Latest / Salish Wolf / #66 Rick Spicer on Project Quiver

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#66 Rick Spicer on Project Quiver · Salish Wolf

• 0:06
  Welcome to Project Quiver, a father daughter journey across
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  the globe to capture the artistry and spirit of the
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  world's finest traditional bow carvers.
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  I'm Todd, the father. Ella is my daughter.
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  Together we're on a mission to create a stunning coffee table
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  book that profiles more than a dozen master bow years and their
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  unparalleled skill. For each chapter, we travel to
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  the Bow Years workshop. Carve a bow under his guidance,
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  photograph his woodcraft in detail, and share his story here
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  on the Salish Wolf Podcast. The book is called Quiver The
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  Art of Life. Through bow craft and this
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  journey, our living story is Project Quiver.
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  Thanks for joining me. Yeah, it's a pleasure to be
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  here. I appreciate being asked.
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  Is that a train in the background?
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  Yeah. And so the, the shop that I work
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  at which we, we may get into that a little bit, but my, my
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  main place of business is very near a set of railroad tracks.
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  So about every couple hours while we get a train going by.
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  And where are you? What state?
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  So I, I'm located in Fayetteville, AR, it's where the
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  University of Arkansas is located and this is more or less
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  my hometown. I, I grew up here through like
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  junior high high school and, and even went to college here at the
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  university and, and I've, I started working at the business
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  I currently work at actually when I was in college and I've,
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  I've been here for over 26 years.
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  Wow. And what's the business?
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  So it's the easiest way to describe it is kind of a mom and
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  pop equipment store, like a gear, backpacking, kayaking,
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  outdoor shops, so to speak. It's called the Pack Rat Outdoor
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  Center. And the business is 52 years
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  old. Wow.
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  And so it's, yeah, I've, I've enjoyed getting to work for a
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  small local business that's really community oriented and
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  does a lot of, you know, partnerships and kind of giving
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  back to the community and that type of thing.
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  Nice. And what is your role there?
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  I'm one of the owners, but I'm also the equipment buyer and I
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  do a large amount of our education and events.
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  So I'm the event coordinator and, but I teach a lot of
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  classes and yeah, it's just kind of all over the place.
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  I've, I've always been a little, quite a sort of Jack of all
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  trades kind of guy. I, I don't, I wouldn't say I, I
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  specialize in anything, but I have my hands in a variety of
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  different things and there's just too much fun outdoor stuff
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  to do. And so it's been really
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  difficult for me to commit to anyone endeavour.
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  So I just try to do them all. That makes sense.
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  Yeah. So whether it's hunting,
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  fishing, backpacking, mountaineering, canyoneering,
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  you know, and then every photography and then everything
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  in between. But of course, shooting a bow
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  and arrow is probably, I would say up there with the things
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  that I have spent the most time doing in my life and that I get
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  the most enjoyment out of. And so we have a small
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  traditional archery component of the shop that I started about 5
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  or 6 years ago. And there's, you know, there's
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  not a lot of shops these days that specialize in, in trad
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  stuff. You know, you, sometimes you'll,
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  you'll go to a modern archery shop and they may have a little
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  bit of, of traditional bows in there.
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  But a lot of times it, it, it can be challenging to find
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  somebody that really can even talk about them.
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  And we actually have a real old school archery shop here in my
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  town with a, an older gentleman named Dick Palmer.
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  And if folks have been around traditional archery, especially
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  in our part of the country, he's pretty well known, but he's
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  getting on up there. I, I suspect he's 90, if not
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  older, and he's still doing it. But a while back I recognized
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  that there was kind of a need for another place people could
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  go, especially younger people, because I, I, I had a lot of
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  respect for that guy and I still do, even though I haven't seen
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  him in a number of years. Yeah, certainly I didn't want to
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  take anything away from what he had done or, or is currently
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  doing. But it, the way he kind of runs
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  his shop it, it's kind of neat in a way.
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  Cuz when you go in there, it's like walking back in time.
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  There's probably stuff that's sitting on the shelves in that
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  place. It's been there since the 70s.
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  So that in one hand that's kind of neat.
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  But on the other hand, like if you're a young person, you know,
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  20 year old or whatever, and you're interested, you hear
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  about traditional archery and you're like, that sounds
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  interesting. I'd like to talk to somebody
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  about learning how to shoot a bow and arrow or build a bow or
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  make my own arrows or whatever it is.
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  It's not an easy place to go and do that over at his place.
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  And, and so I, I, I saw a need, or at least what I identified as
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  a need and in the, our community.
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  And so that's why I started the one that that we have here in
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  the store. But I had been, I mean, I've
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  been shooting a bow and arrow since I was probably 12 years
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  old, you know, and never really stopped.
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  And yeah, there's not a whole lot of things I'd rather do than
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  just walking around in the woods with a bow.
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  Hunting is, you know, among the things I spend as much of my
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  time as I can do it with a bow. But even if I didn't hunt, I
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  would still shoot bow and arrow and I'd still go out and just
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  hike around with my bow because I love it.
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  What do you hunt there? Most of the whitetails, so by
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  far and away I would call myself a whitetail hunter, but I have
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  done quite a bit of elk hunting in the West at this point too,
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  predominantly in Idaho, but also in Colorado.
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  And a small game hunt a little bit, you know, but that's more
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  opportunistic if I'm out deer hunting or just on a hike and
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  it's in the season, you know, I've shot some squirrels, shot
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  some rabbits, but I don't actively pursue those Dame
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  animals directly with a, with a bow.
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  But I, I will take them if opportunity presents itself.
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  But very much a whitetail hunter and stump shooter.
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  Quite frankly, I just love stump shooting.
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  It's an endless source of entertainment for me.
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  And I could probably do it forever.
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  I will do it until I'll do it until I'm too old or I can't do
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  it anymore. Yeah, it's just a ton of fun.
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  Do you only hunt with a bow or do you hunt with a gun also?
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  No, I rifle hunt too. You know, I, I take very
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  seriously the, the endeavor of procuring meat from my family.
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  And so of course, my, my preference is to, to harvest my
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  meat with a bow, but it doesn't always work out that way for for
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  whatever reason. And, and that's my case this
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  year actually, is I had I haven't been able to get out
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  quite as much as I would like, which I think I could probably
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  say that every single year. I mean, if I'm not hunting every
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  day, I'm probably not getting at as much as I'd like.
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  But none the less, I, I saw a good amount of deer early on,
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  but just couldn't quite close the distance or for whatever
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  reason, couldn't get a shot. And, and so the, if we get to
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  the modern gun opener and I haven't got a deer, then I will
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  get my rifle out. And, and so that was the case
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  this year. I shot a buck with my rifle and
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  the modern gun season just ended this past Sunday for us and so
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  I'll I'll be back to Bo hunting again now through December as
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  much as much as I can. So back to the store.
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  What type of traditional archery inventory you carry?
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  Well, I am a Three Rivers distributor.
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  So anything you go on Three Rivers and see if you know, I
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  can potentially get and we carry, we cater predominantly to
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  what I would call, you know, the entry level and novice
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  traditional Archer. By the time you've been doing it
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  very long, a lot of folks get to the point where they kind of
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  know what their interests are and what they need and they can
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  more or less procure those things on their own, right,
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  whether they're going to a custom maker or maybe they go to
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  the Three Rivers website on their own.
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  But it's a little harder for somebody that's just getting
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  started, you know, to know what they need or the difference, You
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  know, what should I pick along bro?
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  Or should I pick a recurve or what should I look at a self PO
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  or a, a modern made tribe? But I mean, there's a million
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  questions, right when you're trying to get into archery and
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  figure out a lot of those things and helping people go through
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  that process is something that I really enjoy.
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  And, you know, just kind of letting them know it's, it's
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  really not right or wrong. It's just finding something that
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  you personally enjoy and, you know, learning about it and then
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  figuring it out as you go along. And, you know, people ask, you
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  know, well, what, what type of bow do you like to shoot?
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  And my answer is usually all of them.
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  I, I make bows and have made many bows and I've got many,
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  several very good bow makers that are friends of mine and
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  love shooting their bows. But I also have modern, you
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  know, manufactured bows. There's just a lot of great
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  companies out there, and it's hard to pick.
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  And the good news is, is you don't have to.
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  You know more than one and so. What do you hunt with?
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  Is that a a purchase bow or a maid bow?
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  Well, you know, I own about a dozen different bows and, and,
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  and these are, I started getting bows over 20 years ago And this,
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  this season I have predominantly been hunting with a well, I, I
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  started elk hunting with a bow that was made by a guy who's no
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  longer making bows, at least that I'm aware of.
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  But at the company is the bear's paw bows out of Montana, custom
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  made long bows. And I actually bought that bow
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  used from a customer of mine and I really like it.
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  And it's a pretty stout bow. And so it has a, a nice flat
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  trajectory for for longer shots and more open country.
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  And so I all counted with that bow this year, but I didn't get
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  to take a shot unfortunately with it.
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  And then since I got back, I've predominantly been hunting with
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  an old vintage bear Kodiak Magnum this season.
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  And if I'm honest with myself, I can I'm more accurate and I can
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  shoot better off the shelf with a kind of more of a a modern
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  style, you know, pistol grip with a shelf.
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  But I love hunting with primitive bows as well, both of
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  my own make and or I own 3 bows from Corey Hawk.
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  Corey's a good friend of mine and they just don't get any
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  better than Corey's bows and his.
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  Bows are going. To shoot and there's just
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  something about that primitive, the simplicity of that primitive
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  style of bow. And so there's been 2-3 years
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  where I only haunted with those types of bows, predominantly his
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  bows or or ones of my own make. But that to me that's part of
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  the fun is you, you don't have to choose.
