From Fear to Freedom: The Family Prepper's Mindset

James Walton shares his journey into prepping, highlighting the importance of self-reliance, community, and the emotional aspects of being prepared. He distinguishes between preppers and survivalists, discusses the integration of homesteading into prepping, and emphasizes the significance of teaching children survival skills. The discussion also touches on the impact of the pandemic on preparedness and the lifestyle changes that come with embracing a prepping mindset. James encourages listeners to view prepping as a way to enhance their quality of life rather than just a response to fear.

Takeaways 

• Prepping is a pathway to self-reliance and independence.
• The difference between preppers and survivalists lies in their approach and mindset.
• Homesteading is intertwined with prepping, focusing on sustainable living.
• Self-sufficiency provides peace of mind and security for families.
• Prepping can be a lifestyle that enhances quality of life.
• Teaching children survival skills fosters confidence and resilience.
• The emotional journey of prepping includes overcoming fears and anxieties.
• Building a community of like-minded individuals is crucial for support.
• Education and continuous learning are vital in the prepping journey.
• Prepping is not just about preparing for disasters, but also about enjoying life.How to find James Walton
  https://prepper-broadcasting-network.podcastpage.io/
  
  
  Dad to Dads Podcast on IG www.instagram.com/dadtodads
  
  

Transcript

Robert Poirier (00:00)
James Walton, welcome to the podcast.

James Walton (00:02)
Robert, thanks for having me on today, man, I appreciate it.

Robert Poirier (00:06)
This should be an interesting conversation. All right. So you're a prepper, right? What is, what is a prepper? I've always been fascinated with it. What is it?

James Walton (00:12)
Yep. Guilty.

it's one of those things where there's a bunch of definitions for a bunch of different people. For me, it was kind of like a doorway into a bunch of skills and practices that I needed to put in place ⁓ really to be a better man and a better dad ⁓ that didn't really exist in any other sort of niche. You know what I mean?

could be because there's such a focus on self-reliance and independence in the prepping world that it kind of gave me free rein to jump into all kinds of different things like hunting and blacksmithing and even something as simple as like home maintenance and then doing this sort of emergency preparedness stuff also storing food learning about medical preps and you know storing things in in larger quantities to be able to deal with something like

the pandemic in 2020. So it's it really is like a it's a license and I think it's a license to the civilian class that we don't get because I'm not former military. lot of people in my in my world are. But if you're not former military, ⁓ you don't have a bunch of these prepper skills that are kind of, you know, the tactical ones, the firearms ones, that kind of stuff, this defensive strategic security laden kind of skill sets.

Robert Poirier (01:33)
Right.

James Walton (01:39)
⁓ And prepping kind of gave me the the ability to be like, well, I'm not former military, but I am a prepper so I can kind of sit down and learn about this stuff, listen to this stuff, meet with these groups of people, do these kinds of trainings. And it just, you know, back in 2011 when I got really into this stuff, it really felt like a way to learn some of the things that I felt like I had to learn, you know.

Robert Poirier (02:02)
Yeah, I that makes sense. ⁓ I definitely want to get into the skills and practices and such. What is the difference between a prepper and a survivalist? Cause I hear those sometimes they're kind of interchange. What's the difference?

James Walton (02:13)
Yeah. Yeah,

there's a couple of differences, I'd say. One big one I already mentioned, which is I feel like the John J. Rambo kind of mentality is born out of that sort of former or current military background. You know what mean? Like you have this sort of edge of learning that you already learned through the military.

You know, that sort of mentality is built in. I always felt like there was a militaristic edge to a survivalist. And a lot of the old school survivalists were, you know, they had that former military training. And for a civilian, it just felt like, man, that's big hump to get over. You know what I mean? To call myself a survivalist with no military background. Prepping, felt like became, especially when it got onto Nat Geo and people started to see...

mothers and women, know, managing food storage and gardening and that kind of stuff. It kind of like sanded the edges of survivalism down a little bit, made it something that maybe the average person could see like, I could do that. Like, I can figure out how to do these things in my home that make us more disaster resilient. And it isn't even necessarily built around, you know, as much of the tactical as I thought. So I think the difference, the difference is that for sure that ⁓

Prepping seems to be more open to civilian population, the average person, It's a group that it always felt easier to join with the preppers than kind of with the survivalists.

Robert Poirier (03:42)
Yeah. So are you prepping for something or prepping just to, is it more like insurance prepping for, you know, to be, to be prepared for a natural disaster, pandemic, all that.

James Walton (03:53)
Well...

We

probably need to add another term into the pot now also, which is homesteading and urban homesteading because ⁓ that's really intertwined. So survivalism and prepping kind of intertwined. One seemed to be more like woods based. know what I mean? Survivalism always kind of had that bushcraft element that making traps in the woods, surviving in the woods, austere. Prepping is definitely way more about surviving in the home, which really lends itself to most disasters because as we've seen since

Robert Poirier (03:59)
Okay. Okay. Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

James Walton (04:27)
really 2000 on we have provable events that have happened where people stay put they stay put that's what they do they bug in as we call it they stay at their house and the better prepared you are to do that I think the better prepared you'll be to weather most problems economic cataclysmic terrorist you know those those kinds of things I just think being prepared to stay at home and that that's kind of the big difference there but to build on so so to extend your ability to do that you start blending in

Robert Poirier (04:31)
yeah.

James Walton (04:55)
this homesteading and urban homesteading thing which is now going outside to the garden maybe having a small coop with chickens that produce eggs and you know, I'm sure you've seen all the memes about people who have eggs now are like balling hard because they're not paying whatever it is per... I don't even know what it is per dozen of eggs to buy but... So yeah, all those... the confluence of those three things is where really what my life is all about and...

Robert Poirier (05:07)
Yeah, yeah, yeah

James Walton (05:24)
The other thing is the preparing for concept. After a while, ⁓ this thing becomes lifestyle. The homesteading aspect of it really makes it lifestyle because now you have other living creatures that are dependent on you to do things every day. So it really becomes less a matter of what am I preparing for and more a matter of, I mean, really it's living a way cooler life.

in many instances, you know what I mean? There's nothing cooler than getting food from out back in this day and age, you know what I mean? When we started, wasn't as, the general population wasn't so like chemicals in food, chemicals in this, worried about this and that, the health and wellness. So now it's just like we've kind of luckily positioned ourselves. Well, we didn't really luckily position ourselves, Robert. I think we just kind of took a few steps back from like the radical comfort and convenience of our time.

Robert Poirier (06:04)
Right.

James Walton (06:20)
You know what I mean?

Robert Poirier (06:21)
Yeah, yeah. So how many people are in your family or in your household?

James Walton (06:24)
Four total, myself, two kids, my wife.

Robert Poirier (06:27)
Okay, okay.

Everything goes to crap. How long, how long can you guys last right now?

James Walton (06:34)
I mean, there's a lot of variables there, but...

Robert Poirier (06:38)
grocery stores closed down, stores closed down. You still, let's say you still have utilities.

James Walton (06:40)
I guess our big

Oh, God. Water and electricity? Oh, man. Probably. Water and electricity, we could be fine for... I don't even know. It really would all come down to protein would be our biggest challenge. You know what I mean? So, once... So, we're not allowed to have roosters in the city for one thing, right? I live in the city of Richmond, Virginia. But we would want...

