Justin Martin’s Game Warden Encounter Nearly Cost Him His License

Hey, no, I prepared. No, you didn't. Yes, I did. Not for that. I prepared for this big storm. No one was prepared. I was prepared. You weren't prepared. If you'll tell me on this podcast and I'll say not prepared enough. You could not have possibly been prepared for that. You were prepared for a week without power. Yeah. We had just enough firewood. I mean, we ran all the way out and we had to go get gas several times. So I mean, I thought you were prepared. We were semi-prepared. Welcome back to the duck call room. Apparently Hunter just started while me and Philip were arguing on how prepared we were. We are in the midst. Rough around this joint. Well, no, no, no, it's 65 degrees outside almost. Martin, I still got ice on my ass. Can you declare the ice apocalypse over? I mean, I guess it's over. I don't. I mean, it's still around, which is what's crazy. This crap's taking forever to melt. I'll have ice for the next week. I've in the shade. Clearly there's something that I missed in chemistry or physics or meteorology. Well, forget that. I'm talking about just once it gets there. I hate it. Like it. Why is it still here? Go back to where you came from. Why is it still around? Well, do you know that you can start a fire with ice? Hunter Hunter just audibly gasped and I wish I wish Hunter had a microphone because Hunter, when you said that, I will say there is a quiet. Hunter went, well, I'm just saying, hey, you know, you know, there's a silver lining in every dark cloud. How do you start a fire with ice? You take the ice and you mold it into a lens with your hand and then let the sun set fire to grass or wood. My hands would have frozen off. Dear people that listen to this, I've been confirmed to weenie when it comes to the cold and I am not well. Yeah, this sucks. Yeah, I actually watched the movie where I learned things this weekend. They had a lot of free time on your hands, even more than normal. Here's what you do. You take a leaf off of a tree. Yeah. You put it in water. If you want to know what is. I've been watching that too. East and west. Oh, it's called Blippi. I thought she's going to find out the leaf floater. The boys like that. And then you put a little, what do they call it? I can't thank you on this little piece of wire. Lay a piece of wire on that leaf and it will automatically turn north. Really? Yeah. Yeah. You rub it with silk. That's what we saw. So in case you're caught in the wild with silk, a piece of wire and a leaf, you can figure out which way is north. You ain't lost no more. If you got ice, you can buddy get Bear Grillets on the phone. We've got all those problems. Heaven forbid we look at the sun. I figure out which way north is. Or that big star up there. I believe it has a name. Yeah. You know, when the cold weather started coming in, I went over to Si and Christine's who've been out of their house temporarily while they're getting some work done. And I said, Hey, you boys ready? I said, Si, you ready? Christine, she was like, Oh no, we'll just stay here and ride it out. And Si was like, whatever. He went and got in the bed. He's got the covers all on him. I said, no, let's go. Come with me because that's why I'm lived. For about three days. Yeah. It's in the bed. I don't play. I only don't look upstairs. I only got up to eat and use the restroom. I would have done otherwise. I was in the bed with 19 quilts on top of you. That's the smart. You're the smartest person I've heard so far, but it got cold. Too cold. It even got. Poor. It got cold. So the next morning, Christine, come and she was like, Philip, we run and get us. Yeah, we're ready. What was the coldest you ever saw it in your houses? In my house now on the thermostat. 54 was I'm a win this was my house. The ours is like 60. Well, that's what got me here. I stayed 60 without power. Yeah, because we had a generator and we had a fireplace with a blower. You were more prepared than that. I degreased the other day. And when she'll inside my house, the thermostat, I looked at it, it said 34. Ooh. Yeah, that's your house off. That's two degrees above freezing. Wow. I can confirm that's cold as crap. I was freezing my butt off. That's good. Yeah, you're blocked off everything in the living room. Your house can get that air up under it. Oh yeah. So yeah. We blocked off everything had blankets in the air, trying to close off doors on how to fire for about five to four days. So your preparedness program fell through. Yeah, my preparedness program was go to big Dave's house and then he lost power and I said, oh crap. Yeah, he could see the power grid and it's gone. Yeah, so we live right next to the substation. Close. My dad lives right next to it and we heard it go down. Yeah. And I said, that ain't good. While on this subject, I think we're getting, I would like to personally thank all the people. Amen. Okay. That was involved in anything to do with getting everything posed replaced, wires hooked up. Amen. Yep. Linemen, DOTD workers, whoever was clearing the roads. First responders. Ambulance men, paramedics, firemen, all you people, great. That's right. All the leadership of our local power cooperative energy. Yeah. Know this, you're loved. Don't try, I don't want them to try again. Know this, you're loved. Y'all failed. And I appreciate it. The leadership of energy failed. I didn't know we were going there. Well, I don't care. They failed. Your boots on the ground covered your rear end. That's right. They did a fabulous job. The people that I've met around here from Missouri that came to work from South Louisiana, from Arkansas, from everywhere. Mississippi, I've talked to a bunch of them. Thank y'all for coming. And I'm sorry that the leaders were inadequate for y'all. I will apologize for that. We were in a bad spot. He apologized for. And to be fair, nobody could have ever seen this. Which is why you keep your mouth shut. You don't tell people two days in three days they'll have power. 