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Bumps & Bruises · A Time to Sharpen

0:09
Is there anything worse than a dull blade?
0:12
Well, yeah, lots of things, I guess.
0:14
Poverty, war, Opening a bag of chips to find that it's 80% air
0:20
that you can't eat. Just one.
0:22
Seriously though, a dull blade is bad.
0:25
It's unusable. In fact, it's downright
0:27
dangerous. Knives need sharpening.
0:32
From Whetstone Boys Ranch in Mountain View, MO, comes a Time
0:35
to Sharpen, a bi weekly podcast that examines how we can all be
0:39
better versions of ourselves. Better teachers, better
0:43
counselors, better parents, better people.
0:58
Bumps, bruises and bug bites, it's all part of growing up in
1:02
the Ozarks around here. Rub Subdern on.
1:05
It isn't just advice, it's practically a lifestyle.
1:08
Of course, we're also first aid certified, so don't worry.
1:12
More serious injuries are treated with more than just duct
1:14
tape. At Whetstone, we take safety
1:17
seriously. All adventures come with
1:19
precautions and protocols. In the wood shop and on the
1:22
landscaping crew, it's eye protection and ear protection,
1:26
boots and gloves. Out on the trail or in the cold,
1:29
it's the right shoes, the right socks, the right hats.
1:33
Because there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes.
1:37
Join us this week on A Time to Sharpen as we talk about what it
1:40
really means to grow tougher, wiser, and even a little safer
1:45
along the way. Welcome back to A Time to
1:57
Sharpen. This is Axel Limata.
2:00
I'm here with Brandon Maxwell. Hey, good to be back after a
2:04
little hiatus I had from last podcast.
2:08
I know it's it's been a month, I guess probably yeah, since we
2:12
since we talked and you said you got to listen to the podcast
2:16
with Kiernan just. A little bit, yeah.
2:17
I'm almost 2/3 of the way through it.
2:20
So yeah, I was, I keep meaning to, kept meaning to listen to it
2:25
and I always forget about it. And then we were had a little
2:28
bit of a trip and so I finally remembered.
2:30
So yeah, it was just great to hear Kiernan's voice and hear
2:35
what he's got going and just to hear some of his reflections at
2:39
his time from his time here at Whetstone.
2:41
And it's a pretty amazing just how well spoken he is.
2:45
He's he's always well spoken, but just to hear it from his
2:50
perspective years removed from his time here was just neat to
2:55
hear. Yeah, very encouraging and
2:57
inspiring. And of course, we wish him well.
3:01
I'm gonna try to get up there and visit him at some point in
3:04
the next year, make a trip up to the Northeast and check in, see
3:08
how he's doing and bring the coat with me.
3:10
Some gloves, two pair of gloves maybe, just in case.
3:16
Have to share a pair with someone.
3:18
We've already have That would be a dumb and Dumber reference
3:21
right Already so. Already how far we.
3:24
Didn't even get 2. Minutes, not even 2 minutes, one
3:27
minute and 32 seconds. We got a dumb and Dumber
3:29
reference so well, again, thanks to Kiernan for doing that and I
3:35
hope you all enjoyed that talk. I I thought about dividing it
3:38
into two, which would have helped us with like labor and
3:44
and everything, but I just felt like the the power of the of the
3:47
story, just it just needed to continue and I felt I felt a
3:52
little bit artificial breaking it into two.
3:55
So I just let it roll. I guess that'll it's have the
3:57
record for our longest podcast. Probably we didn't will.
4:00
That was about that long. Well over an hour at least.
4:05
And it seems like that's like long form podcasting or I mean,
4:08
people are listening to longer podcast, I think these days
4:11
anyways and let it so it's it works.
4:14
Yeah, but but if you have sharpeners out there, if you
4:17
have preferences, feel free to to drop it in the drop it in the
4:21
chat or or in the comments or something like that.
4:24
And we'll we'll adjust accordingly.
4:26
But we feel like that 40 minute range is good for us if it fits
4:30
with our schedule. But we can talk for longer or
4:33
shorter or whatever keeps people listening.
4:35
That's right. And another note, another
4:39
comment on that note is that we we'd like to be on other
4:43
people's podcasts, specifically podcasts that will reach parents
4:48
who are looking for the places like Whetstone because we really
4:52
have to fill up this new house. It's become imperative that we
4:56
fill up the house. We have 18 beds here at the
4:58
ranch. And so if you know of anyone
5:02
that has a podcast that that has a demographic or an audience of
5:06
people who, who would be in a position to send a boy to
5:09
Whetstone, reach out to us, let us know, maybe provide us with
5:13
an introduction or yeah, or something like that.
5:15
We'd love to. We'd love to rap with someone
5:18
and get the word out there even even more.
5:20
Sounds good, yeah. Yeah.
5:23
All right. Today, today the topic is bumps
5:27
and bruises. Went with a little alliteration.
5:30
Always like the alliteration. Yeah.
5:32
And. You do love the alliteration.
5:35
And so I, I didn't think, thinking back on the 60, two
5:39
other podcasts that we've done, this is 63.
5:42
We talked in, in great length at least about what we do at the
5:47
ranch when boys get sick, What do we do when they get hurt?
5:50
What do we do when they sprain an ankle, break a leg bump their
5:54
head, get Poison Ivy, get a sunburn, all this stuff.
