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Episode #159: Joel’s Top Takeaways from the All-Star Stockman Grass Conference · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Success is has three components.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: It has to be strategic, pragmatic, and incremental.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that was profound because I run into people all the time that are new homesteaders, they're new landowners, you know, they've finally got their five, six, eight, ten acres.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: And um and and and they're in this this dream fantasy.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: And before you know it, they burn out.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh some of them even lose their marriages.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we went in with, you know, everything big plans and got over our skis and and um lost my marriage over it.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, the first the first is is is being strategic.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, everybody.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to another episode of Beyond Labels.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Dr.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: Cena McKella.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm here with our favorite farmer Joel Salatin.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: And today we have a special treat because Joel just hosted the Stockman Grass Conference at Polyface Farm, and he is gonna walk us through all the gummy tidbits he learned.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Cena, you're gonna love this because there is so much uh, you know, uh livestock health and and ecological health is so closely related to human health and and all the things that we talk about on this program.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we had the distinct pleasure of having um uh what I called, you know, my my mentor gurus uh come and uh they all said yes.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I I think I expended all my relational equity to get them here, but uh they were just fantastic.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, it was held uh last week actually here.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: The we do the Stoppman Grass Farmer.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the editor of the magazine.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's the world's leading uh pasture livestock trade journal, if you will.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: And um and we we do a conference once every other year, every two years.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so um let me just give you a couple, uh, and I know we have uh seen, I know we have a lot of uh homesteaders who listen, you know, people with small acreages, people who would like to have small acreages.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and so this will this will be for people who who um everything from a backyard to you know a larger property.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it'll be very interesting.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: The first uh speaker we had was Darren Dowerty, who founded the Regrarians, he's Australian, has this wonderful bass voice and with this Australian accent, so you could just listen to him all day.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: But um he he did his kind of 10 points of regrarianism, but I'm not gonna go through all those.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: I just will say that a couple of his powerful statements.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Success is has three components.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: It has to be strategic, pragmatic, and incremental.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that was profound because I run into people all the time that are new homesteaders, they're new landowners, you know, they've finally got their five, six, eight, ten acres.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and and and they're in this this dream fantasy.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: And before you know it, they they burn out.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh some of them even lose their marriages.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and so I talked to a lady actually last week that lost her marriage.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: She said, Yep, that's what we did.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we went in with you know, everything, big plans, and got over our skis and and um lost my marriage over it.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, the the first, the first is is is being strategic.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, you're not living in a fantasy world.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta be, you gotta have an actual strategy of how you're gonna develop this place, what you're gonna do, you know, projects.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then pragmatic.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know those fluffy little Scottish Highlander cows are cute, but um, but you know, if you're in Georgia or Louisiana or Alabama, that's almost animal abuse to have a Scottish Highlander in in those kind of areas.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: So be pragmatic, you know.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh you know, you can't do everything that you want to do, you know, where you want to do it.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and then incremental, you know.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I wrote a I wrote an article once for a magazine on the joy of the journey, and just and just to enjoy, enjoy the the accomplishments, you know, uh uh day by day.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: And and you'll never arrive.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: It'll never be paradise.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're always gonna have something.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but just be be incremental.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that was really I thought that was really powerful.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um could I ask a question?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: So uh a couple of them.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: So and you can actually apply this to any business, right?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: Any any venture you want to go on, not just homesteading.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: This sounds applicable to any any journey.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: So for the strategic one, when when you yourself uh come up with your strategy, is this like one season at a time, or do you do you strategize about one season and then also about like this year and five years from now?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: Or what do you do so that like so that you are creating a strategy, but you're also not overwhelming and you're also not becoming too rigid, locking yourself in, you know.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, a strategy always has numerous time components.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, our our great big strategy is grow more soil, have more water, more breathable air, more wildlife, more diversity of species, you know, those kind of things.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's like this this kind of way out there um uh strategy.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: But then you have this, then you have this uh that that then informs your you know your your your strategy today.