Barn Talk - Only $278 In The Bank And 550 Cows To Feed

Episode Date: September 13, 2026

He stacked every FSA beginning farmer loan he could get, went from about 100 cows to 550 in roughly a year, and when the balance sheet finally settled he was positive by $278. That is the number this whole episode hangs on. Luke and Natalie Kovarik run Kovarik Cattle Co., a first generation Angus seedstock operation out of Ord, Nebraska, selling around 100 bulls a year in a January sale that started at 30. Luke was a town kid with 160 acres and a dental school plan. Natalie is fourth generation Hereford out of Montana, and today she works four jobs off the ranch, including marketing and equity in Red Ants Pants. Almost everything they earn away from the cows exists to pay for the cows. The middle of this one is the direct to consumer beef autopsy, twelve straight minutes on why selling your own beef is so much harder than the internet makes it look, why she dreaded Sunday nights, and what happened to the freezer inventory. Then the influencing pivot, why she stepped back from putting her family online, and what she does with the audience now. Also in this one: custom AI and backgrounding somebody else's calves to make equipment payments, $5,000 of blackjack money wired for embryos, reading bull catalogs like a swimsuit edition, meeting at her family's bull sale, lab grown meat and consumer trust, putting cattle back on grain farms and the pasture that rural towns already lost, hiring and keeping good help, bricking their kids' phones and putting a landline back in the house, twelve landlords and not one under 68, and why they are not building this ranch for their kids. His line on who the ranch is for: no, we're doing it for us. What should we dig into next week? Put it in the comments. JOIN THE BARN TALK NEWSLETTER & GET LIVE EVENT ACCESS: We're on a mission to get 10,000 subscribers, and once we do, we're hosting a live event at the barn! Sign up to get exclusive access to tickets and details.👇🏻 Help us get there: https://www.joinbarntalk.com THIS EPISODE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY: ● Propane Farm Research Program ➱ propane.com/farmfunding ● Iowa Corn Growers ➱ iowacorn.org TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Cold open and guest introduction 04:29 A local airport, and a pilot's license he never finished 06:19 The operation, and the four jobs Natalie works 09:22 What subsidizes what, and blackjack money wired for embryos 11:21 Montana, fourth generation Hereford, how Natalie grew up 15:11 Sponsor break, Propane Farm Research Program 15:40 A town kid, 160 acres, dental school, and $278 in the bank 19:49 Custom AI, Genex, and a master's that paid for cows 23:46 First cows in '14, and bull catalogs like a swimsuit edition 26:57 They met at her family's bull sale 32:49 Market outlook, consumer trust, lab grown, Beyond Meat 42:35 Putting cattle back on grain farms, and the pasture we lost 50:01 Calving date, and developing two year old bulls 54:25 Sponsor break, Iowa Corn Growers 55:22 From 30 bulls to 100, growing the herd 59:07 Finding Duncan and Mitch, and keeping them 1:02:24 A bull sale as an event, social media as the marketing 1:06:45 If the podcast tripled, more cows or more time 1:08:14 The direct to consumer beef autopsy 1:19:56 Retiring from influencing, and craving privacy 1:27:00 Working with a spouse and a father 1:32:26 Bricking phones, landlines, parenting in the phone era 1:43:24 Twelve landlords, not one under 68 1:53:23 How the household actually runs 2:00:29 We're not building this ranch for our kids 2:05:39 Why the industry is still worth it 2:10:39 Tip of the Hat 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 👇🏻 ● Barn Talk Instagram ➱ https://www.instagram.com/barntalkshow ● Barn Talk TikTok ➱ https://bit.ly/3qciekS ● Sawyer's Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/3BtX0n4 ● Tork's Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/3LGZJxS ● Sawyer's X ➱ https://x.com/SawyerWhisler ● Tork's X ➱ https://x.com/TorkWhisler ⚠NO FINANCIAL ADVICE / DISCLAIMER⚠ Barn Talk is for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, with no warranty of accuracy or completeness. Nothing here is financial, investment, or trading advice, and none of it is specific to you. Do your own due diligence and consult a licensed professional before making any financial decision. Trading stocks, crypto, and NFTs carries real risk and is not suitable for everyone. You use this information at your own risk. #BarnTalk #Cattle #RuralAmerica #perk #iowacorn #EP217 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All of the food we eat and much of the clothing we wear comes from plants and animals that are raised on farms. Farms are different in type, in size, and even in name. Welcome to Barn Talk. What happens at the barn stays in the barn, but not today. We're going to let it all out for you guys. Today is going to be another great guest episode. We've got two guests coming to the barn today that are going to give us some real good, good stuff. They're doing some great things for agriculture. They got their own operation.

One of them has their own podcast representing agriculture well, has a good social media following. So I'm excited for this one. I think it's going to be good. Before we get into it, you guys know the drill. If you get any value from the show, all that we ask is you share it out with the people that you know. The more that you guys do that, the more of this show grows.

We found personally the best way to grow a podcast is through word of mouth. So if you get any value, just share it out. We really appreciate it. Another thing you can do to help us out here at Barn Talk is Lee Review on Spotify, our Apple, the more of those reviews pile up, the more credible you make our guys, the more credible you make our show, which in turn allows us to have great guests come to the barn each week, have some really thought-provoking conversations. So thank you to all that do that. We love seeing those reviews pile up. Last thing you can do to help us out here at BarnTalk

is you can go sign up for our weekly newsletter. It's at joinbarntok.com. Joinbarntok.com. we're putting out a weekly newsletter talking about everything happening in agriculture and rural America and how it affects us, dad and I's thoughts on it. And we have a goal with that right now. If we get up to 10,000 newsletter subscribers, we want to have a party here on the farm, have a barn event, get some great speakers that have been on the show before to come out, have some have some good guests, good conversations, and get to meet every single one of you. So that's something we're looking forward to, and we're getting closer to our goal.

So thank you to all that have subscribed to the newsletter. How are you today? I'm good. Good. It's good that you said that about the spoken word, because it's a good thing the spoken word is working for us, because I don't think there's any book deals in either one of our futures as far as the written word. Although the newsletter, I can do the newsletter. It's getting there.

That's about as much written word as I can put forward. Yeah, it was never my strong suit. The brain power takes. I think it was having to rewrite the study hall rules 20 times in detention in junior high that turned me off to writing. I think I think that's still, I think I'm still a little bit scarred from that. But anyway, I digress. Today is going to be a great one. Honestly, I don't know.

This could be, we could probably make three podcasts about this couple. Individually, they're doing a lot of stuff. Power couple, really, all the way from Ord, Nebraska. So one half of the duo, his family didn't make their living farming, and he went and got a master's degree in ruminant nutrition, and then leased his dad's cows, bought another 250 from a neighbor and built his cattle company. Today they run about 700 cows and have a registered bull sale every January. His wife grew up on a family ranch in Montana. She worked as a pharmacist. You know, somebody's got to actually make the money.

But he convinced her, I don't know. You know, it's a good thing there's women out there that are looking for a project because the rest of us guys, I don't know how we'd ever woo anybody. But anyway, she built one of the biggest media platforms in agriculture. She co-hosts Discover Ag podcasts. She's keynoted South by Southwest, and she reaches an audience full of people who have never set foot on a farm. And full disclosure, they've got a podcast, we've got a podcast. So we're technically competitors.

We're going to talk about that too, and all the ins and outs of what we've created. And the way they met is just about as good a story as you could come up with. And I'm not going to let the cat out of the bag. All I can say is without any further ado, let's get into it. Well, we're live. So Luke and Natalie Kavoric, welcome to Barn Talk. Thanks for having us. We're excited to be here.

Yes, thank you. We're pumped to have you guys. You guys are, I think you are the first ever guess to get your butts in a plane and fly into our little local airport to make this happen. So we appreciate that. That's pretty awesome. Awesome. Yeah, well, we just, the only way it could really fit it in. So that's what we had to do. We didn't have time to drive. So is that a new, have you always flown?

No. No. I've always kind of wanted to or had it kind of, you know, interest in it and have a good friend that got us pilot's license in college. And so I've been around it and we did some flying into Canada into fishing camps and stuff. And so I've always just been interested in it, but I've never really pulled the trigger. and I'm still in the process, so I am by no means a pilot or anything like that. If this isn't a story about marriage, he actually started your first time around accruing hours and learning to be a pilot when we were dating. And then we got married and had kids. And he literally had to stop.

And now 10 years later, he started over. There was no time. He was so close to. And then it was like, no, you're married now. And we have all this stuff going on. So I don't think you can actually finish anymore. So is there a time limit on those hours that you had banked or are you able to carry those forward? They carry forward.

I mean, obviously. They're a little dusty. Yeah, well, right. There's some skills you don't just pick up. But there were still some good things about it. And I kept coming back to it. So that's kind of like, well, this must be something I'm genuinely just really interested in. And but it's something that you really got to commit to and study and be knowledgeable, not just aircraft, but, you know, all of it.

we'll see or attempting. Okay, so you have, tell us a little bit about your cattle operation. So how far do you want to go back? Do you want the current? Just give us the current overview of it. So, yeah, the current overview is, is we have a, the focus of the operation is a seed stock operation. We sell Angus Bulls, registered Angus Bulls in January of every year. year production sale. That has been growing and expanding on the last five or six years, but really

growing and expanding here the last couple of years. Prior to that, and we still do have a commercial cowcalf operation. And as the seed stock operation increases, we've just been kind of trimming the edges on the commercial cows as far as, you know, how many we run, some of the leases, if they're not as profitable, or the ground's not as good, or the landlord's difficult to get along with, or whatever, we're just kind of trimming, trimming some of those things up and focusing more on seed stock operation. But we still have a, you know, a fully functional cowcalf operation as well. So that's the current, that's the current state of our, of our operation. And Natalie, you are, you are part of the operation, but what, what do you got going on in your

corner of things that you're building? I always joke that I'm a fair weather rancher. So in the summertime, I'm a lot of help to Luke and you'll find me out on the ranch more than you certainly will in the wintertime. So I'm definitely not an employee by any means of the operation. I'm not out there daily. It's actually Luke. And then we have one guy Mitch, who's phenomenal. So I have worn a few different hats. I guess the original hat I wore it and I still do is I'm a part-time pharmacist. So we have a, we actually have a critical access hospital and then two small pharmacies, the town we ranch outside of. So I work kind of ebden flowed actually with the ages of our children and just different things I have going.

on. So for a while there it was just like literally fill in. But now I'm back to two days a week. So two days a week, I'm off the ranch in town working. And then the other days, I guess I fill in with the kind of same thing you guys do, social media stuff and agriculture, podcast, YouTube series. And then my latest role is actually I took on creative and marketing for a women's workwear brand out of Montana, which I'm really, really excited about. And I have a lot of drive and passion for that right now. Where can people support you on your social media journey if they yeah sure so my home has always been Instagram it's just my name Natalie Kovorik but our operation has I started an Instagram page last year for it kind of leading up to the sale Luke it was funny

Luke was the one that was like wanted me to do it I was like oh I don't know I guess um so cabore cattle cowher and cattle yeah it's like I'm over here uh cohort cattle company is our cohort cattle coort cattle co is our handle for that on social media for our ranch. And then our podcast is Discover Ag podcast. Cool. Okay. So, so, so here's the question. Is the, is the cattle, does the cattle subsidize the social media or does the social media carry the cattle company? I mean, who is it? Or is the town job? Yeah. Or is it all? How does it? There's probably all and there's probably ebbs and flows like we're talking about. I mean, from 2016 to 2020, the cattle were, a big drain, you know, on everything and weren't profitable. And that's right, when we were also

starting to grow the seed stock. And so it just took a lot of investment. And we were selling 10 bulls or 12 bulls and, you know, on and on. And so the years were wanting to grow, it just, it was just kind of an uphill battle. It felt like. And same thing with the commercial cattle at that time. You know, they were so low. And then through COVID and those struggles. So, I'm happy to retire anytime soon though. So we're looking at the ranch being. We joke. And it is.

One of my starts, kind of the original source of genetics comes from Brent Thiel, the Thiel Ranch in South Dakota. And he let me flush some proven cows, some Pathfinder cows, great cows to start with. And very thankful for that. But we were actually on a baby moon in Arizona. So that would have been like in. 17. And long story short, I ended up staying up all night playing blackjack and got to bed

about five in the morning. And we had like a 630 departure to get our flight. But I had made $5,000 playing blackjack that night. And I told Natalie, every penny that's going to Transova to pay for the embryos for these cows. So, you know, that's where we were at. There you go. Yeah, things were tight. Didn't plan on blackjack doing it. For a while I used to give. do some keynote speaking and I always joke that a lot of ranches are built on blood sweat and tears but ours is built on blood sweat and tears and gambling. So blood, sweat, and tears and blackjack. Yeah. That's hilarious. Well, I think we should go back because I want to get to the story of how you guys met and have formed to be a team. But I think getting both your, your arcs, you know, your origin

stories would be a good place to start. So Natalie, let's start with you. Montana Ranch, what was it like growing up and what was life like? Yeah. So typical ag kid. I'm the youngest of four daughters, but had a really good childhood. And I think typical an agriculture kid, you probably didn't realize it as much at the time as you do, you know, with hindsight 2020. So grew up involved in the operation. Most of my summer jobs were usually on the ranch, but my parents were really great in allowing us to have extracurricular hobbies and do other things. So the ranch wasn't like, I guess like my main thing that I love to do. I had a lot of other different passions in high school and growing up. So when I graduated, I actually didn't think I would really stay in agriculture. As I said at the beginning of this podcast,

I got my degree in pharmacy. So I kind of always planned to, you know, work in health care and and be near our family ranch and kind of involved from it, I guess, in like a supportive aspect, but I never really thought I would live on it. And I really never certainly thought I would ever marry a rancher. And then I ended up meeting Luke at our family bowl sale, which we can get into a minute. So, you know, I'm happy.

God always has a plan. He knows what he's doing when he brought me back kind of full circle to agriculture. But yeah, if you had told me, you know, even when I was in pharmacy school, because Instagram was kind of a thing then, but, you know, not really.

