August 14, 2024 • 63 mins
This week on the Bear Grease Render, the BG Headquarters is taken over by Render crew members Josh "Landbridge" Spielmaker, Brent Reaves, Misty Newcomb, Bear Newcomb, and special guest River Newcomb, while host Clay Newcomb is gone in Alaska on a mountain goat hunt. Bear shows off his latest creation in his self-bow journey, Brent gives his opinion on goat's milk, and Misty talks about how River Newcomb got her name. Listen along as the crew discusses the first Buffalo River podcast and its impact on them.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
My name is Clay nukelemb and.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
This is a production of the bear Grease podcast called
The Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper,
and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast,
presented by f HF Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting
and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as
(00:38):
the place as we explore.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Well, here we are, ye, welcome to the bear Grease Render.
I'm your host, Clay Nukeomb No, actually Clay is gone
and so we have done a hostile takeover of the
bear Grease. Actually, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the trout
Grease Render. This episode will be all about fly fishing,
(01:07):
so buckle in, get ready to enjoy yourselves. It'll be
like being on a boat ride. It's gonna be awesome.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Did y'all notice that at the end he said look
forward to being on the render with everybody.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Next week he said that false advertising.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yeah advertising, great, gonna be a lawsuit. Yeah, thanks for
bringing up. Well, let me just introduce. I'm going to
go from my right to the left here because we
got a new a first time or here we have
doctor mister Nukelem Welcome.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
So good to be here, so good to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
This isn't your first time?
Speaker 6 (01:41):
Right?
Speaker 5 (01:42):
No?
Speaker 6 (01:43):
Great?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
We have doctor Baron neukelemb yep here doctor. We have
mister Brent Reeves. Mister this country life Brent Reeves.
Speaker 6 (01:55):
That could be nurse, call me nurse.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
How Bear earned the doctorate? We'll just go with it.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
And last, but not least, we have miss River Newcomb.
We are outnumbered by Newcombs today everywhere.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
And you really you missed an important.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Oh that's right down on the floor here we got.
I am. I am hoping that. Uh today we're going
to have a little bit of sibling rivalry on the podcast,
a little like straightening out, like when Bear tells the
story River will be here.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
Correct, that's not yeah, that's everyone. That's everyone's favorite thing
to listen to. It's your details. Actually it's not. I
was actually thinking, will they fight because these two I
don't really. So there's four new kids.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
These are the two middle ones.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
These are these are middle children.
Speaker 7 (02:52):
Middle and best?
Speaker 8 (02:55):
Wait a minute, is it go ahead? Was that for
both of you? Middle and best? Or is one of the.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
If you guys ever noticed that that when Clay talks
about the birth order of his kids. He always says,
my middle daughter, River. Have you noticed that, not my
youngest daughter, River. I always wondered about that.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
Because I'm the middle but maybe a counseling session younger.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Daughter and an older son and a younger son. But
he always says my middle daughter.
Speaker 5 (03:25):
I've never noticed that either. It would be weird to
call River young. It's kind of interesting because we had
two girls and two boys and four kids in five
and a half years. That was the like Willow was
five and a half years old when Champ was born.
So it's not like any of them are massively spaced apart,
but Willow and River were just really close together. And
(03:47):
our life, like we moved here where we live now,
the Newcombe Farm when the girls were babies, and I
was I was pregnant with bear when we bought this
piece of land, and and and so there's kind of
like in the Newcombe family, there's this first five years
and the girls were apart of both of them, you know,
(04:07):
about three of those years. And so there's kind of
like the first era, you know, the prequel to the
Newcomb Farm, and the girls were part of that. And
then there was when we all moved out here and
the boys. The boys came after. And so even though
they're super close together, it is kind of like River
and Willow are the oldest kids.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
They're they're collectively the oldest kids. Yeah. Well, the one
Newcomb who is absent today is mister Clay Newcomb. He
is currently in.
Speaker 5 (04:32):
Alaska, rained in currently.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, unfortunately, Yeah, he hadn't heard today.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
He said yesterday that it was clear and they were
they stalked one.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
But he's hunting a mountain goat.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Yep, And yeah, he said he they put a stalk
on one but didn't get it. He said it's going
to be really tough. But he said that pretty much
like with the goat costume that he So.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
I think we need to visit this. Yeah, soture.
Speaker 8 (05:08):
This was in we just got I just got home
from from Bozeman. We had some meetings up there, and
Clay went to Alaska from Bozeman.
Speaker 6 (05:17):
Well, they we roomed together, and.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
The morning before he pulled this out.
Speaker 8 (05:24):
He walked around the corner of me and Tony Petershom
was sitting in there talking, we're facing to go eat supper,
and he walked around the corner and had this on
his head.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
So about three weeks ago, Clay said, Clay sent me
a picture of mountain goat and he said, he said,
I want you to make me a mountain goat hat.
I was like, what He's like, I want you to
make me a mountain goat hat. And so I made
the mountain goat hat. So it's a white beanie with
(05:56):
horns and mountain goat ears.
Speaker 6 (05:58):
Yeah. I don't know how you did the sun but.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
And leafy suit and leaf leafy suit and painted at
white so plain lukem is out wandering the mountains of
Alaska dressed up in a mountain goat costume. I want
to call it a costume.
Speaker 6 (06:19):
Anecdotal to the anecdotal to the hat.
Speaker 8 (06:22):
He pulled the white leafy suit out, freshly spray painted
smell to it. Oh yeah, yeah, Tony and I were
like sitting in the corner are out behind Walmart, huffing
paint to a sock. Is what it smelled like. And
I'm like, when when did you paint that? And it
was like minutes before he packed. It was like on
(06:45):
the way on the plane, on the way up right,
and you've known you've been going to Alaska for how
many months? But I didn't say that because it wasn't
my first rodeo, as they say him.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
So he he's in Alaska right now, Yeah, taken over
the render. We're really hoping he gets a go I
hope he gets a goat with a hat. I hope
he can fool him.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Like yeah, he said, like roughly, it will work like
two out of ten times a go to.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Twenty percent of the time it works every time.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
So who knows, maybe he'll get one to think he's
a goat.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
A goat with a bow.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
It's just it's just really different than what I thought
my life would look like. I'm just gonna be honest,
like I'm never I never, as a little kid, thought, man,
I'm going to grow up and marry a man who
puts on goat suits and wanders around the woods Like
that never crossed my mind that that would be a
part of my life.
Speaker 8 (07:39):
I sent that bitcher to Alexis and he's like, oh
my gosh, did he lose a bent. That's voluntary.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
Yeah, that was his idea.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yeah, So best of luck, Clay Newcomb. We wish you well.
You want to hear a story about goats?
Speaker 6 (07:56):
I do.
Speaker 8 (07:58):
This made me think of that I was a baby,
and I don't remember this part, but my grandmother told
me I was allergic to cow's milk and I couldn't
drink it for a while.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
So, you know, that's not a thing. Nobody's allergic to
cow's milk. They just think they are.
Speaker 8 (08:14):
Anyway, my grandmother, the liar that she is, apparently, was
getting a good deal on goats milk. That's what the
doctor prescribed me and drink. And she said it was
canned goats milk and it was the foulst stench of anything.
And this is a lady who we were. I mean,
we raised chickens. We had two big chicken houses. And
(08:36):
aroma is putting it mildly. What a chicken. You have
never been around a chicken house. It smells like everything
the chicken laid except the egg. It's that times ten thousand.
Speaker 6 (08:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (08:50):
So she said I had to drink goats milk, and
she said she would open it with them with a can.
Thought they call the church key, you know, you poke
holes in the can for she said it was.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Just they call on one side.
Speaker 8 (09:02):
Fast forward fifty something years and a couple of weeks ago,
I'm down at some friends of mine down in the
south end of Bradley County on the Slain River, and
they are living what they call the river stead life.
Speaker 6 (09:13):
They're right there on the river.
Speaker 8 (09:15):
They're raising goats, chickens, rabbits, they're making sausage from wild
hogs they killed.
Speaker 6 (09:21):
My buddy's a forester. He works from home.
Speaker 8 (09:23):
She's a educational educational consultant that contracts with different school
districts and stuff. So a lot of the stuff that
they do they do at home and they live there.
And I think she told me they figured eighty five
percent of what they consume they either want to catch
it or grow it there on their place. And they
(09:46):
have goats. My only reference to goat's milk is the
stories from my grandmother. And she said, we went out
fishing that morning. We caught a bunch of fish. Would
come back. She said, put some brownies in. They should
be read. Let's go in and have some brownies and milk.
And I'm like, you had me, Let's go in and
eat regardless, Let's go and we get in there. She
(10:08):
pulls out these big plate of brownies and poors me
a big cold glass of milk.
Speaker 6 (10:12):
And I took a bite, and I thought boy, this
is gonna be good.
Speaker 8 (10:14):
And as I'm getting that glass to my lips, I'm
thinking this came.
Speaker 6 (10:19):
Out of a goat.
Speaker 8 (10:20):
I'm sure they came out of a goat, but I
can't smell it. I don't smell anything. So I took
a sip and I'm like, I didn't die. I'm gonna
get a bigger drink. I took a drink and it
tasted like milk, and I said, lee, Is, let's go
to milk. She said, oh, yeah, from this morning. It
has been long enough. She gets up at like four
and right milk pours it filled coffee filter, sets it
(10:43):
an ice box or refrigerator, and man, I could not
tell it didn't come from Elsie herself. It was tasted
exactly like so brownies.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
And so when I was when I when we first
moved to Arkansas with fourteen r and neighbor had a
goat dairy and she I think she had like sixty goats.
She'd milk every day and people would come and I
remember she gave me. She gave me a gla and
I didn't know what to think, like I didn't know
what to expect. And I took a drink of it,
(11:14):
and I was like, this is delicious. I loved it.
I thought it was great.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
So does that mean the milk you were drinking you
were a kid was just like it?
Speaker 6 (11:22):
Probably I figured come out of a hog or something.
Speaker 8 (11:26):
Who knows you put a label on anything. But now
I had a neighbor, a neighbor who is an absolute
health food nerd. He's probably one hundred and twelve years old.
He looks like he's forty. Yeah, but he walks up
and down the street every day. And he asked me
about goat's milk. I told him the story I told
y'all about when I was a kid. And he said, well,
it's better than that. It's better, he said, I'm going
(11:48):
to bring you something. He brought me a gallon of
goats milk. But it was so sweet. I couldn't harder
drink it. It was like drinking really simple syrup.
Speaker 6 (11:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (11:56):
I said, man, I can't drink it. It's just too sweet.
And I you know, I like sweet teeth. I couldn't
drink it. And he told me, and I told him
the deal about the goat milk smelling and stuff. He said, well,
it only tastes like that if you shake it up
and I'm like, okay, so if.
Speaker 6 (12:13):
You're on a level of playing service, I've.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Already called people liars, said, I'm not I'm just telling you.
Speaker 6 (12:20):
I'm just telling you what the man told me.
Speaker 8 (12:21):
But it was the sweet I told him, you can
take it back, you can put it back in the goat.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
I don't know whatever whatever you do with it.
Speaker 8 (12:27):
But the milk I drank at quite a visual at
Lee and Keith's house, Lee and Keith Brandon down there.
Speaker 6 (12:33):
It was. It tastes just like cow's milk to me.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
To go Lee and Keith, I got some good, healthy goats.
Speaker 5 (12:39):
When we first moved here, I was really nervous that
we were gonna they were going to annex the house
in city limits, and I was nervous they wouldn't let
us keep animals. If they did that, it took years,
there was no rush, but I was nervous it was
gonna happen really fast. And so basically the week after
we bought this land, I went on the Craigslist and
bought a goat, just one single, so that we could
(13:01):
be considered. And we got at home and we asked
the girls. I don't even know how we got the
goat here. But we asked the girls. The girls were
two and three, and we said what should we name it?
And they said, their name's Willow and River, and they
said we should name it after the one boyfriend that
they had, which was Josh's son, David.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
And so.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
We had a named David.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Your dog John was your son Fair.
Speaker 7 (13:31):
And we had the pig names after Uncle Jo.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
That's right. So we had a go named David. And
that sucker was mean, and he hated women, and he
hated children, and he hated anyone that had any visible
weakness whatsoever. You would walk up, I mean he he
men he was good with unless they had a limp,
and he would go after him. Women he would the
second I mean they he was at. He was a
(13:54):
very mean, aggressive goat and he just smelled awful. And
then we go to some fans he placed a couple
of years later. David wasn't well loved. I mean, I
don't know if you could tell David the goat. David
the goat was not well loved, and he actually ran away.
I mean, I don't know, he's like probably wandering jumped him.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
He just one day he was gone, and I was like, well,
good ridding, and and we could never find aggressives.
Speaker 7 (14:22):
We had roosters and we had got captain.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of aggression, a violence.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
It's true.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
We had these turkeys that were just mean as can be,
Tom and Albuquerque, and they were they were a big
name Jeff and a goat named David. These are our
early new Conformed days. And they got to where they,
you know, they would roost out here Clay wanted. They
(14:55):
looked wild, you know, but they were domestic turkeys. And
one of them went to our neighbor house and their grandma.
