As the weather cools and the leaves begin to turn, this episode looks at what it means to change with the seasons instead of resisting them. What started back in early spring is coming to full reality in just two short weeks, and the timing couldn’t be more fitting.
I’m sitting under the tarp at Camp What The Heck with the fire going and the smell of fall drifting through the woods. This season isn’t just about cooler nights and deer tracks in the mud—it’s about seeing months of work finally come to life. What started in early spring as an idea to create something real for campers and outdoorsmen is now a full line of freeze-dried meals, fresh-roasted coffee, books, and handmade fire kits launching in just two short weeks.
In this episode, I talk about how those ideas took shape through long nights, prayer, and plenty of trial and error. The freeze dryers are running non-stop as we prep meals like Red Beans and Rice, Chicken Stew, Shepherd’s Pie, and a Breakfast Skillet—all made from the same recipes we’ve served for years in the restaurant. My wife’s freeze-dried candy is joining the lineup too, adding a sweet side to the outdoor mix.
The website, primitive-camping.com, will serve as the new central hub for everything: the store, blog, podcast links, and future updates. I also share how these changes aren’t just about business—they’re about getting back to simplicity, faith, and purpose. This episode ties it all together with a reminder from Ecclesiastes 3: there’s a time and a season for everything. And this, right here, is the season to move forward and trust what God’s been building behind the scenes.
Welcome to the Primitive Camping and Bushcraft podcast. I'm your host, Chris Speir. So here we're gonna talk about gear, grit and the kind of stories you only get around a fire. It's all about learning, adapting and keeping your faith strong. So whether you're a seasoned outdoorsman or just looking to unplug and reconnect, you are in the right place.
So pull up a chair by the fire and let's get into it. All right, welcome back to the podcast. It is a very nice evening down here under the tarp at Camp What The Heck. Got the fire going, got the smoke billowing, and I do not have a video for this one. I didn't have enough storage on my SD card and I couldn't transfer it from one device to another.
So I have a lot, a lot of footage on there from a fishing trip a while back before I got bit by the spider. So it has been a rough ride with the spider bite. It is almost healed, completely up now. It itches like there is no tomorrow. But boy, there for a little while I thought, man, I thought I was gonna lose my hand.
I thought that. It was, I, I, I don't know. It was bad. I mean, it got bad quick and it only took a couple of days. If you follow me on Facebook or anything, you'll see the pictures and stuff like that. But man, let me tell you, pay attention to what you're doing when you're out in them woods.
You get bit by a spider. It ain't no joke. I mean, that stuff is real. It's a real danger. So the spider bite's healing up and now I can get back to business. I have a video to finish filming for a company about Browey. They are a power supply. They have a battery unit. It's 1100 watts and it folds out and it has its own solar panels in there and it charges itself
automatically. So you just unfold that thing. You, I mean, you just fold that lid out and it turns into a solar panel and it charges that dude up. Now I've tested it out. I have many power banks and this particular one has turned out to be my absolute favorite. Now 1100 watts doesn't seem like a lot, but when you head out into the woods and you're camping, you need to recharge all your stuff.
You throw it in a boat or your ATV or whatever it is, you get out there in the great outdoors and you have something that you can charge your stuff up with. But that's neither here nor there. So you know, there comes a time when you realize you've been doing a lot of good things, but maybe not the right things.
Lately I've been feeling this tug, this sense that it is time to shift gears. And we talked about this several months ago, and now the gears are actually in motion to start shifting. So today I just wanted to talk about, we are primitive camping and bushcraft. Hello. Tongue twister. Hey, I just wanted to talk about where primitive camping and bushcraft is headed and why.
And you know, it's crazy because right now it is fall. Fall is in full swing here in South Mississippi. It's starting to cool off a little bit. I mean, heck, it's only 92 degrees instead of 94. During the daytime it is, it's full swing fall is in effect, and anytime the nighttime temperature is below 80 in Mississippi, it is fall, yall.
