Barn Talk - How Millennial Farmer Built a Farming Empire on YouTube w/ Zach Johnson

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

In this episode, we’ve got a true pioneer in the barn—Zach Johnson, better known as the Millennial Farmer. Zach’s been at the forefront of sharing real, unfiltered farm life with the world, picking up a camera and showing millions exactly what goes down on his Minnesota family farm. In this special episode, hosts Tork and Sawyer dig into what inspired Zach to start documenting his journey, how social media has transformed agriculture, and the ups and downs of being both a farmer and a content creator. From sharing farm mishaps (like playing the “John Deere shuffle” before a blizzard) to the realities of family business, passing on the farm to the next generation, and tackling tough topics like sustainability, regulations, and public misconceptions about ag, this episode goes deep but keeps it real—with plenty of laughs along the way. We also sip some whiskey, talk about balancing work, family, and hobbies (dirt track racing, anyone?), and discuss why agriculture’s biggest challenges also open up major opportunities. Whether you’re a longtime follower of Zach or just looking for some real talk about life on the farm, you won’t want to miss this conversation. Let’s get into it! Shop Farmer Grade 👇🏻 https://farmergrade.com/  Learn More About Our New Project👇🏻 https://livestockwaterandenergy.com  SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ➱ https://bit.ly/3a7r3nR   SUBSCRIBE TO THIS’LL DO FARM ➱ https://bit.ly/2X8g45c  LISTEN ON: SPOTIFY ➱ https://open.spotify.com/show/3icVr4KWq4eUDl7Oy60YMY  APPLE ➱ 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 Social Media Farming Pioneer 13:34 Embracing Agriculture Niches 28:25 Pursuing Automotive Dreams 32:36 Struggling to Find Kids' Chores 46:29 Bridging Urban-Rural Farming Awareness 01:01:45 Unpredictable Farming Challenges 01:09:24 "Farming: Challenges and Opportunities" 01:21:36 Diversifying Farm Income Strategies 01:27:22 "Unexpected Opportunity in Farming" 01:42:29 Agricultural Reset and Diversification 01:47:58 "Balancing Family and Racing" 02:04:09 Reading Client Needs for Sales Success 02:10:57 Community-Led Grain Bin Safety Fundraiser 02:24:40 Trump's Tariff Strategy Explained 02:32:47 "Desire for Unbought Leadership" 02:38:40 A Competitive Upbringing ------------------------------- ⚠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 stoc... 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 names. Welcome to Barn Talk. What happens at the barn? Stay's in the barn, but not today. We're going to let it all out for you guys. Today is going to be a real, real special guest episode. We got a damn good guest in the barn here today. But before we get into it, you guys know the drill. Share the show with the people that you know. If you guys get in any value at all, if we made you last, if you're related to us on something,

if you just got, you learned something from this episode, all that we ask is you share it. It's kind of the ticket to admission to watch or listen to the show, and it's the best way we found to grow the podcast. Another thing you can do to support us here at BarnTalk is leave a review on Spotify or Apple.

The more that you guys do that, the more it makes our show credible so we can get some damn good guests like we have the day on the show more often. And we also just love hearing from you guys, hearing your feedback, what we can improve, what you like, what you don't like, we can take criticism, you know, whatever, whatever you think is constructive enough for us to hear, we'll try our best to implement it. I do like positive reinforcement better.

You're a words of affirmation type of fellow. Yes, I like affirming, I like affirming comments. Yeah, you need the, I need that. You got to build yourself up a little bit. My inner talk's already bad enough, so. Yeah. So yeah, help us out and help torque out with his, with his inner dialogue and leave some positive stuff too for us. Last thing you can do to support us here at Barn Talk and our family farm is support our direct-to-consumer meat business. Farmergrade, farmergrade.com. We got Wagyu, beef, pork, chicken all on there.

We got Father's Day coming up, so gift your dad something special this Father's Day and get him a box of meat because you know he damn well he's going to use that. And he's going to forget about that Ace gift card in his wallet if you give him one of those. So we don't have a Patreon to make this show go. What we got is called a Metrion. Farmer grades are Metrion. Instead of getting a bumper sticker, get yourself a box of meat. Because you know damn well you're going to use it.

So all the support that goes there is directly coming back to make this barn better and to help us grow this show and make things better here. So we appreciate the hell out of all you guys that support us in any way, any of those three ways. it really does mean the world to us. And I am, I'm pumped today. It's going to be a good one. Yeah, it is going to be a damn good one. I mean, this guy really doesn't need much of an introduction.

He pretty much has pioneered farming on social media. He was kind of the first guy to ever pick up the camera and show what's going on on his operation and doing it well. And he has built a massive, massive platform promoting agriculture in a positive light, showing what he does on his operation every day. Supporting the farm community in a lot of different ways, not just what he does with his YouTube videos and what he does on social media, but through FFA and through farm rescue and stuff like that.

And so I am super, super excited to get into this one. So without further ado, let's get into it. 60 John Deer with a dump bucket, you know, spring-loaded deal. And I can't remember what, we were doing, but we needed a loader. And my neighbor had, our neighbor up the road had a Minneapolis Moline that had a loader on it. And I was like my dad's shadow of the three boys, I was the one that like, you know, just following around and all that. He just assumed that, oh yeah, you can run this. I got on there. And I'm like looking, you know, now I can run a, I can run a 4010 synchro real easy.

I get on this Minneapolis Moline. And there's like, lever, lever, lever, lever. I was just like, it was like, it might as well been a spaceship. But I just told my dad, I'm like, I don't even think I know how to make this thing go. Anyway, he got up there and we, I think he didn't let on, but he didn't quite know what was going on. But I don't remember what model it was. Yeah. But anyway, it was an oldie.

So that's my only memory of a Minneapolis Mollinger. Yeah, he came down and we did, my dad's 4010 that we've had, and then we went in the barn here and we've got like an unstyled A and a 60 and a Ford, an 8-N Ford, you know, we went through the whole deal and I didn't think he was ever going to leave because we just kept talking. I can see that. I know what you mean. We ended up eating supper on a Tuesday night at a Mexican restaurant and the, the, the, the, Cook staff was standing there just watching us eat, you know, because we're the only ones.

We're the only ones there. Just waiting to wipe the table and flip the chairs. Come on. Anyway. Undily. Yeah. Absolutely. Oh, man.

Well, shit. Zach Johnson, millennial farmer. Welcome to Barn talk. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah, man. This is one we've been wanting to have happened for a long time. I said in the intro, you know, what you've done for agriculture has been amazing,

especially impacted me in a positive way. I mean, you were one of the people that inspired me to go down this journey of ever getting on social media. So I just want to say, thanks for doing what you do. And, you know, I said also, like, this man really doesn't need much introduction because what you've done is just incredible, man. So we're just grateful to have you on here and appreciate it. Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. And it's same to you guys.

I mean, you guys do a great job with your show. I don't know how I ever came across it. but it just, it came up in the shop and, and, uh, it was like, I knew who you guys were. I'd seen you on social media, but I'd never listened to a podcast. And it was one of those deals where, uh, I was listening to one of my usual shows. Yeah. It got to the end and my hands are dirty and I'm working on stuff and your guys' show came up. And you're like, never, shit, I've never listened to him before.

I'll just let it roll. Where's that, where's that voice of that 15 year old girl coming from? Oh, it's coming out of that. Is that a midget? Is that a giant midget? What is that? I was just going to ask him, what keeps you watching? Is it the, do you think somebody's a midget or? It's my good looks.

It's your good looks. Actually, I owe you, I owe you probably more than Sawyer because. Yeah, you do. When he started on his journey of I'm going to, you know, I'm going to start documenting my life. He was a meathead and he was into fitness. Yeah. And he drugged me into this when he started like a day in the life of chorn pigs. and if he wouldn't have done that and he would have stayed on fitness,

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be here because I would have had a heart attack because he would have drug me to the gym instead of just letting me chore pigs. So thank you for, you know, helping get him into the right genre so as to not cause me any more pain. Well, you would have looked like we had a joke on last podcast where, you know, dad's starting to go to the gym with me now. So he's getting, you just had your 54th birthday. And you get your steps in.

but you start to go to the gym and instead of calling you the Rock, he's going to be the Boulder. Yeah. The Boulder? The Boulder. That's cooler in the rock anyway. Yeah.

But what other podcasts do you listen to? What's like your go-toes if you had to get to choose? I listen to the drinking bros a lot. Okay. I have for years. Yeah. Just listen to those guys a lot. Actually been on their show three times.

I like those guys. They're good dudes. Rogan has, like a strange guest list to me. Mm-hmm. But the 10 or 15% of his podcasts I listen to, I love. But then there's a lot of guests where it's like, eh, eh, you know, like I'll just go on to the next thing. Yeah.

Then I like listening to some of the oddball, like maybe the dorky ones, like Freakonomics. Yeah. I like that one. There's been a couple that serial podcasts have done. Have you heard of serial productions with an S? I haven't heard of them. It's like a storytelling kind of thing, so it'll go through five, six episodes of something

and they dig into real deep. Those are the ones you got to listen to on the road trip. Yeah. Because you can't be getting out of a combine and trying to pay attention. Yeah. Actually, oddly enough, I don't listen to many podcasts in the tractors anymore. I don't know if that's because I'm old. I don't know what happened there.

You just, do you just not listen to anything? I just leave it off. Yeah. There's too much shit. Like, my phone's always ringing. Yeah. Somebody's trying to get a hold of me on the radio. I got a YouTube channel.

I got to remember to do something with the camera. It's just too much. I don't need the background noise. So I rarely listen to anything in the track. anymore. No, I'm with you. I'm the same way. That's, that's like, that's really one of my only, like, really peaceful times that I can just listen to the voices in my head and make sure that they're all in agreement. Oh, I don't like listening to those. Well, they're fine as long as they don't start arguing. That's when, that's, that's when things go awry. Yeah. When you, when you are filming,

do you ever just take a day where you're just like, you know what, I'm going to enjoy this today. All the time. Yeah. Yeah. Because, man, You can get just fatigued of just like, okay, onto the next field. Here we go. So the drone up again. You know, and sometimes you're just like, you know what? I want to enjoy this. Yeah, I just, can I just farm today?

Yeah. I don't need to talk to the camera. I just let me farm, please. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how to, I guess I don't know how to. Well, I have one other question. Rogan, what do you think about Rogan on his stance on Ag?

Like, sometimes I feel like, oh, he might, he might get it. But then he has people on there sometimes, and I'm like, gosh, he really don't get it, does he? So literally on the way here, as I pulled in the driveway, he was playing, and I've got the episode going with Aaron Rogers. Yep. And there's some stuff on there they've gotten to. I don't think I'm halfway through it yet, but I know I've heard from others that there's some stuff on there that they're going to get wrong on agriculture.

And there's definitely some stuff where Rogan needs to be. Yeah. I'm not not put in his place but he needs a little bit more education from guys like us he needs a different viewpoint yeah share perspective yeah I'm told he's going to start talking about all the glyphosate that they put on the golf courses come on man you can't like you got the biggest audience in the world and you get the golf course goes out of business when they put glyphosate on it right yep I know they make roundup ready grass but it's not on the golf courses yet yep yeah so just stuff like that you know and I've heard I've heard him talk a hundred times about these gigantic harvester machines that are just grinding up deer and rabbits

and all these animals. Yep. You ever put a deer through a combine? I mean, I've seen pictures of it. Sure. It happens. Yep. But I do not want to put a deer through my combine.

No. You know, if you do, something was wrong with the deer. Exactly right. It can see you coming. Exactly right. Yeah. It probably needs to be put out of its misery anyway because it ain't thinking straight. Yes.

Well, it's just, it's a very unlikely scenario. because either you're going to find the deer before you run it through there or the deer is going to move. Yeah. For you to not see it and the deer not to move, something seriously wrong. And then you probably got some stuff you've got to spend a lot of money on more than like. Exactly. If you put a deer through a combine, you're fixing a feeder house.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My only thing that like when he's had like regenerative guys on there, you know, like white oak pastures, I always talk about how I respect the hell out of Will Harris because I think he's like gone away from relying on the commodity market and kind of created his own market. And I do respect that. But he always asked the question when he has those kind of guys on,

do you think the way that you're doing it, we can do it everywhere else and feed the world? And they never say. They never want to answer that. They never want to say concrete yes. Yeah. Because I think they know you can't scale it. Yeah.

Yeah. That's a tough part, isn't it? When it comes about, we talk about sustainability and, you know, carrying things on. I mean, you got to, that's the most important part is we got to keep feeding everybody. And then, yeah, we could get better in areas. But like, that's, that's sustainability is keep feeding everybody. I mean, I think that's one of the, I think that's one of the, I don't know how,

I don't know where I was. I was at a meeting somewhere and a guy was talking, and this was in the hog industry. But he said, you know, sustainability, he goes, you know what sustainability is. He goes, sustainability is that is when you have a farm or you have a business and you keep it going.

That's sustainability. He said, that's not, it's been co-opted, it's been taken hostage. He said, like in our business, raising pigs, we're very sustainable

because we're a third generation. We've been raising pigs for three generations, and we're still doing it, and we haven't lost our ass yet. So we're sustainable. Yeah. But he goes, you know, it's not what people like to take that word

and make it into all kinds of things. And like these guys that push this, uh, this, these niches, there's nothing wrong with that. And I think in ag, the idea of,

the idea of being able to continue, uh, smaller, farms, like in our case, a family farm, we're not going to compete with the people that have the desire or have the ability to farm 10,000 acres. I'm not going to run with those people. So if I'm going to make my living off purely grain farming, I'm going to have to find other ways to do that. I'm going to have to find niches, whether it be social media, whether it be a meat business, whether it be me making lemonade and selling alongside the road

out there, whatever it is. That one's not going to work out that well. Probably not that well because I'll drink all the lemonade and probably spike it and then get a lawsuit. So Trish won't let me do that. But you know what I mean? But I think those niches, that's not going to feed the world. As an Iowa corn farmer, you understand that what you do affects your tomorrow.

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Yeah. And I always use the example. I actually use you as an example. You know, everybody wants to say, oh, all farmers should no till. All farmers should no tell or all pigs should be raised on pasture or all beef should be grass fed. And it's like, you're not taking geographical location into that equation. you're not taking the farm's financials into that equation, how the family works together in that equation, what the equipment looks like in that farm into the equation. Like, they just want to paint it with a broad brush. And that's what grinds my gears more than anything.

It's just like it's not a broad brush. It's not one stroke. This is how it has to be. Because everybody farms differently, and the guys that do farm differently, they're probably doing it for a reason. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. I mean, every farm is different the same way. Everybody that is neighbors in town, they all have different jobs. They all do different things. They're good at different things, right? So you even look at the obvious difference like geography and soil type and climate, but then you get into, like you said, like just the family dynamic, the financials. I mean, what works best for them?

What are they good at? What do they not want to do? I mean, it's just, it's so different for everybody. Yeah, it is. Well, you know, we only really do this on, episodes together. We do a whiskey minute every once in a while. A whiskey minute.

