Barn Talk - The Day I Lost My Dad And The Day I Almost Lost My Son

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

Tork's dad lived to 99, flew fighters, practiced law, and paid for a farm. In July 2018 he fell down the basement stairs, and Tork brought him home to die in the same house he was born in. No guest this week. Sawyer and Tork each picked three days that changed their lives, and this is all six. Tork sat up alone that night giving the hospice doses every few hours, and his dad passed around 5:30 in the morning. The first year he went to the gravesite about once a month, by himself, and bawled most times. He felt guilty grieving a man who had lived to 99. Sawyer was 12 when he rolled a four wheeler at 60 miles an hour, ruptured his spleen, and spent seven days at the University of Iowa. In 2001 Tork was out of hogs, setting trusses on a 2,400 head finisher near Wayland, when a phone call changed his whole life. The part most farm guys never say out loud is what comes after. When your dad goes, nobody is coming to save you. Every field and bin site has a memory. You don't want to be the generation that screws it up. And now Tork is tearing out the hog buildings his dad put everything into, and he feels guilty about it. Also in this one: how to know she's the one, the 10 percent days in a marriage, why it gets easier to quit the second time, 380 yards of concrete and a trip to Texas Roadhouse, the boss who taught Tork to stack equity, and the Market Update with copper near a record. Some may be bigger, but this'll do. What day changed your life? Drop it in the comments and we read them. 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: ● Conterra Ag ➱ https://www.conterraag.com ● Propane Farm Research Program ➱ https://propane.com/farmfunding TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Just Dad and I, and prayers for Dougo Larson 03:14 Breaking outside the ag echo chamber 04:30 7 inches of rain in 10 days, harvest on hold 06:14 Market Update presented by Conterra Ag 10:48 The fuel price trend is not your friend 11:51 We need term limits, whatever side you're on 12:40 Three days each that changed our lives 13:51 See us at Gateway Farm Expo and HayCon 14:47 12 years old, a four wheeler, and 60 mph 17:12 A ruptured spleen and internal bleeding 20:59 The nurse who tapped the doctor's shoulder 22:32 "Four wheeler injury? He'll be all right" 26:24 July 11, 2018, the day my dad died at 99 28:52 Bringing him home to the house he was born in 32:38 What they don't tell you in the brochure 33:47 Nobody's coming to save you now 35:59 Every field and bin site has a memory 37:43 Guilt over tearing out Dad's hog buildings 38:37 How a farmer is supposed to grieve 42:28 Great American Farmer at the funeral 44:21 Some may be bigger, but this'll do 45:06 Why I can't pick the greatest day of my life 49:22 Summer of 1991, the first "I love you" 53:13 How to know she's the one: make her mad 56:18 The 10 percent days in a marriage 59:29 Why it's easier to quit the second time 1:00:26 Trajectory days vs grind days 1:04:40 The first Shopify notifications 1:07:24 380 yards of concrete and Texas Roadhouse 1:10:19 A phone call on a hog barn roof in 2001 1:13:03 The crazy guy who took that job 1:15:55 The boss who saw opportunity in risk 1:22:23 What day changed your life? 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 #perc #gateway #haycon #EP219 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 just a host-only show, just Dad and I. We haven't had one of these in a while. And we've built a good team this year. We've made some strides in that department.

So our guests are coming every other week. Basically. Hot and heavy. Hot and heavy. 2026 is booked up and 27 is already starting to look pretty cool. So it's a big credit to you guys for sharing the show and leaving reviews and telling your friends about it because the caliber of guests that are making it to the barn just amazes us every single day. But we still love doing our host only episodes and I know you guys do too. So we want to fit these in as much as we can. Before we get started today, I want to say that, you know, a friend, of the show, Doug O'Larson, if you guys haven't heard, he got in a four-wheeler accident or an ATV accident, and he is, he's been in the hospital. He's, he's in, he's been in pretty bad shape for a little bit, but I think he's holding his own. He's holding his own. He's getting over the, getting over the hump. And I just want to say, for any of you that, um, pray or, or believer, I would just, I would just say, I think it's all good for us to have them in our prayers, the Larson family in our prayers, pray for Duggo because he is a heck of a good guy,

great farmer, great father, great person to just, that's doing good in the world. And I think that we need more Duggos and more people like Duggo. So prayers to the Larson family. I also want to give a big shout out to you guys. You know, we always start to show with, you know, share the show with the people that you know it really helps us out but you know we've been reminded in the last few weeks of just how impactful that actually is of how how far the show has grown out and i'm not just talking like inside agriculture in rural america there's there's people that tell me they go to a

party in charlotte north carolina and a commercial airline pilot listens to barn talk or somebody's on a flight going to Florida and somebody from Miami is watching barn talk on their phone or they listen to these guys in a barn in Iowa on their on their phone you know and they love they love barn talk and it's like I just appreciate you guys so much you don't know how much it truly means to us that you share the show because without you guys none of that would ever be possible and I think we're getting to the point now with the show that we're one of the few I think we're one of the few and I've been been told this. We're one of the few like ag or rural America shows that's kind of broken outside of the

echo chamber of just talking to the people. Yep. That are in that community. Like there's a lot of ag creators out there that only ever talk to other ag people. And that's great. We got, we got to talk to one another and we got to share ideas. But I think it's also really important that we, we talk to the, to the world. We talk to the rest of America, the people that might not know a lot about agricultural

to rural America, they learn what's going on. And that's a big, big credit to you guys to share that with your friends, your coworkers, whoever, to get it out to the masses of of America and the world. So thank you. Thank you for that. We had a couple examples that we were told this week. You appreciate it. It's pretty awesome. But I'm not going to go into my whole spiel. That was kind of my spiel for today. If you want to help us out at all at Barn Talk, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter. We're trying to get to 10,000 newsletter subscribers. Join barn talk.com is how you can sign up.

It's completely free, just talking about what's going on in rural America and giving dad nice thoughts on it. So how are you? How are you, Kingpin? Bright-eyed. Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed. Yep.

Not getting much done on the harvest side of things. It's been raining every other day. I think we've had seven inches of rain in the last 10 days down here in southeast Iowa. hasn't rained didn't rain yesterday might have rained a little yesterday morning but uh we didn't get any rain overnight chance of rain today yeah so uh not you know plenty of time to uh just scratch your head and think about uh when we are going to get something done scratch your nuts yeah a lot of that you got to lean it on a shovel you got to do that a lot yep uh i catch you we're not

bath night's not until saturday so yeah that's why you that's why that's why that's why that's why that air smells over there. Well, the economy's going to pot, so we've got to conserve water and electricity. So we might have to go back to that. Takes a lot of soap. Takes a lot of soap probably for you. Oh, well, maybe that's what I'm missing. I don't know. Anyway, I thought hot water just got it done. Anyway, I'm doing good. Good. I'm doing good. I'm doing good too. It's a good. We're shooting this early in the morning this morning. Falls, my favorite time of year. It just smells different, feels different. It's not too hot.

