Barn Talk - Barn Talk Q&A: The Consolidation of Power in Agriculture: Fertilizer, Pork, and Beyond

Episode Date: August 4, 2024

Welcome to Barn Talk! In today's episode, we dive into bringing back American Manufacturing, the best farm truck, meat and livestock production/consolidation in America and much more.  Use code BARNTALK for 10% OFF your next order https://farmergrade.com 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    00:00 Morning prices fluctuate based on export news. 09:45 Hog market benefits from a weak grain market. 11:59 Deer expects business slowdown, layoffs due to equipment glut. 16:25 Companies prioritize profit over worker well-being. 22:59 China's potential as a market is questioned. 29:09 Voters' motivation, identity politics, Kamala vs. Trump. 32:00 DNC money for Biden only usable by Harris. 36:46 JD Vance interview sparks political controversy. 43:46 GM changeover, limited options for farm trucks. 49:13 Pig fertility decline due to purrs. 53:20 Consolidation in industries is harming consumers and workers. 01:01:09 Consumers drive change by choosing cheaper options. 01:05:00 Farmer grade: striving for exceptional customer experience. 01:10:25 Half ham sliced, salted, smoked for 10 days. 01:14:11 Annual boys trip to the lake for camping. ------------------------------- ***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

All of the food we eat and much of the clothing we wear comes from plants and animals that are raised on farms. Farms are different in type, in size, and even in name. Welcome to Barn Talk. What happens at the barn stays in the barn, but not today. We're going to let it all out for you guys. Today is going to be a Barn Talk Q&A episode. We got, you guys submitted some questions that we're going to get answered here on the show. If you want to get your question answered on the show, you can email us your questions at Barn Talk Show at gmail.com. and that's the best way to submit questions. If you get any value from the show,

all that we ask is that you shared out with the people that you know. The more that you guys do that, the more the show could grow, the more guests we can get on, more episodes we can make. It's just a win-win for everybody. We found that the best way to grow a show is word of mouth, so we appreciate all that do that and share the show. Another way that you can help out Barn Talk

is leave a review on Spotify or Apple. That gives our show a lot of credibility, and when you're trying to get guests on the show, the more reviews you got, more credibility you got. So please leave a review and thank you to the ones that do that. We always love hearing from you guys.

So we love seeing those reviews come in and letting us know what we're doing good and what we're not doing good on. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you only listen strictly on audio, we do have a video version on the podcast on YouTube. Barn Talk. Last thing you can do to support Barn Talk

and us here on the show is support our direct-to-consumer meat business, Farmergrade. Farmergrade.com. We got Wagyu, we got beef, we got pork for that we raise here on our farm, pasture-race chicken. We always are running a weekly special on something about 20% off, whether it's steak, pork, chop, bacon, whatever. Every week you can check in and see what we got going. New things are coming down the pipe with like loyalty rewards programs and free gifts and stuff like that to incentivize people to want to spend more money at Farmergrade.

So that stuff's coming down the pipe. But that's kind of the last thing you can do to support us and help out here on the show. I like free gifts. I do too. You're wearing one right now. Yep. This is the fresh out of the first box of Farmer Grade. So I don't know what all the loyalty rewards program looks like or gifts.

But I have a feeling at some point you could get a Farmer Grade hat in your box. Yep. Yep. So the loyalty rewards program on the site is going to be. points so the more money you spend the more points you earn and that's just money off your order and then i think we're going to have a loyalty rewards program that uh is kind of more internalized that gives away free items like hats like coosies like other stuff that's nice cool and cool cool and i love the cool factor yeah i need all the help i can get because my coolness my my my old man coolness is just it's like

testosterone levels it just gets a little lower every year so i got a subsisting Dizze it by getting cool shit. Yeah, that's a good point. And yeah, I just forgot to say this. But if everybody that listens to this podcast, you can use code Barn Talk to save 10% off your order. Forgot to throw that in there. Well, that's good to know because we all need 10% off.

We all need some discounts right now. We need some discounts because the grain markets, they're not helping us out any. So you like that? I do like that. The market update, courtesy of Cats, Grain, Washington, Iowa, you might want to call them because right now for a lot of people, I think the price reflected upon the Chicago Board of Trade is below your cost of production. At least it is for

me. So I don't know. I saw on Twitter yesterday somebody put out, you know, what is the number, most important thing to you within the grain markets, right? now something something like that and every every answer was a price above my cost of production price above my cost of production so yeah we're in a we're in a weather market the prices this morning are off of the open update that I got from cats and there was some pretty sizable export news and we need all that we can get because we got to get these prices up because it's a really about back and forth between how much old crop we have and how good the new is, and there's competing opinions as far as, of course, USDA, the sun always shines,

so they think we're going to have a huge crop, and then everybody wants a really good crop in their neighborhood, and there's somebody somewhere that's going to have a poor crop to offset that is what people's mindsets are. But anyway, corn for September 4.0.4.4.4.4.4.4.4.2. locally 409 and Cargill and Cedar Rapids has a 430 bid so they must want some so go sit in line in Cedar Rapids. Beans August 1109 Burlington 1139 oh sorry I forgot to put the board price on I think it's 11111111 is the board price last time I looked 1109 in Burlington and 1139 across the river in Quincy bean meal 347 a ton We'll come back to that.

Wheat for September 542. Hogs 9380. So hogs are eerily close to the magic $100 number, but that beanmeal at $3.47 and cash corn around $4 helps the hog guys a lot. It's not great, but it's a lot better than what it was. However, I think wiener pig prices on the open market are somewhere around $30, bucks and i'm pretty sure your cost of production on a weiner pig is 40 bucks or so so uh still a lot of red ink on the sow unit side of things i can't remember what feeder pigs were but they weren't very high i want

to say they were like 50 bucks or something like that so if you're an optimist you got a you got a shed sitting around you could play the card go buy yourself some weiner pigs or feeder pigs but i don't know it We just can't seem to get any momentum in this hog market. Unlike the cattle market, who they just piss excellence every day. Cattle 187, feeder cattle 257. I didn't get the crude oil bid today. I forgot to get that, but it's in the 80s there. So depending on what world event has happened, it keeps floating around the $80 mark.

Bitcoin, 64,300. Tesla missed their earnings. Their sales volume was down 7%. Their gross income was actually higher than estimates, but their sales part, the automotive side, was down 7%. So they just beat the piss out of it. $215 a share. Gold, $23,74, silver, $20.

