Ep 18: Duke Phillips on Sustainable Ranching & Livestock

Welcome to the Rewild Gear Podcast. Modern life, society, and responsibilities have domesticated us, but now it's time to rediscover your adventurous side. Whether that's camping, hiking, hunting, fishing, or just spending time in the great outdoors, this is the podcast for you. Join us as we get back to the wilderness and rewild. Welcome to the Adventure Welcome to the Wyoming Made Podcast brought to you by Rewild Gear. I'm your host, Seth Spears, and I am here today with Duke Phillips. Duke is a third-generation rancher living in Wyoming, and he is the CEO of Ranchlands, an agriculture-based business that operates large-scale cattle and bison ranches in the American West that are dedicated to conservation and sustainability. They partner with conservation-minded owners to implement ambitious and complementary programs, including hospitality, hunting and fishing, a leather shop, strategic advisory services, and ecotourism. Duke's journey has led to creating a set of core beliefs that balance ranching, conservation, and economics. He leads the strategic vision and business development oversight of Ranchlands Ventures and managed properties. Duke, welcome to the show.

Thanks. It's, uh, look, I've been looking forward to it.

Yeah, super. Let's, uh, let's dig in here. Um, tell me all about yourself and how you kind of got started in running all of these different ranches that you have through Ranchlands. This is kind of an industry that a lot of people, you know, they don't think about a lot. I know it's something that happens and, you know, is very prevalent in the American West, probably not as much as it used to be, but give us a little bit of background story here.

Yeah, I was born in it. I was born into it. So my father was a full-time rancher, my grandfather, and I was raised in Mexico on a large ranch and grew up Working cattle, throwing a rope, just every day out with the cowboys or doing whatever needed to be done. And so that's in my blood. I went to school and my dad said, don't study agriculture, just study whatever turns you on from people that are smart. And so I studied creative writing and translation and went on after that to work on ranches across the United States, Australia. And just kind of followed my heart until I was about 30. And I got my first job, professional job, running a ranch for a guy who was in the real estate business. And from there, basically answered an RFP in 1999 that allowed me to be working on my own. So I leased a large ranch in eastern Colorado.

Mm-hmm.

And that's what started Ranchlands, really. It's just, uh, got a break, um, went into business for myself, and everything's history since then.

Wow. What, what are a couple of things that people don't know or understand about the ranching industry? I'm guessing there's a lot of misconceptions, or most people, they have, have some preconceived notions about it.

Well, I think that ranching is a the most compelling alternative to large-scale conservation in the American West. And a lot of people don't think of ranching as being an alternative to large-scale conservation. So, I mean, that's a big one. And a lot of people, I mean, globally look at ranchers or cowboys as these romantic— lifestyle. And, you know, we're sitting on the side of a hill chewing on a piece of grass surveying our land. And that's partially true, but not really. And then other people look at ranching as something that mines the land, that takes from it. So the antithesis of what I, you know, my viewpoint.

Gotcha. And so you're able to strike a happy balance in there, I'm sure.

Yeah, I think, I mean, it's a very tough business. And so we look at land, you know, what really I think separates us from a lot of ranchers is that we look at land as a multidimensional resource.

Mm-hmm.

So how can we leverage the intrinsic amenities and values that exist on a piece of land and do something that we enjoy doing, which is why our business diversified, just makes it a stronger business. But also it's a big part of, our conservation model in that if we get into a drought, for example, where we have the land under stress, we can immediately destock, take the stress off the land because we have another, another income stream that we can depend on.

Tell me a little bit more about that.

Well, when you're managing a ranch and you're depending on it for your livelihood and you only have cattle, Well, you're very vulnerable to the climate, whether it dries up or not. And so if you have a loan at the bank or, you know, you're— you have some financial obligations, you're not going to remove cattle as fast as you might if you had more flexibility, you know, income coming in from something else.

Sure.

So it's a really important thing because you can really— it gives you a lot of flexibility in how many cattle you can run or be running on the ranch.

Got it. Yeah, that makes sense. And typically, when— so say there's a drought or something, and so you have to remove, remove the cattle or the bison or whatever agriculture that you're farming there or managing, what do you do with them? Where do you take them?

