Our Numinous Nature

The West Virginia Fur Auction is an annual fur, root, skull & antler consignment sale in Glenville, West Virginia. After a reading about the first fur-trade explorations over the Alleghenies into West Virginia in 1671-74, we head into the auction with in-the-field reporting on the modern fur, root, meat, gland and oddities markets, interviewing the likes of trappers, fur hangers, graders, buyers and members of the West Virginia Trappers Association. Many grew up trapping and we hear how meaningful it is to continue the very trade that founded America. From protecting endangered species to supporting natural materials over synthetic textiles, the trapper is discussed as an environmentalist. Throughout are charming moments like a young lady demoing how to skin a noxious skunk or what to do with a raccoon's pecker bone. As the buyers stand around the racks of bobcat pelts, piles of beavers, boxes of skunks and deer horns, we find out what they're looking for whether they specialize in garments, felt, costumes or oddities. As the auctioneer rattles off the bidding, you've got a front row seat to the fascinating world of American fur. Reading from The West Virginia Encyclopedia by Philip Mallory ConleyTo learn more about the West Virginia Trappers Association: wvtrappers.comSupport Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com

Steve McCue is a trapper, naturalist, all-around outdoorsman & Vice President of the West Virginia Trappers Association from Nicholas County, West Virginia. On this in-the-field episode we visit his wall-tent camp and head out for a morning on the bobcat trapline. After a 1929 reading about handling & relocating backcountry bobcats, Steve opens on the significance of the bygone American chestnut. We hear of his deep Appalachian roots & how his outdoorsman lifestyle is a spiritual pursuit that reaches back into pre-history where trapping was the oldest way to procure food & clothing. After some archaeological examples of ancient trapping, Steve describes the 4-types of modern trappers: the hobbyist, the animal damage controller, the longliner, and the territorial/conservationist. From there we get into the natural history of Steve's favorite furbearers starting with the gray fox whose population is in decline. Leaving the tent behind, Steve walks & talks on the trapline about such things as: chaga foraging; uses of birch bark; the origin of "fairy-diddle;" making cat sets; skunk essence; lure-making as the witchy side of trapping; and what one might find in a bobcat's stomach.  We wrap it up on what we've learned from reading historical accounts, how an inexperienced trapping family survived on plants alone in the north woods followed by Daniel Boone's bear bacon enterprise. Reading from West Virginia Wild Life Magazine Vol 7. Ep. 1 [1929]. Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com

Nathan Griffin [like his younger brother] is a lifelong houndsman, bear hunter, and commercial turkey farmer in Pendleton County, West Virginia. On this 2nd part of our in-the-field, ride along with Appalachian bear hunting brothers we open with a riveting reading from the memoir of an early-1800's backwoodsman about a bear skin umbrella & hunting with a knife. As we drive the snowy mountain roads in search of a fresh track, Nathan describes various aspects of being a modern houndsman: from dog-work to being a good example, selective harvest and seasons based around wildlife management. We hear about sleeping in the woods, finding den trees, and a wildcat encounter in a rock hole. Of course a major part of any hunt is the food it provides and thus we talk of bear roasts, pies, meat handling and uses for rendered bear fat. And that's just about when we find a track! The dog box is thrown open and the howling dogs are cut loose into the cold mountains. While they lose the track in melted snow, we end up bushwhacking a thousand feet down a ridge to a bear in a tree where Nathan's hounds have joined another hunting party's and Jacob [from Part I] successfully tags out on a beautiful he-bear. From the mountains to the farm workshop, we come together around the Griffin family hearing from both brothers, a wife & their father about butchering, cooking and this truly American folkway. Reading from Fourty-Four Years of the Life of a Hunter by Meshach Browning. Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com

