Stuff You Should Know - How Agritourism Works

Episode Date: December 15, 2010

Agritourism marries farming and tourism, but why do people pay to pick apples or work on a farm? And who does agritourism benefit? Josh and Chuck explore the history and various incarnations of agritourism, as well as the rationale behind it. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner, the residue-free, fast-drying solution especially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like stone, tile, laminate, vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit Bona.com slash Bona Clean. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff, stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging?

They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. That makes the Stuff You Should Know. It feels like it's been forever since we've been in the

studio. Yeah. This chair, my chair no longer stinks. I had time to air out. And you know, I've said it before, I'll say it again. If we could roll the first three minutes before we actually hit record on this puppy. Yeah. Oh man. Gold. You think so? I think one of the ones I give for spoken word, you can get a Grammy for that. Sure. Or if it's like videotaped and broadcast on TV, you can presumably get an Emmy for it. I think we could win every award with our three minutes before and after we record. And people out there now are like, oh, I want to hear it so bad. To get this. That's it. This is what you get and you'll like it for your freedom. Right. By the way, go like us on Facebook, will you? It would help us out. Personally,

Chuck and I would be helped out if you go on to facebook.com slash Stuff You Should Know, our Facebook page, and like us. Like, get us to 50,000. Can you please get us to 50,000? And for the gentleman who said that it makes him want to unlike it because we ask people to like it, and just what's going on, buddy? What's going on in your life? So it's called marketing. You ready? Yeah. You ready? Let's market some agritourism. Okay. I have an intro. Let's hear it. So back in 2007, the little news item may have slipped past because it was south of the border, Florida. A guy named... That's usually Mexico when you say that, by the way. Again, we're not in Texas. We're in Georgia. So south of the border

means Florida. Okay. A guy named Ronald Evans Sr. And his wife, Jaquita Evans, got some pretty hefty time. Ron Evans got 30 years for what amounted to indentured servitude, right? This guy ran some Florida labor camps where people would go and like this is where they would stay and bunk and eat at night. And then during the day, they get bussed to farms to work, right? Orange groves, that kind of thing. Wherever. I think lettuce is big there too. That's all legal in kosher. Sure. They even actually employed the homeless. They would go around to Miami, Baton Rouge, New Orleans. I don't think they came to Atlanta, but they went to big cities in the southeast and recruited homeless people living on the street and said, hey, we can give you a job.

That's great. Yeah. The problem came with the indentured servitude part. They had a company store at their labor camp and it sold a gallon of wine for 40 bucks. And you should know right off the bat that you can't get a good gallon of wine. That's all cheap. Sure. So they had really inflated prices. Cigarettes were through the roof. Right. And the crack cocaine was above market value, the stuff they sold at the company store that they eventually got all the guys addicted to. Wow. Gave them advances of crack against their paychecks and basically got these guys mired in debt to where they were indentured servants. Slaves. And they got busted. This guy finally got busted. He probably thought he was a really smart dude. Yeah,

because he was running them not just in Florida, but in North Carolina and possibly South Carolina as well. He's like, I've discovered something really, really great. Right. So that is the exact opposite of agritourism. And that's your setup? Yeah. That's pretty good. Yeah. I thought I didn't see where that was going because the whole time I was thinking, all right, that's fine. He's paying these people. He gets homeless people, puts them to work, puts them up in a bunk. What's the problem? Yeah. $40 gallon of wine. Well, the crack. It's kind of a big problem too. He had all the farmers paying him in cash in return for the labor. So he could go buy massive amounts of crack. So the company's story never ran out of crack from what I understand. Well,

they were probably fairly secluded. You know, it's probably the only store around. They probably didn't have cars. No, they probably depended on that store. They did. And that crack. Yes. So like I said, that's the opposite of agritourism. What is the positive? I guess, what is agritourism? Well, it's when you want to attract guests and visitors to come to your business, your farm, to either observe or actually take part in the business, the family business. Okay, let's go. Is that good? That's it. That's that was agritourism. Explain. Like, you know, let's just give it one example. Say you can go to California and you can stay at a winery. And instead of just kicking back on the porch all day and sampling wine, you can go out and you

