Ep. 52: Forest and Farm with Chrissy Streit

When Chrissy Streit met and later married an avid hunter she made it clear that she was never, ever going to hunt. As a very conscientious eater of animal protein, her opinions about hunting shifted over time. When the young couple began a family and the thought of both the origin and the content of the food they would feed their children came into play, Chrissy really began to experience a change of perspective. Now, a very accomplished hunter, gardener, forager and cook, Chrissy shares her journey with others online through her various "Forest and Farm" platforms. 

In this episode, Jesse Deubel and Chrissy Streit talk about Chrissy's transition from being accepting of hunting to becoming a hunter herself. She shares heartfelt stories about the experiences she's had and how it has helped shape her view of life, death and food. From hunting grouse to elk and growing and harvesting species from rabbits to lettuce this episode covers four natural food procurement options that minimize our dependence on the local grocery market. Hunting, fishing, gardening and foraging are all covered in this entertaining and educational conversation. At the root of it all is a reminder about the importance of understanding that all living organisms on this planet are connected. The consequences of humans becoming increasingly distanced from the natural world are real. Being in nature helps our minds and our souls and the [real] food it provides feeds our bodies. Hopefully when you finish listening to this one you'll want to get outside, get your hands dirty and touch grass. Until then, enjoy the listen!  

For more info:
Forest and Farm FB
Forest and Farm Instagram
NMWF Website

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, folks. Jesse Dubell here, executive director of the New

(00:02):
Mexico Wildlife Federation and your host of the AIVA Podcast.
I'm super excited about this episode because I'm joined by
a very dear friend out of Taus, New Mexico, Chrissy
strip Is on the show, and among many other things
that Chrissy does, she's the creative mind behind a Forest
and Farm, which is a super cool resource available to

(00:26):
anybody who's interested. So, Chrissy, I'm gonna lie you to
introduce yourself here in just a second. But why don't
you start by talking about what forest and Farm is
and then how it came to be, what your motivation
and inspiration for creating Forest and Farm is. The New
Mexico Wildlife Federation presents the YAHIVA Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
All right, well, thanks so much, Jesse. Forest and Farm,
like you said, is my online presence. It's my social
media where I just share everything that's going on in
basically my relationship with food is really how it all
came about. That's kind of the bottom line. So I'll

(01:07):
back up and tell you the story of kind of
how that came to be, because Forest and Farm didn't
really start I think until the pandemic when I started
having time to pour stuff into an outlet. So I
live in Tause, New Mexico. I've been here in New
Mexico full time for the last twenty five years. But
I was born and raised on the Big Island of Hawaii,

(01:30):
and my family had been there. I was the fifth
generation to be born there in the state of Hawaii,
and so grew up outside a lot. My mom had
a huge, beautiful vegetable garden, as you can imagine, could
grow anything in Hawaii, and that was my first experience

(01:52):
and introduction to real food, whole food, food that doesn't
come in a package. When I was a kid and
growing up, I really didn't understand that connection, and that
part is really important for the story of my journey.
I think because I took that garden for granted, I

(02:13):
took for granted that my family when I was a
baby historically had always been ranchers. We transitioned out of
ranching and into coffee, but always farming, ranching, all of
these things that I wasn't directly involved in and so
didn't have an understanding and appreciation for. And as I

(02:35):
got older, you know, we grew up in the you know,
eighties and nineties era of convenience food equals not healthy
food usually, and went off to college and just I
would say I did have a relationship with food, but
it was an unhealthy one, right, I didn't understand. I
never knew about listening to my body and all of

(02:56):
these things when it came to what I was eating.
In during college, when I was twenty years old, I
met my now husband, Nick Strite, who probably many of
your listeners know of in the fishing and outdoor realm.
But Nick was a hunter, and I had no experience

(03:22):
at all with that world. Right, My view of hunters
was a negative one. Really. I thought hunting means that
you go out and you just shoot something and you
brag about it to your friends. And you know, I
didn't have any understanding, any connection at all. And what's
interesting now retrospectively is all of my uncles, basically in Hawaii,

(03:47):
hunted all throughout my childhood. They were always hunting. There's
a lot of feral sheep on the Big Island of Hawaii,
and my brother would even go out with them. And
I had no clue that any of that was happening,
you know, And so meeting Nick. He kind of explained
to me, you know, what hunting meant to him, and

(04:10):
that it was how he had grown up having a
relationship with food. That's what hunting was. It was food.
And as I kind of started to understand that, and
because I got to know him and didn't think he
was a bad person, I thought, Okay, well, maybe you
know this is there's some truth to this, that not
everybody is a big macho guy out there with a

(04:32):
gun or whatever. And but I said, okay, that sounds great.
I have absolutely no interest in that. Never ever, will
I ever, you know, be out there in the woods
with you. And as our relationship progressed, he I became
more involved. I would say in the preparation of that

(04:56):
food that he would bring home right, he would go.
He would hunt for elk, deer, wild ducks, grouse, you know,
whatever it is. And in the beginning I remember clearly saying,
it's okay with me if you bring this home if
it looks like it came from the grocery store. And
I think a lot of people have this same relationship

(05:17):
to wild game food, where if it comes home looking
like an animal, it's scary or it's gross or it's
you know, it's not normal because what we think of
as normal now is wrapped in plastic from the grocery store, right.
And so after a while he was like, all right,
that's not going to happen anymore. You know, I need

(05:38):
to bring this home and you need to help me,
like I need help. And so I really became much
more involved with We do all of our meat processing
at home, on our dining table, on our kitchen table,
you know, and I and I very quickly became an
integral part of that, and then started really learning about

(06:00):
how to cook with wild game. And that kind of
opened a new door for me because I'm by no
means a chef, and I definitely wasn't when I met
my husband. We joke about it, actually what a terrible
cook I was, But I found a love for cooking
and through that wild game coming into my house. Now

(06:24):
at the same time all of this is I'm getting
more and more used to it and getting more excited
when he would go on a hunt. And you know,
now I'm really saying, I'm really understanding all of it.
We have children during this time, we have babies, and
you know, what we put in our bodies Okay, I'm
kind of paying attention when I have a baby and

(06:47):
I'm thinking about what I'm putting in their bodies. I
really started thinking about everything that I was buying at
the grocery store, everything that was going on, and so
it shifted from not only was I solely focusing on
wild game now for our protein sources, but I was
also thinking about the vegetables. I was growing things or

(07:11):
vegetables that I was purchasing at the time. Right, So
I started a garden, and all of these things started connecting.
My first garden, I told you about my mom's beautiful,
incredible vegetable garden that she had when I was growing up.
I had no clue what I was doing because I
wasn't connected to that garden as a child. I had

(07:34):
no experience. And my first vegetable garden was hilarious. I
worked so hard on building it, and it was of
course huge, because I always buy it off more than
I can chew. But I remember famously making pickles. I
had what I thought were bushels of cucumbers that year,
and I was so proud, and I made pickles and

(07:56):
I posted pictures online of all of my pickles and
somebody said those are zucchini, and I had been picking
all these zucchini that I was, you know, growing tons
of and so I laugh at that now, but it
was part of my journey. I didn't know what I
was doing. I just figured it out as I went,
and it was driven by food, which is what you

(08:18):
know this whole thing is about. For me.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
Well, I got to ask you, Chrisy, what is zucchini
pickles tastes?

Speaker 2 (08:24):
I mean they taste like pickles. Pickles are just anything
that you pickle, right, you can have carrot pickles or
but at the time I didn't. And I think this
is really I love telling that story because I think
that we as humans are so disconnected from our food now.