But yeah, I'm a little over the rain. But, hey, can't complain. I think the crop's made, though, right? The crop is made. If anything, it's going, it's probably deteriorating just a little bit because some of these guys that have had a lot of water were getting a lot of mold, a lot of rot,

a lot of stock problems. And I think that this, I think that this crop, you're not going to want to mess around. Once you can get in the field, if you can get her out, you better because I don't think these stocks are going to hold up. But anyway, I guess that's a nice segue. I should probably do a market update.

This market update, by the time you get it, hopefully these prices are way cheaper than what they are. But it's going to be a day or two because we're trying to get a little bit ahead of the game. So corn for December, 535, July of 27, corn 559. Local, the JBS feed mill and Hedrick must have run out of corn because they've got a $4.96 bid, so help out the Brazilians.

They need it. And locally, feed mill around here has got 474. Beans for November, 1320, July of 27, 1351, and ADM and Burlington's got 1273 if you're still cleaning out the bin. Kudos for you for having beans left. unprice because you you probably were really kicking yourself and now then you're like, eh, not too bad. Bean meal, $360 a ton, wheat for December, 728.

October hogs, $797.97. Short-term hogs been kind of getting beat up a little bit, but May of $27, $91, so it's looking better if you get out there a little bit. Cattle for October, $220, $100, weight. feeder cattle 33385 crude oil uh 106 dollars this this thing in this thing in the middle east just will not i i don't think anybody knows what's going to happen there uh i don't think the magic eight ball can help you on that 30 year treasury the fed voted to uh raise rates a quarter of a point uh that helps no one either way that's just a that's just a token for somebody to get up and say

they're doing something, you know. That's kind of like when you're standing around, you're standing around doing nothing, the boss comes by so you grab a broom and start sweeping. That's about all that amounts to. 30 year, 5.36, the 10 year, just shy of 5%, 4.99. Bitcoin, 76,000, gold, $4,340, silver, 57 bucks.

And I threw copper in there because copper, I don't know if this is an all-time high, but I'm pretty sure it is as far back as my little computador would go, $6.46 is the all-time high. So for all you guys out there that have remote bin sites, you better lock those breakers good because the meth heads, they're going to be going after the copper again. Tesla $356.20 and I threw Caterpillar in there. uh cat is backed off a little bit share price of 781 bucks but i hadn't thought about this but there's been a big run-up in cat partially because data centers because every one of these data centers has

got a pile of generators and cat manufactures a lot of them so uh they profit quite a bit from not only that, but because if you go to any site that's being built, it's full of cat equipment. So the whole AI data boom trickles down to a whole lot of industries. But anyway, that is today's market update, bright and early, sponsored by our good friends at Contera Ag. Those guys are up bright and early every day, wanting to help farmers. They're looking to get control of their finances. Buying land, buying hunting land. They work in leasing. So if you have the need for capital in your business,

if you're looking for a second opinion on a lending, on a lending situation, get a whole of our good friends at Contera. Go to contaraagag.com. Thanks for the market update. That's a good market update, Torque. Good job. All right.

I think my work here's done. You can go through the rest. You just get out of here. I'll just go. I wonder if they got pie at the diner. They probably do. They probably do. You know, I'm tired of filling up my pickup truck.

I was getting old pretty quick. You know, I talked to a guy at the gym and he was like, you know, I get down to like a quarter tank and I'm like, I'll just wait another. I'll just try to wait as long as I can to fill up. But I'm like, I don't know, dude. I don't know if that's going to go the way that you want it to go. It might go keep going up.

Yeah, I think we're in a trend right now that fuel. I mean, there's probably an episode coming just. about this because we don't we don't have a problem with supply in the United States. The problem that we have is that the rest of the world

is going to be short and the price at which we can export both oil, gasoline, natural gas, and diesel fuel, it's just going to drag the price up. You know who I think's got the answer? Not me.

Mitch McConnell. you've seen him getting out of his minivan getting rolled into his minivan getting rolled into his minivan getting rolled out of his minivan yep they're oh boy i it's it's quite the seat it's somebody i saw a meme that he was in a tube of formaldehyde that's how they're carrying him back and forth to keep him preserved yeah oh man yeah these politicians i tell you what it's it's they got to go it's oh man we got to the term limits i don't care what side of the aisle you're on We got to get some damn term limits. It's embarrassing.

It's embarrassing. And with this whole new technology world we're heading into, guys, we got to get some people to know what they're doing. We got to know. They got to have some sense of technology, you know, they can use technology. Yeah. He doesn't.

He doesn't. I don't know if he can use his. Anybody that tells you to fax them. Yeah. They need to get out of there. Yeah. That's true. They need to get out of there.

Well, today it's not going to be a hot topics episode today. Today is going to be a deep one. So we, we've all had days in our lives that were meaningful days or hard days or great days that all taught us something or stuck with us. And dad and I are no different. So today, each one of us have three days that we've written down, wrote down that have made an impact on us that have stuck with us and that have taught us something. And we want to share them with you so that we can hopefully hopefully you learn something from our lessons and are the days that we've been through.

So I'm going to kick things off and I'm going to tell you about a day when I was 12 years old. I was 12 years old, young and spry. Is that the day we adopted you? Or you picked me up from the gypsies? That's what you liked. Was we 12?

I thought you were younger than that. Torque always likes to say that they got me from the gypsies. Yeah. Yeah. They had a deal going or something. and picked me up. So had to make a trade or something. No, that's not true. You needed free labor. Is that what it was? Well, yeah, I mean, we should have gotten, in hindsight, we should have gotten like a pair of Samoans instead of you, but that's all right. Yeah. You've done all right.

I feel like I'm doing okay. Anyway, 12 years old, young and spry, no cares in the world. It was sixth grade year going into seventh grade. So we were going into middle school football. I remember, hey, thanks for sticking with us. Dad and I are going to do a little bit of speaking on the road this year on the back end. Back in. So Q4, we're going to be at the Gateway Farm Expo on November 18th through the 19th. So come out, get your tickets at Gateway Farm Expo. Dot org.

We're going to be there. We want to meet you guys. We want to shake hands. We want to put on a good talk for y'all to hear. And we're going to be there through the 18th through the 19th. And then we're also going to go to Vegas this year in December, December 10th. through the 11th, we're going to be at HACON. Jesse Bounds, event that he puts on each year.

He's a friend of the show, been on the show a couple times, and you can get your tickets at hacon.org. We're excited to meet you guys. Get your tickets at those two sites. We want to meet you. We love you guys. We appreciate you. And now let's get back to it.

Football was my biggest passion in life at that point. We had just got all our football pads and our helmets because practice was going to start in a week. And I was inviting all my buddies over to my house to have a football scrimmage in the backyard. We were going to, we were going to just smack pads and play football and have a good old time and, you know, start grinding it out, start practicing before practice. And so my first buddy shows up, and he was my best friend at the time. We had a ton of fun on the farm. We had a four-wheeler, a Polaris sportsman. And we drove that thing like a bat out of hell all over the place. We loved

driving that thing, drifting that thing, ramping that thing, having fun, just like any young kid would do. and we were waiting for my other buddies to get there. So guess what we did? We got our asses on that four-wheeler, and we started running our route. We had a track that we made in the yard. You could literally see the grass where it was dead because we had ran it so many times.

