Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / LIVE December 2025 Replay (Traning Pullets, Handouts, Kids and Electric Fence, and MORE)

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LIVE December 2025 Replay (Traning Pullets, Handouts, Kids and Electric Fence, and MORE) · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome everybody to yet another uh Beyond Labels live stream here in December, almost to Christmas.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: And uh thank you for everyone for being here.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um as always, if you want to ask, uh today actually we just have Joel with us today.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Cena is preparing tirelessly for a uh very important interview uh for the podcast, and uh so she is uh hitting the ground with that, and uh which is super exciting, and uh stay tuned.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's very uh very high profile.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really, really cool stuff.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um anyhow, we are going to be uh uh going ahead with questions for Joel today.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: So if you have any questions for Joel here on the live stream, go ahead and raise your hand digitally, and uh we'll definitely prioritize the uh uh the live stream questions, and then uh, you know, as those uh as we get through those, we will go ahead and go to the email and Discord.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: So um I'll kick things off real quick with uh an email question and then we can go from there.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Joel, are you uh ready to roll?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, I am.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: All right, very good, very good.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so this is an email question coming from Tiff.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: So the uh she has two questions.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh one is how does Joel put his pullets in the feather net and get them to know it's their new coop without a door?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: And does he clip their wings?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the the first part of that question.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then the second is when breeding his own chickens, how does he make sure he has enough hens and does he process the roosters along with the meat birds?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I read somewhere that he does breed some of his own chickens, but I cannot find where I read that.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_05: All right.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_05: Uh well, uh let's start, let's start at the top.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_05: Uh the pullets to the feathernet.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_05: So um so I I I think this is maybe confusing the feathernet with the eggmobile.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_05: And so let me let me explain the two different things.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_05: The eggmobile is a is a portable hen house on rubber tires, uh, that that can go long distances, stays behind the cows all the time.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_05: The chickens are actually free-ranging out from that.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_05: They can go as far as they want and uh and and come back to it.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_05: How we train them to stay there is number one, we never put a chicken in the eggmobile that's not laying, because it's the laying that makes them want to come to that.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, we have tried pullets, we've tried cockerels, uh, we've tried other kinds of things, and and if they're not laying, they're too whatever, rambunctious, or they're you know, the the nesting instinct is not strong enough to make them want to come back to the egg mobile.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_05: And so they wander and they wander extra far and get lost or picked off by a predator or whatever.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_05: So, so the uh the eggmobile, we only put egg layers in there.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_05: When we put them in, uh we put them in, we lock them in for one day.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_05: They're not happy, they're crowded, they're cramped, they're upset, but they're not happy.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_05: But we need them, like you're suggesting, they need to know this is your new quarters.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_05: And so we need them to eat in there for a day, drink water in there for a day, and lay in there for a day.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_05: That's the main thing, so that they they know here is here are your nests.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_05: The next morning, first thing break a day, we open the doors.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_05: They can go out.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_05: They go out a little bit furtively, obviously, at first, but they're pretty happy to be out of their cramped quarters.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_05: Well, along about uh, you know, 10 o'clock, old chicken starts feeling something going on there behind, says, let's see now, where did I lay this egg yesterday?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_05: She's trying to figure it out, you know.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, oh, it was up in there, wasn't it?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_05: So she goes back up the ramp and finds a nest box and lays in there.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_05: And um, and the point is to try to that first day out have them go up and down the ramp, you know, three or four times, uh, just in the course of the day, so that they get used to it.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_05: All right.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_05: It starts to get to the end of the day.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_05: About a half hour before dark.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_05: So earlier is better, but anyway, you know, before it gets dark, we go out with some long like uh bamboo poles or something, probably wearing uh we normally wear uh rain, rain uh gear.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_05: Because we're gonna climb, we're gonna crawl under the eggmobile and not allow the chickens to settle for the night under the eggmobile.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_05: Look, they're smart enough to know that they don't want to settle down out in the field because a raccoon, fox, something's a great horned owl is gonna pick them off.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_05: But they're not smart enough, all of them, to figure out it's safer to go up inside there than be out here.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_05: And so the first night, the first night, um, you know, you have to you have to not let them settle down underneath.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_05: And as it gets darker and darker, they're gonna, you know, gradually want to go in, but about a quarter of them won't.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, if we're training, if we're training 600 birds, um 150 of them will not go in.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_05: They're just, you know, they're not that smart.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_05: And um, so we have to catch them and put them in.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_05: The second night, maybe 5% won't go in.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_05: You have to catch those again, put them in.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_05: Third night, maybe one or two don't go in, you put them in.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_05: Fourth night, whatever's out comes to the racking house and goes to jail.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_05: Uh they're untrainable or you know, whatever, they're they're incorrigible.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and and uh and once once they're trained over those four days, you know, you you've got them for the season.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_05: If you happen to miss the first night, if you happen to miss the first night, you will just buy yourself a week of training.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_05: So, parents, let this be a lesson to you.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_05: It's the early training that makes the difference.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_05: If you want a happy 16-year-old, do your due diligence as a two-year-old.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_05: All right.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_05: And uh, and so it's the early, it's the early training that's so critical.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_05: So that's the egg mobile.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_05: The feather net, which is completely open, we don't do any training at all.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, they just they just um you know they feel comfortable there and and they just go under the A-frame and and go into the roosts, and they're perfectly happy.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_05: Because there's you know, there's no random, there's there's not it, it's it's a much more open situation.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_05: Their protection is not the walls of the Eggmobile, it's the electric feather net going around them.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_05: We do not clip their wings, and I can assure you that was my biggest surprise when we started the with the uh we we use premier premier one um poultry netting, and I couldn't believe that they didn't jump over.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_05: But here's the deal that netting, there's a lot of uh chicken psychology in it.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_05: It's a variegated color.