Barn Talk - Why Farm Bill Loans Just Doubled

Episode Date: March 1, 2026

Welcome to Barn Talk! In this episode, Tork and Sawyer bring the heat with their Hot Topics round-up, tackling everything from the realities in today’s AG economy to the latest political buzz and cultural shifts. They dig into the newest farm bill, the struggles with rising input costs, and the truth behind government bailout checks. You’ll also hear their unfiltered takes on John Deere’s big equipment reveal, the ongoing consolidation of dealerships, and how automation is shaking up rural life. Plus, stick around for market updates, the “Sawyer Spotlight” covering everything from podcast recommendations to the wild world of dating in 2026, and a taste test in the return of the Whiskey Minute. If you want honest, working-class Midwest opinions on what’s really happening in agriculture and beyond, this is the episode you can’t miss. SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ➱ https://bit.ly/3a7r3nR   SUBSCRIBE TO THIS’LL DO FARM ➱ https://bit.ly/2X8g45c LISTEN ON: SPOTIFY ➱ https://open.spotify.com/show/3icVr4KWq4eUDl7Oy60YMY  APPLE ➱ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/barn-talk/id1574395049 Follow Behind The Scenes👇🏻 ● This’ll Do Farm Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/30KPBNk   ● Barn Talk TikTok ➱ https://bit.ly/3qciekS   ● Sawyer’s Instagram  ➱ https://bit.ly/3BtX0n4   ● Tork’s Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/3LGZJxS     00:00 "Support Barn Talk: Share & Review" 09:44 "Farm Bill Loan Limit Updates" 10:26 Farm Bill Nullifies Prop 12 20:51 John Deere's Profit-Driven Shift 21:47 Dealership Consolidation in Digital Age 32:12 "Co-ops Struggling in Ag Retail" 33:50 "Automation, Profits, and Ethical Questions" 39:15 Rural Farming Struggles Continue 47:48 Farmers Decline Data Center Deals 51:15 Boom-and-Bust Data Centers 58:50 Tony Robbins Coaches Alex Hormozi 01:03:54 "Balancing Skills and Expectations" 01:09:25 "John & Caroline TV Show" 01:14:46 "Daydreaming About Tractors" 01:20:32 "Barn Talk: Real Rural Voices" 01:24:42 "Not Experts, Just Honest Conversations" 01:28:05 "Thanks and See You Soon" ------------------------------- ⚠NO FINANCIAL ADVICE / DISCLAIMER⚠  The Information discussed and shared on Barn Talk is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or success for any particular purpose. The Information contained in or provided from or through this podcast is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice. The Information on this podcast and provided from or through our content is general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented on this podcast without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional, professional broker or financial advisory. Understand that you are using any and all Information available on or through this website at your own risk. RISK STATEMENT– The trading of Bitcoins, alternative cryptocurrencies, NFTs, individual stocks, etc. has potential rewards, and it also has potential risks involved. Trading may not be suitable for all people. Anyone wishing to invest should seek his or her own independent financial or professional advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All of the food we eat and much of the clothing we wear comes from plants and animals that are raised on farms. Farms are different in type, in size, and even in name. Welcome to Barn Talk. What happens at the barn stays in the barn, but not today. We're going to let it all out for you guys. Today is going to be a Barn Talk hot topics episode. A lot of stuff going on in agriculture, a lot of stuff going on around the world in our country. So we're going to hit on those points on those hot topics, give you our opinion on them. but 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. It's kind of the ticket to admission to watch or listen to the show. And we found the best way to grow a podcast is organically through word of mouth. We appreciate all of you that do share the show. And there's a lot of ways you can get value. If we made you laugh, if you're related to us on something, if you learned something, all we ask is you just share it. Another thing you can do to help us out here at Barn Talk is you can leave a review on Spotify.

or Apple, the more that you guys do that, the more credibility you give our show so we can have more guests come to the barn and have great conversations with us and just give our show some credibility. We appreciate all you guys that do that, and we love hearing your thoughts overall about the show and reviews are a good way to let us know what you think. So we appreciate you. I think today's going to be a damn good episode. Something that I'm really pumped about, and I think a lot of Americans are pumped about is the Olympics. I think we kicked ass and took names. And I'm proud to be an American.

It was awesome to see both the hockey women's and hockey men's American teams kick ass and just sweep everybody. And there was a lot of gold medalists on the American side for a lot of events. So it was cool to see that. And I definitely think it brought some positivity to the people of America in in a weird, sometimes dark time. So I thought it was good. It was a good uplifter for people, I think.

It is. Sports is a great uniter. It is a good uniter. It is 100%. And the athletes that don't say that they're proud, proud to be an American, nobody likes you. When you win and you say, I don't know, I don't know if I support everything it means to be an American, we don't like you.

But the ones that say, this is from my country, baby. that we like you. Yeah, absolutely right. Yeah, how are you? I'm good. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I was afraid that maybe you took off and went to Commodity Classic and just didn't want me to go, so you just left in secret.

Yeah, we do a puss poor job of going to trade shows, but sometimes I don't know how these people go. You got all this stuff to do. I don't know how you get it done if, I mean... We're not very good at delegating. Actually, we try to delegate. We turned around and tell people to do it but there's nobody standing behind us.

Yeah. Like somebody, I remember when we did our live event for the first one of live event this year and somebody commented, did you guys even do any work that day or some shit like that? It was like, well, got up and shored

and came home that same night, so it worked for us. There you go. I don't know. There you go. Yeah. We need some minions, but we haven't quite got them yet.

You look tired. Do I need to come over there and slap you in the face? No. I'm feeling good. I mean, you were just late getting here, so I about fell asleep in the chair.

I did text you. I know. And I was like, well, I could go. I was going to run over to one of the hog buildings. And then I was like, no, I'd rather just sit here on my ass. So I got a little groggy sitting there. I almost got into the whiskey, but I thought that would just add to the problem. That probably would. Well, you need to get fired up.

I am fired up. This is going to be a barn burner. There's a lot of good topics. All right. Well, you probably should give them a market update unless you got something snappy to say. No. and the market update is snappy, so I'll start with that. Corn for March, 431, October corn, 467,

and the best bid that I found anywhere around was 419, and surprisingly, it doesn't vary much between the feeders here or Cedar Rapids. Cedar Rapids must not need much corn, because their bid wasn't any good either. Beans for March, 1148, November 1128, locally 1111 and Quincy 1144. Bean meal for March is $318 a ton and meal shipments worldwide hit a six-year high. And I think bean oil is also pretty darn near a record high.

So that's kind of holding the, that's holding the bean market together. The crop in South America, a lot of the, a lot of this so-called experts think it may not be, it's still going to be big, but it's not going to be as big as what they thought they're tempering it back a few notches. So we'll see how that plays out. Wheat 536. Hogs for April, 96 bucks, July 112. Weiner pigs are about $100 a head. So if you have an empty barn and you're thinking you're going to go buy weeners to fill that, I don't know whether you can make money on them or not. And herd health is terrible. I did a little video about that this week. My building, one of our buildings is just a standard

stock. Usually we double stock everything, but the sow unit that we were getting filled out of broke with something. And so they decided to cut me off and wean down and take those pigs somewhere else. And that doesn't happen very often. So I don't think the pig crop is going to be too big this year, and I think that probably is going to keep prices high. And speaking of high, cattle, they're always high. 240 and April feeder cattle is $3.64. Cruit oil, $65,000. Bitcoin, $68,000. The old Tesla stock, $417. Gold, $5,196. Silver's $80, kind of working its way back. And you know what? I threw copper in there, because we're talking about data centers and everything else. Copper is $6, but look at a 10-year chart on copper. It's like, it's insane how much copper has gone up.

