Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 340: Land Management Wisdom and the Coronavirus with Doug Duren

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Ep. 340: Land Management Wisdom and the Coronavirus with Doug Duren · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
0:06
Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
0:12
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. All right, welcome to the wire ton Podcast,
0:17
Speaker 1: brought to you by on X. Today on the show,
0:19
Speaker 1: I'm joined by my buddy Doug During he's a frequent
0:22
Speaker 1: contributor to various Mediator podcasts and television episodes as well
0:27
Speaker 1: as wildlife inhabitant management consultant out of the Driftless region
0:32
Speaker 1: of Wisconsin, and he's also one of the experts we
0:35
Speaker 1: brought out to the Back forty last fault to review
0:37
Speaker 1: what we had there and to talk through different ideas
0:40
Speaker 1: and to hunt the farm with me. So in our
0:42
Speaker 1: conversation today, I want to cover a lot of topics
0:45
Speaker 1: on those lines we're gonna discuss with Doug. You know,
0:48
Speaker 1: how he came to his current conservation ethic, how he
0:51
Speaker 1: attempts to balance hunting and ecosystem goals on any property
0:55
Speaker 1: he works with, how to think about native and invasive
0:58
Speaker 1: species management, is for improving the Back forty and a
1:02
Speaker 1: bunch more like that. So so fascinating stuff. But we
1:05
Speaker 1: also do spend some time in the beginning talking about
1:09
Speaker 1: just just the current event of the moment, the global
1:13
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen pandemic that's just sucked the oxygen out of
1:16
Speaker 1: every room. Uh, it's all encompassing right now. None of
1:19
Speaker 1: you guys listening are surprised by this, I know, because
1:22
Speaker 1: it's it's everywhere. It's changed everything about our daily lives
1:24
Speaker 1: right now. UM, I just didn't. I don't think there's
1:28
Speaker 1: any way we could have the podcast this week without
1:30
Speaker 1: at least addressing the elephant in the room a little bit.
1:33
Speaker 1: So we're gonna touch on that. Uh, just kind of
1:35
Speaker 1: share our thoughts and feelings right now, look at some
1:38
Speaker 1: of the weird parallels between this situation and that surrounding
1:42
Speaker 1: c w d Um. We even go into a little
1:45
Speaker 1: bit about how all of this right now might impact
1:47
Speaker 1: future conservation efforts. UH. So it's interesting stuff, but rest assured,
1:52
Speaker 1: the majority of the show we're gonna talk about conservation
1:55
Speaker 1: and wildlife management and habitat improvements and in philosophies around
2:01
Speaker 1: working with the land. It's great stuff. I think you'll
2:04
Speaker 1: enjoy it. I should take your mind off of some
2:07
Speaker 1: of the negativity out there right now. And uh, and
2:09
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to you guys all giving me a
2:11
Speaker 1: listen so that's the plan for today. No intro session
2:16
Speaker 1: with Dan yet. I think he'll be with us next
2:17
Speaker 1: week though, so tune in for that. So without further Ado,
2:21
Speaker 1: let's get into it and get Dug During on the line.
2:25
Speaker 1: All right, I got Doug During back with me on
2:29
Speaker 1: the show. Doug, thanks for making the time to do this. Well,
2:33
Speaker 1: this is uh great social distancing here and getting to
2:36
Speaker 1: talk to you and both from the the the privacy
2:41
Speaker 1: and safety of our own offices. I know it's becoming
2:44
Speaker 1: the new normal for people all over the country right now,
2:47
Speaker 1: is video conferences and skype chats and and all that.
2:50
Speaker 1: But I was talking to Ben O'Brien yesterday that I've
2:53
Speaker 1: been doing this. I've been self quarantine for six years,
2:55
Speaker 1: sitting in my home office every day by myself. So
2:58
Speaker 1: this isn't too different for me. Well, right, and the
3:01
Speaker 1: same you know, I as you as you know, I'm
3:03
Speaker 1: I'm self employed and and uh so I have I
3:07
Speaker 1: work from home, UM and most of my work is
3:10
Speaker 1: um around the state in the Midwest, UM that I
3:13
Speaker 1: traveled to. And then of course I have the farm nearby,
3:15
Speaker 1: which you know, it's easy to self quarantine out there.
3:18
Speaker 1: I'm just dealing with some Herford's and their calves, and
3:23
Speaker 1: having seasons coming up, and living here in Casanovia, you know,
3:28
Speaker 1: population three or five, it's pretty easy to social socially
3:33
Speaker 1: distanced yourself. I got to tell you, Um, I was
3:40
Speaker 1: contemplating what I wanted to do this week in the podcast,
3:43
Speaker 1: and I had an original plan that I threw out
3:44
Speaker 1: the window just because of current events. And I selfishly
3:48
Speaker 1: I wanted to I wanted to have someone I could
3:51
Speaker 1: talk to about what's going on right now, a little
3:53
Speaker 1: bit that that had a little bit more wisdom than me,
3:59
Speaker 1: And I jumped to you, I, so I want to
4:02
Speaker 1: talk about the fun stuff. I want to talk about
4:05
Speaker 1: the back forty and the time we spent together. I
4:07
Speaker 1: want to talk about what's going on in the Durn
4:10
Speaker 1: farm and spring habitat projects and conservation ideas and and
4:15
Speaker 1: and news and all that kind of good stuff. But
4:17
Speaker 1: I guess I don't think we can ignore, you know,
4:19
Speaker 1: what's happening around us right now. As you said, social distancing, coronavirus,
4:23
Speaker 1: the pandemic. I mean, life has changed over the last
4:26
Speaker 1: week dramatically. Um. It's it's hard to escape, and part
4:31
Speaker 1: of me wants this to be an escape, Like the
4:34
Speaker 1: part of me wants the podcast to be an escape,
4:37
Speaker 1: but I also kind of feel like it also, maybe
4:40
Speaker 1: just selfishly for me, is a place to to to
4:44
Speaker 1: release a little bit of the tension around it too
4:46
Speaker 1: and talk about it. I don't know, how how are
4:49
Speaker 1: you processing what's going on around us right now? How
4:52
Speaker 1: are you feeling about things? UM? What's the doug during
4:56
Speaker 1: wisdom that I need to hear right now? UM? Well,
5:01
Speaker 1: not certainly not the panic, But to take this very seriously,
5:05
Speaker 1: is is UM isn't the number one message I guess
5:08
Speaker 1: if I've learned anything in UM sixty one years and
5:12
Speaker 1: then working with with people like Brian Richards at the
5:16
Speaker 1: U s g S Wildlife Health Center. UM, as I
5:20
Speaker 1: think I told you, Mark, my daughter is completing her
5:23
Speaker 1: master's in public health at Paul University and UM she's
5:28
Speaker 1: studying UM Emergency Emergency Preparedness UM and that's her area
5:34
Speaker 1: of that's her master's thesis, and it's it's kind of
5:37
Speaker 1: stunning to me that that's going on. So as you
5:38
Speaker 1: can imagine talking with her. I was on the phone
5:41
Speaker 1: with her last night about what she's doing, and UM,
5:46
Speaker 1: you know the biggest thing is that as you you,
5:51
Speaker 1: being a relatively a new parent and now parents of
5:55
Speaker 1: the second one, you realize that your life isn't as um.
6:00
Speaker 1: Your individual life takes on a whole different meaning when
6:03
Speaker 1: you start caring for you know, someone else. And I
6:07
Speaker 1: can never describe what it has been like to be
6:10
Speaker 1: a father to me, but it, um, it extends to
6:15
Speaker 1: the whole idea of you know, it's not ours, it's
6:19
Speaker 1: just our turn and caring for um the you know,
6:24
Speaker 1: honoring the past and caring for the future. And if
6:26
Speaker 1: there's anything that that points that out, it's this this
6:29
Speaker 1: kind of situation. UM. I'm hearing from friends, UM, some
6:34
Speaker 1: of them are you know, really frightened and um and
6:37
Speaker 1: some of my siblings who my sister actually has a
6:41
Speaker 1: master's in public health. And also so you know, I'm
6:43
Speaker 1: hearing all parts of this, and I tend to, UM,
6:48
Speaker 1: I want to I want to remember the kinds of
6:54
Speaker 1: things like my friend Mitch Baker has said, and that
6:56
Speaker 1: is I'd rather we did more than we I'd rather
6:59
Speaker 1: we did everything that we could and find out we
7:02
Speaker 1: did more than we had to than to find out
7:04
Speaker 1: we didn't do enough. And so, you know, taking this
7:08
Speaker 1: stuff seriously, is is you know it's really important at
7:12
Speaker 1: the same time, um Man, I've been doing taking some
7:16
Speaker 1: walks on the farm and I'm spending some time out there,
7:18
Speaker 1: and my wife and I have been hiking together, and
7:21
Speaker 1: um you know, it really does help you count the
7:25
Speaker 1: most important things in life, I think a little more,
7:29
Speaker 1: um carefully and um so I would say, you know,
7:34
Speaker 1: there's a lesson there that you know what's important in
7:36
Speaker 1: life and and and and those are the things that
7:41
Speaker 1: I'm counting on these days. Is you know who's important
7:43
Speaker 1: and what's important to me? Yeah, that's that's a great point.
7:48
Speaker 1: And another thing that you just made me think of
7:50
Speaker 1: two is just how how much we take for granted
7:54
Speaker 1: here in this country, all the opportunities we have and
7:57
Speaker 1: the things we can do, and the freedoms of of
8:01
Speaker 1: of all sorts that we have as privileges here and
8:04
Speaker 1: and now all of a sudden that's changing because of
8:07
Speaker 1: this a lot of ways. And you very quickly realize,
8:10
Speaker 1: oh wow, look what life's like when you don't have
8:14
Speaker 1: these abilities, are these opportunities, or look how quickly things
8:17
Speaker 1: can change. I mean it is I it's eye opening,
8:20
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of folks, and it just
8:21
Speaker 1: makes you that much more thankful for the things that
8:25
Speaker 1: we do have, like you said, time with family. But
8:27
Speaker 1: but the crazy thing is, I mean if we place
8:30
Speaker 1: like France where they're banning family get togethers and they're
8:32
Speaker 1: banning social gatherings of any kind, it's a little bit
8:35
Speaker 1: concerning where this can go when you don't even when
8:38
Speaker 1: you can't even connect with your support family groups or
8:42
Speaker 1: friend groups to to deal with some of this stuff. Um,
8:45
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, like you said, you don't
8:46
Speaker 1: want to panic, you don't want to worry too much.
8:48
Speaker 1: You just want to follow the guidelines and do what's
8:50
Speaker 1: best for the greater good. Uh. But it's certainly is
8:53
Speaker 1: something we have take series, like you said. And and
8:56
Speaker 1: then as as you are doing, I think the thing
9:00
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do is is stay as positive as
9:02
Speaker 1: you can and get outside, like that's one of those
9:04
Speaker 1: places where you can still get out there and enjoy
9:08
Speaker 1: mother nature, do some good work. Um, get your mind
9:12
Speaker 1: off things. Probably the worst thing right now, and I
9:15
Speaker 1: am bad right now. I'm I'm guilty of looking at
9:18
Speaker 1: my phone a lot the last week. There's this constant
9:21
Speaker 1: stream of news. It's probably the worst thing to do.
9:24
Speaker 1: I've been trying to take my phone and like put
9:26
Speaker 1: it in another room and leave it and say, right
9:28
Speaker 1: from from five o'clock till nine o'clock, I'm not going
9:31
Speaker 1: to look at the phone at all. It's because you
9:33
Speaker 1: can get addicted to well, what's happening now? What's happening now? Um,
9:38
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know if that's something you
9:41
Speaker 1: ever have struggled with my wife. My wife would love
9:44
Speaker 1: if she was listening in in this which she will
9:47
Speaker 1: want it air. Um, she would say, yeah, when you
9:51
Speaker 1: put that darn phone down, and uh, I am, I'm
9:54
Speaker 1: I'm a slave to the darn thing and um, and
9:57
Speaker 1: I need to change that because it it it'll bring
10:00
Speaker 1: you down. Um. But then it goes back to that
10:04
Speaker 1: balance of well, how do you be serious about this
10:06
Speaker 1: if you don't know what's going on? Well, the truth
10:08
Speaker 1: is you don't need to know what's going on every
10:10
Speaker 1: minute or even every hour. Um, especially I mean, you know,
10:15
Speaker 1: I've been to your home and you know I know
10:16
Speaker 1: where you're at out there. It's not like you've got
10:19
Speaker 1: you know, like me, you don't have a ton of
10:21
Speaker 1: people going by your house and you're not out interacting
10:24
Speaker 1: as a normal part of your day. Um, so you
10:26
Speaker 1: really don't have to have, you know, up to up
10:29
Speaker 1: to the minute information, but there really is a uh
10:35
Speaker 1: it draws you to it. And and I mean I'm
10:38
Speaker 1: just too much with the phone anyway, but uh, and
10:41
Speaker 1: I do try to set it aside, especially when I'm
10:43
Speaker 1: out at the farm. I mean, I'll take some photos
10:45
Speaker 1: and stuff like that just to share what's going on
10:47
Speaker 1: out there. But um, yeah, I I getting outside is
10:52
Speaker 1: a big one, man, because I mean, is there a
10:54
Speaker 1: safer place, Um, at least if you're outside and you're
10:57
Speaker 1: not in the middle of a crowd. It's it's fantastic
11:01
Speaker 1: being out and about. I mean, I had a great
11:02
Speaker 1: time yesterday morning, Um, when I checked on the cattle
11:07
Speaker 1: and just you know, and I was just it's the
11:09
Speaker 1: farm is only a couple of miles here from from
11:11
Speaker 1: where we live, and and I noticed some turkeys over
11:14
Speaker 1: across the road. So I got out and walked over
11:15
Speaker 1: across the road and I sat in the field for
11:17
Speaker 1: a while and watched three toms strut or two toms strut,
11:21
Speaker 1: and then the third one tried to join them, and man,
11:23
Speaker 1: there was a butt kicking contest went off field and
11:27
Speaker 1: I just felt it was one of those moments of wow,
11:30
Speaker 1: spring is here, things are happening, it's their time. Um.
11:35
Speaker 1: And then you know, I sat there for I don't know,
11:38
Speaker 1: twenty minutes, half an hour or something. I watched the
11:40
Speaker 1: whole thing go on, and then all of a sudden
11:41
Speaker 1: I kind of snapped back to reality, like, oh, you've
11:43
Speaker 1: got stuff to do, and you know, I went in
11:46
Speaker 1: and grabbed my phone and there I am, like back
11:50
Speaker 1: into it again. So, UM, perspective is awfully important and UM,
11:56
Speaker 1: but I go back to you know, at the same time,
11:59
Speaker 1: there's there's been nothing like this in in our lifetime
12:04
Speaker 1: and hopefully there won't be again. Um. In terms of
12:07
Speaker 1: its effect on us as humans, obviously there's some parallels
12:10
Speaker 1: that I could draw to chronic wasting disease, and and yeah,
12:15
Speaker 1: that's a that's a different area. But man, I I
12:18
Speaker 1: don't know. One of the things I've liked about you
12:20
Speaker 1: since I met you, and like when we were up
12:23
Speaker 1: in Alaska together, is that I thought you and I
12:25
Speaker 1: sort of connected on like the wow factor and and
12:30
Speaker 1: and just the appreciation of where we were and what
12:32
Speaker 1: was going on. And then as I've been reading your book, UM,
12:37
Speaker 1: I just felt that that much more that well, this
12:40
Speaker 1: is a guy who who gets it and you know
12:43
Speaker 1: at your tender age. Um, I think yea, that's very
12:48
Speaker 1: admirable that you've you've already made all those connections. A
12:51
Speaker 1: lot of that stuff took me a while. Man. Uh,
12:54
Speaker 1: definitely been blessed. Get to spend time in these places
12:58
Speaker 1: that can have that kind of impact. Done you, that's
13:00
Speaker 1: for sure. You mentioned something that I want to pry
13:04
Speaker 1: into a little bit more though, um, not my tender age.
13:07
Speaker 1: We all know I've got the baby face and the
13:09
Speaker 1: young the whole thing going. But but you said that
13:13
Speaker 1: there's some strange parallels to c w D and and
13:16
Speaker 1: I've thought the same thing, just with a little bit
13:20
Speaker 1: of the social side of what we're seeing with the coronavirus,
13:25
Speaker 1: as as the news about it continue to spread and
13:29
Speaker 1: more and people, more and more people were talking about
13:31
Speaker 1: and we were starting to get guidelines of what what
13:33
Speaker 1: you should do and what the government was um recommending
13:37
Speaker 1: or or mandating because of this, and you're seeing new
13:39
Speaker 1: regulations coming out, etcetera, etcetera. And then you started seeing
13:44
Speaker 1: the conspiracy theories and you started seeing people saying, oh,
13:48
Speaker 1: this government overreach or this is just one political party
13:51
Speaker 1: trying to destroy the other political party, or this is
13:53
Speaker 1: just the crooked media trying to cause a hysteria. UM.
13:59
Speaker 1: It was like if you just swapped out Corona for
14:02
Speaker 1: c w D, you could have never known. We're talking
14:05
Speaker 1: about a different thing here. I mean, very similar ways
14:09
Speaker 1: that some people are reacting to this. Um. It sounds
14:13
Speaker 1: like you've noticed the same thing. Yeah, really very much so,
14:17
Speaker 1: man I. One of the one of the first things
14:21
Speaker 1: that struck me was looking at the UH graphs that
14:25
Speaker 1: showed the growth in different UM different countries and UH
14:33
Speaker 1: and the countries that did a better job I want
14:35
Speaker 1: to say Singapore and then um Or City and then
14:40
Speaker 1: Hong Kong countries and cities anyway that they how they
14:43
Speaker 1: flattened out that curve by taking some decisive action. And
14:48
Speaker 1: in like Italy. UM, I don't have it right in
14:51
Speaker 1: front of me, but Italy is one that really sticks
14:53
Speaker 1: in my head. Uh, my mind. And China, how these
14:56
Speaker 1: curves you know, just sky rocketed, UM just almost you know,
15:03
Speaker 1: a vertical growth and some of it was and mostly
15:06
Speaker 1: it's because of a lack of action and a lack
15:09
Speaker 1: of preparedness. UM. And yeah, and I agree there's a
15:13
Speaker 1: certain level of UH denial or or you know, let's
15:18
Speaker 1: not call it denial at this point. It's called skepticism.
15:22
Speaker 1: And I think it's fine to be skeptical of things
15:24
Speaker 1: that you're being told by UM, certainly by politicians UM.