(08:48):
And grocery stores, yeah, they're very convenient, but this is
a pretty recent thing that exists in our culture. Right.
A store that you can go in and buy all
of your food ready to go bring it home. It's packaged,
ready cleaned up, doesn't look anything like its original source sometimes,

(09:11):
and so we forget and we're disconnected from it. And
so when I was making pickles, of course I thought
you only made pickles with cucumbers, because that's what you
buy at the grocery store. Right, Zucchinis make wonderful pickles,
and I had a lot of them. So, you know,
I continued to guard in and cook with wild game.

(09:34):
And fast forward now to twenty twenty, right, and the
world kind of shuts down. Maybe it was a couple
of years before this, but I was I was getting
more into Yep, you're right, I'm right. I'm backing up. Sorry.
Right before the pandemic, I started really evaluating deeply my

(09:58):
relationship to the meat I was eating. Right, so I
was pretty much exclusively cooking with game meat that my
husband was bringing home. But I was still buying chicken
at the grocery store, you know, sandwich meat, things like that,
and I was really not happy about it because I

(10:20):
was thinking about the way that that meat was being raised. Right,
the chicken that I was buying, you know, I'm buying
organic and trying to do the things that were told
or right and safe, but I'm thinking about it. I'm like,
what does that really mean? What does that mean for
this animal? What does it mean for me to be
a meat eater? And what do I think it means

(10:41):
to be an ethical meat eater? And I realized that
saying I don't ever want to kill anything, but it's
okay for somebody else to do. It was bothering me.
And I turned to my husband and I said, okay,
I'm ready to hunt. I think he fell out of
his chair because I had sworn up and down that

(11:04):
I would never you know, And I said, I want
to hunt, and I want to start raising her own meat.
Like I said, I always bought off more than I
can do. I never do anything small. And so he
was like, okay, let's try it. And we decided to
start with bird hunting. Why I don't know, but we

(11:24):
decided to go grouse hunting, and that was going to
be my first experience. So this is the story I'll
tell you briefly of the very uh I guess martyr
like grouse that gave its life so that I would
become a hunter. I at this point, I think I
was thirty seven or thirty eight. Most of the people

(11:46):
who I know who hunt, like yourself, like my husband,
like most of my friends, have hunted since they were children,
right held guns since they were whether they were baby
guns or pellet guns or whatever, had all of this
experience of this slow learning process and I was an adult,

(12:06):
jumping in, you know, both feet ready to go, but
none of those years of experience of slowly leading up
to this moment where I'm actually going to shoot a grouse.
So we went grouse hunting that fall, I don't know
how many times and never saw a grouse. And you
all know how that goes. You always see the animals

(12:29):
leading up to the hunt, and then the hunt comes
around and all of a sudden, they're all gone. So
one day, you know, I was trying not to get frustrated,
and because I was like, I have to this is
I've decided to do it now. And we were out
in the woods with our kids, and we decided to
head home and Nick spotted a grouse sitting in a

(12:50):
tree ways away from us, and he said, okay, you know,
don't rush, take your time, you know. So I go
off and I see this grouse sitting in a tree,
and I took my time and I started taking deep
breaths and focusing, and the grouse just kept sitting there

(13:10):
staring at me, waiting what my kids would call a
cannon event if anyone reads comics, right, this was my
moment to become a hunter and Meanwhile, my husband, who's
quite a ways away watching from a distance, It's like,
what is she doing? Why isn't she shooting this bird?
And it just sat there until I finally shot it

(13:31):
fell out of the tree, and I you know, that night,
I cooked that grouse and another that Nick had gotten
for dinner, and it was that was it, you know,
I knew it. I was like, this is what was
missing that all of this, you know, I'm working towards this.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
Well.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Now, I I was the one who did the providing
as well as the cooking, right, and there's a difference,
I think. And I knew where that bird was that morning,
you know, I knew guaranteed it had a good life.
It didn't live in a cage. And so it was
just something within me shifted and that was it. And

(14:13):
after that we went home to Hawaii and we went
hunting for feral sheep and I got a sheep after
a lot of trial and tribulation. But it was just
one thing after another, you know. And I put in
for my big game tags in the New Mexico draw
and shot my first dear And when that happened, I

(14:37):
just remember, I mean I cried like I cry every
time I think you and I were talking about this recently,
or another friend. I cry when I hear other people's
hunting stories. I cry when I take people hunting. It's
it's still it's beautiful and powerful and meaningful, and there's
something about it that feels like a retur hern to

(15:01):
what I'm supposed to be doing when it comes to
what I'm eating. Right. So after that, once I was
like decided I was a hunter. Like I said, I
was still buying chicken and things at the grocery store,
I jumped full on in and decided to start raising
chickens and turkeys for meat at home. We already had

(15:25):
chickens for eggs. And so that was about the time
I started the Forest and Farm social media and just
started sharing that I have found throughout my life that
if I share something publicly, it helps you stick with it.
If that makes sense, right, it makes it, it makes

(15:46):
it real or you know, holds you accountable to it.
And so I started sharing my journey, my trials and
tribulations with the garden, experiences with hunting and with the
animals that I was raising, and how hard that was.
So now you know, maybe six or seven years later

(16:10):
after I started my hunting journey and really becoming, you know,
maybe what some would call a serious gardener, although you know,
I'm always learning constantly and it's never really serious, but
it's very fun. But now I can really look at
it and say, you know, all of this makes sense
to me. All of it's connected. And I'll walk people

(16:32):
around the garden show them the animals that were raising,
and I think it's It's interesting me because when people,
when you talk to somebody about hunting, people can really
categorize it right like like I did before, before I
really understood it, and they can say, okay, well, if
you're hunting, you know that makes you this kind of
person or whatever. But when they come to my garden

(16:54):
and they see the animals I'm raising for me, they're like, well,
how can you look how cute they are? Because now
we also raise rabbits right for meat, and that one
is really hard for people, and they said, how can
you kill them? And I what I tell people is
the shift for me was when I when I used

(17:14):
to think was that I couldn't never eat something that
I loved. Right when I was in high school, we
had a steer who I fell in love with and
I was like, I'll never eat beef again. Right, So
many teenagers do that, and you know, of course I
didn't last, but I thought I love it too much,
right like, I can't. I couldn't possibly. And now I realize,

(17:34):
like I couldn't eat something that I didn't love, right Like?
That difference was such a shift really deep within who
I am. I feel like, is that what I'm putting
into me? And we're talking about meat. If you are
a meat eater, a life is being taken, right Like,

(17:56):
that's a serious thing. It doesn't just come packaged and
plastic at the grocery store. And that's what it's always
looked like. It was a living thing. And so if
you can, if you think of yourself as a meat eater, like,
that's something I'm not saying you have to come to
terms with, right because I'm not. Everybody has their own
process and their own journey with food. But something I

(18:18):
had to come to terms with, Okay, life was being taken.
So who who am I okay with being responsible for that?
And I wanted it to be me and with my
animals that were butchering at home on processing day. It's
hard it's hard every time, Like it doesn't get easier.
This year we said, you know, we get more efficient,

(18:40):
like we get better at it, which is really important
to me because part of it, you know, why I
am doing it is I don't want them to be
in pain. I don't want them to suffer. So we
get better at it and it goes quicker. But every
time is hard, and I don't ever want to lose that.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
I yeah, Well, you know a couple a couple of reflections,
the first one on a lighter note, and this is powerful.
This is really meaningful, powerful emotional testimony that you're providing
here today, Christy, and I appreciate it very very much.
I think it's going to resonate with a lot of people.
You know, a lot of our listeners are hunters and anglers,
and as you indicated, a lot of our listeners are

(19:19):
familiar with Nick and the taois fly shop and all
he's done for conservation, his exceptional success as an outdoorsman,
as a hunter, as an angler, as a guide, so
on and so forth. But we also have a lot
of listeners who do not hunt, and we have a
fair number of listeners who are vegans because of course,
the American Wildlife Federation advocates for all wildlife in the state,

(19:39):
and this ranges from elk to pollinators. So we have
a pretty diverse listenership, and I think this story is
going to resonate strongly with all of them. But I'd
like to first say that I can't wrap my mind
around this idea that you ever not a good cook.
That's struggling with that, first of all, because I've eaten

(20:01):
I don't know how many meals that you've prepared, and
they're all delectable. So that's an interesting thing that I'll
have to you and I can talk more about offline,
or I'll maybe talk to Nick more about that, because
how you went from supposedly being not a very good
cook to being the culinary expert that you are today
is probably a topic for an entirely other, entirely another podcast.