And so if you had told me that, you know, all the jobs I'm doing now just basically didn't exist. So it's kind of been an interesting wild ride the last, you know, 10 years of, of involvement with social media and sharing online and agriculture that I just, you know, never in my wildest dreams would have actually even imagined. Yeah. Farm kids have a, have a standard theme of when you actually go and you get a job working for somebody else. As a farm kid, you're like, wait, so I get paid for every hour I'm here and I can leave. I don't have to stay. It's like, wow, this is awesome. This is really great. Yeah. Nothing on

Saturday or Sunday? Yeah. It's like, wow. This is almost, this is almost fun. Did mom have a checklist of what she was looking for

in a man and you about unchecked? None of them. You check none of them. She came up really short there, but I guess. She, her list was she didn't want to marry a farmer. She didn't like men,

blonde hair and blue eyes. That was her. That was her thing. That's what I'm looking at. Then she met me and she forgot all about that. Or else she was like, man, there's a project.

I could spend a lot of time trying to fix that. Yeah, you need a lot of fixing. What's like the family legacy? Like, what's the, is it a, how many generational ranch is your, is your family's legacy? Good question. Sorry, I glanced over that. So I grew up on a registered Hereford operation and I was fourth generation. So my grandpa, my grandpa, Jack Cooper, I would say is kind of the one, obviously his

dad before him settled that area. But he was the one to kind of really lean into the seat stock operation and kind of, actually are line one genetic. So my grandpa Jack is really credited for that. And then my dad has obviously done a phenomenal job. I'm carrying in his footsteps. And I currently have two sisters that are on the ranch with my parents right now that are, you know, the next generation for our family.

So we did a little bit of farming, but I would say similar to Luke and I, maybe a little bit more than you and I even do. But our ranch is really, you know, focused on the seed stock, the cattle side of it. So again, we did some wheat and a couple different, you know, alfalfa hay. and stuff, but predominantly I grew up on like a cattle ranch with exposure to livestock more than I would have exposure to farming by any means. Hey, thanks for sticking with us. At Husker Harvest Days, go talk to the people building propane irrigation engines.

It beats a spec sheet any day, all day. Swapping diesel for propane means stable fuel prices and lower maintenance year-round. The Propane Farm Research Program will pay you up to $10,000 towards new equipment just for sharing your performance data. details at propane.com backslash farm funding. Now let's get back to it. All right. Well, Luke, let's get your origin story. What was life like growing up? What was it all look like? Yep. So a little town on Nebraska, 2,000 people. My mother grew up on a, on a ranch about 20 miles away, more of probably just a cattle operation. And she had a younger brother and a younger sister. And so

my uncles were, as my grandpa aged on that ranch, my uncles were, kind of took over that ranch and I now have cousins on it. They were great mentors. I worked there in the summers for them and with my grandpa. And that's really probably where, you know, I gained a lot of my early knowledge. My dad's parents only had a quarter of ground. They had 160 acres. They were in their 40s when he was born. So they were kind of a different generation than, you know, the, you know, their contemporaries or then like my mom's, like my mom's parents. So they had chickens and they had pigs and they had

milk cows and, uh, you know, we got rid of the cistern in 92 when my dad put the well in. Um, the outhouse went out in 96 in case indoor plumbing went out. Um, I can't even tell you cleaning out that house what it was like. They just kept everything. They went through the great depression. They were just,

they were just kind of fearful of, of either bad weather or, you know, bad financial times or something. And so my dad honestly hated agriculture and wanted to get as far away from it as he could. And so he became an optometrist and went to an automatrist's going Oregon. And him and my mom moved back to the area and started a family and lived in town. And then as as they were back and time kind of went on, my dad started purchasing some ground and purchasing some cattle and knew he wanted us kids to have chores, be involved in 4-H, you know, not not be just a total town kid.

And my grandparents still lived on the place. And that's where we live currently. And so I also had exposure from that, but there really wasn't an opportunity for, you know, a life in agriculture with just 160 acres of ground. So, you know, and then obviously the late 90s weren't that great either in, in cattle in early 2000s. There was just a lot of push to just do something else and not not be involved in agriculture. And crazy as it sounds, I went to University of Nebraska, Lincoln, started out in dental, pre-dental or dental school until I went to my first class

with all the kids that were doing the same thing. And I was just like, we're not the same people. I don't think I can go to dental school with you guys. And so I switched to animal science and stayed in animal science and couldn't there still wasn't an opportunity you know and so I was just going to work in the industry I didn't know what I was going to do but I was going to work with cattle and I was going to work in the industry and so I did graduate school at Lincoln as well got my master's and towards the end of graduate school a couple different things kind of happened there was a family friend that was wanting to kind of semi-retire leased his cows out leased his ranch out and also at the about the same time, a property that was close to joining us, just a half

mile came up for sale that could run a couple hundred cows, 250 cows. And so within a short time frame, we went from 100 or 125 cows to 550 cows. And it all just happened in like a six month or a year time frame. So at that point, it was like, okay, maybe I can, you know, there is enough to make a life. And so I did all of the beginning farmer and rancher loans with FSA, and I had $278 to my name when I got done, making everything look as good as it could look, but it had to be positive. So we were up 278 bucks when we started. And so I kept returned home in 2009 and started then.

How long did it take for the new car excitement to wear all? off? As far as just being in production? Yeah. Still hasn't. No, I still love it. Well, that's good, though. Yeah. That's good. You know, what, what, it was required of me just to do a lot of side hustles. You know, didn't have any equity in equipment. Didn't have any, I mean, in all of these things. So I started working with the company GenX. They're in, they're a cooperative, but they're a genetic company for beef and dairy, but started working with beef. So I had a custom AI. business on the side. I would also bring in other people's balling calves and wean everybody's calves and background through them through the winter, which afforded me to make equipment payments.

So I just did a lot of different, you know, basically side hustles to try and cash flow, to build equity to eventually, you know, grow the operation. What'd your dad think? Because you growing up, you know, he was, which is cool. I think it's really awesome that your dad knew that agriculture could like teach the lessons of life and give your kids something to do, but he didn't want to, like, go fully into the business. But, like, what did he think when you were like, I think I want to do this? You know, they were pretty supportive. I mean, we wouldn't have bought that other property, that other Rangeland without my parents. I mean, I only bought a portion of it with beginning farm and ranch alone, and they, they did. So I think they had a little bit of security that I wasn't

married. I didn't have any kids and I had an education. Yeah. So if, if it went five years, and it was just, you know, a battle. I couldn't win. I had, you know, places to go or things, things to fall back on. So, you know, I don't think they were like too nervous about that just because of, you know, kind of where I was at in life. But, but yeah, they, they, yeah, I would say they were supportive.

Yep. Yeah. When you were going to get your masters, like what were, what was in your head at that point? Were you thinking that I wanted to. Yeah, I just thought I would get, I thought I'd work in nutrition, like consulting or something like that. I mean, I still wanted to, and I was still genuinely interested in learning more about cattle

and cattle production. And I learned a lot in graduate school. It was, it was excellent. And I used it every day. And you wouldn't believe the amount of people that say, why would you go to graduate school to be a rancher? That was a big waste of money. And I was like, I don't know. I think it's been pretty helpful to me.

And I wasn't quite ready to grow up either. That was probably, honestly, another little, you know, little tidbit. So the way it all worked out was just lucky and the timing just all kind of aligned. And yeah. What about you said diversification? Like you had a lot of different things going on to kind of keep you afloat. What was like the biggest thing? Like what thing do you think of all of them helped you the most during the hard times of getting started?

Yeah. Well, definitely to segue into the seed stock operation we have now would be working. working with GenX and doing custom AI. Because I built relationships with a lot of people in our county or even a bigger area than that, not only just doing the armwork of AI and cattle, but genetics and talking genetics and understanding genetics and conversations we had and goals we were trying to achieve. So I had a lot of people had trust, you know, by the five or eight years in,

they wouldn't even ask, you know, they would just say you pick the bull, you do it, you know. And so that's kind of when, you know, some things started clicking to was like in, I think, 14 or 15. I was on a genetic tour with Gen X. And I was just, you know, thinking, you know, these, I can make these cattle. I can do this. I can communicate with these people and figure out what they want and how we're going to work together. And but without that, I don't think I would have made, you know, the leap to, to start the Angus seed stock program. Yeah.

So what's the timeline on that from so when you started you were just a commercial cow calf, but you backgrounded calves for other people. When did you get the itch or did you come to the realization that you thought you wanted to get into the genetic side? Yep. So I think about my first cows in the fall of 14 when they were about as high as they could be, 14 or 15 in there. But you always loved the red. registered side. I did. You've always been obsessed with genetics and like you're a little kid. I just love

love bullseil catalogs. I just love to skip and just AI and I learned that AI in eighth grade. So yeah, I've been AI in cows a long time. So yeah, you're right. I mean, I've always just loved it. I just never didn't grow up around it. I didn't know how to, you know, and honestly like Mary Natalie and Natalie and her experience with seed stock and those kinds of things was also just confidence to grow, grow in that. And I mean, we didn't host sales. you know, any of these, any of these things, marketing.

I mean, none of that was how I grew up. He took your load of calves to town and they sold and that was it. And we started making, you know, we specialized when we had commercial cows. And we still do it today with just straight Angus cows and we use horned herford bulls, which is kind of how we'll get to how we met. But so I was, you know, on the line of performance of maternal value and the things that we want to do with cattle and the objectives that we want to, you know, fulfill. And so once again, it was just, you know,

helping producers, helping commercial producers do what I was doing. And I know the success that you can have with targeted genetic selections. I think your parents probably knew that something was up. Because when you talk about being in the eighth grade, you know, when the neighbor kids can't wait for the swimsuit edition to come out, and he's like, that's nothing. Look at this bowl catalog. I bet you his mom was like,

did Natalie tell you something? No. No, what? That is crazy. So I don't even really, well, I'll tell it anyway. It's kind of embarrassing.

But one time my parents were gone. What happens at the barn? It only goes out nationwide. But the fact that you said that is absolutely nuts because my parents were gone. It was gone and there was football on. And it was kind of one of those, I don't know if it was a bowl game or something.

And I was just like, God, I'm going to start a fire and just hang out and just watch it. And there was no kindling to be found. And I had two magazines. And one was the swimsuit edition. And one was the semen catalog. And I burned the girls and looked at bulls and watched football. And I cannot believe you brought that up. That is crazy.

There you go. There was your priority. That's exactly how it happened. Yeah, that's hilarious. That is pretty crazy. I thought maybe you told him something. I try not to tell that story. Hey, our research, your research department there.

The only reason I said that is I was just thinking that through, and I can tell you, if I was your next door neighbor, I would have had the swimsuit edition. So I would have been like, yeah, whatever. Well, you know, each to their own. All right, let's talk about this famous bull sale. Let's talk about how you two met. How did this come together and form as a team?

So we were doing a lot of A-Ine, and I needed a herford, bull that I was going to, I had my entire cow herd to, to cross some my angus cows. And so we had searched around and had kind of selected line one genetics and basically sought out Natalie's families or the line one cattle to, you know, to use in our program. So my friend and I traveled out to Montana to their family sale. And do you want to take it from here or do you want me to take it from here? or do you want me to take it from here?

You do a good job telling it. Okay. So we travel out there, and I mean, the Cooper sale has, you know, been a prominent sale for a long time and well known. And it was a great event, but met Natalie at the sale, and I bought a bull called 4168. We still have daughters of him and actually still have seen him in the tank that we'll use because he's a great bull and did a great job for us.

But so after their sale, they kind of have a meal and, and, and just band sometimes music in the corner and everybody hangs out and drinks and visits and and just kind of parties. Yeah. And so my good friend was with me and he was like, are you going to get her number? You're going to get her number? And I was like, no, that's awkward. I'm not going to like come to the sale and then.

So you saw her. Well, yeah, I saw her. Yeah. Yeah. They have two checkout lines when you pay and one was her sister and one was her. And there was like no, no line for her sister and three for her. And I just like sat in the back waiting for the line to kind of like. like, you know, smooth down and no offense to her sister.

And, you know, make sure I paid, you know, and kind of. I was like, why is that man standing back there forever? And my sister's fairly open, you know? Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I told my friend, I said, I said, I'll just find her on social media. It'll be fine. She'll be on social media. And oddly enough, she wasn't on social media.

It's like the greatest irony of our entire story. From 2015 to 2016, Natalie wasn't on social media. And it was just like... So were you scrolling there? Were you on your phone looking? Were you like... I was just like, this can't be right, you know? I was like, just Facebook.

I don't know. Just all these... Couldn't find her anywhere. I was like, all right, well, we'll have to... And I was going to go back at Bibles anyway. But I was like, all right, I'm, you know, geared up going to obviously have to get her number this time because she's not on social media.

And we were driving out there and my same friend. and he kind of had like a sit down with me and he's like, look, I just want you to know like a single good looking girl and Bozeman Montana is probably not going to be single a year later if you haven't talked to her at all. And I was like, I never thought she could have a boyfriend. I was like, holy cow, this could really mess up my whole life here. Like I thought never even crossed my mind, but got there and she did not have a boyfriend.

And so. He did ask for my number at the second sale. Yep. I wasn't going to. Did you know? He could come back for a third. Oh, that's good. That was too risky. Yeah.

It's good. It worked out that way because at least the family knew at that point that your check was good before you got a number. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you know that she was the daughter of the rancher? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the sale is, is, you know, it's the, you know everybody and can visit. Yeah. Yeah. Nice.

So you got the number. Got the number. How did this? So there's a how, what kind of distance is there? And when this happened, where were you at in life? Were you working at that point? And you were just coming back to the farm to help out once in a while. Yep. I had graduated from pharmacy school. So I was working as a full-time pharmacist in Bozeman. I was at a hospital slash clinic there. So I was about 40 minutes from our family ranch. And at that time, my two sisters had come back already. So I spent a lot of time at our family ranch. I was very much a part of my life. But again, I was living in a bigger city and

had my own, you know, career that was outside of agriculture. Yeah, but we, when I first met him and he told me he was from Nebraska, I was like, oh, yeah, that is a state. Like, I kind of forgot that was down there. So it was quite the long distance challenge, but we basically met up every single month. We just kind of pick a place to meet up and travel to, which is kind of a really fun way to, I mean, obviously, if you're okay with long distance dating, but it was a fun, fun way to, you know, see part of the United States and do different things together. And then, yeah, we got married very quickly. We were engaged basically a year after we met and then got married later that summer.