15:30
Speaker 1: But I'm not so sure that it's it's real healthy
15:34
Speaker 1: or smart to be skeptical of of things that scientists
15:37
Speaker 1: who who are who have good reputations, UM, you know,
15:44
Speaker 1: like the Center for Disease Control or the World Health Organization.
15:48
Speaker 1: And in both cases, um W h O and CDC
15:52
Speaker 1: both have made comments about both about both c w
15:57
Speaker 1: D and UM and coronavirus or COVID nineteen and UH
16:04
Speaker 1: and and they're very similar, right, so that that's one
16:08
Speaker 1: of the things. And yes, UM, I understand that there
16:13
Speaker 1: are some economic issues with with this current crisis that
16:17
Speaker 1: we have, and I understand that there are some economic
16:20
Speaker 1: concerns with c w D, But I don't know that
16:23
Speaker 1: that should be driving our short or long term look
16:27
Speaker 1: at UM and reaction to either one of them. But
16:31
Speaker 1: it seems like it has. I keep wondering, quite honestly,
16:36
Speaker 1: when somebody's going to go in there might be somebody
16:38
Speaker 1: from Michigan. Um, let everybody figure this out on their own.
16:43
Speaker 1: Gonna are gonna go in front of Congress and say,
16:46
Speaker 1: you know, human beings, uh want to naturally gather, so
16:51
Speaker 1: it really doesn't make any sense to try to prevent them. Um,
16:55
Speaker 1: because yeah, I mean, it's just it's come on, you know,
17:00
Speaker 1: we can we can do things about unnatural gathering, both
17:04
Speaker 1: in dear and human beings. We're doing it with human
17:06
Speaker 1: beings right now. And obviously dear don't think the same
17:08
Speaker 1: way that humans do, but we can take actions, and um,
17:13
Speaker 1: it's just a real interesting Uh, the parallels are interesting,
17:17
Speaker 1: and you know what kind of frightening. The other thing
17:19
Speaker 1: I would say about that is, um, you know, I'm
17:22
Speaker 1: not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I'm not
17:24
Speaker 1: the dullest one either, you know. Um, one of the
17:30
Speaker 1: solidly in the middle. Maybe maybe slightly above average is
17:35
Speaker 1: what i'd really you know. I mean, if I've got
17:36
Speaker 1: an ego, it's it's that it's gonna be I'm gonna
17:38
Speaker 1: be at least slightly above average, but you're cutting more
17:41
Speaker 1: than butter. Yeah. A long time ago, Um, one of
17:47
Speaker 1: the smartest people I've ever met. He was a professor
17:49
Speaker 1: of mine in college. And he was just this really
17:50
Speaker 1: brilliant guy who could break stuff down in a way that,
17:53
Speaker 1: um that anybody could understand it. And that was a
17:57
Speaker 1: part of his brilliance, right. And I was a return
18:00
Speaker 1: eLearning student. I was like twenty three when I went
18:02
Speaker 1: back to finish my degree. And uh uh, I was
18:07
Speaker 1: very very serious student at that point, not nearly as
18:10
Speaker 1: much more serious than I was the first two years
18:12
Speaker 1: of school. But anyway, Um, I was really frustrated with
18:16
Speaker 1: myself for sort of having missed out on a bunch
18:20
Speaker 1: of things and a lack of knowledge about this or that.
18:22
Speaker 1: And I was just like voraciously reading things and really
18:25
Speaker 1: trying to become a wealth of knowledge. And Jeff Peril, Dr.
18:30
Speaker 1: Jeff Peril was his name, and he said, Uh, Doug,
18:34
Speaker 1: don't be so hard on yourself. You don't have to
18:36
Speaker 1: know everything. You don't have to be an expert at
18:40
Speaker 1: all these different things. What you do, I want to
18:44
Speaker 1: think about, is how you interact with people who are
18:48
Speaker 1: experts in a particular field. Learn how to find that information,
18:53
Speaker 1: Learn how to seek those people out and pay attention
18:56
Speaker 1: to what it is that they say, um, and be
19:00
Speaker 1: skeptical about it and ask questions. So you know that
19:03
Speaker 1: idea that you don't have to be the to know everything.
19:08
Speaker 1: Just knowing how to find things out is extremely important.
19:11
Speaker 1: And it's a lesson that man. Yeah, I learned it
19:13
Speaker 1: at age twenty three, and I think I've done pretty
19:16
Speaker 1: well with that. So when I get into a situation
19:18
Speaker 1: like this, or something like this happens, be it chronic
19:21
Speaker 1: wasting disease COVID nineteen, UM, I don't know. There's some
19:26
Speaker 1: other things in life too. Um I it's like, okay,
19:31
Speaker 1: who's an expert? Who are experts in this these fields?
19:34
Speaker 1: And what? You know? Who should I be listening to here?
19:37
Speaker 1: Should I be listening to the guy at the bar
19:39
Speaker 1: or should I be listening to the research scientists? Should
19:43
Speaker 1: I be listening to um? Uh? Should I be listening
19:48
Speaker 1: to someone who has an economic concern in it? Or
19:51
Speaker 1: someone who has a long term concern about the resource
19:54
Speaker 1: or about humanity? Um someone who's worried about being, you know,
19:59
Speaker 1: about an election, or someone who's most you know, concerns.
20:02
Speaker 1: So you have to learn how to sort of sort
20:04
Speaker 1: through those kinds of things. And I guess if I
20:06
Speaker 1: have one um skill that I've developed over time, it's
20:10
Speaker 1: the ability to be able to to to you know,
20:14
Speaker 1: look at you know, what the what the what the
20:19
Speaker 1: research shows and what the smart people are saying, and
20:21
Speaker 1: then decide who the smart people are and put my
20:24
Speaker 1: stuff aside. Yes, it's so. So it's an increasingly important
20:32
Speaker 1: skill to have what you just described there in today's world,
20:37
Speaker 1: just because I feel like the the word or the
20:41
Speaker 1: idea of truth has become i'd say sadly so, it's
20:45
Speaker 1: become subjective. People are are are claiming their own truths,
20:51
Speaker 1: and they're creating alternate truth or alternate facts or fake news.
20:55
Speaker 1: Is all this stuff. Nobody knows what to trust or
20:57
Speaker 1: who to trust anymore. Nobody knows what's real um or
21:00
Speaker 1: it's hard to discern um. Everyone is pointing fingers that
21:05
Speaker 1: this thing or that thing is biased or whatever it
21:09
Speaker 1: might be. So it's it's really something I think that
21:12
Speaker 1: people need to take seriously these days, whether it's with
21:15
Speaker 1: this or c w D or or whatever. You need
21:18
Speaker 1: to do exactly what you described. You need to go
21:21
Speaker 1: to the experts. You need to be able to discern
21:23
Speaker 1: who has this real expertise, making sure you understand the
21:27
Speaker 1: incentives of the various people you see talking about these
21:31
Speaker 1: things and understanding. Okay, is this someone who's biased or
21:34
Speaker 1: incentivized to to kind of skew this thing one way
21:37
Speaker 1: or another, or is this coming from, like you said,
21:39
Speaker 1: a resource or truth perspective or an expert perspective. Um. Yeah,
21:44
Speaker 1: I mean that's why, like you just said, I'm not
21:46
Speaker 1: getting my information about COVID nineteen from Facebook or Twitter
21:50
Speaker 1: or from politicians Twitter accounts or anything that I'm gonna
21:54
Speaker 1: see what the CDC says. Let's see what the who says. Um.
21:59
Speaker 1: When you when you have the top doctors and scientists
22:02
Speaker 1: in the world standing up there telling you at prime time, Hey,
22:05
Speaker 1: this is something you have to take seriously. Now you know,
22:07
Speaker 1: I'm gonna listen. So yeah, yeah. Agenda is one of
22:11
Speaker 1: those you know, what is this person's you know, what
22:14
Speaker 1: what is their agenda or what is there possible agenda?
22:17
Speaker 1: And the other thing the same dude that I was
22:19
Speaker 1: telling you about, Dr Peril um uh said to me, Uh,
22:25
Speaker 1: we were talking about some part of history and you know,
22:28
Speaker 1: in class or whatever. Because by the way, I have
22:31
Speaker 1: taught high school history for a number of years and
22:33
Speaker 1: one of the things that I hope that my students,
22:35
Speaker 1: former students would remember is that One of the things
22:38
Speaker 1: I talked about at the beginning of every semester was
22:41
Speaker 1: this is everyone has a perspective, even if we're talking
22:45
Speaker 1: about there are very few things in life, even if
22:47
Speaker 1: we're talking about a fact two plus two equals for okay,
22:51
Speaker 1: but we can you know, mess with that from a perspective. Also,
22:54
Speaker 1: but people teach history from a perspective. Everybody has a perspective.
22:59
Speaker 1: So what I was hoping that they were learning from
23:01
Speaker 1: that that conversation was to be a skeptical of what
23:04
Speaker 1: I say too, um or at least be able to
23:07
Speaker 1: think for themselves about it. Um by taking in all
23:10
Speaker 1: this information, you know what is so what is that
23:13
Speaker 1: person's agenda? What is their perspective? You know, our our
23:15
Speaker 1: mutual friend, uh Steve Ronella and I were talking about
23:20
Speaker 1: deer one time and like too many deer and I
23:23
Speaker 1: was like, you know what, we have too many deer?
23:24
Speaker 1: And he goes, well, from whose perspective? It's like, huh yeah,
23:29
Speaker 1: well from my perspective, based on you know, animal health.
23:34
Speaker 1: But also that I was um and continue to try
23:37
Speaker 1: to regenerate oaks and I'm trying to um, you don't
23:42
Speaker 1: have a balanced ecosystem. I mean, our property isn't just
23:45
Speaker 1: about deer, it's about all of these other things. So
23:48
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to be overrun with them
23:49
Speaker 1: and all those sort of things. He goes, yeah, man,
23:51
Speaker 1: but what about someone who buys a property or who's
23:55
Speaker 1: that's what all they're interested in? Um, you know, that's
23:58
Speaker 1: their perspective. My response to that, which wasn't very well
24:02
Speaker 1: thought out at the time, but you know, over time
24:04
Speaker 1: it's it's one of those conversations that I revisit in
24:07
Speaker 1: my in my mind and um, it's like, well, okay, yeah,
24:13
Speaker 1: I get that people have that perspective. But if we're
24:16
Speaker 1: doing our job as you know, conservationists or thinking people,
24:21
Speaker 1: whatever the subject might be, you know, we're gonna have
24:24
Speaker 1: hopefully be able to have a conversation with them to
24:26
Speaker 1: help them sort of see a bigger picture. It's still
24:30
Speaker 1: their picture, right, it's still their perspective, but maybe we
24:33
Speaker 1: can help widen their perspective a little bit. I mean,
24:36
Speaker 1: I don't want people to necessarily think like me. I've
24:38
Speaker 1: always been fairly confident about, even when I was a teacher,
24:41
Speaker 1: that if I if I encourage people to think and
24:45
Speaker 1: look at evidence and facts that they're gonna come around to.
24:49
Speaker 1: UM at least a thought process that's gonna be interested.
24:54
Speaker 1: You know, it's gonna at least line up with these
24:57
Speaker 1: well reason and insightful ideas. But but you know that
25:02
Speaker 1: that idea that UM and then and then having the
25:05
Speaker 1: ability to change your mind. Another mutual friend of ours,
25:08
Speaker 1: Pat Durkin, UM and I were just talking the other
25:11
Speaker 1: day and he said that, UM, I hope that more
25:15
Speaker 1: people will change their mind about management and chronic wasting disease.
25:21
Speaker 1: And UM, I was like, I don't see this that hard.
25:23
Speaker 1: He goes, but it is hard, it is very hard,
25:26
Speaker 1: and you've I don't. He says, I'm not quite sure
25:30
Speaker 1: how you switched your mind, how you changed your mind
25:32
Speaker 1: so quickly. And I just because I went from you know,
25:36
Speaker 1: sombrero and buck management and let him go, let him grow.
25:39
Speaker 1: And we were doing all those sort of things, and
25:41
Speaker 1: then the science was staring me in the face and
25:44
Speaker 1: c w D was knocking on our door. And I
25:46
Speaker 1: wrote an article but it was on the mediator dot com,
25:50
Speaker 1: UM about if I'm calling myself a conservationist and where
25:54
Speaker 1: I am in this geographic spread of this disease, And UM, philosophically,
26:02
Speaker 1: I need to make this change. And I kind of
26:05
Speaker 1: made that change overnight. Um, you know, sort of made
26:11
Speaker 1: it overnight over the course of a couple of years,
26:13
Speaker 1: but I could see that that was, you know, like
26:15
Speaker 1: letting nubbucks go and and you know, having these restrictions
26:18
Speaker 1: on people and what they could shoot and what they
26:20
Speaker 1: couldn't and all that on our farm. I'm just like,
26:23
Speaker 1: this doesn't make sense from a science standpoint. And quite honestly,
26:26
Speaker 1: with a number of people I have hunting on the farm,
26:28
Speaker 1: I just, um, I just got tired of managing people too.
26:32
Speaker 1: So anyway, all those things, you know, enter into those
26:35
Speaker 1: kinds of thought processes. Wow, there was a strain of
26:39
Speaker 1: stream of consciousness. I think you you made a lot
26:43
Speaker 1: of good points so and I especially like the one
26:46
Speaker 1: of these ideas that you brought up is something I've
26:48
Speaker 1: always thought about. I think a really good quality for
26:53
Speaker 1: someone to have, an important quality that I try to
26:55
Speaker 1: foster myself, is the ability to admit that I don't
26:59
Speaker 1: know at all and that I might be wrong, and
27:02
Speaker 1: that I try to remain open to those possibilities as
27:07
Speaker 1: much as possible and seek out and be curious and
27:10
Speaker 1: and and and looking for ways to plug those gaps
27:13
Speaker 1: in my knowledge or to convinced me that I might
27:16
Speaker 1: be wrong with something. I want to read something or
27:18
Speaker 1: hear from someone who has a different perspective, UM, because
27:21
Speaker 1: I'd like to try to shore up those shortcomings as
27:23
Speaker 1: much as possible. That's it's something I'm trying to always
27:26
Speaker 1: get better at. And I feel like you spoke to
27:29
Speaker 1: a lot of that there. When it comes to understanding,
27:31
Speaker 1: everyone's got a different perspective. But also that can mean
27:34
Speaker 1: that your perspective. You know, sometimes we are looking through
27:38
Speaker 1: a tiny straw instead of through the great, big wide
27:42
Speaker 1: uh telescope that we maybe should be or the microscope
27:45
Speaker 1: that we should be. So I gotta remember that we've
27:47
Speaker 1: got these different lenses that we're peering at the world at. Um.
27:51
Speaker 1: I want to shift. I want to shift. I want
27:53
Speaker 1: to make a shift to something you're just talking about.
27:55
Speaker 1: But before that, I've got one last question on the
27:58
Speaker 1: current event topic. With the novel coronavirus going on, do
28:02
Speaker 1: you see any implications of this whole thing on hunting
28:07
Speaker 1: or conservation in the short or long term. Um, there's
28:12
Speaker 1: probably not direct, uh you know, implications, but I'm imagining
28:16
Speaker 1: some possible things that could happen. I'm curious if you
28:20
Speaker 1: thought about that at all. Well, I can tell you
28:23
Speaker 1: one impact on Monday today is a Tuesday, right. Um,
28:29
Speaker 1: that's the other thing that happens to use the track
28:30
Speaker 1: of days when stuff like this is going on. Um, yesterday, Uh,
28:34
Speaker 1: some folks from Vortex were supposed to come out, Vortex
28:37
Speaker 1: Optics were supposed to come out and uh for the
28:41
Speaker 1: express purpose of, UM, we're gonna do uh I learned
28:46
Speaker 1: to hunt turkey hunt um project on our on the fire. Um,
28:50
Speaker 1: there's five people at Vortex who were going to come
28:53
Speaker 1: out and take out new hunters. And a couple of
28:57
Speaker 1: them are going to come out, and you know they
29:01
Speaker 1: and they were gonna come out and we're just gonna
29:03
Speaker 1: start like getting it together. You know. It's gonna help
29:05
Speaker 1: them kind of understand how to turkey ount the farm.
29:07
Speaker 1: And since they're taking new hunters, they would just take
29:09
Speaker 1: them to a spot right and not run and gun,
29:12
Speaker 1: which is kind of my favorite way of turkey hunting.
29:14
Speaker 1: After the first couple of hours in the morning, anyway,
29:16
Speaker 1: UM saw we're down there, got ahold of me and
29:19
Speaker 1: and said, hey man, we're we're not gonna be able
29:24
Speaker 1: to come up and I was like, oh, well, you know,
29:26
Speaker 1: I get it, and we don't even know, um, how
29:30
Speaker 1: this is all going to work out, because all of
29:32
Speaker 1: a sudden, when they're gathering, there's ten of them, right
29:35
Speaker 1: and then me, and you know, it's sort of now
29:37
Speaker 1: you've got a group of people together who are coming
29:39
Speaker 1: from a bunch of different places. So that's gonna you know,
29:42
Speaker 1: in the short term, we're we're just decided, okay, let's
29:44
Speaker 1: give it a couple of days and think about how
29:46
Speaker 1: we might best proceed. Um. Also coming up, our our
29:53
Speaker 1: County Deer Advisory Council meetings, which are scheduled to happen
29:57
Speaker 1: between now and in the middle of April, have been
30:00
Speaker 1: um postponed. And uh, I don't know if you know
30:04
Speaker 1: what our seed decks are, but um, it's sorta of
30:06
Speaker 1: unique and it is actually something that really positive came
30:09
Speaker 1: out of some of the political stuff that was a
30:11
Speaker 1: part of our whole c w D thing, and that
30:13
Speaker 1: is that we have these advisory councils in each county
30:16
Speaker 1: and I happen to be on the rich Old County
30:17
Speaker 1: where our farm is located, advisory council and to the the
30:21
Speaker 1: stakeholder meeting, and we work with the biologists for the
30:24
Speaker 1: area and um you know who provides us with information.
30:27
Speaker 1: We take input from the hunting community and and and
30:30
Speaker 1: the community at large about goals and objectives for deer hunting.
30:34
Speaker 1: And that's how we set quotas and some other limited
30:38
Speaker 1: tools and use some other limited tools that we have
30:41
Speaker 1: for for hunting. Well those have been called off UM
30:44
Speaker 1: And thankfully a lot of that information is online and
30:47
Speaker 1: people actually put a lot of their input in online.