$26.43. Beyond meat, I just love bagging on Beyond Meat. $6.8. Have they gone up? No, it's, I think the last time I gave the market update, it was $6.87. They've come out with a redesigned, a redesigned Beyond Meat crumble to directly compete against Farmer grade sausage. So was it got three less ingredients than the original version?

It actually does have fewer ingredients. ingredients. So instead of like 16 or 17 ingredients, it's got 13 or 14 ingredients and none of them are real meat. That's progress for them. You know, here's what my thought is. If I was just sitting at the board beyond meat, I think they're on the right idea of getting less ingredients. So if they could just strip that all the way down to where like the ingredient for their meat crumbles was just, let's just say, sausage or ground beef. If they just went with, I'll give them three ingredients.

Like maybe they could do sausage, salt, paprika, or salt, black pepper. I think they might have a chance. Yeah. But I don't, until they get down to that level of ingredients, I think they're fucked. Yeah. So that's my two cents. I think you'd be kicked off the board in two minutes. I don't think they'd like that answer.

Well, I think it's good advice. Yeah. I mean, I'm not biased at all. I just think from a consumer standpoint, when I'm standing there looking at something and I got, okay, this has meat in it. What is all this? I don't know.

That's how I choose my food. I don't think they're trying to appeal to you. They should. I eat a lot. Yeah. Like, why appeal to people that don't, I'm not some 80-pound, you know, vegan extremists that don't buy anything. I don't buy anything anyway. I only eat like a pound of food

a day. Poor daily gain. I have excellent daily gain. A little too well. I got to curb that a little bit. What about the bean meal? You said you come back on that. Oh, well, my point on bean meal was that on the hog market, on the hog market, the upside hasn't really been the market. For those guys, it's been the weakness in the grain markets. So in other words, you know, corn prices coming down and bean meal coming down, that helps the hog guy. It's kind of a, it's kind of a, I guess a catch-22, because if you're a guy and you're feeding hogs, but you're also selling corn and beans, you know, you can pick your poison, I guess. But for a cost of production, it helps a little bit when your number one ingredient is corn and bean meal.

So anyway, that's why I know about that. It's nice. Well, we're going to just get into the questions. We're going to run through them, and I'll have you answer this one first, since it's near and dear to your heart. Stephen asks, I'd like to get your guys' opinion on the John Deer layoffs and plant closures.

I work in a steel mill in Ohio. We make steel for Tesla and other automotive applications. We are definitely feeling the, effects of the layoffs and cyber truck recalls. Do you think the days of the well-off factory workers are over, or do you believe and come back to U.S. manufacturing? As a young farmer and livestock producer, I understand that we are strong together. That's why I'm a proud member of the Iowa Corn Growers Association. Made up of over 7,000 members, the Iowa Corn Growers Association helps bring light to agricultural policy that affects not only this will do farm, but many others

throughout our community and state. The reality is, with fewer farmers in the U.S., agriculture's voice becomes smaller unless we speak up and speak out for our industry. With the help of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, I continually have someone advocating for our farm even when I can't be there. It's vital to our farm to have someone fighting against anti-ag policies and also promoting new legislation that will positively impact our bottom line and future generations of farmers. To learn more about the Iowa corn growers association and become a member today, visit iwacorn.org today.

Now, let's get back to the episode. Yeah, so on the deer side of things, they are definitely gearing up for a slowdown in their business. I mean, and I think we have another question in there about their whole, you know, they came out and said that they're rolling back or they're not going to do any more of their DEI stuff. and all that. But the layoffs, that all has to do with what they see coming as far as equipment sales. Because I think like the number of, I think the number of higher horse tractors on, say, tractor house is maybe like an all, like an all, not maybe not an all time high, but way higher than it's been. there's just a glut of equipment, a new late model equipment, and with commodity prices the way they are and interest rates where they are, and we've talked about this many times, I mean, there's a lot of guys

out there that were trading equipment every year, every two years, because it was free money. So they were playing the depreciation game. They were rolling them, rolling them, rolling them, and you can't do that. And so guys are holding on to equipment longer. so that's hurting new equipment sales. And let's face it, I mean, the price of this equipment is outrageous. And there was a, I saw on Twitter, there was a 8RX, a 410, 8RX, which is that tracked 8,000 series. And those things have been, I mean, they're crazy expensive anyway, but all the auctions, they've been going over 400,000.

And the first one of those that anybody saw, I think there might have been two that sold that they brought under 400,000, they were $300 and some thousand dollars. That's the first time that's happened. And it just kind of signals weakness in that equipment side. So I think you're going to see more layoffs with deer because they're looking out, they're projecting what their sales are going to be quite a ways out. And internally, they're thinking this thing could get rough. So that's why they're, that's why they're throttling back. As far as manufacturing goes, aren't they moving jobs to Mexico? Yeah, they are. Because cheap labor? Cheap labor. And people, you know, there's a few things within today's Q&A that are questions about people, or questions about

companies doing things and people upset about what they're doing. and here's the deal. Deere is a publicly traded company. So when you make that, and we've talked about this before too, when you make that jump that you go public, a lot of decisions that you make become very short term. So you can have this grand strategic plan to keep the company going and strong and all that. And Deer obviously has done a great job of that. They've been around for ever in a day and they're one of the biggest players in the in the world equipment business. But you're you're held by all these stockholders and a lot of them are big institutional investors like BlackRock and they want 30%. I mean if you're not if you're corporate profit, if you're not

pulling 30% minimum yeah and i mean a lot of companies aren't right now we've talked about how the s and p the s and p is basically seven companies seven big tech companies that their stocks up up up and everybody else has pretty much been shit the whole year deer's stock is down 16% it's either 16 or 19% for the year um which isn't surprising because their sales is stagnated and that's why they're trying to cut costs they're cutting costs they're cutting costs because they're pushed for shareholder value. They aren't necessarily doing what's best for the company. Or the people inside of it.

And they're sure as hell not doing what's best for the workers because they are owned by stockholders. And so it's not like people are, when you say are like, I can't believe they're doing that. Well, I can totally believe they're doing that because that is an option for them and it's a cheaper cost of production. So don't think that they haven't weighed out, you know, what the backlash is going to be.

So they're balancing that. They're like, how much backlash can we take and still keep our market share? And like last podcast when we were talking about all their DEI stuff, it's like, well, how much BS is the American farmer willing to take and still buy our product? and that's what they're doing. I mean, they're sitting there and there's like, how can we cut our costs? How can we set ourselves up to weather this storm and not artificially erode our market share?