So within like 15 months of meeting each other. But we were obviously both older in life. So we kind of knew what we were looking for and, you know, what we wanted in a spouse, I guess, a lifelong partner. And just got tired of driving. Yeah. Yeah. So did you like, were you just kind of accepting the fact that, like, like, I got to move to Nebraska if we get married.

Yeah. Like this is, okay. Growing up in agriculture, I kind of knew. Luke was established at that point. So I knew I wouldn't, I would never ask him to that. I mean, obviously, maybe there were some women that would entertain that conversation of what it would look like for you to leave your ranch. And, I mean, he did have a degree. So, you know, he could have technically moved to Montana and stuff.

But I kind of knew right away that obviously it was something he loved. And I would never want that kind of like resentment in a relationship. So. My buddy's always said that her dad was. going to make me sell lictubs and bozeman with my nutrition degree i was like oh thanks so yeah no i knew i pretty much i don't think i would have honestly gone on like our our first date if i wasn't okay with moving yeah because i just kind of knew right up front that that was going to be how how it would go if we were going to stay together nice so uh let's get back to cattle we didn't

come back this mushy stuff i love it uh so you you you know you you kind of laid out where the operation stands today, what you guys are both doing. How are you guys feeling about things right now? I mean, we've gone kind of on a bull run, literally. Oh, yeah. And cattle's been pretty good,

but where do you stand on that? Where are you optimistic? Are you feeling good? Are you kind of like, are we getting closer to the edge of this thing? Yeah. So, I mean, I still am generally optimistic.

And mostly, just from the standpoint of, you know, flying in here. I didn't see very many cows. I saw some cows, not a ton of cows. I look at the people, I have 11 or 12 landlords, and I don't know any of them that are under 68 years of age. So, you know, who is going to take care of mama cows? And who's going to do the work? And so I don't see the herd growing rapidly. Everybody also kind of got ran over in 2015 and 16. with rapid expansion there, and that still kind of hurts in the back of people's minds.

So I just think there's less cow country and cow land and cattle producers than there was 10 years ago. Obviously, you know, cattle cycles are going to continue. There's going to be, you know, basic economic things that occur and also, you know, environmental things, drought and weather and whatnot. But and I am also a just a, an eternal optimist too. So let me give you that too. I always think it's going to be better or higher.

But I am just pretty optimistic about the industry, really. And there's a wide variety of genetics and this and that, and we could get into that. But beef is good. People like beef. Some of the health stuff that's going on now. People like protein. There's a huge demand for protein of all types.

And so I'm pretty optimistic about, animal production. Natalie, what is you kind of touch on a different demographic of people with your podcasts? You know, like I feel like you guys do a really good job educating people on not only just agriculture, but food. Like where do you like what's your grasp of people right now in culture, like how they feel about food and meat and agriculture, you know? Yeah, I'll never forget, what is it, two years ago now when, uh,

He is now Secretary Kennedy was running for presidential candidate. It's two years, right? Or is it three? I can't remember. It all flies by. And he gave that, I guess you'd call it like, I don't know, stepping away speech. I don't know what term you use for it.

But he devoted a majority of his platform to talking about food. And I remember thinking, gosh, this is crazy that you have a presidential candidate who has a, you know, hour long or hour and a half long monologue to talk about whatever he wants to talk about, stepping away from the candidacy and what he thinks is most important. And a majority of that he spent on talking about food. And I just thought there is going to be a shift in the landscape right now. This is just a different food landscape of what is going on around us with people caring about their food and wanting to know about it. I mean, people have always wanted to. Obviously, we know historically people just had more of a connection. And just generally, I think there's an

interest in it. But I just remember thinking in that moment, like, gosh, we're entering like a new food landscape. And I guess that's still kind of my opinion right now. I definitely think we're like shifting and ebbing into something different, but it is still top of mind for people to, I don't know, just care about their food, have opinions about their food, you know, I mean, it's an interesting landscape out there. There's a lot of strong feelings, but people care at the end of the day. Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like from the time that you started till today, what's the trust level among your viewership, the people you talk to towards the American farmer, specifically the protein producer, do you feel like we're painted better?

We've done a better job of getting our story out or worse? I think better. I mean, social media obviously has helped with that. You have some really great people who are taking to social media and having a lot of success, creating relationships. so I would say better. I don't know. I've ebbed and flowed into so many different things online.

Like I originally started with my original introduction to sharing online to Luke's point. Like I didn't really have social media. I didn't share much on it. But I got one to start a direct to consumer beef business. And so I ebbed and flowed from that to doing kind of like about our family and then to talking more like the news with the pot. Like I've just been in some different pockets. So it's kind of hard to say from like start to finish for like one audience's opinion.

but generally I think I think most people trust the farmer and the rancher. I think the loss in trust happens the further down the food chain. So the processing, the manufacturing, everything that is a little bit more behind closed curtains, right? Like you don't have processing plants usually typically opening up and sharing online. You don't have manufacturers. Like there's a lot of distrust in like even with current food landscape, most of it's about dies, you know, added ingredients, different things. Like all of that comes after the food leaves the

farm. So, you know, it's hard because we kind of get lumped all together as like the food source or, you know, agriculture gets lumped in with everything that happens, you know, down the chain from us. But I think if people like had it in front of them and could segment them out and kind of silo the food's journey, majority would trust the farmer and the rancher. It's a lot of the questions and concerns that they have with everything that happens to the food like after it leaves the farm. Yeah. Yeah. JBS hasn't done a great job of just oozing.

Yeah. Right. Tyson isn't. They're not opening up to front. Yeah. No, I would agree with that. I will say,

and I've probably said this too many times, but as a hog guy who endured the other white meat ad campaign, the beef guys have done a much better job. And taste beats everything. And I don't know what would cost for you guys. to just own Sam Elliott's voice till the end of time.

But whatever that price is, you should all ante up because like that, that's the best ad campaign ever. Yeah. Yeah. When you hear it, you're just like,

I'm hungry. Yeah, exactly right. I need it. Yeah. Yellowstone, I think, was a good,

it was good for the cattle business and country. Just like the perception, like I think in culture right now, you're just seeing. Well, Cowboy is cool. Yeah.

Yeah. Cowboy and cool is cool now. Like rural America's cool country. And I think the diet thing and maybe the GLP ones and all of that, like I see high protein cereal now. Yeah. You know? And we've also defeated lab grown meat.

Yes. Like there was a lot of things that were just dragging. I mean, the food pyramid was dragging the influx of that, the negative, you know, and a lot of those things are off our back now. And I just, so that's why I'm still so optimistic. But we do a market update when Sawyer and I just do a solo. and probably two years ago, we started including Beyond Meat

is the stock ticker just because it's been so enjoyable to watch it just go down. And so then recently they just did a, they did a reverse stock split because it got down to where it was 60 cents a share. And so they did a reverse stock split where they lowered the number of shares to get the price back up into the dollars.

And so we need to do an update. Just give up. It's over. Yeah. So on the podcast, we recently covered like, lab grown milk. And obviously they've done lab grown everything, right? So lab grown chicken, lab grown, I don't know what else they've, I think they tried to do like some type of seafood

and everything. But the conversation we kind of got into is that, because we're like, who is asking for this, right? And so it basically led us to talking about how it feels like that that category of food is more technology driven, hoping that there will be a consumer demand. And I just feel like when it comes to animal proteins, there will always be like the consumer demand in it. Like, there's a lot of innovation, different things we can do differently in agriculture and just the food landscape in general. But it's coming from a place of like consumer want where it's like flipping it on ahead when you, you know, get to anything lab grown. Like I just, and I don't believe we're too soon to it. I don't believe that like, you know, whoever is inventing it or running it is like they're just five

years ahead of the curve. They're just a little bit too soon. Like I just don't in 15 years and 30 years, there is just no demand for anyone to want their food to be grown. Yeah. Unless you're in like a unique experience where you're like, I don't know, you know, going to space or something. Like, you know, I mean, there might be some area where some astronauts are like, you know, asking for it. But the majority, like people just want good, wholesome food.

They want it to come from the farms. Like there will always be that consumer demand there. And it, that's a niche where our economy today does not lend itself to that. Because as, as the consumer's food dollar gets stressed, they go to what they know. They don't go to anything. One, they're not going to spend money on a premium product. They're not going to pay more for something.

And two, they're not going to experiment. They're going to go with what they know when their dollar is tight. Yeah, I just think society as a whole trust is an all-time low, no matter if you're talking about food, pharma, government, media. Trust is just an all-time low. So when you're trying to like come out and throw out with lab grown meat, people are just, they're not going to trust that. These 19 ingredients are perfectly safe. Yeah. Everybody's looking at these labels now. Oh, yep. Nope. It's the minimum ingredients possible, you know. So I agree with you 100%.

I kind of want to just go into your operation a little more. I'm not a cattle guy. You know, I grew up hogs, grain farming. We've had some cattle guy on. Cattle guys on here. But and I know there's some. getting itchy. We're getting, we're getting itchy. What do you mean you're getting itchy? Well, these cattle guys, they're just, they're like, well, you should just get some, maybe you can get some guys out here to grace your corn stocks or, yeah, you know, we're, I can go up here pretty good. I will say this. We had John Haskell on our podcast. And the other thing I'll say is that the current state of agriculture, I think all farmers are rooting for the cattle. guys because you're kind of the last, you're the last bastion of independence out there. Yep.

The poultry business went a long time ago and the hog guys are basically there. Yep. And the cattle, the cattle, like I made the comment at some point that, you know, we don't have cattle, but I feel like, I almost feel like it's my patriotic responsibility now to have some. And that probably would be custom grazing some, not owning. Yeah. Cuss and Graeme is really just to own them.

Yeah. You got to come out to our bull sale. Yeah. Come out to the bull sale. Yeah. Oh, boy. Yeah. I don't know why you're writing.

Friday in January. We'll put it in your, we'll have Trish put it in your guys' calendar. Yeah. There you go. That's the way to get to a drug of some kind. Yeah. They're trying to get us.

They're kind of try to. I mean, do you think that there will be, you know, with the current markets that there will be some cattle that will come back into more of these areas that, that are just, you know, hate off for this little spot.

I mean, you know, why not or ring a net, why not add 50 cows to the farm? Yeah, I'll say, I'll say my piece and you say yours. The guys we've had on, I think the trend of... Your summer travels deserve an upgrade. With select Chevrolet, Bueck, GMC, and Cadillac vehicles

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Like for us in our area, we grain farm and it's good corn, good soybeans, yields great. We should use that to our advantage. And so a lot of the guys that have come here that have this philosophy in, have been in cattle, and do the sell-by marketing or custom grazing or, you know, grazing covers. they're like, dude, you guys need to just get some cattle to come in after the combine runs through here and get that fertility benefit, raise them cattle. Like you guys use this to your advantage. So I don't know if there's a world where, you know, we incorporate cattle in the operation to help with the soil and, yeah, make money and sell the cattle. But trying to incorporate some sort of grazing with the grain farming, I think is an opportunity that I'm starting to hear about a lot more.

and see with people. I don't know about you what you're going to say, but yeah, I mean, I got the itch a little bit. I'm definitely, but I think there's more, and I think with the market being the way that it is,

like people are like, yeah, we should probably get some cattle. People are considering it more than I think ever before. It's just can you afford to get in at this time, you know? And labor, labor is a concern on everything. But you saw a lot of pasture ground gone,

CRP, also the last big grain rally. That's when it's crazy to think about, but from the air, if you could have flown over this area, then versus today, there was a three-year period in there where the guy that we use as a dirt guy,

does a lot of tile, did an, like he made his living for about a decade digging pits for hog buildings because it was just we were building them like crazy. But that period of time, just fence rows, fence rows, fence rows, fence rows, because everybody, we were going to farm right, I mean, we'd farm to the middle of the interstate if we could. And that was at a time when cattle prices were depressed, grain prices were high. So there was an awful lot of pasture ground that came out, a lot of CRP, a lot of fence rows.

well, now we've been in this cycle. And I don't know, today, or I should say yesterday, you know, we thought this corn market was really going to take off. Then Stone X comes out and says, oh, yeah, we think it's pretty good. And so the market's trying to figure this out. But I go back to this all the time that rural communities, the answer to the decline of rural communities is animal agriculture, not more grain farming.

I mean, it just is. Nothing that puts more money in the pockets of Main Street than animal agriculture. And grain farming now here is kind of maxed out. I mean, there's no more acres to farm. It's farm. So where can you add, you know, and Nebraska's a pivot corner. But what corner, what little thing can you add, obviously, hogs? You know, but is it a confinement cattle feeding operation or is a confinement cow situation

where you cav out on cornstocks so you have healthy calves and you get to utilize all the forages? And then even if you don't have grass, that's a, you know, then the cow comes. back in confinement without the calf honor. And I mean, you know, it's a whole other system that you basically have. But I completely agree. That's, that's, I don't know where else you're going to, I don't know where else you're going to get it. Yeah.

And I just, I don't know. I think around here like guys buying ground and then turn into pasture, ground is just so expensive. It's not going to happen. Yep. That, that's not going to happen. Yeah.

It's not going to be a summer. It's not going to be like where we are, where we just have range land that we graze all summer long. Yeah. I completely. Yeah. So it's like. And how do you incorporate what's working here and bring cattle into it?

I think that another opportunity is because we live in a society day that's so easy to connect with people far away, where I think there's definitely a possibility where guys in the Midwest that don't have the capacity to keep cows year round, but have the ability to graze. Maybe you partner with somebody and maybe, you know, know, they're, they're calvin, and then you take an ownership, a partial ownership in those, in those calves and you feed them out and, you know, you do some kind of a partnership. Yeah. And like we, I mean, we, well, that's what Jen and Levi do.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they bring in other areas of a ranchers. They're, you know, in a drought. They're, you know, down on pashers or whatever. They'll bring them on to, they farm kind of in our area, but they'll bring them in. I mean, we ship cows to the Platt Valley. It's 120, 130 miles.