30:50
Speaker 1: So if you're in Wisconsin and you're wondering what's happening
30:54
Speaker 1: with the seed AC meetings, you can go to Wisconsin
30:57
Speaker 1: dnrum search seed AC and you can UH input into
31:01
Speaker 1: each county where you hunt. At least you should just
31:05
Speaker 1: where you hunt, um you know, what your thoughts are
31:07
Speaker 1: on last season and that sort of thing. Then the
31:09
Speaker 1: other one is we also have a fairly unique um
31:13
Speaker 1: UH process here in Wisconsin called the Wisconsin Conservation Congress, which,
31:19
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, was started by Leopold um And
31:24
Speaker 1: that is a yearly meeting that anyone can attend. All
31:28
Speaker 1: happens on the same day and it's in April. Um
31:32
Speaker 1: and and I have not heard whether those are canceled yet,
31:35
Speaker 1: but I'm sure there's there being postponed because they can
31:38
Speaker 1: be really big gatherings and there's a number of questions
31:41
Speaker 1: about conservation in the state, and they're generally advisory questions,
31:46
Speaker 1: and it's everything from you know, uh, fish limits in
31:50
Speaker 1: particular lakes to um length of season for various things,
31:56
Speaker 1: and and then just sort of some general statements as well,
31:59
Speaker 1: and and uh things. There's I mean, there's usually sixty
32:05
Speaker 1: five or seventy questions um and but that's a live
32:08
Speaker 1: meeting that everyone goes to and as far as I know,
32:10
Speaker 1: those have been postponed as well. And if they haven't been,
32:13
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure they haven't seen it. I'm not
32:15
Speaker 1: on an email list for that necessarily, so I haven't seen.
32:18
Speaker 1: But those are short term implications that stuff is. You know,
32:21
Speaker 1: those are three examples of how this is affecting us. Yeah. Yeah,
32:25
Speaker 1: I feel like there's just gonna be this is just
32:28
Speaker 1: one of those events that's going to impact everything. I
32:31
Speaker 1: think everything is impacted. But on this front, I was,
32:34
Speaker 1: as I was thinking about this this morning, I gotta
32:36
Speaker 1: believe there's a lot of little archery shops or little
32:39
Speaker 1: fly fishing shops or outdoors stores that are gonna be
32:42
Speaker 1: suffering significantly as more and more places are getting shut down.
32:45
Speaker 1: People aren't traveling, people aren't going on hunting and fishing trips.
32:49
Speaker 1: Maybe people maybe are worried about taking in their bow
32:52
Speaker 1: and having someone working on their stuff. I gotta believe
32:55
Speaker 1: those things could impact folks. I know that a lot
32:59
Speaker 1: of conservation groups are canceling their banquets and their various
33:04
Speaker 1: get togethers and meetings that are really important for funding.
33:07
Speaker 1: So like places like Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation or Ducks
33:10
Speaker 1: Unlimited or Quality Deer Management Association, I bet they're gonna
33:13
Speaker 1: take a big financial hit because of those things having
33:15
Speaker 1: to be canceled. Um. I'm worried about some good legislation
33:20
Speaker 1: out there that's good for conservation in public lands, like
33:23
Speaker 1: this Great American Outdoors Act that just got introduced a
33:26
Speaker 1: little over a week ago, and there's all this excitement
33:28
Speaker 1: and energy around it and all this bipartisan support, and
33:32
Speaker 1: now all of a sudden, like there's gonna be zero
33:34
Speaker 1: attention paid to that for who knows how long, and
33:39
Speaker 1: will we be able to have the funding that was promised.
33:43
Speaker 1: Like there's this idea of dedicating something nine million dollars
33:47
Speaker 1: a year to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, that's
33:49
Speaker 1: what's proposed, would be amazing. Um. But after all these
33:53
Speaker 1: massive stimulus packages that are being put out to deal
33:57
Speaker 1: with COVID nineteen, which seems like we have to do,
34:01
Speaker 1: are we going to have the stomach and the funds
34:02
Speaker 1: to to sign off on these conservation measures? Um? I
34:06
Speaker 1: sure hope so, but I'm I'm a little more nervous
34:08
Speaker 1: now about what what we're gonna be able to do
34:11
Speaker 1: on that front when all this clears up. Um. Oh yeah,
34:15
Speaker 1: I mean, so there's that that one. The first thing
34:18
Speaker 1: that happens is the focus changes, right. Um. So the
34:21
Speaker 1: focus goes from sort of the day to day workings
34:24
Speaker 1: of government and the momentum that you know, folks like B. H.
34:28
Speaker 1: A and and and and everyone else has been working
34:30
Speaker 1: on that on that bill, um, you know, pushing that
34:34
Speaker 1: through and you know people are paying attention to it. Well, man,
34:37
Speaker 1: it just gets the blinders go on. And so one
34:41
Speaker 1: something like that loses momentum, which is really hard things
34:45
Speaker 1: sometimes to pick back up again. But then the secondary one,
34:47
Speaker 1: which you um you rightly point out, was all of
34:51
Speaker 1: a sudden if we're spending billions, which is I mean
34:55
Speaker 1: billions and billions on this hundreds of billions really nine million. Uh,
35:02
Speaker 1: you know, the money's got to come from somewhere. Um. Uh.
35:05
Speaker 1: You know, the deficit spending stuff can only go on
35:08
Speaker 1: for so long at least that's the way it seems.
35:10
Speaker 1: So you know, is is that funding for conservation gonna
35:16
Speaker 1: be seen as um, not as important? Well, um, yeah,
35:21
Speaker 1: that's a huge concern. Mark. I didn't, Thanks man, you
35:23
Speaker 1: just kind of brought me down a little bit. I didn't.
35:25
Speaker 1: I haven't even thought about that. But that's just it, right.
35:28
Speaker 1: That's there's an example. Stuff just keeps coming up. It's like, oh,
35:32
Speaker 1: I was, Oh no, I'm not. I was supposed to
35:35
Speaker 1: speak in Door County, Um the third week of April
35:38
Speaker 1: at Earth Day event, and Door County is a thumba
35:41
Speaker 1: Wisconsin goes up into the lake and uh. Um. I
35:45
Speaker 1: haven't heard back from him, but um, I'm guessing that.
35:48
Speaker 1: And it was gonna be a great event because um
35:50
Speaker 1: there were a couple of politicians were gonna be there.
35:52
Speaker 1: I was gonna be on a panel with them, and
35:54
Speaker 1: then I was gonna do a talk about um similar
35:56
Speaker 1: to the one that I did at Pheasant Fest on
35:59
Speaker 1: on uh my perspective and experience with chronic waste duties,
36:03
Speaker 1: and that I would assume is at least on hold.
36:07
Speaker 1: I've not heard from them. I'm sure they're trying to
36:09
Speaker 1: figure that out, um, as you and I uh both
36:13
Speaker 1: already know, and most of the listeners here to the
36:16
Speaker 1: couple of the Meat Eater live events have already been postponed. Um.
36:22
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be a part of a couple of
36:23
Speaker 1: them in June, and they haven't said anything about that yet,
36:26
Speaker 1: but um, you know, we'll we'll see. So it's just
36:30
Speaker 1: like every day there's another thing that it's like, oh, yeah,
36:33
Speaker 1: that's gonna be affected by this too. So it's, uh,
36:38
Speaker 1: it's unprecedented. That's that. It's just I feel like we
36:42
Speaker 1: just constantly are shocked by oh now this, now, this, Um,
36:46
Speaker 1: I don't even know. You know, we've already had to
36:48
Speaker 1: cancel some of our shoot dates for back forty, and
36:51
Speaker 1: who knows when it gets to May. Um, I don't
36:54
Speaker 1: know if we'll be able to do our shoot with you, dub.
36:56
Speaker 1: I don't know if we're gonna be able to have
36:57
Speaker 1: camera crews flying and stuff at that point. Um, So
37:00
Speaker 1: everything's kind of up in the air right now. It's
37:02
Speaker 1: it's kind of crazy times. Um, but I think we
37:05
Speaker 1: should I think we should pivot so that we don't
37:08
Speaker 1: go to doom and gloom for the sake of our listeners.
37:12
Speaker 1: We need a little escape, right But it's important. But yeah,
37:16
Speaker 1: I mean, and I'm with you, but it's you know,
37:17
Speaker 1: it's I'm glad that you uh one called and asked
37:22
Speaker 1: me if I do this, and when that we spend
37:24
Speaker 1: some time talking about it, and um, because it is important.
37:28
Speaker 1: It is a backdrop to everything and I'm ready to
37:30
Speaker 1: h you know, talk about other things too. So and
37:34
Speaker 1: I do think the last thing I will add to
37:35
Speaker 1: what we just talked about there. I do think that
37:38
Speaker 1: when this all clears up, which which hopefully it will
37:42
Speaker 1: clear up sooner than later, and eventually we'll be able
37:44
Speaker 1: to get back to normal and hopefully we will have
37:47
Speaker 1: been able to minimize the damage of this as much
37:50
Speaker 1: as possible. Hopefully when we get to that point. Um,
37:54
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be on us in this
37:56
Speaker 1: community to pick up that momentum again because said it's
38:00
Speaker 1: gonna be hard, it's gonna be easy to lose that
38:02
Speaker 1: momentum for things like the Great American Outdoors Act, or
38:04
Speaker 1: for the funding for your local conservation organization or whatever
38:07
Speaker 1: it is. I think we're gonna have to pick it
38:09
Speaker 1: up double time when we get back on our feet
38:12
Speaker 1: to to get the ball rolling again to make sure
38:14
Speaker 1: those things don't get lost in the rubble of of
38:18
Speaker 1: everything else. So I just kind of encourage people to
38:21
Speaker 1: keep that in the back of your mind, um that
38:23
Speaker 1: we're gonna have some real work to do on that
38:25
Speaker 1: front once we get through this crisis of sorts. So yeah,
38:29
Speaker 1: and I would like to hope that, um, something like
38:32
Speaker 1: this will give us you know, we were talking about
38:35
Speaker 1: the parallels with with c w D that will help
38:37
Speaker 1: us maybe have a little better perspective um on on
38:43
Speaker 1: you know, controlling disease and the things that we should
38:46
Speaker 1: be looking out for, because man, we've been lucky for
38:48
Speaker 1: a long time, right, and we really have, and you know,
38:51
Speaker 1: the good old days have been happening, and and uh,
38:54
Speaker 1: this is a it's just an extremely rude awakening, but
38:58
Speaker 1: hopefully it'll help us, you know, maintain some some some
39:02
Speaker 1: real perspective on all of it as well. Yeah, learned
39:05
Speaker 1: some lessons, Okay, So now that we've got that out
39:11
Speaker 1: of the way, Doug, I want to talk about conservation
39:16
Speaker 1: and habitat management and improvement and and the Durham Farm
39:21
Speaker 1: and the Back forty farm and all sorts of stuff
39:23
Speaker 1: like that. And I think to do that, at least
39:26
Speaker 1: the way I was thinking through this all. We gotta
39:29
Speaker 1: start at the beginning. And I don't really know this story. UM.
39:32
Speaker 1: I probably know little bits and pieces of it, but
39:34
Speaker 1: I kind of want to. I need to understand how
39:38
Speaker 1: this began for you. UM. I know that you have
39:42
Speaker 1: this family farm that you've had this long life experience with,
39:47
Speaker 1: but I'm willing to bet you haven't always approached it
39:50
Speaker 1: the way you do now. You talked earlier about you
39:53
Speaker 1: try to approach things with a sense of balance. UM.
39:56
Speaker 1: And I've heard you talk a lot about the influence
39:59
Speaker 1: that Elder Leopold has had on you. UM. Where did
40:03
Speaker 1: this all begin? How did you get to where you
40:05
Speaker 1: are with your philosophy of of wildlife and ecosystem management? Well?
40:12
Speaker 1: How long you got? Um? I'll try to I'll try
40:16
Speaker 1: to keep it short, you know, um, starting with the farm, um,
40:21
Speaker 1: and ending with the farm. I guess you know it's
40:23
Speaker 1: been in my family for a hundred and seventeen years.
40:26
Speaker 1: I was just looking at some aerial um photographs and
40:31
Speaker 1: uh area photographs from the thirties, but then also a
40:34
Speaker 1: Plat book from n three and there it is Joseph
40:37
Speaker 1: Duran on the on the biggest wooded part of our property.
40:41
Speaker 1: And and when you're a little kid, you don't you
40:45
Speaker 1: don't like get this stuff that much. And you know,
40:48
Speaker 1: I grew up in here in town in Casinovia. I
40:51
Speaker 1: didn't grow up. We didn't grow up in the household
40:53
Speaker 1: at the at the farm. It was a it was
40:55
Speaker 1: a property that my great grandfather bought because of the
40:58
Speaker 1: timber on it. So it was this place that we
41:01
Speaker 1: went out to, going out to the farm. Um. And uh,
41:05
Speaker 1: from the time I was a little kid, we were
41:07
Speaker 1: doing that. I mean from the time I could uh
41:10
Speaker 1: hold out of the steering wheel of one of the
41:11
Speaker 1: old farm all tractors. Um, you know, you were doing something,
41:16
Speaker 1: you know, picking rock. You know. I remember by the
41:18
Speaker 1: time I was a you know, ten or twelve years old,
41:21
Speaker 1: if you know, we ran out of stuff to do.
41:23
Speaker 1: Dad had always said, well, you can always go out
41:24
Speaker 1: and cut prickly ash, which is you know, what's something
41:27
Speaker 1: that you don't necessarily want the pastures and then you'd
41:30
Speaker 1: find something else to do because that was like the
41:32
Speaker 1: worst job, but at least at that time. But um,
41:37
Speaker 1: my grandfather obviously, well I shouldn'tay obviously, but my great
41:41
Speaker 1: grandfather was gone by the time I was born. My
41:44
Speaker 1: grandfather was around all the way until the year that
41:47
Speaker 1: I graduated from high school. And he was a lumberman
41:50
Speaker 1: and had a m a sawmill and um that um,
41:55
Speaker 1: timber from that farm went to and um he was
41:58
Speaker 1: he was done with that by the time I'm um,
42:00
Speaker 1: I had a memory, but uh, but he was always
42:03
Speaker 1: interested in what was going on in the farm. And
42:05
Speaker 1: my parents bought the farm from my grandparents and my
42:09
Speaker 1: grandfather bought it from my great grandparents. So um, so
42:13
Speaker 1: that was just a part of it, right, and so
42:15
Speaker 1: you're always kind of around that and what the But
42:18
Speaker 1: the the timber part of it was, I guess was
42:22
Speaker 1: where sort of that conservation idea began. It became ingrained.
42:27
Speaker 1: Um and uh, you know all through high school that's
42:31
Speaker 1: where I worked and and uh, you know, hunting started
42:34
Speaker 1: with with my dad taking a squirrel hunting and and
42:37
Speaker 1: it was like a big deal that around September fifteenth,
42:40
Speaker 1: that we got to go squirrel hunting on on the first,
42:43
Speaker 1: you know, on the Saturday close in the September. And
42:46
Speaker 1: and so, you know, some of my favorite memories of
42:49
Speaker 1: my father are those times spent in the woods with him. Um.
42:54
Speaker 1: I still have this one memory burned in my my
42:57
Speaker 1: head of sitting on a side hill with him. We
42:59
Speaker 1: were waiting for some squirrels to come out. And I
43:01
Speaker 1: wasn't old enough to be carrying a gun, so you know,
43:04
Speaker 1: I wasn't twelve anyway, and this buck walked around this
43:08
Speaker 1: side hill in the sunshine, and he just came around
43:12
Speaker 1: right on you, and I would know as a buck
43:14
Speaker 1: trail now you know it was it was Um wasn't
43:17
Speaker 1: on the main trail, but he was still following that contour,
43:20
Speaker 1: and it just burned into my memory. And what a
43:22
Speaker 1: wonderful thing that was, um, And sitting there with my
43:26
Speaker 1: dad and in our woods. And this has been a
43:29
Speaker 1: part of the family. And of course some of this
43:30
Speaker 1: has grown in my mind over time, but obviously that
43:34
Speaker 1: had being impacted me at that time. There was active
43:37
Speaker 1: logging on our farm during my uh, you know, during
43:42
Speaker 1: my formative years to the time I was you know,
43:45
Speaker 1: eighteen or twenty, Um, there were two or three timber harvests,
43:50
Speaker 1: so how that was done was kind of important and
43:53
Speaker 1: to you know, to to be around and seeing I
43:55
Speaker 1: remember cutting logs and are accounting logs with Dad walking
44:00
Speaker 1: across them, and I mean, he knew how to he
44:01
Speaker 1: knew how to keep us busy. Man. You know, it
44:04
Speaker 1: was just like he was counting them. But he was like, okay,
44:07
Speaker 1: the ones with this on, count how many there were?
44:09
Speaker 1: And then you know, my brother and I be counting them.
44:10
Speaker 1: And then we'd come back and of course our numbers
44:12
Speaker 1: weren't the same as but but nonetheless we wropped there
44:15
Speaker 1: and around it. And I saw him using the stick, um,
44:20
Speaker 1: the measuring stick which you figure out how many board
44:23
Speaker 1: feet are in a lot, and uh, you know those
44:27
Speaker 1: sort of things. And then, um, when I was I
44:32
Speaker 1: went to school a couple of years out of out
44:34
Speaker 1: of high school, went to college, and then I went
44:36
Speaker 1: worked for a reforestation company. And uh, it was more
44:40
Speaker 1: of a life adventure as much as anything. Actually, some
44:43
Speaker 1: of them was because of my wife, Tricia, who uh
44:47
Speaker 1: had been dating. We didn't stay together that at that point,
44:51
Speaker 1: but we dated for a while and she'd worked. She'd
44:53
Speaker 1: introduced me to these hippie tree planners, right, and she
44:55
Speaker 1: was a hippie tree planner too, And back in the day,
44:58
Speaker 1: this was like a thing it did sometimes, and there's
45:00
Speaker 1: a group of people did in the winter, and you
45:02
Speaker 1: went off and did these reforestation trips and um, you
45:07
Speaker 1: get paid pretty well to slam trees in the ground.
45:09
Speaker 1: And I planted hundreds of thousands of trees um as
45:14
Speaker 1: a part of an adventure, you know, right. I didn't
45:16
Speaker 1: go because oh this is gonna be I'm gonna be
45:18
Speaker 1: changing in the world through conservation and planting trees. I
45:20
Speaker 1: went because, hey, there's a bunch of hippies going tree
45:22
Speaker 1: plant and I'm gonna go with him. And you know
45:25
Speaker 1: what I mean. And so that kind of thing sort
45:27
Speaker 1: of becomes a formative thing. When I came back, I
45:31
Speaker 1: planted trees out on the farm mark that are now giants,
45:34
Speaker 1: big white pine and red pine stuff that we've been cutting. Um.
