Latest / AG Bull / AG Squawk with Davis Michaelsen | Kris Huebsch | Otter Berry Farms

Transcript

AG Squawk with Davis Michaelsen | Kris Huebsch | Otter Berry Farms · AG Bull

0:10
SPEAKER_00: Pressure on corn, soybeans, and wheat today.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: But November beans said, You shall not pass right at 13 bucks even.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: All three ended the day well off session lows.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: Close call, folks.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: This afternoon we turn our attention northward, where my guest is farming up some fun.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: From behind the big blue, bodacious microphone of Ag Bull, your pal Davis Michelson here for Ag Squawk in the Afternoon, September 2nd.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: Glad to have you along with us today.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna veer slightly away from the markets once we get going.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh I I thought I was gonna interview 2025's Minnesota Farm Woman of the Year who runs a pick your own strawberry farm.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: That's what I thought was gonna happen.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: But as I dug deeper into what they've got going for show prep, I realized there's so much more going on at Otter Berry Farm than just pick your own strawberries.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: It's it's gonna be fun today.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: I've assembled a bit of a slideshow from their own website that will showcase I don't know, I I doubt it's gonna showcase everything, but at some point, you know, uh enough is enough.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: I think I got 10 slides.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: We're just gonna go through and talk to my guest about what what they've got going on, all the different little things that they've got going on, how they got there.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm obsessed.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, I obsessed, I don't know about obsessed.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm interested in tipping points.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: At some point you're doing something, but before that you weren't doing that something.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: And I'm curious how do you get from one uh to the other?
2:12
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna get through all of that with Chris Hubush from Otter Berry Farm in New York Mills, Minnesota.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: But first let's do cover the markets because it was it was quite the day.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: As I said, close call in the November bean contract, stopped right at 13 and said, nah, that's good.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: Before we get into it, let me uh advise you, please take your marketing by the horns with AgBull Intel.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot going on all of a sudden.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: We've got alerts that we don't just send out for you, you know, to you for no reason.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna blow up your phone until blow up and is necessary.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: A day like today where we're up, we're down, we're off session lows, all sorts of things, lots of moving parts, and AgBull Intel will keep you informed.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: Visit AgBull.com or give us a call at 855-737 Farm.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: That's 855737 FAR, followed by the letter Magbol.com.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: Let's start with the ethanol numbers.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: Ethanol production down slightly week on week, but still higher.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, ethanol stocks declined slightly, still at 25.03 million barrels.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Still a little weighty on the stocks for my liking, but we've at least got them moving in the right direction.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh production increased slightly, and we did draw down our stocks slightly.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: Other energy items, U.S.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: crude oil stocks declined sharply on the week as gasoline stocks fell less aggressively than was expected.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, up on the week, but that really translates to not down as much as the market had expected ahead of the report.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: Distilled inventories posted actual genuine gains, far outpacing expectations for another week of drawdowns.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: And I'm pretty sure that corresponds with an uptick in refinery utiliz.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: I keep doing this today.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what this is.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: I've got Tai Chi later.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's all about one side and the other side.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh, pretty sure the uh drawdown in distillate inventories corresponds with an uptick in refinery utilization.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: This for the weekended August 28.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: Now let's do talk about the markets, the tail of the ticker.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: Soybeans gave us a scare early, threatening to dip back below 13 bucks in the November contract right out of the gate.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: It looked like it was going to be gnarly like right away.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: Corn and wheat were lower as well, but everybody came off session lows pretty quickly.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: The cattle complex was a mixed bag as the session got underway with fats and feeders headed in opposite directions in morning trade.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: Hogs were resilient, scoring moderate gains early on.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: Now let me quickly mention plus 500 before we get to the settlements.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: Plus 500 T4 software keeps us apprised of up-to-the-minute real-time quotes, futures, and options, and a host of dandy features.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: Plus 500.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: Thank you to plus 500 for keeping us informed.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking at December corn futures today, settled out at 543 and a half, down two and one half cents.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: There, we're well off session lows there.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: The November bean contract ended at 13.10 and a quarter.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if we can call this confirmation or not, but dang, it feels good to bounce off 13 even.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: We're actually down seven and one half cents, but if but it feels it feels much better than that.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Bean meal was lower.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: Bean oil was lower as well.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Over to the wheats, December Chicago.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: A similar story here.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: We we ended a dime off session lows, but still down eight and a half cents, all told at 77.40.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: And the December KC wheat down 11 cents.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: Same story here.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: Off session lows at 834 and one quarter.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: The livestock futures, your fat cattle were lower pretty much across the board.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at the October down to buck 90 at 210.17 and a half.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: December at 212.02 and a half down 135 on the day.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: And then over to the feeders mixed.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: We had uh nearby's under pressure.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Some further deferred contracts were were higher by uh oh 22.25 cents, looks like out to the March.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: But the October feeder cattle contract was down a dollar two and a half at 314.37 and one half.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: And then hello lean hogs.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: The October contract up 12 and a half cents on the day.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: 83.77.5.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: December fat lean hogs, uh 74, 32 and 1 half.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: That spread looks like it's about comfortable where it's at, hovering there right around that that$9 zone, 8 and change, something like that.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: We'll have to have to keep an eye on that.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: But the December contract was up 32 and a half, and we're in positive territory all the way out to the May and beyond in the lean hogs.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay, just a few thoughts for you.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: Now I kind of put this together early this morning, but just a couple of facts.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have a few items of mild interest early on in the show.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: Ancient Romans apparently used strawberries to treat everything from depression to fever and sore throats.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: 94% of American households consume strawberries.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: According to USDA, Americans eat 3.4 pounds of fresh strawberries a year and another 1.8 pounds of frozen strawberries a year.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing: I think technically, strawberries, uh and I don't mean to I don't mean to disillusion anyone, but I don't think they're berries at all.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about it with Chris Hubush from Otterberry Farm.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: Chris Hubush, so great to have you with us here all the way from Minnesota.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: How are you today, Chris?
8:11
SPEAKER_00: Great to see you.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: I am fantastic.
8:14
SPEAKER_01: It's gorgeous weather today.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's great to be here.
8:17
SPEAKER_01: Nice break in the afternoon.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Well, and you're you're getting a break from some some action today.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, you've been out, you've you've been you've been birthing goats out there today.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm a I'm a doula today.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: Is that what they call them?
