Barn Talk - Barn Talk Q&A: Is Farming Worth It, Retirement In A Recession, Favorite Bourbon?

Episode Date: August 2, 2022

Welcome to Barn Talk, Dog Days of Summer edition. We’re lookin’ for excuses to get out of workin’ so here we are. Some Q&A, Some commentary on current events and whatever trips our trigger. Pay the fee! Like, Share, Rate and get yourself a shirt. Barn Talk Merch! 👇🏻 https://www.thislldo.co/ SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ➱ https://bit.ly/3a7r3nR SUBSCRIBE TO THIS’LL DO FARM ➱ https://bit.ly/2X8g45c SUBSCRIBE TO BARN TALK CLIPS ➱ https://bit.ly/3BlZnqq LISTEN ON: SPOTIFY ➱ https://open.spotify.com/show/3icVr4KWq4eUDl7Oy60YMY ITUNES ➱ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/barn-talk/id1574395049 Follow Behind The Scenes👇🏻 ● This’ll Do Farm Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/30KPBNk ● Barn Talk TikTok ➱ https://bit.ly/3qciekS ● Sawyer’s Instagram  ➱ https://bit.ly/3BtX0n4 ● Tork’s Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/3LGZJxS ------------------------------- ***PLEASE NOTE*** Barn Talk is a significant break from the typical content viewers have come to expect from This’ll Do Farm. Please be advised that we will be exploring a wide variety of topics (some adult-themed) and our younger viewers (and their parents) should be advised that some topics will be for mature audiences only. ⚠NO FINANCIAL ADVICE / DISCLAIMER⚠ The Information discussed and shared on Barn Talk is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or success for any particular purpose. The Information contained in or provided from or through this podcast is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice. The Information on this podcast and provided from or through our content is general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented on this podcast without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional, professional broker or financial advisory. Understand that you are using any and all Information available on or through this website at your own risk. RISK STATEMENT– The trading of Bitcoins, alternative cryptocurrencies, NFTs, individual stocks, etc. has potential rewards, and it also has potential risks involved. Trading may not be suitable for all people. Anyone wishing to invest should seek his or her own independent financial or professional advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am blessed to be sitting under the shade of trees that the previous generation planted that never got any shade from. In other words, the money that was invested by those that came before me and the time and the toil and the labor and all that, I'm reaping the benefits of that. And what Sawyer and I are doing, we're hoping that we're planting the trees that, you know, generations from now, those people are going to sit under the shade. Yeah, there's not a lot of things out there like that. You know, there's not a lot of things you can do in this world that are like that

in the fact that it's so legacy-oriented and, you know, you're on the same ground and same land as the ancestors before you. And, like, there's something to be said about that. So that, that's a huge, to me, that's really worth it. You know, that's something that's so unique that you can't really find anywhere else. All of the food we eat and much of the clothing we wear comes from plant. and animals that are raised on farms. Farms are different in type, in size, and even in name.

Welcome to Barn Talk. Dog Days of Summer Edition. We wanted to get out of the, we're looking for excuses to get out of work today. So we're shooting a podcast up here at the barn. We got the roof. The roof is tinned and insulated, so it's a little bit better in here. It's a little bit cooler. So that's nice.

We didn't think that at first we didn't. think that uh um the the the heat would be we didn't think it'd cool it off as much as it has so far but it's it's it's a huge difference yeah and it's just the roof if we can do the sides of the barn too because we want to put we were going to retend the the sides of the barn and insulate it as well so if we did that hell we might not even need a c unit in here oh i think we will we will but we put out a lot of hot air it'd be doable yeah so today we're going to do some q and a we asked some questions on our Instagram for Barn Talk and this will do farm and that's where you guys can submit your questions in when I go to ask them on our story. We had a lot of good questions and I appreciate everyone

that did ask one. But before we get started, we're going to have a good old market update. But before that, you know the drill, pay the fee. If you get any value, share the show with your friends, family, co-workers, employees, whoever, trying to do some good in this world. And that's kind of the ticket to admission to watch or listen, watch or listen to the show. um we don't run ads to promote the show it's all organic so uh any value made you laugh you're related to something learn something share it that's all we ask and also go buy some merch if you'd like to support our channels or support our podcast as well we got some merch in the link in the description this will do dot co you can get barn talk merch there this will do farm merch there it's all there uh

yeah so market update hey shout out to yoder builders there's no uh there's no employees of yoder that are listeners to the podcast because they're all Amish. But if you're from Bloomfield, Iowa, you know who Yoder builders are. They built all of my hog buildings and Sorders Hog Building, and they're the ones that put the roof on with the insulation. They did an excellent job and got it all done. And their ability to scurry around on a steep pitch roof is something truly amazing to watch because I was like, nope, not getting me up there.

And they were just like squirrels. They didn't care. They were like, it's all good. they did a great job um this is this is kind of a nice talking point because today uh corn on the chicago board of trade the last time i checked was 597 and the bid locally at uh one of the one of the feed mills was 710 so that tells you that that tells you how strong a basis there is in southeast Iowa because there's so much corn that gets fed down here that it really drives it really drives the market because you've got well you got over a dollar you got a dollar and 17 cent difference

between the board price and what people are buying local so it's pretty good and we actually dumped our bin my dry and bin my circuit flow had a little problem we couldn't get it to run we couldn't get a transfer so we had to we ended up having to vac that corn out and we finally got around doing it last week and um i think we actually got like seven might have been seven 40 for that corn which is pretty amazing um pretty good price uh we got that dump so we're all out so hopefully it rains a little bit it's pretty dry here but we did get a rain over the weekend and if uh if we can catch another one. This crop's pretty close to being made, at least on the corn side. So anyway, corn's 597 on the board, 710 local. Most other places around southeast Iowa, about 680, 685. We'll catch most

of it. Beans, $15.11 on the board. 1511 on this side of the river, 1521, if you want to go across to the Illinois side. Bean meals, $475 a ton. Wheat 797. So, little geopolitics because there was supposedly an agreement that was going to get brokered between Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey that they were going to allow ships into the Black Sea to load corn and wheat and fertilizer out of Ukraine or out of Odessa, which is what Russia has. And I don't know, so that dropped the wheat market pretty hard last week, but I don't know if that deal is like done done or whether it's still speculation. So if it happens, you'll probably see markets soften a little at the prospect of some of that grain coming on the world market. And if it doesn't happen,

we'll go right back where we were because that's, let's face it, that's what markets are all about is everybody speculating on what's going to happen. So cattle, 137, a buck 37 a pound, hogs 117 and I called my former employer I called Oswald and asked him what feeder what weiner pigs were going for because I hadn't heard and he said about 40 bucks for good size groups that have decent health and the supply is below average he said so I don't know if that's way below average or whether they're just tight or whatever but weiner pigs about 40 bucks I didn't ask him about feeder pigs because I know he doesn't buy many feeder pigs. Oil's $97 a barrel.