45:39
Speaker 1: I planted trees on this thirty acres at what my
45:41
Speaker 1: wife and I now own trees and I know now
45:44
Speaker 1: own Um. I planted those trees. My god, it's almost
45:47
Speaker 1: forty years and thirty five years ago and so um
45:51
Speaker 1: closer to forty, I guess, but um and and so
45:55
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. You know, it has a pretty
45:57
Speaker 1: big impact on you that you you did that and
46:00
Speaker 1: then you see it. And I'll say this to you
46:02
Speaker 1: because of you know, with your with Everton and Colton. Um,
46:07
Speaker 1: plant trees with your kids. Man, plant trees with your kids.
46:10
Speaker 1: Their memories that grow they really are um and uh
46:16
Speaker 1: I did that and those memories. My daughter's planted trees
46:18
Speaker 1: with me out at the farm. We cut um, we
46:21
Speaker 1: cut Christmas tree out of some of the white pines
46:23
Speaker 1: that we we planted. If just a few years ago
46:25
Speaker 1: this year is where a Christmas tree came from. Anyway,
46:29
Speaker 1: um uh I remember my father kind of explaining to
46:34
Speaker 1: me what what a good tree wasn't you know, and
46:36
Speaker 1: what a not good tree was in terms of what
46:39
Speaker 1: had a lot of wood in it. And you know,
46:40
Speaker 1: look how tall and straight they are. And this is
46:42
Speaker 1: red oak and this is really great stuff. And this
46:45
Speaker 1: is white oak and this is hard maple. And and
46:48
Speaker 1: you know those big old wolf trees you'd column which
46:50
Speaker 1: are great for wildlife, but they're not. They're not They're
46:52
Speaker 1: in the hell. They're in a stepping wood in them.
46:56
Speaker 1: Um and Grandpa would say the same thing. So that
46:58
Speaker 1: kind of perspective had And well, so then I come
47:02
Speaker 1: back from from the tree planting gig and I milk
47:05
Speaker 1: how's on the farm a little bit more? And there's
47:06
Speaker 1: you know, it's a small dairy farm. And we had
47:09
Speaker 1: a small dairy herd and uh. And then I went
47:12
Speaker 1: off and um finished college. I had a degree in
47:15
Speaker 1: earth science at the time. I went and got a
47:17
Speaker 1: history degree in teaching degree, and I moved out to uh,
47:20
Speaker 1: New England where my uh, well, you know, you make
47:24
Speaker 1: a long move from the Midwest, New England is probably
47:26
Speaker 1: a woman involved and uh. I got a job with
47:29
Speaker 1: the landscape company out there in the in the first
47:32
Speaker 1: summer I went out there, and um, man, it just
47:35
Speaker 1: sparked this interest in horticulture. And I worked on the
47:37
Speaker 1: south shore of Boston, um in the Weymouth brain Tree
47:42
Speaker 1: all the way down to Cape Cod area, and it
47:44
Speaker 1: was just really interesting to see a different part of
47:46
Speaker 1: the world like that, in a different part of the country.
47:49
Speaker 1: And then I learned a lot and then started to
47:52
Speaker 1: get interested in horticulture, and of course they just sort
47:54
Speaker 1: of followed along and then taught high school in Glorham,
47:58
Speaker 1: New Hampshire for the rest of the nineteen eighties. For
48:04
Speaker 1: five years was there, you know, a summer on either
48:06
Speaker 1: end of it too, and a couple of summers up there.
48:10
Speaker 1: I worked on the for the Randolph Mountain Club, which
48:14
Speaker 1: was the which is the oldest mountain club in North America.
48:17
Speaker 1: They were always quick to point out it may not
48:19
Speaker 1: be the biggest, but it was the oldest. And uh
48:24
Speaker 1: did trail work, um, and so in the Appalachian and
48:27
Speaker 1: the Presidential Range of the White Mountains, and it intersected
48:31
Speaker 1: with the Appalachian Trail and the Appalachian Mountain Club and
48:34
Speaker 1: all those folks and seeing um, you know, the White
48:40
Speaker 1: Mountain National Forest that was a part of that. And
48:42
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny because we were having a conversation,
48:45
Speaker 1: you and I were having a conversation when we were
48:46
Speaker 1: in Alaska about our public lands experience and I and
48:50
Speaker 1: I remember saying something like, well, you know, maybe Steve
48:52
Speaker 1: was asking us about it, and I said, yeah, I've
48:54
Speaker 1: really not had that many. I mean, most of what
48:56
Speaker 1: I've done is on private land. And it has gone
48:58
Speaker 1: to me later like duh. You spent all those years
49:02
Speaker 1: right there in the middle of the White Mountain National
49:04
Speaker 1: Forest and you did that trail work and um and
49:07
Speaker 1: learned a bunch of stuff and and so uh but
49:13
Speaker 1: you know, you get to be old and your mind
49:14
Speaker 1: starts to slip and you maybe forget some of that stuff.
49:17
Speaker 1: But uh, that had a profound impact on me as well.
49:22
Speaker 1: And one of the things was is I was interested
49:25
Speaker 1: in the that that a lot of my students were
49:30
Speaker 1: living in the middle of this and they didn't like,
49:34
Speaker 1: you know about it, Like what do you mean You've
49:36
Speaker 1: not been up to you know, Dome Rock, or you've
49:39
Speaker 1: not been over into into Evans Notch or you've not
49:42
Speaker 1: been I mean, you know it's I mean they kind
49:45
Speaker 1: of into the ski hills and you know, I didn't
49:47
Speaker 1: have the rest of that perspective. So then as a
49:49
Speaker 1: history teacher, is one of the things that I tried
49:51
Speaker 1: to and and a social studies teacher taught a class
49:55
Speaker 1: about New Hampshire also, UM tried to help them understand
49:59
Speaker 1: that perspective a little bit. And it was or what
50:02
Speaker 1: they had around them, and uh, it's pretty cool too
50:06
Speaker 1: to hear from uh, you know, some of the outdoorsy
50:10
Speaker 1: types there and what they were interested in. And UM,
50:14
Speaker 1: so that UM had a profound impact on me. UM.
50:20
Speaker 1: It's interesting because I was just you know, the cool
50:22
Speaker 1: thing about the the interweb here and and uh uh
50:26
Speaker 1: Instagram uh, which is like where I spend most of
50:30
Speaker 1: my social media times on Instagram. UM, conversing off people
50:35
Speaker 1: that I've met, well one, students that I've kept in
50:37
Speaker 1: touch with, but then people I've met who know people
50:39
Speaker 1: that I knew out there. And then places Gillya, Maine,
50:45
Speaker 1: Evans Notch, the Androskogan River and you know, looking at
50:49
Speaker 1: like Google Earth and realizing and it's checked that I
50:52
Speaker 1: at this place I used to live just across the
50:55
Speaker 1: New Hampshire border in Maine is now gone and there's
50:58
Speaker 1: a sand pit there as I wait a minute, what
51:01
Speaker 1: happened there? And conversing with this guy about it on
51:04
Speaker 1: on on social media and UM and him reassuring that
51:08
Speaker 1: me that most of that area is as much as
51:11
Speaker 1: it was. UM, but that being in northern New Hampshire,
51:16
Speaker 1: you know, and doing things like the Guaranteed Moose Cruise
51:18
Speaker 1: where you could go, um it's like a twenty mile
51:21
Speaker 1: drive north and you damn sure see a new moose,
51:24
Speaker 1: you know. UM, those sort of things had a big
51:27
Speaker 1: you know, had that sort of impact on me. UM
51:31
Speaker 1: moved back. UM eventually ended up in Door County, where
51:35
Speaker 1: I had a landscape business. UM took horticulture classes, got
51:38
Speaker 1: it really involved with with conservation at that point, had
51:41
Speaker 1: a landscape business that was mostly focused on UM naturalization
51:48
Speaker 1: and restoration and did some was really lucky to do
51:52
Speaker 1: some really cool work and meet some really interesting people
51:55
Speaker 1: up there and people who really care about that area.
51:58
Speaker 1: And Door County, Wisconsin is a free can gem and
52:00
Speaker 1: don't go there anybody, because there's plenty of folks there now,
52:03
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of a lot of natural areas
52:07
Speaker 1: there and just these these gems of of of state
52:11
Speaker 1: parks and and that sort of thing, and you know,
52:14
Speaker 1: so I worked with that environment. UM eventually ended up
52:18
Speaker 1: back in Madison about twenty Madison, Wisconsin, twenty five years ago,
52:23
Speaker 1: and m life change and I end up with working
52:27
Speaker 1: with a landscape is staying in the landscape and the
52:30
Speaker 1: horticulture business. Worked for a major regional landscape firm as
52:35
Speaker 1: a branch manager and then eventually got picked off by
52:38
Speaker 1: engineering firm to go to work for them as a
52:40
Speaker 1: project manager and build and manage athletic fields. UM and uh,
52:47
Speaker 1: you know all the time, especially the last twenty five years,
52:50
Speaker 1: staying connected to the to the to the farm. Oh.
52:54
Speaker 1: I was gonna say when I was Indoor County, had
52:56
Speaker 1: a little farm up there, and UM met one of
53:00
Speaker 1: the guys from the Land Conservation Department who was really
53:02
Speaker 1: interested in pheasant hunting, and since I had pheasants on
53:06
Speaker 1: my property, was particularly interested in me. UM and we
53:11
Speaker 1: He was one of the people who really introduced me
53:15
Speaker 1: to UH the Land Conservation Department in the county and
53:19
Speaker 1: our Natural Resource Conservation Service pheasants forever UM you know,
53:25
Speaker 1: working with f s A, the Farm Services Association, and
53:29
Speaker 1: I started at that point getting involved with conservation programs
53:33
Speaker 1: for private landowners on my own land. UH, Indoor County.
53:38
Speaker 1: We really didn't have the I didn't have the opportunity
53:40
Speaker 1: to do that with many other clients or many of
53:43
Speaker 1: our clients, but with one I did. UM. But it
53:46
Speaker 1: really made me realize, Wow, here's a whole you know, opportunity.
53:51
Speaker 1: And I remember thinking, man, I wish I would have
53:53
Speaker 1: known this when I was a kid. I probably would
53:56
Speaker 1: have been a wildlife ecologist or a forester some thing
54:00
Speaker 1: like that. UM. I didn't have that kind of focus
54:02
Speaker 1: at the time. UM eventually moved to Madison. As I said, uh,
54:08
Speaker 1: five years ago, my my youngest brother was killed in
54:10
Speaker 1: the car accident and he was living on the farm
54:12
Speaker 1: at the time, and so everything kind of was up
54:14
Speaker 1: in an upheaval in our family, and UM I was
54:17
Speaker 1: the one who was closest, and UM ended up in
54:19
Speaker 1: Madison and sort of taking care of the farm. And
54:23
Speaker 1: because of these perspectives that I have from these different
54:25
Speaker 1: parts of the country, in different experiences and worked with
54:30
Speaker 1: various agencies. UM my dad UM, UM, you know he
54:36
Speaker 1: was well, he died a couple of years ago, but
54:38
Speaker 1: you know I was getting older at the time. UM.
54:43
Speaker 1: We really needed help with things on the farm, and
54:46
Speaker 1: eventually turned over the whole management of it to me
54:50
Speaker 1: because the farm, uh we quit farming, you know, dairy farming.
54:53
Speaker 1: And my brother was the last one to dairy farm
54:56
Speaker 1: in and and and he left the area. And the
55:01
Speaker 1: farm didn't really owe us anything, right, I mean, it
55:03
Speaker 1: had been paid for and thank goodness, my parents, UM
55:08
Speaker 1: had done some smart things in their lives and the
55:12
Speaker 1: farm paid for itself and they didn't need to sell
55:14
Speaker 1: it to UM finance their retirement. So now all these
55:21
Speaker 1: years later that in fact, just this past year if
55:23
Speaker 1: after my mother passed away, my generation, my four brothers
55:27
Speaker 1: and sisters and I are now all owners of the property.
55:32
Speaker 1: So um, and we've we've kept it. We're keeping it
55:37
Speaker 1: in a way to honor my my younger brother's memory. UM.
55:42
Speaker 1: In fact, our LLC is called Matt's Last Tree Stand
55:45
Speaker 1: um l C. And and everything we're doing is sort
55:49
Speaker 1: of for for for two things. One is for it
55:53
Speaker 1: has to be financially viableity financially viable, it can't you know,
55:57
Speaker 1: it's got to pay for itself. It's at least got
55:59
Speaker 1: to pay its own expense. Is And then um, we're
56:02
Speaker 1: trying to do the quote unquote right thing. And you
56:04
Speaker 1: know that's changes and it adapts and all that for
56:08
Speaker 1: conservation management so um. And because now in my business
56:13
Speaker 1: that I've been back out on my own for about
56:15
Speaker 1: um twelve years now, UM, I provide UM site and
56:23
Speaker 1: land management, consulting and contracting services. UM. The farm is
56:29
Speaker 1: sort of approving ground for a lot of things. I mean,
56:32
Speaker 1: I've had an awful lot of folks out you know,
56:34
Speaker 1: through the farm and sort of showing them what we've done,
56:37
Speaker 1: what we're doing what's going well, what's not going well?
56:40
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how those lessons as important as any
56:42
Speaker 1: of them, And those are the kinds of things that, um,
56:46
Speaker 1: that I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity
56:49
Speaker 1: to you know, to to go next. Um, you know,
56:55
Speaker 1: and then interestingly enough or serendipitous, serendipitously off twelve years
57:01
Speaker 1: ago was the first time I heard of a skinny
57:03
Speaker 1: little guy named Steve Rinella. And a little over ten
57:06
Speaker 1: years or ago he and I became friends. And you know,
57:11
Speaker 1: that's how I got here, markin here we are now.
57:15
Speaker 1: So you talked about, you know, trying to do the
57:20
Speaker 1: right thing on your guys farm. How how would you
57:24
Speaker 1: describe the Durn philosophy where you are now after all
57:29
Speaker 1: those experiences just you described and trying all these different
57:32
Speaker 1: things and seeing all these different philosophies and ways to
57:35
Speaker 1: go about managing whether the public lands or private lands,
57:38
Speaker 1: how would you describe the Durn philosophy to wildlife or
57:43
Speaker 1: habitat management, um and doing the right thing where you
57:48
Speaker 1: at now? Well, um, it's a simple phrase. It's not ours,
57:56
Speaker 1: it's just our turn. And so that philosophy that actually
58:03
Speaker 1: came about walking out of the woods with a forester
58:08
Speaker 1: um where we had been marking big giant trees um
58:13
Speaker 1: for for harvests, and they were happening to be big
58:16
Speaker 1: red oaks and a few white oaks that um, it
58:20
Speaker 1: was their time. And I remember my dad saying to
58:22
Speaker 1: me, He He says, I know it needs to be dug done, Doug,
58:24
Speaker 1: but I don't want to be the one to do it.
58:26
Speaker 1: And I realized at that point that these five year
58:29
Speaker 1: old trees were little tiny trees when my dad was born,
58:33
Speaker 1: and over his ninety two years, he grew up with
58:37
Speaker 1: those trees and that forest developed over that time. Anyway,
58:41
Speaker 1: I was working with the forester putting it together, and
58:43
Speaker 1: it's happened to be a d NR forester who was
58:47
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin. We have a forestry h every county has
58:51
Speaker 1: a DNR forester and and and they come out and
58:54
Speaker 1: you know, give you perspective um for free, um no charge,
58:58
Speaker 1: I should say, on um, you know what sort of
59:02
Speaker 1: give you the perspective of your property in your woods. Anyway,
59:05
Speaker 1: we're walking out and we've been marking some trees for
59:07
Speaker 1: t s I timber stand improvement, and we stopped at
59:11
Speaker 1: the top of the hill and we're just sort of
59:14
Speaker 1: chit chatting there for a minute, and he goes, you know,
59:15
Speaker 1: I really applaud that you and your family are are
59:18
Speaker 1: willing to do this, because a lot of people just
59:20
Speaker 1: want to hold that kind of timber in place, and
59:27
Speaker 1: you know, eventually it starts to fall and and you
59:31
Speaker 1: know there are reasons to do this, you know too,
59:35
Speaker 1: it's time to start the woods over, it's time to
59:38
Speaker 1: harvest the you know, the economic benefit of all that.
59:42
Speaker 1: And I said, well, you know, I feel like we're
59:44
Speaker 1: standing on the shoulders of my great grandfather, my grandfather,
59:48
Speaker 1: my father, and I mean parents, but you know, male
59:51
Speaker 1: dominated um the farm stuff grandparents and uh. And I said,
59:58
Speaker 1: I guess I just feel like it's it's not our
1:00:00
Speaker 1: it's just our turn. And Mike Finley was the forest Journey.
1:00:02
Speaker 1: He looked at me and goes, yeah, I write that down,
1:00:05
Speaker 1: and so I did. And that really is the philosophy.
