April 20, 2025 • 41 mins
Paul Foshee's weathered hands tell the story of a life richly lived—from barbering, to precisely shaping stone as a mason, to the patient nurturing of pecan trees that now stand as his legacy. Paul represents a generation that built America through versatility and an unyielding work ethic, skills that seem increasingly rare in our technological world.
It's in his pecan operation, started in 1984, where Paul's deep wisdom truly shines. Through decades of trial and error, he transformed what others might have seen as worn out old fields into thriving orchards that eventually produced what processors called "the best crop in the nation" in terms of quality.
Join us for this first installment of a two-part conversation with a man whose coon hunting adventures, canoe expeditions, and lifetime of outdoor experiences remind us that true wealth comes from connection to land, family, and the satisfaction of creating something meaningful with your own two hands.
_______________________
What is the Natural Obsession Podcast all about?
Growing up, we all had those moments in nature that stuck with us—whether it was a quiet walk in the woods or a grand adventure. On Natural Obsession, it’s our desire to bring those moments to life. As we talk to people from all walks of life we will learn how they fell in love with the outdoors, the different ways they enjoy it today, and explore how we can work together to ensure these spaces are around for years to come. It’s all about sharing memories from the outdoors and ensuring future generations can make their own.
To find out more about Natural Obsession and hosts, Daniel Emison and TJ Virden, visit our website at https://www.natob.co/.
If you have questions about episodes or have guest recommendations please email us at info@natob.co.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Daniel (00:02):
Today's guest is someone who means a lot to our family,
not just because of who he is,but because of the life he's
lived and what he represents.
Paul Foshee is my wife'sgrandpa, and he's been a
stonemason, a barber, a canoeenthusiast, a pecan farmer and a
lifelong outdoorsman.
He spent his days working withhis hands and his nights chasing
coon dogs through the woods.
He's lived close to the land,and the stories he shares remind
(00:24):
us of a time when people trulydepended on nature and respected
it.
In this episode, we talk aboutlegacy, about what it means to
care for something over alifetime, and about how the
simple act of being present inthe outdoors can shape who we
are.
It's the kind of story thatreminds us we're all part of
something bigger, and thatlegacy starts with how we live
each day.
TJ (00:58):
Hi.
This is TJ Virden.
This is Daniel Emison.
And this is the NaturalObsession Podcast.
Paul (01:16):
Hey, come in when you get ready.
Daniel (01:21):
I was talking to TJ the other day.
He said you gave him his firsthaircut.
Yep.
I barbered at Morrilton forthree or four years.
Okay, I guess that was beforethe rock laying and all that.
Or is that after?
Paul (01:35):
Yeah, it was before any of that.
Daniel (01:36):
What got you into that part of it?
Paul (01:38):
I don't know.
I just ran into something Ithink might be a good idea, but
I didn't like it.
You're sitting there all day,sometimes doing nothing, and
then on Saturday you don't everget to sit down.
I cut hair for 12 hours a fewtimes and never sit down.
TJ (01:58):
When was the last time you cut hair?
Paul (02:00):
I don't know.
Daniel (02:01):
He trims Randy up occasionally right Still.
Randy (02:04):
You cut mine last year.
You hadn't cut it since you hadyour retina reattached.
You don't trust him.
You cut it just before that.
Daniel (02:13):
You'll also hear the voice of Randy throughout this
episode.
He's Paul's son and myfather-in-law, and he's been
deeply involved in the pecanoperation alongside Paul for
much of his life.
While he's not the main focusof the episode, his perspective
and memories add meaningfulcontext to the story we're
telling.
Paul (02:29):
Donnie wanted me to cut his hair and one time he let his
hair go way down the back ofhis head.
I mean way down.
I said, donnie, is therebarbers in Alaska?
He said yeah, but I was waitingon you.
I just cut it off.
I just took some scissors andcut the back of it all off.
(02:50):
Then I started cutting his hair.
TJ (02:53):
Well, we still got the video of you cutting mine.
Paul (02:54):
Yeah, danny's boy, John Dean.
My dad tried to cut his hairone time and he just stole the
fit.
Dad called me.
He said come help me, me, paul,I just can't.
He's got me worked up, I can'tcut his hair.
He just slobbered and kickingthat matter and I cut his hair a
(03:16):
few times.
He got a little bit bigger andhe's still doing it.
Every time he'd sit down he'dthrow a fit.
And one time I said I ain'tcutting your hair until you
start throwing a fit.
I'm just going to sit here andwait on it.
I want you to go start throwinga fit.
I ain't cutting it until youthrow a fit.
(03:38):
He said I ain't doing it.
I said I ain't cutting yourhair.
Then he said I ain't doing it.
So I said I ain't cutting yourhair.
Then he said I ain't doing it.
I cut his hair and he never didit again.
I talked him out of it.
TJ (03:49):
That's funny.
You went to school for that.
Paul (03:57):
Yeah
Randy (03:58):
who'd you go to school with?
Paul (04:01):
I can't think of hardly any of them.
Now there's probably 30 of us.
TJ (04:06):
Oh, really, was that in Morrilton?
Or where was that BarberCollege?
Paul (04:11):
Little Rock.
TJ (04:12):
Okay
Paul (04:13):
They had a college in North Little Rock and one in
Little Rock.
I went half of it and half ofit, both ways.
Yeah, I cut a lot of hair downthere.
TJ (04:24):
I bet.
Randy (04:25):
I remember being there.
I remember a Coke machine costa nickel for a Coke and it was
little six-ounce Cokes.
I used to love to go by thereand get one of those little
six-ounce Cokes when.
I was a kid
Paul (04:37):
I remember when there was a nickel and they went up to six
cents and everybody said Iain't buying them things anymore
.
That's too high.
Daniel (04:45):
Look at us now.
It was $1.25 for 12 ounce theother day.
Paul (04:48):
Well, they got up to a dime.
I ain't buying no more of them.
They got up to a quarter.
Now, I don't know how high theyare, I just don't care for them
.
TJ (05:01):
Although I'm not related to Paul Foshee, he's always been
one of my heroes.
Like we said, he was the firstperson to cut my hair, one of my
favorite storytellers, and hetaught me how to throw a cast
net on the Arkansas River.
The most important thing heshowed me, though, was how to
work hard.
Whether he was in his garden athome laying rocks for a
fireplace or working in thepecan fields, he's always given
(05:21):
it all to make sure he'sprovided for his family.
Frankly, I think that'ssomething we could use more of
these days.
Listen with us as Paul sharessome stories from his years as a
stonemason and tells us how hegot his start in the pecan
business.
Daniel (05:35):
How did you initially get into that?
Because I know you did masonrybefore.
That didn't you?
Paul (05:39):
A lot of it.
Me and Kenneth, my brother.
We've done so much of that.
It's pitiful.
We burned our candle at bothends doing that.
We went to Hot Springs andstayed over there for two or
three years and we worked forthe men and finally we decided
(06:09):
we might just come home andstart our own business, and it
wasn't long until we was in itup to our eyebrows.
Sometimes I'd sit down to eatlunch or dinner and you couldn't
get off the phone.
It was just one phone after theother.
We split up part of the time.
We had so much business I'd goone way and he'd go another.
TJ (06:32):
What year did y'all stop doing that?
Paul (06:34):
In 75 or 76 or somewhere down there.
Randy (06:39):
Yeah.
Daniel (06:40):
Any of those jobs really stand out, like you remember,
like that was your favorite jobyou did.
Paul (06:45):
I remember two or three of them.
That's really big.
We done one for a radiologistat Rustville on Skyline Drive
and that house didn't have asquare point in it, it was
always triangles.
We'd done it.
We'd done it two fireplaces andthey wasn't square and they was
(07:08):
30, I think 36 tall, 36 feettall.
Wow, Big fireplaces.
We had a scaffold going fromone side of the house all the
way across the other.
When we got to that fireplace Iwent backside of it and we had
an architect.
He just architect and his seatwent alone.
(07:31):
You know, he didn't have enoughforesight to do it all and he
walked out on that platform.
TJ (07:40):
We didn't have a rail around it.
Paul (07:41):
We just did it and we had a couple of guys working for us.
They were steadily bringing thestuff across the scaffold, but
we built it so we figured it'dhold up and it did.
Anyway, he walked out on it.
He walked out there and crawledback.
He said God, that's the dumbeststuff I've ever seen.
(08:06):
Get off of it.
I'm going to have the carpenterbuild these rails around that.
I said we're nearly done, justleave us alone for a while.
Daniel (08:15):
I kind of feel that, though, when we were working on
that building, tj had me up inthat whatever that thing was,
scissor, lift, scissor lift.
I'm not a fan.
He's like sway, scissor lift,scissor lift.
I'm not a fan.
He's like you know, swayingback and forth like that.
Can't jump off this thing, Toomany rails around me.
Paul (08:30):
We'd build scaffolds sometimes on top of some of that
stuff, and I was building afireplace in Hot Springs.
I remember this one.
It was a 12-12 pitch and I puttow boards around it.
I was just blowing and going.
I didn't have a shirt on, I wasjust ripping.
(08:52):
When you lose a little bit ofcement, it dries.
It's just like stepping on a barof salt almost, and I missed
one of those toe boards.
And when I fell I fell on aconcrete block and it peeled all
hide off my ribs and brokethree or four of them.
And I was falling off of thathouse going forward, missed that
(09:15):
board completely and the boythat was working with me, he ran
down there and pulled me back.
He said you better quit goingdown there Head purse, you're
going to get hurt.
This is a three-story house.
I was on and he pulled me back.
He said you better quit goingdown there head purse, you're
gonna get hurt.