(20:26):
So that's one thing. The other thing though, that I'm
thinking about, And I had the opportunity just last weekend
to take a tour of this year's garden that you've planted,
and it's so magnificent and impressive and it's just well
organized and doing fantastic. But one of the things that
I'm thinking of is as a hunter, you have to

(20:47):
understand the needs of the animal that you're pursuing, right,
You have to know what their habitat requirements are, because
that's going to help you know where to find them,
what their habits are, where they're going to be, you
know where they bed, where they feed, where they get water.
All of those things help you be a more effective hunter.
But as we were touring your garden, you were also

(21:08):
talking about like the threats to the garden, and you
had netting around some of the plants, and you were
talking about the particular pests or insects that would come
and pose a threat to those particular species of plants,
and so you're protecting them. Of course, you're doing it
with netting, not like with you know, pesticides and vehicles
and things like that. And so I'm just curious if

(21:29):
you can maybe compare and contrast to some extent how
hunting and gardening and also raising domestic animals that you're
later than going to consume, how all of that helps
deepen your understanding of the natural world and the interaction
of different species and plants and environmental threats and things

(21:51):
like that.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Well, you know, Jesse. That's great, really great direction with
that question, because I have been doing a lot of
reflecting on all of that as I age, right, Like
I'm now, you know, approaching mid forties, and we'll just
leave it at that. But right, it's like, you know,
so I have been thinking a lot about what it

(22:18):
means to be getting older. I don't feel old, right,
We're not. Forties is the new twenties, right, but right,
But it is a very reflective time in my life.
And so I feel like all of these things that
you're talking about that are going on in my life

(22:40):
with the garden, with hunting, and with raising meat and
then also doing those things keeps me outside a lot.
Being in the natural world for you know, most of
the time, i'd say, has really all connected and led
me to this point of like a deeper understanding, like

(23:01):
you said, of the natural world and of myself.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
Right.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
So, as humans, like as a species, we are meant
to this is a concept I've been thinking about a lot.
We are not meant to be as comfortable as we are.
So I've been thinking about comfort a lot lately. All
of these things that I'm talking about. This journey for
me has been very uncomfortable, Right, It's been about pushing boundaries,

(23:31):
pushing pushing comfort. Like hunting is uncomfortable, like you're hiking,
you know, and sore and cold or hot depending on
you know, if you're analoge hunting, Oh my gosh. Right,
it's like uncomfortable. Uh, but it is rewarding. And so

(23:52):
that idea of things being uncomfortable but rewarding and that
being tied together, I think goes into what you're saying.
So when I talk, you talk about the garden and pests.
So the comfortable or the easy thing, the what's mainstream
thing that we are taught now as gardeners is to

(24:14):
use pesticides, to use fertilizers, to use all of these
unnatural things to help our garden along, right, which is
definitely when I started, you know, and I was buying
vegetables at the nursery, and all of those plants that
you're buying at the nursery, unless you were shopping at
a organic nursery, have been fed miracle grow their whole lives.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
Right.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
What you don't understand about all that is that like
until later, until you start doing a deep dive. And
I think that a lot of people are on this
journey along with me. When it comes to gardening, is
that the more natural you get, the harder it gets.
In the beginning, right, it's uncomfortable, but you start to
realize that if plants are fertilized, they're weaker, and then

(25:01):
they're more susceptible to pests, So then you have to
use pesticides. But then the pesticides are also killing the
pollinators who would be naturally eating the pests, or not
pollinator who would be helping your plants, and then the
beneficial insects who would be naturally eating the pests. I
don't know if any of this is making sense, but
it all goes, you know, into what you're saying, understanding

(25:22):
the natural world. So as I've been taking a deep
dive into gardening. And of course when I got into gardening,
it was to provide healthy food for my family, so
I knew I wanted to be an organic gardener. The
more I understood that relationship with my plants in the
natural world, the more I just let go and let

(25:45):
them do the work. If you look at my garden,
I have those netting over some of the beds. There's
still bugs getting in it, but It just helps me
a little bit and not have to pick so many
worms off my cabbages. But there's flowers mixed it to
all my beds, there's things that are receding. I'm kind
of letting it do its own thing and having less

(26:06):
control over my garden these days, which feels uncomfortable because
it feels like I want to you know, you want
to have control, you want to make sure I'm doing
it right. But the more I've paid attention to it,
the more I've realized, like it's all there in nature already,
the processes for you know, for your garden. If you

(26:31):
look out in the woods, you look at nature. It's messy, right,
It's layered. So I'm trying to echo in my garden
what I'm seeing out in the natural world. I'm trying
to I don't know if any of this is making
any sense, but that ties into the natural world when
I'm hunting, because, like I said, we're spending so much

(26:52):
time out there walking around in the woods and you're
really getting a sense of what it should look like.
There's a great quote that I wish I remember who
said it that says, if you're not echoing nature in
your garden, you're doing it wrong because it's all we're

(27:13):
not reinventing the wheel. We might be using plants that
have been you know, changed throughout over the years to
be more you know, like cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale.
Those are all the same plant basically that we have
developed into different varieties. But at one time they were growing.

(27:36):
Something was growing out in the forest that those plants
came from. Right, So we're not If we are looking
out into the natural world and paying attention when we're
out there, it's just going to inform our choices in
the garden. And I feel like, so I'll tie that
back to what I'm talking about with aging. I'm trying

(27:57):
to pay more attention to things like timing natural you know,
everything has its everything's in a cycle, right, And as
I'm getting older, like so, I look at my garden
and people are always talking about, oh, this is your
season and you have to only grow within this season.

(28:18):
And it used to be such a bo oh No,
it's going to start snowing and it's going to kill everything. Well,
if it didn't freeze and it didn't snow, I'd have
a horrible pest problem, right, So it started me like
recognizing what am I grateful for. I'm grateful for when
the garden closes down and it's time to be quiet
and introspective and I can, you know, think more about

(28:38):
hunts and canning all of that stuff out of the garden.
But I need it to close down the plants, the
soil needs to rest right, and I need to have
those deep freezes my garden. I feel very lucky that
I live somewhere that's more quote unquote challenging to garden
in because I have benefit. It's like a deep freeze

(29:01):
to kill insects that are going to eat. You know,
places that you can grow all year long have a
lot of pest problems. So I think what I'm trying
to say is like that time to getting older, it's
like teaching me to be more grateful, to pay more attention.
And so I'm trying to echo in my life like
that quiet time, right that time, yeah, in the winter,

(29:23):
to kind of close yourself down. And you look at
animals when we're out hunting, like it they do the
same thing, right, So I think that all of it
and I'm really i mean getting tell myself, I'm getting
a little woo woo. Right, But it's like it's when
I used to think of hunters as being these like

(29:44):
just macho guys walking around in the woods, and maybe
some of them are, I'll be honest, right, But it's
so where I am at it with it now, of
taking it to this deep place of helping me understand
myself better and helping me quiet my mind. I mean,
when you're hunting, you cannot be thinking about anything else, right,

(30:11):
That's right. You have to be focused, you have to
be quiet. And when that happened, you know, it's it's
meditating basically. It's like a it's like a form of
I don't know, being aware while meditating right, like of
your surroundings. But you get yourself to that point where
your mind is quiet enough so that you can notice,