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_05: You'll notice it's never one color, it's black and white, uh yellow and black, uh red and white.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_05: It's variegated, and the variegated color actually keeps the chickens from being able to focus on it.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_05: So it appears fuzzy to them, or it appears, you know, it's not something they can focus on.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_05: As a result, they don't try to jump over it because they really don't know where it ends, what it is.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_05: They it it's just kind of it's just kind of there.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_05: And so uh so no, we we don't we don't clip their wings now.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_05: Once in a while, you know, you got a thousand birds in there, yeah, there'll be one or two that you know that turn roguish.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_05: Well, they either get with the program or they end up in somebody else's um uh some fox's dinner, you know.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_05: That's that's what happens.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_05: All right, now the breeding.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, so we have 12 years, well, I don't know, 12, 13 years ago, it's been a while.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_05: We began breeding our own layers, not the broilers, not the meat chickens, only the layers.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_05: And at the time we were you we we were kind of um uh cycling our batches between black Australorps, Rhode Island Reds, um Bard Rocks, New Hampshire Reds, and so we just simply started breeding our own.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_05: We saved some cockerels and we bred our oldest hens.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_05: Our only question was are you old, healthy, and productive?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_05: And we've been doing this now 14, 13 years or so, and um and it is it is fantastic.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_05: We're now selling nationwide fertile eggs.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_05: You can buy four dozen and uh hatch them and uh incubate them and hatch them yourself, and um and uh they're they're just they're just great.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_05: After these many years, these birds are bigger, they're smarter, they're more docile, and they're just hardier than anything we've been able to find in um in hatcheries.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_05: So they are now generations removed from you know GMOs, generations removed from, I mean, they they're they're generations selected for docility, for pasture-based, you know, that sort of thing.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_05: Takes one rooster per hen.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_05: And uh so at the end of the season, we save back a bunch of the last hatch of the year.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_05: We save back the roosters, we put them in the hoop house over winter, and uh so they're they're very young now, you know, they're they're coming on uh whatever, 15, uh, 14, 14 weeks old now.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, maybe three, three months now, yeah, probably, since we we hatched the last ones, and they will fight.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_05: Now, don't tell the animal welfare people about this, but they fight and they sometimes even kill each other.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um But this is the way that we get the most vibrant genetics into our breeding stock.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_05: And um, and so the the the nicest, prettiest ones in the spring uh join the hens at uh at one rooster to ten hens, and um they do the job.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_05: And then we butcher the we butcher the the ones that didn't make the cut.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_05: So uh I hope that answers the question and um um you can be up and running.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: All right, awesome.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh let's go over to Stephanie.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Stephanie, go ahead and uh ask your question.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: We just want to say thank you so much, Joel.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: We've been eating your chickens exclusively for two years now as our as a family and learning everything we can about uh raising chickens in our layers the way that you do.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so we have a question about the broilers.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the first question my kids came up with was what is the breed we're eating?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: And the second one is do you butcher them like cyclically, like all season, or do you have one time of the season and you butcher all of them and that's what we're eating, you know, like in big freezers to basically stop bottling them up.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: And as we get our farm order, um, we're up here in the Purceville area.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: So we just really thank you for doing that.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: And we really look forward every month to our pickup, and it's just a huge part of our growth as a family to be able to get polyface food.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you for everything you're doing.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: And my three-year-old has named the polyface pork sticks, piggy sticks.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: So we call them piggy sticks.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: You might want to use that.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's really catchy.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_05: I love it.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_05: Piggy sticks, yeah.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, piggy sticks.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_05: I like it.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_05: I like it.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_05: Well, they are they are to die for, aren't they?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, they um uh you you can you can uh consume a great quantity of those pretty quickly, but they are very set very uh satisfying.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: They yes, I have to ration them for the children and hide them.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, okay.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_05: So so our uh broilers, we use the Cornish Cross, which is the industry standard.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_05: It's the it's the normal industry standard.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_05: And when you read people the top, all those chickens won't walk, they don't do anything.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_05: No, no, these are extremely um uh they they're they're quite viable.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_05: And um, they get around, they walk, they now they they do grow very fast.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_05: They're not a heritage breed, but they are because of the uh Cornish Cross, they have a big, you know, as a big uh double breast.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_05: They've got they're very meaty and they grow fast.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so yeah, they're the they're the Cornish cross.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_05: And we raise them.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_05: We so essentially we start a batch.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_05: We this year we raised nine batches roughly three weeks apart.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_05: So we're getting we're getting um you know 3,000 chicks in every three weeks, once every three weeks.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_05: That way we can start a whole batch at once, and and um and then and then that batch will be butchered over the course of a three-week period.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_05: So the biggest ones will do it six weeks, the medium ones at seven, and the slower growing or the the the the pullets, you know, the smaller ones, uh, we give them up to um nine weeks.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_05: I'm sorry, did I say I'm I meant seven, eight, and nine weeks.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_05: The point is that um that if we pick and choose through and select the way they're growing, uh, we can take that that single batch and spread it over a three-week period so we don't have to start chicks every week.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_05: And um, you know, that's part of uh part of home economics is you know combine tasks and you know do like things together.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_05: And so uh so we raise we raise nine batches this year, three weeks apart.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_05: Obviously, in the winter, we depend we we do have we do have very large freezers, and uh we freeze thousands and thousands of chickens to take take us through the the winter period.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Very good.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for your question.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we're gonna hop over to the chat real quick.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is from uh Douglas.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he was asking about Joel, are you aware of the spread of H5N1 to dairy cattle?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what are your thoughts on this issue, given that the government's current attitude towards infected livestock is to cull them?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, well, all disease is human-cause that's a bold statement.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_05: But every single disease is caused by human mismanagement.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_05: Now, the mismanagement can be a lot of different things.