This is a three story house Iwas on.
He pulled me back and I hadn'tbreathed yet and he was just
tearing the hide off of me,pulling backwards, you know and
(09:36):
I said well, I can't breathehardly.
He looked at block.
He said I don't know whythere's your meat hanging on
that block.
And so he he got me off of thatand me and kevin was running
two different jobs and somebodywent over and told him that I
had fell on that house and hethought if he fell off of it I'd
be dead.
You know which I probably wouldhave been?
(09:57):
yeah but, anyway, he drove mytruck over there.
He come meet me and took mehome that hurt like a dickens.
I broke two sets of ribs.
The guy that saved me that time.
I had a really good coon dogand me and Kenneth were staying
over at Hollis in a housetrailer behind a store and there
was a kid there.
(10:17):
That was about 16.
And I had my dog tied up there.
I said do you like to coon hunt?
He said I never have, but I'lltry it.
And I said do you like to comehunt?
He said I never have, but I'lltry it.
And I said we've got to figureout where to hunt.
So we go up a little creek, meta guy up there who was barefoot.
He was sitting on a porch,couldn't find out.
It was Sue Brown's uncle.
Anyway, I said I'm looking fora place to coon hunt.
You think I would hunt downthis branch here?
(10:39):
He said, well, yeah, I own that, I own the whole works down
through there.
He just comes up.
I said I'm going to put somethis to you.
So we hunted there for a whileand after a while we had about
half a dozen guys going with usand one of them was that boy
that helped save me.
His name was Horace Goodwin.
They called him Bubba, and thenI was going to step off of a
(11:01):
bank, about that tall, getcloser to the water.
I guess he saw it.
I didn't look for it.
He caught me by my shirt tailand he pushed me over and boy,
there's a cottonmouth there,that big, roundish, gray, big
sucker.
Oh.
I said no, don't do that, pullme back.
He said that's twice.
I've saved you, paul.
(11:22):
I want a raise, yeah, and ifyou don't give me a race, I
ain't saving you.
TJ (11:26):
Did you give him a raise?
Paul (11:28):
I did, probably smart.
I gave him a raise over thatone.
Me and Kenneth was in an oldhouse behind that store down
there.
That's where I was talkingabout taking my coon dog.
They wasn't grounded right.
Every once in a while they'djust knock you for a loop.
I went in there.
They didn't have a hot watertank.
(11:49):
I was going to take a coldshower.
I got in there, that sucker gotto frying me.
I thought I was going to diebefore I could get out.
I come running out of thereraring.
He said what's the matter withyou, paul?
I said that fall.
I said that sucker shot me todeath dearly, I'm not going back
in there.
(12:09):
I finally got me some clotheson.
I said I I tell you what I'mgonna do.
It was really good clear stream, not too far from there, but oh
, I don't know less than half amile.
I said I'm going down to thecreek, I'm going to take me some
shampoo and I'm going to godown there and clean up.
I might take me a bar of soap.
(12:30):
We'd be taking some clothes,leave them on the bank.
We'd just go down there andclean up.
Randy (12:35):
I bought a place in Little Rock and we moved down
there several years ago and he'sdown visiting me and we're
sitting out on the back decklooking across the backyard into
the next road over there and hesaid I laid the rock on that
house there.
So you know that's kind ofweird to just be sitting in the
backyard and you know, lookacross the street.
I laid the rock on that house.
(12:57):
I never knew where I'd been allmy life doing rock work.
TJ (13:03):
How did you get into doing the pecans in the first place?
Paul (13:06):
I don't know.
I walked down there one dayActually I squirrel hunted on it
just a few minutes down thereand I decided the hill might
grow a pine tree.
I thought that bottom wouldgrow a pecan tree.
Yeah, and the next year Istarted.
Randy (13:19):
I thought that bottom would grow a pecan tree.
Paul (13:20):
Yeah, and the next year I started.
I started that in 84.
TJ (13:25):
How many trees did you have down there?
Paul (13:26):
I did have 320.
I couldn't get a stand byplanting bare root.
They didn't have any trees thatwere really good.
The trees I got was fromTahlequah Oklahoma.
Randy (13:40):
Okay.
Paul (13:41):
And I didn't know it.
Then I found out later they wasfrom New Mexico.
That's too far from home.
It didn't have any roots tothem, hardly.
TJ (13:52):
And is that when you started with the graft trees?
Paul (13:56):
It took me a few years to learn how to do that.
I didn't need to know it thenokay, so you just.
I didn't.
It wasn't long until I had tolearn it yeah or, or else.
Yeah, I planted uh 500 trees ina five-gum bucket board holding
a bottle of soap and get towhat.
(14:17):
I've done that three times inthe next 1500.
That's where I learned how tograft.
Daniel (14:22):
That's expensive education right there.
Paul (14:25):
You know what Necessity will make you learn stuff.
I had them over in that garden.
I got a sprinkler so I didn'tturn it on, but there was a
bucket kind of in the middle ofthem that I didn't have a
country, it just died off ordidn't come up or something.
Anyway, there's some grass init across them and I was pulling
(14:47):
grass out of them.
I was reaching across thatbucket and I looked in a minute
and there was a cottonmouth.
I had that bucket plumb full ofcottonmouth.
He could have bit me in theface or on the arm or leg or
whatever.
I just all around it and I justhappened to notice him and I
had shotgun full of him.
(15:09):
You know what happened to thatbucket.
TJ (15:11):
Bucket and the snake yeah.
Paul (15:14):
I was having pretty good luck sometimes.
Sometimes I wouldn't have goodluck and I had a guy that was a
guru in in the con business.
I had him come up here and havea little talk about it and he
said something right off the batthat rung a bell with me.
(15:35):
He said you can't freeze yourgraftwood.
I thought, well, I don't knowif that would hurt.
It freezes in the wintertimesometimes.
But he said you can't do that.
That's when I was not having agood look, when I was freezing
my graftwood.
I had a rude awakening.
(15:56):
It changed everything.
Randy (15:57):
So me and him grafted some one year.
So I grafted them, he graftedthem and I was pretty proud I
had a 68% success rate on them.
He had a 98%.
I'll put his knowledge upagainst any of those guys in the
universities at this point,because I've heard them
(16:18):
contradict themselves.
You know they go to the showtwo years later.
They tell you somethingcompletely opposite.
Yeah, there's some basic factsout there.
You got to have water, you gotto have sunlight, you got to
have fertilize, and it can'tfreeze early.
Put those things together andthen you can have a good crop.
Paul (16:34):
We'll be about 100 miles south yeah.
TJ (16:37):
Yeah, but it's too late to pick up.
I was going to say it's toolate to pick up now.
Paul (16:42):
Where are we from?
We're not in the pecan beltright now.
TJ (16:47):
Well, it looks like to me you've done a good job of what
you had.
Paul (16:50):
Yeah.
Randy (16:53):
So when he was looking at his field down here, I can tell
you you know I was married, Iwas living off a little ways
from here, so but I was comingback and helping about every
weekend.
And I show up one weekend andhe hasn't even had a
conversation about this with meand drive into the field and
half of his trees are cut offshoulder high.
They're about 12 year old treesand they're shoulder high, cut
(17:17):
off, scared you to death and Iand I'm like I would whip
somebody's rear end.
You know this is just not right.
You know that's that's.
And he changed the variety thathe had over to a different
variety and that was thesmartest thing.
Back to what you're going tosay I've ever seen him do.
Now, looking back at it, theonly thing he did wrong is he
(17:38):
should have done the rest of thefield.
He should have left about 10%of the trees out there and made
all of them that, but he neededsome of them to be there.
Paul (17:47):
I learned a lot about grafting at that point, so I
thought I was good enough to doit, and I was.
I did it.
I tell you what I've done.
I wound up planting a nut inthe ground and when it got an
old-sizey thumb or something,then I grafted it.
That's where I got all of themdown there, most of them.
TJ (18:13):
Really?
Daniel (18:14):
what did you change them to?
Paul (18:15):
Pawnee,
Daniel (18:15):
pawnee
yeah, that's down in the fieldlower down.
Have you ever thinned them like you did to y'all's
field now?
Paul (18:22):
I've got a lot of them thinned yeah, thinned really too
much on one row.
It stayed wet too long, okay,and just killed them.
Daniel (18:32):
Did Pawnee produce better than the variety before?
What variety were they before?
Paul (18:37):
Mostly Mohawk.
Daniel (18:38):
Okay, yeah, the variety before.
What variety?
were they before?
Paul (18:40):
Mostly Mohawk.
Randy (18:40):
Okay, yeah, they come off two, three weeks earlier though
, don't they?
Paul (18:42):
Yeah
Daniel (18:43):
Keeping them out of the rain.
Is that kind of why you want todo?
Paul (18:45):
that so far we haven't missed one.
We haven't missed a crop yet.
Wow, if that ground gets wet,you just lost a crop.
We went down there one timewhen it was wet and everybody
from St Vincent come down andhelp me.
We spread tarps out, shook themHardest day of your life, you
know you just you stumble in andgo to bed.
(19:06):
It was hard days.
Daniel (19:10):
So much of what Paul built started with a dream and a
whole lot of grit.
Back then there was no internetor YouTube to show him how to
do it.
Everything he learned camethrough trial and error and
sometimes it took years to knowwhether he had gotten it right
or not.
He calls that first fieldbehind his house his university.
During that time, paul alsoplayed a big role in helping
other local farmers get startedin pecans.
From laying out orchards andirrigation systems to grafting
(19:32):
trees, he shared his hard-earnedknowledge with others who were
just beginning.
Nearly two decades ago, pauland his family bought land along
the Arkansas River and planted2,000 bare root trees, this time
backed by years of experienceand lessons learned After many
successful harvests.