5:58
We've talked about some of the precautions, some of those
6:00
safety precautions that, that we take, but none of that you can't
6:05
ever prevent, you know, 100% of bad things from happening.
6:09
So we've had some, some bad things happen.
6:11
So what do we do? And, and we're hoping to to make
6:15
parents who are considering placing a boy here more
6:18
comfortable with, with our skills and our trainings and,
6:22
and our certifications and things like that.
6:25
But also to talk through that kind of Gray area, Gray area of
6:29
just being tough. I mean, sometimes you, you
6:31
scrape your knee or sometimes you, you get a splinter.
6:35
We don't need to rush to the, you know, rushed to the
6:38
emergency room every time there's a little injury or
6:40
whatever. And that's part of what it means
6:42
to to grow up and become a man or woman.
6:46
And it's just like a, a grown up, you know, how to deal with
6:49
pain. And so that's kind of the space
6:52
I wanted to kind of sit in today.
6:54
Yeah, I think that's where my mind went when we were started
6:59
talking about this is just, I think there's a lot of coddling
7:06
maybe at times and very germ, I don't know, germaphobe.
7:16
A lot of just people that are more worried about, you know,
7:20
you got to wash your hands for everything and all that stuff is
7:23
is fine. But I just, I feel like we've
7:25
become so safety oriented and so much of that stuff.
7:29
And actually, I was talking to my brother-in-law about it
7:32
yesterday on the drive. Oh, really?
7:33
And he used the term I'd never heard before.
7:36
Safety ISM. Safety ISM.
7:38
Yeah, just slappin ISM at the end of it.
7:40
Yeah. It's a, it's a mentality.
7:42
It's a, it's a worldview that says we have to avoid risk at
7:47
all cost. And The thing is like, OK,
7:51
you're taking away one type of risk, but you're adding another
7:54
type of risk, which is the risk of not getting to experience
7:58
life or to enjoy these opportunities or to grow and
8:02
things like that. So you're just, you're just kind
8:04
of like shifting the risk around.
8:06
You're not really eliminating it.
8:07
Yeah, well, and you know, we've, we've had some insurance talks
8:12
before. We know how much you love
8:14
insurance. Love it, Axel.
8:17
Love it. Love it, but I mean that kind of
8:20
just having to protect ourselves with everything and we we got to
8:25
protect our our downside and just all that thinking and you
8:29
know, kind of spills over and you know, from the financial
8:33
element to just how we deal with our kids.
8:35
And we got to of course we want to protect our kids from certain
8:38
things. That's our jobs as dads really
8:41
is, you know, protecting and then parents to protect our
8:43
kids, but we have to find the balance and all of that and and
8:49
know that is is the juice worth the squeeze on some as you like
8:53
to say, we can really being able to give them enough space to get
9:01
some bumps and bruises and they're not going to die from
9:04
it. But the experience is is worth
9:06
the bumps and bruises and you know, and us growing up, if we
9:10
were to I, I just know for myself, some of the times that I
9:14
got injured or hurt or or broke something, it was doing
9:17
something usually what I love that I love to do, you know, so.
9:22
Just for that time when you punched the wall, when you were
9:24
angry and broke your fist. No, you didn't do that.
9:26
That was that wasn't me. That wasn't you.
9:29
Someone else. Well, this came up actually in
9:32
conversation with my my son Caleb the other day.
9:35
Not punching the wall, but. But the idea of, like, getting
9:38
hurt while you're on the job. Yeah.
9:40
And because he's been working with a flooring company, Hokomo,
9:45
and he really loves the job, but he's having to learn the ropes
9:49
and he's learning. He's making mistakes and things
9:52
like that. And so he's been smashing his
9:53
finger, you know, which is going to happen a lot if you're laying
9:56
flooring. I'm guessing less so as you get
9:58
better and better at what you do.
10:00
But his fingers are all taped up and, and the fingernails are
10:03
smashed and split. And he'll come home every day
10:06
with a new injury and, and in. But he's had a really good
10:09
attitude about it. He's been like, you know, it's
10:10
it's good to know that I can smash my finger that hard and
10:12
then it's still is OK. That's the way he kind of
10:16
phrased it. And he's like, yeah.
10:19
And and then I can hurt myself and still continue to function.
10:23
And not that we should aim to hurt ourselves, but God has
10:27
designed our bodies to be very resilient.
10:30
Yeah. And to heal itself, you know,
10:32
amazingly, miraculously, a phrase came to my mind that I
10:36
hadn't heard in a long watch. I was the ability to kind of
10:38
take a licking, keep on ticking. You remember that?
10:41
Yeah. I haven't heard that in a long
10:42
time. But it seemed like that was a
10:43
more popular phrase when I was growing up.
10:45
I guess it's falling out of fashion.
10:47
Yeah. Right.
10:48
The now the, the thinking is avoid the licking.
10:51
Avoid the licking, avoid at all costs and just keep ticking
10:54
without, without getting hurt in the 1st place.
10:57
But on the other side of the coin, we do want to emphasize
11:00
that safety is a huge concern here at the ranch.
11:05
And we've had some debates about whether or not it's the first
11:09
concern. We it's a really interesting
11:12
debates early on about our our core values and what our
11:15
priorities are and and whether or not safety first should be
11:20
the first thing on the list. Even if we thought other things
11:24
were more important, it felt weird to put it second.