can pick the grapes and you can learn how it's done and lend a hand and eat the food that's produced there. Maybe if it's a farm, that kind of thing. So I think sideways, the film was entirely bankrolled by the California agritourism cartel. Was it really? I think so. I mean, think about like the whole movies about an agritourism trip. That's essentially not even essentially, like that is in every way, agritourism, like they went from one winery to another winery. They watched the grapes get stomped. Did they even, did they participate in grape stomping? I don't remember. I don't remember, but did you ever see that video on YouTube? Oh, yeah, the woman stomping grapes. Yeah, here in Atlanta, at Chateau Lawn. Yeah, it was Fox 5 that happened

on Anne. Have you seen keyboard cat play her out? Yeah, it's pretty good. It's really sad because she seems genuinely hurt, but the noise that she makes, it's once you hear it once, it is stuck in your crawl forever. Yeah, that's grape stomping. So that's a pretty good example of agritourism, right? Gone wrong. I think we should, well, yes. In her case. In her case, but sideways is a good example. I took that tour. I know, for your 30 something. No, no, no, that was Northern California. We did the little, that sideways was down in Southern Santa Barbara. Oh, I thought it was in Napa Valley. No, it was in Napa. No, it was in where it was. Well, then all those places I went to that were in the movie must have been wrong. In the movie,

it's supposed to be Napa. $5. Okay. I actually went to the one winery with the guy with a big beard. I actually hung out with that guy for like an hour drinking wine. Really? The dude from the movie. And like we were the only people in there. The sun was setting. It was one of those magical moments that sounds touching. So check, what's the point of agritourism? The war on drugs impacts everyone. Whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy. Number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm a prime example of that.

The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. Cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the happiness lab podcast, the show that presents the latest science based strategies to help us live happier, more joyful lives. In a special new year season

of the happiness lab, I look at the pressures we all feel to change for the better in 2023. And how if we're not careful, those pressures can make us feel worse. If I'm honest, it's just hard, man. It's really, it's really, it's really hard to be present. With the help of my favorite scientists and experts, we look at overwork and explore whether striving for career success is really the route to happiness. Too many of us bring the best of ourselves to work and then bring the leftovers home. And we'll see why latching onto fad New Year's diets and exercise plans may not be the best way to give our bodies what they're really craving. When I look back now, I think how unrealistic of me to think that an issue as complex as an eating disorder or

disordered eating or body image could just be fixed because it's a date on the calendar. Listen to the happiness lab on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, it helps there. Well, it's because farmers are having to diversify a little bit. In most cases, yeah, to make dough. Yeah, I read a sadly. Well, with the advent of factory farm, right? We've got very a very small percentage of farms number wise, right? Yeah. Say one factory farm equals one farm. That's an enormous farm. Yeah. In both like revenue and, you know, acreage sure production. They represent a very small number of the number of farms, but disproportionately large total of the revenue made and of the stuff produced in the US, right? So that's industrialization.

Right. And one of the one of the other aspects of industrial, I know where you're going next, but one of the other aspects of industrialization is apparently you have to have a gross revenue of 50 grand a year from your farm to start to actually be able to sustain your family really through farming. Wow. 75% in 2007. 75. No, I'm sorry. 2010 this year. 75% of farms in the US made less than 50 grand gross a year. So this is one of the reasons why they're saying, well, I don't really want to give up farming and become a city slicker because I hate city slickers, but I like city slickers money. So let's supplement our income and start some agritourism. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great reason. What's the other reason that farmers are being

forced to go into agritourism? Chuck, I'm glad you asked. Globalization because with the way shipping is now and communication around the world and things move at the speed of light, you're not just competing with the farm like in your county or in your state. You're competing with like a farm across the universe from yourself or the world. The world's bad enough. Don't bring the galaxy into this. You're in big trouble. Moon farmers. We get intergalactic competition going. Moisture farmers. So we've got globalization, industrialization. Those are pretty much the two big drivers of agritourism. Yeah. But you know, you can't put it past farm folks to be, well, smart. Yeah. You know, farm smart. Isn't that what they call it?

