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Join us for a special Thanksgiving episode of the Ducks Unlimited Podcast! Hosted by Dr. Mike Brasher, this episode features a lively discussion with co-hosts Katie Burke, Dr. Scott Stevens, and Dr. Jerad Henson, along with our special guest host, Kevin Woods, Senior Designer at Ducks Unlimited.
In this episode, we dive into everything Thanksgiving, from the age-old debate of whether turkey is overrated to the best ways to enjoy leftovers. We share our favorite Thanksgiving traditions, discuss the stress of holiday travel versus post-election family gatherings, and even tackle the controversial topic of cranberry sauce—canned or homemade?
As we sip on some festive cocktails, we explore unique Thanksgiving hacks, the best waterfowl substitutes for turkey, and the must-have side dishes that could cause a riot if missing from the table. Plus, we touch on the latest waterfowl weather updates and what to expect for the upcoming hunting season.
Whether preparing for a big family feast or just looking to enjoy some holiday banter, this episode is packed with fun, laughter, and a few surprises. Don't miss out on the festive spirit—tune in now!
Topics Covered:
- Turkey: Overrated or underrated?
- Cranberry sauce: Canned vs. homemade
- Thanksgiving traditions and hacks
- Best waterfowl substitutes for turkey
- Holiday travel stress vs. family gatherings
- Waterfowl weather updates
Cheers to a Happy Thanksgiving! 🦃🍂
Be sure to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell for more episodes from Ducks Unlimited!
Creators & Guests
What is Ducks Unlimited Podcast?
Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.
Mike Brasher: Gobble, gobble, everyone. Welcome in to the very special Thanksgiving episode of the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm Dr. Mike Brasher. I'm going to be your host only at the very beginning of this episode. I'm excited to have sitting around the table here with me some friends and co-hosts of what we do here on the podcast. I've got Katie Burke over there. Katie, welcome. Hi. Thanks, Mike. We have none other than Dr. Scott Stevens, one of our guests, who shows up quite often. Glad to have him here in studio on this special day. Like a bad penny, shows up when you least expect it. That's right. I'm going to skip over this guy right here. We'll come back to you in a second. Dr. Jared Hinson, our other co-host of the Ducks Unlimited podcast. Jared, great to have you.
Jared Henson: Thanks. Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.
Mike Brasher: We're going to have a good time here on this episode. It is the time of the year for food, family, football, friends. There's also a lot of us that get involved in hunting this time of year, and a lot of us have some of those plans. And I'm sure we all have stories about this is the time of year when our grandparents, you know, afternoon naps and grandparents and grandfathers sitting back in the recliner snoring and doing those, serenading us with those afternoon tunes.
Scott Stephens: What's that substance? Tryptonine or what's it?
Mike Brasher: Tryptophan.
Scott Stephens: Tryptophan, right. In the turkey.
Mike Brasher: So we all have wonderful memories of this time of the year, and we hope you do too. We're here and happy to be sharing this very special occasion with you. Our special guest host on today's episode is none other than Kevin Woods, our senior designer here at Ducks Unlimited. He does a phenomenal job on everything that he touches from logos to reports. A lot of the proposals, a lot of the pretty things that you see coming out of Ducks Unlimited are done by folks like Kevin and others around here in that department. So, Kevin's going to lead us through this episode. He has a series of questions. None of us know what those questions are, so this is a little bit of a surprise for the rest of us as well. It's getting these two guys here. Yeah, it makes me a little nervous. We're good. We're good. So, with that, Kevin, I'm going to turn this over to you. It's great to have you here as part of this.
Kevin Woods: Well, happy to be here. This is quite the honor. Really honored. I feel like I'm a kid that got invited to the adults' table for Thanksgiving.
Mike Brasher: We'll see if you feel the same way when this is over.
Kevin Woods: We'll see if I get invited back next year, right? All right, so what we're going to do, we're just going to ask some very basic Thanksgiving questions. There are no wrong answers. There is one wrong answer, and I'll let you know what that is if you do say it. Okay. Just say whatever comes to your mind, and we'll start from there.
Scott Stephens: Are you sure?
Kevin Woods: Is he sure about this?
Mike Brasher: Deep breath.
Kevin Woods: Mike's taking a deep breath. Okay. I can't even believe this is actually a debatable question, but turkey, is it overrated, underrated?
Jared Henson: It depends how it's done.
Katie Burke: Okay.
Jared Henson: Yeah. Yeah. Well done turkey is underrated. Like turkey done well?
Kevin Woods: Turkey done well is underrated. How do you like it? Smoked? Oh, yeah. What about deep fried?
Mike Brasher: Have you seen smoke a fried? I was still pondering on my response as you might guess. Overall, I would say it's overrated unless it's like maybe, yeah, deep fried turkey. I think that's, yeah, probably deep fried turkey is probably underrated maybe because there's still a lot of people that haven't really tried it.
Katie Burke: Yeah, I would say it's primarily overrated. Really?
Mike Brasher: Yeah. It gets dry. The dryness of the turkey is really what it does to me.
Katie Burke: My mom makes a very good turkey. I would say the best part about turkey is like the sandwiches later. Yes.
Scott Stephens: Ooh, yeah. It's hard to beat that. And it kind of depends. Like, the turkey is heavily influenced by the goodness of the cranberry sauce that you have with the turkey.
Mike Brasher: Do you have a question about cranberry sauce? You have to have that, right? We're going to go there at some point.
Kevin Woods: We'll kind of go off tangent a little bit. So cranberry sauce. out of the can or from scratch in the can? Oh, oh, oh. We got a little tension there.
Jared Henson: Out of the can. It's not Thanksgiving in my family without the can.
Scott Stephens: It's not Thanksgiving until you hear the… I've had some really good, like, made from scratch.
Mike Brasher: Yes. Yeah. Well, so, I grew up in Mississippi, North Mississippi, and it was cranberry out of the can. I wasn't a big fan of it, to be honest. It always just looked kind of weird. And like, you know, it's like something for the parent. Yes, absolutely. And so I married a Canadian, and so in Canada, and I don't know if this is a Canadian thing or if this is sort of an English thing, my wife's mother immigrated from England, and they make cranberry sauce from fresh cranberries, and I personally like that better. I'm not just saying that. I really do because we can kind of control the amount of sugar and I like it a little bit tarter.
Kevin Woods: You think it's because of the freshness of how close it is?
Mike Brasher: For me it was just so it was a novelty that I'd never tried it before and it was such a novel thing and I like things a bit more tart to begin with. So yeah in our household it's It's made fresh from cranberries, but there's a lot of debate. And of course, I go back in my mind and it was… You don't like eating it out of a can.