A whiskey minute. But we feel like this is a special episode since you've made the trip. Gosh, you're really funny about this. We're doing a whiskey hour? We're going to do a whiskey hour. Maybe we could do a whiskey hour. We'll just see how good this taste. But we got this bottle.

Somebody gifted this bottle and you probably know more about it than me because you're kind of better of a whiskey nut. I bullshit the whiskey stobbs better than you do. So this is Garrison, brothers and it's uh bomberea i think is how you pronounce that somebody will tell me it it's wrong but it's double-barreled so they they barreled it and then they're like damn it that's not good enough so they poured it all out and they re-barreled it and then let it go a little longer and it uh it's very it comes very highly rated but i'll tell you the bourbon business is

tough and uh they've had to add they've had to add bling because this This bottle came with this tag on it. And then for buying this bottle, you get a medal. Oh, you get a medal. You did it. It's a participation trophy for alcoholism. And so, so I mean, they're putting it on for all it's worth. Yeah.

But anyway, it's gotten really good reviews. So do you want to, you want me to open it? I'll open it and I'll pour us all up one. You guys just start talking shit about something else. It's even got the dipped. I know. A dipped top, right? It's like a maker's.

Makers does that. They stole it for makers. They just put a little blue, blue nine in it or whatever. It is a pretty cool bottle. I won't lie. Don't suck on the cork, Sawyer. Yeah, I've done. Sorrow has his fine motor skills.

Never been good. Never been good. Took him a long time. I think he was 12 before he could tie his shoes. It's tough. It's all about, that's why he's got the Velcro boots. It's all about the teacher.

I got to be careful about how I'm using because people in the comments will say, well, it's your son. Yeah, well, exactly. there's some of your genetics in me there are all the bad shit's probably from you well I don't know your mother's not here to defend herself so be careful yeah uh

when you when you picked up the camera and you started did you have any idea of how how what the appetite for that was really no

no I not at all no And I think some people don't believe me when I say it. But in all honesty, when I picked up the camera, it was 100% just a hobby to try to relate to people and say, hey, this is our family farm. I'm going to be fully transparent here. This is what we're doing today. This is what we got going on. You know, these are my kids. This is the family right here.

Follow us through what we're doing. And that's all that it was. And when people, you know, I kept it quiet for a long time because I didn't know what the neighbors would think. right? And I just, like, eh, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't want it to get out there and be the weird YouTube guy. And when people started catching on to the fact that I had a YouTube channel, some people would come up and say, you know, you can make money on YouTube. Yes. And I thought, well, sure, but I'm sure you have to be, you know, you have to have this monster channel, whatever. And, and so I never, I spent two years, never thinking about it at all.

Never, it was 100% a hobby. And then when it started to, you know, it started. to blow up on me, I started to look into, okay, all right, maybe I'm getting enough views all of a sudden that I should look into monetizing. Yeah, monetizing it. So I remember, and I know I'm the millennial farmer, but I'm kind of an idiot when it comes to computers. Yep. And I don't care. I don't want to learn any more than I already know about computers. I'm not interested. So I figured out one day, I spent like three hours figuring out how to monetize the channel and sync the accounts and do this and that and whatever, and I did it. And I forgot about it for months.

Never thought about it. Well, here it was sitting in a Google account. Sure. But I didn't give it any banking information or anything like that. So it was just sitting there, piling up. And I believe months later, I had like $200 in there. And I checked it one day.

Saw that $200 and was like, I'm fucking rich. Well, I am very lucky in the fact that when Sawyer started, I mean, he, I have no clue how half the shit works that we do, but he, he's more savvy than I am. That's the key. Well, yeah. I use my wife for that same reason. Here. This is some stuff I can't figure out.

Work on this. Yeah, work on this. So it was the, wasn't it the dead semis? Was that the video, the first one that really took off? Like, when you went to start, I thought I. I thought I heard you tell the story, like, you had a video where you went out and you were going to move equipment out and, like, the batteries were dead or something like that. So there was one of those, yes, it was, there was a blizzard coming. I'm pretty sure I know the video you're talking about. There was a blizzard coming. Do you guys need, do we need like a chainside to get that bottle?

What did you do? I literally, okay, that's a malfunction on their end. Yeah. The bottle's all cool and shit, but when you pull the, pull the wax. out wax tab to take the damn thing off it snapped on me okay well we're going to lower the score dad dad can you help me with this we're going to lower the score yeah yeah i mean you are my son because neither one of us can get it figured out so no thank you contera for this uh glorified box cutter that you gave me because it's it is it is really handy yeah we're getting it yeah anyway i digress anyway yeah so the the video was i i started out in the morning

we knew there's a blizzard coming. We got two big shops. One is the heated shop. One is the cold storage shed. I wanted the stuff that I was going to work on in the heated shop. I wanted it in there before the blizzard hit. Of course, it's in the back of the cold storage shed. So I've got to take like 30 items out to get to the back, to get this stuff,

to get it into the heated shed. So I'm just playing what I call the John Deere shuffle all day. Yep. Moving equipment around. And it was one thing after another. You know, this battery's dead, that battery's dead. trying to get in the battery box and a semi and the stud for the bolt breaks off.

So now I got to go get a grinder. Now I got to open the shed door and it's literally iced in place and I got to bust up the snow and then it falls off the rails and then I can't get it open any further. It was just one thing after another after another. And yeah, apparently some people like that video.

No, they do. Those are the best. I mean, every really good video that we've ever done on the Farm Channel has been things going wrong that we didn't know we're wrong. In other words, stuff that you just,

like, we went to shoot loading pigs and we walked in and they got a feeder loose and the gates broke and water's flying and all hell's breaking loose. Yeah, I mean, that's because people can relate to that. People totally can relate to that.

That and I think it makes a good, it's just a good story. Yep, you know, set up conflict resolution. You got your conflict right there, whether you wanted it or not. Here it is. Yeah. What year was that? What year did you start?

I started in 2016. So I've been doing this nine years now, this spring. Was there really anybody out there that was doing it before you? Or was it literally like, I'm just going to do this. Like, because there was, so I had the idea, without ever seen anybody on YouTube, I had the idea. And I sat on it for well over a year before I actually made my first video. But in that year, I started looking, you know, trying to see if anybody was doing it. And there was Ryan from How Farms Work.

Oh, sure, yeah. And Wes, one lonely farmer, he's out east. Yeah. Those were the two guys that really jumped out. I'm sure there were others doing it, but those were the two guys that really jumped out at the time. Yeah. And I think, I mean, I know those guys are still going at it too. So they've been doing it a long time.

I mean, absolutely. I don't know when each of them started, but I think it was years before I did. Yeah. Yeah, and how farms works. I mean, that's a perfect Google. Like, every time I see his channel, I'm like, I think he made this channel name, this channel name for a reason.

Because it's like literally how farms work. That's the best search. Yeah. Searchable channel that you could get. It's going to come up. You know, every single time. For sure. Yeah.

Yeah. But okay, well, we got that, got that bottle finally open. It was childproof, but we somehow made it through. Yeah. You have to be a skilled bourbon, enthusiast.

So these glasses are from a guy. We had a guy on last episode. His name's Casey Maxstead, and he owns a whiskey business called Cold Zero. And every single bottle is, well, the special bottles are signed by a medal honor recipient. And it's veteran-owned. Oh, that's cool.

Pretty kick-ass, dude. Got to have a bullet coming in the side of the glass. I mean. Yeah, is that a 5-5-6 round? I didn't ask him, but yeah, I thought, Man, that's pretty sick. So let's give her a go. That's got a unique flavor.

I don't know what that is. Is that like... It's whiskey. Yeah. It's like oaky, though. Like it's... Because of the double barrel. Yeah, there you go.

Yeah. It is. And I read the reviews before, and it's supposed to taste like vanilla. Excuse me, vanilla, caramel, oaky. I think it's good, though.

Double-barreled, 115 proof. Oh, boy. Yeah, it's got a little heat. It is good. It's got a lot of flavor and it's got a really good color. Yeah. And I'm not going to drink the whole glass because we did. Usually when we do the whiskey minute, we do it at the end of the podcast.

Oh. And then if we have nothing better to do. I was thinking when let's do a whiskey hour. We were thinking alike. I'm going to finish mine. Okay. Well, do you want ice or anything for it or you? No, I'm good, right?

Okay. I just wanted to make sure. I got the fancy chaser. Okay. I figured. I figured so. So you grew up in Minnesota, small town kid. What was life growing up as a kid?

What did you always know you were going to come back to the farm? What are some of the shit that you got into living on the farm? Everybody loves talking about those stories. Yeah. I'll go first with, did you always know you were coming back to the farm? And not necessarily. No, I had a patch there where I wanted to do something else. I think I was, you know, I took it for granted.

The farm's just there. it's what we do. It's what dad does. And dad did it always has done a damn good job at it. But I had other things that I wanted to do. And after high school, I actually, I went to school for automotive machining. So it was automotive machining and high performance engine building. I wanted to build race car engines. And I went to school for it for a couple years, enjoyed it. But I also had the reality of, you know, if you're going to do this, you're going to own your own shop and build engines, you've got to buy all your equipment, find a place to put all this stuff to run your business, and then you're going to have to get customers and make damn sure you're good at it.

And then once in a while, some of those customers are going to be pissed off at you, and once in a while, some of them are not going to pay you, and you're not going to have that engine you built them, and maybe they blew it up or something. And there was just a, there was a real reality of, I don't know how much of that I can stomach. I don't know exactly how to go about that. And if it fails, what do I do then? and it just felt like by the time I had got done with two years of tech school, I felt like, no, I think I want to go back to the farm.

That's what I, I think that's where that's what I want to do. You know, that's my comfort zone. It's what I want to do. It's a great opportunity. And I've never regretted that because like at this point now, I don't know, I don't know what else I would want to do. Yeah. You know, I mean, yeah, I could come up with things if I absolutely had to,

but I don't want to do that. I want to farm. You're basically unemployable at this point. That's what I tell people. I'm like, so I started out, all I ever wanted to do was farm. And then hog business 101 in the 90s taught me that, okay, no, this doesn't work very well. What do you mean you won't give me any more money? Oh, okay, well, that's not going to work.

So then I had to work off farm. And what I tell people now, I came back full time when Sawyer started, when he came back. which it's great that we were able to do that. But I just tell people it's like, when you work for yourself, especially in ag, you complain about it sometimes. And there's a lot of things that I get pissed about

when things don't go right, which is, you know, at least a few days a week, things don't go right. But six to eight days a week. Something like that. But then once in a while, I'll go to the place that I used to work, I was just there the other day because I had to get parts for one of my hog sheds.

And you walk in there, you look around, you're like, yeah, I don't think I could do this because if I did, like, I would just wonder off. And they would be like, where are you going? And I'd be like, oh, yeah, I'm just going to run down here for whatever. They're like, no, no, you can't just do that. You can't just wander off. You can't just think of something in the middle of something else. So, I mean, that's the problem is once you get, once you get in it, it kind of ruined you.

You're unemployable, yeah. There's certainly added stress that comes with being your own boss, but there sure is a hell of a lot of flexibility to. Yeah, for sure. 100%. So what about, you know, you got any war stories growing up of just some of the shit you got into? What was your least favorite thing that, least favorite job or chore that you got shelled when you were growing up?

this is this is this is going to I hated chopping stocks I don't know why it's not a difficult job you're sitting in a tractor right just something about it I did not enjoy I always hated chopping stocks so when they came out with a chopping header and we got one yeah I was so happy yeah I don't know why I just hated chopping stocks yeah and that was that was my job for a long time maybe that's why I hated it yeah I don't know because now I think back man everybody'd leave you alone you know everyone was done in that field and you're just coming by and cleaning it up with the stock chopper. Yeah, exactly. But now, so maybe now it'd be different, but at that time, I didn't like it at all.

So do you have, so your, how old, your oldest, your oldest child, how old is your oldest child now? 15. Okay. So have you, some friends, so neighbors of mine, we have this conversation, like when I was a kid, there were all kinds of just, uh, labor intensive. remedial jobs that my dad is like, oh, yeah, go, you know, go take the batch to old and mow along the fence line along the road,

so it looks good. Just stuff that you knew was going to take hours and it really didn't matter whether you did or not, but keep junior busy. But like when I, my kids, as we've grown and technology's gotten better and we automate and we automate, it's like you really struggle to try to find up, try to find these remedial jobs that you can just,

you can just dump on junior. It's definitely gotten easier. It has to have, right? Yeah. For sure. I mean, to me, when I think of manual labor around our farm, it's when you got to clean out the bottom of a grain bin.

Yeah. Yeah, we do that several times a year, but it isn't that bad. Uh-uh. You know, yeah, you sweat for a few hours, and it's dusty in there, but yeah, it isn't that bad. Doesn't happen very often.

No, no, it doesn't happen that often. I remember throwing hay bales with the neighbor, when I was a kid. Yeah. You know, and you'd work all day and you'd get a, get a check so they could deduct it for like $15 at the end of the day. Yep, exactly right. But, you know, kept me busy and it was good lessons and stuff,

but I don't have hay bales for my kids to throw anymore. No. Yeah. And I don't want to get them because then I'd have to throw them once in a while. Exactly. Tell them a story about when you, you had this thing, you put straw and hay and this,

and then you went. So, um, this barn has the, fork still in it that when I was a kid and we bailed hay it has a track that runs down the middle the forks are back you can't hardly see them but they're hanging back there yep so it'd run out to the end and then it would drop and you come down to the to the rack and you would stack all the bales um you'd start with two this way or four you go two and two and then you go four so you'd stack

everything either eight high or 12 high and it was in stacks of what eight bales how do you get him that high so you'd stare you'd stare step them so you would start at the back and you'd go four high and then you'd move and you'd go to and then you'd have somebody up and you'd throw them up and step them up and you'd go you're you're climbing so we usually bailed with like three people and so you'd have the strongest the strongest guy was the one that was throwing him from the bottom and like when i was the youngest sweet I had two brothers. I'd be the one on top. They'd throw them up.

But anyway, when you go to fork them off, you'd take eight bales at a time, and it would bring it up, and then you'd come in here and it had a rope attached to the forks that whoever was in the mow, when that pile of bales got to where you want it, you just yell, you pulled the string,

and it would drop them right there. So somebody's up here that yells to somebody out there. Yep. Okay. Yep. And then somebody's on the rack setting them, but the beauty of it was you didn't have to carry bales to the back of the barn it would bring them and then you just

keep moving and then you go up a layer and I was you know I was like and I hated it it sucked but I thought that's how everybody did it and I remember being like I don't know if I was 12 if I was 10 12 whatever I probably 12 years old

and you know one of the neighbors like oh yeah you want to help us bail you know straw or whatever sure go over there stack bales we get to the barn, I go up in the barn, and I'm standing like, I'm standing towards the back,

and the two kids are helping me, they're like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm just waiting for the bales. And they're like, you got to get them off the elevator. And I'm like, what? Like, yeah, you got to get them off the elevator. And I was like, what in the fuck is this? I just remember thinking,

this is the most screwed up. Oh, I hated that because drag, them all the way to the back of the barn, you know. That was worse, he thought. Oh, way worse. Way worse. Because the other thing about it was, now granted, that was a lot faster. Yeah. Because it was just constant and you were just

gassed. When you were forking them off, it was nice because it took a little bit of time. Because once they dropped, then you'd pull the fork back and it'd drop and then you'd set them and then you'd take them up. But I didn't know that. I just thought that's how everybody did

it. And then when I when I found out how the real world worked it was like, yeah, this ain't worth $2 an hour. You know, I need a raise. And they're like, sorry, kid, this is what you're getting. This is what it is. Yeah, that's how we did it at the neighbors. They had the elevator at the front and you'd carry them to the back.