That's not as far as it is here. But, I mean, it's, it's a wonderful. resource for us even just even just that far yeah obviously the diesel the trucking's the big cost but it's yeah they they they work well together yeah if you can graze if you can graze cattle versus feeding them hay it's a lot better deal yeah so i want to know like the cycle of your operation like i want to know the whole rundown of how it all works the seed stock operation or the commercial well both both and how they fit together oh guess on do the seed stock okay so and talk to me like I don't know shit.

Well, he talked to you just like normally. He hasn't done this whole time. Talk to me normally then. So we start calving April 1st. That's a logical time to start calving. We cab April 1st, mostly because we want to graze cornstalk residue as long as we can. And in our area, March 1st, March 10th, start traditionally getting thaws, some spring moisture stuff.

People want cattle off the fields, and they want to start, they want to start tillage work. So the farmers, but I do rent cornstalks from. They're great, but when they want them off there, they want them off there. So I'm more than happy to get them out of there and bring them home. That gives us two or three weeks to just kind of organize,

get cattle straight, get them sorted in different calving groups and different areas we want them. And then if there is any nutrition, we need to catch up on because the cattle aren't close to home. So, I mean, not that we rough them too hard, but it's always nice just to have a couple of weeks

to get everything situated before they start calving. And then, Most of the cattle are born in the first 30 days, but even 45 days we'd have 90, 95% of the calves are born, and we go to summer grass at that point. And so that calf stays on the cow all the way until, oh, roughly late October, first part of November, we'll wean the calf then,

and the cow will go to cornstalks again, and obviously she stays there and starts the cycle over. For the registered bulls, we will supplement those bulls, or feed them a back grounding ration, but out on some crop ground, probably a quarter of ground, just so they can exercise.

We're not pushing them. We're not growing. We don't sell yearlings. And we just grow them slow throughout the winter. Then the next summer they graze again. And we pull them off of grass on the day after Labor Day. So yesterday we pulled the bulls off of grass, and they start coming up on feed now,

and we'll sell them in January. So we sell coming two-year-old bulls. Okay. Nice. Yep. Which there's a lot of advantages to it. I think we feel like. First of all,

we get to develop those bulls really slowly, lots of exercise. You know, we really select for proper structure and feet, but also development can affect that. And so the way we can develop them, just not pushing them. Not push them.

Helps them and exercise. Yes. And then, you know, if there's a problem, by the time that bull's almost two years old, you've probably already seen it. And we can eliminate,

that before I sell them to somebody. And you can always have a broken leg or something can happen and we stand behind the bulls. We really reduce any problems. And that helps your relationship. You don't have problems and they don't have problems. Everybody's happy, you know? And so we just like to develop the bulls that way.

Additionally, their sister mates, you know, they get kicked out to grass May 1st or May 15th. So we're asking those heifers to breed on grass without supplementation. We're asking them to kind of do it on their own, prove themselves. We're really not trying to add a bunch of, you know, feed into their environment. We just want them to, you know, exist on what we have available and the ones that do it, which most of them do, but the ones that do obviously prove themselves and the ones that kind of weed themselves out, great. That's the test that, you know, we don't want to mask that with feed. So we're just trying

to set up the system so that it works best for production and central. Nebraska. The commercial cows, they have May 15th or May 20th is when they start calving. We take them to grasp May 10th as pregnant cows, sorted into ultrasound groups, and we just kind of let Jesus take the wheel on those, you know. Carrie Underwood would say. We really build the model around carry on. Yes, yes, yes. That's a good model. But I mean, we're targeting the same thing with our seed stock as we want our commercial

cows to do and that is to take care of themselves and, you know, thrive in the environment that that we have for them. So if we don't do that for a registered cows, how can you expect the commercial cows to do it? Hey, thanks for sticking with us. I think about this a lot. We're out here in southeast Iowa and what happens in Mexico City or Ottawa has a direct impact on what we get paid for our corn. That's just the reality of it. We're in a global market, whether we like it or not. And the USMCA is what keeps that market open for us. Mexico is our number one corn corn, customer. Canada is our top ethanol buyer, $1.5 billion worth in 2024. And together, trade with those two countries supports 13 million American jobs in food and agriculture. This agreement is

up for review and the Iowa Corn Growers Association is pushing hard to make sure it gets renewed with the right protections in place. Because if we lose ground here, China and Brazil are ready to step right in and take our place. That's not a scarcity tactic. That's just what's happening in the world. You're ICGA membership is what gives farmers a seat at the table in these kind of conversations. Go to Iowa corn.org today and get involved. Now let's get back to it. Which it was interesting growing up on our ranch, we cabed in December. So the first baby calf calf usually came right after Christmas. Like my dad's a December baby. So sometimes like after Christmas before my dad's birthday. And so the only calving I really grew up around was like dead of,

you know, dead of winter, January, February, December. And then now, May calving. I'm like this, this isn't calving. This shouldn't be called calving. This isn't the same thing here. These are apples and oranges. Yeah, that's got to be like that's in Montana. That's got to be an adventure cabin in December. Well, even a lot of other operations just because of. If they farm a lot, a lot, well, they're busy. And they don't want it in there.

They don't, yep, or they can't get them to grass. So there's, you know, there's, but there is some alternative calving dates that really can fit different systems. You know, you guys are talking about adding cattle. I mean, you'd have to have a completely alternate calving date to utilize your corn stocks. So people really need to look at what production system, and that's mostly driven by calving date because your cow demand and how you move cattle and pears and fencing and all those kinds of things is based on that baby calf or when that cow calves. And so, you know, sometimes calving at a non-traditional time could really be an advantage. Yeah. So go back on your on your, on your seed.

stock side, your heifer calves, are you keeping them breeding them and sell them as a bread heifer or some of them, I'm sure you're keeping as replacement? The majority of them were keeping as replacement. So you're trying to grow that herd. They're trying to grow. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I don't, I just started with one cow and I just never really tried to not grow. It's been exhausting. Yeah. We did a couple projects where we have some red heifers and things like that and sold second cavers. And, you know, there's some times I'll sell some cows. But in general, yeah, it's still just, it's still just, and even our bull sale, I mean, in the last three years, you've gone, our first in-person bullsale went from 30 bowls to our second one was to 70 to this year will be our 100. Is that right?

I'm afraid. Yeah, 100 or just a little more than 100 this year. Am I off a year, though? This is our fourth, so I'm off a year. Yeah. We might have in like 30 back to back or something. I can't remember now. Yeah. Something. Luke's just always about, you know, about rapid, intense growth. It's stressful, rapid growth.

It doesn't take any longer to work 200 kids as it does 300. I mean, just a little bit. Well, if you're, if you have that builder mindset, it's, it's hard, like, it's kind of addicting. Yeah, I mean, I just feel like a failure if I give something up, you know. Yeah. Even lease land from a difficult landlord. You know, you still kind of feel like you just don't want to do it. You want to find a way to make it work, you know.

Yeah. So your goal then, as you grow, as you're holding, as you're holding heifers back, growing your herd, as it grows, is your commercial herd, are you calling those harder and shrinking that commercial herd? We've shrunk at some, but I mean, if I found a, you know, a piece of ground that joined us or something, I'd buy it and pop them right back up there. So, yeah, there's a little give and take there, but we haven't, you know, drastically. changed it. But our, our employee of the month every single month, Mitch.

Shout out Mitch. Yeah, he's phenomenal. But he really enjoys the registered side of the business as well. So I think that's another reason why you kind of choose. Yeah, I mean, couldn't do that without him.

I just, I'm not that he's great with, there's so much record keeping and data collection and, you know, submitting it to the association and back and forth. And I mean, it's, it's,

not my strong suit. But just beyond like his meticulousness, he just enjoys the seat stock industry as well. Like he enjoys the genetics and pairing and mating too. And we have another guy Duncan that works with us often, probably three to four days a week. And he is more, okay, we got to go, you know,

rope this wild thing or something or go do this or that. And he's the guy that's like, all right, let's go. You know, he's ready to go. And so we have a great dynamic because it just kind of takes all, you know, all different talents, really. How did you find those guys?

So Duncan started first in, right at COVID in 2020. And prior to that, I kind of had some part-time help and this and that and just need another guy. And it was actually a YouTube video we're making and his nephew was watching. We always joke if the greatest thing we got out of YouTube was Duncan. Like if nothing else came out of YouTube and we just got Duncan as an employee, that would be worth it. Yeah. And he, I mean, just kind of reached out, and he lived east of us about an hour and a half and just said, I'd like to get out of the feed yard or working a feed yard. I'd like to go to the feed yard and get further west, more cowcalf operation, but we were background in cows. I mean, he just fit right in and worked great.

They have since kind of grown their family, got married, and growing their family, he just, he's more flexibility. They have little kids. So he kind of comes and goes as he pleases some Saturday mornings at 7 o'clock. He's out there cleaning pens. They're like, well, okay, he's up. go, you know, you don't know, but he's always, he's always there to help and great. And then Mitch actually did an internship for us. And, um, just the summer and we got along great. It was, it was fun and just kind of mentioned if you'd ever be interested in a job, you know, make sure you let us know. And it was like in February, so four or five months later, like, well, thinking about maybe, you know, graduate in May and coming to work. I was like, okay. And then talk to Natalie about

and she's like, well, what's the, you know, what's the job or how? I was like, I don't really know. I wonder if he just wanted to work for the summer until he finds something there. No, he had text to you that he was like, I would like to come work for you. And Luke was like, you showed it to me because you were so excited. And then you were like, so I think we could keep him for a couple. I'm like, I think he wants to work here full time, Luke. You should maybe like clarify. But I'm reading this like he actually wants to come back for a job.

Yeah. I just thought he was like want a summer job or something. Yeah. And so he's been there ever. He's been there ever since. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

He got him through the UNL Beef Scholar. He was in the, I think we advertised through there. We've had a couple other interns through there that. were great. And then we've had a couple other interns that were not. So we paused internships. Yeah, we have paused internships because I was going to ask, our labor situation is really good. Well, yeah, I was going to ask, like, that's probably one of the biggest issues we all face in agriculture is labor. So like, that's why I was curious asking you how you got them, because it's hard to get good people, you know? And we just haven't really

struggled that much with it. But I don't know. I think I'm just so cool. Luke. Yeah. but no, I don't know. I mean, I get guys. It's Carrie Underwood just playing in the truck. Jesus is just taking the way. All the time.

I give those guys, you know, when Duncan's full time, I mean, they got. We're good to them. Yeah, they got ground. They could lease. They could operate their own cattle. They could have cows. I mean, we just make it so they don't want to go to the next place, you know,

if possible. That's awesome. Yeah. Okay, bull sale. So you guys have your own bull sale now. Correct. Did you, have you had any couples meet at your bullsale? and right off into the sunset.

We tried pretty hard to make a match at the last bullsale. Yeah, that didn't work. Yeah, that didn't work. So we're over nothing right now. Yeah. If you know who wants to come to our bullsail and maybe meet your potential future partner, we'd love that. We'd love that.

We've got to find single girls, though. I don't think there's any of those there. Yeah, do you guys throw a good party like, just like your families? Yeah, at least families. It's a good party. Or I wouldn't say it's quite to the extent of my families, but we're trying. The party is bigger.

Well, I don't know. My parents feed like a full meal, a sit-down meal. Well, I was talking about the party part. I wasn't talking about supper. He's skipping right to the important stuff. He buys more cases of beer, but you don't feed the whole meal. That might be true. Yes, the food is definitely better.

No, yeah, we, it's a Friday afternoon sale. It used to be at 4 o'clock. We're moving it up to 3 o'clock. But it is just designed for heavy appetizers and definitely social gathering afterwards. Well, and it's only our first sale. So we have hopes of growing it into, you know, a legacy sale where it is a bigger production and stuff. But, I mean, we had to convert our calving barn into a sale barn four years ago just to have a sale.

And I got done like a few days before. Of course, you know. It was super intense. I'm actually the one in the relationship that's usually like, oh, how hard can it be? just go for it, like stop talking about it, just do it. Like that's whenever Luke comes to with an idea, I'm like, sure, sounds great. Like, what do we have to do to make this happen? And when he came to me and was like, I think we, because we were doing an online auction

before that for a couple of years. And so when he was like, I think this is the year that we should do an in-person sale, I was like, you're nuts. You're absolutely crazy and we're not doing that. Like I was so overwhelmed by the thought. I mean, it's probably the first time in our marriage that I've ever been like, no, I really don't think we should, but he obviously didn't listen to me. So anyway, we love where else sales at, but I keep wanting to go to other people's sales and just see what other people do, you know, to bring it back to our sale to just make it that much better every single year.

I just try and be a little bit percentage better every single year. Well, it's good to have hard deadlines to get things done. Yeah. When I was a kid, my dad never made much, never had much of any opinions about anything going on in our house until there was some part. party and then that was when he would get involved and crack the whip and all three boys, you know, would be doing this. We'd be cleaning the top of the refrigerator. And I remember one of my brothers, I don't think it was me, you know, asked the question like, you know, why are we doing all this now? And my dad just said, never hurts to have company, boys, never

hurts to have company. That's like I see you adapting that. That's a, that's a brand new quote for me. And I do love that about the seed stock businesses that it combines cattle and genetics and people. Yep. And I just, I don't know, it's just a dream job for me. It's just a dream career. How's the media, has the media business helped your operation out in that regard? Like, bullseil and like forming connections and getting new client, like, has it helped out with that? Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, we would have had our, we would have had our, you know, our local producers that we already had relationships with. but there are so many other people that have called and found out about our operation, you know, through the social media.

And so it, without a doubt. There's some silly things online and you can definitely use online wrong. But if you know how to wield the tool of social media, it's probably the most insane marketing free tool you can have at your disposal. It's really crazy if you know the content to create and how to speak, you know, the language to use. If you have an eye for it, I always say like revolutionized small businesses,

just the entire small business industry because it just really took what people used to have to pay for and didn't understand and it just gave it to him for free in their hands. And I just, anyone can be a small business owner now and be really, really successful at it if you know how to use social media. Yeah.

If the podcast, I have this, this great question. If podcast tripled tomorrow, do you guys buy more cows or do you just buy your time back? Oh, it's a hard one. Are you guys like max out? Yeah, I think we're kind of. Oh, you say that, but you. I mean, we have found a very sweet spot.