19 years later, it was time tothin the new field.
We had drove past y'all's fielddown there.
(19:53):
We were waiting for y'all toget over here.
Would it be better to haveplanted them like 80-foot
spacing, with the initial justknowing you're 60.
Or 60,?
Paul (20:02):
and just kept them there, 60 would last longer.
Daniel (20:05):
We did 40-40, right, is that what it was?
Paul (20:07):
40 by 40.
Daniel (20:08):
Yeah, Then the input cost would be lower, like you
wouldn't have to cut them.
Paul (20:13):
Well, we made some good pecans a long time.
Yeah, yeah.
Daniel (20:16):
So do you think you got enough profit from those years
that you had them?
at 40-40 to make it.
Paul (20:22):
I think so Next year.
We've got to thin some moretrees, and it's a nightmare
trying to get them out of thefield.
Daniel (20:31):
That's why I asked you the question earlier.
Would it have been morebeneficial just to put them on
60-60 spacing and push?
that way back.
Paul (20:39):
No, I don't think so,
Daniel (20:40):
or you'd lost out on too much money.
Paul (20:41):
Yeah, you'd lost a lot of money doing that,
Daniel (20:43):
yeah.
Paul (20:44):
They grow together and they don't have any sunlight
left.
You know when all them limbstouching.
That's too much.
You gotta do something aboutthat.
Daniel (20:54):
Y'all did every other tree.
Sometimes Did y'all leave acertain variety and not cut any
of those it's,
uh, Kanza.
David said we're due to have abig kansas prop, but see, we got
it thinned out enough thatthey're getting a lot of
sunlight too, so it could bethat way.
I don't know.
Yeah, okay we'll find out.
(21:15):
I guess if this next freezedon't get us, it's going to
frost.
Yeah, why does that all thetime.
So had that happened several times the during pecans
when when they were little.
It almost killed them all.
Randy (21:29):
When we planted that down there on Easter the second year
we had them, it got down to 24degrees, 23.
23.
Paul (21:38):
Two nights.
Randy (21:43):
Two nights.
They looked like we turned oursprinklers on.
He thought that might help them, like they do the orange trees
and stuff like that.
So we tried it.
We turned it on and it lookedlike ice sculptures down there
where those sprinklers andsprayed up.
But where it froze around thetree it didn't.
It didn't kill the tree abovethe tree.
Sometimes it busts the barkopen and and it would kill the
tree we, but at the end of theyear I think we lost 110 trees.
(22:07):
So out of out of 2000
Paul (22:09):
I told you earlier about me growing some trees and five
gallon buckets.
I had enough left.
TJ (22:15):
We replaced them and you can't tell where I started and
stopped now, did you graft themor just pull them out and put
them back in pull?
Randy (22:21):
them out of the bucket.
He's been a part of planning ordesigning a whole bunch of
different pecan fields.
So when we were talking aboutspacing earlier we debated all
kinds of different spaces.
The first field he planted heplanted on a 35 by 35 spacing
and I've thinned it out prettyhard he's thinned it several
times at this point and we sawsome around that were set up on
(22:45):
50 by 50.
And we've seen some around thatprobably are 100 by 100.
Some of the research that wewere looking at he was showing
us well, maybe we need to dothem on 20 by 20.
And there was that debate willyou make enough money out of
them on 20 to 20 to justifyhaving to get rid of them?
He just finally said we'regoing to do 40 by 40.
(23:05):
So we all fell in line becausehe's kind of been around it
forever and followed suit andplanted them on the 40 by 40.
And it's worked pretty well.
I mean, we've 19 years at 40 by40 and we've had some pretty
good crops.
We've had a little bit here orthere that we think.
You know he might arguedifferently, but two years ago
(23:26):
produced the biggest crop we'dever produced across the whole
field.
It averaged over 1,500 poundsan acre, which is a pretty
substantial amount for us.
That same year we wholesalethose to a shell place in
Oklahomaoma and he told us thatwe had the best crop in the
nation, best quality he'd seenin the nation.
So it wasn't a quality issue.
(23:48):
But at some point, you get tothe point where you don't get
sunlight, you're not going tohave the quality.
I can tell you right now,though, while he's been happy
that we're thinning, I've beencrying.
So when you spend 19 yearstrying to make them grow, it's a
Take them to me today.
Paul (24:02):
I've been trying to get them to do it before.
Take them to me today.
It's the best thing we've everdone, right there.
TJ (24:07):
Well, from what Daniel and I have heard from other habitat
stuff, everybody that we talk tolately is like if you want
something to produce, you got tothin it, so it's probably the
right move.
Paul (24:21):
You know what Basil and his son have got I think
600-something acres up there.
They had a hedger come in thereand hedge theirs and he said
that's not this really good idea.
He said you just need to thinthem.
Daniel (24:34):
Is it just because of so much involved with hedging?
It cost a lot.
Paul (24:40):
Yeah, it cost an awful lot .
They don't tell you what itcost you to move one in.
You know yeah.
Randy (24:47):
They said it was $225 an hour.
TJ (24:51):
To hedge.
Paul (24:52):
To hedge.
Randy (24:53):
So you know, they said they were pretty fast.
I mean they'd probably take.
He told me on our size fieldit'd probably take a little over
a week.
So you can kind of get a I mean, I'm sorry, two weeks.
You get a little picture ofthat but they leave you with all
the debris to clean.
So you either have to invest insome really high dollar
(25:14):
equipment and realize that everyyear you're dealing with a
massive amount of limbs, or youyou thin your trees and uh, the.
The challenge I think with thethinned trees, as we look at it,
is the size that the tree getsto be.
At some point you've got tohave some really big equipment
to be able to shake the tree.
If you're keeping them kind ofconfined and hedged, then they
(25:36):
don't quite get as large, soit's a little easier for you to
spray them and all that sort ofthing.
Paul (25:44):
We had a really good crop.
I think it was maybe threeyears ago now, I don't know why
we had that crop, but it was aperfect crop.
Daniel (25:56):
Was that around the flood time?
Paul (25:59):
After that.
After that yeah, two or threeyears after that.
Daniel (26:02):
It brought a lot of sediment in from other places
and lots of nutrients On thebackside.
Paul (26:06):
We had a lot of sand over there.
We had moved a bunch of sand.
Daniel (26:09):
That side's always done really good, yeah, for some
reason, even if it's like groundmade ground it ain't um, it
ain't wore out.
Paul (26:18):
Yeah, like the rest of it.
Yeah, they've.
They've planted stuff so longand they never put anything in.
Daniel (26:24):
Yeah, I heard something we listened to the other day.
It said we only have in theunited states, I guess we only
have like 60 years worth of soilleft.
It's like so depleted becauseyou know all the monocrop and
all that kind of stuff.
That's very interesting to me.
How do you build it back upquick enough to not run out of
soil?
that's kind of crazy to thinkabout
Paul (26:43):
yeah, I had an ag teacher one time and he said we wore the
land out.
The land didn't wear us out, wewore the land out and a lot of
that old hill ground up there.
It just grows sage grass now.
Daniel (26:59):
Yeah, yeah, and that's kind of we've talked to some
people about.
You know you can sheet mulch,you can do all these things, but
I don't know how you do it onthat huge of a scale.
To get the ground back You'dhave to leave it alone for a
while.
Yeah.
TJ (27:12):
Cover crops.
Paul (27:15):
You could plant it in a legume and it'd put you some
nitrogen back in.
Yeah, in my garden spot I put alot of this stuff around here
that we had trash.
I put it on the garden
Daniel (27:29):
yeah,
Paul (27:29):
and I believe I've got that much topsoil made
TJ (27:33):
was that from shells and limbs, or what were you talking
Hullsyeah, and trash back over there.
That blows out the cleaner
and so you think you made two or three inches of topsoil
just by doing that that's
two or three inches
on it yeah, I listened to a guy who talks about he.
He calls it the buffalo system.
He'll crimp his tall grasses,lay them down and seed into it
(27:54):
before that, then crimp overthem and let his food plots or
whatever come up.
And he says that he thinks he'screated two or three inches of
topsoil by doing that instead oftealing and stuff.
Paul (28:05):
You can't just it's like baling hay.
You can't just bellow hey andeverything and not put back into
it yeah, after a while you'regonna.
You're just baling nothingnearly
TJ (28:14):
right.
As we talked to Paul aboutcaring for his family's trees,
he reinforced what we learnedfrom several other guests lately
thinning trees and improvingsoil health is not only
important to native plants andwildlife, but also to producing
quality pecans and other crops.
We also found out Paul was notthe first successful farmer in
his family.
Eighty years earlier, hisgrandpa had won the same
(28:34):
prestigious award Paul and hisfamily won in 2021.
Here's a bit from Paul aboutthat.
Randy (28:41):
What you looking for he's trying to show you that their
family was Farm Family of theYear and then, 80 years later,
we were Farm.
Family of the Year.
Paul (28:49):
Move that thing.
I didn't know that.
There it is, that's my grandpa.
TJ (28:53):
What did they farm?
Paul (28:56):
They planted everything.
That's the year we buried himout there, rosella, and that's
what he looked like when he wasold.
That's what that's telling you,80 years apart.
80 years apart, gotcha, that'sold.
That's what that's telling him
Daniel (29:08):
80 years apart
Paul (29:09):
80 years apart.
TJ (29:11):
Gotcha, that's cool.
Paul (29:13):
This says plant to prosper or whatever it is yeah,
Daniel (29:16):
plant to prosper.
But it's the same thing
Paul (29:19):
kind of changed it.
They just changed it to farmfamily.
