Untamed Pursuits

Episode 26: Laughter, Legacy, and African Landscapes

• Outdoor Journal Radio Podcast Network • Episode 26

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Exploring life on a remote ranch in southern Zimbabwe, Kendal Ray shares her experiences in cattle management while navigating the challenges posed by wildlife. Her connection with the land, its culture, and the untamed animals around her paints a vivid picture of daily life and the spirit of adventure engrained within it.

• Insights into daily routines and responsibilities on the ranch 
• The balance between cattle ranching and wildlife protection 
• Importance and symbolism of the baobab tree in local culture 
• Observations on animal behavior and interactions 
• Climate challenges affecting ranching dynamics 
• The significance of community in ranching practices 
• Sustainable living and conservation efforts surrounding wildlife 
• Upcoming adventures and future plans for ranch life

Speaker 1:

Back in 2016,. Frank and I had a vision to amass the single largest database of muskie angling education material anywhere in the world.

Speaker 2:

Our dream was to harness the knowledge of this amazing community and share it with passionate anglers just like you.

Speaker 1:

Thus the Ugly Pike podcast was born and quickly grew to become one of the top fishing podcasts in North America.

Speaker 2:

Step into the world of angling adventures and embrace the thrill of the catch with the Ugly Pike Podcast. Join us on our quest to understand what makes us different as anglers and to uncover what it takes to go after the infamous fish of 10,000 casts.

Speaker 1:

The Ugly Pike Podcast isn't just about fishing. It's about creating a tight-knit community of passionate anglers who share the same love for the sport. Through laughter, through camaraderie and an unwavering spirit of adventure, this podcast will bring people together.

Speaker 2:

Subscribe now and never miss a moment of our angling adventures. Tight lines everyone.

Speaker 1:

Find Ugly Pike now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3:

Happy New Year and welcome to the Untamed Pursuits podcast on the Outdoor Journal Radio Podcast Network. I'm Jamie, here with my trusty sidekick down in the Carolinas, Ryder Knowlton. What is going on?

Speaker 4:

my friend, are you as excited about 2025 as I am?

Speaker 3:

I am. You know I got rid of my differences. I guess that's what you say when you kind of throw the bad away from last year. It took me a couple of days Also picked up a nasty cold, which is you know, you can't catch it through the old interweb, so that's good.

Speaker 4:

Oh, that's good. Yeah, I'm going to be losing weight like hell for the next week and then around the second or third week of January, I'm going to stop that and, you know, just go back to the old program. But for the next week or so I'm going to be diehard, hardcore, working out, losing weight, following all my resolutions for 2025.

Speaker 3:

So you're one of those jerks at the gym that makes all the regular people at the gym angry, because in January, all of a sudden, there's all these people with the new gym bag and the new clothes that they got for the holidays and the lululemons they show up, and I know, man, how ridiculous you and I would look in some lululemons.

Speaker 4:

Let's know we don't want to. That's the worst image art. We do not want to start off our whole new year shows with our poor listeners thinking of you and I wearing some tight lululemons. Let's just get that.

Speaker 3:

I don't know how that came up. I don't even think about that. Yeah, a minute and a half in some tight lulu moments.

Speaker 4:

Let's just get that image right off the show. I don't know how that came up. Let's not even think about that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, a minute and a half in and the show is already off the rails and it got started over.

Speaker 2:

Oh man. Are you?

Speaker 4:

packed up. The great news is I won't be at those gyms long enough to piss anybody off, because I'm going to go in. I'm going to be all excited for about the first two days I'm going to probably hurt myself and then I'll be done for the year.

Speaker 2:

So they won't even see me come back.

Speaker 3:

Usually February 1st is good. That's when all the regulars are there. You can have normal conversations. You don't have to wait a half an hour for a machine anymore. No, no.

Speaker 4:

Well, you know, one of the things we've been talking about is you know what are our plans for 25? And you know what are some of our. You know what are some of the trips that we're thinking about and new places. We talked on a recent show about new species in the fishing world. What are some of the new species that you know that we want to try to maybe have a chance to pursue and so forth.

Speaker 4:

And obviously, the show, you know, it's not a it's not, it's not a fishing show, it's an adventure travel show, right, and so the purpose of of Untamed Pursuits is to, you know, talk about not just the hunting and the fishing, but talk about some of these places. You know that maybe we get to go, but, more importantly, you know that our guests get to go, or, in the case of our guests today, where our guests get to live, and we'll talk about that in a minute. But, you know, as we looked at 2025, you know, a lot of our excitement was some of these new adventures, right, some of these new places. And yeah, we want to catch some fish and yeah, we want to maybe, you know, get a couple birds for the pot, but at the end of the day, it's these new places and exciting new areas we can learn about.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, pretty pumped and our guest today. I got up early, I got to say I made a pot of coffee. I was super excited. It's our first female guest, which is amazing. I love the ladies in the outdoors. I think it's such a blessing and she's one of the biggest badasses I've ever like. I'm so pumped.