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  You can go back and forth. I think it does get me into
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  trouble sometimes because, you know, it's hard to get maybe as
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  proficient as you could if you only ever shot 1 bow and you
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  just got to know that bow inside and out and everything about it.
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  And, and so there's a level of consistency I think that is
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  maybe missing from because of my interest in so many different
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  types of bows and, and arrows and things out there.
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  But but nonetheless, I, I just do it because I love it and it's
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  fun and I'm, I'm always, you know, I, I have to, I'm to the
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  point now, though, where I'm like, OK, I got, I got about a
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  dozen bows and if, if I'm going to, I don't have any more room
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  in the house. And so I'm like, OK, it's a one
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  in one out. Now if I want another one, I got
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  AI, got a one's, got to move on to somebody else so that I'll
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  make some space for. It.
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  I hope I don't ever reach that point.
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  I don't think I can. Do it.
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  Yeah. I had to put some guardrails on
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  because if I'm not careful, it'll get out of hand.
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  I mean, I could have 100 bows and I probably still wouldn't be
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  satisfied. So the, the the dozen number
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  seems to keep me. Yeah, it, it makes me behave
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  otherwise. I could, I could, it could get
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  away from me. I think.
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  So that now, the one caveat to that I would say is that if I
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  make them myself, that's different, right?
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  And so, yeah. Now if I build them.
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  But I'd, I'd, you know, I sold some bows for a while a few
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  years ago. I was making some bows and
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  selling them mostly. Now, I just actually finished up
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  a bow for a friend of mine and and gave it to him last week,
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  But I would can still consider making a few bows and selling
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  them. And I, you know, I might, I put
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  them in my shop every once in a while, but I I tend to just give
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  them away. You know, at for people that for
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  whatever reason that that I either think they deserve it
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  because they've helped me out in the past or somebody that I
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  just, I think maybe they'd really like it, but to kind of
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  give them that nudge to, to maybe get into it a little bit
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  more or whatever the case may be.
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  But yeah, I mean, I, I could just keep talking about them
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  forever. I thought most of us could.
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  All right, That's why we're I'm sure that's why you do what you
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  do I. Love it too.
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  Tell me, in your opinion, the difference between traditional
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  archery and primitive archery. So I would say that a primitive
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  archery in my mind is usually a bow shot off the knuckle.
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  It doesn't have to be, but I would say more often than not,
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  because a primitive Archer and and or bow is usually very
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  simplistic, right? And obviously a bow without a
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  shelf is more simple. And usually it's also going to
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  be a self bow and not a laminated bow.
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  I certainly, I mean, you could, we could start talking about
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  horn bows and things like that, that would technically be
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  laminated, even though maybe they're using hide glue and
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  things like that, right? And so there are definitely,
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  there's always exceptions, right?
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  I mean, you can just depends on how far into the weeds you want
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  to get with that. But to me, a primitive bow would
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  be a a bow shot off the hand out of a single piece of material,
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  whatever that would be. But so.
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  A. Self bow.
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  Yeah, more or less a self bow, but.
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  But also with the caveat that there's always exceptions to.
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  That get through some sinu on it or some other back, yeah.
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  Exactly so. Yeah.
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  So what kind of bows do you normally make?
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  I'm Hickory and Osage. We I'm I'm very lucky here in
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  Arkansas and we have an an abundance of both of those
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  materials. And so I just the bow I just
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  finished building a week a couple weeks ago was an Osage
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  bow, but it did take it actually the, the stave ended up being a
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  little thinner than I wanted. And so I started to leave the
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  handle thin, but I really wanted a, a flat bow.
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  I, I, I didn't want it to be a thin through the handle style
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  bow. And so I ended up gluing a piece
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  of walnut to the handle so that I could build out the grip the
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  way that I wanted it to. And that was the first time that
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  I've ever actually done that before.
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  And so even though, you know, it was a self bow, if we want to,
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  again, if we want to be technical about it, I put a
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  piece of walnut to it. So, and then I just did a
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  leather wrap handle on it. But I actually, I was really
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  pleased with the way that that one turned out.
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  And so I, I might do it again. Yeah.
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  So the contrast to that yellow and dark was really cool on
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  that. I I thought it was anyway.
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  So I've done that with the number of board bows, especially
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  because the boards sometimes are just too thin and put a put a
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  little. I don't like big handles, I
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  don't like risers, but just enough to, like you said, just
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  give it a little bit of a stiffness in the handle.
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  Yeah, yeah. I spent a lot of time like
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  sanding it out on that one and like getting a nice nice.
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  It's beautiful how they blend like that.
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  Like the first time I ever saw, I think probably a laminated
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  bow, but a bow with multiple layers of wood.
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  I was just like blown away. Like how, how do they, how do
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  you do this? How do you get them so smooth in
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  this beautiful transition? Yeah, yeah, it was fun.
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  When did you start making bows, you know.
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  It's hard to remember. I, I, I made a bunch of really
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  terrible bows when I was young, you know, think.
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  We most, most of us have. Yeah, It's like if, if you like
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  how far back you want to go. I mean, of course, when I was a
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  kid, kind of. Yeah.
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  Yeah, exactly. You know, type his paracord on
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  the stick and there you go. I started messing around with it
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  probably in my early 20s, you know, 25 or so years ago.
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  And because I, I, I had a, one of the things that got me into
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  it was that I, I took some archaeology classes in college
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  and I started Flint napping around that time in my early
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  20s. And of course you get into that
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  and then that opens the gate and then you get into all kind of
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  other stuff. And so I started messing around
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  trying to make bows. And of course, these were the
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  days before YouTube. And so I was either trying to
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  talk to people or read a book and figure all that out.
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  And, you know, so it was fun and very challenging and I learned a
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  lot, but I probably mostly just made a lot of mistakes.
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  And then, you know, Fast forward a several years as I, you know,
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  was spending my time doing other things and I, I came back around
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  to it. And so I'd probably say
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  somewhere in the maybe 2016 ish time frame, about maybe close to
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  10 years ago now was the time when I kind of got reintroduced
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  to it and slowly but surely started ramping up.
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  And then during COVID, that time frame, you know, like many
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  folks, I think I had a little more time on my hands because I
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  wasn't in the store as much. And I got, I just went full on
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  into it and I was building bow after bow after bow.
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  And that allowed me to refine my skills a lot.
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  And I mean, I'd be the first one to admit though, like I still
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  have so much to learn. I've only built certain types of
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  bows, you know, self bows have never gotten into building, you
• 19:25
  know, modern laminated bows. And, you know, I, I kind of the,
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  the Osage flat bow is basically the style of bow that I have
• 19:36
  more or less learned to build. And of course, even within that,
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  just that particular boat, you've got umpteen variations
• 19:44
  that you can do and the way you finish it out in the handle and
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  the limb tips. And you know, is it a primitive
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  boat? Does it have a shuffle?
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  You know, all those kinds of things.
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  And I've, I have spent a lot of time just experimenting.
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  Of course, that's a big part of the, the fun of it, right, is
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  just trying new things and figuring out what you like, what
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  you don't like, and developing a little bit of a style.
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  But I still haven't really landed on that yet.
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  Each one I build is a little different than the previous one.
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  And that's, I think very much for me just because it's, it's
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  so interesting to try new things and just, you know, to see how
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  things turn out. But yeah, so that's kind of been
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  my in the, in short, my journey thus far making bows anyway.
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  And what does the actual act of the craft and making a bow, what
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  does that bring to you? Golly, some.
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  You know, I was having this conversation the other day with
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  some other friends that don't know anything about archery.
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  And we were just talking about like, what do you do to relax,
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  you know, or what, what kind of calms you down and, you know,
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  stressful times your life. And one of the places my mind
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  went right away would be like carving on a stave, you know,
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  just sitting down on a on a nice day in my driveway, you know,
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  and sitting out there with a cup of coffee and just pulling the
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  dry out draw knife and chasing the ring.
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  You know that that's a a really great process.
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  I mean, sometimes I think I could just do that and not even
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  finish the boss all the way, right?
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  Oh, you might. You might find.
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  A lot of buyers who'd be happy having a ring chase.
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  Right. You know.
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  And more, said some Osage with the ring already chased.
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  They got some buyers. I, I also know me though, and I
• 21:26
  would say that's great. That would be great for a while.
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  Yeah. Then I would be like, OK, now we
• 21:31
  need to move on to the next thing.
• 21:34
  And, you know, really, as much as I love making bows, I spend
• 21:39
  way more time making arrows. And, and most people actually
• 21:42
  know me for the quivers that I have been building the last few
• 21:45
  years. And so it, you know, I've, I've,
• 21:50
  I've gone through many phases where I've, you know, spend more
• 21:53
  time on bows then spend more time building arrows.
• 21:56
  And of course, the, this corporate thing that I very much
• 22:02
  a journey that I've been on for the last several years and
• 22:04
  trying to figure out where that's going and what it's going
• 22:06
  to be and all that kind of stuff.
• 22:07
  So, so I, that's my problem. I like it all.
• 22:11
  Yeah. OK, well let's I want to hear
• 22:13
  about the quivers. Let's start with the arrows.
• 22:16
  What? How long you been making arrows?
• 22:20
  Probably similar amount of time, about 10 years, I'd say.
• 22:23
  Yeah. And I love wood arrows.
• 22:25
  I, I will hunt or shoot carbon arrows occasionally, but very
• 22:31
  rarely. There's just something about
• 22:33
  wood arrows that I absolutely love.
• 22:35
  And, and in particular, the Sherwood shafts are just the,
• 22:41
  they're, yeah, they're just the best, my output this way.
