Hillbilly Blood

     Red Green...I loved that silly tv program!! I was sad when “Red” retired, but fortunately there is another show that is almost as silly and equally entertaining...Hillbilly Blood A Hardscrabble Life which airs Saturday nights at 9:00pm EST on Destination America. 
     It stars Eugene Runkis and Spencer “Two-Dogs” Boljack and features “Appalachiangineering.” The show is set in Cold Mountain, North Carolina, but there really isn't such a place. It is actually filmed in the Pisgah National Forest in western North Carolina. Cold Mountain is taken from the title of an award winning book and an Academy Award winning film about a wounded deserter from the Confederate army close to the end of the American Civil War who is on his way to return to the love of his life. The movie was  filmed in Romania...go figure! 
    Eugene is a real guy who lives in Bryson City, North Carolina and his partner Spencer is also a real guy and a former middle school teacher who lives in Canton, North Carolina.  Both men are outdoor survival specialists. Spencer is a martial arts devotee and operates an outdoor wilderness school called Land of the Sky Wilderness, LLC, and his summer course gives students the opportunity to “track, build, sail, hike, camp, pack” over a five-day session, according to the school’s website. He also operates a martial arts studio, teaching a variety of styles and techniques including Ninjutsu, Tang Soo Do and Integrated Martial Arts (IMA). Eugene runs a survivor school, too.
     Of course the producers do manipulate things in order to keep it interesting, but if you ever wanted to know how to build a wind turbine from scratch to charge car batteries, catch rattlesnakes, build a lake houseboat out of an old camper and have it propelled by a discarded chainsaw engine, build a homemade log splitter or move a nest of bees that have set up home in your old pickup truck by building a smoker and a bee-proof suit, or a hundred other practical things all out of junk lying around in your back yard, this is the show that will teach you how. Love it!!
     Here's some handy information for you...