8:32
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: I just uh one of our goats had babies today.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: Of course, we're not open all of the time, we're very seasonal.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: Today happens to be one of the days in the week when we're open for raspberry picking, and I have a goat that decided to have a kid just an hour ago.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: And so it was quite the ruckus, you know, there's people here picking, and then this goat and all the things.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I ran in the house quick, changed my shirt.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: Here I am.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's that's something that just if you've got people on on the farm there who are there to to pick raspberries or to sort of be around and something like that goes on.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: Do you do you pull a curtain or do you just kind of let them, you know, welcome to the show, folks.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: Hey, no, well on the farm.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this goat was smart.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: This is her first time.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: She was behind a very big oak tree because we're outside and they're outside in their own little area, so they nobody could see.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: And she was just kind of making some noise, and I didn't alert anybody this was happening, and I could hear people in the raspberry patch, like, oh wow, those goats, oh, they're making what is going on with the goats, and just all these comments.
9:33
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, come on, goat, like, let's get this.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: And then I'm looking at my clock, like, okay, it's 115.
9:39
SPEAKER_01: I have things to do today.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: So, but it all worked out splendid, adorable little baby.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, mom and kid are doing all right.
9:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're fantastic.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: I zipped down there real fast before I came back in and turned the computer on, and yeah, everybody looks good.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: So glad to hear it.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Glad to hear it.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, I appreciate you making time for us.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: As I was saying earlier, you probably probably overheard.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: I was telling the audience, you've got an awful lot of stuff going on there.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: I want to start with a little bit of history and just inform us on on generally what your operation is is doing there, because I I think I remember you you've got some just standard conventional farming going on there as well, but you're a multi-generational dairy gal, aren't you?
10:24
SPEAKER_00: Originally.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: I I am, yes.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm a sixth generation farmer.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: I grew up on a registered Jersey dairy farm in Northeast Ohio.
10:34
SPEAKER_01: And my family still farms there.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: My brother and my dad.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: They don't milk cows anymore, but they are crop farming.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: And then I'm here in Minnesota with my husband and his family.
10:42
SPEAKER_01: We're on the original farm homestead here, is where we have the strawberry farm and our corn maize and stuff.
10:49
SPEAKER_01: And he's also, I believe, a fourth, fifth generation farmer.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: They've been crop farmers forever.
10:54
SPEAKER_01: His side of the family does corn and uh dark red kidney beans.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: So we got a little bit of everything over here in Minnesota.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you sure do.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh, one question in digging into otterberry farms, what's the obsession with otters?
11:09
SPEAKER_00: What's the story there?
11:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we are farmers, we're not marketers, and when we were trying to come up with a farm name, we were like, what?
11:17
SPEAKER_01: I think I still have a list somewhere of all of these random names that we were trying to come up with that would work.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we happen to live in Otter Tail County.
11:27
SPEAKER_01: The Otter Tale River is right down the street.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: Otters are kind of referenced in our area quite a bit, and it just kind of, I don't know.
11:37
SPEAKER_01: We stumbled upon it, we created it.
11:39
SPEAKER_01: Actually, funny story.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: The very first year we had strawberries, we actually went to the farmer's market.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: We don't anymore because we're so busy.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: People come to us at the farm.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: But the first summer we had strawberries, we had some extras one day.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: And I was at the farmer's market and I had this little sign in my little table, and it said Otterberry Farm.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: And I was in the back, and people would walk by and they'd be like, Otterberries, what are those?
12:00
SPEAKER_01: Like they were, you know, like a boysenberry or Juneberry.
12:04
SPEAKER_01: They didn't know, and so then we thought, what did we do?
12:06
SPEAKER_01: Like, this is so obviously we're not marketers.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: So for a long time we had to clear up the fact that this is actually a strawberry, not an otter berry.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, but that was actually you're jumping ahead on my list here.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: That was gonna be one of my questions later.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: Where does the berry come from on the otter?
12:24
SPEAKER_00: I guess yeah, right.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: Right.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, do you I don't I don't know.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is a completely stupid question, but no, there are no stupid questions.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: Do you are there still otters in the wild in in your area on the overall?
12:38
SPEAKER_00: Are they around?
12:38
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: Oh, really?
12:40
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: I keep asking my husband, we should get an otter.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: Apparently, they're kind of vicious, and you don't want one at the farm.
12:46
SPEAKER_01: So, anyways, but yeah, they bring out like at the county fair, the wildlife resource people like they'll bring all these different types of animals for people to see wildlife, you know, fox, mink, fowl, whatever.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: And they'll bring like an otter and have it there.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know, they're they're cute on Instagram, but I guess in real life they're not that cracked up to be.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: People say the same thing about me sometimes.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: It's true.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, when you radio thing, right?
13:14
SPEAKER_01: Like a radio broadcasting thing.
13:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: It must be, it must be.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: When you explained to me geographically where you're farming, I I thought, ooh, that's well, that's pretty good, pretty good dirt up there.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: But you said, oh contraire, dealing with some sandy soil in your locale, uh, how did that impact your and how does that impact your cropping decisions there in your local area?
13:43
SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.
13:45
SPEAKER_01: So we are near the Red River Valley, but adjacent to.
13:50
SPEAKER_01: And from since I'm not from Minnesota, but what I've been told is when the in the you know, prehistory, prehistoric times, when the ocean was there in that valley, our farmland is what would be like the beach, right?
14:04
SPEAKER_01: So you have the Red River Valley was the ocean floor, and then we're about 80 miles from there to the south and east a little bit.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: And so we are in the beach sand, and it really is sugar sand where we are here.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: But for us, that works out well for strawberries.
14:20
SPEAKER_01: They grow very well, they don't like their feet wet, they're very much like beans, they don't want to be in heavy, heavy ground.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: It helps with disease resistance and things like that.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: We just had three, we it hasn't rained all summer here, it's been so dry.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: Saturday, we got, I think, almost three inches of rain overnight.
14:37
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have one puddle in the morning, like it just filters down and it just so for the crops that we grow, it is ideal.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: I do wonder when my in-laws moved up here in the 1800s to homestead, they were in southern Minnesota, I think on really fertile ground.
14:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm not sure how they ended up here.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: I should really find that out because pre-irrigation, you know, is tough if you don't have irrigation where we're at.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: We are one of the top producers of kidney beans in the state and actually in the region, one of the largest producers because they grow so well here in this fine sand.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: Okay, um, and there's a lot of corn up here too, but all everything's irrigated.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: You've got to have irrigation.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: How many acres does it take to be among the top producers of kidney beans up there?
15:20
SPEAKER_01: Oh gosh, that's a husband question.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: He really knows a whole bunch, I would guess.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: A whole bunch.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a lot.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: It's they this the North Harvest Bean Growers, that association, uh they've got numbers on that.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, I should know that.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: No, that's all right.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: That's all right.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: Unfair question.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, it is.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: You told me we were talking strawberries.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: I didn't.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: Completely unfair question, and you're exactly right.
15:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, but it is a lot, it's a lot.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of beans up here.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: It sounds like you've got you've got plenty to do, and then you decided, oh, you know what?
15:51
SPEAKER_00: For for part of the year, we're gonna open up the farm to friends and neighbors and tourists and and all sorts of people to come and do all kinds of activities.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna try and click a button here.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm no good at clicking the buttons.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: There we go.
16:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there you go.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: Let's do start with the pick your own strawberries.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: It sounds like you've got pretty pretty ideal soil for strawberries, as I understand very shallow root depth for strawberry plants.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: We had them when I was a kid just in the garden, kind of on a small scale, but man, it was sure.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: We we used to sit out there in the summertime and just pop them off and and eat them.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: We were supposed to be bringing them in for shortcake, but uh half of them just went went straight down the tube.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: Talk to me about about strawberries.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: Did the soil impact your decision?
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Like, well, you know what we could do is we could grow a whole bunch of strawberries out here and invite people over and they could pick them.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: How did that start?
16:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like you were in our dining room when it happened because that's basically.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: I had a feeling I was getting something, you know.
16:50
SPEAKER_01: Wow, you're really good at this.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I was the county 4-H coordinator for the neighboring county, and my husband was farming with his dad and his brothers, beans and corn, and we uh were starting a little family and kind of were thinking, how could we diversify and do something just a little bit different than the family farm, just something on our own on the side.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: And he kind of stumbled across strawberries.
17:15
SPEAKER_01: There used to be quite a few strawberry farms around here, but there aren't anymore.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: And so he reached out and called some of these farmers and just kind of picked their brain and was like, Can we can I take you to coffee?
17:27
SPEAKER_01: Can I ask you some questions about strawberry farming?
17:29
SPEAKER_01: And most farmers like to chat about what they do, so you know, we went and met some of these guys, and they were in a great spot for it.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: The soil's good, the weather normally is good, and the customers are great.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: The reason that they weren't doing it anymore is because they were older, they retired, and their kids didn't want to do it, and they didn't want to sell the farm.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: So there was definitely a need for a strawberry patch in the area.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: We didn't realize how big the need or want was when we stumbled upon this.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: We planted, I believe, an acre and a half the first year, which seemed wildly overwhelming.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: Um once I got up to 10 acres of strawberries, I thought, oh my gosh, I was so naive then.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: Um but it was, I mean, they're a perennial, and so they're a completely different animal than corn and beans.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: There, it's just a completely different way of farming when you've got these perennials in the ground that you're keeping alive for multiple years and trying to get a good crop out of them with the weather and whatnot.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: But we did a lot of research, we called some of the universities, talked to a lot of farms before we jumped in, and yeah, here we are.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: It just kind of grew, and then the corn maze came about because we needed to diversify because of volatile weather, and you can lose a crop overnight.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: You get hail or a frost or something, and you don't have a crop until next year.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: And so that is a huge risk.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: And in June, up here lately, the last few years, we've had really volatile weather, you know, hail, tornadoes, straight line winds, weird stuff like that.
18:59
SPEAKER_01: And so we kind of needed to do something else just in case we had some bad strawberry years.
19:05
SPEAKER_01: So that's how we ended up in the corn maize kind of thing and pumpkins in the fall.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, I do want to keep us moving here, but sticking with the strawberries, is there a ceiling on I mean, it can't be.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: You just you plant a strawberry plant, you get it established, it's going, you start getting fruit off of it.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: That's at some point, does it need to be replanted?
19:25
SPEAKER_00: Does it kind of reach the end of its lifespan and needs to be replaced?
19:28
SPEAKER_00: I guess I'm curious about, you know, are you really rotation?
19:32
SPEAKER_01: Yes, absolutely.
19:33
SPEAKER_01: That's a fantastic question.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: And we could spend a lot of time talking about growing strawberries.
19:39
SPEAKER_01: So, bear bare bones, there's two kinds june-bearing, day neutral strawberries are the second kind.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: In Minnesota, upper Midwest, most farms grow at June-bearing strawberries.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: So that means they're going to produce one set of flowers.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: The flower becomes the strawberry, and they're gonna do that once per season.
19:58
SPEAKER_01: Day neutral strawberries are the ones that you have in your garden that make some strawberries all summer long.
20:04
SPEAKER_01: They'll keep making flowers, but not a huge flush of them at once.
20:08
SPEAKER_01: So you pick farms typically have the June ones because you can fill a pail in, you know, 10 feet.
20:14
SPEAKER_01: But the day neutral strawberries, you got to walk a whole row to fit.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: It's like, you know, you get a bowl full in your backyard.
20:20
SPEAKER_01: So most farms do june bearing.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: With them, you plant your bare roots in upper Minnesota in May, beginning of May, depending on when spring arrives.
20:29
SPEAKER_01: You take care of these things all year.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: When they start to make a flower in June, you cut the flowers off by hand that first year.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: You want them to make more daughter plants and runners, fill up your nice row, cultivate them, keep the weeds out as best you can, cover them in the fall, in November.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: Usually we say around deer hunting, cover them up with straw.
20:49
SPEAKER_01: Next spring, you wake them up, take the straw off, and then they're ready to go to make their first strawberry.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: So for commercial production.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: So that's like 14 months from the time you plant them to you get any income off of those strawberry plants.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: Then depending on your farm, it's wildly different and how you want to set it up.
21:09
SPEAKER_01: For us, we're on a three to five year rotation.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: It just depends on weed pressure.
21:14
SPEAKER_01: You know, if we've had bad winters and winter kill, how the field's looking, disease pressure, stuff like that.
21:19
SPEAKER_01: We try to keep them in for five if we can, but we're kind of in that three and a half, four year window on average the last couple of years.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: But every year, I'm always planting more strawberries because it takes that 14 months before they produce.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: So you have to be a year plus in advance of what you need.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: So, like during COVID, we were overrun because there was nothing else to do.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: And we, you know, we had, I think we had six or seven acres of strawberries at that point.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: And we could have had 20, and it would have been, it was just insane.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: But we had already planted in May before we picked during COVID, and that May planting was for our following summer.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: So you already are you're already planting before you're even gonna harvest this summer.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: So you really Committed to try to have a ball.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: Are we going more?
22:11
SPEAKER_01: Are we going less?
22:12
SPEAKER_01: Are we staying the same?
22:13
SPEAKER_01: Like you gotta, it's kind of an interesting thing.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we're kind of we're kind of averaging in that six-ish acre range.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: I think I have eight in the ground right now.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: This spring I put in four acres because we've had some really rough winters.