Robert Poirier (06:48)
You're self-sufficient.

James Walton (07:11)
to get a rooster, you know, before things went totally, totally upended and we, you know, once you get into chickens, you get to know people who raise chickens, so it's not that hard to get a rooster. Same dating, you know what I mean? Drop in, pick up a rooster and that kind of thing.

Robert Poirier (07:24)
Sure, if everything went.

Yeah, I'm sure if everything went to crap, you having a rooster would be the last thing people would be people would be worried about.

James Walton (07:32)
I guess if it happened immediately,

you know what I mean? If it happened immediately, it wouldn't be, but so many things are kind of, you can see them on the horizon, you know what I mean? ⁓

Robert Poirier (07:41)
Yeah,

are you self-sufficient without electricity as well? Are you solar and? Okay.

James Walton (07:49)
We have some. We have some.

have solar generators and gas generator. ⁓ you know, gas is going to run out. And solar is OK until it's not OK anymore. And solar, you know, in all honesty, there is a big market for solar generators nowadays. The biggest struggle we've seen with those things is getting them recharged once they're once you use them all up, depending on what kind of why did you have in solar panels, you know, because there are days with.

limited sun there are days with no sun and when there are days really frankly from my experience when there are days with limited sun you're not doing a lot of charging and if you're planning on using something like the one that we have then you know you're really not going to get much out of the charge

Robert Poirier (08:30)
So you talk about, you know, what you guys have there. What all do you have? I mean, obviously you have chickens. What else? What else? You're in the, you're in the city. mean, but you're in the city of Richmond, but you're not on a half acre lot or quarter acre lot. I mean, what are you on? How much land and what all do you have there?

James Walton (08:40)
Yeah.

Well, our entire lot

is actually 0.8 of an acre. That's home and everything. You know, so the yard is not, and I expanded the yard, it was mostly woods. And over the years we've added probably like five to 10 different perennial food producing plants, fruit trees and raspberries and gooseberries and kiwis and...

Robert Poirier (08:53)
wow. Okay.

James Walton (09:13)
We're lucky enough to have this tropical fruit that grows, I mean, it really grows everywhere, but nobody really knows about it. It's called the pawpaw. And we've got a ton of those on our property already. And then we do some gardening and we do some neighbor gardening and we created a community garden up the street with the help of a bunch of neighbors who really do all the managing of it now. ⁓ So from like the produce and stuff perspective, that's kind of where we're at with that. We've got

Chickens that produce eggs every day. We're playing around with quail right now and I don't know It's not really doing as well as some of my other friends are doing with them So I'm sure it's user error for sure. But you know, that's one of those things we've got because of where we live ⁓ We've got a lot of development around us. So we've got like herds of deer you were talking about the deer in your neighborhood We're in a similar boat. We're in like daytime deer situation

You know, we're like, they're just walking around in the daytime. Now, I don't really count them as like legitimate long-term food source because anything could happen to them. ⁓ But as far as captive food and stuff like that, and then we do a lot of food storage, DIY homemade food storage, not ready hour, not any of those prepackaged foods because, you know, we cook, we cook almost every night. And to me, those things, they solve a problem, but

Robert Poirier (10:08)
wow.

James Walton (10:38)
They're not really that great. They don't taste that great. Their protein content is kind of like non-existent. ⁓ So we don't put a lot of money into those pre-made survival food kits. We do a lot of shelf stable ⁓ dry goods in mylar bags, oxygen absorbers, you know, that kind of set up in five gallon buckets that are protected for the long haul. Rice, beans, pasta.

Robert Poirier (11:04)
Yeah.

James Walton (11:05)
flour, those kind of ingredients that we can do a lot with. ⁓ you know, that, to be honest with you, when we started putting away food storage, that felt better to me than almost anything we've ever done related to prepping. Yeah, it really did. Better than any kind of gun, any kind of training class, any of that kind of stuff. Yeah, something about it, man. You know, I remember I was in my living room and

Robert Poirier (11:20)
Really?

just that security.

James Walton (11:35)
we were, I think it was flour, it was flour because it was all over the floor. It was, we were just bagging up a big 25 pound bag of flour with me and my youngest son and I think at the time he was probably like four or five. And you know, all you're doing is taking it from a ⁓ paper bag to a Mylar bag with like a coffee mug. And he was having fun because he's spilling it all over the floor and you know, laughing about it and all that stuff. And I remember just sitting there looking at him being like,

You know, if nothing else, this kid is going to eat. you know, it's just, it's that sort of father, provider, I guess, sort of feeling, you know? You get that feeling of like, we'll eat, you know? If nothing else goes right, we know that this goes right. I was a chef in a past life, so the cooking thing is like, it's a given, you know what I mean? So it's...

Robert Poirier (12:09)
Yeah, provider, protection provider, yeah.

No,

I do. it's, know, we talked about this before, um, even teaching my sons, uh, at an early age, how to fish and how to hunt and how to clean, you know, the, it's fish or animals and just knowing, you know, could they survive on this for a little while? Yeah, they could, know, no, knowing that there is some, but I mean, you've taken it definitely a step further with it.

James Walton (12:37)
yeah.

Robert Poirier (12:54)
How did you get into this? Like have you always as a kid wanted to get into it or what?

James Walton (12:58)
No way man,

no radical inadequacies basically, you know what I mean? It was just Met a great girl when I was really young and it was one of those situations where it was like You can marry her or you can be young But if you don't marry her you're probably never gonna meet anyone like her again and you're probably gonna think about it for the rest of your life just knowing the type of guy that I am and So I didn't go

I was already sort of musically inclined. I was a musician in a band. I didn't play sports. I didn't do lot of traditionally like... ⁓ I don't know what it would be. Not necessarily traditionally male, because it was all male, but traditionally sort of masculine things, I guess. My dad was a painter, but he never wanted me to come to work and paint with him because he didn't want me to become a painter.

Robert Poirier (13:45)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Okay.

James Walton (13:55)
So I didn't learn a lot of that stuff. by the time, you know, we just started living life. Then we were in love living life, you know, having the greatest time. I met her when I was 17. So we just were having a ball, 17, 18, 19, moving in together, you know, all the stuff. We were married by 22. I was 22 when we got married. And all of a sudden, like, I had a wife and then we had a kid. And everything that I hadn't learned hadn't done.

Robert Poirier (14:02)
How old were you?

James Walton (14:24)
All the things that I pretended I didn't need to know just came all at once. And it was during Hurricane Irene here in Richmond. And there's no horror story, but it was just more of a horror realization. I was holding my kid, and he was like two months old or something. And looking out my back window of my kitchen, and the trees are like, and I grew up in Philly, so we never get hurricanes.

Robert Poirier (14:29)
Right.

James Walton (14:51)
I never seen the trees bend in wind for like three days at a time. And I was just like, ⁓ God, man, I got a lot to do to get prepared. Like when we moved in our house, Robert, my father-in-law gave me like the first hammer I ever had. You know what I mean? Like that's how, that's where I was at. And, ⁓ again, as I mentioned, the beginning of the show, what prepping really did for me was gave me sort of like a, an easy doorway into.

Robert Poirier (15:08)
Really? Yeah.