• 22:45
  They're my favorite commercially available wood shafts out there.
• 22:48
  And I've been shooting, shooting them for 10 years.
• 22:51
  And I just love, you know, Carson does such a great job of,
• 22:55
  of matching sets on those things.
• 22:58
  And there's so little tuning you need to do when you get them.
• 23:01
  And so, but I love getting them in, staining them, sealing them,
• 23:06
  fletching them, cutting self knocks in them, all that kind of
• 23:08
  stuff. I, I really enjoy that.
• 23:10
  And, and I do build those and sell them here in my shop and
• 23:16
  I'll sell them in three packs. And, and, but most of it though,
• 23:20
  is not so much people just coming in and buying them,
• 23:23
  finish their, they come in and they're, they got something
• 23:25
  specific in mind. And I'll, one of the coolest
• 23:29
  things I did with those is if anybody is, I suspect a lot of
• 23:34
  people on here know who Clay Newcomb is that works for Meat
• 23:37
  Eater. He's an Arkansas guy and he
• 23:40
  actually lives very near me. He's a friend of mine.
• 23:43
  But he, I did a project with a, a really talented flintnapper
• 23:49
  out in California named Tony Soros.
• 23:51
  And Tony is one of the most gifted flintnappers I know.
• 23:55
  And he can make just beautifully crafted Folsom points.
• 24:00
  And of course, Folsom points are not arrowheads.
• 24:02
  They're at little points, but Clay being Clay and the type of
• 24:06
  guy that he is, got it in his head that he wanted to take.
• 24:10
  He he did a story about a George Mcjunction and junk in in New
• 24:16
  Mexico and how the Folsom points were originally discovered.
• 24:19
  And he got this idea and he said that he wanted to go hunting and
• 24:22
  shoot a black bear with a Folsom point.
• 24:25
  And the first thing I was like, well, Clay, like he asked me
• 24:28
  about it and I said, well, Clay, those are, those are not
• 24:31
  arrowheads. And he's like, I know, but I
• 24:32
  want to do it anyway. You know, we're like, OK, well,
• 24:35
  let's see if we can figure this out.
• 24:36
  And so I built a, a custom set of, of arrows mounting Folsom
• 24:43
  points on them that Tony made. And they, it was a really cool
• 24:48
  project and something really unique.
• 24:51
  And Clay, you successfully harvested a black bear with one
• 24:54
  of those points here in Arkansas a few years ago.
• 24:56
  And so that was, that was a neat project to get to be part of.
• 24:59
  Yeah. Do you get the same sort of
• 25:02
  benefit from making arrows as you do bow carving?
• 25:05
  Like the same sort of meditative benefit or is it different for
• 25:08
  you? I think it's similar.
• 25:12
  It's since I'm not carving, you know, there you don't have quite
• 25:18
  the level of crafting that in an arrow, at least if you bought.
• 25:24
  So I I also do make river cane arrows and that's a little
• 25:27
  different. There's definitely that would be
• 25:30
  more akin to crafting a, you know, a bow, but you still just
• 25:35
  naturally start out with the shaft And there's just not quite
• 25:39
  as, although it's a different animal.
• 25:41
  Like getting good straight river cane shafts is a process and
• 25:50
  anybody that can do that quickly is very skilled because it it
• 25:54
  takes a lot of time to tune and straighten and get river cane
• 25:59
  shafts, at least in my experience, to shoot accurately.
• 26:04
  And it absolutely can be done, but it is a challenge.
• 26:08
  And I've made a lot of them over the years.
• 26:12
  And what I find is that for every 12 that I get, I'm I'm
• 26:15
  lucky if I get 3 real good ones, three, maybe 3, maybe 4 that I'm
• 26:19
  happy with from the standpoint of, of getting the type of
• 26:23
  performance out of those that I would say out of a sure would
• 26:26
  shaft. And so, you know, they are a ton
• 26:30
  of fun to make, but they're very time consuming.
• 26:33
  And I've had people ask me if I'd sell them and I'm just like,
• 26:35
  there's no way you could sell them.
• 26:36
  You people would never, I'm for what I have to charge for Yeah,
• 26:40
  I mean, it'd be $300.00 for a set of 6 arrows, you know, for
• 26:44
  the amount of time that goes into them.
• 26:46
  At least for me. I'm, I'm sure there's folks out
• 26:48
  there that can build them faster and, and, and do it, but there's
• 26:54
  just a lot of time. And what about bamboo shafts?
• 26:57
  I've never worked with Bamboo. River Cane's the closest thing
• 27:00
  I've ever. Yeah, 'cause it occurs naturally
• 27:02
  here and we, again, we have an abundance of it and, and our,
• 27:05
  and I have a couple of sources on private property where I have
• 27:08
  rain of it. I can they're just like go get
• 27:11
  us whatever you want. That's endless out there.
• 27:13
  So, so I have a couple of places where I've been able to go
• 27:17
  harvest it because I do take it seriously.
• 27:20
  Not no, I don't, I don't take from places where I don't have
• 27:24
  permission and I don't, you know, I don't just go out and
• 27:28
  National Forest, cut trees down, do stuff like that.
• 27:30
  I take those kinds of things seriously.
• 27:32
  And so if I'm going to, I need to be able to get it off my own
• 27:36
  property for somebody else's property where I have permission
• 27:40
  to do that. And of course that limits you
• 27:42
  know what what type of resources you have available for yourself.
• 27:46
  So you make all these arrows and then you have a quiver to put
• 27:48
  them in. Tell me about your quiver
• 27:49
  production. Yeah, man, that's been a process
• 27:53
  I, I started also. So before COVID, probably 2018
• 27:57
  or so, I had this, I went through this process where I've
• 28:02
  never liked to having the quiver on my bow.
• 28:06
  I just have always preferred a clean bow without any arrows
• 28:10
  attached to it. And I before that time I was
• 28:14
  trying to all different kind of quivers and, and just, they work
• 28:18
  well enough, but I was just never really happy with them.
• 28:21
  And so I, I kind of Frankenstein to quiver together with a
• 28:24
  shotgun scabbard and some straps and a bunch of stuff.
• 28:28
  And I made this thing and I was wearing it around in a couple of
• 28:31
  events that I went to and I had people asking me about it.
• 28:35
  And I said, all right, well, maybe there's, there might be
• 28:38
  something here. I might explore this a little
• 28:40
  bit more. And I met a guy here locally in
• 28:43
  Northwest Arkansas and we worked together for about a year.
• 28:45
  And he helped me. I was designing them and he was
• 28:49
  making them. And I probably built and sold
• 28:51
  about 50 of those quivers through my shop.
• 28:54
  And my shop's name is Pack Rat. And on Instagram, a lot of my
• 28:59
  own, one of my personal pages is, is called Pack Rat
• 29:02
  Bushcraft. And that's where I just do a lot
• 29:05
  of outdoor skills of, of, of a variety of things, you know,
• 29:09
  kind of whatever I'm working on. And the, that side is kind of
• 29:13
  waxed and waned in terms of the amount of attention I'm willing
• 29:16
  to give it over the years. But what happened was, is that
• 29:20
  guy moved away and nobody could do it anymore.
• 29:23
  And then COVID happened and it is simultaneously, I was calling
• 29:28
  around and I was trying to find somebody that would be willing
• 29:30
  to build this thing for me and nobody would do it.
• 29:34
  And I at the time, I was really passionate about it.
• 29:37
  And because I, I've been able to sell a few and, and so I said,
• 29:40
  I, I really want this thing to exist.
• 29:43
  And so I said, well, I've either got to let it go or I got to
• 29:47
  learn to sew. So how about an industrial
• 29:50
  sewing machine and taught myself how to sew.
• 29:53
  And I was probably an 8 month process, just like making bows
• 29:59
  got a sewing machine and made a bunch of terrible stuff and
• 30:03
  learn how to, how to work on a sewing machine, how to tune 1.
• 30:06
  And you know, started literally doing it in, in my attic at home
• 30:12
  and just working a ton. But I, I got to the point where
• 30:15
  I was batching these things out and then I originally they were
• 30:18
  just my packet bushcraft brand, but I, I recognize that, you
• 30:22
  know, that didn't necessarily resonate super well with Archers
• 30:27
  all the time. And so I changed it to, I
• 30:29
  started calling it Backcountry quiver.
• 30:31
  And so for probably a couple of years, I was going by that name
• 30:37
  and I actually still call the main product the Backcountry
• 30:40
  Quiver. But I had an opportunity to do a
• 30:43
  an internship, a business internship through Walton School
• 30:48
  of Business, through the University of Arkansas as an
• 30:51
  entrepreneur type program. And what they do is they
• 30:54
  basically work with startup brands.
• 30:56
  And so I had somebody that knew I was doing this and they
• 30:59
  approached me about it and said, hey, are you aware of this, this
• 31:03
  program? I think your product might be
• 31:04
  good for it. And so I did that.
• 31:07
  And Long story short, that this spring will be two years ago
• 31:11
  that I did that and I learned a lot about supply chain and, and,
• 31:16
  and manufacturing and funding and all kind of stuff about
• 31:22
  business. You know, even though I, I
• 31:23
  currently work in, in a retail business, but the sourcing
• 31:26
  materials and all those kinds of things.
• 31:29
  But I had a few things for myself that were really
• 31:33
  important to me. And one of them was keeping the
• 31:34
  product American made. I really wasn't interested in in
• 31:39
  having it produced in Asia where a lot of cut and sew industry
• 31:46
  that you know, currently is. And of course there's a whole
• 31:52
  set of problems that you have to solve when you want to do
• 31:56
  American manufacturing. And you also have to be able to
• 32:02
  figure out pricing, the pricing structure, which is, is quite
• 32:05
  difficult, you know, when you're working with people building
• 32:07
  things in the US And I love American made manufacturing.