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_05: It can be picking the wrong uh dam and sire, it can be uh lack of sanitation, it can be um, it can be stress, uh, you know, uh uh too tight, you know, not enough room to move around.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_05: Uh it can be social stress, you know, um uh too big a group.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_05: It can be um uh stress from being too dark or too hot, too light, or too cold or too wet.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_05: Uh there are it can be dietary, you know, not enough nutrition in the in the diet.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_05: So there's a lot of things that enter into whether an animal will get sick or not, but the default position of nature, and I think you know, Cena and I, we have said this over and over again, our position is that nature's default position is wellness.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_05: That's nature's default position.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_05: And if something is not well, we messed something up.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_05: And um, and so yeah, the whole uh bird flu, here we are heading into winter, and there's already been a couple turkey flocks in North Carolina that have just been uh exterminated.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_05: I do not agree with extermination.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_05: If there's one thing, if there's one thing that you know as a livestock person, when there is an outbreak and you have survivors, the one thing you want to keep in the genetic pool is the survivors.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_05: You don't kill the survivors.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_05: And uh just so everybody knows, there's not a single flock on the planet, not one on the planet, even in the most virulent bird flu outbreaks, where every bird got bird flu, even in flocks of 20,000 that there were only 200 survivors, you know, that's a that's a a 1% you know survival rate.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_05: But those 1% birds, think how valuable they are.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_05: Those one the that 1% of the birds could be bred, you know, and and and pretty soon you'd you'd build you'd build um you know strength, genetic strength uh against the bird flu.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_05: But instead, our official policy is to exterminate, annihilate, kill all the survivors, everything, and never give the survivors a chance to pass on their genes to the next generation.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_05: That is is criminal.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_05: That is absolutely criminal, and it is still the ongoing policy of the USDA.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_05: So um, yeah, the the outbreaks are breaches of breaches of management etiquette and the the extermination policy is criminal.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go over to Catherine.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_07: Hi there.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_07: Um thanks again for doing this.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_07: Um I have two questions.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_07: One of them was really for Dr.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_07: Cena, but since she's not here, I'll just throw it out there.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_07: And then the question that would be more directed at Joel.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_07: Um in Idaho, we're required to vaccinate our heifers go quite enough um for bercilosis.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_07: And I'm just we had a conversation with a state vet that was kind of concerning as a raw milk producer about it.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_07: So it just made me start asking questions about the actual injection.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_07: Um it is up on the list to be an mRNA vaccine in the future, which I don't know, it's just concerning.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_07: But the specific question for you, Joel, was your book, Folks, This Ain't Normal, was really my eye-opening experience.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_07: And one of the things that you talked about in there was like you never took grant money or anything because you never wanted anyone to be able to come back and say, Hey, I saw that you took this money.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_07: Um, and recently my husband found the site of all the businesses you can search by zip code that have took these like COVID handouts.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, I think it I think PPP, I think is what it was called, or something like that.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_07: And it was incredibly distressing.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, just people that we know that never shut down their businesses.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_07: Um people that we like did work for for free as a because someone was sick with COVID, and it turned out they took$750,000.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_07: Like I mean I mean, it was almost I people that it it was incredibly distressing.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, so as consumers in the industry, my husband's in, he's like, well, now I know who to support.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_07: So it's when you've had this mentality of, you know, don't take it, and you know, you've talked about people that want to have greenhouses granted by the USDA and somebody said don't do it, don't go down that road.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_07: Um this was I had no idea how many people were looking for a handout.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_07: I had no idea.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_07: Like I've heard people, you know, they've got a greenhouse or they had trees planted, or whatever.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_07: This was beyond anything I could have imagined.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_07: And just wondering if you could comment on this, if you've seen a real uptick in this, um, or I mean it just doesn't surprise me that things don't change when you you see actually what people are up to when they thought nobody was gonna find out.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I mean, we've we've created this um uh this this uh nanny state situation in our in our culture.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um and uh uh I mean uh from from even that COVID was a government issue.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_05: I mean uh uh in my view there shouldn't even be uh centers for disease control.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_05: We just just let the let people make their decisions and and go with it.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_05: But but the meddling, the intervention from the government and the the incentivized uh the incentivized grant money has has uh you know shackled people to this um this mentality that you know nanny state will take care of you.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_05: And and I think I think that that actually creates a I've just invented a new phrase in the last two days.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_05: I'm working on a new book.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_05: Um and I'm uh what am I, one, two, three, six, finished chapter six today.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so it's um uh the the title is Food Emancipation.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_05: And um I invented a phrase for that.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_05: It's called um decision deficit disorder.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_05: Decision deficit disorder.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that the safety net, the the the quote unquote safety net has become uh has become a ball and chain uh in in many ways.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_05: And and we've got a safety net now for everything.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_05: You know, you can you can make any stupid decision and somebody will come and fix you.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and we've got a government program for that.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_05: We've got a government program for that, you know, to fix you.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_05: And and so what it does is it makes our decision muscle atrophy.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_05: Because we don't have to suffer for the consequences of our decisions.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_05: And so um so yeah, well, I'm I'm I'm I'm glad you uh I'm I'm sorry that you uh uh well I'm glad you discovered what you discovered, but believe me, it's it's uh it's uh ubiquitous in the culture, and our problem is that we you know the federal government throws money it doesn't have, it just goes and prints it and makes it val valueless and sends it around to all sorts of people with their hands.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_07: It's a bribe.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, it's it's terrible.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_07: Um is it is it getting worse in your experience?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_07: Like I mean, it's it's subsidy program is one thing.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_07: And then, you know, from what I saw was it was they'll pay for my fencing, you know, they got big acreage, I want the fencing, or I want uh I want a bridge built, or I the greenhouse one is really popular out here.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_07: Um, you know, people that take the money for homeschool.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_07: Um not re I mean, maybe they do realize, but then they're counted as part of the public school program.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_07: Like so is it is it just because there's more things available, or are you is it a mentality you're seeing in America that's shifting to take more and more?