90% of them will have power. Don't say that. That's dumb. Because we did. That's dumb. Hey, we're addressing the problem and working on the situation. Just say, hey, we're doing the best we can with what we got. There was a boy, they working on that high line. I never want that job. It was up in the air. It was probably 28 degrees at night. And they were just shining spotlights up on him. And my dad was just watching him from his porch. And I was like, which I used to couldn't see him. But now that all the trees are gone, I can. Yeah, like a rice field now. I'll tell you what, I checked the map and we got an Oxford, Mississippi. We're brethren now because y'all took it. It was West Monroe and Oxford. Yeah, pretty much if you drew a straight line up to Nashville, there's parts of Nashville still ain't got power. We we all took it on the chin. So you draw a line that connects Monroe, Oxford and Nashville. And it's surprisingly straighter line than you think. Because I've looked at it. It's like, OK, that's the swath that that took it on the chin. Everybody in that little swath right there. Just yeah, but it's fine, man. It was whatever. Yeah, I memory. It's always cool to see community come together. I said that on my social stuff. It's always fun to watch people help each other. You know, I wish and there are people as we're talking still right now, nine days later, that still don't have power. Had people in the store this morning, they're just hanging out in town because they're like, how sucks? Yeah, I get it. I've never been more thankful to have a four wheel drive side by side with heat and a cab. I texted Martin, I said, hey, we got sign Christine over here. We may need we may need some stuff from time to time. He said, I'll bring it to you on my side by side. Let me know. I was running all over this dadgum town on the whole bunch of people were. I drove to this office. I was in the other way. But there were people on the interstate stuck for like a day. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Interstates over to Ruston and that area were trashed. I don't know. I wouldn't I wouldn't dare going to get on it. No, that was rough. I didn't even like getting on highway 80 because the problem is even though I had a rig, I'm still the smallest thing on the road. Like I was there wasn't much on the road the first couple of days. There was more than there should have been that one in four wheel drive vehicles and out there acting like idiots. And people kept telling me, well, the roads are fine. And then I went we ventured out to get a few things. And a Chevy Malibu came flying past me with a 75 pound block of ice hanging off the roof. I said, no, I'm going to go back home. Yeah. That was other annoying thing. People wouldn't clear their cars before they they took off. We don't know any better. We are swamp creatures. Yeah. That do not lizards. We do not belong in ice. Well, I just wish we had a guanas here like them people in Florida yesterday just went around picking up a guana that fell out of trees. We look that look fun. We were about to start eating them. Oh, we would have. But yeah, we would have. I didn't need to because I had plenty in the freezer that we ate. We ate well. I was just tired of cooking. I had that last hour. When I got the text that said Johnny's has a limited menu. I said, I'm going to get me a pizza. Everybody's running out of there. We did go to Johnny's and get some. When they had the little four pizza menu. I was awesome. Just to have one meal that somebody else cooked during that. I was like, oh, thank God. I think that was the night I cooked 150 pizza rolls on a flat top. They were starting to thaw. I said, who wants pizza rolls? And the kid said, yes, nobody's ever said no to pizza. Watch this. I my whole back porch was just a refrigerator slash freezer. Yeah. I just had to move all the food out there and we just go out there, look around, pick something up, eat it up and eat it. Well, Simon, did you ever fall? Nope. Not at all. No, I did. I did not. Allison bit the dust this morning and I felt terrible about it. Hey, I was trying to help. I didn't go out in it. There you go. Wise. Yeah. And they said, hey, look, if you don't have a four wheel drive, you are not be out in the road. Yeah, I saw a Sturlington Police Department said they were going to start writing tickets for people that were out with. Amen. Without four wheel drive. I've got a four wheel drive truck, but I just still said, no. Yeah, it was crazy. We don't know what we're doing. No, I wonder though, how. There's places this happens, which we didn't get snow. What we had is an anomaly. The ice doesn't happen much. Like you got to be in a bad spot on Saturday morning when the lightning started. And by the way, it's not fair. Hey, here's what was so screwy about that. It was screwy. It was from the West, Southwest. What? The lightning? It was a stupid ice. Yeah. Well, and then the thunder, the thunderstorm in the middle of an ice storm. Lord, we're going to have to talk about that one. Yeah, I got questions. Both of those are equally as terrified. Why'd you put them together? Well, in my house, surrounded by super tall pine trees. So the branches are just snapping left and right. And you just, it's all every 30 seconds you hear. And then you hear it fall and then the ice shattering makes it. That's what got Christine. Yeah, she's out on the porch. She was out on the first. You wouldn't believe she said you wouldn't leave. I would have to. Like fireworks crashing off of these streets. I said, oh, yes, I would. I said, because most people there's two things that most people don't know is real, real dangerous. Ice is one of them and water is another one. You're in flood stage. I don't. OK, water, soft and hard water. Mad. I don't even like steam and water anymore. Never will see it again. No, but I woke up at four a.m. to the loudest thunder I think I've ever heard. And then all I can I'm looking at my back window and I just see limbs falling and then thunder and then lightning. And I was like, this is it. We had our couch over in the corner and I'm just who done pissed else off. Right. Yeah. And I'm just shaking. I've never been I've legitimately I'm not trying to joke. Like I've been through what I take. You said this is so scary. I said, no, it ain't scary. It's terrifying. Before the power went out, I was watching the news. Shocker. And no, no. And they was warning about exploding trees. And that was up north. I don't think I. Well, I got one branch that something about. Hey, it's something about when it gets below freezing with ice. OK, yeah, the tree actually shrinks. From the bark, you know, from the barking and it shrinks and it just blows up. Are you around a bunch of pine trees? I used to be. Did you were you around a bunch of pine trees? Yeah, I was looking at today when I left. Yeah, he's got one. It's got about two little limbs at the top. Oh, I got something that broke off. I got a 75 foot stump at my house now. I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. It looks way more like a. That's not what feels like what feels God. He's got a little two little limbs. I've just never experienced that much noise