Nomadic living with Michael Ridge

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Michael Ridge, a true nomadic adventurer, shares his incredible journey of embracing nature and how a life of constant movement shaped him. From a challenging childhood to discovering native food systems like the wild carrot in northern Idaho, Michael's stories reveal a transformative perspective on life and the environment.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:07):
these are stories of outdoor adventure and expert
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I'm james nash and this is thesix ranch podcast.
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Right now, I'm sitting in a yurton the transitional zone where

(01:39):
mountains decide to eitherbecome prairie or canyons, with
Mr Michael Ridge in a yurt.
There's a little wind andrainstorm going on.
Michael and I have been friendsfor a few months now, but I've

(02:00):
been aware of you and followingyour journey for years, and my
first question to you, sir, ishow are people meant to live?

Speaker 1 (02:13):
How are people meant to live?
You know, I don't really thinkI could be audacious enough to
say that all people should liveone way, that all people should
live one way, because I knowthat, in my understanding of the
world which is the point of myjourney and living nomadic on
horseback, spending all my timein the wilderness is getting to

(02:35):
know the world around me.
That's the point of it, and andyou know as well as I do that
everywhere you go is unique,very, very unique, so that, so
that's my understanding ofculture.
Culture is rooted in the land,and we know that, because
everything from the soil to therocks, to the birds, to the

(02:58):
mammals, to the people, to theirlanguages, to their skin colors
, it's all unique depending onwhere you are.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Mm-hmm, yeah, and it's all unique depending on
where you are, yeah, and it'salso unique in time.
Right Today is going to bedifferent from tomorrow.
Exactly, that's the whole.
Like no man stands in the sameriver twice.
Yeah, where do you feel likeyour story begins?

Speaker 1 (03:27):
I remember being me since I was a child, you know so
.
So I feel like the sameindividual I was when I was just
a tyke.
And then what happened?
Personally, I didn't have avery good upbringing, I didn't
have a very good childhood.
I didn't have a very goodupbringing, I didn't have a very
good childhood.
A lot of inconsistency and alot of moving around and um, who

(03:48):
was taking care of me.
That that changed a lot also,and so I think, uh, that geared
me up pretty well, you know to,to go to over 14 schools and 12
years of schooling, you know itkind of pushed me to be a
charismatic individual, to makefriends easy or not.
You know.
It could go the other way, yeah, you know.

(04:10):
You could ask my brother why hedecided to do drugs and he
could say because our momdecided to do drugs, and you
could ask me the same questionand I would tell you the same
answer.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
It's just yeah, when, when did sort of I feel like we
might be entering a new chapter, but when do you feel like
generally this chapter of yourlife started?

Speaker 1 (04:49):
I was in northern idaho.
I was in northern idaho when Ihad met somebody that had
introduced me to the wild carrot, which is similar to the one
here.
It's different, though it's adifferent one over there and and
that, and that was the changeof my life, where I, where I
learned that there was foodsystems native in the landscape,
some something in in, that wasa click for me we ate some
together this spring.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, yeah, they're tasty they are yeah good for you
.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Don't tell anyone.
I think it's like that.
Yeah, it's like that.
It's like what people need.
People need that health, richminerals and nutrients.
But it needs to be, it needs tobe brought in a way of
reverence and that introductionin person.
It's nothing more magical andpowerful than that.

(05:36):
The flavor on your tongue, andthen that with the context of
the land that you're in.
Yeah, because that's actuallyone of my favorite things to do
for people that have grown up ina place.
Their whole life is tointroduce them to these things
underneath their feet.
It changes their perspective.
You know, yeah, and howpowerful is that?

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, it's very powerful.
Yeah, yeah, okay.
So you ate a wild carrot inNorthern Idaho and you thought I
wonder what other flavors areout there.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, well, that was where I was introduced to the
notion and an individual, to thenotion of an individual that is
no longer with us and thiscountry knows that person, or
did know that person, prettywell, phoenicia Medrano, who was
quite a controversial character, I learned.
I learned a lot from somebodythat made it a habit of stirring

(06:34):
the pot everywhere they went.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
No doubt, and is that a good thing?

Speaker 1 (06:40):
It.
It wasn't good or bad.
It wasn't good or bad.
It was to bring awareness andhonestly, you know it's just how
things move and change andadjust.
Things get stirred up.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, okay.
So what are some things thatyou learned from him?
I?

Speaker 1 (07:01):
learned a lot from Finn.
I learned a lot from from Finnit comes back to, comes back to
those basics of of what I havelearned.
What I was introduced to washow to feed myself, clothe
myself, shelter myself throughall the seasons and then
navigate this world on horses ina modern day yeah, tell me

(07:22):
about your horses my horses.
Yeah, what a special gift.
And you know, I wouldn't havemy horses that I have today
without without, uh, finn.
So pea shooter the mule, she's17, she's the oldest critter.
She actually came from westkilgore, okay, in 2013 I'm a big

(07:43):
fan of pea shooter.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yes, yeah we're friends.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
She was five at that time and that was the year that
I first started, uh, living onhorses.
So pea shooter was was my firstcritter.
She became mine.
The rules were if I brought apack saddle in the camp then,
then I got the mule, yeah, andshe's been mine ever since.
Yeah, yeah.
And what an amazing critter tointroduce me to such a rugged,

(08:10):
high stakes consequence kind oflife.
She taught me really well, mespecifically as an individual
working with animals where,where, uh, death is an option
everywhere you go.
And she, she taught me, shetaught me, um, no rough, no

(08:30):
clumsy rough no clumsy.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
Yeah yeah, mules are good about that.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yeah yeah, they have a lot of self-preservation as
long as, as long as you'rediligent and and gentle, we're
good yeah, and, and it took me awhile to figure that out, but
she's been solid.
And and taka and senda highactually came from just over the
mountains here, over the bluemountains, from the umatilla

(09:00):
reservation.
They came from kanani ridge.
In the 2014 roundup, whichwhich had I had already
completed one year of travelingaround the wallowa mountains on
horses and and so that 2014winter my horses were rounded up
as foals and there was a womanout here in pondosa in union

(09:24):
county here, who opened up herhome to a bunch of us kids that
were that were learning fromfinn and and showed us how to
gentle horses as they.
They were babies.
Yeah, my horses, when they wererounded up, were wiener foals
at three months old, so theyweren't expected to live.
They weren't.
They had mange and severaltypes of worms.

(09:48):
They were in poor conditions,yeah, and so taken away from
their moms at three months oldkind of a big deal.
So I replaced mom for them andthey needed gentle right away.
So the first.
So for the first month, monthand a half, it was intensive
training as much as you couldwith foals, right, which is

(10:08):
about an hour every other hour.
Okay, they could only handle somuch as babies.
That's still a lot.
It's still a lot and but youcould work with them four or
five times a day in these winter, winter days.
But.
But it was important to getthem through that initial
gentling process, to be able towalk up to them, catch them and

(10:29):
then lead them around.
Because they had mange, theyhad one.
It was an emergency situation.
They needed cleaned up rightaway, yeah, and they needed
touched everywhere.
So so about two months in, mymares out there were fully
groundwork trained, they couldlunge, they could do everything
at just four months old, four orfive months old.
And then they grew up travelingwith me alongside my previous

(10:55):
string of horses through narrowtrails in these canyons and
alpine country to alongsidesemi-trucks on the highway.
So my mares grew up in atraveling lifestyle.
They have not known anotherlife.
It's really kind of interesting.
So they were born wild, butalso kind of imprinted at the

(11:16):
same time, and then just livedthis really unique life.
I could only I daydream abouttheir perception of the world.
In what ways do you feel likeit's different from yours?

Speaker 2 (11:22):
I could only I daydream about their perception
of the world you know In whatways do you feel like it's
different from yours?