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_05: Right, yeah, I I think it's both.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, obviously if it weren't available, people wouldn't take it.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_05: And so it'd be it becomes a self-perpetuating thing.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_05: Uh you know, right now, uh I you know, I'm way over eligible for um, you know, for Medicare, and I'm not taking my deserved Medicare because again, I'm just I'm just adamant that and who knows how many you know thousands of dollars I paid into Medicare over my lifetime and um and I'm not taking because I don't want the government to tell me you know what doctor to go to and and and what to use and just stay out.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_05: I'm I'm I'm blessed.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um just give the I'm I'm thankful that we've been able to we've scrimped and saved and and have you know built a business here that can take care of us and our old age.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_05: And uh that's but that's that's um that should be an option for everybody.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_05: Why uh it seems to me like if I say I don't want it, it seems to me like the government should uh should give at least half of it back to me, you know.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_05: I'm I'm I'm not I'm not saying you gotta give it all because because that decision there there's a there's a you know a time value of money and I you know they had it and and they expected me to use it and all that.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_05: I I get all that.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um course, I mean I don't think there should be any Medicare, but anyway, there now we've got another whole different discussion.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_05: But uh the fact is the government has just poked its nose into way, way too many things, and and people people continue to ask for more, you know, for more uh more help.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_05: And um it's it's part of what's you know straining and ruining our country, in my opinion.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_07: So So as a Christian, how do you deal with that?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_05: Deal with what?
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_07: The frustration with your neighbors, um people making poor decisions and then complaining about high taxes or high property taxes.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, right now it's just like you took$35,000.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_07: Like I, you know, like what do you where do you think that comes from?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_07: Like it's how it's just but I think there's so you can we can get angry about it.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_07: Um, you know, God's in control, all that.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_07: But how do you spiritually?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, I know it's it's one thing when people are, you know, they're the diabetic is asking for prayer requests, you know, and you know how they eat, you know, but then then it this is like another shift.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_07: Like, how do we spiritually deal with this world that's making these bad dis decisions?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, well, um what one way I deal with it is um is writing.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I I can write articles and books, that's one of their things I'm doing right now, you know, is trying to uh uh try to deal with these things.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_07: To quiet the voices in your head.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_05: But but listen, you you can't you can't nurse it.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_05: You can't nurse it or it'll just eat you up.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_05: And and you'll just get frustrated beyond anything.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_05: And so uh so if you want to if you want to make a list of things to be frustrated about, you can, but at the end of the day, you need to um you need to just devote yourself to disentangling from the system and creating hope and help when everything else is hopeless and helpless.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_05: And that that's that's the way we touch it in a positive way.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_07: Thank you.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_07: Thank you.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_04: Good.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: All right, let's go over to Vern.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Vern, go ahead and ask your question.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, thanks.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_04: So um basically, I live in Nebraska, and I've kind of interacted with your channel before.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_04: Nebraska is, I believe, is the number one agricultural state in the nation.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_04: We have, you know, just tons of corn, soybeans.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_04: And then out west, we, you know, where it's drier in the sand hills, we have lots and lots of cattle.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_04: Um I've the numbers that I saw from the Lexington um beef processing plant that's gonna get shut down by Tyson were just staggering.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_04: I don't remember.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_04: I think you might have commented on the numbers, but but we do a lot here.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_04: So and uh so um I guess my my main concern, and I've brought this up I think in your last meeting about nitrate poisoning.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_04: And and I'm not saying that this happened yesterday.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_04: I know this happened over probably many decades of you know over fertilization, and then and then I know that there's there's uh we well our governor is a hog farmer and and he's got to get rid of his sewage one way or another.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_04: And I know from one of my wife's relatives that um that uh animal sewage is one way that you fertilize field, but it takes longer for it to break down, it can wash into watersheds, and then you end up with with more nitrate poisoning.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um and and you know, I hear your message that you want to try to separate from the government and be independent, but at the end of the day, the farmers are part of a community, and we have cities, you know, like the city I grew up in was Grand Island.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_04: Uh nearby is Hastings, Kearney, North Platte.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_04: Those are all cities that are kind of near the Platte River.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_04: Um, we have cancer alley in my state because of the nitrate poisoning.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_04: Iowa is the same thing, they've got really high rates of cancer, a lot of brain cancer.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_04: So, and I've and I've you know, I know that the farmers are gonna suffer in my state.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_04: I I'm not sure if these are correct numbers, but um I guess like 53 percent of our cropland is corn, 26 is soybeans, and then of course, tons of cattle.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_04: But so, and I've heard your message about diversification, and I really like that message because it would make the farmers more resilient, but I've also heard your message where it's much easier for a farmer to just plant all corn and then he goes and has a vacation in the summer, then he comes back in the winter and does harvest, and and it's less less uh maintenance as opposed to raiding a raising a cattle herd.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_04: I've been watching your podcast and learning.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_04: So my question is how do you you know the and this is the big uh big rub, you know, you can't tell the farmers what they can and can't grow.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_04: Well, what if you live in a city that's poison that where your water supply is poisoned by nitrates?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_04: How do you motivate farmers to do things that like like I like the idea of growing hemp?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_04: It uses a lot less water, less fertilizer.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_04: It can replace many acres of trees, and we could just make all kinds of paper with it, textiles.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_04: Nebraska used to be the number one hemp manufacturer.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_04: I like the idea of growing hemp.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_04: I like the idea of converting farmland that's that's um prone to uh runoff and nitrate poisoning, convert that to grazing cattle.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_04: How do you motivate farmers to do the right thing so they don't poison our water supply?