They were moving grandma in and she had a cast
on her hand, and the mean turkey saw that and
just went after and the neighbors thought they were wild turkeys,
and so they killed them. And the other neighbors saw
(15:16):
all this and ran out and said, that's Glay's turkeys.
Those are pet turkeys. And so they come to our
house like head in hand, Mary, ashamed of themselves turkeys,
and they're like, we thought they were wild. We were pomped.
I mean, I guess it was turkey season. I don't
know they were we were.
Speaker 7 (15:32):
All pokemon cards. They were like, here, you got to
pay for it.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
And I wasn't a huge Pokemon fan, so I was like,
I just want the feathers, give me the feathers, and
y'all can you know me? Well, I did want the meat,
but they did attack their grandma, you know, so I
felt like we were kind of But I went to
a fancy restaurant a couple of years later after we
had David, and they served goat cheese and everyone was
(15:57):
talking about how great it was and I got I
put some on my plate and it smelled like David.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
And when I took a bite of it, it tasted
like David smelled. And I was like, I am not
interested in this business at all.
Speaker 8 (16:09):
She made some cheese down there, it was had no
odor to it. I mean, these folks are I mean,
they're not doing this stuff. They're giving lessons on the internet,
they're not taking them off of there. They but I
ate cheese. See had jalapeno goat.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
Cheese and it didn't taste like David smell.
Speaker 6 (16:27):
No, And I never smelled David, but it didn't smell.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
Like you smelled David. I mean it's it's it's a
pretty standard smell, but.
Speaker 6 (16:37):
No, it really wasn't.
Speaker 8 (16:38):
I mean, I don't know what she's doing down there,
but I mean it was the only thing between me
and the goat was a coffee fielder and ice box.
Speaker 6 (16:46):
Or otherwise it was.
Speaker 8 (16:47):
You could have said I got it out of the goat, right,
but that was it.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
I've never I've never eaten meltain goat, but I am
a little bit nervous that it's gonna taste like David.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Yeah, well, I'm hoping you get the opportunity. Yeah, Bear,
show us your latest project.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
Okay, So I made the bow. That's what I showed
the last couple of weeks. This week, I've got the arrow.
So this is a river cane arrow that I cut down.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
That shaft looks good, very much.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
So I cut down probably forty shafts, and only about
twelve of them work after drying them, and so this
one was pretty dry. Well, whenever you put them out
in the sun to dry, at least the ones I
cut down.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
If they're too small or if they're I really don't know.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Exactly what the issue is, but they'll shrivel up and
then you bend them and some of them will just
break and then some of them will bend and pretty
much they're pretty straight right off the bat, but you
have to like really micro straighten them or else still
fly weird.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
But yeah, this one point?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Did you make that stuff point?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
That's a stone point?
Speaker 6 (18:13):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
These are turkey feathers from the bushwhack turkey that I
killed this year. But yeah, this is the second one
I made, so it's not quite hunting worthy, Like there's
some imperfections in the the fletchings, but arrows are tough
beat not yet. I made it like last night. I've
(18:35):
got some helix in that on the feathers there helix.
Oh yeah, helical. Yeah, there's because you have to use
all the feathers from the same wing because the feathers
kind of curve and have like a natural helical to them.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
But have you learn that YouTube?
Speaker 6 (18:56):
He's a doctor.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Now, Yeah, it's fantastic. What's what where'd you get the sinew?
Speaker 1 (19:03):
No sinew in this one?
Speaker 6 (19:04):
Well?
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Actually you're like this this is a what I don't
know what size it is, but this is a thread
I type flies with. I gave this arrow a whip finish. Yeah,
very nice, but yeah it's not I don't have any
real sinew on there.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
But what's holding the stump point on.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
That is pine pitch and charcoal. Charcoal kind of hardens
it in the pine pitch is kind of just like
natural glue. But yeah, I've been using on the other
one I made, I used squirrel and testings that dried
out and it was actually pretty strong, and use that
(19:43):
as kind of the cordage. This one I just used.
I didn't have any left.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
So you're you're gearing up for deer season.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Yeah, deer and bear season. Some hunting a bear this year.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
With the self bow and a stone point and probably
either a river cane or bamboo arrow. But these are
some of the points that I've made that I'm gonna
probably end up shooting them with. I'm gonna get the
arrows figured out a little better before I use these.
But there's so this one's a Clovis, which is what
(20:16):
they would have used.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Yeahs site is what that stone is called.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
But just is this a local stone or is this
a stone you got?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
That's a stone I bought.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
I don't really know where to get it, but that
style of point is what they would have used to
kill wooly mammoths. Clovis, And so I might want to
kill a bear, or I might use this one. I
don't really know what style that is.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
But that's a good looking stone point bear.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
Yeah, that one is probably more effective than that one
the Clovis, but.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
It would be cooler to kill one with the Clovis.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
This looks like the ones you see out west.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Yeah, yeah, sharp, it is sharp.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
How long does it take you to make.
Speaker 6 (21:01):
One of those?
Speaker 4 (21:02):
Probably thirty minutes. Well that's not bad, yeah, but to
make like.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
This arrow takes like three and a half hours.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
So how many arrows are you gonna have made for
hunting season?
Speaker 4 (21:14):
As many as I can, but I need at least
probably five five.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Yeah, it look like David when he gathered stones.
Speaker 6 (21:22):
What's your yah? Yeah, roc, what's your max range? Uh?
Speaker 4 (21:27):
With carbon arrows? Like fifteen yards right now? I'd like
to work out to twenty. But just so that shooting
fifteen yards is easier because with the self bow, everything's way.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Slower than a compound, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
And you gotta have heavier arrows because it isn't as
powerful and you need more penetration. And so like you
shoot a deer at twenty yards, it's like like the
one that bounced off. It's like forty yards away by
the time the arrow gets there. But or yeah, bounces off.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Yeah, Well that's awesome. That looks great. Hey, I was
I was reading about hunting this week and I was
on the Boon and Crockett website. Yeah, I got a
little trivia for you guys. Top three states for white tail?
(22:17):
Who has the most boone and Crockett record deer? Top
three states? Kansas, bear says, Kansas, Jesas, Kansas, Texas.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Non Iowa, Iowa?
Speaker 6 (22:33):
Yeah, Iowa.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
I bet that's number one, Iowa. You think Iowa was
number one?
Speaker 6 (22:37):
Yeah? Any others? Just three? Okay?
Speaker 3 (22:41):
So I just want to say that that Isaac Neil,
when I asked him this question, he named all three.
Speaker 6 (22:50):
Yeah, doctor Neil.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
So number three is Iowa. Iowa has over eleven one
hundred boone crocket deer. Number two, anybody want to change
your guests? Hmmm, Delaware definitely rode out of Number two
(23:12):
is Illinois. Illinois has over thirteen hundred boona Crockett deer.
But number one, number one is none other than the
cheese state Wisconsin. Wisconsin has over eighteen hundred boone and
Crockett deer pretty crazy one hundred yep. I would have
(23:35):
thought Kansas would have been in there.
Speaker 8 (23:36):
Well, I know a guy that a friend of mine,
Josh Jensen, lives up in Minnesota, the Viking. I called
him and he makes a yearly pilgrimage to Wisconsin the
deer hunt over there, and he sent me.
Speaker 6 (23:48):
He sent me pictures for.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Just I think they've got huge numbers of deer and
huge deer. Yeah, so anyway, I thought that was pretty interesting. Also,
did you guys hear about this this guy at Yellowstone?
Let me see, I've got it.
Speaker 5 (24:04):
Uh, pretty crazy.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
I forgot the name of the actual guyser.
Speaker 8 (24:10):
It wasn't birtha was it wasn't it a Jeff? Jeff
to guy that it could have been an old meal
something else, dumb Yellowstone.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
The the pictures are pretty crazy. It's it's uh it
was sapphire pool and biscuit bacon, biscuit basin that'd be
delicious of.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Bacon.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
It's about two miles from from Old Faithful. It blew up.
I mean it looks like someone dropped a bomb. It
said it through stones that were hundreds of pounds and
if you look at the pictures. The walkways are just
like obliterated. It looks like Vietnam. I mean, just it
was crazy.
Speaker 5 (24:57):
I took fifty kids over there last year.
Speaker 6 (25:00):
Did you go to that?
Speaker 5 (25:01):
We were really close to that one, and I think
one group actually went to that one. But I'm just
kind of what would have happened if they were even
baking biscuits down there, and.
Speaker 6 (25:12):
It would that's what would come up out of it,
this biscuits.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
And wouldn't like.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
Nectar.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Was there like a scientific explanation that we know of
yet for why it?
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Apparently it builds up pressure every now and then, and
all those guys ares and it's it's so infrequent that
I guess they don't worry about the people on the walkways.
But seems like.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Maybe the Little Old Faith will ever do.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
That they say it has in the past.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
Was there a warning? I mean, were there? Surely it
wasn't just a situation where there was no one there.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
They most most of the people had cleared out, But
I don't think it was.
Speaker 6 (25:54):
It was. I saw video of it. People were like, yeah, well.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
It was for people to get away, but not they
hadn't like evacuated the area, so they wow, yeah, I
think it was. It was it was more active than
they expected it to be, and I think people people
got away from it pretty crazy, pretty well crazy any
hunting exploits lately.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Bear, I've been hog hunting with the self bow. Basically.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
I had know a guy down here who's got some
big hog problem on his property and it's been real dry,
and he's got two old saddler's ponds, just little mud
holes out in the middle of the woods that are
just covered with hog sign But I've been going there
the last week, sitting on those mud holes, and then
(26:44):
like late afternoon, I'll just start slipping down roads and
I've seen hogs every time I've went. Actually shot at
one and missed him. I was sneaking in on this
road and I just hear a bunch of racket up
the road and I sneak up there and there's a
big group of them and I'm filming this for a
(27:05):
real and I set my camera up on the ground.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
And this hunt, I didn't have a very good setup.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
I just kind of had like a phone holder, and
I snuck into like seven yards from this little spotted hog,
and I look back to make sure my camera's going
and it had fallen over, and so I sneak back
over there. I set the camera back up and kind
of get it situated a little better this time. And
(27:32):
as I'm sneaking back into where I was, I think
there was one up above me like that I didn't see,
and it either saw me or smelled me or something,
but it just took off and all the other hogs
took off with it. And this little hog runs out
to like twenty yards and stops and there's basically like
(27:54):
a pocket, you know, he's covered in brush, but there's
a pocket just right over his vitals. And I was like, well,
if I can get an arrow through that pocket, he's dead.
If I don't, it's just going to hit a limb
and miss him.
Speaker 6 (28:08):
They're going to wound him.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Yeah, and so and I can kind of shoot at
twenty yards, but I'm not you know, like I wouldn't
shoot at like a deer or something, but in base
of hogs, I'll take a shot at them. And I
drew back, and right as I committed to the shot,
the pig starts running and I shoot and I hit
right in the pocket. But it just at that point
(28:31):
it was like, yeah, it was right behind him. So
I didn't get that one. But two days ago I
was out there and just saw a ton of hogs,
a real big one, big tusks, and there was probably
a group of like twenty of them, and I snuck
into about thirty yards from them. They were crossing this
(28:52):
road and I was just slipping in and I see
where three big ones cross the road, and I looked
down the mountain and there's the real big one with
the tusks coming up that same trail. And so I
slipped trying to get to where they crossed, and my
wind wasn't very good.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
It was just kind of like barely.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Missing that hog, and so as it would move, I
would move to kind of try and keep out in
front of it. But the wind's just not that predictable.
It kind of shifts. And I got like twenty yards
from it before it got to the road, and it
smelled me, and you know, it stuck its head up
and it kind of blew like a deer, which was weird,
(29:33):
but it kind of weird. Yeah, it just kind of
and turned and started walking away. Yeah, had like ten
piglets with it, and they eventually and I tried to
kind of follow them, but I just couldn't walk as
quiet as they could walk fast.
Speaker 6 (29:49):
My uncle killed this one just now even before.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Wow.
Speaker 8 (29:53):
His hog, Yeah, it eased up into his or has
been rooting up out in his pasture where his horses are.
I mean that that filled up the bucket on that
track right there.
Speaker 5 (30:04):
Is that.
Speaker 6 (30:07):
Large yeah river.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Have you ever killed a hog? I did.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
I killed a hog when I was twelve with what.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
With dogs when you were twelve?
Speaker 5 (30:20):
He's wild girl, teenage girl like out there with a knife,
spear and.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Pigs making nervous No, I was.
Speaker 7 (30:28):
I didn't think I was going to get to kill it.
Me and Shepherd were like left behind, and I put
Sheppard on my back because we couldn't keep up and
we were running through like bamboo.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
It was so hard.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
And I got there and Dad was like oh.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
And I was just like okay, without hesitation, you had
to quick.
Speaker 7 (30:46):
There was the dogs were yeah. He was like oh
quick and I ran. He was in like a little ditch,
so it was an easy spot to get.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Oh, girshocker knife.
Speaker 6 (30:54):
The first time I met.
