Ep. 141: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Kids and the Outdoors (Part 2)

Welcome to this Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reaves. From Coon Hutton to Trot Line and in just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share my stories and country skills that will help you beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as part of Meet Eaters podcast network bringing you the best outdoor podcast the Airways have done. Alright friends, pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I think I got a thing or two to teach you. Kids and Outdoors Part 2. I'm passing the platter with a second help on the kids and outdoors. It doesn't take a lot to get them interested and you can be a minimalist or go all-in with what your activities are. The key is to just find something that they'll enjoy and benefit from and get gone doing it. I've got some good information to share so y'all get easy and listen up but first I'm going to tell you a story. Since we're talking about kids and outdoors I figured I'd share this one. Tim's boys, my nephews were 14 and 11 and wanted to go coon hunt with me one night 30 years ago. I was hunting with a friend of mine David Boudre, the same friend that I was hunting with a few months later when we saw a mountain line less than two miles from where this incident took place. Now that was the second sighting of my existence and David's first but that's another story. David and I had driven down to Tim's to hunt the bottoms behind his house. David lived an hour away and our work schedule's only allowed us to hunt a few times a month so we tried to take advantage of every opportunity. I didn't have a dog then and as long as it wasn't raining you could just about bed we were gonna go. Had we been able to hunt more I'm sure we wouldn't go on that night because the wind was howling like crazy but it wasn't raining so we were going. We stopped in Tim's to visit before we cut loose and to get Matthew and Will. Nothing could have made me happier. These two hooligans were and are just like my own sons and taking them with me was going to be just as much fun for me as it was going to be fun for them or so I thought. The boys each had a couple diesel flashlights and it didn't really matter. David and I had good lights and they were going to be walking with us anyway so we left the house on foot. We walked across the gravel road next to the creek and David cut his old house spot and loose. It wasn't long before he struck in Traylon to come. Now normally we would have just stood our ground and listened for him to tree and then casually walked to him picking our way through the easiest route through the woods but the wind was blowing so hard that we basically had to go with the dog to hear him. Some of the walking was good but some of it was pretty rough. Briars and old tree tops from where some timber had been cut a year so before made a challenge in for me and David. Much more so for Matthew and Will. Added the fact that we were having to move at a pretty good pace to keep up with spot greatly enhanced the degree of difficulty. We followed that ham for the better part of an hour back and forth and then circles trying to keep up with him. We'd walk close to a mile by then I'm sure but we had moved off the same 20 acres that we started out on. Spot eventually made a tree in there and when we got to it we saw a big old hole in it. We looked and looked for that cone but never found it figuring that he was in a dent which is where we all should have been the wind hadn't let up an inch. David pulled spot off that tree he recast him and he didn't go far before opening up on a track and took off like he was late for work. We were fixing to have to get the wagon hitch to keep up with him and there was no way those boys were going to be able to go. So I made a decision. A decision at the time I thought was right and best for all involved. To this day I regret it. I walked to a little gap in the trees and pointed to the night light that was visible and what I thought would be an easy five-minute walk and I said something to the fact that boys there's your house. Me and David are going to have to chase this dog and y'all ain't going to be able to keep up. You can get home from here can't you? I wished a million times over the years that I had that opportunity again. They were my responsibility. My brother had allowed me to take his only two children into the dark of night. Feeling confident I would take care of him and I didn't. Believe me when I say I almost didn't tell this door because I'm ashamed of it. What little fourth thought I put into it. I've trained my whole professional career for the worst case scenario. Evaluating and considering every possible negative circumstance that could occur and to recognize it worked through their problem for the best solution. It didn't matter if it was a simple traffic stop on the highway or a high-risk entry into a nest of bad folks. I was supposed to be thinking two moves ahead but this was just a kuna. What could go wrong? If I had that opportunity again I'd say boys there's your house. Y'all come with me and David's going to go with spot and that's where this story would have ended but that's not what happened. They looked at me and said yes sir we can make it there we can go and all they went in a beeline straight for that night light that was burning in their front yard their flashlights leading the way until they got out of sight and when they did I turned my back to him and took off to catch up with David and that dog. Now it wasn't like walking in a park. They had to cross a shallow creek and weave their way back to the gravel road. We'll got hung up in some saw briars and waited water over the top of his boots and then the batteries and the flashlights started fading out. Then they lost sight of the night light and they got turned around and then they got scared and I would have been too. The night was black as four foot up a bull's behind and the wind was relentless. Their daddy'd always told them if they ever got lost in the woods around their house that all they had to do was walk till they hit the road or found the creek. If they hit the creek all they had to do was follow it downstream and it would pass right in front of their house. Now that was a one hundred percent tree but they weren't in the woods where they normally played. They were across the road from their house and on this side of the road the creek fork and one went to the road and one fork went deeper in the woods toward