• 32:12
  And I think if you can support it, it's great.
• 32:16
  But you got to, you know, you can't expect people to work for
• 32:19
  nothing, right? You got to pay people fairly.
• 32:22
  And that, that's one of the cruxes, I think that just as a
• 32:25
  society we face these days is manufacturing left this country
• 32:29
  And, and now we're trying to figure out how to bring it back
• 32:32
  like it, it, it's a complicated issue.
• 32:37
  And so trying to work that out was very challenging for me
• 32:42
  because the products only worth so much, but it's not worth my
• 32:45
  time if I can't make any money on it either, right.
• 32:49
  And so trying to hit the sweet spot on that was really
• 32:51
  difficult. And I got some legal advice and
• 32:54
  I, I changed the name of the company again, which was forced
• 32:58
  on me a little bit and, and, and it, you know, if I'm perfectly
• 33:03
  honest with it, it, even though I like the name and what I
• 33:05
  changed it to it, it was a little confusing for some
• 33:09
  people. And so I'm, I'm honestly still
• 33:11
  kind of in that figuring it out situation because it's all of
• 33:16
  this is like secondary to my family and my regular job and my
• 33:21
  own, you know, things that I got going on.
• 33:24
  But the name of the company is it currently sits as Mallorne.
• 33:29
  And so a lot of people, maybe one may probably not a lot of
• 33:32
  people, but a few people may have also seen that Instagram
• 33:35
  page or that website and that word I'm AI don't non
• 33:41
  apologetically, I'm a huge JRR Tolkien fan.
• 33:47
  And so that word comes from Tolkien literature and it is a
• 33:51
  specific tree in those books, the Mylorn tree.
• 33:55
  And it just kind of fit for me for, for whatever reason.
• 34:01
  And so a lot of people like, oh, that's a weird word.
• 34:03
  I've never heard of that before. And that's wise because it's a,
• 34:06
  it's a fictitious tree from those stories, but it's a back
• 34:11
  quiver. And there just weren't any other
• 34:16
  back quivers out there on the market that I thought functioned
• 34:19
  like they should. And so that's why I made one.
• 34:22
  So Long story short, that's how I got into the process and that
• 34:27
  it really is just the tip of the Asperger.
• 34:29
  I I could talk about this for hours because I have hundreds if
• 34:33
  not thousands of hours and working on these things and
• 34:36
  figuring this out. But my for about a year I had
• 34:42
  some help domestically. I had a guy here in my local
• 34:45
  town and I had another company up in Missouri.
• 34:48
  One of them sold their company and the new company is no longer
• 34:52
  able to do it for me. And the other one I just was
• 34:56
  having a hard time getting on the same page with them about
• 34:59
  the manufacturing process. And so at this point, I'm kind
• 35:03
  of back to square 1 again where it's like if they, if I'm, if
• 35:06
  they're going to be out there, I've got to be the one doing it.
• 35:10
  And it's something that I just quite frankly don't have as much
• 35:14
  time as I'd like for right now. And so I'm not giving up on it.
• 35:19
  But nonetheless, it's one of those things that like, you
• 35:24
  know, I want it to exist. I want it to be out there.
• 35:26
  I love the product. I've been using it myself for
• 35:29
  years. And there's, there's probably
• 35:30
  close to 300 of them out there now.
• 35:33
  As far as the total units that I'd sold, I'd say around 300.
• 35:37
  And I'm grateful to everybody that ever bought one.
• 35:42
  But yeah, I I hope I can figure out how to keep them going in
• 35:46
  the future, but I'm going to have to rein it in a little bit
• 35:49
  for the time being. Yeah, Mallarne, how do you spell
• 35:53
  that? MALLORN.
• 35:57
  Guy and you said you have an Instagram.
• 35:59
  Yeah, yeah. That's so active.
• 36:03
  So what makes these there? It is what makes these
• 36:08
  different, like what materials. You know, wear.
• 36:11
  Differently. Yeah, so there there's a couple
• 36:14
  of things about it that the whole of the reason this entire
• 36:16
  thing started is because I've always liked backwards.
• 36:19
  I just I do. I like the, the, the clap.
• 36:21
  I mean when you, if you think of an Archer, I mean in your mind,
• 36:26
  you know, the kind of the cliche is, is you think of a Longbow
• 36:31
  and a back quiver. Like at least that's when my
• 36:32
  mind goes. Right, that's what I love.
• 36:34
  I have a very simple leather back quiver and I love it.
• 36:37
  Yeah. And so the thing that started
• 36:40
  this whole deal was because I could not find a back quiver
• 36:43
  that had a water bottle pouch on it.
• 36:46
  It did not exist. At least I could not find it
• 36:49
  back in the, you know, 2017 or so, whatever.
• 36:52
  I, I started this whole idea and that's when I mentioned that
• 36:56
  kind of Frankenstein this thing together.
• 36:59
  And so as you know, time went on and I, I started trying to say,
• 37:03
  OK, well, if I'm going to commit to this, what I want this to be
• 37:07
  because the original ones were like ballistic nylon and they
• 37:09
  all, they had like a military vibe.
• 37:11
  And I was like, that's not really what I want.
• 37:13
  So I switched materials and I started building them out of wax
• 37:18
  canvas because I wanted to have that kind of like vintage,
• 37:21
  almost like filsony, kind of, you know, nice hand to the
• 37:26
  fabric, but very durable. And so I really like the look
• 37:31
  and the, the, the appearance and everything of the wax canvas.
• 37:35
  And so they're unique because number one, I don't see a lot of
• 37:39
  quivers made out of that material.
• 37:40
  They're unique because it's a back quiver that has the ability
• 37:45
  to carry. It's kind of like your
• 37:47
  minimalist hunter situation, or at least that's kind of how I
• 37:51
  market it. So it's basically arrow carry
• 37:56
  solution for minimalist Archers. And so you've got a dedicated
• 38:00
  water bottle pocket. And then one of the other tools
• 38:03
  that I always carry with me in the field is a small folding
• 38:05
  saw. So next to the water bottle on
• 38:08
  the pouch, there's a specific pocket made for a folding saw.
• 38:12
  Yep. And then above it, there's a
• 38:15
  basically a pouch that serves for whatever you want it to be.
• 38:21
  In mine, I typically carry a small first aid kit, an extra
• 38:25
  string, maybe an energy bar or something like that, and my
• 38:29
  shooting gloves. Those are the that would be an
• 38:30
  example of the types of things that'll fit into that pocket.
• 38:34
  And it's an ambidextrous product as well.
• 38:37
  So you can flip the pockets and the shoulder strap from back to
• 38:40
  front depending on if you're right or left hand shooter.
• 38:45
  And then the crossbody strap and shoulder strap are also fully
• 38:48
  adjustable. You can take them off on and off
• 38:51
  and you can move them up and down to adjust for the
• 38:55
  individuals torso and and body shape so that you can get the
• 38:59
  best custom fit. And one of the things that
• 39:03
  traditional back quivers that are out there like leather
• 39:05
  quivers and stuff like that is when you walk around in the
• 39:08
  woods, In my experience, what happens is that the arrows
• 39:12
  rattle around a lot. They make noise.
• 39:14
  And so that's obviously not ideal for a hunting scenario.
• 39:18
  And so I wanted to quiver that could be custom fit to the
• 39:21
  individual so that when you cinch it all down snug because
• 39:26
  of just naturally our, our backs aren't flat, It puts just enough
• 39:30
  tension into the quiver to provide resistance so that it
• 39:35
  holds the arrows in place. But I would that needed to be
• 39:38
  easily adjustable. And so that's one of the
• 39:41
  features that I spent a lot of time working on to try to get it
• 39:44
  right so that when I walk through the woods, it's it's
• 39:48
  quiet and I kind of, I, and then I can loosen it though when I go
• 39:52
  to put the arrows back in. So if I'm stump shooting or
• 39:55
  something like that, you know, I can get them in and out.
• 39:58
  And so the, the quiver's designed to carry 5 or 6 arrows
• 40:02
  on the inside. And then there's a.
• 40:04
  One of the most unique features about it is I have an accessory
• 40:07
  that fits on the outside of the quiver.
• 40:09
  And I'm not sure if any of the pictures that you see on there.
• 40:12
  You may see what looks like a leather knife sheath on the
• 40:14
  outside of the quiver. And that is a product that I
• 40:17
  call the Sparrow sheath in the word Sparrow.
• 40:20
  Literally I took from spare arrow.
• 40:24
  And so the idea is, is that you can carry 1 arrow on the
• 40:28
  exterior of the quiver and that serves.
• 40:31
  There's a few reasons for that. One of them is that without
• 40:34
  looking back, without turning my head and looking over my
• 40:37
  shoulder by feel, I know exactly where one particular arrow is.
• 40:42
  And so I don't have to feel around or look I that could be
• 40:46
  my stump shooting arrow, that could be my small game arrow, or
• 40:48
  it could be my best hunting broadhead so that I can identify
• 40:51
  it quickly. The other thing that's unique
• 40:54
  about that is that it can be drawn out the bottom.
• 40:58
  So instead of reaching over the shoulder and drawing from above,
• 41:03
  you can actually lift and pull it out the bottom.
• 41:06
  So it's a much more stealthy draw if you pull that one
• 41:10
  particular arrow out of the corporate and those.
• 41:14
  So those are the 2 main things that I was like kind of through
• 41:17
  my problem solving process of like what features I want in the
• 41:20
  corporate to have that I was happy with.