And I don't think that it will ever go back, at least in my lifetime. The amount, the demand, the miners, I don't think they can mine fast enough for the amount of copper. Pretty much everything in the electrical field is going to be high because we're going to use it all. So, and 30-year treasury, 4.69, and 10-year, right about flat 4%, and I threw our good friends Beyond Meat in there because somebody actually sent me a message about this the other day, hadn't paid much attention. Beyond Meat is probably going to do a, what do they call that when you reduce everybody's shares.

So in other words, the price is 70 cents, so they're trying to eliminate shares and make fewer of them so the price per share goes up. and they're $1.2 billion in debt. They lost $110 million in Q3, Q4. The year total report is supposed to come out today, but I hadn't seen it yet. And they're probably headed for bankruptcy. I just don't think it's going to work.

I think that ship is sailed. I think people, I think protein consumption is in an all-time high. I think people wanting to know. know where what they want a high quality a source of protein that they can trust and in a world of not a lot of trust and eating a product full of all the I mean it's kind of a perfect storm of kind of what's everything that's happened uh everybody wants to see the nutritional facts everybody wants to look at the ingredients everybody is realizing protein is really important and we don't trust anybody or anything in this world.

And then when you come out with a product that's full of ingredients, it's a new product that's made from plants that we're not really used to or whatever the hell they make it out of. And it's just, and it's hard to trust it. It's really hard to trust it. I think that is their biggest problem. Yeah. And if you can't sell a product like that with protein prices at all time highs,

it's probably not going to get any better for it. It's probably not going to get better for you. The thing is, like, also, wasn't Bill Gates a big spokesperson for your brand? He was an investor in it early, I think. I don't know. I remember seeing Bill Gates. He was always talking about how, you know, we got to adapt and eat not real meat and shit. And when he's kind of the face of that movement, that's also not a good sign that we're going to trust that.

If you crank the reel back a decade or so, maybe a little more than that, I doubt there's many people that thought at the time that he was building Microsoft. that he would end up on the all-time creeper list. But that guy's creepy. And not many people want anything to do with things that he's involved with. Yeah, he's pretty much, I mean, demolished his legacy. Yeah, I think he has. I think he has. He's done it.

I mean, he's done it in a short order. Yeah. One last thing, this came out just as we were getting ready to head over here. But it looks like we are actually going to try to get a new farm bill pass. and the talking points on that came out today. And here's the hot and fast that I got out of it is they're going to raise the loan limits. So operating loans backed by USDA, they would raise the limit to $3 million. If it's a guaranteed operating loan, they would raise it to $3.5 million.

And then I can't remember what the last one was that they raised. raised to $750,000. But to all your hog guys, part of that new farm bill is an amendment in there that kind of nullifies Prop 12. So Prop 12 is the California, whatever that they voted on and passed, that makes all the pork sold in California have to meet special housing standards. And it's kind of played hell with a lot of production. And a lot of guys have actually remodeled, remodeled sow units to be able to do that because that's what all the packers wanted because it didn't look like Congress was going to get anything done. And I guess at this point, I think the point may be kind of mute. But the big thing is, okay, when I sell my business,

I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my head of office has a Forever Center. An IG Private Wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. They don't want it to be a deal where every state can basically mess with interstate trade.

And that was the problem with Prop 12, is you had one state dictating what, was happening other places in the country and they didn't want that to happen. So apparently that's in there. Plant pests now can be classified as a natural disaster. And there's language in there that states now can't, state courts can't reinterpret pesticide labels that have already been approved by the EPA. So in other words, it's going to standardize chemicals across the United States. States to where individual states, California, can't like ban something if it's been

approved by the EPA to be safe. It should streamline that a lot. Probably a lot of other stuff in there, but those are the high points. So today's hot market update is courtesy of our good friends at Contera. Times are tough and margins are tight. And if you would like a second opinion on your farm's finances or finances. Talk to our good friends at Conteraag. Go to contaraag.com and they can help you out. That is the market update. I love it.

That was a good one. That was a good one. Full of good knowledge and insights. Always appreciate it. Always like your, and I will throw in this, because we always get a comment about, you know, the market update and people correct in dads numbers.

We shot this market update on February, February 26th, Thursday, February 26th. So, yeah, we know when this goes out that the numbers are going to be a little bit different. Yes. But that's why we say this is not marketing advice because if you're marketing off the market update, they're probably not doing a very good job. Yeah. This is kind of, it's a little, this is a little bit of an ag-heavy episode because there is a lot going on in agriculture. As we alluded to on the way in here, Commodity Classic is going on. on down in San Antonio. And I think the weather's pretty nice down there. They should have a good crowd. And that's a pretty neat deal.

I haven't been to San Antonio, but I've been to the one in Orlando, and I really enjoyed it. One of the people that made a lot of hype going into Commodity Classic was John Deere. And they had this big reveal. I think they pretty much got every... ag creator, ag creator that there was besides us, because we must be on their shit list. Well, I think we've pissed them off enough. And I'm okay with it. I'm totally okay with it. But yeah, I mean, they got everybody to hype that thing. Yeah. So they, I mean, I'll give them credit. They're leveraging, you know, the new age of marketing better than a lot. A lot of ag companies are.

You know, they leverage, they're leveraging all the creators, you know, millennial farmer, the Hilberts, Laura. No, I don't know. I don't know. I didn't see a little. You don't think she did? I don't know. I didn't see her. I thought she did.

Maybe she did. But there's a number of them that are, that kind of did this promotion to promote John Deere's new reveal of the tractor that they came out with. And yeah, I think it's a smart, it was smart to do that. But to your point of the tractor itself, I mean, I feel like they needed the hype. They needed to bring the hype because everybody's looking around and they're looking at their margins and they're looking at equipment costs. And do people really give a shit about a new million dollar tractor reveal? Yeah. So what they revealed was a high horsepower 8 series tractor.

So I think currently the highest model that they had was a 410, a 410 R. Like there's a lot of 370s and 410s out there. Well, this is a 540. And the kind of the selling points on it is, for one thing, it has 56 volts of electrical built into it, which means nothing to most people. but if you're running a 24-row planner with electric drives and you're trying to do that off of an average tractor today,

you would have to run a PTO generator on the back end of that tractor to generate enough electricity to run that. And this will run it directly off the tractor. So that's a bonus. And then the other thing it has is you can get it with a front fill hose that runs all the way back to fill your tanks on the planner. So, like, you could have a front-mounted tank

or when you pull in to refill, you don't have to, like, try to back up. You can just pull up kind of the way a sprayer does. Now, whether that's worth the kind of money they're talking about, I don't know. But for me, I think the bigger question out there is, I think we're right there. John Deere might be, like,

on the cutting edge of this. But we're really at a tipping point where I think they're pretty much saying I think they're moving in the direction of Caterpillar. And by that, I mean, you've seen the consolidation in their dealerships. I just looked this up. They had, in 1996,

Deer had 3,400 dealers in the years. U.S. and they've cut that in half. The last number I saw was in 2021. They had like 1,544. But the other thing that's really interesting is 80% of John Deer dealers have seven or more locations. And that's higher than any other equipment manufacturer in the ag space. So like Caterpillar only has 22 dealers, I think, of the United States or something like that. I could be off a few, but it's right around there. And I think deer is moving that way. They want to really control their dealers.

And then the other thing is, I mean, here we are with the ag economy where it's at, and they're pushing this kind of equipment. They're also raising prices this year. To me, it really looks like they are to the point where if you're a guy, and you're trading equipment a lot, you're going to have a salesman that, you know, they're going to check on you, they're going to call on you.

And if you're a guy that fixes your own stuff and trades for you stuff, eh, I don't know how much they care about you. And I'm also curious, this tractor will be interesting to see what that does to auction prices of, say, a 410R or even a 370 R because those features are geared towards

big, big acre farmers running big planters and if you're not doing... I mean, that's the main reason people are buying a tractor like that. So, I don't know. See what it does to everything, but I don't think that they're... I don't think they're too interested in in anybody but the biggest segment of the industry anymore. Yeah.