and it was dark. I'd been without power. Does it make noise? Yeah, they always ask that. Hey, if there's anybody there that listen, there's a tree make noise when it falls. If it's got ice all over it, it makes way more. It makes a bunch of. Yeah, that's what's right. I'm telling you, that is the scariness of weather I've ever been in my entire life. Because I was like, trees about to come on top of me, gang. Hey, let me tell you something. Y'all know these ads we read in here? Hmm. One of your generator companies needs somebody. How about you boys? That's right. Because I need one. How about you boy? Yeah. Uh huh. How about you boys? So the scariness that I have been is when my mom called me and said, we're, you know, our generators out of gas. It's fixing to be out. I need you. So I had gas, but I couldn't get it to her. She only lives three miles from me. It took me two hours to get there and the roads were ice. I mean, there's nobody on the road. Nobody except me on a four wheeler with a box full of firewood and gas and. You went on a regulation four wheeler. And yeah, you was cold. And a saw. You were cold. Oh yeah. He was this. He was. Hey, the windshield was a little cold. After it all hit. After it hit Sunday, it was icing. You couldn't drive on the road. Oh, you couldn't get nowhere. So yeah. So there was trees down everywhere else cutting my way to our house. Yeah. I was just like, and pray and Lord help me, you know, because there's limbs falling all around me. My dad lives a half a mile from me. Yeah. By road. It took him three hours on a tractor to get to pushing stuff out of the way, just to make a path to get to my house, which cleared up a lot of the neighborhood. Shout out big Dave, but yeah, it was the cre and that was on. I don't even know what day it is. Now that's how it gets. Okay. It was the weirdest, but wildest. Yeah. It kind of caught in like a weird font. Like I, we got power back after five days at my house or going into the city. I don't know what I could. I lost count in there. I don't even remember what day of the week it was. But I remember thinking like when I got the text from my neighbor that said, we got power because we all bailed and went to my mom's house because she's got, it's not quite a whole home generator, but it's easy. Like you plug, she had her house wired for a transfer switch. So you plug a big dummy cord from the generator into a, into an outlet on the outside of the house, you turn off everything and you turn on the generator breaker. So it feeds the house pretty much the whole house. But so that's where when it started coming down, I said, we're out of here. Like we'd have, we've never lost it in our neighborhood, but I just saw that stuff and I was like, babe, we got to go. We got to go while we can go. And let's go. Willie and big David haven't lost it since Willie built his house. Yeah. Cause it's right there. It comes from behind its underground and they've lived there for 10 years. Had lost power. They were, they went out because that's where I was headed. And then dad was like, oh, we're out of power. I said, well, it's things. Yeah. Willie said he never been so cold in his entire life. But the problem with that was what got us in there was the, then the lines fell and the one connected my mom's to the main was like windshield level with your truck. So you couldn't go in a vehicle out of there. So that's why I thank God I had that Kawasaki. But when we got that text that the neighbor said, we got power. I said, okay, I'm getting rid of that line. I don't know how, but I'm getting my truck out of here. You're, you're breaking. Now the line is hanging down. It's caught up in some tree limbs. Like it's completely, it's, it's flat on one end and it's still hanging in some tree limbs in front of my mom's house. Wait a minute. And I just, did you go up and touch it? No, I wasn't there going to touch it. I took a saw to the limbs and just prayed. And the first time that it, it kind of fell a little bit because it's on three of them. So I cut the first limb and it dropped a little bit and I didn't see no spark. You didn't hear nothing. I said, oh, we good now. So then I really got brave and cut the rest of them down. You're braver than I got it on the ground and then drove my truck over and was like, okay, here we go. Let's go. We're getting out of here. We are going to my house. Then he texted me. He's like, Hey man, I got power. If you need a shower at that point, I was about 20 minutes from my house cause I had abandoned ship. Yeah. I was out. I was going to friends house with power. Yeah. Um, I'm going to sleep in a guest bed somewhere tonight. That first hot shower back in my house was. That's a good feeling. Bingo. Man, it was such a good feeling. Like it was like, oh my God. Well, we never lost hot water cause we got gas. So we had hot water. Yeah. We had TV and internet. Uh, we had our freezer and refrigerator and the fireplace blower. Yeah. So, but that was, I was just up all night filling up the gas, checking. Well, that was the same thing. Put the wood in. While I was there, I was every, I started cause I didn't know how big the tank on her generator was and I would start every two hours. I would just get up and put gas in the generator and put logs on fireplace. Cause the generator wasn't quite enough to run her big heating unit. So, uh, to run it full speed, it would run half of it. So that was a, but with that, she's got one of them old school buck stove insert. Oh yeah. Is that what you got? Oh, no, no, but it's kind of like that. Yeah. But it's got a fan on it. So when it kicks on, I looked up one time, thermostat at 80. I said, Oh, praise God. Yeah, that was mine. I was in there sweating thinking. Yes. I ain't seen 80. Is it first two nights were so cold before we got all that stuff figured out. I was like, Oh my goodness gracious. I mean, I built a roaring fire in there. I had a roaring fire. Got to house up to a nice 46. Yeah. You gotta get that open fireplace. It don't do much. I don't know about this. There were some birds happy on my roof, I guess. I don't know about this endorsement, but there, whatever she, and I don't know if they still make it, but it's called buck stove. My parents have one growing up. Yeah. Yeah. When it reaches a certain temperature, it turns a fan on it. There's that hot air out into the house. Yep. That's what I kept her whole house. Well, we were able to turn her heat off and then we ran the rest of the house. Like ran washer, dryer, everything. All right. Look, it's a new year. Look, income taxed us by start coming back. Maybe you want to get that new car smell. Maybe you're looking to refinance your house, rent an apartment for the first time. Whatever it is, you want your credit score to be as strong as possible so that you can save some money. So you need smart credit. 