TJ (29:22):
Wow.
That's a family treasure there.
Paul (29:25):
Yeah, they were going to give it to him the third year
and he said I don't want itanymore, give it to somebody
else.
TJ (29:31):
That's funny.
Paul (29:32):
It ain't fair for me to get that many.
TJ (29:36):
Now you just can't talk about Paul Foshee without
talking about coon hunting andgood dogs.
Grab your coffee, kick back andlisten as he tells us a few
stories about hunting in thegood old days and how he got
started.
Francis, was your dad's nameright?
Was he a hunter?
Paul (29:52):
He had been when he was young.
He's pretty old when I was born.
TJ (29:57):
Okay, he was a preacher too, wasn't he?
Paul (30:00):
Yeah They had hunted mink when they
were younger, and a big minkwould bring them $35 or $40
sometimes.
Well, and you're working for adollar a day, why not hunt mink?
Randy (30:17):
Yeah, working for a dollar a day.
Paul (30:20):
Yeah.
Randy (30:20):
If they treat a mink, papa used to say if they treat
one in a hole in a tree orwhatever, they'd cut the tree
down.
TJ (30:27):
Really
Randy (30:27):
They'd do whatever it took to get it out.
TJ (30:29):
What color is a mink?
Paul (30:31):
It's brown.
TJ (30:32):
Yeah, about that long, about that long, yeah, yeah, and
you've got a musky smell.
Paul (30:37):
If you ever smell a mink.
You'll never forget it.
TJ (30:40):
I think I've seen one on Game of Fish one time.
I didn't know what it was
Randy (30:44):
I've seen one on the camera at your place.
TJ (30:46):
Oh really, yeah, okay,
Randy (30:48):
I've seen one up there,
Paul (30:53):
me and Shorty treed one.
We went there used to be a lotof timber down through this
canal and his dog he had a blacktan that he'd trade anything,
he'd trade a mink and it was asnag of a thing.
Anyway, I got up and I couldsee him in there.
He was running around, boy, hewas just nervous.
(31:15):
I said Donny, I mean Shorty,better keep your dog handy,
cause he's pretty wild.
I said give me a stick and I'llget him out.
So I got us around there but hewouldn't come out.
Pretty wild.
I said give me a stick and I'llget him out.
So I gassed around there but hewouldn't come out.
He could see me too much, youknow.
(31:37):
And finally I thought he wentdown in a root.
I said I can't see him anymore.
It was on the road Goes throughthe bottom of the turn road.
He went back the next morningwith a chainsaw.
He took his dog, he cut it downand when he cut it down I had
(32:02):
killed that mink and he cut himhalf in two.
When he cut it down, he'd comein and he said here's your half
and this is my half.
TJ (32:10):
I bet that one didn't bring as much.
Paul (32:13):
He just throwed him away.
Daniel (32:16):
So you're talking about your coon hunting.
When did you start that?
Was that early on in your lifethat you started the coon
hunting?
Paul (32:25):
I started that pretty young.
I remember hunting with FessGunman and Uncle Raymond and I
had little boots on about thattall little rubber boots, and
they'd hit water and I'd ridetheir back but I figured after a
while I thought they'd justlike me to go coon hunting with
them.
(32:45):
They wanted me to climb a tree
I was tellingDaniel, I can remember when you
were probably in your 40s Iwatched you call climb a tree.
It was about that big aroundwith nothing but your hands and
feet.
Was that how you learned to dothat?
I, no me and don dixon, we , we buddied up, we took
climbing trees .
(33:06):
We had all the dogs jumping outand they running.
But we had some good times andbad.
The first time I went in and Iwent coon hunting I had a walker
dog and he had two blue ticksand there wasn't a good dog in
the bunch.
They was worthless bunch ofdogs but for some reason we
(33:31):
treated them.
I guess they must have seen it.
Got lucky, huh.
Anyway, we was over kind ofwhere Gay Embry lived, on the
past just a little piece, andthere was a ditch.
It was just about that wide andabout that deep and there was
no water in it, it was just drythem.
Dogs are going down that ditch,yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
(33:53):
yeah, yeah, yeah.
They wouldn't get a hold of him, they just want to bark at him.
That's how sorry that was and Irun way up that ditch.
I come back meeting him.
I just drawed back and kickedthe far out of him.
He kicked him right on and hehad a pair of rubber boots on
(34:17):
and he bit through that.
It didn't bite his foot, but hebit through that boot.
And then them dogs boy, theywas going to get him.
Then the dogs kicked him off ofme and he said how come you
done that?
How come you kicked it on me?
I said I didn't kick it on you,I just kicked it.
(34:37):
It landed on you.
Me and Don had to get us somedogs.
We couldn't tolerate that, butwe did wind up some really good
dogs.
Yeah so how many of thosetrophies or championships do you
(34:58):
think you won with those dogs?
Mine was qualified to hunt inthe state championship.
I hunted him two times in thatI think.
Which dog was it?
Three, I don't remember.
Which dog was that?
I don't remember.
TJ (35:10):
Which dog was that?
Domino and his dog, don, huntedhim one time and one of the
Harris boys won that hunt withDon and he said they're three
happy dogs, they're three of afence post.
And they said and he saidthey're tree-happy dogs, they
trip a fence post and they sitthere.
He said me and Don met welldown in South Arkansas for some
(35:36):
reason and he quit hunting, gotin with me and I said, don, if
you start hunting I'll hunt yourdog.
He said I don't want to huntand I don't want you to hunt my
dog, because it's all tree happy, you know, and every time they
tree they see it.
So Don said there ain't a dogout there that can trick.
(35:59):
Oh, I'm telling you.
And anyway the dog at one.
He said he couldn't trick him.
But me and Don had lots of goodhunts together after we got to
good dogs.
Randy (36:13):
Yeah.
TJ (36:14):
You like to hear the sound of a good dog,
mm-hmm.
Me and Don have been on somegood ones.
A few times we crossed the riverand go and hunt in Pawpaw Bend
and go and hunt and pop off in.
I was over there one time and Iclimbed a tree and I jumped one
(36:37):
dog out and it's just a bunchof brush around and they didn't
see it.
They were barking so hard theydidn't see what happened and I
said Don, don't you let thathappen again.
There's one more.
You spot a dog where you cancatch it.
And he did, but he still let itget away.
(37:00):
He caught it but he got awayfrom him running under a brush
pile, running under a brush pile.
This was on Billy Mitchell'splace.
Man, we worked and we workedand we worked.
We moved that brush pile, don'sdog getting a hold.
(37:20):
He wouldn't let my dog get in.
He got down in there.
You could hear that coongrowling at him.
Don said get in there, boy, getit out.
That's a pretty hard deal, youknow.
Yeah, don gets him down there.
The coon got him and he dug itout on his head.
(37:47):
We had a big round there and hefought that coon for a long time
and it was really hot and hisdog passed out.
The coon must have too.
They both laid down therebreathing hard and Doc's dog.
His eyes just rolled back andhe just fell over.
I said Doc, he stroked out,leave him alone, he's kicking
him.
He said get up, bud, don't gocooslanding, get up.
(38:07):
And finally he raised up andlooked around.
He said get up, bud, don't gocooing around here, get up.
Finally he raised up and lookedaround and looked wall-eyed
like he's lost or something.
Then he figured out what heneeded to do and he jumped over
and fought that coon for a while.
I guess that coon finally had aheart attack.
He just couldn't go, no more.
Don couldn't kill one if he hada toe sack.
(38:27):
Anyway, finally got him andboth of us just I said, don,
I'll get back to the river, I'mgoing to take a drink out of
that river, I'm going to start adisperse drink.
He said I will too.
We walked along there a fewminutes.
There's a watermelon patch,there's Wade, 30-something
(38:49):
pounds Big pile of them.
I said Don, look here, look here, we done died.
And went to Elvis.
He said oh boy, so I busted one.
He busted one.
We was eating hard out of them.
I imagine Billy Mitchell didn'tlike us at all, but we never
talked to anybody.
Anyway, we ate much of thatwatermelon and hard out of them.
I imagine Billy Mitchell didn'tlike us at all.
(39:09):
We never talked to anybody.
Anyway, we ate a bunch of thatwatermelon and Don's dog come
over there and we had him a halfof one and he ate it.
He ate watermelon.
He starved to death.
We get back over to the river.
Don picks him up a little rock.
He said look there at that rock.
(39:29):
Don picks him up a little rock.
He said look there at that rock.
That's just a pretty littlerock.
He comes to find out he canpick it up.
It wasn't very big but youcould pick it up and see through
it.
I don't know.
It's some kind of gravel.
It's on a sandbar.
That was a long time beforethey stabilized the river, made
(39:51):
the pools out of it.
Daniel (39:52):
Yeah.
Paul (39:54):
He still got that rock.
TJ (39:55):
Really,
Randy (39:57):
he showed it to me last year.
TJ (39:58):
Really.
Yeah, that's funny.
How many years ago was that?
Paul (40:04):
I don't know, we was pretty young.
TJ (40:05):
Yeah 50 probably Wow, that's cool.
Paul (40:10):
He said we done turned in a couple of we his are sissies.
TJ (40:18):
I hear that happens to the best of us.
Paul (40:20):
It happened to me and Don.
I said could you go toHattieville now Don?
He said I couldn't walk out theback door.
Daniel (40:32):
Well, that's it for the first part of this two-part
episode.
If you want to hear the rest ofPaul's stories about hunting,
fishing, canoeing and more,you'll have to come back next
week.
Here's a preview of what's tocome next time.
TJ (40:44):
Now you guys are going every night at one point in time,
weren't you?
Paul (40:47):
Oh four or five.