Speaker 8 (30:58):
Clay was the first time to be video and and
on a hall hunt one hundred. I mean a bear
hunt one hundred years ago, and River was probably nine
or ten. And we went up to this this one
place where we could call home from in the mountains
up there, pretty scenic view there, and I was calling home,
(31:18):
checking on Alexis, and Bailey was just a little baby
back then. Rivers off in front of this wall where
this walkway is, where this view is, and she's just
running around all over the place.
Speaker 6 (31:30):
Like a monkey. Everywhere.
Speaker 8 (31:31):
Her shepherd was there, Bear John was there. They're just
everywhere like squirrels turned loose. And I'm talking the phone,
I'm looking down there. I'm like, dang, it's some broken
beer bottles down there. Look, and then I see River
going right through them, probably barefoot as a duck.
Speaker 6 (31:52):
Back here, back to there. I'm like, I gotta go,
I gotta get this kid out of this glass.
Speaker 8 (31:57):
River, get up out of there. And my, oh no,
she was stepping all through it. No, no problem.
Speaker 5 (32:05):
Was barefoot all the time. I mean we it was.
It was Actually I was the principal at her school,
and the teacher's parent teacher conference would come around, and
one of the issues was we just can't ever find
her shoes. She takes off when she gets to school,
and we just need her to keep her shoes on.
I'm not kidding, And it was she was in her feet.
Can I tell about your feet? Yeah, they got they
(32:32):
developed like a big space in between them.
Speaker 7 (32:35):
If you walk on cold She to me this, if
you walk on cold floors long enough, your toel.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
That's just what your feet do naturally together.
Speaker 5 (32:46):
Now, right, because you wear shoes.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
You're back to normal.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
I don't know, normal is what she was doing exactly. Well,
I don't know if the cameras can see, but mister.
Speaker 6 (32:59):
Over here shoes at home.
Speaker 8 (33:01):
But I'm just saying I do. I don't walk through
glass with them bare feet.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
We tried not to let her walk through glass either,
just in case anyone's listening that wants to take her
kids away.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Well.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
One of the reasons that we have Miss River Nukeom
on the podcast today is because of the topic of
the Bear Grease podcasts.
Speaker 5 (33:23):
Is the Buffalo National.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Buffalo National River, which.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
She is a little bit named after that.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Yeah, tell us about that. So Clay and.
Speaker 5 (33:33):
I we had our kids when we were young. We
were in college and we would literally take our willow.
We would meet at the parking lot of the university
and we'd swap the car that had the car seat,
and I would take her home and he would go
to classes and then he'd go work at a grocery store.
And the year that I was pregnant with Willow or
with River, he got a new job and that job
(33:55):
had weekends off, and we never had weekends off before,
and so he had we off. So on the weekends
after church, we'd get in this cheap Cherokee and we'd
go to the Buffalo River almost every single day that summer.
The very first, uh, the first my first trimester of pregnancy,
we went and hike twks Mill Crag because it snowed,
and we took Willow out there.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Which is if you've not been Arkansas, that's definitely played
that hawk unbelievable.
Speaker 5 (34:22):
Yeah, And that was my first time to ever go
and I was I just remember I have a picture
of Willow all wrapped up because it was snowing outside
and we put her in a backpack, and I was
pregnant with River, and that was my first time to
ever go to That was I think my first time
to ever go to the Buffalo National River. And then
after that, we just we took advantage of every every
Sunday after church we'd go and we were trying to
figure out what to name her, because we had no
(34:44):
intention of having a theme, right, and it wasn't even
until we named Willow. Willow we named her that for
because of the meaning of the name. But then people
were like, oh, and your husband's name is Clay and
your name is Misty, so kind of an earthy theme,
So like Clay, Missy Willow and Amanda, I mean, I
don't know, like it just didn't seem like you kind
of had to be a little bit more thoughtful about.
(35:10):
So we kept trying to figure out what to name her,
and you know, we had kind of some pictures in
our head of and just feelings about what what this
this one would be like. And we were going out
to the river and I remember one day we were
at church and I had written a name in my
journal and I just thought it was a little bit
too wild. And we were at church and Clay looked
(35:30):
at me, I know, he was thinking about going to
the river afterwards, and he wrote the exact same name
down and I was like, I've got that name written down,
and that's what we named her River River Precious and
you know, it was inspired by the Buffalo National River.
We loved that place. We loved we loved it, and
(35:51):
now we know that our our joy came at a cost.
Speaker 6 (35:56):
That's right, And there was most things.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Tell us here to somebody telling me your impression about
the about the podcast, it's kind of heavy.
Speaker 5 (36:04):
Yeah, it is. It's it's I'm really conflicted because of
what I just shared. You know, I mean, we have
we we love our family kind of made a commitment.
I was one of those people that said I want
to go to every National park where the kids and
we drug you guys along, and so instead of Christmas presents,
every Christmas we would take the kids to.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Get in the car and make regardless of what the
weather was, we take often shoot.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (36:30):
And I remember going to Utah and the guy talking
about the land. I remember just being at a gas
station and we were we told him what we were
doing there, and he just kind of started talking about,
well this, you know, glad you are doing that this land.
And he started telling us that this land was taken
and that they're taking more land and uh they we
didn't understand what he was saying, right, And now I
(36:51):
kind of want to go back and research that because
I'm wondering if it's not a similar.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Grandpa's that's it, but it is.
Speaker 5 (37:04):
I felt very conflicted about it and just kind of
really realizing the the cost that these things have. It's
it's something that I mean, I have my little public
land owner shirts and I'm sure I tell I take
kids out in national parks all the time, not just
my own kids, but now other people's kids. Do you
know at the school I work at? Because I just
(37:27):
think this is this is one of the greatest things
that that we have.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
This is our land, and you think about the.
Speaker 8 (37:34):
It is sad, man, it is absolutely a sad story.
It's a it's a wonderful way that America looks at
conservation of parks and places, but you never hear the
tale the cost of it. It's like, man, we're letting
the prisons are over crowded. We need more prisons. You
(37:54):
want more prisons, I absolutely do. We're gonna put one
in your house, your town, not here, you know, it
needs to be somewhere else. And you have such strong
feelings about that. And I listened to that stuff. I
listened to mister Thelines, and I knew the story of
Granny Henderson, which will be more dealt into the next
(38:14):
part of it.
Speaker 6 (38:15):
I was very familiar with her.
Speaker 8 (38:16):
I wasn't mister Thelions, but I had heard that Merle Haggartson.
But you think about that and you put yourself in
their place, you know, And I think about, like on
all the stories and stuff that I tell, it's all
connected to place and where I grew up that belonged
to our family, you know, as they stuck dur And says,
(38:38):
it's not ours, it's just.
Speaker 6 (38:39):
Really our turn.
Speaker 8 (38:40):
But in our turn, we had this special place at
the river bottoms of the Slane River, which you know,
it would be terrible to have thought about them coming
in and moving my grandparents out of there, forcibly removing
them from some place. And that podcast was three minutes
(39:01):
into it when I was thinking, yeah, yeah, not not
only did we do that to the folks in the
Buffalo River, we did that to the natives years before then.
You know, So who in turn did it do whoever
else had it before they got there? Yeah, you know,
so it's just a long line of egregious behavior.
Speaker 6 (39:21):
Yeah, but man.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
It's so I'm with Misty. I've been you know, I've
I've talked with Clay a lot about this podcast while
he's been working on it, and it's such a there's
such a turmoil inside of me because I value It's
almost like I feel this sense of ownership of it
myself now, but it's really it wasn't mine to begin with, right,
(39:46):
and uh, you know, I think I think there I don't.
I don't know if there's a right answer. You know,
there's there's places that we've visited, like you know, if
you go up into into southern Missouri, there's Elk River
there and it's absolutely beautiful river, free flowing river, but
it's just like you got these bars on the river,
(40:07):
you got people partying down the river all the time,
and it's just it's overrun with with just commercialism. And
I think, man, what I have wanted the Buffalo River
to to turn into that? Absolutely not, but it actually
might have exactly exactly, And I think that was the
part of the concern. You know, we can't there's a
(40:27):
lot of should have, would have, could a or speculating
on what what could have happened. But I'm I mean,
at the same time, I'm like, man, I'm grateful that
I can go down to the Buffalo and I've got this,
for the most part, pristine river that is beautiful. I
can hike Goats Bluff and it's absolutely breathtaking. It's it's it.
(40:49):
Like Clay said in the podcast, it's it's the crown
jewel of Arkansas.
Speaker 8 (40:53):
We also have the aspect of people's enjoyment is different.
Speaker 6 (40:57):
You know.
Speaker 8 (40:57):
I love and my my friend buddy of mine, Michael Mechs,
and I used to camp up in a wildlife management
area along to Buffalo and we for twenty years in
every spring, that's where we started.
Speaker 6 (41:09):
Turkey season was up there.
Speaker 8 (41:10):
We got a lot of turkeys and I think about
that place and I think about what a great place
to kill a turkey. And there are some other folks
that have access to them, like, oh my gosh, I
can't believe those people are killing turkeys up there, But
they they're enjoying that same stretch of property. So your
interpretation of it is really, you know, to each individual.
(41:32):
You know, people like us that would enjoy harvesting game
from the land, and the other folks that also have
access and like being there, would think, oh, that's a
terrible thing to do. Don't kill those animals. You can
go buy an animal, a dead animal at the store,
and so a lot of people have a lot of
different ways, but it's all connected to that one beautiful
(41:52):
place up there. And I had never thought about the
differences really of how people perceive things, because forever, growing up,
I thought everybody grew up like I did, you know, yeah, right, so,
but people look a look at the same place, have
a familiarity with the place, and then look at it
(42:13):
in interacting with it in two different ways or a
lot of different ways.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Really, I think as I was thinking about it, I
think the thing that we have to recognize is that
regardless of whether the land was taken around, these people
made a sacrifice. It's a sacrifice that we benefit from.
And unfortunately the sacrifice was forced on them, you know,
(42:39):
but I think, you know, there's not anything we can
do about it now except say thank you, you know,
thanks to the Thelions family, thanks to these two thousand
families up and down one hundred and fifty six miles
of river that that had to make that decision. And
you know, it's interesting because I, you know, I didn't
(42:59):
grow up in one place. You know, we we moved
a lot I don't have a history that's tied to
a place or a land. You know, all my all
my my families from up north, up in Michigan, and
uh and so I think, you know, when I moved
to Arkansas, I felt like this is home to me.
(43:19):
You know, I felt this immediate connection to the Ozarks
and uh and I you know, I've talked about to
some friends about the adoptive nature of the Ozarks, how
it really draws you in and makes you a part
of it. And I think about that for the for
the Buffalo River, and uh. You know, I appreciate the
fact that willingly or unwillingly, that that these families have
(43:44):
have made the sacrifice for me to find a new home.
Speaker 9 (43:48):
You know, yeah, River, what do you think?
Speaker 5 (43:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (43:59):
I agree is what Mom said, that these National parks
have been such a big part of our lives. And
we've gone all over all over the country going to
different National parks, and the narrative around it, and the
narrative that I heard growing up was that this was
like the preservation of American land. This is our land.
And you hear about like Theodore Roosevelt when he started
the National Park System, and that's the narrative that I
(44:20):
was taught in school and that that I've experienced, and
I never I never even thought about about the people
that lived there. And so then the other thing I
was thinking about is how do you compensate people for that?
If somebody came and to take the house that Dad
built when we were little kids, tue no amount of
(44:41):
money you could give me that would be worth that,
And so I just can't imagine if you had generations
and generations, and so it's interesting, it's interesting to hear
that side of the story.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
And just so there's two truths, right.
Speaker 7 (44:53):
And not even sides, But there's a truth that we
love this land and it does feel like mine and
it's part of our lives in our history now. But
then there's the truth that it was stolen.
Speaker 8 (45:04):
And hard it's hard to one hundred percent celebrate the
acquisition of the land without mourning the laws of yeah family.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Absolutely, you know. In my conversations with Clay, Clay really
felt a sense of being a steward of the story
of the of the people from from the landowners. He
really wanted to just portray what they've done in a
in a really honest way without without you know, celebrating
(45:38):
the public lands without recognizing their story. And I think
that's one of the key things that we can do
now is just honor, honor them and to tell the
story so that people are aware.
Speaker 8 (45:51):
So yeah, because you can't. I mean, there's there's no
change in it. It is what it is. What happened happened,
And the only disser of us we would do is
to not talk about those folks and what they did
and went through.
Speaker 5 (46:05):
Yeah, I think that that's the I think that's one
of the values of Bear Grease and and things like
it is it tells. It's a it's it's a storytelling platform,
and that's that's what it is. And and it allowed this
side to be heard, this side that a lot of
people don't know. It allowed that to be heard. And uh,
and you know, there's well we'll continue to be told.
(46:25):
There's more coming up.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
What are your thoughts.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
We've got a couple of points.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
Because Tess has got some thoughts to ye.
Speaker 6 (46:37):
If I had thumbs, I let myself out. Well.
Speaker 4 (46:42):
So I was on that meal ride with Willard the
lines going through there, and it was pretty wild. It
was exactly how my dad described it on the podcast.