a big beaver pond near that mile away. Well guess which one they too. And they didn't make a choice and and take the wrong fork they were walking down the creek in the dark and that's just where they ended up going. Forty-five minutes later Dave and I had spot by the collar and we were walking back toward the road when I thought I heard someone holler. We stopped and listened and every now and then we could hear through the wind we could hear a man holler. I thought it sounded like Tim and then I got scared. I hollered back and I took off toward where he was. When I got to the road and saw the boys weren't with him my heart sank out of my chest and I felt sick to my stomach. Dave and I headed back toward where we'd last seen him and Tim took off around the other side of the block of woods we were hunting and on the road that went on the other side of the beaver pond. I've been scared a few times in my life as a direct result of my profession. Sometimes with no warning I'll think about one of those times and when I do they give me the chills and for a moment I'm right back in that place again. That night is one of them. David and I didn't find him but Tim did. They heard him yelling and they walked out to him on the road nearly a mile from where they'd gotten turned around. Other than being scared they were okay but I wasn't and I'm still not. The lesson here is this we should prepare our kids for these scenarios and had they been prepared it wouldn't have been a problem sending them off without proper equipment was my fault. The least thing I should have done was give them my light but I didn't think their lights would start going out but they did. I also didn't think they'd lose sight of that night light and get turned around but they did. Adding to the confusion was the wind that made it nearly impossible to communicate from very far away. The biggest thing was I didn't hold up my end of being the adult. I had checked those two rascals out of my brother's inventory and it wasn't up to them to check themselves back in. That was all on me. In spite of everything I failed to do that night they lived. Now they've got a house full of youngins too and believe it or not none of them have ever asked to go could not win. It was a wonderful act of inclusion to want those boys to go with me and a terrible lapse in judgment that could have gotten them hurt. I learned a valuable lesson that night and that's just how it happened. In part one of kids outdoors I gave a few basic ways to pry those grocery goblins off the couch and out of the house. If you're just tuning in it's a simple recipe. Find something that they can do with you and go do it. Remember it don't have to be technical or labor intensive. Nature walks are just sitting on the porch watching the world go by and beats just about anything on TV except of course for that one show that's based out of Montana. It's about a group of folks going outside in places all over the world getting close enough to nature to literally take a bite out of it. It's my favorite. Oh and the guy that started it all published a book about getting kids outside it's called Ketchik Krayfish Count the Stars. It's pretty sporty and he'd be the first to tell you get outside first and watch us second. So I learned something this week. Y'all remember my friend Terry Garner? He was the guy I met trial fishing that I talked about in my podcast entitled The Power of Hello. If you haven't already I suggest you listen to it it's one of my favorites but until you do let me give you a quick review. I went fly fishing one day after suddenly deciding I was a fly fisherman and I quickly found out I wasn't after seeing a guy fishing near me gracefully catch fish like orchestrated by a lay while I caught nothing and looked like I was sword fighting with the invisible man. We met on the bank and made friends. Good friends. Terry married up. He outkicked his coverage as they say. His wife Terry spelled T-A-R-I is a Jedi princess of the fly rod herself and a dynamo educator who retired after 40 years. Her retirement lasted about as long as my patience with a possum tree and dog and she went to work for a nonprofit called Outdoors Tomorrow Foundation. Man I have been doing some digging and talking to Miss Terry about it and this program is fantastic. It's a whole curriculum geared for all students K through 12. Okay Brent it's a good program. How will it help my kids at home when they're doing these activities at school? Well I'll tell you simply by stirring their interest and getting them involved in projects that creates motion in their bodies and exercises their brain beyond cartoons and an app on a tablet all while teaching them a skill. Getting them interested in school will keep them interested at home. It's a fact that kids who spend more time outside away from electronics have fewer sleep issues feel better about themselves and have better academic scores. Now that last one requires a disclaimer from yours truly. If you spend all your time outside and none inside studying it made negatively affect your academic scores. My problem in school was I was more interested in what was going on outside than inside and that's true today for me. But you can have a healthy balance of both apparently I've seen it from my kids. But children whose first exposure to the outdoors is at school go home and get their parents and siblings interested and the next thing you know we got a whole new group of folks participating and supporting all the things that we like to do. It's like being in a major leagues and having an endless supply of minor leagueers working their way up through the system. Reva Hansen the wizard behind the curtain who edits this podcast is going to put a link for the outdoors tomorrow foundation website in the show description and for y'all that are two ladies to look it up or two technically challenge like yours truly get your pencil ready. It's www.gotf.com. They've got nearly 40 activities that they teach kids. I'm positive there's something in there for everyone. Show it to your kids teachers your school board the PTO and get these folks to look at it. It's really good. You know my son Hunter who I talked about in part 1 when the deer ran out and jumped between him and me dad and my brother Tim. He told me once that he felt cheated not getting to grow up like I did which was basically Farrell showing up at the trough at feeding times and when I was finished only to wander back out into the wilderness. Unfortunately for him I couldn't make a living on a small farm like