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so what can I do today to get more soil, to get more uh diversity, to get more water.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh and maybe I can't do all of it today, but I can do um one thing, you know, in a year.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we'll build a pond, uh, you know, whatever.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and and um and and so you so you have it, you have an objective way out there, but then you have a strategy, and your pragmatism then becomes becomes, well, what can we afford uh in time, in money, in in expertise?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and what do I have to get a consultant for?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: What do I have to get um you know, what's it gonna take me too long to learn how to do?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like we build a lot of ponds around here.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: We we probably spend on average um close to$20,000 a year with for um a week to a week to two weeks or you know, a week to 10 days of a of an excavator every year.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Now, we've got a lot of acreage that we can play with and build ponds on, but people say, well, man, why don't you why don't you just go buy one of those you know machines?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: You you do all this work, man.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know how long it'd take me to learn how, you know, and I'd turn the thing over, flip it upside down.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, we hire these guys, they come in, they they can pull lint out of your belly button with that big you know track loader thing.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and I mean the the time it would take me to learn that skill, no indeed.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Pragmatism says hire the guy that knows how to do it, you know.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and and and incrementalism, man, I've got you know, I've got hundred pond sites all around the country.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: I just drool, I I go by these values, man.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: I need a pawn there, I need a pawn, but you know what?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: We got a new one, you know, enjoy the new one, enjoy the step, and and and just enjoy that step.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a it's a it's a great, it's a great thing.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: That was my second question.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: You just touched on that with incrementalism, because this is something that I struggle with as well.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it has a lot to do with kind of contentment and feeling gratitude for what you have versus constantly looking over there and you know, like I need more, I want more, or I should be doing more.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that I mean, I can't be the only one who has that issue.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um it is some kind sometimes kind of hard to throttle back and be like, okay, I'm gonna be content, I'm gonna be grateful for what I have right now, uh, as opposed to always striving for the next thing and then exhausting yourself, or like you mentioned, getting the divorce, right?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: Coming from that tension.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: How do you how do you sit in that space of gratitude where you know you've done enough?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: How do you know you've done enough?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so well, yeah, you know, uh the old saying, uh the the farmer works from son to son, the farmer's wife is never done, or something like that.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I don't like that.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um so uh so uh we so we we we're list makers.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: We we make project lists and and and we put time with them.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, this one, so I mean yeah, just yesterday, yesterday we actually had a full staff, uh full staff session meeting, planning meeting on September.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: What are we gonna do in September?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: So so we went down all the things we'd like to do, and about three of them, we said those are low priority.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: We pushed them off into the winter.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and so so we we we we de-escalated some and we escalated some, you know.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: So now the beauty is all the team, we all know here's the top priority for the month of September.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: And these, yes, we've all we've all said we want to get this done, but that's that's gonna be after September.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and so so you you prioritize.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: And and the beauty of that is you actually do, uh, believe it or not, you actually do get way more accomplished when you say no to the rabbit holes and the racket, and you you laser focus in yes on just the things that your strategy and your pragmatism say we can do this.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: You're it's like your focus, right?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: And then you can focus the energy on it.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a rifle bullet instead of a shotgun black.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you get a lot more um uh going.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um okay, so so that's one.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then and then um there was uh there was an interesting um because he in Australia, he has learned about I think most of our listeners probably know Temple Grandon, the the Maven, the the um autistic Maven of animal behavior from University of Colorado.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: And um so there are people now in the world that are taking this a step further.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so controlling livestock.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we're in a little bit of controlling livestock here.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we're all familiar with Temple Grandon, um, you know, where you try to you try to design for for animal um instinctual desires.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's there's there's hierarchies here.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's the the least, whatever, you know, the the first level you want to do is have something that doesn't stress livestock.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Then you have what we what we call the Bud Williams approach, which is low stress, low stress livestock handling.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have uh the next hierarchy, which is stress-free, um, where the animals never experience stress.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have the final one, which is what Darren was uh trying to help us to understand, is called self-herding, where you actually have no fence and you actually use incentives to train the animals to self-herd.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to stay in this field, and you walk away and they stay in that field.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um he he didn't go into it in total, but the guy's name is Bruce Maynard.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: You want to Google him up, Bruce Maynard.