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_05: Well, what you do is you quit subsidizing bad decisions.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_05: So right now, the world is globally awash in soybeans.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_05: We're producing way more soybeans than we need.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_05: And and and actually we're producing more corn than we need, too.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, a lot of people don't realize that 40% of the corn in the U.S.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_05: doesn't even go through an animal or a human.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_05: It's ethanol.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_05: So ethanol, yep, yep.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_05: Which which was itself a government program uh that that the market would have never created on its own.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_05: And so as you start peeling the onion back, uh what you what you see, at least, at least in my opinion, is that that um that every time the government intervenes in the in the marketplace, in the decision-making, the decision-making savvy of the uh of an of a of a sector, um for all the good that it does, it creates two, you know, it's it's it's uh one step forward, two steps back.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_05: It's uh worse, you know, than it was before they got involved.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_05: And uh and so you know, I I would eliminate all crop insurance, all crop subsidies tomorrow.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_05: And then, and then because here's the thing, um uh Vern and all of all of the things that you've said are are on on the money.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um the how do you get a farmer to make a different decision?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_05: Well, you've got to pull the safety net out of what props him up artificially if he makes a bad decision.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_05: And right now, a bad decision is growing crops and using chemical fertilizers and um and and taking it easy.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, in in your part of the country, back I'm gonna say 80 years ago, if you drove around the countryside, all fields were fenced 80 years ago because farmers had a more diversified uh operation and they would, you know, if the price of crops went down a little bit, they'd they'd add a few more cows.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_05: And if the price of cows went down, they'd add a little bit of more crops.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_05: They were able to shift very easily from one from one enterprise to another.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_05: But in the last 80 years, that diversification has gone strictly to monocropping, monoculturing.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_05: And so they don't even have the fences to be able to make changes into anything else that they wanted to do.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_05: But I'm with you.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_05: Hemp is wonderful.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_05: There's a lot, I mean, there's hemp creek, there's I mean, there's just from a structural uh uh standpoint, you know.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_05: Henry Ford, uh Henry Ford made a hemp car.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_04: Oh yeah.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_05: And and um and it was lighter, it was cheaper, more durable, but you know, the petroleum companies didn't like it because it didn't take steel, and steel took a lot more energy to all this all this stuff uh gets in.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_05: But but the truth is that if the safety net, if the safety net that protected farmers when they made bad decisions were eliminated, guess what?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_05: Farmers would begin making better decisions.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_05: And and to me, that's the bottom line for me.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_05: And you can say, well, it's all Trump's tariffs, all that.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_05: But but it but when you make a decision to grow a crop that is 50% dependent on China and on politics, that's not a wise decision.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_05: That's a risky decision.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_05: And so from the top down, from I mean from every aspect, um uh protecting protecting people from the consequences of their decisions is the first way to create um to to to perpetuate bad decisions.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_05: The quickest way to develop good decisions is by having people see and and and uh and live through the consequences of their decisions.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_05: That's it.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_04: Well, and I know that hemp hemp is uh hemp is a crop that as far as uh storms like hail and and windstorms blowing it over, it's much more resilient than than corn and soybeans.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_04: But the pro and I know they they have permits that are available for farmers to grow hemp, but it just never never really took off.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_04: And I think you're well, and I know you're right.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it all boils down to the crop insurance where the farmer is protected if he grows corn and soybeans.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_04: He's not protected if he grows hemp, but that's that's exactly it.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_04: But then, like I say, in a stormy environment, which Nebraska has lots of tornadoes, lots of hail, windstorms, it'll blow that corn right over where it won't blow the hemp over.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_04: And I just have one other comment uh to the lady that was talking about being frustrated with your name.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_04: And believe me, I mean, I know people in my hometown of Grand Island that have died from cancer from nitrate poisoning.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, the idea that Jesus put out, love thy neighbor as thyself, that's like the number one rule of the New Testament.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's a little hard to love your neighbor when they're dumping nitrates into your water and killing your neighbors.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_04: It's tough to it's tough to practice what you preach, I guess, but but at the end of the day, I guess maybe there's not a whole lot of choice.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know if we're ever gonna get and I think a lot of it both goes back to the oil industry.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_04: Like you're well, and then the other thing, one last thing, too.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_04: If you just let the farmers fail, I think it would be the corporate farms, the big time farmers.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_04: The little ones, I think, might be more resilient, they might survive.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_05: That's that's all I have.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_05: You you are absolutely correct on that.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_05: The uh we saw that we saw that at COVID.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, where was the big problem?
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_05: The big problem was in the the big food chain.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_05: The little places, I mean, we we co-own a small uh a small slaughterhouse here, 20, 22, 23 employees.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_05: We didn't miss a day's work, we didn't miss a lick, we just kept right on going.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_05: Well, why?
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_05: Because we're not five, we're not 2,000 people crammed in a you know in a thing, you know, cheek by jowl.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_05: And so we just went right on through.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, in in uh in in uncertain times, you want to be in a speedboat, not an aircraft carrier.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_05: A lot easier to turn around in rocky shoals if you're in a uh speedboat than an aircraft carrier.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you exactly.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, bye.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you, friend.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you so much for that question.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're gonna go over to the chat real quick.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: We have Nathan is asking, uh, while we've been talking about chicken, uh, has there been any significant changes to Joel's methods since Pastured Poultry Prophets was published?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thinking uh that things that could be generally applicable, but not necessarily fine-tuning to your environment.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: So have there been any significant changes since published?