I grew up on with the job I had. We had to move occasionally. He didn't have the opportunity to organically acquire these skills when he wasn't with me the way I did when I was out on my own roaming the countryside. He was solely dependent on my schedule and when I could take him. We didn't live on the old home place or near any of any of my family that could have substituted for me when I was off playing cops and robbers. This program would have been tailor-made for him and others like him. I really encourage you to get your schools involved to to check this out. Miss Terry will be glad to talk to any of you and all of you and the school administrators. You can reach her at Terry at geootf.com. That's T-A-R-I-A-T-G-O-O-T-F.com. All right I've been rambling on and we haven't gone a long time without telling the stories I'm going to tell you one. Hunter was badgering me one Sunday afternoon after church to go fishing and I eventually cave down to the pressure and loaded all our fishing gear including his and we headed to the river. We stopped to visit with our friends at the bait shop and bought some crickets. It was the middle of the afternoon so instead of taking a boat we decided we'd just fish from the new dock just down from the boat ramp. Hunter was six years old and all boy. We got to the fishing dock. We got our fishing poles red and our hooks abated and started fishing and Hunter hadn't had his fishing pole in his hand long enough to catch fish when he decided he's got to pee. And being a boy of six who was famous for waiting until the last minute he needed to pee right now. Daddy I got to pee. He threw his fishing pole at me. I told him I said just pee off the dock. It wasn't anyone around and judging by the way he announced his current condition I don't think he would have cared or had enough time to relocate. He let it rip. Redder Dair could have put him to work putting out all the well fires with what he had generating over there. I went back to fishing hypnotized by my cork that was starting to get a little action. Then he hollered. Ow! Some bit me. I looked over where he was standing and I saw a red wolf about the size of a hummingbird flying away. Oh no. The little man has gotten stung. That turned out to be the understatement of the decade. Where to get you bud was the blue jean still around his knees. He turned towards me and to look on his face told me exactly where he been stung. Whammo. Right in the wrong place to get stung. I remember thinking this is not good. Hunter started squallowing and I wanted to after looking at that sting. It looked bad. And I figured we'd probably gonna have to get this looked at so we loaded it up and we headed to the bait shop and our first aid kit. Our friend at the bait shop gave me some of those antiseptic ampules that you break and apply to the sting that would hopefully relieve some of the pain. I called the head to the doctor's office to tell him what had happened and then we were on the way. The male nurse that answered the phone asked me what the problem was and I said well my son got stung by a wasp. He said is he allergic? I said no. He said is he getting nauseated or having any trouble breathing? I said nope. And it was just a wasp thing. I said yep and I could sense his disbelief and why I was bringing a boy to the doctor for a simple wasp thing when he wasn't allergic showing any signs of being allergic. He said well okay birdie gets stung and I told him and he went oh man got you y'all come on. On the way to the doctor's office Hunter says that it's more comfortable for him to take off his bridges. The blue jeans apparently were applying pressure to his wound and the freedom he now enjoyed sporting a wife beater t-shirt and sponge bob boxers afforded him the luxury of being mostly pain free. After having at the doctor's office he settled in the chair in the waiting room while I filled out the catalog of questions that go with seeing the doctor. Finishing the history of the world as I knew it for the insurance company I turned around to check on my little buddy to see him sitting in a seat with each leg spread apart and resting on the arms of the chair reading the newspaper. Make yourself at home son. In relatively short order they call us back to one of the exam rooms. Hunter's doctor walks in reading his chart and as he's sitting down on his stool with a slight grin he says oh man what happened to you. Hunter never cracked a smile. The little guy stood up dropped his boxers to his ankles points and says take a look at this. Exposing his offended appendage that now resembled an airport win sock on the windswept plains of Oklahoma. Then he starts telling the good doctor of the story beginning about his first birthday and hitting most of the highlights and finally getting to the part where the wasp dug him in the nether regions after about five minutes. The doctor's eyes were starting to glaze over 100 finally finished the story and season the break the doctor said well you're going to be all right. I'm going to give you some medicine so you won't get sick from this thing. It was just a walk. The doctor's funny stool around from Hunter and he was reaching for his chart when Hunter tapped him on the shoulder and he said actually I thought a sniper got me with a 22. I thought that doctor was going to have a stroke laughing. He fell off his stool and was banging his fist on the floor of the exam room and I couldn't catch my breath. I looked over at my son standing there with his drawers down to his ankles, hands propped up on his hips and grinning like his next lamb was going to be thanks. I'll be here all week. Be sure to tip your weightresses. Kids and outdoors it's a magical elixir for memories and the good ones always outnumber the not so good ones. My wounded warriors are registered nurse now. He graduated nursing school at the beginning of the pandemic and was thrown into the fire of working ICU for a year and a half. He'll be married in a few months and one day he may have some grocery goblins of his own. If he does I hope he looks back on those times with me as much reverence as I do with him. I texted him a few minutes ago and asked him that now since he's been a nurse, has he seen any similar injuries to people like the one he received the day we went fishing? His four-word response summed up the severity of that wilderness trauma so many years ago perfectly. None that lived, dad. I thank you all for listening. Get some kids and get outside. You'll both be glad you do. This is Brent Reaves signing off. Y'all be careful.