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: He lives in Australia, and this is his next thing.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And what's fascinating to me is that when I was in Israel last year out on in Judea and Samaria, um, I was with those farmers, with those big flocks of sheep.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: And because they were on these 3,000 acre places, a lot of times the sheep had to walk, goodness, um a mile and a half, uh maybe two miles away from their nighttime corrals.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: They had to always come back to the corrals, and so they had they had to go out during the day with the sheep and then bring them back in the evening.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and there were no fences.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: You can't do any fences.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's a fence-free, imagine this, you know, a nomadic fence-free night corral situation.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: And those shepherds, Sina, had trained those flocks of sheep, big flocks of sheep.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I mean 800, 900 sheep in a group.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: They had trained those sheep so that they would take them out to a grazing area and they could throw a rock uh over the lead sheep, the rock, the and the sheep heard the rock and knew I'm not supposed to go past that rock.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: And they could literally, with and and and there's rocks everywhere.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the place is nothing but rocks.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you can't even drive a four-wheeler over it.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's nothing but rocks.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I stood there and watched these guys uh pick up a rock and and throw it out over the lead sheep.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: They would stop as if they hit an electric fence, and and and that flock would stay in a defined region, in a defined whatever field area, um, defined by these rocks.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it was it was just amazing.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was just amazing.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so to me, that's like this you know, self-herding hierarchy idea, but it's it's pretty cool.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um did he say it all, or do you have any knowledge of what kind of incentives are they giving them to make themselves heard?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, like make dogs treats or pets, like yeah, okay, all right.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, so like um a little patty of uh a little patty of clover hay, for example, uh just something, maybe a um uh a mineral, uh a box of minerals, something, you know, some something um some uh a molasses, a little, a little uh pat block of molasses lick, something.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I I don't know all the details, but I I'm gonna tell you, I'm I I'm gonna I'm gonna do some more sleuthing on this.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's but I I think the idea is fascinating.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, these are all primarily large acreages.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're not small acreages like we have here in the eastern U.S.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: They're you know, um, I mean, shoot, out in uh I mean when I've been to Australia, I've been to Australia many, many times, and um I've had people at my seminars, you know, well, I've got uh, hey mate, I've got uh, you know, a million acres.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: I said, a million acres?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, but that's not that big.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: My neighbor has two million, you know.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're they're they're massive, massive tracts of land.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: And they probably don't have as much grass on those as we have on a hundred acres here, but anyway.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, can you self can you teach chickens to self-herd?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Now that is an interesting question, and I have no clue.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: All I know is that this is to my knowledge, this is all be done, all being done with herbivores, with sheep, cows, things like that.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you can teach a goat either.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, goat might be a little different story.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I'm gonna sit here in my moment of glory that I stumped Joel on a homesteading question.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Finally.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I I I don't know.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: Chickens, uh chickens are a little different, different uh deal.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um let's see.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Then uh then here came, yeah.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just zip through this here because I'll get I'll get bogged down if I'm not careful.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um because it's it's just it was just so fascinating.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Then we had Michael Godfrey.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Michael Godfrey is one of the one of the top ornithologists in the nation.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: And um his main presentation was just helping us all to understand there is no grassland in the world.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you look at the um obviously the American, the Amer uh the North America, you've got uh the Pampas in Argentina, you've got the um you know, grasslands of Africa, uh, you've got the the the steppes of uh Mongolia.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um essentially there's no grassland in the world that that was not created by people.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: People created every grassland in the world.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Left to themselves, these grasslands would be trees.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and so it is the it is the actual herding, fire, the the that kind of uh interaction that has brought the grasslands.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: So his bottom line was you know, you can't have and and he's a bird, he's an ornithologist, loves birds.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: And um he actually had his his list, his list that he just rattled off the American kestrel, rough-legged hawk, the northern harrier, red-tailed hawk, short-eared owl, barn owl, loggerhead shrike, bob uh bob white quail, sage grouse, sharp-tailed grouse, upland sandpiper, barn swallow, eastern meadowlark, red winged black bird, uh pick sisal.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean, he just went the boba lake, um others, uh, the grasshopper sparrow, the hen, hens loose sparrow, um, the saran uh savannah sparrow.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um all of these, all of these are completely dependent on cattle.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um and cattle and grass farmers.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: They don't live in cropland, they don't live on corn, and they don't live in areas that are growing stuff for impossible burger and beyond beef.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: They they live in grasslands.