22:28
SPEAKER_01: So that's about 21,000 little baby plants we put in this spring.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: So for next year, then we'll be back up to that almost seven-ish eight acres.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: You're already busy with the goat midwifery that you add this labor-intensive strawberry deal to it.
22:44
SPEAKER_01: That's uh that's a that's why nobody that's why they don't do the so I I'm a firm believer because it's fantastic to see folks come out here and pick strawberries.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: It's it's like so great, they're a lot of work, they're hand labor.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: You can only run the cultivator for so long before you have to either have a hoe or you're just pulling weeds by hand, yeah.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: If you know other things that you're doing aren't working, and it's very labor intensive, and that's I think that's a big reason why you don't see strawberry farms around.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: Plus, the volatile weather can take you out, and you know, then what?
23:16
SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: Six acres is no small patch, but it's not only as I found out, not only strawberries that that you guys have your hands in out there, it's not just goats.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if you can offer some explanation for this picture.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sorry, if you're listening on a podcast with without visuals, go check us out on YouTube or maybe on on Twitter.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: These pictures are fantastic.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: Here's here's a little fella having the time of his life here.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: Explain to me what's happening here, would you?
23:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and actually, you know, this photo, it's a great photo.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: One of our customers sent it to me, but now, like looking at it from this angle on my computer, because he's like in corn, it's like a farm safety thing.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, you talk about corn bins and being in the corn in the bin.
23:59
SPEAKER_01: Like, just for some reason, I've had this photo for like two years.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden, it just dawned on me like, what the heck?
24:05
SPEAKER_01: That is not safe if you don't get an athlete corn.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, so yeah, you're gonna have to.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: People are probably thinking, What in the world?
24:12
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have to go online and see these photos, so you know what we're talking about.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: But this little kit we call it the corn pit.
24:18
SPEAKER_01: It is about, I don't know, maybe seven inches deep.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we've got boards around the edge, and it's like a swimming pool, but only seven inches deep, full of corn, and it's in a greenhouse, so it stays nice and dry, and it is full of children, full of adults.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's we put like sandbox toys in it and stuff.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: You can scoop and play.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: It's like a sensory thing, and you just get in it, and yeah, it's one of those things being in agriculture that you completely would take granted for granted, like a wagon ride, too.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm who in their right mind wants to be on a wagon ride?
24:52
SPEAKER_01: Like I did that in the Haymal, like you're not as a child, like but people want to go on a wagon, like it's these things that we take for granted every single day that you know, people that aren't in agriculture have any way to experience it are like, wow, this is really cool and unique and interesting.
25:09
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
25:09
SPEAKER_01: So this kid's having a blast, like his friend buried him, completely buried him in the corn, and his little head's just sticking out, you know.
25:16
SPEAKER_01: Like at the beach, we're at the beach, and you get covered.
25:18
SPEAKER_01: Like, if I go to the beach and my kids they're doing that at the beach, and people that live at the beach are like, Oh, you guys are nuts, you know.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: It's the corn beach, the corn beach.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: The corn beach, yeah.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: We uh well, and for what for whatever message this may send, and it's only seven, eight inches deep as yeah, shallow, very shallow.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: We're we'll be talking farm safety next week.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: So you know, we'll offset, we'll offset right.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: But it just literally dawned on me the angle of this corner.
25:43
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh my gosh, that sounds like that could be misinterpreted.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: What are we doing here?
25:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: Oh dear.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, here we go.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: I think I I think I see some goats, but there are a number of of pens here, yeah.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: And we don't have to spend a ton of time on all of these if you don't want to.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm fascinated by the by the whole deal, though.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: You got another smiling face there, and it looks like uh some sort of goat creature involved.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: That is a goat creature.
26:08
SPEAKER_01: We have some full-time residents at the farm.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: So I grew up on a dairy farm.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: I have a bachelor's from Montana State in animal science.
26:16
SPEAKER_01: So I am an animal lover through and through, yeah, even though I am a fruit farmer now and I love farming, I love tractors.
26:23
SPEAKER_01: I've got a collection of mollines, so I definitely but animals are my thing.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: So when we decided to do strawberries, we had some horses because I used to show horses and we I think we had some sheep.
26:34
SPEAKER_01: Our kids had a couple sheep, and I said, if we're having people out to the farm, this was my excuse to get more animals.
26:41
SPEAKER_01: We should have a variety of farm animals for people to see.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: Because at the end of the day, they're coming to pick strawberries or not with the cornways of the experience, but even the strawberries, they're coming for the experience and to see what a farm is like.
26:55
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, we used to have a herd of beef cows before my kids were born.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: I think we had like 70 pairs, and so we don't have anything like that now.
27:03
SPEAKER_01: I have like three cows, three sheep, just enough for people to see.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: So it's not like we're some full-fledged livestock farm, right?
27:09
SPEAKER_01: But you can still get an idea of and see these animals and pet them, and this is what their hair looks like, and this is what size they are.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: And right actually talk to someone that could answer questions about why does this one look this way?
27:21
SPEAKER_01: Why is it doing this?
27:22
SPEAKER_01: So we've got a llama, we get turkeys, we get pigs in the fall, the rabbits, yeah, which bothers me because of all the farm animals, you know, right?
27:31
SPEAKER_01: There they are, yeah, there they are, and that's my kiddos, my youngest and my oldest.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: But oh yeah, yeah, they the rabbits are what people love the most, which as a livestock farmer as a child, and in my younger days, I'm like, really?
27:43
SPEAKER_01: The rabbits, you guys go look at the pigs, look at how neat they are.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: Like, nobody cares, they want to see the rabbits.
27:49
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, you god, like, which is great, right?
27:52
SPEAKER_01: The rabbits are great, but for me, I'm like, you want to see like the little Jersey calf, that's what's great.
27:56
SPEAKER_01: Like, who cares about this rabbit?
27:58
SPEAKER_00: But well, and I see we've got just a little shot, and we'll get into it.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: I got a better shot of the corn maze in the background there.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Let's yeah, that's one of them.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh okay.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: Now this yes, this brings me to there's somebody around you, and maybe it's you who's got some pretty good freaking ideas.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: That's a gravity wagon with uh with basketball hoops on it.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: So you that's a grain bin ball, yeah.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: Grain bin ball, you shoot.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a gravity, and it sends the the ball right back to you.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: I used to have to go chasing after him.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: I never would have thought of this.
28:33
SPEAKER_01: No, I know.
