July 3, 2023 • 17 mins
This week on Strive Seek Find , I find myself knocking the rust off some old farming relating skills while teaching them to my kids. We had a week that ranged from fencing to gun safety with many things in between.
With special shout out to Grand Teton Distillery,
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:03):
Hello there friends, both old and new. Welcome to the
strive seek find podcast, I'myour host chance Whitmore home
to bite sized lifestyle advicefrom a fellow traveler on the
road to a better life. Broughtto you by someone who is a
(00:25):
longtime educator, writer,parent, and an outdoor
enthusiast, who may just maylike a good DRAM because our
future is set not just throughour choices, but by our
willingness to explore and finda better way. Welcome back
(00:45):
friends. It's been a good week,an exhausting one, but a good
one nonetheless. And as I recordthis, I find myself wishing that
I had saved a title I useseveral weeks ago. Because it
fits, again, on what happened.
Now let's get started. Thisweek, my family and I were a
(01:08):
visiting, visiting the oldfamily homestead, the family
farm, which it was founded byone of my ancestors in the year
1900. Which seems a lot moreancient than it did when I was
in high school. Or Does thatjust mean, I'm more ancient than
(01:30):
I was in high school.
Let's put that thought aside fornow. Slow place, I spent 10
years and some change living ina place that I learned to know
like the back of my hand growingup.
(01:53):
And sharing that with my kids isalways interesting, because in
some ways, I am less protectivethan my folks were. And in other
ways I am so very much more. Anda lot of that in the back of my
head is because they don't havethe same knowledge and skill set
(02:14):
that I had, because they haven'thad that opportunity. And this
week, I had the chance to helpthem remedy some of those gaps,
because they have skills that Icouldn't have even imagined at
15 years old. And by the sametoken, they have never had the
opportunity to wander up anddown the old family farm with a
(02:38):
22 strapped to their back andjust go where they will, because
they'd been up and down inherding cattle herding sheep.
And they been shooting in someway or another. As long as you
could remember, obviously,guided protected, but that was
how I grew up. But those aren'tthe only skills we're going to
(03:01):
talk about today. So I'm alittle bit sore tonight. Because
a couple of days ago, I had theopportunity to do something I
hadn't done since I was in my20s At least with any sort of
regularity. Growing up a bigpart of what we did, because we
did run animals was fixingbarbed wire fence. And when you
(03:26):
grew up in a place that is nearYellowstone, and for those who
don't know, that means there's alot of old, leftover lava rock
around which made buildingfences somewhat of an adventure.
You've got great soil forgrowing, but you also get some
(03:48):
special treats along the way.
Specifically, you got to figureout how to get fence posts at
times deep enough in the groundthat they'll stay. And that was
really challenging with woodenposts. So we I can remember when
I was a teenager, we replacedall the rotting out wooden posts
that we could with steel posts.
(04:11):
And if you've ever had theopportunity to use a steel post
driver, it's simple as all getout. It provides you with great
leverage. So you can deliver alot of force to a steel post and
in just a few hits drive it deepenough into the ground that it
is a stable place to hangchicken wire, not often. Barbed
wire, hog wire, whatever youneed to keep the animals in. And
(04:35):
I could remember being amazed atmy father being able to drive
him in in just two or three hitsand then trying to replicate
that as a early teenager andtrying to to do it faster when I
was getting older and stronger.
They will add that there is aspecial level of pain when you
are hitting those posts as hardas you can When you hit a rock
(04:57):
square on underground, yourteeth ring, your elbows, ring,
your knees even ring, you feelit through your entire body.
It's a special kind of pain, itgoes away fairly quickly. But
then you have to pull the postand do it all over again and
(05:19):
hopefully get past the rock thenext time. So all this to say, a
fence that my father, mybrother, and I had rebuilt when
I was in late high school, Ithink were some of those posts
were still some that we'd putin, probably when I was in
middle school. But we pulled agreat deal of the rotten ones
(05:44):
and pounded a bunch of steelposts in. And since that time,
Dad had just kept updating itkept updating as long as he cut.
But eventually, it was let go.
And that wasn't helped by thepeople farming the next ground
(06:04):
over who kept hitting it. So thewires down, I thought the wire
was gone, I discovered that itwas most definitely not. And a
lot of the posts had rotted outor been knocked down. So I got
the opportunity to, to relearnhow to do that. And my girls got
the chance to learn how to doit, how to repair a fence with
(06:29):
40 year old wire, while poundingsteel posts. More than anything,
we just got the posts in placeto mark the property line. And a
couple of places we stuck thewire back up. It's a simplified
version of what I used to do onthe weekends and evenings with
my father with my brother, butit was good learning. For one
(06:51):
thing, I was once againreminded, I'm not 18 anymore.