I never heard that, but I love that term. I thought I picked that up from you. No. Are you sure? No. I've never heard that before. Well, there's farm smarts. Farm strong. I've said that. No, no. Let's live strong. No. Farm smarts. So Chuck, there's a few different ways that this can pan out, right? Yeah. Let's say you're at the $49,000 level and you don't care about new stuff. You're just fine sewing your old clothes, but you want to keep farming. You would use agritourism as like a supplementary income, right? Yeah. Just add a little. Like you might do tours, things like that. And you know what? I should add that when I was a kid,

was it Robert that wrote this, Robert Lam? Yeah. It's an unusually thin article from Robert Lam of stuff to blow your mind. Well, he makes a point early on that it provides a connection that people has been lost between the stuff we put in our body and in the person. Yeah. Because I read that and it really hit home because when I was a kid, and this wasn't in like the 1920s, we got our milk from a farm right here in Atlanta. Yeah. And it wasn't weird. Like we drove to this farm and they had you pull up to the cooler room and there was a guy standing there on the porch and he would just ask what you need and he'd go in the cooler room and go get it for you. And it wasn't like, I didn't live in, I wasn't a hillbilly.

And it wasn't the 1920s. This was like in the eight seventies and eighties in DeKalb County, Georgia. Yeah. But now, I mean, that seems really weird to get anything outside of a grocery store. It's not weird. It's more like token. It's like a token experience, right? Yeah. And that by the way is direct marketing agritourism, where like you drive to the farm and like you just pull up to a farm stand or something inside the road. Sure. But yeah, we were talking about what's driving agritourism from the farmer's point of view. Right. But you just touched upon what's driving it from the consumer's point of view. And yeah, this whole farm to table movement. It's huge. Well, yeah. And it's having, it's, it's, it's the perfect time for agritourism.

Because I think it was, was it 2008 or 2009? Very recently, the world population tip towards cities. Right. For the first time ever. Right. More people lived in cities than in a rural area. Right. Right. The sticks. The sticks. So we're, we're, we're getting further and further away from our country roots. Yeah. Right. People don't walk around barefoot anymore. People wear shirts underneath their overalls. It's just, you know, urban. Sure. So I guess this desire to be able to go back to the farm is, is definitely part of, of why this is, why consumers are going there. Right. Well, and Robert makes a point, which is very valid, which is especially if your family, if that was your roots, your ancestry, you may not know anything about that. And it might be a

neat way to get in touch with your, your, your ancestry and your roots. Right. Go back, see what it's like, the milk a cow, cause great, great granddad did that for a living. Sure. Pretty cool. Yeah. You can feel your great, great granddad's ghost looking over your shoulder like you're doing it wrong. Right. You got to yank down and to the left. I've never milked a cow. I don't know how to do it. So you've got a supplementary, uh, there's complimentary, which is where it's about half and half. And a good example of this kind of agritourism outfit is a pumpkin patch, right? Yeah. So like they may sell half of their pumpkins to, you know, a wholesaler, and then they may keep half of them for the fall tours and people can walk around and pick their

own pumpkin and then carve it and have some snot nose teenager come and smash it. Right. And some awful band will name their band after that act. Jerry just laughed at that. She's like mentioned smashing pumpkin. So that's complimentary. And then there's primary and primary is the one where your farm is growing nothing but weeds. Right. Nothing you can sell and you turn it into an agritourism destination. Like you all, almost all of your income is coming from the fact that there are people coming to your farm. At least you're still growing stuff though. Well, you are. You have to like grow something, but it doesn't necessarily have to be sellable. Right. As long as people think it looks pretty, then you're fine. Sure. Now there's a back in

1999, the director of the UC Davis small farms program publicly worried that if ranchers and farmers didn't get in on the agritourism action soon enough, the market was going to be open wide enough for like theme park operators to do this, which would be the primary enterprise aspect. And there's a guy who's a former Disney exec who actually started a company to make mazes that take about two hours to get to really on farms. Yeah. Well, that's huge. The corn maze in the fall. That's agritourism, buddy. Yeah. Yeah. You ever done one of those? I haven't. I'm terrified at the thought of like getting trapped in there forever. Really? Yeah. Wow. Mases, huh? I don't like mazes. I bet the end of the shining is pretty harrowing for you, huh?