Scott Stephens: No, I do. So, what is not better, fresh versus out of a can that has a shelf life of like 10 years?
Mike Brasher: Apparently, cranberry sauce.
Jared Henson: My argument on that, on like, out of the can, is like, that's just like, family tradition. I feel like something's missing. I'm not saying it tastes better by any means.
Kevin Woods: It's just gotta have that can opener. Hit the plate. Thanksgiving is here, right?
Scott Stephens: Yeah. Okay. Sound effects.
Kevin Woods: Next question. If you could bae in one Thanksgiving dish forever, what would it be?
Katie Burke: Cranberry sauce.
Kevin Woods: Does it matter, can or scratch?
Katie Burke: It doesn't matter. Just get rid of it. It's useless.
Kevin Woods: I don't know if I have anything. Mom has anything with like marshmallows. For some reason… Oh, that's the wrong way to make sweet potato casserole. There's a right way and that's the wrong way. But on dessert, it's fine. It's great, right?
Scott Stephens: Yeah, I don't know. I'm kind of where Jared was on cranberries with that sweet potato thing with the marshmallows on it. It's like that is… That's too much? No, that's more traditional.
Katie Burke: It's not necessarily the best. Have you had it with pecans?
Scott Stephens: No, and we could get into the whole debate about whether that's the right pronunciation.
Mike Brasher: It is pecan. There's no debate.
Katie Burke: You're surrounded by Southerners.
Scott Stephens: Well, but it depends on where you are in the South, doesn't it?
Mike Brasher: I still don't know that there's a debate. It's pecan.
Kevin Woods: So, if all of the turkeys disappeared, what would be the best waterfowl to make the tastiest replacement for turkey?
Scott Stephens: juvenile white-fronted goose.
Jared Henson: I was gonna say a white front or a speckled belly, a big old fatty speckled belly.
Mike Brasher: That's probably, when you say best, that's probably it. Now, if you had your choice of any species of waterfowl… Are we lumping the cranes count?
Scott Stephens: Nope. Cranes don't count as waterfowl. Do we need to do that? No, I'm just checking.
Kevin Woods: I'm just checking. I'm glad I'm in the middle right here to kind of keep you guys separated.
Mike Brasher: I would go with a black brand harvested out of Eisenbeck Lagoon in Coal Bay, Alaska. Absolute best eelgrass waterfowl. Just because of what they eat there. It's eelgrass. They eat eelgrass out of Eisenbeck Lagoon. And there's probably something else physiologically about those because there are other birds. I would guess it's because they, well, certainly in that time of the year, they're almost exclusively They are exclusively eating the eelgrass, but if you get a black bran on the Atlantic coast, it tastes different because they're not eating that same.
Jared Henson: They say the higher protein diet, mollusk invert, that's gonna affect that flavor.
Kevin Woods: So now, yeah, turkeys really are overrated now here in Mike.
Mike Brasher: Yeah, it does. And Mark Petrie went up there recently and he said, hands down, not only, I think his quote was, not only the best waterfowl I've ever eaten, the best piece of meat of any kind that he's ever eaten. And that was… But was his a pintail or he… No, that was the brand. That was even without the skin on it. So, I mean, it is a phenomenal eating bird. But it's very restricted in distribution, can't get it widely, you know, that kind of stuff. And if you get a black bran on the Atlantic coast, you're not going to have that same experience because they're eating, foraging on some turf grass and all that kind of stuff. The historic eelgrass has kind of gone away on the Atlantic coast.
Kevin Woods: All right. Next question. Which is more stressful, the Thanksgiving after an election, or having to travel through the airport during Thanksgiving? Because you know there's always going to be that one person that's going to be that match into a dry forest talking about the election, right?
Katie Burke: I kind of find those people entertaining. Of course you would. I like to poke the bear.
Kevin Woods: She gets the popcorn, sits in the side going, let's see where this goes, right?
Katie Burke: I guess I would have to say, yeah, I'd rather the politics because I gave up going to Massachusetts anymore, so.
Mike Brasher: Because it was so stressful? Yes.
Katie Burke: It's— I mean, Christmas is easier because Thanksgiving, everyone travels on the exact same days. So it's a nightmare. And once you finally get there, you got like two days and you gotta come back.
Mike Brasher: Yeah, because look, you can walk outside if that conversation starts, right? Yeah.
Kevin Woods: To heck with this. Yeah. I think that— I can't do the airports. Cannot do it. I think I'd have to— Hey, I'm gonna have to FaceTime this holiday with you guys. I'm not flying. I'm not going through that.
Mike Brasher: We never traveled much for Thanksgiving, at least long distance. We've traveled for Christmas a fair bit, but yeah, it's been a while since we traveled for Thanksgiving.
Katie Burke: You have more time for Christmas, so it's a little bit better.
Jared Henson: With kids, you're definitely not wanting to travel.
Kevin Woods: Right. So, with Christmas, do you think there needs to be a little bit more of a buffer zone between Thanksgiving and Christmas? I mean, I know you can't move holidays, but you're like, keep it all together.
Scott Stephens: For me, no. It's shorter this year, right? Probably so, yeah. Thanksgiving is later, yeah.
Mike Brasher: Yeah, 28th, right?
Kevin Woods: I get that.
Katie Burke: I mean, you say that and like now I'm like thinking about I have to like do Christmas for my kids and I don't have enough time. That part's getting a little stressful. But yeah.
Kevin Woods: Alright, so the next one is— He's cheating.
Mike Brasher: He's cheating. You were trying to look at the questions. No, no, you were trying to look at the questions.
Scott Stephens: Cheater? I don't know. I guess he's trying to prepare. Naturally, my eyes went to where he was uncovering next, but I can't read them.
Kevin Woods: All right. So, what is your favorite Never Miss Thanksgiving tradition? This is the one that you always look forward to it. You cannot miss it.
Katie Burke: Going to duck camp.
Jared Henson: Going to duck camp. A duck hunt that morning.
Katie Burke: We don't get to hunt the morning of.
Jared Henson: Arkansas opens the weekend before. Okay. Yeah.
Scott Stephens: Scott? I'm still working on it.
Mike Brasher: Okay. Leftovers. Thanksgiving leftovers. I just have to say, you know, I would say afternoon football on Thanksgiving Day. When I went back, if I go back in my childhood, that would be it. Sort of the after lunch. Yeah, yeah. Everybody falls asleep. But now I would just, we don't do that as traditionally now. My wife's not a football fan, so sometimes we do that, sometimes we don't. But we always eat the leftovers. Always look forward to the leftovers.
Kevin Woods: I kind of stopped watching the football once Creed did their halftime show back in… Once who? Creed, when they did their halftime show, the guy was like dancing around like in the ribbons, like, all right, I guess this tradition is dead now.
