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This show is about everything in the great outdoors of the great Midwest, how to enjoy it, what to do while you're out there, get.
You rear-end off the couch and get outdoors.
Take what you have outside and put it on your dinner table.
And that is why this show is so fortunate to have an acclaimed French culinary and as the co-host of the show, Chef Ellie Lawton, Chef Lawton.
We couldn't do without you.
Bonjour.
Wow, you've been studying your French.
Yeah, I got one word.
Well, that's better than none.
Yeah.
I
Sarah Marinas is here.
Sarah is our homesteader.
And she comes up with some pretty awesome ideas of how to homestead stuff.
I don't even know like what kind of category homesteading is, Sarah, but I think that it just means like doing cool stuff with like basic bone stuff, right?
I can't believe it.
Shelby Christensen is here and Ashlyn Whitting is here.
What an exciting show this is going to be because these two women are somewhat new to the outdoors, new to hunting.
One of them, I'm not going to tell you which one yet, is new to not
Wait, I'm saying this backward is not a vegan anymore.
I think
that
what it
to harvest
That's also extremely exciting to me.
And the other one is an at home do it yourself.
Learn from scratch.
taxidermist.
How cool is that?
That's like, that's like so cool.
I mean, it's, I'll be honest, it's one step away from Jeffrey, Jeffrey Dahmer a little bit.
I did.
I took my kids outside and played in the mud and then wonderful.
Yeah, we planted our beautiful little garden.
How old are your kids?
I've got one that's three.
One is going to be five on Monday somehow.
And I have a nine year old.
Wow.
Good for you.
Yeah, we loved
I am very very much outman today.
We've got an entire panel of
one, two, three, four, five women and me.
And I do find that from time to time as the ratio increases on me, that's the more I get made fun of.
So I'm ready for it, Sarah Marinas.
However, this one, I'm going to give you some baloney on.
Tell me about what happened to you this week.
So I volunteer at two of my kids Gala for like four years now and have never gotten
This year, I got to go, and somebody gifted me with two golden tickets.
And it was fun.
Raffle tickets.
Yeah, raffle tickets.
If you win, you get to pick, you get to skip any live auction item, and you just get it.
So I would have gotten it for
Yeah.
So there was a trip to Hawaii worth $9,500, and that's what my husband really wanted, a luxury vacation.
I bet he did.
And there were a lot of practical things for a family of six with more children.
Yeah, I know where this is Sarah.
So they call my name.
I black out.
I go full blown prices.
Right.
I'm screaming up and down.
That's me.
That's me.
I'm
to Hawaii.
So call in.
Somebody has a connection somewhere cool, and I'm willing to go.
It's that time of year!
It's your one stop shop for everything in the great outdoors of the great Midwest from bringing food and forage to your kitchen table, how to enjoy the outdoors, and we try to explain it in a fairly simple, enjoyable, fun way.
We sure laugh at ourselves, so come along with us and laugh.
with us.
We've got a couple of guests today that I'm really excited to get to.
But first, I want to talk about my wild of the week.
I had one of the most awesome, memorable hunts that I've ever had.
I got to take out my goddaughter on
and you guys got to check out the Facebook page Because I do have the video posted and I think that I just about went through I acted like I won the prices right when she Shot she aimed and shot and got her first turkey and it is bigger than she is and
and it was an absolutely fantastic time and so satisfying.
I'm to the point where I think it's more fun to take someone hunting and get them a bird or get them an animal than it is to actually kill
him
And then he raced right into the decoys.
And she was so excited.
And when she finally shot and begged the bird, she was all smiles.
Check out the pictures on Facebook.
Check out the video because it was really a fantastic experience.
And I got to take my goddaughter, which made it really cool.
And of course, now Woody, her dad, if you're a friend of the show, you've heard the name John Whitmore, a good hunting
It took her she was a little apprehensive at first and I think that when you have a new hunter you let them decide you know if they're going to pull the trigger
or
not.