11:26
Yeah, it was, it was third or fourth on our list initially and
11:29
they were like. You put safety first, third.
11:32
But in terms of what we value and what we prioritize, you
11:36
know, philosophically speaking, yeah, it's not.
11:39
You know staying alive is important.
11:40
Right. But if it was truly safety
11:43
first, like you would not get in a car and drive to work, right?
11:46
No, because that's dangerous. It's a very 2000 LB metal, you
11:51
know, machine that can drive off the road.
11:55
Yeah, somebody else can. So let's maybe start with the
11:59
the easier conversation, which is what we do to keep boys safe.
12:03
What protocols do we have in place?
12:04
What's in our manual? What do we require for boys?
12:09
That's just kind of common sense stuff to know that we're not
12:11
just like playing fast and loose with people's health and safety
12:15
here at the ranch. We take it seriously.
12:17
Yeah, I think what you said is key to start off with is that
12:21
it's we fully understand that the gravity of having somebody
12:27
else's kid under your care or under our care for the time that
12:33
they're here. I mean that's just putting
12:35
ourself in the parents shoes if our own kid was here.
12:39
I mean that's a very, very serious thing that that we don't
12:44
take lightly. And so that is from, from the
12:49
time that they, they come in here and helping them, that's
12:53
one of the, I would say one of the things that we help them,
12:55
that we communicate to them that hey, you, you'll be safe here.
12:58
Our job is to keep you safe and to get them settled in.
13:01
And we from the training to the staff, like first aid training,
13:08
we have some wilderness training that we've done when some of the
13:12
staff that go on the adventure weeks, lifeguard training, just
13:18
some basic things that way that we wanna make sure.
13:22
First aid training, first aid, you know, every every other year
13:25
or CPR. First aid put people.
13:27
Through CPR training and make sure that they're up to date at
13:29
that. I would say the background
13:33
checks of just obvious stuff like that that I mean that maybe
13:40
it just there's a lot to the safety element from the staff
13:44
side as well as the boys and. Just like competency, like
13:47
making sure you hire people who are responsible, competent, you
13:51
know, able to think through the consequences of their decisions
13:55
and able to tell boys no, who are always kind of pushing the
13:59
limits of can I do this? Can I do that?
14:02
You have to be able to to draw boundaries and to stick to those
14:05
even though your decisions might be quite unpopular.
14:09
Yeah, with a a large number of boys who want to do something
14:12
because they think it's fun. Yeah, that's the hard part of I
14:17
would say, or a challenging part of the job is obviously we want
14:21
to push the boys and put them in uncomfortable situations to
14:24
challenge them. But like, where's the balance
14:27
sometimes of what's too dangerous and what is letting
14:33
them kind of test the limits and test their mettle and really be
14:39
able to kind of build confidence?
14:41
Yeah, in themselves. And we don't always agree on
14:44
that. Yeah, that's there's some real
14:45
Gray areas there about like one. One example is like, like
14:50
climbing trees. Yeah.
14:51
You know, well, like that's what boys do.
14:54
Boys climb trees. So, you know, we've had
14:57
situations where half the staff was like, this is ridiculous.
14:59
We have a boys ranch. They should be able to climb
15:02
some trees. You know what?
15:04
What are we doing here? But then the other side is,
15:07
well, I mean, some of the boys that we have should not be
15:10
climbing trees. Like some are like pretty
15:13
responsible, athletic and very low risk.
15:15
But other boys are going to try to do it who should have no
15:18
business climbing a tree, who are probably going to fall and
15:20
hurt themselves. So just out of safety for
15:23
everyone instead of having to like case by case basis, it's
15:26
just like, you know, just we're not going to climb trees, you
15:29
know, which kind of stinks. Another one around here that's
15:32
really tricky is like jumping off rocks in the rivers and
15:35
things like that. We're not talking about like
15:36
Bluffs, like jumping off of 3040 foot rocks, but like, you know,
15:40
a 510 foot rock, you know, it's like, does that doesn't count as
15:44
Cliff jumping? Yeah, like that's not AI.
15:46
Don't think of violation of of, you know, state law or anything.
15:51
So it's like, but what is what exactly counts as safe and
15:54
what's unsafe and everything like that?
15:55
It's like certainly no diving, you know, but you know, we have
15:59
things in our manual that are sometimes just black and white
16:02
just to make sure guys are safe. So we, I would say we air on the
16:05
side of safety. Yeah.
16:07
And I would say for a parent listening to like some of the
16:10
things that we do, I guess out of necessity for the structure,
16:17
the safety of the kids and just maintaining integrity of the
16:21
program. It probably would look a little
16:23
bit different at home with how you handle it with your son.
16:29
Because on that, there's probably a little bit more
16:33
freedoms on the safety side of things that you would do, let
16:36
your son do or you should let your son do then that we don't
16:42
have some of the freedoms to do necessarily here.
16:44
So I just wanted to kind of communicate that.
16:46
Yeah, like I'm not, I'm not a safety cert, I'm not a lifeguard
16:51
certified, but I'm qualified to teach my kids how to swim and to
16:55
bring them to the river myself and to let them, you know, take
17:00
some risks and things like that. I'm not being an irresponsible
17:03
parent by doing that. But if I'm doing that here at
17:06
the ranch, that's a whole other question.