And they're just comparing themselves to case IH and everybody else, and they're like, they're kind of like, life said this many times, and we talk about it on here. It's kind of like the United States. For all of our shit that we do, we're still the floatiest turd in the whole toilet bowl, you know it's like look at america and all the problems we have well we're still better than the rest world deer looks the same way how do we weather this the second part of your question about

manufacturing and factory workers i i don't know i feel like i'm pretty optimistic the united states is definitely uh in a time of what you call reshoring There's different ways to say it, but basically, a lot of these companies are bringing jobs back to the United States from China because China is no longer cheap labor, and their economy is in freefall. The Chinese bank, they lowered interest rates only by a tenth of percent, but they're probably going to do more because they're in stagflation. I mean, they're... they can't get any economic drive going.

And part of the reason for that is because they don't have any consumption left because their population is getting too old. But the chip business is coming back to the United States. A lot of manufacturing is coming back to the United States. Even though Deer is talking about moving to Mexico on part of those jobs, there's still a lot of manufacturing that's going to get billed out over the next 10 years because the days of globalization is over, and a lot, the United States is kind of battened down the hatches corporately, even though your government may not be saying that. Corporately, companies are saying,

we got to get control of our, what's the word I'm looking for? Supply chain. We got to get control of our supply chain, because COVID, they don't want that whole mess, but also everything that's going around the world. So I think the manufacturing jobs are going to be different, and I think the idea that you're going to be able to go to work for somebody out of high school and keep the same job your whole life, that probably is never coming back. But I think manufacturing is definitely on the rise in the United States. Yeah, I think also there's companies probably look at that.

That's appealing to the American consumer. It's a hot buzz marketing term you can use, bring an American manufacturing back, or having people actually working in your business here in America. That's marketable. People like that. Americans like that. You got a good example of that. I mean, you love origin.

Origin. I'm actually wearing their jeans right now. They pride their whole company and their whole mission is to bring American manufacturing back to the United States and create American jeans, American denim. and American clothing products that are actually handmade by Americans in American factories and a source from American farmers. So I can support that. I love that mission.

It's high quality denim. I'm wearing them. They're the best fucking jeans I've ever worn in my life. And that's no bullshit. No sponsor. Shameless plug. I love origin for that reason. I love their mission,

but their product's actually really good too. And so, again, that's appealing to me as a consumer. I love America. I love supporting. America. I love supporting Americans. And so anybody that can use that, I think they're going to use that. I would just say to you, though, do you think, yeah, the China thing, that seems like it's kind of getting less and less by the day working with China and getting a lot of ship manufactured there for

cheap labor. But Mexico, you know, Peter Zion always talked about how China was going to fall and that was going to become less and less working with China. But Mexico was going to be our best trading partner because they have the youngest population and they're now going to be the new china essentially they're going to be our best trade partner because of that and i mean you again deer's kind of moving in that direction so do you think it'll kind of transition from china to mexico because of the cheap labor and the trade partner and they're so close or do you think it'll be a little bit of both of u.s manufacturing and man at mexico manufacturing yeah yeah i think i think it will um I think that

so Mexico will get they will gain a lot of jobs because they still have cheap labor but they also are a much more a much more well-balanced trading partner with the United States

so in other words they always talk about the trade deficit between the United States and China basically we buy a shitload of stuff from China and they buy very little stuff from us other than American ag they buy a lot of American ag and this might or might not be the time to say it, but, you know, I've got my pork producer hat on,

and we were up at NPIC, or I was up at NPI, and, you know, everybody talks about China and the amount of pork they eat and all that, and you better get ready because it is not going to be that way. Like people just put their heads in the sand about how everything is, and we just assume that just because it's been this way, it will always be this way. China will not be this big untapped market for American ag products because their society, their demographics, everything about that country is screwed, totally and utterly screwed. They are not going to be this big market, and we better figure it out.

And everybody wants to talk about on the pork side that, you know, oh, you know, if we could just export more shit to China. That'd be great. But your number one export market in the United States for pork is Mexico. And so that's a good thing. So I think the trade with Mexico will be more balanced, but you are definitely going to see companies that are looking for things, things that are labor intensive.

The thing that Mexico doesn't have is they don't have a lot of, highly skilled labor, but also the infrastructure as far as power for real intense industrial manufacturing. I think a lot of that will come back to the United States, like chip making. All these chip companies are building fobs here in the United States, and battery manufacturing, high-tech stuff, that will come to the United States. Lower technology stuff, more labor-intensive stuff that takes a lower skill of labor, I think that'll go to Mexico. But I think overall, I think there's more upside with Mexico than China. Yeah. And last point on this, you know, if you watch Trump's speech at R&C, again, this is

presidents, these are president candidates making promises and saying that we're going to do this and do that. We'll see if it actually gets done. But, I mean, Trump's plan seems like, like is to drill baby drill, become energy independent again and not buy a shitload of oil from everyone else, and also bring manufacturing back to the United States, especially in the automotive space. He talked about that, a shitload. He wants to bring it back here. He wants to drill, baby drill, and become energy independent. So, you know, we'll see if that happens. We'll see if that happens. I don't know if it'll happen or not, but, you know, that's just something that he has said that he would do if he became president. Again, president's making promises. You never know. It may or may not pan

out. So we'll just have to see if he even gets elected. So that kind of leads into the next question here. Yeah. Will Kamala be the nominee and will women come out and vote for her? So, yeah, it seems like we can't ever get, now our Q&As and hot topics kind of blend together because everybody asks us about political questions too now. Um, yeah, I guess if you guys have been seeing Biden has stepped down as the nominee Kamala's came out or he's endorsed Kamala. Um, Obama had didn't, the Obama's didn't endorse Kamala. So I don't know. I don't, I think it's too early to tell if she's really going to be the nominee or not. You know, they're, they're like, see, they're, they're her out there like she is going to be. But honestly, I don't know. I don't know if there's going to be

more chaos that ensues before the election with crazy shit that they try to pull. The sad thing about that whole deal is if I'm a Democratic, Democratic voter, it's like you really kind of push this guy out and made him seem like he was competent and told us that he was competent. And all these videos that we're seeing are deep fakes and that the president's in great, great, great, shape. So you got to vote for Biden. He's your choice. Everybody, he's the nominee. Democrats accept it. Democratic voters accept it. And then does that debate. And from there and on, it was like leading the lamb out to slaughter. Now we got to change the tide. Now we got to put somebody else up. And you didn't even get to choose who that'd be. They just made it happen for you. The other thing that's kind of messed up

about that deal is so you're telling me the president the active president right now is saying he's stepping down to run for president again because we all know that he's unfit for it so why is he still president then right now right because that's the reason it's not any other reason Biden's old Biden's probably his health is declining there's rumors that his health health's declining or I saw some other rumors that he might be, he might even be dead, but I also think, I think I saw a video of him actually coming out.