Speaker 4:

Oh no, there's no question about it, Male or female. I can promise you that our guest today would rank at the very top of the list regarding the badass comparison. There's no question. I'm really, really excited about our guests today, and and and um, you know, we were so lucky. We get so many interesting folks and you talk about.

Speaker 4:

You know how, in the world, you introduce somebody that's got so many different talents and is just such an interesting person. And and our guest today lives in one of the wildest places on earth, One of the, you could argue, most dangerous places on earth from different perspectives, and she immerses herself in that life every single day of her life. But she's unbelievably talented in observing that world, and as a writer, as a poet, as a photographer, as a dog trainer, as a naturalist. I could just go on and on and on. But our guest today is Kendall Ray. And, Kendall, you and I have known each other. I don't want to get your last name wrong, Kendall Ray. Is it Cash? It's Kashula. Tell me how you pronounce your last name. I'm going to destroy it.

Speaker 6:

Technically it's Kashula, but there's a C in this. You kind of have to say it like you're sneezing. It's like Kashula, something like that.

Speaker 4:

Kashula.

Speaker 3:

That's going to work well for me today.

Speaker 4:

With that, I'm going to now give you the proper introduction with the proper pronunciation, all the way from remote, rural Zimbabwe in South Southern Africa. Kendall Ray Kishula. Good morning for us, good afternoon for you. How are you doing today, kendall?

Speaker 6:

I'm so good. Thank you. How are you guys?

Speaker 4:

We're doing great. We're doing great. We're unbelievably excited to have you join us and you know we talked about doing this for a long time and we almost did a show with you last year and there were some there was some Internet issues in Charlotte, I remember, and we couldn't do the show. So we were so excited. I know we're getting you kind of during your off season and a slow time for you guys at the ranch, and so thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 6:

No, thank you for having me on. I've been very excited about it, so I'm really happy to be here.

Speaker 4:

Well, let's start. So for our listeners to even begin to understand where we're talking to you and how this is happening. So, for our listeners, just a little bit of context. Kendall and her family live on a giant ranch in south central Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is in southern Africa. It's located just east of Botswana and west of Mozambique, in the southern portion of the continent, and Kendall's family runs the cattle operations on one of the largest ranches in Zimbabwe. It's an amazing situation. And Kendall's family runs the cattle operations on one of the largest ranches in Zimbabwe. It's an amazing situation.

Speaker 4:

And of course, she is seven hours ahead of where Jamie and I are on East Coast time. Of course I'm in the Carolinas and Jamie's up in Ottawa, canada, and so she's seven hours ahead. And we've juggled and figured out how to get this set up from an IT standpoint. And so, kendall, thank you so much for joining us. And why don't we start? You know, tell us a little bit about gosh. Just tell us about you know, your family, and how old were you when you guys moved to the ranch, and just tell us about, kind of, what brought you guys to New Inetsi New Inetsi, of course, is the name of the ranch and tell us a little bit about that.

Speaker 6:

Well, we had. So I was born in Zimbabwe and we had originally been living on a farm near Bulawayo and then, obviously, with Zimbabwe's crash economy crash in 2008, we made a move and we went to Zambia and we were there for seven years, but I think home is always home. It's where you come from. So the job offer you need to came up when I was 14 and my dad took that and we moved back. So that was seven years ago now. It feels like it's been five minutes though, but yeah, it was completely different. We had been on crop farmers in Zambia and a very sort of quiet farming life. And then we came back here and it's very, veryambia and a very sort of quiet farming life. And then we came back here and it's very, very wild still and very, very unkept still, and it was just a complete change of pace. But it's been amazing, especially to grow up on from that age. It's been wonderful.

Speaker 4:

Now, was your family involved in the cattle business before you guys moved to New Inetsi? What was the connection, I guess, with your dad in the cattle business? What created that connection?

Speaker 6:

Well, my dad the property we lived on before we moved to Zambia was mixed crop farming and cattle farming. He had grown up farming and with his family cattle as well, and he's always been a farmer from stock and crops. So when the job offer came up and he put that forward, they seemed happy to take him and that's how we got here. But yeah, it's always been more than hunting. Even my family history is very farming. My mom was actually a cattle rancher's daughter as well and grew up on Cataranch.

Speaker 4:

So it runs in the family.