Well, you can either sell them, you know, ship them to your closest market, or you can find another piece of land somewhere that you lease and put them on there. Or you could probably feed them, but feeding them is just like rolling the dice. What if it doesn't rain and you're gonna— you're going out spending a lot of money keeping them healthy?

Yeah.

So that's not a strategy that we use. We either sell them or find another place for them.

And so then if you sell them, then the following year you've got to go and buy some again, right?

Yeah.

And so how do you handle the economic side of that as far as— because obviously it's, it's somewhat commodity-based, I guess, right?

It is a commodity. Uh, for sure. Um, and so you, you, um, you restock when, um, you get adequate moisture. And that's what one of the things that makes ranching so challenging is that the weather is a huge variable that you never know what's going to happen.

Right.

And so, um, you have to build into your business plan what you're going to do, um, you know, contingency plans all along the way.

Yeah. Now that makes a lot of sense. You know, the, the series Yellowstone has, has gained a lot of popularity. I think a lot of people are very interested in ranching and the Old West and kind of that lifestyle because of that. I mean, like, I think it's a great show, really enjoyed it. Give me your thoughts on it as far as like how realistic that is and not all the drama side and everything, unless, unless that's realistic too, but just, you know, like the day-to-day working on a working ranch and how that compares to real life for you.

We started watching that and we didn't last beyond, I think, 1 or 2 episodes. I don't know, it's just glamor. It's, you know, it's just exactly what I described it. It glamorizes what we do and—

Yeah.

You know, I don't know. I really can't comment on that show because I don't watch it. It just seems like it was overdone to me.

Yeah, of course, that is, uh, that is TV, right?

Yeah, exactly right. Yeah.

Duke, talk to me about, um, the differences between most standard, um, ranching. So most cattle farms or bison, because I know you run both, um, as well as maybe some other animals also. What's the difference between the conventional method and the way that, that you and your team employs so that it's more conservation focused?

Well, you know, I'd like to be really clear about one aspect of that is that, you know, ranchers are seen as in many circles as not caring about the land or mining it. All the ranchers I know care deeply about the land and take a lot of, a lot of time to, to do what they think is right.

Mm-hmm.

And there's a lot of, a lot of different viewpoints on how you manage land, but overall ranchers care very deeply about it. So people always come to me and say, Well, how come you guys are so conservation-oriented? And my response is, well, all the ranchers I know are just as conservation-oriented as we are. I think the biggest difference is that we have a pretty strong presence, online presence. Our storytelling capability just tells a story. And so therefore people think that we're different than most other ranches. So, you know, that's not really answering your question. From a conservation standpoint, there's not a lot of difference. We do things— maybe we graze our cattle a little bit differently. The techniques we use are a little bit different. But I think what really sets us apart is that most ranchers, or many ranchers I should say, have a herd of cattle or herd of bison. That's how they make their living.

Mm-hmm.

And they may break horses or they may You know, have hunting and fishing, may have some farming as a diversification. But what we do is we have a leather room, we have a guest operation where people come to experience a real working ranch. It's not like a dude place where people come and play tennis and swim and have a little riding. It's, you know, let's go out and and join us in what we're doing. We also have a huge education program on one of our ranches. We have over 2,000 kids a year that come out.

Wow.

Just because we're trying to build bridges between people in town. And so that, so that we have more of a true concept of what ranching is and the role and the important role that ranching can play in managing our, our lands. So I think that's what makes us different is that we do all these other things, you know, besides cattle, although cattle provide 90% of our income.

And tell me about the bison side as well. How does that, that equate into it?

We work— we manage a ranch for The Nature Conservancy, and they have a large bison herd that we manage. We, we grew a herd of bison and recently sold it. But we had never done it before. And they asked us and we started talking about working together. And, and it's been a, you know, bison are, are also greatly misunderstood. People think that they can just walk across the land and everything flowers behind them and everything's beautiful. But it's, it's all a function of management. And other, the other side of the coin is people think that they're They're mean animal, deadly animals that are walking around trying to cause trouble. And they're not. They're, you know, if you treat them badly, well, they're going to act badly, just like a cow. So they're, you know, they have this amazing, I don't know what it is, vibe about them where, you know, you can picture them, you know, hundreds of thousands of years ago or however long it was that Yeah. You know, they've evolved from that time. So, you know, that's really, really something I love. I can, I can sit inside a bison herd all day and just watch them.