17:08
Like you said, we're good stewards with other people's
17:10
kids and there's a whole other set of factors that complicate
17:14
those those decisions. And so we do have a policy
17:17
manual in place. And if you are interested in
17:21
knowing what those rules are and, and looking at them in more
17:23
detail and you're looking at thinking of sending your son
17:27
here, we can we can share more of that with you.
17:29
So we're not going to go over the whole manual today, but just
17:31
know that those measures are in place.
17:36
Yeah. So I'm just thinking about our
17:40
kids since they've been four or five, how high Caleb and Will
17:45
have been in trees. And that's another part of the
17:51
discussion too, is like you're with your spouse and that's a
17:56
tough, there's no, there's disagreements there because
18:00
Laura is like, I don't want you more than 15 feet up in a tree.
18:06
And I'm like, he's got a good, you know, 15 more feet than he's
18:11
at right now where he's totally fine, you know.
18:14
So anyways, just I think men and women obviously are different as
18:22
far as what they feel comfortable with and which is
18:24
fine, but that's trying to find all of those things where the
18:32
the boys feel like they have the freedom to do what they need to
18:35
do and push themselves. But also understanding that, you
18:39
know, you have to you're not bulletproof helping the our boys
18:43
understand that too. That and I think Will has with
18:48
this conversation, man, he was, he's, he's had 10 stitches this
18:51
summer and he just broke his nose playing soccer.
18:55
Oh, he did. Yeah, so this last game he was
18:58
just getting over to where he can run with the stitches he had
19:02
and is. That the knee.
19:03
Yeah, he got with. The Oh yeah, that looked gnarly.
19:06
I know he's got like this big calcium deposit on the on his
19:09
knee, which is healed up kind of weird.
19:11
Hopefully that goes away. But yeah, but he was just
19:14
getting to where he could pretty much run full speed on that
19:17
thing. And like the second soccer game
19:19
and him and another kid were going up for a header and just
19:23
his other kids head collided with his nose and he thought he
19:27
just had a bloody nose. I mean, it hurt and he had to go
19:30
out and stop bleeding. He went back in and then at the
19:34
end of the game, Lord saw his nose is like, it just looked
19:38
really swollen and it was really painful.
19:40
And we went to the ER that night and sure enough it was broke.
19:44
And it wasn't like super misplaced to where they had to
19:48
do any other work on it. But he just has to let it, you
19:53
know, let the body do what it does and let the swelling heal
19:57
and and go down. So it looks a lot better now,
19:59
but he was bumming for a little while just after getting over
20:03
that knee thing. So yeah, sports are are risk.
20:06
I mean, we've had our our share fair of injuries here at the
20:08
ranch with guys playing. Oh, I think staff is injured
20:11
more frequently than boys when it comes to playing sports
20:14
Which? Is that's oh, man, I remember
20:16
early on with yeah, Ryan, holy cow.
20:20
Speaking of broken nose, like his was almost a scary broken
20:23
nose because it was like one of those were, you know, it was so
20:26
hard it could go up into your brain cavity.
20:28
Yeah. And then we're getting older,
20:30
you know, we're the likelihood that we're going to we're going
20:33
to get hurt when we're doing some of those things is good.
20:35
So we have to manage risk when it comes to our own personal
20:37
safety. So let me bring up, were you
20:40
going to say something? Nope.
20:41
OK. Thought I heard you take a deep
20:43
breath like you. So here's another category of of
20:47
things in Missouri. Everything bites, you know,
20:51
everything causes you to itch, you know, And so you have to be
20:56
careful with those things because there are there are
20:58
ticks around here that can carry diseases, although I think
21:02
that's been blown way out of proportion in terms of like
21:07
scaring people about ticks and everything.
21:09
Yeah, you know, there have been not, not so much here, but there
21:12
have been waves of fear that have spread the nation about
21:16
mosquito bites and, and different things like that and
21:19
viruses and and and and such. And so we, we obviously want
21:26
even have to, it's part of our mission to get boys out into
21:29
nature. And we're not going to be able
21:30
to avoid getting bit by stuff. We're going to see some snakes,
21:34
you know, we're going to see some Poison Ivy, we're going to
21:37
get some rashes. We're going to get in a mess of
21:39
seed ticks or chiggers or whatever.
21:42
That's just a part of it. But there's some things that we
21:45
can do to be smart about that, right?
21:49
And, and we've, we've all lived here for long enough to where we
21:51
know what those, what those things are.
21:54
I'll throw out a couple. Then you can add up some of your
21:56
tricks. Like you just know there's
21:58
certain parts of the woods that you don't go that in certain
22:00
certain months, you just don't go in there.
22:02
I mean, it's just folly to try unless you're just going to
22:05
spray yourself down. But we're a little hesitant to
22:09
do that because of the chemicals.
22:11
And some parents have pretty strict rules about us using
22:14
those types of things or natural repellents and things.
22:17
So we have to watch that. But it's just about being wise
22:21
and and then checking yourself afterwards.
22:22
Like taking the time to examine the parts of your body that
22:28
might might attract a tick. That's the most frustrating
22:31
thing about summer with with your own kids.
22:33
It's like you go outside and then there's an hour, yeah,
22:37
before bed of just like the tick check.