James Walton (15:21)
all of the stuff I needed to learn. Like all of sudden I had a reason to learn self-defense and a reason to learn home maintenance and a group that I could talk to that was doing the same things. It wasn't like, I gotta go find a home maintenance group or buy a boring home maintenance book and read it. Word for word, you know what I mean? And all that kind of stuff. So it became a really cool kind of group activity. ⁓

Robert Poirier (15:42)
Yeah.

James Walton (15:49)
and a good little tribe to join to learn all that stuff from me.

Robert Poirier (15:52)
Yeah.

So I guess it was that vulnerability during, during the hurricane that kind of set you on this quest and just one thing building on another.

James Walton (15:56)
definitely,

Yeah, well, mean, it was was lingering.

It was lingering most of my life, you know what I mean? I never really knew how to fight, never, never got in many fights, ran from a lot of altercations. So it was always in the back of my head, like one day you're going to have to learn this stuff, dude, or life's going to get weird. And it all did really come to a head then, you know, lot of things were coming to a head at that moment, though, as you remember, you know, when you have kids, it's like all your inadequacies are laid out on the table before you and you're like, oof.

Robert Poirier (16:27)
Absolute.

James Walton (16:29)
I might want to handle some of this before they get too old.

Robert Poirier (16:31)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. ⁓ you talk about the network. Is there a pretty big network? I know you have a podcast as well. And you know, large following on Instagram.

James Walton (16:43)
I mean, you know, it all depends on who's willing to admit it and not. But over the years we've built a really big network of people. ⁓ I jumped right into podcasting. I went like, maybe I should be a prepper. And then I started listening to this podcast network called the Prepper Podcast Radio Network back in 2011. And they ran a commercial and the commercial was like, do you want to be a host?

And it was literally just some guy I called, great guy, the guy who used to own the Prepper Broadcasting Network. And he just had me on. And I just took sort of the neophyte beginner's angle, like 100 % honest with the audience, I don't know what I'm doing. And it was just great. I mean, the people were great. The things I didn't know they'd email me about and be like, hey, do it this way, whatever, that kind of thing. And it was like a fast track.

Robert Poirier (17:27)
Yeah.

James Walton (17:42)
It was really great. then, you know, all these years later, naturally, you know what it is to stay in any business long. You're just naturally building a network of close people, you know, people outside of that network. And, you know, then of course there's audience on top of that. So in our little world, yeah, we know a lot of preppers for sure.

Robert Poirier (18:03)
You know,

and it's interesting too. said 0.8, 0.8 acres. Uh, so less than an acre. always thought, you know, you would need a minimum six to eight acres, you know, preferably 10 or more to be a prepper, but you don't.

James Walton (18:17)
Well, I

like to refer to my buddy Dave Jones, the NBC guy who is a really fun guy to have on if you ever want me to connect you. He's a lifetime military guy who ⁓ basically, his job was to figure out how to best use the nuclear bombs back in the 80s, early 90s. Use nuclear biological chemical warfare sort of mastermind.

Robert Poirier (18:27)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

James Walton (18:43)
But he's a nice dude in the world. You would never believe it. If somebody told you who he was and what he did, you'd like, that's not true. Can't be. He's too nice. But anyway, I always refer to him because he lives on a homestead in Northern Virginia. ⁓ I'd say he uses... And when I say a homestead, I'm talking about a family that meat and everything could probably go years before they would need anything. You know what I mean? In terms of sustenance. ⁓

He works probably about an acre and a half to two acres. He has more land than that, but what he works and what he gets to every day in terms of like weeding and feeding and that kind of stuff, probably an acre to an acre and a half. So it's, you know, it really comes down to what you prioritize. His house is surrounded by gardens. You know what I mean? He's got gardens in the front and in the back. Yeah, it all depends. You know, if you have a lawn out front,

Robert Poirier (19:16)
Really?

Yeah.

James Walton (19:40)
and you want it to be a lawn, you just have to barter with the fact that that's all, that all could be food too. But instead, it's a lawn. You know what I mean?

Robert Poirier (19:47)
Good point. That's a,

that's that's a, can make it part of your landscaping with the fruit trees, with the different things like that. You know, that's, that's, that's so interesting. Cause I would have thought, ⁓ I just would have thought it would have, it would have been more with that, that it would take him more, but that's, that's good to know.

James Walton (19:51)
definitely. Yeah. Yup.

And you know, strictly from the prep side too, Rob, you could do canned meats and dried foods and have no yard and be able to sustain yourself for a real long time, just if you had the storage space to do it. You know what I mean? With canned foods, dry goods like I was talking about, packing them long term and ⁓ lots of canned meats. You know, you could...

Robert Poirier (20:27)
How old were you in Y2K?

James Walton (20:29)
I was born in 86, so I'd have been, you know, 14.

Robert Poirier (20:31)
Okay. 14

years old or so. Yeah. Was your family, cause I know I'm thinking of some people I know and they had, I remember going in their garage and they had hundreds of gallons of jugs of water and big five gallon buckets of food and all this stuff because they just knew.

James Walton (20:43)
I knew a family like that.

Yeah.

Robert Poirier (20:57)
you know, everything was going to, you know, because a lot of people were saying that electricity might, the grid might go down to this, that that, ⁓ was your family into that at all or not? No.

James Walton (21:03)
sure.

No.

No. That's... ⁓

Robert Poirier (21:11)
So

this really did, I mean, it really was the hurricane was like, hey, this is a big vulnerability on my part. I need to kind of step it up and be able to protect and provide for my family.

James Walton (21:20)
Yeah,

definitely. I always loved sort of apocalyptic film and TV and that kind of stuff. So I think there was also like a moment when the more I got into it, the more I started researching it and that kind of thing, economic collapses around the world. I started to realize like this stuff could potentially happen and it's like worst outcomes, you know, and then you start learning about, you know, the history of the 20th century.

Robert Poirier (21:27)
Yeah.

James Walton (21:48)
mid 20th century and it's like, this can get like so bad you can't even wrap your head around it.

Robert Poirier (21:48)
Yeah. Yep.

So when

COVID hit, grocery stores were closing, all of that, our running out, Reno, stuff was running out on their shelves, where y'all just sitting back like, ⁓ we got this.

James Walton (21:56)
Yeah.

definitely. Yeah, definitely. It was we we were actually kind of we had a heads up too, because we were on it early. We had a there's a group, a couple Dr. Bones and Nurse Amy is their name. They're long time players in the prepping medical world. And I want to say it was like early January. They released a podcast on our network. They don't do a podcast on our network anymore. I probably should reach out to them. But ⁓

It was like new pneumonia's in China or something like that. And this is when they were just first sort of getting news about something weird's happening in China. And then Dave Jones, the NBC guy, being the biological warfare expert, as we got more data and stuff like that, he started to go like, this doesn't seem like it's something that's going to go away quick. And we were doing a weekly podcast, I think by February, every Monday on it.

It was called the Corona cast at first because it was the Corona virus before it was COVID. And then we were just, you know, going over it all, telling people what they should be doing and all that kind of stuff. And yeah, I'll tell you one thing we did, Robert, that that I encouraged parents to do ⁓ because my kid wound up missing like a year and a half of in school here in Richmond. We had a crazy governor who would just shut school down forever.