Yeah, it seems like there's kind of a romanticization with them, possibly because of, you know, the history of them and with the Native Americans using them. And, you know, they're even on like the old buffalo-headed nickels. Right. And just the stories, you know, about them, about the bison. And how many there used to be that we almost completely decimated the herd. Something from all accounts that I've read, somewhere between 30 to 60, maybe even as many as 80 million that were roaming, roaming the Great Plains in the West.

Yeah. Yeah. They are an amazing creature in a lot of ways. They're the American emblem now, I think, or the national animal, I guess. Mammal?

Could be. I'm not sure.

Yeah. That happened a couple A few years ago.

Wow. Yeah. What's the biggest difference in managing bison versus cattle?

Bison have a wild— wildness about them. If you approach a bison and they run, you're not gonna— you're gonna have a hard time turning them. They weather storms entirely different. They just have, you know, they they have evolved through time and have adjusted to the challenges that nature throws at them, like a, you know, a big snowstorm or something.

Mm-hmm.

But I think, you know, one of the, one of the maybe critical differences is that the prairie or the grasslands of the world evolved with large ungulate herds. You know, as you said, the, the bison herds of, you know, of the last century, uh, there's records where they'd stop a train for up to 9 days. Can you imagine how big that was?

Wow.

So what they would do, they, they would form these huge herds and they would walk along and they'd defecate, urinate, you know, recycling nutrients. They knock down old matter and have it laying on the ground so it would rot. They'd stir the ground up with their hooves, but then they'd leave. They'd be gone for months or years. And so the rain and the sun would re— it would regrow and become healthier than it was before. So you have this tear down and rebuild cyclical, you know, the wildebeest in Africa are the same thing. And so cattle can be used to duplicate the disturbance that you need to achieve on the surface of the ground to achieve the conservation values that land has evolved with. Bison can do this, but they're, they're more difficult to manage. You have to concentrate them and you have to move them in a migratory fashion, you know, similar to what they used to do.

Yeah.

And cattle are very, you know, if you can train them, they're much easier to handle so that you can achieve these values.

Gotcha. As far as ecologically, which one seems to be better for the land?

It's the ecological outcomes is 100% a function of management. So do you, when you graze, do you, do you let the land rest that you've grazed behind you?

Mm-hmm.

Uh, do you disturb it in a fashion where, uh, you're recycling nutrients? Um, are you increasing the water cycle and doing things to achieve those kinds of things? And, um, the animals have 4, you know, a bison and a cow have 4 feet, 8 hooves. They defecate and they urinate, they eat, they sleep, they all do the same thing. And so it's— and you build fences or you do not, you, you, or you don't use fences depending on your management style and 100% management. Got it.

Tell me about the educational side of what you're doing. So you've mentioned kind of the different aspects of the business and, you know, bringing people in, it's a working ranch and they can see what's going on and all those different aspects. But it sounds like you also have an educational component as well. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Yeah, look, education over, over the last 20 years has become a core theme for our business, um, and it's just evolved organically. Wasn't something people say, how come you, how come you decided to do that? And I didn't decide to, it just kind of happened. Um, as I said earlier, we have about 2,000 kids a year that come out to day programs at one of our ranches, and they learn about grazing the natural world, human history, natural history, prairie ecosystem. You know, kids, and then we have college kids that come out. We also have an internship program and a ranch management leadership program for apprentices come to learn about managing ranches. We have workshops about everything from painting, photography, roping, financial planning, keying plants, Um, all kinds of things like that. We put on concerts. Um, Steve Earle, for example, has played at our ranch, and it's basically a way to get people together, talk about ranching out on the ranch.

Yeah.

We also have artists that come to the ranch, and we provide a venue for them to go out and paint life on a ranch or landscape. food and so forth, transportation. Then we have a large exhibit where we invite the public to come look at what the artists have done and talk about ranching and why ranching is such an important part of our future on conserving land.

Yeah, that's, that's great. Duke, what do you see as the biggest threat to conservation today?

Um, conservation is viewed as How do we, um, how do we manage the ecosystem in a healthy way? Um, you know, what kinds of plants and animals are endangered and what do we do to try to preserve them? Uh, so it's all about, um, the biology that is out in nature. How do we, how do we uphold it and sustain it? The, the part that I focus on more, or at— that I think is overlooked, is, is that conservation has become more about people.

