourself Elements some electual like drink mixed keep you keep you hydrated. Now I've been drinking a lot of secon. Are you gonna are you gonna share the goods? What's the what's the Oh? Yeah, it's coming, it's coming to got to do the business. Got to do the business. But it's coming. Uh. It's a wonderful photo, and I'll show. I haven't shared the photo with you, but I will. Um of his kitchen with a cutting board, and so he starts off with he's got like one of them, you know, real hipster Mason jars that people drink out of. You know what I'm talking about, Phil Oh, yeah, of course, of course you do. Um. He has started with a rim He's rimmed it with some uh some element recharge and crumbled bacon. So he's taken some of the salt from the element recharged and some crumbled bacon and rimmed the glass with that. Yeah. He has garnished that with a pickle. Uh. I can't say. It looks like a little dill pickle as a garnish. He has then mixed together vodka, a third path of the element lime flavor club soda. He says, quote, I hate because I hate white claw, but you can choose any white claw flavor you want. And then he's mixed that altogether with the bacon and made what he calls the salty vegan. Wow, you got the in the Vodkas titos, which I which I like being a former representing Texas. There, Well done, a bey Rich, well done. Um. That all comes from if you don't, if you're if you forget back. A few episodes ago only had the Great Leader of Anonymous for the voiceless Paul Baser on which people, by the way, are I get daily emails of people just still banging on Paul the sheer um. So we might still have that. We might have to have him back on and see if he'll drink a salty Vegan with me. I don't know if the bacon might not. He might have to not have the bacon on there. Yeah, I think they're there are other plant based uh you know options he could go with? Sure, sure plant based? Is there plant based bacon? There's guy to be come on? Oh yeah, I mean what about being crazy? Of course you're you're the guy who went to the vegan butcher shop. Yeah, of course they have play at Basic Bacon bits for sure. Um, I'm sure there's many many varieties that you can find your local store. But anyway, thanks to A. B. Rich for creating the Salty Vegan. I will post the ingredients and the photos on my Insta story in case you guys want to go make them. I would say, if you're in my position, or if you're locked in the bedroom and nothing to do, make away and drink away. Because I have actually been drinking a lot of element during my stay in the room here. It's working out pretty good. So thank you to those folks keep me hydrated and keep me alive um during COVID times. Oh okay, so moving on one more time. This one uh has a little bit to do with my illness. But our guy Vincent shoff So s c h a double F shop, Phil, I would say, yeah, that's that's a tough It's either shop or shape for sure, stop shape for sure. Yes, I'm feeling shock, he says, Hey, Ben, I was laid up in bed listening to your latest podcast. I'm one of the human trial people for one of the COVID nineteen vaccine. I love it. I like how he described it. I'm one of the human trial people for one of the COVID nineteen. Hey listen, man, Vincent, thank you so much. I can't wait to get that vaccine. Can't wait to get out of this here room and have a normal life again. So keep on doing what you do. He said. I wasn't actually sick from the virus or vaccine, but had passed out while giving blood, which unfortunately happens about one and ten times for me. So I had tuned into the podcast while recovering. So first, I hope you're not sick. Well, unfortunately I am sick. But moving on to probably more important things, he said, Second, onto politics. I support your freedom of speech. My best friend in the world as a Republican. I'm an independent who usually votes Democrat, and I did this year. My buddy Jr. Is not a racist or a white nationalist or any of those things alone into Trump supporters, and I am a liberal. I am a hunter. I love shooting. I can carry concealed But I also became a minister to assist my friends who are gay so they could get married. J R. And I used to be on the board for an inner city football and cheer team in Connecticut. We worked side by side to coach and mentor the mostly black kids to keep them off the streets, out of gangs, and stay in school. We have never let our political differences divide us. We do. We do talk about it a lot, we don't get angry, and both understand why we vote the way we do. We also understand the weaknesses of the current leadership on both sides. Is Biden perfect no way, But for me he was a lesser of two evils anyway. I write all this to say, keep Foster in the dialogue. I think both sides are closer than the media wants us to be. I grew up in wisconsint went to college and lived in Florida, and worked in New Jersey, Connecticut and now Colorado, and I get why people feel disenfranchised. I can understand their frustration of ranchers in Wyoming who feel like their voice isn't heard or that policy is being dictated by California New York. I can see why some people want to abolish electoral college and rely on the popular vote. I can see why others are afraid that if it happens, the states with small populations will feel their voices won't ever be heard again. Keep up the good work. I've learned a lot from you and th h c Um. I don't know if I have a big that that's just an uplifting email field that I felt I should read to everybody. Um Obviously, Vincent, I feel the same way you feel, shades of gray and all um with each all of us. And I've been avoiding the news media while locked in this bedroom, and it feels really good to not have to watch any of that ship and not have to have my fears and insecurities tweaked by people where and suits on the TV. This feels really nice just to look at this box room around me and not have to deal with that. But I do appreciate your listening, and I appreciate the thoughts about what divides us and what doesn't, because I'm telling you more brings us together than divides us. I'll be a broken record on that, and if that's what being in THHC Cults all about, well stick with us, because we're gonna keep doing it. Um, phil any or any thoughts to bring the nation together during this time, I'll share a story about something that that brought me together with some people. Okay, do you remember a few episodes ago. When you know, I made kind of like a just a call into the void, you know, saying, hey, hit me up on Instagram, play some video games with me. No, this did not happen. Oh yeah, many so shout out to the colts. Uh, I guess we're settling on that, um, the CC cult. Yeah no, I got. I got many responses, and I've been playing Destiny to almost nightly with some THHC with a TC listener. He's great, he's he's he's a really good, good guy to play with. Um, it's it's it's been a lot of fun. I don't know who we voted for. It doesn't matter. We are. We came together to be an American but no, because when we when we go into the Tangled shore and shoot aliens in the face, it doesn't matter our political views. And anyway, stand up Phil, stand up for America. Yeah. So, you know, thanks, thanks a lot to everyone who who got ahold of me. It's been it's been a lot of fun. It's a little thing to make me happy. Feeling that is that makes that brings me great, great great joy. Yep, right there, Well, thank you, Brandon, just brand have a last name or do you guys, just is the video game world? Do you just like give first names? Well, so you actually, I mean it's kind of uh, it's it's it's common courtesy. Courtesy is the right word. It's just usually call them by their video game handle. So so mine is Desmond the Cat, and his and his is Horror Biz and some numbers. So you know you should call it like horror, like a horror movie. So you know you can call him Horror. People call me Desmond. You know, it's it's normal. It's just normal behavior. This is this seems fine. Uh well everything just seems as good to me. All right, Well speak in a normal behavior. This week's not So Sharp Moment is on tap. Play the jingle Phil word not so Sharp Moment shop, So you don't have to alright, we'll check quickly in uh with a poop store. It's not that many you're coming in. And so thank you to the Colts for hanging in there and listening to Phil. Thanks for playing video games with Phil. I it's gonna take me a while to come down off that one. Phil. That was fantastic. Shout out to you. What's it? What is it? Desmond the Cat? Desmond the cat. Does that have some kind of meaning or did you just make that up? Now? Whence? I was I have you ever watched Lost, Ben, the the ABC show Lost? You know, I never did watch that. There's a very great character named Desmond introduced in season two. I was watching Lost at the time I made the name, and I was like, you know, if they ever got a cat, I'd name him Desmond. And then this is a this is a really interesting story. I'm sure the listeners are just on the edge of their seats range well apparently so apparently the guys like Brandon or are hanging out. I think maybe th HC has caused uh even amount of growth and hunting, Like it's a net zero because the amount of people that we have inspired to hunt has been zeroed out now by the amount of people you've inspired to play video games more often. I apologize that. I guess thanks for that. Yeah, so we got a really quick, uh pretty hilarious not a sharp moment. This one comes from our buddy Rob. I'm not gonna say Rob's last name, and you'll find out why you're in a minute. He says, Uh, Ben, I have not a sharp moment for you, although it kind of worked out well in the end. There we were Spring of two thousand and seven, two college roommates with Michigan turkey tags in hand, so jack to have those tags. So jacked in fact, that somehow we forgot that our university was hosting a college softball game on the day we were supposed to leave for our hunt. The problem being that my roommate and I were employees of the university grounds crew that was a signed to work the game and care for the field. You know, what you would normally do fill in this case is go to your job, go to work, you know, go care for this field for these lovely softball uh individuals. But he says, disappointed and not sure what to do, we looked for wisdom in a cheap bottle of whiskey. Wisdom, he said, wisdoms was found. That's around ten pm the night before we were just to leave. We decided that we would not be needed if the softball game were to be canceled. Oh no, oh boy. We raced to the mainten shed, grabbed a few hoses and hooked up the spickets near the field. We stretched all the hoses to the field and let him rip while we returned to our dorm for some shut eye. Four am our alarms rang and we returned to the softball diamond, which now resembles a wetland. I must note that there had not been rained in the area for a while, so no chance that anyone would believe Mother Nature could have been responsible for this new pond. We returned the hoses and sprinted off to the Turkey Woods. Around ten a m. We receive a call from the grounds manager letting us know that we would not be needed for the game and it was being relocated to a beauty full new local sports complex. We in return, had a fabulous hunt and put down to terrific Tom's the softball Gal's got the opportunity to play a high end sports complex that they would never have gotten to play at. So you're welcome, ladies, play the jingle word not so sharp moments. So if you don't have me alright, Phil, I felt like this might be controversial. Do you feel like this is a controversial act? By Bye, Rob, it's explained you explained your reasoning. Well, I mean he could have just done his job and then hunted the next I mean, how long does softball games go? Man? Like? You know, sofa a couple of hours, clean up the field. When you're done, get out there about noon. Given that you that you can hunt, man, I don't know if you can hunt in the eatings for turkeys from Michigan. Often states don't allow that. I mean, yeah, if I'd say it was a bad call for sure. But the thing is he's recognizing that, uh by writing into this here program. Anyway, We're gonna we'll we'll let you here at the cult. We like to let people in no matter what, and we are going to chide you probably forever rob about this, but we are also going to give you a work sharp field sharpener more reluctantly than most people. But we're gonna give it to you anyway, um, only because you were honest with us. And hopefully now you feel better about yourself. Hopefully some guilt has been lifted off of off of your shoulders. He got this out there. There's poor poor softball players. Yeah, yeah, actually been the more I think about it, I feel like we're because a lot of these not so sharp moments. I'd say generally it's like it's because it's like their fault, but it's it's not this This seems like it was an irresponsible choice that that had a bad effect on others. So you know, I the you know, the more think about it, I'm and should we reward him for for this behavior? Uh? I you know, I'm already too deep. I already said I do point like thirty seconds ago. It's not like we can edit it out or anything. No, this is live. This is live. We do this live. So, um, he's gonna get a work sharp field sharpener because I have this whole stack of them. You know, maybe I'll write a little nasty note on on it, you know, like get it together, Rob Okay, I like that. And also you know, I did you do any stupid things in college that you can remember? Oh? Definitely, yeah. I mean I like to think it didn't. You know, it didn't impact too many other people, and it was mainly just like my my liver and my my head. But besides that, yeah, my liver in my head took a beating as well. Still are um all right? Well, thank you it's Rob. Thank you to our friends at work sharp as always hit him up on their YouTube page. Lots of weekly sharpening tips going up there. Please support Element work sharp These companies that support us. We can't do what we do without them. It's important for you guys to let them know they are appreciated. So now we got the beautiful and talented, the wonderful, the peace, love and hippie. The man you know, it's Douglas Durn. We're gonna talk all kinds of ship and have a good time. Please enjoy our boy, Doug Douglas Darren. What's up, buddy. Well, Hey, I'm sitting here in my first late underwear, just came in from working out and I'm not really cold, just a beautiful November day and cutting some pine bottles and having a blast. So that's what you do, and that's that's the life that's trying to But I did take your advice and I'm having a lot. You don't usually I'm not usually an afternoon drinker, but I'm having a coffee with a little bit of a brand new unit. Sad. Well, we're gonna have a good time. We got cheers, cheers, I'm having a root beer because you know I'm hardcore. Um, we gotta talk about it. So you