You would get on the four-wheeler, go from our house, ramp the ditch, go around grandpa and grandma's house, come on this straightway and drive as fast as you could back down to start the whole thing over again. And so he did it a couple times, and then I got on it, and I did a couple times.

there was the time where I ramp the ditch, go around grandma and grandpa's house, come down the straightaway, and we're hauling ass. And for some reason this time, I vividly remember there was a metal, there was like a, like one of them old school flower pot things in the yard

that I think blew in the yard at that point or something. And I don't know if I tried to avoid hitting that or what made me lose control, but I ended up losing control of the four, wheeler. So we, luckily, we both jumped off the four-wheeler before it, like, started a roll, and we both jumped off when it was going probably 60 miles an hour, and both rolled, tucked and rolled, and I had road rash all over my face. My buddy had road rash all over him, and the four-wheeler starts riding up the side of the wall, the retaining wall, because it's going so damn fast.

But when I'm laying there, I realize something is not right. Something is just not right. I start moaning in pain. I get up. We instantly start going into the house. My mom's freaking out. I walk in the door. I start spitting blood up onto the table. And I have this excruciating pain in my stomach. And so my dad comes home and we load up in the car and we drive to the hospital. And I was white as a ghost, pale. And basically they found out that I ruptured my spleen and I was internally bleeding. And that if I didn't get that fixed, and repaired quickly, I was probably going to internally bleed out. And so they put me in the, put me in ambulance, hauled my ass up to the University of Iowa, and got me taken care of. So I was in a hospital for seven days. I couldn't get up for six of those. I think I got up on day six finally.

And I was in a neck brace for the first two days. I could only have ice chips for the two days. I was basically stuck in a hospital bed for two days. for two damn long. And all of that to say, my biggest lesson that I learned from that was that life is very precious. And it can turn on a dime.

Like your life can turn on a dime and it can, shit can happen quick. And so I would just say to anybody out there, do not gamble your life away. There's decisions that you can make that are smarter than others. And the one that I made was probably not very smart. I probably shouldn't have been going that fast.

I probably should have been wearing a helmet. And I'm lucky I didn't die because that four-wheeler easily could have rolled on top of both me and my friend. My friend luckily didn't have any crazy terrible injuries. But yeah, I missed the entire season of football that year. I couldn't play football on the playground. I really took away my love and my passion for entire year because of the stupid decision that I made. And if you don't have your health, you don't got nothing.

Like, that's all you care about. When you have a health problem, anybody that's ever had a health problem, you know if you got that health issue, if you're battling something, that's the only thing that matters to you to get right and figure out. Because dealing with pain or dealing with something like that,

you just can't get it out of your head and you just want to be back to normal. And so I would just say don't take your life for granted. Don't make dumb decisions. Realize how precious your life is and how quickly it can turn if you make a dumb decision. And that made a real big impact on me at 12 years old. And I didn't probably fully grasp it as much as I have now that I'm older and I've looked back or reflected on it. But yeah, that was that was one of the, those days that wasn't the best, but it did teach me something. And I don't think it was best for the entire family either. I think everybody was a little worried. How are you and mom holding up on that situation? I was probably better than your mother. I remember, one thing I

remember kind of, this episode is brought to you by animals. How far would you go when someone threatens everyone you love. Who can you trust? From Academy Award winner Ben Affleck, Animals stars Affleck, Carrie Washington, Jillian Anderson, and Stephen Young. When a Los Angeles mayoral candidate's son is kidnapped, he and his wife are pulled into a web of deception, forced to make choices that could tear their world apart. Watch Animals only on Netflix on October 9th, rated R. A couple things I remember vividly about that is when we got you to the ER in our local hospital, they checked you out and they didn't really find anything wrong. They were mostly worried about broken bones and they checked. I don't remember everything they checked, but you know, you kind of checked out. But the longer

you were there, like, to me, you were starting to look like gray. And, uh, The doctor was talking to us about something, and one of the tests they ran or an x-ray they did or whatever, they got the results back, and this nurse comes in, and the doctor's talking, and she kind of puts the paper in front of him, and he doesn't pay any attention, and he just keeps talking, and so the nurse taps him on the shoulder, and he still keeps talking, and then she really taps him on the shoulder, and he looks down, and he's whatever, was on there and that's when they realized that you had ruptured your spleen and he just looks up and he goes oh you're going you're going for an ambulance was it an x-ray or was it an MRI MRI because they wouldn't have unless it was an x-ray and they realized none of my bones were broken then they were like

oh this is like internal yeah i i don't i don't know which it was i can't remember your mother would know but anyway at that point the doctor's whole demeanor changed and the other thing is that from the time we got that diagnosis all the way up everybody that we came in contact at the U it was pretty like it was pretty somber and it was pretty serious and we didn't really know what was going to happen and we didn't know how serious your injury was or really what the prognosis was

and I remember being really stressed out and your mother was very stressed out and when they took you to surgery, we got to where they would wheel you back, and your mom and I were with you, and the nurse, the ER nurse, or the surgical nurse, she comes out,

they hand her the file, she opens it up, and she looks at me, and she goes, four-wheeler injury? And we go, yeah, and she goes, he'll be all right. and they just wheel you in there.

And that was when I realized, you know, there are some advantages to a hospital like the University of Iowa. The way she said that, I just realized that obviously this was not their first rodeo. And it's a little scary in the fact that they had seen so many injuries like that

that she was able to look at your chart and just assume that it was a, that it was an ATV injury. But then she had, had, you know, she was like, he'll be all right. And then from then on, it was a lot better. But that was, it was pretty scary. You, you never, like, that's something that as a parent you never want to go through is the, you know, and people that deal with their kids having childhood illnesses and cancer and leukemia and stuff like that, that would be incredibly hard.

but anyway, we got through it and you ultimately got, you didn't lose your whole spleen. They ended up cotterizing part of it. Coils. They have coiled it. So I don't know. You have half of it anyway. Yeah, I don't know how much percentage of my spleen I have. Enough that you can function.

You don't have to take antibiotics and all that. Right. Because that was the big concern. If you lose your spleen, you basically have to be on antibiotics. I think it's, I don't know if it was iron. I don't know if I had to take on. I don't know what it was. If I didn't keep enough of it or whatever.

But you made it. I made it. I made it. And maybe that's part of the reason I got Vitaligo. I don't know, randomly. Could be. Maybe that caused it. But two things I remember specifically from that story was when they rolled me into surgery

and I got it done, they rolled me out of surgery. I didn't recognize. I didn't know this in the moment because I was obviously looped up. But dad told this, her mom told them. the story of they were, you know, just going on and on how, how polite I was in surgery, because, you know, I was looped up and I was probably just trying to be, you know, nice or whatever. I was 12 years old. And they're like, you got such a nice young man here. You guys should be proud. And dad goes, dad goes, yeah, it's because we beat him. I'm like that there's,

there's an example of dad's sarcastic humor that there's a time and place for it. And that wasn't it. That was probably not the ideal, ideal time to say that. The nurse wasn't as, she didn't find it as amusing as I thought it was. She probably wasn't pretty, it wasn't impressed, was she? That was kind of my go-to with both of you, people would say, you know, that you had very polite children. And then, you know, because I'm not very good at taking a compliment, I would just say, well, that's because we beat them.

