[mellow acoustic guitar plays]
[door opens]
[Peter] Morning, guys.
When most people think of California
they’re thinking of
Hollywood and Los Angeles
or the Golden Gate Bridge
in San Francisco
but what many don’t know is
the majority of California is rural.
So today we’re gonna get into it
with a local up here in Humboldt County.
Far north of the cities
to get an understanding
of what the culture is like here.
Let’s do this.
[music continues]
-[Peter] It’s beautiful out here.
-[Brett] Welcome.
This is Crazy River Ranch
and we raise grass-fed beef
and we also raise a lot of fruit,
primarily apples.
And then this is our cider barn
and we actually built this barn.
This was a community effort of people.
-So this is all round timber pole.
-Oh, yeah.
I had a pole stripping party
to get it started.
I went around and told everybody,
“Hey, we’re gonna have
a pole stripping party.”
-That brought people in?
-Actually it almost turned them off.
‘Cause people would be like, “What?!”
[Peter] Okay, so Brett,
most people outside of California
they’re not thinking this.
-In fact I leave Humboldt
and I’m often shocked.
Oh yeah, California is so big
and it’s actually pretty diverse.
My dad was in the
army so we lived all over
but this exact press, I saw in a barn
in South Dakota where I was born.
So this is a pre-prohibition press.
It’s amazing to think this thing
was making juice back in those days.
A lot of it was for hard cider
and this was number 959.
This was the 959th one
to come off of their floor and…
-You’re carrying on the tradition.
Doing our best. [chuckles]
-This is my friend Jessica.
-Jess.
-You’re in the video.
-One of my wife’s best friends.
-Cool, you’re part of the production.
-Yes, very much so.
[apples tumble]
[Brett] A lot of people think
that doesn’t look like a good apple
but this apple is called Ashmead’s Kernel,
it’s from the 1700s.
So old English apple
that’s lasted that long.
People have continued to grow it.
It has amazing flavor. Take a bite.
-Okay.
-They might be a little on the ripe side.
-[crunches]
Oh, yeah.
-This is gonna make
a really good cider today.
[machine clacking]
[clacking and grinding]
[Brett] We planted all the trees
that make those apples.
We planted every single tree.
A lot of them we grafted.
See this?
This is a decade or more in the making.
[bucket thumps]
-That’s–
-Real cider.
That’s Humboldt County gold right there.
And then we actually will ferment it
and this is our product right here.
There’s a lot of products labeled cider
in the grocery store.
This is very different because this is–
-Like Angry Orchard?
This is night and day compared to that?
-Yeah, a lot of–
-[Jess] Sugar.
Yeah.
Even a lot of micro-cideries
are kind of like micro-breweries
but they buy all their ingredients
and a lot of it is coming
from big commercial orchards
of not necessarily fruit
that was good for cider
but fruit that was left over
from the dessert market.
[Peter] We’re gonna
get into it today Brett,
’cause you do a lot of things
and how I found out about you
was from your music video
because you’re an amazing
singer-songwriter guitarist.
-[country music plays in background]
-And you do cider and a host of things.
But I want everyone to know who’s watching
for whatever we talk about today
I want to spread what you’re doing
’cause I’m a believer.
Gonna have Brett’s links down below
if you wanna check out more in-depth
it will all be there.
-Here you go.
-Oh, thank you.
That’s the free juice. So that’s the juice
that comes out before we start pressing.
-Cheers.
[Brett chuckles]
-[Peter refreshed] Ah.
-[Julia] That’s good.
[Peter] This is nice.
-[Brett] Should we go make some friends?
-[Peter] Okay.
[Peter] So this part of California
for those that don’t know,
you go that way and you’re going into
basically one of the most
remote parts of the country.
Fair to say, right?
There’s some pretty
big wilderness up there.
There’s a bunch that run into each other.
There’s the Trinity Alp Wilderness,
above that is Marbles and the Russians.
A lot of people don’t know the history
of the Russian fur traders
were coming here, fur trappers,
traders back in the day.
That’s kind of the history everywhere.
The story of humanity, right?
-It’s been happening.
[Brett yells] Hey, op!
[Peter] They’re not really
running over here.
Do they know what’s going on, Brett?
They might be nervous,
“Who’s this guy?”.
[Peter] So this is grass-fed,
apple-finished beef?
[Brett] Well this month
it’s apple finished. [laughs]
-Where do you sell the meat?
-At our local farmer’s market.
We’re not there today ’cause we’re
gonna be celebrating my birthday later.
Oh, nice. Happy birthday.
No chemicals out here at all?
-No, we do not put any chemicals
out on the land at all.
[Brett] I started my first farm when
I was 19 years old with my brother
and it was three acres
of organic row crop vegetables.
We worked our asses off
and made about a buck fifteen an hour.
It was really hard work but I loved it.
I loved being outside, literally
being outside when it’s gonna rain
and it’s really vulnerable
because your whole livelihood
could get wiped out because of a storm
or frost in this case.
We had an early frost and it was tough
and over the years, when I first moved
to California I did the same thing.
I started an organic vegetable farm
when I got to Humboldt.
I didn’t know about
the other crops people were growing here.
-That’s what Humboldt’s known for.
I think we can say weed on YouTube.
-Okay.
-When you talk about any sort of D-R-U-G
I need to code it out.
-The AI can suppress the video.
-Yeah.
I gotta be careful but I think weed
is good ’cause weeds are weeds too.
Okay, so that’s what Humboldt’s
known for, right? Weed?
I didn’t know that there was…
I knew that was one of
the things it was known for
but I didn’t know
what was going on when I moved here.
I had customers
come to my vegetable stand.
They would pull out
these big wads of cash,
and they would peel off a couple
small bills, and pay me for my lettuce.
I was curious so I asked them,
“What do you do?”.
And you have,
if you want to share, I know about it
but a very interesting story on this topic
and we can get into today.
-If you’re cool with it.
-Yeah.
Okay.
[Brett] We’re gonna go through this gate.
We’re gonna go see my neighbor, Ken
When I moved here he was just here.
When we were first out here
we had this little trailer
and when Julia and I were getting married
our friend came over and she’s like,
“You have a Jarvela?”,
I’m like, “What are you talking about?”.
-She’s like, “The painting.”
-I’m like, “Oh, Ken?”.
She goes, “He’s a famous artist.”
and I go, “Ken, he lives in a trailer
over there.”, you know? [laughs]
-He paints the full moon.
-Okay.
This guy will keep himself up all night
when the moon’s full
and hike up to the redwoods
and he’ll be there painting the redwoods
in the dark by moonlight by himself
So there’s a lot of talent out here.
Fair to say?
Oh yeah.
There’s a lot of creative people here.
Right.
It’s because the nature inspires it?
I think that’s part of it.
To live here you have to
appreciate the community
and nature or you won’t make it
’cause it is kinda tough living here.
Like the economy.
In the ’60s, ’67 was the summer of love
in Haight-Ashbury.
For those that don’t know,
in San Francisco.