Daniel (40:50):
How did Carolin deal with that?
Paul (40:53):
I don't know
Daniel (40:54):
you were cooing.
Paul (40:57):
I never talked to her about that.
Maybe if I had talked to herabout it she wouldnt have liked
it.
Daniel (41:02):
Yeah.
Hey, if this episode made youthink of someone, would you
share it with them real quick?
That's one of the best ways tohelp the show grow.
TJ (41:11):
Well, folks, that wraps up another episode of the Natural
Obsession Podcast.
As always, we'd like to thankyou for listening.
If you'd like to hear moreepisodes, get in contact with us
or learn more about Daniel andI and why we do this, visit our
website at natobco.
That's N-A-T-O-B dot C-O.
Today's guest is someone who means a lot to our family,
not just because of who he is,but because of the life he's
lived and what he represents.
Paul Foshee is my wife'sgrandpa, and he's been a
stonemason, a barber, a canoeenthusiast, a pecan farmer and a
lifelong outdoorsman.
He spent his days working withhis hands and his nights chasing
coon dogs through the woods.
He's lived close to the land,and the stories he shares remind
(00:24):
us of a time when people trulydepended on nature and respected
it.
In this episode, we talk aboutlegacy, about what it means to
care for something over alifetime, and about how the
simple act of being present inthe outdoors can shape who we
are.
It's the kind of story thatreminds us we're all part of
something bigger, and thatlegacy starts with how we live
each day.
TJ (00:58):
Hi.
This is TJ Virden.
This is Daniel Emison.
And this is the NaturalObsession Podcast.
Paul (01:16):
Hey, come in when you get ready.
Daniel (01:21):
I was talking to TJ the other day.
He said you gave him his firsthaircut.
Yep.
I barbered at Morrilton forthree or four years.
Okay, I guess that was beforethe rock laying and all that.
Or is that after?
Paul (01:35):
Yeah, it was before any of that.
Daniel (01:36):
What got you into that part of it?
Paul (01:38):
I don't know.
I just ran into something Ithink might be a good idea, but
I didn't like it.
You're sitting there all day,sometimes doing nothing, and
then on Saturday you don't everget to sit down.
I cut hair for 12 hours a fewtimes and never sit down.
TJ (01:58):
When was the last time you cut hair?
Paul (02:00):
I don't know.
Daniel (02:01):
He trims Randy up occasionally right Still.
Randy (02:04):
You cut mine last year.
You hadn't cut it since you hadyour retina reattached.
You don't trust him.
You cut it just before that.
Daniel (02:13):
You'll also hear the voice of Randy throughout this
episode.
He's Paul's son and myfather-in-law, and he's been
deeply involved in the pecanoperation alongside Paul for
much of his life.
While he's not the main focusof the episode, his perspective
and memories add meaningfulcontext to the story we're
telling.
Paul (02:29):
Donnie wanted me to cut his hair and one time he let his
hair go way down the back ofhis head.
I mean way down.
I said, donnie, is therebarbers in Alaska?
He said yeah, but I was waitingon you.
I just cut it off.
I just took some scissors andcut the back of it all off.
(02:50):
Then I started cutting his hair.
TJ (02:53):
Well, we still got the video of you cutting mine.
Paul (02:54):
Yeah, danny's boy, John Dean.
My dad tried to cut his hairone time and he just stole the
fit.
Dad called me.
He said come help me, me, paul,I just can't.
He's got me worked up, I can'tcut his hair.
He just slobbered and kickingthat matter and I cut his hair a
(03:16):
few times.
He got a little bit bigger andhe's still doing it.
Every time he'd sit down he'dthrow a fit.
And one time I said I ain'tcutting your hair until you
start throwing a fit.
I'm just going to sit here andwait on it.
I want you to go start throwinga fit.
I ain't cutting it until youthrow a fit.
(03:38):
He said I ain't doing it.
I said I ain't cutting yourhair.
Then he said I ain't doing it.
So I said I ain't cutting yourhair.
Then he said I ain't doing it.
I cut his hair and he never didit again.
I talked him out of it.
TJ (03:49):
That's funny.
You went to school for that.
Paul (03:57):
Yeah
Randy (03:58):
who'd you go to school with?
Paul (04:01):
I can't think of hardly any of them.
Now there's probably 30 of us.
TJ (04:06):
Oh, really, was that in Morrilton?
Or where was that BarberCollege?
Paul (04:11):
Little Rock.
TJ (04:12):
Okay
Paul (04:13):
They had a college in North Little Rock and one in
Little Rock.
I went half of it and half ofit, both ways.
Yeah, I cut a lot of hair downthere.
TJ (04:24):
I bet.
Randy (04:25):
I remember being there.
I remember a Coke machine costa nickel for a Coke and it was
little six-ounce Cokes.
I used to love to go by thereand get one of those little
six-ounce Cokes when.
I was a kid
Paul (04:37):
I remember when there was a nickel and they went up to six
cents and everybody said Iain't buying them things anymore
.
That's too high.
Daniel (04:45):
Look at us now.
It was $1.25 for 12 ounce theother day.
Paul (04:48):
Well, they got up to a dime.
I ain't buying no more of them.
They got up to a quarter.
Now, I don't know how high theyare, I just don't care for them
.
TJ (05:01):
Although I'm not related to Paul Foshee, he's always been
one of my heroes.
Like we said, he was the firstperson to cut my hair, one of my
favorite storytellers, and hetaught me how to throw a cast
net on the Arkansas River.
The most important thing heshowed me, though, was how to
work hard.
Whether he was in his garden athome laying rocks for a
fireplace or working in thepecan fields, he's always given
(05:21):
it all to make sure he'sprovided for his family.
Frankly, I think that'ssomething we could use more of
these days.
Listen with us as Paul sharessome stories from his years as a
stonemason and tells us how hegot his start in the pecan
business.
Daniel (05:35):
How did you initially get into that?
Because I know you did masonrybefore.
That didn't you?
Paul (05:39):
A lot of it.
Me and Kenneth, my brother.
We've done so much of that.
It's pitiful.
We burned our candle at bothends doing that.
We went to Hot Springs andstayed over there for two or
three years and we worked forthe men and finally we decided
(06:09):
we might just come home andstart our own business, and it
wasn't long until we was in itup to our eyebrows.
Sometimes I'd sit down to eatlunch or dinner and you couldn't
get off the phone.
It was just one phone after theother.
We split up part of the time.
We had so much business I'd goone way and he'd go another.
TJ (06:32):
What year did y'all stop doing that?
Paul (06:34):
In 75 or 76 or somewhere down there.
Randy (06:39):
Yeah.
Daniel (06:40):
Any of those jobs really stand out, like you remember,
like that was your favorite jobyou did.
Paul (06:45):
I remember two or three of them.
That's really big.
We done one for a radiologistat Rustville on Skyline Drive
and that house didn't have asquare point in it, it was
always triangles.
We'd done it.
We'd done it two fireplaces andthey wasn't square and they was
(07:08):
30, I think 36 tall, 36 feettall.
Wow, Big fireplaces.
We had a scaffold going fromone side of the house all the
way across the other.
When we got to that fireplace Iwent backside of it and we had
an architect.
He just architect and his seatwent alone.
(07:31):
You know, he didn't have enoughforesight to do it all and he
walked out on that platform.
TJ (07:40):
We didn't have a rail around it.
Paul (07:41):
We just did it and we had a couple of guys working for us.
They were steadily bringing thestuff across the scaffold, but
we built it so we figured it'dhold up and it did.
Anyway, he walked out on it.
He walked out there and crawledback.
He said God, that's the dumbeststuff I've ever seen.
(08:06):
Get off of it.
I'm going to have the carpenterbuild these rails around that.
I said we're nearly done, justleave us alone for a while.
Daniel (08:15):
I kind of feel that, though, when we were working on
that building, tj had me up inthat whatever that thing was,
scissor, lift, scissor lift.
I'm not a fan.
He's like sway, scissor lift,scissor lift.
I'm not a fan.
He's like you know, swayingback and forth like that.
Can't jump off this thing, Toomany rails around me.
Paul (08:30):
We'd build scaffolds sometimes on top of some of that
stuff, and I was building afireplace in Hot Springs.
I remember this one.
It was a 12-12 pitch and I puttow boards around it.
I was just blowing and going.
I didn't have a shirt on, I wasjust ripping.
(08:52):
When you lose a little bit ofcement, it dries.
It's just like stepping on a barof salt almost, and I missed
one of those toe boards.
And when I fell I fell on aconcrete block and it peeled all
hide off my ribs and brokethree or four of them.
And I was falling off of thathouse going forward, missed that
(09:15):
board completely and the boythat was working with me, he ran
down there and pulled me back.
He said you better quit goingdown there Head purse, you're
going to get hurt.
This is a three-story house.
I was on and he pulled me back.
He said you better quit goingdown there head purse, you're
gonna get hurt.
This is a three story house Iwas on.
He pulled me back and I hadn'tbreathed yet and he was just
tearing the hide off of me,pulling backwards, you know and
(09:36):
I said well, I can't breathehardly.
He looked at block.
He said I don't know whythere's your meat hanging on
that block.
And so he he got me off of thatand me and kevin was running
two different jobs and somebodywent over and told him that I
had fell on that house and hethought if he fell off of it I'd
be dead.
You know which I probably wouldhave been?
(09:57):
yeah but, anyway, he drove mytruck over there.
He come meet me and took mehome that hurt like a dickens.
I broke two sets of ribs.
The guy that saved me that time.
I had a really good coon dogand me and Kenneth were staying
over at Hollis in a housetrailer behind a store and there
was a kid there.