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_05: Uh yes.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_05: Well, since the first published, which was in 1993, can you believe that?
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_05: 31 years.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um and and that's why we have, I I don't, I've I've got a I've got one over there on the shelf, but uh the the last printing, I think we now have three addendums in it uh that that are lengthy addendums that I've put in.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_05: It's gotten pretty fat now, pretty thick, uh with with with new information, new things that we've learned.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_05: And I I you know I thought about rewriting it, but then I thought, no, I'm gonna leave the original with the addendums of new information, you know, refined, tweaked information.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_05: So everybody knows I'm learning too.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_05: You know, this is a this is a this is a journey we're all on.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_05: And um, you know, read the original.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_05: It there's nothing in it that is wrong.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, it's just that we we know much more now.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_05: And so the the new ones, the new one does have, or the new one, I mean the one, the one that you would get today, uh, has three addendums in it versus the one in 93.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_05: So if you're if you're if yours is a like a a 93 edition, you can look in the you can look in the uh front there.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not sure if we put all the reprints in or not, but anyway, if it's the um if it's the original, you you might want to you might want to get another one.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_05: 1999 one.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_05: Uh yes, uh there are there are two two, I think two significant addendums since 99.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: Very good.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: Very good.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure all of that is available at polyfaceuhfarms.com.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh all right, so let's go over to Doug.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: Doug, go ahead and ask Joel your question.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, Joel, thank you for your time.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um thank you, Nolan, as well.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh me and my wife have a uh discussion, maybe disagreement that uh we're having right now over the subject of electric netting.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I I am uh willing to concede if if you disagree with me, Joel, uh I will go with whatever you say.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh boy, I can't make the same promise with my wife.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_05: I'm walking into a uh I think I'm walking into a quagmire.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we we have a wonderful little boy that will be four years old in February, and and we're hey buddy.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we're hoping to have more kids.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um that being said, we also have um chickens, ducks, and turkeys.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we have yet to do any sort of rotational grazing with them because we only have a half acre lot.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: But an older gentleman that we live close to, uh, he just offered up some of his land for us to do that with.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh and I'll just take care of it for him in in return for that.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh with the the subject is basically she's worried that if if one of our little ones gets in contact with that electrified netting, that's gonna cause some serious damage to them.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm sure it would hurt, but I didn't think you know, it's not it's not gonna fry them, essentially.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I'm we're we're we're kind of at this crossroads where it's like, well, how much how much pain is it going to cost them?
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: And is it worth is it worth just doing a non-electrified netting instead?
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm kind of of the well, let's just electrify it.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, if he accidentally touches it, he's only gonna do that once or twice before he finally figures things out.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um well if you don't if you don't electrify it, it won't keep anything out, you know, like raccoons and possums and you know, great things like that.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and so no, no, uh, we we've had these nettings.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, we've had electric fence forever.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I've been shocked, I don't know how many times I got shocked one time.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_05: I was I was I had a water leak and uh on a on a water line, and I was I was uh putting the coupling, you know, I was down on my on my knees.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_05: Of course, it had leaked overnight, so it was a swamp and it was wet.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_05: I was down on my knees, I was squeezing that pipe together, and I leaned forward and hit my forehead right on the electric fence.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, it knocked me clear back on my rear end.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_05: I saw stars.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, things went black for a minute.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_05: So I know what what the shock is, and I've never been now, you know, maybe somebody would say, well, that may be why you've got problems that you've got, but um, or or think the way you do.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_05: But uh no, we uh none of this, none of this is harmful.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_05: In fact, just tell you an interesting little anecdote on that.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_05: Have a friend that um that uh uh went to to China because of communist China, and um he went uh to take over a farm there, and um this is this is I don't know what 25 years ago, and the whole province where he was had never seen electric fence, any kind of electric fence.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_05: And uh they you know just it just hadn't been done there, and uh they hadn't seen a hay baler either.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_05: Uh but anyway, so he brought in the first electric fence.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_05: Well, the local uh sheriff, the constable, um, found out about it, and he came and made uh made Tim hook it up and touch it because he was afraid it was going to kill all the kill all the children in the in the you know in the village.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_05: And so he m Tim said that's one of the hardest things I ever did was hook it up and touch it.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_05: He said, I knew I had to, but he did.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_05: And of course, once he did and and there was no issue, then of course it was all okay.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, but no, no.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_05: Electric fence will definitely not hurt a child.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_05: Not this, it's called um low, low impedance fence.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_05: Which what it means is that it's a it's a high voltage but low amperage.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_05: So most of the most of the uh circuits in these things are half an amp.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_05: Amp is what kills you.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_05: Um so so there's no there's no energy.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_05: There's no energy to it, it's just a lot of pressure, if you want to think about like water.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_05: So so it's um yeah, it's it's very benign for children.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_05: No, she you're not you're not gonna hurt your little one with electric fence.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: Very cool.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: It is okay if I ask you one more, it's in a totally different direction.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's um we this next year, we so we've got all our all of our animals, we've got our garden going on, and with us wanting to expand our our family in in the upcoming year, um we decided not to get any more livestock than what we already have.