Yeah, so there was this convergence of
all the counter culture movement people
who were disenfranchised
with the way the country was going.
Yep.
The Vietnam War, corporations,
corruption in the government,
all these things,
and they came to San Francisco
and then it was so much energy
it had to go somewhere
and so after the summer of love
a big release of that energy was north.
So they came up,
really all along the coast
but really quite a bit
in the Emerald Triangle here.
Humboldt County, Trinity County,
Mendocino County.
So these places, the communities
were like ranching and logging.
So very hard working–
-[Peter whispers] Oh, the deer.
-[Brett] There’s a buck and a doe.
-Oh no, look there. See them?
-Yeah.
My camera won’t get it
but that’s a great shot for the video.
-Yeah, our excitement.
-[Peter laughs]
[Peter] Okay, so they came up here…
Yeah, and so these communities
had a lot of logging,
and fishing, and ranching.
So very salt of the earth-type people.
Also very conservative in their values.
And then you have these hippies.
You know, these pot smokin’, free lovin’…
A lot of artists.
A lot of artists you know?
And people that wanted to get
back to the earth.
Who were like, “We need to be
closer to the land.”
That’s made the whole Emerald Triangle
and Humboldt County here included…
It’s made it sort of
a cultural melting pot.
Where you have people
that have very different values
living close to each other
and working together.
-Okay.
That’s what I think’s really beautiful
because I see
so much of the country is so polarized
and there’s no communication.
No real communication.
It’s kind of like a big F-U.
If you don’t agree with me
we’re all gonna cancel you
or if you don’t agree with me,
you’re a fascist
and these labels to keep us divided.
Right.
But here we have people
that think differently
and there’s some of that here of course
but I feel like people
are a lot more tolerant
of another opinion that’s not theirs.
I take my dad hunting.
My dad’s a disabled Veteran
and we go hunting in Wyoming.
I see the way people are there
and in different parts of the West.
It’s very divided.
If I tell people I’m from California
they’re like, “What the heck
are you doing? That sucks.” you know?
Right, California has
an easy label. It’s one thing.
Yeah.
[Brett] To me, I feel like
it’s so important to be curious.
-Yeah.
[Brett] Here, you can’t get away from it.
It’s like you have to accept
because it’s more diverse.
I think some places, they might fall…
Like you might go somewhere in the city
or somewhere that has more liberal values
and they cannot stand
the thought of these conservatives
or somebody that would vote differently
and they’re very scared.
-Right, lot of fear right now. Yeah.
-On both sides.
-A lot of it I find–
-Watch the bullsh*t.
[Peter] Oh, yeah.
A lot of it I find
is manufactured right now.
Between the politicians and the media
I feel like it’s hyped up more
and this video’s
gonna post after election.
[laughter]
Maybe we’ll have a whole new bit
of information to go by, but…
-This is your buddy?
-Yeah. What’s up, Ken?
-How you doing? Peter.
-Pretty good, man.
-Peter?
-Yeah, nice to meet you, Ken.
-What does that stand for?
-It’s the logo of my channel.
-Ah.
-I had a designer come up with it.
-It’s pretty cool.
I like incongruity.
-But they balance.
-Yeah.
-The weight, balance of it, right?
-It’s almost got a movement to it.
-Thank you.
-Yin and Yang.
That means a lot coming from you
’cause you’re an artist.
-Hey.
-Good to see you, buddy.
-Hey, you too.
-Wathca workin’ on?
[Peter] This is beautiful.
How long have you been painting for, Ken?
-45 years maybe.
-Okay.
-Not long enough.
-[Peter chuckles]
How old is that tree would you say?
-1,500, 1,200.
-Oh, wow, okay.
[Peter] Look at this.
-How long have you lived in this area?
-23 years.
Just right up there.
But he’s born and raised
in Humboldt County.
-Yeah, just over the hill here.
-Okay.
[Peter] So tell us about Humboldt.
Oh, man.
It’s a wide question but
take it any way you want.
I’ll tell ya, it has a hold on me.
I’ve lived away a couple times,
Oregon, Arkansas.
-Okay.
-About a year or two a piece.
Man, and you just stand there,
you’re looking back to the west,
“F*ck, that’s my home.
It’s way over there.”
[laughter]
You gotta, you know, it draws you back
for whatever reason.
Why fight it?
I mean, [exhales] look at the light.
Listen to your soundtrack here.
Let’s just go quiet for a second.
Here’s your soundtrack.
[river gently flowing and birds chirping]
[Peter] That’s hard to get away from.
You think about what was it like,
oh, a thousand years ago?
Man, it was all like this.
Hundred thousand years ago,
million years ago,
the skies are like this.
The light,
the sunlight was just like this.
So this, I was thinking today
this is history repeating itself
and it works.
Usually that sounds like a bad thing.
Right here, man, this is showing you
what it looked like 300 years ago.
425 years ago
there was a day just like this.
[Peter] Right, that tree was standing
a thousand years ago.
Oh yeah, and all of that wood
in there heard the Natives go by.
[grunting and imitating Natives]
You know or whatever they…
That’s probably not very close.
And there’s some days
where the light just accentuates that
It doesn’t give a sh*t
the election’s coming up.
-Look at these clouds, they don’t care.
-[laughter]
[Ken] Just doing their thing
like they always have.
That one’s going
in the evening twilight shot.
[Ken mumbles]
This one’s got a look to it here.
Prah!
[Peter softly] Yeah, Ken.
Yeah, when you get back and that’s…
You want the first reaction when you
walk into a room, “Ooh” from a distance.
You don’t want to have to go up
and look at things close.
-[Brett] He’s a mountain man.
-[Peter] Mountain man?
-Ken is a true mountain man.
-Nah.
-Okay.
-All of his friends know.
It’s like when you see…
He goes out and paints in nature
but he does it all times of year
and so he will go up
to the Trinity Alps Wilderness
in the summertime he’ll have three packs.
He might be going 15 miles in.
He’s gonna hike up one mile with one pack,
go back, pick up the other pack, go back.
-So for every mile he has to hike six.
-Yeah.
But the thing is he will do that
in summer when it’s nice
he will also do that
in the middle of a blizzard with snowshoes
and go up there,
and dig a snow cave, and be there
just so he can be there to paint the moon
and all his friends, myself included,
we think you’re crazy.
You can paint anything you see
but when your out there
into the gangplank
and there’s not much room for error.
That’s when you start seeing.
The here today, gone tomorrow
aspect of it.
And all summer long
if you came down here every day, oh man,
you’d be familiar with all the bushes,
and the rocks, there’s this and that.
Winter comes, what the hell happened?
Everything is different.
The river’s on the other side of the…
It’s just amazing.
Like with this grass here,
you start looking at it close,
there’s all kinds of nice detail
here and there
but you look at that tree
and what does this look like
in your peripheral vision?
It looks like a blur of nothing.
And that’s mostly what we see
is a blur around…
The only thing we can focus on
is the very center of our vision.
So our brain fills in the rest
as we scan around
but to get it in a painting what it
actually looks like to have human vision.