have had somehow made contact with Phil Jr. We're not using his name currently until we introduced him to the audience, but you've made contact with our new Phil junior podcast engineer. So it's gonna be really hard to talk about without using one of his two names. Go ahead, maybe we should break the way this let us sound lightly, but let's let's let's try it. So here's this fella, uh, you know out there on the social media. UM, I have a few people follow me and and I'm fair, I'm fairly engaging and uh, I guess you know if people right uh right back, UM, try to do it with everybody, and especially ones we were particularly interesting. Well, this guy um that we're talking about out um, and I'm starting to exchange some time I got don't remember the specific one, but he might. And it was about something that uh, you know, maybe it's been some social commentary or some hunting slash social commentary. H And anyway, he reached out in a message and said something to me about you know, thanks for doing you know, thanks for what you said or isn't or what's going on with this? And you know, anyway, we had this exchange. Well eventually, UM, he's coming out west. I guess he's going up by. He was going up by Missoula three or four months ago and going to go l countin and it reached out to me and I was like, hey, you know, as you're rolling through town, he had actually asked if he stop and just say hello. On I'm not sure. We had a little more of a longer conversation. It comes on your trip, you want to break up your trips stay at the farmhouse. And he's like really, And I was like, yeah, what's the worst thing that's gonna happen. I'm not gonna you know that the house that build the farmhouse sort of isolated anyway, so we didn't. We had a great time, a great uh conversation. Way younger guy. But you got kind of a younger guy than what I thought. So I guess that means he's maybe a bit of an old soul. Anyway, he comes out and then continues on his trip. But I and at that time he told me a part of his trip was to stop in Bozeman and talked to Phil and Karin and because of some things that had happened, which you guys have probably already talked about or you will talk about when he comes on. And as it uh so, and then as it turns out he's gonna start working there at Uh. He's on the team. He's on the team. He's on this and he's very excited about it. So as he as he was moving from Philadelphia, he stopped on the way back are on the way out a week or ten days ago, had his bowl along and I said, get your scunny ass out there in the woods and kill a deer? Will you? He did? Well. I mean, we have this a very affectionate relationship with Phil, and I was initially worried that new Phil. It was more, you know, more of my style hunter. He's from Pennsylvania. He's a b h a guy. He you know, he obviously uh gets your seal of approval at some level. So I was at but not complete yet. But he's on the right track. He's on the right track, all right. Well see that's enough for me to be worried that I'm gonna like this guy a lot. And then eventually Phil I'm gonna push because Phil plays video games. He he does all these things that just you know, we we shouldn't be hanging out. But I have such an affection for Phil. I'm just worried that new Phil is going to come in and kind of steal my affection away. So I'm just trying to protect Phil by not saying his name or letting him on the show yet until I've determined what to do emotionally about this. Oh yeah, yeah, I can see it. Well, I had never We're seeing Phil's face before a few minutes ago when we set this whole thing up, and here we are on video and stuff, And what an earnest fella he is? You have just I mean, he looks how he sound. I've gotten both. I've gotten that both ways for myself personally. Have you ever gotten that? Like you don't look how you sound or you look how you sound? Now? People got me picked for Cranch and the old Man right right? Yeah, they pake you right, they pake you right. Well man, how the hell have you not been on this show before? Is the thing that I was wondering about prior to this kind of how did it take me get locked into some stupid room here with COVID for us to have you on? I don't I feel like I want to apologize for that number one? Yeah? Well, or maybe it's like my my buddy Keefer says he was just leaving room for improvement. That's right, We're gonna get down the road someways. So well, no, I'm really happy to be here. This is a uh well, we talked about doing it. Um in August, we almost did. Hell, we we did a we did a podcast at the Applebee's. Yep, we had a whole thing go and we can replay it. Was it Applebee's. I was trying to remember that was Applebe's or t g I Fridays was so nondescript. But who did a really nice job of social distancing and had the place broken up. And that was the first time you either one of us had been away from home since the whole thing broke. Yes, this August we were filming The Back forty, which is out now. So if you want to see episode two starring Doug during, go to the Mediator YouTube page and check it out. But yeah, I mean we're filming that thing. Not a lot is open. It's a small town right where I can't remember the name of the town, somewhere in rural Michigan. Cold Water, Coldwater, Michigan. So if you're listening and you're in cold Water, thank you for the great hospital. The only thing open is an Applebee's, I mean the only thing open as an Applebee's, and so we had it. We had to. We wanted to eat dinner nightly at this Applebee's, and I felt like we could have had Applebee's. By by the way, not a sponsor yet, but I think after they here, you know, we we must have spent you know, old meat eater must have spent hundreds of dollars. They're at the Applebee's in that fine establishment. And we had quite we If people could have only heard that podcast we never recorded, we really would. I would. We had a waitress banter, you know, had like this small town waitress banters. My favorite ship in the world. We had a lot of that. We had a lot of steak and potatoes type of situations solved. We solved a lot of the world's problems. We texted, We texted Joe Rogan a bunch bothered him about ship. Had a good time, man, Yeah, it was a blast. It was a blast. And then the next night we had well we're there three nights, right, yeah, the whole the whole cruise there. The first night, which was the whole t was like the way it used to be with when Skinny came out here for the first time, just like it was, you know, just a couple of people. The last time that we shot a couple of episodes out here, I think there was like, you know, nine or ten people. But so it just kind of tight and lean, you know type group of people working together and stuff. And that was fun. That was fun. That was fun, man, that was fun. What was your impression of working on because you know, you've worked on a lot of people have seen you in the met Eater TV a bunch, they've seen you in the Stars and Sky documentary all that kind of stuff, and if you haven't seen those things, go see him. What are you doing? Um? So, there's a difference right between a show like that and then a show like Back forty. I mean we've talked that we've done a little bit of behind the scenes here on this program, and I know Kenyans talked about it. But what was that you know, film and something like that, like where we weren't hunting, we were just playing trees, playing food plots. Yeah. Well, I mean, honestly, that's the kind of stuff I do pretty much every day. You know, that's staying management work, and uh, it's really so to be recording it. I mean you probably remember a few times, like when we first started planting those trees, it was like it took us forever to plant six trees and I'm like, man, we got thirty five more to put in. But we were setting stuff up and when you film uh meat Eater, and I remember, I mean the first time that I filmed Meat Eator, Steve calls and said, hey, we just come out, and I's like, well, how do you do it? He goes, this is we're going to go hunt and a couple of guys follow us around with cameras and that's really and you know, obviously it was way more than that in great storytelling um and all that, but certainly not from my perspective but from the people who are working with And so this was more like when we shot my part of the Stars in the Skies movie where they had where you guys set stuff up and say, okay, well you know, here are the things that we really are going to accomplish, and Um and Mark uh you know, I can't figure out you and Mark working together, um and then Sam in the mix and all that. How that uh, how that I was? It was fun observing all of that, and then like, how do you guys work together and what's that creative process because you're creating a show and whereas I was, and so I wanted to be an active participating that. And it seems like when we were doing Stars in the Sky, Steve and I had talked and he's like, but here's what we're gonna talk about. Man, you know, it's all this stuff that you and I've talked about. It had a very specific about you know, and that was sort of some stories that we have where's doing this The story is kind of folding unfolding out in front of us, and who knows what's gonna happen, Like, you know, it's gonna break. Um, although I could have predicted that fertilizer spreader of marks has break. I must. I must watch the episode thirty times and I laugh every time. But so that part of it was just we were just doing that stuff and uh uh the cameraman Charlie and justin uh, we're really good. This is the one of the things that goes through with all of the stuff that I've done with with media and now this guy's we're with but captured creative. Yep. The production company anyway. Is they're just really good at stand out of the way and just capturing what's going on. I mean, I was watching the episode and I'm like, that's really cool what they caught there, and then how you guys cut that into the story and makes sense out of my you know, ramblings and stuff. I I enjoy it, man, I'll tell you, like, I want people that are listening to hear some of the like how that process works, because for me, at least, it makes it more interesting because we certainly don't script and we don't be like, hey, guys say this right, yeah, we we we put you in a situation that you need to be in any way to get the job done, and then kind of see where it goes from there, which is fun. Man. It's fun to kind of take those that stuff and then whittle it down to overtime. You know, we start with an hour long cut and then boom, boom boom, we get it. We do some writing, we do some shaping, and then it goes out to the world and it's hopefully seems like it's a seamless you know, twenty some minutes of of real work and real like real laughter, real feelings and that's what it is. So I felt like, I mean, this is as great a compliment as I can have in my vast experiences television production, which is all it's just like just there's it's just a theme and the way things are done and equality and uh, I mean, I just I was really proud of my watched as you sent me the rough cut last week, and I you know, my wife and I watched me laughed, you know, laughed all the way through it, like well, you know, that's just the way. We weren't trying to be funny. It's just the way that stuff goes, you know. Yeah, it's it's nice to see, you know. Like Mark, for example, Mark Kenyon, his his personality gets amplified in a natural way. Right, Like some of the things he does that are you know, coaching and right I get shown. But some of the things that he does that are a little bit screwed up get shown too. But those things just get amplified in a way that makes hopefully makes people laugh and gives them a little you know, Farming, as you say, they're farming is hard work, man, It's unpredictable, and it's as much about overcoming issues as it is about the result, you know, yeah now, and and it's really good fun being a part of the process with the back forty for me that the land itself, I mean, the production stuff. I mean, you guys just kind of here's we're going to do this, you know, and um, I've done enough of it now that when you kind of give me the general idea. I mean, and we'd already talked about what we were gonna that. We're gonna food plots, tree planting. This dude's gonna come that, um doing some work, you know, and the I'm gonna hunt later. Um, and I'm thinking about all the other all the other stuff we could do, you know, just because I know what that land. There's a lot needs to be done on that land. Or I shouldn't say it needs to be done. There's a lot that could be done in that land and a lot that's being done. And the cool thing about that property is that it's I mean Mark was talking about restorative agriculture and sustainable agriculture, and um, that's that's that's really important, you know, talking about tree planting is really important. The little things that you can do on a property, um, uh to improve it and you know, just make it better. But I think a big part of that is you can have a vision of it and then just start adapting right adaptive management. And that's one of the things I've already seen in these last year year and a half with that property. You know, Mark took in a lot of information, you know, and uh, I mean, I think you should pay more attention to what I'm telling. But obviously he had a lot of other input as well, and I've liked his decision making process, you know, and the work that he's gotten done. It's very cool. It's very cool. Yeah. I mean, if those if you haven't followed the back already, shame on. You go watch all the episodes now, then we're back. Uh, congratulations, you've watched all the episodes. I think that I think it's important that people understand that, you know, I think throughout this show that we've been putting on, it's we've we've wanted people understand the minut shist sometimes, so like the what you might if you were scripting a television program, you might skip over because it's boring. Maybe it's it's something that you would say, yeah, we did it, but not show it. Not show you know, what goes right and what goes wrong with tree planning and food plots and putting up box blinds and some of the things that we're showing this season, you know, planting switch grass, pollinat your pockets, doing you know, putting bees bee hives on the place. I'm happy that people can can see that because it just shows you that there's hunting. But maybe hunting is half of it, you know, and maybe it's less than halfens and probably in your case, hunting is way less than half. Yeah. Man. I always say, if if it was a yard stick, if the farm or conservation what I do is a yard stick, hunting would be like six inches of it, you know. Um. And although I'm very excited because huntings deer hunting is about to start here and that's part of what I'm getting prepared for us what is that time of year. But I'm not preparing, you