(30:34):
you know, anything off in the distance or anywhere around it.
You can hear those sounds. And I'll tell a story
if it's okay with you, about my first Elk hunt.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Oh, I want to hear that story bad before before
we started that story though, and that's one of my
favorite stories. I love it. But my brain is making
this connection. You were talking about comfortable, being comfortable and
the importance of becoming uncomfortable. Becoming comfortable being uncomfortable, right,

(31:08):
that's kind of an interesting concept, But we have to
become comfortable being uncomfortable to live the type of lifestyle
that you've chosen. But the other C word that keeps
coming into my mind is convenience. I feel like convenience
is almost the enemy here because there's a lot of
ways you could do things that are a lot more convenient.
It would be a lot easier, that would make your

(31:28):
life a lot easier. But we have to resist that
if we want to have this type of lifestyle. And
you know, you're a busy you're a very busy woman.
You've got you've got children, you've got a business, you've
got a lot going on. I mean, let's face it,
the work that you do is incredible. There's a lot
of people out there who would say, I just don't
have time, Like this sounds great, this is awesome for

(31:49):
someone who has all the time in the world. But
if you don't have time, and I clearly you have
to make time for this because it's not like you
have have hours and hours and hours of free time.
You've got a lot of commitments out there and so
as we're talking about convenience, it would be convenient to
go to the store. It'd be convenient to be able
to spray your plants with some kind of spray bottle

(32:11):
that takes care of the insect issues. Like, there's a
lot of conveniences that you that you resist in order
to accomplish the goals that you've set out to accomplish
and stay true to your mission. For lack of a
better word, you know, you're really shucking some conveniences to
do that. And the same thing with hunting. I mean,

(32:34):
you know, it's a passion of mine and like you
indicated earlier, I've been doing it since I was a
little kid. But it's not convenient to take two weeks
off of work to go elk cunning and hump over
mountains and all these things, and then have to pack
the animal out and then I take it to your
house to process. So I have all of the help
again and we do it all together, and it's amazing

(32:56):
and all those things, but none of that stuff is convenient, right,
And so I really want to hear but I really
want the story of the Olt kind of well, one
of my favorite stories of all time, but I'm curious
if you could comment, if you could just speak to
the people who say, you know what, this is great,
but it's not convenient, and so I just don't see
how I could do it.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Well, you know, there's a lot about that, and I
think one of the things, so I told you I
kind of started, or maybe I didn't really start it,
but I was more involved in my forest and farm
social media during the pandemic. Something happened during the pandemic
with the homesteading community right where there was like this

(33:38):
explosion of people who wanted to become homesteaders. And it
was really funny because I had never really considered called
ourselves that before, although a couple of years before we
were interviewed in the homesteading issue of Oh Gosh, there's
a new Mexico food magazine out of Santa Fe. I

(34:00):
can't remember it, but anyway, and we were in the
homesteading issue and I had to laugh because at that
time I had a little garden Nick hunted, I didn't
hunt yet, and we had chickens for eggs, and I
was like, we're not homesteaders. I was like, I buy
milk at the grocery store, right, But anyway, So during
there's this homesteading explosion during the pandemic pandemic, and I

(34:20):
started kind of digging into that and doing the social
media thing with it, and feeling like I had to
do all these things to be a homestetter, to have
this lifestyle that you're talking about, right, like growing all
of these different varieties of lettuce and all these different
varieties of tomatoes, and I had to start everything from seed,
and I had to do it this way. So that

(34:40):
was very inconvenient. During the pandemic. We all had a
lot more time, right So, and I was teaching at
the time. I was teaching online, and my kids were
going to school online, and my husband was hustling online
for our fly shop. But we all did have more time.
We were just home more. And so the next year

(35:02):
when I had a garden, I was like, WHOA, I
do not have time to do this the way that
I did it last year. Like, you know, it's very inconvenient.
It's taking too much time. So I have changed a
lot of the way that I garden, the way that
I cook all of those things, and it does in

(35:23):
order to live my lifestyle and hold these values of
things that I think are important, Like I want to
be the one who touched my food right is kind
of the meat, the vegetables, as much as possible mushrooms.
We haven't even talked about mushrooms yet, Jessica. But I
want to be the one who touches these things. So
I have to plan a little bit more. And I

(35:45):
think if I plan a little bit more, I can
create convenience in my life and still have the time
to do it right. And so when it came to
the garden, first of all planning, I plan my garden
in that slow time in the winter. Right in the winter,
we all still have our regular things that are going on,

(36:06):
but there's no demands outside outside of my home because
it's all covered in snow hopefully, and I can't do anything,
but I can plan for next year. So I plan
the garden when it's quieter in the wintertime, and then
I've gardened differently. I'm not trying to grow every single
tomato variety. I'm not trying to do all of these.

(36:28):
I have picked one tomato variety this year that I
and the reason is is that I'm growing, like I
guess the to back it up. Part of that planning
is why am I doing all of this? And if
you can answer the why, it helps inform your planning.
So I'm growing tomatoes to make basically tomato sauce because

(36:51):
everything I cook in some form or another usually uses
tomato sauce. And so I want to grow paste tomatoes,
one variety of a tomato tomatoes that will fulfill that
goal for me. Right, if you're only growing one type
of something, it gets way easier. So that's just like

(37:12):
one example. But I let my lettuce go to seed
last year so that this year I didn't plant it,
and it all came up and I had beautiful lettuce.
I planted some, But I mean, you know that whole
what I was talking about earlier about looking at how
nature does it. Nature doesn't go put out seeds every
year in the garden. It's just this constant cycle of

(37:33):
things receding and falling in place and growing there. So
I'm trying to let my garden do more work for me.
You know, I have now been gardening for ten years,
so that's not like a quick oh, it's you know
you can start this way, well maybe not, but you
can plan to get there. And you can also probably
start a lot smaller than I did. I always tell

(37:55):
people to start small. I never do. But you know,
here as I say, not as I do exactly. And
then with.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
Food, I don't mean that up but I want to.
I want to hit on something really quick. So there's
and maybe I'm missing some, but there's really four primary
methods by which you're procuring your food for your family.
One of those is that you're gardening, right, you're gardening
and growing your own vegetables and plants. The second one

(38:27):
is that you're hunting, and of course Nick also a
very effective and successful hunter. The third one is fishing.
And Nick Acurtse and you both as as the owners
of the Tows Fly Shop, a lot of the trips
that you do are catch and release trout fishing and
targeting specific species and native species of trout and things
like that. But also there's there's a component of fishing

(38:48):
that provides food for the table. I mean, we've been
out on eagle Ness Lake catching pike, and we go
ice fishing and catch perch, and we utilize the road
from the perch, and we were out of eagle nests
recently and you made one of the most beautiful looking
crawfish at two fays I've ever seen with crawfish that
we took out of the bottom of the lake. I
was eating them raw and Nick prefers them to be

(39:09):
cooked apparently, But that was amazing. And then four the
fourth thing is foraging. And we'll get more into that too.
And as we talked about mushrooms and foraging. But I
just want to see is that accute or am I missing?

Speaker 2 (39:21):
No, I'd say that's that's accurate, and all of those things, Jessee.
What I was going to mention with the convenience is
that I've started I now have jars on the shelf
with all of those combination of different things and ready
to go meals. Right, So I built convenience because I'm

(39:44):
most of the meals that we eat, right, Yeah, I'm
cooking three meals a day for four people, but I
come home late and I don't want to cook. And
so I've built that convenience back into my life where
that convenience used to be like frozen pizza or take
out right or the family isn't eating until nine o'clock
at night because I have to make something from a scratch.