It was like seeing like a lost civilization, you know,
like you'd go you know, like we'd be online trails
that like people would hike, like real common trails, and
(47:03):
then they just jut off and we'd go two hundred
yards off the trail and there'd be like this like
perfectly intact barn, but it just had vines growing on
it and trees were over it.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
And even a lot of places that like.
Speaker 4 (47:20):
You just go to and it would look just like
a cedar thicket or something they would you know, that
was like an old field. And it was interesting to
see that because then I kind of think about like
the places that I hunt where I have heard about
the people that you know, either got their land bought
out or taken from them, and it's just like these
(47:40):
cedar thickets with houses in them, and it's just like, oh,
that used to be a field. And so it was
pretty crazy to do that, and to go up to
Willardvillne's old home place and seeing the foundation that they
tore down and that old cellar. It was just kind
of crazy because it was like usually whenever I go
to the Buffalo River, you know, like if you're going
(48:01):
like on like the trails and looking at the bluffs
and stuff like you're kind of a spectator of it.
But whenever we were actually there with like the locals
who have and you know now they lived like just
outside the park, right, it was it was like it
was just a different perspective on the Buffalo River because
it was just like people that actually live there and
(48:23):
have lived there and Willardville lines, you know, he lived
there until he was like I can't remember, but until
he was a you know, I think he was ten.
But it was just it was a unique perspective just
because they would that was like it would be like
coming back to this house that I've lived at my
whole life, but just seventy years later and everything's torn
(48:48):
down because they tore his house down, right, Like there
was just it was just an old rock foundation. There's
still a smokehouse and like a cellar, but it was
just kind of I would just have to imagine that
would be pretty crazy, like just to actually experience that.
But what else was crazy is like he took us
over to like the schoolhouse, and you know they told
(49:10):
us about how like this kid, thirteen year old kid
burned the schoolhouse down like two times and then they
built it down by the river and then the river
washed it away. But like you see like the foundations
of the old schoolhouse and we actually walked like he
took us on his route.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
To school every day.
Speaker 4 (49:28):
Oh really, And I mean he literally had to cross
the Buffalo River every single day to get to school
and then go up one of those big mountains, go
over it down on to the other side, and he'd
be at the school. But it was three miles, like
it was literally the three mile walk to school, and
if the river was high, they'd take horses or float.
Speaker 6 (49:48):
Or if he saw smoke, he turned around and go back. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (49:52):
Yeah, and he said he set it on fire because
he didn't want to go to school. Same but identify
with Yeah, and uh, it was kind of My dad
asked Willard if they ever like really recognized, like if
they ever really looked at the land as like for
(50:12):
that for its natural beauty, that we would all look
at it, you know, through that perspective of you know,
there's these big bluffs in it's this incredible place. And
I think he was talking particularly about the waterfall.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
What's the waterfall called on foot?
Speaker 4 (50:26):
Yeah, he said they used to he said him and
his dad would go ride mules up there, and they
always just thought it's just the waterfall.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
They never really thought much of it.
Speaker 4 (50:37):
They just viewed the land more as like a just
like a provider almost.
Speaker 3 (50:43):
Because they, you know, a resource.
Speaker 4 (50:44):
Yeah, And it was kind of interesting to see that
perspective because like, whenever I walk around just the places
around here, the woods that I mosey around in, I
never really look to it as like, I mean, I
do recognize that it is like an incredible place, and
(51:06):
it's like just really anytime you're in the woods, like
just something that's untouched is always pretty incredible. But it
kind of shifted my perspective a little bit on the
way that I would look at the places that I
use as my resource, you know, like the places that
I hunt. It's like if that was and it very
(51:29):
I mean, like it's really is like the plate the
ozarks are just an incredible place with big rocks and
trees and overlooks, and it's like, I don't know, it
was just kind of cool to see them the way
that they looked at that. And now he said his
dad never looked at it that way. His dad always
just looked at it as is the land we farm,
(51:51):
this is how we live. And he said once they
kind of started to you know, once they made it
a park, then he said that he you know, mister
Willard could kind of he started seeing it as this
beautiful place. But he's even still like you could tell
his perspective was way different than ours because he was
(52:11):
actually a part of it.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
He wasn't a spectator.
Speaker 6 (52:14):
And you're so familiar with it too. I mean, it's
something he looked at it every day.
Speaker 8 (52:18):
You see a bright shiny object once a month, you're like,
oh wow, yeah, that guess my intention.
Speaker 6 (52:24):
You look at it every day. It's just something you
walk by.
Speaker 5 (52:27):
Yep, you know, it's interesting. I wonder how much of
that is also a generational dynamic. I think I just
think about even your your parents. I think, God help us.
But I think about all the all the effort that's
gone into making sure you do appreciate.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
Oh yeah, the.
Speaker 5 (52:50):
Little I mean I get nighttime, when we'd get when
we'd come home from nine events, Clay would stop the
kids going in the house and just say, guys, look up.
Not everyone gets to see stars stars like this because
it there's not a lot of lights out here and
you can really see it, and I just think, I
wonder how much of that, Yeah, it is as a
result of what happened there and kind of being able
(53:11):
to see it through everyone else's eyes kind of creates
a shift. And how much of that is a generational shift,
even from Willard and his dad to the subsequent generation.
Speaker 8 (53:20):
When you're sitting on the front porch and looking down
the hill at the beautiful stream down there, you think, man,
that's pretty. But when you get down to the bottom
and you're toting two buckets of water back up, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 6 (53:30):
God, I wish we lived so yeah, exactly.
Speaker 8 (53:32):
So perspective is relevant, I guess to where you're standing
a lot of it.
Speaker 6 (53:37):
Man.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
How about Brooks b Loven's, man, he has a great
way of putting things in perspective. I was with play
when you did that, when you did that interview, and
it was kind of like a side note where he
talked about his grandparents being there. His grandparents lived in
the land that is now Norfolk Lake, and the story
of them toting off his great grandparents. I thought it
(54:00):
was funny. It's like I just picture them playing, but
I mean, it's it's really sad and and you know,
I think Clay mentions it in the podcast. It's like
it's like, you know, yeah, they they did take the land,
they did turn it into a park, but it could
(54:21):
be underwater, you know what I mean, and never geta falls.
Speaker 5 (54:25):
Exactly where there's just like merchants everywhere. And I mean
that was that's why they created the National Park System
is they didn't want to they didn't want it to
be commercialized, beautiful places like that to be commercialized, like
Niagara Falls was.
Speaker 8 (54:37):
Yeah, there's a place out and that we used to
go to and in uh Edistowe Island, South Carolina is
a place that we would vacation in the summertime and
that there's there's no city water there. If you the
potable water that you get to drink and cook with,
you have to go to the center of town and
they have a big well we used to call them
(55:00):
water buffalo is in the service. But it's a big
tank with different with spigots in it that you get
city water out of. And they won't put any kind
of commercial watering system there to keep that kind of
stuff from happening. There's like one grocery store. It's a
resort place. The people that beach houses and homes there
that they enjoy, but they keep it from there's no motels,
(55:21):
no condominiums, no stuff like that to keep down that
footprint so small that people are coming in they want
to come in and enjoy, yet not enjoy the motels
and hotels arcades and there's nothing like that, And so there's.
Speaker 3 (55:39):
A little bit of a you know, there always is
a trade off. There always is a trade off, you know.
I think I think, you know, we've got these lands
that are underwater now. Beaver Lake and Arkansas has has
four I think four big lakes, Bullshoals, Beaver Wash, Taw,
the Gray, the Gray, and uh, you know, that's all
(56:00):
land that will probably never see again. At the same time,
it's like I'm a trout fly fishing guide to make
part of my living. I make part of my living
under that damn you know.
Speaker 9 (56:11):
What I mean.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
It's like, yeah, I mean, there's always always a trade off,
and I think I think one of the biggest things
we can do is just recognize it and just recognize it.
I wanted to, uh, I wanted to read an email
I got from a listener really great. I think, well,
(56:32):
written email. He he is a road engineer and uh,
his name is Nash. I don't know where he's from.
I didn't say, but he said, uh, he said, hey, Clay,
loved the episode on the Buffalo River. I'm a roadway engineer.
(56:55):
In my field, we constantly have to consider the pros
and cons of the roadways and intersections that we design.
At times, we do have to look at the displacement
of businesses or family homes. We have to decide whether
one home or business is worth preserving over the efficiency
of travel through an area. This is not an easy
decision to come to, and it can be easy for
the outside. From the outside to look in and say,
(57:17):
why is this road so important? And as roadway engineers,
it's our job to explain it. Every project has its
own specifics. But take for instance, the interstate system we've
built in this country. Now, this project was way before
my time, as I'm only twenty four, but could you
imagine the time it would take to get good ship
across the country without the interstate system, and with this
time would also come huge price increases. It would be
(57:40):
easy to see how much more expensive going to the
grocery store would be for every American. The interstate system
undoubtedly displaced many Americans and cost billions of dollars in
tax payer money, but it's done so much good for
the American people personally. When designing a project, I always
look at the project from every angle and alternative I
can before deciding to displace a business or home. But
sometimes why the cost and benefits, the greater good ends
(58:02):
up being to displace. A few years ago, I worked
on a state project that split a large family property
directly in half. The poor lady that owned the land
was so upset with the project and gave the construction
workers and inspectors myself included a hard time when the
project was being constructed. The state attempted multiple times to
have conversations with her to design the project in a
way that would satisfy her, but she would refuse to
(58:23):
cooperate negotiations, and eventually the state would use eminent domain.
It was such a sad story, but the project was
has reduced the congestion in multiple nearby towns and has
shortened the time that the workman has to get home
to his family after long day of work. I love
the work that I do and hope to make the
best judgment, calls to help the best, to help the
communities as a whole. But it's always a difficult decision
(58:45):
to take away a home land or business places. I
just think, you know, it's a tough position to be in.
Speaker 6 (58:50):
You know, somebody's got to do the job.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Yeah, I'm glad it's not again, I'm glad it's not me.
Speaker 5 (58:56):
Real I thought the comments on the podcast really if
you look on Instagram when Clay posted, I just kind
of wanted to see if people would say things like that,
you know, that's a good I hadn't seen that email.
That's a good email, that's a good It's a different perspective.
What it seems like is that people are saying, overwhelmingly,
we were caught up in this this you know, this
(59:18):
happened to my grandparents, This happened to and and a
lot of people across the US have that story and
and so yeah, it's these are tough trade offs, and
I think it's it's meaningful to people to be able
to let their story be told unfettered by the context.
Speaker 3 (59:36):
I really I'm looking forward to this next next podcast
because I think it's going to be pretty pretty revealing
and and I have to say, like the way that
things were handled, I think in a large part we're
not good at best. And you know, I think there's
plenty of stories that even we didn't we weren't able
to capture where things weren't handled in the best way
(01:00:00):
and people were taking advantage of. So I'm excited to
hear what's coming next. Same any other thoughts, Brent.
Speaker 8 (01:00:12):
When Misty was making her last point there, I got
to think, I wonder how many people, if you're not
so connected to the land or not so familiar with it,
I wonder how many people would pass by and think, well,
that place has always been.
Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
There, right, Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 8 (01:00:31):
You know, you never give a thought to to the
people that were there beforehand. And we've talked about in
several episodes in history booking School about how the Native
Americans were treated. But how many of you know, until
I got old enough to really figure out, well that
that's only been there forty years, wasn't there somebody living there?
Speaker 6 (01:00:55):
You know, what happened to them?
Speaker 8 (01:00:56):
Or the story of the TVA, you know, the Tennessee
Valley Authority all the there was even a scene and
what is that old brother where Art they when they
flooded that. I mean, you know that that stuff really
happened to homes. And there's places on Hebrews uh at
gris Ferry Lake, you know, and and those big lakes
(01:01:16):
were good fishing spots. And you can see now through
sonar and stuff that you can get on the boat,
you can see that's a house down there.
Speaker 6 (01:01:25):
Somebody lived there, their kids played in that yard where
that where that structure is.
Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
Love to think about, you know, I think I think
we have a responsibility to tell this story so that
the mistakes of the past aren't repeated. You know. I
think that's one of the key things that that's that's
really important, because you know, you can just keep doing
the same thing over and over again. But you know,
we want to we want to make the right decisions.
Speaker 8 (01:01:51):
And so anyway, Yeah, I noticed one thing, no one
was interrupted telling the story.
Speaker 6 (01:02:03):
Especially interesting.
Speaker 8 (01:02:08):
Just saying I don't know the common denominated I don't
know if there is a common denominator there.
Speaker 6 (01:02:14):
But there was no interruptions today.
Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
I love it.
Speaker 6 (01:02:18):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
Maybe we'll just kick Clay off a podcast. Clay what Clyde.
Speaker 5 (01:02:27):
He's a good, good, good talker.
Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
Well, I want to thank you guys for being here.
Appreciate it. I felt like it's been a great podcast,
great great render. Clay should be back on the next
one in his goat hat will I.
Speaker 5 (01:02:42):
Hope he where's the goat hat? The entire next render?
I think he owses that for the false advertising.
Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
That's right, So it'll look good. We'll make him wear
the leafy suit and the hat and he can.
Speaker 5 (01:02:53):
We might not want him to wear the suit. Probably
still small closed.