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: And his um his point was that the the North American grasslands, what is now the US, shrank considerably between 1492 and 1600, because in that century, 1492 to 1600, 90, think about this, 90 to 95 percent of the Native population died.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: The Native Americans, you know, because of European diseases, measles, smallpox, uh, cholera, those things, between the the one century, basically between 1500 and 1600, 95% of the American population.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: So by the time Jamestown happened, in that previous 100 years, 95, just imagine, just imagine if today 95% of Americans died in the next hundred years, and the and the population in 100 years was only 5% what it is today.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: His point is that by the time the Europeans arrived in that century, the the grasslands that the Native Americans maintained with fire in order to have bison and elk and things like that to hunt had shrunk, we don't know how by how much, but had shrunk dramatically, even by the time of the Europeans.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, now it's shrunk even more.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so all of these grassland birds that I mentioned are literally struggling.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: A couple of them are on the endangered list.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: Most of them need um need about a 40-acre, about a 40-acre grassland patch to really, you know, uh make babies and and and proliferate.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so it was great just to be affirmed as a grasslander, you know, uh, just how valuable a lot of this is.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: And he closed his presentation with the most dramatic picture uh you've ever imagined of a red-winged blackbird hitching a rod on the back of a bald eagle.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it was an, I mean, he had the camera on it following this blackbird was just riding on the back of this, it was.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody was just uh what do we say, uh gob gobstruck or whatever that word is, um by that, you know, by that notion.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was really uh really profound.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: But I have a question on that.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: So if there were no grasslands, right, those were created, then did those the birds that now live in the grasslands, did they used to live like in the forest and then they adopt they adapted to live in the grasslands?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why they're there now?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: And and if so, why can't they just adapt back you know, so that they can live in the forest?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you've stumped me again.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have all the I don't have the answer to the all that.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and and there have always been grasslands.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: When I say, you know, all grasslands, the the the grasslands we have on the planet today um are primarily a man-made thing, but we know there were large grasslands.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I mean, look at the um the thawing Siberia with the great big woolly mammoths that are now thawing and they're finding, you know, grass.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they weren't up there eating trees.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so we know, for example, and he went into some of that history with the with the the mammoth and the um what's the other one?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: The uh aucum, you know, that they were like they were like uh the aura aurochs, you know, they were like huge um huge European bison.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and so there there was megafauna.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: There was megafauna around the planet, it was wild megafauna that um and and and there were a lot of natural fires.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: Even before there were a lot of human civilizations, lightning would strike, and and so there were a lot of uh natural fire, natural fires.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: Today uh we tend to not like fires, so we put them out.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so his his point was we have morphed now today to where these birds are far more dependent on man, on humans, than they've ever been because we have fire departments.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: That was that was just really, really uh cool.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then Kit Pharaoh.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Kit Pharaoh runs Pharaoh Cattle Company, he is the largest um grass-based seed stock producer in the world.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: And he has 30 herds in 13 different states and um wildly successful.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: He sells uh bulls and heifers and on in numerous, numerous sales around the around the country.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, quite an entrepreneur, great, great guy.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um so here's an interesting one.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: He said from 2017 to 2022, so that's five years, five years, 2017 to 2022, we've lost 142,000 more farms in those five years.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: So that's roughly that's almost losing 30,000 farms a year.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, uh nationwide.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: And he asked, what's the number one reason?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll ask you.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'll uh uh you're you're my guinea pig, Cena.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um what's what's the what would you say is the number one reason?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well so obviously this is kit, this is kit, this is not right or wrong, okay, but this is this was Kit's thing.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: If somebody asked you why do we why are we losing 30,000 farms a year, what would be your first answer?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, okay, the first thing that popped in my head was that the younger it's not as attractive to the younger generations to go into farming.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then I thought, I know I've heard you talk about um like a regulatory impediment, like that there's a financial impediment to getting into farming.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, and the land is so expensive now because it's getting bought up by you know by people when I won't name because I don't want to be censored.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_02: But maybe all right.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: So so you're you're uh you know, you know when you play um hot cold, you know, you're getting warmer, you're getting warmer.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: So your first response, you let's see, look, you're a you're a you I know you know how to take tests, so you always know probably your first intuition.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: So so your first response was warmer than anything you've said since.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to I want to key on that one.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not attractive for the younger generation.