know, It's not like I'm working that land preparing it to hunt. I'm working that land trying to do what the best thing is. And that quote unquote best thing is elusive. Um. I mean you have to be thoughtful about it. You have to have sort of I mean one are the reasons I like Leopold so much as he was so philosophical about it. You know, a thing that tends to be more in harmony tends to be more right, you know. Um, how hard are we pushing this? Um? Yeah, that land And obviously with agriculture we do that. And it's something I think about, you know a lot to sort of see a little property like this one, I mean beautiful. What I mean Mark should get a lot of credit. And the people he worked for, we worked with and worked for, but the people he worked with to find that property. I mean, if you were to lay out of criteria, you know, a landowner looking for and I do this with landowners, right or people who want to become landowners. Um, here's what I'm looking for in a property. And you know, and it's not like done, it's more like, well, what's the potential here? And then you put that plan, uh, and you start to assess it. You put that plan in place, and then you start doing things and it's just a great process. And the back forties is an excellent example of that, I think, and I think it's really relatable to people who are interested in having their their piece of Kevin yeah. Well, I mean there's so much that you know, we think about when we think about that property, how it's it's very emblematic of lots of things. But certainly as ah, you know this, as a as a group meat eater, I think we've probably well more known for public land than private land. Right. People certainly see us as a Western private land or public land brand for many reasons. Our relationship with b h S is solid. Um. Well, when we started a company, we all thought Bosman's nice. You know, we didn't we didn't move to Yeah, we didn't move to Boygan. Um, so I bet it should be boy It's nicely right. I spent three years in Peoria one week. Um yeah, I mean that's so for us to to to take the lead to show this, this what the proximity to a piece of land like this means to us, means to mark as a white tail hunter means to me as a storyteller and somebody who really cares about wild places and natural places probably better described. It's been fun to kind of shrink it all down into very small into a very small track to land and then get real intimate with every damn thing. I mean, we've shot you were there when we shoot close ups some bugs and butterflies and shipped on the hunting ship. Um, so that's part the story though. Man. Yeah, yeah, it's been cool for me. And then to have you come in and kind of give us, you know, forty some years of expertise as you were also, as we said, the episode of Vagabond Tree Planner, which we'll get into some stories. But you have all this experience, like are you as what does it make you feel to see something some piece of private lands so small play out like this for people to experience the struggles, the process, the good, the bad, the ugly, you know, the sweat, the tears, all that stuff. Well, part of what I do in real life is you know, land management work and and uh uh you know, and and seeing that play out with different people and you know, everything from very wealthy clients to folks whom you know, who are just like struggle who you know, My dream is to get forty acres and and do this thing. And it's the cool thing about about what the back fort he's doing and how and how that it is showing that that process and that emotion is really a part of it. And I don't care where you are. I mean I'm kind of getting uh, I'm kind of getting fond of that Hillsdale area, you know, but that I'm learning more about that region and what that's like and everything, and um, those kinds of things. That sense of place I think is really, you know, really important. And I think Mark's bringing that out. I mean, he loves that here, you know, that region. Obviously he lives a little ways away from there, but um, I mean I get it, you know, and and I can see the attractiveness of it, um and appreciate that. Yeah, And it can be even if you know, you know, we live in Montana. We think how harsh the mountains, how harsh this landscape is, and you know that that brings some attractive nature to us living in this place. But man, it's not that Michigan ain't a hardass placed man. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, by the way, I gotta I gotta step back from that. I have der friends in Sheboygan, Wisconsin and Approacast Approachaboygan all the way and and pro Plymouth and that whole arey over there. Nice nice folks. Uh yeah, anyway, because because you know, in this state, man, the Sheboygan crowd can get harsh. You know, it's actually pretty cool area over there. I've been there a few times. Um, but yeah, I mean, I love the One of the things I like about just chatting with you like our Appleby's time, is that we can so we could take like you can take these philosophies of how we relate to land. And man, I love talking about that because that's one of the things I've recently been sitting around in this room, locked in this room with COVID, thinking, Boy, man, I want to be a wildlife biologist, like I wanna. I'm gonnay. If I go back to college right now about five to eight years, I bet I can have a damn degree and all this ship I've talked on this podcast might actually stand up in court, you know. Like, but I do feel passionate about that proximity to the land, of this understanding of that you clearly have over decades. Well, I appreciate that, But my understanding is is is my my look at the land is much more philosophical when it comes to the uh, the understanding and the nuts and bolts of conservation. The first thing that I'm doing is talking to people who specialize in areas and um, you know everything you say if you would go back to school. I mean I've said many times that that I would have gone back and got up. I wish I would have gotten a forestry degree. Um. And you know I could see myself being a forester, but um, you know that's just not the way it when. So what I do, Uh, let me have an earth science degree in history degree and a whole bunch of experience and classes and seminars and in all the areas of conservation. But the common theme through that is, uh, like learning all the time and paying attention to the opportunities to learn and and you know, listen to the experts and trust them. That also question and when it really comes to land management, it becomes a personal thing. When it comes to any kind of you know, conservation thing, I don't. It's not that I don't relate to the public land thing, because I mean I worked on the the trails on the Appalachian Trail in the north slopes of the White Mountains of a high school teacher out there. I did trail work. I did you know the work that I planted trees in national forest. Um. It just happens to be where I am here, the land is where I grew up, is you know, privately owned. So I think I have a perspective um that that that informs the philosophy about you know, what's the best thing that we can do here? And you know, and you can't be rigid about it, you know, um and so and so that's part of that. That philosophy is like used to you know, Bob Dylan said, it used to go like that. Now it goes like this. I mean that idea that I reserve the right to change my mind, that I can go in a different direction. You know, you say it as pro nuance. I think that's why you and I get along, because it is that kind of thing. I disagree with all kinds of ship that you'd say, but just for the record, I don't even agree with myself all the time. So um. But you know the point is that there's a philosophy there about it that we can work through it get better at it. Progress I mean you want to call me to progressive, I'd say, thank you very much. Yeah. I think easily progressives win through history, um, regardless of the topic. But yeah, man, I I I like when when I can at least. I think the most productive conversation ends up being that we have a foundational understanding of where we both how we're both approaching something, and then disagree along the way, you know, and those disagreements where where things become interesting and where we're able to learn from each other. Without those disagreements, you're just going like this, shaking your head all the time. But yeah, what's that that old saying about. There are those who watch things happen. There those who make things happen, and there are those who wonder what the hell happened? Um, those that's the kind of thing which I mean, put folks into those categories. And I mean I kind of like being all of those categories some of the times, you know, what the hell, they just have to be unpredictable at the very least. Yeah, Yeah, So, um, that's that's where the fun is, you know, that's where the fun is and all of this. And I guess that's something that I've learned, you know, I mean, and you know, I know I talked about music a lot, musical influences and stuff, but Robert Hunter, Jerry Garcia, you know, some great grateful dead lyrics and all of that but um, I saw this interview with Jerry Garcia, who they were talking about, you know, grateful dead, doing this, doing that, and it's like he only had one question, is this gonna be fun? God? You know, it's just sort of like I've gotten to a point in my life. Now I'm going to be sixty two in January. It's like I'm I'm starting to make decisions completely based on that. You know. Yeah, I mean, ship man, you know what's fun? You know when I get into these grooves where I'm sitting in front of the computer. That's one of the reasons I fell in love with podcasting because I get to talk to really interesting people and a whole lot of the time I'm in their element, or I'm learning from them, or I'm out doing things. Since COVID has come down, we're doing a lot of these you know, virtual conversations. This nice see each other, but like you gotta, you know, feel where the other person's at as much as anything to come. And you can only get that in an Applebee. You can only get that in a small town Michigan. I wish I would have in the middle of COVID every but nobody was too nervous over there if everybody feels like it seemed like they were just just doing doing okay, But yeah, I mean that like to me, you know, when I when I think about what maybe the audience can learn from you that they maybe you haven't already learned. One of the things that I'd like to hear you talk about is exactly what, like if you were gonna boil down you're a philosophy on our relationship with land, because one of my favorite scenes of anything we've ever filmed that met either was when you were walking around and whizzing Steve Ronnella on what trees were in a wood lot. There was some timber and you're walking to your farm, and I remember thinking, my dad never quiz me like that. But he knew every tree, he knew every bird, he knew every like every plant, and he just picked that up naturally, and I never I never chased him down that road as much as I should have. So I think that's like your relationship to the land has transmitted to almost everything Mediator has done. So because for people to hear like how you describe your philosophy for that whole thing is is I'm sure it changes through time. You know, I have a good fortune of being uh, this generation's steward of four acres has been in my family for hundred and seventeen years. And you can't help but when you had when when you're in a situation like that and good fortune, right, Um, you can't help but be in a situation like that, when sort of walking through or or spending time on a property where you are where everything around you has your your your blood, you know, your family's blood has been a part of that. Your family's work has been a part of that. Um. And I mean, and I ended up boiling it down to you know, simply, you know that phrase, if it's not ours, it's just our turn. And I think I've told that. I don't know if I've told this story or not. But we were cutting trees that were years old. It was red oaks, and it was there time. You know, it was there time to go, and I had been I've been charged with that task. So how we're going to um, um, you know, how we're gonna leave that dear friend of mine and tremendous forces. Her name is Mike Finlay. Um said to me, one of the things you gotta understanding when you're thinking about how you're cutting and what you're doing into your woods is it's not just what you're taking, but it really is what you're leaving. And he and I were working up in the woods and walking out and He's said to said to me, boy, I'm really really impressed that you and your family are willing to do We're doing a real aggressive bunch of forestry in an area to try to regenerate red oaks and something that's a part of the driftless area and all of that. And I said, I'm just really impressed you're doing a lot of people just don't want to cut trees like that and do that kind of work. And I really applaud that. And I was like, well, you know, again, those streets are dwive years old and they were saplings when my great grandfather bought this land and they've been managed and taking care of for all this time. Um that at that moment, man, I literally could visualize my parents and my grandparents and my great grandparents there with us, and I said, I guess I feel like it's not ours, it's just our term. And Mike looked at me because I write that down that could be a T shirt that it did well. And that's really that really is the philosophy, right, um and I and that's what that's what I that's what I've come up with. Um, we're actively managing the property that has been actively managed has been different things, and it's like, well, what what is it now? You know what and what could it be in the future. I mean it had to it always had to pay for itself in the past, and now it doesn't. And so we're able to do quote unquote the best thing or the right thing. Um. And that's really you know, I mean, conservation has been a part of My great grandfather was a lumberman. My grandfather was a lumber man. We did we did work on our farm, a timber work on our farm the whole time I was growing up. I just grew up around it, you know. UM, And I guess I absorbed a lot of it. But I have intentionally, um taught people about trees and quizzed people about trees. My daughter can identify was on some hardwood trees and evergreen trees at sixt what kind of tree is that? And you know, and she buy the shape and whatnot, and you know, she never had any dendrology classes, nor did I, you know, nor did I. Um, but that stuff is, yeah, that's really important. So there's always been a closeness. I remember when Steve first came, I was talking about water sheds and he goes, man, I grew up in Michigan. Nobody knew what watershed they were in. Um, And like, don't you know, maybe just not aware