Speaker 6 (01:02:57):
In opening wind.
Speaker 3 (01:03:00):
All right, well, thanks, thanks everybody for listening. We'll see
what what's the tagline, keep the wild places wild because
that's where the bears are, and it goes
My name is Clay nukelemb and.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
This is a production of the bear Grease podcast called
The Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper,
and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast,
presented by f HF Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting
and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as
(00:38):
the place as we explore.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Well, here we are, ye, welcome to the bear Grease Render.
I'm your host, Clay Nukeomb No, actually Clay is gone
and so we have done a hostile takeover of the
bear Grease. Actually, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the trout
Grease Render. This episode will be all about fly fishing,
(01:07):
so buckle in, get ready to enjoy yourselves. It'll be
like being on a boat ride. It's gonna be awesome.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Did y'all notice that at the end he said look
forward to being on the render with everybody.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Next week he said that false advertising.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yeah advertising, great, gonna be a lawsuit. Yeah, thanks for
bringing up. Well, let me just introduce. I'm going to
go from my right to the left here because we
got a new a first time or here we have
doctor mister Nukelem Welcome.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
So good to be here, so good to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
This isn't your first time?
Speaker 6 (01:41):
Right?
Speaker 5 (01:42):
No?
Speaker 6 (01:43):
Great?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
We have doctor Baron neukelemb yep here doctor. We have
mister Brent Reeves. Mister this country life Brent Reeves.
Speaker 6 (01:55):
That could be nurse, call me nurse.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
How Bear earned the doctorate? We'll just go with it.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
And last, but not least, we have miss River Newcomb.
We are outnumbered by Newcombs today everywhere.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
And you really you missed an important.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Oh that's right down on the floor here we got.
I am. I am hoping that. Uh today we're going
to have a little bit of sibling rivalry on the podcast,
a little like straightening out, like when Bear tells the
story River will be here.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
Correct, that's not yeah, that's everyone. That's everyone's favorite thing
to listen to. It's your details. Actually it's not. I
was actually thinking, will they fight because these two I
don't really. So there's four new kids.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
These are the two middle ones.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
These are these are middle children.
Speaker 7 (02:52):
Middle and best?
Speaker 8 (02:55):
Wait a minute, is it go ahead? Was that for
both of you? Middle and best? Or is one of the.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
If you guys ever noticed that that when Clay talks
about the birth order of his kids. He always says,
my middle daughter, River. Have you noticed that, not my
youngest daughter, River. I always wondered about that.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
Because I'm the middle but maybe a counseling session younger.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Daughter and an older son and a younger son. But
he always says my middle daughter.
Speaker 5 (03:25):
I've never noticed that either. It would be weird to
call River young. It's kind of interesting because we had
two girls and two boys and four kids in five
and a half years. That was the like Willow was
five and a half years old when Champ was born.
So it's not like any of them are massively spaced apart,
but Willow and River were just really close together. And
(03:47):
our life, like we moved here where we live now,
the Newcombe Farm when the girls were babies, and I
was I was pregnant with bear when we bought this
piece of land, and and and so there's kind of
like in the Newcombe family, there's this first five years
and the girls were apart of both of them, you know,
(04:07):
about three of those years. And so there's kind of
like the first era, you know, the prequel to the
Newcomb Farm, and the girls were part of that. And
then there was when we all moved out here and
the boys. The boys came after. And so even though
they're super close together, it is kind of like River
and Willow are the oldest kids.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
They're they're collectively the oldest kids. Yeah. Well, the one
Newcomb who is absent today is mister Clay Newcomb. He
is currently in.
Speaker 5 (04:32):
Alaska, rained in currently.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, unfortunately, Yeah, he hadn't heard today.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
He said yesterday that it was clear and they were
they stalked one.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
But he's hunting a mountain goat.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Yep, And yeah, he said he they put a stalk
on one but didn't get it. He said it's going
to be really tough. But he said that pretty much
like with the goat costume that he So.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
I think we need to visit this. Yeah, soture.
Speaker 8 (05:08):
This was in we just got I just got home
from from Bozeman. We had some meetings up there, and
Clay went to Alaska from Bozeman.
Speaker 6 (05:17):
Well, they we roomed together, and.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
The morning before he pulled this out.
Speaker 8 (05:24):
He walked around the corner of me and Tony Petershom
was sitting in there talking, we're facing to go eat supper,
and he walked around the corner and had this on
his head.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
So about three weeks ago, Clay said, Clay sent me
a picture of mountain goat and he said, he said,
I want you to make me a mountain goat hat.
I was like, what He's like, I want you to
make me a mountain goat hat. And so I made
the mountain goat hat. So it's a white beanie with
(05:56):
horns and mountain goat ears.
Speaker 6 (05:58):
Yeah. I don't know how you did the sun but.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
And leafy suit and leaf leafy suit and painted at
white so plain lukem is out wandering the mountains of
Alaska dressed up in a mountain goat costume. I want
to call it a costume.
Speaker 6 (06:19):
Anecdotal to the anecdotal to the hat.
Speaker 8 (06:22):
He pulled the white leafy suit out, freshly spray painted
smell to it. Oh yeah, yeah, Tony and I were
like sitting in the corner are out behind Walmart, huffing
paint to a sock. Is what it smelled like. And
I'm like, when when did you paint that? And it
was like minutes before he packed. It was like on
(06:45):
the way on the plane, on the way up right,
and you've known you've been going to Alaska for how
many months? But I didn't say that because it wasn't
my first rodeo, as they say him.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
So he he's in Alaska right now, Yeah, taken over
the render. We're really hoping he gets a go I
hope he gets a goat with a hat. I hope
he can fool him.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Like yeah, he said, like roughly, it will work like
two out of ten times a go to.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Twenty percent of the time it works every time.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
So who knows, maybe he'll get one to think he's
a goat.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
A goat with a bow.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
It's just it's just really different than what I thought
my life would look like. I'm just gonna be honest,
like I'm never I never, as a little kid, thought, man,
I'm going to grow up and marry a man who
puts on goat suits and wanders around the woods Like
that never crossed my mind that that would be a
part of my life.
Speaker 8 (07:39):
I sent that bitcher to Alexis and he's like, oh
my gosh, did he lose a bent. That's voluntary.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
Yeah, that was his idea.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yeah, So best of luck, Clay Newcomb. We wish you well.
You want to hear a story about goats?
Speaker 6 (07:56):
I do.
Speaker 8 (07:58):
This made me think of that I was a baby,
and I don't remember this part, but my grandmother told
me I was allergic to cow's milk and I couldn't
drink it for a while.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
So, you know, that's not a thing. Nobody's allergic to
cow's milk. They just think they are.
Speaker 8 (08:14):
Anyway, my grandmother, the liar that she is, apparently, was
getting a good deal on goats milk. That's what the
doctor prescribed me and drink. And she said it was
canned goats milk and it was the foulst stench of anything.
And this is a lady who we were. I mean,
we raised chickens. We had two big chicken houses. And
(08:36):
aroma is putting it mildly. What a chicken. You have
never been around a chicken house. It smells like everything
the chicken laid except the egg. It's that times ten thousand.
Speaker 6 (08:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (08:50):
So she said I had to drink goats milk, and
she said she would open it with them with a can.
Thought they call the church key, you know, you poke
holes in the can for she said it was.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Just they call on one side.
Speaker 8 (09:02):
Fast forward fifty something years and a couple of weeks ago,
I'm down at some friends of mine down in the
south end of Bradley County on the Slain River, and
they are living what they call the river stead life.
Speaker 6 (09:13):
They're right there on the river.
Speaker 8 (09:15):
They're raising goats, chickens, rabbits, they're making sausage from wild
hogs they killed.
Speaker 6 (09:21):
My buddy's a forester. He works from home.
Speaker 8 (09:23):
She's a educational educational consultant that contracts with different school
districts and stuff. So a lot of the stuff that
they do they do at home and they live there.
And I think she told me they figured eighty five
percent of what they consume they either want to catch
it or grow it there on their place. And they
(09:46):
have goats. My only reference to goat's milk is the
stories from my grandmother. And she said, we went out
fishing that morning. We caught a bunch of fish. Would
come back. She said, put some brownies in. They should
be read. Let's go in and have some brownies and milk.
And I'm like, you had me, Let's go in and
eat regardless, Let's go and we get in there. She
(10:08):
pulls out these big plate of brownies and poors me
a big cold glass of milk.
Speaker 6 (10:12):
And I took a bite, and I thought boy, this
is gonna be good.
Speaker 8 (10:14):
And as I'm getting that glass to my lips, I'm
thinking this came.
Speaker 6 (10:19):
Out of a goat.
Speaker 8 (10:20):
I'm sure they came out of a goat, but I
can't smell it. I don't smell anything. So I took
a sip and I'm like, I didn't die. I'm gonna
get a bigger drink. I took a drink and it
tasted like milk, and I said, lee, Is, let's go
to milk. She said, oh, yeah, from this morning. It
has been long enough. She gets up at like four
and right milk pours it filled coffee filter, sets it
(10:43):
an ice box or refrigerator, and man, I could not
tell it didn't come from Elsie herself. It was tasted
exactly like so brownies.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
And so when I was when I when we first
moved to Arkansas with fourteen r and neighbor had a
goat dairy and she I think she had like sixty goats.
She'd milk every day and people would come and I
remember she gave me. She gave me a gla and
I didn't know what to think, like I didn't know
what to expect. And I took a drink of it,
(11:14):
and I was like, this is delicious. I loved it.
I thought it was great.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
So does that mean the milk you were drinking you
were a kid was just like it?
Speaker 6 (11:22):
Probably I figured come out of a hog or something.
Speaker 8 (11:26):
Who knows you put a label on anything. But now
I had a neighbor, a neighbor who is an absolute
health food nerd. He's probably one hundred and twelve years old.
He looks like he's forty. Yeah, but he walks up
and down the street every day. And he asked me
about goat's milk. I told him the story I told
y'all about when I was a kid. And he said, well,
it's better than that. It's better, he said, I'm going
(11:48):
to bring you something. He brought me a gallon of
goats milk. But it was so sweet. I couldn't harder
drink it. It was like drinking really simple syrup.
Speaker 6 (11:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (11:56):
I said, man, I can't drink it. It's just too sweet.
And I you know, I like sweet teeth. I couldn't
drink it. And he told me, and I told him
the deal about the goat milk smelling and stuff. He said, well,
it only tastes like that if you shake it up
and I'm like, okay, so if.
Speaker 6 (12:13):
You're on a level of playing service, I've.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Already called people liars, said, I'm not I'm just telling you.
Speaker 6 (12:20):
I'm just telling you what the man told me.
Speaker 8 (12:21):
But it was the sweet I told him, you can
take it back, you can put it back in the goat.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
I don't know whatever whatever you do with it.
Speaker 8 (12:27):
But the milk I drank at quite a visual at
Lee and Keith's house, Lee and Keith Brandon down there.
Speaker 6 (12:33):
It was. It tastes just like cow's milk to me.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
To go Lee and Keith, I got some good, healthy goats.
Speaker 5 (12:39):
When we first moved here, I was really nervous that
we were gonna they were going to annex the house
in city limits, and I was nervous they wouldn't let
us keep animals. If they did that, it took years,
there was no rush, but I was nervous it was
gonna happen really fast. And so basically the week after
we bought this land, I went on the Craigslist and
bought a goat, just one single, so that we could
(13:01):
be considered. And we got at home and we asked
the girls. I don't even know how we got the
goat here. But we asked the girls. The girls were
two and three, and we said what should we name it?
And they said, their name's Willow and River, and they
said we should name it after the one boyfriend that
they had, which was Josh's son, David.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
And so.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
We had a named David.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Your dog John was your son Fair.
Speaker 7 (13:31):
And we had the pig names after Uncle Jo.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
That's right. So we had a go named David. And
that sucker was mean, and he hated women, and he
hated children, and he hated anyone that had any visible
weakness whatsoever. You would walk up, I mean he he
men he was good with unless they had a limp,
and he would go after him. Women he would the
second I mean they he was at. He was a
(13:54):
very mean, aggressive goat and he just smelled awful. And
then we go to some fans he placed a couple
of years later. David wasn't well loved. I mean, I
don't know if you could tell David the goat. David
the goat was not well loved, and he actually ran away.
I mean, I don't know, he's like probably wandering jumped him.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
He just one day he was gone, and I was like, well,
good ridding, and and we could never find aggressives.
Speaker 7 (14:22):
We had roosters and we had got captain.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of aggression, a violence.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
It's true.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
We had these turkeys that were just mean as can be,
Tom and Albuquerque, and they were they were a big
name Jeff and a goat named David. These are our
early new Conformed days. And they got to where they,
you know, they would roost out here Clay wanted. They
(14:55):
looked wild, you know, but they were domestic turkeys. And
one of them went to our neighbor house and their grandma.
They were moving grandma in and she had a cast
on her hand, and the mean turkey saw that and
just went after and the neighbors thought they were wild turkeys,
and so they killed them. And the other neighbors saw
(15:16):
all this and ran out and said, that's Glay's turkeys.