Robert Poirier (23:07)
Yeah.

James Walton (23:28)
I bought curriculum, really affordable curriculum off amazon.com back in probably February, I think it was, of 2020 for that reason, like just in case. it was the, because, you know, once, once they were started talking about people are wearing masks, don't wear the masks, then wear the masks. was like, no, nobody knows what they're doing yet. And this could get, you know, this is going to go downhill quick. So it was something like for the audience, I think it was.

Robert Poirier (23:39)
Really?

Yeah. Yeah.

James Walton (23:57)
called 180 days of blank. And they have it for every grade and they have it for every subject. So we had like 180 days of science, 180 days of English, 180 days of math for third grade.

Robert Poirier (24:05)
interesting

age appropriate, like for whatever grade level it is.

James Walton (24:12)
Yeah, and

it was learning and worksheets and activities and all that kind of stuff. And it was one of those preps that never crossed my mind in a million years. And I didn't even really need them that much. I used them as supplement because their online schools wasn't great. You know what I mean? Like public school online, as you can imagine, wasn't phenomenal. But ⁓ it was a great, mean, it was one of those things that we did buy right there at the...

Robert Poirier (24:30)
I know, I know.

James Walton (24:37)
at the moment of go and I'm really glad that we did we didn't have it waiting it wasn't part of our prepper plans you know but for the most part we were relatively comfortable you know we're a go outside and do stuff family too though so we suffered that we suffered that a little bit not too much though we did go to legoland that year for real cheap thanks to my wife

Robert Poirier (24:49)
That's, yeah, yeah.

Did you? Yeah, we,

so for, for my boys, ⁓ when all that hit, they did have virtual school. ⁓ so I think it was in April when they finally shut down the schools, the first of April somewhere around then, ⁓ and then they came on virtual for a couple months. And, you know, it was kind of shut down for like a week and they, you know, had it virtual for a couple months through the end of the year. And there wasn't a lot that was going on.

James Walton (25:03)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Robert Poirier (25:25)
The next year, I believe it was all virtual then. Um, but I had told the boys early on and I will, I will give them credit. mean, the school district did have their act together when they started back the next school year, but it wasn't the same, but they did have it more together and they were learning, you know, they were learning and some not as much as if they were in person, but you know, I had told the boys.

James Walton (25:29)
Yep, same here. Same here.

Robert Poirier (25:51)
You're not going to take this time to, and I've talked about it on here before, you know, you're not going to take this time just to kind of get better on your tablets with certain games and everything else. mean, this is the time physically you're going to get stronger and faster. So we're going to exercise. We're going to do different things. We're going to be outside and you know, mentally your intelligence is going to improve. So they, even though they had their, their school.

James Walton (26:00)
⁓ yeah, sure.

Robert Poirier (26:20)
uh, assignments, you know, they still had reading assignments from dad that they had to do. There was also, cannot remember the name of it, but the school had actually, um, put out a couple of webs, not put out, but they pointed you in the direction of a few websites for math. And, um, you know, I had them doing that as well, just cause I'm like, you know, this is when it's going to kind of separate.

James Walton (26:26)
Right.

⁓ yeah, no you're right.

Robert Poirier (26:50)
the

people and I've even, know, and they were around some friends. had some, know, so they still got that. But man, that was such a,

I, that was such a harmful time for kids. And I see kids now even that are having a hard time adjusting, whether it's, ⁓ you know, socially or even education wise, you know, being able to pick stuff up at school.

James Walton (27:15)
yeah, I'm sure there's a gap that people will never,

they'll just never fill that gap. I'm sure there's some kids, because you know, it's, if you're in one of those tough math times, it's, that's tough, you know, it's tough to fill that gap. Yeah.

Robert Poirier (27:26)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,

it is. I didn't do anything with science. I don't like science. I just thought, you know what? want them to, I thought with, with, a reading that's it, that improves, you know, we'll improve their vocabulary and we'll stimulate their brain and then math, ⁓ you know, they can, you know, if they can keep up with those two things, they'll be fine and everything else we can kind of fill in. So crazy, crazy times. So you brought, you were talking about the kids.

James Walton (27:33)
It

Yeah ⁓

Yeah.

Robert Poirier (27:56)
How involved are they in this lifestyle?

James Walton (28:00)
Yeah, I mean, they like I said, as far as it being a lifestyle, it's their life. You know what I mean? Like I'm their dad, you know, so as much as what you do in your life affects your kids, it's there. It's just their life. You know, they've never known the backyard without like food in it. They'd never ⁓ known a backyard that didn't have like chickens flocking through it. You know what I mean?

And we're always on the, you know, the mentality is always there that, well, when my son was first sort of finding out, still going to school and sort of finding out about COVID and what was going on and wrapping his head around, things are closing, school is closing, other things are closing. Like he said to me, we'll be okay because we have extra food, right? So he, you know, it's all built in there. You know what I mean?

They don't have like prepper specific tasks or anything that they do. There's no like program. You know what mean? That they're on, they do what kids do.

Robert Poirier (29:06)
Right, right. But

they have no problem going out in the backyard, gathering eggs and that type and picking. Yeah. Yeah.

James Walton (29:11)
yeah, they can start fires and all that stuff. But like I said, you're a hunter and your kids can hunt

because that's what you do. You know what I mean? So all those things, they just pick them up from being around me, you know? And that kind of thing. it's... Like I said, if you didn't know what I did and you saw them in a social setting, you'd be like, they're just normal kids. You wouldn't be like, they're the survivalist kids. They've got loincloths on and ferro rods hanging from their necks.

You know what I mean? Like it's nothing extreme. ⁓ But I'll tell you one thing that my kids, I think, have that a lot of kids don't anymore is a sense of safety and well-being even in bad times. You know what I mean? Like a sense that this is what this crazy dude spends all his time on. And so we're going to be all right. And he's got plans. And when things go wrong, we know what to do. So.

Robert Poirier (30:08)
I think it gives them that confidence. It gives them that confidence, that self-sufficient, you know, feeling that I've seen it with my boys with, again, going by, as you were saying, going back to hunting that we could be okay. I mean, we, at least for a little while, I mean, you're talking about with the pandemic, when the grocery stores and all that.

James Walton (30:22)
Yeah, they understand.

Robert Poirier (30:27)
craziness was going on. you know, fortunately we had had a pretty successful year deer hunting and, um, we had plenty of meat. had deer meat, we had quail meat and, and the boys and I were even talking and, and, uh, I said, yeah, we've got the protein. You know, I said, you might not have vegetables and they were like, Oh, like they could care less about the vegetables. And as long, as long as they had meat, they were, they were, they were thought they were fine.

James Walton (30:34)
You guys had meat, and the kids knew it.

Right.

Robert Poirier (30:56)
somewhat they were, but I do think that's pretty cool with the kids. ⁓ what have you learned through this as a father?

James Walton (31:06)
⁓ yeah. Well, when you focus on the things that we focus on all the time, ⁓ death is always looming. You know what I mean? It's just ⁓ you follow everything out to the end, economic collapse, whatever kind of thing that we do, or talking about or preparing for that week on the network. And I think it's good to stay pretty close to...

the Grim Reaper because he's a good reminder of what it is you stand to miss today. You know, like if it all ended today, where would where would your head be at? What would you be thinking of you? Like what should I have done more of? What should I spent more time on? ⁓ it's my whole life is governed off of that thought, literally. Like when I made this jump into freelance writing and podcasting, it was not 100 percent, but probably 80 to 90.