(10:17):
That was about 16.
And I had my dog tied up there.
I said do you like to coon hunt?
He said I never have, but I'lltry it.
And I said do you like to comehunt?
He said I never have, but I'lltry it.
And I said we've got to figureout where to hunt.
So we go up a little creek, meta guy up there who was barefoot.
He was sitting on a porch,couldn't find out.
It was Sue Brown's uncle.
Anyway, I said I'm looking fora place to coon hunt.
You think I would hunt downthis branch here?
(10:39):
He said, well, yeah, I own that, I own the whole works down
through there.
He just comes up.
I said I'm going to put somethis to you.
So we hunted there for a whileand after a while we had about
half a dozen guys going with usand one of them was that boy
that helped save me.
His name was Horace Goodwin.
They called him Bubba, and thenI was going to step off of a
(11:01):
bank, about that tall, getcloser to the water.
I guess he saw it.
I didn't look for it.
He caught me by my shirt tailand he pushed me over and boy,
there's a cottonmouth there,that big, roundish, gray, big
sucker.
Oh.
I said no, don't do that, pullme back.
He said that's twice.
I've saved you, paul.
(11:22):
I want a raise, yeah, and ifyou don't give me a race, I
ain't saving you.
TJ (11:26):
Did you give him a raise?
Paul (11:28):
I did, probably smart.
I gave him a raise over thatone.
Me and Kenneth was in an oldhouse behind that store down
there.
That's where I was talkingabout taking my coon dog.
They wasn't grounded right.
Every once in a while they'djust knock you for a loop.
I went in there.
They didn't have a hot watertank.
(11:49):
I was going to take a coldshower.
I got in there, that sucker gotto frying me.
I thought I was going to diebefore I could get out.
I come running out of thereraring.
He said what's the matter withyou, paul?
I said that fall.
I said that sucker shot me todeath dearly, I'm not going back
in there.
(12:09):
I finally got me some clotheson.
I said I I tell you what I'mgonna do.
It was really good clear stream, not too far from there, but oh
, I don't know less than half amile.
I said I'm going down to thecreek, I'm going to take me some
shampoo and I'm going to godown there and clean up.
I might take me a bar of soap.
(12:30):
We'd be taking some clothes,leave them on the bank.
We'd just go down there andclean up.
Randy (12:35):
I bought a place in Little Rock and we moved down
there several years ago and he'sdown visiting me and we're
sitting out on the back decklooking across the backyard into
the next road over there and hesaid I laid the rock on that
house there.
So you know that's kind ofweird to just be sitting in the
backyard and you know, lookacross the street.
I laid the rock on that house.
(12:57):
I never knew where I'd been allmy life doing rock work.
TJ (13:03):
How did you get into doing the pecans in the first place?
Paul (13:06):
I don't know.
I walked down there one dayActually I squirrel hunted on it
just a few minutes down thereand I decided the hill might
grow a pine tree.
I thought that bottom wouldgrow a pecan tree.
Yeah, and the next year Istarted.
Randy (13:19):
I thought that bottom would grow a pecan tree.
Paul (13:20):
Yeah, and the next year I started.
I started that in 84.
TJ (13:25):
How many trees did you have down there?
Paul (13:26):
I did have 320.
I couldn't get a stand byplanting bare root.
They didn't have any trees thatwere really good.
The trees I got was fromTahlequah Oklahoma.
Randy (13:40):
Okay.
Paul (13:41):
And I didn't know it.
Then I found out later they wasfrom New Mexico.
That's too far from home.
It didn't have any roots tothem, hardly.
TJ (13:52):
And is that when you started with the graft trees?
Paul (13:56):
It took me a few years to learn how to do that.
I didn't need to know it thenokay, so you just.
I didn't.
It wasn't long until I had tolearn it yeah or, or else.
Yeah, I planted uh 500 trees ina five-gum bucket board holding
a bottle of soap and get towhat.
(14:17):
I've done that three times inthe next 1500.
That's where I learned how tograft.
Daniel (14:22):
That's expensive education right there.
Paul (14:25):
You know what Necessity will make you learn stuff.
I had them over in that garden.
I got a sprinkler so I didn'tturn it on, but there was a
bucket kind of in the middle ofthem that I didn't have a
country, it just died off ordidn't come up or something.
Anyway, there's some grass init across them and I was pulling
(14:47):
grass out of them.
I was reaching across thatbucket and I looked in a minute
and there was a cottonmouth.
I had that bucket plumb full ofcottonmouth.
He could have bit me in theface or on the arm or leg or
whatever.
I just all around it and I justhappened to notice him and I
had shotgun full of him.
(15:09):
You know what happened to thatbucket.
TJ (15:11):
Bucket and the snake yeah.
Paul (15:14):
I was having pretty good luck sometimes.
Sometimes I wouldn't have goodluck and I had a guy that was a
guru in in the con business.
I had him come up here and havea little talk about it and he
said something right off the batthat rung a bell with me.
(15:35):
He said you can't freeze yourgraftwood.
I thought, well, I don't knowif that would hurt.
It freezes in the wintertimesometimes.
But he said you can't do that.
That's when I was not having agood look, when I was freezing
my graftwood.
I had a rude awakening.
(15:56):
It changed everything.
Randy (15:57):
So me and him grafted some one year.
So I grafted them, he graftedthem and I was pretty proud I
had a 68% success rate on them.
He had a 98%.
I'll put his knowledge upagainst any of those guys in the
universities at this point,because I've heard them
(16:18):
contradict themselves.
You know they go to the showtwo years later.
They tell you somethingcompletely opposite.
Yeah, there's some basic factsout there.
You got to have water, you gotto have sunlight, you got to
have fertilize, and it can'tfreeze early.
Put those things together andthen you can have a good crop.
Paul (16:34):
We'll be about 100 miles south yeah.
TJ (16:37):
Yeah, but it's too late to pick up.
I was going to say it's toolate to pick up now.
Paul (16:42):
Where are we from?
We're not in the pecan beltright now.
TJ (16:47):
Well, it looks like to me you've done a good job of what
you had.
Paul (16:50):
Yeah.
Randy (16:53):
So when he was looking at his field down here, I can tell
you you know I was married, Iwas living off a little ways
from here, so but I was comingback and helping about every
weekend.
And I show up one weekend andhe hasn't even had a
conversation about this with meand drive into the field and
half of his trees are cut offshoulder high.
They're about 12 year old treesand they're shoulder high, cut
(17:17):
off, scared you to death and Iand I'm like I would whip
somebody's rear end.
You know this is just not right.
You know that's that's.
And he changed the variety thathe had over to a different
variety and that was thesmartest thing.
Back to what you're going tosay I've ever seen him do.
Now, looking back at it, theonly thing he did wrong is he
(17:38):
should have done the rest of thefield.
He should have left about 10%of the trees out there and made
all of them that, but he neededsome of them to be there.
Paul (17:47):
I learned a lot about grafting at that point, so I
thought I was good enough to doit, and I was.
I did it.
I tell you what I've done.
I wound up planting a nut inthe ground and when it got an
old-sizey thumb or something,then I grafted it.
That's where I got all of themdown there, most of them.
TJ (18:13):
Really?
Daniel (18:14):
what did you change them to?
Paul (18:15):
Pawnee,
Daniel (18:15):
pawnee
yeah, that's down in the fieldlower down.
Have you ever thinned them like you did to y'all's
field now?
Paul (18:22):
I've got a lot of them thinned yeah, thinned really too
much on one row.
It stayed wet too long, okay,and just killed them.
Daniel (18:32):
Did Pawnee produce better than the variety before?
What variety were they before?
Paul (18:37):
Mostly Mohawk.
Daniel (18:38):
Okay, yeah, the variety before.
What variety?
were they before?
Paul (18:40):
Mostly Mohawk.
Randy (18:40):
Okay, yeah, they come off two, three weeks earlier though
, don't they?
Paul (18:42):
Yeah
Daniel (18:43):
Keeping them out of the rain.
Is that kind of why you want todo?
Paul (18:45):
that so far we haven't missed one.
We haven't missed a crop yet.
Wow, if that ground gets wet,you just lost a crop.
We went down there one timewhen it was wet and everybody
from St Vincent come down andhelp me.
We spread tarps out, shook themHardest day of your life, you
know you just you stumble in andgo to bed.
(19:06):
It was hard days.
Daniel (19:10):
So much of what Paul built started with a dream and a
whole lot of grit.
Back then there was no internetor YouTube to show him how to
do it.
Everything he learned camethrough trial and error and
sometimes it took years to knowwhether he had gotten it right
or not.
He calls that first fieldbehind his house his university.
During that time, paul alsoplayed a big role in helping
other local farmers get startedin pecans.
From laying out orchards andirrigation systems to grafting
(19:32):
trees, he shared his hard-earnedknowledge with others who were
just beginning.
Nearly two decades ago, pauland his family bought land along
the Arkansas River and planted2,000 bare root trees, this time
backed by years of experienceand lessons learned After many
successful harvests.
19 years later, it was time tothin the new field.
We had drove past y'all's fielddown there.
(19:53):
We were waiting for y'all toget over here.
Would it be better to haveplanted them like 80-foot
spacing, with the initial justknowing you're 60.
Or 60,?
Paul (20:02):
and just kept them there, 60 would last longer.
Daniel (20:05):
We did 40-40, right, is that what it was?
Paul (20:07):
40 by 40.
Daniel (20:08):
Yeah, Then the input cost would be lower, like you
wouldn't have to cut them.
Paul (20:13):
Well, we made some good pecans a long time.
Yeah, yeah.
Daniel (20:16):
So do you think you got enough profit from those years
that you had them?
at 40-40 to make it.