Those are pet turkeys. And so they come to our
house like head in hand, Mary, ashamed of themselves turkeys,
and they're like, we thought they were wild. We were pomped.
I mean, I guess it was turkey season. I don't
know they were we were.
Speaker 7 (15:32):
All pokemon cards. They were like, here, you got to
pay for it.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
And I wasn't a huge Pokemon fan, so I was like,
I just want the feathers, give me the feathers, and
y'all can you know me? Well, I did want the meat,
but they did attack their grandma, you know, so I
felt like we were kind of But I went to
a fancy restaurant a couple of years later after we
had David, and they served goat cheese and everyone was
(15:57):
talking about how great it was and I got I
put some on my plate and it smelled like David.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
And when I took a bite of it, it tasted
like David smelled. And I was like, I am not
interested in this business at all.
Speaker 8 (16:09):
She made some cheese down there, it was had no
odor to it. I mean, these folks are I mean,
they're not doing this stuff. They're giving lessons on the internet,
they're not taking them off of there. They but I
ate cheese. See had jalapeno goat.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
Cheese and it didn't taste like David smell.
Speaker 6 (16:27):
No, And I never smelled David, but it didn't smell.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
Like you smelled David. I mean it's it's it's a
pretty standard smell, but.
Speaker 6 (16:37):
No, it really wasn't.
Speaker 8 (16:38):
I mean, I don't know what she's doing down there,
but I mean it was the only thing between me
and the goat was a coffee fielder and ice box.
Speaker 6 (16:46):
Or otherwise it was.
Speaker 8 (16:47):
You could have said I got it out of the goat, right,
but that was it.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
I've never I've never eaten meltain goat, but I am
a little bit nervous that it's gonna taste like David.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Yeah, well, I'm hoping you get the opportunity. Yeah, Bear,
show us your latest project.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
Okay, So I made the bow. That's what I showed
the last couple of weeks. This week, I've got the arrow.
So this is a river cane arrow that I cut down.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
That shaft looks good, very much.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
So I cut down probably forty shafts, and only about
twelve of them work after drying them, and so this
one was pretty dry. Well, whenever you put them out
in the sun to dry, at least the ones I
cut down.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
If they're too small or if they're I really don't know.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Exactly what the issue is, but they'll shrivel up and
then you bend them and some of them will just
break and then some of them will bend and pretty
much they're pretty straight right off the bat, but you
have to like really micro straighten them or else still
fly weird.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
But yeah, this one point?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Did you make that stuff point?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
That's a stone point?
Speaker 6 (18:13):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
These are turkey feathers from the bushwhack turkey that I
killed this year. But yeah, this is the second one
I made, so it's not quite hunting worthy, Like there's
some imperfections in the the fletchings, but arrows are tough
beat not yet. I made it like last night. I've
(18:35):
got some helix in that on the feathers there helix.
Oh yeah, helical. Yeah, there's because you have to use
all the feathers from the same wing because the feathers
kind of curve and have like a natural helical to them.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
But have you learn that YouTube?
Speaker 6 (18:56):
He's a doctor.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Now, Yeah, it's fantastic. What's what where'd you get the sinew?
Speaker 1 (19:03):
No sinew in this one?
Speaker 6 (19:04):
Well?
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Actually you're like this this is a what I don't
know what size it is, but this is a thread
I type flies with. I gave this arrow a whip finish. Yeah,
very nice, but yeah it's not I don't have any
real sinew on there.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
But what's holding the stump point on.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
That is pine pitch and charcoal. Charcoal kind of hardens
it in the pine pitch is kind of just like
natural glue. But yeah, I've been using on the other
one I made, I used squirrel and testings that dried
out and it was actually pretty strong, and use that
(19:43):
as kind of the cordage. This one I just used.
I didn't have any left.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
So you're you're gearing up for deer season.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Yeah, deer and bear season. Some hunting a bear this year.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
With the self bow and a stone point and probably
either a river cane or bamboo arrow. But these are
some of the points that I've made that I'm gonna
probably end up shooting them with. I'm gonna get the
arrows figured out a little better before I use these.
But there's so this one's a Clovis, which is what
(20:16):
they would have used.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Yeahs site is what that stone is called.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
But just is this a local stone or is this
a stone you got?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
That's a stone I bought.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
I don't really know where to get it, but that
style of point is what they would have used to
kill wooly mammoths. Clovis, And so I might want to
kill a bear, or I might use this one. I
don't really know what style that is.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
But that's a good looking stone point bear.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
Yeah, that one is probably more effective than that one
the Clovis, but.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
It would be cooler to kill one with the Clovis.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
This looks like the ones you see out west.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Yeah, yeah, sharp, it is sharp.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
How long does it take you to make.
Speaker 6 (21:01):
One of those?
Speaker 4 (21:02):
Probably thirty minutes. Well that's not bad, yeah, but to
make like.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
This arrow takes like three and a half hours.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
So how many arrows are you gonna have made for
hunting season?
Speaker 4 (21:14):
As many as I can, but I need at least
probably five five.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Yeah, it look like David when he gathered stones.
Speaker 6 (21:22):
What's your yah? Yeah, roc, what's your max range? Uh?
Speaker 4 (21:27):
With carbon arrows? Like fifteen yards right now? I'd like
to work out to twenty. But just so that shooting
fifteen yards is easier because with the self bow, everything's way.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Slower than a compound, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
And you gotta have heavier arrows because it isn't as
powerful and you need more penetration. And so like you
shoot a deer at twenty yards, it's like like the
one that bounced off. It's like forty yards away by
the time the arrow gets there. But or yeah, bounces off.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Yeah, Well that's awesome. That looks great. Hey, I was
I was reading about hunting this week and I was
on the Boon and Crockett website. Yeah, I got a
little trivia for you guys. Top three states for white tail?
(22:17):
Who has the most boone and Crockett record deer? Top
three states? Kansas, bear says, Kansas, Jesas, Kansas, Texas.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Non Iowa, Iowa?
Speaker 6 (22:33):
Yeah, Iowa.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
I bet that's number one, Iowa. You think Iowa was
number one?
Speaker 6 (22:37):
Yeah? Any others? Just three? Okay?
Speaker 3 (22:41):
So I just want to say that that Isaac Neil,
when I asked him this question, he named all three.
Speaker 6 (22:50):
Yeah, doctor Neil.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
So number three is Iowa. Iowa has over eleven one
hundred boone crocket deer. Number two, anybody want to change
your guests? Hmmm, Delaware definitely rode out of Number two
(23:12):
is Illinois. Illinois has over thirteen hundred boona Crockett deer.
But number one, number one is none other than the
cheese state Wisconsin. Wisconsin has over eighteen hundred boone and
Crockett deer pretty crazy one hundred yep. I would have
(23:35):
thought Kansas would have been in there.
Speaker 8 (23:36):
Well, I know a guy that a friend of mine,
Josh Jensen, lives up in Minnesota, the Viking. I called
him and he makes a yearly pilgrimage to Wisconsin the
deer hunt over there, and he sent me.
Speaker 6 (23:48):
He sent me pictures for.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Just I think they've got huge numbers of deer and
huge deer. Yeah, so anyway, I thought that was pretty interesting. Also,
did you guys hear about this this guy at Yellowstone?
Let me see, I've got it.
Speaker 5 (24:04):
Uh, pretty crazy.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
I forgot the name of the actual guyser.
Speaker 8 (24:10):
It wasn't birtha was it wasn't it a Jeff? Jeff
to guy that it could have been an old meal
something else, dumb Yellowstone.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
The the pictures are pretty crazy. It's it's uh it
was sapphire pool and biscuit bacon, biscuit basin that'd be
delicious of.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Bacon.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
It's about two miles from from Old Faithful. It blew up.
I mean it looks like someone dropped a bomb. It
said it through stones that were hundreds of pounds and
if you look at the pictures. The walkways are just
like obliterated. It looks like Vietnam. I mean, just it
was crazy.
Speaker 5 (24:57):
I took fifty kids over there last year.
Speaker 6 (25:00):
Did you go to that?
Speaker 5 (25:01):
We were really close to that one, and I think
one group actually went to that one. But I'm just
kind of what would have happened if they were even
baking biscuits down there, and.
Speaker 6 (25:12):
It would that's what would come up out of it,
this biscuits.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
And wouldn't like.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
Nectar.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Was there like a scientific explanation that we know of
yet for why it?
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Apparently it builds up pressure every now and then, and
all those guys ares and it's it's so infrequent that
I guess they don't worry about the people on the walkways.
But seems like.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Maybe the Little Old Faith will ever do.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
That they say it has in the past.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
Was there a warning? I mean, were there? Surely it
wasn't just a situation where there was no one there.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
They most most of the people had cleared out, But
I don't think it was.
Speaker 6 (25:54):
It was. I saw video of it. People were like, yeah, well.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
It was for people to get away, but not they
hadn't like evacuated the area, so they wow, yeah, I
think it was. It was it was more active than
they expected it to be, and I think people people
got away from it pretty crazy, pretty well crazy any
hunting exploits lately.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Bear, I've been hog hunting with the self bow. Basically.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
I had know a guy down here who's got some
big hog problem on his property and it's been real dry,
and he's got two old saddler's ponds, just little mud
holes out in the middle of the woods that are
just covered with hog sign But I've been going there
the last week, sitting on those mud holes, and then
(26:44):
like late afternoon, I'll just start slipping down roads and
I've seen hogs every time I've went. Actually shot at
one and missed him. I was sneaking in on this
road and I just hear a bunch of racket up
the road and I sneak up there and there's a
big group of them and I'm filming this for a
(27:05):
real and I set my camera up on the ground.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
And this hunt, I didn't have a very good setup.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
I just kind of had like a phone holder, and
I snuck into like seven yards from this little spotted hog,
and I look back to make sure my camera's going
and it had fallen over, and so I sneak back
over there. I set the camera back up and kind
of get it situated a little better this time. And
(27:32):
as I'm sneaking back into where I was, I think
there was one up above me like that I didn't see,
and it either saw me or smelled me or something,
but it just took off and all the other hogs
took off with it. And this little hog runs out
to like twenty yards and stops and there's basically like
(27:54):
a pocket, you know, he's covered in brush, but there's
a pocket just right over his vitals. And I was like, well,
if I can get an arrow through that pocket, he's dead.
If I don't, it's just going to hit a limb
and miss him.
Speaker 6 (28:08):
They're going to wound him.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Yeah, and so and I can kind of shoot at
twenty yards, but I'm not you know, like I wouldn't
shoot at like a deer or something, but in base
of hogs, I'll take a shot at them. And I
drew back, and right as I committed to the shot,
the pig starts running and I shoot and I hit
right in the pocket. But it just at that point
(28:31):
it was like, yeah, it was right behind him. So
I didn't get that one. But two days ago I
was out there and just saw a ton of hogs,
a real big one, big tusks, and there was probably
a group of like twenty of them, and I snuck
into about thirty yards from them. They were crossing this
(28:52):
road and I was just slipping in and I see
where three big ones cross the road, and I looked
down the mountain and there's the real big one with
the tusks coming up that same trail. And so I
slipped trying to get to where they crossed, and my
wind wasn't very good.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
It was just kind of like barely.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Missing that hog, and so as it would move, I
would move to kind of try and keep out in
front of it. But the wind's just not that predictable.
It kind of shifts. And I got like twenty yards
from it before it got to the road, and it
smelled me, and you know, it stuck its head up
and it kind of blew like a deer, which was weird,
(29:33):
but it kind of weird. Yeah, it just kind of
and turned and started walking away. Yeah, had like ten
piglets with it, and they eventually and I tried to
kind of follow them, but I just couldn't walk as
quiet as they could walk fast.
Speaker 6 (29:49):
My uncle killed this one just now even before.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Wow.
Speaker 8 (29:53):
His hog, Yeah, it eased up into his or has
been rooting up out in his pasture where his horses are.
I mean that that filled up the bucket on that
track right there.
Speaker 5 (30:04):
Is that.
Speaker 6 (30:07):
Large yeah river.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Have you ever killed a hog? I did.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
I killed a hog when I was twelve with what.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
With dogs when you were twelve?
Speaker 5 (30:20):
He's wild girl, teenage girl like out there with a knife,
spear and.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Pigs making nervous No, I was.
Speaker 7 (30:28):
I didn't think I was going to get to kill it.
Me and Shepherd were like left behind, and I put
Sheppard on my back because we couldn't keep up and
we were running through like bamboo.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
It was so hard.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
And I got there and Dad was like oh.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
And I was just like okay, without hesitation, you had
to quick.
Speaker 7 (30:46):
There was the dogs were yeah. He was like oh
quick and I ran. He was in like a little ditch,
so it was an easy spot to get.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Oh, girshocker knife.
Speaker 6 (30:54):
The first time I met.
Speaker 8 (30:58):
Clay was the first time to be video and and
on a hall hunt one hundred. I mean a bear
hunt one hundred years ago, and River was probably nine
or ten. And we went up to this this one
place where we could call home from in the mountains
up there, pretty scenic view there, and I was calling home,
(31:18):
checking on Alexis, and Bailey was just a little baby
back then. Rivers off in front of this wall where
this walkway is, where this view is, and she's just
running around all over the place.