of it. I think that guys like me. I mean, I don't think I'm unusual. Man, I just got a bigger mouth and a lot of guys like me. But um, I don't think it's unusual. I know a lot of folks who know who know their place, you know. Um. And so there's an active, active participation in in a property or in an area and in conservation, right. I mean, I just think it's active participation. And I'm gonna make everybody's gonna make mistakes or ship you know. It seemed like a good, good idea at the time. I was a classic one. Man. I planted a bunch of pine trees good Lord forty years ago, and uh, I planted him on the south side of the driveway at the farm, A bunch of big red pines and you know they're there. There's this big round and for those of you who can't see me, it's about eighteen inch and they're shading the freaking driveway of the farm. And this here that you have to go up. And you know, in the wintertime it gets all ice and it never melts and it's all that. And you know, if I could talk to my twenty year old self, like, hey man, you might want to consider planting those trees on the other side of that road. Um. And my response to that kind of stuff is, well, it seems like a good idea at the time. You know, well, there's you know, there's some beauty in that and that active choice, right, there's some beauty and that, Like I you know, I'm sure you didn't think you're rolling the dice by playing some damn trees, but you had an active role in shape in the landscape. It's gonna be there's gonna be mixed results has to be. Yeah, it's too, no doubt about it. I mean, And that's one of the coolest things now being for me. I mean, in the in the last third I guess of my life, right, I'm gonna be sixty two, and I would say I mean, my my family has some longevity. I planned to live to be nineties, so, um, I got a lot to do between now and then, so I gotta keep busy. Uh. But out there on that farm, you know, we talked to you. You mentioned that the tree planning thing, um, and that's something that I did when I was twenty one years old. I was just went off from was a vagabond tree planner and came back. But that's forty years ago, and I planted trees on the farm. So we're out there, um, and I planted hardwood trees. I planted pine trees, uh, spruce trees, um. And so but I'm out there amongst that stuff now and it's big as trees. And you had that impact on that landscape and you saw that, and so you know, I talked about it in in the in the Back forty episode about that impact is there. I don't think that's anything that you can do that's cooler than planting trees. I like, really like the idea of long term careers too. Yeah, you know, that kind of a premial thing and the memories that become a part of it. Marks gott a pine tree that he planted in his yard with his kids that I gave him, and those kids are always going to remember that, you know, he talked to him about it. These all those kids are gonna remember it. So those kind of memories are important too. You know. I'd like to also say that, you know, plant trees are and grow memories. H So those kinds of impacts are cool, you know, um, not only from a conservation standpoint, but also from like a personal and philosophical you know, uh standpoint. Yeah, we talk about conservation all the time, and I know I have people that listen to this show and that are taken in our content that hear us talk about conservation and they hear us explain what it is, and we explain you know, the conservation structure, the kind of scaffolding of conservation within our government and governmental agencies, and do we talk about even the more philosophical idea of conservation and land management and what that means. But I know there's a lot of people that listen to this that live in the city that never get to feel what it feels like to to do something like planet tree. Right, you can we can apply that to the term conservation, but what or not? But it's planting the damn tree. That's what it is. And but all of that's intertwined in in this concept of of conserving a place and steward in a place. And and I've I've gotten to feel that on the back forty I've I've certainly done in other places, but I've felt it on the back for you that we're actually like, I feel what it feels like. I feel if feels good to see a bunch of deer on their um. You know from the episode where you were on right now, Dan Jago is out sitting in the tree stand right now trying to find it there, and there's there's ten times more deer on there than it was last year. Um if maybe twenty times, thirty times. I mean, it's it's ridiculous. Yea, yeah, well we're doing our best. But yeah, I guess I say all that to say, like, I know there's people that don't know what it feels like to plane a tree and watch it grow and then watch to have an impact, watch bird's nest in it, and watch squirrels to use it. I know that there's people listening to this that maybe never will have that chance. Um, So I'm glad that we're able to describe the feeling at least or or what it really means to do it. Well. You know, we spend a lot of time talking about like hunter recruitment, and you know we've got like all great programs like our three UM learn to Hunt programs. UM. I know you're taking that media to folks were taken and folks out. I mean I welcome h and learning hunters you know pretty often, but I I get a little concerned sometimes that hunting is really extraction, right. I mean you go killing something and taking it off the landscape. So the question becomes, what are you putting into that landscape UM to support that animal and make that a sustainable UM experience UM. And I don't know exactly where the best place to interject folks UM into that process is when you want them to be I mean, what's the goal is it's a goal to buy have a bunch of people with like the learning who are buying licenses. For sure, that's a part of it, but you want I think that a big part of it. We also want folks are going to contribute to conservation in some way that are going to be supportive of conservation in some way. So somehow I think it's important that folks learn about that as a part of their process, as opposed to we're gonna make sure they know how to shoot good and they're gonna take them out hunting. Um. And that's kind of and I think there's room for all kinds of different opportunities. But we know that one of the challenges that we have and hunter recruitment is a place to go hunt. We also know that one of the other challenge, the two biggest challenges are along with that is a place to go and someone to go with. And man in the Midwest, you know, let me give you an example of our county. Of this county that I live in, Rislin County is considered dear habitat um of that land is privately owned. So if you're gonna go hunting in Richmond County, Wisconsin, you're gonna you can if you're only hunting on public and it's gonna be pretty limited, and it's probably gonna be fairly competitive. Um. We take we do a pretty good job in Wisconsin of exposing people to public, making public land available to folks. But then also some of our other public land programs um like voluntary public access and managed force law open and stuff like that, and so people get that opportunity, you know, took off to those properties and um, if they're just going to hunt, um, and that's like the thing that they want to do, that only or that extraction thing. One of the things I dig about b h A and particularly Wisconsin p H I don't I don't know that much about the other chapters, and I certainly know a little bit about National, but my experiences would have been these folks are Wisconsin Chapter b h A. They're out there. Um, they're out there working on their land. You know when they wear those shirts that say public land Owner. Um, they're you know, they're kind of putting their time and their money their at their mouth is too. They're getting out and they're adopting properties and and you know and doing that kind of working. Um. You know, that's something I spoke with him about when I first met him, and UM, it was really cool to hear that they were going that's one of the things that they thought about a lot um, and so they're learning about I mean, these folks are committed to conservation also, so then how can we do that? How do you introduce people to that idea both on their bh A can do it on a public land basis, but how can we do it on a private land basis? And Yeah, I think there really needs to be a thought about cooperation and getting more people out into our private lands. Well we so when we were first well, I had this guy named Luca Paculi. I don't know if you've ever met. I don't know if you met him, and he was on the back forwarding on this podcast and he's at a UC Berkeley, And that was one of the things that we started to look at the this idea of doing a show called the Back forty. I started looking for somebody like Luke who had studied the relationship between hunting really only hunting, not fishing in this case, and leasing um and the ownership of private land and what did it really mean to the greater landscape the United States. We know, we kind of have tallied up all the the stats for how many millions of acres of public land there are, We've tallied those up. We've kind of presented that case through b h A and through other things. But like what we all know that private lands and we all wish we had private land all of us, if we were being honest. So like he's a guy who found that, you know, I think it's twenty six percent of all private land in the US has either owned for hunting or least for hunting, of all the land in the US, I mean that's that's a quarter of the land, um. And you have landowners that are earning billions of dollars. I think I'm billion and a half dollars a year and income from these two years um that they're hunting. And so yeah, this is all private land. I mean, this is two million acres A quarter of our country is either least or owned specifically for for hunting. And so then you start to think of, like, what kind of impact can we have if we if we even had a quarter of that manage their land in the same way or at least around the same principles. Right if they all if if they knew their power, Right if only people like you and the Durham Farm really knew the power that they had on a state level, maybe, but certainly on a federal level, certainly on a national level. And that's what got me thinking about cooperative management and and what the hell can we do? You know, what the hell can sixty four acres really be? Because it can be a whole lot more than just sixty four acres, And so I think it was good to present that idea. We presented that idea last year in the Back forty had luke on and but now there's this idea, like, let's grab ahold of it because there is this immense power and farms like yours and farms like the Back forty um not only an access but also in cooperation and trying to you know, to build a better you know, build a better state, build a better region, build a better nation. You know what's interesting as we we've obviously talked about this a little bit, and we're we have a bunch of ideas about it, but it's one of the bits of perspective and all of that that I can bring is again, as a guy who's sixty two years old, I get to say, when I was a kid, um, and I was a kid you know around me this this area, the same area that I'm talking about, Um, I grew up around here in hunting access. I mean it was it wasn't Hunting was just like going out and yeah, a little bit of deer hunting, and there's a lot of small game hunting, you know as a kid, but it was kind of wide open. Private land wasn't um as closed up or as it is now or what it wasn't managed doing so much more managed. And then over the really over the last forty years, um, no one had land around here specifically for hunting. That seems to uh, let me finish that statistic I had before about our land is privately owned. Of the land in this county is owned by people who don't live here, and you know so, and that's a big change in the last forty years. And those are folks who are owning it for for those things that you said, you know, for hunting, or for specifically for hunting, um least or I'm just I'm you kind of punched me right in the gut with that twenty million acres or at least of land, at least our own for hunting, private land of the land. It's amazing. So I've experienced that in the last forty years. So there's less and less access around here. It used to be you know, yeah, you could go knock ander and you knew everybody well that land also didn't have a whole lot of value we have. We called it rough land and the and woodlander, you know, and when nobody referred to it as what really it was. You know, how do you extract something out of that land to make it worthwhile? Um? In my you know, since really when I was in my twenties and thirties, you could still farm around here and pay for a whole farm property. I mean, I know guys that my age that did that. But then they, of course they had to change over time, and as we know, a lot of small farms as also sort of got eight up. But now I can if I took you around this area, you see all I could show you all kinds of properties that aren't owned by you know, farmer Brown, that they're owned by whoever who then rents the crop land to farmer Brown, but they have it for recreation. All those folks didn't buy that land have a bunch of other people other than themselves, you know, on there. But those folks are a really important part of this too, because they tend to manage their land, um, you know pretty well it might be specifically for the thing that they want, right deer, whatever that happens to be. Um, But you meet a lot of those folks that like private landowner workshop days and education days that are put on by various NGOs and whatnot. And one of the things that I've noticed is that when I go to those things is I'm a young landowner. Um. A lot of folks were older than me. And when they're trying to get work done on their property, you know, they're at this thing learning about invasive species control or timber stand improvement, or stream bank or you know riparian uh management. You know a lot of basic land management stuff that's really important. Um. And they're like, what you're like to have this done? But I'm, you know, seventy five years old, and so how am I going to get that done? Am I gonna? And and so then there's programs that will help them hire people to come and do it. Um. But I actually suggested recently to somebody who's asking me about meat and landowners, is that you know what, take some of those class some of those field days, and that's a place where when a landowner says that, that's when you raise your hands. I came here today to learn about invasive species control and timber stand improvement, and I would be interested in coming and doing some work on somebody's property, doing this kind of work, and I'm