Speaker 6:

You cannot beat genetics. That is my outtake on life.

Speaker 4:

I love it so for our listeners to try to visualize this Zimbabwe again in Southern Africa is on the north side of South Africa, kind of right in the middle of the southern part of the continent, and of course you've got really just two or three larger, you know, harare being the capital of Zimbabwe and being the largest city, and then really in southern Zimbabwe you have Bulawayo, which is really Kendall, I think, for you guys probably the closest city, is that right?

Speaker 6:

Yeah, it is Well the closest. Well, let's just say anything, close is more like a village. So the closest actual town where you can find things. So everywhere else is like you compete. You know more with donkey carts than actual cars in other places.

Speaker 4:

But where and where you guys are on the ranch, so you know, as you said, you've got villages. You're far from any big cities when people talk about rural Africa.

Speaker 6:

I mean you guys live in rural Africa. Yeah, we are very remote, and especially Southern Zim it's a very tough country so it's really only ideal for cattle and game and so most everyone doing farming is obviously doing crops, so they're not at this end. So I think, like the low-felt population in my area because we call Southern Zim low-felt, it's probably I honestly think 20 people is a lot, which sounds bad when you think how big it is, but like if there's 20 of us and almost half of that number is on your Nessie because it's such a big property. So yeah, we're very, very out of the way. No one really comes down here by free will. It's very, very hot, it's very dry. Obviously there's a wildlife to compete with, whatever you're doing.

Speaker 6:

The Low Fathers declared a red zone for cattle ranching, so basically any split-tooth animal that can carry foot and mouth disease. We have a lot of it down there, so we're a red zone. So cattle can't move out of our border unless it's for direct slaughter. So obviously if you want to do cattle ranching, you better be doing it. That you're selling straight to an abattoir. It's hard to do that as well. So it is a very tough country to kind of get into and stay into. So there are very, very few of us kind of get into and stay into.

Speaker 4:

So we are very, very few of us, and this is beef cattle. I mean, just to give context, this is beef cattle we're talking about.

Speaker 6:

Yes, yeah. So basically what happens is split-toothed animals can carry foot and mouth, and I actually don't know why we are red zone compared to everything else, but my assumption would be because we are still so like accessible by wildlife and foot and mouth is transmitted by buffalo. I think that puts us at a much higher risk. So the Lofelt district has been red zone for cattle farming, so unless you sell their exclota, it's not really worth your time to ranch it, but it's a very good area for game and not much else. So that's kind of why it's so quiet down here.

Speaker 4:

And when you say buffalo, you mean Cape Buffalo. The famous dangerous animal of Africa that's what you're talking about is Cape Buffalo.

Speaker 6:

Yes, yeah.

Speaker 4:

So you've got. You guys are on a huge ranch in very remote southern Africa, out in the middle of the bush, as you say, and you're trying to manage. You're trying to balance that life between being cattle ranchers, sustainable, successful cattle ranchers, and also just living out among the wild and the animals. You know is that? I mean that's every day for you on the ranch.

Speaker 6:

Yeah, yeah, it is very. It makes it very interesting, but it can also be very, very hard work because obviously we're competing with all the predators down here and especially in Zim now. Obviously, after the government change so many years ago, a lot of farming land was taken, so the ranch is kind of islanded and then it's surrounded by, obviously, the local people doing their farming and all of that. But they've worked their land so much and obviously they are very avid hunters so there's not a lot of game staying by them. It all congregates to New Netsy so it makes us like there's a lot more than it would be if it was, say, 50 years ago, when the game would have been spread out through a few ranches. Now it's just us.

Speaker 3:

All right, kendall, I got to ask the predators what are we talking here? What are the native animals? I've been waiting.

Speaker 6:

Mainly on our part of the ranch, it's mainly competition with hyenas and leopards, more than anything else.

Speaker 4:

Leopards. Wow, can you imagine that, jamie? I mean now I say that of course you guys have wolves in Canada. I mean you guys have got a pretty serious predator. You know, for us we've got, you know, a couple little mangy coyotes and if we're lucky, we have a bobcat. We sure don't have hyenas and leopards.

Speaker 3:

That's just a whole different world we got black bears and coy wolves are a big thing, kind of like a hybrid between the wolves, but at the same time they ain't a hyena or they ain't a leopard.