Speaker 6 (31:30):
Like a monkey. Everywhere.
Speaker 8 (31:31):
Her shepherd was there, Bear John was there. They're just
everywhere like squirrels turned loose. And I'm talking the phone,
I'm looking down there. I'm like, dang, it's some broken
beer bottles down there. Look, and then I see River
going right through them, probably barefoot as a duck.
Speaker 6 (31:52):
Back here, back to there. I'm like, I gotta go,
I gotta get this kid out of this glass.
Speaker 8 (31:57):
River, get up out of there. And my, oh no,
she was stepping all through it. No, no problem.
Speaker 5 (32:05):
Was barefoot all the time. I mean we it was.
It was Actually I was the principal at her school,
and the teacher's parent teacher conference would come around, and
one of the issues was we just can't ever find
her shoes. She takes off when she gets to school,
and we just need her to keep her shoes on.
I'm not kidding, And it was she was in her feet.
Can I tell about your feet? Yeah, they got they
(32:32):
developed like a big space in between them.
Speaker 7 (32:35):
If you walk on cold She to me this, if
you walk on cold floors long enough, your toel.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
That's just what your feet do naturally together.
Speaker 5 (32:46):
Now, right, because you wear shoes.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
You're back to normal.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
I don't know, normal is what she was doing exactly. Well,
I don't know if the cameras can see, but mister.
Speaker 6 (32:59):
Over here shoes at home.
Speaker 8 (33:01):
But I'm just saying I do. I don't walk through
glass with them bare feet.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
We tried not to let her walk through glass either,
just in case anyone's listening that wants to take her
kids away.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Well.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
One of the reasons that we have Miss River Nukeom
on the podcast today is because of the topic of
the Bear Grease podcasts.
Speaker 5 (33:23):
Is the Buffalo National.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Buffalo National River, which.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
She is a little bit named after that.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Yeah, tell us about that. So Clay and.
Speaker 5 (33:33):
I we had our kids when we were young. We
were in college and we would literally take our willow.
We would meet at the parking lot of the university
and we'd swap the car that had the car seat,
and I would take her home and he would go
to classes and then he'd go work at a grocery store.
And the year that I was pregnant with Willow or
with River, he got a new job and that job
(33:55):
had weekends off, and we never had weekends off before,
and so he had we off. So on the weekends
after church, we'd get in this cheap Cherokee and we'd
go to the Buffalo River almost every single day that summer.
The very first, uh, the first my first trimester of pregnancy,
we went and hike twks Mill Crag because it snowed,
and we took Willow out there.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Which is if you've not been Arkansas, that's definitely played
that hawk unbelievable.
Speaker 5 (34:22):
Yeah, And that was my first time to ever go
and I was I just remember I have a picture
of Willow all wrapped up because it was snowing outside
and we put her in a backpack, and I was
pregnant with River, and that was my first time to
ever go to That was I think my first time
to ever go to the Buffalo National River. And then
after that, we just we took advantage of every every
Sunday after church we'd go and we were trying to
figure out what to name her, because we had no
(34:44):
intention of having a theme, right, and it wasn't even
until we named Willow. Willow we named her that for
because of the meaning of the name. But then people
were like, oh, and your husband's name is Clay and
your name is Misty, so kind of an earthy theme,
So like Clay, Missy Willow and Amanda, I mean, I
don't know, like it just didn't seem like you kind
of had to be a little bit more thoughtful about.
(35:10):
So we kept trying to figure out what to name her,
and you know, we had kind of some pictures in
our head of and just feelings about what what this
this one would be like. And we were going out
to the river and I remember one day we were
at church and I had written a name in my
journal and I just thought it was a little bit
too wild. And we were at church and Clay looked
(35:30):
at me, I know, he was thinking about going to
the river afterwards, and he wrote the exact same name
down and I was like, I've got that name written down,
and that's what we named her River River Precious and
you know, it was inspired by the Buffalo National River.
We loved that place. We loved we loved it, and
(35:51):
now we know that our our joy came at a cost.
Speaker 6 (35:56):
That's right, And there was most things.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Tell us here to somebody telling me your impression about
the about the podcast, it's kind of heavy.
Speaker 5 (36:04):
Yeah, it is. It's it's I'm really conflicted because of
what I just shared. You know, I mean, we have
we we love our family kind of made a commitment.
I was one of those people that said I want
to go to every National park where the kids and
we drug you guys along, and so instead of Christmas presents,
every Christmas we would take the kids to.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Get in the car and make regardless of what the
weather was, we take often shoot.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (36:30):
And I remember going to Utah and the guy talking
about the land. I remember just being at a gas
station and we were we told him what we were
doing there, and he just kind of started talking about,
well this, you know, glad you are doing that this land.
And he started telling us that this land was taken
and that they're taking more land and uh they we
didn't understand what he was saying, right, And now I
(36:51):
kind of want to go back and research that because
I'm wondering if it's not a similar.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Grandpa's that's it, but it is.
Speaker 5 (37:04):
I felt very conflicted about it and just kind of
really realizing the the cost that these things have. It's
it's something that I mean, I have my little public
land owner shirts and I'm sure I tell I take
kids out in national parks all the time, not just
my own kids, but now other people's kids. Do you
know at the school I work at? Because I just
(37:27):
think this is this is one of the greatest things
that that we have.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
This is our land, and you think about the.
Speaker 8 (37:34):
It is sad, man, it is absolutely a sad story.
It's a it's a wonderful way that America looks at
conservation of parks and places, but you never hear the
tale the cost of it. It's like, man, we're letting
the prisons are over crowded. We need more prisons. You
(37:54):
want more prisons, I absolutely do. We're gonna put one
in your house, your town, not here, you know, it
needs to be somewhere else. And you have such strong
feelings about that. And I listened to that stuff. I
listened to mister Thelines, and I knew the story of
Granny Henderson, which will be more dealt into the next
(38:14):
part of it.
Speaker 6 (38:15):
I was very familiar with her.
Speaker 8 (38:16):
I wasn't mister Thelions, but I had heard that Merle Haggartson.
But you think about that and you put yourself in
their place, you know, And I think about, like on
all the stories and stuff that I tell, it's all
connected to place and where I grew up that belonged
to our family, you know, as they stuck dur And says,
(38:38):
it's not ours, it's just.
Speaker 6 (38:39):
Really our turn.
Speaker 8 (38:40):
But in our turn, we had this special place at
the river bottoms of the Slane River, which you know,
it would be terrible to have thought about them coming
in and moving my grandparents out of there, forcibly removing
them from some place. And that podcast was three minutes
(39:01):
into it when I was thinking, yeah, yeah, not not
only did we do that to the folks in the
Buffalo River, we did that to the natives years before then.
You know, So who in turn did it do whoever
else had it before they got there? Yeah, you know,
so it's just a long line of egregious behavior.
Speaker 6 (39:21):
Yeah, but man.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
It's so I'm with Misty. I've been you know, I've
I've talked with Clay a lot about this podcast while
he's been working on it, and it's such a there's
such a turmoil inside of me because I value It's
almost like I feel this sense of ownership of it
myself now, but it's really it wasn't mine to begin with, right,
(39:46):
and uh, you know, I think I think there I don't.
I don't know if there's a right answer. You know,
there's there's places that we've visited, like you know, if
you go up into into southern Missouri, there's Elk River
there and it's absolutely beautiful river, free flowing river, but
it's just like you got these bars on the river,
(40:07):
you got people partying down the river all the time,
and it's just it's overrun with with just commercialism. And
I think, man, what I have wanted the Buffalo River
to to turn into that? Absolutely not, but it actually
might have exactly exactly, And I think that was the
part of the concern. You know, we can't there's a
(40:27):
lot of should have, would have, could a or speculating
on what what could have happened. But I'm I mean,
at the same time, I'm like, man, I'm grateful that
I can go down to the Buffalo and I've got this,
for the most part, pristine river that is beautiful. I
can hike Goats Bluff and it's absolutely breathtaking. It's it's it.
(40:49):
Like Clay said in the podcast, it's it's the crown
jewel of Arkansas.
Speaker 8 (40:53):
We also have the aspect of people's enjoyment is different.
Speaker 6 (40:57):
You know.
Speaker 8 (40:57):
I love and my my friend buddy of mine, Michael Mechs,
and I used to camp up in a wildlife management
area along to Buffalo and we for twenty years in
every spring, that's where we started.
Speaker 6 (41:09):
Turkey season was up there.
Speaker 8 (41:10):
We got a lot of turkeys and I think about
that place and I think about what a great place
to kill a turkey. And there are some other folks
that have access to them, like, oh my gosh, I
can't believe those people are killing turkeys up there, But
they they're enjoying that same stretch of property. So your
interpretation of it is really, you know, to each individual.
(41:32):
You know, people like us that would enjoy harvesting game
from the land, and the other folks that also have
access and like being there, would think, oh, that's a
terrible thing to do. Don't kill those animals. You can
go buy an animal, a dead animal at the store,
and so a lot of people have a lot of
different ways, but it's all connected to that one beautiful
(41:52):
place up there. And I had never thought about the
differences really of how people perceive things, because forever, growing up,
I thought everybody grew up like I did, you know, yeah, right, so,
but people look a look at the same place, have
a familiarity with the place, and then look at it
(42:13):
in interacting with it in two different ways or a
lot of different ways.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Really, I think as I was thinking about it, I
think the thing that we have to recognize is that
regardless of whether the land was taken around, these people
made a sacrifice. It's a sacrifice that we benefit from.
And unfortunately the sacrifice was forced on them, you know,
(42:39):
but I think, you know, there's not anything we can
do about it now except say thank you, you know,
thanks to the Thelions family, thanks to these two thousand
families up and down one hundred and fifty six miles
of river that that had to make that decision. And
you know, it's interesting because I, you know, I didn't
(42:59):
grow up in one place. You know, we we moved
a lot I don't have a history that's tied to
a place or a land. You know, all my all
my my families from up north, up in Michigan, and
uh and so I think, you know, when I moved
to Arkansas, I felt like this is home to me.
(43:19):
You know, I felt this immediate connection to the Ozarks
and uh and I you know, I've talked about to
some friends about the adoptive nature of the Ozarks, how
it really draws you in and makes you a part
of it. And I think about that for the for
the Buffalo River, and uh. You know, I appreciate the
fact that willingly or unwillingly, that that these families have
(43:44):
have made the sacrifice for me to find a new home.
Speaker 9 (43:48):
You know, yeah, River, what do you think?
Speaker 5 (43:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (43:59):
I agree is what Mom said, that these National parks
have been such a big part of our lives. And
we've gone all over all over the country going to
different National parks, and the narrative around it, and the
narrative that I heard growing up was that this was
like the preservation of American land. This is our land.
And you hear about like Theodore Roosevelt when he started
the National Park System, and that's the narrative that I
(44:20):
was taught in school and that that I've experienced, and
I never I never even thought about about the people
that lived there. And so then the other thing I
was thinking about is how do you compensate people for that?
If somebody came and to take the house that Dad
built when we were little kids, tue no amount of
(44:41):
money you could give me that would be worth that,
And so I just can't imagine if you had generations
and generations, and so it's interesting, it's interesting to hear
that side of the story.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
And just so there's two truths, right.
Speaker 7 (44:53):
And not even sides, But there's a truth that we
love this land and it does feel like mine and
it's part of our lives in our history now. But
then there's the truth that it was stolen.
Speaker 8 (45:04):
And hard it's hard to one hundred percent celebrate the
acquisition of the land without mourning the laws of yeah family.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Absolutely, you know. In my conversations with Clay, Clay really
felt a sense of being a steward of the story
of the of the people from from the landowners. He
really wanted to just portray what they've done in a
in a really honest way without without you know, celebrating
(45:38):
the public lands without recognizing their story. And I think
that's one of the key things that we can do
now is just honor, honor them and to tell the
story so that people are aware.
Speaker 8 (45:51):
So yeah, because you can't. I mean, there's there's no
change in it. It is what it is. What happened happened,
And the only disser of us we would do is
to not talk about those folks and what they did
and went through.
Speaker 5 (46:05):
Yeah, I think that that's the I think that's one
of the values of Bear Grease and and things like
it is it tells. It's a it's it's a storytelling platform,
and that's that's what it is. And and it allowed this
side to be heard, this side that a lot of
people don't know. It allowed that to be heard. And uh,
and you know, there's well we'll continue to be told.
(46:25):
There's more coming up.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
What are your thoughts.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
We've got a couple of points.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
Because Tess has got some thoughts to ye.
Speaker 6 (46:37):
If I had thumbs, I let myself out. Well.
Speaker 4 (46:42):
So I was on that meal ride with Willard the
lines going through there, and it was pretty wild. It
was exactly how my dad described it on the podcast.
It was like seeing like a lost civilization, you know,
like you'd go you know, like we'd be online trails
that like people would hike, like real common trails, and
(47:03):
then they just jut off and we'd go two hundred
yards off the trail and there'd be like this like
perfectly intact barn, but it just had vines growing on
it and trees were over it.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
And even a lot of places that like.