Robert Poirier (31:47)
You think about you. Do you think about that a lot? Cause I do.

James Walton (32:02)
percent on the idea that like I couldn't make a living because I was a chef so the idea of making a living like at out of the house was unheard of you know what I mean and the when I realized that there was a niche here it was valuable we could pay the bills and do it ⁓ I started to realize like I can like seriously maximize my time with my kids like I could be with my kids in summer break all the time

And being a writer really lends itself to that because you can be like, I'll finish this later. I'm not in a meeting with somebody. I'm not having to talk to people immediately at that moment. it became a serious motivating factor in all of it. And it changed my life having been in that other ⁓ job compared to this world of podcasting and writing would have been a totally different adventure for a father. I totally different.

you know, the amount of time spent together would have been way less. You know what I mean? And there's just, there's something about that that started to become a driving force for me. And then, you know, a lot more, a lot more build off of that. started thinking about like sort of that zero to 10 year old age frame, you know what I mean? Because it felt like sort of after 10, you'd be able to speak to this better than me, because I only have one after 10, but after 10 is like a...

Robert Poirier (33:05)
No, I do. I do.

James Walton (33:29)
you know, the ships begin to part ways. You know what I mean? Like, the outside world becomes a little more appealing than the inside one. Especially with boys. so I just thought, you know, if I can maximize that, that'll be pretty good life for both parties.

Robert Poirier (33:32)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's interesting. You know, I do not to sound all dark, but I do think about death a lot. think, you know, part of that is I lost my dad when I was 10 and he did teach me a lot. Um, but with my boys being 16 and 14, you know, I think about that a lot. What, what do I want them to learn? Now there's a lot with morals and values and all of that. Right. And you know, the other basics and, you know, being a good person and

James Walton (33:54)
⁓

Robert Poirier (34:13)
You know, getting a good education, hopefully, you know, being able to provide one day there's all of that, but there, there is a big part of me with again, part of why I got them into hunting and fishing and outdoors early on was, I'm not, know, you were talking about doomsday or I'm not like thinking about, there's going to be apocalypse. it's doomsday one day.

I don't really think about it that way, but I do think if shit did hit the fan, you know, could you survive? Like, I don't want you to be dependent on anything and could, could you survive? Now I haven't taught them the gardening and everything else, but I kind of take it of, you know, I kind of look at it like if it did, okay. So you need to gather a little village.

James Walton (34:52)
Right.

Robert Poirier (35:06)
You know, okay, you can do, you can gather the protein. Hopefully somebody else can, ⁓ you know, can be responsible for the vegetables. Hopefully you have somebody on your team or in the neighborhood or in your group that can provide medical care, know, and then you kind of, yeah, then you can kind of, instead of them all doing it, you know, doing one thing, but, ⁓ man, I do, I think about that a lot and I'm always writing down stuff like, have I taught him about this yet? Have I taught him about that? You know, you know,

James Walton (35:19)
⁓ you're right, right, right.

Yeah.

Robert Poirier (35:34)
We, we, I need, I need to, uh, you know, I've already thought about things during the summer that I need, I need to, and I had them both driving. I taught them how to drive early or like early. And I mean, I grew up now I grew up, I don't want say a rural community. mean, but it was, you know, there were areas where it was, I mean, there was probably 60,000 people in the town where my grandmother lived was really small.

James Walton (35:44)
Yeah, I think that's a good move. I think a lot of things early is pretty good.

Robert Poirier (36:02)
And, know, everybody knew everybody and everybody knew everybody's business and then some, and, you know, she had me driving.

James Walton (36:06)
Nah.

Robert Poirier (36:09)
11 or 12. She, she had me driving early, but so I think it was probably around 13, but boys knew how to drive. ⁓ part of that was based on the fact to going back to hunting. If we were in a deer stand, say I fell, say I got hurt. I wanted somebody to be able to, you know, go out to the vehicle and be able to drive back to camp and you know, Hey, dad needs help or whatever it may be. ⁓

James Walton (36:11)
Yeah, I believe it. Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

Robert Poirier (36:39)
you know, but a lot of things that's interesting. ⁓ you know, as I talked to different dads, it's interesting, the ones who ⁓ never think about it just kind of live day by day. I'm like, I wish I could have that. And I do think about it a lot, you know, as to, ⁓ if I was to die tomorrow, what have I taught the boys everything? And if not, what else do they need to learn?

James Walton (36:59)
I think it's important also for your understanding the value in all the things in your life, like your marriage and all that. Nobody's ready to go. And if you're not ready to go, then there's a reason. And some people, I think, need that reminder. It's like there is a limited amount of time. One of the things that...

Robert Poirier (37:08)
Yeah, absolutely.

No, no. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

James Walton (37:24)
really changed my life Robert was listening to you know Jesse Itzler

Robert Poirier (37:29)
Yeah, I know who you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah.

James Walton (37:31)
Well,

he started, I mean, this is probably 10 years ago too. It was really formative time for me, but he started breaking his life down instead of into years into the events, into the quantity of events, like the amount of times, like for you, would be a good one for you would be how many, not how many more years do you have with your kids? How many more hunting camps will you set up with your boys, you know, together? And.

And when he started breaking that down, I started applying it to everything. You know what I mean? Because that's the real way to look at life. Like how many more times are you really going to do this thing? And it makes me like a big baby. And I hide and cry a lot over it because... And I can see you're on the verge of it now yourself, but...

Robert Poirier (38:12)
⁓

The,

had that discussion last time we went hunting and we were up every time we go. want to do, ⁓ at least one hunt where we all three sit together. Very rarely will we kill anything then, because a lot of times it's just, we'll see stuff, but not as much as if somebody's sitting solo or I'm sitting with one of them because the jokes start happening and being quiet doesn't happen as much. Yeah.

James Walton (38:20)
there you go. There you go.

Yeah.

Definitely, yeah.

yeah, having too good a time.

Robert Poirier (38:47)
Um, and somehow I got brought up and I'm like, you know what? really enjoy these times and we were leaving and, I said, you know, we probably don't have many of these left and they're like, what do mean? you you're going to be in college in a few years and you know, a couple of years after that, you'll both be in college. You're going to have your own life.

James Walton (39:08)
Definitely.

Robert Poirier (39:09)
And then right after that, you know, you're going to be out working schedules, aren't going to align. You're going to have families and the look on, and while I was getting set, I looked, I looked at them as we were driving away and the look on their faces, it was like, ⁓ no, you know, they didn't realize it even. so then I quickly changed the subject and I did say, well, look, when I'm brought up, brought it back up later on and kind of wanted to touch on it. Like, dad, we can always do this. We'll always find a way.

James Walton (39:25)
Yeah.

Robert Poirier (39:40)
And I'm like, you know what? Yeah, we will, but, we can, but I'm just telling you the way life is and that's okay. You know, and, and, and just, well, that's why we need to enjoy every time we do, because you don't know, you know, you don't, you don't know how much time is left. That's a, that's great though. I'm definitely going to have to listen and, ⁓ or to break that down.