That's how you become farm show. And you go home and dig the stuff out of your nostrils and look at the cuts on your arms. Yeah, my experience in this barn was I had a lot of air soft wars in here. Yeah. With all the straw. And he thought he had it tough. Yeah. We went through pain up here.

It was close quarter combat up here. Sometimes he'd run out of CO2. Yeah. Oh, well, somebody had a CO2 pistol. That thing, that would leave a welt bigger than any other airsoft gun. That thing would kick your ass. See, we didn't have Airsoft. So when I was a kid.

Baby gun. We had BB guns. We had the Daisy 880. Oh, yeah. And we would have this pinky square agreement that, You would only pump it one time. And we would have BB gun wars, you know, out the timber. And there was always that one kid that you know he pumped that more because it hurt like hell.

His just hurt more than anyone else. And then there was one, I had one friend, I had one friend that for whatever reason, his parents did not see the value of Annie and up to get him a Daisy 880 air. So he had the old, the old spring, the old spring Daisy that you cocked. Yep. He was no match. No match for the 880. And we welded that poor kid up pretty, pretty well.

You knew his weakness. I'm pretty sure that was Matt. I'm pretty sure that was Matt. So, Matt, if you're listening. Well, he's probably the toughest at all you then. Well, you know, I think that's where is innate need for safety. So he runs a, he runs a safety consulting company. That sounds like a horrible thing to do.

I think that was the reaction. I think he has an innate need for safety because we probably pelted him too much. Yeah, he's always looking out for our best interests when he sees us on a video and we're not falling up to the OSHA standards. He's like, guys, come on now. Can you block him from the videos? I don't know, maybe we should. We should. Yeah.

Well, we were talking about your onyx, your boy. And this is a question I always had because like I feel like you're one of the few that kind of is going through this right now with you start a channel. you got this family generation farm onyx seems like he's kind of getting in the videos do you see this passing on like the social media passing on to him if he wants to choose to farm

like because I've always thought when we were talking you know it'd be so cool to pass this on not just the farm but if they wanted to farm and do social media it'd be cool to hey pass the other past the media torch on as well yeah past the media torch on like, I'm a fifth generation social media.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Who knows? So I just, you would get a royalty. Of course. Yeah. Of course.

You'd say, son, 42.5% coming my way. I was just curious though, because that's something I feel like not a lot of people are going through that, you know, right now, you know? Right.

And it's kind of just a new, new topic in the social media farm escape. I've had that thought quite a bit in the last couple of years. And I guess as of right now, you know, I've given him reminders to let him know that, hey, if you want to do something online,

you want to do some social media, obviously I'm in a position I can help you out with that. Beyond that, I haven't said any more than that. And if he doesn't want to, he doesn't want to. Yeah. He has a channel. I don't think he's put anything on it for a few years. Yeah.

But if he wants to at some point or the girls want to, yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'll help him out as much as I can. That would be cool because it's been, you know, for me, them too, they don't know it yet probably, but it's, it's been life changing. Yeah. I mean, completely unexpected. Completely unexpected. And then once we figured it out, I mean, it's taken a ton of work.

So it's been life changing. We were really thankful for it, but did not see it coming. Yeah. And hopefully they'll. They'll realize that and whether or not they want to continue something with it. That's up to them. Yeah. Well, they'll do it better than you because you're just cringy.

You're just cringy. They'll do it a lot better. Yeah, that's how I think about you too. Every son or daughter thinks that their dad's cring. Hell, I watch my own shit and think it's cringy. So, I mean, it's fine. I would, you better get going because if we're going to do that three-generation podcast, Hey, I'm working on it.

I'm working on it. getting any younger. Yeah, I know. You got good genetics. I'm going to have to get those bags of oxygen from Gary Breka and the whole red light shit and all that if you expect me to hold out. I am going to go to Mexico and get the stem cell at some point. You know, I got a shoulder that's kind of.

Oh, my shoulders hurt. What's the stem cell thing? Oh, Rogan. I had Mel Gibson on and there's a clinic in Mexico that they shoot you up with stem cells and it's like the fountain of youth. Really? But you don't want to do it too young because it doesn't, it doesn't like last. Like if you do it too young.

Well, I think you can constantly, I, hey, I'm not an expert. Each time, each time you do it, the effects don't last as long. So these guys that are getting stem cells and they're downstairs, probably not a good idea. I've seen that. That's what I've been seeing. What kind of websites are you seeing this? I have just seen it on social media.

these guys say, oh, yep, I got stem cells of my dick, and it's been the best thing ever. And I'm like, okay, that is, that is, that is, ballsy because literally. I mean, that is, it is ballsy because it's like, man, that seems like it's a newer thing. And that's, that's a precious item. Why don't, why don't you pick this up right here? Yeah. And go back to this outline of these really good, we had some really good questions. I know. We're getting there.

You just turned it right into the ditch. We're going. Well, we're not going to talk about stem cells. hell's in your dicks anymore. Hey, we can stay on that topic as long as you want. That's what I practiced the whole drive down. Yeah, they're talking about that. I hadn't heard that.

All I know is that, like, I'm holding out till I'm like 65, 8, something like that. Okay. I just heard something about the shoulders and I got some real shoulder issues. I keep getting cortisone in them and it just keeps coming back. Yep. What about your lower back? How's that? Well, that's a problem like once every nine or,

or 10 months. Yeah. I'll like pick up the TV remote wrong and then I can't walk for a few days. It's like when it happens, it's bad. Yeah. Like right now it's fine. Yeah, I was going to say you're a tall guy. So I mean, I struggle with that probably more than anything.

It's the lower back, man. That'll take you out. All the time. Those problems. Not all the time. Just if you pull something or if I go to the gym, you know, and sometimes you're like, damn it, I shouldn't have done that, you know. It's the jumping.

Yeah. It's the jumping. Yeah. It's the box jumps. Yeah. That did it to me one time. Yeah. And then, yeah, dragging a 300 pound fat hog out, you know, a dead hog out that sometimes when you're mad, when you're mad, probably mad. Yeah. Yep. Yep. That'll get you too.

But okay, what are some, what are some misconceptions out there that you think consumers have about ag? In your world, you know, you get so many damn comments. You've had so many people watch your videos. You've had so many people react to what you're doing. What are you think are the main misconceptions out there that people get wrong? I think the number one thing that I wish consumers would realize is that we're consumers too. Right? We eat the same stuff as they're eating. So it's in our best interest to take care of the animals and the natural resources and come up with healthy food the same as it is for them. I mean, if we don't take care of our soil and water and air, I mean, it sounds cliche, but who does it affect first?

I mean, it affects us quicker than it affects them. Yep. And that's the tough part. You know, when I got into the social media was I wanted to relate to them about what we're doing. And there's so many management practices that we have, whether it's the way we keep hogs and what we're doing with hogs, genetically modified seed. Irrigation is a huge issue in a lot of places. You know, tillage, things as simple as that. There's a lot of stuff out there where we have these practices that we use, their management tools, practices that we use for a reason.

you know, I have a reason for using genetically modified seed. If I thought it was killing everybody, my idea of all that would change, but I can see the benefits of it, and that's why I do it. You know, same as you guys with the hogs, right? You can see the benefits of raising the hogs the way that you do. So that's what I wish they would understand the most,

is, hey, we're out here actually doing this stuff, and we're consumers too. You guys want to see the hogs be taken care of more than anybody else. Yeah. You're with them every day. You know, consumers, I think it's difficult for the consumer that's sitting in a major city that has no connection to farming whatsoever. They don't get to talk to you guys every day and really understand how you feel about the pigs in your barns.

They don't get that, right? And I guess I can understand that too because from day one, you know you're selling those things to have them slaughtered. But they don't see that connection that you guys have with the livestock. So I think it's probably the same way even when it comes to the road crop farming. is they don't see the connection that we actually have to the land. Yeah. Hey guys, sorry for the change in audio quality and video quality. I'm up in the hog barn right now,

and I wanted to let you guys know something pretty special. At farmergrade.com, we're offering whole and half hogs straight from our farm to your doorstep for the first time ever. We're keeping it extremely limited because we want to do a trial run on this. We want to make sure that we do it right, and we don't over promise and under-deliver.

So we only got 10. half hogs available and five whole hogs available. We have an existing processing date that we're taking pigs in on June 24th, but if you want to add a whole or half hog on to our existing processing date, you can. We kept this, we try to make this as valuable as we possibly can. You can save about 33% on average compared to all this pork that you'd get at the grocery store. and we really want to make the bulk pricing of a whole or half hog valuable to you guys so you can get some cost savings because I know in this economy right now it doesn't seem like any of us can get a break and I know food and meat just keeps going up and up and up so we're trying to give a given opportunity to you guys to have a chance to get some cost savings and fill up your freezer straight from our farm if that's interesting at all you can always use code barn talk and uh Now let's get back to the episode. Yeah.

And do you think that we just, as, as, I don't know, just the ag space or ag community just didn't get, get out in front of the negativity? Like, were we last to strike rather than first to strike? Because I just feel like, or is it just because people are just so just disconnected to farms now that they just don't? I think that's part of it. They just don't know. Because it's like, how did we? get to this point where people just literally sometimes think that farmers are the devil. It's like crazy sometimes.

So there's the disconnection. But then the other things you have to remember is they hate everything on the internet. Yes, right. I mean, look up anything. Yep. You know, you'll have, you'll have everybody telling everyone else how to do their jobs. That people that are, this is the part that really gets me. And I've touched about this on specifically TikTok a few times.

where I open up a little bit more is, how are so many people so arrogant about so much shit that they know nothing about? Yes. And they'll say something in such a way that they are 100% certain that this is how it is, and they couldn't be more wrong.

And there's no accountability for that when they're just behind a keyboard, right? Or their smartphone. And I get it. I'm probably guilty of it too, but I think that's a big thing to remember is we're in ag, so we see the negative stuff

and we feel like we're being attacked, everybody's being attacked. Yeah, what's a good point? Anytime that I, like I feel people coming at us for how we do stuff, just go on TikTok and watch a carpenter put soft on a house and then read the comments. I mean, you'd swear that guy had no idea what he was doing.

And the thing is, the reason I picked that is because you know, to me it's like there isn't a whole lot of magic in putting soft on the house. Like it's kind of all the same and but no, if you read the comments, I mean, that guy is a complete idiot, however he does it. And that, you're 100% right. I mean,

we shouldn't really feel that like singled out because I don't care if you're doing an oil change or you're putting soft on a house or welding. Welding's another one. Guys that do welding. Holy shit. It's like I would like to, when I see

somebody welding, I would like to go if I had the time, I would go shoot a video of me welding and put that up there because it's like if you really want to see somebody that has no freaking idea, it's like, I'll see, I don't know, we'll turn it up here. Oh yeah, well that kind of looks like shit. Oh, we'll turn it down and

notch and then hit it with a hammer. Oh, it didn't break. I think that's good enough. We'll put it back on. We'll run that. There's a pile of bird ship that holds the two pieces of steel together. You do the same type of welding and I do. But good Lord of Moses, you'd think that there is a lot of experts out there.

Haters are just amazing. Haters are going to fucking hate, man. And there's just a lot of negative people. Is there any subject that you have experienced, so many times that you've written off and just said, okay, I'm not, I'm not doing another video about X.

Yeah, well, so I never do specific, like I don't do just, here's a video about this one thing. If I have a specific, if I have something specific that I want to address, it'll just happen within the video at some point.

But yeah, there's multiple topics like that that I've addressed that are, are just exhausting to try to defend. There's nothing that I've totally written off, though, because sometimes I also understand that if I poke the bear a little bit, it just gets people rolling in the comments. Oh, yeah. There's just as many people on my side that enjoy it

and know exactly what I'm doing, or way more than what there are people that I angered, right? So, yeah, there's just, I had some videos recently where I was talking about it was something, It was something that got somewhat political. This was just a couple of months ago, but I made people, they got pretty upset. Help me out here.

What was, Trump was about the farm tariffs? Tariffs. There it was. It was the tariffs. Okay, so I put my opinion out on what was going on with the tariffs. And part of it was because people were asking like crazy. And part of it was because I was sick and tired of seeing people talk about it that clearly didn't know what they were actually talking about.

And part of it was I just wanted people to hear from the farmer about what I think. Not every farmer, but what I thought about the situation. And as non-political as I could possibly be, that's how I did that. And people spun it into, you know, I am the biggest idiotic, you know, maga hat wearing moron that there possibly could be. And it's like, where did you get that from what I said? You know, just that you came to this video and you were going to comment that no matter what I said. You didn't listen to anything I said.

Yes. And so like every good YouTuber, I waited a couple videos and I hounded on it again. Yeah, exactly. And it worked like a charm. Well, I think that's one of the things people don't kind of understand. I had a, I had a classmate of mine that lives. up by Des Moines. He actually called me the other day,

haven't talked to him in a long time, and I answered the phone and he told me who it was and we reminisce a little bit, and then he just says to me, he goes, does my brother ever comment on any of your stuff? So he's got a brother that lives in a very liberal state and he's a union guy and he's very liberal.

Is it Minnesota? Illinois. Illinois. It was the next next. And he comments a lot. And I said, yeah, I said he does. And he goes, gosh, dang. He goes, I'm sorry.

And I said, don't be sorry. I said, I love that guy. And he goes, what? I said, I love that guy. Because when I see him commenting, I know, I know that that video is going to get just a pile of comments because he's so far and one of the best and he actually didn't leave this comment but another person very similar to his I love people that say things like your videos make me so

mad I can't stop watching that's yep those are my favorite people yep keep watching maybe it's like and I I kind of don't understand that like I can't put that because for me, I'm fine if you have your opinion about whatever, but if I see it and I don't like it, I'm like, all right, nope, I'm good and I'm done.

I move on. You go watch other stuff. But for some people, they are just drawn to it. And I don't know whether it's like they have an innate desire that somewhere they think they're going to change somebody's mind or influence somebody.

but they usually don't. But no. They keep trying. They satisfy themselves in the moment. Yeah. Yeah. It's to make themselves feel better or smarter. But yeah.

My favorite ones are the guys that say they've watched for a long time and they're never coming back again because something about this video made them upset. Yeah. That was a deal breaker. Yeah. And I don't think those guys know that you can click on their name and see that same comment on like the last 20 videos. Yep.