• 41:24
  And it's been kind of through many iterations of, you know,
• 41:31
  the sheet itself. But the overall, the concept's
• 41:33
  very simple in a way. It attaches and everything, but
• 41:37
  I've shown them a lot of different ways to kind of
• 41:39
  optimize it. But the last thing about it is
• 41:43
  that because of the way that the quiver is built, you can really
• 41:46
  only use field points, blunts and two blade broad heads, three
• 41:51
  and four blade broad heads. The blades are perpendicular to
• 41:55
  the surface of the fabric and it it doesn't, it's not ideal for
• 42:00
  the durability of the fabric. It's aligned with a very tough
• 42:05
  material, But nonetheless, if you do it enough in and out over
• 42:09
  the course of, you know, cut few seasons, right, it's going to
• 42:13
  beat it up pretty bad. And so I've had people ask me
• 42:17
  like, can you do, can you carry a three or four blade broad
• 42:20
  head? And the one way you can do it is
• 42:23
  by using that accessory, that Sparrow sheath.
• 42:25
  You can put one of those in there.
• 42:27
  So for somebody that likes like if their favorite style or, you
• 42:30
  know, whatever they want you to four blade woodsman or whatever
• 42:33
  it is, that's a way that they can at least carry one of those
• 42:37
  with them and have that available.
• 42:42
  So yeah, that's. That's very cool.
• 42:44
  Thanks for sharing all that. Yeah, they're beautiful.
• 42:47
  Yeah, I was just thinking that the Instagram, yeah, they're
• 42:49
  really cool looking. And yeah, I I love the thought
• 42:52
  and attention that you've put into the design.
• 42:54
  I appreciate that. It's, yeah, it's something that
• 42:57
  for the moment, I think what's likely to happen is because
• 43:01
  basically what I was trying to do is see if I could create this
• 43:04
  small business that, yeah, could create enough revenue that I
• 43:08
  could then maybe hire another person to kind of manage it for
• 43:11
  me. But scaling a custom product
• 43:15
  like this is very difficult. I mean, you talk about a niche
• 43:18
  market, you know, it's, it's not only are we of traditional
• 43:22
  archery, but we're traditional archery.
• 43:24
  Yeah, it is. It's a niche within a niche,
• 43:26
  maybe within a niche. And So what I started to realize
• 43:31
  is that like, OK, I'm going to have to build other products
• 43:36
  that are more like broadly usable, right?
• 43:41
  And, and, but is that what really what I want to do?
• 43:45
  You know, And, and if I'm going to do that, I, there needs to be
• 43:48
  a reason like building a better mousetrap kind of scenario.
• 43:52
  And my biggest issue is that I just haven't had time.
• 43:57
  I mean, I've, I've got two young kids and I've got a whole other
• 44:02
  business to run. And so, you know, it's like
• 44:05
  really easy for me to kind of let this just overwhelm my
• 44:13
  schedule and my time. And at the end of the day, like
• 44:17
  I, I still just want to be in the woods and, and shooting
• 44:20
  about myself and taking my kids outside and hunting and those
• 44:24
  kinds of things. How old are your kids?
• 44:27
  14 and 11. So they're, they're just super
• 44:31
  great ages right now and they, they really enjoy being outside
• 44:35
  And, and I'm, I'm very blessed. My, my kids are just amazing
• 44:38
  little humans. And I, I mean, fortunately like
• 44:44
  that I've, I've been in able to give them a life where they
• 44:48
  don't remember a time when we weren't going outside and, and
• 44:51
  doing trips and where we love doing Rd. trips as a family.
• 44:56
  We've been all over the West backpacking and camping and
• 44:59
  doing I love fly fishing as well.
• 45:02
  And so backpack fly fishing was another one of those things that
• 45:05
  like if I could only do one thing in the summer the rest of
• 45:08
  my life, it'd probably be that I love hiking up into the high
• 45:11
  country with a fly rod and my kids do too.
• 45:14
  Fortunately, we, we have a lot of great rivers and we paddle a
• 45:18
  lot in the warm weather and we have great small mouth fishing
• 45:21
  here in Arkansas. And so, yeah, I just love
• 45:25
  getting them outside. And my daughter will shoot a bow
• 45:27
  a little bit. But my son, I mean, he doesn't
• 45:29
  remember a time when he wasn't shooting a bow.
• 45:31
  I mean, I got pictures of when, when he was 2 and he's probably
• 45:33
  owned half a dozen different bows, you know, in his life.
• 45:36
  And so that's something that he and I, it's kind of cool because
• 45:39
  it's kind of our thing. You know, we go out and do that
• 45:42
  together and we'll go shoot the 3D course together every once in
• 45:45
  a while. And, and so I that's, that's
• 45:48
  been a really great thing for me as a dad to get to have that
• 45:51
  time with him. Yeah, it's, it's, there's
• 45:53
  nothing like it, spending time with our kids, doing the things
• 45:56
  that we love that they also love.
• 45:58
  Yeah, it's amazing. I was out, I think it was just
• 46:01
  two days ago, surfing with my son.
• 46:03
  And the conditions weren't amazing.
• 46:05
  And he is beautiful out there. And he was kind of complaining a
• 46:07
  bit. I'm like, dude, I want you to
• 46:09
  think a moment about all the kids around the world.
• 46:13
  Most of them are stuck inside on screens.
• 46:15
  If they're lucky enough to have that, you know, it's like, how
• 46:18
  many do you think have the opportunity to come out here and
• 46:21
  go surfing with their dad? And such a beautiful.
• 46:24
  And it's like, for me, that's what I feel like every time I'm
• 46:27
  out there doing anything with my kids, it's like, how lucky am I
• 46:30
  to get to do this? And if they enjoy it, Yeah.
• 46:35
  And both my kids love archery. Not as much as I do, but that's
• 46:40
  the. Same for me, like my, you know,
• 46:42
  my son enjoys it, but it's like it's, it's pretty rare that he's
• 46:45
  just going to go grab his bow and go out in the backyard and
• 46:47
  start shooting on his own. Yeah.
• 46:50
  And but for me to be like, hey, but hey, buddy, let's go, you
• 46:52
  know, win shot in a in a week or two, Let's let's go out back and
• 46:55
  shoot together. He's always like, yeah, sounds
• 46:57
  great. Let's do it.
• 47:00
  Yeah. It's just that time that we get
• 47:02
  to have together is invaluable to me.
• 47:05
  My daughter's 15 and I love it when she'll ask if she can have
• 47:08
  some friends over and they can shoot some archery.
• 47:10
  I'm like, yeah, hell yeah. But we can.
• 47:13
  Yeah, we will make that happen, yeah.
• 47:16
  Yeah, she's probably now the most.
• 47:19
  She's probably photographed more bows than anyone else in the
• 47:22
  world now after we just. So hardship so I I noticed on
• 47:27
  the on the e-mail that I saw or the post, whichever it was that
• 47:31
  this so this is a project that you 2 have done together is that
• 47:34
  that's correct Yeah, that's so cool man so.
• 47:37
  Yeah, we called it Project Quiver, and the book itself is
• 47:41
  entitled Quiver. The Art of Life Through Bow
• 47:42
  Craft is the subtitle. And so she's doing a lot of the
• 47:46
  photography. 100% of the photography.
• 47:48
  Oh man, that's so cool. Yeah, it's incredible.
• 47:51
  And she we're, we're here in Costa Rica most of the year and
• 47:55
  she wanted to do, she didn't want to.
• 47:57
  She did schooling here for a while, but think last year maybe
• 48:01
  she was 14, she decided she kind of went as far as she wanted
• 48:05
  with being in a it's not traditional schooling here
• 48:08
  either. In the school she was in was
• 48:09
  outdoor classrooms and whatnot, but she really just wanted to
• 48:13
  focus on passion, stuff she wasn't actually aware of.
• 48:16
  For one year. She wanted to do like online US
• 48:19
  high school curriculum. I'm like, all right, if you want
• 48:21
  to do it. And we actually didn't do
• 48:23
  online, We did textbooks. I didn't want her staring at a
• 48:25
  computer all day. So we bought all these textbooks
• 48:28
  and she studied and passed everything, got good Marks and
• 48:32
  everything. But at the end of the year, she
• 48:33
  was like, yeah, I don't think I need these textbooks anymore.
• 48:36
  And so one thing she was interested in was photography.
• 48:38
  I said let's find you a mentor and let's see what happens.
• 48:42
  And at that time I was also percolating this idea of
• 48:45
  traveling the world, studying under different bowyers.
• 48:48
  And so we just all started to come together, man.
• 48:50
  That's. Cool.
• 48:51
  I just put it out there, too. I'm like, how how would you feel
• 48:53
  about us traveling together and making this book?
• 48:56
  Yeah, we we got to do it. So it was an incredible
• 48:58
  experience. That's really cool, I can't wait
• 49:01
  to see it. So also, yeah, she's almost done
• 49:05
  her work with photo editing. I'm still, I'm about halfway
• 49:08
  through the writing, but publisher gets it all by like
• 49:13
  February and then it goes to through all their design stuff
• 49:17
  into the printer and then we'll hopefully we'll have it in the
• 49:19
  fall. That's the goal.
• 49:20
  Nice, well I'll definitely be keeping my eye out for that.
• 49:23
  Nothing looks amazing. Yeah, I've got some incredible
• 49:26
  bowyers. Corey Hawk, of course, is in
• 49:28
  there. And we weren't ever able to get
• 49:31
  everyone we wanted. Some people we never heard from.
• 49:34
  Yeah, some people said thanks, but no thanks.