So apparently we're getting a lot of oil from somewhere because it's backed off. Gold, $1,18 an ounce. So it's moved up some because I can't remember. I want to say it was about $13 or $1,400 when all this mess started. So a little inflation is making your precious metals move. silver's 18 bucks which that's moved a little bit because it was oh i remember was 14 15 um it's been 17 for quite a while bitcoin was 21 000 so i think bitcoin got up about 23 000 and then today all the

markets are down today Dow was down 27 point or Dow was down 150 points the last time i looked it was at 31,800 s and p was down 27 points but pretty much all the stocks i fall fall fall were down. Tesla was 790 the last time I checked and it got up to 8, I don't know, 825, 835. So the 4th August, they have a shareholder meeting. They'll take a vote and I'm sure that they'll vote to approve. They're going to do a three for one stock split. So if you're a shareholder as of, I want to say it was. I thought it was five for one. That's what the speculation was, but they didn't end up. I think so if the stock would have stayed, remember when it was. was $1,200 a share. So the speculation was that it was going to go five for one, but then it dropped like

a rock, and along with, you know, every other stock. All the rest of them. And so they, when they announced, they announced a three for one. So I think if you're a shareholder record by August 2nd, maybe it's August 4th, whatever the date the shareholder meeting is, you'll get a three for one for every share that you had. You'll get three shares. And that's mostly just because it makes a stock little cheaper for people to buy and for their dividend reinvestment like if you're an employee at tesla they have a stock purchase program and when the stock gets expensive when it gets up over a thousand dollars it makes that it doesn't make that work near as well as it should it's it's hard for people to i think it has something to do with the way that the shares are purchased like i don't know if they can purchase

partial shares i think that's why um they really wanted to do it. it. Maybe that was the excuse they wanted to do it. I don't know. But anyway, they're going to do that. The vote is the 4th August. MP materials, 30 bucks, Square 68. I haven't talked about Square in a long time. Love that company. I think there, you know, there's previous podcasts where we talked about Square and Jack Dorsey. But I think that market, I think that consumer banking space is just so beaten down right now with interest rates that it really hasn't gone anywhere. I think what did get up to, like 80 bucks somewhere in there. That was kind of the high. And then it's just kind of in that holding pattern. And I think long term, it's a great company. And I think they're really

well positioned. I just think, I really think that most of the stocks out there are going to go sideways for a while here, just because interest rates, we've printed too much money. And interest rates are going up and it's going to be hard on these equity markets. So we've pumped a hell of a lot of money into them and now then that money is coming out and people are, you know, nervous and all that. So I think it's going to be tough. One thing I added is Seaboard. So Seaboard's $3,872. And those of you that don't know what Seaboard is, they are the parent company of the Triumph Group. So the people that we feed pigs for, part of their pigs go to one of the triumph plants. and Triumph is a 50-50 partnership,

but the 50% that is seaboard, that's part of the seaboard company, and they're into, they're a huge conglomerate, and they're into all kinds of stuff. Shipping worldwide, refrigeration worldwide, power generation worldwide. They're into a lot of crazy stuff, and they're based out of Guyman, Oklahoma,

which is kind of weird. Their office used to be in a strip mall in Guyman, Oklahoma, I think they have a little better digs now than what they had back then. But anyway, I think the high for that stock's about $4,300 a share, and it's kind of been just sitting in a flat trading pattern. But it's interesting because they're actually up today. They're one of the few stocks that are up.

So anyway, whatever that's worth. The only other thing I'll say is that interest rates have moved up. and my my gut feeling is that the Fed's gonna raise interest again and I'm not sure but I think for I think everybody kind of feels that every every rise in interest rates is gonna hurt this housing market and it's gonna be interesting to watch around the country the different markets that have traditionally been really really hot I think they're gonna start to cool because you've got people that are buying houses and at the upper end of what their ability to buy is, and as that interest moves up, every quarter point makes the house they can afford a little cheaper,

or it makes it more expensive to where they can't afford as much house. And I think that's going to hurt the market. So that's my commentary. That was amazing. That was a good one. They haven't had a good market update in a while. Yeah. It was needed.

It was definitely needed. Yeah. You know, I've lived through a time where money has always been cheap. Interest has always been cheap. And I, you know, I've asked older people. I've asked you, I've asked other, I guess you'd say, older folks that have been in the game for a while that, man, they remember when interest was like 10%, 12%, how highest they've ever seen was 15%. It's like, all us young bucks don't know what that's like. But business is really easy right now.

Investing is really easy right now. Wait till it ain't. Wait till the interest is that high. then it's not as easy. Yeah. So that's when the real game begins. Yeah, because traditionally people that have held a lot of cash that, you know, they have always felt that you want to hold cash because when a bargain,

when an opportunity comes, you want to have cash to move on it, they've gotten really hurt because cash has been, really been beat up to have cash. because interest has been so cheap that there's just no reason to have cash. And the ability to go borrow money at a little bit of nothing has made that, I'd say, less sexy, I guess. Yeah, and inflation too. Yeah. But when you're in a situation where interest rates are rising and inflation is eaten away at people's savings, when it starts to get tough, I think you're going to see cash is going to come back.

There's going to be opportunities where if you have money that you can get too easily, there's going to be opportunities that you can take advantage of. And the other side of it is, and I'm in this boat, the gains that we've had in the stock market, I feel like this market is going to, nowhere fast. I'll tell you what really what really convinced me that it was time to move out of the stock market was two weeks ago I think the consumer price index inflation came out and it was higher than they thought it was going to be but then consumer spending was way up and Wall Street they took

that as a good sign and the stocks actually moved up on that Thursday and Friday and then into the following, I think that Monday they were down, but then Tuesday they were up. And when I saw that, I was just like, you've got to be shitting me. Because to me, the only reason consumer spending was up is because so many people are stocking up on things that they know that they're going to buy. So it's just like- Yeah, well, everyone's saying buy two, if you're going to buy one can of beans, buy two, buy three, buy four. Right. Because everyone thinks the shit's hitting the fan. Right. I went and bought softener salt the other day.

And holy shit, a bag of green Morton softener salts, like $10 a bag. Used to be like $6.95. So, you know, people, just like that example, okay, well, if it's gone up that much already, it's probably going to continue to go up. So I buy two or three bags a month. If you can afford to buy 10 bags, buy 10 bags, because the next time you go by, it's going to be 11. Yeah, but eventually don't you think that will slow down?

I do think it'll slow down. Because people are going to be stocked up. That's exactly right. So when I saw that consumer spending, I said, that's it right there. People are buying five cans of baked beans. They're buying five bags of softener salt. They're buying whatever when they only need three or they only need two. And then at some point, they're going to be like, I'm good.

I'm good. Stocked up. Plus, the price is high and they're like, yeah, I'm glad I bought it. And that consumer spending is going to drop like a hammer. And when it does, the stock market's going to tank harder than what it has. I mean, it's pretty much been flat. since it kind of went down. And I just, you know, these animals are going to be like, oh, well, how did this happen?

Well, duh, you dumbass. People are out of money. People are tired, you know, I don't know. Well, yeah, you said you pulled out of the stock market, but like, you didn't pull out of the stock market. Like, you said when you just started went on in that rant, you said you pulled out of the stock market. Yeah.

What do you mean by that? So, I mean, you don't have to talk about it. Yeah. Well, so the simple answer is, um, people that are invested in mutual funds that basically follow the S&P 500 that follow the Dow. Well, yeah, I was going to say your horizon is different than mine. Yes, it is. I'm going to keep my money in this.

If I have money in the S&P and in the total stock market, do I know in the next two to five years that it's probably not going to do very well? Yeah. But do I know during my whole lifetime it's probably going to come back up? Yes. So I'm just going to keep my money in there. You might be a little bit of a different story. 100%.