Yep. Sure, buddy. This will be your last one. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks for the engagement. Yeah.

Yeah. I will say some of your best, like your long form is amazing, but man, your TikToks, your sarcasm is some of the best out there. It's good. It is so good. You have good sarcasm too. And like in today's world, man. Some people literally, it just flies right over there.

Yeah. They literally don't know sarcasm. And man, I just got to give you credit on it because it's so funny. One of my favorite lines that you used was you were mowing road ditches. You're mowing road ditches and you get, you know, you just, you pull up and you go, he's like, yeah, did you see how that made the road look bigger? I was like, oh man, that is so good. That is so good.

Like, damn it, I wish I would have thought of that. You had a video where we were switching the oil on the 466. On the little utility tractor. And dad, Jad changed the filter and he had all this oil on a bucket. And it was at the end of the video. Yeah, end of the video.

We were done with it. And he goes to the camera and the GoPro's just set up or whatever. He goes, all right, well, I guess there's nothing left to do, but just go down to the river

and pour this in there. Dumping in the creek. Dumping in the creek. Perfect. There are some people who are like, oh my God, that's torque, you know, laughing their ass off.

And there's some people like, you really are terrible. You're terrible. You're a horrible individual. Yeah. Awful. We need more sarcasm today's world. We do.

People need to for sure lighten up a little bit. I'm not that bad of a guy. All my friends live upstream. Exactly right. It's right. All them townies, they get what they deserve. So how is farming you feel like shaped your worldview? What are some life lessons that you've gotten from farming that like you just, I don't know,

that you learn that you think everyone, that's not nag or just everybody should know that you've gotten from the farm. Life lessons from the farm. Life lessons from the farm, that's a deep one. If you need to take a sip of the latte, you can. Yeah, I better go with the latte because the whiskey, every time I take a little bit of that whiskey

and see why you quit. Yeah, you just think about it. Well, at the risk of sounding cliche, the farm really does teach you a lot about life. and a lot about life and death and the cycle of life and and the pride that comes with, you know, raising a crop or raising the livestock and putting in the hard work and actually seeing it come to fruition, right? You buy the raw inputs, you put in the work and you get to

sell whatever it is at the end, the hogs, the grain, whatever. I mean, that's something you can take pride in. You actually get to work every day for something that, that you can control to a point, obviously, and run your own business and raise your kids that way and teach them about the cycle of life and hard work and success and happiness is not measured with, you know, your bank account or your acreage or the amount of, you know, the head of cattle that you have. I mean, it's, it's whatever it is to you. So at the risk of sounding cliche, I guess that would be my biggest takeaway. And I honestly feel bad for people that don't get to experience that because most people don't.

Yeah, yeah. So what is, is that what success is to you, just seeing that, just what is success look like to you? What is, if it's not, if it's not building or growing or, you know, expanding, what does it look like to you? You know, happiness and stability, yeah, comfort, safety. Yeah, yeah. Good health.

I mean, keeping, keeping the family, all of that, right? Healthy and safe and comfortable. Yeah. And yeah, you have to make money in life because it's the way you achieve those things. But I don't care what anybody else's bank account says. I hope everybody else achieves those things along with me. Yeah. You know, but that's, to me, that's what success is, I guess, is general happiness.

Yeah. What about you, Tork? What life lessons have you? Well, it's so I'm not going to get to like, religious on anybody but you if you have to go put a crop in the ground or you have to start uh pharaoh pigs or start a group of pigs like you have to have like that's faith like that it really makes you kind of understand what faith is and i and i kind of take that for granted because it's like you put that seed that you put all that money out there

Yeah. And you kind of bet your ass that you're going to raise a crop. And you really don't have any idea if you're going to raise a crop. You know, it'd be easier if we didn't have the news because you see people every year that put all that money out there and they don't raise a crop because they either get a tornado or it gets flooded or it gets this or you get a fire or whatever. And you put that out there and you just have faith that the sun's going to shine. that you're going to get that rain after it's so dry that you're like, we had a drought, what was that? Two years ago?

I think it was two years ago where I would get up early. I would get up earlier than I normally do because if you did get up, just as the sun was going up, the corn was unrolled and you're like, oh, it doesn't look too bad. And then by 830 or 9, you're like, like, oh, yeah, it's fucked. He didn't want to see it in the day. Today's the day it's going to turn gray.

And then, you know, if it didn't, you're like, oh, yeah, we got one more day and we got a 13% chance of rain tomorrow. So to me, that's like, I think about my dad. So my dad was considerably older than I was. So there was like this big gap. And he was always very stoic. Like he never got, there was no higher low with him. he was just kind of even keeled all the time.

And I think that it just came down to he'd seen it. Well, for one, you know, he'd been through the war. And I think that generation, I think anybody, any father that has seen war and been through something like that, it changes your perspective. But then being a farmer on top of it, every year you're just putting. it out there and you've got to have, I mean, you just have faith that it's going to work out. And so when I think about, you know, when I have to go to church or I have to go to Sunday school and they talk about faith, faith to me is not near as abstract.

And that's something I didn't really realize, like I didn't get that. But I think it's probably not as abstract to a farmer as it is to somebody that. doesn't do something similar because you totally you totally have faith in the unknown because you're just assuming that what's going to

and my wife hates that because if you asked her to put a motto on my tombstone it would just say in parentheses it'll be all right because it doesn't matter what happens

I don't know I don't know what else to say. I'll just put my arm around her because let's just face it. I will put up with a lot of things, but the one thing that I, like, I don't know how to deal with, that I don't know what to, I don't know how to deal with is an inconsolable wife.

Like, that's a lot of stress. That's a lot. Like when you finally pissed them off enough or you've scared them enough that they are beside themselves. Or they saw something themselves. You know, I can fix most problems. but I'm all out of answers when that happens. And so then I just mubble, I just put my arm around or go,

it'll be all right, Trisha. It'll be all right. It is what it is. It doesn't work quite as good as it did when she was, say, 21, but. I always thought you were going to put on your tombstone or really small letters. You're standing on my head. No, I am going to do that.

Very small. You're like, get off me. You're standing on my head, yeah. Or, yeah, my favorite tattoo that I would like to get, is a dotted line right across my chest that says you must be at least this tall to ride this ride, but I'm so short that everybody can ride. Please don't ever do that. Yeah, you know what? You're not my dad. I don't care. You should. Yeah, don't ever. Probably live on the shoulder. Do that from why don't you get this out and you look at this damn thing. From faith to tattoos. Dix,

faith and tattoos. We're playing. That's a good model. We're hitting all the major stops today. Good model. Yeah, for sure. What are you, what do you think are the biggest challenges or opportunities that ag, what do you think the biggest challenges are in ag right now and in the upcoming future, but also what do you think are the biggest opportunities in ag coming up? I think the political climate is our biggest challenge. I really think that is the biggest challenge. You could talk about land and machinery prices all you want.

And it's true. they're crazy and for somebody to try to come in and be a first generation farmer at scale close to impossible right that's going to be very difficult you're going to have to get creative with that but i really think the political climate and and everything coming down from there everything funneling down from the capitals i think is is probably our biggest challenge moving forward and how do we make sure that when we have the conversations about what we're going to do with agriculture and how we're going to regulate things, let's make sure farmers have a seat at that table.

Yeah. That whole Maha movement, boy, I hope they're talking to some farmers on stuff like that. I don't think it's a, it's not a bad movement, but let's make sure that the people that actually provide this stuff are in this conversation so that we can do it sustainably, right, as you would say. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, the Prop 12 thing with the hogs.

I mean, how many of us had the, how many of the hog farmers around here had the conversation of like, did those people come out here? Did they go tour some sow units? Did they see the workforce? Did they see... Did they see what the sows looked like in those pens? In the open gestation things? Why is that sows look like she's been beat to shit?

Well, because she's been beat to shit. Yeah, there's a reason we started using crates. Yeah. You know, believe it or not. And that's... Here, I would like for you to spend the evening with these 12 sows of this pen. Take your shirt off. Take your shirt off.

We'll see you in the morning. Yeah. Yeah, but no, I think you're right on that because that's one of those, that was a bill, you know, that it just seemed like they didn't consult farmers. And they just. Because they don't trust farmers. Yeah. And it's like, you know, do you feel, do you feel like we're losing our voice or do you feel like we're gaming? I think we're gaining.

Yep. I think we were losing our voice for a long time, and I think that has turned a little bit now. And I talked about it a little bit earlier when I was talking over at Mitchell's event here. I really think we have a lot of opportunities at the same time within agriculture to connect to people. Again, go back to the Maha movement.

I think most people want farmers to have a seat at the table with these conversations. I just hope that it's all types of farmers. Yeah. And it's not the ones that they handpick where they know what these farmers are going to say. But I really think it has turned. I think people want to hear from the farmers. And so I think that is a huge opportunity that we have.

Well, at the same time I'm taking, you know, our biggest challenge, and I'm saying I think we have a really big opportunity there too. And along the same lines with opportunities into the same question there, people talk about the things like the cost of machinery and land. And yes, it's extremely high. And if you want to jump in and you want to go 10,000 acres of road crop as a first generation farmer next year, good luck with that. However, if you want to get creative and you want to find some of these niche markets

and you want to do direct-to-consumer stuff or you want to do social media along with it, there's a million different ways, a million different things that I, I see right now great examples of people who are first generation farmers who are figuring it out. And again, it goes back, I guess, to what success means to you. But there are people figuring out how to farm real profitably as a first generation farmer right now. You just got to think outside the box. And I think there's a massive opportunity for that right now, probably more than we've had in the last 40, 50 years. No, I agree with you.

And, you know, if you're willing to hustle and just... make a connection with your consumer. I mean, I think that's the other side of it is you, you can't, you can't really work undercover. Like, you've got to put yourself out there. But if you're willing to put yourself out there, there's a lot of opportunities where,

and there's people, the consumer wants, the consumer has lost that connection back to the farm because they're so removed from it. But they want it. That's why farmers markets have gotten huge. Oh, good Lord. They want that. I just saw,

this is kind of a little off topic, but it kind of plays into that. I just saw a guy that created a, it's a business. He created a country club that is centered around health and wellness, like fitness.

So he's got a gym. He's got cold plunges, sanas, red light therapy, all that. But he also made it regenerative ag focus too, where it's like a country go-up club that you pay an annual fee for, but you get access to a garden that you can take fresh produce home. There's chickens there.

You can take eggs home. There's, you know, Highland cattle there. You know, there's... What do you get out of that? Goat yoga. I was going to say, there's... You get a rib-eye? Yeah. I don't think they, I don't think they do that. That's more of a feel-good thing.

It's all the trendy shit, but it's what the city consumer, I just think it's, it's interesting that somebody's put together a country club that seems to be doing really well. That's actually kind of a country club and it takes health and wellness and agriculture of some sort and kind of puts them together and people are loving that. Yeah. And it's like that if that's a telltale sign right there that people want some connection. They do. To a community and some connection to some type of farming. Now that's not, we ain't going to shit that out in our backyard. But I just think that's kind of cool.

Yeah. That's far. I mean, that's farmer grade. I mean, you would never be able to sell that meat. put in a box and ship it if it wasn't for the fact that there are people out there that are removed from farms that live in metropolitan areas

they're willing to pay the shipping to get it there because they want to know where that food comes from whether that be you or somebody else like that tells you that there's it's there no matter what the narrative that's pushed politically your average American person

I think still trust farmers and I think that's the I for us the biggest like takeaway when we started was that people are okay with how we do things as far as raising pigs inside they just know they just want to know why you do it

way. Yeah. And once you explain this is why we do it, they're fine. Well, and you show them. You show them the how to, you know, other than the haters, which they're the guys that you're not going to make them happy. No, because they, they know better how to put soft on a building than I do or on a house. Yeah, and I mean, that, that really was what sparked this idea because, you know, when we, when we did the social media and started the YouTube channel showing the modern day hog farmer, I mean, nobody was showing what was going on in the barns. And I always felt like, direct, consumer was always niche market. It had to be regeneratively raised, grass fed, whatever.

That's what they preach. But then when we started get comments like, hey, I've been watching for a while, where can we get your guys as bacon? I was like, hmm, okay, that's cool. Like, they, they just want to buy the product because they, they see what we do and we, we just show it and they trust it. It doesn't necessarily need the fancy stamps on it. Yeah.

Yeah. They just want to get it from you. Yeah. Yeah. And so that was like, okay. this, there's something here. This can be bigger than just maybe our farm. This can be a movement kind of thing.

So, yeah, anyway, but that's, yeah, I'm feeling optimistic. What excites you the most about what's coming in the future? I think that, those opportunities with the niche markets. And I don't know what that would ever possibly mean for our farm. I don't think, you know, a lot of people know what it might mean for their farm. But I, if nothing else, it means opportunities. you know, and options.

Right now I'm so entrenched in what I'm doing with between the millennial farmer and just trying to run the farm that it's difficult for me to come up with anything more that I could possibly spend time on right now. And that's a difficult thing because I've always been one to try to come up with that kind of stuff. You know, even before millennial farmer happened, I was always trying to think of what else can we do? What other option is out there? what would benefit the farm and be a good compliment to the farm. And then all of a sudden my hobby fell into my lap as a business possibility. So when you made the decision to come back to the farm,

was there concern at that time whether or not the operation could be big enough to support two families? If there was, my dad didn't show it. Yeah. But I was the older sibling. So it's just my brother and I. Yep. I was the older one. I think he always kind of knew.

You know, I was only gone. I just, I went to tech school for the two years. Actually ended up being not even quite two years because I got in a snowmobile accident and had to quit tech school early because I couldn't walk. Couldn't drive all those kinds of things. But I think he knew that I was probably coming back. probably long before that was done with. And, you know, that would have been 2005.

Yeah. We were in a position where things were better. I know in the 80s things were really bad. Yeah. I know, I hear a lot of stories now from dad about how bad the 80s were. Yep. My props to him, because my parents never showed it. You know, when you're a little kid, you don't know what the finances are.

It doesn't matter to you. Right. Right. You're just living life. Yeah. I'm throwing bails with the neighbors. it didn't matter what the finances were at home. But I hear a lot of stories now about how bad it was.

And yeah, like I say, props to them, because my brother and I certainly didn't know it. So they dug themselves out of that hole. And by 2005, I think he was excited for me to come back and say, this is what I want to do. Yeah, it's been a lengthy transition like it is for most farms. But in our case, I mean, YouTube has a lot of. allowed so many other opportunities as far as me buying into the farm more quickly than I would

have otherwise. And, you know, I just turned 40 years old last summer. My son is 15. My daughters are 13 and almost 10. And I've already been thinking for two years, if one of them, two of them, three of them want to move in and take this over, what does that look like? How do we do that? because at some point the numbers get so big. How do you? I mean, I can't fathom trying to get to where I am now without YouTube. Right. Just buying my dad out.