• 49:38
  But we're hoping this one sells well enough and has received
• 49:41
  well enough that we can do a Part 2 because it it was, I mean
• 49:45
  14 Bowers. There's there's not that many
• 49:47
  primitive Bowers, but there's definitely more than 14 who are
• 49:51
  at the highest level. And so that's, you know, we want
• 49:54
  to capture that. So that's all it was an amazing
• 49:57
  project and it's going to be a huge book.
• 49:59
  It's going to be close to 400 pages when it's all wow.
• 50:03
  So that cool that we weren't expecting, but once we started
• 50:06
  writing chapters and throwing in photos, it was like, oh.
• 50:09
  Well, it makes total sense to me though, because I mean it just
• 50:12
  just when you, I mean, you know, you just opens the floodgates as
• 50:16
  soon as you start talking about bows and arrows right in our
• 50:19
  jury in general. And it's like, where do you stop
• 50:22
  and start the conversation? It's almost impossible.
• 50:25
  Well, and that's in the subtitle The Art of Life through Bow
• 50:27
  Craft. That's kind of we wanted to put
• 50:29
  some some kind of parameters on it.
• 50:32
  So we're really focusing on the lifestyle of each of the
• 50:35
  bowlers. It's not as much we're not
• 50:38
  geeking out on like all the technicalities of the bow making
• 50:42
  sure because there's there's plenty of books that do.
• 50:44
  That yeah, you're not doing another Boyer's Bible.
• 50:46
  It's not another Boyer's Bible. Yeah, there's, as far as we
• 50:48
  know, there's nothing like this out there.
• 50:50
  And so, yeah, there are archery terms.
• 50:52
  There is certainly a lot of archery in it, but we're we're
• 50:55
  referring to it more from kind of the perspective and the life
• 50:57
  of each Bowyer. Kind of more about the
• 50:59
  Craftsman. Though it's the crafts and the
• 51:01
  Craftsman. Yeah, yeah.
• 51:03
  That's that's very cool. Yeah.
• 51:06
  Did you ever get to work with Corey and build a boat with him?
• 51:09
  I so Corey and I have been friends for a long time and I
• 51:16
  have never like attended one of his classes, although I would
• 51:20
  very much like to, but he has given me a lot of great advice
• 51:24
  over the years. He and I have been elk hunting
• 51:26
  together. In fact, one of the I, I can
• 51:31
  easily say one of the best days of my life was my first elk
• 51:35
  hunting, big Backcountry elk hunting trip was in Idaho in
• 51:39
  2020. And Corey was with me and I shot
• 51:43
  and killed a 6 by 6 elk with a bow he made and he was there
• 51:47
  with me. And it, that was like, I mean,
• 51:51
  it doesn't get any better for me than that.
• 51:53
  Yeah, I think I was floating the entire day.
• 51:57
  And he and I and another friend of ours that I work with here at
• 52:02
  my shop, the three of us went on that that trip to an area that
• 52:07
  none of us had ever been to before.
• 52:10
  I was able to harvest that elk. We spent the next two days
• 52:13
  packing out 250 lbs of elk meat. And then we spent four days
• 52:18
  driving home, camping and eating elk meat.
• 52:21
  And it was like a dream. I mean, if I'm lucky enough to
• 52:24
  get to do that one more time in my life that that's kind of.
• 52:28
  Yeah. The only thing that I think they
• 52:29
  could top it was to get to do it one more time.
• 52:33
  But to get to be there with a friend of yours that made the
• 52:36
  bow and do that with that person present, it was really special.
• 52:42
  And I'll. I'll never, ever forget it.
• 52:44
  And so, and then, you know, I've, I've been up there and
• 52:49
  visited him and his family a few times and, and I do a big event.
• 52:55
  So through my store, like I mentioned, education is a big
• 52:58
  thing. And I have a couple of bigger
• 53:00
  scale events that I do. One of them is a winter skills
• 53:03
  kind of bushcraft event that I do every January.
• 53:05
  But the biggest one that I do is called the Brouhaw Bushwhack.
• 53:09
  And it's an outdoor skills adventure race is kind of the
• 53:13
  easiest way to to describe it, although I could spend 30
• 53:17
  minutes just talking about what this thing is and, and when we
• 53:20
  do it. But Corey comes down every year
• 53:23
  and attends this event. And so the the event is kind of
• 53:28
  two parts. There's a competition that
• 53:30
  people come and do, but then there's also an outdoor festival
• 53:33
  component and Corey comes down and brings a bunch of bows and
• 53:37
  sets it up and lets kids shoot bows and answers questions about
• 53:41
  bow making. And I, I've got a lot of other
• 53:43
  friends that come down and do similar things.
• 53:46
  And so we got folks Flint napping and doing primitive
• 53:49
  crafts and all kinds of things. And so, you know, we've, we've
• 53:54
  been doing that or he's, he's been kind enough to come down
• 53:57
  and support me at that event for years and years.
• 54:01
  There's a another he and I are both big into physical fitness
• 54:06
  and, and have a pretty rigorous training schedule that we
• 54:10
  subject ourselves to. And there's an event out in the
• 54:16
  east in South Carolina called Winter Strong, where it's
• 54:19
  basically hunting in, in, in human endurance and, and power.
• 54:24
  I mean, we've attended that event together a few times and,
• 54:27
  and gone out there. So yeah, he and I, we, we share
• 54:30
  a lot of the same interests and he's a ton of fun to hang out
• 54:33
  with so. Cool.
• 54:35
  And he's such an awesome guy. Yeah, he is.
• 54:37
  He's great. Where was the Elk ship?
• 54:41
  That particular one was in Idaho and just just east of the
• 54:46
  Sawtooth Mountains in central Idaho.
• 54:49
  Yeah, really. That's a special place.
• 54:52
  I, I love if I, I'm often said if I didn't live in Arkansas,
• 54:55
  I'd probably live in Idaho. I, I absolutely love it up
• 54:58
  there. That's where.
• 54:59
  Clay Hayes lives too, right? It is, yeah.
• 55:02
  Yeah, Clay was the one. Clay was the one we couldn't get
• 55:05
  for the book. Yeah, I never heard from him
• 55:08
  reaching out. Yeah, he's a he's a busy guy, I.
• 55:10
  Think right. Running his own YouTube stuff
• 55:14
  and all that but. Yeah, next time maybe.
• 55:18
  Yeah, maybe Round 2. And with Corey the bow, I
• 55:22
  presume it was a hackberry bow. No, that was a no such bow.
• 55:25
  Yeah. You know, a lot of folks that
• 55:27
  haven't thought of him as well he made.
• 55:28
  I mean, you know, he'll say his favorite was Hackberry and he I
• 55:33
  feel I I'm confident that no one on the planet builds a better
• 55:37
  bow out of Hackberry than Corey does without it.
• 55:40
  No, I mean, there's no one, they probably even comes close to the
• 55:43
  amount of experience he has working with Hackberry because
• 55:46
  it's more of a rare bow, but he's built a ton of Osage bows,
• 55:50
  you know, and it but it but that is the expectation, right?
• 55:56
  Like a lot of people that know anything about making self bows,
• 56:00
  that's the first wood that comes up, right?
• 56:02
  Maybe you, but, but outside of that, you know, typically you're
• 56:06
  going to, you know, the conversation will quickly go to
• 56:08
  Osage. And so that particular boat was
• 56:13
  an Osage boat. It's got a really cool snaky
• 56:15
  bottom limb on it and it's the finest bow that I'll ever own.
• 56:20
  And yeah, without a doubt, just beautiful.
• 56:23
  But I do own one of his Hackberry bows as well, and I
• 56:28
  love them both. Yeah.
• 56:30
  Yeah, those. Good shooters.
• 56:32
  So how did Bruja come about? You know, that's a funny story
• 56:36
  too. But last year was the 10th
• 56:38
  anniversary for the event. So I've been doing it a little
• 56:40
  over 10 years now. And Long story short, I have a
• 56:44
  friend of mine that owns one of the local beer breweries here in
• 56:50
  in my hometown. And he came in the store one day
• 56:52
  and it was a slow morning and I was standing down the stairs
• 56:55
  with a couple other staff members and we just got to
• 56:58
  talking. And somehow another we came up
• 57:01
  with this thing where it was like, wouldn't it be cool if
• 57:04
  like we had a, a get together kind of like a small party in
• 57:07
  the woods, but you had to have a map and compass to find it.
• 57:11
  And like, it was like one of these like under the radar
• 57:13
  things. And you had some like you had to
• 57:16
  like problem solve your way to get to this thing.
• 57:20
  And the more I thought about it, the more I was like, this is an
• 57:23
  incredible idea. I was like, I don't know that
• 57:25
  that's what this is going to end up being, but it just got a
• 57:28
  bunch of wheels turning in my head.
• 57:31
  And it's what eventually morphed into this thing that we we call
• 57:36
  the Bruja bushwhack. But it's, it's a just a ton of
• 57:40
  fun. I'm the director of the event,
• 57:43
  but it's, you have to compete in teams.
• 57:47
  And so it's either three or four person teams.
• 57:51
  And the way it works is that they they race for points, not
• 57:54
  for time. So you can come in last and win
• 57:58
  because your woodsmanship skills and knowledge is more important
• 58:03
  than how fast you are, which makes this event very different
• 58:06
  from a lot of other similar type of events if we want to call
• 58:11
  them adventure races that are out there.
• 58:13
  Being in good physical condition helps you for sure, but your
• 58:17
  knowledge and skills is way more important.
• 58:20
  And so we combine a lot of different things.
• 58:23
  And so they have to do traditional mapping, compass
• 58:26
  navigation, orienteering. They have to have strong nature
• 58:30
  knowledge and ID trees and plants and animal tracks and
• 58:35
  sometimes even stone and fossils and, and all different kinds of
• 58:38
  things that naturally occur in our area.