22:39
Yeah, yeah. And some of our boys are like,
22:42
yeah. And I don't have any ticks, you
22:43
know. No, no, really, you need to
22:45
check. You need to spend some time and
22:46
make sure that you don't. And so some of that self-care,
22:49
teaching the boys how to how to take care of themselves and to
22:52
realize that God gave you this body and you need to respect it
22:56
and you need to keep it strong and safe and everything like
22:58
that. So we have to teach them those
23:00
things. You know another one is the sun.
23:04
Yeah. We got to protect guys from
23:06
themselves a lot of times because they're just like, I'm
23:09
fine, or I'm just get a burn and then I'll get tan or whatever.
23:13
Yeah, no, you don't understand. Like you're doing potentially
23:16
irreparable damage to your skin. And so let's be smart about what
23:19
we wear and covering ourselves and not maybe going out at the
23:22
the highest UV times and we have to watch that on adventure week,
23:28
things like that, going swimming.
23:31
So we are sensitive to that while at the same time not like
23:33
being crazy about it. Yeah, we've always had a number
23:40
of boys that are just, they seem to be infatuated with snakes.
23:44
You know, we have a number of snakes here.
23:47
Luckily most of them are just the rat snakes or the black ones
23:51
and or Garter snake. But we have rattler or timber
23:55
rattlers and copperheads, you know, so we've had a few of
23:59
those around here and it just seems like boys just inevitably,
24:03
they just want to go pick up snakes.
24:04
Yeah, it's like, no, don't do that, right?
24:07
It's actually in our manual. The boys are not allowed.
24:09
Just to be clear, boys are not allowed to pick up snakes.
24:13
We appreciate snakes and we the God made snakes and they are
24:17
amazing and we need to respect them.
24:20
But we do, we do stay away from them and have rules in place to
24:25
protect guys. But you know, like you said, at
24:27
the same time, like they're boys here that do rash things and you
24:30
cannot stop them from doing it, right.
24:33
We are no restraint facility. So if a boy sees a snake and
24:36
runs after it and you know, and don't touch it, like, you know,
24:39
sometimes that impulsivity gets the best of them.
24:42
And so that is something that we have to coach guys about.
24:47
Another thing that happens frequently are the sprained
24:49
ankles. You know, we have running
24:50
injuries. We run a lot here.
24:52
So we can get some shin splints, get some turned ankles, get some
24:55
twisted knees. We pull a hammy.
24:58
And that, again, is another Gray, Gray area.
25:02
We've talked about this on other podcasts, specifically about
25:05
running. I think with Dylan, we talked a
25:07
lot about this is like faked injuries and people pretending
25:11
that that they're injured just to get out of the run.
25:13
We see a lot of that, a lot more of that probably than we do
25:17
actual injuries, to be honest, which is not to be unexpected at
25:21
a boys ranch. Oh, yeah.
25:23
So working through that can be tricky.
25:26
But, you know, injuries are real.
25:28
Like a running injuries are real.
25:29
And if you continue to run on a on a sprained ankle, it's not
25:33
going to get better. So.
25:35
So we have a nurse on staff, Hilda Newell, and so she checks
25:40
in with the guys regularly and she's always available if we
25:43
have questions. She'll answer any questions that
25:45
we have. She'll make a special trip into
25:47
the ranch. She's amazing, has a lot of
25:50
skills and experience. So hopefully that will help to
25:54
give parents assurance that our boys are being protected.
25:56
And then we're just going to say I'll go rub a little dirt on it.
25:58
You'll be fine. Yeah, One thing that just
26:04
thinking about what you said, Caleb said with his fingers and
26:08
working and just kind of realizing that, Oh yeah, I can
26:14
still work through this stuff no problem.
26:17
But I'm sure there's calluses that are being built, you know,
26:20
on his fingers. And you think about that kind of
26:23
stuff. It's not really an injury, but
26:24
it's it's putting your body, using different parts of your
26:27
body in ways you haven't before. And I think about too, with the
26:31
calluses, like a guitar, you know, and just how it hurts your
26:36
fingers, you know, it's the summer 69.
26:38
I played it till my fingers bled, right.
26:40
So when you first pick up a guitar, those strings are it's
26:45
very delicate on your fingers because you don't have the
26:48
calluses built up. But the more you play, the more
26:51
your body adapts to that pressure and that friction
26:57
that's happening. And then next thing you know,
26:58
you can press harder on those strings and get a better sound.
27:03
I mean, that's just the way it happens.
27:04
And so a lot of times our injuries or that kind of stuff
27:08
is the body's amazing at adapting to those things.
27:12
But you just have to fight through it, right?
27:15
And because again, it's like the return on investment is putting
27:20
your body through some of those things.
27:21
It's so much greater. I mean, think about now you can
27:25
every guitar player in the world that's an amazing guitar player.
27:28
You know, they had a fight through that.
27:30
So if you give up on that just because there's a little
27:32
pressure and and discomfort, then that's weak sauce.
27:37
Weak sauce that's also applies spiritually like we God puts us
27:41
through hard things, Yeah, to develop perseverance and to
27:44
develop our our courage and develop our our trust and his
27:47
Providence and our dependence on other people and, you know,
27:52
getting outside of ourselves and things like that.