Yep. After a lot of years where it was very difficult for him, but even just trying to get into where I want to be, it's difficult. It is. The numbers are just huge. I don't know. There's not an easy answer,

and it's not the same for everybody. No. Yeah. When you start thinking about, when you start thinking about making a farming operation viable for another generation, it's so hard because as you get older, because I'm in this right now, and it's really interesting because I feel like you start to kind of lose a little bit of perspective

because I'm a very poor consumer. now. Like my cost of living, my cost of living is going this way because I'm at the age where I like what I like and it's like the car I drive, why would I get rid of that? Like I don't give a shit about getting a new one because the one I have I really like and I'll just drive it until the wheels fall off. And it's like, I like my chair. I don't need a new chair. Like, you know, you just don't, we don't buy as much. Like Trish and I, we just don't buy as much. We just don't buy as So when we look at our cost of living, we look at it and we're like, yeah, this is good. But then you think about his generation or younger, and when you're starting out, like, you're accumulating.

Not only are you accumulating, but you're being inundated. Your generation is the generation that is being marketed to all the time. So it's like what your idea of, of, of, need what I need. And like the older generation, that it's, it's just hard to, it's hard to sit and look at that.

It makes, it makes for some really interesting conversations. Let's just put it that way because, and then you start thinking about your return on what you're doing because in the hog business, your pay, in the contract, in the contract world,

your pay has stayed the same, but your expenses go up every year. So it's just eating. And you have to try to figure out a way to get more efficient. And it's really hard to get efficient. And like for us, if it wasn't for social media, there is no way.

There is no way that we could have this farm be viable for another generation. I mean, it's what we're doing because we literally farm 400 acres. Now, granted, we raise a lot of hogs. and the hogs are what's made the difference. But so then I think about what are you going to do? Like what do you, like what's the, what's the thing that's going to enable another, another generation?

My thing is where I'm getting to is like, you got to create business, you got to create a business elsewhere. You got to create value in another way. And like that with like Farmer grade, I think like, man, if we could get to a point where maybe this, farm doesn't, isn't just, maybe we don't row crop at all, or maybe we go more of a livestock farm. And if we can run it through the direct-to-consumer channel and not have to rely on the commodity market all the time, maybe that helps us control our own destiny a little bit more and helps us weather the storms and can make it viable for the next generation. Or just starting a business off farm that might not have anything to do with the farm, but it helps sustain the farm

and grow the farm or whatever. And so, yeah, I mean, that's where on my wheel spend all the time about that. But I feel like creating value in other ways, whether it's on or off the farm, you're going to have to do it. And I think you're going to have to create a business in some capacity, whether it's on, farm or off.

You're just going to have to because it's just getting too hard. Or we always stay on here all the time. It's either get big or die or find a way to create your own market. I mean, that's kind of the two realities that we, face is that. And that's where I like the Will Harris Will Harris is of the world that go on Joe Rogan and spit some bullshit, but also

I respect him in the fact that man, he has created his whole farm into being his own market. Yeah. Yeah. What he's done is pretty awesome. It's pretty awesome in that way. And that's where it's like, man, we should regardless of what you think about

his practices and what he says, I mean, you got to give that guy credit on that regard. because that is sustainability in that way. Because I think he's controlling his own destiny. I know he's got cost and he's running a business and it might not be all sunshine and rainbows. But it's in his hands. It's not on the commodity board's hands.

It's in his hands. Gosh, I've just been watching a lot of videos on blackjack because, I mean, we're not very far from the casino, but maybe that's not the most viable option for... Yeah, probably not. But how do you know? That's right. How do you know?

You don't know. Hit me. Hit me. If it doesn't work out, you're not out anything because it's right up the road. It's exactly right. I mean, you're not spending much on gas. There you go. There's your cost savings. There you go.

Yeah. There's a question on here that I think is kind of funny. And dad might have to give you some context. But it says, by the way, I got you another beer just in case you were needing one. But no pressure. Best bad decision you ever made. So, Dad, you can give some context on this. So you always say like, you know, if you would have made it through the 90s

and came out on the other side, or if you would have built a contract finishing barn sooner, you wouldn't ever have had to go off farm. But you always like to say it was the best bad decision or best bad thing that happened to you because of all the shit that you learned and all the people that you met. Yeah, like I've always said that if I would have somehow, weathered the 90s fair one

because we had 400 sows fair to finish and I and I always say if I would have somehow made it through that 98 boy I'd be a miserable boy I'd be a miserable son of a bitch like you'd be miserable oh

because we we did every like you know it was all like it was a it was kind of a 24-7 deal because when you're fairer to finish and you're trying to do it within the family. I mean, you literally never, it's just a, it's just a cage.

You're just running all the time because you're, your, and I shouldn't say that because there are people that are good, like the guys that are huge today, the guys that are the biggest producers today, they all started out that way, but they learned, they figured out how to delegate. They built a business. They built a business and they built the systems within it to delegate

and they learned how to manage people. I can still barely manage myself. And I sure can't manage Sawyer. He's a wild card. So I mean, I don't think that was a strength. So I'm like, if I was still on that wheel, it would have been horrible. So it was a bad, that was a really hard decision.

it wasn't the decision that I wanted, but I had to make it was to get out of heroin and then ultimately that led me to working off farm. And, you know, people will... So I had the opportunity very early to build some buildings to contract finish. Actually, the decision was I was going to buy a Faroe to Finish operation,

and a neighbor of ours was selling his and moving. And the decision we made was I bought that, and then my dad and I combined the herds, and we made two sites, and we ferroed on one, and we finished on the other, and we doubled the number of size we had. But at the time that that was going on, I was dating my wife,

and her uncle, I don't think anybody care, her uncle was Dave Eichelberger, Eichelberger Farms and they're like they're part of the triumph group and they've got like 56,000 sows or something like that. I mean they're huge today and

I can remember sitting at Thanksgiving and Dave said to me so he goes he knew that this sow unit was for sale, this 120 sows and he's like we had just my dad had just bought 240

acres for 8 1750 $50 an acre and he was scared to death because there was no way he was ever going to pay for it. This was in the late 80s and, you know, but we'd been renting it for a long time and a few years later, it looked like a pretty good deal because land prices took off. But at that time, and Dave says to me, he goes, why don't you just go up on that ground you bought and build a couple finishers for me? He goes, you'll make way more money.

And I'll never forget that conversation. and that was at a time when contract finishing was like, oh, you know, that's, that's below you. That's below you. You know, if there was a, there was a certain pride in raising your own pigs and owning your own pigs and all that. And I didn't do that. I didn't, I didn't do that contract deal. Well, if I would have done that, it would have worked really, really well because I ultimately

ended up selling buildings to guys that made that very decision that I didn't make at the time that I made it. and then I sold them their, you know, 10th or 12th or 15th building, you know, when they were living large because it was a really good decision. But all of the people that I met and all the experiences I had being off farm

made me a better manager, like gave me the skills, the business skills, that I would have never had if I would have built sheds and it would have worked. I would have been the same, well, I would have been the same dumbass that I was. I wouldn't have grown. I wouldn't have like learned the lessons that I need to learn. So, wow, that was like a 10 minute deal to say,

what's the best bad decision that you've ever made? Or maybe you haven't made any. Yeah, I mean, that's a cooler answer than I could think of. Sorry, I should have talked faster. Well, you know, I'm 40 years old. I've been farming with my dad. for 20 years now and dad made a lot of good decisions ahead of me

and we've been trying to grow it a little bit at a time. Obviously I got the social media thing specifically with like farm decisions. There's nothing that jumps out at me. I know when you were talking about the decisions there that you had to make and we had touched a little bit about the 80s there. My dad always says when he, so he had to relocate

from where he grew up to where he's farming. now. Kind of a longer story, but he was born on the farm that we're at now, the home farm, ended up growing up in southern Minnesota and then went back to the home farm after he was done with high school.

So he came back to the home farm and that was right when the 80s hit. I mean, he ended up down in a hole and it taught him how to make management decisions, how to watch cash flow, and how to really nickel and dime things and make sure that

he was making the right decisions for the farm. The other thing he touches on is when he came back to the home farm there, he was the young guy that didn't have anything and all the neighbors were living large. They were coming off to 70s and all the neighbors had had everything going for him. He couldn't compete with them.

When the 80s hit, he said it leveled the playing field. Everybody ended up in the same pit he was in and he said it was probably, you know, it lasted a long time. It was 10 to 15 years where he struggled, but he said everybody was in that. same pit with him and it leveled the playing field. And it ultimately, he feels

this day, now today, he feels like that was probably the best thing that happened to him. What was the, is he ever talked about, what's the worst interest rate he had on a loan in the 80s? He talks about 17 and 18% interest rates. We had Rob Brennaman on here a year ago and he was talking about when he got started that his operating loan was like 18%.

And it was so funny because we had people comment. And at that time, I think interest was at 475. 5%. Yeah, like, you know, 3.5, 4, 4.5, I can't remember. And people literally, like, thought he was lying. Like, we get comments that, oh, that guy's full of shit. On that high interest rate? Yeah.

Yeah, on that high of interest rate. Because. Well, let's back to the comment. They can't imagine it. Yeah, they can't imagine it. Like, if you're my generation, I mean, until a couple, I mean, the last couple years. Yeah. It was three and a half, three, four.

I mean, it was like that for a while. Well, my whole business when I was selling hog buildings, the reason that that was so good for so long is because money cost you nothing. Cost you nothing, yeah. It costs you. So the building price, the building price just kept going up. So when they started building those buildings, you know, they were $140 a pig space. Today they're $380 a pig space.

But there was a period in there where they went from 140 to 240, but money got cheaper that whole time. Sure. And so it just worked. It works so good. And then there's a whole generation, and you're right about that, kind of the same thing. Your dad talked about people that came through the 70s.

I feel like there's a generation that came back to the farm right there when we rode low interest and high commodity prices. And I stand by this. Anytime commodity prices start to move and then they stay, they keep that momentum for a period of years. As soon as you're listening to the big show or you're reading in, sorry, nobody reads anything, nobody gets a paper magazine, but when you see online, some farm commodity expert writes an article that we've hit a new plateau in the corn market, that's the time to get scared because you know it's just going to drop like a hammer,

you know? And I remember when corn was, you know, $7 and the world is, you know, we're never going back. We're never going back. and then we went way back. Yeah. So, yeah, but no, that 18%, 17%, that's like a whole different world to people. Like they have no idea how that you even could make that work.

My dad has the papers for a purchase agreement from some two quarters of land up the road from us, one mile north of us, that's sold in the 80s. And he has the agreement there, never signed it, never, you know, this was something that they gave to several neighbors. Yep. And it didn't end up actually selling to any of the neighbors, but the price was $700 an acre. But it was at 14 or 15%.

I can't remember which, what exactly. And it's like you look, all I saw when he showed me that when I was 18 years old is $700 an acre, you know, why didn't you buy that? Yeah. Yeah. Well, he didn't have the money. Yeah. Yeah.

No of the neighbors buy it. The purchase price is the easy part. Yeah. Yeah. The payment schedules the killer. It was seven, like he always says, it was $700 an acre because nobody could buy it. Yeah. Nobody bought it.

You know, it just, it was hard to sell land. You couldn't give the stuff away back then. Nobody had the money. Yeah. So crazy. Nobody had the money and the cost of using somebody else's money was so high. Yeah. So I have a question because I, you know, I just have two questions.

One, so the guys that were in the 70s and they were making a pile of money, do you feel like, because your dad said it leveled the playing field, was it just, were they not, did they just not see it coming at all and they didn't manage, did you feel like they were not managing things at a level that they should have been, a lot of those guys, because they were just riding high for so long and they were like, we're going to be good for a while and then the 80s hit and it was like, holy shit like that. Like what, what, because I think about like when we talked about these guys, that were just trading equipment.

Interest was so low, these guys have just been trading equipment, trading equipment, trading equipment, trading equipment, and now that's not going to work, right? You know, the rates have gone up, everything's gone up, and you might be stuck with that. Well, you adapt, so you adapt the environment you're in, but the other thing you've got to remember is, like...

I guess I just don't have perspective on how bad the 80s were. Well, so think about this, though. So like my parents, we ferroed, we had 200,000, fair to finish. There was no record keeping. Like the record was the checkbook. My mom balanced the checkbook. And my dad equated most things to how many pigs am I going to sell? And we farrowed every week.

And we, so we sold pigs every week, feroed pigs every week, move pigs every day like sell two straight truck loads of pigs on Monday move pigs from the grower to the finisher from the nursery to the grower move out so many sows wean so many pigs go over the gestation barn sit there look at that sow grab her tit oh better get her shut up

you know that was how it went there wasn't any record keeping so to your question about did they not see it coming things were good and there was money in the checkbook And like I've talked about before precision structures, there was Claude's first business was called confinement specialists. And he sold modified open front hog buildings like Nebraska style hog buildings. And he always made the comment that it didn't matter what it cost. When he went out and talked to a farmer, they didn't care what it cost.

it was the mindset of getting pigs out of a barn lot if you could convince them that that was a better way to do it they didn't give a shit what the building costs because they had the money to pay for it and it's not like they had a cash flow like I'm sure there were guys that did that probably did a paper cash flow I mean there was no computers

so it's not like you could just spit out so most people they ran You know, they balanced a checkbook. They knew how much money they had. But they didn't really, you know, they didn't have the tools we have today. So when that all changed, it took a lot of people by surprise. And a lot of people didn't see interest coming that hard. I mean, look how much to what we talked about, you know, guys that traded combines.

Like, we know people that literally bought a combine didn't make a payment and traded it. because it was zero percent interest. Why would you bother? And then the whole downstream, there was somebody that, there was a market for that machine. Yep. And there was a market for the machine after that.

So it all, the system just worked. So why would you buck the system? Yeah. Until it changed. And then when it changed, people are like, shit, this isn't going to work.

Well, and maybe I'm wrong here. You could tell, you could tell me if I am, but in the 70s, if things are good and you're making money, and you're just so busy, working and making money. Instead of putting together cash flows,

you know you're making money, and then all of a sudden, you're not making money, but you have the same payments you had last year. I think that's maybe where it bit a lot of guys is we're making a ton of money and the neighbor's land is for sale. Let's buy that because we know we're making tons of money.