Yeah. So that's a great. point to talk about because you're 22 and I'm 51. So my horizon is much different. So I look at it as, I don't think there's any reason for me to assume that by me keeping my money in the market, that over the next five years, I'm going to see much of a gain. So I would much rather take that money and pay off debt and put it in hard assets, hard assets, or specific stocks that I feel like are going to whether this way better than the average market. I feel like mutual funds are going to do terrible over the next five years. Well, yeah, I mean, you're hearing it throughout. Everyone's freaking out

about their retirement. Well, you got your money in a Roth IRA or just an IRA and it's in the, it's in the S&P or it's in a mutual fund. And yeah, it ain't going to be good for a little bit. You're going to have to hold off on. It's kind of sad, too, because, you know, we got a local restaurant in our area. and I went in there and the hostess was like literally an 80 year old woman. She just started working there. And I'm sure she started working there because she probably was like, we got to start working because this. Yeah, her nest eggs getting hammered.

So we got to, this is kind of sad. But I mean, that's why you don't want to be 100% all in on one thing. You know, you got to try to be diverse a little bit because you'll end up in that situation. without going without going off on a tangent i'll just say this relying on other people for your retirement i unless you're just completely so uncomfortable with it i don't i don't like that because everybody preaches diversity so diversify diversify diversify diversify diversify is fine if you have a huge nest egg so if you've made a fortune if you've made a chunk of money and a good way to keep that is diversify yeah i i heard a really good quote if you want to become

wealthy you got to make it in one way and then to keep that wealth you diversify right yeah um so the other side of that is you want to be you want to have multiple pillars of income like we've talked about because if you're sitting there and you're retiring and you're drawing off of an IRA or you're drawing off of mutual funds that you have outside of that and you're planning on that return and you're going to take a couple percent a year well you're going to have to take more than a couple percent for the next few years well and you always say this too uh we're you're going to end up in the nursing home if one of you ends up in the nursing home or both you end up in the nursing home your spouse all bets are off and depending on where you live i know in our area it's you know it's 8,000

plus a person, you know, to go to a nursing home. In bigger cities, it's way more expensive, depending on which one you go to. And if you're both in there, your IRA is going to be gone. in less than a decade. Oh, not even. It'll be torched unless you have a unreasonable amount of money in there. So, you know, I think retirements are great, but do I think that's all you should put your money towards? I think you should probably try to figure out another way to get some, get some cash flow that will always be there even when you get to be older. Another pillar. So, another pillar. Real estate is a really good pillar. Even if you have five rental

properties, you know, or you got a small little business or whatever that's running while you're not there, that's better than just having one chunk of money that's going to get just torched. So the investment, the investment lobby of America, so who, whatever company, you know, fill in the blank, whatever, they have spent. I feel like most all Americans have been sold this idea that go to college, get a degree, you get a job, and you start saving, and if your company has a 401k match, you max that out because that's like free money, and you put all that money in the stock market, and by the time you retire, you're going to have a couple million dollars.

It's not just the stock market. Put it in the S&P, and the total S&P is what everybody uses because 10 to 12% return and diversified and you don't have to do shit and you don't have to take any risk and you know it's diversified right the problem with that is that's all fine and dandy unless you or your spouse or both of you go to a retirement home and you get into a situation like this yeah because market goes down you're in a retirement home it's going to double your your loss is going to double then because your cash burn is unbelievable I know this by experience because my mother is in a retirement home and I always make the comment we basically grain farm for free because most of the profit of what we make grain farming pays for my mother's care

at a retirement home and we're blessed thank the good lord that we're in a situation where we do what we do and we have the hogs and I worked off the farm for as long as I did and that my dad lived as long as he did a healthy life and he didn't have if my dad had to go to a home when he was 80 years old and he lived to be 99. We wouldn't be having this conversation because this would have all been sold down the road to pay the bill of going to that retirement home. So if you're thinking, oh yeah, I'm going to just keep socking away my 401k and then me and sweetheart, we're going to have it made. Nope, you're not. And that is a, that is a bullshit. That's bullshit is what it is. You're being sold a lie because they want you to invest because they make money off of most of these companies make their money

off of the volume of money they're trading and the more people and the more money you put in there. And if you're in a, you know, whoever that they're selling you a loaded mutual fund, that's even more. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with a loaded mutual fund if it's managed well enough that it's beating its peers that are unmanaged that you're paying that feed for, that fee for. But still, in the grand scheme of things. Yeah, we kind of, we kind of.

Yeah, we went off on a tire. No, but we kind of, I don't know. we said don't diversify. Don't diversify. Make your first, you know, your wealth with one thing and then diversify. I would say diversify. Do two to three things. Have your retirement account if you're doing that.

But do two, one or two more things to try to have something else, have another nest egg that isn't just your retirement account. Yeah, exactly. And you might get lucky where you do live a healthy life and you don't go to retirement or retirement home early. and when you get to that age, the stock market might be in a really good place. And if that's you, that's great. But I wouldn't bank on.

Well, the problem, like all we're saying, like right now, there's some people that are headed for retirement that are right at the door of retirement. And they're looking at the next five years. And that is a horrible place to be because their nest egg is going to shrink. And their need for money is going to grow because they're hitting retirement. And that is a horrible place to be. And that's where not having another pillar, not doing something other than just throwing money in the S&P is going to bite you in the ass. And that's where we're at. Or just matching what your company gives you.

Yeah. And I mean, I'm with the family I got, I'm never going to be retired. I'm never going to be able to retire anyway. And if it looks bad, one of them will just smother me with a pillow. Well, let's face it, you don't want to retire anyway. You would be, you would never, you can't sit on the couch. No, I'd have trouble. You.

Yeah, that was good. That was good financial, to let you know where we stand on things. That was not financial advice. Not financial advice. Hey, I put a warning in the description of all our podcast and YouTube that says not financial advice. Awesome. We're off the hook.

We're off the hook. But yeah, not financial advice. Just our thoughts on things right now. So we're going to get in the Q&A because we spend a hell of a lot of time on the markets and how the world's going right now. But first question. and I'll answer some of this too, but dad, is farming worth all the time and effort? And, you know, is it worth it? And do you make profit? Do you ever make a profit while you farm?

Not if you do it right. If you're a farmer and you're paid taxes, you're doing it wrong. That's the first thing. And, you know, people joke about that. But the truth of the matter is, it's totally worth it. I think it's more worth it now than I've ever felt in my time that I've been doing it. And I've been out of having, air quotes, a real job now for three years probably. And I don't care if I was a plumber, if I had my own plumbing business, or if I was doing whatever I was doing, I would say the same thing. And what I mean by that is I'm working for myself. And we say that.

The worst day that we have working for ourselves is better than any day working for somebody else. and it isn't you say oh it's not about the money well it's not about the money as long as you can pay all the bills and if you can't pay the bills it is about the money but when it's all said and done everything we make that is a profit so yes we make a profit but we invest all that money back into what we're doing um so that money goes to paying off these hog building paying the ground off. Paying the ground off. Buy a new equipment. Yeah, if we want to buy new equipment.

Sorry to cut you off, but like, if we were at a point where we were satisfied with where we were as a farm, it might be a little bit of a different story. Yeah, we'd probably upgrade equipment every once in a while. But if we had everything paid for, which it's not an easy task, but if you did, hell yeah, you'd make a shitload of profit. But you'd pay a lot of tax, but that's all right. But you'd make a lot of money. Yeah.