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the other principle of you ask you to get to the bottom of a thing, you're supposed to ask why five times.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: And by the time your fifth why, you know, you actually get to the answer.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna start with a why.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: Why is it not attractive?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so the first thing that popped in my head was because of the stereotype that we have of farmers, right?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: That that they're not as it's not as uh in a intelligent people don't go into farming, shall we say?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's what I would say.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: I could see like high school counselors saying that for example.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: I've been told that.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: I've been told that.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, to my face.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um did they know you were a farmer?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: No, when I was in high school, oh my my last, my last trip to the guidance counselor.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I'm I'm an 11th grader, and you have to go visit the guidance counselor for your final, you know, years, whatever curriculum, you know, set up your what are you going to do to senior year?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so I went to my obligatory, you know, meeting with the high school guidance counselor, and um, and and we're talking, and and um she doesn't like what I wanted to do.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, um, well, what do you really want to do with your life?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I want to be a farmer.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember it like today.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I was gonna have to do CPR on that lady.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, she just she just went ballistic uh and went into what, you know, waste all that talent, waste all that, you know, uh and and I mean I left there feeling like I was a failure.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um she she wasn't she wasn't hearing it.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was whatever, I was number four in the graduating class, I wasn't number one, but um, but you know, I was I was an honor student and all this stuff.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, people like that just don't go into farming, you know, you it's just not it's not acceptable.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: And um I I I still have a I still have a nervous twitch, you know, from that uh from that last encounter.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: And and I've talked to other young people.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: I've um I was judging 4-H speeches one year, and and a guy uh did a speech on almost an identical circumstance that he'd had.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he he was an he was a senior in high school.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: He just had the same thing happen to him.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: And this was 30 years later, you know, after me.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Same same situation.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so why you know, and I'll say real fast, that's a similar response that a lot of us get when we tell people that we're going to um quit the workforce and homeschool our kids.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: Same thing.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: I was literally told that I was a disgrace to women everywhere.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: That because I've gone and you've gotten this advanced degree, and then now I'm just gonna go home and sit at home with my kids.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, what a disgraceful thing that you could do to the feminist movement and stuff.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: And that has stayed with me, where I've always felt like, oh, I can't be quote unquote just a homeschool mom is not good enough.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's taken time to get so I I completely relate with to your nervous twitches and you know, yeah, yeah.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that was the first why, because intelligent people don't farm.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: So now my second why, second why is why don't intelligent people farm?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I would say because farming is antiquated, right?
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: That uh, especially the newer generation with you know computers and the AI stuff and all that thing, then you know, farming is something that you uh our founders did that.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's no glory in it.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's yeah, okay.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that one you're you're you're you're pushing me now.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm afraid I'm afraid we're gonna get down to another another path.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: We were going really good, but I'll just go ahead and do the third white.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: So so why is it why is there no glory?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, why is there no glory in in farming?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I for me, it would be because uh our society doesn't value farmers, and what's considered success is in mainstream at least, is typically climbing the corporate ladder, you know, having that title with job and you're still you're still in the game.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Good, good.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um so so so so the fourth why, all right.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is fun.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is actually good a good exercise in the whys.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's an axiom in in whatever in business circles.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Five whys, and you get to the actual nub of the thing.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I didn't know that.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: So so um so why isn't it considered why isn't it considered um valuable?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: You mean farming?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we don't think of farmers as successful because we see success in a different light.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: So they don't have the the suit in the corner office and the fancy car and the titles and the bonuses, and we don't value where our food comes from because we're so separated from the food supply.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, as the food it's in the grocery store.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so why?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so this is our fifth why now.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: This is the one we gotta we gotta peg it now.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: No pressure, yeah.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: No pressure.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so so it's not successful in the way the world defines success.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: So what is it about the way the world defines success that farmers don't achieve?