And two years later, oh shit, I still got to, I still got to pay for that. Yeah. And also another thing that I feel like lasted longer, but that was a generation that it wasn't it in their mind if you just worked harder than everybody else the rest of it take care of itself because you were at a time where you were transitioning from

a lot of manual labor to technology and a lot of farmers they literally had that attitude that if you if I work harder than everybody else and I work longer than everybody else I'm going to be successful well and they were probably coming off of a few decades where that was true right so that's that's probably I mean probably of the perfect storm of all of those things yeah but you know you look at today if the neighbor's farm comes for sale and you have any shot at it you're going to try to buy it yeah but if five years from now things tank which they kind of are at the moment but you know what I'm saying that'll catch up to you

I was just going to ask you do you guys feel like that could come again the 80s what we went through there do you feel like that can come again well I think you're already you're already a little bit there on anybody that on anybody that doesn't really know their numbers

I mean it's like jace when we had jace young on here legacy farmer I mean anybody that's in that business of finances and banking if you You don't, if you can't do a cash flow projection for yourself

and know what your cost of production is, because the difference is in the 70s, people didn't have good records, but the margins were so good, we probably didn't need to because if you outwork, if you worked hard, and you put the crop out there and you got in the ground a decent time, and you weren't stupid, you didn't spend money stupidly, you were making good money because the margin was there. now then our margin per acre per bushel you did that video about like what each kernel yeah and i thought

that was so good because that really put it in perspective for people like what it takes to pay for that acre of corn and what what each ear what each kernel so your margin is just so much narrower i mean there's already guys that are i think we're there yeah what do you You think we're there. Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, I, again, I didn't manage a business through the 80s. I was born in the 80s. I've heard a lot of stories from the 80s, but I don't have any reason to believe that it couldn't happen again.

Yeah. In fact, I'm kind of the other way. As much optimism as I have about agriculture, I feel like there could be some big reset at some point because there are certain things that are easy. You know, we talked about the physical labor side of things. there's a lot of stuff within the industry that's gotten a lot easier in the last 40 years, right? And I think, I really think that there is the potential for a big reset.

And I think the opportunities that we've been talking about that we've talked about earlier, I think people that have something else going that benefits the farm, I think those are the people that are going to be the strongest. If you have stuff diversified a little bit, I think that's really where, where a lot of potential can come from.

Yeah. To help weather through stuff like that. Mm-hmm. Well, let's switch gears a little bit. I haven't looked at my sheet at all. I know. I feel like I'm just going like this. I'm just going like this.

Softball. You guys, you guys have good questions. Well, good. Hey, we appreciate it. Thanks, Gronk. Yeah. Yeah. Grock.

Grock. Dara calls. I use Drock. What does that stand for? So Grock is Elon Musk chat GPT. Yeah. So I sometimes, like, when we were having you on, I had a list of, we had an outline made. And then I was like, you know, I want to ask him some shit that like, he doesn't get all the time.

You know, you've been on so many podcasts. I want to get some good shit. And I was like. And I was like, let's ask. And I wish I had better answers. Well, you got to damn good answers. What I always like to say is what I love about Rogan is, I want this to feel like a conversation. I don't want to feel like.

Yeah. We're just asking, asking, and asking and asking. Absolutely. And I just, I feel like that's what we try to strive for. And I think, I mean, I just like throwing them up. And like I said, I don't have perspective of the 80s or any of that stuff. And I know you guys talk to, you talk to grandpa and you talk to your dad. So, I mean, it's good.

But before you get any deeper, do you guys have a restroom? Yes. You want to take a break? Yep. All right. Let's take a break. I got it. I have a good question for you.

So, like, has it been? when you've started to get to where you were having some success, but with that, you know, you have to be consistent. Part of growing an audience is being consistent. Yep. So what's your dad think? Or the other people involved in the farm, like, were they like, what in the hell is he doing?

So before I ever started the channel, before I ever made my first video, I pretty much asked for dad's blessing. I made sure he was okay with it before I did anything because it was his farm. Yep. So if I'm going to be putting this out there on YouTube, he better be okay with me doing that.

So I got his blessing on it first. And I know his feeling at the time. He was always active in advocating for the industry through the Minnesota Corn Growers Association. That was his way of advocating for what we do. And I think he knew that this was my idea of advocating for it. It was just different. And I've always been good.

You know, I've been lucky, I should say, to have dad in the way that he understands those kinds of things. So he's always been open to that kind of stuff. He never said, no, don't do that. he said go ahead and go for it, whatever you want to do. But he also said, you know, I don't want to be in the videos. I don't, I don't, as long as it doesn't involve me, go ahead and do whatever you want to do. That's good. And for like two years, there was never another person in my videos.

Maybe my wife, maybe once in a while the kids. But I started getting questions, hey, are you the only one that works on this farm? You know, what's going on? No, I just, I'm giving everybody the else the respect of not having to be on my videos. Yeah. And at some point, people were asking enough. They wanted to hear from dad. They were interested in learning from dad.

And so I actually did a couple of videos with him specifically where we talked about the history of the farm. And I think, I know that eventually dad started to really see the benefit of it. Yeah. You know, when you've got, you put a video out in 400,000 people watch you combine corn. you know he he saw the the power in that so he was hesitant at first he didn't fully understand why i wanted to do it that way but he never said don't do that that's awesome yeah yeah that's really cool is it is it hard to balance everything very very got any insights in that because uh we're not we're not doing very well i don't i don't have a lot of advice i i deal with it every day

trying to balance everything you know i got three young kids. They're getting a little bit older, which in some ways makes it easier. At the same time, it makes it more difficult because I can see now my 15-year-old son is much more independent. He's starting to drive around. He's gone a little bit more. He's doing his own thing. And I don't want that to happen with my girls. I want to be there with my girls as much as I can because now I know what's coming with them. So even like this, you know, driving down here today. I was driving down into the area anyway because I got other stuff going on, but I'm going to be down here for three days. And that's tough this time of year. I'm leaving

dad at home running the sprayer. I'm leaving all the kids at home. I have a terrible addiction to a hobby of dirt track racing. Yeah. Spent all last weekend doing that. And I'm the crew chief, so I'm doing a ton of the maintenance. So yeah, it's a difficult balance. All the time. Yeah. So let's talk about that for a minute because was that something that you were into earlier and then you kind of, it kind of, you didn't do it? Or have you always, have you done that for a long time?

The racing? The racing. I've done it since I was 15 years old. Yeah. And you never really took a break. You just didn't show much of it. Right. When I started the channel, I purposely hid it from the channel.

And the deeper I got into the channel, the more and more I hit it because I get a lot of comments from people, oh, this must be nice, must be nice, you know, this and that. Like, well, I definitely don't need to show them what's in that other shed over there, right? Yeah. Exactly right. So for the longest time, it was that. And then I got to a certain point where I just said, you know what? If they're going to hate it, they're going to hate it, whatever, this is me.

I mean, my biggest passion in life is the dirt track racing. I love it. Yeah. And I'm going to waste millions of dollars doing it over the course of my lifetime because it's what I want to do. I don't want to go bass fishing. Yeah. Right. So what's the health of dirt track around the Midwest? Is it, is it? Because, so growing up when I was a kid, so Eldon, 34 raceway in Burlington, Burlington, been there. Columbus Junction had a dirt, they still do have a dirt track. West Liberty. So, I mean, it, it was, and there's a lot of guys involved in the livestock industry that were also big in a dirt track.

Yeah. But I feel like it kind of fell off, maybe a decade ago. So what, I don't know that much about it today. So what, is it as popular? Is it growing? Is it dying? Is it, it's not, I don't think it's growing. It's gotten really expensive.

It's an expensive hobby to have. It's time consuming. And there's a lot of other fun stuff to do on the weekends. You know, the internet exists. There's a lot of, you can find a hundred things going on in your local towns besides dirt track racing every weekend now. I don't think the kids want to. You only have to pay $35 to go do. Yeah, right.

The kids don't want to go get dirt in their hair all night. You know, I mean, some do. Those are the cool kids in my eyes. but I don't think I don't think it's growing unfortunately but those of us that are entrenched in it it's what we love to do I also don't think it's going away

I actually had this conversation with somebody a couple of weeks ago how I don't do either of you follow Formula One a little bit I mean I'm not die hard by any means but I keep up a little bit with it so I've loved racing my entire life yeah my dad

raised me to growing up to love racing he was I was a big AJ Floyd fan. See, and I never got into Indy car or Formula One. I was really into NASCAR for a while. But now I find myself following everything in Formula One, and it's because of that damn Netflix show. Yeah.

Where I started watching that Drive to Survive, and the true Formula One fans like to make fun of people that came over from that, but whatever, whatever. I follow Formula One because of that. I think if Netflix or any of those other companies came out with a solid dirt track show, I think that sport could grow so much. Yeah. And so that's what I've started to.

I've got a second channel now called Between the Rows where we put some racing stuff. It's been really difficult because when I'm at the track, I'm so focused on what's going on with the cars and all the work to be done in the cars that I don't think about making videos. I've said this before and it's been a struggle before but I think we have another guy that's going to be doing some video for us. I hope we're on to something here to get that channel moving. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, that'd be huge. And I mean, I think that'd be hard for you too because for a long time, you know, you just kept that side of your life private and you just kind of did your thing, you know. Yeah. And it was like, well, shit, I don't need to bring the camera out. But it makes it hard when you have to make that transition. And then do you feel like you film, if you have to shoot that too, you feel like, man, am I shooting all my life pretty much then?

That is the struggle, right? Yeah. Because people don't get it. It is exhausting. It is. I mean, it is draining to, because it's not only you're just doing and filming. You are thinking about, okay, what do I need to add? What was the last clip I took?

Yes. What did I say? How do I make this flow? Do I need this clip when I walk from the truck to the combine? and do I need to say this or that so they know what's going on. It's always a second you're doing two jobs at the same time. Now with the racing, the struggle that I've had, you know, I mentioned all the stuff that I'm focused on the car

and everything when I get there. I'm also turning my hobby into a job. And I want to be real careful that I don't get carried away with that. Because I already turned my job into a second job. Yeah. By bringing my hobby into a job, right? My hobby was the YouTube thing. And that became a job.

Yeah. Yep. So what, like, what's a goal? Where do you want it to go? Like, when you think about dirt track racing, like, is your biggest goal with that to just see, because I know Onyx is involved in it too. Yeah. It's just seeing him thrive and be successful in it.

Is that like your North Star with it right now? At this point, yes. Yeah. When I was 15 years old, when I was his age and I started, you know, it's the same. sky's the limit. Yeah. I had a lot of success in my teens and early 20s. I won a lot of late model races. Wissota is the sanctioning body that we have north of here. Yeah. I won three national championships in the Wissota late models. We bought an open motor, did some open motor racing with the world of outlaws and Lucas Oil type of stuff. Very little, because we didn't do, we just didn't have the

money or the time to be on the road and buying the kind of tires those guys were going through. But at that time, my goal was to be was to race dirt track for a living. That's what I wanted to do so bad. But it didn't work out because the time, the money, and now I'm 40 years old, it's not going to happen again unless I take my own money and I do it myself, which I could do. But I don't have the, I don't want to do that. I want to race around home and I want to help develop onyx into it, right?

Or my daughters, if they decide they want to get into it. Yeah. On a side note there, Onyx got his first win a week and a half ago. Hell yeah. That's awesome. Backed it up with a second win on Sunday. That's awesome.

Two different tracks, two different states. Yeah. He's been running smooth. He's been running really good. That's awesome. Yeah. Does he have that,

you feel like he's got that fire to want to go? He does, and I think the wins have built that up even more. Built that fire way bigger. You know, yeah. I can see, I've been around racing my whole life,

and you can just see when people have it or they don't. Yeah. You know, you can't always tell when someone's 15 years old. You can't tell the difference between who's going to really be the guy versus who's going to be good, but maybe not this guy, right? Yep. But I can see that Onyx is a smooth driver. I can see he's heads up.

If the wreck starts happening, he sees it. He sees it happening. Yeah, I mean, he's my kid, right? So I'm biased. Yeah, I think he's doing a hell of a job. That's badass. That's cool. That's really cool. Do you feel like he has more of a drive and hunger to take that as far as you can take it more than the farming?

Or is it both? Or is he kind of figuring that out? I think it depends on the day. Yeah. He's 15 years old and he's got ADHD. So he is hyper-focused on one thing for a week and then it's on to the next, right? So we've been able to give him things to make sure we keep him focused on stuff. But for a long time, he loved hockey. he's always kind of loved the racing.

He'll come and go with farming, loves hunting and fishing, you know, in those seasons. He's got a window washing business now. He's also, he has no social awkwardness whatsoever. He will talk to anybody at any moment, any time. And he just decided one day he's going to wash windows for a business when he was like 13 years old. Mom, can you give me a ride to town?

I got all this stuff in my radio flyer wagon. I want to walk around and wash windows. Hell yeah. It worked. Yeah, it's awesome. Like him and his buddy now, he's 15, his buddy is 16, and they're just scheduling like three weeks out for window washing jobs. And they'll go out for a weekend and come home with like a thousand bucks between the two of them.

Yep. It's awesome. That is, that is, you don't need to worry about that kid. Yeah, he's just, he'll be fine. It's a little bit weird that he has no weirdness in that way. Like, he'll just come knock on the door and see if you want him to wash your windows today. The only downside of that is he is ruined for working for somebody else. Oh, for sure.

Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. Like I talk about both of my boys. It's so cool when you see them like make that click that like, you know, I could just start this, whatever it is. And I, you know, I'm just going to go try this. And it's great. And then when people ask you about it, you know, like people will ask me, like, how did, you know, like, how did that happen? What'd you, like, what'd you do that? I don't know what I did. I don't know what, I don't know what Trish and I did to put that to make that fire. But I say, the one thing I do know is I've successfully ruined them for working for anybody else because once you go out and you wash windows and you make money, then you never go, oh, yeah, I think I'm going to go, you know, do this or whatever.

So you want to build your own thing. Yeah. Yeah. I think the best thing you ever did. And I asked myself that question all the time is why do I have? Why do, how do I have the drive that I have? I don't know. I really don't.

I don't know why. But I do think the best thing you ever did. And I've said on this time on the show countless times. Beat your ass. Well, that's good when you need it. But. Because I can't do it now. Yeah.

It's a good thing you do now. Yeah, there you go. You had the edge then. You don't have it now. So watch your mouth. Easy boy. Now you're getting lippy. Yeah.

I got one of those leather. You've seen those leather things that are selling on TikTok shop that you can just whack the shit out of somebody? No. I got one. Well, right over here. Now I'm scared. I was all I'm going to say is the best thing you ever did is I don't, I think the, if you

don't crush your kid's spirit that is the best. thing you can do because no matter what any idea i came to him about or my mom no matter how stupid it was never it was never oh that'll never work don't ever try that that's never they they said yep go for it that sounds like a solid plan like make sure you might be thinking about these things but the market's going to decide and they didn't ever told me oh yeah the market's going to decide but the market's going to decide if it's a good idea it's going to work if it's not it's not yeah you know And so having a support system that never crushes your spirit and says that what you're trying to think about or dream about is not possible, that's huge. That's so huge because I feel like I can come to my family and I'm going to get real feedback, but also they're not crushing my spirit because they think it can be possible.

they think it can be done, you know, and that's huge for a kid's self-esteem, I think. That's huge. Massive. That's wise advice from a lot. Look at that. Well, I mean, but that's, when I think about that, you know, I mean, I, lemonade stands. I started a drop shipping store when I was like 17 stores. Doggear.com.

Doggear store where I was going to, because I found this, you know, niche of dogs. Everybody loves dogs. I'm going to start drop shipping store. What were your drop, dog? Dog. So, like, drop shipping. when I was like a senior in high school, drop shipping was this new model where, you know, it was the hot thing to do. And, you know, I fell probably a little too hard for that.