That’s the key. Some day.
[birds chirping]
[Brett] Hey, do you got your balance?
Feel that?
[Peter] Yeah.
Still has some good flex in it.
[Brett] It’s about nine feet deep
where you hit the water when you dive
and it’s about 14 feet over there.
I try to go almost every day all year.
Sometimes in the winter
it’s only every week
but I try to get in the water every day.
We put this log here, it wasn’t here
and you used to get in the water cold
and you’d just put your feet in,
you’d be all like,
“Ooh, am I gonna do it?”
-This, you have no choice.
-Yeah.
-Once you go, you’re in there. [laughs]
-It’s all in.
-Does anyone live in these?
-Nope they’re not finished.
We just got them sided,
we put the doors in a couple months ago.
-What a cool door frame.
-But this one is a dry shed right now.
So got walnuts
and what did you say that word was?
-Weed.
-[laughter]
-We’ll have to blur that out.
-[laughter]
[Brett] This was just
a few plants in my garden.
This is our greenhouse.
-Oh, yeah.
-This is all built out of wood.
-Smells so good in here.
[Brett] Here, have one.
It’s kind of the end of the season
These are about to die out
but they’re still…
-These are the sungolds.
-Mmm.
Wow, how do you eat
a normal tomato after this?
You don’t.
We should bring Eric some.
-You mind if I go for more?
-No, you can pick as many as you want.
You can take ’em home
if you remind me when we come back here
I’ll get you some ground beef too.
-Mmm.
So it must feel so good
to own all this land now.
Well just… I used to rent–
You can’t stop and reflect on it
’cause you got so much going on.
A lot of farmers
have lost their land over time.
So just ’cause you are here
doesn’t mean you’ll be here forever.
Things like all the taxes
and even just keeping up with your bills
or mortgage or that kind of stuff.
But it does…
I used to lease when I first lived here
and I wouldn’t have felt confident
to plant a tree
that doesn’t start maturing for ten years
if I didn’t own the land.
So that part feels good, you know?
It’s also a lot of responsibility.
A lot of times it’s romanticized.
People think they want that
and it is beautiful.
I love being–
-And watching it through
a video looks amazing.
-Yeah.
But there’s also you have to
deal with a lot of doubt, a lot of fear,
sometimes physical suffering
’cause the work can be very physical.
But I feel like
I’ve suffered a lot over the years
and I suffer a little less every year.
[laughs]
-Okay, so even at your stage there is
a fear like you could lose it all?
-Well… through everything
I’ve been through
I’ve seen a number of times in my life
where it feels like that.
Like where that fear is up
and with the way the world is
I think everybody feels like things
could be so unstable you know?
And just…
Just the property taxes alone
in California are so high.
It’s like paying rent, you know?
Just to be on your land forever.
-Who owns the land then?
That’s a good question.
‘Cause I had this fantasy of being back
to the land myself and being so close
and then seeing that I have to
make something that makes money
in order to stay here forever.
I have a contract with the government
to do that in the form of property taxes
and it’s not insignificant, and when
you want to do anything commercial
everywhere you turn
it’s like there’s another tax
and they’re always making more
and as a small farmer
sometimes that stuff feels like
it actually could threaten your existence.
Like you could be wiped out
and it’s happened a lot.
In the ’80s there was
this huge consolidation
and we’re seeing this everywhere.
You have four companies
that raise all the chickens and farmers,
most people who are
raising those chickens,
they’re not actually independent.
They have a contract.
They don’t own the those birds.
They might own the land,
they might do all the work,
but they don’t even own their birds.
They don’t have any say so
and to me that’s a problem
and that’s where there is
a certain humility
of just realizing that you are
at the whim of not only nature but also
the government, society, everything.
And then as an organic producer
a lot of times things are harder for us.
They’re more expensive.
It would be much cheaper
if we sprayed chemicals on the apples.
If we sprayed the rows…
I’ll show you.
We’ll go down here, I’ll show you.
This is what we’re doing to the land.
It’s mulch.
We’re building the soil.
You see all that in there?
That’s organic material and it’s…
You can see how… Look, I can
just put my hand right in the earth.
It’s not compacted
and there’s mycelium.
You can see the white.
That’s mycelium. That’s fungus.
and this is how we manage
plant growth right under our trees
Pretty much the whole industry
is spraying glyphosphate
or another form of herbicide
against their trees.
So when you go have the juice
or even cider it’s there.
They’re using
over a billion pounds of pesticides
in this country alone every year
and so when I go and need
to take my apple in to the market…
I might even be with a local person
who’s my neighbor
but they choose to do it differently
in a way that they might spray
and it’s cheaper
and their apples might look bigger,
cleaner, or whatever.
I have to go in there and ask for price
and sometimes I have
to ask for a higher price.
At the same time I know people
are having such a hard time to survive.
It’s like wow, I’m asking you
and I know you’re already struggling
but I have to… you know?
That’s the challenge.
When you say, “Are you stoked?”
it’s like well it comes
with a lot of responsibility.
[guitar case thuds]
[Brett] What’s up, neighbor?
[man] I can’t go to your house
’cause you ain’t home.
I’m only two hours late.
I got some juice for ya.
We made some juice.
I got the good stuff, the Humboldt…
-You want to bring some to your sister?
-Yeah.
-Thank you, neighbor.
-Yeah.
Moonshiners right in the middle
of nowhere. I mean… You know?
That’s how it works, eh?
We pretty much would not have been able
to survive if it wasn’t for Fred and Rose.
They’ve helped us since day one.
When we were building that barn
if we needed help
we’d come down to Freddy’s, Rose’s place
and they helped with the cattle.
Fred kinda showed me how to
pretty much do all kinds of stuff.
Whenever I’ve been in a pinch
I’d call him up and…
I was gonna sell out to
them cheesemakers, them goat farmers but
couldn’t beat this guy, you know? [laughs]
I think we provided
a lot more entertainment for you.
We gotta get to the market
before they close.
-So we’re gonna keep going.
-Okay.
I’m two hours late. I was gonna swing by
and see how the press was going.
-It’s done.
-Yeah, okay.
-We’ll see you, neighbor.
-Venture on down to see them other people.
When we first moved out here
I’d only been out here
probably about six months
there were federal police
coming and raiding my home in town
and it was all over the news.
Stressful.
And I did not know how this could impact
my relationship with Fred and Rose
’cause they were amazing.
It was like having adopted grandparents
and now I’m wondering like
oh man, it’s all over the news.
There’s…
I was not arrested at that time
but I was wondering how
it was gonna be with them.
I got this message from Freddie
and it was like,
“Hey there, neighbor,
I figure you had a rough week.
So I just went ahead and took care
of them chores over there.”
Anyway, that message
was just like letting me know
and little did I know
Freddie called up his buddy Elmer
who at that time was in his 80s
and Fred was still in his 70s
and they went over to my pace
and I had some equipment that I’d borrowed
-Yeah.
-They grabbed every piece of equipment.