It is fall. So
seasons change throughout your life. Things are gonna happen. You know, I built this through the COVID years, and a lot of it was because when people had COVID, they were stuck in the house. And so they were doing nothing more than just scrolling, doom scrolling all day every day. That's all they had.
And I tried to, I don't wanna say jump on the bandwagon 'cause I really, I didn't know what a TikTok was. I didn't know what all these different social media platforms did. And then I posted a video. And I just called myself Speir Outdoors, you know. And boy did it explode. It really took off. And it was really a blessing.
It was a blessing from the Lord above because that is what led to the book being written. And the book being written led to the coffee and the coffee led to the freeze dried camping meals, and that led to the fire kits. And it is just one thing after another. And the podcast was born because of the book, and now I have just, we'll get into this, but we have some changes and some stuff that I'm gonna announce today.
That is essentially what's happening is we're consolidating I and consolidating everything into Primitive Camping and Bushcraft Company. That is what we're gonna be from here forth is the Primitive Camping and Bushcraft Company. So get ready. It's gonna be a ride. And I'm telling you now, it has been a lot of work getting this done.
As you know, I've been hinting a little bit on Facebook, in the group, on the podcast. I've been hinting a little bit about products are coming. Yes, they're coming, and they will be dropping the weekend of November 1st. So just a couple short weekends away, and you have no idea how unprepared I really am, and I have been using this as a launch date, a hard launch date, and I have been working almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week to get this
off the ground and get it running. I have been blessed with the opportunity to purchase freeze dryer machines and you know, we're using the restaurant that we have and all the certifications and everything we have to make these freeze dried meals legally and to be able to ship them legally. And you know, we have, we got all the certifications, we got everything that we need.
And to top it all off the wife, my beautiful bride. She decided that she wanted to do a freeze dried candy, so we're doing freeze dried candy on top of the freeze dried meals. So I am a busy creature. Every couple hours my phone is notification that something is changing and it's time to go in there and redo it.
So we have been blessed and we're moving forward with this at an exponential rate. But over the past few months, I've been juggling a lot, from podcasts to videos, freeze dryer meals, you know, working with the coffee and the book and you know, doing different events and stuff like that. And somewhere in there I started to lose sight of the simplicity that started all of this.
The whole reason I began the primitive camping and bushcraft was to reconnect with what matters, faith, simplicity, and the great outdoors. It's just. That's what it boils down to. It is just those few things, you know, mainly the faith part. Somewhere in the noise, I realized that I needed to get back to that.
And if you know me, you know that I do not listen to the radio while I'm driving because my mind is constantly running, constantly racing, constantly thinking, what's next? What do I do now? And I have got to the point to where I had to slow that down. I had to stop, I had to seek the Lord, I had to spend time in prayer.
And I have spent time in the great outdoors and in prayer and reflecting, and this is where we are heading. It's not, I'm not turning off the Speir Outdoors aspect of this. That is gonna be my hobby. That is gonna be something that I post whenever I have time to post to. But the main event is now going to be primitive camping and bushcraft, and that is going to be everything moving forward.
So this is what is really happening. I'm streamlining everything, and I talked about this several podcasts ago, back in May, April, May, whenever we started with Camp What The Heck. The primitive camping and bushcraft podcast is gonna stay focused on the book. It's gonna stay focused on the stories of being out in the woods.
It's gonna be focused on the scripture and the lessons from the woods. And I'm still gonna talk about meals and projects, but the main thing is getting back to teaching, sharing and helping others draw closer to God through creation. That is just point blank what it is. And on top of this, I'm gonna be starting another podcast called The Redeemed Podcast.
And this one is going to be just straight up Bible 24 and seven, all Bible the whole time. Not just devotions inside of an outdoor thing. There's gonna be less clutter, there's gonna be more clarity, and I got a lot of people lined up with testimonies and stuff for that, but it, that's a different thing.