Yeah. So. And the other thing that I remember that story is I remember when they did put me in the ambulance, he's like, have you ever driven to Iowa City in 10 minutes or less than 10 minutes? I'm like, no, he's like, well, you're about to. Yep. And they just hauled ass up there, which was, it was kind of cool. But anyway, that's one of those days, though, for me.

And so, yeah, a lesson there. Don't, don't, be smart. Don't make dumb decisions. And I'm all about living, living life to the fullest. But there's a line that you can cross. There's a line that you can cross. And it's just take it for me. It's not worth crossing that line and losing your health.

you know, or end up dying because of something you do. Yep. Anyway. I kind of, I don't know if these are in order or not, but I suppose this is probably one of the more recent ones. And I don't know. I can't say whether it's had the most impact on me, but it's definitely made an impact.

And that is July 11th, 2018, And that's when my dad passed away. He was 99 years old. And it started a few days before that. We, my dad was in really good health for his age. You know, obviously he was getting to the point that he was pretty feeble. But he and my mother lived on their own. He was 99.

Yeah, he was 99. I mean, he could get up, do everything that needed to be done, took care of him. We had home health care that came every day and helped them with whatever they needed. But then at night, they would go home. And we lived just across the yard. We, you know, I don't know, 50 yards from where our houses are very close to one another. And so I would go up there or Tricia would go up there, check on them every evening. and we, however, had left.

We had to go to NPIC at Wisconsin Dells that week. And while we were up there in the morning, just before the home health care lady showed up, for some reason my dad decided that he was going to go to the basement, probably to check on the dehumidify. because that was one of his rituals for years and years. And he got to the landing and fell and went down the stairs and hit his head. And then the home health care lady came in, found him, got the ambulance.

They got him. They took him to the U. And we got the call that he wasn't in good shape. and we came back from Wisconsin, and I called my brothers. And I want to say that was two days before. And he wasn't, he was conscious some. I talked to him a little bit, but he was headed downhill. He wasn't going to recover.

And so we made the decision to bring him home. he had been born in that house. So the house that I live in now, both my dad and my grandmother, both were born in that house, and they both passed away in that house. And my dad obviously had it at that point, but I knew that that's what he would, that he would want. So we got that all figured out with hospice and and they brought him home by ambulance and we had a hospital bed there and everything and so um we got him in like that the afternoon of the of the 10th and my oldest brother and his wife got there my middle brother he hadn't gotten there yet i don't think he didn't actually get there till the day after i think but anyway. But anyway,

way, everybody, you know, everybody gathering around and we reminisced and talked and all that, and he was in and out of consciousness, but mostly not, I would say very little was he conscious. But something that if you haven't gone through this, you just, you don't realize it. And I think hospice people are very nice in the way they. present this to people, but when you have someone that's fading like that, they give them, they give them drugs every, I don't know, three hours, five hours, whatever. And one of the drugs they give them is morphine, and I can't remember what the other drug is, but basically, it slows their heart. Obviously, the morphine is for any pain. They're not in any pain, but the

other one, you're basically killing them is what you're doing. That might not be technically right, and I've had people say to me that, you know, oh, you shouldn't think of it that way. But they gave us the home health care, the hospice nurse came in, and she administered the doses to start and showed us everything and told us, you know, what to do and all that. and everybody went home back down to my place. And hey, thanks for sticking with us. This has been a good one.

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I set my alarm and woke up every so often and gave him his meds and like it, I don't know, 5.30 or 6 o'clock in the morning on the 11th, is when he passed. And, you know, that, that's just one of those things that it, I don't know if I want to say it haunts me because obviously, it's not like he was going to recover from that. And he lived a very long life, good life and all that. But, you know, that's not something, that's not something that you just, that's not in the brochure. Let's just put it that way. And so when you go through that, it really changes your perspective on things. And for me, that's one of those moments where, you know,

at that point I was making all the decisions anyway, as far as the farming goes. And my parents, you know, they relied on me to make sure that everything got paid and that, you know, this worked and they got to their appointments and all that. But it does not change the fact that when you lose your father, at least for a man, and I assume for most women, their mother is probably this way. It really changes things because you, that's very final and it's very like, okay, what did he say? And you start trying to remember the stories and remember the things that, you know, whatever.

And at first you can't remember anything in the moment because it's all kind of a, it's all kind of a blur. but that was that was a moment where you know it's like okay well you're nobody's coming to save you you're the man you're the you're the father figure you're the boss you're the it's all on you now and uh you think that you're ready for that but i don't know if anybody i don't know if you really ever are i think it just kind of hits you and uh you know i'm really lucky in the fact that that we had the time together that we did, we worked together for a long time, and, you know, it's all part of life. But anyway, that day will forever kind of stick in my mind as a day that, you know, my life definitely changed. So, yeah, I, I feel like it's one of those subjects

that not a lot of men can talk about. And I, when I think about you passing away someday, it makes me it can bring tears to my eyes just thinking about it because i don't know what the fuck i'm gonna do well you probably be mad and the reason you'll have tears in your eyes is because you will have hit me with a shovel and you feel guilty about it jeez you're terrible see there's that sarcasm i was talking about uh but i just i think what makes that so hard and what you said and i haven't lived this obviously but just observing it's like you have the sadness illusion your dad and the weight of that. But then, like you said,

you got that weight of, okay, the pressure now is, well, you are the man of the family. It's on your shoulders. It's your unit. You're running this show now. You got nobody to consult. Because you, like you said,

you were making the decisions, but you still, it's still nice to have your dad to go talk to about things or get his perspective on stuff. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And so that's got to be really hard.

And I think the other thing, that makes it really hard is, you know, there, and this is part of the reason why farming, this is why we fight so hard to stay farming. You know, this is why you fight so hard to keep your generational farm going. It's because everything that the past generation touched, like every field has a memory,

every bin site has a memory, every tractor has a memory, every tool has a memory every every hog barn has memories of that person doing work with you there doing work with them and you you still use those tools you still drive that equipment you still go to those places you still farm those fields and so you know you you think about it a lot which is a blessing but it's also pretty hard too i would think yeah i was just talking to uh steward henry about this uh friend of mine from from indiana that we're both the same we're both about the same age and we're both six generation far well he's six generation i'm fifth generation you're the sixth but um you know he's

like when that happens everybody's kind you've you'd have perceived i don't know if it's really that way, but you feel like everybody's looking at you because you don't want to be the generation that screws it all up. And, I mean, that just comes with it. And so, you know, I saw a quote, somebody said that a lot of family traditions are nothing but a curse from the grave, which it was supposed to be a little comedic. But there's a lot of pressure that people put on themselves from past generations, which the past generation doesn't care because they're not there, but you perceive it to be upon you. And yeah, you're right. I mean, like here, there's so much stuff that, you know, my dad had and his, his actually, like my grandfather had that, you know, we still have.