They grabbed the loader,
the tractor, boat, any trailer,
and they moved it all over to his house
and I was like, whoa.
When I found out he’d done that
I was like,
“Freddy, oh my God. Thank you.”
He just looked at me and he goes,
“Brett, the feds have been
coming to Humboldt for a long time
making a big deal out of nothing.”
And we’ve been on that level ever since.
It was like that actually
brought us closer together.
-Why were the feds there
if you don’t mind me asking?
There was like a weed bust.
Somebody got busted
with some weed back East
and they gave a list of 30 names.
They named all these people that they’d
ever gotten weed from or that they knew
and this person said
I’d sold them two to four pounds of weed
on two occasions
two years prior to their bust.
So they weren’t saying this whatever
was with me, they just named me as a guy
who once upon a time
had sold them some weed.
I didn’t have any weed growing out here
but I ended up getting
a five year prison sentence.
They wanted me to snitch.
And they have this thing called
mandatory minimum sentencing laws.
A lot of them came under Clinton.
Part of the drug war.
And mandatory minimums
give the prosecutors all the power.
Judges don’t have power anymore,
prosecutors do
and they use that power to get people
to snitch because what they’ll tell you is
the only way for you to get
under the sentence is by telling.
This does not work at the state level,
this is feds because they don’t…
I say that ’cause they use hearsay
as the only evidence.
-They don’t need a wiretap, drug bust–
-Really?!
They don’t need nothing,
they literally just got somebody…
In fact it’s so common
that there’s a name for it in prison.
I never knew that till I went
but they call it ghost dope.
-Ghost dope?
-Ghost dope.
And it’s so common
because it’s just made up.
And you can imagine
if it’s just people’s words,
you can imagine
how often it’s not the whole truth…
-…or it ain’t even true at all.
-Right.
Or if someone wants to put you
under the bus they can very easily.
Yeah, and like in my case,
I got to see the reports
and let me tell you,
they were not accurate.
I mean they had the theme right,
I had grown some plants and stuff
but before I went, Fred and Rose asked
me and Julia to come over for breakfast
and Julia was out
in a little travel trailer out there
and they said, “Look, if you wanna come…”
you know, it’s kinda lonely to be on
that land all by yourself at night time
in the dark.”
We did not have electricity at that time.
So basically Fred and Rose invited Julia
to live with them while I was in prison
and she didn’t take ’em up on it
but it meant a lot
to have that kind of community support.
-Five years, can you talk about it at all?
Well it’s been a little bit of time now
so it’s easier to talk about.
Every year, and I’ve been
working a lot on my own healing
from some of the parts about it
that were traumatic.
They basically said, “Well, we think
you’ve lived in Humboldt County
for ten years and we think you’ve been
having some plants every single year
and so they made this whole number up
out of thin air about how much
they said I grew or whatever.
They told me the only way to get
under the five year mandatory minimum
was to snitch and not only would I
not do that, I wouldn’t sign their deal.
So eventually they ended up doing
what’s called a superseding indictment.
They threatened me with even more time.
They said you have
a ten year mandatory minimum.
-Oh, geez.
So I got that call from my attorney
and this has been going on
for a year and a half.
So this is just anxiety,
stress, fear, ongoing.
-Right
So I asked my attorney, I’m like,
“Ask them if I sign if they’ll drop
that ten year mandatory
minimum back to the five
and he called them
and they said yes, they would do it.
So I plead guilty and I got five years
for growing cannabis
and when I came home in 2017
California was going through
a big old legalization celebration
and it was like a big green rush
right here in Humboldt.
I mean there was people from all over
the country and all over the world
who were investing in farms
and it was massive.
When I got out they released me
to a halfway house in Oakland
which is just another private prison.
But the let you out
into the community for short stints.
I’m going down the street,
there’s a line around the block of people
and it was so many people.
It was like going to the club
and they told me, “Oh, weed’s legal now.”
There’s a new dispensary that’s opened
and we’re all standing in line.
and I’d just gotten out of prison
and I was kind of just like, “Wow.”
And in some ways it’s really beautiful.
It’s so beautiful
because I know that the persecution
for people is on the downward trend
but on the other hand
it sort of underscores
what a bunch of bullsh*t
the whole thing was.
There’s a saying in prison which is,
“You can either do your
time or it’s gonna do you.”
You can be a victim and powerless
or you can make use of the time you have
and do the best that you can do with it.
When I first went to prison I was bitter.
I was angry. I was mad at the government.
I was so mad at those snitches.
I thought,
“Man you sold my freedom to keep yours.”
So I had all this anger and resentment
in me towards the snitches,
towards the government
but I had all this time to do
and I figured out pretty early on
if I stay here I will die.
I will become just bitter
and I will wither away
and I saw men in there who’d done
like 10 years, 20 years, 30 years,
and who were bitter.
-And I could see it was toxic.
-Right.
And so for me the big thing
has been learning how to heal
and that’s about forgiveness.
Which is just a word. It’s easy to say
but it’s something to explore
and it really changed the
whole trajectory of my life
[mellow acoustic guitar plays]
[Brett] I think six is good. All right.
Hopefully nobody steals my guitar.
[Peter laughs]
You gotta take chances though, you know?
-We’re coming up on the farmer’s market?
-Yeah.
This is one of the most incredible
farmers markets in the entire country.
It’s part of what makes the culture here
amazing is the emphasis on food.
[Peter] How often is this going on?
Every Saturday all year.
I told you last year
I was gonna bring you some juice.
-Can I give you some mushrooms?
-I’ll take some.
-What’s up, bro?
-How you doing, Tofu?
-Good how about you?
-Doing wonderful.
-Little documentary?
-Yeah, we’re showing the farmer’s market.
-Heck yeah.
-Thanks, man.
-Thank you.
What is this?
-Shiitake.
-Nice, I love those.
Okay, so these next people
we’re gonna go see is Shakefork.
They have the only oxen farm
west of the Mississippi.
-The only what farm?
-Oxen farm.
-[Brett] Hi.
-[woman] Hi.
Want some juice?
[laughter]
-[Peter] Appreciate it. You’re in it now.
-Hi, YouTube.
[Brett] Look at all this.
This is gorgeous.
[Brett] All these people are amazing.
-[man] Hey.
-[Brett] Hey.
Am I chuggin’ it or something?
We’ll give you that in a second
but I brought you…
We just pressed this a couple hours ago
on the old press from the 1800s.
-The one you have there in the shop?
-Yeah.
And it has six different kinds
of apples in it, primarily though,
about half of it is Ashmead’s Kernal
which is from the 1700s.
-Ooh.
-Yeah.
-So…
-Thanks.
Yeah dude, I just wanted
to say thank you
for helping us get those
cattle over to get butchered.
[Brett] They raise eggs,
they raise sheep, they raise beef cattle.
I’m a sixth generation dairy farmer
with my husband and his family
here in Humboldt.
[Peter] Sixth gen on the same land?
On the same… Yeah, actually
six generations on the same land
and then we have multiple generations
from Denmark that were immigrating
that were dairy family farmers as well.