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Go to smartcredit.com slash dup and start your seven day trial for just one dollar. Your results will depend on your unique credit profile, but I think you'll be excited to see how many points smart credit estimates that you can gain. Results not guaranteed. Cancel anytime that smart credit.com slash dark smart credit.com. So I called it a get where you and Christine were before y'all came over. Oh, I didn't look at no temperature. I lost. Well, I had to turn my water off because it was like my attic was 31 degrees at some point and all the pipes up there. I said, we're out. So, so then it was, then it got colder because we didn't have no water. Well, last summer for some reason, oh, I know why, because I was tired of paying them stupid electric bills in the summer for my air conditioner. I had them re blow the insulation in the top of my house. I was like, no, y'all come back and do that again, whatever that was. So our house only got, there was nobody in it, but it never got below 54 degrees even in all that stuff. So it was like, but my, hey, all I got to say is we raise Sadie Robertson right. Huff, Sadie Robertson. She texted my wife and said, hey, we have a generator running the house. So if y'all need a shower or anything, y'all come over and we're like, ah, we don't want to intrude, you know, and then they changed the day back to three more days. I said, we're headed over. Sadie. Yeah, we'll see you in a minute. I took a shower, one of her kids showers. I was like, this is the best. It's amazing. Got all of them at Sadie's. The only one that said, I need a generator. I've been saying she's the smartest one all of it. Hey, but she for real. She had everybody in the neighborhood. Everybody related to her. Yeah. Y'all come on, warm up, get you a cup of coffee. Oh yeah. I was saying once we got power back, I was like, come on, anybody that wants to get it. And then I started duck hunting. So I was like, look, the house is going to be empty from like 11 because I was hunting in the middle of the day. Just forget that early cold stuff. I had enough of that. I was just hunting midday. I was like, look, the house will be empty from like 11 to five. Go, it is your house. Go do whatever you so desire in that house and just know that I'll be back about five or six o'clock. And this was a great time to, to, for people to be servants and to offer hospitality without grumbling. Like first period of force says, because I've struggled with that. I've offered hospitality. I've even told Zion in the past, I can offer hospitality. I'm great at it, but then I get to grumbling because something goes the wrong way. But not this time. I did really good. I helped everybody. I could and without, without grumbling, but look, it's just right there. You know, you're ready to grumble about something. Yeah. I just looked at it like, and I got fuel for everybody multiple times. Once stuff opened, I was delivering sausage biscuits to people. Like I didn't care. What, you know, it's just money, man. At this point, it's like, that's through it. Like I'll, I'll recoup it somewhere else down the road, but I'm about to try to be a good freaking human. And you know, the smile on somebody's face from this, a warm sausage biscuit that they didn't have to cook is like warm food. When a long way in that it did. And so just like little acts of kindness doing, doing stuff like that. I was at the, I was at the gas pumps, taking pictures with people. Like, you know, cause I mean, then I guess word got it. Well, of course, social media was still a thing. So I guess everybody saw me driving around town. So when they'd see it, they'd flag me down. I was like, somehow our neighborhood lost sales service too. It was, it took out a tower. I mean, I remember, oh yeah, you were texting me. I could barely text you. And then my, my, one of my neighbors said, well, we got the generator running the wifi. I said, well, that still works. If you can get it turned on. He said, yeah, I said, and I, it hit me that Allison's car has a little 110 plugin in it. No, I had a hundred foot of extension cords by then. Then we had a TV, we had wifi and we could communicate. It was great. That's all it could run, but it was running that. Yeah. I had to run mom's TV from the hotspot of my phone. Xfinity went down and all that. My mom's still doing that. Yeah. Our TV would work. The wifi would work and then it'd go out and it'd sit there. Just spinning. So I would say spinning, spinning, spinning. So, but, but I got a question for Si, because I feel, I know I'm soft, but I like, we, we all panic and cause we don't have wifi and coffee at the touch of a button. What, what would have happened back in your childhood had this happened? Nothing. They'd have killed everything inside. Hey, we'd break out. We'd break out the hiccups. Yeah. Cheese. But you either went hunting and fresh fruit and like Mark says, and like, you know, it didn't make any difference what the weather was. Yeah. It crossed your path. Thanksgiving day. Hey, we're going duck hunting. Yeah. Yeah, it was, which it was a good time to be a duck hunter. If you could get there. There's a lot of ducks that come down here on that. So what I want to know the best thing that happened. Tell me the best story that happened during this ice storm. Oh, I like the story about Martin falling down. Oh, that, yeah, that was not a good thing. I mean, looking back on it, it was hilarious. And I'm convinced that cold concrete is harder than regular concrete. Tell us what happened. So you ain't been to my house. I don't think, but Phillip has the idea. So my driveway is steep. Big hit. It's pretty much straight up like the back of trailer up it. You got to have a tire in the grass side of it to get up the deal. So it's pretty steep. So at four o'clock, we finally got power back. I finally had to beg bar and steel to get my mom to leave her house to get away from the noise of that generator and putting a log on the fire every two hours. They just come have a night, right? Like just come spend the night, take a hot shower, do all the things. Stay with your grandkids. Like, you know, but I get it. She didn't want to leave her stuff like this. It's mine. I won't make sure everything's fine because my aunt wasn't so fortunate. My aunt had a waterline bus and completely