If everything's paid for, you're not upgrading. equipment every year. Uh, and we'd be satisfied. But we're at a point now where we, we still want to grow, we want to expand as a farm. Yeah. So it's a little bit different. We are putting everything back into the business.

And we're paying ourselves enough money that we're, you know, we can live and be satisfied. Yeah. Part of that is your, like what satisfies you. So my wife and I don't, we don't really vacation. We don't, we don't really go. And it's not that we. couldn't do more stuff than we do, but we really enjoy being here. And like, we really enjoy

spending money on our farm. And like, you know, making it better. Yeah. So the house needs a roof or we're going to recite it or we're going to work on the patio or we're going to do whatever. We enjoy being here. So that's where we spend our, that's where we spend our, that's where we spend time and that's where we spend our money. And that's, I think that's true for a lot of farmers in the fact that they, they spend their money on, you know, they wouldn't have to run the equipment they run, but when it's, it's so different, like, I would equate it, it's probably similar to if you owned a, if you own a excavation business, or you own your own plumbing shop, or you own your own whatever. You know, some of the stuff you have, you probably wouldn't have to have,

you wouldn't have to buy new this or that, but you do because that's your livelihood and that's where you spend your time, so you want to have good stuff. And I think Farman's the same way. And then for us, also the legacy thing is big. So I heard a saying a while ago, and I may have heard this before too, but I'd forgotten about it, but I'm totally, this is me 100%. So I am blessed to be sitting under the shade of trees that the previous generation planted that never got any shade from.

In other words, the money that was invested by those that came before me and the time and the toil and the labor and all that, I'm reaping the benefits of that. And what Sawyer and I are doing, we're hoping that we're planting the trees that, you know, generations from now, those people are going to sit under the shade. Yeah, there's not a lot of things out there like that. You know, there's not a lot of things you can do in this world better like that in the fact that it's so legacy oriented. And, you know, you're on the same ground and same land as the ancestors before you. And like, that's, there's something to be said about that. So that's a huge, to me, that's really worth it. You know, that's something that's so unique that you can't really find anywhere else. unless you're kind of in a family business, but there's not a lot of family businesses that last six generations. Right. So, you know. Yeah, it's hard. But I think it's, you know,

you know, it's worth it, in my opinion. And you got to have some love and passion for it. You know, it doesn't have, you know, you got to love it. You got to like it. You got to like being in the tractor. You got to like working with animals. You got to like being on a farm, being out in the country, not in the big old city, you know. If you like peace, you like freedom, you like to do what you like to be your own boss and do what you want and you enjoy the outdoors. It's totally worth it. Right. You know, it's not the biggest money maker in the world, unless you're out a huge scale,

then you probably make a lot of money. But everything else outweighs that money part. Yeah. You know, I'm not going to say we don't make money because you do make money, but it's just like you said, you put it back in the business. So it's profitable, but don't go in a farm and think you're going to become a really, really wealthy guy because that's, probably won't happen. Yeah, and so much of that, air quotes, wealth is in hard assets. Yeah,

it's not like you're getting a ton of cash all the time, you know. It's, it's in buildings, it's in machinery, it's in land. Yeah. So totally worth it, in my opinion. So, uh, thoughts on farm credit. Um, so that's, uh, I, so I'm a customer of farm credit, uh, FCS America, which is, the division or the part that, you know, there's, there's, I don't know how many different farm credit entities there are across the United States, but, you know, there's like Frontier Farm Credit, Farm Credit Services of America, I don't know what all the other ones are, but that's where I bank. Mount Pleasant, Iowa is the branch that I use, and they have been fantastic for helping us get

where we are. And so I'll give you the upside. The easy upside to the farm credit system is this. You build a hog building, and to make it cash flow, you've got to finance that for 12 years. Okay, farm credit will go out, and they'll sell the bonds, and they'll give you a term that's locked that's fixed for 12 years. Will not change. You need that money for 15. years. You need that money for 10 years, you need that money for seven years. Whatever you need it for, they can lock that rate for that period of time. Your regular small-town bank, there's a lot of ways that they can make that loan work, but at some point you're going to have to refinance that because they can't lock it for a custom term. To my knowledge, the last I'm

new and somebody that's a local banker is going to jump all over me and go, ah, it's not true, we can do whatever. And maybe you can. But my experience has been that farm credit has been able to really make flexible terms and at really good interest rates. The other thing that's excellent about them is they're very proactive. All of my hog buildings, through the term of that loan, we were in a time where interest rates actually went down from where I built my first building. And we refinanced those. We basically refinanced them took no money out because they were cash flowing, but we refinanced them for a lower rate. And they literally watch that. And they would call you and say, hey, you know, this interest is to the

point where if we refinance, it's going to cost you this much, but you're going to save this much money. and basically in nine months you've saved enough money to pay for the cost of doing it. That's my upside. So the downside to farm credit is they really like their collateral. They really, really like their collateral. They are not aggressive bankers. So if you're somebody that you really want to, if you really want to push the envelope and you're trying to grow as fast as you possibly can and you need to maximize the amount of money that you can borrow, farm credit is probably not the place for you because I always use the analogy. When I built my first hog building,

I think they took 240 acres as collateral. and I always made the joke to my to my banker that he probably like at that rate you would root for me to lose the hog building because if you ended up with $248 I borrowed $470,000 for a hog building and I had 240 acres pledges collateral well that 240 acres is worth way more and you know I could have argued with him and fought with them and all that and it's not like we were doing anything else. It wasn't a deal breaker to us to have to do it that way. But I know for some guys that their collateral standards are more conservative than what a lot of local banks are. And I'm a firm believer in local banks. You've heard us talk so many times about, you know, on the real estate side, how important it is for you to have a relationship with a with a banker. And that's a little bit of a different deal than when you get into running a farming operation. Yeah, I was going to say the nice thing about farm credit is they work with a lot of farmers

so they know how shit works. They know how farm operations work. They're not all the same, but, you know, there are some similarities and they've seen a few things. They know a few things, which is nice. And I, where we, where our farm credit is, we've had nothing but great experience in my opinion. They've helped, when I built my shed, I felt taken care of, I felt like they were on my side. They weren't trying to screw me over. You know, I felt like, hey, they wanted me to win. And it's the same, same, it's just like when you said the refinance thing.

They almost, they're looking for your best interest, too, because if you're winning, they're winning too. So I've had nothing but good things to say about farm credit. And this is no shameless plug. I'm just being real. Yeah. They've taken care of us pretty good. I think one thing I would say is, the more unique your operation is, you know,

and so you take like what we're doing. One thing I would say is not everything we do is through farm credit. Right. So when you start getting into the real estate and some of the other stuff we're doing, that's kind of out of their, that might be a little out of their comfort level, and that's where a local bank is a lot, I feel like, is probably a lot better to deal with because they don't, they might not be the best for, I would say, unique operations.

Yeah, if it's outside of farming, they're not probably going to do a lot with it. Yeah, right. Which is... So if you're a really diversified farming operation and you have real estate interests and you have, say, you've got some other business that... Off the farm. Off the farm that you're running. They may not be the best person for that.