And we're getting rid of all these old hog buildings if it ever stops raining, the old concrete. And it's crazy, but I almost feel a little bit of guilt about it because when I think about my dad kind of put everything he had into building those, that was his future. And we used them for a generation and now then they're you know they're obsolete and we're tearing them all out and there's a little piece of my childhood uh growing up and working in those and my dad's life worked somewhat in in that so yeah it's hard but you know that's part of life is some of it is doing hard things so do you still feel connected to them though like yeah that's one of like how did you like i don't think people talk about it but how do you how do you get through that like how do you

grief it? How do you, how do you like move past it? I mean, not to go this, I'm not trying to be a snowflake, but mental health and men and like grieving and talking about shit doesn't really, that's not on the bucket list. That's not something you're told you can really talk about. And so I think there's a lot of guys out there, specifically farmers, that you bottle it up inside or you don't have a way to cope. It's, you know, it's tough. So like, what worked for you? Like, what helped you? Well, I mean, the first thing is I feel like, I think I'll always feel a little bit like a connection, like I didn't really lose all of my father because my father's so ingrained in what we have here.

Like this barn, you know, he built 51. And there's all the things that, and like the path I walk, if you walk from my house, where I live in my parents' house now, if you walk from that house, to the machine shed. My dad walked that with me thousands of times. So you have comfort in that. But, I mean, the first year that he was gone, I probably went to his grave site once a month, at least probably once a month, with nobody with me. And I probably stood there. I probably stood there and talked to him and probably bald. Oh, every time I went. maybe not every time at the end, but yeah, I mean, you, it's a weird deal and it's hard.

And the thing is, you know, my wife would love to, she wanted to be there for me. And, you know, women process things differently than men. For the most part, their way of processing is talking about it. Like, you want to talk about it? Well, you know, I probably didn't talk about it as much as I should because it's like there wasn't anything to talk about. And I almost felt guilty, you know, grieving about it. The man was 99. I mean, he lived an awesome life.

He how many, I mean, there aren't that many people out there and there's almost none left now that, you know, he was a fighter pilot. And he was a lawyer. And he raised three kids. and bought a farm and paid for a farm and, you know, he doesn't have any regrets. I'm sure if you, you know, if you asked him, he didn't have any regrets for what he'd done. So on the one hand, you just almost,

when Tricia would want to talk about it, it's like, well, there really isn't anything to talk about. It's not like I, you know, it's not a tragedy, but it's my own personal, you know, it's almost, I don't know, it's just something you've got to, to work through on your own because you still miss him and you still miss the connection and and all that but yeah it's i think i don't know i think i just worked through it with being knowing that knowing that he would take comfort in the fact that we're doing what we're doing and the farm's going on

and uh you know i think i think he'd be proud of us for what we're doing and so So you just got to go on. Yeah. Yeah, one thing I remember from that day was when, I don't know, I believe you were the only one there when he passed. But I remember when we all were still up there, we played. What song was that? Oh, American Farmer. Great American Farmer.

I remember playing that. And that just got everybody because. Yeah, we played that at the wedding. Sorry, the wedding. in the funeral. That was just such a, that song, I mean, that's just an embodiment of just him and all of that. So, yeah. That's one of those things that. So like, what's your biggest lesson from it, like take away that you left with it that sat with you that. Well, I think my biggest takeaway from, from my dad is one, he was. He was.

content. He was content not because of anything that anybody else told him he should have or that he thought impressed. Like he did not give a crap about impressing anybody, I don't think. And that confidence, that was just something about him. But I think the lesson is that all this stuff is just it doesn't really matter at the end of the day. Death comes for all of us and live the best life you can live. But it's much more about finding your own contentment and building a life for you and your family, not for status. And, you know, in the end, all you got is,

all you got is the memories of the people that you shared life with. It isn't about the stuff. And sadly, it takes a lot of stuff to live. It takes a lot of money to live. But that's really not what it's about. So, and I think, you know, I think he, I think he embodied that. He always, you know, our farm kind of motto, this will do farm is culivated to yield contentment. And he would say some may be bigger, some may be bigger, but this will do.

That was the this will do thing. And so, yeah. I think just do the best you can with what you got. Brung what you're wrong. Or what is it. Run what you brung. Run what you brung. Yeah. So this will do.

Yeah. You got a better day? I got some better days ahead. But yeah, I appreciate you sharing that because I know it's not the easiest thing in the world to share. So, but I think it would definitely resonate with some guys and probably help them a little bit. So my next one,

you could say it's a little bit tied into what you said at the end there. And you might say that this is, a cop out. But to me, I was trying to sit back and think about like, what's the greatest day of my life? What was the greatest day of my life? And like, what are those, what is that day? And I really sat and I thought about it and thought about it. And I couldn't pinpoint like the greatest day of my life. But what I could think about was I've had a lot of great days. And the one reoccurring very to all those great days are or is that there are people around me in those memories, in those days that I love that I got to share it with that made it a great day.

And I think that that is like dad said, you can go on the extravagant trips, you can go do the cool experiences, you can do some awesome stuff, you can buy some great things, you can achieve great things, but if there's nobody to share it with, it really doesn't, it's really not that great.

And, you know, like some of the best days of my life are, like Storm and Kinnick Field after we beat Penn State with all my buddies, going and spot and lighten coons or squirrels in high school with my buddies and having one of the funnest nights in my life, playing cards in the barn, playing cards at get-togethers with people and just talking and bullshit and playing cards, weddings that you get to go celebrate your friends and everybody's there and you have a bunch of fun.

Like that, those are the great days. Those are the days and the reason they're great is because you have people around you that you love and you get to share those memories with. And I know that that, you know, whatever, say what you want to say. But like for me, and maybe I'm just, maybe there are people that can have insanely great days

and they don't have to be, with anybody else. They can just be by their self and they classify that as the greatest day of their life. But for me personally, I think it's exactly what you said. All this shit, it doesn't matter if you don't have people to share it with. And I can just say that all my great days that I've had in my life came because I shared it with people that I loved. That's what it comes down to. It was enjoyed with the people that I love. Or if I, if I shared, I accomplished something great. I was doing it with a team of people or a group of people that we all worked hard.

We all embodied the grind. We all pushed through the suck together to achieve the goal that we wanted to achieve. And achieving it with a team of people or a group of people is a hell of a lot sweeter than just achieving something by yourself, I think. Seeing everybody else's reaction and seeing everybody's else, like it's just, it's different. It's just 100% different. And so that, again, call me a cop out, whatever, but I just couldn't think of a day. I couldn't think of one day that I was like.

You shouldn't have had the greatest day in your life yet anyway. Yeah. I mean, it should come later, I would think. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, there's just not a day that just stands out from the rest. But I would say the ones I've had that are good. It's because of people.

It's because of the people in my life. And that's the way it should be. Absolutely. So that's awesome. I think that I, all my days, like I could have picked a lot of different. It's good that you gave that because, you know, to pick out individual days, all those days,

there's a reason why we picked them, but a lot of them that you would pick would be what I'd call, like, stepping days. days that your life took a step. So like the next one that I'm going to give you is, and I don't remember, I honestly don't remember, I am pretty good at remembering a lot of dates when it comes to my time with my blushing bride.