Consequently, the soreness, mysix year old got to learn that
wild fit is sitting in the backof the truck. So the issue is
fun. Picking up and carryingsteel posts to dad to keep him
working is not as much fun. Theother two, well, one was
(07:13):
driving. And the other one wasmaking sure I had what I needed
to get things done. It wasreally efficient. And we all
learn something from it. BecauseI'd never organized fence
building with kids who had neverdone it before. And my girls,
the two oldest, I needed amarker put it ahead gate. So
(07:36):
they took another old steel postand the post driver and went up
themselves and did itthemselves. Which is something
that the day before, they wouldhave had no idea how to do even
though it is probably as simpleas it will come. The next of my
really outdated rusty skillsthat I got to practice this week
(08:01):
was something that most of youprobably have not even heard of
flood irrigation. I have apicture up on the strife seek
find page on Facebook right nowthat kind of shows some of what
you do. Growing up floodirrigation is how we watered our
pasture. And it's the cheapestway to do irrigation. It is
(08:28):
definitely not the most waterefficient, but it is the
cheapest way to do it. You don'tneed a pump, you don't need
pipes, you need a chunk ofplastic tarp, with a board stuck
through it. And if it's a reallydeep ditch some extra supports
to block the water so that youcan send water across the
(08:50):
pasture, or in this case, theark. Once you forget, after not
doing it for 20 something years,possibly more on an irregular
basis is how long it takes to doit. Because it's not turn on the
sprinkler for an hour. And walkaway it is get it going double
(09:12):
check it monitor adjustconstantly. It's very user
intense. And on top of that, youhave to know the ground you're
doing it on really well. Youhave to know where the ground
slopes where it's high so thatyou set the dam up in the right
place. So it breaks and coversthe maximum amount of pasture
(09:36):
lawn you can. And if you haven'tdone it for a long time, you
make a lot of mistakes. Andthat's fine. I will say when I
was in expertly doing this atage 910 11 It seemed a lot more
fun. Because dad had it allmapped out where he put it he
just put it in and you foundsome reason to dink around and
(10:01):
play in the water and throw somemud at each other. What could be
better after all, when youhaven't done it for a while, and
you're up to your ankles or morein mud, or standing in water,
and it's 12 hours later, it'snot as much fun as when you did
it 1011 12. But there is anelement of nostalgia and good
(10:25):
new learning to go along with mysimplified remembrance of it.
And I will admit, I was not asexpert at it, as my father. And
my brother has kept up on it.
And I am sure that he could havedone a much better job than I,
but I got it done. The last bitof learning is something that I
have been meaning to get to fora long time. When I was I think
(10:48):
12, maybe 13 years old, I'd haveto look back because I have the
notes still someplace. My fathergave me the family 22 which had
come from his father. And he'dgotten it if the story goes
correctly from his father. Soold bolt action, external firing
(11:08):
pin that you have to set byhand. It is a great starter 22
Long Rifle to learn shooter. Andyet, I have failed to teach my
kids how to safely use it. Ikept it under lock and key. But
I don't think I've even had itout to maybe three. Now, it's
(11:32):
longer than three years. So wetook the opportunity, since
we're on the farm, to do somebasic gun safety, and allow them
to shoot a little bit.
I had the 15 year old, the 12year old and even the six year
(11:55):
old working with me. And we dida run through on the rules of
gun safety. We modeled them, wetalked about them, we practice
them. We all before we shot. Andonce we had shot, I made them go
(12:16):
in and write them all down. AndI'll be honest, I went full
teacher on this. And I wentthrough and graded them on what
they remembered and what theydid not. They had a great
experience with it. And becauseit was scaffolded and protected,
(12:37):
it was really safe. My bigregret is I hadn't done this a
long time ago with the oldertwo. Because knowing how to be
around and be safe with firearmswas just a part of how I grew
up. And sharing that with themin a safe protected manner was
(13:01):
impactful for me. And it has mydaughter's asking questions
about how it works and why itworks. Not just the rules by
rote, but trying to seeking tounderstand and at least one of
them wanting to get out andshoot again. For me it brought
the rules back because I had tothink of the why that dad had
(13:22):
taught me growing up. Eventuallyyou do something, it becomes
rote. And having to break itdown and teach it to somebody
else brings it back to life foryou. And without too many more
details. I'm going to say it wasan incredible week. Not only did
we do those things, but we hadtime to do more board games than
(13:43):
we've done in a long time. Mytwo younger daughters learn the
basics of knitting and areworking on it because they see
their grandmother doing it allthe time. And she helped guide
them. And my oldest learns thebasics of crocheting and is
currently working on a beaniefor me. I'll throw up a picture
when she finishes. And the onething I keep coming back to is
(14:03):
that learning wouldn't havehappened if we had been at home
operated at our normal pace ofplay. But because we were
operating in a differentenvironment and slowing down,
not much you were still runningto get things done. But
different things. There was theopportunity to either enhance or
(14:28):
learn new skills. And while thelikelihood of my daughter's
needing to learn how to build abarbed wire fence or pound of
steel post in in the future.