And I made a little money doing it. Build a website. But it was like, build a website. Use Alley Express because they'll get it to get your product and they'll just ship it directly to your customer and you don't have to have any inventory. And look for niches that people, you know, doing all these hacks, right? You're figuring this shit out. And I started this drop shipping store to sell dog, just dog shit, dog toys, dog, dog stuff. And I did it. And I'm sure I told you guys and you guys were probably like when I left, you were like, what the fuck is he thinking? But you never said, that's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard, Sawyer, don't even, like,

what are you thinking? You never said any of that shit. We did say all that private, but then we called all our friends and said, all right, If you go to this website and you buy something, I'll reimburse you. Just throw the kid a bone and buy a leash or something. Yeah. But that, I think that's, yeah, that's foundational.

Do you have any, what do you think? Like, what are your thoughts on parenting? You got any good shit, good advice for anybody? Good parenting advice. Well, just, yeah, good. What, yeah, what do you think? What do you got? Nothing.

Nothing. It's a miracle that these three kids are, you got three? I got three. It's a miracle they're still alive. Three kids and then we fostered our niece. Yeah. Okay. Awesome.

Well, like I was telling you earlier, when we went through the 80s, I didn't know how bad it was. Kids don't know that. You know, happiness doesn't come from the checkbook. So, I mean, take that to heart, right? Yeah. I don't know if that's advice or not, but it maybe help you out. Yeah.

No, I mean, nobody's going to be the perfect parent. I definitely learn that. You just not. If you think you are, you're wrong. Nobody's going to be the perfect parent. You're going to have those times you feel like you screwed something up. I mean, it happened, so don't dwell on it, work with it, whatever you've got to do. But you're going to have those moments.

Have you ever, so getting back to your dirt track and then we'll move on, I just want, have you ever made a purchase of an item for the farm and made part of the deal whether or not that supplier would give you sponsorship for your car. Yes. So I sold this guy. I sold this guy in

Missouri, a 4960 hog building and the deciding, so he's a big tractor puller, big time. Yep. That's the other option. Super modified. It's like your dirt track racer or a tractor pulling.

Yeah. And went down there. And you know, you're trying to read people like, you got to find their pain as to what it is that they're like they're really what they're really about with this purchase whether it's i'm going to try to bring a kid home or i really want the fertilizer or you know whatever it is you're trying to figure that out and like this guy i just could not like i couldn't figure out what he just didn't strike me as a type of guy that wanted to make

this big of investment into a contract finishing building and uh go through the proposal and put it all down and i was taught me. very strongly like the person who speaks first loses. So you total it all up and you spend the deal around. How's that look to you? You just sit there. And he looks at it. He says there for a minute. He goes, looks good. There's only one thing that I need from you. I said, what's that? He's like, I'll sign this today and I'll give you a check. If you'll write me a check for $5,000 to sponsor my pulling tractor. That was his only litmus test.

Whether it was me, whether it was hog slat, whether it was the guy down the street, whoever was going to write him a check to sponsor his pole tractor, that's who he was buying the building from. Did you write the check? I think we did, actually. Yeah. I think we did. I think that's how that went.

Yeah. So now you know how a lot of those names end up on race cars. So when you were telling that story, I'm like, yeah, I bet she's done that. Yeah. So like what is a So I just was curious when you were talking about dirt track racing I don't know shit about it But if you if you do that and that's your full time gig

Like can you make serious like a good living Being a dirt track racer like is that Like career wise Because you can be a full time guy Or do you need to move Or do you have to have a side gig to do it to like I just don't know You can Yeah there are guys that do

Okay But most Most of the guys that do it for a living, they're not making money hand over fist. Yeah. They're making enough money to do it. They're making enough money to make a living. Yeah.

Most guys are not making money hand over fist. Kyle Larson, the NASCAR Kyle Larson, is a huge dirt track guy. His passion is in dirt track racing. But he also knows he's good enough to drive a NASCAR. He can make a ton of money running NASCAR. Yeah. And he had mentioned one time that he thinks most of the good dirt track guys,

the really good guys that are that are doing really, really well at the highest levels are making as much or more than the bottom half of the NASCAR guys. Really? That's awesome. You'd probably be surprised at the bottom half of the field in NASCAR. They're probably not making a ton of money. And it's not.

If, you know, I listen to Earnhardt a little bit. I probably listen to maybe once a month. I listen to him and, you know, and it's like when we had Taylor on, when we had Taylor on, the heyday of NASCAR, you know, these teams, I mean, they employed,

when we had Richie Parker. Richie on, how many people did he say they were working there? Like that way, he worked at Hendrick Motorsports when they were still actually building the cars. Like they had guys in there that was bending the tubing. They were making the chassis.

I mean, there was like 300 people, 150 people, something like that. people. And now then, you know, it's so tight. They're buying everything off the shelf. They're buying rolling chassis. And the, it's just, it's really tight. If you're not in the, the bottom half, I mean, you're not making jack. You're barely keeping lights on it. Probably. Yeah, you're probably right. And you're doing it because it's what you love to do. It's kind of like grain farming, you know. Honestly. He's handling a lot of money. There's a, there's, yeah. I mean, there's a, there's a lot. There's a, there's a, there's a lot. There's a lot. I mean, there's a lot. There's a lot. There's a lot. There's a lot. lot of guys out there that farm for not a whole lot of money, right? Because it's what they want to do. Get that Beckstrip. Sorry, you don't mean to bag on the Bex people, but yep, getting that one good vacation a year. And other than that, just grind her out, boy. Yeah. I wanted to talk a little bit about farm rescue and all the stuff that you've done with them in the past, you know, what what's made you such a

big advocate for grain bin safety and what got you down that road and, you know, what mess you want to put out there on that. So on the, on the grain bin safety side, because you kind of asked two questions. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I know that, yeah, go ahead. Come on the, I know. On the, on the,

the whiskey's getting to me. I apologize. It's a quick one. It is a quick one. It is a quick one. I had to hurry up and finish it. Yeah. I'd go away.

Yeah. So yeah, just talk about those two, two things because I know you're involved in both. But on the grain bin safety side, we were seeing just, it was in the news so constantly up in our area. that people are getting hurt or killed in grain bins. And Minnesota, I believe Minnesota leads the nation in grain bin deaths.

And I think it's as you go north, we just have more grain bins. I think our basis is bad. So holding over grain probably pays a little bit more. We also have more grain dryers because we're dealing with wet grain in the fall, so we're drying it down ourselves on the farm. I think that's probably why. so we just we saw so many accidents that were seem like a lot of them could have been prevented and trust me I'm guilty myself of making stupid decisions in a grain bin because when the work's got

to be done and someone's got to go in there you know you're I'm a super impatient person I want to be getting the work done and when something stupid happens and I can't work anymore I'm in a real big hurry to get back to where I can be working. So I will jump in the grain bin and do whatever we need to do. And it was really my wife, to her credit, she brought it up, you know, like what's going on? Why are farmers doing this when you can see? You know, the neighbor was killed last year in a grain bin. Why are we jumping into grain bins? And every year, it's not, it's not like every year you hear of a farmer dying in a grain bin. It's over and over and over somebody died today, 300 miles away, somebody, you know, it's a constant thing. And we've always believed since

the YouTube channel really took off and we had a platform, we've always believed that it's important to use that platform for good, within the industry especially. So we saw an opportunity there to try to help out in what ways we could. And we also felt like the best way to do it would be to give it to the individual communities and let them decide what is the best way, not tell them how to do it, but let them decide. So what we did was originally the first thing we did with grain bin safety was we told the viewers that, hey, we're going to donate $5,000 and we want to give it to local volunteer fire departments and first responder crews for rescue training and rescue equipment to

help to help them out in the situation where they would have a farmer that ends up in a bad spot in a grain bin. As soon as we did that, we had so many comments from people that said, well, I want to give too. How can I give to this? And it was like, it was hundreds of comments wondering about that. So we set up a GoFundMe and in the next video I said, here's the GoFundMe, here's the link. If you guys want to give, you can give.

We don't know yet exactly how we're going to handle this or what we're going to do, but here's the GoFundMe account. A couple weeks later, we had $60,000 in a GoFundMe account. Wow. I don't know what I'm doing with 60 grand of other people's money. Yeah. We didn't have a nonprofit set up or anything.

We didn't know what the hell we were doing. Yeah. Thank God we set up the GoFundMe, right? And I'm like, all right, before we move any of this, we got to make, like, I got to call the accountant now. Yeah. Yeah. So we set stuff up.

We moved our own money that we were donating into there. And then so we ended up. it up with, we had almost 70 grand in this account and we told people we're going to go live on YouTube and we're literally going to draw out of, out of the popcorn bowl for these fire departments that are going to get $500 or $1,000 and we're just going to keep going until it's gone because we had had people email us nominations for small town, these small town volunteer departments, right? Like I'm sure you have around here. Yep. Yeah. So we had hundreds of emails to to filter through. And when I say we, I mean my wife.

Yeah. Had hundreds of emails to filter through. Write down each name of these fire departments, crumple it up and toss it in the popcorn bucket. We went live on YouTube that night with myself, my wife, my buddy Randy, the master pipe player, his brother, Joey. And I want to say somebody else was there with us. I don't remember now. But as we're doing this, people are like, well, what is this? This is awesome. I want to join in. So people started paying us through the, YouTube channel giving us these, you know, I think they call it like a super thanks.

Yeah. Something like that. Well, people were giving $200,000, $500,000 in. And I'm like, holy shit. Yeah, you couldn't get to the bottom of the, you were to the bottom of the popcorn. We're just going to keep drawn if this gets coming in. Yeah. The weird part was that money coming in on the YouTube live is going directly to my Google

account. So now it's like, that's coming to me. Oh, gosh. So now I'm like yanking my hair out as we're live on the live stream trying to figure out how I'm going to do this. how you're going to keep it straight. We ended up taking a hell of a lot more out of our pocket than the original five grand because I mean,

we were two hours in now and we're 10 beers deep and my wife just like kept drawing names and I'm like, well, hold on, hold on. Don't draw another one until we do some math on this, you know? Yeah, and the math gets pretty fuzzy at that point. Yeah. Well, so in the end, we ended up giving, it's well over $100,000 worth. How many fire departments? It was like 70 or 80 different. for fire departments we've given to in somewhere between 15 and 20 different states.

And I can confirm with 100% certainty that we have at least saved one life in Illinois. And I got that from the fire chief who emailed me. I was actually a part of their podcast that the equipment that they purchased came from through that, I guess it'd be nonprofit money now at the time it wasn't set up. We have it set up now in case anything like that happens again because I'm terrified of that. I got all this money of other peoples. Yeah. I'm going to make damn sure that gets spent the way that it's supposed to.

That's badass, though. It's been. That was awesome. It was super humbling to just to be a part of that. Yeah. That's so cool. To be able to use the platform that I started for the good of agriculture and do something like that with it was just like.

That's so cool. Crazy. Yeah. Kudos to you guys on that. That's badass. All right. Let's talk about farm rescue. So the farm rescue.

thing, it kind of stemmed from the original idea that we have this platform, we've got, you know, hundreds of thousands of followers at that point. How do we give back? And we looked into a lot of different organizations and trying to figure out where we're going to give money to. And Farm Rescue just kept popping up. And I just, I love what they're doing. I love how they do it. I mean, they literally show up and, and do the work. They're not just cutting you a check. Right. They are finding the farm families that actually need, help. And they'll roll in with the combines, the planters, the semi-trucks to haul hay or whatever it is you need. They figure it out. They've got the volunteers. They've got the manpower. They've got

the equipment. They got the logistics figured out, which has to be a complete nightmare. The logistics on one farm. You guys know what that's like. Oh, yeah. I cannot imagine trying to put together the logistics of all the volunteers and the equipment to go from farm to farm to farm in different states. But the way they do it is just so impressive and it's so cool and to see how much they've grown and to be able to highlight them. You know, originally it started with, we're going to cut them a check. And I would encourage others to do the same because we feel like they're doing a lot of good. This is me saying thank you to the viewers.

We have benefited from this. We're going to pass on some of that benefit to the industry because I think farm rescues doing awesome. And it worked. And Farm Rescue came and said, hey, you know, at the time, I don't think they knew who I was. And they're saying, like, we're getting all. all kinds of people talking about you. We got the money rolling in.

Like, this is awesome. I mean, what can we do together? And so what we've done is a few times I've gotten together with them and I'll actually go to them on location where they're helping out a farm family and I'll drive the combine or whatever it is they need help with and I'll be there with the camera to spotlight what Farm Rescue is doing. And I've always been clear that I don't want to make a spectacle

out of somebody else's hardship. It's not what it's about. So I've always told Farm Rescue, find me the right scenario where we're not making a spectacle out of some horrible tragedy, but where we're actually moving in and helping the farm family and everybody's okay. And we can just highlight the good work that you guys do. And one of the big things from them, as they said, is it's not only been donations that have come in monetary. It's time. It's the volunteers that have come in. They're able to find truck drivers and volunteers and to be able to find the manpower to keep up with what they're doing.

So it's been awesome. What I love about farm rescue and it's kind of a, it's kind of a, it's kind of where we are today is like I think in past generations, you had a lot of people for causes. you had a lot of people that wanted to help and the biggest hindrance was having the money to do it. But today we're all so busy that if you have a

need, a cause and people know about it, there are all kinds of people that want to donate monetarily, but because we're all busy, it's the time part of it. And that's where what they do is so important because

cutting that family a check doesn't help them in a lot of cases because that doesn't help me get my crop out exactly and when they can roll in there and not only do what they do but have the people to do it that's it is pretty incredible it's pretty amazing yeah and i just man kudos to you for using your platform that way because like that's that's what it's about i mean that's that's that's that's that's got to make you feel good and that's that's that's that's value that's giving back to the world, that's, that's powerful, you know. Yeah. You know.

When you started, did you ever think that like the circle of people that you have met and that you know and the people that you have built relationships with? Like, it's just, that's just mind blowing. Yeah. I mean, I never saw when I started my YouTube hobby, I never saw that there'd be any reason to leave the farm for it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. You know. And now I'm trying to figure out how I can be on the farm more. because I've gone for the YouTube stuff. You know, stuff like this, right? Yeah. This is not directly YouTube, but it's because of YouTube that I'm sitting here right now. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. We always say, I mean, you know, for all of the benefits, and there's a lot of benefits in what we've done, but the people that we've met, that's the greatest benefit to what we've done. Yeah, I mean, this podcast right now, this is, I mean, this is awesome. this is what's about.

Like, this has been, this has been the best, this has been the best, this is the highlight of my day right here. This is just shooting the shit, having beers in the barn, talking farm to farmer.

It's like, this is the, yeah, it's about the people and like the impact you make. And so yeah, I'm just, yeah, it is pretty awesome to do,

social media comes with a lot of, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. And it comes with a lot of work. But it's a lot of work and then they're, you know, sometimes, I'm a little torn in the fact that it's so easy

to it's so easy for people to misuse because it's like a it's like it's the buffer. You said it so good the other day we were talking about it. You're like, oh, I got a hard decision to make. Nope. I'm going to scroll.