James Walton (39:45)
Hm.

that's life, yeah.

Yeah, if you apply

that, I'm telling you, to all your favorite things, you know what I mean? Then very quickly, will, it's impossible not to develop that sort of deep gratitude for, and you know, when you meet preppers, like real ones who do it a lot and are really dedicated to it, you meet the type of people who get all this stuff. Like we go to an event every year called Prepper Camp in North Carolina. It's a blast.

There's like 65 classes a day at this thing. Some of the best survivalist, preppers, ex-military guys out there. And we go there and we learn and we set up booths and talk about the network and hang out after the event. It's at a campground, so everybody's camping. go campsite to campsite, meet your people. And the people there, the people that make up the crowd, it's something like 2,000 or 3,000 people every year.

Robert Poirier (40:47)
Yeah.

James Walton (40:56)
that group of people, they get it. know what I mean? There is something about it. There's an understanding of the value of life in the prepping community, or else you wouldn't do it. You know what I mean? Why go through all this stuff? Why learn all this stuff, do all this stuff if you didn't value life so much, if you didn't appreciate it? ⁓

Robert Poirier (41:01)
Probably just very grounded, yeah, very grounded people.

You know, it's definitely something I have been interested in. seems like, and we talked about this as days pass, I get even more interested in at times. I think I would, if it wasn't for the boys, I'd be completely, I would, I would just take a step or three or four or five further than you. ⁓ you know, I talked about this with you, you know, I would, there are times when I would love to have several acres live right in the middle of it.

James Walton (41:45)
Yeah

Robert Poirier (41:48)
disconnect, live off the grid, not that I'm trying to hide from anybody, but just unplug just everything in society going on and just all of that, have a big gate upfront and not let people in, maybe even a moat if I could around the whole property. ⁓ That's where I find it so appealing ⁓ with that with.

James Walton (41:59)
Sure.

No.

Yeah.

Robert Poirier (42:16)
But that's not what I know that's not what prepping is, but that would be, think, where I could actually find some peace there because man, with society today, it's crazy.

James Walton (42:27)
Yeah, I'll tell you what, I mean if you can just unplug from the phone and the computer, well you know, could you go hunt? But like, that is really the fire hose of chaos, you know what I mean? You turn those two things off in your life for 48 hours and it's like, yeah, is actually real life, you know? Because for the most part, you're not like, I mean don't know your daily day lifestyle, but most people aren't wading through headlines.

Robert Poirier (42:43)
It is.

Cheers.

James Walton (42:56)
on their way to and from work. We just turn the radio on, turn the phone on, turn the podcast on, turn whatever, and then we get bombarded. Which is kind of horrible, but it's also really great because you can just drive to work in silence.

Robert Poirier (43:10)
You know, I did that. I had a time, it's probably in the fall. It was right before the election or month or two or three before the election. And I had.

James Walton (43:21)
⁓ yeah, real noisy.

Robert Poirier (43:24)
I don't want to say I was in a dark place because that sounds, that's not correct, but I was very overwhelmed with all the negativity and just everything and just my thought processes seem so skewed in ways and just, I'm like, I'm done. I'm, I'm, I'm done. I'm not doing anymore. I, you know, didn't turn on, didn't, ⁓ look at Twitter or X. ⁓

James Walton (43:29)
overwhelmed.

sure.

Robert Poirier (43:54)
you know, I did still do the podcast some, ⁓ not as much, you know, Instagram, I would go on there and scroll real quick, but even some of my favorite podcasts, I just got off those because it was in, in literally all my habits of, know, whether it's going to the, going to work and coming back and listening to certain podcasts, you know, whether it's at the gym and in between sets, flipping through Twitter and

James Walton (44:08)
You need it.

Robert Poirier (44:22)
You know, it was just, I was just getting bombarded so much. It's like, I've got to step away. I have to, I have to.

James Walton (44:28)
Yeah. I think what people don't

get about it is you're not getting what you want. You're getting what you think you want. You know what I mean? Like every time you flip the phone open, you're getting stuff and you think, well, it's my phone. So I'm getting the stuff that I want to get. And then when you reach the point that you reach, it's like you realize I'm getting whatever the algorithm tells me. Like I'm being brainwashed here. Yeah, exactly. That's it. So then, you know, people who are aware, like

Robert Poirier (44:50)
You're getting what they want. You're getting what they want you to get.

James Walton (44:57)
yourself you get to the point where you're like all right I need a break this is insane

Robert Poirier (45:01)
Yeah, it was just, it was, it was too much. And I did for probably a couple of months. I'm just like, you know, I'm done. can't. I, just, I.

James Walton (45:08)
Yeah, the catch-22

though, Robert, is who, and this takes practice that you have from hunting, but there's not a lot of people in the population who can sit quietly by themselves for extended periods of time. You know what I mean? So they try to, I think they try to do this sort of digital fasting and then they find out like, I gotta stay busy. Like I can't just sit here and enjoy life.

Robert Poirier (45:24)
Yeah.

James Walton (45:35)
I need something to do, need a place to go, I need something to listen to, a song, anything. Because sitting here in the quiet is as brutal as sitting with some political jabber in my ear.

Robert Poirier (45:44)
I

love it, I love it. And you know what I have found is now, even though I don't feel bombarded and all that noise, I find now going to work, from work, wherever I may be going to.

Probably more than half the time I don't have anything on in the car. No music. was never like that before. You know, no podcast, nothing. And it's literally, literally in silence. And I've, and with the boys, when they're in the car with me, ⁓ a lot of times I don't then, and which always is great. You know, one of them will try to turn some music on sometimes. And, it, but that's rare because it's usually leads to better conversations too.

James Walton (46:10)
Yeah, you need it.

⁓

Robert Poirier (46:28)
But I just, I

James Walton (46:28)
definitely.

Robert Poirier (46:29)
just had to, I had to disconnect from all that and that kind of, you know, you can only imagine then I was really longing for 50 to a hundred acres in the middle of woods and, you know, at the end of a dirt road and, and, uh, getting in there and just getting away from it all.

James Walton (46:46)
Yeah, and

all you had to like it's crazy because that period of time in America every four years is so insane And all like like your duty your sole duty is to vote You know what I mean? And you have to get beaten about the head and neck constantly for a year prior And you're like all I got to do is go in and pull a lever sign a document thing scratch a box in and I just got to hear this for Yeah, it's a nightmare every it is

Robert Poirier (46:56)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is too much. I

love what you're, I love what you're doing. You know, it's, is off the norm of what I generally discuss. mean, I've kind of gone in a lot of different directions, um, with it. And this is definitely in a completely different direction. It's something that I do find appealing and I want to talk to people about it, but I want to know more. I want to know what have you, if there's one or two things you've learned about yourself.

Truly learned about yourself with this, with taking the prepper lifestyle. What is that?

James Walton (47:44)
Yeah,

well, I'll give you the cocky one first. And it's I mean, it just is what it is. It's been proven. You know what I mean? From from going from where I was to where I am now, it's like and I don't think it's unique to me. I think it's unique to anybody. But I just feel like there's nothing in the world that I couldn't do. You know what I mean? In terms of in terms of and this also comes from having kids like I've been super hands on with kids and my kids have done things.