going to learn how to do it in exchange for the opportunity to access that land for whatever reason. Well the obvious ones hunting right as opposed to a straight lease that now here's some money and then I'll have access to the property, because doesn't it that feels as you said earlier, it feels extractive. I'm paying you to extract these things. I'm gonna put some tree stands up, but I'm not gonna come here and do anything other than make sure the deer is still around. You know, in most cases, You know, I certainly had leases where I did some work and but it wasn't as intimate, or it wasn't as it didn't feel like as cooperative as it would be in a case like you mentioning, well, yeah, so you and I've talked about this privately before. But you know, Eldo Leopold, one of both of our heroes, UM started this thing near Verona, Wisconsin. It was called the Riley Game Cooperative. And it's interesting because it's not really there's not a lot of information out there about it, Like there is a sand County Almanact. But these two um and and the property that he bought, the farm that he bought and rehabbed, and that's what Sand County is about, and where the Eldo Leopold Foundation has um I had about the same time, he's taking a drive outside of Madison, um at this area called Verona, big grassland bottoms, and he's looking for a place to go Pheasant High and and uh he stops and starts talking to this farmer and asked him, hey, you know, what are the chances. And the guy's like, oh, you know, yeah, I'd let you go, but you know, we have a lot of because you stopped and ask I'll let you go. And he's but he starts kind of saying, hey, I've been having some issues here, you know, with trespassers and people coming in and so there aren't many birds around and that kind of stuff. And so it's you know, not me and Leopold who's developing his management philosophies at that at those times, at that time private land management philosophy says, you know, um, my buddies and I are kind of looking for a place to hunt. How about we come out here and we do some things too, and explained who he was and what he knew about and all that. We came out. We come out. We'll come out here and do some improve makes some improvements to your proper um, improve the habitat for game birds. UM will help you with trespassers, um. And I held the Leopold put up no trespassing signs. Maybe that's why the Riley James talked about him, UM and and and eventually became a classroom of private land. UM. You know, improvements in the way people can cooperate. And so this thing called the Ready Game Cooperative came out of that. And so it was a group of university professors and some other folks from Madison who would go out there and work on these farms, you know, plant stuff in the habitat and the fence rows, help with chores around the property, have the pay the the kids of the farmer to raise uh two hatch and raise pheasant eggs right along when they're doing their chickens and all of that, and then putting them out there. And they're improving this property. And it grew from one farm, this guy Ruben Paulson's farm in Leopold to I think at eleven farms out there eventually, and that's and you know, the expenses were born by the people who were um benefiting from it. Most of the people are hunting. But but the big thing where they were putting into it was was sweat equity. So there was an exchange because there was a recognition that this is valuable and have an access to land. Private land, republic land is valuable too, it's just not as you know, controlled so on private land of course, it is very controllable, and there's value to that. And now and you know, as we've talked about, there's more value to it now than ever land is purchased around here, not for any return on investment. There's nothing I could do on that four acres of our of our front in terms of farming that would justify what we could sell it for on the open market. Um. And that's really changed in a generation. Yeah. Well, and you think Leopold and Paulson were talking about this, it's not like it really had to be a community thing because it's not like they could get on the internet and go into message boards and say hey guys, what I'd like to do? Hey, community co op, We're gonna start a community co op here. They didn't that they were. They was who they knew and the like. The community had to come together to eventually do that. And I remember reading that they would have like dinners. They would do a bunch of work in the summertime and then have dinners. Like Leopold invited some of the university students to come and study and do senses work and stuff on the came a classroom. Really Yeah, and all of that was born from him, right, his initiative and telling people about this, and it being appealing even then for people to come and be part of it. Yeah, and uh, and then again amazingly, at the same time, he's a university professor and he's rehabilitating the old firm where you know, he wrote about the sand on the San County Almanac and where the shock is and and all that fabulous property and you must come and visit. It's on the list for sure. Uh. What an interesting you know perspective on that. He didn't expect that he was going to knock on the farmer's door and say, hey, mind if I go hunting out here, you know, ask that favor. He His approach was, I'm gonna ask you for a favor, but I want to do one in return. And they got pretty specific about it. Um. Yeah, you're right. They had these dinners. They he kept meticulous records of harvests, and it was all stuff that they did because of course it was you know, part of his study. UM. And it really went on until the time of his death and a little bit after. And then there's that thing. World War Two was in the middle of all that, you know, kind of change things a little bit. But UM, I had the good fortune of meeting uh a fellow by named Jeane Rourke who as a kid was a part of it. UM. He since passed, but you know, family of he was a university professor and then his son's forrest Or. You know, it's pretty interesting people that those connections are still around. UM and I I've spent a lot of time speaking with the folks at the Leopold Foundation about this and other conservation ideas. And there's this stand Temple, who actually had the same position that Leopold had at the university, has written a couple of articles about it. But it's hard to find a whole lot about the cooperative the right of the game cooperative. Um, but it's fascinating and I and I asked him, well, why do you think it didn't continue? It kind of fell apart a few years after Leopold's death, and he said, well, some of it was Leopold kept it together because he was sort of the center of it. And you know how any kind of I mean, you can imagine it was held to Leopold for God's sakes. I mean, of course he would keep something going and would be very different after he was gone. But is there somehow that we can take that idea and apply it to private land in places and with people who are receptive to the idea of cooperating on both ends of the deal of the landowner and the access seeker. And you know, and there'll be a fair h understanding of conservation. Um, you know, like mindedness of conservation, and you sort of, I don't know, match people up, Um, like minded folks. Not every property is going to is going to be the same that have like minded How can we get like minded folks that kind of opportunity? How can we build that? Yeah? I mean you think of like a lot a lot of that, A lot of things you read in the same County Almanac. A lot of things that that were philosophies and ideologies and kind of we're applied and some not even applied by the well they they translate today you and I could still sit here and talk about them and go apply them to your farm or the back forty years. So the land ethic that was kind of spurred on by the Riley and other places still has I'm sure energy in your area of the world, but it has energy through conservations up today. And we're way more connected than we ever were. We're probably too connected. We need to maybe back off a little bit, but we're so connected. There's so many things we can do to connect the people that need to do it. And I love that you brought this up to because I've been thinking about this. Isn't it that the people that are gonna want to be in a part of a game cooperative, at least initially, are gonna be those family farmers, are going to be the generational landowners who who didn't purchase this property ten years ago to hunt deer or to just make a little money, flip and make a little money. Are the people that are invested in a prod a piece of land for for like you are for many any generations, aren't those the folks that are initially gonna want to be a part of something like this and have a more of a reason to want to see their place kept up. I think so. Um, you know, on our on our property. Like I said, I happened to be the the steward of this generation. And this is my generation. Is the first time that this farm didn't have to pay for itself. You know, my folks bought it from my grandparents, bought it from my great band parents, and we didn't none of us had to buy it from my folks. Um, mostly because we've all worked out there. For I grew up in town, but the farms a couple of miles away we grew up. We worked on that farm for one of My father used to say things like for a roof over your head, right, And I remember resenting that even in high school, you know that, having to ask for a couple of bucks to go to the movies or whatever, and um, because we literally didn't get paid. And uh, but man, all these years later, we have a property and it doesn't owe us anything. There's no I don't. All it has to be is financially viable UM. And I think that that's probably part of why philosophically, my family, my siblings and I have opened up to this idea as long as we can make this financially viable, that yeah, let's share it with folks UM. And so we've done that. You know, it's this is I've been for the last two or three years experimenting with this idea of having people come to the farm UM and having welcoming him as a part of the hunting group. Some in some cases they're just coming for like a one shot deal, right UM. In other cases, now I've developed some longer relationships with folks who are hunting with us, who are accessing the farm UM in exchange for you know, fair fair work. And some of it's you know, working with me and we're talking about cons servation and they try to do things that are a little quieter, so we're not like running equipment and chainsaws and stuff. But uh and and you know, you kind of develop a relationship with a person who and then you're telling them about your property and they are learning about that, and they're learning about conservation and developing a appreciation for it. UM and you know, I've been doing this with I've been sharing the farm with a lot of folks over the last several years. And what I've kind of boiled it down to ben is I want to share the place with people who are making a contribution to conservation, so it doesn't even necessarily have to be something on the farm. M In my case, I have a friend and also I have a friend who is really into trout fishing. He's like, hey, man, if some people want to do if they do they or work or whatever on a trout stream publicly and trout stream, I'll give them access to my place for turkey hunting in the spring. Now that's a cool idea. You know, our friends at the what's call now the National Deer Association, Yeah, newly meanted the National Deer Association, they've had this. They've done these cooperative ideas for a while, but those were more like a cooperative of neighbors um and then having sort of cooperative ideas about how we're going to manage deer and you know, habitat and that sort of stuff. While this spoils is down a lot more UM and you can understand why all the what all the different landowners or neighbors would have invested in it, right because they own a piece of property or they're a part of the piece of property. Well, we're talking about boiling that down a little bit further. Um. So it's really interesting to me to share the land with people of all sort of stripes. Um. But they all are doing doing that one thing. They're making a contribution, some of it on the farm. I mean everything from carpenter to to fix and fence. Um. And listen the kind of expectations that you know that I have. Yeah, I mean there's you know, there's examples of this. There's certainly block management in um Montana where there's Type one and Type two block management areas, which is essentially the state and the landowner have an agreement that there's a list of rules that hunters must have bide by, and then there's certain dates and they set all the stipulations and hunters can go sign a little piece of paper, usually at the front gate of the properties saying here I am and here's where I'm hunting, and then you're free to use that that area is designated. The problem with that is, I mean, there's no real problem. But the thing that I like about Your version of this is that it's more intimate. It requires a real connection with the person. And I grew up hunting a small organic farm when I was a kid. I never if you would have asked me, was that yours as a kid, I probably said, well, as partly mine, Like I hunted there my whole life. I shared. I knew the landowners. We shared great times with the landowners, We hunted with their kids. We're kind of a part of their family farm. And that intimate connection helped me understand the trade off for them as farmers, well what we could do to help them crop damage, permits and all that kind of stuff. So that was part of my childhood. I was part of that farm as much as much for the landowner as for me. You know, people come to your farm, they teach their kids to hunt there, they become part of your farm and vice versa. And so that's the thing I love about it. And I get fired up about this idea because I think we're in it. We need it. We need it as Americans. We need to know each other better, We need to to give each other things and and trade and feel as if the reciprocation as possible. And this in age, and so I love this idea. I think it it would show people what you know, hunting and land really has to offer, not only good wild meat and good adventure and good times outside, but also a connection that we need. We have to have, um, and you can't have it through a b M a in Montana where you just sign your name on a piece of paper and go hunt. You know whose land that is, you know, you don't know anything about it. And so I I love the idea. I think it's a I think it's your idea too. I look at it as your I'm like, that's Doug's ship. Nobody steal it because I'll smack you. Well, I'm just borrowing it too. Man. Um the Leopold idea, you know, it's interesting. Where I'm sitting here in Casino, VI, Wisconsin is