28:34
SPEAKER_01: My dad put a basketball hoop up in the haymouth to trick us to be up there, but then you gotta go chase the ball, you know what I mean?
28:41
SPEAKER_00: Again with the Haymal reference, something went on there.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: That well, it's well, I don't know.
28:46
SPEAKER_01: Dairy farms, people that are in dairy, they understand, they'll know them they have the trauma, but it was the best way to grow up.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: But back to the grain bin ball, we did not invent this.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: This is if you go to any farm that does what we do, like agro tourism, um, almost everybody has them because everybody's got a gravity wagon in the woods sitting there, you know, with all the other farm implements because this is a very small box, uh gravity box.
29:11
SPEAKER_01: For ours, a lot of them they keep them up on the wheels so you can move them around.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: But we found little kids can't throw that high up above to get over.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: So we took ours off of the running gear and put it on the ground because then little kids, it's way shorter, can actually shoot, you know, like the third graders, fourth graders.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: But you know, this is an adult shooting the ball in the photo, but yeah, that's a lot of people.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: That's why our yeah, you'll see I know, right?
29:38
SPEAKER_01: You'll see uh really nice ones all painted up nice and on the running gear, and and they look really great.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: But for us, we found the little kids weren't able to get the ball over, so we just dropped ours on the ground.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: So that's a really, really cool idea.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: Now now this one shows some of the diversity of the uh the items that you're you're growing there.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: And I uh this summer, especially Chris, people people have uh become a lot more concerned about food safety.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like even if it's if it's just a touch point or they come and spend you know a couple of days out of the season coming and picking berries or or you know, these lovely squash here.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm I love acorn squash.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: I and even even interacting with the goats and the rabbits and all that sort of stuff, and the gravity wagon.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, right.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: What you're doing is you're giving people who may not, now I don't know, maybe you're kind of in a rural area area anyway, but people who may not have that many touch points with actual food production, with actual animals, with actual gravity wagons, you know, like this is the chance for them to do that.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: When we planted strawberries, you know, we were roll crop farmers, and we planted strawberries to do something a little bit different, just my husband and I, just something a little different, and we had no idea what we were getting into and kind of creating, and that's exactly what it is, though.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: It's a touch point.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: We are very rural, but we're in a touristy area in Minnesota from all of the lakes, so we get people from everywhere.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: But even the kids that go to school with my kids, a lot of them don't have a connection to agriculture anymore.
31:23
SPEAKER_01: Even if you are rural, that doesn't mean that you know somebody that has a farm, right?
31:27
SPEAKER_01: And so, I mean, for us, it's extremely important that people can come out and see where their food is grown, how it's grown, that it's different shapes and sizes.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: Food in America, when you go to the grocery store, it all looks identical in the produce aisle.
31:43
SPEAKER_01: Like, have you ever noticed all the everything looks the same because we've gotten so good at growing stuff, and then the stuff that isn't quite perfect goes into juice or jam or whatever byproduct or something else, right?
31:54
SPEAKER_01: Right.
31:54
SPEAKER_01: And consumers never see that, and so they don't know that strawberries can come in random shapes and be huge or small or bumpy or what, like, or you know, the squash that's in this photo, they don't know unless they actually come to a farm and see it in the raw, because I don't I don't call out that stuff unless it's you know like damaged bad and you can't use it.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: But you know, if it's got I don't know, I I put some out there that have like a deer bite in them, it's got one little bite, some lady's gonna want it, you know, like it's like there's nothing wrong with it, right?
32:25
SPEAKER_01: Make a buy out of it, don't worry about it.
32:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, right.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: But seriously though, people don't and how and in agriculture, how can we expect people to know what we're doing if they have no way to access it and they have no, they don't have any that information, it's just what they hear and see on the internet, yeah.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: You know, so like food safety and all that stuff, going back to that, you know, they people consumers only know what they hear and see on the news or the internet and what is being given to them.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: So if they're not able to access a farm and ask questions, I mean that's not their fault, that's our fault in the agriculture for not being open and being like, hey, this is why we do what we do.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: I farm differently on my farm than five miles away where it's heavy ground and rocky, and that's only five miles away, right?
33:10
SPEAKER_01: So, but how would somebody know that they don't they don't even have gardens anymore, right?
33:14
SPEAKER_00: Right, so yeah, let's see what we got next.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm counting one, two, three, four, five, six, seven different kinds of squashes there.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I brought one up.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: Oh, now we're getting into some rowdy stuff.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, I don't think I even because you got pumpkins going there too.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: We do about five acres, yeah.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Got a dandy pumpkin patch, looks like, but so you've got I'm seeing a kind of a greenhouse thing here in the background.
33:40
SPEAKER_01: That's where the corn pit lives, yeah.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: And you got a dandy looking musical act going there.
33:46
SPEAKER_02: There, yeah.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: That must be kind of a special thing.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, now you said you're you're only open certain times of the year.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: I see, yeah.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: We got some sweatshirts going on there.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: That must be late summer, early.
33:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is fall.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, yeah.
34:01
SPEAKER_01: So this particular photo is actually our microbrew tasting in the corn maize event.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so it's like yeah, right, it's like a pub crawl in the cornfield.
34:13
SPEAKER_01: All right.
34:14
SPEAKER_01: So that's my best way to explain it.
34:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we're this will be our fourth year doing it.
34:20
SPEAKER_01: This photo was our first year.
34:23
SPEAKER_01: In my brain, I was thinking, what could we do for grown-ups to come the very first weekend, grown-ups only?
34:29
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to have the farm completely set up because we're busy in the fall with harvest and stuff, but it would give us another week before everything has to be set for kids and the whole thing.
34:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I kind of stumbled upon a couple farms in the south and on the east doing like wine your way out and like wine tasting and different things.
34:48
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
34:48
SPEAKER_01: And we have a few breweries around us, so we asked them if they would like to do like a pub crawl in the cornfield.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: So we hired a band, we get a food truck, it's adults only, it's a ticketed event.
35:02
SPEAKER_01: It's the weekend before we officially open, but I'm pretty type A and I like things perfect.
35:08
SPEAKER_01: And so unfortunately, my week later getting things ready didn't happen because I had to have everything ready.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: So I thought if all these people are coming, how are they gonna know what their kids can do next week if it's not set up and out for them to do?
35:18
SPEAKER_01: Sure, and it turns out the adults like to be in the corn pit and go down the straw slide and all these things when their kids aren't here, so um, there they are.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: So then you ever wake up them at the tasting with a little mini beer mug, they make a pretzel necklace.
35:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the pretzel necklace thing, yeah.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: Innovations, that's what you've got going there.