Outside of that environment isfairly low. They still can do it
if called upon. And for somereason that really matters to me
(14:48):
tonight. One final thing. I wasgoing to do a full episode on
this, but this seems moreappropriate I'd wanted to shout
out Grand Teton distillery inDriggs, Idaho. They are a small
batch distillery that had beenopen since I believe 2011
(15:11):
putting out their vodkas andtheir whiskies in 2014. I'd
wanted to go by there for a longtime, stop and check it out. We
took Amy and my mother, we wentup there, we did a tasting did
the tour. I've had a few oftheir their whiskies, their
cultures run and theirCatamount. But I've tried their
(15:34):
whole lineup now and came homewith a bottle of the private
reserved. It's an impressivesetup, because four people are
putting out their entireproduction line. Just want you
to take a second Think aboutthat for full time people, which
includes their distillerdistilling, bottling, labeling,
boxing, and getting out thedoor. Some high quality spirits,
(16:01):
because I'm going to tell youfolks, Grand Teton distillery is
without a doubt, the bestdistillery currently operating
in the state of Idaho. If youever have the opportunity to
drop by, go check it out. Well,friends, that's it for this
(16:22):
week's edition of strive seekfind. Thank you again for
listening. If you'd like to jointhe discussion, or have ideas
for future episodes, hop on overto the strife seek find podcast
group on Facebook.
Alternatively, if Facebook's notyour thing, you can find me on
(16:43):
Instagram at strife seek findpodcast on Twitter. As at chance
Whitmore five. We're even onemail. Links for all those are
in the show notes below. Untilnext time, my friends, keep
seeking your own brilliantfuture
Hello there friends, both old and new. Welcome to the
strive seek find podcast, I'myour host chance Whitmore home
to bite sized lifestyle advicefrom a fellow traveler on the
road to a better life. Broughtto you by someone who is a
(00:25):
longtime educator, writer,parent, and an outdoor
enthusiast, who may just maylike a good DRAM because our
future is set not just throughour choices, but by our
willingness to explore and finda better way. Welcome back
(00:45):
friends. It's been a good week,an exhausting one, but a good
one nonetheless. And as I recordthis, I find myself wishing that
I had saved a title I useseveral weeks ago. Because it
fits, again, on what happened.
Now let's get started. Thisweek, my family and I were a
(01:08):
visiting, visiting the oldfamily homestead, the family
farm, which it was founded byone of my ancestors in the year
1900. Which seems a lot moreancient than it did when I was
in high school. Or Does thatjust mean, I'm more ancient than
(01:30):
I was in high school.
Let's put that thought aside fornow. Slow place, I spent 10
years and some change living ina place that I learned to know
like the back of my hand growingup.
(01:53):
And sharing that with my kids isalways interesting, because in
some ways, I am less protectivethan my folks were. And in other
ways I am so very much more. Anda lot of that in the back of my
head is because they don't havethe same knowledge and skill set
(02:14):
that I had, because they haven'thad that opportunity. And this
week, I had the chance to helpthem remedy some of those gaps,
because they have skills that Icouldn't have even imagined at
15 years old. And by the sametoken, they have never had the
opportunity to wander up anddown the old family farm with a
(02:38):
22 strapped to their back andjust go where they will, because
they'd been up and down inherding cattle herding sheep.
And they been shooting in someway or another. As long as you
could remember, obviously,guided protected, but that was
how I grew up. But those aren'tthe only skills we're going to
(03:01):
talk about today. So I'm alittle bit sore tonight. Because
a couple of days ago, I had theopportunity to do something I
hadn't done since I was in my20s At least with any sort of
regularity. Growing up a bigpart of what we did, because we
did run animals was fixingbarbed wire fence. And when you
(03:26):
grew up in a place that is nearYellowstone, and for those who
don't know, that means there's alot of old, leftover lava rock
around which made buildingfences somewhat of an adventure.