-Wow, that’s cool.
-Yeah.
[Brett] They also have a farm to scoop
ice cream shop
where literally the milk
from their dairy cattle,
they make it into ice cream
and it’s in Lolita.
In fact I’ll tell you it’s called, um,
-Jersey Scoops.
-Jersey Scoops!
-You want a little pause for drama.
-Yeah.
[Peter] They have some
great architecture here in town.
-Yeah, the downtown arcade is cool.
-The plaza.
[Peter] Jacoby’s, beautiful.
[Brett] It’s only a half gallon.
but here’s some fresh cider
just off the press.
-Thanks, dude.
-Yeah, you’re welcome.
[man] Hey, before I forget
let me carry the two.
What’s that?
-What’s up with this guy?
-He’s being a little prankster
[Peter] He’s aggressive.
[Brett] He surprised me ’cause
we’re having a birthday party tonight.
So he flew in.
[man] Who’s birthday is it?
My birthday was on Monday.
-Happy birthday.
-Thank you. Thank you.
So you’re gonna come, right?
-We’ll talk to you.
-Okay.
Is there gonna be a grill tonight?
We’re gonna make a fire
and cook on fire, you know how we do it.
We cook on fire.
We make a fire and then we cook.
What’s in your bag, Dom?
Chilean guavas.
-Oh, have you ever had one of those?
-[Peter] No.
-Will you give one to Peter.
-Yeah.
-[Brett] You got a ripe one?
-[Peter] Oh, thank you.
-[man] Crack it open and–
-[Peter] Just bite it?
Yeah, but don’t eat the skin.
Really? I always eat the skin.
-You can but it tastes
way better without it.
-Oh, yeah.
-Try the skin.
-Interesting.
-I mean I wouldn’t eat the skin by itself.
But those bitters,
that might be good for ya.
[Peter] Mmm.
Chilean guava?
-Yeah, totally different fruit.
-Flagella, is that what they call ’em?
-Yeah.
Something like that. It’s Portuguese.
-It’s great. Thank you.
-Sure.
-I’ll see you guys.
-Take care.
That’s a farmer right there, Mike.
A real farmer, dude.
He’s been growing food for this community
for probably 30 years or more.
Some of these farmers
create so much abundance.
His root vegetables, his carrots
and everything,
and really they are affordable.
You know, so those people,
they’re feeding the community literally.
Yeah.
This is definitely not a food desert,
that’s for sure.
-No.
-[Peter chuckles]
-Food oasis.
-I think it’s the opposite.
-Yeah.
-[laughs]
When I came home from prison
I needed to find
some kind of a way to make money
and the trees were still young
and they still weren’t producing
so this was a rundown burnt-out
tweaker motel.
It was blighted and it sat on the market.
Nobody wanted to touch this place
with a hundred foot pole
and we just started working on it.
We brought in all these plants,
made the pond.
[Peter] So right after you got out
of prison this was your gig?
I had actually started on this
right before I went.
We were able to do
the first bit of renovations then I went
and Julia kept it going.
When I got home we worked to make it
a place where people could come stay
[Peter] This is cool.
It’s so cozy.
Do you own this?
-The bank owns it but–
-So this is your business?
-Yeah.
-You do everything.
[Peter] So if someone’s
coming through Arcata they can stay here?
-Yeah, it’s online.
It’s called the Front Porch Inn.
-Front Porch Inn.
-Yeah, every room is different.
This is the cabin.
I wanna show you one that we did with Ken.
Let’s go this way though.
[door creeks]
[Peter] It’s got a hobbit feel to it.
Yeah, it has an earthen roof.
These are planks that we milled up.
Julia and I, we harvested
all the timbers one day to make all this.
We did all these rafters.
So her and I went up to the mountains
and we cut the trees down,
and we brought ’em here, and we…
I built this when I came home from prison.
This sauna.
-How did that feel after being in prison?
Building this?
In some ways this was
part of my healing process, you know?
Also it was just trying
to make a way to feel…
Like I said, the farm’s been really tough
so it’s helping just being
diversified a little bit.
In fact you look across the nation,
most of the farmers
actually have more than one gig.
Most of us do.
-You stay in farming for the love of it?
Yeah, and the importance.
If you can’t do food
in terms of like in a good way
it’s like it’s the most fundamental thing
and so it feels… It’s important.
It’s the most important thing,
food and shelter.
And we try to do both in a good way.
[Brett] Grab that knob
on the left right there.
Turn it all the way to the left.
-This one?
-Yeah.
-[water hisses]
-Keep going.
-[water splashes]
-[Peter] Oh, yeah.
[Brett] Feel that.
-Hold on, there it comes.
-Oh, yeah.
[Brett] It’ll be hot.
Here comes the steam.
[Peter] Oh, yeah.
That’s so cool.
-This is that wood.
[water flow stops]
We’re going this way, Peter.
You gonna go first?
-Fern canyon?
-Yeah.
[Brett] And then there’s another room.
There’s two clawfoots in there
but somebody’s in it.
I’ll show you this over here.
Base Camp.
This is what Ken did.
[Peter] What a cool place.
[Brett] This is a whole team.
I can’t really take credit for it.
This is community thing. We have a lot
of people that come together that do…
Whether it’s the farm
or here it’s a whole community.
We’re just part of it.
So you could roast s’mores here at night?
-Um, maybe in the fire outside.
-[laughter]
[Peter] No s’mores.
Oh wow, check this out.
[Peter] So I did the stonework though.
I got about to here
and then my daughter was born
so my friends finished it.
It’s so cool how you guys integrated
a gas-burning stove into here.
Into the camp stove.
[Brett] Look at that axe.
-Ken painted all of this?
-He painted all of this.
-[Peter] That’s so cool.
-Look at them, they come in and out.
[Brett] Probably 1,500 years old.
-[Peter] You can’t even see the rings.
-[Brett] It’s hard to see the rings.
[Brett] Those are the big ones,
they’re even tighter over here
I mean just to put it in perspective,
you can sit inside of trees
in Humboldt, right?
And they get much bigger than this?
[Brett] Yeah, they get way bigger.
You couldn’t move them
any bigger though hardly.
-Look at your parking lot.
It’s its own world back here.
This is Blue Ox Mills.
This is Viviana Hollenbach.
We’re gonna go see Eric Hollenbach.
Eric made the barn doors for our barn
and he helped us fix our apple press
and they’re just amazing community members
and my way of saying thanks
is when I can I bring ’em, you know…
-Bring the goods?
-This isn’t the first time.
[Peter] So did Eric make this?
[Viviana] That was made by
one of the most renowned timber fallers
in the world
and it was outside of his bar.
When he sold the bar he had a fight
with the people that bought it
and he came back
and stole it and gave it to us.
-[laughs]
-Okay.
[Peter] Is that a true art-craft here,
timber felling?
-It is an art.
You really gotta know what you’re doing.
-For these big redwoods, right?
-For the big ones
it absolutely is an artform.
-So how many are out there
these days doing it do you think?