Scott Stephens: Scott, do you have one? I'll go with leftovers, too.
Kevin Woods: Leftovers. Okay, well, what's your go-to leftovers? Your immediate go-to? He had one before that was pretty interesting.
Mike Brasher: It's got to be a turkey sandwich with a little bit of stuffing on it or dressing on it, but then I will put the cranberry sauce on it, even if it's from a can, because it's that savory and sweet. It's the best sandwich. It keeps coming back, right?
Katie Burke: Oh, no Katie. No cranberries. None at all.
Kevin Woods: She's anti-cranberry. Mine is mayo, but there's only one kind of mayo you can put on it.
Mike Brasher: Don't say Miracle Quilt, because that's not mayo.
Jared Henson: Are you a Dukes or a Blue Plate guy? There's only one that's Dukes. Blue Plate's pretty good too.
Katie Burke: Yeah, well blue play is what we had before there was jukes and now I have both my friends just to click gotta go What about hellman's? Yeah, no hellman's and they don't belong in the gully.
Kevin Woods: Hamilton is in that trash.
Mike Brasher: Yeah Oh, man. Okay. We're about to have a fight break out here So I think this is a good time for a break and we're gonna get some uh, some cocktails to kind of pass around everybody But scott is gonna get to participate in this Well, you do. You get your own variety. Chris has me taken care of. That's right. We are going to take a break. Our producer, Chris Isaac, is going to hook us up with some special holiday-themed cocktails. We'll be right back. And go fix your own. We'll be right back. Welcome back, everyone. We are back here in the studio. Special thanks to our producer, Chris Isaac, who whipped up this mighty fancy Duck Camp cider. Also, special thanks to our sponsors here, Bird Dog Whiskey. So we're going to do a little bit of a cheers. If you got your own, you can do the same.
Kevin Woods: Cheers. Cheers. Atta boy, Chris. That is good. That is good.
Mike Brasher: Okay, so what are we doing here now? I think I'm supposed to toss it back to you. We're all distracted now. I'm going to focus on this, you do whatever you need to do with your questions.
Kevin Woods: The answers will get more interesting now, the lower this drink gets, right? Alright, what is your favorite Thanksgiving hack? So to give you a little bit of time to think about it, my grandmother, she cooks her turkey upside down.
Jared Henson: Awesome. I do the spatchcock where you take the breastplate out and break it down so it all cooks in one layer and makes them cook much faster. I was going to say, my best hack though is to get my brother to cook the dressing and bring it in from New Orleans. So, he'll get like crawfish and cornbread dressing. That's my favorite hack.
Mike Brasher: Is there a turducken in that story in any way, if you're bringing something from Louisiana?
Jared Henson: Well, no, but he does bring in some really good fresh boudin.
Mike Brasher: Yeah, okay. Mine would be… Can I say the name? I probably… We order our… I'll say it's not necessarily the opinion of Ducks Unlimited. That's right, that's right. My wife works at Whole Foods, and so they actually do… They provide, sell a pretty extensive list of Thanksgiving holiday menu items, and Rebecca actually works at their holiday table, and so we get all the get the skinny on what all these things are, and we've done that the past few years where we've ordered a number of things. It's really good. Really good, really good things that they have there. What are these things?
Scott Stephens: You've been very big, so.
Mike Brasher: Well, so we do the turkey. They do have, we have a small family. So, for example, this year we're doing like a combination. We're ordering a half pre-cooked turkey breast, and we're also going to be cooking some wild game, pheasant. to kind of supplement that. And, but then we also do a type of stuffing that they have. We do, I think it's like a, I want to say butternut squash and cranberry. Butternut doesn't sound quite right, but it's, they also have various other side items that turn out really well. And, you know, it's an easy thing for us to do.
Kevin Woods: I like pro tips. What are yours?
Scott Stephens: Shameless plug for Whole Foods there.
Katie Burke: Shameless commerce division.
Scott Stephens: Not a sponsor. I was going to say my hack, and this doesn't have to be a Thanksgiving hack, but I find that cooking the potatoes, like if you're going to make mashed potatoes in the Instant Pot, is the way to go.
Katie Burke: That's the way we do all the potatoes. I don't know if I have a hack. I got one. Everybody has one. I guess my hack is I only have to do like two things for Thanksgiving and that's it. And how do you pull that off? That's all they tell me to do.
Kevin Woods: Well, you do it bad, do a whole bunch of things bad.
Katie Burke: No, no, I do what I do good. Honestly, my mom likes to cook so much that she doesn't let anyone do anything. So she's given me sweet potatoes. So apparently I did that well enough that I can now have it.
Kevin Woods: Is your mom like Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen when she's cooking?
Katie Burke: No, but she is very particular. Okay, all right. I am one of those weird people who run on Thanksgiving, and I do think it's a hack. Turkey trot. I'm a turkey trot person. You get that little bit of exercise out, and then you're like, you're really hungry by the time, and you don't feel too bad. That's a good hack.
Kevin Woods: For the lazy people, we don't have a hack for you. All right, would you rather be stuck at the kids' table or have to clean the entire kitchen by yourself? Kids' table. Kids' table. Have you eaten with kids recently?
Mike Brasher: Yes. Yeah. I have three. Is that not what this is? Right here?
Kevin Woods: That area looks like— This is definitely the kids' table. I don't know. Eating around kids, that looks like the Omaha beach on D-Day. It is stuff everywhere.
Jared Henson: I don't know. I have to clean the kid up anyway, so I might as well just sit there and do it as I'm going.
Kevin Woods: I don't know. I think I might do the dishes. But, all right. The kid's table wins. All right. Who here will be the first person to post the picture of their food on Instagram or social media?
Mike Brasher: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This who do we think will? Who do you think?
Kevin Woods: Who do you think will be the first person?
Katie Burke: Jared. No, I'll go with Mike. Or Mike. Yeah, it's not me.
Mike Brasher: It was probably, it was me at one time. I don't do it as much as I used to.
Kevin Woods: I don't remember the last time I… I used to do it and I thought, yeah, my mom's not even liking this picture. Why am I doing this?
Jared Henson: If I do a wild, like the turkey or wild game, I will do… Yeah, the Instagram shot a live photo as the spoker opens or something. Yeah, it's like, maybe not their plate, but… You get that shot. Yeah, I'll do that.
Katie Burke: There will be no food pictures on my Instagram.
Mike Brasher: Well, is there going to be a competition now that we've kind of asked this question? There is now.
Scott Stephens: Some of us are old school and not even on Instagram. Okay, what about social media? But you have an account. I do have an account. Or else I'm tagging somebody else. No, you're tagging me. I got the account, I think, to see my daughter's stuff on Instagram.