But for the hog business and for grain farming, they've been excellent to deal with, and I'm real happy with it. Jeez, I'm going to be asking you all the questions. You've got to ask me some. after this one, but what was Torque's reason for going clean shaving? That's funny because I'm kind of scruffy today because I haven't shaved. So it might be coming back in just out of... So the simple answer is, we were getting ready to go somewhere,

and so I was in the shower, and if I'm in a hurry, a lot of times I'll just shave in the shower because I don't want to look at myself in the mirror anyway. So anyway, I was shaving, and I got a little too close on one side and so then I was like oh boy so I was trying to do the other side and then I was like feeling and I was like this isn't right I think this looks like shit so I just shaved it all off I just shaved it all off and then I did and it was hot you know it was when summer was coming into full full strength and I was like I kind of like that it's kind of nice it's cool and I like a little shock value because every time I went,

everywhere I went, people like, you look different, what'd you do? And a little part of me might be because my beard is pretty much totally gray. My head isn't gray yet, which is kind of weird, but my beard's pretty much all gray. And

you don't want to look like an old fuck. Yeah, so everybody gives me shit about being the old man anyway. When you do shave, everyone's like, man, you look young. Yeah, I know. So you kind of like that. But your mom didn't like it. No. Mom likes the beard.

She likes a little scruff. She likes a beard. So her dad had a beard or a goatee his whole life. And she always, and it's so funny because we did sweet corn this weekend. And her sister showed up. And her sister looked at me and she goes, why did you shave your beard off? She goes, that looks weird. And the reason is because her dad always had that.

And they can remember when he shaved, they just always thought it looked terrible. So I think it's in them. So it'll probably come back at some point, but I just felt like shaving it off. Oh, there you go. There's the reason. So would you rather cash crop or do the hogs? I already know the answer to this. Cash crop, 100%, if I had money, I would totally run in the tractor, be in the combine

and all that because that's fun, plant and everything. That's the most fun thing to do. It's fun. But I would probably say I'm not somebody that wants to be a huge, huge, huge grain farmer. I don't want to farm 5,000 acres. I don't want to farm 4,000 acres. I want to farm enough ground where it's enjoyable and it's not so stressful. Like, I'm stressed out of my mind that we got to get everything in. We got to get everything out. And it's just a freaking mess.

I don't want to do that. I want it to be enjoyable. And viable. And viable. You know, have it be sustainable where it's sustainable financially. It's going to be viable for the seventh generation. You know, that's enough ground for the seven generation, but it's not too much where it's like, oh, my God, I'm losing my mind and this is stressful every year and I'm not enjoying it because I want to enjoy it. Because if you're enjoying the tractor, enjoying all that, and not saying that you don't get burned out because, you know, day whatever of harvest, you're like, oh, man, you know, I just get this shit out of here or planting the same way, you know. So you're going to have those moments, but I just don't want to be running, running, running, run and running, run and running, because there's guys in our

county that, probs to them, they go for a long, long time, and they get after it early, and they're on for a long time. I bet that's stressful as hell. Yep. So I love, I love grain farming. I love hogs, too, but hogs are, they're, I don't know what you say. It's just not as fun as grain farming, but it is there's something to be said that I say hog farming you see the the benefit of what that corn crop and soybean crop did you know because you feed those animals that crop and then you take them and ship them off to market that's the end result that's where it's going to that's what's what that's what the grain's going to and then that's what feeds the world that's truly what's feeding the world so that's the nice part about it and that's fulfilling um I like the winger pig

but, you know, hog farming, and hog farming's taught me a lot. It's really taught me a lot. It's instilled a lot of grit and determination and hard work, and I wouldn't be the man that I am today without the hog business, and it's been in our family for generations. I would do both, 100%. But if I had to hire one thing out and I could do one thing on the farm, it'd be grain farming.

I would hire the hog farming done if I had the money to do it, you know. but I'd probably get bored and sometimes want to go in there and do stuff because I've just been doing it for, I don't know, four years now, four or five years now, just constantly going in there. So I'd probably miss it a little bit. Yeah. It's easy to say all grain farming right now because all I do is hog farm. But if I just grain farmed, I'd probably get bored and be like, I want to go see the pigs. Yeah. So I think that's the, the dig on, on, hit on hogs is, and the reason why it's definitely not for everybody, and we say this all the time, because somebody's, got to be there every day. And I don't, I don't think people understand that in the fact that it doesn't matter if it's Fourth of July or Christmas Day. I mean, here, two years ago, I think it's two years ago, we had to load pigs on Christmas Eve. Well, Christmas night. Oh, yeah. Because it was like, because I remember we did a, I think it just did a little Instagram store and it was like, well, now we got to pay for all the presents. So it's time to go load pigs. And people, you know, we're like, gosh, I can't believe you're loading pigs on Christmas night.

Well, that's how it goes. But you got to, you know, that's the difference in that grain farming is a lot of work. It's very capital intensive. But it's a lot of work in the spring. It's a lot of work in the fall. And then it's a lot of watching. You know, you got to scout your fields and you got to keep, you know, it's got to rain and all that. Maintenance.

And you got to do the maintenance and all that. But it's not a constant, it's not a constant thing that. every day you've got to do X. And that's where there's some burnout in pigs. And the more sites you get, I mean, we feel that now that we've got four sites, is you, it's that much more that you're always getting pigs somewhere, you're always loading pigs somewhere.

And so it's a load that not, it's not for everybody. But, you know, for me, I agree. up with it. I've never had a time where I wasn't involved in the hog business somehow. And so it doesn't feel, it doesn't feel near as daunting as it would somebody that just put up a shed that had never raised pigs. And, you know, then they're in it. They're like, holy shit. This is, yeah. And I would say that one thing that's special to our hearts for the hog business is we wouldn't be here today without the hog business. We've said that a hundred million times on this, on this podcast. But our farm would not be where it is today without if you would have never built the hog barns

and we would have never started growing pigs. Right. Contract growing pigs. There's just no way we could be able to farm. So there's a lot that we owe to the hog business. And there's a lot of pride there, a lot of honor there. And we owe, we kind of owe it to the hog business for keeping us alive and viable as a farm. So, yeah, grain farming.

But I bet money, if I just grain farmed, I'd be like, I want to go in the shed a little bit. It wouldn't be every day, probably, but I'd still be like, you know, let's load pigs occasionally. Or let's go see the wiener pigs. What is the most important lesson that your grandpa, so Lawrence Whistler, taught you? Yeah, so here's one thing that you got to know about my grandpa. My grandpa was an old fart when I was born, and when I got to be, you know, a teenager and stuff, he was really old because he had you at what, 50. 52. So he was around the farm in operation.

and, you know, that's where I saw most of the time because he's working, but we never, like, he was just too old to go like fishing and like that kind of stuff. So I, I didn't have that and I totally understand why because, you know, he was older. So I get that. But I think what he taught me is, and through what you've told me, you know, is, uh, it's never too late to kind of start, start fresh if you have to, you know, because he came back to the farm so late after going into war, going through law school, becoming a lawyer, and then saying, screw it, I'm not going to, I'm not going to be a lawyer and I'm just going to start over and come back to the farm. And I think that's more prevalent today than ever before. It's like, you can start fresh whenever

you need to because there's just so much more opportunity now than what he had. But even back then, he decided, you know, fuck law school. I'm not, fuck, being a lawyer. I'm going to come home and farm. And he took that bet and risk. And, you know, he made it a successful family and he made a successful farm. And he had a good life. So that's the biggest lesson he taught me. And also just, I think about this all the time. I mean, he fought in World War II was a P-51 pilot. You know, there's just shit like, it's insane to think about that he put his life on the line and he really didn't, he fought a fighter pilot. and like risked his life and just went with the flow every day or every time he was flying in the

air and he didn't know if he was going to make it. But he just kept fighting and just kept going through it. So I don't know, just fighting, just fighting and never quitting and just keep going. It's kind of the lesson he taught me. Yeah. And don't be afraid to start over. Don't be afraid to start over. Yeah. You probably got a lot more lessons than I do. I probably have too, I've taught too many lessons um i think though the biggest i think the biggest thing that i am that i hold on to is just that idea like i've always kind of had in the back of my head that he did more he did more with the well he did a lot through his whole life i mean obviously you know but as far as the farm goes pretty much everything that he built he did from the time he was 40 years old.