You've got great soil forgrowing, but you also get some
(03:48):
special treats along the way.
Specifically, you got to figureout how to get fence posts at
times deep enough in the groundthat they'll stay. And that was
really challenging with woodenposts. So we I can remember when
I was a teenager, we replacedall the rotting out wooden posts
that we could with steel posts.
(04:11):
And if you've ever had theopportunity to use a steel post
driver, it's simple as all getout. It provides you with great
leverage. So you can deliver alot of force to a steel post and
in just a few hits drive it deepenough into the ground that it
is a stable place to hangchicken wire, not often. Barbed
wire, hog wire, whatever youneed to keep the animals in. And
(04:35):
I could remember being amazed atmy father being able to drive
him in in just two or three hitsand then trying to replicate
that as a early teenager andtrying to to do it faster when I
was getting older and stronger.
They will add that there is aspecial level of pain when you
are hitting those posts as hardas you can When you hit a rock
(04:57):
square on underground, yourteeth ring, your elbows, ring,
your knees even ring, you feelit through your entire body.
It's a special kind of pain, itgoes away fairly quickly. But
then you have to pull the postand do it all over again and
(05:19):
hopefully get past the rock thenext time. So all this to say, a
fence that my father, mybrother, and I had rebuilt when
I was in late high school, Ithink were some of those posts
were still some that we'd putin, probably when I was in
middle school. But we pulled agreat deal of the rotten ones
(05:44):
and pounded a bunch of steelposts in. And since that time,
Dad had just kept updating itkept updating as long as he cut.
But eventually, it was let go.
And that wasn't helped by thepeople farming the next ground
(06:04):
over who kept hitting it. So thewires down, I thought the wire
was gone, I discovered that itwas most definitely not. And a
lot of the posts had rotted outor been knocked down. So I got
the opportunity to, to relearnhow to do that. And my girls got
the chance to learn how to doit, how to repair a fence with
(06:29):
40 year old wire, while poundingsteel posts. More than anything,
we just got the posts in placeto mark the property line. And a
couple of places we stuck thewire back up. It's a simplified
version of what I used to do onthe weekends and evenings with
my father with my brother, butit was good learning. For one
(06:51):
thing, I was once againreminded, I'm not 18 anymore.
Consequently, the soreness, mysix year old got to learn that
wild fit is sitting in the backof the truck. So the issue is
fun. Picking up and carryingsteel posts to dad to keep him
working is not as much fun. Theother two, well, one was
(07:13):
driving. And the other one wasmaking sure I had what I needed
to get things done. It wasreally efficient. And we all
learn something from it. BecauseI'd never organized fence
building with kids who had neverdone it before. And my girls,
the two oldest, I needed amarker put it ahead gate. So
(07:36):
they took another old steel postand the post driver and went up
themselves and did itthemselves. Which is something
that the day before, they wouldhave had no idea how to do even
though it is probably as simpleas it will come. The next of my
really outdated rusty skillsthat I got to practice this week
(08:01):
was something that most of youprobably have not even heard of
flood irrigation. I have apicture up on the strife seek
find page on Facebook right nowthat kind of shows some of what
you do. Growing up floodirrigation is how we watered our
pasture. And it's the cheapestway to do irrigation. It is
(08:28):
definitely not the most waterefficient, but it is the
cheapest way to do it. You don'tneed a pump, you don't need
pipes, you need a chunk ofplastic tarp, with a board stuck
through it. And if it's a reallydeep ditch some extra supports
to block the water so that youcan send water across the
(08:50):
pasture, or in this case, theark. Once you forget, after not
doing it for 20 something years,possibly more on an irregular
basis is how long it takes to doit. Because it's not turn on the
sprinkler for an hour. And walkaway it is get it going double
(09:12):
check it monitor adjustconstantly. It's very user
intense. And on top of that, youhave to know the ground you're
doing it on really well. Youhave to know where the ground
slopes where it's high so thatyou set the dam up in the right
place. So it breaks and coversthe maximum amount of pasture
(09:36):
lawn you can. And if you haven'tdone it for a long time, you
make a lot of mistakes. Andthat's fine. I will say when I
was in expertly doing this atage 910 11 It seemed a lot more
fun. Because dad had it allmapped out where he put it he
just put it in and you foundsome reason to dink around and
(10:01):
play in the water and throw somemud at each other. What could be
better after all, when youhaven't done it for a while, and
you're up to your ankles or morein mud, or standing in water,
and it's 12 hours later, it'snot as much fun as when you did
it 1011 12. But there is anelement of nostalgia and good
(10:25):
new learning to go along with mysimplified remembrance of it.