Kevin Woods: So what about, do you have Facebook? I have Facebook. Okay. Would you post it there? Maybe.
Mike Brasher: Maybe. We're not supposed to have any eating on the microphone over there. He's going to get on to you.
Kevin Woods: I knew once we introduced the drinks, it would start to take, get off the rails, right?
Mike Brasher: That's right. All bets were off. Okay. Can I interrupt? I guess I just did interrupt you. I love when people say that. I meant to say this at the beginning. One of the things also this time of year we talk about friends and family and those types of things. This is also a good time for us to encourage people to go check out any of the local banquets that are around. Associate with folks at Ducks Unlimited. Great way to get involved. If you're wondering about any events in your area, go to ducks.org forward slash events, find a place near you. I don't know, I know there have been some here this week, and so in certain parts, that's right, Katie went to one last night. So, great time of the year to get involved, right on the cusp of the hunting season down here in the South. So, go check them out, ducks.org forward slash events.
Scott Stephens: Great idea. And also… And in Canada.
Katie Burke: Oh, I do have a funny thing to say.
Scott Stephens: I wasn't going to add that. I was going to say, and, you know, if you're preparing for the duck season, or even if you're not, you should go buy a duck stamp.
Katie Burke: That is absolutely correct. You should. I still need to buy mine, actually. That's terrible. You haven't? I don't know why I haven't. I will. Don't worry. Louise, I took Louise, my daughter, last night to the Ole Miss chapter, and she bid on her first item. Do you think? Did she win? She did not. We pulled her back. It got a little crazy.
Scott Stephens: You should have let her win.
Katie Burke: It wasn't my money, so it's all dad's. Mr. Ronald and Dr. Ronald.
Scott Stephens: She definitely should have won if it was grandpa's money.
Kevin Woods: Okay, next question. Invite one celebrity, dead or alive, to Thanksgiving. Who are you inviting and why? Oh, my gosh.
Katie Burke: Larry David.
Kevin Woods: Oh, yes. Just pure entertainment. And get him to bring up the election, right? That would be great.
Katie Burke: That'd be your magical force right there.
Jared Henson: I don't know. I think I'm derailed on that one.
Kevin Woods: I think Adam Sandler would be fun to have. Adam Sandler, David Spade somewhere. David Spade would be funny. Chris Farley. Yeah. And bring him back for good.
Scott Stephens: Sure. Yep. And I think, well, I've been sucked into the podcast of the Kelsey brothers, so I would take either of those guys. Would you take Taylor along with it? Sure, she could come.
Kevin Woods: Okay. She'll foot the bill, right? All right, Thanksgiving attire. Cozy and comfy, or fresh and sharp? I mean, what do I do, or what do I want to do? Are you built for off-roading or luxury? No.
Katie Burke: What do we do, or what would we prefer? What do you do? Oh, nice, yeah.
Kevin Woods: You dress nice?
Katie Burke: Yeah.
Kevin Woods: I know one couple, they wore a tuxedo.
Katie Burke: I don't dress that nice, but we dress nice.
Mike Brasher: Is it like the same standards of business casual around here? No, I mean for jeans. It's up a level. Oh, it's like a Friday casual here or something.
Katie Burke: No, it's better than that. It's stylish jeans.
Scott Stephens: Are you only supposed to wear jeans on Friday here?
Mike Brasher: Yes, technically. You can't wear jeans on Friday here.
Scott Stephens: I can wear jeans. How about Wednesday?
Katie Burke: Not supposed to.
Scott Stephens: If they're pleated jeans, you can wear them on Wednesday. Pleated jeans are okay. I think the definition of business casual has sort of slipped after COVID. That's for sure.
Kevin Woods: And it also depends on which department you're into, right?
Katie Burke: Yeah, it does. But no, we dress up for Thanksgiving. We dress up for all of our holidays.
Kevin Woods: I'm going sweatpants.
Mike Brasher: It depends upon how late I'm… So, I'm… Yeah, I would consider jeans or some comfy pants, not sweatpants.
Kevin Woods: You see me on Thanksgiving, you think, this guy has really given up on life. It's sweatpants, Crocs.
Katie Burke: Your mom is like, moms are okay with… Like, my mom would die. Well, we're not taking pictures anyway, too, so. Oh, there's definitely going to be pictures. I'm from the Mississippi Delta. Y'all are from Mississippi, but I'm from the Delta. Yeah, I know. We do things, I wouldn't have told you this.
Mike Brasher: Prim and proper. Prim and proper.
Katie Burke: It depends upon how late I'm running. We get on the fancy China.
Jared Henson: I may be in camo. Preferably, I'm in camo.
Katie Burke: Oh, we're peeling out of there real quick.
Jared Henson: Changing clothes, but. I like that. I show up dressed up. But comfy otherwise. Jeans.
Kevin Woods: Yeah, they see me, they're like, what's going on in your life? It's like, I'm built for comfort right now, right? All right, what side dish, if it was missing at Thanksgiving, would cause a riot in your house?
Katie Burke: Cornbread dressing.
Jared Henson: Sweet potato casserole.
Mike Brasher: Green bean casserole. Used to be that for me, but many people around here know I can no longer do green beans. It's my old legume allergy that I developed at age 41, 42. That just didn't happen.
Kevin Woods: And that's the biggest answer we get in the office is the green bean casserole.
Jared Henson: Really? And it's going to have like the French's onion on top.
Katie Burke: Yeah, we don't even have it.
Scott Stephens: I can look past it, yeah. That would be ours too.
Kevin Woods: Wow, okay. Alright. What is the worst side you've ever had?
Katie Burke: Okay, hopefully, no. They're not listening. I can say this.
Kevin Woods: I like how this is already starting.
Katie Burke: Katie came ready for this one. Well, my sister's in-laws will not be listening to this. But if my brother is listening, he'll find it entertaining. Carrot souffle. Weird. It's like the poor man's sweet potato casserole.
Kevin Woods: I think mine would be anything with mushrooms in it. I like mushrooms. If I see mushrooms on the table, you're probably going to see my taillights. I'll see y'all at Christmas. I don't want to be around it.
Jared Henson: I don't have anything that really repulses me or anything.
Kevin Woods: No gelatin, no jello, no…
Jared Henson: I don't like Jell-O with fruit in it.
Katie Burke: Yeah, I understand. Yeah, I feel like we aged out of those days of the weird Jell-O concoction.
Mike Brasher: When I hear Jell-O at a holiday activity, I think about National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and the Jell-O with the cat food on top of it.
Kevin Woods: I'm at the point where I hear Jell-O, I think, oh, you having a colonoscopy coming up soon? You got to get that diet in.
Scott Stephens: Save the neck for me, Clark.