Speaker 4:

Well, what's funny is toothy critters On our show. When we talk about toothy critters, we talk about pike and muskie, which, kendall, so you know, those are both fish that live in Canada that have big teeth, nothing like the tiger fish that lives in Africa and it sure the heck is nothing like a hyena or a leopard that lives on your ranch. Thought was really it's so interesting about you, is not? You know you're a rancher, yes, but you, you, you have such a great connection with that wildlife and that you know where you live and that connection with that wildlife and you know even how we, how we, you and I, met. You know, my very good friend, rob Lurie, who um used to run the um uh Professional Hunter Association for Zimbabwe, wasn't he, rob introduced the two of us and I think Rob was. Was he a teacher or an instructor, maybe right at a course you were taking? Maybe one of the wildlife or outdoor courses you were taking?

Speaker 6:

Yeah, the Hunters Association. They do these study courses for people doing their license and he was one of the lecturers, I think on the very first one I ever did. I must've been about 16 and that's when I met him.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, so in the world of African outdoors, for our listeners, each of the different countries has their own training process and so forth to become a licensed professional hunter. They call them PH. But one of the things about Zimbabwe that's so different and that's one of the reasons Zimbabwe is so highly respected in this world, in that world of you know, outdoor adventuring in Africa, is they don't just focus on the hunting, they focus on teaching their trainees about the wildlife and the different types of wildlife and how the wildlife, you know, acts and reacts out in the wild. And I know, you know, as I've talked to Rob Kendall and some of our other mutual friends, you know Chaff and Lynn and other, you know PHs over there. Those guys are, as you know, they're as much, they're as experienced in birdwatching as they are hunting. It's, I mean, they're natural At the end of the day. It's amazing they're, they're naturalists really.

Speaker 6:

Yeah, yeah, I know you know the association really pushes having like our, especially because, obviously that you have your professional guides and your professional hunters. But they push even from the hunting side. It's not just about tracking or shooting or trophy size, they want you to really understand. You know the bush. I mean, I do these study courses for mine and they're asking me the scientific names of, like every tree that we walk past. So they make it very intensive. But once you go through the process that's why zim is known for producing such great guides and hunters because you know it's a hard thing to get through, but the harder it is, the better you're coming out the other end.

Speaker 4:

No, that's exactly right. And so tell us about a normal day for you. I mean, I want to. Obviously, one of the things that's so incredible is you are the front line in your family. You know you're the front line in protecting your cattle against things like hyenas and leopards and we'll get to that a little bit later but tell us about just day-to-day life. You know what's day-to-day life like for you on the ranch, as it relates to just managing the cattle and running the ranch.

Speaker 6:

So, like at the moment, it's our calving season, so our cattle start calving around the end of November and they'll finish end of February, early March. So at the moment I'll be up maybe five-ish and then I go around and I do rounds of all our cattle and calves. So the way we ranch it down here we let, as soon as our calves have been tagged because then that's how we keep them in our registry books they go out with their mothers to the paddock, which is why we have such a big credit issues, because if you keep them locked up the low felt is very dry and the grass down here is not adequate enough that the cows keep coming back to their calves to feed them and then they don't lose condition. So we have to let them go to the bush with calves at foot. So most days if I'm up at five I'll run my hunting dogs first, because they are still getting exercise even in our off season. I'll run them and then I will go to work, probably six-ish, and I spend most of the morning just checking on calves doing medicines.

Speaker 6:

This year we've had a heat wave so we've had a lot of calves, um, a lot of cows unable to carve and a lot of calves overheating, and it's been a very bad six weeks, probably just because of how hot it's been. So, yeah, I spend a lot of days pulling calves. I almost want to say I'm like 50 midwife at this point, um, and then usually by lunch, if there's been an issue, like with an aina, by then the cattle boys would have found it um, the cow that's been killed. And then they get a hold of me and then I have to go set up my blind and prep for that. But if I don't have a day like that, I I spend literally the whole day just checking on cattle.

Speaker 6:

The property is so massive it I go through a quarter tank of fuel in a day. Every day it's probably 60 kilometers from my house in a straight line to our furthest crawl, and I still have to stop at about 10 other cattle calls before I get there, and yeah, so it's very, it's very time intensive. But basically right now I just go around, I check on all the cows and calves and then my father is mainly working on all our steers and our heifers, the ones that will be carving next year, the ones will be selling. So that's sort of how the work is divided at the moment.

Speaker 4:

So it's. I mean, it's a family operation. Do you have? And I know from a, from a um, from a hunting standpoint you have your, you know, and your dogs, and we'll talk about that whole part of your team, but I'm assuming you then have a whole operation of people to help you on the ranch and then you guys are in turn. You're almost running that. That in itself becomes a village, if you will.

Speaker 6:

Yeah, there is a lot of us here because obviously there's so much ground to cover.