Somebody shot a video, he's alive, but. Well, he gave it. He was from the Oval Office. Regardless, yeah, regardless, he's fine. But regardless, the reason he's stepping down, as we all know, is, you know, he's not fit. And it's just dumb that he's able to still run, or still be active, our active president.

So would you want if he wasn't if he's not fit then Kamala is president so which is worse I know it's it's it's the million dollar it is it's not it's not good either way um I don't know I don't know if people will come out I think it's crazy to me that she run like previously in one of her um when she was running to be I don't know a senator was it a senator she was an Indian she was an Indian American yeah they were they were putting her up on the pedestal that she was an Indian American now that they're running her as as African American and or just a black woman I don't even I don't think her descendants are from Africa so she can't say African American but she's running as a black

president yeah they just pick and choose what's convenient for them at the time pro noun yeah what's gonna what's gonna rattle up voters to get them to come out and vote for I mean it's just it's all those little terms that they like to play on but um yeah I'm sure you you'll have a certain amount of women that will just vote for her just because she's a woman. And I'm sure there'll be a number of black people, black citizens, black Americans that vote for because they've been told that we got to support our black, our fellow black Americans. So we're going to vote for Kamala. Regardless of how the Democratic Party has contributed that community throughout time,

they're still just going to fall for it and vote for her and put her up. But is it enough to beat Trump? I don't know. Again, I don't even know if she's going to be the nominee. I just think I don't think she's probably the answer. Right. I really would be scared if she, truthfully,

I would be scared if she wins the presidency. If we get four more ears of another Democrat that's essentially, I think, bought by the establishment that's running the play that Joe Biden was running, which Joe Biden wasn't even running it, because let's be honest, he wasn't even probably making the decisions. It's not going to be good. I don't think it's going to be good for us at all.

And you want to talk about somebody, nobody, none of the, none of foreign leaders respected Biden. And I don't think they'll probably respect Kamala. They do respect Trump because Trump is a strong, say love him or hate him, but they respect Trump. People respect Trump.

He's a strong candidate. He's a strong president. He's a strong personality. And he's courageous. And people know that. Love him or hate him. He's got a strong personality. And so I don't know.

I think we really need Trump to win or RFK to win. I'm not opposed to RFK winning. I like RFK. I think RFK would be my second choice. And if there was a different Republican candidate running, maybe RFK would be my number one choice. But Kamala sure as fuck isn't. My choice.

I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head at the beginning of what you said, because what I look at more than anything else is the Obamas haven't come out and endorsed her. And that tells me that there is more... To the story. There is more shenanigans to come at the convention. I think it's very possible that out of nowhere unseen by anybody, Michelle Obama gets put up. I don't know.

I don't know. So the kicker of the deal is, as it is today, the only person that can use the money that's been raised within the DNC that was earmarked for Biden is Kamal Harris. She's the only one that can use the money. And to your point about why Joe, why it all changed so fast, you can have your ideology and whatever you want. But at the end of the day, what it all comes down to is the big fundraisers within the DNC,

the money dried up. So after the debate, everybody thought the sky was falling. then Joe goes out and doesn't do too bad and everybody and then Trump gets shot so that takes the pressure off because everybody's talking about that and everything kind of stabilizes and everybody's like oh you know I think Joe's going to be okay but what you didn't see behind the scenes was all of the big donors all of the big money said done we're not giving you we're not giving you anymore he we're we're not doing it you guys guys have been, you guys have been pulling the wool over eyes. He is, he's not in good shape.

We're not giving any money. Well, and I think the momentum shifted so hard to Trump. Yeah. That they had to do something. And so as soon as the money dried up, it didn't matter. That's the only thing that matters. The Democratic Party had to change something to gain momentum. Right. In the media, in people's minds. Because if they were to do nothing, the last chain of event that was really major was Trump getting shot at and getting up a pumping his fist up and saying fight, fight, fight. And then the largest R&C turnout in history. Yeah. I mean, the momentum was huge behind Trump. So if they were to do nothing, yeah, it would have been, I think they were screwed. So they knew they had to do something. But I think you're also right in the fact that, yeah, I think people saw him as unfit and the money

dried up. So I, I, to, you know, that was a pretty broad answer to that. There was. question. I think there's, I don't think there's that many women. I think if you're a hardcore left Democratic woman, you're going to support her because you're a, you're a sheep. You will do whatever they tell you to do and you're all about everything she represents. But let's, let's not forget, she didn't even make, like she was among the first cut. When she ran for the, for the presidential nomination against Biden, clear back, she didn't even make the first, like she was the first, one of the first one out. And let's, this is going to get brought up. But, uh, uh, the gal that ran against her. Tulsi, Tulsi, uh, play those clips of those two debating. I mean, she will get, I saw somebody the other

day say, what will Trump do when he has to debate a prosecutor with a 90% conviction rate? because that was supposedly her conviction rate when she was a prosecutor. And they said, oh, yeah, she's going to mop the floor with him. Go back and watch Tulsi Gabbard just absolutely destroy her in the debates, in the presidential debates when she was out. Like, she was one of the first ones out. She is an idiot. And it's just so predictable.

Anyway, I don't, I honestly think the women vote will not say, her if she gets the nomination. But the elites within the Democratic Party the order that is there today, Obama holds the cards. And if Obama's don't endorse her,

don't count your chickens because there's a lot that's going to happen. Yeah, I wish the last thing I'll say is I just kind of, I think maybe now Trump may or may not have should have picked Tulsi to be his vice president? No. Because you don't think so?

No. Okay. Well, I don't think so. It would have been a good firepower to combat the whole woman and minority, you know, popularity around Kamala. I mean, that's what I'm seeing. Across social media, it's pretty much vote for Kamala to support her because she's a fellow black American.

Yeah. That's what other black Americans are saying. And that's what I'm seeing. and then also, you know, that she's a woman. We got to support women. Women got to support women. Black people got to support black people, right? That's what I'm getting.