about halfway between the Leopold Farm on the Wisconsin River about thirty miles away. And then and uh Frank laid Rags tally Esen, which is about thirty miles away in the other direction. And to um, you know, really influential people in in my thinking. Frank laid Wright, who was an interesting character and you can read about about him and you know, it's a brilliant architect and all that. But his um school, the tally us In School of Architecture that was at Talies and was a hands on learning experience for people who are also working with the master, right, I mean, they're learning about architecture and all that, but they're also learning about they're also learning about, you know, building with rock and structure, and they were going out and actually building tali Us and they all if you go through tali Es and you'll see these different sections done essentially done by different people at Frankly Wright's direction and his work, his his crap, his artisan's direction, and so there's a lot of a lot of ways of looking at that. It was like, hell, Frankly, right, guys, you got his health built for nothing. You know, here's t labor and that sort of stuff. But that's really what it is, right, It's an experience. There isn't an exchange, um I mean. And so I just felt that that was kind of something that I was when I learned about tell Us and the Architecture school and I went through that, and then Leopold and the Rady Game Cooperative. This seems to be like it's halfway in between. And apparently that's what Kasovia means that you know, certainly it is halfway in between all of that. And um, I just think that those you know, there's gonna be guys that that they're just gonna want to lease some land or they're gonna want to pay us for a hunt, and and that's cool, you know outfitters guides land leases. Well, I'll tell you a little secret. I actually it's not a secret at all. It's an open secret. Steve's mentioned it before. I lease our farm for twelve days to a group of guys for bow hunt. They get first crack at the deer and the and the whole thing with bow hunting. They pick out their days and it's a big old both season here in Wisconsin, and their time is over with um for this year. And they love it because they are getting that connection to our property. They're coming there and I'm you know, I do a few things for him. They're figuring it out on their own. I'm not guiding them. I'm not outfitting them anything. They have access to a place to stay and then it's them out there figure in that place out and there, and they they're paying for that, and my partners in the business, you know, in the farm, the LLC, the business love it because there's a revenue stream and they you know, they have said, but let's this hunting thing worth you know, because not all of my siblings are hunters. And I'm like, well, it can help with the property taxes and utilities and that kind of stuff. Cool, So I'm doing that. And then that which is not a traditional lease at all, right, I mean usually at least property autleast a year round and you get to do all kinds of stuff, probably the things that the kind of thing that you talked about, or an outfitter or guide leases it and then he bringing people in every couple of weeks and doing those kind of hunts so that these guys have it, they're part of the thing. They've been doing this for a few years now and it's great. And then after that, I've got I've got some you know, friends who hunt the property um bow hunted, um. Some friends that do who contribute to the farmer, contribute to conservation. Um. Family. You know, we're about to have gun season is going to be here on Saturday, and my my brother and two nephews are gonna be here this first time. We're gonna hunt together in three or four years, and so I don't have a whole lot. I mean, between that and COVID, we're not having a whole lot of guests for the first part of the gun season. We're gonna on the back end, we're gonna have you know, a few, um, but on the front end, it's going to kind of be in a family thing. And then as you move down the way, there's a little more opportunity for access. And so if you, um, you can kind of combine all these things, you know, with an attitude of you know, of sharing. Um. I think that landowners, like you said, can balance that over over a period of time. Yeah, And like you said that, there certainly can be choice. People can choose to just say, hey, you know what, I'd rather do pay money to lesa place and not have to worry about doing any work or getting to know anybody. You know, I'd rather just lease it hunted for two weeks a year. I got that extra money. It's perfect. I'm not gonna abuse the place. It's not going to abuse me in terms of the cost um And that's okay. UM. But I think what you're talking about, and what the riley was was much more than that. And I think it obviously as the as the ride, the game cooperative grew, it grew organically a group through Leopold's through his efforts and through his connections, then through his sensibilities. So you know, I think it Yeah, and folks seeing that it worked. I mean it ended up spreading to eleven farmers, but it started with one, and then people like, what are you doing over there? Yeah, I'd like to do that. Well, are there are more people who want to do that? Yeah? There are well, and and so you know you can kind of keep that going. Um, and so that one of the things that we committed to as a family is to keep our farm financially viable. Think about I mean literally thinking about a hundred years down the road. Um uh, sharing it with others, being a good example, and doing the quote unquote right thing. All of those things are all combined into one, you know, um, one big old ball that different parts of it are emphasized at different times. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's important. So you know, I've been thinking, I know you and I've been talking about ways to make this happen. You know, there's other people in the industry that support you, obviously, UM, companies, individuals. I just feel like the pump is primed too, can at least perfect. I had a place digitally that sets the guidelines, that says like he here are the ways that we do this. You know, this is how our this is how our approach works. You could do whatever you want outside of this, but if you want to get involved in this, this is how this approach works, very much informed by Leopold and the Riley, and gives people a place to connect with each other, you know, and find each other and sign up for something and do the work, document the work that's being done. UM. One of the things that I've really liked about, Like yesterday after the back forty episode came out, I went on too the YouTube thing and answered, you know, just kind of commented with some of the things that and people are hungry for that. And then people are there's input to right, I mean, like they want their input when the cooperative idea. I mean, I'm not sitting out at my farm going okay, folks, this is what we're gonna do, and this is how you're gonna do it. And then this is what you're gonna and I mean people want to learned from me, but the thing that they're gonna learn from me is an attitude of that of that owning the property is there's work. It's not just extraction. It is management and then and you have to figure it out and your management has to be adapted. So a part of that is, you know, I'm not like waving a magic wand and saying or or you know, I am used to be when it comes to hunting and some of the things used to be on the farm, there were two rules. The captain's are doug as the captain, and the captain is always right right, um and uh. And there was a certain degree that that's still the truth. But I'm like, you know, wanting to give that up more. I mean, ultimately, I'm it all hits me, right, I mean, I'm the manager of this this property. But it's really interesting to me when I have folks out like these guys who leaves from me, um, and then some of these other folks who've been who come out and some of them are wildlife ecologists and habitat of collegists, and some of them are plumbers, and some of them are are carpenters and you know all that, but they have their their ideas are welcome, and their experience on that property to me is really interesting and they can say, well, this is what I saw and you know, the first suggestion everybody has someone I know, they're really interested. Hey, you know, I think if we just moved that stand ten yards up there hill, that's the that's the key to everything. But that's sort of the beginning thing, right. You know, they're out there observing because that's what I encourage them to do. And I come in with, you know, ideas and do you know what you know? Multi floor roses? Do you know what prickly ashes? Do you know what autumn oblive is? Do you know what an elm tree is? Do you know? Do you know what these things are and how they relate to that area where you're hunting? And they have to have a an opportunity to kind of spend some time on the property to learn that stuff. I mean, it's transferable, the knowledge is transferable, but by that intimacy that you can end up having with the property when you go, well don't those pine trees need to be thin? Um? You know that they can start thinking about that sort of Hey, and I'll help you come out and do that. That's the kind of stuff I think is really cool when people I've had people start saying it seems to me you need some help with Yeah, I mean, like like you said, when you start something like this. I think b h is a good example of this. And they're not the only group that is fighting for public lands. Your hats is TRCP. They do a ton of work, but they do it they do it in a different manner, and that and that's necessary manner. It's more d C, it's more insider, it's it's more hit. The legislation b h A has built a community of people across the country. You have kind of the same value system, or a similar value system, at least when you apply it to public lands. And I think you could do that with the game cooperative and you know something that that brings people together around an idea that doesn't necessarily have to be applied the exact same way in every place, but at least the idea. There's a lot of different things in Wisconsin that that b h A local chapters do that the guys in California don't do, or the guys in Texas, don't do Each state chapter that I've worked with kind of has a different thing to champion, but that all is wrapped in public lands and in this idea, I'm like, man, you could do the same thing. Or if you just said, here are the ideas and the value system that this is wrapped in and what we're trying to achieve, it's regionally gonna look different, but it should. It should feel the same, and it should have the same intent. Yeah, like a framework, there needs to be weed to develop a framework of you know, here's the general idea. Here the input. You know, you have to assess needs and operat and what and and identify opportunities that private land um, private landowners would be open to UM. Yeah like Christians like Christians only dot com like a dating site except for landowners and and potential hunters and and folks don't want to use that land man. Uh yeah, I can really see I see this as a great opportunity and I, um, I hope that's something that we can continue to work on. UM. The you know, it could really be a monster, but a framework that's repeatable and movable is what I see it as. And then a place to connect. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's more profound, like I think it, you know, I think it has an opportunity to be organic and and profound in that way, you know, for for people to really understand the need for this. I'm passionate about the need for it. I know there's a need for it. I know there's plenty of people listening right now that wish they had a website they could to and look around for landowners that were looking for somebody to clean the chicken coop and you know, hit the drill on the back on the back for you there, and it's for a chance to go for a chance to go shoot a pheasantor a turkey. I mean, I just know that there is and I know they need it more than they know they needed. I know that the landowner needs that. They need to see a community of people reaching outside I want to help. They need to see that, and the people need to see that these landowners want them there too at some level, you know, in the right way well, and that they appreciated each other. Um that uh that that you know, here's a here's a great part of the reason that I've kind of evolved, if that's the word, right, I mean people still they We've been replaying my first media where we talked about to Somewhere in the Sunbrero and buck management all that we've never had a real strict buck management program, but um, and hell, truth be known, we probably managed you know for bigger bucks now as as well as we ever have. We just don't don't talk about it. I mean it's like you shoot that, you go ahead, the only rules we have for hunting, or you know, take a a good ethical shot, um, and we're going to celebrate whatever. Here it is that you got our Phil Jr. Shot at a little buck on the farm ten days ago that antlers kind of looked like this sharpen but you gotta you gotta somewhere. But um uh, the the where I got, you know, thinking about this too was the idea because I've received some letters. You know, remember Mark and Steve did a thing called podcast called Permissions. He was like, well, how do you get permission? I remember Steve saying, man, I know I'm asking people for a favor. Um, and yeah, I get that. Well what's the favor you're going to do in return? And um, you know I think that you know that's important and they they're talking about it. How can you gain access, how can you get permission and stuff like that. Well, I think that the number one thing, and that is recognizing the the value of it, um and I don't necessarily mean the monetary value, but the you know, the attitudinal value. But it bummed me out a little bit when I was reading some of the comments in those uh uh those podcasts notes where people are saying, oh, I always take my kids because you know, they're they're a little softer when I asked permission, you know, it's a little a little easier. And Mark writes about how he did it, and but I guess my point is those things are gone one I think go on more and more. But um, but the other part of it is it's freaking hard to do. And I've walked up the people. They don't knocked on doors, and it's just like, I mean, I was in sales for a long time. I mean, you know, so I'm pretty pretty confident when it comes to that kind of stuff. We get that sick feeling in your stomach and you know that because you know the time you're gonna get rejected. Yeah, you know, and most of the time, for good reason not just I'm not interested. You know, it's usually we've