Speaker 1 (11:31):
I.
You know, I never reallythought about that, but it's
probably.
It's probably similar, and thekinship that I have with my
horses is something that I thinkwe all deserve.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah, I feel like that about dogs.
Yeah, you've got a good dog too.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
I do.
She, she's a.
I feel like she looks out forme more than I'm aware of you
know, like she she's.
She's here for me intentionallyfor a purpose.
Yeah, she sees me through a lotof stuff.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, yeah, dogs are good about that.
If you're ever and it's kind of, it's not just like, oh, I'm
having a hard time right now, somy dog comes over and hangs out
with me, you're having a goodtime, your dog's going to come
over and hang out with you too.
So, no matter what's going on,a good dog's going to make it
better.
Yeah, I like that about dogs,but these are two animals whose

(12:27):
domestication meant everythingto Native Americans.
I would say Dogs and horses.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Yeah, well, it's interesting.
You know that's an interestingthought, because I was thinking
about that too.
And and uh, you know I have a areally good book up here, uh,
written by Forrest Carter, whoused to write speeches for the
president.
You know, uh, eisenhower, backin the day and this book up here
is about Geronimo.
It's called watch for me on themountain and uh, there, there's

(12:59):
several excerpts in there,cause they they worked with
horses too, but uh, you knowthey weren't trained or anything
yeah so they could.
They could just hop on horsesand with a loop around their
neck and rump, and there was alevel of communication and
understanding that that I think,uh, is not quite there, for you

(13:19):
know, we tap into it, weexperience it sometimes, but but
I think, when it comes to theindigenous people, there was a
level of understanding of ourworld that was never quite fully
understood well.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
It doesn't transfer into language that can be
described with.
You know words or numbers, sothat makes it hard it does it
makes it hard to move it to thenext generation, or to the next
generation of a different peoplewith a different background.
Yeah, yeah, um, I wonder abouthorses being native to north

(13:57):
america.
There's been some interestinggenetic studies that have been
done between some of theAppaloosas and then some of the
horses in Mongolia.
We know that horses and camelsoriginated in North America and
a lot of the thinking is thatthey went the opposite direction

(14:19):
over the Bering Land Bridge.
But I wonder if there weren'talways horses here, if, if some
horses remained and were herebefore the spanish brought them
back yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
Well, I think that's where that's where a lot of
indigenous stories can can helpbridge the gap in understanding,
because, because for a lot ofcultures out here that you, you
know, I've heard differentthings, you know it's all
unverifiable, based on ouraccount, so so.
But you know, I've heard thatthe curly.
The curly is that woolly horse.

(14:54):
That's some old genetics rightthere of an American horse.
Yeah, and uh, you know, I, Idon't want to, I don't want to
claim to know things that I justdon't know, though.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah Well, it's hard to know anything, right?
But it's fun to guess at itsometimes.
Yeah, I think horses havealways been here.
Yeah, I do.
Yeah, it makes sense to me,mm-hmm.
You know, it makes more sensethan that they all left and then
, you know, made it across Asiaand to Europe and then only made

(15:27):
it back to North America byboat.
That makes less sense to me.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of stories.
There's a lot of stories thatrun a common subtle narrative,
and to me the subtle narrative,just like the land bridge, to me
these kinds of things arenecessary to justify historic
genocide of a people eliminatinga people.

(15:55):
There's a lot of these storiesthat are subtly justified.
There has to be a narrativethat justifies this to me.
And so, like I said, I don'tclaim to know anything I think a
lot of this kind of stuff, likelike arguing whether the earth
is round or flat, or or thesekinds of things, throw the mind
into a place of confusion andmystery.

(16:16):
Personally, this place, thisthree-dimensional realm, I think
, is for definition anddiscernment.
This place was designed fordefinition and discernment, so
so.
So giving somebody the questionof whether the earth is round
or flat, like we're like righthere, irrelevant.
Irrelevant because because ourdefinition and discernment is

(16:39):
right here at ground level, yeahand so.
So to me it's a psychologicaltrick to to make that relevant
to your daily Right.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah, I, I, I can see where you're, where you're
going with that that there'sonly so much.
We only have so much space tolearn.
And, like what you're talkingabout, with your horses when
they're, when they're young, youcould work with them for an
hour every other hour and thatwas kind of their capacity.
We are subject to the reality.
Yeah, Right now we have accessto news from all over the world,

(17:14):
to information that doesn'tpertain to our media or even
near future, and that can clogup our capacity to learn about
things like am I stepping on aplant that I could be eating
instead of stepping on, you know?
So, as as your world gets, getssmaller, you can focus more on

(17:36):
the stuff that's right in frontof you and you can learn more
about it.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah, I mean, it's the age old struggle of you know
, the more advanced the worldaround us becomes, the less
advanced or capable andknowledgeable we are
individually.
I think that balance therecould be a better balance there.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
So in those early years when you're starting to
become nomadic and livenomadically, did you start out
wintering outside?
You did.
Was that first winter hard?

Speaker 1 (18:13):
It was in a teepee with out of wood stove, it was
an open fire ring and it washard.
It was really challenging.
Everything was new for me,coming from the city, and I
equate it to like learning howto play guitar, which you know

(18:34):
nobody wants to hear, nobodywants, you don't even want to
hear it, and it's like that.
But it's chopping wood, it'sworking with horses, it's
enduring weather, it's, it's somany things that will really
just make you or break you evensomething like trying to figure
out how to keep water wet in thewinter time is really hard yeah

(18:56):
, you know, and uh, I'm at aplace where these things are
second nature.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
Second nature, yeah yeah, we had an elk camp in
october where it got down tosingle digits and I had some
friends from hawaii who were outhunting with me and they wanted
to.
We had the option of of stayinginside, but they wanted an, an
actual elk hunt.
You know, they wanted to stayin tents and and cook outside

(19:25):
and kind of do the whole thing,which I thought was great.
And coming out of a hundreddegree climate, which they were
very, very used to, and thenstepping into that is a big step
.
Um, that's the shift.
And for me, just keeping waterfrom freezing so that I could,
you know, have water to be ableto cook and clean with and make
coffee in the morning, it's abig challenge and even though

(19:48):
I've done a lot of that in mylife, uh, the first night that
it happened I forgot.
I came outside and everythingwas frozen.
I was like, oh, such an idiotyou know I've been, I've been
living inside too much.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
And these conditions you know and and I feel that
right now, subtly as the weatherand conditions you know just
change, yeah, the years, like ifwe're mid-december right now.
Technically it's still fallyeah right, we're three days
away from solstice, yeah, but itfeels like october, november
out there it does today.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
We'll see.
You know, and and I I talkedabout how we're in this, this
transitional piece of terrainweather forecasts don't do it
here.
You know you can take the mostadvanced weather forecasting
that there is and it's good forabout six hours in this area.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah, this transition zone too, and I just have to
say, like, what a special placeto to hang the hat and for the
winter, the right here camp isperched between that convergence
of the blue mountains and theWallowa mountains.
Ancient stories told rightthere, but also this was, was

(21:12):
the route from the Grand RondeValley to the Wallowa Valley.
We are on the old stagecoachpath.
Yeah, and and so.
But even beyond, but evenbeyond that, right here, within
the, within the Prairie, righthere, are stone bowls and wild
foods of all kinds, and so thelayers of the landscape are
peeled back all the way to theorigins here.

(21:32):
Yeah, I just love it.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
And would that stagecoach road have been built
on top of a trevally road?