But I don't know the exact day of this. But it was sometime in 1991 in the summer because it was at a party that I was having at my house, which meant that my parents were gone, and my parents never went anywhere. So kudos to my oldest brother because I'm pretty sure they were in Colorado at his place,

and that's the only reason they were gone. So I did what any young man should do when your parents leave you alone. I threw a party. And I don't think anything got... One door got broke, but we made up a very convincing story about how that happened

and nobody got in trouble on that. But I was dating, I was dating. This 1991, we played softball in the summer, and I had started farming with my dad at that point. Kirkwood Community College had told me that even if I paid, they didn't really want me to come back there, which that's a whole other story.

But anyway, so I was home. I was dating. I was dating my wife. And I'll never forget. we were downstairs in the basement playing cards and I came upstairs and she was sitting at our kitchen table talking to some girls and I came up behind her and put my arms around her and she turned around and I gave her a kiss and I told her I loved her and I think that's the first time that I told her that I loved her and that was that was when I knew in the back of my mind that, okay, this is probably the one that I'm going to marry. And I could have picked the day that we got married. I could have picked the day that you were born or your brother was born or whatever.

But the reason I picked that day was because that's one of those days that if you look at everything that we've done now, none of that would have happened if that wouldn't have happened. And it's that ripple effect of, you know, that wasn't, obviously that wasn't a chance meeting, but that was where I think the decision was made. And if, if Tricia was here to speak for herself, she's a little more camera shy than us. So I don't know whether that will ever happen. But I think she would say that she knew at that point, too, that this is probably how we were going to end up.

And so, you know, all the accomplishments and the kids and experiences, if I wouldn't have that experience, I don't think we would have had any of the rest of them. So, yeah. How's that for a deep? That's a good one. Do you have any, you got any tips on, knowing when you found the right one for any guys out there?

Like, is there anything internally that you think or is there a feeling? Is there? Because I think there's a lot of guys that are like, well, shit, I don't know. I think I found the one. I don't know. I'm 28 years old. I mean, shit. Yeah, I probably should get married.

Yeah. How do you differentiate the societal pressure versus just like, no, this is actually what I want? Well, I think. that this is kind of, and this is, this is, I've given this advice to a lot of young, a lot of young men, a lot of your friends, I've given this advice to, and you included, it's like, when you find a girl, when you find a girl that you really like, the best thing you can do is to really make her mad because, and I don't want this to come off the wrong way because we're all crazy, okay, I'm going to say, we're all crazy. You're in a pet coon. I am, but women are crazy. They're all

crazy. And what you need to do is you just need to find one that at her peak of losing her mind over something stupid that you have done, because you're going to do a lot of stupid things. You just need to find one that at the peak of her anger towards you, you can look at her and go, yeah, I think I can handle that. if you can handle that, then that's probably, that's probably a good sign. And if it's beyond and you're like, you're afraid for your life or head spins around or, you know, of certain level of violence happens, then you need to say, no, this is not, this is not the woman for me and you need to move on. Yeah. Because you're going to do a lot of stupid things. I mean, I'm over 30 years into this. Men are stupid.

They are. We're, we make rash decisions and we don't always think things through and, and, yeah, it's just hard. The other thing is, it's like, so you had pissed her off at that point enough. I think I'd already had. Yeah. And you were like, I think I can deal with this. And in her defense, I should have probably tried harder because I did things, I did a lot of things way worse than any of the things. I'd done to that point to piss her off. So I didn't, I needed to, I probably should have gone a little further, but that's, you know, we've, we've made it, we've made it this long. It's important, if you're a person, it's important to have somebody that shares the vision that you have. And I, I guess I don't know, because when you're young, obviously your vision changes, but I think

common morals, common ideas of how you know, how society works or what your goals are. In other words, if you're a guy that you know that you're driven and you're going to work your ass off, finding a woman that is driven and wants to work her ass off

and has no time for a family, that could work for you. but usually I'm not always and I know people that are this way but usually somebody has to play the supporting role because if you're both just driven you're both just going to be exhausted

and neither one of them you're going to have enough time for the other one and here's here's probably the best this is the best way I've ever heard this explained there are going to be times in your life and times in your marriage where you only got about 10%

for what you can put towards that relationship. And you just need somebody that you can be honest with that when you come home after whatever the day is, that it may not be their turn to do the dishes or cook or whatever, but you got to be able to have an honest conversation of, like I got about 10% and that's it and they're going to have to carry you. And likewise, there's going to be times

that you are not going to want to have to do everything that needs to be done to keep everything rolling but your partner, your wife is going to have one of those days and they're going to be shot and you got to be able to carry them. And if you can't do that,

it doesn't matter how common interests are or anything like that. Like, you have to die to yourself. I don't care how hot they are. I don't care. All of that shit, that all goes away because I don't care how good looking somebody is. When you got two crying kids and you've, every pair of sheets in the house and every towel in the house is dirty because they've been puked in and you're sick yourself,

you ain't caring about how good your wife looks in a swimsuit or out of one. It's like, that's work. So it's like, who is going to help each other out? Who's going to carry the boats? That's right. I mean, it is. And so I think that's the most important thing

is being able to have an honest conversation and being able to... I think what you said about diet. to yourself. Yeah. If you both can die to yourself and care for one another and actually show that you care and have empathy for one another and... That's very important.

Empathy. I think that's the biggest thing. If it's a pissing contest or it's a keeping score contest or whatever, it's your shot. And hey, I'll tell you what, here's, and I'm not, I have not, I've never been divorced. there are people that I know that have gotten divorced and gotten remarried and the deal that they got out of, they absolutely probably a good thing they got out of that. No, absolutely they needed to get out of that.

However, I also know people that have threw in the towel and said, done, can't do it. And they have found somebody else, and they basically have gotten to the same spot with that person that they were in with the last person and the same thing happens and it falls apart. And here's the problem. The problem with being in a relationship with somebody, marrying somebody, and then quitting on it is the second time.

It's a lot easier to quit the second time that it is the first time. And the third time, if you get to the third time, you probably better look in the mirror because in my favorite Kenny Rogers line of all time when Kenny Rogers had been married like, I don't know, five times Barbara Walters interviewed him

and he said, you know, after the fourth one I thought it might not all be their fault and I thought now that's that's a man right there. 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 Siaia 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.