That's my snarky opinion. Well, no, I think it's probably true. I mean, it's the way agriculture's moving. I mean, let's just be honest. It's get bigger die. And I mean, the grain farming side, especially, it's that way. So, I mean, yeah. But I agree with you.

I mean, it's, I don't know how many people give a shit about the reveal that they've made because it's like, brother, look around, look around the economy right now, the ag economy. It's a shit show. And yeah, I get, I get why they put, built the hype around it because they probably needed to build the hype around the tractor. But I just don't know how excited people really are about it because it's tough times right now. I'm more interested in what 30 series deer tractors are bringing at auction than I are about anything new.

And, you know, the other thing about deer is, and I'm, Agco's the same way, K-I-H is the same way, but you got to realize that the only thing, everybody that's driving that ship is State Street, Black Rock. They're the biggest investors in them. They have seats on the board. And the other thing is, you're to the point now with companies like that, that there's no long-term, it's very hard to keep a long-term vision when you are a publicly traded company like that controlled

by the kind of investor that they are because then it's all about quarter-by-quarter results. And it's really hard to have a long-term focus when you have to worry about every quarter. Yeah, and I mean, I've thought about this, but I might have said this to you the other a week ago or something. But, you know, when we talk about all the consolidation

back, I don't know, was it the 80s that there was all kinds of dealers and John Deer made the, they made the decision that they were going to keep their dealers open and everybody else closed them down and they just did whatever they could to keep them open. If that were to happen, like something like that happened today,

Deer would close down their dealerships. Because it's all about, it's all about return. about money, it's all about profit. And they don't, they wouldn't, I think they would go for what's profitable and what's, what's the money tell you rather than what's the long term horizon here of us staying in the game. You know, like if I think if it was flipped, if there's something like that happened today, I think they would, they would totally play it differently. I think that they would use an opportunity like that to accelerate consolidating their dealers. Because I think they realized,

that in the age they're in where you can shop online, you can do so much over your phone as far as remote monitoring. You know, the service part of it isn't, the service part of it isn't as dedicated to a dealership as it used to be. In other words, it's no different than when you see one of these construction, rental companies that have these big service trucks, I mean, those guys are covering huge areas, and they don't bring any of that equipment back to a physical dealership.

It's all fixed out in the field unless it's just a catastrophic failure. And so you could, you know, using that kind of technology, you could cut out a whole bunch more dealers from where they are. and I think if we ever got in a situation where the farm economy really retracted, I think that's exactly what you would see. I think deer sees themselves trying to get way more like Caterpillar faster than any other. What's funny about it is I think that there are some equipment companies that are actually, like they're trying to build dealers.

They would take more dealerships if they could get people willing to. to do it. And deer, I think, is 100% the other way. They want to, they want to consolidate. They want to streamline. Fewer dealers, easier to control, easier to control inventory, easier to control your customer. So I don't think it's, yeah, I don't think it's good for any of us, but I think that's, it's good for the bottom line, and that's what they're most interested in. So, speaking of big ag, uh, sign up for the $11 billion Trump free money, farm money, uh, started this week. Yep, started Monday.

And you do have to go in and sign up. You, you, uh, well, I take that back. I think you can sign up online if you have a, uh, uh, USDA, I don't know, dot org account or whatever. You might be able to do it online, but, uh, you, you do have to sign up. You don't just automatically get it. So explain that to people. What's the Trump free money for non-farmers?

Well, so back when the tariffs, when the tariffs were first announced and, uh, commodity prices were tanked. Congress passed a bill, basically a bailout bill. And there was a lot of talk about this in the news and in the ag media world because if you notice, or if you go back to that time, farmers weren't really the ones crying for this at all. In fact, farmers are rarely the ones that are lobbying for these bailouts. Mostly what it is is seed companies, chemical companies, equipment companies, and banks. Because you can bet your ass that farm credit services and Robo Bank and John Deere Credit and all of those guys, they were lobbying hard for this because when that farmer gets this check,

he's going to be able to pay his inputs he's going to be able to pay the interest on his operating note um and that money doesn't stay and it's not like these farmers are taking that money and put in their pockets most of them are instantly being relieved of that money because everything is is going up i mean your input costs for this year higher than they were last year commodity prices i don't know right now uh beans are mildly better than what they were, you know, a month ago, but not great by any standards, and corn's pretty much flat. So I think most of this money will quickly get, it's a form of stimulus is what it is. I mean, it's just like people were teasing that Trump was going to send

every American a dividend check from the tariffs. Well, this is the same way. I mean, the government basically voted to send farmers money. You're going to sign up for it. You're going to get it. And then all of your, all your suppliers are going to show up with their handout because your cost of production went up this year and they want theirs. Which,

um, look at somebody that's getting a little beat up in the news is Nutrient. I don't know if any of you saw the, the tweets that went out in the, and the photo, somebody was at there at a meeting. And their sales for 2020, went up. So their profit went up 228% in 2025, and their total earnings for 2025 were $2.3 billion. And the biggest, we kind of read into that a little more. And basically what we got from it is

they're saving a shitload of money on labor because of potash mining automations. So 49% of the potash ore that is mined is mined autonomously now or remotely for them. So they're saving a shitload of money on labor and that's helped their profits. But you'd bet your ass are also raising prices. The thing about it is it's not like these companies are struggling. Right. Like the big, big, big ag is not struggling. Uh, they're making money. Uh, the farmers on the other hand that are producing, the need all the stuff to, to produce these products. to feed the world and produce these commodities, I mean, a lot of us,

a lot of them are struggling. A lot of us are struggling. Yeah. And it's just like, this system is, I mean, the way that we're doing things is broken. I mean, it just is. I don't, you call it whatever you want to call it. It's not the tariffs.

It's, it's the, it's the way the system set up. We, we are continually having to buy inputs that continue to rise. We're not the ones lobbying for bailouts. It's the companies that we have to buy our shit from to produce the crop. And it's, I mean, it's kind of, they raise the prices knowing that they're going to get a bailout that's going to come their way. Basically, we're a pass through. Yes. We're a pass through.

And the government likes to throw this out there like, oh, we're going to do this for the farmers. We need our farmers because it's a great fucking talking point that everybody can get behind because, God, everybody loves the American farmer. And we need them. We need them. but it's really not going to go to the fucking American farmer. And that's what the public needs to understand. The people that don't know what, know agriculture and want to know more about their food system

and just show up to the grocery store and have no idea how it got there, those are the people that need to wake up and realize that this is how it's set up. Like, this is the way it is. And it's just continually gets, it's going to get worse because everything continually goes up. These input commodities,

conglomerates are going to continue to raise their prices, and we're still going to get paid relatively the same for our commodities that we sell. And so we always say on this podcast, and we've been saying it for years and years and years, but it truly is the reality of get big or die or create your own market because it's like you either have to farm more acres and yield, get your yields up to justify spending all this money and so you can have money at the end of harvest, or you've got to try to find some way to get a premium or even a guaranteed price that allows you to cash flow your farm.

And that's what it is. I mean, this grain farming thing is, it's a bitch. Yeah. It really is. And I don't know what the answer is. I mean, feeding it to livestock seems like it's a solid move right now, but it won't mean, cattle, it's never been like this. It won't stay like this forever.

Well, the cattle have already tightened up anyway because the price of cattle, if you're buying feeder cattle, given the commodity prices, it's tight, even that's tight. I mean, you're just, you're shoveling big numbers, but the margins tight on that.

And hogs, I mean, like you said, yeah, it'd be like hogs have been up pretty good recently, but I mean, wiener pigs are where they're at now and the disease pressure around us. I mean, if you're raising pigs somewhere that doesn't have a lot of disease pressure, you're probably sitting pretty good. But here in Iowa, it's tough.