Robert Poirier (48:03)
What a great feeling.

Yeah.

James Walton (48:11)
Like I said, I wasn't a sporty guy, but my kids have done things in sports and my kids have done things with computers and video game systems that if you said to me, like my one son is really into modifying video games, like the systems themselves, and he's very young, he's nine, so he's been doing it for probably three years. And we're literally...

Robert Poirier (48:28)
wow.

Cheers.

James Walton (48:35)
taking cards, putting them into computers, putting code on them, pulling it out, putting it the system, do something to pull it out, put in. And between having the kids and really setting them free on what they're passionate about, like, this is what you want to do, let's do it, right? Even if that means we're going to throw football for an hour and a half today. And that might be some dad's dreams, but for me, I mean, it's still a wonderful time, don't get me wrong, but my one son, that's his life. Like, let's go throw, let's go throw, let's go throw.

Robert Poirier (48:57)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James Walton (49:02)
And I'm not even that good at throwing. I've gotten way better at throwing because of it. You know what I mean? ⁓ But anyway, ⁓ you get into this habit of like, okay, we're gonna do this thing. This is how we do the thing. It's really foreign. You're not comfortable with it at all. And then you do it. And then years go by and you look back and you're like, well, I did that. And there it is. There's a proof it worked. You know what I mean? And that happens like enough times.

Robert Poirier (49:26)
Yeah.

James Walton (49:28)
Particularly for a guy like me who had a handful of skills. I was good at them, but it was only a handful it happens a couple enough times to where you go like it like if I got instruction and and if I can identify the tools and get my hands on the right tools like I Don't feel like there's anything I couldn't figure out and do you know what I mean? And I don't know that I don't know if everybody feels that way or not But I never felt that way in my life, and that was one of the biggest takeaways was like damn

Robert Poirier (49:48)
Yeah.

James Walton (49:57)
You know

Robert Poirier (49:57)
So

so it's that confidence through discipline. Is that correct?

James Walton (50:02)
confidence

through discipline, also confidence through ⁓ sort of like the resume, you know what I mean? Like where we started and where we're at now and all the things that we literally did with our own hands and brains, you know? And things that you stood in front of and were like, you want to do what with your computer? Like I don't have any idea how we could even start doing that. You know what I mean? And then being on the other side of it and being like, we did it, you know?

Robert Poirier (50:09)
Yeah.

No, I get it.

James Walton (50:31)
Yeah. ⁓

Robert Poirier (50:32)
No,

that's yeah. Yeah. No, that's incredible. That I just, you know, you talk about the different things, whether it's self-defense and, and, ⁓ being able to healthily, healthily, sustain, sustain your family. ⁓ you know, it is so appealing and it is rewarding to have that feeling that yes, I can protect, I can provide.

James Walton (50:46)
Yeah.

Robert Poirier (50:57)
And I'm passing on these things to my kids as well.

James Walton (51:00)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's a huge one. Self-defense is one of the biggest ones for me because what came with learning how to fight and carrying a gun all the time was a sense of relaxation that I never had in my life either. All the time I was always anxious. was always like, I didn't walk up into a group of guys and be like, God, what if we all get in a fight? You know what I mean? But there was always this weird anxiety because I didn't know how to fight.

Robert Poirier (51:23)
Yeah. Yeah.

James Walton (51:29)
trained ⁓ at a local MMA gym for ⁓ maybe a year, something like that, year and a half. And carried that on for the rest of my life with heavy bags and that kind of training and stuff. then after 2017, the ⁓ London Bridge, I don't know if you remember the UK London Bridge attack. was a major event in my life. Didn't affect me whatsoever.

Robert Poirier (51:52)
Yep. Yep.

James Walton (51:55)
But it affected me in huge ways because there was a family that was cornered in a store and stabbed to death. And I was like, I'm going to carry a gun from now on because we're never going to be cornered in a store and stabbed to death. You know what I mean? Not in America. Not with the Second Amendment. And those things really freed me. It's not a wait. It didn't become a wait of like, oh, great, now I'm a protector and I have to do this thing every day and remember this thing every day. It really became like a

Robert Poirier (52:09)
All right, no, I'm with you. I'm with you.

James Walton (52:23)
There was some kind of weird anxiety that existed there that was, if things go down, you're not ready. If things get crazy and you know things get crazy, if they get crazy, you're not ready. So hope you can figure it out on the fly, you know? And when all that went away, it just became like, okay, you know? So much of prepping is like that. like I've been talking about prepping as anti-anxiety for a lot of 2025. Yes. Exactly. Exactly.

Robert Poirier (52:48)
What's that? It's that piece, right? It's that piece that you have. It gives,

it gives you that, that confidence, but also that piece is a big part of it. That piece that, you know, I'm not going to be trapped in a corner. My, my family is not going to be trapped in a corner. They're going to have to, they're going to have to go through me before they get to my family. And, ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I get it. I mean, look, I'm

James Walton (52:55)
Mm-hmm.

Right. Never.

Yeah, not just me. Not just me. Hot lead on top of that, you know?

Robert Poirier (53:15)
it got very crazy here in Atlanta for a while and very crazy. And, you know, the boys, they may be knew 2 % of the time when I was carrying,

James Walton (53:17)
Yeah.

Robert Poirier (53:27)
I think they've asked before, you know, why, ⁓ and it's to protect us. never know. You know, hopefully I never ever, ever have to use it, but you know what? If dad does, you'll be okay.

James Walton (53:34)
Yeah.

of course.

Yeah, yeah, that's it's it becomes a no brainer, you know, after a while, it is scary at first. Carrying a weapon is scary at first, but it's one of those things where like we're what 2017. So been at it a while and it's just again, it's the lifestyle, you know.

Robert Poirier (54:01)
It all goes back to, course, with carrying. It's not, and let's say this, it's not just, go to your store, buy a gun and carry. It's the training that goes along with it. And it is, you know, I had during the time I'm talking about when rioting was going on, I had a friend who, ⁓ Talked to me about if he should carry, that's all no. He's like, what? I know you would do more harm if you did, you know, how often

James Walton (54:07)
⁓ yeah. Sure.

Mm-hmm.

Possible,

Robert Poirier (54:28)
How often have you shot that gun? I don't know. got it like 10 years ago. mean, maybe once or twice, you know, where is it? Well, it's up in the top of the closet in the hallway. And I'm like, you know, there's, he was in such a state of his thing was that he was in such a state of fear that my problem with him carrying was. Yes. Yes. You're correct.

James Walton (54:33)
Jeez.

of course, yeah.

He's just gonna pull it out. Because he's afraid.

An altercation that might not even be an altercation could get kinetic in a hurry and that could be... yeah.

Robert Poirier (54:56)
Yes.

Yes. Yes. That's where I said

you would do more danger. And you know, I told, I've given him many of instances. There was a time when I was going into a department store and these guys, don't know what they call it, like a dash and robbery or whatever, you know, it was a big, ⁓ group of young men who they were actually, they weren't even young men. Let me back it up. Cause one of them and I looked each other dead in the eyes and the kid was probably

12, 13 years old. ⁓ but they went in, they had, and I literally was walking in the department store when they were running out just loads of clothes.

James Walton (55:38)
Yeah.

Robert Poirier (55:38)
I'm Carrie.