got people hunt here. It's you know, it's all that kind of stuff. I always say every lander has a nephew that hunts every landers like, well, my nephew hunts this spot, and you're like, well, thank you. I know you all have. Is it the same nephew that hunts every ranch? Yeah? Or they just don't want to deal with it, or yeah. Liability is an issue, and that's actually something that has this idea develops that you know, it also be can be addressed. I've addressed it on our farm. We actually carry an additional insurance uh liability waiver and uh you know. The expectation is when you're doing this kind of thing, the berry picker laws, they say, you do know fee allow people there can be an exchange up to a certain amount with all their being viability. The other part of it is I'm not asking people around go hey, you know, not like marak ask Market going run skids here. Well also too, I mean when you think about that, over the years, I've seen this play out. We and we talked about this last week on the podcast Excuse Me. We had where we had a group of a hundred hunters and I don't even know where these people knew hunters to go and do this up and up near White Sulfur Springs in Montana, a hundred hunters got together and surrounded fifty elk or trying to the herd of elk, and shot fifty all open fire at the same time and shot fifty elk on this b m A and near White Sulfur Springs in Montana. And the b M A is, like I explained earlier, this is a this is a deal that the landowner has with the state to allow hunting access. It's not managed. And these people went in there and just maraudered these elk um only recently. This happened recently a hundred and we're and we're thinking like that. And obviously the Galt Ranches is a pretty famous around Tier ranch up near that area, and the Galts, one of the Galt family members, was quoted as saying, like, now I gotta think, am I going to stay on this b m A program? Am I gonna still allow these people to come in and hunt my property by just signing a piece of paper. That's what you know. When they walk in the door, Um. And so that's the kind of thing that you're fighting against when you go knock on somebody's door. The fact that a hundred assholes in Montana one time, isn't that fucking crazy? Man? Like a hundred people, like, how do you get that together? That's like a small army. Who's I'll say, what, who's the who? Who was the guy who pulled that together? You know? That's what I was saying. What talking about a co operative? They called that the asshole cooperative? Everybody gets together going to get a half of elk. Have you ever seen that movie where they go knock loose like this is what that's what it is man fire fire effects. But that's no idea that that's one of the things about as a private landowner, I don't want to give up the control of my land and the way in Wisconsin at least, and I don't have vast experience in other parts of the country. But there's two programs in Wisconsin. There's Managed Forest Law open and voluntary public access. And Managed Forest Law opens a tax incentive program that you pay less in taxes if you open it to public access. Um. There's some real issues with it. We could have a whole discussion about but that's the long and short of it. The problem with that is it's wide open open land. Now, if you're in a county where the land is privately owned and five of the hunting land is privately owning, there's five percent of that public land that you know is getting pounded. Our dear friends said on X have provided us with the technology to go. There are some volunty very public acts. I mean, that's fantastic because if it is open and it isn't a program, then people should have access to it, right. So there's that, and then it's just another piece of wide open public land, and we in small areas it can be nightmarish. I have a friend who I know, he's not going hunting this weekend with his um um wife because she's not comfortable on the small public land parcels parcels. He's going to go, but she's not going to anyway. So he got that. And then voluntary public access through funded by Pittman Robertson number is very similar. In Wisconsin. It's wide open. It's not like you can control how many people go in there. It's either on or off right. So what we're really talking about with this idea of a game cooperative is a longer term relationship hopefully with or maybe just a one shot deal and people kind of learn and then they move on and do their own thing. So it's a longer term relationship with that land and the land owner isn't given up the control of his proper of their property. Um. You know, like when stuff goes wrong, and I can tell you I won't get into the details of it all, but I've had issues with people that I have welcomed onto my property making bad decisions. Yeah, and I've had to say, yeah, that was a bad decision that you're not going to get the chance to repeat on this property. Yeah. Yeah, they told me one of those stories. I think that we were on the privat Applebee's talking about this exact same subject. And you know, you just hope that you hope that's not a hundred people shooting at a bunch of help. I mean, you don't. Yeah, definitely not um, And that was even that one particular instance was even mean ended up being on a learning experience for everybody involved as well. Right, think that person, given the opportunity, will ever make that mistake again. But it's just unfortunate they're not going to be able to do it on Yeah. Well yeah man, I think we you know, I know you know this, And I don't know how this this effort will take shape or exactly what um where we'll get with this, but I know that, you know, it's my I would say, it's really I think about it quite a lot. It's like a fervent thought that I have that this is something as much as the hunting community needed a decade ago, twelve years ago, fifteen years ago to to rally around public lands and realize what they really are. You know, I think we've achieved that in a lot of levels as a commune hunting community. We now understand, we understand these things a little bit better. We have a value system in place for public lands. Whereas fifteen years ago public public lands where he didn't want to go a void a game, you know, it was trash um. Now it kind of has a different system scaffolding around it that that allows us to understand it better. And I think this idea that of access to private land, I think we need, we we can and need to do that as well. There's many there's there's like a private land lease association. I think for a hunting lease association, there's yeah, there's a bunch of other groups like that, UM that have, you know, relatively despired what we're talking about. But I just think the value system that you've that you have championed, that you've talked about on on all the mediator platforms is a super important touchstone for something like this UM to to really give people this idea that we're all thinking about the damn same here. We've got a lot of people that are we're all we're all lined up. We need just somebody to tell us that we exist, you know, And so I really want to do something. We'll do something. I don't know what it is, but we're, as I told you when we were talking about this forum, like god damn if we are. You know, if anybody's lined up to do this, it's us. If anybody can pull something like us off and marshal the resources necessary to do it, it's us. So why the hell not us? It's our turn? I guess that. You you know, it fits a lot of things, UM. And timing is everything. You know, Timing is really important and and and that opportunity really does exist now you know, it's so interesting. It's like going back to the back forty idea that you were talking about this on this you know, ten thousand foot level and you get down to this is what I really saw on that episode or the way I felt, and I felt it was proud of this that we were talked about ten thousand, five five thousand, ten thousand, big, big ideas and then we're down there planting fricking trees and spreading fertilizer with five gallon buckets by hand. Kenyon, I can't believe he doesn't have a decent fertilizer spreader. But that's kind of it. It's a big old world, right, I mean there's all of that, and then you were drilling it down to those very specific skills and ideas and things, you know, that seed when we were talking about seed and that sort of stuff and that kind of level of understanding. I think it's really important for people to develop. Uh yeah, so yeah, I think that's a big part of it as well. Then, yeah, I mean that micro macro sensibility to understand. I love working on them. I loved we it was that when we were out there planting those trees. I didn't I stood in the background, said like, she really didn't plant any tree. Well, I was gonna help. You said you were going to help, and then I was like, I gotta I'm directing this episode, so I'm sting over in the truck here in the air conditioning. Don't do anything. Oh man, that's so not true. You guys were You and Samantha were just so uh. It's just a joy to work with you, guys. I love you, know, I love. I was telling somebody the other day, somebody was asking me, Hey, what do you know, what are you going to be doing in the future. I said, I love. I don't I don't necessarily hate being camera, but I certainly do love being in the background and watching those things unfold and shaping those narratives and understanding that there's a story to tell here and and somebody's gotta keep track of that. That thing sending sending people to uh go back into Durance Instagram, pull up that hippie tree planner picture, and that's I was really pleasantly surprised by that. I'm glad, Yeah we found that. Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's that's everything man, hunting, hunting is that. I was just I'll tell you. I was just writing I think I don't think this will spoil the end of the back forty. We're about a third of the way through. But it was just kind of thinking about with Mark and writing the ending for this season, which is going to be the end of of the show in its current form at least, and we were thinking, like, what do we say? You know, what the hell do we say? We've said it all, We've quoted Leopold, we had here, we have all these guys, ask Stephen now they all set all this smart ship. What do we say here? Because there's nothing left maybe to say. And I was just like, man, you know what, at some level, we don't need to say anything hunt. What is hunting is working, learning, crafting something you know, understanding the failures and successes, and then passing it on and then giving it to someone else. That's what hunting is. That's what land management is, you know, much like the T shirt that you have there, I mean, this is like, this is what we're taking part in, this grand macro scheme of learning from a small place and teaching other people so they can carry it on to wherever they go next. And that's that was a cool thing that we you know, could end on that note that is very cool. Yeah, you know it's it's um lessons, right, lessons learned from that sort of thing. And and I guess that you know, my those I like mottos. I like, it's not ours, it's just our turn. I like plant trees, grow memories. Um maybe I think in bumper stickers or something. But your truck has a your has got a lot of bumper stickers. Yeah. And uh, you know wood is good. That's that's that's one from the but that's from the tree farm people, you know. Um, so you have those big ideas, those those philosophies. It's you know, it's it's really and and the big one really is passing it on. It's not ours, it's just our turn. M It's really interesting Ben, being a landowner. You know, my, it's my My folks have lived to be quite old, Um, both of them in their nineties and we're uh with us mentally and everything the whole time. And uh and that they just died recently, you know. So here I am really in my early sixties and we're trying to you know, we're moving that forward in the next generation. Um. And I'm so, I'm already, you know, getting to do that. My nephews are coming to hunt with us. My one nephew wants to bring some of his buddies down. I'm like, and you know, the first thing he said was and they all want to help out on the farm. You know, It's like I don't have to say, well, yeah they can, but I mean they know it right that there's an expectation of it. Not only is there an expectation, they're recognizing the value and the opportunity they're giving. That's that right there. But you just said it's like something that that's Those are the things that last within our community of people. You know, this this idea of value that they're They're not just like, hey, we come down, you mind if I come down and shoot a deer. They're like, hey, I'm gonna come down. You mind if I come down and shoot a deer after I work? Like that small addendum to that sentence can mean everything. You know, ly interesting to me. Also, you know about the issue that we have here in southwest Wisconsin, chronic wasting disease, and I am an advocate of herd control and we shoot a lot of deer on our farm, will shot if I have my druthers, will probably take thirty five deer this year, maybe more. Um, hopefully we'll have the opportunity. And we have some liberal hunting seasons, not really with guns so much. We have nine days of buck hunting and and do hunting with gun, and then there's a four day antler lists only and then a holiday hunt with gun. But but we're still bow hunting until the end of January here. So a few years, we've got this population, we've got this disease problem, which also was just driven by population, right, and so when I started getting serious about population control as chronic wasting disease to get closer and closer. And we've been after population control for other reasons for a while, oak regeneral ration, balancing with the ecosystem, all of that important stuff. But really, um, you go out there as a hunter and landowner and uh, and I was like four years ago I shot seven deer. I mean I literally was shooting deer because deer needed to be shot, as opposed to I'm going hunting deer and I'm going to take a deer on a hunt, a still hunter whatever that happens to be I was putting myself in a place where I am going to shoot every deer that walks by here, and I don't want to be a deer exterminator. So from a motivation from my standpoint is so why not share that opportunity that experience. Why not have six other people come in and do that and take one and so you know, on a real basic level, that's a contribution some of these folks are making. The conservation is coming in and willing to Yeah, I'll shoot a dough well for them, that's that may be the best day of their year. And that a thing you might have done by just boom boom boom up cleaning up the cleaning up the extras here, that might be something that they cherish forever because that's their