Speaker 6:

So, the way it is in Zimbabwe, especially on big properties, we have what we call council roads, so it's almost like a main road, but it's not tarred and it cuts through your property so you're not allowed to fence over it, obviously because everyone has to be able to drive on it.

Speaker 6:

So, just because of those roads, we have so many boom gates. Obviously they have the security guards. We have so many boom gates, obviously they have the security guards. We have the guards who are walking our fence lines, our scouts, the guys who are heading the anti-poaching unit, head of security, all of the guys who are working with the cattle every day, the guys who are managing them, everyone in the office, because we have around if I'm not getting the number around 5,000 head at the moment. So obviously there's a lot of book work as well tag numbers, registrations, um, preps for bullying, preps for carving, keeping track of everything, um, and then, yeah, me and my dad are sort of at a bit of a top of the pyramid and overseeing that, but he definitely does most of it. I mostly get involved during the carving season now and I help out then what?

Speaker 4:

um now, I know the rainy season's kind of coming now, right right. Has it hit yet, or is it still dry in Zimbabwe? And just for our listeners, as you heard at the beginning of the show, we're kicking off the new year, so it's early January, but have the rains come to southern Zimbabwe yet?

Speaker 6:

They haven't come to us really. In Zimbabwe, usually our rain season starts end of November, but this year end of November, early December, we actually had a heat wave and the most rain we've probably had is in the last two weeks, which for us is very, very, very late. There's a few other areas in Zim where they got more rainfall, because the low felt is already a lot drier, with the lower rainfall average, than everywhere else, but this year we've had barely anything. Our grass is not even knee high yet, so it's been a bit of a tough season, but it should technically be.

Speaker 4:

It should? Yeah, has it been. And were you saying, has it been like that for a couple of years now? You guys have been dealing with that the last few years.

Speaker 6:

Last year was sort of a half rain season. It was okay, it started more on time, but it just didn't rain a lot. And then the year before that was all right. But if I'm not mistaken, the first and second years we were, yeah, in the low felt it was also very dry. Then we had like two years of decent rain. Then last year wasn't great. This year is very dry. So, yeah, it's not good generally, but the last couple of years have been especially tough and this year definitely the worst that we've had since we moved out.

Speaker 4:

So crazy because I remember was it last year or two years that South Africa had torrential rains. I remember, you know, watching the videos of the Orange River and you know there were videos of parts of South Africa that were just getting pummeled. But you guys, of course, are to the north and it's a whole different ecosystem and a whole different weather pattern, and it's a whole different ecosystem and a whole different weather pattern.

Speaker 6:

Yeah, it is. It is very different. It's very dry but usually you know we'll get I always say in the low fudge either burning or freezing or drowning. If it in a proper rain season, when it rains it should rain very, very hard, a lot of miles at once. We don't have a lot of that slow sort of rain over a few days. It's usually like one or two days of hard rain and then like three days of sun and then another day of a storm and then another day of sun. So it's very uneven. The weather down here, to be honest, is not ideal. But like I was saying earlier, the low-falt, it's a very different kind of country. It's sort of it's almost like it's set out to test your limits. So it's definitely not for the faint of heart and all of us down here. It's something that we experience every year all the time, because it is a very tough country.

Speaker 4:

And what you're saying there is low-veld for our listeners. That's kind of it's dry, arid brush brush that is. Is that what you call the Jesse, the kind of the thick brush? Yeah.

Speaker 6:

Yeah, so mostly we are about 90% Mopani tree, so it's not at all a humid climate, it's very, very dry, heat, mopani trees, a couple of a fair amount of baobabs, and then our grass and it's yeah, like you say, very, very arid and lofah sort of retains this whole southern slice of Zimbabwe. That's just what we call it as a general group together.

Speaker 7:

Hi everybody. I'm Angelo Viola and I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's Favorite fishing show, but now we're hosting a podcast. That's right Every Thursday.

Speaker 3:

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Speaker 7:

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Speaker 3:

Well, you know there's going to be a lot of fishing.

Speaker 1:

I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.

Speaker 7:

Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors, from athletes, All the other guys would go golfing Me and Garth and Turk and all the Russians would go fishing To scientists.

Speaker 8:

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Speaker 1:

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Speaker 2:

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Speaker 7:

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Speaker 3:

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Speaker 8:

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Speaker 7:

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Speaker 4:

Tell us about the baobab tree. So for our listeners, that's the. When you think of images of Africa, one of the classic images is the big giant Baobab, meaning these massive trees with trunks that can be literally 20, for us in the US, 20 feet across in diameter, 15 feet across in diameter, and these, just these massive trees that have been around forever. And there's so much history. There's stories and parts of. I know Rob and I have been up in, and there's so much history you know there's stories in parts of.