Speaker 1 (21:40):
Absolutely, you know it's like, especially in this
country, where it's where it'sdramatic deep canyons and and
there's not a lot of options forhow you get from one place to
another.
The roads here have always beenthe roads, yeah, it's always
been the paths, yeah, and I lovethat.
I, you know, just knowing thatis, uh, it's an honor to to walk
those paths to see those sites,yeah those paths to see those

(22:10):
sites.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah, I've hunted in places where I'll find like a
really old straight wallcartridge that might have been
there, you know, since the 1800s, early 1900s, and then I'll
find a 30 out six cartridge.
And then I'll drop down intothe past a little bit.
I'll find an arrowhead and I'llfind what I think was an old
rock blind.
It's like yeah, critters havebeen moving through here as long

(22:34):
as this has been shaped likethis.
Yeah, yeah, for thousands andthousands of years.
This has been a good spot ifyou wanted to get some meat.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
Being able to stop and admire and acknowledge and
contribute to the story of theland.
That is like the epitome of theword honor to me.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
So movement being nomadic, moving around.
How important is that?
For me it's everything reallyso this is a different kind of
year for you.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
It is.
It is.
It's been good for me though2024, and we know this.
you know I started out travelingnormal heading out of here and
you came and pulled us out ofthe national recreation area
because my meal got hurt and andI did not travel after that, I
stayed.

(23:29):
I stayed in this place.
Yeah, I was up here on thisPrairie when it was 105 degrees
and, uh, I think it wasnecessary for me.
Uh, a break in the pattern,because you know 11 years of of
this life that I've been livingwhere, where it is six months of
winter, you pack all this up,cash it and then travel across

(23:51):
the country and you end up whereyou end up and do it all over
again.
I'd come into some patternsthat were in my way, I think, to
my health.
I was heavily addicted totobacco, to tobacco.
I don't, I don't smoke anymore.
It's interesting you break thepattern, you start breaking some
patterns.
You look different.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
I feel so much better .
You look younger by years thanyou did this spring.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
There's a heavy reality that I'm facing.
I have some self-defeatingtendencies where I dampen my own
spirit, my own light, like thatand uh.
So so I do think this break inmy travels kind of, kind of was
not it's like a drawback on thebow.
That's what I feel like it was.

(24:39):
You know, I needed to reshapesome things because because,
honestly, as I reflect on it now, I just been squandering what
most, so many people considerthe pinnacle of freedom.
I hear it all the time livingthe dream, you know, and and uh,
and so I want to.
I want to embody that.
I really do.
I want to.
I want to come at this with afresh mind and health, healthy

(24:59):
body and and really, uh, nothold my back, self back so much.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
Well, I want to hear and I'm sure everybody else does
too more about these, thesenomadic travels and the moving
around.
And you know what are some,what are some stories, what are
some experiences you've had with, with animals and places and,
um, you know what have been thedangers and the fears and the

(25:27):
victories.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
Automatically, you know, uh, I think somebody like
you would really enjoy it,because, because they're really
the only thing that's consistentis you, your modalities, the
way you know how to do things.
But the point of the point ofhaving all that skill and
obviously the gear is whatfacilitates your comfort when
you have the knowledge and youhave the gear and you're moving

(25:54):
and you're in it.
That's where the real, that'swhere the real stuff starts to
happen, because now you are in aplace where you're comfortable
in this world that is constantlyshifting and moving and
transitioning, and the point ofthat, in wherever you happen to
be, is to participate withwhatever is happening around you

(26:16):
.
In that is this process.
It's a natural process ofhealing, you know, and I
referred to it earlier.
I said I said the things thatare essential to your
development are the things thatare essential to your existence,
are essential to yourdevelopment.
And so, with the understandingof the foods, medicines and
materials native within thelandscape, and you're there,

(26:37):
participating with these thingsin a mutually beneficial way,
because everything has a timingand a season, mutually
beneficial way, becauseeverything has a timing and a
season and when you're movingthrough in the season of seasons
, the right timing and the rightseason.
You're moving through theseseasons, you are mutually
beneficial to these things thatyou're participating with, and
that is like the magic of life.
There's a way to move throughthe land and you have everything

(27:00):
that you need and you're beinga ripple effect of beauty and
abundance that's mutuallybeneficial to these things and
so that that's essentially likewhat I was taught and what I'm
perfecting and what I'm gettinggood at, which is being a ripple
effect of abundance and beauty,reminiscent of that original
harmony and resonance of theearth, and then everyone you

(27:21):
meet and come into contact tobecomes aware of that.
You become this spreadinghealing because, uh, everywhere
is unique, everywhere special,and uh, to me.
To me, that's like what I'mdoing, that's that's what it's

(27:43):
all about so much because it'slike over here I got a.
I got a grocery bag full of dogbane seed which I got from a
spot Somebody had turned me onto that Jim Riggs had originally
was harvesting from.
If you know Jim Riggs, he'slike one of the reasons bucks

(28:05):
brain tanning is is a commonknowledge these days.
He's one of the main reasons.
And um, did he write?

Speaker 2 (28:13):
the book that had the little piece of uh of buckskin
stapled to it.
I'm not sure, I'm not sure Igot a book like that when I was
a kid and it was more of apamphlet, it was a very
self-published kind of deal.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
I like that idea.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
And, yeah, I remember getting this book as a kid on
brain tanning and it had thislittle postage stamp-sized
square of buckskin that wasstapled inside the cover and I
thought that that was sobrilliant and so electrifying.
To open a book about doing athing right like taking, taking

(28:51):
the skin and brains of an animaland then creating a last, a
lasting, wearable product, atextile that can't be imitated
by anything that could beconstructed, and then you get to
feel it right there, yeah,right inside the cover, and how
cool is that.
Like I don't know if I've everexperienced anything like that
in any other kind of book.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
That's a that's a really great idea, but you know
the the, the dog Bane.
You could see it right there.
I got those bundles of dog Banecame from the railroad tracks
over there and it was a spotthat jim riggs had turned some
people that are still livingonto today.
I'm I'm new to this area.
Somebody told me about thatspot and I go to it and that

(29:33):
story lives on and I make avideo about it and it does
pretty good.
It got it got.
It got hundreds and hundreds ofalmost a million views across
all these different platformsand in that you have people
commenting about how longthey've been looking for this
plant, and one woman said thatshe paid $9 for a single pot of

(29:56):
seeds.
I have a grocery bag full rightover there, yeah, and in my
travels, and that is the valueof these things.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
I mean, they are tremendously valuable, but it's
uh but you're not talking abouta monetary value and no no, no,
I'm planting it yeah, yeahthere's some.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
There's some that the equity isn't really quite there
right when it comes to thingsthat are things that are native,
essential to the ecosystem, andtheir value.
Their value is more than justmonetary.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
It's also value in, in maintaining the health of the
land that we're in, and mybasic understanding of dogbane
is that you can use it to makevery strong, very thin cordage.
Yeah, you can basically make.
Turn it in a fishing line.
Um, what else can you do withit?

Speaker 1 (30:46):
it's everything fiber you can make fibers from, in
fact.
In fact, uh, you know there's achemical compound in here that
in dogbane that is, uh has to dowith your heart.
Like it can, it can stop andstart a heart.
There's a cardiac.
I forget the specific, specificcompound in it, but but it's

(31:09):
medicine just for you to wear.
There's a and, like the, Idon't want to, I don't want to
just pull stuff out of my butbut there's a.
There's a PDF on dogbane where,where they've done studies that
you know it's good for peoplethat are diabetic diabetic to to
wear it on your skin andthere's some medicinal

(31:30):
properties for sure.
I have a little basket that Ithat I wove right up up there
and you can oh yeah grab that ifyou want to.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
Um, so that looks like it might even be watertight
or close to it no, no, theseare raw fibers.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
So okay, but but dogbane, uh, is antimicrobial
and antifungal.
So back in the day, um, likeburlap sacks were made like
burlap sacks, and so these wildroots out here were stored in
dogbane sacks and then you couldbury them or, um, put them in
places that are dry and cool andbasically pull out fresh

(32:09):
vegetables all winter long.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Gotcha, gotcha.
So would that have been a goodplace to store something like a
camas root?

Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yeah, absolutely, and the bags will keep things from
molding.
You just make sure there's noplant materials, and then the
materials that you're using arelikewise, just like buckskin
smoking.
Buckskin repels bugs.
It repels rodents.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yeah, buckskin's pretty awesome A lot of work, so
you're wearing buckskin pants.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Talk to me a little bit about how long it takes you
to make something like that,projects like like the other day
.
I spent literally every wakingsecond on this, on this
porcupine hairbrush just puttingbeads on it.
But if I, if I wanted to, if Iwanted to, I can tan two hides

(33:10):
and and make a pair of pants infive days okay that's.
That's a lot of work.
It's all.
It's all I would be doing.
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
Yeah, talk me through the process a little bit.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
Well, after after you tan the hides.
After you tan the hides, it'spretty, pretty quick.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
Well, we we've got a, let's say we're starting with a
hide that just got pulled offof the deer.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Okay, you're going to take that thing right to a
fleshing beam and there's manystyles doing this, but I do wet
scrape.
So you know it's just an angledbeam, a log that you're pushing
up against and pinching thatskin and pushing that off with a
draw knife and you get all thatmeat and fat off.
And then you flip it around andyou get all that hair off.
There's a layer of skinunderneath the hair.

(33:56):
There's a grain layer.
Got to get all that off.
I tan in my, in my shelter.
So once that's done, I Ihydrated in water, get all the
loose hairs off of it and scrapeit again.
Make sure I was really thoroughwith all that.
Then you put it in the tanningsolution, you know, and and then
and the tanning solution isgoing to be brain or the tanning

(34:16):
solution is any emulsified fat.
So oftentimes I'm getting hidesfrom hunters where they field,
dressed it and brought it to.
They didn't save the head oranything.
So you can use soy lecithin,and that's a great one for like
summertime because it doesn'tattract bugs or anything.
Okay, you can use ivory barsoap, you can use some lotions,

(34:38):
but any emulsified fat is whatinitiates that chemical process
of converting glues and collageninto the supple buckskin that
we know.
Okay, so you soak it in.
A tanning solution.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
In the tanning solution.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
Yeah, and basically you're hanging it near a heat
source.
As it's drying, there's tensionsetting up in that hide and
you're breaking that tension.
So once your skin is hydratedin a tanning solution, you're
hanging it up to dry and beforeit dries hard, you pull it and

(35:13):
stretch it to prevent it fromdrying hard it and stretch it to
prevent it from drying hard,and if, once all the moisture is
left to hide and it's still gotsome stiffness, you put it back
in the tanning solution.
Just repeat that process untilit's done.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
so the way that I'm tanning hides is pretty quick
and then, once you've you'vegone through those cycles of
putting it in the tanningsolution, letting it dry,
stretching it, pulling on it,breaking it so that those fibers
don't sort of glue themselvestogether, again You're going to
smoke it at some point.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
That's right.
Once it's fully buckskin,buttery soft, then you smoke it
and that sets that softness inthe hide and it also, you know,
so it cures the skin but it alsoadds some color.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
And different woods give you different.
So it cures, it cures the skin,but it also adds some color.
Yeah, and different woods giveyou different colors, give you
different smells.
Do you have a preferred wood?
I like Doug fir.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
Cause it gives you that.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
That's our tree man, yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
It's just that.
Uh, it's what you think of whenyou think buckskin.
Yeah, it gives you that color.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Yeah, doug fir is you think of when you think
buckskin?
Yeah, gives you that color.
Yeah, dug fur is.
It's just awesome.
I mean, that's what our two byfours are made out of.
That's, you know, one of ourbest firewoods and that's
important.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
You want to use punk.
You want to use punk wood?
Okay, because when it's smoking, you don't want it to light,
catch on fire you just want itto billow smoke, which so every
step of the process requiresskill, requires a learning
process, a learning curve andthen developed skill.
Yeah, so I can go out there andI can flesh a hide and have the
hair and skin off of it in anhour.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
And how long will a set of buckskin pants last you?

Speaker 1 (36:52):
Three years for me wearing them every day.
Yeah, yeah, this is theirsecond year.
The knees are getting reallythe leather is their second year
.
The knees are getting really.
The leather is really thin onthe knees obvious, yeah, and uh,
it gets to the point whereyou're just constantly making
repairs and repairs and repairs.
Yeah, people, I mean it's highfashion now, I guess, but well,
I mean it mostly always has beentorn uporn up worn clothing

(37:16):
yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
Well, I mean, buckskin has always been high
fashion.
There's this briefest period oftime, if we're talking about
human history, where it sort ofhasn't been, and now it's coming
back, which is so funny.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
There's a gap in people's understanding of the
value of it.
Like you know, people thinkthat leather first of all.
You know, traditionally smokedtan buckskin versus chemical tan
leather not the same.
And even right now, amongstpeople that do know how to tan
and sell deer skins, they'reundervaluing it.

(37:50):
Everything else in the world isskyrocket right now, but people
are still selling buckskin forthe same price as 20 years ago.
Yeah, I complain to primitiveskills people that do that,
because you're the one devaluingthis.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
And if so, you know they're worth at least three
grand.
What have you?

Speaker 2 (38:13):
done for threads.
For threads Buckskin yeah, soyou're using buckskin to
actually make the thread as well.
That's right, yeah interesting.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
Yeah, you can, I have some bundles up there, stuff in
the yurt, but yeah, uh, for youknow which is which?
It doesn't rot.
You know it gets thin, that'swhat it does.
It gets thin in spots where itstresses, that's what.
So, buckskin, is this livingmaterial?
It's still alive and everywhereit gets where it gets thin.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
So it's just the nature of everything yeah,
doesn't get too hot, doesn't gettoo cold.
It's pretty great, thosenatural fibers, man Well pretty
tough to beat.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
It's also antimicrobial, it's
antibacterial and when you havea fresh smoked hand and if
you're using brains also,there's pheromones in brains and
for a lot of the years it waswhen I ran out of dehydrated
brains.
I had a friend that made a hugebatch of dehydrated brains
which they said they would neverdo again because it's gross

(39:21):
yeah, it's really hard todehydrate anything that has a
lipid in it yes, what aninteresting thing.
and it smells like fish flakes,smells like fish food and, uh,
once I ran out of dehydratedbrains, I pretty much stopped
using brains.
Yeah, because I don't got afreezer or anything.
I could dry them and just useegg yolks.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
I've heard egg yolks.
What's a time where you've beenout in the wild and have been
afraid.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
And have been afraid.
It's always when I'm riding ontrails in steep country.
Yeah, that's the most afraid Iam All the time.
Gravity problem.
Just you know you have thesecritters and you would have had

(40:23):
to have done everything proper,tight and right, and you know
it's at that point where you're.
More, everything that you'vedone is tested and the
circumstances and the situationand environment is is a guess.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
So, so that's where.
That's where I'm most terrified.
That's where you're riding andthe only thing holding you on
the saddle is your butt.
Suction cup to it, yeah, causeit's puckered.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Right?
Uh, you know people think thatI'm just joking most of the time
when I'm critical of llamas.
But the reality is when I wasgrowing up and packing horses
and mules, I saw some traildisasters from llamas.
And what folks don't understandis that a lot of horses and

(41:13):
mules have a very phobicresponse to llamas.
They're more fearful of themthan they are of bears, of
cougars, of bees, of almostanything else.
And if you encounter somebodywho's packing a llama on a steep
section of trail like that, itcould very easily lead to
serious injury or death of oneof those horses or mules.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
The option is always there.
For sure, my horses have metjust about every critter under
the sun.
I actually have video of analpaca humping Taka.
Poor Taka she was just tryingto take a nap.
But she's got that personalitywhere she kind of indoctrinates

(41:56):
everything into her.
She's that kind of person.
It seems like she's picking onthem, but she's actually
establishing some relationships.
Yeah, she does that.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
When I walked up here to the fence they were starting
to walk over.
And they really started to walkover when they saw that we
weren't paying attention to themanymore.
And then, when I walked overthere and was looking at them,
they stopped all three of themtheir ears come up and then they
all looked off to the side atthe same time, at nothing.