35:37
SPEAKER_00: You've got some terrific ideas.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm curious.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: They find so we hide the beer in the cornfield, they get a map and they have to go find, they have to go find the breweries in the cornfield, they get a sample, they get a map card.
35:49
SPEAKER_01: If they're really into like I'm not a big beer drinker, but if you're really into beer tastings, I guess people write down like the notes and the flavors and things.
35:59
SPEAKER_01: So on the back of the map, they can do that if they want.
36:01
SPEAKER_01: I don't know that anybody does that, but then they come back out and we've got the food and the music going, you know, till late, and you know, it gets dark, and it's a lot of fun, it's a really great time.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this listen up, viewers.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna be anywhere within 300 miles of Otterberry Farm, you have got to go otterberryfarm.com.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: The pretzel necklace thing.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: Just yeah, well, you need a snack.
36:24
SPEAKER_01: This is the beer maze too that night at night.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: The lights go down and the uh the adults get freaky, sounds like we're all that freaky weird, but you know, yeah.
36:34
SPEAKER_01: We don't let them say that late.
36:35
SPEAKER_01: You live in the butt no, we do night mazes during the fall too.
36:38
SPEAKER_01: We do two other ones that are family friendly, we don't do a haunted attraction or anything like that.
36:44
SPEAKER_01: We've talked about it, but we just haven't ever got there.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: But we do a few family friendly nights, yeah.
36:48
SPEAKER_01: I you either love it or you don't, I think.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure the world is scary enough, you know.
36:53
SPEAKER_01: Right?
36:53
SPEAKER_00: It's agreed.
36:54
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so we in the fall we do two on Saturday nights and bring your kids.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: One is like music, and that's it, no alcohol.
37:03
SPEAKER_01: And then we have another one where like the local lions club comes and has a beer garden and music at the second one.
37:09
SPEAKER_01: So pick the poison, you know, whatever.
37:11
SPEAKER_01: And then you bring your kids in a flashlight, you go through the cornfield, and yeah, it's really fun.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: Wow, wow, that sounds really cool.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: But uh okay, but having said all of that, man, what a great day for families with with kids of just about any age here.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: You see, we got the pumpkins going, you got the old pickup truck, you got the pivot in the background there.
37:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean now you got a water up here.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: This is uh this is this is America right here.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: What else have we got?
37:39
SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: Now I have some questions about this corn maze thing.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: I've always wondered about corn mazes because look at the intricate design of this.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: And like I said, if you're if you're just listening to this, you're missing a whole visual experience here.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: We've got a we've got a a shot from above the farm.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: Looks like maybe from a drone or a plant.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it send up the chopper, maybe the outer chopper.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, how do you get the tray?
38:05
SPEAKER_00: Do you just plant the corn like regular and then go through with with a little map and yeah, that's blow it out?
38:13
SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.
38:14
SPEAKER_01: So every farm does it a little different.
38:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean, not a little different.
38:17
SPEAKER_01: There's a couple ways to do it with technology and corn planters.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: You can upgrade your GPS system and have all the boxes on and off and plant your cornfield that way, right?
38:29
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
38:30
SPEAKER_01: We don't have that.
38:31
SPEAKER_01: I borrow my father-in-law's corn planter, yeah, and they do you know large crop farms.
38:36
SPEAKER_01: They've got a 16-row planter, they can shut off one side or the other.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't help me with the corn mains.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: So, what we do is we plant it, we do bidirectional, so we plant it north and south and east and west.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: That way you can't see the rows, you can't see through when you're walking.
38:53
SPEAKER_01: It's like just walls of corn, right?
38:55
SPEAKER_01: So this way and this way.
38:58
SPEAKER_01: And then usually we plant a little bit late.
39:01
SPEAKER_01: So we plant a silage corn because we want it to stay green.
39:05
SPEAKER_01: This is a beautiful photo, though, with the fall foliage and stuff after.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: That's really nice.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: We had an we had an early killing frost that year in early September.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: So that's why the cornfield's that brown color.
39:14
SPEAKER_01: That's actually kind of perfect for it actually is.
39:16
SPEAKER_01: It turned out nice, but when the leaves are nice and green, they hold up better to people walking through.
39:21
SPEAKER_01: So we plant a silage corn because we're not really worried about the yield, although it does yield pretty well.
39:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
39:28
SPEAKER_01: Once we plant it, when it's about, I don't know, four inches tall, six inches, we try to go out there then.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: We're usually strawberry picking, so the timing's a little tight.
39:37
SPEAKER_01: But we use a lawnmower at the end of the day.
39:39
SPEAKER_01: We use a lawnmower.
39:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
39:40
SPEAKER_01: We have a GPS beacon we put on it.
39:42
SPEAKER_01: My husband welded a desk that he put over.
39:45
SPEAKER_01: It's a zero-turn mower.
39:47
SPEAKER_01: And so the desk he covers up because, like, if you're looking at your phone in the sunshine, you can't see the screen, you can't see a laptop computer, and you need to be able to see the path.
39:56
SPEAKER_01: So he's basically driving blind.
39:59
SPEAKER_01: There's a video on our website or internet somewhere, but he's driving the lawnmower blind through the cornfield, just watching the dot on the screen.
40:05
SPEAKER_01: Like, if you're of the generation of Pac-Man, it's like that.
40:09
SPEAKER_01: You keep it the line, right?
40:11
SPEAKER_01: You with me?
40:12
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
40:12
SPEAKER_01: When I go to schools and do like ag in the classroom, they cut they used to look at me.
40:16
SPEAKER_01: I think Pac-Man must be coming back because at first, when I would say that, they were like, What does that mean?
40:20
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, never mind, I'm from the 1900s.
40:23
SPEAKER_01: But so we use a lawnmower with the GPS, see the signal, go through, we cut it.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: It usually takes two to three days to do it.
40:31
SPEAKER_01: You gotta go real slow.
40:32
SPEAKER_01: You want to make sure your lawnmower is full of gas before you start.
40:35
SPEAKER_01: I bet because you can't just drive right out and fill it back up, and you gotta walk the maze with your gas can to fill it.
40:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:41
SPEAKER_01: Then we take the drone up.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: It could.
40:46
SPEAKER_01: Don't ask me how we know this.
40:48
SPEAKER_01: And so we take the drone up, see if we missed any spots or whatever.
40:52
SPEAKER_01: And then corn wants to keep coming back when you mow it.
40:55
SPEAKER_01: So we mow it three to four times before we open in the fall.
40:59
SPEAKER_01: The last time we mow it is basically it's just weeds coming in because all that light gets down in there on the path.