So just know, it's not always their fault. Yeah. So anyway. Very true. Sorry, I didn't mean to turn that day into a. counseling session. But hey, we went there. Yep, we did. We went there. We're full service here. Yeah. You got all kinds of good advice up there. Yep. I can't write you any of you a script, but, you know, I can give free amateur psychology advice. Yeah. Okay, the last, last day for me is,

I would like to say it's, they're called trajectory days. And dad talks about this, and he's kind of, This concept kind of came from him. And it's this idea that there's just days in your life where you change the trajectory of your life forever. And progress happens. There's a lot of boring, mundane, monotonous grind. Grind heavy days that you feel like nothing's getting done. You're doing all this work, but you don't feel like.

there's like light at the tunnel or you're going to break through this glass ceiling and you're going to have this you're going to have what you want it just feels like man we're so far away but i keep i keep hustling i would just say keep hustling because you can't have the trajectory days unless you do the grind days but when those trajectory days come where you make a decision or all the work that you've done got to you got you to a point where you were able to accomplish something or launch something or do something that changes your life forever for the better. Those are some really awesome days that are worth celebrating. And for me, you know, I talked about it on the, on the, when we did the age of 26 deep episode a few weeks ago. You know, when I,

when I decided to get on social media and buy a camera and look like an idiot and everybody around me was kind of like, what the hell are you doing? Like this is, what, what is this? You're going to post yourself on social media and vlog and look like an idiot on camera. Like, what are you, what are you doing? When you, when you step out and say, I'm going to do this thing because I have enough, enough conviction in myself to know that this is the right thing to do and that I think that it can work if I just, if I just step out and do it and stay consistent with it. And when you bet on yourself like that and do something like that. And for you, that can be anything, right? That can be stepping out and getting your health and check. That can be stepping out and running a marathon. That

could be stepping out and starting a side hustle. That could be stepping out and starting a business or whatever, right? But when you do that and then you get traction and you stick with it and it works, that builds more confidence in your side yourself than anything else. will like taking a chance taking a risk betting on your your conviction your abilities in your mind of what you think needs to be done and you do it and it works that's what builds real confidence that's what builds the mindset that you know the world is abundant and i am optimistic that we're going to figure this out and i can do hard things and i i can do things and i can do things right i can do stuff i can i can i can i can mold my life into something that i want to do obviously

you got to take in gods you got god's with you on the journey and that's something i think a lot of young people forget or driven people forget is yes you can try to mold and you can try to force your will upon your life but you also got to take into account god's plan for your life as well so i will say that and that's something i learned in my mid 20s uh that i didn't probably have in my early 20s but for me it was like build my first hog barn, starting YouTube from nothing with just an idea and it turning into what we do today. Not knowing shit about how to build a meat business or start a meat business, doing everything that I needed to do to learn how to start a meat business and doing it and it being relatively successful. Yes, there's a lot of stress that comes with all that stuff. Yes,

there's a lot of up and down moments and there's a lot of emotions that you go through with trying to achieve anything or go stepping out in any way. But when that concrete gets poured on that hog barn or that those videos that you've been posting 30 videos and none of them get shit for views, but you finally start to get views and traction on your YouTube channel. Or you sell that first box of meat and all those Shopify notifications come through your, come through your Shopify app after you built, launched your brand. That is a trajectory. day that is very, very sweet. And that is what you do all the work for. That is the process. That is the journey. And I would just say, those are what are going to build you into a confident,

optimistic, abundant person. And it doesn't always go your way either. You have trajectory days, but you're going to have days that you feel like you're going backwards. You feel like you're going backwards too. And that's just part of the journey, right? But, man, and something I would say is if you're a young guy, young person out there, I struggle with this to this day, but enjoy those trajectory days more. I have a hard time, and I know this about myself. I struggle with enjoying the journey. I need to enjoy the journey a little bit more. And I need to enjoy those trajectory days a little bit more of like, hey man, you stepped out and did something. And you have a day of really good progress where it's very sweet.

Enjoy that a little bit. Savor those wins along the way because there's going to be more work for you tomorrow and the progress always needs to happen. And if you're one of those people like me where it's just like on to the next thing, that's great. But like you got to enjoy the journey a little bit, you know? And that's, I'm giving almost advice to myself here. But lesson in that is, man, go, if you got a dream, go for it.

In those trajectory days, there's nothing sweeter. There's nothing sweeter. When you take a risk, take a gamble, poke your life, poke your finger into life and build something, make something, and it works. That is a very, very fulfilling, joyful, sweet day. Yeah. And I have a number of those. I don't have a lot. I probably have enough to count on one thing, on one hand. But man, those are memorable days. Yeah. Those are memorable days. And that comes from you. I mean, you kind of, I've thought that over. But I mean, you, you kind of put that in my head when I did build my first barn. You kind of said, this is one of those days, Sawyer. This is one of those days. You know? Yeah. Well, that, so the first time that we, we coined that. that was the fall that you built your shed and old Dennis Dua poured the floor. We finished the

floor. So we poured 380 yards of concrete that day. And I remember because I told you, I said, I said there are a lot of days that are just mundane and you don't feel like anything happens. and then there's days that you know now that, you know, things are going to change. And it's like, well, when you put 380 yards of concrete in a hole, you're not going backwards. And I think we went to Texas Roadhouse. I said, you know what? I said, we need to go celebrate this. So we went to Texas Roadhouse.

But, you know, that was a day that you knew that that was a trajectory day because everything was going to change. But then there's days that you don't even realize. because when I think about now, if you look back to the very first episode that Barn Talk ever did that we shot up here in February of 2021, we had no intention of putting that episode out. We just hooked everything up and said,

let's see if it'll work, and then we did it. At the time, we did not think of that as a trajectory day, but when you look back now, one, the fact we put it out is pretty cool because it'll be there forever, you know, as long as we don't EMP everything. But, yeah, now you can look back and say, okay, well, everything change from that. And so, yeah, sometimes you know in the moment that this, everything changes from here. And sometimes you have to get a little further down the road to have the perspective to look back and say, oh, yeah, everything changed.

So I'm going to, my last one is actually one of those trajectory days because, and I think, I feel like I knew it. I just didn't have any idea the magnitude of how it was going to change my life. And that was, that was August of 2021. And I don't know exactly what it was. Oh, yeah. Yeah, 2001, not 2021. That was the podcast year. But in 2001, I was work in construction for a guy in Washington building hog buildings.

And I had been through, you know, losing the, getting out of the hog business, giving that all up, selling all this house. I wasn't living on the farm. We, we, I was still living in the farmhouse, I think. Yeah, I was still living in our farmhouse out there, rented the buildings out, wasn't doing anything. with pigs and I was working for this guy doing construction building hog buildings and we were down by wayland iowa and we were putting the roof on a 2400 head finisher that we were building and my phone rang and the guy on the other side of the line i did not know who he was but he's he had a very deep voice and he sounded well he sounded kind of strange but anyway if that guy uh was the

manager of the company that I ended up going to work for, and they're, their, uh, their foreman, their crew foreman, the guy that, uh, ran the, ran the crews, but also fired up all the buildings that all the maintenance for their, for PSI, he was leaving. He was quitting. And I knew this because we had had this conversation in our shop of our little construction company, like two days before that we had heard that he was leaving and my boss at the time made the comment said to me he said did you hear that so-and-so was leaving PSI and I said yeah and he's like man he goes I don't know where they'll find somebody crazy enough to take that job and and I agreed I was like yeah I don't know because they they were known they were building hog buildings all over

the Midwest so I mean it was a big it was a big deal two days later I get this phone call and I remember I took the call and my boss was running the was running the crane. We were actually set in trusses not putting steel on. He was running the crane and he gave me a dirty look and I know because here I was talking on my phone on the job site.

And you know what? Honestly, I don't know why I answered it because usually I didn't but I answered it. And I went, two days later I went and interviewed for the job. and the next day they offered me that job. And I'll never forget, the thing that was that kind of killed me was, I really felt like I owed it to the guy I was working for to give him two weeks. The deal was the guy that was working at PSI, he was done that Friday,

and this was on a Wednesday that I got the news that they offered me the job. And I had to start that Friday. And so I walked into the shop on Thursday morning, and I said to my boss, I said, you remember we were talking about so-and-so? And he's like, yeah, I said, well, I'm the crazy guy that's going to take that job. And he just shook his head. And I said, and I gotta start tomorrow.