Jacob Griffin is a lifelong houndsman, bear hunter and turkey farmer in Pendleton County, West Virginia. This is the first of a two-part podcast series recorded in the field with the Griffin brothers as we drove up rough mountain forest roads covered in snow and ice in pursuit of bear tracks. After a reading of Abraham Lincoln's 1846 poem, "The Bear Hunt," we jump right into it, hearing how the dogs work including Jacob's fearless mountain feist, Pete, who recently was nearly killed by a bear. Our jovial huntsman summarizes an exciting lifetime of dog injuries, harrowing bear encounters, and a pile of destroyed trucks. We hear how meaningful this Appalachian folkway & tradition is to the Griffin family, including how the old timers did it before modern GPS technology.  Moving on to felines, we discuss large cat tracks we've found and regional panther-lore. As we finally reach our remote starting point, Jacob tells a haunting story of a paranormal scream he heard in that exact location which opens up talk of finding long forgotten graveyards as well as eerie signs of people hiding out in this mountain fastness. Let the hunt begin! To be continued...Reading of The Bear Hunt by Abraham LincolnSupport Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com

Doug Wood is a West Virginia living historian portraying the life of the eastern woodland American Indians. After a reading about bear hunting & raccoon trapping with Mohawks in 1755, Doug describes how a historical trail project mixed with his own Cherokee ancestry got him interested in representing the lives of the various woodland Indians of the 18th-century. We begin on captive-taking practices and West Virginia being abandoned by the time of European arrival, yet remaining as a hunting ground for more northern tribes. Then we shoot right into the details of their hunting & trapping methods as described in historical first-hand accounts: excursions of 100s-of-miles for furs & skins; uses of bear grease; catching beavers before Europeans' metal traps; deer stalking in buck hides; fire rings; smoking bears out of dens; a Cherokee bear hunting song; dogs for the chase & for food; pet raccoons, parrots & a caged bear; eating box turtles & toads; bird snaring; and finally, Doug shares a childhood story about the Indian practice of fishing with black walnut hulls. Intermixed throughout are side tangents about: pictographs on trees as a way to relay information such as the outcome of a raid; buffalo in West Virginia; Doug's uncanny memories; and visiting significant historical places. Reading from An Account of the Remarkable Occurrences in the Life and Travels of Colonel James Smith; 1755-1759 by James SmithCheck out Doug's schedule of living history events at appalachianlivinghistory.comArchival Native American [Seneca, Iroquois, & Chippewa] music thanks to Drumhop.comSupport Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com

Harrison Idol is a sportsman, fly fisherman, Army Officer and budding antiquarian currently building up his collection of antique sporting books in Maryland. After a reading from The Compleat Angler written in 1653 about fly tying & trout, Harrison opens on growing up on his family's generational tobacco farm in North Carolina. While inspired by vintage sporting aesthetics, Harrison boldly embarked on a collector's shopping spree of antique fishing & hunting books dating back to the 15th-century.  From Ancient Greece & Rome to the medieval, we hear of Dame Juliana Berners' 1420 treatise [the first English book on fishing] which introduces angling not solely as a means to acquire food, but as a contemplative art loaded with Christian symbolism. A prayer, a review of a 350-year-old trout recipe, an unlikely collaboration between men of vice & virtue; pike folklore; and historical rod & tackle materials; Harrison's collection culminates with a leather bound, time worn copy of the famous 17th-century instructional fishing narrative, The Compleat Angler by Englishman, Izaak Walton. Bringing this episode into the spirit of the autumnal season, we end on a hunting ghost story from Harrison's old family farm. Reading from The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton. Follow Harrison on Instagram @idol.hourSupport Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com

Simeon England is a blacksmith, traditional flintlock hunter, and living historian portraying the 18th-century frontiersmen, scouts and longhunters of Kentucky. We start this living history episode about the daily lives of the colonial longhunters [1760s-1770s] who set out from Virginia & North Carolina for deer skins & furs in the wilds of Kentucky, with readings of first-hand accounts about beavers and salt licks. From their hunting methods to their frontier camps we discuss topics such as: tomahawks; boiling salt; hide work; backcountry blacksmithing; traps; horses; dogs; wolves; a slippery elm cure for peeling feet; deer & bear hunting; and buffalo traces. There's learning from books & then there's learning from doing, as Simeon shares some lessons learned from hunting with period gear & flintlock rifles. We hear of Simon Kenton's harrowing experiences running the gauntlet while captured by natives and conclude on a sort of reverence for the craftsman's raw, natural materials [that perhaps we have lost in our age of fast & cheap mass manufacturing]. Readings from The History of the Dividing Line Betwixt Virginia and North Carolina by William Byrd and by A Tour of the United States of America by JFD Smyth.Check out Simeon England's blacksmithing at SimeonEngland.com. Follow him on Instagram & watch his Townsends Longhunter living history features.Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com