Hunting for me the joy of being out there the joy of fooling mother nature and having the birds come in I think is very important but I also think that there are
people who are too young, and there are people who are the same age and ready to hunt.
Autumn had, you know, fired a gun several times before.
It's a
So if you start to understand and have the expectations of what a hunt really is and with the sounds, and the gravity of deciding to take the life of an animal, which is, is something that is very important.
I think that really helps.
And she she had a fantastic time.
I love the quick hunt.
with new hunters, especially young hunters, because they're not going to lose interest.
Yeah, that was really fantastic.
We have a couple of guests today who are new-ish to hunting.
And I'm pretty excited to have them here.
Shelby Christensen and Ashlyn Whitting are here.
And ladies, what was that first step?
for you as you started getting into hunting, not as kids, but as adults.
Shelby, what was that like for you?
You were telling me you were, you know, later to hunting, but now you're, you're into it.
Yeah.
I started hunting when I was 19, I believe.
I never had any family or friends into it.
This was all, I made the decision that I wanted to try it.
But for years before that, I had a lot of interest in just animals themselves and taxidermy, pelts.
Although I never again had the hunting, family, fishing, trapping, but I did go to nature camps.
We did go camping.
We did go hiking.
And I gained an appreciation from the outdoors that way.
And I had a fascination with bones and fur and feathers.
started picking up roadkill.
That was my first step of
hunting was picking up stuff and then I'd bury it in the yard and pick up the bones after.
And that's where I
and begin to say, you know, maybe I can go beyond this.
I can get these specimens myself and I can also provide food for myself.
We're going to talk about that.
And we're going to talk a little bit about the other thing that you do that I'm already seeing jewelry in my mind.
And that's how to use what you kill to the fullest extent, which is something very important to me.
And I think part of the ethics of your hunt.
Oh, man.
We talk about some crazy stuff.
That's why this is so cool.
We got our homesteader stuff coming up, and of course our recipe from the award-winning chef, Ellie Lott.
This is Raised in the Woods!
Raised in the Woods is here.
We're back and we are expanded and growing.
We're now in five states, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa.
My name is Joel Clayfish.
I get to co-captain this ship with the culinary master, Ellie Lawton.
appreciate having you along, love your insight into the outdoors and into cooking, that's for sure.
Shelby Christensen is here.
She's newish to hunting, and she's got some odd hobbies that I'm fascinated by.
And she was telling us how she got interested in hunting by literally being interested in animals.
And I know you said you have a background.
You have a minor degree in entomology.
My daughter loves entomology.
studying museum studies and anthropology at Baylor now in the graduate program.
So I'm fascinated by bugs.
We've got bugs up in this, you know, in these rooms.
And I think that there's kind of a close connection to taxidermy.
But how on earth and why on earth did did friends say what an odd hobby you like to pick pick apart animals and and use them, which I think relates perfectly ethically to hunting.
Yeah, in
Well, surprise a lot of people, but especially the time when I was young through middle school to high school, there was a very, very being a kind of strong word, but there was a significant internet community of, it used to be called vulture culture.
So
that was
young women too.
And it was on like different websites and blogs, you'd still find them on Instagram.
So it's.
more of the animal preservation, so it can include taxidermy, it can include like wet specimens, so jarred specimens, bone
So
it was
this smaller little internet community of, again, mostly young women who were interested in this kind of stuff.
So although I didn't have an inkling that I was going to hunt or trap at the time, I was interacting with people who bought from trapeze, who bought from hunters.
What I had access to at the time was roadkill.
So that's where I started with that.
did work with a few homesteaders, small farmers, and I did some butchering.
So I've done rabbits and ducks and chickens, things like that.
And that's where I kind of got into this is where food comes from.
This is important for me to recognize, to do, to know how to do.
Yeah, and my parents, you know, owe them everything, supported this.
They thought
was interesting.
Yeah, no, it was an incredible help to me because yes, it was a weird hobby.
It was unusual.