1:00:08
Speaker 1: So it's sort of that attitude of what are we
1:00:11
Speaker 1: going to do now and what does it have to
1:00:14
Speaker 1: do with the future. Mike said to me one time
1:00:16
Speaker 1: when we were talking about some timber harvest. He goes,
1:00:20
Speaker 1: one perspective to keep in a timber harvest is not
1:00:22
Speaker 1: so much what you're taking, but what you're leaving and
1:00:26
Speaker 1: what's going to happen after you do that harvest. And
1:00:31
Speaker 1: it was a really important thing. So the right thing
1:00:34
Speaker 1: is can be you know, the right thing can be fleeting, right,
1:00:37
Speaker 1: I mean, but a plan, our management plan and any
1:00:40
Speaker 1: management plan that I worked on for a landowner is
1:00:45
Speaker 1: one that has to be adaptive. Right. It's not like, okay,
1:00:49
Speaker 1: this is the way we're this is this is what
1:00:51
Speaker 1: our plan says, so we have to stick to it. Well,
1:00:54
Speaker 1: you know, boy, and nature things change, you know, in
1:00:57
Speaker 1: a great example of that is chronic wasting disease. Um,
1:01:01
Speaker 1: things change, so we changed our our hunting philosophy a
1:01:05
Speaker 1: little bit. Um. In forestry, we have this thing now
1:01:09
Speaker 1: called the Emerald ashboard. So the Emerald dashboarder is killing
1:01:13
Speaker 1: ash trees like crazy. I know you've got Michigan too,
1:01:16
Speaker 1: And so if you're in doing a harvest, probably how
1:01:20
Speaker 1: to take the ash too for two reasons, One to
1:01:24
Speaker 1: catch that economic value that you can before they are dead,
1:01:28
Speaker 1: and then to to hopefully you know, have form a
1:01:31
Speaker 1: little bit of a buffer there so that the disease
1:01:34
Speaker 1: doesn't continue to advance. So um, it kind of goes
1:01:38
Speaker 1: back to what we were talking earlier, right, that it's
1:01:41
Speaker 1: important to um draw on your experience, uh, to be
1:01:47
Speaker 1: willing to be adaptive, but most importantly to talk to
1:01:52
Speaker 1: experts in a particular field. UM. Some of my best
1:01:57
Speaker 1: friends are foresters and um and and wildlife ecologists or
1:02:02
Speaker 1: or habitat e collegists. You know a lot of friends
1:02:05
Speaker 1: with with pheasants forever and and man, those are the
1:02:08
Speaker 1: people that I talked to about this stuff. It's still
1:02:10
Speaker 1: up to me. It's still my decision and or us,
1:02:15
Speaker 1: my my family and I. But it's it's all of
1:02:18
Speaker 1: that information. What's the quote unquote best thing, and um
1:02:23
Speaker 1: ours tends to be from a conservation perspective. We could
1:02:26
Speaker 1: make more money on our crop land right now, um,
1:02:32
Speaker 1: even though commodities are down a little bit. If I
1:02:34
Speaker 1: was still if I still was just renting it to
1:02:36
Speaker 1: um one of the local farmers for corn and beans,
1:02:39
Speaker 1: corn and beans, you know, uh, road cropping. But five
1:02:43
Speaker 1: years ago, well six years ago, we just finished our
1:02:46
Speaker 1: fifth year. We went back into the conservation reserve program,
1:02:49
Speaker 1: put it all back in. We're not making as much money,
1:02:52
Speaker 1: but financially it works. And then we saw my siblings
1:02:58
Speaker 1: and I, UM, so that um that that will. We're
1:03:05
Speaker 1: achieving multiple benefits from one action. And when I talk
1:03:10
Speaker 1: with politicians about things like the conservation reserve program, there
1:03:13
Speaker 1: are multiple benefits from one action, and that action is
1:03:17
Speaker 1: allowing more acres or paying for acreage to be in
1:03:21
Speaker 1: the conservation reserved plan. So first, we've taken some highly roadable,
1:03:26
Speaker 1: marginal farmland out of out of production. And quite honestly,
1:03:29
Speaker 1: our entire farm is considered highly erotable land because of
1:03:33
Speaker 1: the slopes and everything. Um, you've created wildlife habitat, You've
1:03:38
Speaker 1: created by by the seating that you do. Um, You've
1:03:43
Speaker 1: we're sequestering carbon or improving water quality. Um. And you know, aesthetically,
1:03:50
Speaker 1: it's pretty darned cool too. Um. Now philosophically, there's other
1:03:55
Speaker 1: people out there. I can tell you. One farmer said
1:03:57
Speaker 1: to me what looks to me like just a bunch
1:03:59
Speaker 1: of damn weeds. Uh. So, I mean from his perspective,
1:04:03
Speaker 1: it is because he's a farmer, right, um, and he
1:04:07
Speaker 1: wants to grow corny beans, corner beans, corn beans, and
1:04:10
Speaker 1: maybe hey once in a while. So um, you know, again,
1:04:15
Speaker 1: from whose perspective and from ours, it's like, well, what
1:04:19
Speaker 1: what is the what the financial viability is important? Um
1:04:24
Speaker 1: concept We've made a commitment to conservation UM. But we
1:04:28
Speaker 1: don't have money that we can just throw at it.
1:04:29
Speaker 1: I will say that we did our big timber harvest
1:04:32
Speaker 1: over the last several years UM. That money all went
1:04:36
Speaker 1: into a fund UM or almost all of it went
1:04:40
Speaker 1: into a fund that UM secures the financial security of
1:04:44
Speaker 1: the farm for the next hundred over a hundred years.
1:04:47
Speaker 1: And when we were doing a this timber harvest, what
1:04:50
Speaker 1: we're doing this oak oak harvest that we're doing, we're
1:04:53
Speaker 1: trying to regenerate oaks up there. That's a hundred year
1:04:56
Speaker 1: commitment UM. And we because of the experts came out
1:05:00
Speaker 1: and said, you have a good spot where you should
1:05:02
Speaker 1: be able to regenerate oak here this this area over here,
1:05:05
Speaker 1: not so much but over here, yes, you should be
1:05:07
Speaker 1: able to regenerate oaks. And without getting into oak regeneration
1:05:10
Speaker 1: too deep. UM. So when I have an expert telling
1:05:13
Speaker 1: me that this is a spot where you can do it,
1:05:15
Speaker 1: not so much over there, let's let's take a look
1:05:19
Speaker 1: at that and what is that going to require? So UM,
1:05:23
Speaker 1: that's what our that's what the right thing is. And
1:05:27
Speaker 1: well that was kind of the overall view of what
1:05:30
Speaker 1: you asked me, Right, Yeah, it was, And I gotta
1:05:34
Speaker 1: I want to get a better sense of the why
1:05:38
Speaker 1: for a lot of that. Um. There's a lot of
1:05:41
Speaker 1: people that buy land for hunting is their topical right,
1:05:46
Speaker 1: at least a lot of folks listening to this podcast there,
1:05:48
Speaker 1: if they're gonna buy some kind of land purchase, if
1:05:51
Speaker 1: they're gonna land purchase, it is probably gonna be for
1:05:53
Speaker 1: some kind of recreational UM, thing like deer hunting. And
1:05:57
Speaker 1: so most of folks that are managing land have that
1:06:00
Speaker 1: in mind as a top um, as a top of
1:06:04
Speaker 1: reason they're doing any kind of work on the farm. UM.
1:06:07
Speaker 1: And so someone listening to this now when they're thinking
1:06:09
Speaker 1: about the changes they're gonna make to their property, the
1:06:12
Speaker 1: improvements they're gonna make to their property, the projects, and
1:06:15
Speaker 1: the money they're gonna invest into it, usually deer or
1:06:18
Speaker 1: whatever species they're hunting, or whatever the activity is, UM,
1:06:22
Speaker 1: that's gonna be top of mind. So when when someone
1:06:25
Speaker 1: hears about properly managing a forest, regenerating oaks, UM, you
1:06:30
Speaker 1: didn't mention it here, but I know something you think
1:06:32
Speaker 1: about is is dealing with invasive species, or trying to
1:06:36
Speaker 1: prioritize native species, um balancing deer herds or the habitat
1:06:40
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. Someone might say, well, that's
1:06:44
Speaker 1: just sounds like distractions from more dear or bigger deer
1:06:48
Speaker 1: or something like that. Ah, why do all those things
1:06:53
Speaker 1: matter to you? I guess? And and then maybe why
1:06:57
Speaker 1: might it matter for other people? This kind at this,
1:07:00
Speaker 1: this this balanced approach that you seem to be taking. Yeah, man,
1:07:04
Speaker 1: that's you just said the word balanced approach. All right. So,
1:07:08
Speaker 1: first of all, if you were to be in Wisconsin
1:07:11
Speaker 1: and and um I would, I'm gonna put a plug
1:07:14
Speaker 1: in for this. It's called the Deer Management Assistant Program
1:07:17
Speaker 1: that is also through the Department of Natural Resources. So
1:07:19
Speaker 1: a landowner can contact Bob Knack at the at the
1:07:26
Speaker 1: Department Natural Resources or any of the biologists and they'll
1:07:29
Speaker 1: help them get involved. Landowners get involved with a thing
1:07:32
Speaker 1: called the d MAP program Deer Management Assistant Program. And uh,
1:07:36
Speaker 1: because of course that's the gateway drug, right. I mean
1:07:39
Speaker 1: that you're exactly right, that's the that's the a lot
1:07:42
Speaker 1: of the reasons people by people from away, because as
1:07:46
Speaker 1: we fondly call them, um by property is for for
1:07:51
Speaker 1: hunting and recreation specifically um white tailed deer. And it's
1:07:55
Speaker 1: been a blessing and a curse. And man, we can
1:07:56
Speaker 1: go down that that rabbit hole long ways, what the
1:08:01
Speaker 1: why of it is. Here's one of the smart things
1:08:04
Speaker 1: that Mike Finley also said to me. Good forest management
1:08:08
Speaker 1: is good. Wildlife habitat management is good, Dear, Dear, habitat management.
1:08:13
Speaker 1: My biggest challenge on that place, on that part of
1:08:16
Speaker 1: the farm where we are um harvest, where we harvested
1:08:20
Speaker 1: those big oaks and are regenerating oak is keeping a
1:08:24
Speaker 1: balanced balance with everything right that we want. From a
1:08:28
Speaker 1: financial standpoint, we want those oaks to come back from
1:08:30
Speaker 1: a from a long term environmental standpoint and ecosystem standpoint,
1:08:34
Speaker 1: we want those oaks. We want oaks to come back
1:08:36
Speaker 1: here because it's something we're losing in the driftless area.
1:08:38
Speaker 1: The problem is, Dear, as you know, dear love white
1:08:43
Speaker 1: oak acorns, and they really love to eat white oak acorns,
1:08:47
Speaker 1: and they really loved to browse on red oak uh brows.
1:08:51
Speaker 1: So I've had experiences where the deer just wiped down
1:08:54
Speaker 1: uh the oaks. Album we planted them in rows um
1:08:59
Speaker 1: a small out, but with this natural regeneration. There's you know,
1:09:03
Speaker 1: there's a lot more of it. Um that work is
1:09:08
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like, dear Changrila up there. Um, I
1:09:12
Speaker 1: know I sent you and I posted a picture of
1:09:13
Speaker 1: the nice bluck that I shot up there this year. Uh.
1:09:17
Speaker 1: It's it's a tough place to hunt, but it makes
1:09:20
Speaker 1: you think about, Okay, well how am I gonna hunt this?
1:09:23
Speaker 1: So I'm up there deer hunting mark and I'm looking
1:09:25
Speaker 1: at it like, okay, well we've got good regent. It
1:09:28
Speaker 1: looks like, yeah, we've got a lot of underbrush. Who
1:09:30
Speaker 1: I've got some invasives over there. Um. I'm not solely
1:09:35
Speaker 1: focused on on on deer hunting, but I know you
1:09:38
Speaker 1: have these thoughts too when you're up in the stand,
1:09:40
Speaker 1: especially now in the back. For you, in the property
1:09:42
Speaker 1: that you're you're developing, it's like you're I mean you're
1:09:45
Speaker 1: sitting in the stand and you're you're not just like, oh,
1:09:47
Speaker 1: win's of deer gonna appear, wins and you're gonna appear.
1:09:49
Speaker 1: You're thinking about a lot of different things, and so
1:09:52
Speaker 1: you're looking at that property from that perspective, Um, what
1:09:56
Speaker 1: else can I do with this property? Because you know,
1:09:58
Speaker 1: quite honestly, you know, dear, dear, you know it's fun,
1:10:02
Speaker 1: and I know you're you think it's uh well, I mean,
1:10:06
Speaker 1: you and I both have an obsession with deer, but
1:10:08
Speaker 1: you spend a hell of a lot more time at
1:10:10
Speaker 1: it than I do. I mean, because you know that
1:10:11
Speaker 1: whole bow hunting thing, Um, it is a thing man.
1:10:16
Speaker 1: You know, as a farm kid growing up, you know,
1:10:18
Speaker 1: you know what I always say, we I thought that
1:10:21
Speaker 1: bo hunt was for people who didn't have enough to do,
1:10:23
Speaker 1: and um, it's that is sort of the case if
1:10:27
Speaker 1: you're a farmer. I know plenty of farmers who do
1:10:29
Speaker 1: a little bit of gun hunting, but they don't do
1:10:31
Speaker 1: any bow hunting at all, and because they just they
1:10:35
Speaker 1: don't have time for it. Um and uh, I find
1:10:38
Speaker 1: that to be you know, I find that to be
1:10:40
Speaker 1: a really interesting thing since bow hunting has become such
1:10:43
Speaker 1: a big part of our white tail pursuit. Nobody both
1:10:45
Speaker 1: hunted around here when I was a kid. Nobody did.
1:10:48
Speaker 1: Um it was gun hunting for nine days, and of
1:10:50
Speaker 1: course we didn't have that many deer. But you know,
1:10:52
Speaker 1: so that's a that's a whole that's a whole another discussion.
1:10:56
Speaker 1: But the turkeys you know if you want. I mean
1:10:59
Speaker 1: we're about to about to have turkey season here and
1:11:02
Speaker 1: and turkey hunting here. Good management is you know, a
1:11:07
Speaker 1: good good forest management, good habitat management is good for
1:11:11
Speaker 1: those animals as well. Um. And then as you start
1:11:15
Speaker 1: to think about all of that, you know, songbirds benefit
1:11:18
Speaker 1: from it. Um if you're doing um, I've kind of
1:11:22
Speaker 1: gotten away from food plats, which you know is a
1:11:24
Speaker 1: different discussion, but I've done pollinator habitat. And what I
1:11:27
Speaker 1: found about pollinator habitat it's good deer cover and um
1:11:33
Speaker 1: uh it's also great for you know, for for honey
1:11:38
Speaker 1: bees and hummingbirds and our other pollinators and and it's
1:11:42
Speaker 1: aesthetically pleasing. Um. So if you're just taking a walk, um,
1:11:47
Speaker 1: which my wife likes to do. She's not much of
1:11:49
Speaker 1: a hunter, but she loves to take a walk. And
1:11:51
Speaker 1: and so it's you know, it's just it's a beautiful thing.
1:11:54
Speaker 1: A water feature, you know, like keeping your stream um uh,
1:11:59
Speaker 1: you know, keeping your stream banks up, and you know,
1:12:01
Speaker 1: working through programs like that, Well that's a lot more
1:12:04
Speaker 1: aesthetically pleasing and attractive to someone who may not be
1:12:08
Speaker 1: um a hunter, um, but who is interested in going
1:12:12
Speaker 1: for a walk, and you know, and and a recreational user. Um.
1:12:18
Speaker 1: To me, it just makes sense. I mean, and and
1:12:20
Speaker 1: balancing all of those things is important. UM. And you know,
1:12:26
Speaker 1: you and I might disagree a little bit about this
1:12:28
Speaker 1: part of white tailed You the damn things will live anywhere.
1:12:32
Speaker 1: You know, maybe a big giant buck isn't gonna live
1:12:34
Speaker 1: just anywhere. But um, there they, along with coyotes, are
1:12:37
Speaker 1: some of the most adaptable creatures out there. UM. I
1:12:42
Speaker 1: it's a it's an odd position to be in, man,
1:12:44
Speaker 1: but I'm in a position where I'm trying to discourage
1:12:46
Speaker 1: dear more than i am trying to encourage them. UM.
1:12:50
Speaker 1: And I think that especially in our down here in
1:12:52
Speaker 1: southwest Wisconsin that um that because we have so much
1:12:58
Speaker 1: deer habitat um and we have so many deer um,
1:13:02
Speaker 1: and we have a you know, we have a kind
1:13:03
Speaker 1: of the opposite problem. Now. UM. Part of this d
1:13:07
Speaker 1: MAP program management assistance program is to understand you know,
1:13:11
Speaker 1: dear biology, um, uh, ecosystem, balance all of those sort
1:13:17
Speaker 1: of things. So UM, that's the why. I mean, there's
1:13:20
Speaker 1: a lot, there's a lot to it. UM. I'm working
1:13:24
Speaker 1: with a client with well he's not even client anymore.
1:13:27
Speaker 1: He's just become a friend because I'd like told him
1:13:30
Speaker 1: to grow his wings, you know. Um, he's a really
1:13:32
Speaker 1: smart guy, hey, Chip. And he's a big Mark Kenyon
1:13:36
Speaker 1: guy by the way. Yeah, well yeah, he'll be listening
1:13:41
Speaker 1: for sure. Um And I mean had dinner with him
1:13:45
Speaker 1: the other night and afterwards sent him a whole list
1:13:48
Speaker 1: of context. He's he's someone who wants to learn and
1:13:53
Speaker 1: understand and develop his property, you know, with that wide view.
1:13:59
Speaker 1: And I kind of just sent him on his way
1:14:02
Speaker 1: the other night in terms of, you know, going to
1:14:05
Speaker 1: transition from being a client somebody who paid me to
1:14:08
Speaker 1: come out and spend some time with him on his
1:14:09
Speaker 1: property and talk about things in general. Um uh, I
1:14:15
Speaker 1: think that's way more interesting than for a landowner than um,
1:14:20
Speaker 1: I just I just want to do this for deer.
1:14:22
Speaker 1: I think you're finding that out, um that it's way
1:14:26
Speaker 1: more interesting and um it sort of hearkens back to um,
1:14:35
Speaker 1: you know, to the to the idea of it's just
1:14:37
Speaker 1: not about what you want right now. It's it's very
1:14:40
Speaker 1: much about what what has come before you and then
1:14:44
Speaker 1: what's going to be after you as well. Um. So
1:14:48
Speaker 1: that's a big part of the why so something you
1:14:52
Speaker 1: didn't really mention within there specifically, but that I know
1:14:57
Speaker 1: is another one of these pieces of this balanced approach
1:15:01
Speaker 1: that that I think there's a decent bit of debate
1:15:04
Speaker 1: about within the hunting community at least. Is this whole
1:15:08
Speaker 1: invasive versus native species um quandary when it comes to
1:15:13
Speaker 1: managing habitat. There's again, if if we're going from just
1:15:20
Speaker 1: I want more dear, bigger deer, and we're going to
1:15:22
Speaker 1: now thinking, Okay, I want to have a balanced approach
1:15:24
Speaker 1: to the ecosystem. I want to try to be a
1:15:27
Speaker 1: good steward for everything that's going on here on my
1:15:29
Speaker 1: forty acres or two acres or ten acres, whatever it is. UM.
1:15:34
Speaker 1: I think inevitably you'll eventually start thinking about this invasive
1:15:37
Speaker 1: versus native um topic. Some people I've talked to are saying, Hey,
1:15:44
Speaker 1: some of these invasive quote unquote invasive species UM. They'll say,
1:15:48
Speaker 1: are actually good dear habitat, or they're actually good bird habitat.
1:15:52
Speaker 1: They're actually doing good stuff. So why are you wasting
1:15:55
Speaker 1: your time taking them out when you're just reducing the
1:15:58
Speaker 1: quality of habitat for to stuff? UM? What what do
1:16:02
Speaker 1: you say to that? How do you go about prioritizing
1:16:05
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff. Is it is it should be
1:16:07
Speaker 1: a top priority, should it be? Well, if you have
1:16:09
Speaker 1: some extra time, nip away at some of this stuff.
1:16:12
Speaker 1: How do you how do you think about this? How
1:16:14
Speaker 1: should other people think about this? Well? Um, yeah, that's
1:16:19
Speaker 1: that actually really is a great question, because the first
1:16:23
Speaker 1: thing I would say is non native versus native versus uh.