27:54
So yeah, we got to, we got to be able to put up with some bumps
27:57
and bruises in life and. Yeah.
28:01
Well, it reminds me of the Barnabas presentation we did.
28:06
We prepared for this weekend or the last couple days and just
28:11
going through the tornado pictures and just that time
28:15
frame and how difficult that was.
28:17
But just being able to see God's Providence through all that and
28:20
how he kind of grew us or grew our faith and our community of
28:24
people and just the stories around that that God used to
28:32
strengthen us in a lot of different ways.
28:34
It's kind of cool to to look back.
28:37
That was kind of. Arduous process for the two of
28:39
us to kind of put that together. Yeah.
28:41
You know, it wasn't like we just sat down one this afternoon and
28:44
put together a PowerPoint and. Yeah, there was a lot.
28:47
Of us, some coaches and some guidance and some sharpening
28:50
ourselves, which we appreciated and I think took full advantage
28:53
of because we had a pretty good presentation when it's all said
28:56
and done. Yeah, that was we've got.
28:59
A good which would be happy to come and share with anyone out
29:02
there who wants to hear. Yeah, we got a ready made.
29:04
Presentation, yeah, it's a civic group or whatever, just call us
29:08
up. We'll we'll be there.
29:10
Yep. All right.
29:12
So a couple of the categories on the topic of like, cold weather
29:18
and warm weather and dressing appropriately.
29:22
Oh, yeah, there's an old, I think, I don't know if this is
29:25
Canadian or Finnish or Scandinavian or something, but
29:28
there's an old proverb that there is, there's no such thing
29:30
as bad weather, just bad clothes, right?
29:32
And I think that's pretty true. So we do buy quality clothing
29:37
for the boys here at the ranch. We try to get Wrangler and
29:40
Carhartt and and and stuff that's going to that's going to
29:43
be up to the task of doing some hard stuff.
29:46
Yeah, just boots just for the stuff they're doing with work or
29:50
running. I mean, we get quality gear for
29:54
for that purpose, just for the safety element and.
29:57
So if the boys wear it, yeah. And if our staff will hold them
30:00
accountable for wearing it, whether it's gloves or goggles
30:04
or earplugs or things like that, There's certain types of things
30:08
where it's like there's a Gray area too.
30:11
Like, OK, you have to wear your safety goggles, right?
30:15
If I see you weed whack and you're not wearing safety
30:18
goggles, I'm going to stop you. But then other things, it's
30:21
like, well, you know, he didn't have on the right pair of jeans
30:24
to do this. He's wearing his like, school
30:26
jeans, you know, instead of his car artwork jeans.
30:29
And it's like some of that's like natural consequence.
30:31
You're like, OK, well, he's just going to have to buy another
30:34
pair of jeans because he's going to ruin them.
30:36
And those jeans aren't really as good for the task either.
30:38
So he's not going to be as good of a worker, you know, these
30:41
types of things. So clothing is really important.
30:47
We've had issues with like burns.
30:50
You have to be careful around fire.
30:52
When people are using knives and they're off level 1 and they can
30:55
use a knife for some type of purpose, whether it's cooking or
30:58
whatever, you got to teach people how you know, dull blade
31:01
is downright dangerous. Brandon's not.
31:03
Good. So it's not good at all.
31:04
Is there anything worse? So you got to teach boys like
31:08
knife safety and things like that.
31:11
We've had freak accidents where guys weren't following the
31:13
rules. The most famous that pops to my
31:17
mind is we have a rule, don't jump off the porch, Don't jump
31:22
over the railing. Yeah, like it's a hurdle and
31:27
drop down 8 feet like some ninja parkour, you know, expert.
31:33
But but we've had guys who are just like, Oh yeah, well that
31:36
doesn't apply to me. I'm a super athlete, so that's
31:39
what. Is that what Jesse?
31:40
Did Yeah, OK. And one kid who tried to do that
31:43
and he just. He's a good athlete, you know, 9
31:45
times out of, you know, 10, he'd have been fine.
31:48
But he clipped the bottom of his foot, flipped and landed right
31:52
on his side. Boom.
31:54
And it was pretty gnarly. I remember seeing it and and as
31:58
a result, we had a trip to the emergency room and there was
32:01
some, I don't know, a burst, something on the on the inside
32:06
that was. Was that his like an ankle or?
32:10
Not it was like a gallbladder. Oh no, it was.
32:12
Internal. Yeah, it was internal.
32:14
It was, it was gnarly. He's OK.
32:16
It's it's all right. We got him to the emergency
32:18
room, but you know, that's a, we don't live right next to the
32:22
emergency room here out in the country.
32:24
So we have to be, we have to be careful and we have to take
32:26
precautions and things like that.
32:28
So we have guys who just, you know, impulsivity control is, is
32:32
an issue and it's going to be true here or at home, right.
32:36
So it's not like I'm not trying to say if you send your boys
32:38
here, they're more exposed to risk.
32:40
I think they're probably less exposed to risk in in most ways,
32:44
but there are things that are unique to a ranch setting that
32:47
sometimes have one guy. Yeah, I don't wanna scare anyone
32:50
here, but I'm just telling stories.
32:52
This is like reality of working on a ranch.
32:54
You remember the guy got into a tractor and he was pulling
32:57
himself up to the tractor and grabbed the exhaust pipe.