Kevin Woods: Okay, what is one item you have tried to replicate but haven't been able to nail? Now, this could be something along the lines of, hey, I had a grandmother who passed away and she made a great set of rolls. We've even tried the same dish, we've tried the same recipe, but we just cannot get it right.
Mike Brasher: An original thought. Okay, yeah.
Katie Burke: I mean, I have one, but now I don't have to do it anymore. When I was in Philadelphia and we were going to Massachusetts, like, they don't have any of the Southern stuff there. And I was able to do sweet potato casserole, but they just did regular stuffing. They didn't do cornbread dressing. And I couldn't get it. Because my mom would give me some vague thing like, well, I don't have a recipe, I just do it.
Kevin Woods: Oh, that's the worst. Yeah, that doesn't help. Do you have one, Doc? I don't think I do.
Mike Brasher: You don't have one, okay. An original thought?
Kevin Woods: Yes, that too. That too. Okay. Now, we already kind of touched on this. What is your first go-to turkey leftover? The neck. The neck. Save the neck for me. But yours was with cranberry sauce, right? Cranberry…
Katie Burke: For the sandwich later? Yeah, for the sandwich. I just do a big bowl of all the stuff.
Jared Henson: The other thing I really like, leftover-wise, is, like, turkey and dumplings. My mom has a killer chicken and dumplings recipe that will replicate the turkey.
Kevin Woods: So what is the most unique way you've seen leftovers repurposed?
Katie Burke: I don't know.
Scott Stephens: I've seen it turned into a casserole, like with the turkey and potatoes.
Jared Henson: My mom will do turkey salad every once in a while too, and that's always good.
Mike Brasher: Soup, but that's not necessarily repurposing all of it, it's just like the leftover meat.
Kevin Woods: So wild card is a soup and meal.
Mike Brasher: Pen upon how hard it is. That soup I had the other day at the restaurant not to be named was not a meal in itself. It's more like water.
Kevin Woods: It depends on the soup. I know some people that are like, no, that's a side. It's not a meal. No, soup can be a meal.
Scott Stephens: Soup can be a meal.
Kevin Woods: Well, there you have it. All right. Let's see. Is your Christmas tree already up?
Mike Brasher: No. No. Well, so this is going to be airing when? On Thanksgiving Day. Yeah. Is that how we're answering this, relative to right now? We are before Thanksgiving. So we're about a week before Thanksgiving.
Katie Burke: Behind the curtain, Mike just tells we're not actually on Thanksgiving.
Mike Brasher: I think our viewers are smart enough to figure that out. We could all be dedicated and be here. It's possible. Could be, but again, I think our viewers are smart enough.
Jared Henson: My wife is wanting me to put up the Christmas tree sometime in that holiday.
Katie Burke: Okay, here's another question.
Jared Henson: It will be whatever day I get rained out from hunting. It's the day that I will be putting up a Christmas tree.
Katie Burke: I'm guessing you don't have a real Christmas tree then. No. Yeah, so we can't get a real Christmas tree.
Jared Henson: You have to do that two, three weeks before. A lot of sap.
Kevin Woods: Pretty full.
Mike Brasher: But why is that? Why is that? Why do you have to wait? Because the Christmas trees are already out. They're already cut.
Katie Burke: It'll be dead in my living room before Christmas.
Mike Brasher: It'll drop all the needles. Ours is not, and it probably, I don't know if we'll do it. Yours is not up? It's not up, but we do a real one.
Katie Burke: We'll do it the weekend after. We probably will.
Scott Stephens: You wait until the first snow before you go cut it?
Mike Brasher: We've been waiting a long time since we have cut one ourselves.
Kevin Woods: Ours is up. Ours is up. For how long?
Scott Stephens: How long has it been up? This past weekend it went up. How early is too early? Well, I would say that's too early. I'm not the decision maker on that timing. Is it a real tree? No, it's not a real tree.
Kevin Woods: So you're the one that's got to get it down out of the attic.
Scott Stephens: I did out of the shed. Out of the shed.
Katie Burke: No, I say before Thanksgiving is too early.
Mike Brasher: Okay. All right. So I am out of drink and I need more drink. So we're going to take a break right here. If you're watching out there listening, you take a break as well. Go get you another drink. Refill. We'll be right back. We got a few more things to talk about. Welcome back, everyone. We are here again, and this is gonna be our final segment. We have another drink here in front of us. Thanks again to Bird Dog Whiskey and our producer, Chris Isaac, who has mixed these up for us. This is the Canvas Back Kick. It is a riff off an espresso martini. Hope you have one of these. We're gonna try it here. Cheers, y'all. Cheers. Cheers. That's like dessert. Yeah, nobody would like that. Nobody would like that. That's terrible. You better give me all yours. Okay, so we have one final question that we're gonna get to here in a little bit, but I think we're gonna do a little bit of a round the horn, kind of talk about some of the things that are happening. I think in our recent activities here, some of the things that we may be doing. I'm going to start by picking on none other than Dr. Scott Stevens. He had a Facebook post here not too long ago where I think he was experimenting with some, not skinny teal, but some other species of skinny waterfowl. I didn't know what they were. The silhouette, I wanted to say they were swans, but I thought, why is he doing swans? You were confused. I was confused. That's an easy way to say it.
Scott Stephens: That's right. That's a good general bet, too. Yes, I am in the process of working on some skinny swans because I had a conversation with a friend and colleague in South Dakota who we were going to swan hunt together and then he was taken away because his son… Oh, he's got pictures of him. Okay, yeah. He had to chase deer.
Katie Burke: I was really confused what we were talking about.
Mike Brasher: That's a scrap of wood on soil. Yeah.
Jared Henson: Well, but from that picture right there, I was really hoping, because it's dear to me, that you were going to do a whistling duck.
Scott Stephens: Oh, no, sorry. It's a tree swan. I mean, yeah. Yes. So, the piece of wood was like the cover for my shed kit that came as like two pallets. So, it's like, hey, what am I going to do with this? And then I had the conversation with this friend and he said, you know, if you had some silhouettes, they would probably work in this wetland. And I was like, oh, I don't, but I know how to fix that.
Mike Brasher: And you can hunt swans in South Dakota. And in North Dakota. And in North Dakota. You can apply for a And there's a few other states too, right? North Carolina, yeah.
Scott Stephens: Yeah, that's right. So, you get a tag for a swan, a tundra swan. Actually, in South Dakota, you may be able to get two, but I just got one. And yeah, I was gonna try and go out.
Mike Brasher: How big are they? That's what was confusing me, like on the… Is that a 4x8 sheet of plywood?
Scott Stephens: That is a 4x8 sheet of plywood. So, that's almost… So, you can hide behind it.