41:05
SPEAKER_01: So the last time we mow it is like the week of opening, and we just mow, you know, any little weeds that are coming through to keep it nice.
41:12
SPEAKER_01: But this particular photo is Ottertail County.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: That's an otter, that's our uh county's logo, and it there says find your inner otter in the corn maze.
41:21
SPEAKER_01: And so they were a sponsor that year and did a promotion for our county and tourism to come to our county and find your inner otter.
41:29
SPEAKER_01: And we drew him and put him in the cornfield.
41:31
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, we can and we could put anything in the cornfield, we could draw anything.
41:35
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that is that is super cool.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if I've got yeah, we're gonna move on to the weather here.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: Well, before we do, okay, and I'm and I I guess I I sort of keep uh joking around about it, but there are innovations here that you have either come up with yourself now.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: You're now you're mounting stuff to the to the lawnmower, the zero turn lawnmower, you got drones flying around.
41:59
SPEAKER_00: This this is quite the operation here.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: How long did you say you've been doing this?
42:05
SPEAKER_01: This is year 10 open to the public.
42:07
SPEAKER_01: The first we planted strawberries in 2016.
42:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then like I said, they take about 14 months before you can pick.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: So we were farming the strawberries for a whole year before we let the public come out and pick that first you pick.
42:19
SPEAKER_01: So 2016 is when we did this, planted the strawberries.
42:23
SPEAKER_01: 2018 was our first corn maze.
42:25
SPEAKER_01: After that 2018 summer, we were like, okay, we had the cornfield and we had some pretty volatile weather.
42:31
SPEAKER_01: And my husband had talked about doing a corn maze for years.
42:35
SPEAKER_01: That was one of our cow pastures, and I was like, nobody wants to get lost in a cornfield, this is ridiculous.
42:40
SPEAKER_01: Um and then after that bad strawberry year, I was like, tell me more about this corn maze.
42:45
SPEAKER_01: Like, how do we how do we what is what does that entail?
42:48
SPEAKER_01: You know, like okay.
42:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's full on diversification, is what you got going there.
42:52
SPEAKER_01: It really is, and yeah, because we do the summer, the June, beginning of July.
42:57
SPEAKER_01: If we were to have bad weather, which the last two years have been a little bit dicey for the strawberries and honestly kind of tough, then we have the fall to hopefully fall back on, no pun intended.
43:07
SPEAKER_01: But you know, we're open for multiple weekends.
43:10
SPEAKER_01: If you get one bad weather weekend, it's not the end of the world.
43:13
SPEAKER_01: You know, strawberries, all of a sudden, if it starts raining every day in June and we're only open 20 days, you know, you it's it can be tough.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: So it helps to have something else in the fall to make up for that.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: For sure.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: Chris Hubush from Otterberry Farm, Otterberry Farm.com in New York Mills, Minnesota.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: But before we move on, we're gonna begin.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: This will be phase one of the Minnesota goodbye.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't mean the show is over yet, okay?
43:43
SPEAKER_00: This is the first round.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: What's what do you want people to know?
43:46
SPEAKER_00: What's what's the big takeaway from today's conversation?
43:50
SPEAKER_00: If if my viewers slash listeners want more, they can go to otter berry farm.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: Otter, like the the little animal, otterberry farm.com.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: Just just give us one last little nugget to take home with us.
44:07
SPEAKER_01: Oh that's That's like a loaded question.
44:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm putting you on the spot.
44:11
SPEAKER_01: I know.
44:12
SPEAKER_01: And now that I'm a Minnesota transplant, I could take a nugget forever.
44:18
SPEAKER_01: I don't, I think for us and for our farm, we kind of didn't realize what we were getting into when we did do this diversification from the traditional row crops.
44:28
SPEAKER_01: And honestly, it's been the best thing.
44:30
SPEAKER_01: And being able to welcome the public out to your farm and chat with people.
44:35
SPEAKER_01: It's really, I'm an introvert at heart.
44:37
SPEAKER_01: My husband is the extrovert, the blue sky.
44:39
SPEAKER_01: Let's do all the things.
44:41
SPEAKER_01: And I really do love chatting with people and having them out and just you know, letting people know what we're doing and why we're doing it at our farm.
44:50
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of the same if your kids are in 4-H or you go to the fair and someone walks through the barn and you can talk to people if they do happen to ask you a question.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: And I just think that helps with misinformation and stuff like that.
45:01
SPEAKER_01: And if you're not opposed to welcoming people out to your farm, it doesn't have to be like what we do, which is multiple days, you know, just do a weekend, or even, you know, there's a breakfast on the farm nearby us that they go to different farms every summer.
45:14
SPEAKER_01: It seems like a daunting task, but it is really rewarding and it's really awesome to be able to connect with your community.
45:21
SPEAKER_00: I would like to check in with you after this season, maybe sometime in December when it's much, much too cold to be fiddling around strawberries in your area.
45:31
SPEAKER_00: Does that does that sound all right with you?
45:32
SPEAKER_01: For sure.
45:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we'll do I'll do a video call outside if the camera works, and you can see the icicles on my eyelashes as well.
45:38
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that'd be great.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: The authenticity, you know, that's what I that's what I love.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, you mentioned you mentioned the weather, and here's phase two of the Minnesota goodbye.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: Um you you mentioned the weather up there.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: Sounds like a beautiful day today.
45:54
SPEAKER_00: Tell us about it.
45:55
SPEAKER_00: Looking out your window there, what do you got?
45:57
SPEAKER_00: Sunshine and oh, yeah, it's gorgeous, sunny.
46:00
SPEAKER_01: I believe it was in the 80s when I checked my weather station.
46:03
SPEAKER_01: It was supposed to be low 80s today, light wind.
46:06
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be raining kind of south of us a little bit.
46:09
SPEAKER_01: We need some rain badly.
46:10
SPEAKER_01: Actually, everywhere up here, I believe, needs as much rain as we could get.
46:14
SPEAKER_01: So if you have any, send some our way, please.
46:17
SPEAKER_00: Actually, no, we are horribly dry.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm in I'm in Metro KC.
46:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm an Iowa boy, but I transplanted, fell in love with the city and the girl.
46:26
SPEAKER_00: And uh now I'm in Kansas City, but uh 97 degrees.
46:30
SPEAKER_00: We got heat advice.
46:32
SPEAKER_01: 97 where you're at right now.
46:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was a hundred yesterday.
46:35
SPEAKER_01: Um in Minnesota, we say oofta.
46:37
SPEAKER_00: Oofdah is right.
46:39
SPEAKER_01: I still say that down here.
46:41
SPEAKER_01: I know, right?