Let's get back to the primitive camping here. So what does this mean for you as the listener or follower of the primitive camping and bushcraft or the Speir Outdoors? You know, every episode from here on is gonna be rooted in something real, something you could feel in your spirit, not just hear in your ears, on your way to work every morning, every Monday morning, or you know, the
Fundamental, fundamental Fridays on, you know, little tips and tricks and techniques and of the such. And what I'm doing is I'm gonna be posting videos, I'm rooting through, going through finding all the stuff that a lot of you may have not seen, you know, some of the older stuff. I'm going to be reformatting it, redoing it to put on the primitive camping and bushcraft
YouTube page and Facebook page, and I'll be putting all this content out there for that and just start growing from here. Now with this guys gals, individuals, with this we're going to be launching, you can buy the book directly from the primitive camping website. Print. Let me, let me back up. Let me back up and rewind and hit play.
Alright, so we're gonna be launching the primitive camping dot com and primitive camping dot com is gonna be the central hub for everything. It's gonna have blog posts, it is going to have the book, it is gonna have the store, it's gonna have everything where you could buy the products that I talk about on this podcast.
You can help support the channel. You can help support the effort and purchase a meal. And dude, these ain't very expensive. We're talking like ten dollars for a meal. You're gonna spend that if you go to McDonald's or more. Well, this is for camping and I have four options to choose from.
We have red beans and rice, and that is my secret recipe that I have used in our restaurant for 13 years, and everybody loves our red beans and rice and I, I love red beans. So we're talking, it's got green onion sausage in there. It's got onions and bell peppers in there. It's got your red beans and it's got your rice and it's got all the love from, you know, as close to New Orleans as you can get without being in New Orleans.
Then we got shepherd's pie. I was thinking, what am I going to make that would actually fill somebody up and taste pretty good. Everybody has the beef stroganoffs and all these other flavors and stuff like that. Nobody has made a shepherd's pie. So what I did is I broke it down and I made shepherd's pie.
Now it does not have mashed potatoes in it. It does have hash brown potatoes in it, so, but it's still shepherd's pie. It's got all your veggies, it's got your meats, your gravy and your potatoes. It's everything you need for a hearty meal in the great outdoors. And it is also one of my favorites. Now moving on, we have chicken stew, so it is
made like I would make my chicken noodle soup at my restaurant. In the wintertime we sell gallons and gallons and gallons of this stuff. Well, I made this thicker so that it is more of a stew. So I made chicken stew and buddy, let me tell you, this stuff is jammed up jelly tight. It is good. I love it. And it is hearty.
And if you want a good hearty hot meal, the chicken stew's going to be for you, the chicken stew is for you. We're gonna coin that term. Then when you get up in the morning, you're gonna have real eggs with sausage and some hash brown potatoes and some onions and bell pepper. You're gonna have some breakfast skillet with a little bit of love in there.
And this stuff, I'm telling you right now, it is hearty. It's going to fill you up. So these portions are, you know, I've been working with the portions here. I, I tried to get it close. Now hear me out. This is freeze dried. So three ounces of freeze dried is almost dang near a pound once you add the water to it.
So it's a pound, maybe a little bit over a pound of food. And so once you add the hot water to it, this stuff is going to have some weight to it. And I'm telling you now, it is hearty food. It is good food. It is 100 percent home cooked food. Well as close to home as you're gonna get in a restaurant, but it is, it is 100 percent
no preservatives. It don't have all this garbage that you get. You know, I marked it down. Freeze dried food usually lasts between 20 to 30 years. It depends on who you ask and what kind of fat content is in there. So I got these. You purchase this one. It should last you a good five years.
And that's because sausage does have some grease in there and I tried to eliminate as much grease as possible with the sausage or the hamburger meat or you know, whatever. The chicken should last a little bit longer, but I just marked 'em all for five years. That way everything should be good to go.