Hmm.

Um, there's, there's no such thing now as, uh, pure nature. You know, there's roads, there's airplanes flying, there's telephone lines coming. So pristine nature is a thing of the past. And if we're going to make a healthy world natural world, uh, the people— we're going to have to manage it through people who live on the land, uh, who have created working landscapes.

Mm-hmm.

So it's kind of a long, um, answer to your question, but, um, conservation is how do we, um, how do we balance economics, social values, and, and the ecology of land in a way that produces an outcome that is good for the natural environment. It's no longer go out and do this to the land because it's going to make it better. I can be the best land manager. If my wife's not happy or my kids aren't happy or my community is not healthy, well, then it's not going to work.

That's really true. You know, that is one of the goals with our company that we're trying to do is to help people to get into the natural world more, to spend more time in the wilderness, in the great outdoors, to kind of disconnect from kind of those everyday stresses, whether that's technology or you know, the bills, all of that stuff, and try to get back in touch with nature and kind of that natural world that we've lost touch with just because we are in such an information and technological world now. And I think part of this is, the way I see it anyway, is it's not us versus nature, but it's us trying to live in harmony and symbiotically with nature. How How do you see that in, in this modern age? And, you know, so many things that we're doing seem to be hurting the natural world, the environment. How can we balance that out with our modern conveniences, with technology, but protecting those wild spaces and animals?

Well, I think several ways. One is our society is growing further and further from nature. You know, we spend all our time in front of a screen inside. When we do go out, we're on the bike or in a car, and we might hike a little ways or something. But there are people like ranchers, farmers, lumberjacks, you know, there are people who live out on it. And those of us who are doing that need the support from the urban world. So my reaction is how can you find someone as a, um, as a consumer, as a, as a citizen of the United States, find someone who's doing good things for the land, and how can you support them, um, by either buying their product or learning more about the reality that they face rather than reading what an interest group is saying Who has an agenda and doesn't really know the true story either. I mean, that's one of the things I always try to tell students is that if you leave here with one thing, when you hear something, make sure you understand it fully and where that person or that entity is coming from before you buy what they're saying. Because there's a lot of opinions and there's a lot of agendas and there's a lot of politics. There's a lot of everything going on out there. And the people who, who are out on the land, even though someone says they're doing something wrong, check it out. Yeah, I think that's really important. So we have to figure out how to work together because it's just not going to happen by itself. And the agricultural business is a really tough business.

Yeah, that's good advice. One of the things that I'm seeing, and especially in kind of this post-COVID world, There's a lot of people that are trying to get back in touch with nature, you know, moving out of the big urban environments and urban sprawl and into locations where it's less populated and there's more, more of the natural environment. But that comes with a negative side as well— urban sprawl, which is pushing things further and further out. And so because people are moving to those locations that are beautiful, they want to be around it. But the more people that do that, then we're losing that. How do you combat that? What— or should we combat it? What— where's that balance? What do we do?

Well, that's a really good question. I'm not probably the best person to answer that because I really value my privacy out here in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah.

But we have guests from all around the world who come and visit, and the purpose is for them to find a place to go and You know, relax and do what you're talking about.

Mm-hmm.

And we've made a lot of good friends and have gained a lot of support from people who actually come out and spend time with us and doing, you know, learning what we're doing and sharing our lives while we're together. So I don't know. I mean, at some point you're gonna have to, Draw a line, I guess. No more houses out, or you know Colorado has a 35-acre minimal size that you can divide land into unless it's zoned. And other states have similar kinds of things. You know, I don't know. It's a good question. I think you know just trying to understand how. You know, the effect that you do have on the land and trying to pass that along to people so that they understand what happens when that human footprint grows bigger and bigger.

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, part of that urban sprawl, that affects the carrying capacity as far as some of the species, whether that's wolves or bear or mountain lions or any of that as well. So there's a lot of, lot of additional effects there too. And not just losing some of the woods and the wilderness and the mountains and all that.

It does. And then the ecosystem processes, you know, how, how does water flow across the land naturally? When you put a road across it, it changes the entire structure of the water, watercourse.

Yeah.

And how it flows across, you know, just little things you never think of.