(40:07):
And so, yeah, I think that that you can still
have convenience food, but it can still be you know,
elk or de your vegetables from the garden. But again
it's a skill I learned. So it's you know, I
think that I think that the thing is that people
have to go easy on themselves. And you can't transition
to a lifestyle overnight, right.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
Yeah, it's.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
I don't know, you have to you have to start
small again, like not like I did, and and and
go from there. And if convenience, you know, and think,
why why am I doing this? What is the goal? Sure,
my goal is to touch all my food, So therefore
I have to plan to build that convenience in.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
And I feel like there's an opportunity for everybody listening
to get involved at some level. I mean, if you
lived in a in an apartment and you've had nothing
small balcon off of your apartment, you could have you know,
one of those upside down tomato growing apparatus, and you
could have an herb garden and you could grow your
own herbs. And there's certainly things I feel like that you.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Can grow so much in one little you know plant
or on a patio. You can grow mushrooms in a
box in your kitchen, you can you know, I mean
you could do any of that stuff. You can go
to farmers markets and eat the same way, food that
one person has touched, that is fresh and real and whole.

(41:38):
Even if you if you have no way of growing
at yourself, you have no way of raising meat yourself,
you can still eat that way, you know, And I
think that's important too to think about, Like if you
are if you're struggling like I did, with the concept
of being a meat eater, but feeling that kind of
ethical question of what it means to be a meat eater.

(42:01):
In a time of convenience foods, you can buy meat
from you know, and this you know, at this time,
it's like even if you live in a city, you
can there's there's places to get meat that was raised
very close to where you are, right, Like proximity. I
think that's a big thing. Like with my whole journey

(42:22):
is like my proximity to my food's origin, right is
that most of it's very close. But you can still
accomplish that even if you're not doing the raising or
the hunting.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
Well, you know, we're talking about convenience and now you're
talking about kind of the locovore movement, if you will,
that concept, and I remember a podcast I think it
was I hope I don't get this wrong, but I
think it was Chef Jesse Griffiths that owns Di Dewey,
which is a restaurant in Austin, Texas that only serves
local things. The dream procures all of the menu items

(42:58):
from within, like one hundred miles of the rest or something.
It's just the thing. And I remember him talking about
like customers coming in and they're like, well, I want avocado,
and well, we don't have avocado. It's not the right
time of year, it's not the season. Or I want
a line with my cocktails, like, well, limes are not
in season, so we don't have limes, and how it's
just Americans in particular are just blown away by this.

(43:20):
What do you mean You're a restaurant and you don't
have this thing? And he's like, well, yeah, I mean
you've become so accustomed to the convenience of having whatever
you want, whenever you want. But that's not normal, that's
not natural, that's not the way people live.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
I Yeah, that's where I'm kind of like. Now I
will say, like I love avocados. I cannot grow avocados
or bananas, right, so I give myself grace to be like, yeah,
like this is we do live in a world where
you can get things that you normally wouldn't be able to.
I do try most of the time, right to have

(43:57):
that like proximity to my food. But yeah, I mean, well, okay,
really good example, olive oil, right, I cook everything in
olive oil. I don't have an olive grove in the
Rocky mountains, So I think that's important too that we
give ourselves grace. But but I'm doing the best I can.

(44:20):
I guess in terms, I could go you know, full
on and say no, I'm only going to use you know,
fat from the animals that I raise, or you know,
I would love to do. That sounds ideal, but I
you know, I also have a very small acreage. I
can't raise you know a lot of animals that I

(44:41):
would get fat off if I can't raise cows, So
I buy milk, right, So now I'm trying to get
better about the things that I buy, buying them from
local farmers. But I mean, I don't want anybody to
scold me when they see me in the grocery store
that I was fitting this whole time, because no, I
still want a lot.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
Yeah, but yeah, the thing that's so incredible and when
I hope this episode one of the things that does
is inspires people to just be a little more open
minded about the idea of food procurement.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
So, you know, in Albuquerque, for example, we are in
very close proximity to the Sandia Mountains. I mean it's
not difficult to get to the San Diaz where it's
the foothills are covered up with choyas, and those choya
buds are unbelievable edibles, right, I mean you can eat
choya buds, you could eat prickly pear fruits, you could
eat personallyane personally in the San Diaz there is so

(45:38):
much personally and available and it's super nutritious and it's
unbelievable in salads, it's just an amazing wild harvested food.
You can get lambs quarters by the bushel. I mean
I could go out, you know, to to the San
Dias and in thirty minutes probably get a bushel of
lambs quarters, which for folks that don't know, it's like spinach.

(45:59):
I mean it's quick, it's like a wild spinach essentially,
and that's what it tastes like. You would use it
any way you would use spinach. So the opportunity for
this type of lifestyle exists for just about everybody. And
the reason I bring that up is because there are
going to be some listeners who are in urban areas
and they're thinking, well, if I lived in Taos or
outside of Taos and had some acreage, well then maybe

(46:22):
I'd have the opportunity to do some of these things.
And what I just want to make clear is that
to some degree this is available to everybody out there.
I mean these things because New Mexico is nearly fifty
percent public lands, and you and I, Chrisy, have spent
time together foraging non public lands, mostly for unbelievable varieties

(46:43):
of wild mushrooms. And of course this is a good
opportunity to encourage everybody to make sure you're knowledgeable about
what you're doing. Don't just go out and pick a
wild mushroom and eat it and think you know you're
an expert. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking
about becoming educated, perhaps finding a mentor you know, you
have to know what you're consuming. For sure, But if
someone's interested in that and interested in pursuing that, especially

(47:07):
now with the Internet and resources are just so immense.
You know, in the old days, my dad and I,
when I was a little kid, we used to go
into the mountains with this Audubon field guide, you know,
it's like a book. We'd carry the book and we'd
see a species of mushroom or a plant or a wildflower,
and we'd open it up and we have to identify
it and go through the book and read about it
and take a spot print. And you know, there's a

(47:29):
lot of work involved. Nowadays, there's so many apps and
tools and resources, and I encourage everybody to be very
very diligent about this. I don't don't be haphazard about
this process. You know, don't just use your Google app
that takes a picture of the cap of the mushroom
and think you've positively identified it. There's more to it

(47:51):
than that. But the resources exist that you can become
very very educated and very very confident when it comes
to foraging wild plants on public lands and even on
private lands. You know, it's kind of interesting. A couple
of weeks ago, I was at my girlfriend's house and
she noticed all of this chick weed growing in her
lawn and she's like, Oh, that's not good for my grass.

(48:14):
And I always joke about lawns. I've got a real
issue with lawns, you know, because we want to take
the chick weed out, we want to take the dandelions out,
we want to take the edible stuff out of the lawn,
so we could leave this ornamental, useless lawn that doesn't
benefit anything. There's no benefit to this lawn, like you know,
turf grass doesn't help pollinators, doesn't help anything. But anyway,

(48:36):
it's a really small patch of lawn and it's required
by the homeowners association and it's there. But we're taking
out all this chick weed, and the questions I'm asking,
they're like, hey, are you putting any kind of chemicals
or fertilizers on this lawn? Because this chilling is like
an let's harvest. Let's not just pull them out and
treat them like weeds. Let's take them out and treat
them like food.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
Well, dandelions, same thing, you know. I uh, last year
took a ton of dandelion flowers and fried them and
they were like articho carts made aoli sauce and we
just had we just ate dandelions. It was unbelievable. So
there's a lot that we think of. You know, a
weed is just a plant growing where you don't want

(49:18):
it right.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
Right, And that's that's the curious part though, is like
how humans have come to this place where we don't
want super beneficial things, but we want things that provide
essentially no benefit at all. And it's just that's a
social experiment that can be discussed another day, but it's
just a curiosity that I sometimes think about. Yeah, and

(49:41):
We're not to get way off topic because I'm a
little bit on the outskirts when it comes to normal.
But you know, for me, like when the cicadas are
in full like hatch, I'm harvesting cicadas. I think cicadas
are fantastic, and people give me a really hard time.
I take so much flak when people we'll find out
that I like to eat cicadas. But you know, the