1:16:28
Speaker 1: Using the phrase invasive and invasive is obviously a detriment
1:16:32
Speaker 1: on the landscape or sounds like a detriment on the landscape.
1:16:35
Speaker 1: And when I when you say invasive to me, I
1:16:37
Speaker 1: think of um, garlic mustard, which is a herbaceous plant
1:16:42
Speaker 1: that we have growing like crazy in in um in
1:16:47
Speaker 1: our area. UM that chokes off you know, native herbaceous
1:16:53
Speaker 1: plans um Um multiplor a rose is another one. Um.
1:16:59
Speaker 1: Interestingly to flora rose was um. I don't remember whether
1:17:03
Speaker 1: you had that over there? You know you have buck
1:17:04
Speaker 1: thorn um and honeysuckle um. And and you're right, I
1:17:10
Speaker 1: mean multi floor let me use multi floor roses. Example
1:17:13
Speaker 1: was actually introduced by well, I understand it was introduced
1:17:17
Speaker 1: by the d n R. At least that's the the tail.
1:17:22
Speaker 1: It may have been. Um, you know farm agency folks
1:17:25
Speaker 1: UM as the quote unquote living fence. And if you've
1:17:27
Speaker 1: ever tried to walk through multi floor rose, you know
1:17:30
Speaker 1: why it was living fence. It's just nuts um and
1:17:35
Speaker 1: it provides UM a lot of UM, a lot of
1:17:41
Speaker 1: wildlife uh feed. The problem when it is is that
1:17:44
Speaker 1: it doesn't know how to stay in the fence row UM.
1:17:48
Speaker 1: You know, bird will it just spreads through the wild
1:17:52
Speaker 1: life and the birds spreading it. You know how many
1:17:54
Speaker 1: things get spread that way, right, UM, So you know
1:17:57
Speaker 1: that's one. Another is autumotive, which autumnlive is. It's a
1:18:01
Speaker 1: great food for birds UM. But again it doesn't it
1:18:06
Speaker 1: doesn't really UM mind its manners. You know, it'll spread anywhere,
1:18:11
Speaker 1: like in an open area. UM. And then UM have
1:18:14
Speaker 1: a detrimental effect on grass and and grasslands and and
1:18:19
Speaker 1: uh some of our other woody uh plants and outcompete
1:18:22
Speaker 1: some of our fringe plants, a lot of our our natives,
1:18:25
Speaker 1: you know, like Viburnum is a good one um uh,
1:18:28
Speaker 1: service berry, choke cherry, those things are all native fringe plants,
1:18:32
Speaker 1: but they don't they don't always compete dogwood. Dogwood always
1:18:35
Speaker 1: competes pretty well, but or generally competes pretty well, but
1:18:38
Speaker 1: they don't compete as well with these things like autum alive,
1:18:42
Speaker 1: which you know is one of the first things to
1:18:43
Speaker 1: green up and one of the last ones to lose
1:18:45
Speaker 1: its leaves, and that's what those invasives tend to do. UM.
1:18:49
Speaker 1: But you're right, there is benefit to them, UM yet
1:18:54
Speaker 1: to find other than the occasional salad that um. Um
1:18:58
Speaker 1: what garlic mustard is do one for us. But so
1:19:03
Speaker 1: invasive versus h non native um. Yeah, you know plant
1:19:08
Speaker 1: ample trees. I mean you think about all the things
1:19:10
Speaker 1: that are quote unquote non natives. UM. So I think
1:19:13
Speaker 1: we need to differentiate between between those things. And then
1:19:16
Speaker 1: the other part of it is when you do have
1:19:17
Speaker 1: an invasive species like you've got glossy buck tharn honeysuckle.
1:19:23
Speaker 1: I got my notes here, which are yeah, automotive um
1:19:30
Speaker 1: and and yeah, I mean great bood food and all that.
1:19:32
Speaker 1: In fact that used to be automotive used to be
1:19:34
Speaker 1: a part of the UM. I think it was called
1:19:37
Speaker 1: the quail package wildlife package. It was something that was planted.
1:19:41
Speaker 1: I had a managed a property where the stuff was
1:19:44
Speaker 1: just it was in rows along the edges of other
1:19:47
Speaker 1: planted areas. UM. And so control right management that I mean,
1:19:54
Speaker 1: it's the heavy hand of man. I mean, one thing
1:19:56
Speaker 1: that Michigan and Wisconsin and most of the Midwest has
1:19:59
Speaker 1: in common is we start talking about things like natural
1:20:03
Speaker 1: um age structure of deer and you know, trying to
1:20:07
Speaker 1: achieve that kind of things like come on, I mean,
1:20:08
Speaker 1: we're to a degree, what is natural? Um, there's this
1:20:12
Speaker 1: is an unnatural uh, unnatural landscape. We've we've we've um.
1:20:19
Speaker 1: You know, everything is so heavily manipulated. The reason we
1:20:21
Speaker 1: have so many deer in southwest Wisconsin is because it's
1:20:24
Speaker 1: a heavily manipulated landscape of our Um County is considered
1:20:30
Speaker 1: deer habitat and a lot of that is agricultural land UM.
1:20:35
Speaker 1: And you know, so you've got this sort of perfect
1:20:37
Speaker 1: storm of all of these these things and UM, you
1:20:40
Speaker 1: know it's it's we have habitat, we have we have agriculture. UM.
1:20:44
Speaker 1: There is that browse and all of that. But it's
1:20:47
Speaker 1: important to find a balance in there that you know,
1:20:49
Speaker 1: you said that word right at the beginning when you're
1:20:50
Speaker 1: asking this question. To find a balance of all of it.
1:20:53
Speaker 1: You don't want to have just multi floor rose or
1:20:56
Speaker 1: autumn olive or glassy buckthorn or honey suckle, all those things.
1:21:01
Speaker 1: You're not going to eradicate them. Eradication once these things
1:21:05
Speaker 1: are established, even like I had to go back to
1:21:08
Speaker 1: chronic wasting disease right now. But um, you know, eighteen
1:21:13
Speaker 1: years ago when they started talking about eradication of the
1:21:15
Speaker 1: disease in Wisconsin, that was the thing that kind of
1:21:18
Speaker 1: got the hair back, the hair on the back of hunters.
1:21:21
Speaker 1: What do you mean we're gonna eradicate the disease in order?
1:21:23
Speaker 1: How do you do that? Well, you're gonna have to
1:21:24
Speaker 1: eradicate the deer And that was what people got concerned about.
1:21:28
Speaker 1: So um in the business, I'm generally and we talked
1:21:33
Speaker 1: about something called integrated pest management. So you try to
1:21:37
Speaker 1: do as much as you can without it be to
1:21:41
Speaker 1: control something without it becoming sort of an obsession to
1:21:45
Speaker 1: get rid of all of it unless there is something
1:21:48
Speaker 1: that you can You know, there are times when there
1:21:51
Speaker 1: are things that you can you you may be able
1:21:53
Speaker 1: to eliminate. The problem with most of the Midwest is
1:21:57
Speaker 1: you may eliminate it on your property, but if your
1:21:59
Speaker 1: neighbor didn't, you're gonna get it back anyway. So then
1:22:02
Speaker 1: it becomes a control measure, and that's really what land management.
1:22:06
Speaker 1: That's a big part of land management. And I would say,
1:22:09
Speaker 1: you know, some people might say, well, that's unfortunate, and
1:22:11
Speaker 1: I'm like, not necessarily, because as you're you pointed out,
1:22:14
Speaker 1: and as other people have pointed out, there's some positive
1:22:17
Speaker 1: benefit to this, to this stuff, um canary reed grass,
1:22:22
Speaker 1: which is another one it seemed like you had over
1:22:25
Speaker 1: there in that bottom. I mean, yeah, it's an invasive
1:22:28
Speaker 1: species and it's eliminating, you know, it's excluding some of
1:22:32
Speaker 1: our other things. But oh my gosh, is that great
1:22:34
Speaker 1: deer cover? Huh so? And then it kind of goes
1:22:38
Speaker 1: back to that word again. Balance. You you talked about
1:22:42
Speaker 1: something that this is going to be a little bit
1:22:44
Speaker 1: of a sidetrack, but I gotta pick your brain on
1:22:47
Speaker 1: something that I personally battle with a little bit. Or
1:22:52
Speaker 1: I hear other folks talking about this, and I I
1:22:55
Speaker 1: get a little bit frustrated because I think this topic
1:22:59
Speaker 1: of balance is needed, or at least from my perspective. Um,
1:23:04
Speaker 1: you've got two ideals or ideas around managing land, and
1:23:11
Speaker 1: let's let's take a step back and talk more around
1:23:13
Speaker 1: the public land debate or the public land, because this
1:23:16
Speaker 1: debate seems to be more focused on public land, where
1:23:19
Speaker 1: there's some folks that want to protect for or managed
1:23:25
Speaker 1: for wilderness. You talked about trying to go back to
1:23:27
Speaker 1: a natural state and how Um, there's this idea that
1:23:32
Speaker 1: let's just leave it. Let's let's stop messing around with it.
1:23:36
Speaker 1: Let's just step back and let nature do what nature does.
1:23:38
Speaker 1: Let's preserve some part of our landscape as wilderness. Quote unquote. UM.
1:23:44
Speaker 1: So there's that idea, and then there's the other group,
1:23:48
Speaker 1: another idea that says, no, we have to manage. Everything
1:23:51
Speaker 1: is already manipulated. We got to manage. We have to
1:23:53
Speaker 1: go and we have to cut down the trees because
1:23:56
Speaker 1: you know, we need to get more sun light on
1:23:58
Speaker 1: the ground and that's better for food, for wildlife and whatnot.
1:24:00
Speaker 1: And then the other group will say, well, no, we
1:24:02
Speaker 1: need to leave some of this timber alone because we
1:24:05
Speaker 1: need old growth timber. And when we cut down all
1:24:07
Speaker 1: these things were ruining habitat for other animals, and we're
1:24:11
Speaker 1: destroying certain types of habitats now that are so rare. Um,
1:24:15
Speaker 1: can't we just let stuff go? Sometimes? So there's these
1:24:17
Speaker 1: competing philosophies within UM habitat management on our public lands,
1:24:24
Speaker 1: and and you can look at someone who I know
1:24:26
Speaker 1: who has influenced you a lot, like Elder Leopold, and
1:24:29
Speaker 1: see a dichotomy even within him where he was one
1:24:32
Speaker 1: of the He was one of the very first people
1:24:35
Speaker 1: that ever advocated for actual wilderness protection within the within
1:24:39
Speaker 1: the United States public land system. Back in the twenties.
1:24:42
Speaker 1: He was writing articles saying, Hey, you know what, I understand.
1:24:45
Speaker 1: We want to do all these different things, but there's
1:24:47
Speaker 1: some places we should leave untrammeled. We shouldn't put roads there,
1:24:51
Speaker 1: we shouldn't log, we shouldn't do this stuff. You need
1:24:54
Speaker 1: to have some of this wild, untouched, primitive space. Still
1:24:58
Speaker 1: he said that, but then he also, decades later it
1:25:00
Speaker 1: was also advocating for all sorts of heavy I don't
1:25:03
Speaker 1: want to say heavy handed, but involved human management of
1:25:07
Speaker 1: wildlife populations and landscapes. So he kind of embodied these
1:25:11
Speaker 1: two different approaches to managing an area of landscape a habitat.
1:25:19
Speaker 1: Um I personally, when I like struggle with this or
1:25:23
Speaker 1: look at this, I see a place and a need
1:25:25
Speaker 1: for both. Um I really am strongly impacted. Or I
1:25:33
Speaker 1: don't say this, but I see a real need for wilderness. Um,
1:25:39
Speaker 1: I'm drawn to it. I find some kind of solace
1:25:41
Speaker 1: in that we still have some places that are at
1:25:44
Speaker 1: least less manipulated and relatively more primitive than other places.
1:25:49
Speaker 1: I see that need. I also see the need for
1:25:51
Speaker 1: management and a lot of landscapes too. I My hope
1:25:55
Speaker 1: is thoughts that we should have both in in the
1:25:57
Speaker 1: right places and in the right ways. But I constantly
1:26:00
Speaker 1: find myself going back and forth and debating how and
1:26:04
Speaker 1: why and when and where. Um, I'm rambling now, Doug,
1:26:08
Speaker 1: that's a bunch of my thoughts. What where's your head
1:26:11
Speaker 1: at on this whole issue? Well? I like everything you
1:26:17
Speaker 1: just said, and uh you address some of that in
1:26:22
Speaker 1: the book too, man, and uh, which is really you
1:26:29
Speaker 1: know again, I was like, there's just like this part
1:26:32
Speaker 1: of you that's like this old soul that I just
1:26:34
Speaker 1: really dig. Um. Yeah, I mean that's you know, philosophically,
1:26:38
Speaker 1: I like I like that that a lot. And I
1:26:43
Speaker 1: agree with everything you said. Leopold exactly is is I mean,
1:26:47
Speaker 1: he's sort of is. We can just look Leopold right,
1:26:50
Speaker 1: what would Eldo do? Um? You know, at the same
1:26:54
Speaker 1: time that he was advocating for um, Uh, you know,
1:27:00
Speaker 1: wilderness and and and wildlife management and you know all
1:27:04
Speaker 1: of these things. He was also buying his own land
1:27:07
Speaker 1: and doing work on that, and he had developed a
1:27:10
Speaker 1: relationship with a landowner named Ruben Paulson and had this
1:27:13
Speaker 1: thing started called the Riley Game Cooperative that I'd like
1:27:15
Speaker 1: to talk about more in a little bit, but it
1:27:18
Speaker 1: is all of those things. Um, let me get let
1:27:22
Speaker 1: me give you a four acre view of that. So
1:27:24
Speaker 1: when I was talking about our property, are are my
1:27:28
Speaker 1: family's farm, right, We've got four hundred acres two acres
1:27:31
Speaker 1: of its woods. We um did this shelterwood harvest, which
1:27:35
Speaker 1: is essentially a clear cut done in stages, and the
1:27:39
Speaker 1: ideas that you're regenerating oak and there's reasons for for that,
1:27:42
Speaker 1: no regeneration and that's a whole day lecture. We can
1:27:45
Speaker 1: go up there and hang out and take a look
1:27:48
Speaker 1: at it, and uh, it's really interesting. But at the
1:27:51
Speaker 1: same time, UM, we've got some what we're calling the
1:27:55
Speaker 1: legacy area on our farm where we're not gonna cut
1:27:58
Speaker 1: those trees. You know, if they fall over, they fall over. Um.
1:28:02
Speaker 1: And you know, if that tree was worth X amount
1:28:05
Speaker 1: of dollars, Yeah, well it's worth an x amount of
1:28:08
Speaker 1: legacy and wildlife habitat. And you know, because a big
1:28:11
Speaker 1: hollow you know, uh, big hollow tree is wildlife. And
1:28:15
Speaker 1: so when that's one of the cool things. Even in
1:28:17
Speaker 1: balancing and forest trees, you go through a timber harvest
1:28:20
Speaker 1: that I've been involved with at least a numby trees
1:28:22
Speaker 1: that has a big w on them, and every logger
1:28:25
Speaker 1: knows what that means. That's a wildlife tree. And yeah,
1:28:27
Speaker 1: that might be something that you you know, you just
1:28:30
Speaker 1: get out of the way to let more more young,
1:28:32
Speaker 1: straight trees that are gonna be boards and cords and
1:28:35
Speaker 1: we're gonna make good timber out of that. There's a
1:28:38
Speaker 1: place for all of it. Um. I think that on
1:28:43
Speaker 1: public land. So to take that on from a small
1:28:46
Speaker 1: perspective on private land and take to go to the
1:28:48
Speaker 1: private public land which you were talking about, um, you know,
1:28:52
Speaker 1: having spent time in in the uh some of the
1:28:54
Speaker 1: National Forest, Shawamigan National Forest and the Boundary Waters and
1:28:59
Speaker 1: um and then of course that fabulous trip that you
1:29:02
Speaker 1: and I got to go on for the river area
1:29:04
Speaker 1: of Alaska. Um. Um. If I guess this is where
1:29:11
Speaker 1: I'm at with that, the idea that there's wilderness out there,
1:29:15
Speaker 1: and maybe Steve has talked about this and maybe if
1:29:17
Speaker 1: I'm stealing his ideas or somebody else's, you know, Um,
1:29:21
Speaker 1: that's because I That's the most sincere form of flattery, right, UM,
1:29:27
Speaker 1: is that even if I can't ever get there, the
1:29:30
Speaker 1: idea that it's there is really important to me. Um.
1:29:36
Speaker 1: I was. I was talking with a guy who's selling
1:29:38
Speaker 1: these e bikes the other day and he's like, well,
1:29:41
Speaker 1: just think about the access that it's provide provides. And
1:29:43
Speaker 1: I'm just like, yeah, I get it. I understand what
1:29:48
Speaker 1: you're saying. And boy, that would be cool as hell
1:29:50
Speaker 1: for me to be able because I can't hike like
1:29:51
Speaker 1: I used to be able to hike. Um, Like, I won't.
1:29:55
Speaker 1: I won't. I won't hike back to the top of
1:29:57
Speaker 1: Mount Adams and Jefferson, Washington and the White mount If
1:30:00
Speaker 1: I go to the top of Mount Washington out and
1:30:02
Speaker 1: uh in the White Mountains again. If I go to
1:30:05
Speaker 1: the top of Mount Washington and driving down car up there,
1:30:07
Speaker 1: because you can do that maybe train, yeah, or the
1:30:11
Speaker 1: train and run across the ridges. You can do that,
1:30:13
Speaker 1: but there's nothing like climbing up there yourself. And I
1:30:17
Speaker 1: did that when I was a younger man, and um, um,
1:30:20
Speaker 1: I think I could probably get up there again. I
1:30:21
Speaker 1: don't have to stop a little more often, but I
1:30:23
Speaker 1: take a road trip. We didn't do that someday you go. Um,
1:30:28
Speaker 1: And those are things that I got to do because
1:30:32
Speaker 1: people like Leopold and Roosevelt and and uh, you know
1:30:37
Speaker 1: whoever else you want. The list is the great conservations
1:30:40
Speaker 1: of our of our country. Um, preserve them. And and
1:30:44
Speaker 1: that kind of goes back to that I got to
1:30:47
Speaker 1: do it, somebody else should get to And then even
1:30:50
Speaker 1: if I never make it back to the forty mile
1:30:52
Speaker 1: River area again, um, just knowing that that is still there. Um,
1:30:58
Speaker 1: you know, it is really important. So I think they're
1:31:00
Speaker 1: room for all of it. Um. It's okay to have
1:31:03
Speaker 1: old growth trees and let some of them just go
1:31:07
Speaker 1: and and and have areas preserve. Preservation is a tough
1:31:11
Speaker 1: word sometimes, right, but let it go and see what
1:31:14
Speaker 1: nature does well. You also monitor it, like in these
1:31:17
Speaker 1: areas on the farm where we're letting the Legacy series.