Speaker 4 (47:20):
You just go to and it would look just like
a cedar thicket or something they would you know, that
was like an old field. And it was interesting to
see that because then I kind of think about like
the places that I hunt where I have heard about
the people that you know, either got their land bought
out or taken from them, and it's just like these
(47:40):
cedar thickets with houses in them, and it's just like, oh,
that used to be a field. And so it was
pretty crazy to do that, and to go up to
Willardvillne's old home place and seeing the foundation that they
tore down and that old cellar. It was just kind
of crazy because it was like usually whenever I go
to the Buffalo River, you know, like if you're going
(48:01):
like on like the trails and looking at the bluffs
and stuff like you're kind of a spectator of it.
But whenever we were actually there with like the locals
who have and you know now they lived like just
outside the park, right, it was it was like it
was just a different perspective on the Buffalo River because
it was just like people that actually live there and
(48:23):
have lived there and Willardville lines, you know, he lived
there until he was like I can't remember, but until
he was a you know, I think he was ten.
But it was just it was a unique perspective just
because they would that was like it would be like
coming back to this house that I've lived at my
whole life, but just seventy years later and everything's torn
(48:48):
down because they tore his house down, right, Like there
was just it was just an old rock foundation. There's
still a smokehouse and like a cellar, but it was
just kind of I would just have to imagine that
would be pretty crazy, like just to actually experience that.
But what else was crazy is like he took us
over to like the schoolhouse, and you know they told
(49:10):
us about how like this kid, thirteen year old kid
burned the schoolhouse down like two times and then they
built it down by the river and then the river
washed it away. But like you see like the foundations
of the old schoolhouse and we actually walked like he
took us on his route.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
To school every day.
Speaker 4 (49:28):
Oh really, And I mean he literally had to cross
the Buffalo River every single day to get to school
and then go up one of those big mountains, go
over it down on to the other side, and he'd
be at the school. But it was three miles, like
it was literally the three mile walk to school, and
if the river was high, they'd take horses or float.
Speaker 6 (49:48):
Or if he saw smoke, he turned around and go back. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (49:52):
Yeah, and he said he set it on fire because
he didn't want to go to school. Same but identify
with Yeah, and uh, it was kind of My dad
asked Willard if they ever like really recognized, like if
they ever really looked at the land as like for
(50:12):
that for its natural beauty, that we would all look
at it, you know, through that perspective of you know,
there's these big bluffs in it's this incredible place. And
I think he was talking particularly about the waterfall.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
What's the waterfall called on foot?
Speaker 4 (50:26):
Yeah, he said they used to he said him and
his dad would go ride mules up there, and they
always just thought it's just the waterfall.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
They never really thought much of it.
Speaker 4 (50:37):
They just viewed the land more as like a just
like a provider almost.
Speaker 3 (50:43):
Because they, you know, a resource.
Speaker 4 (50:44):
Yeah, And it was kind of interesting to see that
perspective because like, whenever I walk around just the places
around here, the woods that I mosey around in, I
never really look to it as like, I mean, I
do recognize that it is like an incredible place, and
(51:06):
it's like just really anytime you're in the woods, like
just something that's untouched is always pretty incredible. But it
kind of shifted my perspective a little bit on the
way that I would look at the places that I
use as my resource, you know, like the places that
I hunt. It's like if that was and it very
(51:29):
I mean, like it's really is like the plate the
ozarks are just an incredible place with big rocks and
trees and overlooks, and it's like, I don't know, it
was just kind of cool to see them the way
that they looked at that. And now he said his
dad never looked at it that way. His dad always
just looked at it as is the land we farm,
(51:51):
this is how we live. And he said once they
kind of started to you know, once they made it
a park, then he said that he you know, mister
Willard could kind of he started seeing it as this
beautiful place. But he's even still like you could tell
his perspective was way different than ours because he was
(52:11):
actually a part of it.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
He wasn't a spectator.
Speaker 6 (52:14):
And you're so familiar with it too. I mean, it's
something he looked at it every day.
Speaker 8 (52:18):
You see a bright shiny object once a month, you're like,
oh wow, yeah, that guess my intention.
Speaker 6 (52:24):
You look at it every day. It's just something you
walk by.
Speaker 5 (52:27):
Yep, you know, it's interesting. I wonder how much of
that is also a generational dynamic. I think I just
think about even your your parents. I think, God help us.
But I think about all the all the effort that's
gone into making sure you do appreciate.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
Oh yeah, the.
Speaker 5 (52:50):
Little I mean I get nighttime, when we'd get when
we'd come home from nine events, Clay would stop the
kids going in the house and just say, guys, look up.
Not everyone gets to see stars stars like this because
it there's not a lot of lights out here and
you can really see it, and I just think, I
wonder how much of that, Yeah, it is as a
result of what happened there and kind of being able
(53:11):
to see it through everyone else's eyes kind of creates
a shift. And how much of that is a generational shift,
even from Willard and his dad to the subsequent generation.
Speaker 8 (53:20):
When you're sitting on the front porch and looking down
the hill at the beautiful stream down there, you think, man,
that's pretty. But when you get down to the bottom
and you're toting two buckets of water back up, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 6 (53:30):
God, I wish we lived so yeah, exactly.
Speaker 8 (53:32):
So perspective is relevant, I guess to where you're standing
a lot of it.
Speaker 6 (53:37):
Man.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
How about Brooks b Loven's, man, he has a great
way of putting things in perspective. I was with play
when you did that, when you did that interview, and
it was kind of like a side note where he
talked about his grandparents being there. His grandparents lived in
the land that is now Norfolk Lake, and the story
of them toting off his great grandparents. I thought it
(54:00):
was funny. It's like I just picture them playing, but
I mean, it's it's really sad and and you know,
I think Clay mentions it in the podcast. It's like
it's like, you know, yeah, they they did take the land,
they did turn it into a park, but it could
(54:21):
be underwater, you know what I mean, and never geta falls.
Speaker 5 (54:25):
Exactly where there's just like merchants everywhere. And I mean
that was that's why they created the National Park System
is they didn't want to they didn't want it to
be commercialized, beautiful places like that to be commercialized, like
Niagara Falls was.
Speaker 8 (54:37):
Yeah, there's a place out and that we used to
go to and in uh Edistowe Island, South Carolina is
a place that we would vacation in the summertime and
that there's there's no city water there. If you the
potable water that you get to drink and cook with,
you have to go to the center of town and
they have a big well we used to call them
(55:00):
water buffalo is in the service. But it's a big
tank with different with spigots in it that you get
city water out of. And they won't put any kind
of commercial watering system there to keep that kind of
stuff from happening. There's like one grocery store. It's a
resort place. The people that beach houses and homes there
that they enjoy, but they keep it from there's no motels,
(55:21):
no condominiums, no stuff like that to keep down that
footprint so small that people are coming in they want
to come in and enjoy, yet not enjoy the motels
and hotels arcades and there's nothing like that, And so there's.
Speaker 3 (55:39):
A little bit of a you know, there always is
a trade off. There always is a trade off, you know.
I think I think, you know, we've got these lands
that are underwater now. Beaver Lake and Arkansas has has
four I think four big lakes, Bullshoals, Beaver Wash, Taw,
the Gray, the Gray, and uh, you know, that's all
(56:00):
land that will probably never see again. At the same time,
it's like I'm a trout fly fishing guide to make
part of my living. I make part of my living
under that damn you know.
Speaker 9 (56:11):
What I mean.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
It's like, yeah, I mean, there's always always a trade off,
and I think I think one of the biggest things
we can do is just recognize it and just recognize it.
I wanted to, uh, I wanted to read an email
I got from a listener really great. I think, well,
(56:32):
written email. He he is a road engineer and uh,
his name is Nash. I don't know where he's from.
I didn't say, but he said, uh, he said, hey, Clay,
loved the episode on the Buffalo River. I'm a roadway engineer.
(56:55):
In my field, we constantly have to consider the pros
and cons of the roadways and intersections that we design.
At times, we do have to look at the displacement
of businesses or family homes. We have to decide whether
one home or business is worth preserving over the efficiency
of travel through an area. This is not an easy
decision to come to, and it can be easy for
the outside. From the outside to look in and say,
(57:17):
why is this road so important? And as roadway engineers,
it's our job to explain it. Every project has its
own specifics. But take for instance, the interstate system we've
built in this country. Now, this project was way before
my time, as I'm only twenty four, but could you
imagine the time it would take to get good ship
across the country without the interstate system, and with this
time would also come huge price increases. It would be
(57:40):
easy to see how much more expensive going to the
grocery store would be for every American. The interstate system
undoubtedly displaced many Americans and cost billions of dollars in
tax payer money, but it's done so much good for
the American people personally. When designing a project, I always
look at the project from every angle and alternative I
can before deciding to displace a business or home. But
sometimes why the cost and benefits, the greater good ends
(58:02):
up being to displace. A few years ago, I worked
on a state project that split a large family property
directly in half. The poor lady that owned the land
was so upset with the project and gave the construction
workers and inspectors myself included a hard time when the
project was being constructed. The state attempted multiple times to
have conversations with her to design the project in a
way that would satisfy her, but she would refuse to
(58:23):
cooperate negotiations, and eventually the state would use eminent domain.
It was such a sad story, but the project was
has reduced the congestion in multiple nearby towns and has
shortened the time that the workman has to get home
to his family after long day of work. I love
the work that I do and hope to make the
best judgment, calls to help the best, to help the
communities as a whole. But it's always a difficult decision
(58:45):
to take away a home land or business places. I
just think, you know, it's a tough position to be in.
Speaker 6 (58:50):
You know, somebody's got to do the job.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Yeah, I'm glad it's not again, I'm glad it's not me.
Speaker 5 (58:56):
Real I thought the comments on the podcast really if
you look on Instagram when Clay posted, I just kind
of wanted to see if people would say things like that,
you know, that's a good I hadn't seen that email.
That's a good email, that's a good It's a different perspective.
What it seems like is that people are saying, overwhelmingly,
we were caught up in this this you know, this
(59:18):
happened to my grandparents, This happened to and and a
lot of people across the US have that story and
and so yeah, it's these are tough trade offs, and
I think it's it's meaningful to people to be able
to let their story be told unfettered by the context.
Speaker 3 (59:36):
I really I'm looking forward to this next next podcast
because I think it's going to be pretty pretty revealing
and and I have to say, like the way that
things were handled, I think in a large part we're
not good at best. And you know, I think there's
plenty of stories that even we didn't we weren't able
to capture where things weren't handled in the best way
(01:00:00):
and people were taking advantage of. So I'm excited to
hear what's coming next. Same any other thoughts, Brent.
Speaker 8 (01:00:12):
When Misty was making her last point there, I got
to think, I wonder how many people, if you're not
so connected to the land or not so familiar with it,
I wonder how many people would pass by and think, well,
that place has always been.
Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
There, right, Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 8 (01:00:31):
You know, you never give a thought to to the
people that were there beforehand. And we've talked about in
several episodes in history booking School about how the Native
Americans were treated. But how many of you know, until
I got old enough to really figure out, well that
that's only been there forty years, wasn't there somebody living there?
Speaker 6 (01:00:55):
You know, what happened to them?
Speaker 8 (01:00:56):
Or the story of the TVA, you know, the Tennessee
Valley Authority all the there was even a scene and
what is that old brother where Art they when they
flooded that. I mean, you know that that stuff really
happened to homes. And there's places on Hebrews uh at
gris Ferry Lake, you know, and and those big lakes
(01:01:16):
were good fishing spots. And you can see now through
sonar and stuff that you can get on the boat,
you can see that's a house down there.
Speaker 6 (01:01:25):
Somebody lived there, their kids played in that yard where
that where that structure is.
Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
Love to think about, you know, I think I think
we have a responsibility to tell this story so that
the mistakes of the past aren't repeated. You know. I
think that's one of the key things that that's that's
really important, because you know, you can just keep doing
the same thing over and over again. But you know,
we want to we want to make the right decisions.
Speaker 8 (01:01:51):
And so anyway, Yeah, I noticed one thing, no one
was interrupted telling the story.
Speaker 6 (01:02:03):
Especially interesting.
Speaker 8 (01:02:08):
Just saying I don't know the common denominated I don't
know if there is a common denominator there.
Speaker 6 (01:02:14):
But there was no interruptions today.
Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
I love it.
Speaker 6 (01:02:18):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
Maybe we'll just kick Clay off a podcast. Clay what Clyde.
Speaker 5 (01:02:27):
He's a good, good, good talker.
Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
Well, I want to thank you guys for being here.
Appreciate it. I felt like it's been a great podcast,
great great render. Clay should be back on the next
one in his goat hat will I.
Speaker 5 (01:02:42):
Hope he where's the goat hat? The entire next render?
I think he owses that for the false advertising.
Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
That's right, So it'll look good. We'll make him wear
the leafy suit and the hat and he can.
Speaker 5 (01:02:53):
We might not want him to wear the suit. Probably
still small closed.
Speaker 6 (01:02:57):
In opening wind.
Speaker 3 (01:03:00):
All right, well, thanks, thanks everybody for listening. We'll see
what what's the tagline, keep the wild places wild because
that's where the bears are, and it goes
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