I don’t think there’s anybody.
No one’s doing it anymore?
Not taking down redwoods anymore?
If it’s on private property.
-Eric would be the better one to answer.
-Okay.
He knows more about this.
Are you coming, dude.
-[Peter] How you doing, Eric?
-Good, how are you?
Doing well. Wow, your dog is huge.
-You’re Peter?
-Peter, yeah, nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
-I’m gonna give Eric your mic.
Is that cool?
Yeah, give him my mic. Is that cool, Eric?
You all right with that?
[Eric] This ain’t my first rodeo.
[Peter] I didn’t think so.
You don’t have that
first rodeo look to you.
So Eric, what about timber-fellers?
Are there many of those guys around still?
No, not the old growth. No.
We haven’t cut any old growth
in this county in 15, 20 years.
There’s still second growth fallers
and they’re good.
You know, they’re no slouches
by any stretch of the imagination
but old growth,
that was a different bag of puppies.
-So second growth fallers are cutting down
trees up to how high roughly?
Hundred feet.
[Brett] This is this trolly they fixed up.
-[Eric] I built it.
-[Brett] You built it?
-[Eric] Yeah.
-[Peter] Cool.
-[Eric] 1990.
-[Brett] You still rent it out, right?
[Eric] Yeah.
[Peter] Oh, this is awesome.
[Eric] So this cross section,
this is a foot thick.
This cross section was taken
out of the fieldbrook giant
70 feet off of the ground.
The tree was 15 foot in diameter
70 feet off the ground.
The base was 35 feet.
You could park a bus on it
and walk around the bus.
[Peter] Wow.
-It was one of the huge, huge trees
in this area. It was cut down in 1901.
Here’s what I want to tell you about this.
You see,
the loggers have gotten a bad rap.
Really bad rap.
You think about it.
The dudes and dudettes who came here
all of a sudden
were dealing with trees like this.
First off,
how you gonna get it on the ground?
How you gonna do that?
Okay, the wizard comes along
and magically you got it on the ground.
Now how you gonna buck it
in the lengths that you can move?
Okay, the wizard helps again.
Now how you gonna move it?
All you got’s oxen.
You gotta figure out
how to move these things.
Okay, you get ’em to move,
where you gonna move it to?
-Right.
There have never been sawmills
in the entire world
in all of history
to deal with something like this.
-Never.
-Yeah.
Those guys and gals had to solve
every one of those problems
to build this country.
Once they did solve it
the United States said,
“We need cheap building material.
We need it now.”
And those guys and gals
stepped up to the plate and did that.
-So you think they don’t get
the respect they deserve?
Correct.
You know the railroad
coming across the United States
and they met the two trains at…
I don’t know, Prominance or I don’t
know where they drove the spike, you know.
In 15 years
the loggers
who were not engineers,
they weren’t railroad people,
they build narrow gauge railroad
in Oregon, Washington,
and Northern California here
in some of the toughest land there is
they build enough railroad in 20 years
to span the continental United States
three times.
And they did it just out of hay hands
using their brains
and solving the problems as they came up.
And that’s what we are
is problem solvers in this county.
-[Brett] Eric.
-Yeah.
These little, what are they?
Every ten or every hundred?
-The pins?
-Yeah.
Every 25.
[Peter] Every 25 years?
So this one is how old?
[Eric] 1,450.
[Peter exhales in disbelief] It’s like
the constitution was written when?
Like right here?
[Eric] Here, I’ll give you an idea.
One for the bark.
One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Right there the United States of America
became a country.
That’s the signing of
the Declaration of Independence.
Whole lotta stuff happened
back that way.
[Peter] West Virginia, in the coal mines
they were getting paid in scrip.
Here too?
We had company towns
that they couldn’t get out of, you know?
I mean they could
but it was a two day trek.
Their money wouldn’t work
once they left though, right?
And they got paid in vouchers
that were good at the company store.
[Peter] Okay, interesting.
-So what year are we talking?
-Late 1800s.
[Eric] This is a skid camp back here.
See the sleds?
-See the sleds these are built on?
-Uh-huh. Oh, yeah.
[Eric] So we’re logging
this 100 acre parcel here.
Only we’re using misery whips,
and hand tools, and oxen,
and we’re working with trees that size.
It can easy take us a year or more
to log this hundred acres.
Easy.
But eventually we’re gonna get done
and when they did
they tore the wooden sidewalks out,
back two oxen up to every building,
and away they go to the next logging site,
and set the whole thing up all over again.
-Is the breed of your dog a redwood?
[laughter]
-This is Coop and he’s a Great Pyrenees.
-Okay. Wow, biggest dog I’ve ever seen.
Coops like what,
three and a half feet tall?
Yeah, that way you don’t gotta
bend over to pet him.
Right, Coop’s right here.
-I’m too old to bend over.
-Okay.
So they bring the work,
set up the houses, drag ’em in,
let the workers work
on a grove for a while
move ’em on?
Yep.
-And where were these workers from?
-I think in this county
mostly Danes, Swedes, Norwegians.
Scandawhovians I think.
-Okay, Chinese didn’t get into it?
-No.
[Peter] They were on the railroad?
They did the railroad, yeah.
Yeah, and they were
not so nicely driven out of town.
This era and this logging was
very, very technical.
I mean it took a lot of skill
and this was not laborers.
-Right now it just works
with big machines?
The come in with big cutters
and take these trees down?
They still fall,
because of our side hills,
they can’t use those
nipper machines and all that.
But now we got heavy equipment,
CATs and dozers, and we can build roads,
and we can pull… yeah.
Are guys getting paid pretty well
to do that work these days?
Yeah, you can make a living. Yeah.
You can buy a house and…
Can make like a hundred grand
or something?
-Probably.
-Okay.
I’m not very good on… [strikes match]
money, but yes.
And fallers get paid
by the timber that they fall
and they make good money.
So yeah.
So is there a way to do it
where you don’t wreck the environment?
Are they doing it in a way these days
where it doesn’t destroy the hillsides?
-They do it a lot better.
-Lot better?
And they’re allowing
the stands to grow longer
and leaving seed trees.
-Yeah, we’re doing good.
-Okay.
[Eric] As far as the timber industry goes
I think that we’re…
Bear in mind, I ain’t no bright guy.
Hell, I’m a high school dropout.
But I watch and I observe things.
And I think we are in
the best position we have ever been in
in our entire 150 year history.
[Peter] The timber industry?
The timber industry right now today.
-How is that?
Because the big three
Simpson,
that wants to be called
something else now and that’s fine.
I’ll die with them being Simpson,
I’m sorry.
Um, Palco, is also something else now,
and Sierra Pacific, the big three
are all privately held corporations.
That means that
only the family holds stock.
You see, the reason we cut so much
in the ’50s and ’60s,
we blamed the corporations.
I think if you want to blame anybody,
blame that little old lady
in the middle of the country,
goes to church every weekend,
wouldn’t say poop
if she stepped in a pile of it,
and expected her dividend check
every month.