So it would last longer, but I just didn't want to take a risk of, you know, silly stuff happening down the road. And hopefully you eat it before five years is up. So now moving away from the food, we also have the coffee, we got the ground coffee, we got coffee beans. We've got six ounce, 12 ounce, you know, and
the individual who roasts the coffee for me, he does a private label. And man, it's some good stuff. It is some good, good coffee. Now, from the website, I'm gonna be selling the six ounce packages for 9.99. You know, you get six ounces of coffee grounds and that's perfect to take out with you into the woods.
It's not heavy. You can make you some coffee for a couple days. Now after that, I mean you got the book and I'm gonna be offering the book from the website. And then I'm putting together the fire kits finally, and I'm gonna have them for purchase as well. Now the fire kits, now I had to remodify.
You're gonna have a Fresnel lens in there. You're going to have a ferro rod in there. You're going to have the
striker for the ferro rod. And then I'm going to have some rope, some natural twine, soaked in wax in there. Now, originally I was doing char cloth, but I found that the char cloth, once you put stuff in there, it starts
falling apart, becoming brittle, and you know, and so I decided that, you know, as advantageous as it is to have cloth in your kit, that's what the kit is for, for you to make char cloth with. And so you can use this kit, the tin that it comes in to make your own char cloth, and then put your stuff inside the kit and you got yourself a durable fire kit now.
And there's the outdoor boys up in Illinois that are using these things, and I believe it's Illinois or Missouri. Chris, you got me confused on which one you're in. I think he works in one and lives in the other. He lives in one or works in the other. I don't remember. But anyway, these boys, I sent them some fire kits a while back and they
just got to use 'em this past weekend or weekend before last. And it was good times. They were practicing starting fires and some kids were very, very skittish, but they still got to get it done. And you know, practice does not make perfect. Practice makes better. And these kids are better because they did get some practice now.
I'm looking into doing a couple little e publications and I tried doing that on the website before. It seemed like nobody cared. Nobody wanted it, but I'm gonna have some essentials on fire, water, and shelter. You know, some of those three things there. So,
like I said, this is for you. This is simple. Every episode from here on is gonna be rooted in something real, something you could feel down in your spirit and not just here on the way to work. So whether we're talking about fire starting or we're talking about faith, it's all going to tie back to the purpose, one purpose and connection.
So you'll see fewer distractions and more intentional movements. Movements going forward. So I've been stressing over what to say in this one. Been writing it down and just jotting down ideas of what to talk about. And 90 percent of this is off the cuff. And you know, I got a couple of bullet points over here that I'm looking at, but here is the main meat, like I said before.
The seasons start to change. Seasons change and this, we're going into fall, we're going into a new season. Deer season's opening up all over the country. It's opened up here in South Mississippi. Well, it opened up next week in South Mississippi on the 15th, whatever day it is. North Mississippi is already open, but you know, it is already open.
Seasons have changed. And with that, that's gonna lead me to this in Ecclesiastes three verse one to everything there is a season. A time for every purpose under heaven. Now this is gonna be, wow. You'll recognize this. There was a song, a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to pluck what was planted.
A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to gain and a time to lose, a time to keep, and a time to throw away, a time to tear, and a time to sow.
A time to keep silence and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace. Those, I mean, that is. That is everything. Everything in this life. There is a time for everything that happens underneath the sun. And remember, you know, right here in Ecclesiastes, it also says that there is nothing new under the sun.
There is nothing new under the sun. What has been done, what is being done now has always been done. There's nothing new.
I believe this is a season of pruning, a season of simplifying, of growing deeper roots. Maybe you're in that season too where God's asking you to let go of a few good things so he can bring in the right thing.
If that's you, you're not alone. Because this podcast, this journey, it's, it's for all of us learning to walk that same path together.
Just remember, I mean, what we just read about all the seasons, here is a time to be born and a time to die. It happens all day, every day, every day. A baby's born, every day someone passes on. All the seasons, there's a time to plant and there's a time for harvest. We go in and we plant whatever seeds we need to plant, and then somebody comes back in later and harvest it and that's, you can plant the seeds.
There's many different kind of seeds that can be planted. You could plant the seeds of scripture, you could plant the seeds of bushcraft, camping, outdoors.