And it seems like a lot of our engineers, community managers, all of that, they're not looking at that bigger picture. They're just seeing kind of this massive growth and dollar signs like, oh, we have to, we have to set the infrastructure in place or enable progress and buildings to grow and our society to grow because they're just looking at it from the economic side, but not this kind of holistic, holistic way of managing nature and people and everything else.

Yeah. Yeah, that's very true. We're very short-sighted.

Yeah. Duke, why is nature and the outdoors so important to you?

Well, it's a resource that I make my living on. And so, um, it's also a place where I grew up. And I grew up in a— on a location that was 5 hours from the nearest town. So it was really, really, um, a wild place and removed from the modern world. And so it's just what I know and what I love. It's how I raise my kids and where I spend all my time.

And how did growing up in that type of an environment affect your outlook on society and the world at large?

That's a good question. I mean, I love people. You know, it's one of my favorite things is sitting down talking with someone. But at the same time, I, um, it kind of does, has done both. It's kind of made me realize how fun it is to be with someone. I remember as a kid, I used to feel sorry for the cows because they couldn't go to town. And so, um, I guess it's made me enjoy, um, you know, interaction with another person. But at the same time, it really has made me feel how lucky I am to be able to live out here and not be around anyone if I don't want.

Yeah. And that's a foreign concept to a lot of people, especially those that grow up in a very much an urban environment, you know, in a large city or even, even like a neighborhood that's outside of a major metropolitan area.

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people romanticize being out in nature and go, you know, build, you know, for example, they'll go out and build a home in a very remote place and then a year later they sell it. It's just not, you know, being alone is not really what it cracks up— it's cracked up to be.

Yeah.

Especially, you know, when you've grown up in a place where you have movie theaters and people around the corner and a lot of noise and, you know, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of stuff going on around you, whereas you're sitting out there and you just go, ooh, it's not quite what I thought it was. Yeah.

And if you can't get Amazon Prime 2-day shipping, a lot of people are like, forget that, I'm out.

Can't go buy a beer when you need it. If you run out, you got to make your own, right?

Yeah.

In a former life, I actually used to brew a whole lot of my own beer.

Um, a lot of fun.

It's been a while since I've done that.

That's hard. I tried it once and I did one. I made one good batch and everything else tastes so bad. I just stopped doing it. Takes a lot of, you gotta keep everything super clean. Yeah, exactly.

Duke, so you're, you're managing multiple ranches in, in several different states, correct?

Yeah.

How does, how many different states and how, how does that process differ based on, based on the states, whether that's state laws, geography, uh, all of that?

Well, we have 4, 5 ranches in 4 states. And the good, the positive side is that we're spread out from a climate standpoint. So hopefully if it's dry here, it's raining somewhere else.

Mm-hmm.

But being geographically separate, you know, we're, From our headquarters in Colorado, you know, we're 9 hours away here, and New Mexico, 7 hours, Texas, 6 hours. So it's kind of tough from that standpoint.

Mm-hmm.

But, you know, there's not a whole lot of difference between laws. And, you know, if you went to Oregon, perhaps there would be, you know, They have a lot of different ways of doing things up there.

Sure.

But, you know, I would just say, you know, the climatic thing's the biggest thing. And, you know, one of the things, you know, we lease most of our ranches. We work with landowners who need management and we provide management solutions in a unique way in that we don't, we're not really consultants. We're, we're, we're someone who would, who, uh, would talk to a landowner and say, we, we will run your ranch turnkey. We'll move people, rolling stock, livestock, and we'll achieve your goals by running our business on it. You know, whether those are conservation goals you have or personal goals with your family and friends, um, you know, if you want to develop your ranch into a state-of-the-art, uh, kind of ranch, you know, we can do all those kinds of things. And we just work out an arrangement where we run the cattle. So we, so we're taking all, you know, the market risk and, and doing those kinds of things. Uh, so we work with The Nature Conservancy, with private owners, with this, with federal government, state governments. Um, And, um, anyway, so yeah, that's— it's a difficult thing to find, uh, good grazing land with a good landlord. I guess it would be with any kind of business where you, you need, you know, you don't own the infrastructure that you're, you're using.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so we try to be good managers and offer, um, offer solutions that landowners cannot find otherwise.

Has there been any land that you have taken over to manage and it's just been destroyed, whether poor practices beforehand? And if so, what have you done to bring it back, to rewild it, to make it sustainable?