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're just gonna focus on uh basically just education.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm I'm trying to become a hoarder of books essentially.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh I I was wondering, is there are there any book recommendations you would make for um pond development and not not just in terms of irrigation, but also like uh developing a fishing pond, like if if that was something we a person wanted to do on a homestead scale.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm I'm about as green as green can be when it comes to like riparian stuff.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't even know if there's a difference between the two, but right, right.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, so so two things I would recommend.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um one is uh there's a book, I think the title is Earthen Earthen Ponds.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_05: So you know, in other words, this is no concrete, no, you know, it's just earthen ponds.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_05: I think that's the name of it.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um there's another one called the Pond Book, which is also good, but also anything uh permaculture uh about ponds is is extremely good.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_05: Anything with permaculture, but I know those two books, the earth and pond book and the um and and and just the pond book, um, they're they're both they're both uh quite good.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_05: And um and I think they'll they'll help you.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I uh I'm I'm a pond lover and I hope you can you you can you can make a real small pond.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_05: I mean a a pond the size of a swimming pool is uh a very, very beneficial thing to um to to keep things.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_05: You know, Thomas Jefferson had a had a pond, had a little pond outside of Monticello, his home there, um, because back in those days there was no refrigeration, and so they would go and and catch fish and they could put them in this little pool.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_05: I mean it was only like you know, uh 15 feet by eight feet, you know, it wasn't very big, but but it it it acted as a live holding tank until they wanted to, you know, process to kill them for uh for dinner.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's very cool.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Doug.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: Very good.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go over to Joshua.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_06: Hey, Joel, um two questions I had for you.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_06: Um, the first one I wanted to was clipping pastures, and I actually wanted to ask it earlier in the year, um, but kind of going into this year, you know, around here a lot of people like to clip clip their pastures um as soon as soon as they grazed them for the year.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_06: And um in my in my context, I'm trying to take over what was at one point, um a lot of my land was plowed.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_06: It's been fallow for probably 20, 25 years, so it's really grown up.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_06: And I got a lot of lesbadesia that moves in, a lot of briars and stuff that they just, you know, I don't have enough animals to put a real heavy impact on it where they're stomping it all down.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_06: In that case, does it make sense to clip it so that um, you know, because I'm talking I can get forbs that are six foot high um that a lot of the animals aren't touching.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_06: Does it make sense to clip that after a grazing event?
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, yes, and uh and I would encourage you to to try to um increase the density uh in in in general, um just for your own whatever confidence.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I I would take your herd, whatever size it is, and uh if you don't have enough animals to fully stock the place, just just just use whatever acreage you need and and move your density up just to play with it, just to build your own confidence and and be able to see what a difference it might make in you know in a year or two as you finally get your stocking you know together.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, a lot of it was because I have so many cedar trees um in my pasture that I've been clearing out and clearing out, but there is it was hard to kind of get the paddocks cross fence small enough to get a high density because you know it's a lot it's a lot of clearing to be able to get those the paddock smaller, but I've been working on it and putting in more fencing and and getting to the point that I can do that, that I can try to get it, that I'm doing a daily move, smaller paddocks.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_06: Because where I have there, I have a couple acres that I've done it, you know, that I've been working on for several years now, and where I can move them every day, you know, I don't have that issue.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_06: You know, I really don't need to clip, but it's it's the bigger ones.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_06: Um then the other question kind of goes to it came in a little late, but the conversation we were having with Catherine and even Vern, um, I actually got asked lately um by the our concert soil and water conservation district if I was interested in coming onto the board because nobody's on there.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, it's or because I guess I have an opening and nobody replied to the ad.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_06: So they asked if I wanted to to run.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_06: Essentially, there's nobody running against me.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_06: Um, you know, looking at it, it it's really just I guess it's handing out grant money, um, which I don't take.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_06: I don't have a farm number or anything like that.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_06: But um, you know, it is that something you would encourage um to do, you know, get does it it does it help to have a radical view on there?
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_05: Uh probably not.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_05: Uh my my my sense is you know, it's it's kind of like uh kind of like when the local uh uh Republicans uh tried to draft me to run for board of supervisors.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_05: And um and I said I said um you'll you'll you'll regret the day that you ask me, you know, if if I did that.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um and I mean it it it certainly is okay to be I mean it depends on your constitution.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_05: I mean maybe maybe you like a fight, I don't know.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_05: But uh but but basically you're you're rubber you're rubber stamping these you know thousands of dollars to projects that that are really um not not useful.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_05: I mean they don't they don't do portable water systems, they don't they don't do the stuff right and and everything's over engineered by the time the staff gets done with the engineering report, everything's about ten times as expensive as it should be.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_05: So the cost share brings you down to what it you'd be if you just did it yourself.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_05: So um so so I you know um if if your life wants a little bit of that uh to to to make it interesting, go ahead.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_05: But um yeah, I I think I mean I I think if if if my local soil water conservation district came and asked me, and and I I I have a I'm I'm back goodness 30 years ago, they gave me their conservationist of the year award, you know, back uh back before I became so notorious.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_05: But um I think if they asked me to be on it, I I I would not I would not serve.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_05: You know, that's the thing.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_05: I don't need that kind of tension in my life.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_05: So take your pick, but but you you've got it pretty well sussed out.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_05: They're a they're a grant they're a grant stamp uh for you know for government monies that go to uh projects.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_06: It doesn't really seem like they're actually in the business of trying to make any change other than just doing these standard grants that they have.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_06: Now, but do you think there's gonna be any change?