And we do really value time freedom in our relationship and our family. That's something very, even when, so as I alluded to before, for a while there, I was just filling only for a pharmacy. Like if they had a vacation or someone was sick, they both pharmacies in town knew they could call me and I would help out. And so committing to one day was like a really big, I mean, it's just one day a week, right? But like that, to us, we saw that as like loss of control of our time. Like we were now answering to someone else again. And sure it's only one out of seven days. But that was a big conversation for us. Then when she asked me again, just

this summer to commit back to two, again, we had to sit down and be like, okay, is this, you know, our youngest was entering kindergarten. So it was a little bit different for us. But we really, really value time freedom and and that's important to us. But I know this man. And I know that if land came up and we had, you know, disposable income to expand the herd, I don't think Luke would be saying, you know, I'm just pretty happy how things are. I think we'd be going for it. It would be full throttle sentence. So. Yeah. Yep. I love it. I love it. Okay. I want to get into, you touched on a little bit, Natalie, the beef business, the direct-to-consumer beef business a little bit, because that's a shared experience that we've had. And I feel like that is the hot and trot

thing that everybody is saying, oh, you should start a direct-to-consumer meat business and, oh, if you want to control your own destiny. I mean, I'd bit the bullet on it. You bit the bullet on it. I think we could really drop some good advice to people that might be considering it. what was your experience when you went down that road? What did it all? What did you think you were going to get into? And what did it actually end up being? Yeah, boy, that's a loaded question.

It is a loaded question. I think in hindsight, and there's a lot of different things to discuss here, so we could definitely go beyond this. But I think the first thing that comes to mind for me, as a business owner, I think you should always know your skill set and what you're really strong at.

And then obviously people recommend and then filling in and hiring around you in the areas you're not, right? Like, I feel like that's pretty common business advice. And going into being a direct consumer, I guess sales or business owner, I thought my skill set would be something else. And I really learned that my skill set is marketing and creativity. And being a solo business owner, because Luke was very supportive of it,

but you weren't, you know, helping me at all with it. So I was, I had a partner, but it was really, you know, us too, that was up to to do everything. And so at the capacity I had and the knowledge I had, I didn't have the skills to fill in everywhere else to make it successful, which is why I pivoted and went to, okay, I'm really good at, I love creativity, I love online marketing and I love social media. So that's actually why I left and went into just general influencing with our family because I was able to recognize, okay, that's my skill set and what I'm passionate about. So I think going

into directing some of beef business, if you understand it and you know that you have some of those skills that are required to make that successful, then you'll probably be good at it and we'll see some of that success. But you may also get into it and find out, oh, shoot, I, you know, to your point, I thought this was going to be something else. And, you know, this, this actually isn't matching up with what I thought I was getting into. Yeah, I think it is just the logistics. Were you like trying to ship it yourself? So that's the second thing that we learned really, really quickly is logistics is super important. So we are three hours from Omaha, two and a half from Lincoln. So to go, you know, we're next to a Carnian Grand Island, if anyone is familiar with in Nebraska,

which are like, what, 50,000, maybe, no, 30,000, I don't know, somewhere around there. But I wouldn't say they're, like, robust communities that have, like, expendable, maybe income for that priorities. You know, I don't even know if they have, like, a super robust farmer's market to go to. I know there's some of them, but I've been to them and they're certainly smaller, right. So I wouldn't say it's like highly prioritized there. So for us to go to a place where we felt like people really seeking out that premium product and paying that amount, what was like a six hour round trip and the logistics of keeping the beef cold and then being there and then fitting that into your schedule of the growing family and this being the side business where you have a ranch that is

your full-time business was just not working. And so I think logistically, if you were really close to urban areas or they don't necessarily have to be urban, but just, you know, areas that you knew your consumer was there, you're going to have a much quicker success to be able to fill in or meld online orders with in-person orders. And when it came to online, another thing I learned about myself very, very quickly was the stress and anxiety of shipping a perishable product. I am not built for that. And so there are some business owners that will maybe get into, you know, DTC and be completely be fine with it and then that not bother it. But I was literally going to bed Sunday night and being stressed out that my dry ice wouldn't be there. So I would never sleep Sunday night. And then my dry

ice, okay, thank the Lord. It came on Monday. I could pack my orders. And then I would literally go to bed Monday night being like, okay, I'm so stressed that the two day shipping or, you know, and then it was like you're, I was stressed out four nights a week of the seven. And then I'd start the cycle all over again, going to bed Sunday being like, oh my gosh, here I am stressed about dry ice again. And then stressed. And so again, depending on logistics of where you are, if you can go pick up your dry ice or if you, I don't know, just, I think, didn't have to use dry ice. Yeah, or if you just were, we're maybe as rural as we were where your shipping looked maybe differently to some of your customers. I mean, it's obviously very variable to where you are and where you're

positioned. And I think that is a huge thing that people should consider when they are doing direct to consumer. And meat is heavy. It is, you know, meat is it. So it's expensive. Shipping is expensive. Are you having flashbacks? Yeah. No, I mean, it's all shared experience. I'm like, yep. all shared experience. I mean, I'll get asked about it a lot if I still do like panels and different things and I don't ever want to discourage people because I agree. Like there are people there who want direct to consumer beef and are willing to pay for it. And I do believe in like taking our product and skipping the middleman and having ownership of that. But I just think there are so many things when it comes to direct to consumer that especially when I started, I didn't really have a guide

to ask this out. And so my advice usually is like find a mentor, find someone that's doing it that will help you out to answer these questions and help you skip over some of the hardships and the stresses that we had to learn kind of on our own early because if someone is doing direct to consumer successfully, then great. Like success leaves clues. Like try and figure out what they're doing that you can like implement in your own operation. But I'm always like, it is not all rainbows and sun shines and you're not just going to like pocket that money and, you know, that difference and then call it a day. Like there's a lot that goes into. And that's why I also say for anyone like any, any consumers listening that buy direct to consumer, like, thank you. Because those people that are taking the time of energy, those operations that are taking the time of energy to do direct to consumer, like you're, you prioritizing them and valuing them and buying from them is is huge. Like if you want to support the farmer or rancher, you're doing it just by placing that order. So like consumers, like, thank you for buying direct consumer who can and who value and prioritize that because it is not easy on the farmer end to do it. I would agree with that. You vote with your knowledge.

And when you're voting with your dollars for support and direct to consumer, you really are support and direct farmers and ranchers. It's not cheap for anybody. I mean, that's the common question I get all the time from people when I was running. It was like, oh, you're cheaper than the grocery store, right? And you'd be like, no. You understand how this all works? I still have tape left because we had to place such a large minimum order of like decorated tape. I ship, I buy clothes and I have to return them.

It goes back in ranch wife's beef company tape. Like I still, what is it? The kids think it's a sponsor for Christmas. We'll be in the same. If you go downstairs from the studio and into the other side of the barn, there's two full pallets of Farmer Grade boxes. So I think that a whole generation of Sawyer's kids will think Christmas came from Farmer Green. Moving boxes.

We got moving boxes. I just wish we could crack the code, though, like of what it is. Like, what is a copy paste repeat? Like what would make it successful? Because like I so badly want that. to be successful. So, so many people,

but it is just really freaking hard. It's hard. And there's so many other cuts. I mean, the meat companies, you know, like them or don't like them or whatever, but they're good.

They're efficient and they are good. And it's a world market. And there's a lot of cuts that we don't use commonly in the United States that there is a market for. And so, you know, you're competing against that. And it's just,

it's just hard. And, you know, how much easier it is to ship something in a semi-load, versus the back of a pickup. Like, I mean, they just have so many more efficiencies. And I just, I still think it's going to continue to be a niche. Yeah.

Like I just do. Yeah. And, you know, when you, so we had a guy on the podcast, we had Greg on who he actually has a USDA inspected locker in, on his farm, processes his own. But he can sit and tell you all the perils of doing that. And then the cost of that because it's like building a grain leg. You're never done.

You're just feeding it because everything you use wears out. Well, the other side of that is doing it the way we did it, where you have multiple people that are processing for you. Well, the problem with that is their problems are your problems. And so there's no, there's no perfect answer to it. Yeah. And it's just, it's... I realize you just have to play the game.

Like, I was doing true farm. table and it was scaling to a point, but I started to realize that like, that wasn't how the game was being played amongst other players that were bigger in the direct-to-consumer meat space, also butcher shops. They were buying box primals, you know, they were claiming that it was theirs and when it wasn't. And like, when I realized that that is how entrenched we really are in this business, I was like this, all this work of logistics and play, I have to go now sell my soul. and play this game of something that I didn't even start this business on

and the margin that's left over after going through all this hard work, is this? Well, really the game I want to play for the long run. You can build the business. You can make money, but it's not the most profitable endeavor in the world. I mean,

your margins are direct-to-consumer margins, right? I mean, they're not going to be phenomenal. And I was going to say that's one of the pitfalls of a farmer starting to direct a consumer business because their margins on their real business are terrible. So they are not like regular people. When they see what margins people have and direct to consumer,

their first instinct are, wow, that's great. Sometimes you don't even know what your margin is, though. Like, I didn't know what the net margin was. I knew what gross margin was going to be. But you get down to it, and you're like, well, this is a lot of work for a little, little bit of growth. So, yeah, it, I don't know what the crack the code is.

I think you got to find a way to not, like I studied butcher box, good ranchers, Omaha steaks. They're not, they don't own the whole supply chain. I mean, I think you have to be a marketing company. I mean, that's what butcher box is. That's what good ranchers is. They're a marketing company. Well, and even then back to your point of, this is where I actually thought you were going when you said this, but you started out by saying like to be a farmer to start direct

to consumer. I think one thing that I struggle with sometimes, because we'll talk about, you know, topics like this on the podcast. And I'm always like, don't hate the players, hate the game. Because when it comes to marketing, these companies are talking about their product in a way that sometimes I feel like isn't a way that maybe a farmer when you know, when you really know agriculture would market or some of the labels

they would maybe put on the boxes to advertise to a consumer or lure a consumer in. Sometimes I just think when you know, better, you know better. And some of these, to your point of these companies that maybe they just own it. And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, sure. Put no antibiotics or whatever. You know, like, however they want to market it and word it, when you know the behind it, you're like, well, that's not really what that's saying. Or all beef is actually like that. So why, you know, like you just get into some nuances around marketing where I think when you're so deep in agriculture, you see it very, very differently than someone who is just trying to market beef, you know, out of, I don't want to say the goodness

of their heart, but their goal is just to, you know, to market the beef, right? Like, it just feels very different than like a farmer marketing beef sometimes. Yeah. So let's let's go a little bit into your journey of where you are now. Discover you got the you got the podcast. You got your social media. You kind of said that you pivoted from the meat business to this social journey. What what are you, like what are you trying to achieve with your social media? What what's the message you want to get out there, you know? Yeah. Again, it's ebbed and float and changed throughout the years. When I started, really just to sell beef, right? Like, that's all I cared about. It's kind of funny. I was like, I'm not interested in influencing. Like, influencing was a point, you know, a thing at that point.

And I was like, I'm not really interested in that. Like, I don't, I just want to sell beef. Like, if people can find our page and buy our beef, like, that is a win for me at the end of the day. And then obviously I learned, like, care less about selling meat. And I care more about, you know, the marketing and the creativity and kind of the fun you can have on online. And so I'm, I shifted to that. And I remember Luke and I were on our way back from actually an agriculture conference in Omaha and we had sat down, Luke's nodding. He's like, if I had known, I wouldn't have said yes at this. But there was actually a YouTube panel there. And there was a person from literally YouTube themselves that was like hosting the panel with these farmers at the time that were

popular on YouTube. They were the panel. And I'll never forget that the person had said right now at that current time and landscape, there is no basically word, key word, key search on the back end of YouTube that is skyrocketing in the way that farming is at that time. Wow. I just remember thinking, gosh, I should, I had been kind of feeling, again, stressed out and overwhelmed with the beef business and was like feeling I needed to shift, but I didn't quite want to go again, time freedom. We had littles. I didn't quite want to go back to like full-time pharmacy. And so I had been looking for a pivot and just didn't know quite what it was. And I remember hearing that, being like, I'm just going to, I'm just going into influencing and sharing online. And so, um, I had done that. I had done that.

under the guise of, again, that the ranch will always, you know, you guys made a joke earlier. Like, what is the cash flow? Like, what, what's the moneymaker, right? And for Luke and I, it will always be the ranch. Like, that is always our priority. We don't ever want to downscale that to do something else. Like growing the ranch, growing the seed stock business, that is, like, number one for us. So I knew going into influencing, I had told Luke, I'm just going to try and make as much money as I can with my pharmacy salary so that I can make that income, but be at home with our children and be there to help support you for the operation. And to your point, that has actually been, that is still like one of my biggest goals is to just like, what do we need

cash flow right now to assist with the ranch to continue to scale and grow the ranch? So I am looking to retire from social media at some point. Like it is not. I mean, I love sharing with agriculture. I love advocating for agriculture. I love, you know, connecting whatever audience I bring in to get a behind the scenes look at like who is raising their food and, you know, normalizing farmers and ranchers and breaking stereotypes about ages or, you know, genders, like whatever it is when it comes to agriculture. I love that. But the day I can just market for our ranch, I will completely retire from social media. I say that I had said at the beginning that I took a new position for marketing for a women's workwear company in Montana. That was also kind of an unexpected

change for me. I've shared a lot about our family online over the last handful of years. and I've always, you know, Luke and I have always only shared what we've been comfortable with. And that is kind of ebbed and flowed of how much is family, how much is children, how much is us. You know, it just changes in seasons and how old your kids are and kind of what you have going on in life. But we've never really pushed that boundary. And so up until a couple years ago, I've always felt really comfortable having my children online and had really no issues with that. But I would say within this last year, I have craved privacy in a way that I've really never craved privacy before when it came to sharing our family on. online. And so again, I was kind of just at this point where I was like, gosh, I just don't quite,

you know, feel aligned with influencing anymore and kind of sharing our family and all the different things. But again, I didn't, time freedom. We've built so much of it into our family and I still have to, you know, bring some sort of income. And so I was like, I can't just really quit this. And so I had, I had known about Red Ants pants. That's what the company's called for a long time. Because growing up in Montana, it's a 20 year old company. So I was aware of the founder, she's a really cool lady and I was aware of the company. And so when they had poached me about doing their marketing, I was like, this is it. I can still do again what my skill set is, what I really, really love. And I can, you know, step away from having it have to be about our family. And so I'm really excited

with, you know, to answer your question of like, what are your goals? I'm really excited with where we're at because our goal will always be building the ranch. And so I'm able to do that. And then my goal will always be able to just financially support our family in any way that we need to continue to build the ranch and so I'm able to do that now through red ants pants which is really cool. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. I'm kind of feel the same way because I, Sawyer told me when we started this that this was going to be a way for him to take care of me. Yeah. When I retire, but now he just tells me that he's never going to let me retire. So. And I, I fought it at the beginning. I'll admit there was times that I was working and I was like, I don't want to redo that.