But my parents said, yeah, if that's something you're into, my mother took me to a
Little taxidermy learning course where it was held in a city warehouse and there were a bunch of people who had rabbits that They were domestic rabbits sold as reptile food, but that was the first taxidermy I did was this little off-the-wall taxidermy class Wow, and from there I would do some home either roadkill or like reptile feeders
like the white rats and mice so got some
There's so many different techniques.
There's so many different products I'm assuming you can use.
I mean, how do you, as a young adult or middle school, high school age too, how do you even decide where to start that?
I mean, you just kind of have to dive
in, I guess.
Yeah, pretty much everything you can learn on the internet.
There were some older taxidermy forums and stuff that I frequented.
A lot of it was trial and error.
It's not, the preservation part isn't terribly difficult.
It's making it look decent.
difficult part.
So I started just like dry preserve with borax.
You put some stuff on the skin.
It looks kind of crinkly and terrible.
And you kind of go from there.
Nowadays, I do more, a lot more, a lot of bones more so than anything else are full mounts.
I still have a few, but they were
more of smaller birds, small animals, squirrels, things like that.
I haven't gone to like a deer or anything larger.
But I have enjoyed going through that process and a lot of it's just trial and error going.
If I was going to seriously go into taxidermy, I'd get an apprenticeship.
But it is something that the bar is actually pretty low of when you just want to start just dip your
into
it.
So it was, it would have been just before college, 2018.
I said, all right, this is something I'm interested.
I at least want to try it out.
I took Hunter Safety.
I used to live in Michigan, so I took Hunter Safety in Michigan.
found a 30 year old Marlin 60 at a gun show with an old scope on it.
Probably
for it.
That's so awesome.
But that was also something that I had to learn myself.
family or friends who really had any significant firearm experience.
60.
That's
cool.
Those were squirrels actually.
Um, but no still Not really not really running in the family.
It's just me who's
doing
Yes, my mom has put squirrel and with the chicken and let me use an instant pot to cook coyote which did not turn out great Wow
Shelby what I love is that you're just you just get into all of it and you just try all of it and I wish more people would do that especially when it comes to hunting and eating wild game and just Experimenting with the the many different things you can do with a harvest outside of just eating it and it's just so cool It's so cool to hear your story.
Yeah in
What people realize too, like a lot of my classes that I've taken are through the DNR.
I took Hunter and Trapper Safety in Michigan.
I've taken Trapper Safety here and a whole bunch of learned hunts through the DNR.
And here's a tip too for people.
You don't need to be dragged by someone else
to these classes, especially women.
There's a lot of women who are coming in with their boyfriends or husbands, which is excellent.
And the classes
But I mean, to your point, Shelby, there are so many different resources and ways to get involved.
I mean, there's a lot of people that don't get involved because they just don't have a family member or a friend that does it.
But like you're saying, the DNR offers so many amazing resources and all of these learned hunts, especially for women now, there's so many coming up all the time.
Megan, you're cooking classes.
I mean, there's so many different things to get involved and just try it.
here.
I mean, let's be honest.
A lot of the things you're talking about, they're borderline kind of mainstream taboo, really.
And so I want to know was that part of it, was that part of it tough?
Because
There had to have at some point been some folks you met or told them about some of the stuff you did, you know, picking up roadkill and taxidermy and at home or drying the bones to use them for things.
Some people are going to be kind of judgmental about that.
Did you face a lot of that?
Not really.
I think it would surprise a lot of people how mainstream in a lot of places that actually is oddity shows are huge.
And there is a lot of people who even are more alternative.
that have these interests, they think it's cool.
They think it's cool to hang a pelt on the wall.
They think
Wonder, it is art.
that's
But they're forgetting about using the skin to make a knife sheath or a foot to make a knife.
And you have taken that even further.
And
it's weird because in this country we've got certain taboos, like it's taboo to eat carp, where in Europe eating carp is a delicacy.
It's one of the most served fish, gefelte fish, and the Jewish community is carp, and it's absolutely delicious.
