Laura Werbner (Host): Welcome to another edition of our Compass Podcast. I am Laura Werbner from your Marketing and Communications Team. And today, I'm going to be wearing my communications hat for a chat with one of our caregivers. So, please join me in welcoming Dilan Jones. She's a long time childbirth unit nurse and a new clinical educator. She's also an amazing person.

Dilan Jones: Thank you, guys. Thank you for having me. It's wonderful to be here today.

Host: Well, I was really excited to talk to you. Dilan is actually going through our frontline leadership program right now. And maybe a few months ago, we were having a conversation in class, and she mentioned that she did something with her family that really blew me away, and I thought, "We have to learn more about this." And I think other people will want to know more about this, too. So, Dilan does not buy any of the meat that her family eats. Is that correct, Dilan?

Dilan Jones: That is correct, yes. And so, I think the conversation that was taking place during that Frontline Leadership class was on our personal culture. And so, as part of my family's personal culture, we have chosen to not purchase meat from the store. And so, we hunt for all of our meat that we feed ourselves and our children.

Host: That's pretty incredible. It's hard for me sometimes just to find meat to dig out of the freezer to figure out what the heck we're going to have for dinner. But to actually plan and hunt it and do all that, how did you even get started with that?

Dilan Jones: Okay. So, both my husband and I, we grew up hunting. So, my dad would hunt. We mostly hunted deer at that time, my husband as well. His family was a little broader. They hunted both deer and elk. And then, we got married when we were 21 years old and we started hunting ourselves. And so, right from the very get go, that was something that brought us together, actually, was that we enjoyed the outdoors and we enjoyed hunting. And so, that was something that we could do together. And then, it really turned into something more than that.

Host: It sure has. So, what have you hunted, and I guess, what are some of your staples?

Dilan Jones: Yeah. When we got married, we moved to Alaska. So within six months of us being married, we decided, "Let's go to Alaska." And so, the very first animals that we harvested-- and we call it harvesting, hunting, those terms can be interchangeable-- the very first thing that we hunted together was a caribou. So, we went up to the North Slope and the limit, if you buy a $50 tag over-the-counter, you can harvest five caribou. Caribou was the very first animal that we harvested together. My husband and I, we butcher all of our own animals that we harvest. So, we got our caribou, we drove back down to Anchorage, which is where we were living. And we process our first large game animal together.

So when we're making cuts, so you said really kind of like, "How do you eat this? What are you doing with this animal?" and as far as what are we going to dig out of the freezer, we do cuts in specific ways. So, I have meat that we're going to turn into burger that we set aside for just burger meat. We have steaks, and then we create roasts. So, that's kind of like the ways and how we term our meats that we're going to be using for our family.

Host: So caribou, but I'm guessing caribou isn't something you're hunting all the time. What else are you hunting?

Dilan Jones: Yeah. So when we lived in Alaska, we hunted for caribou, moose, bear. We have eaten bear.

Host: Wow.

Dilan Jones: Yes. And Dall sheep. When we're hunting, we hunt with both rifle or bow. The majority of the animals that my husband has harvested are with a bow. And then, I hunt more with a rifle. And so, that was in Alaska. After six years of married life, we moved to Farmington, New Mexico. And here, we hunt elk, deer, ducks, geese, oryx. We've hunted oryx, javelina. I don't particularly love eating javelina. That's one of my least favorite ones. But oryx is a huge one. Oh, and antelope. We hunt antelope up here quite a bit.

Host: Nice. So, what's your family's favorite? What do you guys like to eat? What's a great dinner staple at your house?

Dilan Jones: Surprisingly, antelope is one of my number one favorite meats to eat. An antelope is actually related to a goat. It's closely related to a goat, which is really interesting because typically goats have a really strong flavor. However, the antelope, it's not quite as strong as the flavor and the meat is really tender, really, really tender.