1:31:20
Speaker 1: We're letting. It doesn't mean I'm letting invasive species go
1:31:22
Speaker 1: nuts in there. Um, that's the kind of work that
1:31:26
Speaker 1: I'm I'm doing that. But we're leaving there. You know,
1:31:28
Speaker 1: we're leaving them big old oaks in there and as
1:31:30
Speaker 1: big maples and um and just letting them have their
1:31:35
Speaker 1: you know, let them go into their natural end. So
1:31:38
Speaker 1: there again it kind of goes back to that balance. Um,
1:31:40
Speaker 1: it's easier with bigger acreage. UM. Uh, you know, thousands
1:31:47
Speaker 1: and tens of thousands of hundreds of thousands of acres
1:31:49
Speaker 1: of public land. And then some of it is so
1:31:52
Speaker 1: why hasn't it been developed? Well, I mean they think
1:31:54
Speaker 1: about like that forty mile river area. Um, how how
1:31:57
Speaker 1: the hell would you get there to do it? To
1:31:59
Speaker 1: to to quote unquote development. And I realized, well, wait
1:32:02
Speaker 1: a minute, we were landing that short flight that we
1:32:05
Speaker 1: I don't know whether you took that one or not,
1:32:07
Speaker 1: or if you remember, we flew in on those in
1:32:10
Speaker 1: those super cubs. It seemed like it took forever to
1:32:12
Speaker 1: get up there. But then when we were flying out,
1:32:14
Speaker 1: they flew us down to that little strip that was
1:32:16
Speaker 1: only twenty five minutes away or twenty minutes away, and
1:32:19
Speaker 1: that was a had been a mining area there. Um.
1:32:23
Speaker 1: I never did get to see that. I always I
1:32:25
Speaker 1: took the direct flight in and out. Oh you did, man? Yeah,
1:32:29
Speaker 1: Well weren't you lucky? Actually? I mean I I would
1:32:33
Speaker 1: have done that, although it was an interesting experience getting
1:32:35
Speaker 1: to fly in the cessma back out of there because
1:32:37
Speaker 1: you were much higher up and that was a whole Yeah. Man,
1:32:41
Speaker 1: I mean I just still dream about that. But but
1:32:46
Speaker 1: I think that that that when I speak with um.
1:32:52
Speaker 1: So this is sort of and then there's the in between, right,
1:32:55
Speaker 1: So how could you remember? Had a landowner who was
1:32:58
Speaker 1: looking at doing some oak work, oak regeneration work on
1:33:01
Speaker 1: their property, and I took them up into what we
1:33:02
Speaker 1: call the big woods on our property. I was like,
1:33:04
Speaker 1: and we're gonna cut the rest of these trees next year.
1:33:06
Speaker 1: And they're like, how can you do that? It's like
1:33:09
Speaker 1: all you with the chainsaw, you know, and they're like no,
1:33:13
Speaker 1: no, no no, no. What I mean is how could you
1:33:16
Speaker 1: do this to this? These are magnificent trees, and and um,
1:33:21
Speaker 1: I would just want to hold them, and so that
1:33:23
Speaker 1: I took them a little bit and keep them, you know.
1:33:26
Speaker 1: So I took him a little further down to show
1:33:27
Speaker 1: them where some trees had fallen over. I mean, eventually
1:33:30
Speaker 1: they are all going to die. An oak red oak
1:33:32
Speaker 1: tree can live to be I don't know. Somebody will
1:33:34
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong two hundred years old. Um,
1:33:39
Speaker 1: but they aren't all going to live to be that old,
1:33:41
Speaker 1: and the economic peak for them is somewhere between a
1:33:43
Speaker 1: hundred and hundred five. So we left some and we
1:33:46
Speaker 1: took a bunch and we're regenerating. So a hundred years
1:33:49
Speaker 1: from now, hopefully they'll be those trees there again on
1:33:52
Speaker 1: a heavily manipulated landscape. You know, it's already a manipulated
1:33:55
Speaker 1: landscape by man kind. And you know, you look at
1:34:01
Speaker 1: a small property and it's like, well, we don't want
1:34:03
Speaker 1: to do any of that here, totally understand, because you've
1:34:06
Speaker 1: only got ten acres of that kind of woods or
1:34:08
Speaker 1: fifteen acres of that kind of woods. So what's the
1:34:11
Speaker 1: best thing that you can do for that property based
1:34:14
Speaker 1: on all of the or that little chunk of woods,
1:34:16
Speaker 1: based on all of these thoughts that might be in
1:34:17
Speaker 1: your head? Um? Uh. One of the interesting things that
1:34:23
Speaker 1: at least it was interesting to me that when we
1:34:25
Speaker 1: did our first level of the shelter wood, which is
1:34:27
Speaker 1: you take out and take out about six of the
1:34:33
Speaker 1: oaks that are in there, and then we took out
1:34:34
Speaker 1: the other species that we didn't we didn't want to regenerate,
1:34:37
Speaker 1: and we held them back through herbicide applications and some
1:34:40
Speaker 1: other things. Redheaded woodpeckers moved in there, and it was
1:34:44
Speaker 1: for the five years before we did the second it
1:34:47
Speaker 1: was like this haven for redheaded woodpeckers. And it was
1:34:50
Speaker 1: just remarkable to see these giant, tall oaks that had
1:34:54
Speaker 1: grown tall and straight because there had been so many
1:34:56
Speaker 1: of them. They all went to the sunlight, and these
1:34:58
Speaker 1: red headed woodpeckers flying amongst. Well, what happened to those
1:35:01
Speaker 1: woodpeckers after we cut those, Well, they moved on. They
1:35:06
Speaker 1: happen to move on to another part of our A
1:35:07
Speaker 1: lot of them moved down to another part of our
1:35:09
Speaker 1: farm and still are there as part of our woodline.
1:35:11
Speaker 1: But then that was replaced by habitat for ground nesting
1:35:16
Speaker 1: birds and and and other songbirds and and um and
1:35:20
Speaker 1: and other wildlife. So you know, that's why we end
1:35:23
Speaker 1: up with sort of these you know, this balance and
1:35:26
Speaker 1: all of it. And yeah, I agree with you, Mark,
1:35:29
Speaker 1: there's room for all of it. It's interesting. A lot
1:35:32
Speaker 1: of these, a lot of stuff we're talking about the
1:35:35
Speaker 1: idea of management versus leaving some things to nature to
1:35:41
Speaker 1: see where it takes it some of these ideas around
1:35:43
Speaker 1: balance balancing hunting goals with your obligation to the land
1:35:49
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out what the right thing to do.
1:35:52
Speaker 1: And then the idea of like taking in all these
1:35:54
Speaker 1: different people's perspectives to write all these different goals, these
1:35:57
Speaker 1: different perspectives, trying to layer all these front parts getting
1:36:02
Speaker 1: you to some kind of plan of like what the
1:36:04
Speaker 1: hell do I do that this whole thing kind of
1:36:08
Speaker 1: it was like an individual listening. That's what each one
1:36:10
Speaker 1: of us is kind of trying to figure out. We're
1:36:12
Speaker 1: looking at all these layers and ideas and perspectives and
1:36:15
Speaker 1: competing interests and then figuring out what do I do?
1:36:19
Speaker 1: And I personally have been kind of living that experience
1:36:23
Speaker 1: myself over the last you know, six months or whatever
1:36:25
Speaker 1: is that we've been working through the back forty project,
1:36:29
Speaker 1: trying to you know, last year was learning about it,
1:36:31
Speaker 1: and then over the winter it's okay, now what are
1:36:33
Speaker 1: we gonna do? And now over the coming months, um,
1:36:36
Speaker 1: you know, assuming we can get through all this current
1:36:38
Speaker 1: events stuff, hopefully you know, executing on all these ideas.
1:36:42
Speaker 1: And so I've had to you know, here from a
1:36:45
Speaker 1: whole bunch of different people take all their ideas, and
1:36:47
Speaker 1: then I'm trying to filter these ideas through, Okay, through
1:36:50
Speaker 1: what our unique goals are, through what our unique circumstances are,
1:36:54
Speaker 1: through what our unique you know, resource levels are and
1:36:57
Speaker 1: abilities are, and then choosing Okay, I think of all
1:37:00
Speaker 1: these things we could do A, B, C, D, and
1:37:07
Speaker 1: and and now I'm trying to you know, do some
1:37:09
Speaker 1: of that. And you are a huge help in helping
1:37:12
Speaker 1: us come up with some of these ideas and helping
1:37:15
Speaker 1: me think through some of the things we can prioritize
1:37:17
Speaker 1: and how we might be able to do that. Um
1:37:19
Speaker 1: So I'm planning on executing on a number of the
1:37:21
Speaker 1: things you talked about, but um I want to pivot
1:37:25
Speaker 1: to that now. I want to kind of maybe it's
1:37:27
Speaker 1: the right place to end. As we've talked a lot
1:37:29
Speaker 1: of high level stuff. Now we can kind of talk
1:37:30
Speaker 1: some of like the concrete, small actual projects or or
1:37:35
Speaker 1: ideas or thoughts you came out and saw the back
1:37:37
Speaker 1: forty last year. We haven't really got to talk in
1:37:40
Speaker 1: any kind of public way about what you thought about it,
1:37:42
Speaker 1: because you know, we were a whole lot of stuff
1:37:45
Speaker 1: was filmed for the TV show. Very little actually makes
1:37:48
Speaker 1: it into the end episodes. You know. UM, so kind
1:37:51
Speaker 1: of curious. You've had a few months now to stew
1:37:54
Speaker 1: on your experience in the back forty. Um, you took
1:37:58
Speaker 1: a lot of time to put together some great recommendations,
1:38:00
Speaker 1: which we appreciate. I'm kind of just curious looking back
1:38:04
Speaker 1: on it now, what are your thoughts on the place? Uh,
1:38:07
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on I don't know how it
1:38:10
Speaker 1: fits into these bigger issues we've talked about. I'm just
1:38:13
Speaker 1: kind of curious where you're at with the bag, for
1:38:15
Speaker 1: your thoughts on it, your thoughts on the future, thoughts
1:38:18
Speaker 1: and the potential anything like that. And then maybe I'd
1:38:20
Speaker 1: like to dive into a few specific things we're going
1:38:23
Speaker 1: to try to do. Um, but let's start high level. Yeah. Well, um,
1:38:29
Speaker 1: the first thing I would say is that you spent
1:38:32
Speaker 1: I mean, I know, I'm kissing your butt here a
1:38:34
Speaker 1: little bit, but this is a real compliment. You found
1:38:38
Speaker 1: a hell of a nice piece of property. I mean,
1:38:40
Speaker 1: if I was out looking for a property for a
1:38:43
Speaker 1: land or you know, for someone who's interested in buying land,
1:38:45
Speaker 1: I mean, and I didn't look around in that area,
1:38:47
Speaker 1: but it was clear to me that you did. In
1:38:49
Speaker 1: our conversation. I was like, Wow, this is a really
1:38:51
Speaker 1: nice mixed property. Not as much woods as some people
1:38:55
Speaker 1: would like, but when you look at it from five
1:38:57
Speaker 1: thousand feet in that area that it's not like there's
1:38:59
Speaker 1: huge d wooded areas. Um. And so you've got a
1:39:03
Speaker 1: really nice mix of things there on that property. Um.
1:39:07
Speaker 1: And so that's the first compliment that The next one
1:39:10
Speaker 1: is you have been thinking about this a lot in
1:39:13
Speaker 1: the last few months. I mean, I don't know. I
1:39:16
Speaker 1: was over there and went in October and um. Yeah,
1:39:19
Speaker 1: I mean I I don't have it right here in
1:39:21
Speaker 1: front of me because my other my other laptop crash
1:39:24
Speaker 1: and I didn't have I forgot to um to print
1:39:27
Speaker 1: it out. But I do have my notes here. But
1:39:29
Speaker 1: I think I gave you seven pages of thoughts and
1:39:34
Speaker 1: ideas and questions and all of that. And it wasn't
1:39:36
Speaker 1: like you should do this, it's here's something to think about, right.
1:39:41
Speaker 1: And that was because I looked at this when you
1:39:43
Speaker 1: guys had me come over there, um and and let's
1:39:46
Speaker 1: see what we spent. Um. What was that over there?
1:39:49
Speaker 1: For three days? Yeah? Well, you know, two full days
1:39:54
Speaker 1: and our parts of three days whatever, A couple of
1:39:56
Speaker 1: days over a couple of days there. Um, I drove over.
1:39:59
Speaker 1: Then we got here that first afternoon and we had
1:40:01
Speaker 1: that lovely weather, which I actually was a little disappointed,
1:40:05
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I a a little disappointment that there wasn't
1:40:07
Speaker 1: more of us sitting in the rain got cut. That
1:40:11
Speaker 1: was actually a fun I'm glad it happened though, because
1:40:14
Speaker 1: we got to just sit and talk for a while. Yeah.
1:40:17
Speaker 1: Just nice. Well, and um, you proved to me this
1:40:23
Speaker 1: guy knows how to figure out how dear travel. I
1:40:26
Speaker 1: mean I was like every spot I looked at like, okay,
1:40:29
Speaker 1: well you've got to stand out, You've gotta stand over there. Okay,
1:40:32
Speaker 1: you gotta stay. I mean it's just like I was.
1:40:34
Speaker 1: I would put it over there. There wasn't I really
1:40:36
Speaker 1: didn't have any of that. I was like, Wow, Mark
1:40:38
Speaker 1: Kenny really does know deer hunting. So um that was
1:40:43
Speaker 1: really interesting to me. And uh, you know, to sort
1:40:46
Speaker 1: of hear the thought process that you're going through now. Um. Um,
1:40:52
Speaker 1: you know, I'm glad that I was able to give you,
1:40:56
Speaker 1: you know, some things to think about. I just think
1:40:58
Speaker 1: that that that connectivity feature you're going through there where
1:41:01
Speaker 1: the power lane goes through, and and that that stream
1:41:05
Speaker 1: or swamp or whatever you want to call it. I
1:41:06
Speaker 1: mean it seemed like there was water moves through there
1:41:09
Speaker 1: fairly regularly. Wow, water is important. Um, you have that
1:41:13
Speaker 1: nice great bog down in there over there and the
1:41:16
Speaker 1: uh whatever you were calling it, your honey hooleer or whatever.
1:41:19
Speaker 1: You know. So I didn't really get over but get
1:41:20
Speaker 1: the chance to get over by very much. But you know,
1:41:22
Speaker 1: I'm the same way I sell other parts of the
1:41:26
Speaker 1: farm to other people. You know, it would be a
1:41:28
Speaker 1: great place to stand over there, and then I'm over here.
1:41:33
Speaker 1: But you know, fair enough, it was really fun to
1:41:35
Speaker 1: be a guest, because I spent a lot of time
1:41:39
Speaker 1: having guests, you know, in my property or on our property. UM.
1:41:44
Speaker 1: I really liked that it had the egg fields on
1:41:47
Speaker 1: it that were fallow, um, because that's sort of a
1:41:54
Speaker 1: blank canvas for you, right, And I think I encouraged
1:41:59
Speaker 1: you to consider, um, maybe putting some of that back
1:42:03
Speaker 1: into agriculture, because you know what's wrong with a little farming, um,
1:42:08
Speaker 1: And that you know those are, um, you know, sort
1:42:11
Speaker 1: of a neighborhood thing. This guy's already farms over in
1:42:14
Speaker 1: that area. And then some stuff towards the back and man.
1:42:17
Speaker 1: You know, if nothing else it will give you, it
1:42:19
Speaker 1: will be a two or three years before that, um,
1:42:23
Speaker 1: before you really start developing things there, because there's a lot.
1:42:25
Speaker 1: I mean, I gave you a lot. And I know
1:42:27
Speaker 1: with the other folks that you had out there, it
1:42:29
Speaker 1: was you know, it was important. I really liked that
1:42:32
Speaker 1: at the entrance to the property. UM. I think you
1:42:35
Speaker 1: and Steve had talked about pollinator habitat out there and
1:42:38
Speaker 1: he has out there from n rcs. Um. Uh, there
1:42:43
Speaker 1: were some areas that need to be buffered a little
1:42:45
Speaker 1: bit um just and not mean to um close off people,
1:42:52
Speaker 1: but to screen, you know, from an aesthetic standpoint and
1:42:55
Speaker 1: from a wildlife standpoint, to create some screening of know,
1:43:00
Speaker 1: maybe the road the one neighbor and his um, well
1:43:04
Speaker 1: I was junk and then not be able to necessarily
1:43:08
Speaker 1: see his you know, his house and all that kind
1:43:11
Speaker 1: of thing. Um And uh, you know I thought that
1:43:15
Speaker 1: was I think that's one of the big one of
1:43:18
Speaker 1: the first opportunities and I know I talked about that
1:43:21
Speaker 1: during the winter is the opportunity to plant some trees. Um.
1:43:26
Speaker 1: And then it really becomes a question of well, um,
1:43:29
Speaker 1: you know, where do you plant those trees? Uh, you
1:43:32
Speaker 1: do have invasive invasive species control, invasive management. You're not
1:43:36
Speaker 1: going to get rid of them all, um, but I'd
1:43:39
Speaker 1: love to see you get rid of some of the
1:43:41
Speaker 1: autumn olive. It wasn't buck thorn. What did I not say?
1:43:46
Speaker 1: I think that buck thorn is the worst, But there
1:43:47
Speaker 1: are some autumnile of especially in that Honey Hoole area. Yeah.
1:43:51
Speaker 1: And so the big thing there is when you take
1:43:54
Speaker 1: something like that out, is you're gonna leave a hole,
1:43:58
Speaker 1: um and keep that and keep that invasive out or
1:44:02
Speaker 1: non native you know, sort of one man's invasive might
1:44:06
Speaker 1: be another man's non native, right, But I mean and
1:44:10
Speaker 1: then and then that would be you know, sort of
1:44:12
Speaker 1: a spot where you might, let's think about introducing some
1:44:15
Speaker 1: some native in there, um that that maybe have gotten
1:44:18
Speaker 1: shoved out by by all those invasives or not. Um. Uh.