(42:30):
And I know that they werewanting to see if I was going to
look at what they werepretending to look at too, and I
just kind of waited them out.
And then they knew that therewas going to be an apple as part
of the deal.
Here they come.
They're sweet animals they are.
Have any of them taken a fall?
Uh?

Speaker 1 (42:47):
send a high.
The very first uh year Istarted packing and writing them
.
They were three years old, theyhad just turned three.
It was in Washington, in thesawtooth wilderness, you know,
um, the trail to get to stahikin, yep, steep trail.

(43:09):
It's a steep trail.
And oh, my horses they were.
I wasn't riding anybody, I wasjust leading them, you know, and
I had them half packed theirfirst year, first season packing
.
They had actually just camealong loose that whole season.
And then, and then it was alate summer, early fall, I

(43:30):
decided we were going into thesawtooth and and so I half
packed my girls for the firsttime.
And so I have packed my girlsfor the first time, and and, uh,
they kept breaking mybreakaways.
I just kept breaking mybreakaways.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
What's a breakaway for folks who don't understand.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
When you're packing horses, you need a breakaway,
and on on my riding saddle, Ihave a breakaway, which is
consists of a rope that goesfrom centering to centering
across the backside of my cantle, and on that rope is paracord.
Some people use baling twine,some people think paracord is
too strong.
It's not, but I use paracordand that is what your horses are

(44:14):
tied to.
So I'm hands-free.
I'm not holding a horse as I'mleading my horses through, and
each horse is strung together ona breakaway, which is a rope
that goes from centering tocentering, and on that rope are
these little loops that you tieon and that's called a breakaway
.
So if a horse falls off thecliff, they break away.
They're the only one that goesdown cliff, they break away,

(44:39):
they're the only one that goesdown.
And and when I was packing mygirls for the first time in the
wilderness, they kept breakingmy breakaways and I made the
mistake of hard tying and, uh,pea shooter, I also.
I also, you know, was usingsome equipment that I don't use
anymore.
I had made adjustments.
I it was my very first year, bymyself actually, you know um,

(45:02):
we, we got through a spot wherepea shooter, her packs were too
low and there was a rock prevent, there was a huge boulder just
preventing her from easily justpassing through this, this
narrow section of trail, whereit was also like a 15 foot drop
off the side, and, uh, peashooter, couldn't go, couldn't
go.
And there was, my string wasjammed up and and then, uh, she

(45:25):
started pulling back and I wasleading Cinder High and and that
pull back just threw CinderHigh right off the cliff.
Yeah, she was hard tied.
So, yeah, yeah, she, she fell15 feet off a cliff and landed
on her back and and rolled and Iwas lucky, nothing fell out of

(45:46):
my packs, that's good.
And and, uh, you know, that wasreally traumatizing for me to
watch my, my horse, who had justcome of age, to to fall off a
cliff.
Um, I was with some other people, they had heard me, me, they
were ahead, they, I was, I wasjust in that section by myself.
But they came back and and, uh,by time they were there, I had

(46:07):
my horses tied up and I had herfetched up and I was coming back
up the trail and, uh, theyhelped me through that section
and we made camp the next spotthat we could, on a steep
mountainside, with some goodfescue.
I was just staring at my horsein awe because she was
completely okay.
She was fine.

(46:27):
I was really lucky.
My pack saddle was fine, shewasn't limping, she wasn't sore,
she wasn't swollen.
I stared at her for the rest ofthe day.
I'm just staring at her goingwhat the heck man, what the heck

(46:48):
.
So glad that she was okay.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
Yeah, cause it doesn't take much for it to go
differently.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
No, no, you know, unfortunate because cause a 15
foot drop onto some, onto some,you know, fluffed up soil at a
slight incline.
I was pretty lucky, prettyfortunate, but there was.
There was a lesson in there forme that that nobody else knew
about.
It was just my lesson in my ownhead of what I know to do and

(47:14):
ignoring what I know to do,which would be to stop, stop,
get out some paracord, dig in itdoesn't matter, do whatever it
takes to pull out some spareparacord and and make a
breakaway instead of this hardtie where now the horses have
leverage against each other.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
I've done the same exact thing under really similar
situation where I was leading,leading some mules, one of whom
just wasn't feeling that thatday, and he would just stop um,
cause he felt like it and pullback and break the breakaway,
and I was using valentine, so itdidn't take much, just pop and

(47:57):
you know, the next time you turnaround you've got two mules
behind you and two mules thatare, you know, 300 yards behind
you, Two of them not that far,but because packers mostly ride
backwards, you know.
But you know I was just gettingfrustrated and all day long I'm
dealing with this and I'mrunning out of baling twine and

(48:18):
I was like you know what, likeyou're gonna get tied hard and
fast.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
It becomes a game for them yeah and uh yeah and we.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
We did have a little bit of a wreck later on that day
because we're we're tied up andI just had to kind of wait
until all the lines got tightand we're wrapped around every
tree that we could wrap aroundlike okay, you guys done and
then it's like, okay, which oneof these things do I need to cut
to like make it all, like comeloose, and it's like I think

(48:47):
I'll cut this one boing, andthen everybody kind of scrambles
around to their feet.
It's like, all right, we done?
Are we done playing games?
Can we go back to work?
Um boy, oh, oh boy.
But it can get bad.
And that's definitely asituation, and there's a
metaphor there too.
Right, you know that this is asafety precaution, you know that
this is the right thing to do,but with enough frustration you

(49:09):
can get eroded down and you canmake the wrong choice.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
I found that nature is such a hard ass that the
moment you decide to make adecision against your, against
what you know is wrong, is themoment that you know it's like
the moment you relinquish yourability to function.
So I don't do drugs you know,you know it's like so I don't go
out into the wilderness and domushrooms or anything Cause,
cause.
I've learned the moment yourelinquish to your ability to

(49:33):
function is the moment you gotto function.
Yeah, and and and.
There's something in the fabricof reality.
It's just like this is a law ofthe universe that you can't,
you don't get to.
You know, you don't get topretend you haven't learned this
lesson yeah, murphy's law it's,it's just like that yeah keeps
you tight yeah um what's a coolexperience that you've had with

(49:55):
wild animals.
Man, man, that's a, that's atough one.
I have to think about this.
Um, I had, I've had, probablythe most amazing experience uh
with, with, uh, communicatingwith birds.

(50:17):
Yeah, experience uh with, with,uh, communicating with birds.
Yeah, yeah, a bird taught mehow to, how to do this.
I say a bird taught me how.
But a bird got my tongue movingand I stumbled onto a sound
that I could make and it wasthrough mimicking a bird, where
I was just mimicking it soundsand it seemed to start out with

(50:38):
me, real simple, like doo-doo,and I would go doo-doo and it
would go doo-doo, doo-doo andeventually, like it, got my
tongue going.
Coolest experience I've everhad with an animal was was just
mimicking a bird and then, andthen from that I can, I can do

(51:04):
this interesting whistle thatI've heard nobody else do ever.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
That's fun.
It's fun, that's a fun skill,yeah, and I know you've had uh,
you've had all kinds ofpredators around as well, which
a lot of people have a phobicresponse to.
So you know, when I was inAustralia which we talked about
a little bit before we startedrecording, of course I was
worried about snakes and spidersand the stuff that Americans
think of when they think aboutAustralia.

(51:31):
Those guys don't think aboutthem at all, it's just not a
part of their day.
A lot of them are very afraidto come to the us because of
bears, right yeah and uh, that'snot something that affects our
day very much at all.
Um, if you're in grizzly bearcountry, that can be a little
bit different story and shouldbe.
But, um, as far as black bearsgo, and most, most of the time

(51:52):
with grizzlies not not a hugedeal.
So, um, I think you know you'veprobably had wolves and lions
and bears around and beenrelatively comfortable in those
situations.
Do you recall any of thosetimes?