flooded their house. And I mean, I'm sure by the time insurance gets done with it, they're going to probably tear down the house and start over. If I had to guess, because they were staying outside in the camper beside their house, because it had generator and power, heat, everything. So, so mom hears that story. So she's paranoid as she should be. Right. Like, I mean, you hear that kind of stuff when it hits that close on, but she finally came. So I said, what I'll do before I go duck hunting is I'll go fill up your generator that way you can keep sleeping and you don't have to worry about it. Like it'll still be running by the time you wake up and get back to your house. No problem. Well, so I woke up early, earlier than normal to go duck hunting to go. So I had plenty of time to do that. Well, walking down my driveway, I'm still about half asleep. And the night light that I got right there is just right, you know, like on the, you know, neighborhood lights or whatever. I got a night light in front of my house for one of them is right in my eyes. So I'm kind of like half asleep. Got my eyes closed. Well, apparently that snow and ice and crap had been melting and seeping out from under one of the seams in my driveway, one of the seams in the concrete. Nope. And I'm walking down and I never see it. And, you know, it was 22 degrees or whatever it was, 20 degrees. So that was no longer water. Yeah. It was ice. Yeah. And both of my feet left out from, I didn't even have a chance to stumble. Like both. I wonder it was just one of those. Gone. Boom. I was there and I was gone. And I landed. And I did, I'd throw Brittany this and it was crazy because I have fallen a lot. I'm a professional follower. I'm pretty clumsy in the grand scheme of things. So the only thing I could think about was don't put your arm down because I did that one time and broke my wrist. Yeah. Yeah. And so trying to catch. So I just took my arms in real tight as I'm falling and I landed right on my right hip. Well, I land on the ice. I slid the rest of the way down my driveway out of control until I ended up with my legs under my truck in the cul-de-sac. Did anybody see it? I asked the neighbors if they got it on their camera and they never send it back to us. I said, if that thing catches the corner of my driveway, buddy, you need to watch it about 420 a.m. Because there's pretty good, pretty good thing that happens about then. And he takes me back. He said, Oh no, did you eat it? I said, buddy. Did I eat it? Like I had fallen. So I'm just laying there under my truck, half under my truck. And I'm like, what just happened? I mean, I felt like I got hit with a baseball bat. Just somebody come up and hit me. And, but I look back and then when I look back this way with the night light behind me, I can see the shine of the ice. Yeah. Like it was very obvious what had just happened. Yeah. Dang. And but that, you know, that driveway was not slick, was not ice free. Buddy. Was it? Oh man. Nothing ice free yet. No, I don't trust anybody. And me at Brittany had spent half a day shoveling that thing, getting ready for power, you know, hoping that power would come back. Oh, somebody said something about that. Someone I thought I'd never see it. And I said, what's that? He said, somebody help with the snow shovels, shoveling ice, trying to get ice off of a driveway in Westman Road. What's our neighbor? Oh, losing. My neighbor that just moved, we just got a new neighbor not long ago, Mr. Clint. He, uh, he moved down here from Colorado. So he let me in on a juice of that. I know next time not to leave. He said, as soon as it stops, you get out there with your shovel. He said, the minute it stops, get out there with your shovel. He said, it'll all come right up. Cause his driveway was free and clear. I said, how'd you do that? He said, the moment it stopped, I got out there with a shovel. And so he said, if you let it stick, it's going to stick. And then you're going to fight. You ain't no get it done. He said, you're going to fight what y'all did all day today. Out there doing that. And I said, yeah, I said, as soon as a picture of a guy standing there with a propane bottle with a flamethrower on it. I saw that. Yeah. I need to melt in his driveway. Yeah. Boy, I could have used that. That if I'd had that that morning, I'd have blown up my whole drive. After a week of no electricity and kind of being cooped up, we were able to get out a little bit. Alicia grabbed me and she pulled me aside. She said, I need some normalcy. Take me to Academy. I took her to Academy. She was shopping and buying shoes or whatever. And we got a phone call. Hey, the electricity's back on. And that was like the happiest little moment for me. I was like, sweet, thank you, Lord. I wish Carter was more afraid of things. He can't want to go look at the, oh, look, dad limbs fall. And I said, get away from the window. He was fired up about it. I was like, I'm scared to death. Yeah. The boys were just, they want, they could make it outside in that crap for about 15 minutes. And then they're like, let's go inside. It's too cold. I felt that our kids are, I mean, our yard's just a disaster and there's still limbs to this moment hanging up there that you can tell they, they coming down one day. So it's like, Hey, y'all know them snow days y'all have heard about? Yeah. The day ain't it. Yeah, I put, we're just hanging out inside. There's a big pasture right by mom's house. So I put the rig in too well driving. We may or may not have went and cut some doughnuts. What you got to done. We may or may not have done some bread next stuff. You know. Well, I loved watching Si watch movies, you know, and he saw the whole book of David. What's it called on Amazon prime? Yeah, David. Yeah. So anyway, cartoon. No, no, the real one, the real one, the cartoon just came in. So when a Goliath was out there yelling, you know, and talking about some math, Si was sick of it. He was like, that's it. Somebody needs to shut him up. And here comes David. And I mean, it was like, he was calling a ringside fight. Si and his commentary. It was good. What? Worth. I wish I had a camera. It was good. Well, I was, I was tired of hearing the Goliath, the Phil's team. Yeah. Run his mouth. Yeah. Well, did you read the book? I said, David, you need to get hit that donkey a couple of times, make him speed up before you get over here and kill this sucker. Yeah. I'm tired of him running his mouth. A walk. That was good. Well, that was a good show. I really, they did a good job on that show. It was good. Um, no, but I don't know the best thing. I don't, I