33:00
Yeah. Instead of the handle for
33:02
getting up into the tractor. Yeah, that's no bueno.
33:04
No, that's not good. That's not good.
33:07
I did that the other day with the the dump truck driver was
33:11
dumping a bunch of gravel and I didn't like that.
33:14
Exhaust pipe goes right up kind of about a foot away from where
33:18
the door is. Well, I just climbed up.
33:20
Right. On the running board and was
33:23
talking to him and I had my hand on the just kind of the handle
33:27
and I just leaned over and was leaning up against the truck and
33:30
I just I put my arm on that exhaust and it just I fried my
33:35
arm well. I saw that.
33:37
I just saw that this morning. I was wondering what happened
33:38
there. Yeah, that's that's the healing
33:40
of getting burnt over just a split second.
33:43
It was. On there it was like, you know.
33:46
Rinsed it with water and anyway, yeah.
33:48
Well, you know, these things happen.
33:50
We're going to have things in place to to reduce the
33:53
likelihood, but we also have measures in place of what to do
33:56
when they happen. Right.
33:58
And it's usually a part of just the growing process.
34:03
You just learn. Oh, I'm not gonna put my hand on
34:05
the exhaust pipe next time, right?
34:08
I mean, I doubt someone does that twice.
34:10
Unless you're really stupid. Yeah.
34:12
You can't help, stupid. No, you can't.
34:14
Yeah. Yeah, I think, well, what came
34:18
up in Kiernan's podcast is just he was an only child.
34:26
And I think we see that sometimes we've had other only
34:30
child or other residents that have been only Childs.
34:36
I don't my only children, only child.
34:39
That didn't sound right either. They are the only.
34:42
They are the only child. Correctly, but it doesn't sound
34:45
right. Oh, they just.
34:49
They come from a a single child home.
34:52
How about that? But anyway, you get the drift.
34:56
But I think it's easier in those situations, at least from our
35:01
perspective that you can see that those kids have been have
35:05
some special care and coddling maybe because it's their only
35:09
kid. And I As for us as parents, I
35:12
would say our first kid, obviously you're just like
35:16
you're brand new parent and you want to protect your kid and all
35:20
the natural things that just the more kids you have, the less you
35:25
care about some of those, you know, odd toast dropped on the
35:30
dirt. Go ahead, eat it.
35:32
No best practical. Exactly.
35:34
So, so it's just something to I guess for those that just have
35:41
one kid out there, something to be aware of, you know, give them
35:44
a little bit, a little bit more rope maybe than you think is is
35:51
necessary. Yeah, yeah.
35:55
OK. We are coming down to the wire
35:57
here. Did a couple of the things.
36:02
OK, here's here's, here's another one.
36:04
I think parents will feel better knowing that we are, you know,
36:07
we have maintenance schedules, you know, to keep things safe.
36:11
You know, if we see there's a area on the campus that is is
36:15
dangerous or could potentially lead to an accident, we have a
36:19
guy on on staff, Jeremy Patton, who has a a long To Do List,
36:23
carries this little book around little punch list.
36:25
And he's better than anyone really I've ever seen it at
36:29
getting to those lists and getting that stuff done.
36:31
And yeah. And actually, the boys here are
36:34
couple days or maybe even three days a week, depending upon what
36:36
level, Yeah. That's part of the.
36:38
Work are working with Jeremy and Jonathan Page, who's been on the
36:42
podcast before to to make sure that the ranch stays stays safe
36:47
and works properly. So, you know, they say a stitch
36:50
in time saves 9. So we're going to have fewer
36:53
incidents because this place is well managed and well run.
36:56
Yeah, Yeah, I would say. So practically what that looks
37:00
like is just changing the water filter out every month.
37:04
Just we have on, we're on well water and just making sure that
37:08
we got good clean water for the boys.
37:11
The boys help with that as as we mentioned, doing fire drills,
37:16
just making sure that those systems are working and the boys
37:20
and staff know where to go should something like that
37:25
happen and what else. Oh, well, we, there's just the
37:32
lock systems that we have around here.
37:35
We have a lot of doors and we always joke about how many keys
37:39
we have and trying to keep all the keys straight.
37:41
Now we have a whole another house with another set of keys,
37:44
but we just we have Med cabinets, we have cleaning
37:48
materials and we have things that we just have to keep boys
37:53
hands out of. And that's a big safety factor
37:57
that is just always having the right doors that are locked and
38:00
keeping those doors locked and really training.
38:03
It's a big part of the training with staff for them when they
38:05
first come in here, just knowing this door needs to be locked all
38:09
the time and these cabinet doors need to be locked.
38:13
So we like we lock up the spice cabinets, we lock up the knife
38:18
drawers for obvious reasons. The spice cabinet.
38:21
I mean, there's just people try to boys try to misuse whatever,
38:26
you know, over the. You can only imagine what they
38:29
try to do with spices if they want to try to smoke it
38:33
sometimes or who knows what else.
38:35
Or maybe they'll snort some cinnamon.
38:37
Yeah. So sometimes boys get some, get
38:40
desperate. So just those are some basic
38:43
things that we do in the house to try to help keep boys safe
38:46
and. Probably the biggest, and this
38:48
is probably a good place to end is the, the, the three to one
38:52
ratio. Yeah.