I already chased that cow by that. Yeah. I don't need to do this again. but, you know, the income that it brings is great. And then just the people, you know, it's never, what's the quote? What's my new quote again? It's never wrong to have company. It never hurts to have company. Never hurts to have company. And, and the connections that it's made.

And so sometimes Natalie's like, I'm like, oh, no, go ahead. Let's just pick up one, you know, go ahead, do one more, you know, do one more agreement. Let's do one more, you know. Yeah. So that's. I mean, we're very grateful for social media and what it has brought to our lives. I know I am personally because it allowed me to. again, be a mother at home for a majority of the time while still providing an income. And to

Luke's point, it's not all just about finances. Like, we have had some legal opportunities. I was at, you know, the White House at the beginning of the year and got to partake in that. And the, so the events have been amazing and the people, like I have been back to like how it connects you to people. Like, I have friends all over the United States now that I obviously never would have ever made if I hadn't started sharing online. We wouldn't be here. That's right. You know, so it's wonderful. But. entering it, I knew. Like this was never my long-term plan and goal.

Like for me, it was, you know, a tool to use at that time for our family. So I knew that, you know, this day would come sooner than later. Yeah, I mean, people, people don't realize it's a job. Yeah. There's real burnout, you know, there's days when we sit down to shoot this podcast where you're like, I don't really feel like doing it, but you got to do it. You guys need to call us then. Yeah.

We can fill in. I worked way harder at that than I ever would have if I'd just been a, full-time pharmacist. You know, we would have just gone into the pharmacy and worked my eight hours shift and then came home. Yeah.

But that's not what we wanted for our family, you know. And I love being, I love being in healthcare. I love being in pharmacy. But we just, we wanted me home, you know. Yeah.

So you do the, you do the podcast with Tara, right? Yeah. And she lives in New Mexico. Yep. How hard is it balanced? What's harder working with your husband or working with a business partner

that's in New Mexico and a totally different state? You know, I love both of my, business partners very much. You should get into politics. She sold that really, really well. It's true, though.

Tatar is one of my best friends. And again, if I started sharing on social media, like we never would have connected. We're really good family friends. We travel with them and we vacation with them. So we're just much more than podcast co-hosts. So I think I, one thing I did really good was pick maybe people that I could, like personalities.

I married the person I was supposed to marry, right? So, we just don't really have like we didn't the people that talk about like yelling, you know, of cattle, working cattle with their spouses. Like that's just not Luke and I. Like we just work. And it's the same thing with Tara. Like we're enough of the same person that like when we really want to hustle hard, it wasn't like you were drag and the other business partner along. Like we never clashed in like goals and missions and how hard we wanted to work or anything. But we were just different enough that it was like you do your thing and I'll do my thing to make this work. And so, you know, I guess that's good advice for going into business. Like make sure you're going into 50,

businesses with like a person that. Yeah, like the person you're supposed to be going into business with. If you feel like it's a round peg and a square hole, like there is going to be problems in business. And so thankfully, either when it comes to the podcast and everything Tar and I have done there, or the ranch with everything Luke and I do. It's like, it's pretty smooth sailing, honestly. Tarr and I had one big fight, and it wasn't even that big, but we spoke at South by Southwest, which is a huge thing down in Texas a handful of years ago.

And in the lobby, we both just, I think we were so stressed. We just both kind of were like, we just went at each other right there in the lobby. And that is probably, you know, hand a Bible. Before or after? Before we had to speak. It was before we were speaking. And that's probably only the TIF we've ever gotten in when it comes to running a, and we've worked together for a well.

Because we did some stuff before the podcast. So we've worked even longer, probably five years now we've worked together. And we've really only had that one, one Tiff in the middle of South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. We do pretty good because we get to go load pigs together. I was just going to ask you how the father's son. Well, I just got in his ass today about something. Yeah. Well, you were stressed out of your mind.

there's just, you know, there's just a lot of things going on. The longer we've been at this, it's not an equal relationship. We're 50-50 partners, but I'm getting the way better deal on it today because as it's grown, Sawyer has burdened all of the,

I have the luxury of every person that somehow gets my number and reaches out to me because they want us to do something or they want us to speak somewhere. I go, yeah, Sounds great. Call Sawyer. You know, email Sawyer. Well, you're just not the most tech savvy guy in the world. Oh, my gosh. It's like the

do sitting across from each other are the same and these two are the same. Email AI, running tools and software. That's not your strong. Do you know that there's another button besides reply all? Yeah. I was like, well, I don't know. I mean, everybody else can know too. I have nothing to hide. He doesn't. I'm like, did you know now was the time you should? I've hit reply. That reminds me of a story, though. Yeah. I'm good at that. Yeah, you're good at that.

Yeah. But no, it's, it's, you know, it's just, it happens. But no, our relationship's great. I mean, we're best friends. He's my dad, business partner. I think one of our strengths is we don't let, if you do have a little bit of a disagreement, we don't let that just carry over.

And we can put it to bed and, move on and still say, hey, love you. You can say we're sorry. We can say we're sorry. We're not too proud to admit, hey, I might have been a little out of line there, you know. Yeah. And I think that's a lot of it. Like to your, to applaud you, I think one thing that Luke does really good that, you know,

maybe some husbands at home can take a note out of. Like, I don't feel like you ever asked me to show up to help in a way that you know will maybe like, I'm not good at or will cause like contention or, you know, like, I think he knows what I'm good at and what I'm not good at. and then he just works with what he can and cuts his losses with what he can't, you know, like you're never really forcing me to be some type of ranch wife or rancher or whatever the hat is. Like, I think you really know my skills and you double down on those and then you find

someone else to help when you need it. With herford cows and they're so calm and so gentle. And when she was first working with Angus cows, she was just on a while like, you were going to get ran over. Like you get your head on a swivel and, you know, stay close to the fence. And she's just tootling through them. These are not a bunch of herford cows. No, it's a lot of fun.

And obviously, we all, probably people listening just love agriculture and love living this way and working with generation and generational farms and ranches. So it's a unique thing that we all get to do that a lot of eight to five people don't. Yeah, speaking of generations,

I actually probably fight most with our oldest son out of anyone on the operation. And like you don't put us two together to move cattle because it will be. It's terrible. The dog comes around to the front because he's tired of them in the back. I mean, how old are your kids now? We have three boys. Our oldest is 20.

And then Jacks, our middle is eight. And then our youngest is going to be six. Nice. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good range. Yeah, I was going to ask, this is kind of later, but it ties into what we're talking about. Parenting. How hard is it parenting in this day and age?

Like, how do you raise? good kids with all the uncertainty out there. I think we're going to be better at it now than five or ten years ago, not we, I mean, as a collective group of parents, because I don't think we really understood social media that well, and I don't think we really understood iPhones that well, and we didn't grow up with those. And so we didn't endure any of the things that those things that that technology can do or can expose kids to. And, you know, when I was, in high school, we had to have, you know, a website that you sourced information from.

You just couldn't go get it from the library. You know, it was like a big job to go get it online. And now it's the opposite. But I just think that there's been a lot in the last few years, just a lot of awareness. And people are just figuring out that we can't just let that. So I think with Tad or, you know, that age group, his age group, you know, everybody was kind of behind the eight ball on that a little bit. and then they also went through COVID,

which I think was also just a whole other weird wrinkle in a teenager's life. So I think that was just a couple of things that that group, that five or eight year group of kids went through that was just kind of unprecedented, honestly. Yeah, I agree. I think what's unique about having raised that generation, so 20 to, I don't know, 26, somewhere right around there, 19, 26,

I don't know, somewhere in that age range right now. I think as parents, you get to look to your parents, parents and say, oh, what did they do really good that I want to do? And what did they do really bad that I want to change? And you get to apply that to a lot of different situations of parenting. And when it came to technology, us, to Luke's point, we didn't get to say, oh, our parents really did well with this when I had a cell phone and they did really, you know, bad with this. I wish, you know, they would have done it this way. Like, we had no experience to pull from. I mean, I got my first cell phone when I was, I think, a senior and you were in college when you got yours, right?

So we just had no experience to draw from. And so I do think the entire, you know, nationwide, to Luke's point, parents were just, we just didn't know what to do or how to handle it. And there was bearing where people were overbearing and over-controlling and it backfired and too loose and it backfired. I mean, there's just the entire spectrum of how to parent. And now, to Luke's point, like, I think we hit the peak of the worst of that because even schools, like, so Tad, he was able to have his cell phone in school.

And schools didn't know how to handle it. And now you see schools checking them or not allowing them. Like everyone is kind of like figuring it out. So this next generation, which for us is our, you know, we call them our littles. They're kind of the cabooses. It's going to be much easier. Like we, you know, we as parents have like something to pull from now.

We're like, oh, we screwed that up with Tad and we did this with the Tad. We're going to, we're going to apply that. But schools now have something to, you know, I feel like society is just figuring out where they're like, okay, this is. And even the companies are putting blocks in and teen accounts and different things. And I mean, they're even like going to like Chromebooks. I saw a study out of California where everyone thought bringing technology into the classroom was going to help increase test scores and do all these wonderful things. You know, you send your kid home with a Chromebook and they get to have their computer at home.

And this is all going to be so great for, you know, increasing intelligence. And now there are counties in California. They're literally taking away the Chromebook and saying paper and pencils actually how we learn best. And so I feel really bad that that generation again, 19 to 29, whatever. Sorry if you're born at a bad time because you guys really got the brunt of everyone. You were the, you were the world like guinea pig. And now we'll have it much more figured out for all the generations to come of like,

this is actually what's best for our minds and our bodies and how we work with this technology that we now have as a part of our lives. I have a friend that was a high school principal. And he tells the story that when they allowed phones, but they had to be in your pocket or out of sight. People didn't realize how skillful children were. And he had literally kids, sorry to, but teenage girls were the best at this.

They were so good that they could text without being able to see their phone. Yeah, perfect. They could text right in their pocket. They didn't even take it out of the pocket. And he was like, I can't believe that. He's like, I can barely text. I can barely text with the phone right in front of me.

And I think that happened with a lot of the apps too. Yeah. Parents didn't know Snapchat or this stuff. And a lot of, you know, they're a little bit, just say a little bit older as their youngest kid. They had no clue how fast those things were growing.

I mean, yeah. Just completely. No, I was just going to say it was funny. You guys were talking to the classroom. It was like, for me,

it was a free for all. Like, yeah. I, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right.

Teachers did not know how to handle it. Yep. And no one did. No one did. But, Yeah, it was just like, you know, their new app come out. Instagram comes out. Snapchat comes out.

Kitt comes out. You're just like, oh, yeah. I mean, I don't know how in five years they're going to be able to have a school board that can deny the fact that having phones in school, it helps learning or doesn't help learning. It should be a pretty easy boat. Well, even to like, there's just psychological things that we don't wear. Like, okay, let's say you didn't want to use your phone. But like, there's something about it being on you that like you check it or, you know, like,

So it's just, it's just a different ballgame. It's like maybe you weren't texting in your pocket, but you were still probably not paying attention during downtime or you weren't probably connecting with your friends when you should have been. Like it just changes everything. Like whether you're on at 100% of the time or not. Yeah.

Is it not funny the way society, just the way ideas leave and come around? So I should have thought of this, but I saw, I literally saw the ad. My wife told me about this. and I hadn't seen it. Today I saw the ad. Somebody is selling a wall mount to put your cell phone in with an adapter for one of those 20-foot cords.

Like we had when I was a kid, when you wanted to have a conversation with a girl that you were talking with. You're like it's the landline. We had that super long landline that would get you all the way down to the landing of the basement, even though my mother was standing right at the corner of the kitchen listening to all. Yeah. So they have, there's somebody selling because of the nostalgia and people don't want that phone in their pocket. So it puts your cell phone on a landline and you can put it on the wall like an old house phone. And they're selling them.

Yeah. And I'm like, well, I saw. Yeah, well, I had that. I saw Kylie Kelsey say that her role in their house, they have a home phone. That's a home cell phone that stays in the kitchen and the girls don't have phones. And I was like, wow, that's old school. And I think you're seeing a lot of, again, us figuring it out and you're going back to that. But yeah, it's funny how I saw a real on the same thread of where she was talking about wanting to cut down her

screen time and she's like, look at what I came up with. And she bought like a little, probably, you know, the Jimmy Rigget version of what this person's selling. But she's like, I bought this little thing. I stick it on the wall and I drop my phone in there. I'm like, oh, so you're doing the landline. Like you're just literally turning your cell phone into land. Like, so ingenuitive, you know. My wife has a brick. Yeah. Yeah. Locks it. So every, like, other than her email, you can block anything. Yeah. Whatever it is. You can be whatever. Yeah. We have a brick. We've never used it. So if it's a really important day, we'll be. in the middle of watching the newest episode of Lioness and it'd be like, oh, pause that.