Mike Brasher: That angle right there, I kind of mischievously called it a scrap of wood on soil, but you can tell those are silhouettes, but it made it look really small.
Scott Stephens: Yeah, those are bigger than you think. Those are probably this wide and that tall with the head.
Mike Brasher: Now, is that going to happen this year? Probably not.
Scott Stephens: Well, I was hoping it might happen this year, but yeah, we'll see if the weather has locked things up by the time I get back.
Mike Brasher: Is that a transition that you intended to make there? Like the weather? Because that's not one of the other things that we wanted to talk about.
Scott Stephens: No, that wasn't on purpose, but yeah. We could. Yeah, the weather is a-changin' up north. It is. So, birds are gonna be on the way. By the time they hear this, birds should have showed up.
Jared Henson: I hope so, yeah. We all have our fingers crossed down here. Yeah, exactly.
Mike Brasher: So, we will plug a couple of things here. I guess last Friday, which would be like a week and a half ago by the time you're listening to this, we did our first ever waterfowl weather livestream. It's something we're experimenting with this year, where we connected live with three meteorologists. Also, by the time you hear this, you would have had an opportunity to hear from a fourth meteorologist as Scott breaks his… You cut off.
Scott Stephens: And so if he has four meteorologists, was just one of them right? No. Because I'm thinking that's the average.
Mike Brasher: It brought the probability of at least one of them being correct near one, near 100%. So this next fellow that's going to be joining us is from Wisconsin. We actually had some people reach out to us. Well, they actually put some comments beneath the video and said, hey, your bias is showing, if I'm being totally honest. Bring some people in from the Midwest. So, we heard ya. And we had reached out to that fella a number of weeks ago, months ago, and that conversation just kind of fallen off, but we reached back out. We got that lined up, so you will have heard from that person on an audio-only episode. We're not able to hook that up on a live stream yet, but… Mark Holley is his name, from Warsaw, Wisconsin.
Scott Stephens: Is he known as the cheesehead meteorologist? He is now.
Mike Brasher: He should wear that on the episode, I think. But he can do that, but nobody will see it, because it's going to be audio only right now. He's having some trouble with his laptop, we'll get all that figured out. But the other thing is that, yeah, so in that episode, we talked about a change in the weather patterns, and it was… Pretty exciting, because it was the first notable outbreak of cold weather coming down to the mid-continent. That weather, that cold weather is going to stick around. It's going to be, as we say, they're going to be making ice up in Canada. I got a DM from Katrina Terry, our research scientist up in North Dakota, just like a couple hours ago, saying all day she has been hearing and seeing snow geese streaming south. So, birds are moving. I've seen some reports of snow geese showing up in the south.
Kevin Woods: For what it's worth, I saw six ducks in our neighborhood laying on our golf course ponds this past weekend.
Mike Brasher: Not worth a whole lot.
Kevin Woods: Not worth a whole lot, but we appreciate it.
Scott Stephens: And that's the only… Wait, did they have bright orange legs? Northern redleggers showed up on this pond.
Jared Henson: You're making me cringe. I was gonna say something with the geese. I mean, like, it's really late. Like, I live just across the river in Arkansas, and so, normally, late October… Yeah. This is at least two weeks late. We've had a few nights where we have solid geese going over. And they're not here. I mean, there's a few showing up that with this last little cold snap, but. It's still, like, the big push of geese is still not made it down. Of light geese, that is. We've got lots of white fronts.
Scott Stephens: So, they're three weeks late, I would say.
Mike Brasher: So, go check out that Waterfowl Weather Live on the Ducks Unlimited YouTube. That'll be about two weeks old by the time you watch it, but you'll still get a feel for the type of material and content we're trying to bring to you. Might even have another one out by then. Probably not, kind of given the math I'm doing in my head. It did talk about notable changes in the weather patterns, and I think we were talking, Jared, into next week as Thanksgiving, well, into Thanksgiving week, there's going to be, that cold is going to stick around a little bit longer than what we originally thought, which is a good thing.
Jared Henson: Yeah, well, I mean, and as that forecast kind of comes to fruition, we're finally going to get our first freeze.
Scott Stephens: Yeah. Yeah. Whether that's a good thing or not depends on where you live. It's a good thing.
Jared Henson: Yeah. Well, for us, it's very good.
Mike Brasher: Your bias is showing again. Guilty. Guilty as charged. And the other thing that I'll say about weather is that if you look out on the Pacific coast right now, they have… Bomb cyclone. Bomb cyclone was tearing up the Pacific Northwest last night. I don't even know what that is. It looks like a non-tropical hurricane force system is kind of what it looked like on the screen.
Katie Burke: I think the weather channel is like looking for views. It's like they keep changing the names of everything.
Scott Stephens: You think polar vortex?
Jared Henson: Atmospheric river? Yep, that's what I was like. Last time I saw mom's cyclone, it came with an atmospheric river. Look out for that. I'd be happy to have something similar to that.
Mike Brasher: So they had the Pacific Flyway has been getting some substantial rain. I talked to Kelly Warren who said that, yeah, they've been getting like six inches of rain, eight inches of rain. I think that was even before this other bout of rain. He said it's spreading birds out. In some cases, that's a good thing because the Pacific Northwest is the one place where we've started to see avian influenza show up in cackling yeast. So they're hoping to put some more habitat on the ground there and spread those birds out.
Jared Henson: It'll dilute the water, right?
Mike Brasher: Yeah, in theory, it dilutes the concentration of the virus transferred into water. Skinny tea or skinny, skinny… On the East Coast, the weather was like the opposite of that.
Katie Burke: It was super dry. You came back, got back from the Easton… Yeah, I was at Easton and then kind of hopped around the East Coast a little bit. But yeah, super dry. Like, felt like we were out West, kind of dry. And there was wildfires in New Jersey while we were there.
Mike Brasher: I did see that.
Katie Burke: It was crazy. Yeah. Like, I went to see George Strunk at his shop in New Jersey and you could smell it.
Mike Brasher: Did you do any video episodes while you were out there? You did, okay. So you got that to look forward to. You get in the shop. That'll be really cool.
Katie Burke: Yeah, George is gonna chop, he chops out a decoy and paints a decoy in his video, which is really cool. With a hatchet? Oh, yeah. That's the only way to do it, the real way.
Mike Brasher: So, let's see, next week, I guess the day after this airs is the Wings Over the Prairie Festival in Stuttgart, Arkansas. Are you going to… I think the two of us are going to try to be there. Yeah, I'm going to try to be there. Not participating in a duck calling contest. World duck calling contest is there. You don't want to be doing that.
Scott Stephens: How did you miss the gene on that? Because, like, I thought if you were from Arkansas or Mississippi… Same way I missed the gene on a lot of other things.