1:44:24
Speaker 1: You know the other thing that I don't know if
1:44:26
Speaker 1: I mentioned this one. We were talking, and I'm pretty
1:44:28
Speaker 1: sure I put it into into the report that I
1:44:32
Speaker 1: sent you. But it was like all the other possibilities
1:44:36
Speaker 1: and stuff that I honestly don't know that much about
1:44:39
Speaker 1: what I'm learning about all the time. And that is
1:44:41
Speaker 1: like from the perspective of some of these gatherer uh
1:44:45
Speaker 1: and forager types. Um. There's a woman out in Maine
1:44:49
Speaker 1: named General Rose l who I follow her on Instagram
1:44:53
Speaker 1: and UH have kind of, you know, catted with her
1:44:56
Speaker 1: a bunch, and I'd love to get her perspective on this,
1:44:58
Speaker 1: because I mean she's she's living off the land, and yeah,
1:45:01
Speaker 1: she hunts and everything too, but it's all of these
1:45:03
Speaker 1: other things that um, you and I might just look
1:45:06
Speaker 1: at from the standpoint of you know, it's just what
1:45:10
Speaker 1: is that? And I mean she sees the benefit of it,
1:45:13
Speaker 1: and where our perspective might be, well that's a problem. Um.
1:45:16
Speaker 1: I think she says something like, you know, and the
1:45:18
Speaker 1: war on weeds. Um. And then there's this this cat
1:45:21
Speaker 1: here in uh in Wisconsin, mushroom Mike, and um, you know,
1:45:26
Speaker 1: he's a guy who's actually built a business around he's
1:45:28
Speaker 1: actually growing mushrooms. And I think Stephen contacted me a
1:45:33
Speaker 1: while ago, and when was that he had talked about?
1:45:36
Speaker 1: Was hey, man, what were those mushrooms that you grow?
1:45:38
Speaker 1: And shintaki mushrooms? You know, just kind of a cool
1:45:41
Speaker 1: thing that somebody can do on their property and it's
1:45:43
Speaker 1: something that's edible on all of that, and so Mike
1:45:45
Speaker 1: has sort of taken that, um perspective of stuff that
1:45:49
Speaker 1: you can forage and mushrooms you can find in the woods,
1:45:51
Speaker 1: and I've learned a bunch from him. I gotta get
1:45:53
Speaker 1: that dude out here too, um because I don't know
1:45:56
Speaker 1: my wild mushrooms as as well as I as I could,
1:45:58
Speaker 1: and I know stuff is going to quote unquote waste
1:46:01
Speaker 1: right um uh, but those kinds of opportunities are are
1:46:06
Speaker 1: there too? Um, So you know what to do first?
1:46:11
Speaker 1: I guess is the is the what you're really getting at, right? Well,
1:46:15
Speaker 1: there's yeah, that's that's the trick, is what to do
1:46:18
Speaker 1: first and what to fit into the small time we have. Um.
1:46:22
Speaker 1: But I before I forget, I got to dig in
1:46:24
Speaker 1: a little bit more in the mushroom thing, because because
1:46:27
Speaker 1: that is something we want to try. Um. It's kind
1:46:30
Speaker 1: of a fun little thing. Steve was mentioning this to me.
1:46:34
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe you're the one who told them about it.
1:46:36
Speaker 1: Is it true that we can actually spread mushroom spores
1:46:40
Speaker 1: proactively where we want them and get more mushrooms to
1:46:43
Speaker 1: grow in our place, almost like we're planting a crop,
1:46:48
Speaker 1: but in a mushroom spore inoculation kind of way or
1:46:50
Speaker 1: whatever whatever the right verbages. UM maybe UM, I don't
1:46:56
Speaker 1: have UM when I when I started talking about hittackey
1:47:01
Speaker 1: mushrooms or lions main, which is another one. UM that's
1:47:04
Speaker 1: actually taking a UM, like a four foot stick of
1:47:10
Speaker 1: wood and in your case would be okay, I've used
1:47:12
Speaker 1: iron wood and oak too, and then um, you actually
1:47:15
Speaker 1: inoculate those specific logs um, And I just have to
1:47:20
Speaker 1: be frank, I don't. I don't have enough knowledge about
1:47:23
Speaker 1: spreading sports. I've read and seeing people who have said
1:47:26
Speaker 1: they've done it with morales um, and uh, boy, there's
1:47:31
Speaker 1: there's a whole lot of people who know way more
1:47:33
Speaker 1: about that than than I do. And that is something
1:47:36
Speaker 1: that um that this guy Mike would be Uh, it's
1:47:41
Speaker 1: something we kind of want to just give a shot
1:47:43
Speaker 1: as a a fun, little different way to get some
1:47:47
Speaker 1: different types of food from the place you know well, right,
1:47:49
Speaker 1: And and then the other ones that I had mentioned
1:47:52
Speaker 1: to Steve, he he texts me when must have been
1:47:54
Speaker 1: talking about or been at that time, because you know,
1:47:56
Speaker 1: it's like random, He's just like randomly texts me question
1:48:00
Speaker 1: and it's never how you're doing it. Yeah, Yeah, I
1:48:07
Speaker 1: need something from you. Um, but I love those. I
1:48:10
Speaker 1: love those. Uh. I love it when he reaches out
1:48:13
Speaker 1: to me like that. But I was talking about also,
1:48:15
Speaker 1: you know, like they're near your entry. You know, sort
1:48:18
Speaker 1: of traditional um farmstead kind of stuff, like starting an
1:48:22
Speaker 1: asparagus patch, um uh, which doesn't take much. You know,
1:48:26
Speaker 1: it's a little bit of a little bit of jimmy
1:48:29
Speaker 1: dicking around, but it's it's it's not that much. Or
1:48:31
Speaker 1: planting um um, very varieties that are still going to
1:48:36
Speaker 1: provide you know, cover and all those sort of things.
1:48:39
Speaker 1: But you know, um um planning some berry bushes because
1:48:44
Speaker 1: you've got all that edge, right, Um, there's so much
1:48:47
Speaker 1: edge between the property in within the property, those those
1:48:51
Speaker 1: wind or the field rows and uh rocks rocks and
1:48:57
Speaker 1: all the trees and stuff, and you've got stands in
1:48:59
Speaker 1: them and all that. Um but though and and so
1:49:02
Speaker 1: those are the kinds of things too that could be
1:49:03
Speaker 1: a part of that. Right. So you're planting, you're planting
1:49:07
Speaker 1: stuff that is forageible you know over time. Our rhubarbus
1:49:12
Speaker 1: I mean it sounds crazy, but rubarb is another one
1:49:14
Speaker 1: we plant. We have a rubarb patch out at the
1:49:16
Speaker 1: farm and it's just sort of what there wasn't any
1:49:18
Speaker 1: you know, for a long time. And it's just sort
1:49:20
Speaker 1: of one of those things that you put it in
1:49:21
Speaker 1: the ground. It kind of takes care of itself. And
1:49:23
Speaker 1: if you don't, um, you don't harvest it all or whatever,
1:49:27
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. I mean, it just does what it does.
1:49:30
Speaker 1: And asparagus, wild asparagus, you know, grows in the ditches
1:49:33
Speaker 1: and stuff. Why not why not you know, have some
1:49:36
Speaker 1: there near the entry that you know you pull in
1:49:39
Speaker 1: because you've got that just that cool little spot where
1:49:42
Speaker 1: you pull in. And I know we talked about a
1:49:43
Speaker 1: building and you know a bunch of other things too, um,
1:49:47
Speaker 1: and stuff that be handy right there, so um, you
1:49:50
Speaker 1: know that would be one the spoor thing. I'll have
1:49:52
Speaker 1: to uh, I'll make a note of that and and
1:49:57
Speaker 1: and see if I can hook you up with somebody
1:49:59
Speaker 1: that um. Um, Well, I've kept you longer than I expected, Doug, um,
1:50:06
Speaker 1: so sorry about that. I know you've got stuff to do.
1:50:10
Speaker 1: Could you give us just a real little bit of
1:50:16
Speaker 1: insight into the tree planning thing though, because that's one
1:50:19
Speaker 1: of the first things that I want to do and
1:50:21
Speaker 1: especially use your help to do it. Um. I feel
1:50:24
Speaker 1: like there's this idea that you have to plant that
1:50:26
Speaker 1: you can only plant these little itty bitty seedlings and
1:50:29
Speaker 1: that's gonna take ten years before you get anything out
1:50:31
Speaker 1: of it. But you shared with me the fact that
1:50:34
Speaker 1: you know there are some kinds of ways you can
1:50:36
Speaker 1: get park grade trees and with some equipment you can
1:50:39
Speaker 1: actually get some bigger, some bigger plants out on the
1:50:43
Speaker 1: landscape to to do some things you talked about, creating structure,
1:50:46
Speaker 1: creating screening cover. Can you give me like the really
1:50:49
Speaker 1: quick overview on that, because that's something that when you
1:50:51
Speaker 1: get out here, hopefully, um, we're gonna dive a lot into.
1:50:55
Speaker 1: So I kind of want to set the stage. Yeah.
1:50:57
Speaker 1: So one of the things that you property was lacking,
1:51:01
Speaker 1: if that's the right word, is a is a you know,
1:51:04
Speaker 1: is evergreen cover. And man, um that I think it's
1:51:10
Speaker 1: vital for all kinds of wild wildlife because um, that
1:51:14
Speaker 1: evergreen cover gives deer a place to bed. You know,
1:51:16
Speaker 1: it's thermal cover and and all that's that sort of thing.
1:51:20
Speaker 1: I'll say a couple of things, Um, you can buy generally, um,
1:51:25
Speaker 1: and of course I've been in this business for a
1:51:26
Speaker 1: long time. You can buy what are called part gray trees,
1:51:29
Speaker 1: which are not ones that anybody's gonna plant in the
1:51:31
Speaker 1: front yard and go, you know, that's a specimen, right,
1:51:33
Speaker 1: that's the perfect specimen of that UM. But when trees
1:51:36
Speaker 1: get planted in these plantations, they um, you know, some
1:51:41
Speaker 1: of them getting misformed, and and uh they just aren't
1:51:45
Speaker 1: you know, aren't necessarily the specimen tree. UM. You can
1:51:49
Speaker 1: generally buy those at a discounted rate. UM. I know
1:51:54
Speaker 1: you had talked about our vida northern white cedar, which
1:51:59
Speaker 1: I think I sent you some notes about what might
1:52:01
Speaker 1: consume with is with them, I mean, they're they're great cover,
1:52:04
Speaker 1: they grow quick, they're you know, they're they're going to ground.
1:52:07
Speaker 1: But the deer also really like to eat them, and
1:52:09
Speaker 1: you can really see that as a problem. UM. But
1:52:14
Speaker 1: that you know that that would be one UM I
1:52:16
Speaker 1: liked to tend towards the natives. You know, white pine
1:52:20
Speaker 1: um is a great one. And I was telling you
1:52:23
Speaker 1: earlier about those trees that I planted with my daughter.
1:52:26
Speaker 1: That was just she's getting her master's degree five years
1:52:30
Speaker 1: and so it was a she was a senior in
1:52:31
Speaker 1: high school and we planted eighteen inch seedlings and we
1:52:34
Speaker 1: cut six and a half seven foot white pines UM
1:52:38
Speaker 1: this year for um for our Christmas trees. UM. So
1:52:42
Speaker 1: they do grow fast, but a mix, so a mix
1:52:45
Speaker 1: of that would be a great opportunity. Um. And so
1:52:48
Speaker 1: those trees will be bald and burlapped. And we were
1:52:52
Speaker 1: you and I had kind of identified a couple of
1:52:54
Speaker 1: spots where um, you know you've got like an exposure.
1:52:58
Speaker 1: You can almost open it up that there would be
1:53:00
Speaker 1: like a southwest exposure and those evergreen trees would create
1:53:04
Speaker 1: this this wind break and uh, thermal cover for for
1:53:09
Speaker 1: deer and other animals to go in there in bed.
1:53:11
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you man, um, that's also a great
1:53:15
Speaker 1: place to find sheds because that's where they go and
1:53:16
Speaker 1: hole up in the winters. So if I know you
1:53:20
Speaker 1: were working on that, um uh that and I hope
1:53:25
Speaker 1: that we get the chance to plant trees because uh
1:53:28
Speaker 1: um you know, both big and small. I mean that
1:53:30
Speaker 1: might be a good way of looking at that, right
1:53:31
Speaker 1: is let's get some five and six ft um uh
1:53:35
Speaker 1: part grade uh you know, pine spruce UM and arbovitas
1:53:40
Speaker 1: or cedars and uh and then eastern cedars the other
1:53:44
Speaker 1: one to which there might be some people cringing out
1:53:46
Speaker 1: there right now because they are. It's a native, but
1:53:49
Speaker 1: they tend to invade. They tend to spread pretty quickly. Um,
1:53:54
Speaker 1: but they don't get like. White cedar is soft and
1:53:57
Speaker 1: deer like to eat them. Red cedar and not so soft,
1:53:59
Speaker 1: and deer don't like the them quite as much. They
1:54:01
Speaker 1: I'll beat them at all actually, um, and then maybe
1:54:05
Speaker 1: get some smaller ones too, you know, so that um,
1:54:08
Speaker 1: you know, five years from now that there will be
1:54:10
Speaker 1: these You know, you're impacting a bigger area, and I
1:54:12
Speaker 1: know the idea is that this property is going to
1:54:14
Speaker 1: be given away, but um, in the short and long term,
1:54:18
Speaker 1: you know, short, we have a short term impact and
1:54:20
Speaker 1: a longer term impact as well. Term exactly what we
1:54:24
Speaker 1: want to do is to attend to both of those
1:54:26
Speaker 1: time time rangers. So well, hopefully things that cleared up
1:54:30
Speaker 1: here soon and later with the virus and travel begins again,
1:54:35
Speaker 1: and uh, you and I can spend some time digging
1:54:37
Speaker 1: holes and planting trees. So yeah, right on, man, I
1:54:42
Speaker 1: mean it's easy for me to you know, I don't
1:54:44
Speaker 1: have to fly to come over there through well and
1:54:46
Speaker 1: figure that all out. And um, the captured creative guys
1:54:51
Speaker 1: if they want to, um, you know, come down and
1:54:54
Speaker 1: ride over together something like that. I'll keep can't keep
1:54:57
Speaker 1: six you can put you can put Jordan in the
1:54:59
Speaker 1: bed of the truck. About that, well, Doug, thank you,
1:55:06
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you for taking so much time to
1:55:08
Speaker 1: talk through all this stuff. Um. It was just what
1:55:12
Speaker 1: I personally needed, was a palate cleanser. But then also
1:55:15
Speaker 1: a little bit of the therapy session at the beginning
1:55:17
Speaker 1: to kind of air out some of the thoughts on
1:55:19
Speaker 1: everything going on. UM, Hey, I know you've got some
1:55:22
Speaker 1: cool stuff going on with your own Um, with your
1:55:26
Speaker 1: own stuff. Is there anyone Is there anywhere you want
1:55:27
Speaker 1: to point folks to keep up on new products you're
1:55:31
Speaker 1: working on, or to connect with you or anything else
1:55:34
Speaker 1: like that you want to share with folks. I appreciate that. UM,
1:55:37
Speaker 1: yeah you can, um, folks, you can find me on
1:55:39
Speaker 1: Instagram at Doug Durham. Simple enough. UM. I have a
1:55:44
Speaker 1: new web website that is under development, and along with
1:55:48
Speaker 1: that there will be some merchandise that I have been
1:55:50
Speaker 1: promising um for a while with the it's not ours,
1:55:54
Speaker 1: it's just our turn um theme. UM. So you keep
1:55:58
Speaker 1: an eye on me on Instagram. I mean that will
1:56:00
Speaker 1: be coming up, but we hope to have that all
1:56:01
Speaker 1: launched in the next couple of weeks. Um actually looking
1:56:04
Speaker 1: at some kind of cool refrigerator magnance we're sent to me. Um,
1:56:08
Speaker 1: but we'll have um um, we'll have that up real soon.
1:56:13
Speaker 1: And and uh yeah, the Instagram is the best place
1:56:15
Speaker 1: to keep tracking me right now. And then the website
1:56:18
Speaker 1: will be up soon and and I will have some merchandise,
1:56:20
Speaker 1: and and that may show up in another The merchandise,
1:56:24
Speaker 1: uh will likely be showing up in another location as well.
1:56:27
Speaker 1: So well, I guess we'll leave it at that. Very cool. Well,
1:56:31
Speaker 1: I've seen the shirts and hats. They look pretty awesome, dougs.
1:56:33
Speaker 1: So I'm digging what you're doing and appreciate your continued,
1:56:39
Speaker 1: uh your continued efforts to educate people, to inspire people,
1:56:43
Speaker 1: sharing your experiences in your knowledge. It's it's making a difference,
1:56:47
Speaker 1: and it's it's helped me all out too, So so
1:56:50
Speaker 1: thank you for all that, Doug. Yeah man. And in
1:56:52
Speaker 1: the same you, uh, I just I like looking at
1:56:58
Speaker 1: things from your perspective, hearing your perspective on things as well,
1:57:01
Speaker 1: and uh um it keeps things fresh for me and
1:57:05
Speaker 1: and and you know, remembering that perspectives are important, and
1:57:11
Speaker 1: I look forward to it again. A bunch of stuff
1:57:13
Speaker 1: we didn't get to and I asked people on AM
1:57:15
Speaker 1: if there was anything they want us to talk about.
1:57:17
Speaker 1: We touched on some of them. That sounds good. Well
1:57:19
Speaker 1: here late in May, let's let's hopefully still get together.
1:57:23
Speaker 1: We'll plant some trees, we'll do another podcast and uh, well,
1:57:26
Speaker 1: a good time. All right, Thanks again, Doug stays safe,
1:57:29
Speaker 1: good bye, take care buddy, And that's a wrap. So
1:57:32
Speaker 1: thank you for listening, and until next time, I just
1:57:34
Speaker 1: hope all of you can stay safe, stay healthy, wash
1:57:39
Speaker 1: your hands, follow the guidelines, be smart, but also stay positive,
1:57:44
Speaker 1: get outside, enjoy the great outdoors. Things. Things are gonna
1:57:48
Speaker 1: be okay if we can work through this together and
1:57:50
Speaker 1: be smart about things. So I'm gonna be crossed all
1:57:54
Speaker 1: my fingers and toes and keep it after it here
1:57:56
Speaker 1: with the Wire Dump podcast and all the content over
1:57:59
Speaker 1: at meat Eat, we're gonna be pumping out as much
1:58:01
Speaker 1: as we possibly can to uh, to keep you guys excited,
1:58:05
Speaker 1: to keep you informed and educated and entertained and uh
1:58:08
Speaker 1: and smiling too. So thank you for being here with us,
1:58:11
Speaker 1: and until next time, stay wired to hunt