And when I think about, you know, I was born in 71, and we built our first confinement hog buildings in 72, he built a finisher. and then in 74 and 75 or 75 and 76 he built our farrowing house nursery finisher all that and then when I was in when I was in junior high he bought the farm that we'd been renting which we call the meek place which is where our two barn site is and where Sawyer's barn is in the northwest corner of that but he did all of that you know, over the age of 40 and a lot of it over the age of 50. And I remember, you know, loading pigs and doing a lot of stuff when he was in his 80s. And I never thought of him as being an old man until he was like literally an old man. Like when he was in his 90s, he was an old man. but he just never,

so much of its mindset, because in his mind, he didn't act like he was, he didn't act like he was an old man, and he didn't run his life like he was an old man. He was always thinking about what he wanted to do. I mean, there was a lot of things I think that he wanted to do that he never got done, but there was a hell of a lot he wanted to do

that he accomplished, a lot later in life than what most people would be willing to start. And I've always felt like, so when I came home, you know, when I came home full time, I'm 52 now. Well, I'm basically where he was when I was born and this is where he started building it. Like this is where he started doing most of what he's doing. So I feel like, I feel like I can accomplish a lot. And the beautiful thing about it is a lot, of this is coming together with my family, with my boys,

and with my wife, that we're going to get a lot done. We're going to accomplish a lot in the next, you know, the next couple decades, whatever. And I feel like that that doesn't stress me out at all.

Like, some people would be kind of, they would be cautious about starting something at the point that I'm at. And I'm like, it's no big deal to me. And I think that's because of that upbringing. Yeah. That's really good lesson. I think now you have a better chance to live longer anyway. Yeah. And I think what kept him probably alive for so long is that he did act like he was young. And he never thought that he was an old man. He was passionate about what he did. And so he was always thinking young. You know, he was always like thinking like a young man, like he

was in his 30s or 40s or 50s. And I bet that's a big reason as to why he lived to be 99 years old. If I had a dollar for every time we had a conversation, he would read the local paper and he would look at the obituary and somebody had passed away. And he would say the same thing to me every time. He would say, well, did you see that so-and-so passed away? And I'm like, yeah. And he's like, boy, because that really surprised me.

He wasn't such an old man. And I would say to him, I go, well, he's 20 years younger than you were. And I just, that mindset was just like, it's just crazy. And like we'd go to the, you know, we'd go to the doctor for a doctor's checkup, and they would give you the list of all the stuff that you're supposed to fill out about your mental health and what medication you're on and when the last time you saw a doctor and what surgeries you'd had and all this stuff. and, you know, to my dad's, a blessing to him was he'd never really had anything. He was healthy as pretty much his whole life, but it was so funny, when he was in his 90s,

and we would go to the doctor, and he would fill out that health questionnaire, and I would take it up and give it to the desk, the nurse would, a lot of times, whoever was working the desk, they would call for me to come up there, and they would go, did you did you check this out and i'm like yeah so um i don't know if your dad uh is is this all right because they would just they couldn't believe that somebody his age wasn't on like 43 different medicines and it had all this stuff and i'm like no that's you know that's how it is you know and they were like boy that's that's amazing and i don't know whether that's heredity or whether that's just mindset or whatever it is. But like Sawyer said, he always just had a youthful mindset in

that he never, he never spent a lot of time thinking about the past. He spent a lot of time thinking about the future. And I think that's a good place to be. So yeah, anyway, were you involved in FFA? I was not involved in FFA. And not, I'm not digging on FFA at all. I'm not saying FFA's bad. I think it's a great thing. But my priorities in high school, school was just, I was, I really was passionate about sports. I love football. I love track. And I really like to have a good time. And I didn't really want to do any activities outside of those two things, to be honest. And if I wanted to help out here, this was my, this was my FFA. Yeah. My dad farmed, my grandpa farmed, I had lived on a farm. If I wanted some farming education,

why not just go through these guys? That was kind of my thought process. But I don't think FFA is just for education and I probably could have learned a lot of stuff through FFA but I was just you know that just wasn't a priority to me and I think a lot of I could have made probably a lot of good connections through FFA but that just didn't interest me when I was at that point in my life I just wasn't interested in it and I was focused on other things and I just never did it but I think it's a great organization I think we need more young people to get into ag so I think it's great yeah and And I'll tell you my FFA story. So my friends, you know, when I grew up, you know, there were a lot more farm families out in the countryside.

And pretty much all the guys that I hung out with through school minus a few were all farm kids. And just about all of them were in FFA except for me. And I remember when the Jackson Township FFA, you know, recruiters or whatever when you're in school, you know, or your friend is like, hey, we're having an FFA meeting, you know, you should be an FFA. I told my parents I wanted to join FFA, and I'll never forget my dad. He said, he's like, well, what, you want a pet pig? And I said, well, I don't know.

I think it'd be fun to do. He's like, he's like, if you. need a project, he goes, we got thousands of them over there. You can adopt any of those you want and just take care of them. And you don't need to go to any FFA meetings. He was not an FFA. But, you know, that was just his, I think that falls into his, one thing I've said this before. I always felt like my dad ran on the premise that time was his most valuable asset. I always felt like he was running behind. Like he felt like he was running out of time.

And he had to go, go, go, go, go. And as a result, we worked a lot. And we didn't vacation, we didn't do. And it sucked. I'll tell you, as a kid, it sucked. And part of the reason that he and I probably fought like we did when I was a teenager is because of shit like that. And one of those things was, you know,

he wasn't going to be that dad that carted your butt to FFA. and he wasn't going to spend a week at the fair, you know, with your pen of three and all that. He just wasn't going to do it. And my brothers never did it, neither did I. But I will tell you, a fair week just got over last week at our local county fair. And I worked the gate, the entrance gate, one of the gates there one day. And I'm a member of the Washington County corn growers, and they do an excellent job out there educating people. and FFA is a great organization because so many kids today get exposed to agriculture through FFA

that would otherwise not at all because when I was a kid, there were still an awful lot of farm families out there. There was a lot of people that farmed 160 acres or farmed 240 acres or whatever. And everybody had so many people had pigs that had cows. had this. You don't have that today. And we are so short on people in the ag industry that we need every person we can. We need every kid we can that takes an interest in agriculture. And FFA is a big part of that. So I'm a huge supporter of it. I think it's great. I just didn't have that opportunity. And I think if I, you know, I was the youngest. So if I sat down and threw a big enough tantrum, they probably would have let me do it.