Oh yeah, for people. Yeah. Yeah. And you kind of got to weigh that out, but I think the good totally outweighs the negative part of it. I'm just saying being creating on social media. Yeah. It seems like it's sunshine and rainbows all time. Oh, you just make videos and yes, the greatest. We talk about like graduation party season when we were kind of getting going in this and you'd go to a graduation party and somebody that you only see

once you're at graduation parties would be like, oh, I see that. I see that YouTube. Boy, that must be nice. I told my wife the other day. I should pick up a camera because it must be pretty easy if you're doing it. And I always go, yep, it's simplest thing in the world. Go for it. Go do it. Yeah, just do it. Yeah, anyway.

Well, okay, I think we're getting close to the end here, but I wanted to ask you another question. Who do you think has had the biggest impact on your life or just direction on your life? Mentor, you know, it could be your dad, just anybody. Who do you think has the biggest impact? And why? Yeah, without question, it would be my dad. Yeah. You know, and he's taught me so much about the egg industry and about life.

I mean, there's just no question in that. There's nobody that really comes close. Learned a lot from my grandpa as well. I mean, I really love spending time with him as a kid. And, yeah, it's just no question on that. It would be dad. And I think a lot of people's answer would be the same. Yeah, for sure.

Okay, you don't have to answer this, but tariffs, do you want to give your two cents on tariffs on here or not really? Yeah, I don't care. Okay. I mean, I've put it everywhere else. It's been six weeks since I've thought about it now, really, because I feel like it's all settled down, right? Yeah.

I think there's a lot of points to be made on it, but, I mean, it just comes down to it was a negotiation tactic or is a negotiation tactic. is. That's what it is. 100%. Let's not act like it's not. Let's not act like the day he said we're putting these tariffs on these countries like that's the end all be all. He's negotiating you morons.

That's how I felt. I know. I mean, are we just going to act like he made this terrible choice and now we've got these horrible tariffs to deal with? It's not over. No. He said it was coming. We all knew it was coming. He campaigned on it. Yeah, he campaigned on it. Told everybody

that's what he was going to do. and somebody's got to pull the hard strings and make this happen. I mean, I just, I, I, it, it drives me nuts when I, when, and there's very few people who do it, but the people who call me this, you know, the, the MAGA hat wearing, yeah, crazy guy, whatever, right wing, whatever, that drives me nuts because I'm not. Yes, I voted for Trump. Yeah. But I'm, I'm, that's, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I really didn't like, like,

my other options. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Call me whatever you want. We're the same way. We're the same way. We get so much shit about, I mean, if you're not on the far left radical and you're in the middle, you're still not far enough.

Yeah. You're still not far enough. You're crazy. You're a lunatic. Yeah. That's how it is. Well, I just want to say this about the tariffs. I think the the, like the real win for Trump on that is. And this doesn't get talked about,

which I think it's why he did what he did. So, and I think a lot of people don't even realize this. But before all this started, the average American tariff on any goods coming to the United States was somewhere around 2% or 2.5%.

And then when he came out and Liberation Day, when it was like, it's 45% here and 40% here and da-da-da-da. And everybody went crazy. And then we started rolling these back. And we've made some agreements and we're still working on some agreements.

But the bottom tier tariff that I've seen for anybody important in the United States is 10%. And nobody said anything about it. Nobody's acting like that's a big deal at all. If he would have came out and said, all right, we're going to put a 10% tariff on everything. Oh, shit. People would have lost their freaking minds.

But because he went so far. Right. And then came back. Now that there's like, oh, 10%, 10%'s fine. Well, 10% is if you go from 10 and a half to or 2.5 to 10, that's a 3x. Is that right? Or how would you figure that?

Sounds about right. we're in. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think he got, so he got what he wanted and nobody's saying boo about it. Yeah. Well, what they're saying about it is that it was a failure. Now he's retracting some of these tariffs. Yeah. That was the idea. That was the idea. Don't act like you didn't know that. Yeah. Like you hate him so bad that you just cannot admit to yourself what it was from the beginning. Whether you like it or not, that's what it was. Yeah. Sawyer did Sawyer learned this from Trump. He did the exact same thing.

He told his fiance that he was going to buy a Ferrari. And then he bought a razor. And she wasn't even mad about it. Yeah, that's a pretty, that's a good. The art of the deal. That's the art of the deal right there. There you go.

She would have probably liked me to get a horse. I think if I would have told her a horse trailer, she would have take that over a Ferrari all day long. What? You tell her that if, You buy a horse trailer, the bank will probably call in our liner credit. Bad investment. Anything with horses.

Bad investment. No. You can put a razor in a horse trailer, right? Yeah. Horsepower. That's what I told her. Don't enable. No, I did say this to her.

No enabling. I said, this is just my horsepower. I like that. I said, you know, you got yours? I got mine. I'm just adding more horsepower to the family here. Yeah. And unleaded, unleaded is cheaper than hay.

cheaper. Debatable. We're going to go with that. Debatable. We're going to go with that. I wanted to ask, I know you had off the husk for a while. Yeah.

What, what prompts you? Because you guys were rolling there for a while. What prompted you to stop? Was it just life got crazy too busy? That's 100% it. Yeah. Yeah.

Because we really, we were rolling. We were having fun. The numbers on it were unreal for what we were expecting. I mean, it was fantastic. But life. I got three.

kids in hockey. And Randy and I always joked, you know, something about the microphones on a Friday night always gave us a bad headache on Saturday. Yep. I totally understand that. Yeah, I can't imagine what that could be. It's the microphones. But we, I mean, when we did our podcast, we would enjoy a few drinks. We had a lot of fun with it. And it just, yeah, life. Three kids in hockey. We've always got hockey games or tournaments on Friday nights and Saturdays. We didn't want to do our podcast on a Tuesday afternoon. Yeah. You know, we just have too much other stuff going on.

That and, um, we, we did learn too that having a guest on Zoom or whatever computer program you want to use is not the same as having them in person. There, there is no replacement for having a guest in person. Yeah. Um, you guys know that. Yep. Yeah. And where we're at in, in small town west central Minnesota, yeah, we're a long ways from any

kind of airport. So it was, it was difficult. that way. If we could have kept going without guests, and maybe we could have, that would have helped. But yeah, just, you can only do so many things. Yeah, for sure. No, that you're 100% right. I mean, and today it's just, we're all so busy. Yeah. It's just, it's so hard. I mean, we find ourselves here, you know, we shoot some, the, so when it's just us, we'll end up shooting crazy times. We will shoot in the morning, we'll shoot at night. I mean, it's just so hard.

Like, you would think, you would think that it's the one thing in our week that we would just schedule that out. And we try all the time. We're like, all right, we're blocking this out. Every Thursday, we're going to shoot this time. I can about put on one hand the number of podcasts we've actually shot on the time that be a lot of time. I mean, it's just life is chaos.

Last thing. How do you feel, since we got a little political, not too political, but how do you just feel about the overall because like for me the overall feel of the country i feel a little better right now compared to what we had do you feel that you feel like your friends feel that yeah i big time yeah i so my my buddy and i had this talk after the election and we both he's he's 51 or two years old we both feel like this was the most important election of our lifetimes. And I wasn't sure if that's because I'm 40 years old now or if that really is the case. But I just, I really felt like this was the biggest division I've ever seen.

And the strongest I've ever felt in one direction ever. And I just felt like, whichever direction this goes, this is, this could potentially, this is going to make a generational difference is how I felt about it. Do you know how positive I feel? The other day, here we go. The other day I went to, I went to the hardware store and that ammo on sale, and I didn't buy any.

You didn't buy any. That's how positive I feel about the country. Yeah. I mean, that's, I've never done that before. Yeah. Did you buy a lot of really expensive ammo five years ago? Damn right.

I did. Me too. Damn right I did. Well, that's good. Yeah, I just, yeah, I like to just pick people's brain and see where they thought. But yeah,

I mean, we said that for yeah mean we were loud and proud about it we didn't give a shit i felt like it was a pivotal time in america to stand up and say what you felt like you had to say and we're not i mean some people would say that we are hardcore maga but we're not i mean it's the best of the two options that we had let's just put it yeah i mean that's the thing it comes down to that i think that i think at the end of the day to me it's are you for america and what we stand for or are you not at this point Are you wanting to keep America free in what it's always been? Or are you not?

I mean, that's where it's at. And the longer it goes, the longer it goes, when you talked about it was the best choice you could make compared, I mean, the two choices we had, I'm just like you. I couldn't in good conscious because I didn't feel, I felt like that was the most unqualified choice that I could have made. And it seems like history has kind of proven that out. So I'm very comfortable with.

All I want from people, all I want from our politicians is to put the American people first. If you're bought and paid for, we can smell that out. And the other candidate, it seemed like she was bought and paid for. And the sitting president that we had at that time, obviously wasn't part of the system.

And so I think just going forward, what I know my generation wants is we just want real, people representing us and putting us first and that we don't feel like have an agenda that aren't bought and paid for that can go on a podcast and say it and tell it how it is and we feel like that's

legit. Well, can defend their ideas. Yeah, defend their ideas and isn't part of the system that's fucking broken. I mean, that's what it comes down to. I don't give a shit if that's a Democrat. I don't give a shit if that's Republican. Right. That's what I want. I just want, I just want somebody that's going to help your generation make as much money as possible. And I don't give a shit if they're black. I don't give a shit if they're a woman. I don't give a shit what it is.

Cut me off. He wanted to get that point out. Yeah, I did. He did. I love to, like Tulsi Gabbard. She's awesome. I know. I like her too. Go for it.

I'd love you guys just need to make a lot of money because there's a lot of debt to be paid for and I'm expecting a very good retirement. So I'll get working on that. I'll get working on that. And I'll try to get that third generation on here and do that too because. Onix will try to try to try to. erase his ass off and, you know, he'll try to farm his ass off and we'll deliver. I believe in it. I believe in it. He'll wash as many goddamn windows as he has to.

We're going to get there. You brought up a cool point about that you want, you want your politicians to be real people. I'm sure you listen to Trump on Rogan's podcast. Yes. Brilliant. It was. Brilliant. Because he can do that. Yeah. Yeah. Because Trump can't be a different person. No. Yeah. He can't. He's going to say stupid shit. Yep. Because he's Trump. Yeah.

Like he can't go on and be a polished politician. Yeah. Yep. That's why he is who he is. That's why Harris wouldn't go on there. Yeah. That's exactly right. I'm sure you've heard Rogan talk about, you know, that they offered her to go on the show

and how he says, you know, he was going to be real kind to her. He was going to let her use the platform the same way he let Trump do it. Yeah. I've listened to enough Rogan. for enough time to know, he's not filling us full of crap. No. He would have absolutely given her the same platform he gave to Trump. Yep.

She would not have come across the same way. Nope. And they knew that. Yeah, that's why she didn't go on. That's what people want. That's what people want. That's what we needed to know. It did.

That's it. For me? Yeah. Yeah. For you. Yeah. The Trump Rogan podcast was great and it probably would, it was a better podcast. However, the Trump Theo Vaughn podcast.

was that was my personal favorite. I didn't hear that one. I saw some clips from it. The line, they were talking about, they were talking about drug use and when Theo Vaughn was talking about, like, that shit will make you like climb a street light or something like that.

And Trump, street lamp or something. Yeah, Trump, to his credit, he stayed composed, but you could tell that he was like, Theo Vaughn was talking a language that he had no idea, he had no idea what was going on.

the guy that claims he's never even tried alcohol, right? Yeah. Well, that was the conversation that led to this. Yeah. Because he was talking about how he had seen his, it was his uncle, right? No, I think it's Trump's brother. Trump's, yeah. Trump's brother had an alcohol

right, right? And that was what made him just not want to do it. And Pio Vaughn was just like, wow, man, that was another. Yeah. I was like, oh my gosh, it was so good. So, I appreciate the hell out of you making making the effort to get down here

and I should thank Mitchell. I should thank Mitchell Horrah for dragging you down here because I got good neighbors. We got good neighbors here at Jackson Township. I had no idea you were so close to him. Literally until today. I knew, okay, you got to be in that region, but I didn't know until today.

So if there was a tax credit for pink flamingos, it'd just be a wash. It would just be a wash of pink flamingos. Because whatever the next thing is, we're on it. You're on top of it. Solar, cover crops, pink flamingos, hog confinements

You guys really are I went I drove seven seven and a half hours today and you can tell when you get into this area you get into this region that's when you really start seeing

the no-till the cover crops the grass waterways well there was $30 an acre to be had for planting cover crops you know that I didn't know that FSA would give you 30 bucks an acre to plant cover crops

Is that through the EQIP program? Yeah yeah and it was like 30 bucks on like donkey calls And then, you know, it's like the solar panels were the same way. It's like I've got a buddy of mine that owns a solar company. And he put solar panels on one hog building down by Whalen, Iowa.

It's on the roof, about 20 miles away. And he said they were putting them on there. And while they were putting them on there, five guys pulled in the driveway. They're like, what are you doing? He's like, oh, we're putting these solar panels on. Well, what's that pay? He's like, oh, there's a tax credit. And they're like, what are you doing?

after this. He's like he literally booked five other buildings while he was putting him on the first one. Then after that it just took off because they're like on top of it. Yeah. I mean it's it's a well yeah I'm sure you know every it's it's funny how regions

it's like a mindset. I don't know what I don't know what it is but you as you travel around you find places you find communities and like the culture is just it's different. Yeah, for sure. If you grow up there, you don't realize that until you leave. And I think that's one of the advantages of, like, when I was selling,

you meet so many different people and you go to so many different places that you see, you just see what the, like, the pace of life, the culture, the competitive. And there's places that, you know, right or wrong, maybe they're competitive and something else. But for whatever reason, the area that we grew up in right here around Washington County, very competitive. And some people look at that as like, it is, it's very hard to get started. But at the same time,

it's one of those things that if you do get started, you're very sharp. Like, it keeps you, it keeps you very sharp. And not that I'm sharp, I'm just preloading off of... Yeah, you're pretty dull. I am pretty dull, pretty round.

Kind of a shape. Anyway, well... I got all my words out. Did you get all your words out? I did. Did you get all your words out, Zach? I feel good about it. Okay. I do too. I think it's pretty solid. Yeah, I thought we were done and then you had to get up and take a piss. Well, dude, I was like, shaking my leg here. I was like, I'm going to piss my pants if I don't move. So I had to go. When I said that last bit, you're like, ah, fuck. Yeah. I had to get up and go. But no, for real, Zach, this episode has been awesome. We really do appreciate you coming, man. It was, it was a blast. Like I said, highlight. of my day. If you guys got any value from the show, share it out with the people that you know, go follow Zach, millennial farmer, see what he's up to on the farm, see what he's doing.

Leave review on Spotify or Apple and we'll see you're back here next week for another episode.