It's tough. I mean, you're losing money on a lot of groups probably because if this percentage of them die, you're not going to make money on that group. So I just wish that that would get, I wish we could amplify that message. Yeah. I wish somebody would go on Joe Rogan or Sean Ryan

and like actually not and not just do the the white oak pastures Will Harris where it's like like you just need to turn them all in the dirt yeah it's like this whole fucking fantasy land but like really talk about the reality

of like this is the way that it is right now and it's not working not just because we need to go to regenerative but because this is like this is the reality yeah the one thing Yeah, we kind of glanced or glazed over this a little bit.

The biggest, like, aha out of those nutrient numbers were, their sales for 2025 were up 4%. Their sales were up 4%. Their profit was up 228%. That's, it would be one thing if your sales were up 150% and your profit was whatever. But that isn't what happened. Their sales were up 4%, but their profit was up 228%. And another, this all begs another question because nutrient is an example of like a co-op structure.

And, you know, co-ops were formed. I saw a guy on Twitter that was talking about this. We're getting to the point where, like, some of these co-ops, they're not even going to be able to compete. with some of their former customers, because everybody knows the bigger you are, the better deals you get, because the bigger volume you buy, whether it be seed, whether it be fertilizer, whether it be chemicals, the more you buy, the better deal you get.

Well, there's farmers out there now that are buying larger quantities of product than what some of the smaller co-ops are. So you're getting to that point where ag retail is going to become an endangered species because they're not even going to be able to buy at the quantity to compete with these big farmers. So they're going to become irrelevant. And then the other thing is the margins, everybody is going to try to do everything they can to control their margin.

So if they can buy direct from somebody that's got attention, somewhere that is just, you know, there's no overhead and they're just brokering it. And hell, they may not even hold any inventory. They may just be brokering it from the manufacturer direct to the guy's farm lot. And I, it's just a tough, tough time in ag right now. And I don't know, we don't have to keep it. That metric there, though, about their profits went up that much and they're only, we sales one. I mean, it just shows you how, I mean, everybody talks about AI and automation and robotics and all that shit.

But, I mean, these big companies, not even just an ag, but just worldwide, nationwide, nationwide, whatever, manufacturing, what you name it, mining, whatever, raw materials. I mean, there's going to be insane automation. And their profits are going to be insane. insane because the labor, the savings on labor is going to be stupid. It's going to be stupid. Which, I'm not faulting for it. Great. Do that. That's less jobs though you're given to people.

But also, to me, that's like, okay, then you shouldn't raise. If your profits are that good, then there's no need for you to continually raise input prices on the people that need to buy the products from you. if you just keep automating and you keep making your profit margins better and better and better and better and better and better and better and better and better

okay well then is the goal to really help out the American farmer or is the goal to just make as much fucking money as you possibly can't right that's the question they got to ask themselves and unfortunately I think there's a lot of top companies

like that their mission statement doesn't mean a fucking thing right everybody the people that are in that company are so far removed from culture or a mission or we are doing this for the betterment of the American farmer it is so far removed there is no heartbeat there is no mission statement there is but it's not what you're saying is that their culture doesn't match their mission statement well yeah but they're the way that they operate the business

if that's the way it's if it's truly all your actions point to top line revenue and optimizing for profit and making as much money as humanly possible, but we're tanking American farmers because of we continually raise prices even though we probably don't have to, but we're going to anyway because we just can. Well, is your mission really to help out the American farmer and help them and make their life better and or not, right? Well, and we've talked about this before. I mean, is the way our economic system is in ag working today,

are we moving towards the point where you are just going to see big chemical companies, big seed? And although I don't know, I mean, you're seeing, so Cortovan Pioneer split up, um, uh, Kim China, which owns Syngenta, that deal's not working very well. I mean, they're, they've, they're not doing very well at all. So, but maybe in their case, that speeds up what they try to do. So are we moving to a time where they're going to be the ones that they're going to come, they're going to rent the ground,

they're going to supply all the inputs, they're going to pay the lease on the tractor, and they're basically just going to hire the farmer for a guaranteed flat rate, you're going to make this much an acre, and you're basically like a glorified hired hand. I don't know. And, you know, people like, oh, I'd never do that. I guarantee you there's a shitload of farmers out there to do that because if you can get your seed trip in the winter and your chemical trip in the summer

and your money per acre and you can hire enough, you know, if you automate everything to where you don't even have to worry about bringing in South Africans to run the tractor and you can still keep, you know, you can still keep your, your boat in the Ozarks, you know, why wouldn't you do it? I mean, there's plenty of guys that would be up for that. So I don't know. I don't know where the thing is, I mean, this isn't really fun. It's not very fun right now.

Right. I mean, I don't know. I mean, how do you personally feel? I mean, it's like you talk to people, you talk to farmers. I mean, it's not fun. No. How long can you keep playing this game before it's something's got to give? I mean, something's got to give at some point.

There's a lot of equity that's getting burnt right now. There's a bunch of equity that got burnt last year. And I think unless you see something changed this year, you're going to have more of it. And the thing, I mean, how long? can land prices keep going up? I mean, that's the other thing is you got guys that are that are refinancing debt. They're refinancing short-term losses on operating loans, amortizing it over land, paid up land, so they're burning up equity. I don't know how long you can keep doing that. And it's, it can't go on forever. And I don't know if it'll change.

I really don't know, but I know that, you know, the people that I talk to, the mood isn't great around rural America for guys, especially guys that are 100% grain farming. But, you know, even you would think, you know, you talk about the cattle prices, guys that are in that business, I mean, the margins are tight. And the other problem with it is is access to capital because the cost to replace, if you're feeding out cattle, when you sell them, yeah, you made good money on that batch, but now you've got to replace them to keep feeding them. And if you're the hog guy, you know, yeah, you're making money, but you're making money on how many, what percentage of head are you marketing out of what percentage you ferrode? And if that number gets too far out of whack, it doesn't really matter what you sell those pigs for.

You can't sell enough full market value pigs to make up for all the ones that you lost in the sale unit or you lost early in that finishing stage. And most of them, they're contract finishing. You're paying the rent no matter what. And so I don't know. It's tough. It's tough all the way around.

And I don't know. We'll see where it goes. So I don't know. Trump said the state of the union that, you know, we're headed in the Golden Age and... It doesn't fucking feel like it.

It doesn't feel like it in ag. And I don't know. That'll be an interesting thing to... I mean, I don't know how many of you watch the state of the union. I think Trump, that to me was a master class

in baiting the other side. He knew exactly... I mean, he knew going into that when he asked that question that the Democrats weren't going to stand. and he did it, and it was a great photo op for him, and you can bet your ass that that video is going to get recycled

and recycled and recycled. I mean, he knew exactly what he was doing. I think the Democrats should have been smart enough to probably not play along, but they're just, boy, they just can't get out of their own way, and I think he played him like a fiddle. But as Americans, you go from watching the election,

watching the Olympics and feel proud to be an American, and then you watch that, and you're like... I think you made a good point. I mean, my thing, and I think everybody thinks this, and I've seen people say this, can we go back to a time

where politics was boring? Can we go back to a time where politicians weren't put on a pedestal and look as public figures? And like, can we just go back to when politics and politicians were boring? Yeah.

And it wasn't this fucking feud and circus and show and it's just like it's just like even Nancy Pelosi back of the day ripping ripping the shit behind Trump. I mean, it's just a fucking joke. It just gets to be a joke. It makes you cringe as an American. Every other country and around the world is watching. And I mean, they're looking at us like, we're idiots. It's laughable. It's it's a show. It's a circus. And I just get tired of it. The hardest part, for me, the hardest part is when you see all that that goes on. I mean, these are the people that are representing you that's supposed to have your best interest in mind.

And the truth is, I really don't think we, I mean, we say this a lot. I don't think either side really has your best interest in mind at this point. And so I don't know. I mean, it's hard to even know what to trust anymore. I mean, it really is. It's like, and we talked about it. I don't want to go here, but, you know, last episode we talked about Epstein Files. That was the hot button thing, right?

