Episodes

  • Matt Barnes, II

    Matt Barnes, II
    Oct 19 2025

    This week, we return to a conversation I had with Matt Barnes. Matt lives here in southwest Colorado. He’s been a rangeland scientist for years and has also worked as a ranch manager. In fact, this moment that we recorded is from a time several years ago when he was up in the mountains, working with cattle.

    Between a close encounter with a grizzly bear (which we hear about a few segments ago) and this one, I can say, “Matt, I’m glad you’re still here, man!”

    Matt told me he got Lichtenberg figures on his thigh from the lightning strike – these are weird, feathering or fern-like marks formed by the transmission of electricity along the superficial blood vessels in the skin. They went away eventually, he said.

    Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com.

    Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to his music and a donate button on our about page.

    Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.
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    7 mins
  • Vicki Taussig

    Vicki Taussig
    Oct 19 2025

    This week, I interviewed Vicki Taussig. Vicki lives in Kremmling, Colorado. She narrated A Brutal, Beautiful Life, which is a short documentary directed by Beau Gaughran. I served as writer and a producer. We just learned it will be part of the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour next year, which is pretty exciting.

    Vicki ranches with her daughter, Caitlyn, who was my first interviewee for Awe Nice.

    Here, Vicki shares a moment with her draft horse team of Push and Pull, two big beautiful Percherons. The pair spent their whole lives together and helped the Taussigs haul hay out to their livestock every day in the winter, when the cattle were on various pastures within a few miles from the house. Temps regularly get down to 30 below in the winter and Vicki laughed in recollecting that the mares were more reliable than their tractor.

    Vicki is not quite five feet tall, so imagine those gentle giants lowering their heads as she harnessed them each morning.

    She said Push was the smaller of the two and the brains of the team. When they were ready to give that first effort, to get the sled going, Push would make all the motions of going but she’d wait until Pull, bigger and stronger, would take that first step.

    It’s moments like these that give me such joy for this project, even if it means grabbing a Kleenex from time to time.

    Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com.

    Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to his music and a donate button on our about page.

    I want to thank the folks who have rated and reviewed Awe, Nice! on podcast platforms. It’s great that the word is getting out about it. Thanks so much!

    Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.
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    8 mins
  • Matt Barnes

    Matt Barnes
    Oct 13 2025

    Welcome to Awe Nice, that’s a-w-e-n-i-c-e, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors.

    This week, I interviewed Matt Barnes. Like me, Matt lives here in southwestern Colorado. He’s been a rangeland scientist for years and has also worked as a ranch manager. His focus, as he mentions briefly and as has been shaped by his observations and experiences, has been hewn to how can we all get along on this planet. Specifically, how can us humans, especially those working the land, coexist with wildlife and choose practices that benefit not just us as well as domestic animals, but the land and wildlife? For this segment, Matt describes a dicey moment when he was working in the Selkirk Mountains of northern Idaho, not far from British Columbia, Canada.

    Matt shared a few more recollections, not grizzly encounters but still great and which we’ll feature in upcoming segments. So stay tuned!

    Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.

    Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to his music and a donate button on our about page.

    Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.
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    8 mins
  • Forrest Van Tuyl on Rock Jacks

    Forrest Van Tuyl on Rock Jacks
    Oct 13 2025

    This week is a bit of a one-off as I’m sharing a few minutes with Forrest Van Tuyl again. Forrest wrote the song Rock Jack and he sent the instrumental version to me for the intro and outro. In this segment, he talks about that song and the old-time and time-tested ranch structure that inspired it.

    Here is an excerpt of lyrics from the song:

    Fall settles in and the good work begins

    The gather the harvest the gleaning

    The day is shortening but the moon illumines the empty allotment you’re leaving

    Rimrock and red ponderosas live til you learn what you’re ‘sposed to

    Eat while there’s grass and trust your rock jacks and soon winter will be back.

    I had to laugh because both Forrest and I struggled to find online images of rock jacks. He texted that it might just be the last ungoogleable thing out there. Well, we found some. Check ‘em out.

    Our chat about rock jacks got me thinking about stone walls, which you find in the Maine woods fairly regularly. They, too, are the work of farmers and/or ranchers. All told there are hundreds of thousands of miles of stone walls in the U.S. Nearly all of them are in New England and were created between 1775 and 1825 when colonists deforested the country, moved the rocks to the edges of soon-to-be fields. Sometimes they were built with craftmanship, sometimes they were just rows of piled rocks.

    By the mid 1800’s, many farms were abandoned and the forests came back. To see them, then, is to bear witness the intersection of human history and natural history.

    AweNice welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.

    Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.
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    6 mins
  • Bob Bragg

    Bob Bragg
    Sep 18 2025

    Show notes coming soon!
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    6 mins
  • Mini-Awe-Polis 4

    Mini-Awe-Polis 4
    Sep 18 2025

    Show notes coming soon!
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    5 mins
  • Forrest Van Tuyl

    Forrest Van Tuyl
    Aug 26 2025

    Welcome to Awe Nice, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors.

    This week, I interviewed Forrest Van Tuyl. Sound familiar? Forrest wrote Rockjack and he sent the instrumental version to me for the intro and outro. In a forthcoming segment, he’s going to talk about that song and the ranch structure that inspired it.

    For this segment, he shared a moment when he was working in way eastern Oregon, not far from the Idaho border. Sounds like amazing country and here he is to tell us about a long, keen observation.

    Forrest is married to Margo Cilker, who is a musician and also someone who sings about time outside. They have performed all around the country, in Europe, Scandanavia, and at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada. I hope you check ‘em out.

    Forrest

    Margo

    AweNice welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.

    My name is Maddy Butcher, I developed Awe Nice to highlight moments of wonder outdoors.

    Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.
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    7 mins
  • Mini-Awe-Polis 3

    Mini-Awe-Polis 3
    Aug 26 2025
    My name is Maddy Butcher. I live in southwestern Colorado and I’ve worked as a journalist for several decades. I like to spend time outside and, thankfully, I have spent many years working outside, not just playing outside. I think it’s important to distinguish between the two. In my experience, people’s perspectives, experiences, and philosophies towards the outdoors is different depending on if they are building a life where they’re working, if they become an important part of their outdoor world, or if they’re just passing through. So far, we’ve focused entirely on interviews with people working on the land, but that’s not by decree. As I’ve mentioned, I grew up in Maine and I’m looking ahead to interviews with people who work on the water. Occasionally with this project, I share a few mini-moments of awe. My nickname for these segments – cringeworthy, I’m sure – is Mini-Awe-Polis. Mini Awe Polis is a bundle of small wonders that have collected in my noggin. Kind of like the hay in my jacket pockets. This week, I wanted to share some water-related thoughts, maybe to kind of to prep you all for those interviews with fishermen and lobstermen. Okay, maybe it’s just an excuse to share them. The biggest factor in being on the water where I grew up on Middle Bay, anyway, was tide. I’m guessing you know what tide is. But if you don’t, tides are the rhythmic movements of the world’s water, based on the pull of the moon. In Harpswell, the difference between high and low tide is nearly 10 feet. In Miami, closer to the equator, it’s less than three. Heading up the Maine coast to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in the Bay of Fundy, the difference between high and low tide is 53 feet. Billions of gallons of water flowing in and out, twice a day, every day. Not exactly, twice a day. The movement of the tide is more like once every 12 and half hours. So high tide would be at three in the afternoon on Monday and more like six o’clock by Friday. Tide, at least for us on the mud flats of Middle Bay, meant the difference between heading out to swim or boat or go clamming or fishing or not. It meant that a moored boat would likely be aground or nearly so at low tide, but floating freely at high tide. It meant the difference between swimming in water the height of a kiddie pool or the deep end. Living on the mud flats isn’t all bad though because at low tide on sunny days, the mud soaks up the sun and heats up the incoming water. By August, that means it’s actually swimmable. Maybe water temps in the 60s. In certain areas and at certain times, you do not want to mess with the tide. The flow in tight spaces of the shore creates current that you can’t swim against and often can’t boat against. Maine’s coast is full of ins and outs and wild meanderings. A straight line from the New Hampshire border to the Canadian border is just 228 miles as the crow flies. But the in and outs and peninsulas and islands make it nearly 3,500 miles. 3,500 miles! If you’re on the water, you really need to know where you are, where the tide might take you, or how it might make things more challenging. And oh boy if you want to start combining tide with fog. In the coldest of winters, the ice would freeze clear across Middle Bay, a mile wide in spots. But inevitably, tide would break up the ice in chunks, sometimes as big as a yard or as small as a cooler. It was a thing to go iceberg hopping, a really stupid thing that we did as kids. A boy I knew was iceberg hopping. The tide was going out and took him way down the bay. Like miles away from home. The Coast Guard had to fetch him. I want to say something more about mud flats, since they get so disparaged. I mean, they are not picturesque, like rocky coastlines or sandy beaches. If you’re barefoot or are digging into the mud, that mud will stay with you. It’s so finely grained that it can be hard to wash off. Mud flats have a particularly wonderful but certainly distinctive smell. Earthy, salty, of the seaweed and eel grass and clams and hermit crabs. As a girl, I was riding a bus to summer camp up the coast. There was a girl from New York City who said, ‘pew, what’s that smell? It smells like a sewer! Welcome to the Maine coast, honey. AweNice welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here. at awenice.com. Oh, and AweNice also welcomes your support. You can find a donate button here. Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl,. Find more of his terrific music from a link here. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.
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    6 mins