Even if you don't believe in the devotions that I talk about, I've had several people comment on my pages, and I've had one recently on the Spotify account, but he come back and he said, well, you didn't lose me completely. So guess what? It's the truth. You know, just because I'm talking about a devotion don't mean you don't have to listen to it, what you don't want to hear, but
seeds are being planted no matter what. The seeds are gonna be planted. They're gonna sprout, they're going to grow. All it takes is a little bit of water, and there's gonna be a time to cry, and there's gonna be a time to laugh. Now, look at it throughout your life, how many times have you, how many times have you wept?
How many times have you cried? How many times have you broken down? How many times have you felt like nobody is there to listen to what you said? But in contrast, how many times have you just laughed with someone that you love? Laughed with friends and just belly laughed, like deep belly laughs. How many times?
A lot. How many times do you break somebody down? How many times do you just tear somebody down? But on the other hand, how many times do you actually build somebody up? I am talking to somebody out there today because I'm telling you right now, it ain't just me. I've spent a lot of my life tearing people down.
I was in the military. My job was to tear people down and then build 'em back up. I instructed people on how to be a new medic, brand new medics. My job was to teach them how to be a medic, how to keep their composure, how to think whenever everything was going astray. And I've talked about this several times on this podcast.
I talked about it in the book. I talk about it all the time on videos and of the such. And you know, it's not hard to do what you need to do. It's not. Keep that composure, keep your mind focused on what you're thinking about just like this. With the seasons being changed and me moving forward into a brand new era of the primitive camping and bushcraft.
Turning the primitive camping and bushcraft book into an entire company that, yep. So far I'm out of pocket. I'm, I'm, I'm brokered and broke,
but I'm here to tell you, I have faith. I have faith that I know something is going to come of it. I believe it with all my heart, or it would not have led me to this direction, the Lord would not have led me to this direction. And the motto for this whole channel, for everything is in all your ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct your path.
Well, that's it. I am starting a new journey, starting the 1st of November. The website switch will be flipped on if I can figure out how to get the silly store to work. And then, man, it's been a great journey. I am very interested to see where it goes. And I just hope you guys like to follow along with me and help and support the channel and support the podcast and support it all.
I hate reaching out. I hate asking people, Hey, come buy this or buy that. I can't stand that. I don't like being sold to, and I'm not trying to sell anybody anything. I'm trying to encourage people. So if you feel encouraged. If you think that this has done something for you or if you're intrigued by it or whatever, just go ahead and forward this.
Go ahead and follow the new Primitive Camping and Bushcraft page. It's Primitive Camping Bushcraft on Facebook. That is the new page. There's also the primitive camping and bushcraft Group, and it's a private group that you could join and we pretty much accept anybody. All you gotta do is sign up. Okay, now I had the primitive camping and bushcraft
YouTube page and then the primitive camping dot com website will be launched in November, the first weekend in November. Same time. And you guys, this is gonna be something else. If not, guess what? It is going to be something else for me. So, but anyway, I have faith. I have faith that something good is gonna come of it.
And I mean, I got, I got people listening to the podcast regularly. I got people watching videos. I got people that are becoming true friends. I've made several friends that I talked to on the phone out of this group, on the Facebook group. I do, there's several people on this Facebook group that I actually reach out to and talk to all the time.
So be one of those. Let's be friends. Join the group. So hopefully, hopefully yall got something outta this. Go ahead and grab your coffee. Take a deep breath and lean into the season, the changing of the seasons because even when things change, the purpose still stays the same. All right, guys, I appreciate you.
I thank you so much. Remember, in all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. I'll see you next time. God bless you. Thanks for sitting around the fire with me today. If this episode gave you something to think about. If it helped you feel a little bit more prepared or it even stirred your faith a tiny bit, go ahead and share it with someone else who might need it as well.
We don't go camping to run away from life. We come out here to slow down and recharge. So grab another log, throw it on the fire, and remember this in all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your path. I'll see you next time. God bless you.