And we said on here, just give it, give it a month, give it two weeks. Nobody's going to talk about it anymore. Here we are. Olympics has happened. Everybody's forgotten about it. State of the unions happened. Everybody's forgot about it. Nobody's talking about it.

And, you know, there's reports that Trump was in him. There's reports that he's not. And then there's a whole side of people that say that he's not in it. And it's like, are we ever going to really know? Are we ever really going to know if our president was in the files or not? Are we going to know if people that were in the files are actually like, and then you throw in the factor of AI. That's the other thing.

On X, you try looking at content of the Epstein files. You go on there and you're like, I don't even know what's real or not. And especially with AI getting to be the point where it's so good. I mean, it's insane what an AI. photo can be now in a video. And it's just like you don't even know what to trust. And you don't know what to trust. You don't know how to,

you don't know who to trust for your elected officials. You don't even know what media is truthful or not anymore. Well, you don't know. One thing you can count on is that Hillary Clinton is never truthful because she testified, she actually testified. They got,

her and Bill testified. about the Epstein files and she on the record said she doesn't know anything about him and she doesn't think she's ever even met met him. Now how Bill got on, how Bill met him as well as he did

and Hillary never even knew him. That tells you something. But you know, I'll give her a little bit of credit in this fact. I don't think Bill and her have been close for a long time. Oh, no, no, guaranteed.

I don't know if Hillary actually does all know all the extra-curricular activities Bill has been doing for a long time. To her credit, she may have very early realized and just said, that's somebody that I don't want to know. I would like to have plausible deniability, so I'm not going to know anything about what you're doing, Bill. And I am not a Hillary Clinton fan at all, but I'm just saying she probably might not know, actually, because she's probably just come to the conclusion of he's going to be Bill and I'm just going to be me and that's the way it's going to be. Anyway, yeah, I agree with you. It was not a great showing of American politics yet again another shit show. Yeah, I just think nothing. It didn't change anybody's mind.

I thought Trump delivered it very well. I mean, he tried to be, he really. tried to be positive. He really tried to sell the economy. And there are parts of the economy. They're absolutely, absolutely on fire. And most of that is around data centers and technology and AI. But American agriculture, it's not good. I don't know where we are as far as like, I haven't seen the numbers as far as like durable goods, whether Americans are out buying cars and washers and dryers and stuff for houses. The housing market has been kind of flat. We can't seem to get interest rates down. And I really don't know, I think maybe the best we can hope for with interest rates is for them to say flat, because the outrageous demand in building

materials and electrical components and stuff like that going into these data centers, I just don't see how you're going to make prices move down when there's that much demand for that big of a part of the economy. So if inflation, if inflation stays flat and interest rates stay flat, I think that might be the best we can hope for. and so then you get into, you know, maybe the way that the middle class can get something out of this is if that demand for labor pushes wages up. And maybe it will. I mean, I know that in the trades, wages have definitely moved up. So I don't know.

We'll just have to see. but speaking of data centers, that's going to probably become more of a hot topic as time goes on because, you know, these data centers are getting built out like crazy. Like they just are. And I'm seeing it on TikTok. Like when we made that episode about him, like week, two weeks later, I was on TikTok, I was on X.

A lot of people are talking about data centers. and I've what's new about them and how it connects to ag is there's a lot of farmers, a lot of farmers that are getting offered a shitload of money from these companies want to build these data centers to build a data center on their land. And a couple examples, a Pennsylvania farmer rejected a $15 million offer, a Wisconsin farmer turned down an $80 million offer. And then I saw a video of an 86-year-old farmer in Kentucky. was offered $15 million for his land,

but instead he sold the development rights to a preservation trust for less than $2 million to ensure it would always be a farm. Which the video was basically like this guy was, he was an old farmer and he didn't give a shit about the money. He doesn't care about it. It's a pride thing. It's a pride thing. And that's really cool to see.

I like that. I like that stand. And it just begs the question. I mean, oh, man. Like, are we building out the infrastructure of our demise? Yeah. I mean, it's like, I get, it's just such a hard, this subject is so tough because we get sold this bill of goods that if we don't move fast, China's going to move fast in this AI race. And if we don't adopt it and evolve it, we're not going to control the outcome of what the AI.

race turns out to be. We get sold that as Americans. And it's like, well, that makes sense in theory. Probably right. But at the same rate, I mean, these data centers, we talked about it on the first episode when we talked about them initially, they gulp up 600 plus millions, million gallons of water a day. And most of that's indirect cooling.

But they use a shitload of resources. Between the power plant and the data. They use a shitload of resources. So for us, the power bill, water. I think our, I think we've talked about this before on here, water credits. I think that is going to be a thing. I think water credits would be bigger than carbon credits. Everybody talks about carbon credits,

but the way we're moving on with this water deal and just the amount of water usage needed, water credits are definitely going to be a thing where if you're finding a way to reuse water or clean water and recycle it or whatever. That's going to be very valuable in some capacity. And I definitely see that coming. But I don't know. I just, I stand with the farmers. I think that's awesome that they're making a stand.

And I'm sure the small communities around that farmer probably appreciate that because I bet small communities don't really want these data centers for all those reasons of power. Your power bills are going to go up. You know, all that shit's going to go up. up because of it. Power traffic. And the other thing about it is, like we talked, it's kind of like, it's just like the, it's just like the Balkans. You know, it's kind of a boom. You, you get this massive, massive employment in these communities where, you know, you can't even, there isn't enough hotel rooms. There's not enough apartment rooms. There's not enough RV hookups for all the

people that are here building these data centers, thousands of people. And then once it's built, you have 150 people to work there. So it's boom and bust and boom and bust. And these cities are given away huge tax abatements, property taxes. They're spending oodles of money on infrastructure to feed these things because of this employment boom. But then when it's done, when that's built, you're stuck after giving all of this money, you're not getting anything back. I mean, it's a very, a lot of them is 20 years,

a 20-year property tax abatement, and then you got 150 jobs out of the deal, and it's going to be 20 years before you start getting that tax money back again. I don't know. I don't know if that's a good deal or not. I don't feel like it is. Yeah.

I don't know. That's a tough one too to kind of wrap your head around, but I don't know what the answer is. Because at the same time, yeah, it is the thing. Basically, it's the thing that's stimulating our economy. I mean, I'd like to say, you know, all of this, all this negative talk, we should just go on vacation. But it used to be you go to Mexico and the only thing they say is don't drink the water. Now then you've got to like, not go. You can get your way in, but you got to fight your way out. Is that deal settled? Did they get all those people out? I looked into that today.

So yeah, it's calm down quite a bit. They've kind of, they've got it figured out. They've got the riots and stuff, calm down. But yeah, basically Mexican forces killed this cartel lord, cartel high guy high up in the cartel. Maybe a leader of the cartel, I don't know, during a military operation with the U.S. intelligence's support. And basically that just sent the whole thing down a spiral. It was a free-for-all.

It was a free-for-all. That cartel retaliated and they were going through blockades and setting shit on fire and killing people. They burned the Costco down. Yeah. Basically, the result of it is 34 cartel deaths, 25 National Guard members killed and one civilian killed. So they went buck wild when they realized that happened.

But they didn't go to any of the reasons. I guess not. I thought at first that that, I think that was what people were fearful of was, well, yeah, I think you would be. They were going to go after American tourists and hold their ass as hostage or some crazy shit like that. I don't know. But yeah, I've never, I've never been one to go to Mexico. Everybody talks about how great it is and it's cheap. It's cheap. It's luxury. If you go to the right resort and you just stay on the resort, it's cheap and it's great. But if you get off that, resort. I don't know. I wouldn't trust it. And that's what people say. And, you know, if you get thrown out of that resort, that's also another thing. You don't want to get thrown out of that resort because bad shit will happen. Not many people are ever the same after they get to spend some time in a Mexican prison. Yeah, or jail. Even jail. Not even prison, just jail.