mean, when the power came back on. Yeah. I mean, that was a good one. That was probably the best feel when I went out and I, Allison went home. And it was, you know, probably 40 in the house at that point. And she, our house was, I mean, we'd all been living in the living room. Nothing working. So our house was a disaster. Yeah. And that first morning duck hunting back once we got power was pretty good because I wasn't going to leave. I knew we had ducks. I got trail cameras out watching them and I knew they were everywhere, but I'm not. I just wouldn't go bail on my family with no power, no, you know, none of that stuff. Like, and not a for sure way, but I knew as soon as we got power back at either my house or my mom's, I was going. He was gone. And so that happened. And I was able to just sit there and enjoy the sunrise. I was like, okay, this is all right here. Yeah. Cause there's a lot to be thankful for. I mean, it was terrible. It was an inconvenience, but for us, yeah, and there's a lot of our stuff got damaged. Like my house is fine. Do I have a mess? Absolutely. Does mom have a mess? Absolutely. But nothing was on a roof. Nothing flooded. Nothing broke. Like, Len, there's, there's some hurt. Pete, there's legitimately been a lot of injuries in our town. There's two linemen, I think, got electrocuted. Yeah. There was a little kid named Wesson. If you're listening to this, throw a prayer up for him. He's doing better. There's a young man cleaning up his yard who, who touches duck commander because his mom is the, uh, one of the camp caretakers, pretty much. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Lim fell on him, broke his back. He had to have emergency surgery, not Ivan, but the, and look him for an update. The two year old, I was driving home and all of a sudden here, you know, those, not a fire truck, but they weren't for the fire department. They have to 50s come flying. And there they got an ambulance in between them. And I was like, Oh no, what could that be? And unfortunately they were cleaning up their yard and the down wire that's been dead for two or three days was back. I own some juice. And that little two year old got too close to it. But we're praying for a full recovery. But I mean, there's a lot of, there's been a lot of scary, scary situations. Cause like we're not, our energy people aren't prepared. Our lines aren't prepared. Our trees aren't prepared. And we ain't prepared. Yeah. Right. No matter how prepared we are. Yeah. That's right. And I was one of the few in my little group that thought this was going to be pretty bad. Like most time we get you had convinced me. Yeah. Most time we get these forecasts and it's like, ah, man, you know, whatever, it's not going to be that bad. Like, you know, cause that crap kind of dodges a lot of people thought that, but I'll say this, I follow a lot of online people and there's a couple of them that they're really good at the meteorology game. And this Ryan Hall is, if you need to know about whether that, that, that fellow right there, our local guy that's Jared Floyd, Jared Floyd. Yeah. And he was up all night updating us. Digital weather desk. That's his deal. He kept telling you what you needed to do. I was, he'd be like, I'll be back at one. I was like, let me, I'm going to come back at one. But that Ryan, had you something and watch it again. That Ryan Hall guy called it earlier than anybody for our area of major damage. But what's crazy is you go, you know, 20 miles away. You ain't even got to get 20. And they're like, they came in the store. They're like, man, y'all got nailed. And I was like, yeah. Oh, we got nailed. And they're like, no, but everybody that lives right around us is like shell shocked still. Yeah. I mean, there going to be some PTSD from this one. Oh yeah. And one thing that really helped me and Si, I don't even know this, but, you know, with all this going on, you start feeling sorry for yourself a little bit because you're having to do some things and, you know, everything's uncomfortable. And you, and Si was like telling me a story about his mom. And she told him when things get bad, you really need to stop and think about all your blessings, you know, which really helped me through it. Yeah. Well, that's, that's what I would say. I mean, I just looked around and I was like, yeah, even just on my mom's road, but again, major mess, lying down, whatever. But towards the end of the road, live oak split in half and ended up on the people's houses, a pine tree fell on another guy's truck. Yeah. I saw a lot of that. Like our temporary inconvenience, theirs is going to be a lot longer. It's not going to be permanent, but it will also, it's a longer temporary. So like in the grand scheme of things, we were fine. It just, man, you, but it's human nature, right? There was so much then that's out of your control. You just kind of feel like you're spinning. Did y'all walk outside Sunday morning? Yeah. Oh yeah. It was 26 degrees and just pouring rain. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. I was, it was just like, we're all sitting here. Our minds are blown. Yeah. So it was, it was hard for me not to be like, this is the worst day of my freaking, this is misery. But then I'm sitting there and I'm like, you know, the closest branch to my, my, my fence is in trouble, but you know, my house, my porch, there's a branch about six inches from it. House is good. Kids are good. What more could you ask for? Yeah. We'll get, I got a shovel and my dad's about to buy another chain saw. So we're going to have three. Yeah. My mom's neighbor. I don't care if I ever see his chainsaw again. I'm doing, I'm about to have to use one for the next probably. I bet it'll take us a month. If not longer to clean all that junk up. So it is, it is a, it is a extreme blessing looking back. And. Oh yeah. I mean, there's guys in the store back in 94. I was like, when I'm your age, I'm going to go back in 26. My butthole was so tight that night. Listen to the lightning and branches falling. It felt like newborn stage for me again, cause like it was the every two to three hours deal of building the fire, putting gas in the generator. And for that, for like, I don't know, three or four days, I was like, at the end of it, I was back to that zombie. I'm zombie now. I'm so tired. It's just, I've gotten a good night's sleep the last two or three nights. And I, I feel worse when I wake up from these nights sleep, just cause my body's readjusting to that. And then now it's like, Oh, but I need more to make up for whatever happened. My sleep deal on the Garmin was