Paul (20:22):
I think so Next year.
We've got to thin some moretrees, and it's a nightmare
trying to get them out of thefield.
Daniel (20:31):
That's why I asked you the question earlier.
Would it have been morebeneficial just to put them on
60-60 spacing and push?
that way back.
Paul (20:39):
No, I don't think so,
Daniel (20:40):
or you'd lost out on too much money.
Paul (20:41):
Yeah, you'd lost a lot of money doing that,
Daniel (20:43):
yeah.
Paul (20:44):
They grow together and they don't have any sunlight
left.
You know when all them limbstouching.
That's too much.
You gotta do something aboutthat.
Daniel (20:54):
Y'all did every other tree.
Sometimes Did y'all leave acertain variety and not cut any
of those it's,
uh, Kanza.
David said we're due to have abig kansas prop, but see, we got
it thinned out enough thatthey're getting a lot of
sunlight too, so it could bethat way.
I don't know.
Yeah, okay we'll find out.
(21:15):
I guess if this next freezedon't get us, it's going to
frost.
Yeah, why does that all thetime.
So had that happened several times the during pecans
when when they were little.
It almost killed them all.
Randy (21:29):
When we planted that down there on Easter the second year
we had them, it got down to 24degrees, 23.
23.
Paul (21:38):
Two nights.
Randy (21:43):
Two nights.
They looked like we turned oursprinklers on.
He thought that might help them, like they do the orange trees
and stuff like that.
So we tried it.
We turned it on and it lookedlike ice sculptures down there
where those sprinklers andsprayed up.
But where it froze around thetree it didn't.
It didn't kill the tree abovethe tree.
Sometimes it busts the barkopen and and it would kill the
tree we, but at the end of theyear I think we lost 110 trees.
(22:07):
So out of out of 2000
Paul (22:09):
I told you earlier about me growing some trees and five
gallon buckets.
I had enough left.
TJ (22:15):
We replaced them and you can't tell where I started and
stopped now, did you graft themor just pull them out and put
them back in pull?
Randy (22:21):
them out of the bucket.
He's been a part of planning ordesigning a whole bunch of
different pecan fields.
So when we were talking aboutspacing earlier we debated all
kinds of different spaces.
The first field he planted heplanted on a 35 by 35 spacing
and I've thinned it out prettyhard he's thinned it several
times at this point and we sawsome around that were set up on
(22:45):
50 by 50.
And we've seen some around thatprobably are 100 by 100.
Some of the research that wewere looking at he was showing
us well, maybe we need to dothem on 20 by 20.
And there was that debate willyou make enough money out of
them on 20 to 20 to justifyhaving to get rid of them?
He just finally said we'regoing to do 40 by 40.
(23:05):
So we all fell in line becausehe's kind of been around it
forever and followed suit andplanted them on the 40 by 40.
And it's worked pretty well.
I mean, we've 19 years at 40 by40 and we've had some pretty
good crops.
We've had a little bit here orthere that we think.
You know he might arguedifferently, but two years ago
(23:26):
produced the biggest crop we'dever produced across the whole
field.
It averaged over 1,500 poundsan acre, which is a pretty
substantial amount for us.
That same year we wholesalethose to a shell place in
Oklahomaoma and he told us thatwe had the best crop in the
nation, best quality he'd seenin the nation.
So it wasn't a quality issue.
(23:48):
But at some point, you get tothe point where you don't get
sunlight, you're not going tohave the quality.
I can tell you right now,though, while he's been happy
that we're thinning, I've beencrying.
So when you spend 19 yearstrying to make them grow, it's a
Take them to me today.
Paul (24:02):
I've been trying to get them to do it before.
Take them to me today.
It's the best thing we've everdone, right there.
TJ (24:07):
Well, from what Daniel and I have heard from other habitat
stuff, everybody that we talk tolately is like if you want
something to produce, you got tothin it, so it's probably the
right move.
Paul (24:21):
You know what Basil and his son have got I think
600-something acres up there.
They had a hedger come in thereand hedge theirs and he said
that's not this really good idea.
He said you just need to thinthem.
Daniel (24:34):
Is it just because of so much involved with hedging?
It cost a lot.
Paul (24:40):
Yeah, it cost an awful lot .
They don't tell you what itcost you to move one in.
You know yeah.
Randy (24:47):
They said it was $225 an hour.
TJ (24:51):
To hedge.
Paul (24:52):
To hedge.
Randy (24:53):
So you know, they said they were pretty fast.
I mean they'd probably take.
He told me on our size fieldit'd probably take a little over
a week.
So you can kind of get a I mean, I'm sorry, two weeks.
You get a little picture ofthat but they leave you with all
the debris to clean.
So you either have to invest insome really high dollar
(25:14):
equipment and realize that everyyear you're dealing with a
massive amount of limbs, or youyou thin your trees and uh, the.
The challenge I think with thethinned trees, as we look at it,
is the size that the tree getsto be.
At some point you've got tohave some really big equipment
to be able to shake the tree.
If you're keeping them kind ofconfined and hedged, then they
(25:36):
don't quite get as large, soit's a little easier for you to
spray them and all that sort ofthing.
Paul (25:44):
We had a really good crop.
I think it was maybe threeyears ago now, I don't know why
we had that crop, but it was aperfect crop.
Daniel (25:56):
Was that around the flood time?
Paul (25:59):
After that.
After that yeah, two or threeyears after that.
Daniel (26:02):
It brought a lot of sediment in from other places
and lots of nutrients On thebackside.
Paul (26:06):
We had a lot of sand over there.
We had moved a bunch of sand.
Daniel (26:09):
That side's always done really good, yeah, for some
reason, even if it's like groundmade ground it ain't um, it
ain't wore out.
Paul (26:18):
Yeah, like the rest of it.
Yeah, they've.
They've planted stuff so longand they never put anything in.
Daniel (26:24):
Yeah, I heard something we listened to the other day.
It said we only have in theunited states, I guess we only
have like 60 years worth of soilleft.
It's like so depleted becauseyou know all the monocrop and
all that kind of stuff.
That's very interesting to me.
How do you build it back upquick enough to not run out of
soil?
that's kind of crazy to thinkabout
Paul (26:43):
yeah, I had an ag teacher one time and he said we wore the
land out.
The land didn't wear us out, wewore the land out and a lot of
that old hill ground up there.
It just grows sage grass now.
Daniel (26:59):
Yeah, yeah, and that's kind of we've talked to some
people about.
You know you can sheet mulch,you can do all these things, but
I don't know how you do it onthat huge of a scale.
To get the ground back You'dhave to leave it alone for a
while.
Yeah.
TJ (27:12):
Cover crops.
Paul (27:15):
You could plant it in a legume and it'd put you some
nitrogen back in.
Yeah, in my garden spot I put alot of this stuff around here
that we had trash.
I put it on the garden
Daniel (27:29):
yeah,
Paul (27:29):
and I believe I've got that much topsoil made
TJ (27:33):
was that from shells and limbs, or what were you talking
Hullsyeah, and trash back over there.
That blows out the cleaner
and so you think you made two or three inches of topsoil
just by doing that that's
two or three inches
on it yeah, I listened to a guy who talks about he.
He calls it the buffalo system.
He'll crimp his tall grasses,lay them down and seed into it
(27:54):
before that, then crimp overthem and let his food plots or
whatever come up.
And he says that he thinks he'screated two or three inches of
topsoil by doing that instead oftealing and stuff.
Paul (28:05):
You can't just it's like baling hay.
You can't just bellow hey andeverything and not put back into
it yeah, after a while you'regonna.
You're just baling nothingnearly
TJ (28:14):
right.
As we talked to Paul aboutcaring for his family's trees,
he reinforced what we learnedfrom several other guests lately
thinning trees and improvingsoil health is not only
important to native plants andwildlife, but also to producing
quality pecans and other crops.
We also found out Paul was notthe first successful farmer in
his family.
Eighty years earlier, hisgrandpa had won the same
(28:34):
prestigious award Paul and hisfamily won in 2021.
Here's a bit from Paul aboutthat.
Randy (28:41):
What you looking for he's trying to show you that their
family was Farm Family of theYear and then, 80 years later,
we were Farm.
Family of the Year.
Paul (28:49):
Move that thing.
I didn't know that.
There it is, that's my grandpa.
TJ (28:53):
What did they farm?
Paul (28:56):
They planted everything.
That's the year we buried himout there, rosella, and that's
what he looked like when he wasold.
That's what that's telling you,80 years apart.
80 years apart, gotcha, that'sold.
That's what that's telling him
Daniel (29:08):
80 years apart
Paul (29:09):
80 years apart.
TJ (29:11):
Gotcha, that's cool.
Paul (29:13):
This says plant to prosper or whatever it is yeah,
Daniel (29:16):
plant to prosper.
But it's the same thing
Paul (29:19):
kind of changed it.
They just changed it to farmfamily.
TJ (29:22):
Wow.
That's a family treasure there.
Paul (29:25):
Yeah, they were going to give it to him the third year
and he said I don't want itanymore, give it to somebody
else.
TJ (29:31):
That's funny.
Paul (29:32):
It ain't fair for me to get that many.
TJ (29:36):
Now you just can't talk about Paul Foshee without
talking about coon hunting andgood dogs.
Grab your coffee, kick back andlisten as he tells us a few
stories about hunting in thegood old days and how he got
started.
Francis, was your dad's nameright?
Was he a hunter?
Paul (29:52):
He had been when he was young.
He's pretty old when I was born.
TJ (29:57):
Okay, he was a preacher too, wasn't he?