I mean, it ain't good, especially if you're an American. That's, that ain't good. I don't think anybody's going to like that. So I definitely am out on going to Mexico. I've never really been a fan of doing that. What's your ideal vacation spot, do you think? I don't know, probably somewhere in Europe. I'd probably go somewhere of Europe, wherever the most beautiful women are. That's where I'd go. I see. I'd go there. I don't know. Europe seems pretty awesome. There's a lot of great places to go. Australia would be cool. Hawaii. I want to go to Hawaii at some point in my life before they fucking ruin that too. Supposedly though, you can't, if you go to Hawaii, they won't let you bring any,

like you can't bring any, um, like everything there, they want you to consume on the island. Yeah. They don't want you to bring any, any, any, any things to the island. They want to keep it, they want to keep the culture and like the history and just like, very true to Hawaii, which I think is cool. I'd like to go there. So, what about you? Uh, St. Martin.

Yeah. I've been to St. Martin once and loved it of all the places I've been in the Caribbean. I like it. Laid back. I would go there and just hang out until I was so bored I couldn't stand it. Yeah, that'd be like two, that'd be like two days for dad. Oh no. I think I could. He talks about like like, you know, oh, I'll go sit on a, sit on a beach. Yeah. You do that. Dad is like the worst vacation person ever. four days and he's like, all right, I'm tired of not doing anything. Let's let's go home and do something. I do have a tendency if we go somewhere and we fly, I get very, I get very touchy if Tricia's, I always want to rent a car because I hate the idea of being somewhere and not being able to just take off and go explore. or whatever.

And Trish is all about, you know, she doesn't want the responsibility to hassle of driving. She just wants you to Uber everywhere. And that's fine to a point, but gosh, dang, I get itchy fast. Yeah, you do. Oh, boy.

But I think I could handle. St. Martin, I can handle. Yeah. Be good. Yeah. So how's life treating? How's life treating you, Sawyer? We're going to try a new segment on the show.

So Dad's kind of got his market update. And I was like, we're trying to think of some segments or some things that we can bring into the show to spice it up, especially on the episodes that are just us. So we're going to call us Sawyer Spotlight. Nice. Call it Sawyer Spotlight.

And so I'm just going to go over some things that I'm just going to try to bring, bring the, I guess the younger generation view on stuff. I know some of you absolutely hate me. You're only here for Torque and that's absolutely okay. Here. Oh, yeah, look at that. Got a spotlight. I'll put us.

I love it. Yeah, there's a spotlight. That's blinding. That's good. That's good. But, uh, I, I, I guess I want to share some things that I that I consumed this this month that was really good. So first, my favorite thing that I consume this month when it comes to media, and this could be something I read, listened to or watched, was a podcast that Alex Hermose did with Tony Robbins.

And I don't know how you guys feel about Tony Robbins. You know, I know back back in early 90s, early 2000s, I don't know, maybe 80s, he was really, he started kind of coming up and, was the man. I mean, when it came to, like, growing yourself and being an entrepreneur and thinking big and changing your mindset, Tony Robbins was the guy. He kind of was late for me. But this was the first in-depth interview I ever listened to him with Alex Hermose. And I'm a big Alex Ramosey guy. Basically, it was, I was really surprised at how good of an episode it was, because basically what it was was Tony Robbins coach and Alex Ramosey one-on-one. And they got into some really deep shit.

I mean, Alex asked him some deep shit about just how he feels in life. Because Alex, he came from a place where his dad was very hard on him. Didn't have a relationship with his dad, very good relationship with his dad, didn't feel like he could ever make his dad proud. So I feel like he basically willed himself to success, had this massive chip on his shoulder his whole life, and he's done his work out of duty. And now he's at a place in his life

where he's made a lot of money. But he's still doing his work out of duty, not out of enjoyment, and it really enjoying the ride. He hasn't enjoyed much of the ride. And so he kind of asked Tony Robbins about that, of like, I'm doing this shit out of duty. My whole, like, identity is wrapped in doing my work,

not based on how I feel, not out of enjoyment, but out of duty. This is what I'm supposed to do. And, man, Tony Robbins gave him a hell of a good advice. It was really, really good advice. And it basically is for anybody that ever makes it to the top of the mountain, because, you know, he talks to athletes, business professionals, politicians, top business people.

A lot of them get to the top of the mountain. And I think they're chasing something. And they get there. And they look around, they're unfulfilled. And a lot of them end up being miserable because they did all this chase and all this work. And then they end up not even getting the result or the feeling they thought they would. And I think Alex is kind of there. And basically, Tony just said, you got to find something that sets your heart on fire.

And you got to, you got to like, you can't just write a check and give it to a charity. You got to, like, go see the impact that you have on people. Like, you can't just, like, write a check and do that and think that's, going to bring you joy or fulfillment. Basically, you got to restart your heart on fire for something and not do it out of duty, but do it out of servant. Basically, be a fucking

Christian. I mean, I was watching it and I was like, this is literally just be, just serve. Serve, love people, see the impact that you have and try to do it as big as you can. Like, basically that's what it is. Yeah. And it was really, really good.

So I encourage anybody to watch or listen to it that might be feeling unfulfilled. Like you've gone after success in life, you got it, or you went after something

and you achieved it, but you don't feel what you thought you might feel and you're kind of at this place where you're like, now what do I do? I would, it was really good for that.

So that was, that was something I consumed this month that was really great. And my young man thought of the week, and I think a lot of young guys can relate to this. And I put a video out about this on my personal TikTok, but how the hell do you become a well-rounded man in 2026? Because it feels like

the world has evolved for all of us to become specialists. Like, you got to make enough money to outpace inflation, or if you want to make a lot of money, you got to work really hard and dedicate a shitload of your life and time to that. And if you want to, and that takes a lot of time, there. That one thing, your career takes a lot of time. But then you think about okay, how do I learn basic carpentry? How do I learn basic welding? Basic plumbing, basic

electrical work, basic car maintenance. Then you want to try to learn some survival skills or learn how to hunt. You want to bow hunt. You want to shoot firearms. You want to defend yourself. You want to work out the gym and take care of your health. Or if you want any sports, you want to learn how to golf. You want to learn

how to snowboard. You want to learn how to do all these things while also trying to grow in your faith and keep God at the center of your life and grow that. It's like sometimes, I don't know about you guys, I feel inadequate. And I hate not knowing how to do something. I hate it. I hate not knowing how to do something and feeling like I'm not capable. And it's just really hard to feel capable at everything. But I think like I feel like women today want a man to be a man again

like that's what a lot of women like to say is like oh I just want to date a masculine man I want him to fix everything make all the money be the leader of our household when it comes to faith I want him to be fucking jacked over six feet tall shredded

and make a shit load of money but also know how to fix the car do the carpentry do the plumbing do the electrical work anything breaks he's got it it. Oh, and then he's also interesting. He can snowboard. He can do boating. He can ride a horse. And he writes poetry. And he writes poetry. And it's like, dude, how do you do it? Like, how do you, how do you do it?

How do you learn it all? It is, it almost feels impossible. On the place that I've got to, and I'm 26 years old now, I've just realized, I guess, you can't do it all. And there's just, I guess, certain seasons in your life where you're going to commit to a subset of things. And that's what your time's going to be spent at. And that's just what you got to deal with. And hopefully you can find a woman that loves and accepts you and knows that you might not be great at these things, but you're really great at these things.

And she appreciates you for the things that you are great at and doesn't hold the things you're not so great at against you. But I just think the world today, both sides, men and women, we have unrealistic expectations for for each other. We really do. And I don't know, those are just deep thoughts. That's kind of my young man thought of the week. I don't know if any of you older men or women or any of you are listening

that have advice on that for the young fellas, how do you learn all the shit you need to learn? How do you learn it? Because I want to be capable. I want to know how to do all that stuff. I want to be capable for my wife and my kids. You know, I don't want to have to call the maintenance guy for every little fucking thing, right?