Speaker 4:

I know Rob and I have been up in parts of Zimbabwe where we found some of the old Baobabs, where you can still see where some of the early explorers that were in Africa 150, 200 years ago were carving. You know things in the trees and you can still see where some of those, you know where some of those trees have been carved up and marked up and things like that. It's so, it's incredible the history and then and then you know the Baobab is is such an important source of life because it's such a dry, arid place and there's, you know, those trees bring moisture up into their trunks, into their pulpy part of the tree. Tell us about the baobab and how important that is, you know, just to the wildlife on the ranch.

Speaker 6:

Yeah, it's actually. It's like you say. It's an amazing tree, and not just in what it does, but just in history. You know, it's something that comes up again and again. It's very historical and like so for us. Now, like you say, they draw all that moisture into them. So a lot of animals actually are getting their liquid for that, even elephants. You'll see them stripping the bark of the trees and chewing that, taking the moisture out of it, just its root system actually, because they have such an amazing root system that is helping with erosion. So that's protecting the soil, protecting the ground, their hollows, everything lives in a beobab tree.

Speaker 6:

I have personal experience with like ground horned bulls, people and leopards all living in beobab trees, because often they hollow out in the center and so they're so grateful, shelter the fruit that they have that cream of tartar. It's so extremely high in vitamin c. We actually have this thing that we do that. I learned from a tracker once on a hunt where you split them open and we take out those seeds and like, especially when you're doing a dog hunt we were running a lot and it's very exerting and it's hot you put them in your water and you kind of shake it and let it sit there for a while and it almost like sodas your drink, and you drink like 500 mils of that and you feel amazing. It's almost like a natural electrolyte that you can just pull out of. So you know, it's helping people, it's helping animals and there's actually a very cool cultural story about it.

Speaker 6:

Some of the Zimbabwean tribes they believe. I don't know if you've ever noticed a Baobab tree without its leaves or without its fruits. It almost looks like its root system, like it's being tipped upside down. And so some of the cultures we are, they believe that long ago Baobabs all sat the other way around and for some reason or other, the gods got angry at these trees and pulled them out and threw them back down to earth the wrong way up. So yeah, some of us we call it an upside down tree, but it's just. It's so interesting. About a year ago we actually the anti-poaching team on the property court approached it and it set up his base inside a baobab tree and it made like a house out of it.

Speaker 4:

It was very interesting.

Speaker 4:

It's such a fascinating tree. I love that. You know, when you think of the history, you know some of these trees are so massive and you can see them from, so I mean they just become part of the landscape and they're there forever. You know what I mean. It's this permanent, massive part of the landscape. And so you hear about the stories of going back, you know, hundreds of years, and a certain tree was used as a marker, maybe a meeting place or hey, you know, or even directional for the early explorers in Africa, you know that's. It became a marker in their, in their explorations. And you can totally see that, because I mean, they're so massive and they're so immobile and just these incredible things and they just, you know, they're almost, they're just like this fixture in the, you know, in the landscape.

Speaker 6:

Yeah, absolutely, you know there's a lot of often if you find a really big baobab tree and, like you, just hover around it and take a look more than once I found, like pieces of clay pottery, a lot of them. You'll find the old holes going up the trunk so long ago when they were trying to climb for the fruit. They are nailed in spikes to help them climb up the side and get to it and, like you say, they've become a historical feature. There's a baobab tree on Unessi Ranch, so we have a river called the Munezi River coming through us and you go through this river and there's a four-way cross and at this four-way cross there's a massive Baobab tree and everybody knows this tree. I can't tell you how many people I've spoken to and I'll be like I'm from New Netsea and the four-way cross with the Baobab tree always comes up and it's been that way forever. I guess.

Speaker 6:

When we first moved here, there was a much older man who used to help out a bit on the ranch because he managed New Nancy. Like many, many, many years ago, and him as well. We'd always talk about the tree at the four-way cross. We all knew that that was our marketplace. People have painted it. A lot of people come here they do a picture of it. It's just, yeah, it's amazing.

Speaker 4:

It's so cool. I remember Rob showing me a baobab one time and telling me that you could. In theory, a human can sustain themselves off of the tree. In other words, as you were saying, the berries that are so full of vitamins and the pulp on the tree has moisture and nutrition where, in theory, if you had to, you could sustain yourself for a while by eating the pulp and managing. Obviously you know cutting off not too much but enough of the pulp to sustain yourself. To think of that dynamic with one tree. You know supporting, you know sustaining if you had to. You know people that might be, you know, in the old days, hiking across, exploring the way across Africa. It's just such an incredible thing.