And he wasn't very happy about it, but he, you know, we, we're fine today. It's all good. And I had no idea what I was getting myself into. But I've said this before. I didn't realize it at the time. I did realize that it was a big change and it was security for me and my young family. because Sawyer would have only been a year old at that point. And I knew that it was security, but I had no idea that what I was going to actually get out of that job was so much more than a paycheck.

Like, the knowledge that I got basically for free changed my whole life and changed the trajectory of my life and, you know, the success I've had, as far as ag side of it goes, would have never happened if I wouldn't have taken that call on that roof. And that is an example of just, yeah, I mean, I don't know what my life, what my life would have looked like. Maybe there was some other opportunity that would have came. Maybe it would have been better than that one. I don't know. really doubt it. I find looking back now, I, I just find it hard to believe that it would have been because it wasn't the, it wasn't the paycheck that made, the paycheck made the difference in the short term, but it was everything I learned working there that really changed, made,

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He was a really good business man. And he was the one that kind of said, why don't you build some finishers, right? Yeah, I mean, almost from the beginning. So I had a real, I had a real problem with risk. I'd been through the ringer

and I was in debt and young family and And I, well, for one thing, I just, I know that if I would have even brought up the idea of like building a finisher, I don't know what Trisha would have done. Maybe I would have seen that, that level of crazy that I've been like, okay, I can't take this. And she would have had every right to do that because the hog business had not treated as well. But Claude, I mean, he had vision. Like, he knew where this whole industry was going. And he knew that money was getting cheaper and buildings were staying basically the same and the amount of equity you could build. And I had no idea. I did not realize the power of equity and the power of being able to leverage that equity to magnify like taking an asset.

and then having the appreciation and the equity grow as you paid it down, but the appreciation of that asset, and then being able to leverage that to get another asset, to turn around and leverage to get another asset. Like, he was a, he did that like in spades. I mean, the scale at which, the scale at which he moved and grew and produced, money-making assets was like it was just something to watch. And the thing was, he would work with anybody. Like if he saw an opportunity, like he saw an opportunity where other people

saw risk. And obviously he was careful about the risk that he took. But when he took risk, he made sure that he was covered in a way that he, if it went the way that it should go, he profited. But if it went the wrong way, he profited that way too because he set himself up to be able to capitalize on situations that sometimes went wrong. And it was just things like that that I'd never even thought about using capital the way that he was using it. And ultimately, the reason I built my first buildings was because of the time that I spent with him. And, And then it just went from there. And he's, he's, you know, he's retired now and spends part of his time in Arizona,

and part of the time back here. And he's got grandkids. And he should come on Barn Talk and tell his story. But he's kind of a private guy. So he probably won't. But you should come on. You should come on. So.

Yeah, he's a, he's, I always, I always, I'm a, like a founder, entrepreneurial story nut. So, like, I just love that shit. That's like my. I just get so amped up, listen to that stuff, and just love hearing people's story and strategy. That's the beautiful thing about business. It's just like there's so many ways to skin the cat of how to build wealth or build a business

or work this game, building this game, and it's just so awesome hearing people's stories on that. And that's part of the reason we have. Great people come on the show, but you're right, he needs to come on the podcast. And I'm glad that you took that phone call. and I think there's a lesson in that too of like, you know, sees it. When God start, when opportunity comes knocking sees it.

Yeah. Because there's a lot of people that like you let opportunity pass your body. It might have been easier for you to say, oh, well, I don't. Because you heard everybody in the shop say, oh, I feel bad for the sorry son of a bitch that's going to take that job. Yeah. That's the mindset. That's right.

That's exactly right. And then you, and then you were like, well, I'm just going to say piss on that to everybody that's in my ear right now. I'm going to be the crazy bastard that's going to take that job. I mean, I don't know what the lesson is, but I just think like you got to see. If you don't like your circumstance or you're like, I don't foresee myself staying here for a long time, whatever situation you're in, an opportunity comes knocking to change your trajectory. It's better probably to move than to just stay in the sand. I don't know.

maybe I'm wrong in that. But yeah, you're not going to, you're not going to do it 100%. You're going to make mistakes. I mean, you're going to do stupid stuff. I mean, I've been to an AMway meeting. I mean, it's, you have to. I have gone to an AMway meeting. I went to one.

Yeah. I went to one. I mean, when you're looking for, when you're looking for opportunity, sometimes you don't know what you're going to end up with. And then you're like, oh, shit. Yeah. What am I doing? Freaking Amway, man.

But you got it, you know, you got it. you got to get out there and explore. And the other thing is, and a guy that we ran into at Keystone Co-op's deal, I had never thought about it this way, but we were talking about opportunity. And something else that we, I can say that I understand this way more now,

but something that Claude knew or something that was an asset to him is he saw, like he had vision to see ways, see things that became a trend. And that, I mean, that's what the contract finishing was. Like, he saw that early. And he went all in on it. And that's, that is something that, you know,

when we did that episode about trends and common threads that we see among people, I think that is why it is important. Like, that's why successful people are lifetime learners. Yeah. Because they're not only just learning about history or other industries or their own industry, they're keeping up with what's going on

and what's coming down the pipe. And like you said, they can see trends because they're in the know of what's going on. They get out there. They talk to people. They learn. They do all those things.

And in turn, they see stuff that people don't see. Yep. So, yeah. We're not going to bust out any concrete today because the rain just started. The range just started. I mean, it's not bad.

you probably can't hear it, but I just heard it. I'm like, well, I think the Lord's telling us it's time to wrap this thing up. It could be. It could be. Yeah. We're, uh, those are our days, guys. Those are our days. I know you all have had your fair share days that have probably taught you something. So if you have, we'd love to hear it. Comment down below, whether you're on Spotify or you're on, um, you're on YouTube or

if you're on the newsletter or signed up, just email us. What's a story that, uh, change? the trajectory of your life or stuck with you or taught you something. I'd love to, I'd love to hear it. And we just, again, appreciate you guys so much for the support of this show. We have really, really big plans for 2027. We want to do a lot of great things with this. We are, we are grateful that you have allowed us to have this platform. And we want to steward it, you know, and guide it and use it for the betterment of rural America, farming, ranching, rural America business, entrepreneurs, the world, America. And we're going to try our best to use it the right way for as long as we do it.

So I'm really excited for what's coming down the pipe. And if you got any value from the show, share it out with the people that you know, leave a review on Spotify or Apple. We love you guys. We appreciate you. And we'll see you back here next week for another. episode. If you want a $3,000 a month payday for life, what would you feel free to do? Maybe take a long weekend, every weekend, or try a bunch of new hobbies. Would you feel free to upgrade and listen ad-free? Don't worry. We get it. Every $20 ticket could win you $3,000 a month for life and supports life-saving cancer research at the Princess Margaret. Feel free to buy your payday for life ticket today. Raffle number RAF 157-3916. Please play responsibly.

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