Speaker 1 (52:05):
yeah, absolutely.
I think it's important to toremind ourselves that it's a
whole community out here that'salready established, just like
when I'm riding into walawacountry.
It's a, it's, there's anestablished community with with,
everything's been figured out,there's a structure, there's an
order, there's a way.
You know.
You know what I mean.
It's nature's like that, and somaybe I think we get a little

(52:29):
bit more sensitive to the, toour environment, where it's a
community and and you know,because when you go in to make a
camp, they know where you are.
You know everybody's giving yougo in to make a camp, uh, they
know where you are.
You know everybody's giving youaway, especially the squirrels
and the birds.
They tell on you first thingstraight away, and then, um,
obviously, if you have a dog, um, you're hard pressed to see
anything aside from somethingthat's not afraid of dogs.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
And and then if you're staying there any amount
of time, you become this hotspot.
Everything knows you're therefor sure.
And if you're exploringeverywhere, you're going to the
bathroom, you're letting thecommunity be aware.
There's different ways to dothat.
You know.
Like, if I'm traveling in bearcountry, it's nice to have a

(53:14):
bell on my saddle for lions, forbears, mostly, so they know
you're coming.
Yeah, so you don't scare them.
Yeah, because that's that's thebiggest thing is is scaring
them.
But when it comes to thecommunity of the animal world,
there are all types ofpersonalities and bear are one
of the more expressive.
Like there there can be a sweetbear, there can be an ornery

(53:34):
bear, and when we're strangersto the community, then then we,
we kind of have to have our witsabout us and and stay within
protocol and and.
But once you get familiar to anarea, you might know all the
bears in the area and yourprotocol then adjusts in this
more so.
So you know it gets as it getsas deep or shallow as you want

(53:56):
it to be.
Yeah, but it's familiaritywhich is the point of my journey
.
It's become familiar with theworld that we're living in.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
Participated in it a little bit more, through direct
participation instead of passiveobservation, is some real
healing, some real powerfulhealing?
Yeah, because then you'removing in this way that is
sensitive to the area thatyou're in, and and what I've
taught is to move in that way,which is mutually beneficial to

(54:25):
it.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
It's pretty special when you can get into that, that
familiarity level where youdon't just look out and go, oh,
there's a bear.
And you look at it and go, oh,there's that bear and these are
the tendencies of that bear.
And I've gotten that more sowith elk than anything else,

(54:46):
right, and I know over 100 elkby sight and I know a little bit
about their lives, I know kindof where they are at different
times of year, I know somethings about their behavior,
their tendencies, uh you noticewhen one's missing.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
Well, yeah, probably?

Speaker 2 (55:09):
um, there's, there's certainly been those times.
They're not on, they're not ontracks.
Right, if I'm in a spot and Ithink, well, this bull has been
here on this day two years in arow, he should be here today.
He might be someplace else, butthere they also can do things
that are incredibly consistent.

(55:31):
So, for example, I found a leftand a left um shed antler from
a bull, so um, his, his leftside, from two different years
and they were within about 10feet of each other.
It's like wow, that's prettycrazy.
He was here on the same exactspot during the time where he

(55:51):
needed to drop that left antlertwo years in a row under
different weather conditions.
Like that's wild, yeah, what'seven crazier is my buddy, who
was out there at the same time,was a couple miles away, canyon
miles, and he found the right inthe right from that same bull,
also within a few feet of eachother.
That's crazy, very consistent.

(56:16):
There's probably a sense ofrelief when they throw those
things off oh, I think it'seuphoric and and and it wouldn't
, I wouldn't doubt if if theyassociate that euphoria with
with the place that it happenedyeah, and it's like well, this
is where I was, you know, duringthis photo period, when there

(56:38):
was this amount of daylight lastyear and nothing ate me.
So I'm going to try that again.
You know, I got enough to eatand uh, just keep, keep doing
the same thing.
And that's how some animalssurvive for longer than other
animals, is they find thepatterns that keep them the
safest, the longest yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
And if they have the good uh, good mothers too, then
then exactly the, then they knowthat the canyons right over
here safe right up here on topof the prairie.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
It's not safe yeah, yeah, that's one of my concerns
with mule deer right now is wehave a lot fewer does who are
having fawns in some of theirtraditional habitat.
So that's how they learn to livein a place, and we found that
in Wyoming with color data isyou would have a doe and then

(57:35):
there'd be a buck over here thatwas her son and there'd be
another doe over here that washer son and there'd be another
doe over here that was herdaughter and there'd be a fawn
right here and they'd all be onthe same hillside.
But they might have a couplehundred mile migration
throughout the year, but in thespringtime they're all coming
back to that same place wherethey'd been born and were
utilizing that landscape.
Now, if that doe and both ofher female offspring and that

(58:00):
buck all get killed whether it'sby hunters or predators or
winter or disease, any number ofthings well, now there's nobody
else who is going to grow upthere and learn this habitat and
have that imprinted as part oftheir migration cycle.
So then you can have habitatthat no longer has the animals
in it and eventually, um, ifthere's a healthy enough

(58:21):
population, they'll restock thatarea, but if there isn't a
healthy enough population,they'll keep defaulting to the
places where they're safe, andthat might be all private
agricultural land down in thevalleys or town.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
Yeah, and then you have adverse possession.
Whether or not people want toignore, people want to pretend
that that doesn't exist, butyeah, but.
But you'll hear people be likethese are my elk Sure.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
Yeah, yeah.
And and that's an interestingthing too, right Is like, when
you start thinking of of thingsin terms terms of ownership,
like that, what do you actuallyown?
Do you own the responsibilityto take care of them?
Do you own the right to killthem if you feel like it?
Like what is it?
And I trend much more so to theresponsibility side, right.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
That's right.
It's a responsibility.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
Yeah, so I have a responsibility to take care of
this habitat.
The habitat will take care ofthe animal and then when I need
meat, I can go hunt that animaland there's another one that's
going to fill in behind it andthat's something that's
sustainable and healthy andfeels good to me.
Now, that's going to feel badto somebody else, and that's

(59:34):
okay, I get that.
Somebody else, and that's okay,I get that.
But I think that that the waywe approach land ownership as
far as, like the sixth ranch andmy family, it's like what we
really own is responsibility totake care of this place and
that's what you know.
We're in the sixth generationof doing in one spot and we want
to continue doing that for aslong as we can yeah, yeah, yeah,

(59:57):
yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
I mean that's really what my journey is all about,
but it's, but it's reallyextreme.
It's super extreme.
The most permanent thing that Ido is plant habitat yeah right,
the plants that I focus onwhich is the foundation of our
ecosystems and and uh.
So when I, when I focus on that,you know that's the these

(01:00:22):
native, they're calledperennials, which is another
word for permanent.
Yeah, and my camp here isimpermanent, and when you stay
in one spot, it's a greatexample.
We're right next to where myteepee sat last winter and that
teepee, that patch of ground,that-foot circle that I kept
warm all winter long, died.
It killed the ground, all theroots, everything dead.

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
Well, you can find teepee rings in the canyons that
are, you know, hundreds ofyears old.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
Yeah, yeah, and you know, when I leave I just put
the habitat back and I'm in aplace where there is virtually
no habitat right here.
It's mostly smooth brome uphere, which is, you know,
grasshoppers like it, prayingmantis like it, but it allows.

(01:01:10):
But that spot where I was nowis a spot where there's a blank
spot where I put in the prairiehabitat and so when I leave,
when I leave and I I made avideo about that like in places
like this, obviously I don'thave heavy equipment or anything
, but I do have seed bundles ofa whole ecosystem, the prairie
ecosystem, from the prairiesremnants all around us, and so

(01:01:33):
everywhere the rodents havedisturbed or made a dirt patch
in the prairie.
That's where I put that seedand go throughout the entire
prairie.
Now it's put in.
Yeah, now it's put in in thesespots where there's no.
So just kind of seeding in,seeding in some healing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
Yeah, I want to talk about shelters a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
You've been living in a teepee in the wintertime.
When I came and picked you upthis spring, you just had a
canvas lean-to.
Is the canvas lean-to?
Is that kind of been yourstandard for spring and

(01:02:15):
summertime travel?