I think one of the fascinating things about you is that you never let any of the taboos or preconceptions, let's say, stop you from doing this really cool stuff, and now on the other end of it, you're completely experienced in it, and you have this really
Really cool stuff.
You got some trinkets in your pocket too that are just awesome.
What is going on with that?
Yeah, tell us about those.
Yeah, so I brought a few things along.
I brought a key chain that was made out of the foot of the skunk.
So this is not actually that difficult to do.
Well, the skunk wasn't lucky, but maybe, you know, maybe it'll bring a little luck there.
But drying feet, feet is also a big byproduct of the
trapping.
Industry in itself, you could say.
And that's something that you can use some alcohol, some borax, some salt, not too difficult to do.
And it lets you put another thing together.
It would be so cool.
It is interesting to see, too, having those negative reactions.
There are people who do have negative reactions, of course, with anything, but it's not nearly as much as you would think.
That's encouraging to me.
I think what's frustrating to me is the people who are critical of hunting, fishing and harvesting and even foraging some people are critical of, you know, they will be critical of that, but then they'll go to McDonald's and buy a burger with, you know, from a cow that was born in a cage, raised in a cage and slaughtered in a cage.
When you go to harvest your own animals, you are assuming the responsibility and the ethical and
importance of taking that life to feed your family to nourish yourself and Every speck of it that you use beyond just the meat I think is an ethical decision and an advantage now tell me about these little preserved things that are copper
coated things
Yeah, so these are copper electroformed vertebrae and I have the beak of a duck as well.
So copper electroforming.
They're so cool.
You're basically painting something with conductive paint, putting it in an acid bath dissolving copper, which then sticks to the conductive paint.
So it allows you to coat pretty much anything in a layer of copper.
how thick that layer is, how shiny, whatever, that's all done by time and the different concentrations of chemicals that
basically a scientist.
We found two dead bunnies in our yard, and we did a full-blown funeral for them.
And they sang a little song, so I'm like, we should dig them up.
Dig them back up.
Yes, I got to figure out all of this stuff.
Do you know where they are?
Yeah, there's a cross.
Yeah, they had a funeral, Joel.
Yeah, Christian rabbits.
Yes, and we did sing a few worship songs.
But that's a weekend of fun.
All dogs go to heaven, so maybe rabbits do too.
course they do.
Yeah, you mentioned the cross.
That is where I started with Roadkill 2.
When I brought him back, I would put little crosses made out of little vines and twigs
wonderful.
And it was also that learning that respect.
Even at that time, I had no part to play in the death of the animal.
I got that respect early on to say that this was a little life and it's important
Raised in the Woods.
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Here on Raised
Yeah, so those do have the little loops on them so they can be made into jewelry or they can be put on a key chain and that's really what I aim to do with it.
Copper Electroform Jewelry, you'll see a lot of it that people use crystals and shells and there are some bones and I think there should be more bones.
There are some pieces like I have some deer vertebrae which are much bigger.
still wear as a necklace.
But it's something, it's
wearable, it's interesting, it's something that'll start conversations.
as
And that
like we've talked about so often on the show, use everything from your harvest that you can.
You know, understand the gravity of taking the life of an animal and use it.
Speaking of using weird things to make cool stuff, Sarah Marinas, our homesteader is here and she's got a homesteader tip of the week.
What have you got Sarah?
of those
I think that's a great way to look at life.
That's the cup is half full or half empty.
And that's what this show is about.
Filling your cup with the great outdoors of the Midwest.
My name is Joel Clayfish.
Ellie Lawton is here, of course.
Sarah Marinus, our homesteader.
Ashlyn Whitting, who came with Shelby Christensen, who had the most fascinating story.
So fascinating.
I'm going to ask her if she can come.
back next week and be on the show too.
I want to hear more about her dead animal stories, which are like, I thought we were going to go like in a dark direction with that, but that was absolutely fascinating.
And of course, Megan Salazar, our Somalia, we'll see you next week on Raising the Woods.
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