first year, that's their kids first year, or you know how how better to kind of pass something on that has meaning than to say, Hey, this thing that I would be my seventeenth to the year of the season, so I can thin the herd out here. This could be your first ever. And they're going through that when they're processing that animal and they're going through the process of having it. We require testing of all of our dear of getting it tested and what that means, and what why they're doing Why I need why from from my perspective, from not only from the landowner, but from a conservationist in this area. Um, Why I need you to why we need to remove those dear? Um? It could soon be an excellent hunting experience, and you know and all of that. But man, you know I go shoot seven during a day and you've got a gut seven on the mountain, throw them in at all of them and do all of that. Why not somebody let somebody else have that that experience and that joy, um, and that that heartache and everything that goes along with with hunting. The same thing as work in your property. If you gotta you know, thin out some pines, and you you understand why you're doing that, you don't need to learn that. But if somebody's along and they're they're learning how to run a chainsaw, then learn around a pulse saw, they're learning about how to thin pine trees out and why that manister habits at and what you're going to use the the limbs for and all that stuff. I mean, that could mean something to something that for you just be another day on the farm, you know. Um, So that's that's why I think it's just there's just like this, there's a real foundational element to this shared idea of access and work. That's it's just it's a fucking American Doug Like. It's just it really is, man, And I love these ideas that you know kind of can be can help signify what are hunting farming culture really is here? You know, what does it mean to be a part of this shared idea well? And the idea that we can continue some of the stuff that we've been featuring that you've been featuring on the back party and the conservation and stuff and and you know, here's why we're doing these particular things on the property. Um, I see that opportunity for content as well that you know that I hope that we can figure something out and all of this. Yeah, we're going to figure something out. I'm I'm gonna it's time to be figuring things out. I got plenty of time. I got plenty of time here. You know. That's uh. You know, I was thinking about it, and the way I thought about it was it's a chance to be inspired. It's a chance to not take things for granted. It's a chance to to really move forward rather than sit around and watch Netflix and woe is me. So yeah, you're listening to any music, you know. I haven't like Jammed Avin here, although I should. Um, you and I connect on some Ray Wiley Hubbard. Now if no, if people out there don't know Ray Wiley Huard, get your ship together. They need to spend an evening, get a little whiskey. We'll probably little Texas whiskey. You would be helpful and just sit and listen to Ray Wiley Hubbard. You know there's I think you just live the whole anthology would be. It would be nice to start with. I don't think there's a bad one. I agreed. You know, I was just out working out on the farm when we were cutting pine boughts. Um, and I have my my buddy Keefer, who who Steve knows and loves UM. I refer to Keefer as the big Man, sort of like Springsteen referred to Clarence Clemen. Says the big Man. Yeah, you know, yeah, I mean, keepers a big dude, and he's a big dude to me. And you know I'm not exactly a little fella. So you can imagine how big he is. But he and I were out there and uh uh in my new uh can Am by the way um and working on this stuff. And because we're just quietly working, we're able to talk and listen to music and and Big Kieth got an education on Ray Wiley today, everything from uh from Sneake Farm to uh Conversation with the Devil and Mother's Blues, where First Place says one of my favorite things in the world. The days I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, I have really good day. I'll tell you. Another one my dad introduced me to later on was Delbraah McClinton. Oh man, Yeah, what did he say? It ain't how you eat, but how you chewing the wisdom, the wisdom of Americana music. I think that's the point of Americano music, just just wisdom and poetry form. Oh and it's so cool, uh being you know. We had that long evening listening to the jukebox at the Applebee's, and it prompted me to now put together on Spotify a back forty playlist. Oh yeah, man, I'd never really ran with that as far as I meant to. Uh, well, we got to, but some of those songs that we reference, you know, that we talked about and that we were listening to then. Um and a lot of you know, I mean most of them have meetings of some sort. And yeah, I think American of music is you know a great example of a great songwriter's of of you know yesterday and today, you know, guy Clark Towns van Zan or a couple of my favorite John Pryne of course, um and the wit and wisdom of that stuff, and you know, and and more modern. You know. The guy that I just I love is Todd Snyder and you know he's Carl and listen to he's Carl a lot and on his sideman this guy named Travis Lynnville. If you haven't checked out Travis, Linda Bill will do that. Um, just you know, just meaningful, full lyrics. A guy that I'm just starting to listen to a little bit more now is a fellow named Pony Branchaw, and I know him. I feel like I'm plugging people all of a sudden. Pony Bratshaw is awesome dude. And actually there's another guy named Taylor McCall who was on the Mediator podcast and we're using his music the soundtrack Back forty. Actually people were asking about that last song down to the River or whatever it was that. I mean, the lyrics when we were food plot planting, planting them foods. Yeah, I mean, Um, that wasn't him, that wasn't Just like we get I get tired of us using stock music and I wish we could afford like Ray Willy tracks the background music. But this this kid, Taylor McCall, who's not yet very well known. He uh, he's got some He's not exactly Mary Conni's somewhere in the middle, but he uh, he's got some good tunes. So we're gonna use him for the last three episodes of Back forty and really grew at with him while we're watching Mark Try to Kill Deer. Yeah, well we screaming guitar and just great songs. My buddy Eric Testmer, he's in Austin, he lives and he's from here, but he lives in Austin now has for twenty years. Um, there's a Yeah, you want to listen to the guitar music. You'll hear a little bit of Stevie Ray Vaughan, You'll hear a little bit of Jimmy Hendrix, you'll hear Eric Clapton, and you will hear Eric Testman. That's right, just super cool stuff. You know, It's just it's a music is just such a joy on so many levels. You know. That's to get into it. Yeah, there's a guy. I don't know if I told you about, a guy named Jeffrey folk Cult who's kind of like a twangy country Americana guy. Man. He not a lot of people know about him. A boy, they all too. Um. I was actually listening to him this morning while I was walking around this room thinking about thinking about the four Walls, and you know, I'll tell you we were like we were talking about I was like, I was, I was sitting here thinking, I was sitting here think about you the other day because my wife came in the first day of my imprisonment. Yeah, and I was like, you know what Doug would say, Um, she said, how's your vacation going? And I said, well, there's a fine line between prison and vacation. Oh there's a song lyric. I don't tell Doug about that, but yeah, I mean we last week, like I was telling you about our I think I was telling you about our getting trapped in a blizzard in Montana there before I got before I got to COVID. And we told everybody last week on the show about Joe lean the gas station queen, who I met in Roy, Montana. She's uh, she was a walking talking John John Priyan song. If I ever We were saying that when we were driving west, said man, if John Priyan was here, he'd have one of the best songs ever written about Joe Leaned the gas station Queen. And so maybe maybe if I, if I can get health and come out to the farm, maybe we'll sit down and write a little little tune on Joe leaue three chords in the Truth, and you know, uh, Yale Hubert's wisdom, He says, well, you know, you kind of get a progression down and then after that you just gotta make it rhyme. Oh it is three chords and three chords and how many octaves or whatever? It is? All right, Well, Doug, we got a lot of work ahead of us. We gotta make a game cooperative for the modern day. And they'll drink whiskey and sing songs. So a lot of ship to do, right, all right, Well, thanks for joining us. This is a shame it's not the it's not the last time. It's a shame it was the first. So we will remedy that later later on. We'll talk to you next time. Man, I'm really looking forward to it, all right, brother, see yeah, bye bye. That's it. That's all another episode in the books. Thanks to Doug during Thanks to all the nurses and doctors hey here in Bozeman helping out everybody with COVID years included. Thanks to the people who made my house and also put walls around this room so I could be protected and uh, nobody can get my germs. And then thanks to Phil the engineer just for being there for all of us, especially Brandon who he's been playing video games with every single night. Ah. That brings me great joy. THHD brings people together. Then eventually can vinces in the joint of cults, the cult of diversity, inclusion and open mindedness. Uh we we that's TC. That's TC. Call for you. Um we have we haven't heard you know who we haven't heard from lately? Phil? Uh? Ryan cal Callahan. Nope, I guess again, Okay, somebody way cooler. Oh well it's gotta be Eric Hall then, damn right, Eric Hall okay, Eric Hall. Eric Hall sent us a voicemail, will play it for you really quick and then we'll react. Man. Eric here, Yeah, listening. Jee's here and he was talking about even the show that you're on right now, not a perfect white male. How do we go about My my question to you is what is your opinion on how do we go about moving the needle and involving getting getting more Americans white? Um, but I even white women, black men, women, Uh, different demographics. How do we go by getting them involved in hunting? Urban? Uh? Like he saw much a guy from the and said he's not supposed to be doing that. The African American, I'm not supposed to be hunting. I'm not sure who totally they couldnt hunts. But I think it's I think the riddle of the barrier is it's the intimidation factor. We need some more programs maybe to get people involved. And you can't just take people hunting one time and expect them to go on hunting. It's got to be kind of a mentor ship. Anyway, My question is how do we go about moving the needle and getting more people on different demographics involved? So Phil Eric Hall is calling for is asking you and I to explain how we think we can take this particular program and the hunting community at all, uh to a more diverse place. Since we're ninety plus percent white dudes, most of them with beards, a lot of them now play video games. Um, we've talked about this before. Continue to talk about this, Phil, I'll let you answer Eric in the best way that you can. I have my own kind of why I want to approach this for the for the moment. No, I'm still I'm still an outsider. I just like from an outside outsider's perspective, I think, just like uh, normalizing diversity. Um, you know, less raised eyebrows when a person of color or a woman or someone queer is is out hunting, you know, just being more and more more inviting warmer. Uh, you know, bring them into this. You've got a voice here, and it's nice to have people on the show and let them share share your voice for a little bit. Yeah, we're definitely gonna do that, man. And and I would think about a lot, like think about maybe I saw my own shortcomings being a little pig headed sometimes about things. Um Man, if if hunting itself was a place like it was, a town and we all lived in it, it would be a kind of a fucked up town. Let's just be honest, man, if we all, if there was like eleven million of us living in a town, it would be white dudes in that town. Early if the teacher, if we all, if we all ever moved to a commune for the cult that we've created here, we might all look around and be like, damn, son, we got problems. We're gonna have a problem procreating um among other things, and our culture is going to be stagnant and stale and full of the same old crap. And do is that a place that I want to be? Um? I don't want to be there, And it's not because I'm it's not because I have any other agenda other than the place that I want to be is going to be more richer for welcoming different kinds of people, no matter where they come from. And you know, we're in a position where where we are, where we are, we're at a very non undiverse place. It's not diverse around these parts, and so we have to actively make it so. Um. And then once we do, we have to celebrate that. And then we have to you know, have a vision for where we want to be and so, um, that's what got me thinking. Man, I was thinking, like, what if if the hunting collective or the hunting community was like a place, it would really feel stale, it would feel like we've been doing this for a long time, and there's some different ways that we can make it better. So we're gonna do that. Um, We're I'm in the process now reaching out to some folks who I think can help us with that, or I think can talk us through what that future might look like. And and just on a real, on a real level, not on a level where I'm trying to, you know, make everyone feel like it's diverse or make everyone feel a certain way. I'm not trying to trick you. I'm not on MSNBC. I'm not trying to trick you into feeling a certain way about diversity. I honestly feel that our place, the place we are in now, will be made better with those people along for the ride, and we gotta do whatever we can to make that happen. Set aside your political bullshit and just do it because it's the right thing to do. And um, I think the history will shine pretty pretty happily upon us for for making these efforts. So we're gonna line some things up where we can talk to some some females, we can talk to some LGBTQ folks, we can talk to people that have a perspective on this and have thought it through and they can add to the conversation. And once we get him in the door, we're gonna keep do our best to keep him here and make him feel cool, make them feel welcome, make it feel like they should be here. So that's the end of my rant. So if you want to listen to that, keep listening to th HC. Say bye Phil, goodbye you too long, because I can't go a week without doing run oh without run, dragging out right drinking