Mike Brasher: You knew what?
Katie Burke: He's not from the Delta, he's from the hill country.
Scott Stephens: Yeah, that's true. He's not far from the Delta, though.
Mike Brasher: Not far from it, that's true. But I might as well be a thousand miles away, if you ask them.
Scott Stephens: Well, my experience when I was in Mississippi, it's like, okay, I wish y'all would hurry up and shoot your limit so then maybe I could have a chance.
Mike Brasher: What else do we have to talk about? Any special plans? Kevin, what are you doing?
Kevin Woods: We are going to Nashville for Thanksgiving.
Mike Brasher: Family there?
Kevin Woods: I got a sister and her family and three kids. And I will not be eating at the kids' table.
Mike Brasher: Well, you're the one making those decisions. Sounds like you're not going to your house, so you might be. You'll have to report back to us on that. You also do some, what is it, apiarist? Yeah, yeah. Did I get that right? You did. You did nail it, so we do… Maybe some of those genes didn't…
Kevin Woods: Yeah, so as a beekeeper, we are just making sure the bees are all locked up, have enough food for their pantry for the winter, and I won't see them again until probably February.
Mike Brasher: Do you have to do any maintenance on those?
Kevin Woods: No, not this time of year. And do they go dormant? They go. What they do, they huddle up and they keep each other warm. So inside that hive, whether it is July 4th or Christmas Day, it's going to be about 95 degrees. So they will constantly be moving, burning calories, creating heat. But as long as I have enough honey for them,
Mike Brasher: The heat is generated just as a result of the friction and the movement. That's amazing. 95 degrees? Like, even if it gets down to 17 degrees, you don't have to worry about it. And is it harmful if you try to intervene? Yeah.
Kevin Woods: So, imagine if you had to keep this room at 95 degrees and somebody just lifts the roof off. You're going to let all that heat out. Now they have to work even harder to keep that heat going.
Mike Brasher: So, is the… Is the moral of this story, let nature do its thing? Yes. Wow.
Katie Burke: Is there a temperature in which they can't create enough heat to fight?
Kevin Woods: As long as they have enough honey to consume the calories to burn, they can survive anything. I've got a friend in Minnesota, and he puts snorkels underneath his beehive. They go about 10 feet in the air, so in case it gets covered with snow, they still have that circulation. And so, the past couple of winters, we've had that 10-degree, 7-degree weather. They bounce back just fine. So, interesting. Birds and bees, here we go.
Mike Brasher: Dr. Stephens, you got any travel plans? Finish off those skinny swans?
Scott Stephens: I'm going to finish out the skinny swans, hopefully later this week. And then, yeah, we haven't figured out plans yet. We haven't figured out if we're traveling, if we're staying in South Dakota. Might be influenced by whether the water's hard or not.
Mike Brasher: Yeah, yeah. And I think we've mentioned this on a past episode, but you're here right now because you're meeting with a few folks. You live in South Dakota.
Scott Stephens: That's an astute observation. I'm here right now. This is true.
Mike Brasher: We have not advanced in the… technological space far enough to have you kind of be a hologram. No, we don't want that. Yeah, you work out of your home office in South Dakota, you're helping lead our prairie and boreal work, and you are, you came, just got back from Yellowknife? Yes. That is, where is Yellowknife for all the people that don't know?
Scott Stephens: Yellowknife is on Great Slave Lake in Northwest Territory, so north of Alberta. Northwest Territories is a big place. Big place, yep. But cool event up there. The short story is we attended a big signing ceremony where 22 indigenous communities had come together with the government in Northwest Territories and the federal government. And then there are a bunch of private funders like DU and Pew and a number of other folks who brought money to the table so they have all the resources they need to plan their protected areas and land use plans all across Northwest Territories.
Mike Brasher: Katie, hunting? That's your tradition? You're going to be doing hunting there? Yep. Do you have birds yet? Wood ducks is all we got.
Katie Burke: Dad said we have 3,000 wood ducks. But you know what that means, like, depends on what the timing of those wood ducks are. You know, it's 20 minutes of great shooting. Amen.
Jared Henson: Yeah. That'll be the stir factor as well, opening day. Yeah. It'll bump what birds are around.
Mike Brasher: And you might, I would hope you'd get a few more birds. Yeah, you might get a few more. Hopefully, you'd get a few more birds between now and then as well.
Katie Burke: Yeah. So, that would be what?
Mike Brasher: It's Friday. So, it will open tomorrow when people are listening to this. Yeah.
Katie Burke: So, we'll have Thanksgiving dinner in town, and then, like, I'll leave for my sister's and go straight down, and my brother. And so, we have a big crew. And is that this? That's the… Opener opener? Opener opener.
Mike Brasher: For Mississippi.
Katie Burke: And we'll stay open through the weekend and then we'll close and then open back up the next weekend.
Mike Brasher: You're gonna be hunting in Arkansas? Oh, yeah. You got some water. You've been kind of nervously watching the water levels in the White River. It had been, like, super low. Then you got a lot of rain. It came up, put water in the woods.
Jared Henson: Water didn't quite make it to the levels they were hoping, originally, because Mississippi's so low. So, water kind of fell out fast. But, yeah. No, but there's a lot of water on the landscape. And there's a lot of reports I'm hearing that if you have water in Arkansas, you've got some birds. There's not a lot of mallards, but… We hear big reports right now of lots of gadwalls, greenwings, and pintails. There's a lot of excitement for the first time in several years around our opener. Don't jinx it.
Mike Brasher: Don't jinx it. Keep those expectations low. Keep those expectations low.
Katie Burke: I haven't seen a bird. Yep. Expectations low.
Jared Henson: I haven't seen any, but I've been here, so.
Katie Burke: Yeah. Just hoping. But I will say the water part versus last year is much better this year.
Mike Brasher: Is it really? Okay. Oh, yeah. That's a good thing.
Katie Burke: We were like still pumping through the opener.
Jared Henson: Right, and I think that Mississippi and Arkansas, I mean, we had one of the driest Octobers on record, so.
Mike Brasher: It's been crazy warm this year, but it sounds like we've got a little bit more water out there. Yeah. All right. I think… I think we'll kick it back to our guest host. Appreciate you doing this. This has been fun. This has been an honor. I think we got one more question. You tell us what other surprises you got up your sleeve.
Scott Stephens: But wait, but wait, but wait. Like, the last podcast I was on, we got to do sort of white front calls and those sort of things. Do we get to do turkey calls on the Thanksgiving episode?
Mike Brasher: It's not my call. Yes. Yes. Yes, he says. You have to, right? I cannot do the gobble. I could do the yelp. Jared did the gobble.
Jared Henson: Y'all are gonna put me on the spot.