38:54
Like we can't, sometimes we forget about how foundational
38:58
that is to everything we do because it's just second nature
39:00
to us. It's like we're always going to
39:01
make sure that we have enough staff around.
39:03
But that's really unique and, and really a a feature of the
39:07
ranch that we're trying to highlight in our new marketing
39:11
to, to build up to 18 boys is like, yeah, we might be a little
39:15
pricier than than other places, but we feel like keeping that
39:19
ratio low is at the heart of what we do in building
39:23
relationship and making a long term impact and in keeping boys
39:27
safe. Yeah, right.
39:28
Which is first or second or third or third, but really first
39:35
or something like that. In terms of our our ultimate
39:37
priorities. It's important.
39:39
It's important. And then you know that three to
39:43
one ratio allows us to find that sweet spot of letting boys take
39:47
reasonable risks. You have someone there.
39:49
If something happens, you have someone there to coach them,
39:52
teach them what to do to stay safe.
39:54
Even though there's no guarantee that if you play football,
39:57
you're not going to break your nose.
39:59
Might happen, But we're going to we're going to teach some boys.
40:01
We're going to have some rules. Men are going to be there.
40:04
Men and women are going to be there watching and helping and
40:07
coaching. And we're going to teach young
40:09
men how to be how to be tough, you know, because life, life is
40:13
hard. You got to be tough and and you
40:16
can't shy away from something because.
40:19
Of the danger associated with it.
40:22
But you have to assess that danger wisely.
40:26
Yeah, that's, I would say for all the safety stuff that we do,
40:30
that's the other part that we as far as really calling boys out
40:36
when we feel like they are bluffing or like our sick policy
40:40
and just the systems in place, they can't just say I'm sick.
40:44
I don't feel good because they don't want to go on a run.
40:47
So there's things in place that we do to make sure that they're
40:50
sick or else we just call their bluff and say, Nope, go do it.
40:55
And even when they do get injured, it's just like, man,
40:57
I'm, I'm sorry that that happened.
40:59
Sometimes they overreact, sometimes they're a little
41:02
dramatic and we don't delve into that drama.
41:05
It's just like, you know, just shake it off and try to have
41:09
that, you know, just that, that grit.
41:12
You know, we tried to teach boys some grit.
41:14
A lot of a lot of guys don't have that these days.
41:17
And that's that's part of. They can do the gritty, but they
41:20
don't have grit. Yeah.
41:25
Maybe we need a whole other podcast just about like illness
41:28
and sickness and things like that.
41:29
That's almost, we didn't even really get into that.
41:32
But it'd be nice to have Hilda on.
41:34
She'd be a good guest and we can talk through some of the some of
41:37
the medical, you know, some of these things from a more medical
41:39
professional standpoint, you know, so.
41:45
Or we could do one on grit. Just grit.
41:47
Just. Grit.
41:49
Like what does it take? What does it mean to have grit?
41:52
That is good too, yeah. All right.
41:56
Well, I think that's all I got, Brandon.
42:01
Good catching up. Yeah, I don't think I have
42:05
anything else to add. Yeah, we want to thank Thomas
42:10
for helping up, helping us with this sticking, sticking with us
42:14
and showing a lot of grit through the editing process.
42:18
Sometimes, you know, I can get a little picky and say, hey,
42:21
there's this moment at 6 minutes and 47 seconds where, you know,
42:25
this happened, You think you could get that out of there.
42:27
And he's always kind to to get in there and figure it out and
42:31
always up to the task, so. And he loves the Missouri ticks.
42:38
Speaking of, he loves getting out there and getting.
42:41
There and they like him and they like him.
42:43
I think maybe is maybe more the issue unfortunately so so.
42:47
I'm not what you call outdoorsy, yeah.
42:53
All right, Well, thank you all for listening.
42:54
Please, please share, like comment again, a reminder, like
42:59
we talked about the beginning of the podcast.
43:01
If you know someone who has a podcast or who could introduce
43:06
us to someone who has a podcast, that would help us to get word
43:08
out specifically to parents who are looking for a place like
43:14
Whetstone, a place that's safe, a place that's competent and we
43:20
believe effective at what we do. We're not 100% successful.
43:24
I mean, no place like this could be, but we're proud of what we
43:27
do and we want to serve more people.
43:29
And I think God has positioned us to do to do that in the in
43:32
the coming months. So keep us in your.
43:34
Prayers, I bet. Because we need, we need some
43:37
more, more words. We don't ever want anyone to
43:39
have to send their boy to Whetstone.
43:41
But it sure beats the alternative for thousands of
43:45
families in in the world and in the United States right now.
43:49
So, yeah. All right.
43:51
Well, thank you all for listening and thank you
43:53
Brandon's again. And we'll catch you next time on
43:56
a time to sharpen. See ya.
44:05
Whetstone Boys Ranch is a therapeutic boarding school
44:08
located in the scenic Ozarks of southern Missouri.
44:12
It was founded in 2011 to serve families from around the country
44:16
who are struggling with challenging behaviors from their
44:18
12 to 16 year old sons. Our mission is to sharpen the
44:22
character of young men. Please visit
44:25
whetstoneboysranch.com if you want to learn more about our
44:28
program or about how to contact us for help.
44:31
Thanks for listening and we hope to catch you next time on A Time
44:34
to Sharpen.