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: Why are they not successful in the world's eyes?
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because they are not uh this is a fill in the blank because they're not well oh I'm I'm trying to ESP to you.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: I know, I'm like uh they're not I don't know, they're not inventing new things, they're not contributing to oh I went the other way.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, let me go, let me go back this way.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because they're not rich.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, not wealthy.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: I said that.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: I said that yeah, yeah.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: I said that they don't, you know, you don't make money like they're yeah, yeah, okay.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: Versus climbing the ladder and getting the car and everything.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we got to it.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thank thanks for thank thanks for for playing along.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: So his so so his his answer, his answer, why are these farms dwindling is that it's too easy to have an off-farm job.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: And kids, kids don't want to inherit a hobby.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: They want to inherit, they want to hear they want to inherit a business.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's too easy for farmers to not treat their farm as a business because they can go to get a job in town, commute from home, and now their farm can be a hobby and not run as a business.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: So his number one answer was why are farms dwindling?
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: was the ease of off-farm jobs.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, I didn't get that.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: No, but but but you you you came at it, you came at it from the from the next generation's perspective.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's why the next generation doesn't respect the farm or doesn't want the farm is because they they don't want to inherit dad's hobby.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: They want to inherit a going concern.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, when we started here at Polyface, you know, I my my first, I mean, I wanted to to employ myself full-time and not work in town.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: Then the next thing, kids come along.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: All right, I I want to make something economically and emotionally attractive enough for them that that one of them hopefully will be interested in it.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: And we were blessed that that Daniel did um did see that.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: But um that was a that was a really cool way.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it's so easy to blame all sorts of things.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: And his point was, I'm blaming you farmers, I'm blaming you farmers for not taking this, your vocation seriously enough to be serious enough about it that you treat it like a business, you think of it like a business, and you actually you actually um achieve employment that's attractive for you and the next generation on your farm.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: He said, look in the mirror, you know, the enemy is us.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: The easiest thing is to point fingers and blame you know everybody else, uh, but the actual problem is us.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's obviously self-discovery is is pretty profound when you when you find it.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, no wonder you liked him so much.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's taking personal responsibility.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's taking totally taken it is really true because if they don't see um if they don't see it as a business, it's a labor of love.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: And farming is hard work, yeah, right, compared to checking in and out of an office, and you know, you don't have all that responsibility, you know.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it does need to be seemingly attractive.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: And and and honestly, Cena, you know, I for those of us who have an entrepreneurial streak, um, working for somebody else is hard work too.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: Me, I don't do well working for somebody else, like at all.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like I need to be my own boss, you know, like we we all knew that early on in childhood that I needed to be wild and free, you know.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: But so I will say some people do perfectly fine with that.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like we don't, which is why we're such good partners, right?
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but some people are fine with just going in and checking in to what's absolutely and and we need we, I mean, yeah, people like you and I need people who are happy to just to that's right to be to be our best lieutenants and our our best um uh sidekicks, you know.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um the Lone Ranger needs his Tonto, Batman needs his robin.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean really, I mean you it's true.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: You need you need really great seconds.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and and sometimes, sometimes the seconds are the make or break of the of the deal, not necessarily the you know, the one out front.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we're gonna run out of time.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so that's so one of the next ones was uh John Kemp.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: So John Kemp is the founder of uh Eco Ag Services.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: He's probably the number one agronomist in the United States.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: He's old order Amish, horse and buggy.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he's probably one of the few people I've met that has read more books than I have, has more books in his house than I have, and has read them all.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: And uh very, very uh sharp guy.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so just a couple things from him.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you're gonna you're gonna love this, Cena.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he said, there is no recipe for success.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: You have to consciously not have a pattern.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: How's that for an interesting take?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: You I hope you go into detail.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: You have to consciously not have a pattern.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and so so the the point of that is from a farming standpoint, you've got to do different things with different spots from year to year.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and um and change it up and realize that there are exchanges and relationships being developed in the soil and plant and animal community that are not cookie-cutter, that that are going to uh uh change from one year to the next, which is why, you know, which is why um, you know, historically, occasional fire, occasional flooding, okay, all of that was was a non-pattern.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was part of nature's non-pattern.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and and and goodness, we have certainly talked about that here, you know, how it's good for you and why lots of times you do respond in your health well to a change.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm gonna I'm gonna um you know not eat this for two weeks, or I'm gonna, you know, concentrate on this for two weeks, uh, different things.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: And and so one of the things that he brought up was the um the idea in the US of pruning fruit trees.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I know we have listeners that have fruit trees.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um fruit trees are always pruned in the dormant season.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: When do you prune fruit trees?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: You prune them in the winter, right?