Speaker 6:

Yeah, you know you could probably live quite comfortably off of it because, like we have a lot of the local women, they strip the fibers and they make mats like almost like a reed mat, but they make it out of the bareback fibers and you can actually make coffee from the seeds and the fruits like a coffee equivalent. So you could probably survive quite fantastically. Not just basically what you got, isn't?

Speaker 4:

that amazing. It's so funny. We talk about sustainable hunting and sustainable fishing on the show all the time and here we are. I mean that's the ultimate sustainable. You know survival, if you will, is literally just a symbiotic relationship between a person and a tree. You know, and that it could, you know, you really could, you know, coexist that way. It's incredible to think about. So tell us. I know Jamie's dying to hear about the animals. So tell us, tell us about you've mentioned leopards. You've mentioned hyenas, but you know what are some of the, you know what are some of the other. Just, you know animals on as you're going across those 60 kilometers, what are some of the animals that you might come across. You know, at the ranch, on a just a regular day-to-day basis, we've at the ranch on just a regular day-to-day basis.

Speaker 6:

Well, we're very lucky. We've got most of the plains game. So zebra, wildebeest, impala, stembuck, duiker, giraffe, kudu it's very common to see all of those. You'll see your jackals If you're lucky like if I'm having a late night and I come back in the dark. You'll see your civet cats, your African bush cats If you're lucky enough to run into them they're quite shy your genus cats. I used to, in operative terms, have a lot of poultry which the African bush cats and the genus cats really loved, like, really really loved, which is why I don't have poultry anymore. So yeah, pretty much all your plains game we're very lucky to have that and then all of your smaller things your jackals, your small cats, your mongoose. There's a lot of bird life out there as well, so it's a very beautiful setting. I'm very privileged to get to live here, because it's sort of the best of both worlds you get the bush and you get the cattle side.

Speaker 4:

I remember asking Rob one time you know of all the different sustainable meats that people eat in the bush and you know what his favorite meat was and people talk about eland, which I know you have at the ranch, being such a great meat but he said porcupine. I was amazed at that. He said oh yeah, he said porcupine is his favorite. Have you ever eaten porcupine? And I'm assuming at night, you will see right. I would agree with Mr Lurie, it is amazing meat. Have you ever eaten porcupine? And I'm assuming at night, you will see right.

Speaker 6:

I would agree with Mr Lurie. It is amazing meat, my track. He cooked it for me and he almost did it like in flour and fried it Like it was very gourmet and it was amazing.

Speaker 4:

Jamie, isn't that incredible we're talking about, you know, porcupine and that's. These are two pretty credible sources between Kendall and Rob Lurie. Those are two pretty credible sources giving their opinion on their favorite, you know, bushmeat of Africa.

Speaker 3:

Hey, protein is protein, as we say.

Speaker 4:

Don't knock it until you try it.

Speaker 6:

But it is very good. It's a lot of mind of a matter. If I didn't tell you it was a porcupine, you'd be like a lot of mind of a matter. If I didn't tell you it was a porcupine, you'd be like just bring seconds and thirds.

Speaker 4:

It is very, very good, it's fantastic. So tell us about all those different animals you know and what God it's. What a list of animals. So what are some of your? Do you like? When you are going up the road, I know one of the animals that I still get excited to see because to me it almost looks like a dinosaur and no matter how many you've seen you know, when you go around a turn and suddenly you know you see a big male giraffe. You know, giraffe to me still are so incredible. Do you still get excited seeing these animals? Or, I guess, are you just seeing them every day, and you have for years, and you almost don't turn your head anymore?

Speaker 6:

I almost don't turn my head, I'll admit, because you get used to it, but I still enjoy seeing certain ones more than others. Like I have a great soft spot for wildebeest. I love them. I just find them so interesting I don't know if it's because they're quite ugly looking, I don't know. I just I really like a wildebeest and when you move to the property, because they give the cattle a disease that you can't vaccinate against, so like you don't really want them living in proximity with your cattle. So we used to hunt a lot of them and that's pretty much what I actually learned to hunt on. So I love seeing wildebeest. I find them fascinating and I've got a soft spot for them. I love seeing a stem buck. I think they're so like sweet. You know they're tiny, they're so small and then anything that you would see at night. I'm a cat person, definitely. So the leopards, the genus cats, all of that I find it very, very interesting. They're quite cool and obviously they're not something that you run into every day.

Speaker 3:

You know what I'm new to hunting? I'm about to convert. Every year I keep saying I'm going to hunt, so you do things different. In Zimbabwe, when the wildebeest is your intro to hunting, like up here, it's like we might start with rabbit or something. A wildebeest. This sounds like a dangerous thing. This is not like your regular. This is awesome. This is great.