It's 830. I got to check my, got to check my Instagram. That's so funny. Yeah, she has a scheduled time or whatever. Yeah. I will say, I don't know about you guys. I'd be interested to hear your, especially your opinion on this, but sometimes I feel like sharing online has made me like consume it less because I'm like so sick of being on it for

my job that I don't, and I've been sharing, you know, eight, nine years now, but I'm like, gosh, I wonder what it would be like to have that relationship where I just. consumed all the time because I do feel like I have a skewed perspective or sometimes at the end of the night. I mean, not all the time. I'll definitely scroll and stuff. But sometimes I'm like, man, I have been on social media posting, doing whatever I'm supposed to do for my jobs. I don't even want to like look at my phone. Like I feel like it is a little bit different like sharing online. Yeah, no, I agree with that. I agree with that. I still brick my phone now because and I just, I think the world is shifting. Again, it's like the whole thing with food and everybody want it's becoming cool to know your farmer and have a garden and go the

traditional ways of life i think it's becoming cool now to realize that these phones and technology and just adopting every new thing that they come out with we're kind of seeing people go yeah i don't want to go any further than this phone and this phone i'm kind of realizing is bad for me i got to like limit my amount of time on this phone but i agree with you i'm the same way i i just am trying to try and to not use it as much. I'm just trying not to be distracted or or think that, oh, I need to check this notification or this is coming through because it's just, it's a distraction machine. If you really get outside yourself, if people get outside their self and realize how many tam times we go to check our phone. Yeah. It's insane. Like it's literally insane. So I actually love my days at the pharmacy

for that because I'm like, okay, I'm at a job where I really can't be like distracted and mess up people's the heads are, you know, like check this wrong, put a wrong, you know, like there's a lot of responsibility for a pharmacist's job. And so I, I mean, I'll check my phone every once in a while, but I'm, I am, it's like I, it is the exact opposite of what I'm doing the day before when I'm at the ranch where I have my phone all the time and I'm on it and I'm checking it and I'm filming and creating content. It's like, I go there and it's almost like a reprieve where I'm like, I'm just not on my phone. We have a group of buddies when we go eat, if we go to Buffalo Wild Wings or whatever it is, put your phone.

in the middle and whoever picks their phone up first buys the tab. Oh, that's a good one. It's on you if you pick up your phone. I love that. Just stack four or five phones on there. And for a couple hours, you have a blast. And then everybody ready to go, okay, let's go, you know, and you still can check in. But someone wasn't scrolling.

I mean, just the other conversations that occur and all of the things that it just takes away. Yeah, I love that. We're going to steal that. I'm going to steal that. That's good. I'm stealing one. You're stealing one. Yeah.

We're going to use that. When we do get cows, we're going to use that as the excuse. when people ask what the hell were you thinking, our patent answer is like, well, we were just on our phones too much. The best way to solve that was to get some cows. Yeah, there you go. That'll do it. That'll do it.

Well, okay, I wanted to ask you guys, we touched briefly on some general ag stuff, but I guess two questions. I know you're a pure optimist. You're just always going to think that everything's going to go in the right direction. But are you optimistic about the future of agriculture? and if you are why

and then also what are the challenge what do you think the biggest challenges we face as an industry in agriculture and maybe specific to you guys with the beef market cows and all that but if you want to go broad general you can too

I mean yeah I am obviously like we've discussed earlier I think you know it's hard because cattle have been so good the last you know three or four years to to try and doom and gloop the cattle situation, but obviously at some point economics are going to come in and then, you know,

who knows what politically can happen. That would affect, you know, our local demand and our local supply. You know, grain farming, I think, needs some sort of innovation. Something, you know, it was ethanol or there's a weather situation or something like that to cause either an increase in demand or a shortage of supply. And we just have not had that in the last four or five years, really. I mean, the Ukraine war and kind of the surprise there popped up grain prices. But once that kind of faded, what was it, a six-month kind of a scare there? I mean, really, if you look back... Don't you wish you could just hit skip on the worst parts of your life? You know, the same way

you can skip an ad? I get it. I'm Siaya and I live in Ice Cove. I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned. And today, I'm... still figuring it out. Somehow things usually get worse before they get better. Apparently, that's how I roll. So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays

on CBC Gem. It's been a long time since biodiesel and ethanol and the drought of 12 and some of those things that have really changed grain farming. So something has to happen in grain farming one way or the other or it's going to get pretty consolidated and pretty hard for someone to start if there's not already an established market.

So I think cattle, you know, has the ability with a few different little niches. I know there's specialty grains and things that you can raise. But in general, yellow number two corn is yellow number two corn and soybeans or soybeans. And cattle has some different, you know, layers and dynamics and different things that you can do to specialize, whether it's, you know, targeting replacement heifers or targeting seed stock or, you know, I mean, there's just some different things that you can do there that make it a little easier to start or for that next generation to come in. In your area, is there going to be a lot of opportunity? We talked about the age a little bit.

I mean, do you think all the ground that's owned today, do you think that's all going to turn over to existing people and everybody's just going to have that much more? or is there, do you think there's opportunity that another generation can get started? That's a great question. And I don't know the stat, but, you know, just the amount of agriculture ground that's going to turn over, not just in ranching, but in farming in the next 10 or 15 years is immense. So where is the capital going to come from to buy all that? Yeah. And if it's just the current operations that buy it, think of the labor that they're going to have to get and manage

and they're not going to be in production and agriculture anymore. They're going to be in people management. So I don't see that just how. happening, you know, it's going to be actually a pretty crazy thing that occurs. And I don't know how it's all going to, how it's all going to go, but there is going to be, you know, a huge turnover. And so I think there is going to be opportunity there. Is it going to suppress land prices? Potentially. I mean, if there's 20 farms for sale, there's only five people to buy them and they're not making money, they're going to have to get cheaper. Maybe it's not. I mean, that could be just a whole pipe dream because I want to buy ground and don't have much money. But, uh, I don't know. It's going to be an unprecedented time. Yeah. And it's already starting to happen just a little bit like these leases that are popping up and these other things.

And another 10 years, I think it could just be a whole kind of a wild west of land transfer. And I don't see a major company coming. You can't manage it. How can you manage that many acres and that many employees as well? I don't know what will happen, honestly. I know, can you teach a Tesla bot to pull a calf? No. You just can't.

I know. I don't know what the answer is. There's been a lot of things that have happened. I mean, I would say that our global economy or the ease of financial knowledge has definitely benefited the land price because you've had so much money come. from outside sources that are looking for a different investment tool or what they perceive to be a safer investment than the stock market, the bond market. So we've had all this money come into ag land,

but I don't know how much further that can go. And then the other side is when we were talking about, you know, land is there was a time around here where, timber ground or rough ground land was selling for $8,000 an acre and timber ground was selling for $1,500 or $1,000. Now then there's farms that get sold

that the timber ground brings more money than the good ground because it's a competition of outside money that wants that acreage. But I don't know how much of that's out there either. And so I just think it's really interesting. We're in a unique area in that contract hog finishing, you know, was the ticket 20 years ago up until about 10 years ago to get another generation back on a farm because the cost of the building and interest rates

both work to your advantage. There was a time in there where buildings went up 3% a year. However, interest went down over time to where the net cost of the, that investment basically stayed the same. We don't have that now. I mean, they don't cash flow. And so every time I get to talk to a group of bankers, I ask them, I'm like, what's going to be the next thing to bring back another generation? And they all scratch their head and go, I don't know. Well, there, I mean, in, in, will yields ever plateau, I mean, in cow calf production, if you take superior's date over the last 20 years, calf weaning weight off the ranch has not increased. We're growing cattle bigger outside of the ranch.

cheap corn helps that. Genetics help that. But that all has an extra cost. But really, without extra inputs, you know, just the calf on the ranch is weighing the same as he did 20 years ago. There's variation within the year in precipitation. But other than that, we pretty much maximized that resource. Is that going to occur in farming?

I feel like that it will to the point that I think the incremental, growth of what is the top yield on a corn hybrid, I think that we're going to get there. The thing that a lot of bonus bushels are going to come from is the genetics and the stacks have added so much yield to the marginal ground. The ground that used to not make 100 bushel corn, now you can get a hundred bushel. 160 bushels. You can get 180 bushel. And maybe that's where

we go. But I would think you would get to the point where it's just the available fertility in the soil to get that top end yield. You can always add more shit, but it's just how much more do you want to spend? Right, it costs more. So at what point, at what point, which I mean, honestly,

it'd be somewhat good for corn prices, right? I mean. Well, and we need, I feel like we, we need some diversity out there because last year, I'd say late last fall into this spring, I was just like, you know, why are all these guys that grew wheat now growing corn? And why did all these guys that were growing cotton

or growing soybeans? Well, you figured out when you look at what the price of cotton is and the price of wheat is, and even though corn and beans were not at a good profitable level, they were better. They were better than what those two are. And so it's like, until we get to where there is another option, I just feel like corn and soy is just going to keep taking acres

because we figured out how to do it even on marginal soil. And there's a market for it. And there's a market for it. And but I think that comes at a cost. that lack of diversity and the more you concentrate in those two crops, the more consolidation you're going to see in the farming world. And as I said earlier,

I think these rural America, I think it's going to be really hard to grow rural communities if you don't have animal agriculture in them. And the farmers have ownership in that. Well, we kind of went along. long ways there, but sorry. We're optimistic.

Yeah. We're going to figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. I'm optimistic that you're going to figure it out and I'm going to ride your coattails. Yeah. That's the plan.

I like it. I like it. Okay. I kind of want to round this thing out. You know, I kind of want to go, I want to kind of get to know you guys more as like operators,

parents, spouse, like how you guys make all this go. And you guys are doing a lot at a high level. How do you, you, how do you run your household? How do you keep it all going and balance everything with kids and the operation and social media and the pharmacy job? Like, is there any like structural rules that have just worked or is it just running a big wooden spoon? I'm curious to hear what Luke's answer is going to be.

I'm curious to hear what you have to say. I don't really, I don't know. I'm not a structured person. I'm not a scheduled person at all. And obviously it changes drastically throughout the year, whatever season the cows are in or whatever we're doing. So, no, I would say I just kind of aimlessly just dump along. Go from one fire to the next. Yeah, and try not to have fires. But I just, I don't really know.

Just flexibility, probably, I guess. That's a nice way of saying that I don't have a plan, that I'm very flexible. But, you know, we both. I don't know. We both cook. We both do this or that. You know, just kind of whatever. Oh, something needs this. Go, you know, and it's just, but we don't have like a structure or or a concrete plan on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. This happens. We don't, I don't know. We don't have it. Yeah. Was that the answer that you were looking for?

I wasn't looking. I was just curious what I never really heard anyone to ask him that before. So I was just curious what you would answer. But I do think we're very 50-50 to Luke's point. Just whatever needs to get done. One person's willing to get it done, even if it's not our normal job. I don't know. I just. One time I did put clothes on the laundry and the washing machine and she asked me not to do that anymore because I did it wrong. But okay, so I'm out on the laundry. But other than that, I'm pretty much with you. But I also think we both grew up. I mean, you had just talked about this the other day because I was like, his dad's not doing retirement very well at all. I was like, why isn't your dad doing retirement well? Because he has hobbies like he likes to fish. He has like, you know, things to do. Like he didn't like live and breathe by his, you know, profession. And you talked about how you're like, well, after dad would get done with, you know, being on automatron. we'd go out and we'd rake hay at night. Like, and he'd work till, like, in very different manner, but my family grew up, we did a lot.

Like, we did not. And it's almost to a fault a little bit, right? Where it's like you have to retrain yourself of like, my value is not what I get done at a day. Like, you know, worthiness, some stuff there. But like, I just grew up on a family where it's like, you weren't really sitting around you were, where you were doing a lot and a lot was expected of you.

And I feel like you also kind of grew up in that same household. And we'd probably trim that down to, like, have a normal household. but I just think we grew up as like doers. Like, you know, it's just like, we both just like wake up. We wake up early and we know what we need to get done that day. And then however we need to manage it and balance it. And if it's him going to be gone all day to get whatever done is on the ranch and the rest of everything, you know, falls on me for that day. Fine.

And if I have to be gone to do an event that contributes financially to our family, Luke figures out how to make it work at home. Like it's a very 50-50 relationship of just being like we have a goal and we're going to do whatever it takes to accomplish that goal together. Like we're just very aligned on that. I like it. I would say that's very. I love it. I mean,

it's not like a really helpful tip to people, but like that's just how we work. That's just what goes on in our place. What do you think is your guys' strength as like your marriage? Like are you guys just great at communicating or you guys great at? I think we communicate well. Like what's your, what do you think like you guys just do really well?

Just like each other. Yeah. I do. I think we married the right people. A lot of people don't marry the right person, you know? Going back to your broken relationship, you made a good decision. Yeah. I think we communicate well.

Yeah. We have a ton of fun together. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, sometimes when it is busy, I'm like, just hop on the side by side and let's just go check cows. Like, let's just go bounce around and put out salt mineral. Throw the kids in the back with a, you know, a pop and let's just go dink around for a little bit. And those are just kind of times when you just kind of take a breath and you still got something

done and you kind of reconnect, you know, or I don't know, you just, a few times just got to step back, but. Yeah, I just, I think, I remember your brother asking me, like, why did I marry you? Or like, what are your favorite things about my brother? You know, it was like one of the first times I had met Nick and those were his questions. He was interrogating you. Yeah, he's a lawyer, so, yeah, she was on the stand. Um, and I just, I think one of the, one of my answers was that we were brought up fairly similar. So I just felt like it was always easy. We saw the world the same way.

We kind of had, I mean, not like an indoctrinated way where it's like we have these crazy beliefs that we both align. But it was just like we kind of came from similar families of like financial backgrounds and experience of parents and different. Like we just were brought up similar where we didn't have these like stark oppositions to like figure out how to meld together. And I think that's maybe one reason why our marriage works so well too. because it's kind of like we have a problem with so our teenage we went through some rough teenager

years right and it was never like he thought we should do one thing and I thought we should do another and so we needed to fight over how we were going to parent or we thought you know that actually this was what's wrong and the kid wasn't wrong or we thought our kid was wrong and this like we just always were like yeah that shouldn't blah blah blah and this is how we're going to solve it and okay perfect and then we just you know like we've just always been very aligned and I would say personally we're always like we see the world kind of in the same way and then also professionally like we both, again, have like, we're not battling where I'm like, I just want to do nothing. And Luke's like, I have these big grand goals of being an entrepreneur. And it's not opposite where I'm like,

I want to do all these things. And he's like, you know, lazy or whatever. It's like we just kind of always have the same gas that we want to apply to the pedal. And we're like, our drive, our cars like somehow always pointing in the same direction too. And so I know it's not a helpful answer, but I really think it comes down. Like I get like marrying the right person so that you're not like, you know, I said like religion was important to me. We both, like, we both raised our, we wanted to raise our kids the same way. Like, intelligence. Like, I met a match that, like, I knew on an intelligence level, I wanted.