• 58:42
  They have to show understanding and and mastery of a wide
• 58:47
  variety of woodsmanship skills, everything from fire building
• 58:51
  using foot and steel up to primitive fire, you know, hand
• 58:55
  drill, bow drill kind of stuff. First aid skills.
• 58:58
  There's always a paddling, A canoeing component to it.
• 59:02
  And then they're they all while doing that.
• 59:05
  There's a 3D archery course trad only that they have to shoot in
• 59:10
  the event. So it is the cumulative of all
• 59:13
  the points they earned through all of these skills as far as
• 59:17
  how they compete and how they win.
• 59:19
  And so we've got first, second, third for teams.
• 59:24
  But then one of the other fun, fun things that we do is that I
• 59:27
  have about a 50 to 60 person volunteer crew that we have that
• 59:32
  puts the event on and that crew of volunteers creates awards
• 59:37
  based on fun things or interesting things that happen
• 59:41
  during the day. And it's different every single
• 59:44
  year. And so we always keep back
• 59:46
  prizes and we just give stuff away based upon just like funny
• 59:52
  or, or cool stuff or people just kind of went above and beyond,
• 59:56
  you know, maybe some guy just won't give up on his hand drill
• 59:58
  fire and his hands are, are bloody and, and full of
• 1:00:02
  blisters. By the end of it, he he probably
• 1:00:04
  is going to get an award for that, right?
• 1:00:06
  So stuff like that. And so I really, really enjoy
• 1:00:12
  putting it on and it's it's really gotten to have a fun
• 1:00:15
  community. Around the event and we do that
• 1:00:18
  every April down on the Mulberry River here in Arkansas.
• 1:00:23
  So if anyone's listening to this and they got questions about it,
• 1:00:27
  I'm always looking for folks that either are interested in
• 1:00:31
  building a team and competing or folks that just like, hey, that
• 1:00:35
  sounds like a cool thing. And I've got this skill that I
• 1:00:38
  like to do. I'd come down there and and do
• 1:00:41
  my craft and talk to folks and enjoy a weekend on the the
• 1:00:45
  beautiful Mulberry River that we got down there.
• 1:00:48
  So reach out if that sounds like something that, yeah, you're
• 1:00:53
  interested in. So how many people normally
• 1:00:56
  participate in the event? There's typical, the way that we
• 1:01:00
  do it is that I, I say it's 45 teams or 160 competitors,
• 1:01:06
  whichever I get to 1st. And so that's the size of the
• 1:01:10
  competition. And then we tend to have
• 1:01:14
  another, oh, depending because it's an outdoor event, the
• 1:01:17
  weather obviously plays a role, a big role in how well attended
• 1:01:21
  it is. But I would say we have
• 1:01:23
  somewhere around 2 to 300 more people that buy tickets to come
• 1:01:27
  out and attend. So by the time it's all said and
• 1:01:30
  done, it's usually somewhere between 4:00 or 500 people.
• 1:01:33
  Wow, that's really cool. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's a fun
• 1:01:36
  time, no doubt. It's just a beautiful time of
• 1:01:39
  year to be down there. Yeah, and the the people who
• 1:01:42
  don't participate are just there to attend.
• 1:01:44
  It's like a a festival of some sort.
• 1:01:46
  Yeah, it's just. A yeah.
• 1:01:47
  So it's kind of like a it's, it's pretty organic the way that
• 1:01:51
  it there. It's not like structured classes
• 1:01:54
  and stuff per SE. There's just a lot of demos
• 1:01:56
  going on. So there's usually somebody
• 1:01:59
  building a bow, somebody Flint Knapp, and somebody running an
• 1:02:02
  archery course, maybe somebody's making pottery.
• 1:02:06
  And then in addition to that, I invite a lot of the brands that
• 1:02:11
  I work with here in my shop. So you'd see traditional
• 1:02:14
  companies like, you know, Osprey packs or Patagonia or, you know,
• 1:02:21
  we, we carry a lot of your, you know, your popular outdoor
• 1:02:25
  brands that you would, you know, see in a, in a, in an outdoor
• 1:02:30
  shop, right? But we try to work with brands
• 1:02:33
  that have ethics that align with ours were my business is very
• 1:02:38
  focused on running events that are sustainable.
• 1:02:43
  And so, you know, we try to really limit the amount of waste
• 1:02:47
  created in the events that we do.
• 1:02:49
  So we encourage people to bring, you know, their own reusable
• 1:02:53
  cups and eating materials because we we cater the whole
• 1:02:57
  thing with big BBQ dinner. And so, you know, we're always
• 1:03:02
  looking for partners that are like minded and try to set an
• 1:03:05
  example about how you can do big events like this, but you can do
• 1:03:08
  them responsibly so that you don't end up with this giant
• 1:03:12
  amount of trash, you know, when when it's over.
• 1:03:15
  So yeah, which we try to do that in everything that we do.
• 1:03:19
  That's so cool. And then is the event itself
• 1:03:21
  raising awareness for anything? We usually have a series of
• 1:03:26
  nonprofit partners that we work with and I am on the board where
• 1:03:31
  I serve on two boards here locally as well.
• 1:03:34
  I'm on the board for Arkansas Backcountry Hunters and Anglers
• 1:03:39
  BHA. So I I serve on that board and
• 1:03:41
  often BHA is present and is a part of that event.
• 1:03:46
  And then in addition to that, I serve on a board for the
• 1:03:50
  Northwest Arkansas Land Trust that is focused on preserving
• 1:03:55
  green space in our community. We live in a place that, like
• 1:03:59
  many nice areas around the country right now, are being
• 1:04:02
  rapidly developed. And I believe really strongly
• 1:04:06
  that, you know, we need to keep an eye on these things so that
• 1:04:10
  we have smart development and we make sure that, you know, we're
• 1:04:14
  leaving habitat for wildlife out there, you know, is really what
• 1:04:18
  it comes down to. And we have several other groups
• 1:04:22
  like the Mulberry River Society or the Ozark Hollands Trail
• 1:04:27
  Association. So we always work with groups
• 1:04:29
  like that to help them with their membership, raise
• 1:04:32
  awareness of their missions in our community and yeah, those
• 1:04:37
  types of things. Very cool, that sounds like an
• 1:04:40
  amazing event. Maybe my daughter and I will
• 1:04:43
  come to it. Once we get her book published,
• 1:04:44
  we'll bring some. We will.
• 1:04:46
  You are completely welcome and I can provide camping gear and
• 1:04:51
  whatever you need so that would be awesome.
• 1:04:53
  Yeah, my son would have to come to you.
• 1:04:55
  Yeah, he'd want to do that for sure.
• 1:04:57
  He will. Everything you talked about he
• 1:04:59
  absolutely loves. So that would be amazing.
• 1:05:00
  We'd. We'd be honored to have you guys
• 1:05:03
  out there. So yeah, keep me posted.
• 1:05:07
  About. Yeah, of course.
• 1:05:09
  And then I've never been to Arkansas.
• 1:05:10
  It's a pretty Fayetteville is a pretty cool area, isn't it?
• 1:05:13
  It's we're very fortunate to live where we live.
• 1:05:17
  It the secrets kind of out about it now, so to speak.
• 1:05:20
  You know, it's the the Ozarks are are very beautiful.
• 1:05:26
  My favorite time of year is right now the fall.
• 1:05:29
  The winter can be great. We can get cold and snow and all
• 1:05:36
  that, but you can also have 65° days in January.
• 1:05:40
  So you know, and so it, the weather is very dynamic here.
• 1:05:45
  I'll say that the summer is probably the toughest months
• 1:05:49
  because we have a lot of, we have a big tick problem here and
• 1:05:52
  a lot of tick illness in our area now that you really have to
• 1:05:55
  take very seriously. And that starts in the spring.
• 1:05:59
  And so that is one thing that I'm, I take very seriously about
• 1:06:02
  that event is that I tell everybody like you need to take
• 1:06:06
  proper precautions for ticks because it's a real concern.
• 1:06:10
  And we have a lot of Poison Ivy where we live.
• 1:06:13
  So I don't get when it, when that stuff comes out in the
• 1:06:16
  spring, I transition to the river and I'm, I'm spending a
• 1:06:21
  lot more of my time fishing after that.
• 1:06:25
  And it's very humid and, and warm here in the summertime.
• 1:06:29
  And so, you know, your typical summer day would be, you know,
• 1:06:32
  8590% humidity and 95°. That's a, that's a typical
• 1:06:38
  summer day. So it's very hot and humid and
• 1:06:42
  the summers last a long time. And so, you know, basically from
• 1:06:46
  May until beginning of October, it's going that way.
• 1:06:51
  And so we have a shortfall and you know, it's basically October
• 1:06:57
  and November and then now as we get into December, we there
• 1:07:00
  still some color on the trees out there, but it's they're
• 1:07:03
  mostly falling down now and and gone it and starting to be
• 1:07:06
  pretty bare. But I mean, shoot, it's amazing
• 1:07:10
  outside today. It's sunny and probably 40° and
• 1:07:14
  beautiful so. And you moved there for college,
• 1:07:18
  is that what you said? No, I'm from E Arkansas
• 1:07:20
  originally. So I've always lived in
• 1:07:22
  Arkansas, but my when I was young, my parents moved up to
• 1:07:25
  this area. And so I finished, yeah, going
• 1:07:28
  to school up here and moved away briefly for my first year of
• 1:07:32
  college, but came back after that and ended up graduating
• 1:07:35
  from the University of Arkansas here.