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: No, no.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: Before Jan June 21, which is the summer, the summer equinox, longest day of the year, June 21, sugars, and and he made a big deal of all plants run on sugars.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: Everything runs on sugars.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: And and so in the in the before June 21 in the northern hemisphere, sugars go up into the tree and out into the leaves.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: After June 21, the sugars go down into the roots and the trunk to start creating energy reserves for the winter.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: So by pruning in the winter, you stimulate wood because you have all these energy reserves.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: By pruning in the summer, you stimulate fruit and reduce the amount of wood that's produced.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: So it was uh it was it was I was blown away because I've always pruned trees in the wintertime.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: So this was a brand new, brand new thing for me.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: And wait, so what if it is so because I always say the same thing too?
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_02: I pruned in the winter.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: So what if it fruits in the summer?
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so all right, so so what happens is in the summer when you prune, what you're doing is you're pruning a lot of fruit off, but if you prune in the summer, you have way too much fruit being produced.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if you prune in the winter, you're gonna grow way more wood and less fruit.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: Way more wood and less fruit.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: So if you prune in the summer, you're gonna you're gonna have the same amount of fruit, but you're gonna have way less wood.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so that so that the sugars of the tree are gonna go into the fruit rather than more wood that has to be pruned off in the wintertime, because that's where the tree put all its energy.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: So if I'm somebody who's been pruning in the winter and now I want to change, how would I transition that?
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_02: Just don't prune it at all and then wait until the summer, and then would you wait until something fruits and then pick off the root and then prune it?
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, you wait, you wait until June 21.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't you don't prune before June 21.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so it's on June 21, or actually, uh oh.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I might have misspoken on that.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um he just had prune in the summer.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: June 21 is when the sugar, you know, changes its direction.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm assuming you could prune, yeah, you could prune.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think he was pretty open to pruning any time in the summer.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: But when the tree has fruit on it, that's when you want to prune.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember years ago, we actually had a friend who did tree grafting.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: He did a lot, he he was he was a master, master um fruit, fruit tree horticulturalist.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and I remember him telling me, oh, you prune any time of year.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: You prune prune in the summer, prune in the you know, you can prune anytime.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: And he'd go out here in the summer, you know, and snip, snip, snip, snip stuff.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and and and and he was a master.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: So this really kind of confirmed that was really kind of cool.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and and and the the other thing that uh John Kemp said was there's two kinds of organic matter in the soil.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: One's in the top six inches, that's what we can see, but legacy organic matter is what hangs on for years and years, and it's below six inches.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, You'll love this.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: What we don't see is more real than what we do see.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and so when we go out and we see this this you know top uh six inches of of organic matter on the soil, oh wow, look at this.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: But what we but really the the legacy organic matter, the legacy fertility is below the six inch level.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: Now, here was the most fascinating thing of the whole three days.