And well, that's a good question because There are certain situations where you have an investor or someone from outside the industry who buys land and underestimates what it takes to manage it. And so over time, the turnover, staff turnover is huge. And so things just snowball into a bigger and bigger problem. And so, for example, We took over a ranch one time that had a lot of, a lot of issues with the infrastructure. It's just basically just falling apart.

Mm-hmm.

So what we do is we rebuild it and design a holistic management program where you can amalgamate herds into big herds and do this thing that we talked about earlier in terms of making rotating your cattle in a migratory fashion. And so we just improve the infrastructure and get it back going and, and maybe even take it a lot further than it was before, as opposed to just getting it back. And then we, we put monitoring plots out so that we can, we can know for sure, use good information for our grazing practices and And be able to show, you know, the turnaround ecologically. So the ecology of a ranch is always the biggest part that we try to address so we get it back to where it's functioning again or functioning better.

Gotcha. Duke, how do you define regenerative agriculture? What does that mean to you?

Uh, regenerative agriculture is, is improving the ecosystem that you're working with Um, beyond what— how you found it. So you, you want to have a— you want to create diversity, you want to be able to rest plants, you want to, you want to achieve vigor, you want to increase the water cycle, mineral cycle, energy flow, succession, all those things that have to do with, with good ecology, trying to make all of those things better. And, um, I think regenerative agriculture should include humans too. You want to be having a good time, uh, be happy with what you're doing, and have a healthy community and healthy family. Yeah, while you're doing it.

That's a great point. Yeah, for sure. So as a rancher— and can we call you a cowboy?

Sure.

Does that fit? Just for fun, I'm sure you've had a lot of crazy experiences, whether that's, you know, roping cattle, bison, Let's, let's hear some stories about some of the crazy experiences that you've had. Maybe something you'd never want to repeat.

Oh, well, um, we've had to, uh, we lost a lot of money during droughts and had to talk people into supporting us afterwards to rebuild. I guess that's probably the, the most traumatic is all of a sudden finding yourself You know, many hundreds of thousands of dollars underwater and then building back from that. Um, I've had a lot of horse wrecks, a lot of— we ride bikes. I've had a lot of bike wrecks.

Like a normal bicycle?

Nah, motorbikes.

Motorcycles.

Yeah, yeah. You know, dirt bikes. Um, Oh man, I don't know. Raising my kids was an incredible chapter of my life, taking them with me every day. And one of the things that ranchers do, they work their family too hard. And so the kids grow up and they, all they wanna do is leave. So I made sure that we played hide and— took time out to play hide and go seek or stop at the waterhole and go swimming for a couple hours. Spend time in the shop making something that's cool, like a sword or knife that they could, or a scabbard in the leather shop. And so, you know, raising, you know, one of the great things about ranching is that you get to spend a lot of time with your family. My 2 eldest are now full partners in the company, and I work with them every day. Mm-hmm. And then their grandkids are around and they— I just spent the last 4 days with my grandkids running around irrigating and doing all kinds of stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's great. And how do you feel that that type of environment, how that— how has that affected your family as a whole? You feel like it's been a net positive?

Oh, yeah. I mean, when you spend time together, Every day instead of just in the mornings and in the evenings. It just creates a really strong connection between you. You can know what each other's thinking without even talking, which most families have anyway, but it just accentuates that aspect. It allows you to teach them things that you think are important, like how to work. You know, common sense. How do you, how do you solve problems? How do you make good decisions? All those kinds of things, um, are, um, are right there, and you're able to do that in a much, much better way, I think, just because of the time you spend together.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. What's been the biggest life lesson that nature and the outdoors has taught you over the years? Just spending so much time in the natural environment.

Oh, that nature is powerful as hell and it's not going to sit down, lay down. It's going to keep going. And so you might as well just team up with it and work alongside together rather than trying to conquer it or tell it what to do. And it's the biggest thing.

Yeah, that's, that's a big lesson. It seems like often we're trying to fight nature and try to bend her to our will. And that doesn't usually work out so well, huh?

Yeah, I don't know why we just keep doing that over and over again.

What's that definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Yeah, yeah, that's really true.

Yeah, being, being on a ranch, uh, spending so much time outdoors all day, I'm sure that there's gear that you have to have with you all the time, um, whether Whether the weather's changing or just for getting the work done on the ranch, what is that essential gear that you always have with you no matter what?