That's the gist. Can't vote for Trump. We got to vote for her, right? That's what I'm getting. So this is, I've got to bring this up while I remember it. So you talking about him, his vice president pick, not picking a woman. The feminist vote is definitely not going to be gotten by the Republican Party because you, I don't think you probably have seen this.

but you'll see it today. There is an interview that J.D. Vance did with Tucker Carlson. And in it, he says, it's lighten up today. You're going to see it everywhere today because the Dems are just going to go ape shit about this. So in this interview, he says that he really thinks that if you are a politician and you don't have children, that you shouldn't have, you like you shouldn't be a politician because you have no vested interest no vested interest in the future and he talks about all these dems that don't have any kids and how they shouldn't be trusted to

steer the country for the future and oh man they're just going crazy so they're they're going to throw that up against uh they're going to throw that up against uh the gay community uh the LGBTQ, all of that, they're going to throw it up there, women that he believes that he's a misogynist, he's this, he's that. I mean, they're going to run with that like nobody's business. So, yeah, you're right. He might have been, maybe there's some blowback from it. But at the end of the day, I mean, is he wrong? I mean, we talk about all the time on our business, our, our life here on our little part of the world, the decisions we make, a lot of it is steered by legacy, like the idea that we're building something here that's multi-generational. Well,

is he wrong to say that? I mean, I don't think just because I... I mean, I think it's a fair point. I think it's a fair point too, but anyway, that clip is out. So, yeah, to your point, there's going to be some baggage from from picking him but also he's young he's strong he has a different viewpoint than Trump on a lot of things um and i think he's a good pick i just don't want him to lead us to war that's my he's not he's 100% not well i don't know after he after he was at the arnc he said talked about iran and how well so we don't need to go down it But it's good. I just, whoever we get, I don't want to be going into fucking war.

We don't need to be go fighting more. I don't care if it's Trump, Kamala, whoever. I'm not for war. Yeah. So, Sean asks, what is your guy's farm truck? And what is the best farm truck in your opinion? Your truck is our farm truck. So we got a 2013 GMC Sierra.

Is it a three quarter ton? Is it an HD? Yeah. Yeah. So it's a six. It's a gaser. It's a six liter. Yeah, six liter.

V8. It's, grandpa bought it in 2013, brand new because he needed a tax ride off. Right? I mean, that was essentially it. He was going to have to pay shitload of taxes or else he needed to buy something. So he bought that truck. And, you know, he was too old, really didn't drive it. Dad drove his work truck at the time all the time because he was working for different

companies. and when I became 16, nobody was driving this truck. So I started driving it. And I've been driving it since. And here we are in 24. And it's solid, very reliable. I mean, I don't drive it very far. I think it's got probably 70,000 miles on it, 75,000 miles on it.

Because I just driving around the farm and driving around our local town, I'm not one to drive it far. I'm just not because it's got poor gas mileage. and part of that's because I just putts around around here. But I just drive around here and carpool with my buddies or getting Kat's car when we've got to go somewhere far. So it's never giving me any problems. I've really not had to, we haven't had to fix much on it at all. Although, knock on wood, I hope we're not getting to a point where something does go wrong.

We need to get rivet. We need to trade and get themselves. Yeah, and the problem that I did because I was a stupid high schooler is, I put a six inch lift on it, put some 35s on it. And it's, you know, it's like a fucking, it's not a monster truck, but it's too much for what, for me now, like I don't care about all that at all. And once you kind of go that route, you can't go back. And so getting in and out of that truck, although I can do it, it's, you know, it's just a pain

in the ass. And back in a, you know, loading the truck up, it's just higher, loading shit in the back of your truck, it's higher. you know when you got a trailer sometimes the front of the trailer sits high

while the back is kind of leaning back a little bit the trailer's got a little bit of a lean to it which is not a problem but it's just it's not really it's not as practical

as a car truck as what it would be if it was stock yeah I want to get a more practical farm truck eventually but it's like

what do you get what do you fucking get we got a 2013 that hasn't given us any problems at all it still hasn't It's got 70,000 miles on it.

And what? We go get a new truck that's getting all, has all these problems with it. Yeah. I mean, what do you, what do you do? I don't want to, I don't want to trade in something that's reliable. Yeah, it's not as practical because of the lift and the tires.

But I also don't want to buy a project. I don't want to trade in, trade it in for a project at the same time. So we're just in this rock in a hard place. We got to figure out something, but it's not dire by any means. Right. it's not dire yeah so the second half of his question was you can answer that what's what's the

perfect farm truck and my answer to you on that is there isn't one because all of the s 10 an s 10 that's perfect short truck like an 83 s 10 can't find those though with the 4.3 liter v6 that just run and run and run those are rare now oh yeah you can't but they're fucking reliable yeah um they'll rust out before they give out so all the all the all the car manufacturer or all the all the many auto manufacturers they made the decision you know about like about when we bought that so 2013 uh we bought that and i think we bought it going into 2014 and the reason i think i think that that was where the changeover was at gm and like they didn't make any extended cab

14s maybe I don't know because they are retooling changing the body style or whatever but does anybody really make a farm truck like you can buy a completely stripped down work truck or you can buy

there's a pretty big gap like you either get a truck that has no options or you get something that has got way too much crap in it that you don't even want for farming. There's not much middle ground. And like standard cab pickups, you kind of got a hunt to find one.

And you can pretty much pick on any brand. Ford, GMC, Dodge. They all have their problems. If I was to buy a new farm truck, Because we pull a trailer a lot more for Farmer Grade and for other stuff we're doing, I'd probably buy a diesel. And today, if you put a gun to my head, I would buy, I'd buy a GM over a Ford or a Dodge. Ford's diesel, I'm scared to death of that thing.

Like, I've watched enough videos of how the oil flows through that new engine. I'm like, you're just begging for lifter problems. And Dodge, the problem's not the engine with a Dodge, the problem's everything else. And Chevy has plenty of problems too, but I think the diesel they're building is pretty solid. So I guess that would be my vote today, but nothing.

None of them are good farm trucks. I mean, they're just not. They make all their money selling all this stuff that people think they need all these options. And all it is is a giant electronic nightmare waiting to happen. Craftsmanship is not the way it used to be on everything. Yeah. It's not built to last. It's built to last long enough.

It's so freaking complicated and so much wiring electronics that, you know, it's just you can't even work on it hardly. So anyway. So Stewart sent us a link to Austin. Freirex? Yeah. Freericks. Austin Freerick's book Barron's money, power, and the corruption of America's food industry.

I think he's wanting our thoughts on this. Yeah. So he sent me a link to a story that was published because in his book, one of the chapters is pork barons. And it's about Iowa Select. I mean, Iowa Select is the subject of it because he grew up in I think he grew up in the town where Iowa Select kind of got started. And I have not read the book.

I ordered the book. I'm going to read it. And I'm probably going to reach out to Austin because I think it would be interesting to get his point of view. But he goes after all the, he goes after all the usual suspects, JBS, Cargill, Smithfield, probably. Tyson.