And in addition to that, the prep for the hunt is really minimal compared to a lot of other hunts due to the fact that it's basically in our backyard. you can just wake up in the morning, have your own normal cup of coffee, go and hunt yourself an antelope, and then be back by noon. Of course, we do have to draw tags in New Mexico for these hunts. So if you don't draw a tag, then you're not going to be hunting that. You can hunt for your waterfowl.

Host: And you process all of your own animals as well. So, what about the bones? What do you do with the bones?

Dilan Jones: So, we actually use all of our bones. whenever we harvest our animals, the bones is a really important part. So, something that we did whenever we were kids is you would throw your bones away. But as adults, we've learned the benefits of collagen, of marrow, in bones. And so, we saw the bones in half and, depending on the size of the bone, if it's a humerus femur of the animal, then we saw them into not just halves, but thirds or quarters, and we instant pot those suckers with, onion, celery and carrots. We just stick it in there and we fill it to the top with water and we will create our own broth so that any soups that we're making, whenever we get sick or not feeling good or we're having joint pain, we already have in our freezer pre-frozen containers of bone marrow broth so that we can just take those out really easily and utilize that.

Host: Wow, you are a true pioneer woman, huh? So, you mentioned the onions, celery, carrots. Do you also grow your own vegetables?

Dilan Jones: We do. Yep, we grow our own vegetables. So, I love tomatoes. Tomatoes are my all time favorite fruit, technically. But we grow a variety of tomatoes. We grow zucchini. We grow all of my own herbs, so basil, rosemary, thyme, sage. I grow all of my own herbs. We like to eat whole foods. So, I've got three daughters. And so, I'm raising three daughters. And as far as their overall health and their way of eating and their culture in our family is we want to teach them to eat whole foods. So, having whole meat that is not given false hormones is important to us, and then also eating whole vegetables. We attempt to avoid opening a package and eating something that is fast and easy. And so, that's something that's important to us as a family.

Host: And now as a family hunting, do your daughters hunt?

Dilan Jones: Absolutely! Yes, they do. This coming weekend, in fact, my oldest daughter, who is 11 years old, she has a mule deer hunt with her dad here in Unit 2. So, they'll leave and they're going to be gone for a week. And so, they get to go hunting and we get to spend time with each other. Something I love that my husband does with my girls is he makes hunting fun. So, it's not something that is full of pressure. We have meat that it's not like, "Oh, if you don't get an animal, then we don't eat." He really decreases the pressure on that. And because I think there's decreased pressure, they always get what they went out for. It's really neat, yeah. And they get the bond and they get to be together and spend time with one another. Me and my other two daughters are going to go out for one night. We're going to go out there with them and spend time with them. And then, we'll come back in after that. But my girl's hunt. Like I said, my oldest has the mule deer hunt next week. And then, she has an elk hunt in January.

Host: Wow. Well, good luck to her, and you'll have to let us know how she does. So really, it's a lot. It's the meat, but it's the bonding, and it's the eating the whole foods. There's just a lot to it that really brings a lot of benefits to your family and really, like you said, is your family's personal culture.

Dilan Jones: It is. And in addition to that, my daughters, they absolutely help with butchering the animals. So, it's not just knowledge on nutrient-based knowledge. It's also knowledge on how to process animals. My little one, she helps with making burger meat. They know how to season meat. My middle one helps with making breakfast sausages and Italian sausages. They get to have input on the herbs that we take from our garden and what we're going to be putting into our meat and how it's going to flavor our meat. So, it's a lifestyle.

Host: Absolutely. It is a whole way of life. And it's really interesting to learn about and know more about the different things that caregivers in our organization do and how their family lives their life. It's always fascinating to hear. So, thank you for being here with us. We really appreciate it.

Dilan Jones: Thank you so much for having me. Really, I had fun.

Host: Great. So, make sure you guys stay connected with us. We have new podcasts out every week on Fridays. So, we will see you next Friday for another new edition of our Compass Podcast.