She was a very formidable opponent, intelligence. You got to be careful. It's like, life is easier when you're doing whatever it is you're supposed to be doing, you know, next to a person that is like, you know, I don't know. What if you waste of that energy fighting about stupid stuff? Like, think of all the production that takes away from any of your goals or things that you want to do. Well, so I did that I got mad at Luke the other day. I was like, you always say you need more jeans,

but you have so many jeans. You just don't keep your clean jeans separate from your dirty jeans. Like your dirty jeans pile, your work jeans just keeps growing. And I like kind of harassed him about it. He's like, Natalie, we have so much more else going on in life to worry about this right now, you know? And I was like, We need to worry about jeans right now. I was like, damn it, you're right, but still could you like at least work on putting your dirty jeans?

Yes. Like, do I need to put a barrier there? Do I need a label? It's like, no, don't worry about my jeans. Just get to work. I love it. No, I think you're, it was really good. Alignment seems to be the key.

Pick the right person and be aligned. Yeah. That's really, that's really key. What does pass in this whole ball of wax you guys are building together? What does passing it on look like? What do you, do you want your kids to take this thing on and carry it on the next generation? is that what you're doing this all for, you know? We ask ourselves that a lot.

What are we doing this for? No, we're not. It's, you know, it's my dream. It's her dream. Yeah. So, no, it's not. I mean, what I'm trying to say is if they don't, I won't feel like if in 20 years or 30 years,

if they don't want to be involved in the operation, I don't feel like I'll be just like my life was wasted. I built this for you guys. No, we're doing it for us, you know. I mean, we love it. So that's how we want to spend our life. Um, secondly, I've just, and everybody has been around so many operations where they try and, um, have children work together. And ultimately, if even if it's siblings that can get along,

the cousins, ultimately it never works. So that's another, I mean, there are some operations out there. Very, very, very, majority of times that. Very, very few. So I would be really hesitant about just trying to like set up this mega thing. We're like, oh, all the boys just join it together in your thirds and it'll be just, Peachy King. So I do want to work with my kids. I do enjoy it. You know, Jackson's they show their little four-ed-chefers

and they get to keep them back and that's fun. You know, those kinds of things. So if that grows into something more great, but I think I'd be pretty cautious about just like just like, you know, you have to and you can't force it. And you can't force it and it's got to be fun and then you can't, you just have to set it up for success.

I feel like there's so many situations that just, it's just, it rips apart families and it doesn't need to, you know, and I'm lucky. My sister lives in Minneapolis. My brother lives in Spokane, and they have their careers and we have good relationships and they come back, you know, a couple times throughout the year, but they're really not involved in the operation, don't really want to be involved in the operation. They kind of understand that, you know, what I do with my parents is kind of our thing. And that is just wonderful. But you also built the operation. I mean,

it's a little bit different if it was like pregenerational. Yes, with my parents help, though. I mean, they helped. But, you know, it would be different. And my brother was like, well, you know, on like half the land or something my parents have. I mean, that would be, that'd be hard or the house or whatever. So, um, that's my take. I guess we haven't gotten that far in life really to discuss that.

So yeah. Well, we've kind of like dabbled around it of like, I think it's interesting being, because we're technically like first generation, right? Like we, I mean on our website, I think we say like first generation ranch pulling like, you know,

knowledge and work ethic. You know, some plea our slogan from, you know, our fourth and fifth generation roots, right? Like we've obviously had exposure to agriculture, but our operation is like a true first generation operation. So it is interesting to think of that balance of, okay, if it is just for us, when can we

let off the gas and just kind of coast and enjoy life? And if it's not, you know, how do we get it to a point where one could come back and it could be a financial lucrative thing for them to come back to? And so it's been interesting kind of navigating as we scale and grow. It's like, how much more do you grow and do you need to grow? And, you know, I think there are some unanswered questions there. But again, we're also very aligned in that like no pressure. I mean, our oldest right now is, you know, thinking about becoming a pilot. Like he's very interested in, you know, as we flew in here in a little plane. Like that's something he really loves. And we're encouraging and fostering, you know, that passion. And same thing for our other two.

If they grow up and they decide that, you know, staying in small town or it isn't, you know, what they want to do, we, we would never for it. We would be okay. Just, you know, I don't know what we do. But, you know, that our goal isn't. I mean, it's, weird to say our goal isn't to build generational operation because our goal is to build a generation operation. But if they want it. Yeah, it's just it's it's a really interesting kind of thing to like get into those conversations and start navigating. And I know speaking, you know, from, you know, I said earlier that my parents, I didn't think I'd return to agriculture. I think it is a really nice gift that my parents gave me. They, they encouraged all four of us, their daughters for all four of us

girls to go out and get a degree and have something else. And I think they did that partly, you know, to Luke's point that we would always have, if we did come back to agriculture, we would always have something else to fall back onto. So it was a beautiful gift to us. But I think it was a gift to themselves too, because they knew that if we did come back, it was by choice and not out of like, well, this is just what I've been doing. I graduated. I didn't go to college and this is my only option. So I'm stuck here on the farm. And so it just worked out really where my parents were like, you go get a degree in something you enjoy. And if you choose that, you choose that. And if you don't, we know that you chose, you know, to come back to the operation. And I think that's probably our

approach with with our ranch. It's like we will encourage our children to chase, you know, whatever passion and education it is they want. And if it loops back to the ranch, we'll do everything we can to make that work. And if it doesn't, you know, we, we're going to sell this. Yeah. And we're going to retire nicely. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. No, that's awesome. I, I ask people this question a lot, but, you know, this industry, it's a very rewarding life. It's a, it's a life where you got to control your own destiny, but it's hard. There's a lot of, there's a lot of hard times that come with it.

But why in your guys' mind, you feel like it's an industry worth fighting for and staying in and sweating and crying and bleeding for? Like what, what makes you love agriculture and being in rural America? Why do you fight for it? I mean, I just love cows. Yeah.

I absolutely just love being around. cattle and a cow herd in a ranch in particular. Luke hated to change a baby diaper, but no problem, you know, putting his hand right up a cow's behind. Completely different to him, you know, the manure. I am just happy around cows. So I, for me, it was just so simple. Yeah.

I might add, we didn't talk about this, but you guys ranch in some, when people hear Nebraska, they, they think I-80 Nebraska, flag. You ranch is some of the prettiest country anywhere in the country, let alone the state of Nebraska. It's, you know, when you grow up with something, you don't appreciate it, it's kind of weird. But we just had people down from Canada yesterday. I did a tour with them, and they just couldn't believe how beautiful it was. And I had people from Montana, like producers not that far from Natalie's family. And they're like, oh, my gosh, it's so beautiful.

I'm like, you have a ranch on the Rocky Mountains. Like, you think this is beautiful, but you just don't appreciate it. But it is. It's a very, you know, unique area with just the hills and rough hills. And it's sometimes it's harder, but it's, it is. It's a great place to live. And we have a great community, which is also very nice, right-sized community we feel like. And obviously I had a, you know, a good time growing up there and living there wanted to return there.

Yeah. What about you, Natalie? You kind of weren't out of it. And then you came back. Why do you think it's an industry worth living for it? Yeah, I think like the most important. role always have as being a mother and a wife. Exactly.

No. But I think for me it just, I couldn't think of like a better way to raise a family. Like I just, I really, I don't know. And maybe it's because I grew up in it, right? You know, I think they're obviously marrying into agriculture is maybe a little bit different of experience than like growing up into it and marrying back into it. So I know I loved my childhood and the way my parents raised us. I feel like it's a like it's just the way I you know looking especially you know because tad um you know he

would have been you know he was going kindergarten through fourth grade I think um in bozeman right in a bigger city and so sometimes you don't know what you know when you're in it but like looking back now I'm always like man if I had never met luke and state in montana I wonder I think I would have moved out of bosman by now like I think some things would have clicked for me and stuff so um yeah I just I really love, I really love the lifestyle. I really love the flexibility to affords our family. I love how much time we spend outside. I know some people don't love how much time they spend with their spouse, but I love how much time it allows like Luke and I to spend together like we're, we eat family breakfast as a family. You know, Luke will come in if he's been out earlier. If, you know,

it's a slower day, he'll wait until we, you know, eat and then go out. And so it's like we get to have, you know, these multiple meals with our children, which some families don't even have, you know, one at the end of the day together. And so, you know, So I just think there's like speaking of like the greatest goal is to just hopefully raise three, you know, good humans into the world. Like I just feel like agriculture like really helps you do that in a lot of different ways. So I think that's why I love it. I just love.

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. No, that's great. That's awesome. No, I love that. I love those answers. Those are great. I think, I mean, I feel like it takes a special person to say, I'm going to dedicate my life to this industry,

especially with the way things are going and how the world looks. It's not the easiest thing to be in, but there's so many benefits to like what you guys say. So I'm always curious to know why people love it and why they fight so hard for it because it can be really challenging sometimes. Well, and I think you protect me from a little bit of that. Like sometimes I think Luke carries a little bit more because I'm not in like the day-to-day operation and even the numbers, right?

Like we outsource. We have, you know, someone else who does our accounting and things like I'm not, you know, a lot of the wives will do books. different things and I'm like, I'm not, I write the checks, but I'm not like, you know, doing spreadsheets and balances and stuff. And sometimes I think like you carry a little bit more of that like stress and burden and like protect me from it. So it's like, I feel like I just get to live this really great lifestyle and like don't not, you know, don't carry some of the stress and to your point of like the hardships of it because I think you sometimes protect me from that.

Yeah. Which is very nice of you. Hopefully you don't have. That's a gold star for you. Yeah. Honey? We're broke. Yeah. Omaha. You know, what do you think about Omaha? You guys are doing a damn good job. Well, I think we're going to finish this thing out with a segment we like to do on the show every episode. It's called Tip of the Hat. So who's someone in your life or something you use on a daily basis or a brand or anything that you want to tip your hat to and say,

these people, this person, this brand, this thing, they're just doing it right. and I want to give my flowers to them. It doesn't have to be all three. It can just be one, but... I don't know. You go first. Oh. Well, I'm going to selfishly plug Red Ants Pants.

So any women listening, tuning in, even men, we say we make pants for women, but self-assured men as well. But they're basically like, you know, our founders started us before Carhart. So when I say they're like Carhart, like, you know, they're women for Carhart's, before there was a women's car heart.

So they're just good, durable workwear for women who are tired of having to be squeezed into men's sizes when we're shaped differently. So it's a really good product that I really, really believe in our pants. I love our pants. Ever since I've joined the company, I mean, I should have done it before, but now I'm wearing them right now. I should have, I wear them when I ranch with Luke. Like, I'm not in sweats anymore.

I'm not in athletic shorts anymore. Like, I'm actually out there in, you know, ranching attire now. So I believe in the product. But behind that, behind the good product, Sarah, our founder, she created a really, she's just, it's just a really cool company. She's created a foundation that pours back into women in rural communities. They do rural grants. They do work skills for courses for women. She has a mentorship program for teenage girls to pair with, you know, someone in their juniors in high school to pair with someone in the community.

And so I'll tip my hat to red ant's pants because back to our, you know, some of our conversations of not doing things right. she really, our founder really cares about a good product, but she also really cares about the integrity behind that and behind running a business and putting your money back into things that matters. And so not every business does that. And so I always, you know, I feel very fortunate and proud to now work for a company that does that and be a part of it. Yeah, that's awesome. We took some equity in it.

That's how much we believe in it. Cool. Yeah. I love that. What about you? So I would just say, our community. And when, you know, I'm selling bulls and I'm up there on the block. And it's everything from my parents to people that are watching online, to my high school buddies that don't work in cattle production that are serving the food and the drinks to the guys that work their butt off every day that are in the back bringing cattle to all the customers that are there that day.

Like that's just a community of a couple hundred people that I could call for anything at any time. And I feel like they could do the same for me. and I love people. I'm an extrovert, and that is just an awesome, awesome group of people from several different areas that all combine.

And so yeah, I would just tip my hat to those friends. You know, I consider them friends. And so I guess I've never been to a bull sale. They usually start out with the producer, giving kind of like a welcome speech. And last year,

Luke was practicing his speech. and he like had it. He wasn't going to share it with me. And then it might even even been like the night before or something. He was like, well, okay, how about I just aren't about you? And you give me your thoughts, you know? And I was like, okay. And normally they're pretty short and sweet. And Luke was like, and I want to thank, you know, my three buddies that are behind them. And it was, I was like, okay, we're about seven minutes now. And you are right. There are a lot of amazing people in our community that are helping, you know, but maybe we could just say what you said there. Like maybe we could just say, and thanks to the community here to support us. And we could cut about five minutes

of this because, I mean, he literally was just singling out, like, person after person and job after job. And it was very kind thing to do. But I was like, we are going to lose them all. We're going to lose everyone there. We have got to cut this down. It is a really good thing. You ran this by me because we really need to change your welcome speech. And I still messed up. But it's nerve-wracking when you're up there. Let me tell you. But it's a cool view of just like what I was just describing like you know you you don't want to get emotional anything but it's it's a really neat view to look out and just see everybody and and and the people that are working and yeah it makes you appreciate a lot of stuff those are some good hats to tip we appreciate you guys making the

trip to do this show today one last time where can people find you to support you on your journey yep if you're a cattleman i would say head to our website cabore at cattle company um you can sign up for our bull sale catalog there. Luke's number is on there. Call me. Yep. Text to me. It's best to call him. He loves it. He'll pick up the phone from any unknown answer. I screen literally people I know. If it says spam potential, I'm like, potential. Maybe not. There's a chance. This guy needs a bowl. Yes. Yeah. So if you're a producer, I would say head to our website or call Luke. You're interested in, obviously, a podcast person. So you're purchased in my podcast. It's Discover Ag. And we're on, you know, you can find us

where you tune into podcasts. And then if you're just interested on, I guess, the personal side of Luke and I, that would be my social handles for Natalie Caboric. Awesome. Awesome. Well, it was an absolute pleasure, guys. Thank you so much. We're so grateful for the invite. Thank you so much. Of course. Of course. Well, guys, if you got any value from the show, share it out with the people that you know, leave your view on Spotify or Apple. We love you guys. We appreciate you. And we'll see you back here next week for another episode.