Fair Lawn Farm's 18th-Century Trades Fair is an annual living history trades encampment in bucolic Highland County, Virginia, featuring artisans affiliated with the likes of Colonial Williamsburg, The Frontier Culture Museum, The Smithsonian and Townsends. For this in-the-field episode, we will be touring the tents, hearing from a dozen craftsmen-&-women about their historical trades ranging from gunsmithing & engraving, to powder horn making & woodworking. Topics discussed: Indian trade silver; gorgets; tin as 18th-century plastic; how to be an American peddler; the itinerant green-woodworker; bread-baking with "baker's match;" natural dyes made from wood shavings; historical uses of animal fats such as bear grease, deer & cow tallow; powder horns and the origin of scrimshaw folk art; casting lead ammunition; Fort Seybert's annual fort burning festival; the surveyor's compass & the white man's flies; acanthus scrollwork on flintlock firearms & self-taught mastery; and last and most importantly, the potential for a craft revival as the antidote to the AI Revolution. Till next year!Reading from Colonial Craftsmen: And the Beginnings of American Industry by Edwin TunisCheck out the Fair Lawn Farm events page at visitFairLawnFarm.com The Craftsmen-&-women in order:Tim Duff - Farm Owner/Event Organizer Mitch Yates - Gunsmith/Silversmith Historian's Stitch - Tinsmith Ye Lowfarb Pedlar - Peddler Stone House History - Bodger & WifeSimeon England - Engraver/BlacksmithMark Bradbury - Horner/Scrimshaw ArtistDavid Allen - Longhunter/Knifemaker Paul Parish - SurveyorMark Thomas - Engraver/GunsmithDavid Ray Pine - Woodworker/Furniture MakerSupport Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com

Simon Whitehead is an English ferreter, professional rabbit manager, traveling game fair demonstrator and author, living & working out of his van in the United Kingdom. After readings about ferreting through the ages from Ancient Rome to Victorian England, we open with Simon painting a picture of a traditional British ferreting rabbit hunt with nets, spades, lurchers [rabbit coursing dogs] and a box of ferrets. We hear of the UK's highly invasive, non-native common rabbit; the modern culture's feelings on hunting & eating wild game; and the need to control the damage of farmers' fields and urban infrastructure. Turning to history we discuss the medieval ferreting of the peasants opening conversations about poaching and class. Getting back to this charming domesticated mustelid, we touch on: working ferrets vs pets, handling, and what happens when one gets stuck down in a warren. We end on stories of digging out ferrets with historical newspaper clippings about hunters found dead in rabbit holes...Check out Simon's book, Pugs & Drummers: A Ferreter's Fable and follow him on Instagram and YouTube. Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com

Terri Conroy is an Irish herbalist, homesteader, and YouTuber under the name Danu's Irish Herb Garden in Connemara, Ireland. After a reading from Irish mythology about reincarnation during the founding invasions of Ireland, we begin with Terri describing the dramatic landscape where she lives & how the likes of her family subsistence farmed along the windy coast; from cutting turf in the bogs for their winter's heating to the use of various herbal remedies. For her first numinous story, she tells of a mysterious night in her youth, when without the cottage window she heard enchanting fairy music. Of course fairies open up folk-mythic conversations about the Tuatha dé Danann, the gods and goddesses of Irish mythology: the salmon of knowledge, fairy trees, Dian Cécht the healing god, and family anecdotes about the fairies in the fields and the ragged ghosts along the roads, ghosts who hearken back to the devastating mid-19th-century potato famine. From there, we hear about the Celtic holidays of the year, highlighting the upcoming summer festival of harvest, sports and crafts, Lughnasadh. We end by ruminating on connecting to one's roots, plant journeys, and the Irish mother goddess, Danu. Check out Terri's YouTube channel, Danu's Irish Herb Garden and find out more at her website, Danusirishhergarden.com.Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com