hilarious. Like, because it was like great total sleep, completely interrupted. Like you did not get, like where it says like recharge level. It was like two. I never even got great total. Oh, no, no, no. One day I woke up in the Garmin said, you got less sleep than normal. You might notice you're more tired and irritable today than on normal days. I was like, yeah, no crap, man. Scientists. Yeah. Appreciate you. I am more tired and irritable. As my one hour naps in this recliner, wouldn't enough to tell me that. Right. Well, hey, I saw something coming when Cy ran out of tea, which, you know, you don't want to, you don't want to start a run out of tea. So at least traumatized. Alicia, she was like my sweet wife. She was like, Oh, I'll fix him some tea. I'll take care of it. And I just turned my head. I was like, you're not going to be able to know. I had about a half a glass, but just much left in here. Like, yeah, like an idiot when Alicia fixed it. I said, well, let me top it off. And of course, put it in, you don't fill it up with ice and lemon crust and all that and tasted and said, so good. I rushed his tea. I said, this crap that Alicia cooked. I said, I appreciate it, darling, but I said, that crap ain't worth drinking. Yeah. Look, I had to make a trip in the ice. Oh, yeah. Go get his y'alls. Yeah. He was like, yeah, go get it. He'll say, Hey, we've been without power for five days. Yeah. I'm amazed you made it that long. You know, this is the tea's been open. Well, hey, that's the best thing about y'all's tea. The rest of it, I don't care if it's Lipton or whatever. Who would it? That's what she made. By two days, you leave it out. It's going to be sour. You're supposed to drink it by the way. Y'all's tea, hey, it lasts, oh, what, seven days? Cause I drank the last little bit of mine. You know, put it in, put it in, run it with that tea that Alicia put. Sorry, baby. But I said, but she did. She had ordered some on last. She's ordered some at Yall's. And then Phillip said, well, I don't even know where to get it. And I said, Hey, Amazon, we got everything. It's on the way. Yallsweettea.com slash duck. That makes it work. But it's just got to, hey, it's got a good flavor. Darien, come on back, man. I'll see you. Yeah, Darien, come on back. Holler at us again. Oh, no. Yeah, but I'm glad it's over for the most part. Kind of behind us. I have to say, Yall asked about what was the best thing that happened? I'm curious. The best thing will happen is it always amazes me when stuff like this happens. And then you see the height that the human being can reach. Yeah. When everybody all of a sudden ends up on the same plane. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's pretty, it's a pretty cool deal. Well, it's what God, I know God smiled during this eye storm for one reason, because he's seen his children. Yeah. Turn and actually love each other and help each other out in a bind. That's right. We had a lady in my neighborhood. I never needed it. So I didn't participate, but she she was literally putting on our neighborhood Facebook page. I'm coming home, hot meals. Let me know how many you need. Yeah. They'll be at my house. Just come pick them up. Well, I've seen so many people when Philip was driving around. We was doing stuff that we need to do that was stopping and telling them the linemen out there freezing their butt off. Hey, dude. Thank you. Thank you for your freezing your butt off out here at night. Yeah. Okay. By a stupid flashlight trying to get us the power back on. That one dude. We appreciate it. Hey, you're loved and and really thought about. So, so we were pulling onto a road and so I said stop and roll the window down. So what are you doing? I want to talk to these linemen. They said, he said, Hey, I appreciate what y'all are doing. You know, he started telling thank you and stuff and they waved and we're driving off and they said, was that they're telling I'll talk to each other. Was that Uncle Si? Yeah. Get that power back on. I'm up the road. I'm just right here. Yeah. It was, no, it is cool, man. It's it's cool to watch everybody. It was a hundred for me to come to his house. Well, it's a good just something good to know. I was going to. Hey, you know, all the bad things. You see on the news and always hearing it, you know, people killing this. I was just, there's still a lot of good people out there that care. I found out one concerning fact during the whole thing as I pulled into my neighborhood because I just go and check on the house and I clay met me there. My buddy Clay, because he brought 15 gallons of gas for us because he was like, I'm coming back 30. You need anything. I said, man, if you want to bring me some gas and save me a trip, I'll show, I'll show, take it. Yep. So he met me there and while we were sitting there talking, a game warden pulled up and I was like, oh, boy. So he got out and we're just talking. He had his wife and kids and his truck and everything. They were just going out doing kind of welfare checks on people or whatever. And I say, yeah, man, I just hear a check on my trees and he's like, yeah, man, I was stunned to see they made it. And I was like, oh, this punk knows where I live. Like I'm out now. It is. Hey, watching you. Yeah, they come find out what he lives in the neighborhood to say, I keep to my own over here on this side. I don't really, yeah, I'm not, I'm not one to just go kind of gallivant through the neighborhood and meet everybody. But he lives there. And so he got, he, he got me again. He scared me to death. The night I come back from duck hunting and I had my ducks, Britney's ducks and the other person's ducks. I had them tagged and everything, but I stopped to get fuel for mom and generator. And I hear, I hear him come up behind me and I know his voice at this point now. So I'm like, are you friends with a game warden now? Well, apparently we're, we're, we're close. They getting there. I like him. I mean, he's fine. But then I thought to myself while I'm doing this crap, I have got 12 milers. I've got 12 bucks in my truck and I do not know where the tags are. Now we do tags because we, we hunt in Arkansas and then bring them, we were hunting in Arkansas and bring them back home. So when I transport them across state lines, bet your bottom dollar, even minor tag, because I don't even want to know. But I was just like, Oh my goodness, where did I put those tags? As I'm bent over filling up gas cans, not even looking. So I know it's him. And I'm like, well, he just sees the ducks. And now I'm about to get one of them technicality tickets. I always thought that I always said I'd never get because it's a technicality. And then I look back, I look this way, look at him. I'm like, I'm in my mom's truck. We're good. So I didn't, you know, because I'm just bent over. I'm not even paying attention. I think that I'm in my truck and like those ducks are back there. And I'm just like, Oh man, how am I going to explain this one? And, and I got to find these tags and everything else. But then I was like, Oh, thank God, I don't even have to worry about it. Look at here. Look, look at God, man. Look at God. But yeah. So he, yeah, we sat, he said he, he said he busted some boys earlier that day that it was four of them that had killed 74 ducks. Dang. And I said, did they say why? And he said the same reason everybody says it's been a tough year. And we finally got them. So we just couldn't stop. We couldn't stop. Good stuff. Dignity on. Four was 74. 