• 1:07:37
  But I was already working at this shop that I work at just as
• 1:07:41
  a college job. But I, I just stuck around long
• 1:07:45
  enough. They kept giving me more and
• 1:07:46
  more responsibility and at that point in my life, when I was
• 1:07:51
  young, all I cared about was being outside and I was a very
• 1:07:55
  avid climber for a long time to for 20 years.
• 1:07:59
  I travelled both domestically and internationally for for
• 1:08:03
  climbing trips and. Mountaineering.
• 1:08:06
  And things, a lot of mountaineering, Alpine climbing.
• 1:08:10
  I spent a lot of time climbing in South America and mostly in
• 1:08:15
  the American West here as well. So places like the North
• 1:08:18
  Cascades and Washington, the Grand Tetons, this year in
• 1:08:22
  Nevada, the Rockies, in Colorado, doing a lot of outline
• 1:08:26
  rock climbing and mountaineering.
• 1:08:29
  Yeah, I still do those things when I can, but not nearly as
• 1:08:34
  avidly. You know, I hope actually to
• 1:08:36
  begin to doing some of them a little bit more with my son now
• 1:08:39
  that he's getting older and it keeps me motivated to to be in
• 1:08:44
  good shape. And, and so, you know, one of my
• 1:08:49
  favorite things now is that, you know, my son, we, I love working
• 1:08:53
  out with him. It's it's like one of the things
• 1:08:56
  I most look forward to and watching him get stronger and,
• 1:09:01
  and my daughter too, you know, we'll, we'll do it as a family
• 1:09:05
  sometimes the three of us. And, you know, but he is at
• 1:09:11
  that, just at that stage where he's, you know, is the
• 1:09:14
  testosterone starting to kick in a little bit more and he's
• 1:09:16
  starting to want to try harder. And, and that's a fun thing for
• 1:09:19
  me to get to watch and be part of at this stage of life.
• 1:09:22
  And so. Yeah, so cool.
• 1:09:24
  My, both my kids are really into jiu jitsu with me, so that's
• 1:09:28
  cool. And my daughter now, like she's,
• 1:09:30
  she's a young, young woman and it's been amazing to watch her
• 1:09:34
  get muscles and get, yeah, get technical on shit.
• 1:09:37
  She's a, she's a force to roll with now.
• 1:09:39
  So it's so fun. She trains like two or three
• 1:09:43
  hours a day, every day. Oh man, that's amazing.
• 1:09:46
  I, I, I have been talking, trying to get my kids.
• 1:09:49
  So my, my son's a big cross country runner and he runs track
• 1:09:52
  in the spring. So he's a big runner.
• 1:09:54
  I used to be. That.
• 1:09:55
  And. Yeah, and and I'm just kind of
• 1:10:00
  like the I used to run, but I've got some old injuries that
• 1:10:03
  prevent me from being able to run like I used to.
• 1:10:06
  And likewise. That's the only thing, yeah, it
• 1:10:08
  bums me out a little bit. So I'm not able to run with him
• 1:10:10
  as much. But the the gym stuff though,
• 1:10:14
  I'm a big old school calisthenics kind of guy.
• 1:10:17
  I lift weights a little bit, but mostly it's like old school kind
• 1:10:21
  of like, I don't know if you know who Jacqueline is or any of
• 1:10:25
  the yeah, like some of that old, old school kind of body weight
• 1:10:29
  stuff that I really love. There's a guy named Rossina mate
• 1:10:34
  who's a, a boxing trainer up in the Northeast.
• 1:10:38
  And I got super into his programming for a while and, and
• 1:10:43
  he, he, he uses weights and stuff too, but it's a lot of
• 1:10:47
  body weight type stuff. And, and I think, for me anyway,
• 1:10:52
  the closer I get to 50, the more I'm like, yeah, the body weight
• 1:10:55
  stuff's good. It doesn't hurt as much as the
• 1:10:57
  Whites too. So yeah, but there's there's a
• 1:11:00
  lot. To cover a lot faster.
• 1:11:02
  Yeah, yeah. And it it works too, if you know
• 1:11:06
  what you're doing with it. There's like.
• 1:11:07
  Yeah, it's it's endlessly adaptable, right?
• 1:11:11
  Yeah, of course. Yeah, I have rings hanging on my
• 1:11:14
  porch for chin ups and pull ups and me too.
• 1:11:16
  I love doing push ups and like even with those I'm right now
• 1:11:19
  I'm doing 200 push ups a day and I'm trying to very like have
• 1:11:24
  variations in my and the way that I do them and there's still
• 1:11:28
  some styles of push ups. So I'm like, I can't even do
• 1:11:30
  that. Like that's.
• 1:11:32
  Insane. And it's just like if I took the
• 1:11:34
  time just to learn those, that would be a game changer.
• 1:11:36
  It's there's so much just in variation in a sit up or a push
• 1:11:40
  up. It's incredible.
• 1:11:41
  Absolutely. Yeah.
• 1:11:43
  I feel exactly the same way. It's just like, how old are you,
• 1:11:46
  Rick? And challenging.
• 1:11:47
  I'm 46. Yeah.
• 1:11:51
  So, yeah, but fortunate, I mean, again, I got some old injuries
• 1:11:56
  and some of its way back in high school football and some of its
• 1:12:00
  just a lot of years of stomping up and down mountains with heavy
• 1:12:03
  packs on and and wearing out cartilage in my knees and stuff
• 1:12:07
  like that. But I've been pretty lucky that
• 1:12:10
  I don't have anything that's too detrimental.
• 1:12:14
  I just had to learn, learn to work around some things, but
• 1:12:18
  still very active that thing. I think one of the for being a
• 1:12:23
  father is one of the things that I'm probably most proud of is
• 1:12:26
  like when I come home from work and I'll walk into the garage
• 1:12:31
  and there's sweat on the floor and I can tell my kids been out
• 1:12:33
  there working out completely unprompted by me.
• 1:12:36
  Just they just did it because that's just what you do.
• 1:12:38
  It's just part of life. Yeah, those are good days.
• 1:12:42
  It makes me feel like, OK, I'm I'm not a, I'm not a total screw
• 1:12:46
  up like. Yeah, it's always shocking to me
• 1:12:50
  to see people our age who have not gone this direction and have
• 1:12:54
  gone the opposite. It's just like, how?
• 1:12:56
  How do you? I know.
• 1:12:58
  I couldn't imagine, like I feel as good as I did when I was 20
• 1:13:02
  and I have the energy of that. It's like, yeah, we have, we
• 1:13:04
  pack on some injuries and there's definitely some things
• 1:13:07
  that we can't do. For me anyway, range of motion
• 1:13:10
  is limited in why my ankles. But other than that, like I
• 1:13:13
  trained 3 hours in jiu jitsu yesterday and my sensei was
• 1:13:16
  like, how the hell are you training 3 hours?
• 1:13:18
  I'm like, I feel great, why not? That's so good.
• 1:13:21
  Let's do it. But it's like it's, it's a
• 1:13:24
  dedication to the human body and just to stay with it and eat
• 1:13:28
  well and take care of it. Yeah, the food thing is so big,
• 1:13:32
  right? Like, I mean, so many people
• 1:13:33
  that just try to take the easy way out on the food and then and
• 1:13:36
  not that it's even that hard, but we're people get so busy.
• 1:13:39
  In the states, so it's so easy just to go off the rails like.
• 1:13:42
  It what is it's. Every time I visit the states
• 1:13:45
  I'm just like holy shit like these portions are bigger than
• 1:13:48
  my torso and it's. Yeah.
• 1:13:51
  We were just in Europe for two months and it's just a whole
• 1:13:53
  different thing. They're whole different.
• 1:13:55
  Yep. Yeah, well, they still have.
• 1:13:58
  Yeah. Food called.
• 1:13:59
  Exactly. It's just a completely different
• 1:14:01
  thing. You don't have to be so mindful
• 1:14:03
  of your choices over there. But here it's just, you know,
• 1:14:06
  cheap. Well, used to be cheap.
• 1:14:08
  Now nothing's really cheap anymore.
• 1:14:10
  Even bad food isn't cheap anymore, right?
• 1:14:12
  And so it's like all the more reason.
• 1:14:13
  But I'm a firm believer that food is medicine, you know?
• 1:14:16
  And you know, what you, what you put in is what you're going to
• 1:14:20
  get out. You know of it in terms of
• 1:14:22
  quality. And so, you know, I'm not
• 1:14:26
  perfect by any means. And I still eat ice cream
• 1:14:28
  occasionally, right? But but yeah, I do pay
• 1:14:33
  attention. You're harvesting your own meat
• 1:14:35
  and like, that's one of the best things you can give your body an
• 1:14:39
  it's amazing to be able to do that.
• 1:14:41
  Yeah, it is. I'm very lucky to live in a
• 1:14:43
  place where I have the opportunity to do it.
• 1:14:45
  Yeah, for sure. Well, Rick, this has been
• 1:14:48
  awesome. Thank you so much for opening up
• 1:14:51
  your your time to me and sharing your life story and I think
• 1:14:54
  you're doing some amazing things and wish you well with all of
• 1:14:57
  it. Same to you.
• 1:15:00
  Thanks for the opportunity. Yeah, pleasure.
• 1:15:04
  I hope we get to meet someday, and I'd love to come to Bruja
• 1:15:06
  and hang out with you. Man, that would be wonderful.
• 1:15:09
  Yeah, that's one of those things that I just keep trying to make
• 1:15:12
  that community better and better.
• 1:15:13
  And you're, you're, you'd fit right in, I promise.
• 1:15:18
  Yeah. With everybody that's there, I
• 1:15:19
  think you'd really enjoy it. So I hope we can work that out
• 1:15:21
  one day. Awesome.
• 1:15:22
  Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
• 1:15:25
  Yeah. Thank you.
• 1:15:35
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