Katie Burke: That's all right. That's all I got.
Scott Stephens: That was good. What you got? I got, I could try and yelp. That's not as good as yours. It's so quiet. I'm better at it. That's good, yeah.
Mike Brasher: Yeah.
Katie Burke: Jared's the best one.
Mike Brasher: You better be careful doing that in the spring.
Kevin Woods: All right, so we're going to end this with one last question, right? That was good. That was good. We've had a pretty successful year here at Ducks Unlimited, wouldn't you agree? Right? Yes, absolutely. And I think Jared and I, we've been here just a little bit past a year. Yeah, just a little over. So, I made it. I feel like I can no longer say, hey, I'm new here. Sorry for this mistake I made, right?
Mike Brasher: Right. We're past that, right? The first probationary period.
Kevin Woods: Statute of limitation to the non-new guy. I've seen a lot of good stuff in this past year. We came in on a high note, for sure. Yeah, we did. I'm not saying we're like the lucky rabbit's foot, but… We didn't hurt, right? As a Ducks Unlimited employee, what are you thankful for this past year?
Mike Brasher: So, I'll go and I'll kind of hit some of the highlights for us as an organization. Obviously, when we think about 2024, fiscal year 2024, what we've accomplished, there are some very notable things. First of their kind type things that should make any of us proud, sort of, obviously, at the top of that list. is the $100 million gift from Cox Enterprises made in honor of Jim Kennedy. Jim Kennedy is our largest philanthropist. We have a ton of very influential philanthropists that make Ducks Unlimited. that allow us to do work at a scale that really no one else can, and we're thankful for all of those, but Alex Taylor, the CEO and Chairman of Cox Enterprises, Jim Kennedy, that entire group that made that possible, the $100 million gift that is going to Ducks Unlimited's highest priority landscape and prairie pothole region to permanently protect grasslands and wetlands. Scott, that's got to make your heart very Very warm, and all of us really, right? Absolutely. It's already feeling kind of warm and cozy over here. That's it. From an organizational standpoint, that has to be the top of the list in terms of what we're thankful for. But there's also really another high-profile accomplishment that we made. One million acres of conservation delivery. across the US, that's Ducks Unlimited Incorporated, only a million acres of conservation delivery, captures a host of different activities and delivery practices and places where we work. We actually had Dr. Karen Waldrop on an earlier episode of the DU podcast to talk about some of those details, encourage folks to go back and listen to that if you want more details on that. But that was made possible by every person in this organization, all of our supporters, all of our members, all of our volunteers, of course all of our staff across all departments. It was a true team effort and that's something to be thankful for as well.
Kevin Woods: That's one of the first things I noticed working here in the first six months was how passionate everybody is. on this mission. It's like, I've never been part of an organization where it was, do it for the Ducks, right? And it was very apparent.
Jared Henson: You were saying, what are we thankful for? And I'll jump in, because you kind of hit on my thing. I'm really, really thankful to be at an organization where everyone is on that same boat, trying to row in the same direction. And it's not just the staff. I mean, yeah, we've got 800 staff. That's our focus, right? But we've got 30,000 volunteers that are on the same boat. Like, that magnitude and like, that's, I'm super thankful to be a part of that organization. And our listeners out there, thank y'all for listening in and being part of that as well. We're all on the same mission. We want the same things. And that's pretty powerful. I'm really happy to be a part of that. Absolutely.
Katie Burke: Katie? Well, I mean, it's just the same stuff, really, you know. And like, I'm thankful for, You guys, the people here and the people not only within DU, we always talk about that at DU like we're a family, but it's also all the people I've gotten to know outside of DU, the volunteers and then on the decoy side, the carvers and all the people that this has kind of given me the opportunity to know that I wouldn't know.
Mike Brasher: That's got to be pretty cool because there is no other, are there any other outlets for sharing their craft to the audiences like we have?
Katie Burke: No, I have definitely kind of been one of the front runners of doing that. There's a little bit, I think, here and there, but I definitely have been one of the bigger champions of pushing them.
Mike Brasher: And the fact that we're now able to incorporate a little bit of video into that, I think is just gonna elevate the value of that message and of those conversations. That's really cool. You might even one day be talking to the fella to the right of you and asking him to demonstrate how he makes those skinny teal and skinny swans.
Katie Burke: You know, they call them flatties in the decoy world. Yeah. Total flatty.
Scott Stephens: That was my shorthand.
Mike Brasher: Skinny, skinny teal. Yeah.
Scott Stephens: Yeah. Um, anything else, Scott? Yeah, I would build on Jared's and for me, it's, it's kind of an interesting year to reflect on back with Ducks Unlimited Inc. I, I started here, so it's a bit of a homecoming, but I appreciate lots of the things that Jared talked about. Passionate colleagues like all of you. passionate volunteers and just being focused on the mission and ducks. There you go. Kevin?
Kevin Woods: I'm just thankful to be part of the adult table again. No, this is, like I said, this past year has really opened my eyes to the whole duck community and just it is very Infectious, I guess. When you walk into these doors and you're like, all right, what can I do today to further this mission? Just a little bit further. Just make it better than yesterday. And when you're around this group of people, it's easy. And it makes coming to work. I no longer have the Sunday scaries. How about that? That's what I'm thankful for. That's good. That is awesome.
Mike Brasher: That's a good measure right there. Yeah. Where were you before? Well, I don't know if you want to say where you were after that. I made a lot of people rich. So, uh, all right. Well, so I'll close this out here. I am, uh, and I know the rest of us are thankful for our producer, Chris Isaac, for the wonderful work that he does throughout the year, uh, putting up with all of our BS and a lot of our, uh, a lot of our shenanigans and a lot of the demands that we put on him for the work that he does. Also thank our entire team, Landon McCullough, who is now, uh, Uh, working on some of the video, Derek Christians helped out with a lot of these things as well. And it, it really takes a team to do this and we have a phenomenal one of those. So just want to make sure those people know that we appreciate them. Uh, we, and I think I'm saying I am more than anybody else can be very persnickety at times. And so just… Thank them for the wonderful work that they do, because this is about the organization and getting this information to the people that care about it and support it, because ultimately, we are here to deliver on the mission of conserving waterfowl habitats, and there's a lot of different ways that we accomplish that, and this is just one small part of that. So, thank you to those people involved in that. Also, thanks to all my co-hosts and special guests here, Jared, Katie, Scott, and Kevin. And then to all of you out there, we certainly appreciate you. We appreciate you spending your time with us. If you're listening to this on Thanksgiving, that's really special to us. We appreciate that. And then just for listening throughout the rest of the year, we thank you for that. And thank you for your support of wetlands and waterfowl conservation. Happy Thanksgiving. Gobble, gobble. Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.