(50:03):
reality is there are arthropods they're like shrimp, right that
are on the land. I mean, instead of a shrimp
being in the ocean, they're on the land and they're
super abundant. They can be kind of hard to catch
at times. They're pretty elusive little buggers. But when people
are like that is so weird that you would eat that,
and I'm thinking, you know, what's weird is eating a cheeto, right,
Like read the ingredients on a bag of cheetos. Well,

(50:25):
that's weird.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
That's something that I, you know, I have really thought about.
And that's when I talk about whole food or real food.
That's what I mean, Like, this is something that is
one thing. It doesn't have an ingredients list because it
is one thing, right, And it's yeah, we look at
the things that we eat. You know, I went gluten
free a few years ago, and you know, kind of

(50:48):
bought into the buying the gluten free products at the store.
I started really paying attention to the ingredient lists on
gluten free products and I was like, oh kay, never mind,
I'm just good have rice because it was you know,
it's wild. But what we're used to and those ingredients
lists that have, however, many things on them that we

(51:10):
can't pronounce and we don't know what they are, those
are considered normal, right, that's what you're talking about, Like
that's the new normal, And yeah, I think that that
all of that eating cicadas or eating dandelions or whatever
it is, Like it might not be normal, but it's
this idea to most people. But it's this idea of
like returning all of this. This is here, and we're

(51:38):
designed to be able to eat it all, like there's
no reason why we can't eat it all, like and
that's what it is for me. It's all about food,
like I said at the beginning, Like I'm very driven
by my stomach, right, and there's a lot of really
good food that we if we just look around, like yeah,
when we go mushroom hunting, like and the mushroom hunting thing,

(51:59):
I one hundred percent agree with you people. I think
the internet has made it too easy for people to
take a picture of something and say can I eat this?
And it terrifies me whenever anybody does that. You know,
we learned one mushroom at a time. I feel like,
went with somebody who was knowledgeable and really made sure

(52:19):
of what we're doing. And now I have a lot
of mushrooms in my arsenal of what I consider. I
know what they are and I love doing that. But yeah,
it's you want to make sure that's not to be
messed with.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Yeah. Just last week we were in the Carson in
advance of the big public land celebration that I should
throw a shout out to you and to Nick Strike,
the Taos fly Shop, Bart Eddrington and Backcountry Hunters and
angl There's so many organizations also in the Mexico River
Adventures who hosted the event. It was. It was spectacular,
and musician Max Gomez was there to provide live entertainment.

(52:55):
Of course, Senator Martin Heinrich gave a keynote address to
the audience, but then you actually sing a duet with Max,
which was spectacular, one of the highlights of the evening.
But in advance of that public Land celebration, my girlfriend
and I actually were up in the Carson National Forest
foraging mushrooms. And she's done it before, but I'm a

(53:16):
little more experienced than her. I would definitely not I'm
not an expert, but I've got a handful of species
that I know without a question, and so therefore I
target those species. And so she's coming up with all
these other species, like, hey, what about this one? Like
maybe it's okay, maybe not, But since we don't know,
we just leave it. You know, and we actually did,

(53:38):
and this was a fun experiment. We did gather a
bunch and put them in a separate container that we
just didn't know what they were, right, you know, a
sampling of different species. Because we knew we were going
to see you and Nick and Garrett the following day
at the event, and so we actually pulled Garrett vinaclaus
In from New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, the former executive director

(53:58):
of the New Mexico WILIE, who's a mushroom expert to
you know self proclaim, but I would I would not
argue with you know, I wouldn't argue with that description.
And so Garrett came out and I opened up this
bag and laid them out on the tailgate of my
truck and said, hey, Garrett, can you help me to
identify all these different species that we found that were

(54:19):
unsure of And so it's part of the educational process.
But being diligent is so crucial when it comes especially
to mushrooms, but really all wild forking. I mean, you know,
here's an interesting thought, and this is going to be
a weird tangent, but you know, there are people who
are opposed to the idea of eating meat, you know,

(54:40):
vegans or vegetarians, there's prescyterarians. There's all these different you know,
food classifications how people choose to approach their personal diet.
And I have no issues with any of it. I mean,
it's a personal decision that I one hundred percent support. Whatever,
you know, somebody's comfortable with. But one thing that I
think is interesting there's a book called The Carnival or Code,

(55:01):
which is a really fantastic book. But one of the
points that's made in that book is there's not a
single animal protein in North America that's toxic to consume. So,
I mean there's venomous animals, like you know, a rattlesnake, right,
Like a rattle is venomous. You could absolutely eat meat

(55:21):
off that rattle and you do not have to worry
if it's if there's toxins in it that are going
to make you sick. But a ton of plants. I
don't want to, you know, claim a percentage here, but
there are a ton of plants that contain serious toxins
that you would not want to consume. And I just
think that's an interesting thing when we talk about you know,

(55:41):
human diets and looking all the way back to our
ancestors in the way that they ate. Imagine knowing that
if it was an animal, it's one hundred percent of edible,
you don't have to worry about it. But if it's
a plant, you better be very, very cautious.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
I will add to that, I'll be a little bit
of a devil's advocate and say that animals can can
get parasites or certain meats right because of that needs
to be cooked to certain temperature. But yeah, otherwise, yeah,
I'm completely agreeing with you, and I think that is
really important when you talk about plants that with any

(56:16):
kind of foraging, understanding what you're getting. But what you
did with the mushrooms and bringing the ones you didn't know,
I think that's really important too. Don't plan on eating them,
but yeah, collect mushrooms are cool, and there's a lot
of really cool mushrooms that are not edible, but have

(56:36):
somebody look at them identify them, because it's just as
important to identify a mushroom that you shouldn't eat, right,
And there's lots of mushrooms that aren't going to kill
you but might really upset your stomach or just don't
taste good. So it's just it's such a fascinating activity
and you and.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
I've had so much fun out on woods doing it.
But I've learned so much every single time. And when
we were talking about lobster mushrooms, I don't know if
it's user Garrett, Someone's explained to me, like, this is
a species of mushroom that starts off inedible. Yes, then
it's like attacked by a parasitic frongness or something, and
then it like transforms into one of.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
The most DNA Like it's like being bit by a
radioactive spider and becoming a superhero. Right, and then you
make a pasta with that lobster mushroom and you would
swear you were eating seafood pasta, right. Yeah, it's so
that's one of my favorites that I've picked one this
year and it was a little small, so I have

(57:35):
it dried waiting for friends so that I can make
pasta at a lobster mushroom. But you know, my favorite thing, Jesse,
when we're talking about all of these things, my very
favorite thing to do is to have a meal that's
combining all of these things. Right, So when I have
plate and I'm looking at my plate. And I'm not
a food photographer, so if you look on my forest

(57:57):
and farm Instagram, there's a lot of picture that, you know,
I wish we're a lot prettier, but I'm basically just
so excited about you know, I have a salad from
my garden. I have, you know, an elk steak from
an elk that I harvested. I have then that's covered
in mushrooms that we foraged, right, and that kind of
thing that makes me so happy, and it's so rewarding

(58:22):
and taking all those things and when you're eating a
meal like that, all of those experiences are part of
the meal, right, All of those memories of wandering around
in the woods or all the time I spent out
in my garden, like, that's all part of it. And
I will say that, you know, it's interesting because I

(58:44):
think if all of this is like a return to
to what we're supposed to be doing, right, Like I
feel very when I'm out in my garden, when I'm
out in the woods, I feel very connected and grounded
and where I'm supposed to be. And there's this new phrase.