Speaker 6:

It was. It was very interesting. We, we, we do in them like so that we all like full disclosure. Generally you do start with smaller stuff. The first thing I ever shot was an impala but like, when we moved to the property we sort of got chucked into the deep end of things and and I've been loving to hunt since as long as I've been alive. I remember being three or four and I'd be hunting with my dad all night, go to school the next day, completely scratched up, be very unpopular. So yeah, I was just lucky.

Speaker 6:

We don't usually start with wildebeest but after that we did and it was very interesting because they're very like they're bits we say like we say down here, we say they have worms in their head, because sometimes they like stand and look at you, sometimes they run like they're crazy, and then when you want to track groups, obviously there's a lot of them they just they're very fascinating animals and very interesting and they actually can. So you know a lot of people. When you think of hunting and you think of getting charged and all of that, obviously everyone is like you know, buffalo or leopard I have like I am the proof you can get charged by wildebeest everybody because I had that happen to me. That was the first thing that ever charged me was a wildebeest, so it was definitely not a dull.

Speaker 3:

Not a dull thing to learn on and you're here to talk about it, which, which is amazing like I don't know. You better be hitting the target practice properly, because you have animals that could fight back and and decide to turn and go. No, no, you're not doing that today, right? This is like real hunting.

Speaker 6:

It was actually. Yeah, you know we do. I think the thing I've learned is like any animal, if it's cornered enough or unhappy enough, it will definitely want to charge and defend itself. Like you can't expect anything else. But even back then it wasn't something I was expecting at all.

Speaker 6:

So I would love to sit here and tell you I was like this amazing hunter who dropped it at a meter away but I literally stood there and did nothing. I can distinctly remember looking at it come towards me and being like there is no way I'm getting charged by a wildebeest, because I shot quite a few of them by the time and they had never really been threatening. And yeah, honestly, honestly, I just stood there watching it come at me and I was like with my rifle, didn't move, didn't do anything. And luckily it was actually and unfortunately it had been wounded by my dad and he had sent me to fix it. So he sent me with one of his guys who knew where it was and like, lucky for me, this guy watched me and he's like she's not shooting, she's not shooting. And he grabbed me and pulled me out of the path and, like I'm sick and late, it ran over where I'd been standing and carried on. So yeah, it was very interesting.

Speaker 4:

Hey, folks, we're going to leave you with that because that's going to be a perfect teaser too. So you tune in next weekend for Kendall Ray, episode two, where we dive into literally her life as a hunter and, most importantly, as a night hunter, protecting her cattle. Uh, kendall, before we sign off, wait a second at night too.

Speaker 4:

Oh, no way, that's when you hunt the hyenas man. You gotta wait till next, next weekend. You gotta wait for the next show to to listen in. Hey, uh, kendall um, before we leave you, this episode tell us about in the intro I mentioned. You're such a gifted writer you really are, and you know, not just in how you write, but your observation of these animals and understanding them. Obviously you're a poet, you're a photographer. You've got this great Instagram account with you and your team and your dogs. Tell for our listeners if folks were interested in following your day-to-day life at the ranch. Tell us about your Instagram accounts and you know how people can maybe learn more about what it is you do you know in your day-to-day life at the ranch.

Speaker 6:

Yeah, so I'm on Instagram. My account is called thebushgirl99 and that's basically just my everyday life, especially hunting. And then I've actually this last year I started a YouTube channel, also called thebushgirl, so everyone can see everything that's going on there. And then, if people just want to watch the hounds, their Instagram is africanhoundsabarris.

Speaker 4:

And when you say thebushgirl, that's thebush underscore 99 right for instagram sorry, I forgot what you call that bar thing on the bottom.

Speaker 6:

I just thought about it and I was like I don't know what I call that, but yes, that's that underscore 99 perfect.

Speaker 4:

Well, listen so. So for our listeners. If you want to hear more about these exciting night hunts that kendall does every day as part of her regular life, uh, tune in for the next episode. And, on behalf of Jamie and myself and the Untamed Pursuits podcast, thank you all so much for listening and we hope you'll join us next time.

Speaker 6:

Yeah, thank you so much.

Speaker 3:

That was awesome. I can't wait for next week. Let's go.

Speaker 5:

Thank you, as the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Ouellette and I was honoured to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal use by Indigenous peoples all over the globe.

Speaker 5:

After nearly a decade of harvest use, testimonials and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession and I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show's about. My pursuit of the strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's, under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people. That will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature. And under the canopy. Find Under the Canopy now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts.