Barn Talk - From Asphalt to Grasslands: A Trucking Entrepreneur's Journey into Cattle Innovation w/Jared Holmes

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

Welcome to Barn Talk! What happens at the barn, stays in the barn, but not today! We’re letting it all out. Today, we have a special guest, Jared Holmes, joining us to share his journey in the agricultural industry. Jared reflects on his current situation and the long-term progression of his work. He shares the ups and downs of getting his trucking business started, the struggle to find good labor in agriculture, his time in the military, and his innovative cattle business idea he’s pursuing. Follow Jared 👇🏻 Facebook ➱ https://www.facebook.com/HolmesLivestockLogistics Buy Our Pork From Our Farm ➱ https://farmergrade.com 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

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. It's going to be a guest episode today, but before we get into it, you guys know the drill. Pay the fee. If you get any value from the show, we made you laugh. You related to us on something. Share it out with your friends, family, coworkers, employees, whoever.

The more that you guys share the show, the better it grows, the better content we can make. The more content we can make. So we appreciate every single one of you guys that do pay the fee. Also, feel free to leave a review on Spotify or Apple. We're up to 1.6, 5-star reviews on Spotify, and we're up to over 600 on Apple. So thank you to all that have been leaving a review. You can submit your questions for our BarnTalk Q&A episodes at BarnTalkshow at gmail.com. That's where your crushings will get answered.

So thank you all for the support. We're almost up to 125,000 subscribers on YouTube. And I know our last episode, we were at like 110, almost to 110. It's amazing. It's crazy. It's growing like a weed, and we're almost to 200,000 on TikTok. If you're not following us there, you could look at the clips on TikTok as well. So thank you, guys.

We really appreciate it a lot. We're like the water hemp of podcast. Just growing like wildfire. Growing like wildfire. Actually, that's not a good announcement. I don't know. Yeah. He hates.

I haven't seen much hemp around here. Our guest today, if you're on the road in Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, you've probably seen one of his trucks. If you have cattle, you've probably seen some of his at a sail barn. He's a driver and one of the few people that can make Dad look shy. This is no kidding. When you gets going, I'll be lucky if I get a word in edgewise. He's coming all the way from just up the road. He's a fellow neighbor of ours.

Jared Holmes, welcome to Barn Talk. you thanks for coming on i know it was a far far drive wasn't long drive if i could get a gas voucher or something we do uh well i don't know if we have gas vouchers but we'll stamp your parking ticket there you you can get free parking yeah that'll work yeah so uh why don't you just tell people kind of what you're most known for you know uh how'd you kind of get your trucking business started oh i don't know how that happened to be honest i mean start back in the beginning i guess i was kind of one of those kids that kind of little professional on the

honorary side in high school and kind of was getting at the end of that senior year and I only showed up when I felt like it kind of thing. I mean, we were pumping hog shit and, man, you're 17 years old running a, like they're 8420s back in the day. Yep.

Eating donuts and skittles as much pop as you could drink and con one of the older guys that buy you pack of cigarettes. That was living the dream. Yep. We ain't going to school. Yep. We're doing this. So we were making a thousand bucks a week.

Like, yeah, I don't have time. Yeah, no, I don't, I don't want to. So anyways, it kind of got to that Marche-ish April time frame, my senior year and kind of got pulled into the office. And they were like, you're not going to graduate. I'm like, oh, shit. That's kind of a problem, I guess you'd say. And Ed Punt was a principal at the time. He was an old school guy from Williamsburg.

And he was just a badass. Like, you didn't mess with Ed. And he said, the only way I'm going to let you graduate you if you join the military, I'm like, I ain't doing that. No way. So anyway, they had a recruiter come in there to talk to me, and I was kind of blowing him off. And I said, I'll make you a deal. What's a class you hate the worst? I said, that's pretty easy.

Second period English. He said, I'll make you a deal. I'll get you out of that class if you give me 15 minutes of your time. I said, make it all week, and you got a deal. so he pulls me in the guidance room there and starts showing me all these uh videos of these guys ramping dirt bikes off the back of chinook helicopters and i'm like damn i could get behind that hey i could do that that'll be good so i ended up going that route and i have yet to ramp a dirt bike off the back of a chinook it wasn't it wasn't you never quite made it to that to not not quite

quite and i was there for four years i never saw anybody else do it either so i kind of yeah a little angry about that went from there and uh did the military thing and and and came home and i my family trucked like i knew what i was going to do i remember when i was a kid back in the day sitting at pizza hut on the main drag watching those walker trucks blow by all lit up yep that's what we're doing we didn't have no money or nothing and uh Kind of went to bank after bank after bank begging for a loan and got turned down about 17 times. And on the 18th time, I found a, I found a sucker. You found an impressionable bankers.

We found one. So what was your first truck? 2005 Kenworth, W-900. And that's what we run today. Yeah. Just kind of the, everybody's got Peter Bells. Yep. And these trucks that we run, you can stand up in the bunk and put your,

pants on without bending over. So that's always a plus in your line of business. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, started from there. Had one, went to two, went to three, and kind of started to understanding the way it worked. At one or two, you're replaceable. You're replaceable right now.

We were pulling for a carrier that had a guy out of Northwest Iowa, ran 30 rigs. So for the smaller guys, it was, yes, sir, no, sir. how high sir what time sir yep on that old boy come rolling in there i'll never forget it it was a monday and i was in there just turning in paperwork or something and he come in there and said rates are going up 25% on monday and walked out like a boss and i was like holy shit yes that's how you do that okay cool it's just a different tone when you're running a balance between scale and volume and these companies now they want to take a hundred loads and be like these are yours these are

yours these are yours handle it don't call if you got problems call but don't have any problems yeah fair enough and that's how it's changed over the last 12 years or so and we never wanted to get as big as what we were but there's different skills and efficiencies when you're running mass volume to be efficient yeah um so it kind of went from there and yeah yeah How many trucks you run today? I should say if you've got enough people to put in them. So I'm going to say it like this. We have about 16 loyal dudes that are riding for the brand.

And then you always got that bottom end that's in and out like one of them circular mall doors. Yep. so for us it's not how many it's how many we can run good how many we can run efficient so how many you can count on right yeah right so for us it's taking care of the people that take care of us the guys that are loyal and the guys that you know are there and passionate and do a good job and aren't there for the paycheck we'll swing about as hard as we need to for them the other guys that are kind of just show up maybe yeah see you whatever so all I mean, as we went and you kind of have to have that volume,

but now that we got, you know, we started out weird, so much dead and make your head spin. But now that we kind of got that under control, I mean, hell, I'll be honest with you, we got seven trucks sitting right now, and I don't give one shit. Yeah. If the best guy comes along, perfect.

If not, piss on it. So that's kind of how we run. It's like, I don't care. If you're coming here to do a good job, let's go. And we kind of scout them out. Like, we don't very rarely advertise because you get all the shit bags in, but we keep our eye kind of not like a recruiting thing but like hey this guy's a baller get over here yeah if you if if there's somebody out there that you know that they're in to be in you'll make a place

for them exactly oh yeah you're not making a place for somebody that's no no we you know and at that time when you're in all that debt and stuff it's like you have to go but when we did that i mean we got them so much trouble with insurance and the DOT and all that shit we were just putting an ass in the seat to try to get the load covered and kind of learn that lesson the hard way, wrecks, rollovers, piss off farmers, shit like that. It was like, no, we're done with this. Get out of here. So that's kind of the focus.

What year did you start the trucking business? It would have been 11, 2011. So almost you've been in business for over a decade now. Yeah, kind of went fast, I guess. You're a veteran. Yeah. Consider a vet now. something like that

and it's predominantly hogs you're hauling right for the most part yeah we'll haul cattle here in there but I mean we're in a breadbasket of hog world why fight it yeah a lot of them guys are coast to coast and hauling whatever they can haul but we can get in enough trouble around here we don't need to go chasing it

yeah absolutely is retaining is retaining drivers now harder than what it was or is the hardest part retaining them or just sorting out finding guys that you can count on um it's a leadership thing retainment comes back on leadership um sorting through the good ones i mean hell we had one in there he lasted a week and he come in there

and talk to talk man he could walk on water shit my ass he turned in his notice and couldn't even finish that and the gal that runs my trucks she's a she's a blessing she told me about it and I just text her back. Peace out, Girl Scout. Fuck out of here. That's just the way that it is. I mean, so retention is leadership. Leadership is you cannot make anybody on your team do anything you will not do yourself.

That is cutting dry of it. So then when you take 20 different personalities and throw them on a team and that's the way we're different, truck drivers think they're individuals, bullshit. Yeah. At this operation, we're. team. So when you take that many different personalities and put them into one basket, then boys better jive and they better get along. And the top end of my guys, they're like rabid bloodhounds, man. If they sniff out a weakling, they'll run you out for me. So that, but you'll get a guy in there

that maybe is the best truck driver in the planet, but he's got a bad attitude. And that's a rotten apple in the basket. You can't have that. The reason that the water is so clean at my pool is we skimmed that shit all the time. Yep. Get out of here. We ain't having it. Well, that's good because people say that if you build a good enough

culture, your guys will weed that out for you so you don't even have to do it anymore, which is awesome. Sounds like you got that figured out. When this podcast is done and we edit it, we are just going to take every good analogy. He's got one line.

He's got more one liners than you got. I told you. So the intro of this was I said there are not very many people that make me look shy, but I said this guy, I probably won't even get a word in edgewise. Yeah, he's got more one-liners than you, which is crazy. Through the military and truck driver culture, like, it's the one-lining master's. You can't help, but just get your pad and paper out once in a while. Be like, hey, dude, I need to remember that.

I'm stealing that one. That's gold right now. So what brand, did you, did you go in the guard or did you go in the Army? No, no, we went, we went all in, baby. We weren't going to do it half ass. I'll never forget sitting in Des Moines. They're like, what do you want to do? I don't know, what's cool.

Oh, man, Cab Scout. That's cool. Fuck, sign me up. You want to be airborne? What the fuck's that? You jump out of airplanes. Why not? Piss on it.

Let's go. Whatever. Yeah, sounds good. And that was one of them things like, you know, you could talk about it easy once you get there. Yeah, it's different. Oh, shit. maybe I spoke a little soon. Yep.

But it was, that's what it was. I mean, I was always that way. All in, whether that was partying, whether it didn't matter. Like, everything we were doing is all in. Yep. And that's just kind of how I live my life. We're not going to, we're not going to do it half ass. We're going all the way.

So you got to fall down. Okay. Let's do it again. I've been broke. I've been from nothing. I don't give a shit. I'll go back. I was probably more happier back then in them days.

when I didn't have nothing to worry about. Yep, I understand. But, yeah, so it was active duty. Yeah, I went to basic training and all that shit, and Fort Knox, Kentucky, and that was kind of, I went in there, I would say probably, not arrogant, but fearless, like, this is going to be stupid. And kind of get off that tour bus there,

and the big boys were yelling, and it was like, oh, shit. I'll ever forget, it was Fourth of July in 2007, and we were there. I said to myself, there's an easy way to do this or a hard way. I think I'm just going to take the easy way to shut up and start pushing. But yeah, I did that and got done with all my training or Fort Benning, Georgia at airborne school. And do the plane jumping deal and get out of there and tell us that they said we were going to 25th Infantry Division. I'm like, that's in Hawaii.

Hell yeah. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no. The other one. shit. Fort Richards in Alaska. Fuck, it's cold up there. No shit. I go up to Alaska for three years and four years, three years. And we got deployed out of there twice and then we did all our training in Alaska and

kind of after my third deployment, second deployment I came home. I was going to go to college. I tried the college thing for about a solid two weeks. So I'm practically a doctor. Absolutely. 100%. But I was 22, 22. 23 at the time and I went to junior college Black Hawk and I was going to judge livestock

and do all that stuff. Challenge was those kids were like 18. We had just the maturity gap there. You know, will you buy us beer? Like, no, fuck this. I can't. I'm out. I got to get out of here. I'm out of here. So I went out of here and worked for a couple local farmers and took care of pigs. Yeah. Doing that kind of stuff and just begged to get in a truck. like yeah it's time to go i wanted the truck so once i finally got my trucks going yeah we just didn't look back what was the biggest struggle of starting the business like if you could think back like the hardest thing or like a story or a moment that you were like holy shit i don't know if we're going to get through it or if we're going to grow this thing or there's a lot of those i'm sure after a decade but

yeah quite a few uh i think you've run into a lot of challenges and a lot of hardships but it's how you how you meet those. So I wasn't very smart, but I was very, very good at asking questions and finding people that have done it and just picking their brain apart. And Greg Reagan told me when I first started,

never say no to a load. Just never say no for at least the first year. And that's what I did. And then I learned from things like that, that guy out west walking in that office. Like, okay, volume is control and that kind of stuff. So the debt was probably, Probably a problem.

Getting the money was a problem. And then you got to lay out all that, you know, it's a lot of capital, especially if you don't have any money. Right. You know, put fuel on the tanks and this and that. I'd say it was easy when it was just me. And then you start bringing on team members. And the biggest challenge we had, I can't remember what year it was.

It was probably 13, 14. I had probably two or three employees at the time running. And it was a different level of responsibility. when you're a responsible and I kind of have I wouldn't say a mouth but I'm not scared I'll call a spade a spade and I've learned these lessons the hard way when you go square up to a corporate company they're like bye well when you have two or three guys rolling I'll never forget we kind of had a hardship with a company and they pretty much were like you're done like oh shit and what they were doing was bullshit in the first place but they didn't like to be told that from a truck driver so anyway it was so bad I had to go haul flats for Billy Bones Huber. Holy cow. Yeah. So I had guys on my payroll that I found loads for them, but me personally, I was out

working for bones. So that was the hard, one of the challenges, like, wait a minute, I'm supposed to be the boss. But it's one of them things. That's where the military comes in. You have to do what you have to do, no matter what. Never take no for an answer. How many, however many walls are in front of you, figure it out. crying about it is not going to do a single bit of good.

So, you know, don't talk about it, be about it. That's kind of how we did. And then as we started to scale, it got easier. But then we figured like, hey, if we get the best guys that we can, that ship will float itself. If we communicate the goals, communicate the mission to the good people, then it will sustain itself. And that's kind of where we're at.

We're still run into challenges here and there, but the people is what does it. Do you still truck yourself today? Not as much as I used to. Yeah. I will still get in and go. And I like to be in there out there with those guys. The morale's better.

When they see the captain out there rowing, everything clicks better. As my kids started to get older, I was gone. So I got four little girls. And another one of those things of talking to people. Larry Davis, legend in the business. He talking to those guys was like, hey, love what you're doing. Do not forget that that time's not coming back with your kids.

So I kind of took that in and I was gone a lot when the girls were babies. And then they started getting older and getting involved and we're pretty big into showing cattle together. So I kind of let the ship float itself and then I started my cattle entity because it allowed me to still be a dad and my wife bless her heart she was taking care of them while i was gone because it was a didn't say no thing customer service and that's frustrating about trucking you know it could be blizzards or hurricanes in the carolinas and south arms blown down and we drop what we're doing to go bail their ass out and the next day not just completely forget about it so we're back here hustling thinking that we're buying loyalty no no way yeah so that's what's really helped us retain

guys too is like they know that i'm not kissing nobody's ass it's we will do the very best job for you but it's not in terms of inspection of favors it is i'm here to do you a damn good job yep but that's the way it's going to be i want you to succeed i got to succeed but we're not going to extort our people to get you what looks good on your computer yep and that's a big challenge too with hogs right now is everybody's looking at the computer that's not a common sense thing no People like you guys and us that are on the ground, we're taking commands. You're telling me an intern that's got three years of college under his belt and charge me. Okay.

Okay. Yep. Makes that hard. Yeah, it does. It does. And the worst part, and I think this is everywhere, is that we are in an industry. Well, you're really in two industries because the tracking world's kind of the same way. Because you were a generation.

you grew up around it. You knew what it was about. We built an entire industry on farm kids. And it used to be that when you were raising livestock and you went to hire somebody, you knew if you hired a farm kid, that kid probably knew X, Y, and Z. And that kid probably knew how to work hard, probably knew how to back up a trailer, probably knew how to run something with a clutch. and these guys, these companies today, we've run through all of that. So now we get these interns out of college, has never seen a live animal. And we get them into positions where they're making decisions like you just talked about. And they have no frame of reference what it's like to be on that end of it.

And it's a struggle. It is a struggle. And I don't feel like it's going to get any better because even within these livestock companies, we have people that are generation removed from actually doing the work of raising those animals or hauling those animals or whatever. And gosh, dang, it's tough sometimes. But like I said, I don't think it's going to get any better. Sounds like our government sometimes, too.

Kind of relate that to the government. A little bit. That's right. Common sense. Common sense is in short supply. 100%. Common sense is on a new phone, who this program. Yep.

Well, you talked a little bit about your daughters and showing some cattle. So we kind of led this with if anybody driving around the Midwest has probably seen one of your trucks or if you've been to a cattle auction or a cattle show you might have seen because you're getting, you got a, enough, you have enough on the home team showing cattle that you're getting around a lot. So how did the, how do the cattle thing start? Yeah, we do get around. The cattle thing started just as a kid, just always been around it. Mom and dad had cattle, grandpa had cattle. Cattle is the passion of mine. It's the joy of mine. And it was, if I could raise cattle full time before I trucked, that's what we would have done.

Cattle don't make money. I don't care what anybody says. Like, around here, it's very hard. This is hog world. So we showed nothing good. We were terrible kind of for the experience, but the passion was still there. So as my situation or mine and my wife's situation evolved, we knew that's what we wanted our kids to be in.

So sports is great, bands great, all that stuff's great. We want to use the show animals as a bus to deliver our kids to where we want them as adults. And there's so many things that go into that. The critics,

I'll tell you, oh my gosh, it's so expensive, blah, blah, but what they don't see is my 11 and 12 year old daughter this summer worked harder than most full-time men.

They take care of their stuff. Now, I'll go buy them, what they need, we do spend good money on those things. But at the same point, it's not about the money for us. It's, I want you to find me an 11 and 12 year old girl. And even my 8 year old and my 3 year old go do that stuff, they do it every day. So the goal is to when my daughters go to college and they go to their job interview, the hope is that not just through their success, but through surrounding your kids with like-minded kids, as I think is what the goal is.

But like I said, getting them to college to where, I don't care who it's for. Oh, I hope they stay into ag. But Elanco, whatever. Oh, we know who you are. Yeah. Yeah. This interview is over with,

but we'll just sit here and talk because we know who you are. So that's kind of the route that we've chosen. And it's kind of like a sports thing. I mean, the challenges you go to ratio, especially with not in a sexist way but females you're probably not going to go being from small town i would be a professional athlete so we're kind of using this and the biggest part about it is that's not winning or losing it's surrounding our kids with people they want them surrounded by you know if you hang out with crack kids you're crack kid you want to go hang out you want to be a millionaire

go hang out with millionaires that's the same point uh with the kings we're just using the show cattle as a bus and it's something that we can all enjoy like i'm not going to sit here in lydie and tell you that I thoroughly enjoy going to a softball game every night of the week. Like, it's not my thing. I'll do it because I'm a supportive parent, but at the same point, like, I got shit to do. So with show and cattle, like, it's something that we can all go do together. A kid today with a work ethic is a rarity. Very. I mean, that is a powerful. And can talk to people. Oh, I say this all the time. When I today, what is a, whatever environment I'm in, if I run into a teenager working somewhere or just in passing

that will look up at you and talk to you and look you in the eye, I'm impressed because there aren't many of them. Do teenagers get jobs anymore? Like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't see many. I haven't seen it. Yeah. But with the way the economy is, yeah, you're telling me that these parents are legit, like, oh, buy you a car? Like, I don't know. I think it's because the minimum wage has gone up and if you're going to hire somebody, would you rather hire a high school kid or would you rather hire somebody that has some experience in whatever you're hiring them for? I don't know. I mean, I don't know. You'd rather hire the adult that's had some... I'd rather hire the retire guy because I know what I'm getting. Yeah. Yeah. I know what I did.

Not break any land speed records, but yeah. Yeah. Exactly right. We see that in this young generation, whether it's everybody wants to be an operator and everybody wants to get the Snapchat and be cool. Dude, I'll see you Snapchat and scooping out of grain bin there. Yeah,

that's right. So, it's just different. Yeah, 100%. Everybody thinks that they're working, but they got to have it on social media.

Like, dude, knock that shit off. No one gives a damn. Yeah. So when you were in high school, one of your friends and he's going to remain nameless, but one of your friends got a job

working for a big ag company around here, and he was crop scouting. And I think, he slept in the truck more. Like he loved that job because every day he go crop scouting. He'd just go park somewhere in a field and take about a two hour nap

from lunch to two. And then he's like... Then he'd start up again. Then he'd start up again. And I remember, you know, him being in our house bragging about what a good job it was. And I thought... Don't hate the player. Hate the game.

And that's exactly right. Because I'm like, what? are you learning and what who is letting you do this yeah but i it's not i'd like to say that that was a unique case but i bet it's not so no i don't think so how'd you meet your wife uh-huh was on a deployment oh i came back i don't remember it came back and i funny thing is is she grew up literally a quarter of a mile from where i grew up but we were on the line i was washington County she was mid prairie kind of never really knew her new of her and then we were at a party one night and i saw her and i'm like who the fuck is that that sure is she it was her i'm like wow

that's amazing i wish i would have walked down the road a little bit yeah good for you that is bicycle distance and i don't even like to bicycle but uh yeah we uh met at a party and kind of went from there and uh i was on the last leg of my last deployment and she started like kind of mess i'm like lady you you you back off you stop that i'm busy right but it just kind of went from there and i was getting out and we got serious and i came home and to be honest i uh i when i came i was damn sure getting out of the military but i was doing some things there that that was pretty high speed i mean we were getting ready to start uh you know q corsa s f uh uh you know i right there and we that's kind of a route that I thought I was going to go but the last deployment

really ruined it for me it turned really dumb it turned into hearts and minds over there small things we couldn't wear dark eye or dark sunglasses because it offended the people and we couldn't wear gloves and like now then it started getting to the point where if we were getting shot at we had to ask to shoot back and I'm like we gone so anyways got out and i was back home for about a month i suppose at college hated that kind of didn't it didn't wasn't what i thought so when the whole time i was gone i thought i was just missing out you know it's like all your friends are partying and shit well now looking back on it i was just on a rocket ship yeah compared to those guys um but so i was home for a month or

month and a half, I suppose, and our unit was getting ready to deploy again, and I just decided I wasn't happy at home. Like, you know what? I couldn't wait for to get out. So I was, I was going to go back. So once you get out, you kind of have a grace period to where you don't have to start over. Kind of like they know they can pull you in. And I was good at it. I was very good at the military thing. It came easy to me. It wasn't hard. And it's a damn good life for a single guy. Yeah. but I just wasn't happy here. It wasn't going the way I thought. And I was going to go back.

And then, you know, just a personal thing. She got pregnant. I was literally the same day I was going to talk to her about, hey, I'm going back. She told me that she was pregnant. I'm like, it was funny. What did you want to talk to? Nothing. I guess.

Shit. I got to get a truck. I better get a job and get one fast. And when, you know, I worked for Brennamans taking care of pigs and I hauled feed and I pump shit. And it was just 20 hours a day nonstop. And it just wasn't. It was fine. We were getting by, but not like just getting it.

It was work, not fulfilling work. Yeah. Like you didn't feel like you were heading towards a goal. Well, I mean, we were working and I enjoyed the work. And I've always enjoyed like everybody kind of like, oh, that's impossible. That bullshit. Watch. But it was just like, damn, they were going.

on as hard as we can go and we're still struggling to pay the LP bill like yeah now there's a better way we're gonna figure this out it's when we started kind of hounding the bank yeah and then it went from there so uh yeah met her kind of in the late term of my military deal and that's hard man you try to have a relationship freaking two thousand miles away that's a that's a tough tough deal yeah so she damn sure was with me from the very beginning and she were her and i work very well together because I'm extreme right and she's very kind of reels you yeah you damn sure have to have that balance because if I didn't date I'd be like a freaking free range nuclear weapon and just be blowed up somewhere like and 18th mode of bankruptcy and Hill's bank would probably

have to pour more concrete for all my shit you know so she's damn sure been the one that's there and kind of kept me in line and and done that thing so thank the good lord for women that are able to look at a man and say, there's no better phrase, I think, than a woman that looks at a man and goes, you know, he's kind of a piece of shit, but I think I can fix him. Because that has saved, Hyveid.

I think that still happens. Oh, no, it does. I think it just happened the other day, really. I've given, I mean, I've given this advice a thousand times. I will have been married 30 years this fall, and I tell people, Trisha stays because every once in a while I give her a glimmer of hope that she's, of hope, that she's making progress.

But I said, the one thing, that's a razor, that's a razor's edge because if you ever get them, you can push them a long ways, but if you ever push them the point that they look at you and they say, you know, I think he's a lost cause, you are fucked. You have got to perform well enough that they always look like, well, we're making progress. And if you can do that, they'll, they'll write it out with you. So I think, it's right. I've, I've gotten that advice. I've heard it a hundred times. So I'm, I just got to get a little bit of hope every, every,

every year, just a little bit. And I've gotten pretty good. I'm just about. Just make sure you bump the line every once in a while. You do have to do that. You don't want to get bored. Nope, it's a, it's a battle, it's a battle of wills. There's no doubt about it. You don't want to just throw in the towel. But at the same time, you know, you got to, you got to, and let's face it, we're, most men are pretty flawed individuals if we're brutally honest with ourselves and we could probably stand a little bit of fixing. And hell, at this stage at 30 years, I should be just about perfect, but I'm not. And I guess I'm a little bit, a little bit down on that. But I think, if you were too perfect, her job would be done. Well, I think by 40 I will be. 40 years, I will be perfect. That's what I tell her.

10 more years, just hang it up. Just hang out 10 more years. You'll get me. We'll be good. Yes. Okay. So we talked about the show cattle, talked about the trucking, but you got this cattle herd that you're going in on now. Well, this is what started this whole deal. Because I guess how this happened was you called me one day because you were, because you were mowing some hay, you were mowing some waterways,

a neighbor of mine, and you asked me whether or not you could mow mine. It's dry here in Iowa, so all these buffer, strips, the government and their infinite goodwill decided to let everybody moan and bail them. But there's a reason why you were doing that. So what happened that

put you on this path that you had to find some hay this summer? We had our hay shed burned down and then we learned the difference between content insurance and commodity insurance. So we took about, we bailed first

and second cutting for a resume builder for practice. How many bales you lose? 472. Oh, Mother Mary. Pure alfalfa. The cheap, you know, the cheapest stuff you can get. Absolutely.

Great. So anyway, we're talking about this and I had no idea. I mean, I knew you had cattle, but I don't know anything about it. And my idea of guys that have cattle is somebody that's got some cows, you breed these cows and you calf them in the spring and then you some guys sell them some guys keep and feed them out and i'm like okay great well then just real quick like you kind of told me what you were doing and i was like i stood on that like all weekend and i was like i have not heard of anybody that is doing this and to me because i'm a hog guy and we've been doing this forever i was like damn that is a good idea so

let's let's go back a little bit you obviously you had cows and and you kind of did it the way everybody else did it. Yep. So talk about your operation and talk about kind of where you were and what got you to thinking, all right, there's a better way of doing this. Started out as a hobby like everybody else. Kind of just the thing about farmers is we don't change very easily, right?

I do this because my dad did it. my grandpa did it and then you kind of start noticing just just small things like okay why am i the youngest cat in this sale barn by a long shot and you just kind of get ideas right and i wasn't happy with the way it was going i'm still passionate about it but there's a better way i know there's a better way and i'm not a hog master but my success comes from the hog industry and learning and seeing how they're doing things so it started to get me intrigued like hey there is a better way. So I started dabbling with it in cattle.

Three years ago, I had this idea. I wanted to run my cows like a sow farm. I wanted to have instead of one check every whenever fall, like right now, most of the guys are selling their feeder calves. I wanted to have two checks or three big checks. And then it kind of kept going from there. So we would start, it goes back to show cattle. we would start buying these high dollar show kivs.

And then it was like, wait a minute, let's buy embryos and make our own. And then it was like, wait a minute, let's buy the factory and make our own. So it kind of went from there. So a hobby turned into like, we're looking around and now all of a sudden we got 400 cows. Like, oh shit.

It came into like, this isn't a hobby anymore. We need to figure this out. And then as we started getting more equipment and started building buildings, start buying tractors, it was like, okay, we got to figure this out.

No more fucking around. We got to figure this out. So what we do is the vision and what we've been doing is we have 50 head of cows every 21 days. And we roll them. So it kind of was like that, just kind of here and there. Then last year, we did like six groups of them.

and it worked like way good just from like we we used to run them all together just mass chaos so then when we started setting those cows up sinking them like they do with the sows it was more manageable when we do 50 head every 21 days i throw those 50 cows and everybody's sorted to when they're going to have throw those 50 cows up close and we only watch those 50 cows so from an employee or help standpoint team member standpoint we're only watching these and we are going to going to have five days of hell instead of six months of hell watching these things. So it's a straight management standpoint. Now when you look at it, we can create whatever we want to create.

So a lot of those guys, they're using different cows, different bulls, whatever the case may be. For me, we're just taking it and using the best of the best. I can create whatever I want to create through embryo technology and things of that nature. So whether I want to create show cattle, show steer, or so heifers, we'll go through, sex the matings, and put exactly in those recipient cows what we want. And then it kind of came to fruition where we were running big groups of calves

through the sale barn commercially bred old school. And I was getting pissed. The steers were $300 more than the heifers. Like, this is bullshit. No way. So I'm sitting there one day pissed and I was like, you know what? I'm going to create only males, only males.

only males and i'm going to take a uniform set of cattle and in the sail barn way you know if a guy brings 20 head in there and they're sold in like six different sorts usually not very good but if you take 50 head of like kind weight type cattle and they open the doors of that thing and they just keep them running they're them bowl boys will get excited and just start waving like a parade so that kind of came into it was like okay i'm going to create exactly what i want to create when i want to create it and then the other portion of it is everybody calves in march so the market is flooded in the fall yep so i'm going to create calves when there's not much availability and it started clicking it started working so that's what we do now we run 400 cows and they're set up we'll start

calving November 18th this year and run groups every 21 days throughout that and that's kind of how we're doing it so you have um did you build a did you build to do you cav out side or do you have a building where you cav them basically inside this is the kind of this this this this coming calving period is when we went all in yeah so we dabbled in it and dinked with it and tweaked with it for three years and and right now they're going to have my facility done yeah so it's it takes the elements out of it it it uh we bring the cows that are ready to go and basically our farm is a big circle the closer those cows get to cav and they come to the new facility they cav and then they go right back out and work the way around in a big circle so um that's how that is yeah that's slick um

Well, from a help standpoint, it's got to be, that's got to be way better because you really can have people, whoever's good at dealing with calvin, you've got pretty steady work for them. So 21 days, how long is your calving cycle? You said you start, when did you say you start? November 18th. And then how long will that run till? We'll roll them until March. Yeah, slick. the health is the challenge right so that anytime you do anything against the grain everybody's going to beat you up right so i went on a tour in nebraska they take these uh tour buses out nebraska and you can go look at everybody's places and just looking at it health is always a concern and i agree with that like cattle are not designed to be inside and ours are not inside

they're inside when they're close to kiev and they kiv and then right back out they go so our barn is a hybrid barn so all these kievs airflow is huge just like in hogs biosecurity and my situation is huge and just so we're clear my situation of what i'm doing is only kind of based around here you look at it we're we're what 15 000 dollar dirt running cattle in washington county on any type of volume basis is absolutely not even remotely in the ballpark of efficiency yeah so the The idea came from, look at my grandpa, he raised three daughters on 40 head of cows and provided for their family with 40 head of cows and grandma was a teacher. You ain't doing that in cattle in 2003 in Washington County. You can do it out in the sand hills, the Dakotas, or whatever.

But in Washington County, it doesn't work. So if I wanted to be in the cattle industry, you have to have volume and you have to figure out how to do it. So for us, that was the way to do it. And the disadvantage is the capital. I mean, you got, the buildings ain't cheap. No. So then you throw the technology into it and flushing these cows, but the dairy guys do it all the time. So we're just trying to do it and make a beef model.

We're not trying to line breed cattle because that's the heritage. That's a cattleman's heritage. But the problem is cattlemen are like, I'm going to create whatever I want to create. That doesn't work anymore. I listened to a podcast and it was like to see a Walmart on there. He's like, no, guys, you need to create what the old lady at the grocery store wants. And it really, really, really, really resonated with me like, holy shit. That guy's so right.

I'm out here to create what I want to create. But no, no, no, no, no. That's not going to work. I need to be focused on creating what the people want. So in my scheme, I can create whatever I need to create. create. I can make bucking bulls out of there I want in an efficient manner. And then I can turn around and make beef that goes straight to Walmart for their manner. So we don't have very many boats at all. Like we could get by with zero bulls on my farm. Everything is through artificial

insemination or embryo transfer. So your calves, are you finishing any of them out or you sell them as feeders? I learned that lesson the hard way. My first like two years. My first like two years, I took them to fats and I mean took it right right in the rear like okay we're going to let the professionals do this I'll create it and that's where my passion and joy comes from I create it that's what I love yeah yeah and that's a huge on that just adds more to it well that's the thing it's capital intensive just by itself and you throw that in on top of it and that's an unbelievable amount of capital tied up so how many people are doing this Not very many. Yeah, because I'd never heard of it. I hadn't either. I didn't, I mean, around here especially, but... Okay, so let me ask you this.

This is a better question. So, this idea that you had, you know, you were calvin like everybody else, and you started searching because you're like, there's got to be a better way. How did you... How did you build your conviction of a number... to bite the bullet and say, okay, that we're going to do this?

Or was it a gradual, did you piece it? It really can't piece it, though. When you make that decision, you kind of got to be all right, all right, hell or high water. We're going to do this. Yeah, you're in or you're out. That's probably one of my weak points. I've always been, I would say probably fearless and maybe not think about the bad things. I get it in my mind.

So my grandpa told us one thing when we were little boys. he said if you get an idea in your head and it still is in good standing after three days you drop the hammer and go at it if it's kind of the second day getting wishy-washy throw it in the trash can this deal for me has been like six months i've been working on it for three years but up until we were building like i couldn't get out of my head that's what i was going to do i thought it was brilliant i'm like we're doing it yeah piss on it and i think a lot of it comes from is my knowledge. Again, not the smartest guy in the hogs,

but understanding, like, wait a minute. Just seeing that works for them. Look at the dairy people. And then seeing around here, everybody's just stuck in that March Kevin way, piss on that. We're going to figure this out. So it's been a, it's,

the journey's been the fun part and the naysayers and that'll never work. And matter of fact, a couple weeks ago, I mean, this building's already going up. So the money's already gone. But just for good time. I called, and that's the thing about me, I'm not afraid to ask a question. I don't care.

I'll call a stranger and be like, hey, what do you think? Anyways, month ago, and it was too late, you weren't changing my mind, but we started building this facility. I mean, we got a shitload of money going to this thing. And I called just the guys that I knew would just call me a dumb ass. Like, there ain't no way. And I just, I started the conversation like, hey, why will this not work? And it was just kind of like,

the, and I took some notes off of it that I already knew were going to be the challenges because it's not going to be perfect, but biosecurity is going to be a problem. We already have plays and stop for that. But they don't understand.

There's no pasture in Washington County. There's under 1,000 acres of pasture in Washington County. I guarantee it. And if there is one, we just bought one. It was stupid. Like it was insane, right? they're off 92. Yep.

That ain't gonna work. I mean, you're gonna run 40 cows in there. Yeah. So the trick of it is, and the insurers come as it is, I mean, we're surrounded by corn and the government place for cover crops.

That is a shitload of feed source that you could feed a mass amount of cows with. Yeah. And in a very, very cost efficient way. Right. So it's just the, it's the struggle.

And then it's almost like the ride because I can't just call somebody that has been doing it for years and be like hey how'd you get this to go yeah there is a there is a damn good couple chad nemy wilkerson out in uh western i will linden and kind of went out to their place four or five years ago and it was just starstruck like wow and chad is he was way up with smithfield and kind of designed their sal units and stuff and that's where he was at with it so they're putting in embryo kiaz for other folks and that was really like i always was wanted to do it but going out there was like okay it can be done so for us the difference is

is we're creating the calf they're all my cows they're all my donor cows they are all like each group's going to go for a mission yeah and it didn't go well like the it just didn't and now it's like all right we're going to do this thing i just sold calves a couple weeks ago had them all in missouri for the summer we had that barn fire the farm was a freaking cluster fuck so i took them straight out of missouri rent ground down there and took them straight to say i weren't it didn't go well and i was pissed and i'm like now you fuckers you watch this because i'm coming i'm gonna create 150 calves out of the same sire and the same dam and i mean you ain't sorting nothing i'm gonna you just leave them doors open and let those little bastards fucking roll in there

i want them old boys falling off the bleachers and like we're calling the ambulance or break a hip all black beautiful like just line bread ready to rock just i feel like i got beat we're gonna fix that yep so the end of the day the vision is to create a premium for the product right you aren't starting to farm from scratch and raising cattle and making it work you have to have a premium you have to you have to figure out a niche yeah and then for some reason god uh bless me with a cattle passion for some for some reason but we're going to own it and go with it but i don't think anybody's going to uh stop in and want to buy the genetics that we got out here do you see our do you see our pet named chuck we got we got one calf out here that's just it's the cats the horse's friend

yeah it's the horse's friend it's it's her and uh they brought this soyer's girlfriend's dad brought this calf over and i was like and he's like you guys feed it and then we'll share half the beef. And I was like, oh, that's good. Yeah. Until I realized that that calf is a, is a January calf. The problem is it looks like it was born in March. I'm like, well, that's why he brought it over here. He wasn't going to bring anything else over. He didn't bring anything good. So I asked cat every day. I'm like, is that, is that, is that, is that going to grow? Or is that, is that just going to be, is that the size that's always going to be? Because it doesn't look like it's got much of a, it almost looks like a, a, a, a, a, a

miniature. Yep. It's a miniature black Angus, I think, is about what it is. I think secretly she hopes that it does it grow. I do. We're going to have to, it's going to have to be a deal where you're going to have to send her away from the day, and when she comes home, Chuck's going to be gone. Where's he at? Yes.

I don't know. So, like, for the biosecurity, you say that's one of your biggest things that you're locking in on, is it kind of the same as like hog barn biosecurity boots different boots coveralls you are you washing are you showered in like what are the

cautions you're probably not to that level yeah biggest thing is kind of the air quality so every barn that we went to like the calves were kind of in the back corner or whatever our barn's designed to have these little doggy doors so the mama cows they are kind of confined they'll be fine these things have doggy doors to wear these calves all the baby calves can go out to the back we ride two-acre runs. Oh, okay. So the little calves can go away and get away from mama and get out of the, out of the shit and whatever.

So the thing that's nice about our setup is we cab all them cows out in a timely manner. As soon as all them girls are cabbed out, they all leave. We have an opportunity to clean the barn, throw the lime down in the barn, re-bed the barn, start over from scratch. So we did, and I don't know if we're going to need to flush the barn out, but we did install big old fire tanks and fire hoses to flush it out if we need to. But cleanliness and air quality is probably the main thing. And then the other portion of the biosecurity is you see a lot of guys going by and five cows from a sail barn here, five there.

Ours are going to be, or the new ones will be single sourced. We're going out west and them girls are never seen a sail bar. Not that that's a bad thing. But when we're bringing in that kind of volume, we need to, to make sure similar than what guys are doing with hogs. Yep. They're all single source, ready to go, no chances of, yeah, of the red stuff.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. The biggest goal, I mean long, I mean, you have to have short-term goals, medium-term, long-term. We want to create the cow that we want. I mean, in my mind, and not just one of them, 300 of them, that are all exactly the same, same sire, same dam.

from a predictability standpoint, and then we're going to throw our embryos, our high dollar embryos, in those cows to give them the best shot to raise the best calves in the world. Yeah. So that's kind of, it takes a long time.

I mean, it's going to take three years to create a cow. But that's in a lot of capital, a lot of time. It's a lot of feed. Plus, if you're keeping those calves, if you're creating that cow, that's a calf you can't sell.

Yep. Exactly. So that's just that much more money you're getting tied up. So these cattle guys, they want consistency, right? So if they want consistency, I'm not going to fight the grain. All right, let's go.

I'm going to figure it out. But I think that'd be crazy to have 300 or 400 or000 of cows. And you got to be careful with the line bread portion of it because I damn sure in the first one, I don't want the cattle to end up like the hogs and the chickens and the turkeys, right? So it got to be very, very careful with that because I don't want Walmart calling me and saying,

hey make me 3,000 of the same cows and then start putting all these guys out of business. That's not the intention. The intention is to create opportunity in a new way per region, right? So you might have some guys out of Dakota's listening to this and being like, what a dumbass. Just shut up. It's not that. This is a Washington County $16,000 an acre ground way to raise cattle.

Who knows? Maybe we create opportunity for a guy that's trying to get started and we can we can create a custom type deal for somebody. Yeah. There's a lot of kids passionate about the cattle that they, I'm very blessed because I got, I got a side hustle, right? Yeah. A decent one. So, but there are guys that just don't maybe have that, but just absolutely eat, breathe and sleep cattle. Mm-hmm.

Maybe we can figure this out. Maybe we can help them. Yeah. So do you ever, you know, you made the comment about fatten them out, and that wasn't your cup of tea. But if you get to the point that you could possibly create your own market for these cattle where somebody speaks up and says, hey, I'll finish them.

Well, I want every one of them. Yes. And if you do that, you may get to a point exactly what you're talking about where you may have somebody willing to build a facility to finish them, where you create these cattle, you retain the ownership, but have somebody feed them out, and then you're delivering them consistently

to the same market, to the same guy. Yeah. I mean, that's where it goes. I don't want it to get there. So I'm a firm believer in you do what you're good at. And it's hard because I've always been like that. Well, here I am trying to wear two hats and run trucks and then try to start this cattle connoisseurring thing

that never been done before. It's just fucked up. But I'm a firm believer in the fat cattle line. There are guys that are absolute masters at feeding fat cattle and they're passionate about it. I'm not one of them. My job's over with now. Like I want to create it.

Oh yeah, that's a good little bitch right there. All right, I'm done with you. Let's make the next one. Yep. And that's, that's just me. Yeah. Well, that's not saying that I can't hook up with somebody and make a team with somebody. But for us, I don't like to lose.

You know, I don't like to get. get embarrassed and yeah and i whatever i do i want to kill it i want to i want to be the best at it so you know that that's kind of where that lies well i think you're thinking spot on i was impressed because that just that really stuck with me i was like damn that is that is smart it is cool it's it's it's new it's exciting because it's you know this county it's like you said it's known for hogs and it's hard to make it and can cattle business around here so i think you're on to something I definitely think you're on to something with that. So it's cool.

It's really cool. How do you balance your time with all that shit going on? I don't. I don't know. You sleep? Do you ever sleep? I sleep a lot more than I used to. Delegate.

People. You got to have people. Just like Donald Trump, what he's a master at. Put the right people in the right place. Yep. That's how we do it, really. And if you're not doing your job, no hard feelings.

See you. Fuck out of here. I've been bad about my time because, I'm passionate about the cattle. So naturally, most of my time wants to go towards the cows. So once I get this going, I need to get back to the meat and potatoes. But my guys, they're so good, like they don't need babysat. They know the deal.

Yep. They know they can call me if they need to. But they also know that I got a lot of shit going on. So, yeah. And a lot of it's self-reflection, the biggest thing that I have. have is like, okay, you know, this last summer, I look back, I'm like, hey, I'm being a shitty dad. Like, I've not neglected my kids, but I need to do better. I need to be a better husband. I need to maybe not be so selfish and go take a family trip and just have a good attitude about it.

Self-reflection, I think, no matter what you're doing and being honest with yourself, right? If you lie to yourself, forget about it. You have to have an honest conversation. And you need to have a network of people. My circle is tight. I mean tight. You need to have a network of people that you can have honest conversations with and just, hey, dude, hey, I'm going through this. What do you think?

And don't get all but hurt if they tell you what you don't want to hear. Work on it. So that's what I really try to do. But there again, no one like honestly, you can tell yourself what you suck at and work on it. You don't have to master it, but, dude, be better. Make an effort to be better. That's kind of what I have to.

to do because my mind goes like 10 million miles a minute and i'll come home and i mean just be so excited about babe i got the next best thing and she will's eyes will just roll in the back of her head and i'm like just just just hear me out just just stop just stop for one minute just stop her be quiet let's talk about school i don't want to talk about school i'll talk about my cool shit that i got going on. So that's that's that I guess. Do you what's like what's your long term do you just love the game of building shit and doing that kind of shit running running your businesses or or do you have something that you know you're really striving for whether it be your kids whether it be legacy whether it be whatever like what's the thing that gets you that you really like that's what I want not legacy.

I like doing I love when people say you can't do that. I'm going to do it twice. Watch. So I'm kind of in a personal deal right now with the trucks. Like, I love the trucks and I love everybody on my team. But it's to the point where it's almost large enough. Like, what am I doing? I have four daughters, nine times out of ten.

They're probably not going to take it over. Like, what am I doing? And I'll be damned if I'm giving it to a future son-in-law someday. You want it. You go getting a truck. truck and you build it. Yeah. So that's kind of where I'm at with that. And then you kind of, it's like a long term progression. Like, okay, I did that. I did that. Now what am I going to do with it? So I think maintaining it to the highest of levels and then watches, everything changes. But we're in a

time right now. The hog industry is in not the best shape. It's a very, very big concern. And it's like with what these trucks cost, what trailers cost, what labor costs, it's like, man, Everybody, it's not so much about the quality anymore. It's about what's your cost. Yep. So with, you know, looking big picture from our customer base and trying to drive home, dude, you got to get them hogs. If it don't walk, it don't ride.

We have to get every one of these things to the rail. And sometimes that's not even enough. So when you look at the pool of good guys to pick from, it's just a challenge. And then to get them to buy in to, hey, if our customers are not successful, you're fucked. You don't have a job. And about six months ago, oh, that's fine.

I'll go drive a dozer for 40 bucks an hour. Yep. Well, that's fine, but guess what? That's starting to come back to reality. Yep. So the trucking portion of it, I'm still like, that's what made us. So it's like, if I didn't have my loyal core group of guys, I'd be like, fuck this, sell it.

I'm done. Yeah. But I got those guys and I'll ride or die for them. But the cattle is where my heart is, where my joy is, where my passion is. It's not about the money with the cattle. If I died in a pasture checking my cows of a heart attack, no problem. You know, that's what I truly love to do. So it's not the money thing from there right now.

It's sitting has got a lot of people watching and just waiting for that bitch to not work. You like the chip. Yeah, it's kind of, I'm hoping in five years I can just stand there and they'll be driving by me and ming mugging me and I'll just, you know. So that's it. But I think right now my focus is enjoying my kids while they're young. And then providing them an opportunity, right? Like when they get out, like that's kind of the next level. You know, my wife and I kind of have a dream to have a farm for each one of our kids. We didn't, we didn't have farms like at all when we started. And so now it's like we're out here just. busting our ass to get them paid for so when we both are gone i want a farm for each one of my children they still they still have to work and i get a job but like me dead in the ground like at least there's something that helps sustain them they want to send their kids of college no problem you know

grandpa helped us out or want to build a nice house no problem but kind of like the yellowstone you're selling one inch yeah john doesn't style on so we're just in that we're enjoying the building phase but man it's like on the way over here i was like i don't i don't know we just started it's like shit that was 12 years ago like fuck it goes fast it doesn't get old it doesn't get fast we better figure out what we want to do when we grow up yeah so i think it changes every day though you know one time one year you'll think i'm going to do this and this is what i want it to be and then next year it changes shit happens Life changes.

I think that's the thing that... As long as you're doing what you're passionate about, that's cool, you know. We talk about this. The greatest part about agriculture or about owning a business, about the grind, is you're not...

You're not capped. You're not capped. So I had a conversation with a classmate of mine that works for the university, and he's the top dog at what he does. But he's done. The only money he gets, no matter what he does, no matter how much he could do the great, invent the greatest damn thing that they got, he's going to get a cost of living because he's maxed out. He's done. And he's pissed because he's, he sees the level, the level of people that they got coming in there and the people he asked

work with, but he's done. And I just came home from that and I thought, you know, whether we make a dime or lose a dime, it's on us. And if we do it right, if we do it right, it can be as big as we want it to be and nobody's capping us. Yes. That's what I love about ag or any business that you build that's your own is it can be what you want it to be. Sometimes it's a fucking nightmare, not not that. the dream, but that's on you. And that's, you control your own destiny. Yeah. It's the freedom. 100%. So it's not about the money. We love what we do. That's the way it is. That's the freedom part. Yeah, absolutely. And that's what I think's important. We can do what we want. Again, it's not the money. It's, I'm doing what I want. And the being tap part, like when I was in the military, I was this thing I hated.

It didn't matter what the hell we did. You're getting paid X. Yeah, I want control of that. nine times out of ten for me it was always less than that but yeah same thing with my guys on my career like dude you can go as far as you want you are not anybody in any one of my businesses you're not an employee right you are an asset and you're an asset there's been a lot of guys worked for me that started driving our trucks you know came from nothing now they own their own rigs they pull our trailers i watch them buy houses i watch them buy three hall release i bought i watch them by ground. That's a fun thing to be a part of.

And that's what I really like about it. So I make sure anybody on my team is like, dude, you ain't here punching a clock. We need you. We count on you. And we expect big shit out of you. If you want to come here and beat around the bush,

I ain't having it. Right. And it's not a rude way. It's, dude, get the fuck out. Yep. We don't want that. So if we have one employee,

so be it. If we have 50, great. Surround yourself with winners. and then watch everybody else grow and develop. Yep. And provide that freedom. So if somebody wants to become a fucking winner and join your squad,

where can they reach out to you at? Where can they find you? Megan Live at my office. Megan Live. She's the master filter. Homes, livestock, and logistics. Is that on website, Facebook? Facebook's where they'll find you.

Yep. But don't apply if you're a pussy. Exactly. You got to come in and... Our best thing is no baggage, no drama, no bullshit. Yeah, and I will say for anybody out there that does not, you know, doesn't have any exposure to hauling hogs, livestock, whatever, and for us, when we would be loading hogs out of site one,

which site ones are double site, and it's the worst one to load out of because it's just... Big site. Fucking running pigs. Pigs. a long ways. And when they would pull six loads out and we would get the schedule and it would be and it would be people that will remain nameless and we would go, oh, fuck. Yes. Because you knew, you knew that the first two trucks were going to be there. And then, I shouldn't say that.

What really sucked is when you had five loads, you knew what the five were going to be. And then that last truck, we would say to ourselves, well, you know, there's, no fucking way he's going to be here. He ain't going to be here. But when you look to the schedule and it was Holmes, we're like, fucking a, this is going to go smooth. The reputation speaks for itself. I mean, and there's, there's a lot of great guys that are this job, this business, if you're not a great guy, you're not going to be in business very long. But amongst that, if you're good, you're good and guys alone in the pigs, they appreciate it. Because like, when you're loving pigs shit happens pig suck they can be assholes but there's a lot of challenges that people

don't see from our perspective our end of it we have a lot of challenges navigate through and i mean i got a black list of farmers that are just fucking assholes i mean like but there are such like dude it's like this dude is a good shit and we'll even put in our notes on our on our spreadsheet schedule like this guy's a freaking dickhead yeah watch it or a grass notie do not driving this grass that kind of shit. Yep. I can imagine that. That's little shit matters though. I mean, our main thing when we hire somebody is like, and don't take this in a wrong way, but I can give a shit about corporate, I don't give a shit about that plant. I want to be tight with the guy's loading. Yeah. Because if I need a solid or I need a, and I'm a huge guy, I keep it on our level, right? Like corporate don't need

to know what the fuck's going on out here. You and I, we'll hook up and we'll, we'll do it. If you're running late, you got something going on. I got going late. Whatever. Communication's a big thing. But We tell them guys when it's like, hey, when my main goal is when our trucks go rolling into that farm, I want that truck clean and representable. And I want you getting out looking like a professional. Because I want that farm to be like, oh, fuck yeah. And that sets the tone. It does set the tone. Because it can be a very emotional task.

Oh, you mean. It can be. But if we set the tone right, it's better for everybody. Better for the hogs. Better for everybody. The trucker's good. It's pretty fun. move.

It just they're the most, they're the most important part of the whole thing when you're loading them. Hey, I don't, I'm sure you wouldn't, you wouldn't know this, but I will give you my best of all the truckers that we've had that have either brought us pigs or we've loaded pigs. The best trucker story I can tell you

is a load of wiener pigs we got out of Kansas that showed up and the guy brought the gal he, picked up at the truck stop in Omaha with him. She was wearing leopard skin tights and a fur coat, a fur

waist coat. She was or he was? She was. She was. They're just carpooling, dude. It's being fishy. And he gave her a pair of booties and she got in the trailer and helped him unload the pigs. That is service. I shit you not. I'm sure she got five stars.

Oh, my man. 100%. That was a sight to see. I mean, that is top that's that was that's one of them deals for me it's kind of like I see nothing I hear nothing that's dead I was impressed I was like well you could say what you want but she's dedicated oh man yeah I guess well Jared I think I don't know you got anything else I think that was my best bit right yeah that was good I was hell of a good podcast I hope you guys got some value from it we appreciate you coming on if you want to be a winner Jared Holmes homes homes trucking go on

Facebook, reach out. But if you're going to be a pussy, don't reach out. But Jared, thanks for coming on. If you guys got any value from the show, share it out. We'll see you back here next week for another episode.