But it just didn't happen. And with Sawyer, you know, we didn't push them to do it. And probably because we didn't have the experience of doing it, neither my wife nor I. But I think it's a great, I think it's a great organization. I was going to ask you. Oh, yeah. I was going to ask you this question.

I'll go for it. What is a good advice on buying your daily driving vehicle, Mr. Tahoe? Yeah. You've bought a lot of vehicles, so you have a lot more experience in this department than I do. I think it's kind of luck of the draw because, well, first of all, I'll say this. So at my age, I'll drive anything. I don't care what it looks like. You know, I feel like Sawyer would not drive the Tahoe.

Sawyer would not, and he's kind of getting to the point where he probably would, but, you know, when you're young, you want something. that looks nice. You're not going to drive some hunk of crap. My Chevy Tahoe that I drive that's my chore vehicle, I think that's a 2008 maybe, but that was our family. That was our family car. And it's been, God, it's been all over, it's been to New York and been to Pennsylvania, Colorado, Texas. It's been all over God's Green Earth and it's still running. And I don't know why. I mean, there's plenty of them around that have shelled out. It's got a 5-3 in it and got some damn comfortable seats.

They does have fantastic seats. Those are the best seats. Get the oil changed regularly and learn how to do your own, learn how to do your own basic maintenance. And if, you know what, if you buy a vehicle and it isn't, it's been halfway decent taking care of. And you change the oil and you change the air filter and you keep track of it. you know, get the transmission flush once in a while and take the differential cover off and make sure it's got gear oil in it. It's not, it doesn't look like somebody mining for gold once in a while. You do that and there's a lot of vehicles out there that will last.

Yeah, I'd say my, and yeah, you can learn pretty much anything on YouTube nowadays and it goes the same for trucks, cars, anything, your daily driver. You can learn how to change and do anything out there. My buddy Kael, shout out to you. He, he bought a Dermax. I don't know what. You year. I don't know, I don't know what engine's in it or whatever, but he, he bought it and, you know, it's used. It's got a, I don't know how many miles on it, but he learned, he did so much stuff with that truck and learned so much just by trial and air and YouTube. He'll be the first to tell you, you just got to go and learn, because that's the way you're going to learn. So he's learned a lot through just messing with that truck and upgrading it and fixing it and doing

maintenance on it. So just learn how to do it. Yeah, you know, It's, I, I, I, yeah, it's like your dad said. When I was in high school, I probably really wanted to drive something that was nice. But I'm at the stage now where, I don't really care because I drive mostly around here to go to the hog barns. And if I go into town, it's for something pretty quick and I get out. So, you know, I, I'm not really a materialistic person, to be completely honest with you. Do I want a nice car eventually? Like, would I love to have a sports car someday?

Yeah, but is it a priority to me? No. If I had a few money, maybe. But it's not a huge priority. I'd rather buy a 8RX. Yeah, right. You know, I'd rather buy a hog bar or a new tractor or a new combine or a semi or something that I would probably a vehicle. But it's nice to have a good truck. Having a good truck on your farming operation is a smart move. You just got to have one. I think if you can pull a little bit of your own maintenance, I think probably one of the longest-lasting vehicles out there, drive train-wise, is a three-wire Cummins.

I mean, I'm, so Dodge, the newer Dodges are, I think they're every bit as good as Ford or GM, and they might even be better. the older ones had a lot of transmission problems, and the bodies, they rust like a son of a gun. But you know what? There's a lot of guys around here that take an older dodge

and put a flatbed on it, and they're running a Cummins. And I think they call it a Three Wire Cummins, and I think they still sell it. Basically, you can get a Cummins that doesn't have any, it doesn't have any of the electronics on it. It basically needs three wires to run, and that's it. and I know I know a couple guys that have got you know like 2007 Dodge pickups that they pretty much there's nothing on there they've taken everything off of it and just they know how to work on that

Cummins and them things run good set of tires and an aluminum flatbed and they'll run a long time S10 it's always a good pick find one of those those are kind of rare though they're hard to find and they're kind of getting up there in age. So it's... They rust out before they shell out. It's kind of hard to find those. But if you can find one of those, those are reliable as shit too.

So, yeah. I don't know what advice to really give this person. They're looking to buy one. It's kind of a hard time to buy of used vehicle and a new vehicle. I wouldn't buy a new vehicle, though, because all these problems that are coming out of the manufacturing, whatever company you go with, whatever truck you model you buy,

there's problems on every single one of them because I think the labor shortage during COVID, and all that. You know, they had to hire all these new people and they probably didn't know what the hell they were doing and the parts.

They didn't have the right parts. And so there's a lot of people that bought new trucks. They don't have all the features and they're having problems. So I wouldn't buy a new pickup today for, hell, I wouldn't buy a new pickup right now.

Yeah. So I'd probably buy a used one if you're looking for something. But advice to give you on that, you know, make go look at it in person, make sure it's not rusting. Make sure nothing's fucked up.

Yeah. You know, if you can't work. Don't trust the part. Don't trust the pictures on Facebook marketplace. Go see it in person. And if you've got somebody that can work on it. Yeah. If you can't work on it, if you know somebody that is good that can work on stuff,

get something you know they can work on it because that's half of it. But yeah, I mean, it's like my Jeep. You know, I bought that Jeep and the transmission went out of it 5,000 miles. And I was lucky that they got it in and they actually were able to get a transmission. I got the oil change the other day. And there was one in there that they said they'd had. sitting there for two weeks, can't get a transmission. So that thing's literally been sitting there for two weeks,

can't drive it. And I just got to recall the brain box in my Jeep. I got to take it in and get it reprogrammed because it could go tits up at any time. So this new stuff is nothing special. Yeah, I'd wait a few years. I mean, I'd wait a good, I'm going to wait a long time before I've ever buy a new pickup, just because we got to get this shit figured out. whatever it's going on at these plants. It's not, not good.

Favorite bourbon, dad. And does Iowa have anything special for bourbon worth buying? Templeton, Templeton Rye. In Iowa? Is it worth it? Out of ten, what would you give it? Well, it's not my, it's not my taste. I would say that. I think Templeton Rye is the people that love it, just love it. because the taste profile on it is, it's too charcoal maybe. I don't know. You know, I'm a novice. I was going to tell you, guys.

You all know, he ain't a professional whiskey bourbon taster drinker. He doesn't know, you know, you know a few things, but you don't know everything. So it's all right if you, yeah. I don't know the fucking taste profile even. Right.

I don't think most people do. I like, to me, I like stuff that it has to be pretty smooth for me to sit down and just drink it neat. And that's something I've only just recently gotten into in the last year is I've always mixed. You know, I grew up, well, hell, I grew up on Southern Comfort in the glove box of a few cars that me and my friends have. So that's a pretty low hanging fruit. And I can't drink Southern Comfort to this day. The smell of it will almost make me puke.

So, but I've mixed, I've mixed a lot of Crown and Coke. and then, you know, during COVID, I kind of got into whiskey. And I like a smoother whiskey that is a little bit. What is it called? Oh, so I brought it. I brought it. Holy shit. So this is my, this, I just found this.

I've been trying to get it for a long time. Hold it up. It's called Blue Run is the name of it. And this one's actually, this is their high rye version. And they've got a couple different ones. And it's... It's not the easiest thing to find, especially here in Iowa, but I finally got a bottle. It's excellent.