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
I have two canvas tarps and because I have two
pack horses, I have two tarps.
Each tarp covers my load andone tarp is a ground tarp, one's
an overhead tarp.
If I had three horses, I wouldhave three tarps.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
Yep.
So the teepee and the yurt areboth structures that you can
weather a storm, you can spendthe winter in.
They've both been used bynomadic horse cultures from the
past.
Kind of give me the pros andcons of each the yurt seems

(01:02:57):
really nice.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
Yeah, I, I honestly think that people should learn
to spend the winter in a teepee.
First, because you have tohumble yourself in almost every
kind of way.
Yeah, there's, there's no wayyou can keep the weather out,
even to get in.
You have to humble yourselfphysically to get into it.
The year you do too, but it butthere's a, the tp.

(01:03:17):
The tp is is much closer toyour, to your humanness, and uh
and and the yurt it's stillcamping.
You know, there this is, you'resubject to the weather
conditions.
There's no eliminating theconditions that you're in.
Yep, you know, even around thedoor I have moisture coming in.
So I have a couple sheets thatI routinely sop up the water

(01:03:42):
that I cannot prevent fromcoming in and then hang it up to
dry.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
And.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
I have to make sure nothing's moldy.
This felt I've had to roll upfrom touching the ground.

Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
Right, because it's going to wick up moisture from
the ground.
So it doesn't wick up ground.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
I'd rather put a t-shirt or something cotton that
I can wick the moisture out andthen dry that so I could
prevent mold.
Know, it's circumstantial.
I, I, I decided, based on nosuggestion from anybody, to buy

(01:04:24):
a used billboard and set thisyear up on top of it, cause
we're on the bare ground.
Tp is on the bare ground too.
Uh, usually it's dirt exposed.
There's no dirt exposed insideof here and you know that that's
uh, that's, that's different.

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
Yeah, that's different well, this is pretty
comfortable living it is yeah,and I know that you're you're
cautious with comfort, um, butI'm I'm glad to see you
embracing a little bit of itthis winter.
Yeah, uh, when you, when you dopack up for the summertime,
you've talked about how a lot ofyour food, a lot of your

(01:05:02):
medicine, a lot of the thingsthat you need, are out there
already, like that stuff thatyou don't necessarily have to
bring with you.
You've got the horse thatyou're riding.
You've got one pack horse andyou've got one pack mule.
What are you bringing with you?

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
so I pretty much designate p shooter to tools and
equipment.
She, she, uh carries everythingthat we need to maintain gear,
tool and equipment.
And then, and what kind oftools and equipment is that?
I'm actually developing acomprehensive gear list for
people that do want to know,because I do have some specific

(01:05:39):
things that probably othersdon't, and then recommendations.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
But uh, we can wait on that.
But just in generalgeneralities, I think people
would be interested to know whatyou're bringing with you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
Totally yeah.
So I, I carry my own shoeingequipment.
That's heavy, pretty heavy, soI carry everything I need to
maintain their feet, includingspare shoes that I weld borium
on so I can keep the same set ofshoes for them all season long,
which means that I do not letshoes, I don't let them throw
shoes.
I'm always listening for aloose little clink, clink, clink
.

Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
Yeah, I'm always listening for that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
Fortunately I haven't lost a shoe or bent a nail in a
long time.
Yeah, good, but uh, but youknow I carry solar and and uh
lithium and uh mics and repairkits for everything that needs a
repair kit, sewing kit, and ohyou know.

(01:06:34):
And then the other horse isdedicated to food, food.
One whole horse is the kitchen.

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
What?
Uh, what's a food that you'llpull out and you're just stoked
about.
It's like oh, it's this night,this is what we're having
tonight.
I'll tell you mine first.
Okay, I'll tell you mine first.

Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
When I'm in the back country.
The food that just makes meexcited every time is Idahoan
mashed potatoes.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
The little instant mashed potatoes.
As far as like an instant food.
I think the ingredients arelike potatoes and salt.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
Like there's not a lot of trash in them.
I'm so over dry storage food.

Speaker 2 (01:07:19):
I hope to never eat an MRE again.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
Meals refused in Ethiopia.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
Yeah, I'm done with those things.
Circumstances are pretty dire,so I get it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
Yeah, I mean like you brought the best gift I could
ever ask for Fresh meat.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
Fresh meat, yeah, a little ever ask for is fresh
meat, fresh meat yeah, a littlebit of elk, a little bit of
salmon, that's what I go withoutthe most you know because
because.

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
I don't break the rules or anything.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
That one package of burger is from um, from an elk I
killed in 2022.
It's still very good.
It's double wrapped in paper,um, but I, I screwed up when I
was making it and I just did acoarse grind twice, um instead
of a course, and then a finegrind, um.
So it's a little bit chewy, alittle bit tough to eat, but I

(01:08:06):
was thinking that, uh, thatwould be a treat for morning, um
, if, if, she was so inclined toeat a little bit of elk, yeah,
yeah.
Yeah, she's spoiled a little bitof elk, yeah, yeah, yeah, she's
spoiled.
Well, she's a good girl, allright.
So what?
What's your food?
What's gonna get you stoked?

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
something that you're bringing with you something
that I'm bringing with me.
Yeah, probably, probably, it'sprobably gonna be a dessert.
It's probably gonna be adessert because because I'll
carry these, uh, dry packagedesserts and they got the
cheesecake and it's kind of anduh, so I yeah, I don't know, I

(01:08:44):
have these weird little weirdroutines, but I have these, I, I
, I have a plastic containerthat keeps rodents out, right,
and it can fit two cheesecakecrust and and mixture in, and I
carry powdered milk.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
I'm so over dry stuff .
Yeah, I'm telling you.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
But on my birthday?
On my birthday, you know, sevenhuckleberries are coming on and
I just make myself a cheesecakewith wild berries.
Yeah, For my birthday aroundthat time.

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
That's like what I'm looking forward to the most, so
do you need to find a littlesnow bank somewhere?

Speaker 1 (01:09:21):
Snow bank.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
Yeah, in order to cool off the cheesecake, or how
do you make it?

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
No, no, it just you whip it until it's thick and
then you let it set.
You could let it set.
Sometimes you feel like eatingcheesecake soup, Not going to
wait on it.
You know, I don't really thinkabout all these concessions that
I've been making as I live outthere in that kind of way.

(01:09:51):
I've gotten really spoiled thelast few years too, because
people are coming to visit mefrom all over in vehicles, so so
got access to fresh food and Idon't have to make special trips
to town to pick up dog food orfly spray or stuff like that.
I you know what social mediaand short form content has

(01:10:11):
changed things forever, I thinkChanged things for me.
Yeah, forever, exclusively in agood way, exclusively in a good
way.
No, I mean, there's nothing badso far.
Tiresome, yeah, annoying,irritating things can be.

(01:10:32):
You know you can have somebodythat's brilliant and somebody
that's low iq arguing with eachother in your comment section.
Yeah, I mean it just it's.
It's just weird.

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
It just it can get real weird yeah, people take it
off the tracks and turn it intosomething else and, yeah, that
can be frustrating to be abystander from.
I feel like I have to be aparent sometimes and stuff and
be like, hey, you guys be niceto each other.

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
It's good to reflect on Like that's.
If that's not the environmentthat I want to nurture in my, in
what I'm creating, then itgives me a lot to reflect on.
Yeah, cause, cause then.
But then you have, then youhave people that are
strategically trying toinstigate rage and arguments.
You know, and and that's wherethat's where I'm I'm getting

(01:11:23):
burnt out is the more that, uh,human psychology is leveraged to
the point where, you know, it'slike manufacturing music
nowadays instead of just rawtalent, and the same thing with
content creation.
Like I can, I can be as uniqueand interesting and brilliant of
a human, but it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter whensomebody's leveraging ai to put

(01:11:45):
out more videos than you couldconceive.

Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
You know it's just what a weird world we're living
in right now it is weird, yeah,but also that's just, that's
just a facet of it and, uh,currently we're, we're still in
control, like you can just turnit off.

Speaker 1 (01:12:06):
Just look outside yeah, yeah, yeah, I do, I do
yeah yeah um, what is?

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):
uh.
So 2014 is kind of when you gotstarted.
If you could go back and talkto yourself then, what's a piece
of advice that you would giveto yourself?

Speaker 1 (01:12:34):
focus on, focus on some of the little things.
Focus on some of the littlethings, like just just
maintaining over the years II've noticed that I'll pull out
a box that I I just haven't seenin years you know and and to
spend time with.
Spend time with everything Liketend to I have, have.

(01:12:57):
I have things that I cherish,that are really old, that I've
had.
Like I have my canvas tarp thatI first ever bought, you know,
and it's it's like 13 years old.
It's no good anymore, but, uh,tending to all those little
things, like it could still begood if I cared for it, if I
made some repairs, if I if I uhwaterproofed it or waxed it a

(01:13:19):
little bit more.
And a lot of those things getaway from you, and especially
when they become sentimental andand uh, that's like.
Personally, I like uh upgradingtools, gear and equipment, but
I also like the art ofmaintaining them and keeping
them and hanging onto thosestories until they're relics.

(01:13:40):
And I suppose, if I, yeah, Ijust find myself neglecting a
lot of stuff, putting things inlittle niche places and then
forgetting about them.
I pulled out.
I pulled out a box of stuffthat had mold like growing all

(01:14:00):
over it and just freaking out.
Freaking out about it, you know,gave me so much work to do so
much now I have to focus on evenfiner details of these things
than I, than I did previously,and it kind of puts things in a
place where you just want todiscard them, just get rid of it
.

Speaker 2 (01:14:22):
How, uh, how, can people support you and and
follow along in your journey?

Speaker 1 (01:14:32):
I think I think I'm only on social media where,
where people can have access toto me and the things that I'm
sharing and putting out there.
Instagram TikTok may or may notbe here.
Youtube I hope to focus alittle bit more on YouTube, but
Facebook and Instagram will bethe main places, for sure.
What are those channels?
Called my name?

(01:14:54):
Michael Ridge, Michael KennedyRidge, and I'm a TikToker first.
Tiktok is what got me intocreating content.
Short form content is what gaveme an audience and a platform.

(01:15:16):
Cross posting to these otherplatforms just shot my accounts
up like crazy and, uh, I think Iwant to.
I think I want to try and getsome people together.
It's it's a tough thing to dofor for people to hang in the,
in the style of life and theruggedness and also get some
work done.
But but I think I would like totry and assemble, you know, a

(01:15:37):
crew somewhat to to take some of, to take some of that away from
me.
So so we can, so we canimplement some cool stuff, do
some cool stuff.
Yeah, so I would love to.
I would love to be moreintegrative with the local
communities that I'm coming into, do events like I.
There's a lot of opportunitythat I feel like you know, and

(01:16:00):
in making better health choices.
I'm feeling that I'm feelinglike I'm going to step up into
this more role of a publicfigure in that regard, because
really some incredibleopportunities.

Speaker 2 (01:16:11):
Cool.
So if people want to beinvolved in, or or an observer
of, those opportunities and bestthing they can do is follow you
on social and for now, that'swhat I got, yeah yeah, that's,
that's what I have set up cool.
I love it.
Thank you so much for yourhospitality, for the

(01:16:32):
conversation and, yeah, I've gota.
I've got some work ahead of meout today and I'm gonna go help
a friend try and get an elktomorrow where at uh, it'll be
south of pendleton nice yeahnice, I wonder.

Speaker 1 (01:16:50):
I wonder how it is down there toward ukiah uh.

Speaker 2 (01:16:54):
North of there a bit.
Okay, yeah, so there's an areawhere the elk have gotten into
some sort of winter wheatcountry and some places that
it's not good for them, notreally good for anybody, so
that's where we're going to behunting.

Speaker 1 (01:17:11):
Okay, yeah, let's see if you can encourage them
elsewhere too.

Speaker 2 (01:17:14):
at the same time, I think at this point it's more
about population reduction inthat area.
They've really habituated tothat area and it's a tough
situation and it's a strugglethat's been going on for many
years there.

Speaker 1 (01:17:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
And with some of the diseases that are about to get
here and the ones that wealready have within our elk
population, thesehyper-concentrated places, I
think our best mechanism rightnow is population reduction and
so do you have any more insighton that?

Speaker 1 (01:17:53):
Do you have?
I want to ask you, do what doyou think should be done?

Speaker 2 (01:17:58):
that may not be I would like to see improved
habitat.
National forest and wilderness.
I agree there.
Yeah, elk are gonna, and deerand everything else, birds, bugs
, all of it um, they're going togo wherever the habitat is the
most conducive for theirsurvival and thriving and
reproduction, and our nationalforest and wilderness could be

(01:18:24):
in a lot better shape thanthey're currently in for a
number of reasons and in anumber of ways.
But I think that that's themost important thing, and one of
the really tricky things isthat the wildlife agency is the
state who doesn't control muchland or habitat, and then the

(01:18:46):
one that controls the habitatdoesn't seem to be terribly
interested in habitatimprovement for the sake of
wildlife meant for the sake ofwildlife um, so we need to get
them together and yeah and uh,and apply enough pressure and
concern from from ourselves asas citizens, and and uh, we need

(01:19:07):
to make this happen that's.

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):
that's an interesting distinction, you know, like,
because because these, obviously, these different agencies were,
were put in place to to be theorchestra of of things and and
there's a little bit dissonancethere at dissonance that we
can't really afford.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:19:26):
Yeah, yeah, it's uh.
You know, imagine like tryingto to cook a meal in a kitchen
but you're not allowed to accessthe refrigerator because
somebody else is in charge ofthat yeah that's tricky.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
You're gonna have a hard time, um, and then the
people that might be a bettermetaphor than what my wants to
admit.
Yeah.
And then the folks who arepretty sure I've been in a
household like that yeah, thefolks who are in charge of the
fridge.

Speaker 2 (01:19:55):
You know they they want to eat too, but they're not
allowed to use the stove.
So we're we're at a bit of animpasse.
Uh, just need to get themworking together and then we can
make a cheesecake.

Speaker 1 (01:20:07):
So, wow, that that is some good insight, that that
thank you yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:20:12):
All right, brother.
Well, I appreciate you a lot.
Um, I know that you'll reachout if you need help.
I'm only about an hour away, so, yeah, good to see all the
critters and you doing well thisyear I'm going to take off and
I'm going to go around theWallowas.

Speaker 1 (01:20:26):
We're going to cross at Oxbow, we're going to climb
into Idaho and we're going tohead east and so I think it's
going to be a big snow year.
I do too, shaping up that way,so I think it's going to be a
big snow year.

Speaker 2 (01:20:38):
I do too.
I uh, yeah, Shaping up that way.

Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
Yep, so I look forward to traveling into
through Keating.

Speaker 2 (01:20:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:20:45):
That area.

Speaker 2 (01:20:46):
Yeah, have you explored there much?
No, not at all, not at all.
But yeah, look forward tohearing about it anyway, yeah,
yeah, yeah, thanks a lot, manGot it.
Bye everybody.
The six ranch podcast isbrought to you by Nick's
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(01:21:09):
For many of my listeners, you'vewaited and prepared all year
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(01:22:13):
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Your support is incredible andI also love running into you at

(01:22:36):
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I think that that's fantastic.
I hope you guys keepadventuring as hard and as often
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Art for the Six Ranch Podcastwas created by John Chatelain
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Celia Harlander Original musicwas written and performed by

(01:23:00):
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