A water flask, a canteen for water, something— a wide-brim hat, pretty important instead of a cap, you know, when you're out in the sun all day long. Good shoes. Good socks. A good knife. A sharp knife. Yeah. Flashlight's pretty handy too.

Are there any brands that you really like the quality of their gear? You think you're just doing an exceptional job?

I'm a big fan of Filson's. We did, we co-branded some of our leather products with them and they, instead of getting paid, we elected to get products. So I got all kinds of Filson gear.

Cool.

And it's great stuff. And it's also a deep American brand that makes all their stuff here in the US. And that's, I think that's important.

I have a Filson duffel bag that I've had for years and just love. It's fantastic quality.

Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. REI, that's a great one. I went to school up in the Northwest and so Seattle is their home base. So REI has always been a big one.

Yeah. Yeah, no, that's great. Any other brands there whose gear you really like?

I'm not a really big brand person. Let me see. Smith sunglasses.

Gotcha.

Sunglasses. I forgot that.

Yeah, that's essential.

Swarovski field glasses. Those are damn good. I've had— there was a— I don't hardly ever go out without them. iPod. I mean, an Apple phone, iPhone's pretty handy.

Gotcha. All good stuff. Tell me a little bit about the leather gear that you guys make, because I know you have a shop where that kind of supplements what you're doing on the ranch. So tell me a little bit about that, what you're making.

Sure. I grew up making leather goods. We had a saddle maker who would come around every year and he would repair saddles, make make knife scabbards. Uh, he'd stay on the ranch for a month or two, and, and I would go down and work with him, and that got me started. And I carried a leather bag with me with a needle and thread and knives and leather and stuff, and that's grown into a fairly substantial leather shop where we make crossbody bags, scabbards, hat bands, um, uh, bracelets, you know, consumer goods. But they're— it's different in the sense that it's— they're made within the tradition of leather, American leather crafting, Western gear, but without being Western gear. I mean, it's made, you know, heavy leather, strong life, you know, something that's going to last you a lifetime with Ameri— with, with techniques that American saddle makers make.

Yeah.

And it's made on the ranch. And my daughter manages it. And we have a team, I think 5 people now working in it full-time. Ranchlands Mercantile. Yeah, we make belts, kind of make everything. ranchlandsmercantile.com. Super. It's our store.

Yeah, we'll definitely include a link to that in the show notes because I think our audience would check out some of the gear you guys are making, which is great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Duke, what book or books have had the biggest impact on your life?

Um, um, oh God. Oh, let me see. Cadillac Desert or Desert Cadillac. I never can remember. It's a story of water. in the American West, damming rivers, how rivers have entirely suddenly disappeared.

Ah, interesting. I'll have to check that one out.

I'm reading a book now called Land. I really got into Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda for a long time. Dune, sci-fi, the classic sci-fi series. Okay. Pablo Neruda, his poetry is like, he's my all-time favorite. And he's 20, what is it? 20 Love Poems and a Song of Desperation. That's, anybody wants some love poems that'll knock you down, it's a great book.

Check that out for sure. Is there a podcast that you really enjoy?

You know, I don't have enough time really. Ed Roberson has a podcast and I forget the exact name of it. Anyway, he has a great product.

Okay. I'll have to check that one out too.

Yeah.

Duke, what's one piece of advice you would give to our audience?

Oh man. I guess check out your local farmer and, and, or rancher and, and try to make friends and find out how you can work together.

I think that's great advice. Keep it local, right?

Yes, keep it local. Uh, there's a lot of good people out there working their butts off, and they— we need support. And not— I'm not asking for anything for free, but if you buy food Might as well buy it from someone who's trying to do a really good job at it. Or if you buy a vacation, if you go take vacations, go to a place where you can learn something and support someone who's out there trying to make a better world.

Yeah. No, that's great advice. Duke, thanks so much for your time today. Really appreciate it. And for all of you, thank you for listening. And we'll talk to you again soon.

Thanks for listening to the Rewild Gear Podcast. You can check out the show notes for today's episode at rewildgearpodcast.com. If you're ready to spend more time in the wild, our line of high-quality minimalistic outdoor gear can help you do just that. Check us out at rewildgear.com.