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_06: I saw I watched last week um Brooke Rollins and RFK came out and talked about how they're gonna they're trying to bring, you know, make an off-ramp for regenerative agriculture and trying to have more of a holistic farm plan and right.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_05: 700 million dollars and uh for transitory organics, uh, but they're gonna send it through, you know, regular agencies.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I you know, I haven't seen a government program yet that actually accomplished much.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_05: So uh I'm I'm pretty I'm pretty jaundiced.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_05: But um, you know, if if you think that that might be something that you could help to to uh facilitate, why, you know, jump on it.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_06: All right.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_06: Well, I just wanted your opinion.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_06: I appreciate it.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_06: Thanks, Joel.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, thank you.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: Very good.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much, Josh.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so we're down to the last five or six minutes.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we're gonna go to Dwight here in a second.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: But if you want to leave your, you can either put your digital hand up or if you just want to leave a very quick question in the chat box for us to do a quick lightning round after Dwight's question if we have the time.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but until then, uh Dwight, go ahead and ask your question.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna interject and try to assuage some of the anxiety.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and I know Joel knows exactly where I'm coming from.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_03: The lead in was if he's asked to be a supervisor, no, the best place for Joel to be is advising the supervisor.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_03: Correct?
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_03: You have more power outside the government than you do in.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_03: But anyway, yeah, I just want to say here there's a misunderstanding, this anxiety that's expressed about government.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_03: People don't understand this is a Republican, this is a Republican form of government here in the Reconstruction Act of after the Civil War changed the government.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_03: And so there's an administrative state that has power over the agencies of government, not the people.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_03: And and the people are assumed by government to be doing commerce, therefore they have charge over you.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_03: They do not respect that we the people are in the private primarily, unless we ask for favor from them, then we come under their authority.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_03: But if you read your constitutions, you will see the people have all the political power.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_03: Period.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_03: There is the only purpose government has in your life is if you harm someone or their property, then and only then do they have anything to say about your life.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_03: Liberty means your free access to go wherever you do want and do whatever you wish.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_03: Period.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_03: The protection of life.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_03: We did a notice in our group, we assemble twice a day and more times, sometimes.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_03: I've done I've done as many as five Zooms a day with people across this whole country that understand this and are learning our rights.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_03: You have to learn your rights.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_03: Just like abortion.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_03: We wrote a notice to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said in Dobbs that they made a mistake and it was theirs to fix.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_03: That was in 2022.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_03: They still haven't done it.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_03: So now we're gonna go after them again.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_03: We write notices to everybody, the president, the governor, uh second, everybody and put them on notice because now we're gonna have grand juries, the people's grand juries, at some point.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_03: And all those notices are evidence because they didn't rebut our argument or our statements.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_03: So therefore, they stand charged as guilty because they accepted what we said as part of the truth, that they didn't have a right to what to do what they're doing.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_03: So when we get grand juries, that's gonna but the administrative state is coming apart now, as we speak.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_03: There's things happening.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_03: I know I I listened to Brooke Rollins on Lonesome Lands that interview and different ones.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_03: I come from the farm, I understand.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_03: When I was farming dairy farm in 1978, the milk price was better than it is now.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_03: And inputs are just insanely high now.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_03: So price of food is uh controlled the price by the government.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_03: There's no mistake about that.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's been that way for a hundred years.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_05: When when when people say, when people say, uh, well, like you know, Bernie Sanders, this oligarchy, this oligarchy, uh we yeah, he's right.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_05: We we do have an oligarchy, but the oligarchy did not come because of an open, fair, uh, free market.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_05: It came because of a meddlesome, um, intrusive federal government that that that that picked winners and picked losers.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_05: And of course, they always pick the winners they want or the the ones that um that that that cost more and impoverished farmers.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_03: And well, that was that court case in 1936 where the guy was growing wheat to make his own bread, and the government said you can't do that.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_03: You gotta sell it to us, you gotta sell it on the commodity market and buy it back because you're interfering with commerce.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and that that was a big mistake.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_03: All these things nobody knows.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_03: See, that's why everybody's so anxious.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_03: When you know the truth, like Joel does, he doesn't back off from anybody.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_03: Now he's not gonna attack them, but he's gonna try to educate them, and I know he's educating uh RFK and and and uh Secretary Rollins for sure, but and and they're doing the best they can within their constraints, right?
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because they at this point there is control there.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_05: But they would rather do it the right way.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I I don't know, I don't know about Brooke.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_05: I think she's I think she's partially there.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_05: RFK Jr.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_05: though is he's the real deal.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_05: And uh and and uh but but yeah, you're right.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_05: Uh the the constraints there.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I mean I've been up there a couple times now.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_05: I was just there Monday night uh there in DC and and with them.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_05: And you just can't, you can't imagine, you can't imagine the power of the pushback.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_05: It's just it's uh it's absol it's suffocating.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_05: It's absolutely suffocating.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_03: So we're like go, okay.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_03: Remember Go Lovers Travel.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_03: How'd they get him?
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_03: He went to sleep in one little string at a time, they tied him up.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_03: We're the same way.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_03: We went to sleep as a population, and the and the Lily Pushins came along and put string by string until we can't move.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna we're gonna go ahead and close things out with uh Stephanie just wants to know could you share a Christmas Day tradition that you have over at Polyface Farm?
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_05: Christmas Day tradition.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_05: Uh our our tradition is that we work.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_05: Uh we half the staff goes home for Christmas.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_05: And so uh so we have a lot of extra chores on our plate, usually, you know, on Christmas Day.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_05: So um, you know, I I'm a little bit scroogey on Christmas just because it's always a uh, you know, it's got got a lot to a lot to pick up the slack on.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_05: But uh yeah, we you know, we we have a have a nice uh dinner and um and relaxing day.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_05: I don't do a lot of work that day except for chores, uh, which we have to do more of because fewer people are around.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_05: So uh uh but it's a it's always a good day, and it's a great time to remember the reason for the season, and we're all very, very grateful.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_01: And with that, we'll uh we will go ahead and close out this uh December live stream uh with Joel.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much to Joel uh for giving of his time here in the last hour.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you all so much for being here.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_01: And uh for those listening after the fact, thank you for listening, and we will all see you all in the next one.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you all.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_05: Merry Christmas, happy new year.