24' Housekeeping & Old Sayings
The Turning Feral Devotional - Day 60
2024 Housekeeping
Before we dive into day 60 of the Turning Feral devotional, I wanted to take some time to lay out changes to the cadence and content of this page. As we move into 2024 I will be reshaping this substack to accommodate a few different types of media.
First, the devotional is going to go from a near-daily cadence to a twice weekly publishing. My plan is to share these outdoor-focused devotionals every Wednesday and Friday.
Second, I will be sharing a new episode of my podcast "‘The Okayest Trapper” every other week. I’ll be posting a little behind-the-scenes write up along with some video clips exclusively for those who are subscribed to this substack.
Third, if you haven’t already, go and follow my instagram page. I am putting more effort this year into video content that revolves around hunting, trapping, and sustainable living. You can also check out clips to other podcasts that I have done within the community and find links to interesting people in the community!
Lastly, the above restructuring is in an effort to streamline content creation so I can make room to write a new book. I first publicly mentioned this on the most recent “The Western Huntsman Podcast”, and it will be about outlaw culture and how the modern American could use a little injection of that mentality — hopefully I can have the manuscript complete and shopped around before 2025 rolls around! Thanks again for reading and now on to today’s devotional!
Day 60 - If you read enough Western books you start to pick up some interesting sayings. Everything from universally known quips such as “keep your powder dry,” and “watch your top knot,” to lesser known phrases like “root, hog, or die,” or “rue the day.” Then if you are dorky enough, like me, you may start to use some of these in your everyday language or put them in a book (Root, hog, or die is the subtitle to my second “The Bone Scraper” book).
This type of wild west language, though, always seemed to carry with it a strong message. These old colloquialisms were always wrapped around sage advice for the time – advice that was aimed at keeping the person who was receiving it alive. So why did these sayings fall out of favor over the years? Well the answer is pretty simple… we outgrew them.
For nearly a century we, as a country, have not needed to pass down basic survival sayings to our kids and loved ones. Everything difficult in our lives has largely been subdued to a point that people have forgotten many basic things and certainly don’t need common language to remind them of things they don’t need to remember. Whether about farming, hunting, bread making, or even safe driving, there seems to be no common sayings shared amongst people in our nation aimed at personal betterment – there are no more universal truths. In fact, I can’t think of one modern colloquialism that has to do with self-sustainability that 8 out of 10 people would be familiar with.
As sad as that is, I do believe that we are on a trajectory where universal safety-sayings will be making a comeback. At some point, whether in my lifetime or not, I think self-sustainability will be a part of everyone’s life again, and it will give birth to new common sayings that will be shared across communities.
Daily Prompt: What colloquialisms do you think will resurface in the coming years? Are there any sayings or phrases that you use today and will pass down to your kids?:
Motivational Passage:
“That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom - these are the traits of the frontier.”
― Frederick Jackson Turner
Rewilding Action: Tents. One of the greatest things about going on a journey of self-sustainability is embracing nature by sleeping outside. Whether it’s on a hunt, trapline, or just for fun, sleeping outside in a tent has multiple benefits. One, it can be scary – especially if you haven’t done it often, which helps build some internal grit and resilience. Two, it *probably* has some sort of woo-woo benefit of sleeping on the ground… If those two reasons aren’t enough then just consider it an exercise in emergency prep! Now, outside of huge canvas wall tents like those from Montana Canvas, I have mostly used single person or 4-person tents which are lightweight and packable. Nemo and Seek Outside have been the brands I have glommed onto and Seek Outside even has hot versions which come with a lightweight stove! Check them out and get yourself a tent and get outside.