(59:05):
I guess that a lot of this is I hate
saying things like this that the young people are saying.
I heard Martin Heinrich say it in his speech, which
I thought was really funny at the event that you're
talking about the rally for the Rio, and he said,
touch grass, right, like this is this new it's becoming

(59:25):
a fat And I love this because it's about going
out in nature. Touch grass. It doesn't literally mean like
just go touch blades of grass, but it means going
out and immersing yourself being out in nature. You know
a lot of people are like, you take off your shoes,
be barefoot in the grass, But when you are picking mushrooms,
when you're gardening, when you're hunting, anytime your hands are

(59:48):
getting dirty, you're in it. Right, there's actual And I
don't I'm not very scientific, and I'm not going to
remember everything correctly, but there are chemicals in the dirt
that produce right happy chemicals in our brains and orphins
and things. And I was reading of it being somewhat
equivalent to taking antidepressants, like it does the same thing

(01:00:11):
in your brain. And so so not only is it
like good to go out there and do all these
things because we want to eat the food and be
whatever your reason is an ethical meat eater or you
want to be you know, closer to nature. But it's
also like making you happier chemically while you're doing it,
And I'm like amazing, right another.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Oh, the healing properties of nature are I mean, it
is so well documented, but there's I feel like as
well documented as it is, there's so many magical impacts
that time in nature has that still have not been documented,
that are still not understood critically important. And there's books
about like different regions of the world where people live

(01:00:56):
a really really long time, and when you start studying
some of these cultures that there's one thing in common,
and it's that they're almost always rural and they're very,
very connected to nature. I mean, they live with a
lifestyle that's very natural and very in tune with the
natural world. And speaking of the meals that you were
talking about, where it's all procured essentially self procured, first,

(01:01:20):
I'd like to say that I'm so appreciative to have
had the opportunity to share so many of those kinds
of meals with you, and it's just always such an honor.
But secondly, it brings me back to the elk hunt
that I interrupted before. And took us down a rabbit hole.
No pun intended, since you're raising meat rabbits, but I
took us on a tangent and away from the subject.

(01:01:42):
But that that story is really really powerful, and if
you're willing to tell it, I'd sure love to share
it with our listeners.

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
Well, so I talk about that first l kind of
a lot when you and I were talking about, you know,
kind of the meditative quality of hunting, right, and then
just now when we were talking about the healing properties
of being in nature. So this is my very my
very first elk hunt. And so I had at this
point in time, so I was like thirty nine, maybe

(01:02:12):
thirty eight thirty nine. I had shot one grouse, two
jack rabbits, one sheep, and one deer, right this is,
and had learned so much in every single one of
those hunts, good and bad. I mean, I you know,
I said I was a teacher, and so I've always

(01:02:33):
told my students that if you're not making mistakes, you're
not learning, You're just doing what you already know. And
so through all of those hunts, I made a lot
of mistakes and was lucky to you know, end up
with a harvest at the end of it. So my
first elk hunt rolls around, and this was December. It
was a late elk hunt in the Rio Grande del

(01:02:55):
Marte National Monument.

Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
And.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
I was so excited. It was working so hard because
all of these hunts are leading up to the big one. Right,
elk is that's the big one, right, we can all
agree on that, And a new Mexico elk just seems
mythical and like, all right, if I have an elk,
then I'm really a hunter. So three days before my hunt,

(01:03:22):
I was at work at school and I had a
key card that I reached up to hold to a
little you know, key card reader at the door, and
it felt like someone ripped my arm off and what
happened was my rotator cuff tour. I didn't know it
at the time. All I knew was I was in

(01:03:43):
extreme pain, and pretty much the first thought I had
was call my husband. The second that I had was
what about my hunt that I had been working towards
that was now three days away? And so our first
thought was to you know, you can give your tag
to someone else who hasn't drawn a tag that year.

(01:04:05):
But we couldn't find anybody h and Nick had drawn
a tag that year and so he couldn't take it.
So I was just so disappointed. And finally I looked
at my husband and I said, I want to go
hunting anyway. I had my arm, it was my right arm,
it was in a sling. This was like by Thursday.

(01:04:27):
My hunts started Saturday, and you know, I was like,
I bet I could shoot it with my left arm.
Like and my husband, we have this tendency of fueling
each other's crazy ideas, said sure, let's try it, you know,
and we went target shooting. Got me set up. Now
I'm having to if you can picture me being right handed,

(01:04:48):
having a right arm in a sling, left arm holding
the gun, leaning across so I can look through the
scope with my right eye. Everything went perfect. We decided
this is going to work, so we go hunting the tag.
I think it was December second or December third, I

(01:05:09):
can't remember, but it was a late season hunt and beautiful.
We had a lot of snow that year and we
went out and it was a little silly, I think
is the best word for it, because we came right away.
I think on the first morning, we came across some elk.

(01:05:33):
You know, we didn't have sticks. I was like Nicks
thought I could put the gun on his shoulder. It
was so wobbly it was ridiculous. And these elk were
looking at me like, what are you doing lady?

Speaker 3 (01:05:45):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
This is you've lost your mind. And so there was
a few mishaps like that where I didn't take a
shot because you know, it was crazy. But there was
one moment during that hunt where I was walking through
the trees and it started to snow. Losing use of

(01:06:07):
my arm for those couple of days in a sling
or whatever was really demoralizing and I was kind of
mentally spiraling. So I a lot of my you know, identity.
It's very physical, like my so our son. Uh. We
have a teenage son who uses a wheelchair full time

(01:06:27):
and I am basically his full time caregiver. So I'm
using my body all the time. I use my body
to garden, I use my body to hike, right, It's
like I'm physical. And the thought of like what's going
on my arm? Am I gonna need surgery? I don't know.
I was so wrapped up in my head and starting
to spiral, and then I'm out here on this hunt

(01:06:48):
that I've been working towards, and I shoot these out
standing in front of me. Well, we start walking through
the woods and it starts to snow, and you know
when it starts to snow, and everything gets quiet, right,
and it feels like everything's wrapped up in a blanket.
It's very soft and everything's quiet. My brain starts to

(01:07:12):
go quiet, and I did what you're supposed to do.
I stopped thinking, I started focusing, and all of a sudden,
I was happy. I wasn't worried, I wasn't freaking out
about my arm, I wasn't worried about if my sub
was following my plans back at school and what was

(01:07:33):
going on all these things, and so this hunt that
I'll spoil the ending. I did not get an elk on,
but we worked hard. We hiked a lot of miles
and had some opportunities. But it's like still my favorite
hunt because it really it opened my eyes to what

(01:07:53):
hunting can be, and even if you're not hunting, just
being in nature can be. Being out there in the
woods from people, getting to the point where you are quiet,
your mind is quiet, everything around you is quiet, and
it's so healing that Towards the end of that hunt,

(01:08:13):
I had an MRI scheduled and we hunted. That morning.
I went into town and had an MRI, fell asleep
in the MRI machine, and then went back out hunting.
And that night there was a full moon and my
husband and I hiked back in the moonlight, and you know,
I told him, I said, Okay, I'm done, but this

(01:08:34):
was incredible, you know, and it did it so it
healed me and also taught me something about myself too.
And you can't unless you're just spending time out in nature,
whether that's mountains or the beach or whatever. It's like,
you don't you can't connect. I believe you can't connect
to yourself like you can when you're in those places.

(01:08:56):
And so anyway, that's the story of my favorite elk
hunt i've had. There's where I've actually brought home meet.

Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
Yeah, we just recently. I mean it was last year,
the year before the time fly, so I can't keep track.
But you actually killed an elk entirely on your own,
like you were by yourself, which was.

Speaker 2 (01:09:16):
That felt like a really big moment. And I will
say that I had my my husband, I called him
my man in the chair because it actually in my
ears I had we were on the phone together, but
he wasn't with me and we lost connection right before
I shot the elk. So actually, during that moment, I

(01:09:37):
was totally alone and there was It was the first
time nobody was there to you know, it's extra. I
will say, like hunting by yourself, I don't think that
needs to be a goal, because having somebody there with
you to calm you down and talk you through it, right,
that's huge. I've been that for somebody else and that's amazing,
and having somebody there to do it for you is huge.