74. That's over the limit. I said, you know what I said, I said, Oh, they didn't do bad. That's about 50 over. You know what I, you know what I said? I said, well, what kind of were they? Where are they? He said, heavy on the pentails. I said, Oh, not only are they over the limit, they over the limit limit. Yeah, wrong, wrong. Species. Yeah. Okay. It's bad enough to be over, but when you start doubling over the limit ticket, that's a problem. You, you, them boys ain't going, they won't have to worry about duck hunting next year. Nope. They're out. Yeah. They may be on a little five year high. You know what they could have lost their guns, their pickups, their boats. They didn't ask what Ollie took. Yeah. I'm telling you. It's a grief. That turns into an expensive little adventure. Yeah. That turns into a big whoopsy there for a minute. But that's one of them. Don't do this. Joe, I'm just telling you that me and him and Scott was in on dog bowel. You and Martin and your son's. Me and Martin and my son. We got banished. We're in the scaffold on dog bowel. We hear, well, you think it was 150. It was three, three guy canvas backs. Well, the, he called them in and then we raised up and killed all three of them. We shot them in front of us. They bounced and hit the levy down 150 yards away. That's pretty good. Kipping. They were on a roll when I called the shot. I was like, I don't think they coming back. Let's kill them right here. And everybody killed. Well, it was funny. We killed the one in front of us. They were in a line. So whoever I killed the lead one, I killed the middle one and Scott killed the back. I killed the left one. And they skipped all the way. Buddy, they was looking at each other. I said, is that, was that all of them? I said, that was only three of them. He said, I looked all Scott. He said, that was only three. I kept looking for more ducks. Yeah. You were saying there should have had to be more. Yeah. It was wild. I said, nope. We only had the only. I killed a big bull canvas back in this little. Oh, I did down in honey break. Yeah. This little, this little non-scent. Perfect shot. Big, big, beautiful. And then boys told me, hey, you can't kill a little of the 28 games. It's not there about 60. About one of these days they're going to listen to us. One of these days they're going to get tired of getting their brains beaten by the 12 gauges. The morning I started off as they were talking about, you know, somebody held a stone, handed me my gun. I said, what's this? He said, this is a new gun. He says, it's yours. I said, really? He said, it's all you. And then Jordan told me, he said, we're doing a thing on 28 games. Yeah. He said, okay. So I was sitting there and the first guy to come by was a Jack. He was a little. Hey, Jack. And I raised up just. Yeah, he got about. I watched you kill a Pentale that bulls-sprig with it. Oh, yeah. With mine. Well, no, no, because I, I, I, I shot at 10 green wing till single. They'd come by and I'd boom. And I'd tell them, I'd look at that gun and I'd talk. What's wrong with you? I'm sure. Well, Martin was back there. He's laughing. And they weren't gonna say that because he only, that was the only choke he had was. Yo, I had a full choke in it. Shootin' a full choke when I'm normally shooting an open bore. You're an open bore kind of fella. Yeah. Open. No, I was wondering, because then I, then a Pentale would come flying by. He's out there about 65, maybe up to 80. You're poop folding. You know what I'm saying? Why am I killing this Pentale? I wasn't gonna say that because I didn't have nothing to fix the problem with me. I said, everything's coming by. I said, I'm killing it all except the till. And I said, that's why I usually shine the best. It's on the tail. And I said, I shot at 10 and eight cut of feather. Yo, so we got back, Martin. I said, I started talking to him and he said, Oh, he said, I know why. And I said, why? He said, that's 28 gauges. Mine and it's got a full choke in it. He said, you're not used to it. Yeah, it happens. So that's why you was killed Pentales at about 80. Yeah, it happened. Oh, OK. Oh, well, that was fun. A little, a little ice storm recap. Let's go clean up. Thank y'all. And look, I know there's a lot of people on social media that follow us and have reached out asking how everybody's doing, saying everything and offering up your prayers. And some have even told us your kids were here working in alignment. So and I've tried to reply to all of y'all, but thank y'all so much for the prayers you threw up on our behalf and in our community. I know our community appreciates it. And again, just to reiterate what I said to the linemen, thank y'all to the DOTD people clearing the roads. Thank y'all to the cops, the ambulance, the fire trucks, anybody who was on the front lines of this that may be in an apartment. I don't know what your letters are. Thank you. Thank you very much. You know who you are. I appreciate it. You are very much appreciated and we thank you and and to your family as well. Thank y'all for lending them to us during that time. So they could have done anything and they chose to come help. So thank y'all. Thank y'all. Thank y'all. Yeah, what's the whole mind going to leave with there, Judy? Well, Philip sent me what he wanted. You want it? You want me to take it? No, go ahead. First Peter four, seven through 11, the end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray above all, love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various form. If anyone speaks, they should do as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ, to him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. Amen. Ever. Amen to that. Ever. Amen. Amen. That's right.