-Right, so they don’t have to worry
about quarterly earnings?
They don’t have to worry about anything.
They can make decisions based on
the timber and based on their lands.
[Eric] All of this that you see
that we’re working with
is old growth.
And I already told you
we haven’t cut any old growth.
-So the old growth value
must be very high now.
Exactly.
But that’s why we work
for the historic trust only.
Because that’s where this
what’s left should go.
Viv and I started this business
51 years ago.
We just got done with
220 feet of wooden rain gutter
for Emily Dickenson’s house
in Massachusetts.
Now that’s Emily Dickenson’s house.
You can’t be putting metal gutter up.
It has to match what the original was.
Right now we’re working on a big state job
for State of California
and this is in Chico.
And that’s the Bidwell Mansion.
-And that’s what we do.
-Oh, that’s great.
We’re a very, very niche market.
We’re the only ones doing it
and we’re the only ones
doing it with original equipment
-That’s the part that’s just mind-blowing
is that’s a pedal-powered
jigsaw right there.
Still in operation.
[Eric] That’s from 1870.
I like to say that we don’t make
reproductions, we make reissuances.
-[Peter] You’re working every day still?
-[Eric] Yep.
-77?
-Uh-huh.
Do you have tours here?
People come out here it looks like.
-Yeah, you saw how the tours went.
-Yeah.
-So you guys want people to come out here?
-Yeah.
-Here’s…
-[excited] We are up with it.
-You have a whole facility. Wow.
-Well this is… yeah.
But we’ve got the QR code,
is that what that’s called?
-Yeah, cool.
-Yeah.
-And there’s propaganda on the back.
-All right.
Gotta have that.
[upbeat country music plays]
[Peter] So we’re almost up to Oregon here?
Yeah, we’re probably like
a half hour from the border or so.
This was a logging town primarily.
The logging abruptly came to an end
because Lyndon B. Johnson, the president,
his wife Ladybird came and visited
and she saw what was happening
and she put a stop to it.
She saw they were gonna cut
the old growth till there was none left
and they created Redwood National Park.
-This town is sort of hurting, huh?
-Yeah, look at it.
What happened to the town here?
-Once the logging went away there was
no industry to support the people
and it sort of withered
and then it became a haven
for people dealing with addiction issues
and mental health issues,
and poverty, and…
-This is the California nobody thinks of.
You got a cool old theater.
Look at that old theater.
-Yeah, there’s… you know,
it’s a meth house.
-Right.
[Brett] And this was Tribal-led.
This is really exciting,
my friend Aaron is working on this here.
He works with the Yurok Tribe.
They took an old mill site
from when they were logging
and they restored it,
and they planted all these native plants,
and they restored
the floodplain connectivity.
Look at all those plants!
Oh my God, look at all those things!
I don’t think I’ve ever seen
a blacktail buck right here.
Let’s go see them. They’re are all bulls.
We gotta go check those bulls out.
[Peter] Oh, they’re huge.
Do you know what that’s all about?
Are they just playing?
Is that like an alpha male thing
going on or what is it?
-They’re wrestling basically.
Eventually they are
gonna vie for the herd.
-You see how these are all bulls?
-Yeah.
[Brett] Well right now this is the rut
and all the cows are with big boy.
He’s either with a bull that…
And they establish the pecking order
doing, you know that kind of stuff.
So they’re kind of like
they’re all over here.
This is a bachelor group hanging out
but eventually when they get old enough
it’ll be more fierce
than what you’re seeing.
-This is real gentle.
-They’re sort of playing around.
So the bull is out there
with all the females?
And then these guys are gonna try
to supersede his power one day?
One day some of them will try.
There’s even some bulls
that their whole move is to be sneaky.
Get in there and try
to do something before they…
But you’ll see when it’s this time of year
the main herd bull, he’ll be making noise,
he’ll be big, he’ll be screaming
if they tried to come over near
it wouldn’t be the dainty little,
“Oh, we’ll touch antlers.”
They’ll be [knocks fists]
You know, throwing down.
[Peter] So those are all old growth?
Never been logged?
-Yeah, that’s old growth redwood.
-That’s up to 1,500 years old
over there maybe.
-Some of it could be older.
This is a really unique actually place
to see the redwoods
because we’re standing in a meadow
and looking at the forest.
Most of the time when you see the redwoods
you don’t have this vantage point
you’re usually in it. It’s like forest.
But it’s a diverse canopy.
So that means there’s really old trees
all the way down to just sprouted up
and all the trees in that forest
minus the ones here that are
right on the edge where we can see,
all of the trees in that forest,
they grew up in the shade.
They were born in the shade primarily.
They grew their life in the shade.
It’s very different than
when they clear cut all this forest
and it grows back or after a fire
and it’s all leveled.
Then everything’s in full sun.
The wood looks nothing like it.
If I showed you the redwood
that’s coming out of the forest today
and I showed you the
redwood from an old tree
doesn’t even look like the same wood.
Doesn’t look like the same species.
-How do they grow without sun?
-Slowly. [laughs]
That’s the magic!
It’s not without sun,
it’s just with little sun, less sun.
-Like maybe 20 minutes a day
a ray comes though?
Ray of light?
And if you look at the grain
and you can see what was happening.
You can see
like when you have a bigger grain
it’s because they had a lot of rain
or because
a tree fell over next to it
and it got a little bit more sun.
And when you see that tight grain
it’s ’cause it was a drought
or it got buried under the canopy
and it had to wait another hundred years
until its time was to come.
[Peter] There’s just no way
to capture it on camera.
-You really can’t.
-The scale.
Oh, this is so rad.
So guys, a lot of the content
doesn’t make the videos.
Most of these videos
are about the subjects I’m with
but there’s a lot I learn along the way.
There’s a lot more to be shared.
Would love you to be
part of the inner circle.
That’s a group
where I post more personal videos.
Link’s down below.
It’s a real cool group of people in there.
We all comment
and talk around with each other
and would love to see you there.
[Peter] When’s the last time
you walked into a tree?
-It’s probably been a week or two.
-[Peter laughs]
Let’s walk into a tree.
-I try to go in
whenever given the opportunity.
-All right.
-Been through fire, look.
-Yeah.
[Brett] Looks like this fire here
it burned up inside the tree
and yet this tree is still alive.
[Peter] Yeah.
[Brett] But they can live for
thousands of years in a state like this.
[Peter] You’ll never be the same, man,
once you go in.
Yeah.
He’s wondering if you’re the guy
from YouTube. Are you?
-Yeah, now you’re in the video.
[laughter]
-Where are you from?
-Frankfurt, Germany.
Nice, [German].
[German]
-Five months in the States?
-Yes.
[Peter] So tell us what it’s been like.
-It’s been crazy.
-Crazy.
[man] We chose the perfect year
to get to know America I’d say.
Starting in Denver,
Montana, Wyoming, Idaho.
So kind of the cowboy states first
and now Washington, Oregon, California.
[Peter] Nice.
-Yeah, we moved into a truck.
-Camper.
And really enjoying it.