And Iowa Selects, I think, specifically in this there was a snippet in it from a chapter in the book and here's the thing we kind of had this conversation about a video that RFK put out about he was going after Smithfield and then I kind of went through the history of how Smithfield ended up the way it is I was select kind of the same way um um people forget what the economy,

what the hog business was like in the 90s. And this idea that like Jeff Hansen just like woke up one day and was like, I'm going to

I'm going to be a pork bear. Yeah, I'm just going to run everybody out of business. business and I'm going to be the biggest poor producer there is. That's kind of bullshit because what it was, what it came down to was a whole, like you can't just, you can't just throw it out there that these evil companies made it the way it is. The economics of the times and the way farm was going and the lack of labor and the lack of opportunity in small towns, there's just a shitload of people that exited the hog business because they were tired of losing money,

they couldn't get labor, disease pressure, raising pigs before purrs, and raising pigs, after purrs. It's a whole different deal. And I remember as a kid, you could turn one or two boars out in a pen of sows. And if you had a hundred sows and you put whatever, three or four boars in there, whatever you wanted to do it, if you made them pens of 25, 95 out of 100 of those would stick, would end up pregnant and carry a litter to term and you'd feral him. And then, purrs happened. And if you were a small producer, you'd be lucky if you'd get half of them to stick. And then you had your death loss just went crazy.

And it wasn't just purrs. It was other things. But that was happening before. That was happening before. before this big growth of these large pork producers. And it fueled it. It fueled it because that's when we went from, you know, we used to Pharaoh here,

nursery the pigs here, finish the pigs here, all on one site. But then all of the disease pressure that we had and as things changed, it was like you got to get the south separated from the pigs and people went to threisite, well, that's fine if you're somebody that had the means to move your finishers someplace else or build a whole new building here or a whole new building there,

a lot of guys couldn't do that. And a lot of people just decided that like the market changed, but everything changed. And as a result, it drove, it drove these big producers. Well, they ate market share. Yeah. As a result, people, I'll shitload of people got out of the business because of all the things you're talking about. Yeah. And that, I mean, that's basic economics. They're going to, they're going to eat that market share up because there's going to be a demand in the market because there's less pork being driven by everybody else that's producing pork. So the guys that keep producing pork and keep expanding, they're going to eat more market share up. And I agree with you. I don't think those guys, I don't think any of them were probably like, oh, yeah, fuck everybody. I'm going to become.

a pork baron. Yeah. I'm going to become a king of pork. Yeah. I think they hired people, expanded their business like you should. If you're in business, you know if you're not growing, you're dying. If you're not growing even just a little bit, you're dying. And as you hire more people, as you get more pigs, as you increase the amount of sows you have, you have to make more money. because the labor costs, the feed costs, the inputs, the shit that could go south, the disease pressure, all that stuff, you've got to have money. And you can't fault the guy, I mean, you can't fault the guys for growing their business. Yeah. And you just, you can't. And at this time, too, the American public,

there's no backlash on the American farmer. The American farmer at this time still is, it's your duty it's your duty to feed America it's your duty to feed the world it's a noble thing the public loves farmers public is boost farmers up and says yeah go go go go go keep producing pork and if you're one of these guys you're like well fuck we're doing a good thing we're employing a lot of people we're producing a lot of food we're feeding a lot of people throughout the world and throughout the United States this is a pretty uh you know this is a pretty good fulfilling probably a pretty fulfilling a business I can be in. Yeah. You know? I guess I'm not going to play, I'm not going to say that everything that has happened is good. It's not. I mean, consolidation in food and in agriculture,

but in every industry in America, it's not good. It's not good for the consumer. It's not good for the worker, it's not good for small businesses trying to get in and having competition's a good thing. Having competition in any market's a good thing. Fertilizer market, I just watched a video of people being pissed off about the fertilizer and how it's consolidated and it's raised the prices on farmers and they can't and they can't go out and get more bids for more fertilizer dealers because it's owned. There aren't any and that's a result of consolidation. But So that's not good, but what are you going to do about it? I mean, the market move that way.

You can't fault the business owner. You can't fault the business owners for wanting to expand their business and grow their business. That's business. That's doing what's good for not only just them owning the business, but the people that are employed by the business. They got to continually grow to support the people that they have and what they have. So it's a tricky thing.

And I mean, there are some corporations out there that, you know, for this fertilizer example that I watched, you know, didn't Iowa raise a shitload of money to build this fertilizer plant? Yes. When it was called Iowa, I think it was called Iowa fertilizer, Iowa something. Yeah. And they owned like 14% of the market. And it was owned by, it was owned by. independent and independent. It wasn't owned by a massive corporation. Well, then, and it was to, the whole

reason for it was to give farmers more options to buy fertilizer to get a cheaper price to help the American farmer out. Right? So they have a lower input cost. Well, what is it? Is it? Coke. Coke? Yeah, Coke. They, they, they've, they're trying to buy it. I don't know if they bought it or trying to buy it, but they're trying to veto that because they're the competition and they're trying to buy out their competition. But at the end of the day, the reason that it's, the reason that it's not working is because the margins on fertilizer are fucking terrible. Yeah.

And so that's the, it's, it's just like the Smithfield deal. It's like any of this. The margins within agriculture are terrible. And so what happens is the only way you get ahead is you scale. And then when these companies scale, then they get chastised because nobody wants to, wants these big companies. Well, everybody wakes up. They don't say anything. Nobody says anything till it's already happened. Right. That's what I find so funny about this guy and just the American public. Nobody fucking says anything while it's happening. They just say it after it's already been a

matter of fact. And you didn't pay it, nobody paid attention at all. Yeah. It's like, it's Monday morning quarterback and is what it is. Yeah. So it's an, so there's plenty of, there's plenty of companies out there. I mean, I am no fan, no fan of JBS, of Smithfield, even of Tyson. But here's the thing. The only reason they're around is because they have figured out a way. And the reason they got that way is because everybody else quit, went out of business, whatever. They bought them. It's consolidation. And then they're an easy target. Everybody that hates corporate, hates corporate greed, hates big business, they're like, they're always on them. Well, you be the change. You go out and you start a fertilizer company. You put together a grassroots deal

with, you build a co-op of farmers to control their own destiny and build their own fertilizer deal. How far will that get? Because you know what? None of you can get along. Personality's clash. It ain't easy. It's a lot. It's. It's a lot. It's, it's. It's a lot. It's, it's, like anything. Ninety-eight, and I'm being generous, 98% of people, whatever endeavor you put them towards, they're going to quit because it ain't easy. And there's all kinds of things wrong within the ag world, the swine business specifically, the packing business specifically. We need more competition. We need more options. We need local options. who's going to fucking do it who's going to do it who's going to step up and do it we can talk this

big game you can put you can chastise these corporations you can make their way of operating their business harder you can say that we need to veto them buying up their competition you can do all this shit but you also need competition to arise and you need people to step up to combat it and consumers and here's the deal that iowa first first fertilizer. What did you think was going to happen? You built this fertilizer plant. You own 14% of of the market share and you don't think that they're going to try to buy you out. And then you're pissed at the guys that were running the plant are saying, well, fuck, they're going to give us billions of dollars or hundreds of millions of dollars for this plant. Well, let's fucking do it.