Paul (30:00):
Yeah They had hunted mink when they
were younger, and a big minkwould bring them $35 or $40
sometimes.
Well, and you're working for adollar a day, why not hunt mink?
Randy (30:17):
Yeah, working for a dollar a day.
Paul (30:20):
Yeah.
Randy (30:20):
If they treat a mink, papa used to say if they treat
one in a hole in a tree orwhatever, they'd cut the tree
down.
TJ (30:27):
Really
Randy (30:27):
They'd do whatever it took to get it out.
TJ (30:29):
What color is a mink?
Paul (30:31):
It's brown.
TJ (30:32):
Yeah, about that long, about that long, yeah, yeah, and
you've got a musky smell.
Paul (30:37):
If you ever smell a mink.
You'll never forget it.
TJ (30:40):
I think I've seen one on Game of Fish one time.
I didn't know what it was
Randy (30:44):
I've seen one on the camera at your place.
TJ (30:46):
Oh really, yeah, okay,
Randy (30:48):
I've seen one up there,
Paul (30:53):
me and Shorty treed one.
We went there used to be a lotof timber down through this
canal and his dog he had a blacktan that he'd trade anything,
he'd trade a mink and it was asnag of a thing.
Anyway, I got up and I couldsee him in there.
He was running around, boy, hewas just nervous.
(31:15):
I said Donny, I mean Shorty,better keep your dog handy,
cause he's pretty wild.
I said give me a stick and I'llget him out.
So I got us around there but hewouldn't come out.
Pretty wild.
I said give me a stick and I'llget him out.
So I gassed around there but hewouldn't come out.
He could see me too much, youknow.
(31:37):
And finally I thought he wentdown in a root.
I said I can't see him anymore.
It was on the road Goes throughthe bottom of the turn road.
He went back the next morningwith a chainsaw.
He took his dog, he cut it downand when he cut it down I had
(32:02):
killed that mink and he cut himhalf in two.
When he cut it down, he'd comein and he said here's your half
and this is my half.
TJ (32:10):
I bet that one didn't bring as much.
Paul (32:13):
He just throwed him away.
Daniel (32:16):
So you're talking about your coon hunting.
When did you start that?
Was that early on in your lifethat you started the coon
hunting?
Paul (32:25):
I started that pretty young.
I remember hunting with FessGunman and Uncle Raymond and I
had little boots on about thattall little rubber boots, and
they'd hit water and I'd ridetheir back but I figured after a
while I thought they'd justlike me to go coon hunting with
them.
(32:45):
They wanted me to climb a tree
I was tellingDaniel, I can remember when you
were probably in your 40s Iwatched you call climb a tree.
It was about that big aroundwith nothing but your hands and
feet.
Was that how you learned to dothat?
I, no me and don dixon, we , we buddied up, we took
climbing trees .
(33:06):
We had all the dogs jumping outand they running.
But we had some good times andbad.
The first time I went in and Iwent coon hunting I had a walker
dog and he had two blue ticksand there wasn't a good dog in
the bunch.
They was worthless bunch ofdogs but for some reason we
(33:31):
treated them.
I guess they must have seen it.
Got lucky, huh.
Anyway, we was over kind ofwhere Gay Embry lived, on the
past just a little piece, andthere was a ditch.
It was just about that wide andabout that deep and there was
no water in it, it was just drythem.
Dogs are going down that ditch,yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
(33:53):
yeah, yeah, yeah.
They wouldn't get a hold of him, they just want to bark at him.
That's how sorry that was and Irun way up that ditch.
I come back meeting him.
I just drawed back and kickedthe far out of him.
He kicked him right on and hehad a pair of rubber boots on
(34:17):
and he bit through that.
It didn't bite his foot, but hebit through that boot.
And then them dogs boy, theywas going to get him.
Then the dogs kicked him off ofme and he said how come you
done that?
How come you kicked it on me?
I said I didn't kick it on you,I just kicked it.
(34:37):
It landed on you.
Me and Don had to get us somedogs.
We couldn't tolerate that, butwe did wind up some really good
dogs.
Yeah so how many of thosetrophies or championships do you
(34:58):
think you won with those dogs?
Mine was qualified to hunt inthe state championship.
I hunted him two times in thatI think.
Which dog was it?
Three, I don't remember.
Which dog was that?
I don't remember.
TJ (35:10):
Which dog was that?
Domino and his dog, don, huntedhim one time and one of the
Harris boys won that hunt withDon and he said they're three
happy dogs, they're three of afence post.
And they said and he saidthey're tree-happy dogs, they
trip a fence post and they sitthere.
He said me and Don met welldown in South Arkansas for some
(35:36):
reason and he quit hunting, gotin with me and I said, don, if
you start hunting I'll hunt yourdog.
He said I don't want to huntand I don't want you to hunt my
dog, because it's all tree happy, you know, and every time they
tree they see it.
So Don said there ain't a dogout there that can trick.
(35:59):
Oh, I'm telling you.
And anyway the dog at one.
He said he couldn't trick him.
But me and Don had lots of goodhunts together after we got to
good dogs.
Randy (36:13):
Yeah.
TJ (36:14):
You like to hear the sound of a good dog,
mm-hmm.
Me and Don have been on somegood ones.
A few times we crossed the riverand go and hunt in Pawpaw Bend
and go and hunt and pop off in.
I was over there one time and Iclimbed a tree and I jumped one
(36:37):
dog out and it's just a bunchof brush around and they didn't
see it.
They were barking so hard theydidn't see what happened and I
said Don, don't you let thathappen again.
There's one more.
You spot a dog where you cancatch it.
And he did, but he still let itget away.
(37:00):
He caught it but he got awayfrom him running under a brush
pile, running under a brush pile.
This was on Billy Mitchell'splace.
Man, we worked and we workedand we worked.
We moved that brush pile, don'sdog getting a hold.
(37:20):
He wouldn't let my dog get in.
He got down in there.
You could hear that coongrowling at him.
Don said get in there, boy, getit out.
That's a pretty hard deal, youknow.
Yeah, don gets him down there.
The coon got him and he dug itout on his head.
(37:47):
We had a big round there and hefought that coon for a long time
and it was really hot and hisdog passed out.
The coon must have too.
They both laid down therebreathing hard and Doc's dog.
His eyes just rolled back andhe just fell over.
I said Doc, he stroked out,leave him alone, he's kicking
him.
He said get up, bud, don't gocooslanding, get up.
(38:07):
And finally he raised up andlooked around.
He said get up, bud, don't gocooing around here, get up.
Finally he raised up and lookedaround and looked wall-eyed
like he's lost or something.
Then he figured out what heneeded to do and he jumped over
and fought that coon for a while.
I guess that coon finally had aheart attack.
He just couldn't go, no more.
Don couldn't kill one if he hada toe sack.
(38:27):
Anyway, finally got him andboth of us just I said, don,
I'll get back to the river, I'mgoing to take a drink out of
that river, I'm going to start adisperse drink.
He said I will too.
We walked along there a fewminutes.
There's a watermelon patch,there's Wade, 30-something
(38:49):
pounds Big pile of them.
I said Don, look here, look here, we done died.
And went to Elvis.
He said oh boy, so I busted one.
He busted one.
We was eating hard out of them.
I imagine Billy Mitchell didn'tlike us at all, but we never
talked to anybody.
Anyway, we ate much of thatwatermelon and hard out of them.
I imagine Billy Mitchell didn'tlike us at all.
(39:09):
We never talked to anybody.
Anyway, we ate a bunch of thatwatermelon and Don's dog come
over there and we had him a halfof one and he ate it.
He ate watermelon.
He starved to death.
We get back over to the river.
Don picks him up a little rock.
He said look there at that rock.
(39:29):
Don picks him up a little rock.
He said look there at that rock.
That's just a pretty littlerock.
He comes to find out he canpick it up.
It wasn't very big but youcould pick it up and see through
it.
I don't know.
It's some kind of gravel.
It's on a sandbar.
That was a long time beforethey stabilized the river, made
(39:51):
the pools out of it.
Daniel (39:52):
Yeah.
Paul (39:54):
He still got that rock.
TJ (39:55):
Really,
Randy (39:57):
he showed it to me last year.
TJ (39:58):
Really.
Yeah, that's funny.
How many years ago was that?
Paul (40:04):
I don't know, we was pretty young.
TJ (40:05):
Yeah 50 probably Wow, that's cool.
Paul (40:10):
He said we done turned in a couple of we his are sissies.
TJ (40:18):
I hear that happens to the best of us.
Paul (40:20):
It happened to me and Don.
I said could you go toHattieville now Don?
He said I couldn't walk out theback door.
Daniel (40:32):
Well, that's it for the first part of this two-part
episode.
If you want to hear the rest ofPaul's stories about hunting,
fishing, canoeing and more,you'll have to come back next
week.
Here's a preview of what's tocome next time.
TJ (40:44):
Now you guys are going every night at one point in time,
weren't you?
Paul (40:47):
Oh four or five.
Daniel (40:50):
How did Carolin deal with that?
Paul (40:53):
I don't know
Daniel (40:54):
you were cooing.
Paul (40:57):
I never talked to her about that.
Maybe if I had talked to herabout it she wouldnt have liked
it.
Daniel (41:02):
Yeah.
Hey, if this episode made youthink of someone, would you
share it with them real quick?
That's one of the best ways tohelp the show grow.
TJ (41:11):
Well, folks, that wraps up another episode of the Natural
Obsession Podcast.
As always, we'd like to thankyou for listening.
If you'd like to hear moreepisodes, get in contact with us
or learn more about Daniel andI and why we do this, visit our
website at natobco.
That's N-A-T-O-B dot C-O.
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