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: He puts up a chart and he shows that plants move sugar in uh in there's four there's he kind of divide the plant into four things one is biomass you know the vegetable material the the leaves and all that then one is the the bloom the the blossom okay and then uh one is the root and one is the exodate the exudate of the root okay so so we have those four parts of the plant the biomass the bloom the root and the exudates the only thing that makes legacy organic matter is exudates that's the only thing that makes and that's the the slippery slimy stuff like you go way down in the ground and you pull up a root and it's all slick and slimy that's that's that's exudate that's not actually root structure it's this slimy sheath that coats the roots down below six inches all right so listen to this perennial cool season grasses vegetable 45% bloom 5% root 40% and exudates 10% that's not very much exudate from cool season perennial grasses okay forbs weeds all right thistles cockleburr you know um chicory um um queen anne's lace um um goldenrod okay all the weeds also known as forbs all right vegetation forty five percent bloom five percent root ten percent exudate forty percent so the the the the the legacy exudate is four times as much from weeds as it is from grasses wow and warm season perennials are the same amount but the highest exudates are from what are called C4 or bunch type perennial grasses at forty five percent root exudates so the fastest way to grow soil is with warm season grasses both annuals and perennials and weeds and and and he pointed out that the old prairies the old style prairies had a tremendous number of weeds in them of forbs in them not just grasses and that's what grew those deep prairie soils of North America it wasn't actually grass as much as it was the forbes all the non-grass species that were that were developed um by the you know a lot of times by marauding huge uh herds and fire that actually pounded the prairie into an openness that allowed the weeds to proliferate wow that is so fascinating I can see why you saved this for the grand finale of this podcast that's so fascinating and correct me if I'm wrong but as I'm listening to you I'm just thinking of you know do you ever feel like the more you learn about agriculture and the food supply and health the more we keep coming to the same conclusion that in our modern culture we just have it backwards right like we're trying to kill all these weeds and they're trying to help us to create you know this great place to grow food like see you know the most common the most common question I get from homesteaders farmers you know that that that thinks I have some answers for things the most common fixation is about weeds and on our farm we love weeds cows I I moved the cows yesterday sat and just watched for 10 minutes these calves come up to these broadleaf weeds um that are some sort of fall I'm not even sure what what the name of them is they're they're a tall you know obnoxious looking weed and those calves come and very I mean right away just located them and picked each leaf they they didn't eat the the spire the you know the the thick stem but they selected there was great grass there was clover there was also stuff around and they picked every single one of those big broad leaves off of the stem of that thing one by one boom boom boom boom boom and then took the bloom off wow and and so you know we've seen this over and over and over again and so we see the Forbes as as part of that whole you know cycling of everything.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: But it was it was really cool to to hear that.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then the final one I'll mention is Dan Kittredge the founder we had him on our podcast one time the founder of the Bionutrient Association and uh they're continuing with their you know their food bionutrient meter and uh and and and essentially we can we can uh we can take a picture of stars and tell what they're made of or we can take pictures of of food and tell what it's made of by measuring vibrations through um spectroscopy um I think I'm saying that right spectroscopy yeah and um and so they're measuring a hundred different nutrients in steaks and I'll finish with this if you're familiar you know that wild meats generally the omega six omega three ratio is somewhere around one or two to one one to two to one on the six to three ratio grass fed beef they've done now 450 samples grass finished I'm sorry grass not grass fed grass finished averages about one to one so it's identical to wild like venison and elk and bison and things like that grain fed averages you ready for this eight to one wow grain fed beef eight to one so um I'm not surprised I actually thought it might be higher than that uh huh yeah so those are just some highlights of the of the the two days it was I was in heaven it was so wonderful to sit under those kinds of um really cool uh cutting I would call cutting edge presentations of kind of some of the newest science the newest things we're learning in the in the soil ecology uh uh and animal ecology of our day and and people that are actually you know actually hands have their hands dirty and are actually doing it it was it was it was pretty cool it was a good time no I love it I love it thank you for sharing all the insights and uh I even I learned a lot every time you talk I want to go out and create more and more on my homestead but I'm gonna do it strategically pragmatically and incrementally thanks to you um okay do you want to do you want to close us out with a question?
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a an acreage and I'm saying an acreage anything over one acre okay have you felt like you'll never get it to where you want it to be have you been intimidated by your your little farmstead homestead project I think that's I think that's a fair question.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I I listen Cena I think it's good I think it's actually therapeutic for us to admit I'm intimidated I think it's good I I don't have all the answers I I don't I don't and and I'm intimidated by this and I think that that's the beginning of breakthroughs when you realize you know what I'm intimidated by this now all right now what am I going to do?
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so I would is that a fair question um I love that question does your small acreage right now intimidate you okay well that was a fantastic episode thank you so much for sharing we look forward to hearing your guys' responses and we will see you next week