What'd you think was going to happen? Like, you should have probably put people in place that were running that that no matter what weren't going to sell. But you didn't think of that. You thought about, oh, let's build this for to put money back in the farmer's pockets. Then you got people in there to run it and the people that ran it built it to a certain point. Now they want to sell it.

And now you're pissed that they want to sell it and they want to buy them out. Well, maybe you should have got somebody else in there that was that is unwilling to sell it for anything. I'm going to go back to the hog thing. I mean, here's the other, this is the other thing. This is a dirty little secret that these people that that bag on big food nobody wants big food there's all you know oh these guys are

terrible blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah but guess what when you go to the grocery store i told soyer this the other day soyer has a direct-to-consumer meat business he is competing directly against big food and i said to him i said i just came from fill in the blank grocery store guess what they have pork butt on sale for? And he's like, I don't know, $1.88 a pound. $1.88 a pound. We can't even get the hog to our butcher shop. We might be able to get it to the butcher shop.

I couldn't get a fresh pork price lower than $2. Yeah. So, I mean, it's not like it's below our cost of production to get it to you. It's below our cost of production to get it to the butcher shop to get it made. Yeah. So the only way, all this is real easy. This is real easy. To all the people that are, are, this is terrible, that all these companies dominate these businesses.

Go buy their shit. Go buy your stuff from some independent person. Come to Farmer Grade. We'd love to help you buy out your support American farmers. You're getting quality meat. If you hate how the system's set up, do something about it. But at the end of the day, people vote with their checkbooks. And the vast majority of people are going to say, yeah, that looks good.

But boy, I got to feed my family or I got to do this or I got to do that. I can't afford to do that. So I'm going to buy the low-cost producer. Well, the low-cost producer is the person that has maximized every possible bit of scale. an edge that they can. That's why they're in business and that's why they're the size they are. So until the vast majority of consumers are willing to say, nope, we're not doing that, none of it will change. Whether you're buying fertilizer, whether you're buying chicken nuggets, whether you're buying pork chops, whatever you're buying, until you're willing to pay a penny

more for a different option, those are the options you're going to get. So that's my thoughts on this. And I am going to, I'm totally going to read the book, and I'm going to reach out to him. Yeah, I'm not bagging on him at all. I just, I got the feeling that you wanted my thoughts on, I guess specifically Iowa Select in that case. And I don't, I don't know them. I just know, I just know them from being in the industry. And, I mean, at the end of the day, they are what they are because of,

because of the economics and the opportunities they had and they capitalized on it. Yeah, I just again think it was also producing more pork was not, didn't have a negative connotation back then. Right. The idea to produce more pork was seen to be a good thing. Now producing more pork and getting bigger and having more pigs and having more sows, everybody's anti-big, anything. So it's kind of come back.

People don't like it. But it is what it is. And we're great. I'm great with that. Yeah. I'm all about more options, more options. But people got to step up and make those options available. I mean, that's again, I'm doing something about it.

We started a direct to our meat business. We're hoping to take it further and further and scale it and make it bigger, make it more efficient, make it more appealing to the consumer, make it a better option for the consumer. And bring more money back. direct to producer. Directly to the farmer, directly to the American butcher shop, directly to the local American ag communities where these farmers are and these butcher shops are. And, you know, there's a lot of great things that I want to do with it. But yeah, it's definitely not easy. And let's be real. We've have people comment on our barn talk comments. Oh, this dollar amount for a steak,

that's too steep. I'm sorry. I want to support you, but I'm not going to pay that. That's fine. but that's the perfect example right there. You can bitch about big food. You can't have it both ways. You can't bitch about my pricing that's going to support American butcher shops. It's going through the local system that we have to bring farm fresh meat to the consumer directly. Can't bitch about the price that that is at. And then also bitch about big food and what it is today. You can't have it both ways. So you got to choose. Sometimes you can support both. But, and that's okay too, but just know you can't have it both ways. Okay.

On a lighter note, what is one skill that you would like to acquire yet this year? I guess I'm not going to put, you don't have to have this done by January 1st. But like, what's something that when you catch a minute, you're like, you know, I'd really like to fill in the blank. I guess what I'll say, it's a skill, but more just. just like a mindset inside Farmer grade. I mean, one, I just want to become a better business owner. I want to become, you know, just better in every area I can think of. But I think our focus for 24 and 25, I don't know if I mentioned this or not,

but the skill or the goal that I want to have for Farmer Grade is I want to make the customer experience, the customer support, and the product that we serve to our customers, exceptional. I really want to build a solid foundation of those things by the end of this year, hopefully. I, because I, you know, I really want people when they order a box from us, not only do they get their box and they're satisfied with their box, they're informed with the farmers that we work with. The meat is good. But I want how we work with those, I want those customers to feel like we actually give a shit about them, that we actually we're building a community that we have a relationship with our customers. And so

the team and I were figuring out a lot of ways that we can do that. And I don't think a lot of direct-to-consumer brands do that very well. And I think if you want to have a long-lasting brand and a great loyal customer base, you got to do those things. And so I guess the skill and goal I have for the end of this year for Farmer Grade and that's where I'm spent a lot of my time. So that's the skill that I can think of. It's just how can we make the experience, the product, everything that the customer touches and interacts with the brand exceptional. That's what I want. I want to figure out how we can do that. And so we're tailoring back a few things, you know, we're tailoring back our marketing. When I first launched Farmer Grade, you know, that was kind of my brain

because I've came from doing barn talk and this will do farm. And I had a lot of knowledge of social media. So I was gung-ho on the marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing, but I realized like, hey, there's improvements we got to make on just the whole, every touch point that the customer comes in contact with. We got to be better. We got to be exceptional. We can't just do it like everyone else.

And so we're tailoring back on a few things to make those changes so that we can be better and exceptional and really feel like people, are taken care of in the way that we want to take care of them. So that's the skill that I want to acquire this year, I guess. I don't know if that's a skill or more just a goal, but there's skills in within making that happen. Yeah. You know, there's customer support.

How do you do customer support at a high level? How do you do email marketing at a high level so that you set expectations and meet them with the customer? So they know when their order's coming and they know what they can expect. How do you make those changes happen on the website where they feel like they're, you know, taking care of on the website, that they're getting, they're getting points for their, for their orders, you know, how can you, just all that stuff. There's a lot of skills within that goal that I want to learn, but that's overall, just make the, make the systems and the

experience and the product phenomenal. And all the skills I got to learn to make that happen, that's what I want to learn. Damn. That's impressive. We'll see, we'll see how it goes. But that's, that's the, my North Star right now. now for Farmer grade. Gosh, I don't have anything that good, really. I have two things that I'm really interested in. One is I want to become much more deliberate in the time that I have my phone on me. So I'm trying to just get, trying to get much more regimented in my schedule as far.

as when I have, when I'm even on that phone. And, uh, because I just feel like it's just such a time sucker that I do really good, but then every once in a while I, I, I think of something and I'm like, oh, I need to make a note of that, like when I'm working, even when I'm working in the hog building. And then it's like, oh, this, you know, this notification, this notification. And it just, you waste 20 minutes out of your day here and there that you don't need to. Uh, so that's, uh, so that's that's something i need to work on but the thing that i'm kind of excited about that i'm i want to do i want to make this happen going into next year and this has a little to do with farmer grade

but it's really just me personally i'm really interested in uh cold smoking and for those of you that don't know what that is, it's like, it's how people use to cure meat, like ham specifically. So there's still places in the United States that sell these, they call them a country cured ham. And they are basically, when you buy that ham, it's a year old. So what they do is they take, you can do it with about any meat, but you take a ham, a full ham hawk. So it would be like most people would buy a half ham.

It'd be cut in half, but it's like a full size. And you salt it. Really, really good. You salt it with some other spices in it. And then you hang it and you smoke it for maybe like 10 days in a smokehouse. But the way it works is

we think it's smoking like putting something on a trigger. And that's a hot smoke. where you basically cook the meat. But what they do is they have a smoker set offset somewhere with a pipe running underground that by the time the smoke from the fire gets to the smokehouse, it's only maybe 75 degrees or 80 degrees. So you don't cook the meat. And you smoke it for different people do different things,

but let's say you smoke it for 10 days. then you literally just let that, let that ham hang. And you let it hang for, oh, I missed a step. You cure it, you cure it with all that salt, then you wash it off after so long, and that like makes a crust on it. Then you wrap it in like a cheesecloth and you smoke it and then you hang it. And you literally, like if you do those hams in January, February, you let them hang all the way till like Thanksgiving. And then that meat is preserved. Like you could leave, if you did a ham that way, you could leave it hang for like five, six, seven years.

And it would not go bad. Because what happens is that salt brine that you put it in, it pulls the moisture out of the meat. And it makes the meat at a, a pH or there's an enzyme in there that basically no bacteria will live in it. So it's cured. And it's how they used to do it for ever since basically, you know, the earliest times in America, they figured out how to cure it. But it makes a very unique flavor, very flavorful like ham. And I want to, where are you going to do it? I'm going to build one. I'm going to build a smokehouse.

It doesn't have to be very big, but I'm going to do it, and I want to do one or two full ham hawks, and then we're going to have that. You should do it in that room in the basement. What base? Where? In your house. Oh, the, I don't know if you can have it in the house. You got to get a pipe to it.

Yeah, get a pipe that comes out of the ground. I don't think mom would be, I don't think mom would be too savvy for that. Anyway, I just want to do it. Yeah. And then, you know, there's people that do it. What about pork belly? Yeah, you can do. Yeah, you can do anything.

That'd be good. See what the baked. And the thing, the other thing about it is, once it's cured, if you want a ham steak for breakfast, you literally go in there, you cut a piece off, and then you can come back tomorrow. Like, you don't have to keep it covered or anything. Once it's cured, it's good.

Anyway, I want to learn that skill. Well, there you go. That's awesome. I'm looking forward to it. Just call me up. Just call me up whenever you got it. Yeah, I'm going to keep a lock because I know how you are. You'll come take the whole damn thing go, boy, that was good ham.

well i'm not that big of yeah you don't like ham that that's why i'm doing ham i like ham but it's not my it's not my favorite by any means well i'm not gonna do uh i'm not gonna do a prime rib roast i can tell you that that some bitch would be gone oh prime rib prime rib is oh man prime rib is the best that shit's so good what are you girl in this weekend uh i'm actually going on a boy's trip i'm going on my one vacation a year trip and it's really not really that much of vacation. Just going to go up to the lake and camp out and we'll probably make some dogs.

We'll probably make some burgers. We'll probably make some sausage, some eggs. Maybe make some steaks. That'd be a good idea. Make some steaks. Pretty much just anything we can throw up on the fire or throw up on the grill that we bring up there and just kind of camp out and have a good time. So I'll probably bring up some farmer-grade meat.

I'll probably bring up some burgers. I'll probably bring up some dogs. I probably should bring up some steaks and just chill with the boys and have a good time. That's kind of what I'm what I'm doing. What about you? Pork butt this weekend. You dick. Yep. I'm not going to have any of that. Well, it'll last if you're not there. Oh, yeah. So I'm going to do a pork butt. I've gotten kind of to the point I got a recipe I really like the way I do it. I'm going to do that. I did. You should do ribs. I really want you to do some ribs. I love ribs. Well, I won't do them while you're gone then. We'll do that in two weeks. I'm out of ribs, by the way. Well, then shit.

I'll have to go get some of those... I'm out of pork butts, too. I'll have to go get some of those $1.99 a pound... Yeah, I'm out of pork butts, too, so you'll have to go elsewhere. I had one in our box from our pig that got done. There's two in there. Nice. Okay.

All good. Well, I think we're going to wrap it up. I think we got all of our questions, all the questions answered. Um, we appreciate you guys. If you want to submit your questions for another Q&A episode, submit them at Barn Talk Show at gmail.com. That's where you can email them to. Um, we're looking to get a guest on here soon. I know we've done four episodes in a row with just dad and I, but it's been chaotic with just July has been a busy time with the 4th of July. Family came in. My brother got married. I'm going on this boy's trip. Uh, it's just been, it's been a lot to try to work around and get a guest.

scheduled. But that is coming. Next episode, we will get a guest on. We appreciate you guys. Share the show. Leave review. Use code barn talk at farmergrade.com to save 10%. And we'll see you guys back here next week for another episode.