But I also want to make a lot of money and I want to give my family a good life. And I also want to stay in shape for my wife. And I also want to, you know, grow my faith. So it's like, what are the things that, how do you do it? How do you fit it all in? You know, that's the thing I struggle with more than anything.

So that's my young man thought of the week. You got anything on that? Jeez. That's deep. Well, I go ahead. I was going to say last thing I'm, want to throw on here a Sawyer spotlight is I'm single. I'm single now. So I'm in the dating pool again, which is, which is crazy. Man, dating in 2026 is wild. You got a prospects. I'm talking to

talking to a girl a little bit. But I'm just at a point right now where I'm kind of, I feel like I am kind of enjoying being single. Yeah. And just in just the fact that it's just peaceful and I'm and I I am focused and I and I kind of want to just become build myself into the man that I was talking about yeah in my last point I want to learn some shit I want to go experience shit I want to become a better man if I can with the the free time I say free time with quotation marks yeah that I have now so that I can just improve myself and yeah, if the right woman comes along, if I go somewhere and I see a woman that I'm like,

oh, yeah, she's great. Like, yeah, I'm going to pursue that. Great. But I'm not like, I got on the dating apps and, man, I'll just say it, the dating apps suck. I mean, they just do because it's just, you'll get a girl's number and you'll, and you'll, it's just,

I feel like girls are on there for validation. They want the likes, they want the messages. They'll flirt with you. you'll flirt with them, but nothing really comes of it. And for guys, it's just a chase. It's just a constant chase the whole entire time. Yeah.

And I think in dating in 2026-2, everybody doesn't want to lead off that they're more interested. Like, the whole concept is, I'm going to be nonchalant and she's going to be nonchalant. So nobody's going to show any interest because we're not going to, we're going to play this game. Yeah. That's the problem. Nobody wants to like give in. It's all surface level. I'm not going to play games. You're either interested or you're not interested. But we're going to do this push-pull method of I'm going to show that I'm not interested. And then you see these girls that are like, I want a man that yearns for me. I want a man. Let's go back to men that yearn that yearn for me. They're going to send flowers to my fucking office every single week for a month.

month until I go on a date until I go on a date with them. Shit like that. But then you have the other side, the red pill alpha shit that's like, build your kingdom, king, build your kingdom and they will come. Build your garden and they will come. If you got to chase a woman,

that's, forget it. That's below you. It's like, can we just get back to some, can we just, there's just two poor, there's two, there's women that say they want to chase, they want a man that they can chase, and then there's women that say,

I want to be yearned for. And it's like, where do you fall into that? I don't know. So it's, it, that whole deal is a wild, wild west. I just need to find a good girl that, Brunette, somebody looks like Ella Langley. I'd take an Ella Langley. I'm an Ella fella.

So, uh, that's my type 1,000 percent. But, uh, yeah, I just want a good girl that doesn't play games that's about it and wants to build a life. And yeah, well, it's not.

a bunch of bullshit. It's just real. Like, I'm a, I'm a black and white kind of guy. I'm either with it or I'm not with it. So it's like, well, I don't think you're alone because, and I, I'm not, I don't watch, I don't watch much television, but my wife and I had a conversation this morning because there's a show on and I think it's just called John and Caroline. And it's about the life of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Caroline, I can't remember what their name is. And if you remember, you go back, they died in a plane crash.

John Kennedy, they took off and they were flying somewhere and their plane crashed and they both died. And they were like in their early 40s. But it's about them meeting and dating. And this took place in, I want to say,

the late 80s, early 90s because they didn't have cell phones. and people are just going crazy for this because it's like it was when I was a kid where, you know, you would try to call a girl, but if she wasn't home, you'd leave a message on the answer machine and you would have to send a letter. And there wasn't any distractions at dinner because nobody had cell phones. And, you know, like, there were no dating apps. So you, like, had to ask a girl out and go meet to get to know her to decide whether you even liked her or not. You know, it was one of those deals. And I guess that people are just going nuts for that series because a whole

generation of people don't realize that that's what it was like. And they're all saying, oh, I wish it was like that, you know. And so you're not alone, feeling that way. Well, yeah, I think social media has ruined a lot of shit and it's definitely ruined dating. Yeah, I agree. Because it's all based on the, your Instagram is basically,

it's like, it's your resume. It's your resume for dating. Yeah. It is. If your pictures aren't optimized, if you're not the most photogenic person in the world, if you don't do cool shit, if you're not an interesting guy.

If you don't have plants, a dog, and a pottery class. We all, both sides, both men and women, want the top 1% of men and women. Women want somebody that's six feet tall, makes over $100,000 a year that's in good shape, that is a, that can do a lot of different things. And he can lead the house. Like, they want this. And men want the, they want the, they want the traffic. wife that wants to make sourdough bread that is fit and trim and goes to the gym and wants to

love their husband, take care of the house, take care of the husband, take care of the kids, and love it. I mean, that's one or build your empire with you, whatever. I don't know. There's, there's all different types, but it's just, yeah, it's a mess. It's, uh, just be glad you're married. I know. Somehow, I found a woman to take pity. upon me, managed to make two children. She's stuck with me. I mean, I'm still not fixed, but she's working on it. And we kind of leave each other alone.

You got any comments on Sawyer Spotlight for today? Any old man wisdom? Well, I think it's like you, and I think I told you this, you know, you're better off to meet somebody. You really are better off to like meet somebody kind of like the old-fashioned way. I don't know. Like people are like, oh, you need to go to church.

Like meeting somebody, it's that idea that you actually can interact with somebody and have a conversation before you see them on an app and make up your mind who that person is before you even meet them. Because usually people are not, there are some people that are genuine through and through

as far as kind of what you see on their profile is who they really are. But most people, it's curated, it's tailored, it's, and people are guarded. I feel like people are more guarded now than ever. And so, you know, you like, I just feel like if you can actually meet someone in a setting where you see who the real person is and then a relationship grows from there instead of starting with the idea that you're trying

to find this person to have a relationship, which I know that's hard because nobody goes and does anything anymore. You know, it's just weird. It's so weird. It is weird. It is weird. So what about the other thing? about capability being capable of oh well does that ever go away or is that just a man thing? No there's all kinds of stuff that I want to learn to do that I can't do now like I was just thinking

there's a guy that I watch on TikTok that and I feel bad I'm sorry I should mention his name but I can't remember what his name is but you'll all know if you're a TikTok person farm person you'll know this they bought a they bought a 4690 case articulated four-wheel drive for like $7,500

just to run their 13-inch auger because that's a big auger you know and you need you need pretty good horsepower to do it so they bought this used tractor and a case like that's kind of near and dear to my heart my my kind of like my goat tractor if I just had more money and time that I knew what to do with and I wanted to restore a tractor, I would go find an 8490 case articulated four-wheel drive just because I think they're just

badass and cool and they didn't make very many of them and all that. But anyway, this is a 4490s got, or a 4690, and he was, he was re, like they're putting some money in it, you know, fixing up the engine, changing stuff. And I would just look. love to have time to do something like that. And there's a pile of that stuff that I don't know how to do. But if you just have time and you don't have distractions, there's no greater time to be alive because you can find all the information you need to learn anything. You just don't have the time. And at some point, you just got to say, you know what, screw it. You know what? I'm going to let all this slide and I'm going to learn how to do this.

And I think that's the only way you do it. I think if you want to be well-rounded, you cannot try to do everything. Like, people are so hept on building this super tight, regimented schedule to where you're doing so much, you have so much time for each one of these things. And that's fine, but to get good at something, I think you have to just say, okay, for this two months, I'm not going to concentrate on this stuff. I'm going to concentrate on this.

And learn it, get good at it, and then go back to your routine and go on. I don't know. That's the best advice I can give you. And, you know, stop and enjoy yourself once in a while. And there's nothing wrong. with that.

Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. Well, I don't know. Today's been kind of a heavy one. It has been a heavy one. I, uh, but hey, we keep it real. I mean, you know, I mean, let's just be honest.