46:42
SPEAKER_01: Oofda.
46:43
SPEAKER_01: That's tough in September 97.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, according to the National Weather Service, Edward will continue to bring gusty winds, heavy rainfall, and a flash flood threat over parts of eastern Texas.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: Severe thunderstorms and heavy rain are possible across portions of the eastern Great Lakes to the mid-Atlantic today.
47:01
SPEAKER_00: Severe storms are also expected across the northern Rockies.
47:05
SPEAKER_00: Dangerous heat persists over central and eastern states through Friday night.
47:09
SPEAKER_00: That's that's where I'm sitting.
47:11
SPEAKER_00: And uh before I I completely cut you loose, phase three, final phase of the Minnesota goodbye.
47:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh Chris, I would like to uh I'd like to run some items of mild interest from history by you, if I may.
47:27
SPEAKER_00: Could we do that?
47:28
SPEAKER_01: All right, yeah, let's do it.
47:30
SPEAKER_00: On this date, September 2nd, uh 1666.
47:34
SPEAKER_00: That's too many sixes in a row for my comfort.
47:37
SPEAKER_00: 1666, the Great Fire of London destroyed more than 13,000 homes, along with St.
47:45
SPEAKER_00: Paul's Church in 1946.
47:48
SPEAKER_00: Obscure reference here, but I'm a piano player, a musician.
47:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's the birthday of Billy Preston, American singer, songwriter, pianist, and actor.
47:57
SPEAKER_00: He did a bunch of keyboard work for the Beatles later albums, almost became the uh the the fifth Beatle.
48:03
SPEAKER_00: This one, this one I think you'll you'll maybe know.
48:06
SPEAKER_00: It might be before your time.
48:07
SPEAKER_00: Although, if you're from the 1900s, you'll know this guy.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: 1964, it's the birthday of Keanu Reeves.
48:14
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, Lebanese Canadian actor, it says about him.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: And actually, I've got kind of a touch point here.
48:20
SPEAKER_00: This is from Point Break, and I show this off every chance I get.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: But here's my autographed point break.
48:25
SPEAKER_01: Is that Chris Christofferson?
48:27
SPEAKER_01: No, who's that?
48:27
SPEAKER_01: No, now I zoom in.
48:28
SPEAKER_01: Okay, hold on.
48:29
SPEAKER_00: Patrick Swayze, yeah, it's Patrick Swayze, and Gary Busey signed it to Davis.
48:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm very proud of my autographed Gary Busey.
48:38
SPEAKER_00: Look at you.
48:39
SPEAKER_00: Wow, yeah.
48:39
SPEAKER_00: I show it off whenever I can.
48:41
SPEAKER_00: All right, and one more thing.
48:43
SPEAKER_00: We like to do something that's completely unfair to our guests.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: It is the uh the Ag Bull injustice.
48:50
SPEAKER_00: And the idea is that I'm gonna throw something at you that I would not have been able to answer myself had I not looked it up on the interwebs.
48:57
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so it's it's completely unfair.
48:59
SPEAKER_00: That's what makes it.
48:59
SPEAKER_00: So it's fair.
49:00
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
49:00
SPEAKER_00: It's an injustice, it's absolutely unfair, but here we go.
49:04
SPEAKER_00: Minnesota's involved with this.
49:06
SPEAKER_00: Oh no, the year is 1901.
49:08
SPEAKER_00: Okay, then vice president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, used a famous phrase, possibly for the first time in public, at the Minnesota State Fair.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: This phrase involves a stick and speaking softly.
49:29
SPEAKER_00: Can you quote the phrase from Teddy Roosevelt?
49:33
SPEAKER_00: A stick and speaking softly.
49:37
SPEAKER_01: You know, I should be able to, and I know what you're referencing.
49:42
SPEAKER_00: You wanna you wanna try?
49:43
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know.
49:44
SPEAKER_01: It's isn't it like walk soft?
49:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
49:48
SPEAKER_01: It's like walk softly on uh can't we do like two birds in the hand is better than the I think that's close enough.
49:57
SPEAKER_00: I think that's close enough.
49:58
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna give you credit.
49:59
SPEAKER_00: Credit awarded, absolutely.
50:01
SPEAKER_00: Speak softly and carry a big stick.
50:04
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, right.
50:05
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, he said that at the uh the Minnesota State Fair.
50:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for letting me exploit you just a little bit.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, I put you on the spot, though.
50:13
SPEAKER_01: It's a little pressure right now.
50:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, everybody's bought, you know, it's okay.
50:18
SPEAKER_00: It's okay, it's supposed to be unfair.
50:20
SPEAKER_02: It's supposed to be all right.
50:23
SPEAKER_02: Very good, very good.
50:24
SPEAKER_00: Chris Hubush from Otterberry Farm.
50:26
SPEAKER_00: Seriously, gang, anywhere within 300 350 miles.
50:31
unknown: Yeah, right.
50:31
SPEAKER_00: Otterberry.
50:32
SPEAKER_01: There really are a lot of fun little towns around us to back in on and see all these cute little rural towns and places to stay.
50:38
SPEAKER_01: So definitely make a road trip.
50:40
SPEAKER_01: It's fun, it'll be you'll enjoy it.
50:42
SPEAKER_00: A slice of America, indeed, otterberryfarm.com.
50:46
SPEAKER_00: Chris, thank you for spending some time with us.
50:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna I'm gonna call you back on the other side of the season.
50:51
SPEAKER_01: Are you percent doing?
50:53
SPEAKER_01: Yes, for sure, for sure.
50:54
SPEAKER_00: Outstanding.
50:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you, beloved viewers, for watching today.
50:58
SPEAKER_00: Hope you had a good time.
50:59
SPEAKER_00: We had a little slideshow, had a little bit of fun.
51:01
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we can catch you up on the markets and the things you need to know on that side today and every day at agbol.com.
51:07
SPEAKER_00: Take your marketing by the horns with Ag Bull Intel.
51:10
SPEAKER_00: Visit Agbol.com or give us a call at 855-737 Farm.
51:15
SPEAKER_00: And of course, thanks to Thanks to Trade the News for keeping my whole squad on top of what's moving the markets.
51:24
SPEAKER_00: News you can trust, news you can use, use news you can use.
51:28
SPEAKER_00: Trade the news for news you can use.
51:30
SPEAKER_00: Jed said, Well back first thing in the morning to get you ready for the day.
51:34
SPEAKER_00: And I'll actually talk with my Ag Bull homies about this week's crazy market action tomorrow afternoon on Ag Squawk.
51:42
SPEAKER_00: Be with us, everybody, won't you?