It's very smooth. I like a whistle pig, like 10-year whistle pig. That's really good. As far as mixer go, so like if I'm going to mix an old-fashioned, like Maker's Mark, I'll make an old-fashioned with Maker's Mark. I like Yellowstone. I like that pretty well. I mean, Blanton's.

If you're going to buy me Blantons, that's pretty good. I'm not going to pay $199 a bottle or whatever the hell people get for it. I've had Weller. Weller's really good, but there again, it's like, there's whiskey out there that is you're going to open a bottle a few times a year, and then there's stuff that you know you're going to have on a Friday night when you're out with people and you don't want a mixer, and you're just going to drink it over ice or whatever.

But like that blue run, you're probably not going to drink that every Friday because that was kind of an... It was a more expensive bottle, but it's really good stuff. There's a lot of stuff I want to try that I haven't. I've never had E.H. Taylor. There's a lot of the...

I've only had... I think I've only had one variety of, like, Weller. I've got a few bottles. I've collected a few bottles. And if we, you know, as we get the barn done, we're going to put a little bit of a, a little bit of a bar in here. Kind of mostly whiskey.

But, yeah, probably my daily, if I'm going to, if I'm going to buy whiskey bourbon to make like an old-fashioned or Manhattan, it's probably going to be Maker's Mark. Or Woodford, Woodford's good. If I'm going to sit down and sip on it, I'm going to sip on something like Blue Run or, I'll tell you a good one,

Red Breast, which is an Irish potted whiskey. That's like 12 years. That's really good. I really like that. So those are a few. I like Maker's Mark.

I like Blue Run. I tried that, and that is pretty smooth just to drink straight. And I'm no, you like bourbon better than me, but that's pretty damn good. Yeah, that's what I'd say.

Maker's Mark's kind of my go-to for old fashions. That's what I use. I think whiskey is kind of a, there's so many things that happen as you get older. And I'm not going to over-romanticize this, but I'll say that, you know, 35-year-old Tork wouldn't sit down.

I just wouldn't sit down in a comfortable chair and have a conversation with somebody and take like 20 minutes to drink a glass of bourbon. I would drink like four crowned. and coax because I just drink it like I drink pop which is probably not a good thing so I mean that it's all about where you're at it's all about where you are well you've kind of influenced me a little bit because i don't like i can't really i don't like the crown coax or the yeah vodka sprites really anymore either because it's that's that that freaking pop just gives you the worst hangover oh i know and so you

kind of kind of ruined me because when i when i sit down with you and just have bourbon yeah it ain't the easiest to drink, but you don't have to go up and get four of them. You just get one and you're good. Just get one and just sit and sip on it and have a good conversation. And, you know, and that's what we like. I love the experience of being around people that I enjoy talking to about real things, not, you know, the shallow conversations that we all have. How are you doing? Oh, real good, real good. How are you doing? Oh, good. good, good, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. I like talking about stuff of substance. And whiskey kind of goes along with that because, you know, it's, you drink it slow,

you're not in a hurry. It's something you do when you're not in a hurry where you have time to dedicate time to the conversation or to the experience you're in. So now, granted, there's plenty of people that drink whiskey that are complete alcoholics that just drink it to drink it because they, you know. It's their weapon of choice. Yeah, and if that's your deal, that's fine too. But I come at it is I like finding different,

I like finding different kinds, and I like the way it tastes and the differences between them. And I like the stories behind them. I'd love to get, I'll tell you what, the bottle that I want more than anything else, if I'm collecting, I want a bottle of brulade black art. They don't make it anymore. Brulade is a distillery over in Ireland, I think, or Scotland maybe, I don't know. But anyway, they made a run.

It's in a black bottle. It's called Black Art. They made it for a few years. I'd really like to try a bottle of that. So anyway. Okay. Well, let's do one fun one. Okay.

How many tools have we dropped in the pit, you think? You got way more on your stat sheet than I do, but I've dropped a few. I if I had to guess and it's not always tools it's nipples it's nuts it's bolts it's a screw uh whatever those are more common than like a whole ass wrench but i'm sure i've done that i can't remember what i've dropped in there i'd say i've probably dropped like three or four tools in the pit but i haven't been doing it as long as you have so uh i've dropped an entire aluminum sorting panel Yeah, gate rod. Gate rods are pretty easy.

If you don't have a good grip of them, you can drop one of those pretty damn easy. My dad taught me at a young age to always bring your tools in a bucket and make sure that if you're not using said tool, that it's back in the bucket. And make sure the bucket is secure, like in a feeder or sitting somewhere where it's not going to get knocked over. So that helps a lot.

But I know for a fact that in, like especially our old hog buildings, uh there's a lot of seven 16s half inch nine 16s wrenches um i don't think too many hammers got dropped in the pit pliers vice grips um vice grips yep i want to drop those yeah i know you don't want to drop them one of the most helpful tools yeah uh stuff like that a lot of that kind of stuff i don't know i don't think since in the time that i oh so doing service i'll tell you when i was doing service. The worst thing that I did, not so much dropping tools, but leaving tools. I seriously have been to farmers places to work on a heater. And when I opened the heater up, my wire pliers were in the heater from when I was there two years before to work on that heater.

Because I would leave shit. I would get, you know, I'd get done. Like, I would have to replace like a high limit switch. no like a sail switch so a sail switch in a in a in a heater is on one side of the heater the gas valve the high limit switch all that is on the other side of the heater and when you're troubleshooting one I don't know how many times that you know so sides yeah you'd switch sides and then you'd get it running and then you just shut everything up yep and off you went and I'm not shitting you it's more than one place I've gone back and you know the guy's like yeah this heater's not working open it up. Yeah, there's my wire pliers when I was there two years ago or whatever. And I've been in like controllers. I used to have a bag. Hired hand would ship with every control, these little black,

short little screwdrivers. And they were made because they had a spring loaded wire holder that you stuck the screwdriver in the slot and it would loosen the clip and you could pull the wire out. And I had a bag of them and I kept one tucked behind my ear all the time because I never knew when I was going to have to mess with a controller or whatever.

And I don't know how many controls that I would go work on and there'd be one of them in there because I'd leave it. So yeah, I've probably left a lot more tools around than dropped. And everybody asked me, because on our videos, if you follow this a little bit,

do farm. I always got my AirPods in. Most of the time I got my AirPods in because I'm either listen to a podcast or music while I'm chorned or pulling pigs or whatever. I have never dropped my AirPods in the pit. I have never done it. It might happen to me, but I'm very smart about when I make sure they're securely in my ear when I'm in there. And if I feel like they're loosening up, I will take my glove off and I will put it back in there good. So it's nice and snug. And if I'm, I just don't, I don't mess around with them. I make sure they're in my freaking ears. And I don't like put them off and put it on the top of my ear when I'm in there.

I will, if I'm going to take them out, I'll go into the workroom and take them out. I won't even try taking them out when I'm in the barn. So yes, that answer needs, that question needs to be answered because I get that a lot. Yep. But anyway, I think that's the show. There you go. Thanks for all the question, guys. We didn't get to all of them, but we did answer a lot here.

And next Friday we're going to come on and we're probably going to talk about the state of the world and how we think things are going and maybe talk about some finance like we did in the beginning of this one. But thank you so much for watching. Pay the fee if you got any value and we'll see you guys here back next Friday for another episode.