We pissed away any John Deere. There's no way in fucking hell John Deere's ever working with us ever. So, but you know what? Like those thoughts just right there about that. Like, that's, that's what we at Barn Talk. when we were making the decision about making this outline, we were thinking about, well, do we talk about John Deere?

Do we talk about nutrient? Yeah. But we think it's important. Yeah. We think it's important to talk about that shit because that's the shit nobody wants to talk about. Well, it's what everybody thinks. It's what everybody thinks, but nobody wants to say it.

And unfortunately, and not... The creators that are working with John Deere, I don't blame him for working for John Deere. most of us have John Deer equipment. Great. But if you're going to work with them, they're not going to let you say that shit. Right.

But that's the shit we're all thinking. But I just think it's not going to be always sunshine and rainbows on Barn Talk. The episodes aren't always going to be sunshine and butterflies. And unfortunately, the times that we're in today, it's not sunshine and butterflies. But I think it's still important to talk about it. Yeah. And I think it's important to keep it real.

and that's what that's that I'm going to read something to you guys and this is this is what I want this is the mission statement of Barn Talk and I want to read it to you guys because this is what I think it embodies

why don't you tell them a little bit of what you're doing so that I can find this. I don't know how long this is going to be so I just grab the bottle I just grab the bottle of stag and I'm like well if this goes badly, I'm going to already have my drink poured.

So today, we haven't done a whiskey minute in a while, and for no other reason, then we just get going, and sometimes we forget. But today I got a bottle of Stagg, Jr., and we've never done that. Buffalo Trace makes it. It's probably about eight years old. George T. Stag is the older version of this.

It's usually like 15 year, 14 years, something like that. But I will about guarantee this is pretty good. I've had it before. And one nice thing, I think that we're all going to get to enjoy more whiskey of higher quality because all of the whiskey guys have said this before, they've produced so much whiskey that they're not going to be able to keep it allocated forever and the price is going to come down for a lot of good bottles. So tell us what you think while I,

pour us a little jag of this. Our mission at Barn Talk is to deliver the real honest, rural working class Midwest perspective on everything that matters. Agriculture, politics, world events, AI, business, economics, culture, and daily life. We are the megaphones for what actual farmers and working class Americans are thinking and feeling. Farmer's, farming anchors us, but the podcast is broader than ag. It should help city. people understand what those guys in the barn are really thinking while making rule working class listeners feel seen and represented. And that to me is what this show embodies. I do not want to put out a podcast that doesn't accomplish one of those things. I want you guys to feel like

we're keeping it real and we're saying what most of you guys are thinking and feeling and we're trying to provide value in any way we can. But if there's somebody that wants to work with us or silence us or not let us tell it the way that we want to tell it, we have no interest in working with them. And at the end of the day, if this podcast and what we're doing here is going to have legs that can run for a long time, it's got to be valuable to you guys, number one, and always. And that's, that's kind of where we're at with this thing. So I, yeah, today wasn't sunshine and rainbows, but it's part of, it's, it's part of what we're going to do. We're going to keep it real on this show. It's just what it is. Um, yeah, I'll, I'll echo that. Um,

it, it all goes back to, it really goes back to at the end of the day, all you have is your own personal integrity. And, uh, You know, I'm 54, going to be 55 here before long. And I was just thinking the other day, I love what we do. I love doing all this. And I talked to one of my former building salesman friends today that is still doing what I used to do. And I told him, I said, you know, if I worked as hard doing that as what I'm working now, I would already been retired because I would have made way more money.

But I didn't, at the time, I thought I was very passionate about what I did. And what I realized now was I really am. I'm more passionate about what we're doing here today than I have been at anything that we've done. It's a little, it's got a little burn on the backside, doesn't it? But you cleanse your palate now. So you should be able to get a good, a good read on it. but yeah, I mean, we're going to say what we want to say, and if that means that somebody doesn't want to, you know,

hey, sponsor the Whiskey Minute, although it sure would be nice. If, you know, one way one of these distilleries that has too much whiskey could probably sell a few more bottles would be to sponsor the Whiskey Minute, just a shameless plug. Yeah. But anyway. Yeah, I, uh, and I forgot what I was going to say. It was, boy, it's already getting to you.

I guess. I forgot what I was going to say. We're just damn thankful that we started this when we did. Because if you've noticed, the choices you have for your listening pleasure when it comes to podcasts are growing exponentially every day. Everybody is on to this. So much of your mainstream TV personalities, radio personalities. are all trying to come do a podcast because this is where people are moving. The thing they don't realize is they're trying to do the same thing they were doing before,

and authenticity is the only thing that works. I was going to say, we're not always, we never came on this podcast to ever claim that we're experts. I think that's the biggest thing. When you put content out in the world and you see little clips on social media, we're always trying to come to a place of giving you guys value and having great people come on the show that give value and tell things how we really feel. But we're not always right on everything either.

And we don't claim to be. So that's the other thing I just wanted to say. But yeah, we just hope this is, I just, I really, yeah, I'm with that. This is one of the best things we've ever done. And I think we can do so much more with it. And I still think that despite all the negativity and doom and gloom, there's still is a hell of a lot of opportunity.

I know we say that a lot. And there's a shitload of stuff to be grateful for. I mean, there really is. If you have an able mind, an able body, and you got a house to live in and a truck to drive and a garage...

Hot water comes out of the tap when you take a shower. And you got a garage to park your truck in and you got food in the fridge and a warm bed in to lay at night. I mean, that... we don't even take that shit in, nobody even inventories that anymore.

Because it's just, it's just a standard. If you, if you've lived like that for a while, you just, it's part of life now. But those things go a long way. And we forget about that. So what, 10.4. What do you, what do you say? It has really good flavor.

I like the flavor, but yeah, it does burn on the back. It has a little bite on the back side. It does. Yeah, it's it's damn good. I mean, yeah, I would sip it. I would sip it. Yeah, I would too.

I put an ice cube in it and sip it. Yep. Or a little bit of water. Yep. I'm not a purist all the way, but yeah. It's worth, I think Stag's worth the money. I didn't overpay for that bottle. I found it on a shelf.

We get that over. We got that in Tennessee. Yeah, we went down Tennessee. Yeah, Dad and I went into the, I don't know, was it BP or Moco or. Something. Something down there. Yeah.

And man, those guys, they always got the hookup. Those guys always got the hookup when it comes to bourbon and whiskey. I mean, they just, they always got a bottle. And if you, what happened is we put like three bottles on the, on the register or on the, what do you call it? The counter. And he was like, oh, I got something for you. I got something for you. And he took us over to the special shelf and he grabbed something.

He was like, you guys got to try this. So that was cool. That was cool to see. But yeah, I like. I like it. I would drink that on the rocks or a little bit of water. Absolutely. I think it's worth the money too. That's one of the better bottles we've tried for sure. Okay. What would you rate it? I'd rate it like, I don't know, I'd rate it like eight and a half. I was going to say eight.

We should write all these down because we have no idea what we've rated anything. I know. I know. But it's good. It's damn good. It's better than that peekie blinders prohibition shit. I know that. Well, that's like you strip paint with that stuff. Yeah, that is for sure. Well, that's going to wrap it up, guys. And girls, thank you guys so much for watching or listening. We really do appreciate all you so much.

Thanks for tuning in every single week. If you got any value from the show, share it. Leave a review on Spotify or Apple. We love you guys. And we'll see you back here next week for another episode. Rosen lasagna, medium power. 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time.

Let's play. Feel the fun with play. Oh Joe, the online casino with all the latest slot and live casino games. What you win is yours to keep with no wagering requirements, instant payouts, and no minimum withdraws. Hey, I just won. Woohoo! Feel the fun! Play-Ojo!

Honey, forget about the lasagna. Let's celebrate! 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concern about your gambling or that if someone close to you, call 16-531-2600 or visit conexontera.ca.