I never saw a gun. I never felt threatened. But my point was somebody like him would have pulled it out and it would have escalated in a whole different direction, you know, and it didn't, didn't need to be. ⁓

James Walton (55:45)
Maybe pulls a gun, yeah.

And I'm sure the pooling

a gun in Atlanta is hefty, hefty repercussions for that.

Robert Poirier (55:58)
Yeah.

Yes. Yes. Yes. But it's, is. And, ⁓ you know, but I, you know, I think, ⁓ I agree with you, you know, but training has to go along with it. And, it definitely does. I just, again, I think it's so cool with what you're doing. I really do. And I think it's, ⁓ you know, it has made me think like, do I need to have a little garden? Do I need to start doing this? I mean, it's, ⁓ you know, it's, it's, ⁓ no, it is, it is.

James Walton (56:11)
yeah.

Yeah, you do. Definitely. It's just better too.

It's just better. It's there's nothing like gardening growing up was a thing that we did long before we ever worried about anything happening. You know, my parents, like I said, they didn't worry about that. They were worried about rent. You know what I mean? That was their apocalypse was like the first of the month. But they always had gardens because the food was better. You know, we'd eat the tomatoes and be like, man, the tomatoes are like way better than in the supermarket.

Robert Poirier (56:41)
Yeah, yeah.

It is best.

they're

so much better. Everything, the blueberries, everything are just, you know, everything's so much better. It really is.

James Walton (56:52)
Yeah.

But

all that said though, Robert, I do sympathize with the average person, you know what I mean? And in the sense that who can manage it all? Who can deal with, you know, thinking about what could and might and may happen and how do I prepare for it? Like, I know life is busy. Life is crazy. Here you are working full time doing a podcast, got two kids. Like, people are busy.

So this idea that they're gonna dedicate themselves to this on top of everything and whatever other hobbies they have or responsibilities outside of all that. So, you I get it. I also get it. So we try to make it as easy as possible, you know.

Robert Poirier (57:36)
And just mix it in your lifestyle. You don't have to go full prep and go buy a bunch of chickens and start planting a garden. You can do a few chickens or a few rows of plants and just kind of ease into it that way.

James Walton (57:43)
Yeah.

I'm 10 years in. You know, you don't jump a decade in right off the bat or you'll probably just lose a bunch of money. So.

Robert Poirier (57:54)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like, it's like another friend of mine. They started off with little buckets of tomato plants out on their patio and you know, and I saw that grow to the next year. was several more buckets and they had tomato plants and I don't know what else they had. Now you go in their backyard and they've got a few rows that they, you know, they have raised gardens and a few rows and they've got, they have some blueberry bushes. They have different things in their yard.

James Walton (58:17)
Yeah.

Robert Poirier (58:23)
And it's like, wow, this thing escalated in a good way. But man, I'll tell you what, the stuff that comes from their house is delicious. You know, it's, uh, I'm fortunate to be able to, to, uh, to share on that. So, Hey, yeah, yeah, there you go. There we go. I didn't even, I didn't even think about Kevin. You're right though. Yeah, there you go. There you go. Hey, so how do people find you?

James Walton (58:30)
Of course, yeah.

Well, you got your gardener in the group.

I mean the best way is prepperbroadcasting.com. Our podcast network, we put out podcasts every day. There's 13 of us. Every day there's a show. Yeah, every day. There's 13 hosts on our network. And so you won't get just James' journey in all of this. You'll get Carl B's journey. You'll get Jordan Ferguson's journey. Dave Jones, the NBC guy, as I talked about this, you know, a bunch of hosts.

Robert Poirier (58:54)
Every day. Okay.

James Walton (59:11)
and they all do it a little differently. They all do it in a different part of the country, you know, which adds its own challenges and its own flavor. And you can hear it all at prepperbroadcasting.com or, you know, you don't even have to go to our website. We're on Spotify. We're on everywhere podcasts are our network is. So the prepper broadcasting network is what you're looking for. ⁓ And I don't think there's a network out there that has 13 hosts all in the prepping and homesteading vein. So it's pretty unique, you know.

Robert Poirier (59:39)
Yeah, yeah, sounds like it. You're on Instagram as well.

James Walton (59:43)
Instagram, yep, you can find the Prepper Broadcasting Network on Instagram also where you'll see my face. I'm pretty much predominantly the driving force over there, so, you know, it's James-centric.

Robert Poirier (59:53)
What,

what else? And I know you have something special coming out as well.

James Walton (59:57)
Yeah, you know, we do all kinds of stuff. A lot of the hosts are authors and I'm a writer too, but we have a... And it didn't really click in my head until we started talking about the show this morning. ⁓ On Father's Day, I'll be publishing a book called Poems for Men. And it is a collection of personal, it's a collection of Victorian, it's a collection of poetry through the years that I've read. Remember I told you I wasn't on the football field, I was in the library in the garage band. ⁓ But so much of...

of poetry and art is kind of missed on men. And I think with the crisis that men are in right now, a lot of them, I think they're missing out on some really great gems. So we've pulled some of the best that sort of I've always turned to over the years, put it in the book, put some of my own work, some of my friends work in there and just trying to get guys to look at something differently because, you know, I talk to a lot of men, Robert, and they lament the things that Shakespeare lamented.

You know what mean? all the problems that dudes have today are the problems that dudes have always had. And it seems like, I need a pill, I need a this, I need a therapist, I need a that. But when you go back and read Victorian poetry, you read Shakespeare, you read Dante, Gabriel, Rosetta, you read those guys and you go, they had the same problems I had. Like, a T. The girl, the job, the death, the father's in trouble, the money problem, you know what I mean? So we tried to compile all that into this, ⁓

this little gift to men Poems for Men, look it up.

Robert Poirier (1:01:27)
Man, that's great. And I will, I will put a link, ⁓ you know, of course to your website as well. And they can find the book through your website, right?

James Walton (1:01:35)
I'm sure, if not Poems for Men at Amazon on Father's Day. Maybe a little lead up it might be out early release too.

Robert Poirier (1:01:38)
Okay.

anything else that we didn't cover.

James Walton (1:01:43)
Nah, I mean that's it. Like I said, you'll get a healthy dose if you listen to the podcast. So if you like what you're hearing, just check us out. Prepper Broadcasting Network.

Robert Poirier (1:01:51)
Definitely will. And look, James, I appreciate you spending time coming on here. And I know I am a virgin with this. I have no idea really with prepping, but it's something again that I've always found appealing. And when you reached out, was like, gosh, this would be so interesting to talk about. And I just appreciate you taking time, definitely.

James Walton (1:02:11)
I appreciate

you, Robert, and you got some of the pieces of the puzzle already, so...

Robert Poirier (1:02:16)
Maybe one, maybe one or two. That's a, but at least I'm not starting from scratch. So, but Hey, look again, again, James, thank you. And thank you all for listening to dad to dad's podcast. You can find us on Spotify or Apple podcasts, well as most, ⁓ platforms you can also find us on YouTube and Instagram. Don't forget to hit the like and subscribe button and please leave a comment. read every one of them and I really enjoy.

James Walton (1:02:21)
That's true. I remember those days.

Robert Poirier (1:02:44)
receiving your feedback as well as, topics for future shows And we will talk to you next time.