-[Brett] I love when people come here–
-[Peter] Yeah, and do it right.
‘Cause America’s so huge
and there’s so many different lifestyles,
and regions, and people.
-The difference for example
between Wyoming and Washington
feels like two different countries.
-Yeah.
-When you talk to the people and listen.
Yeah, it’s like you would compare
Germany with Hungary for example.
So yeah, the cultural differences
are so big.
[Brett] Guys, I’m having a little party.
We’re gonna make a fire.
-You guys can park your camper.
-[Peter] It’s sick out there.
He’s got a sweet spread.
-Yeah, if you can have
two minutes to talk I think yes.
Can I give you my number ’cause we’re
gonna keep going and you can text me.
-We have no signal out here.
Maybe the address would be better.
-Yeah, just come over.
-[laughter]
[Peter] Look at that beauty.
That’s so cool.
I love seeing that when Europeans
or any tourists come here and do it right.
-Yeah.
-You know what I mean?
Not New York, Miami, LA, go home.
You know, get into it.
[Brett] It’s raining
but that is an old tree.
You can see it has
all the multi-storied top and…
[Peter] So good for the soul in here, huh?
[Brett] Yeah.
I think I told you I learned in prison
the importance of forgiveness
but I also learned the power of
personal growth and personal development
and as much as it was a prison,
it was also a limitless opportunity.
Oh.
And those things seem to be
at odds with each other
but I ended up going to
this mystery school in prison
that was led by inmates
and pretty soon
they were teaching metaphysics.
Then they started talking about
manifestation and I thought,
“What are you talking about?
We’re in prison.”
They were talking about
limitless thinking and all this stuff
and we made drawings.
We made mind maps. We wrote it all down.
And we would do
what they call the future now.
Talking about future goals
in the present tense.
And so everything you saw today
of the farm, the front porch, music,
those were all drawings
that I made in a prison.
-I made those drawings in 2014.
-Oh.
And I literally pulled
some of them out the other day
and I looked at those drawings,
and some of them
are just little stick figure sketches
but I drew the farm and I said
I’m so grateful for abundance on the farm
and my family, and I drew
all that stuff when it didn’t exist.
When you wouldn’t believe that it was…
Now it’s easy to believe because
you see it, but it wasn’t like that.
It was not existing.
Our life was in shambles.
Our finances were like
we were almost gonna lose everything.
It was bad.
I was in prison.
My wife was struggling
and here we’re talking about
limitless thinking
and I’m just going through the motions
but I don’t even fully believe it
but that’s what they said, just keep…
You have to be able
to see it in your mind
and say it even if you
feel like you’re a liar.
You speak it into existence and so we did.
We would practice in a prison.
We would have parties
where we would say
we’re having a future now party
and everybody’s gonna talk
about how wonderful their life is
and you’re saying things that sound like
a lie like, “I’m so grateful for my family
and my daughters.
It feels so good to be out of there.
It’s amazing. My businesses are thriving.
My relationships are thriving.
I don’t know what to do with my money.
It’s just great.”
And we’re in prison doing this stuff
and I imagined
coming back to the redwoods
and I imagined coming back here
and when I came back
it was not all that rosey,
and actually was a grind, and painful,
and sometimes it seemed like
it was never gonna happen
but the other day
I pulled out those drawings out of the box
that I had from prison
and I looked at this drawing
and the first drawing was the farm
and it showed the pond.
And there it was all beautiful
and the barn was built.
When I came home
that barn was only half-built still
but now it was built
and I’m looking at that drawing,
there it was, built.
And I’m looking at the stick picture
of me and my wife and our child
and I’m like there.
And now my wife and I have a child.
And I looked at another drawing
and it was a stick picture of me
on stage singing to a crowd of people.
You know, just like…
And I looked at the date
and it said, “So be it… 2024”
When I pulled it out
it was like wow, this is insane.
This is what I dreamed up in prison.
I dreamed this up in prison?
And now I’m looking around
like this is what it actually looks like?
It’s unreal.
[Brett playing guitar]
♪ Built this home with my own two hands ♪
♪ help from my friends
and trees from the land ♪
♪ Food and shelter the best I can ♪
♪ This right here
is where I make my stand ♪
♪ ‘Cause we still got butchers
and we still got mills ♪
♪ got a whole lotta folks
with a whole lotta skills ♪
♪ If you ever need help
ever need a favor ♪
♪ Well around here
you still call on your neighbor ♪
♪ That’s how we do it in Humboldt ♪
♪ Yeah we do it in Humboldt ♪
♪ How we do it in Humboldt ♪
♪ Well we got trees
like you ain’t never seen ♪
♪ Clear blue water
straight out of a dream ♪
♪ And you don’t have to go look too far ♪
♪ to find yourself a shootin’ star ♪
♪ You can be a weirdo
you can be a freak ♪
♪ You can be straight-laced
seven days a week ♪
♪ ‘Cause we got guts and we got pride ♪
♪ We got what matters on the inside ♪
♪ That’s how we do it in Humboldt. ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Yeah we do it in Humboldt ♪
♪ How we do it in Humboldt ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Well the sun was settin’ on ’68 ♪
♪ It was the summer of love
down in the Haight ♪
♪ But war was draggin’
it was gettin’ late ♪
♪ Back to the land sounded great ♪
♪ and that’s when a redneck
made love with a hippie ♪
♪ they had themselves a child
and they named her Gypsy ♪
♪ That’s how we do it in Humboldt ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Yeah we do it in Humboldt ♪
♪ How we do it in Humboldt ♪
♪ ♪
♪ But it ain’t all flowers
and peace and love ♪
♪ You know the history
is stained in blood ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Everywhere from Hoopa
down to Table Bluff ♪
♪ Wimatupee River
man they had it rough ♪
♪ ♪
♪ It’s the same old story
all across the land ♪
♪ One of them things
I just can’t understand ♪
♪ ♪
♪ So I do my best to show respect ♪
♪ Tip my hat
and I won’t ever forget ♪
♪ That’s how we do it in Humboldt ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Yeah we do it in Humboldt ♪
♪ How we do it in Humboldt ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Now if you wanna
talk sh*t on California ♪
♪ go right ahead but I got to warn ya ♪
♪ we hold it down around here ♪
♪ If you live in this country
and you ever smoked grass ♪
♪ you can thank Humboldt County
for riskin’ her ass ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Fighting camp since the ’80s
and a going’ strong ♪
♪ we just a kept on growing’
till the laws caught on ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ The only way to say it
is to put it bluntly ♪
♪ there ain’t another place
more outlaw country ♪
♪ That’s how we do it in Humboldt ♪
♪ Yeah we do it in Humboldt ♪
♪ How we do it in Humboldt ♪
♪ How we do it in Humboldt ♪
♪ How we do it in Humboldt ♪
Look who’s here, Peter.
-Now way! Wow.
-[laughter]
-Welcome.
-What a beautiful entry.
-Welcome.
-Thank you very much.
[laughter]
[“Humboldt” by Brett McFarland plays]
[music fades]