And I will admit, I was not asexpert at it, as my father. And
my brother has kept up on it.
And I am sure that he could havedone a much better job than I,
but I got it done. The last bitof learning is something that I
have been meaning to get to fora long time. When I was I think
(10:48):
12, maybe 13 years old, I'd haveto look back because I have the
notes still someplace. My fathergave me the family 22 which had
come from his father. And he'dgotten it if the story goes
correctly from his father. Soold bolt action, external firing
(11:08):
pin that you have to set byhand. It is a great starter 22
Long Rifle to learn shooter. Andyet, I have failed to teach my
kids how to safely use it. Ikept it under lock and key. But
I don't think I've even had itout to maybe three. Now, it's
(11:32):
longer than three years. So wetook the opportunity, since
we're on the farm, to do somebasic gun safety, and allow them
to shoot a little bit.
I had the 15 year old, the 12year old and even the six year
(11:55):
old working with me. And we dida run through on the rules of
gun safety. We modeled them, wetalked about them, we practice
them. We all before we shot. Andonce we had shot, I made them go
(12:16):
in and write them all down. AndI'll be honest, I went full
teacher on this. And I wentthrough and graded them on what
they remembered and what theydid not. They had a great
experience with it. And becauseit was scaffolded and protected,
(12:37):
it was really safe. My bigregret is I hadn't done this a
long time ago with the oldertwo. Because knowing how to be
around and be safe with firearmswas just a part of how I grew
up. And sharing that with themin a safe protected manner was
(13:01):
impactful for me. And it has mydaughter's asking questions
about how it works and why itworks. Not just the rules by
rote, but trying to seeking tounderstand and at least one of
them wanting to get out andshoot again. For me it brought
the rules back because I had tothink of the why that dad had
(13:22):
taught me growing up. Eventuallyyou do something, it becomes
rote. And having to break itdown and teach it to somebody
else brings it back to life foryou. And without too many more
details. I'm going to say it wasan incredible week. Not only did
we do those things, but we hadtime to do more board games than
(13:43):
we've done in a long time. Mytwo younger daughters learn the
basics of knitting and areworking on it because they see
their grandmother doing it allthe time. And she helped guide
them. And my oldest learns thebasics of crocheting and is
currently working on a beaniefor me. I'll throw up a picture
when she finishes. And the onething I keep coming back to is
(14:03):
that learning wouldn't havehappened if we had been at home
operated at our normal pace ofplay. But because we were
operating in a differentenvironment and slowing down,
not much you were still runningto get things done. But
different things. There was theopportunity to either enhance or
(14:28):
learn new skills. And while thelikelihood of my daughter's
needing to learn how to build abarbed wire fence or pound of
steel post in in the future.
Outside of that environment isfairly low. They still can do it
if called upon. And for somereason that really matters to me
(14:48):
tonight. One final thing. I wasgoing to do a full episode on
this, but this seems moreappropriate I'd wanted to shout
out Grand Teton distillery inDriggs, Idaho. They are a small
batch distillery that had beenopen since I believe 2011
(15:11):
putting out their vodkas andtheir whiskies in 2014. I'd
wanted to go by there for a longtime, stop and check it out. We
took Amy and my mother, we wentup there, we did a tasting did
the tour. I've had a few oftheir their whiskies, their
cultures run and theirCatamount. But I've tried their
(15:34):
whole lineup now and came homewith a bottle of the private
reserved. It's an impressivesetup, because four people are
putting out their entireproduction line. Just want you
to take a second Think aboutthat for full time people, which
includes their distillerdistilling, bottling, labeling,
boxing, and getting out thedoor. Some high quality spirits,
(16:01):
because I'm going to tell youfolks, Grand Teton distillery is
without a doubt, the bestdistillery currently operating
in the state of Idaho. If youever have the opportunity to
drop by, go check it out. Well,friends, that's it for this
(16:22):
week's edition of strive seekfind. Thank you again for
listening. If you'd like to jointhe discussion, or have ideas
for future episodes, hop on overto the strife seek find podcast
group on Facebook.
Alternatively, if Facebook's notyour thing, you can find me on
(16:43):
Instagram at strife seek findpodcast on Twitter. As at chance
Whitmore five. We're even onemail. Links for all those are
in the show notes below. Untilnext time, my friends, keep
seeking your own brilliantfuture
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