(01:09:58):
It's really helpful. But that having that experience of shooting
an elk by myself. It was a bull again in
the Rio Grande del nortein National Monument, so special, and
you know, in that moment of like seeing him, he
was crossing a meadow in front of me. All his

(01:10:23):
cows in front of him had quite a large harem
and he was trotting across in front of me, and
I was worried I was going to have to stop
him somehow make a sound. I was so nervous I
was going to mess it up, right as in my
head the whole time, and he stopped for a second
and turned back, you know, to look back up the mountain,
and I took my shot, and I mean, I can't

(01:10:45):
describe it. And then, you know, waiting for the help
to arrive, I called everybody I knew, right, how were
you know? I was so excited by the time Nick
got there. I mean I had been you know, getting
to work on processing, but suring him in the moonlight,
I mean it was like spectacular clear sky like you

(01:11:05):
can only have in northern New Mexico, I think, and yeah,
there's magic and definitely felt like a moment where that
I feel like I am where I am supposed to be.

Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
Yeah, well that's all of that. Chrissy is so powerful.
And I've benefited so much as a lifelong hunter, as
a person who my very earliest memories in life were
memories of hunting with my dad. I've benefited tremendously from
your testimonials, your stories, your journey, and I want to

(01:11:37):
thank you for sharing that journey online in the forest
and farm platforms. And so one more time before we
wrap up, and I've kept you a long time this evening,
and you get a lot of other things going on,
but one more time before we wrap up, let's revisit
Forest and Farm. Let the listeners know what it is,
why they should check it out, why they should follow it,

(01:11:57):
why they should support it, why they should, you know,
be excited about this. This opportunity to learn and to
grow and to benefit and to become part of this community.
That's not judgmental. This is not a situation where you're like,
if you buy meat at the store, you're not my friend.

Speaker 2 (01:12:13):
I mean, this is not that, right, No, I feel
very much the opposite of that, you know, kind of Yeah.
I I identify with myself as like I am a
meat eater, and so these are the choices that I've
made for myself. Whatever anybody does is like, no, that's

(01:12:34):
like I'm more about, like, just keep cooking and make
good food, and right, like, that's what's exciting to me,
is the end product getting to eat it. But it's
for me. Forest and Farm has been. I mean, maybe
I'll have to get better about posting things now more regularly, Jesse,
but it's just a yeah, a way for me to

(01:12:55):
share what I've learned and what works for me. I
do not consider myself an expert on any thing. But
I learned a lot when I was getting started in
all of these things through other people's social media platforms.
I learned everything I know about raising meat rabbits basically
on Instagram, including how to butcher them. I mean, I

(01:13:15):
learned vegetable gardening, all of these things that you know,
how to properly do a European mount right for your skulls,
and how to make them look beautiful, which I've gotten
really good at. I will say all of this I've
learned on the Internet, like it's kind of amazing, and so,
you know, it is a really good tool, and so

(01:13:35):
I use it as just a way to share. Like
I said, I if I have something that worked for me,
I like to share it and show people the way
I did it. I'd like to inspire people to try
something new or just to think about something a little differently.
You know. I recently learned how to freeze chicken eggs,
and so I shared that because I hate buying eggs

(01:13:58):
in the winter and we all know how extensive eggs are.
So things like that, if I learned something, I want
to share it. I do share sometimes recipes that I've
come up with. You know, again, I'm not an expert.
I'm not a chef. This is just my experience and
I'm having fun with it and putting it out there.

(01:14:20):
Maybe somebody else will get a kick out of it.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
Well, I think you are an expert my own opinion,
but have you shared it. I follow your stuff, but
I also post stuff on my own, and I follow
yourself personally, So I don't know exactly whether or not
you've shared this, but you've got this. You developed that
Candye Chantrell cocktail that is so spectacular, and I'm curious

(01:14:45):
if you've ever shared.

Speaker 3 (01:14:46):
That on you.

Speaker 2 (01:14:46):
I don't know if I have, but I'll tell people
what it is if they want to know. I know
you've posted pictures of it. I don't know if I have.
So it's basically a Manhattan for those of you who
like whiskey drinks. But instead of a regular simple syrup
I used, I made simple syrup with chantrells and I'll

(01:15:12):
go post about it now.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
Yeah, a variety, a very very soft after variety of
wild mushrooms.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
And the Chantrell has this amazing quality where it smells
like the mushroom smells like apricots, and it's amazing. When
I dry them, you'll open the jar and they still
smell that way dried, like a year later. But I
make it the simple syrup with fresh shantrails, a little

(01:15:43):
fresh chantralls that I take equal parts mushroom sugar water,
bring it to a boil, and then simmer it down
until the liquid is just beautiful golden color. And you
just stored into mason jar and the fridge that way
in the liquid and use that to make cock tales.
So I made this manhattan with that and bitters, and

(01:16:06):
then you put a couple of the mushrooms in there,
and I call it a Man of the Woods or
a fun Guy.

Speaker 1 (01:16:16):
One of the best cockailer I've ever had. And I've
also had those candy chin trails on ice cream, and.

Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
Oh it's really good on ice cream.

Speaker 1 (01:16:24):
So spectacular. So these are I'm just giving our listeners
some a little bit of a of a sneak peek
into the kind of things that they can expect to
see when they follow your pages, because it's it's really
valuable stuff, and it's it's exciting and it's fun, and
it's completely attainable for the average person. That's what's really
really neat about it is like all of this stuff
is not something that people could just look at and say, boy,

(01:16:48):
I wish I could do that. The reality is, if
folks are interested, they can go.

Speaker 2 (01:16:51):
And like I said, when I started doing all this,
I had no I mean, yeah, my first guard, I
had no idea. I just made it up as I went,
and I'm still making it up as I go.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
So before I let you go, Chrissy, how do people
find forest and Farm? Where do they go to?

Speaker 2 (01:17:12):
Forest and Farmer? Is on Instagram and on Facebook. That's
about as cool as I get. And I do have
a blog that I've gotten behind on that I got
to pick back up that has some of my recipes
on it and some of my stories about some of
my hunts.

Speaker 3 (01:17:32):
For it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
And yeah, if you just search for forest and Farm,
there is a tractor manufacturer called Forest and Farm. So
that's not me. I don't make tractors.

Speaker 1 (01:17:47):
But yeah, thats but you are involved in the coolest
fly shop in all of New Mexico. So I'll also
just remind listeners when you're headed through northern New Mexico,
stop at the tous fly unbelievable expertise if you want
to do guided trips. They've got guided trips on all
the different waterways in northern New Mexico. If you've got
specific species you want to target, they can help you

(01:18:10):
with that. If you need gear, you need rods, you
need flies, whatever you need. Like the Taos Fly Shop
is a spectacular company, not just because of their expertise
when it comes to fishing, but because of their conservation priorities,
their conservation values. I think most of the listeners of
this show no but Nick Strike, Chrissie's husband, is also
the executive director of Friends of the Rio Grande del

(01:18:31):
Norte National Monument. So the amount of time that he
spends outside of his professional life working on conservation issues
and working hard to protect public lands. He was instrumental
in helping us get all of the provisions for the
public lands sell off removed from the big horrific bill.
Just incredible work. And all of this stuff that Nick's doing,

(01:18:53):
Chrissie is right there by his side. She's supporting the
whole time. Effective of you was starving so exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:19:02):
I gotta keep everybody well fed.

Speaker 1 (01:19:06):
Awesome, just hear the best and thank you for thank
you for being such a fantastic friend, and for all
of the education and inspiration that you provide. I really
really appreciate you. And anything else you want to you
want to cover before we wrap up here.

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
No, I mean I I just want to say that,
go get outside, go grow something, go get in the woods,
and yeah it's good for you. All right, talk to you.
Thanks for listening to the Yahiva podcast produced by Drift
with Outdoors.