No, because I'm not there, but yeah. Sure. Like I've got like three mirror neurons. Oh, if you were Danny though, then it would have been frightened. Oh, I would have just laid down and died. Yeah. Come kill me dad. Yeah. Make it quit. So Robert likens it to ecotourism, which is not too far off. Wouldn't you think they both have tourism in the name? Well, yeah. And the cool thing about agritourism and ecotourism or actually more agritourism is you don't have to necessarily throw a lot of money into it as a farmer because you got the farm. You sometimes you just got to open the gates and advertise and say, come to our apple farm and pick some apples. Yeah. So it's not like you got to sink a lot of money into an enterprise. Right. And one of the, I think one

of the rules of thumb, if you're a agritourism farmer and you're actually trying to sell some of your stuff too, you want to keep the littlest kids like occupied away from your produce because apparently they represent a huge portion of shrinkage. Oh, really? Yeah. So I guess petting zoos are the best way to do it. And that it is because if you've ever wanted to watch a small child inadvertently kill a rabbit by petting it too eagerly, then agritourism is right up your alley. That doesn't happen. Be sure it does. It's awful. Kids in their rough love. So sometimes they just don't know. Let's talk about some different types of agritourism, checkers. Well, you mentioned the direct market, which is like fruit stands, that kind of thing. Robert calls

this one education and experience. And this is more along the lines of like a bed and bright, like Sarenby, you know, Sarenby, South of Atlanta. I saw it. Yeah. It's pretty cool. You know, they have an apprenticeship too. Oh, really? That lasts from March to November. Yeah. I licked it up, pays 800 bucks a week plus housing and utilities. Wow. And they teach you the ins and outs of organic farming, keeping farm records. Like it's pretty well organized, it sounds like. There's actually, while we're on it, there's, if you go on to the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service site and then search sustainable farming internships and apprenticeships, it brings them up for the entire country. Cool. Yeah. So if you're into this kind

of thing, if you want to be like an agriculturist rather than an agritourist, it's out there for you. You know, if I was 15 years younger and single, you would find me down at Sarenby living right now. Is that right? Yeah. I mean, I'd love that. Really? Yeah. It's gorgeous down there. So that's the idea of like the bed and breakfast package where they say, hey, stay at our bed and breakfast and work a little bit on our farm and learn how to turn butter and eat the food that we serve you that's straight from the farm, from the table. Yeah. You saw that one Maverick farm in North Carolina? Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Throw that down. It's in Valley Cruces, North Carolina, and it's a bed and breakfast. It's situated in a 140 year old, 125 year old farm

house, right? Uh-huh. And it's 120 bucks a night for a room. But you can work off up to, I think, 25% of your bill at seven bucks an hour by acting as farm labor, like farm hand. Yeah. And then you eat with the family in their home every night. From the stuff that they grow. Yeah. And they said that you can, it's an option if you want to donate a little money back for the meal you can. Yeah. Well, I'm trying to picture you there. You'd be like, I ain't working. 120 is a good rate. I'll just be here on the porch. Watching you people work. I'm paying to watch other people work on a farm. And then the other type is recreation and event agritourism. And that's more like the big fall festival, corn mazes, pumpkin picking, hay rides. Sheep hearing contest.

Do they have those? Sure. Awesome. Yeah. Pie eating contest. Yeah. Basically, if there's an event that you're attending and say a pageant and it's miss and then insert your own vegetable, that's agritourism. The miss squash of Canton or whatever, that kind of thing. Sure. Another one that was pretty cool that he mentions in here is the U.S. Department of Agriculture operates one called home place by the lakes national recreation area in Tennessee. And they go a step further and combine a little like colonial Williamsburg in with it. So they'll dress up instead of a civil war reenactment, they'll be dressed up in the old school clothes showing you how to churn butter. I imagine it's like the Amish are probably like, dude, that's our life. Come watch us.

Have you heard exactly? It's like the opposite of rum spring. Yeah. That's what we just figured out the key to agritourism. It's the opposite of rum spring. Yeah. It's the op-ed. It's the Amish. Boom. Have you ever seen the Ali G episode where Barat goes to like a living history farm in South Carolina? I strongly recommend that one. It's hilarious. There's another one called the Connor Prairie Living History Museum, which is sort of what you're talking about right there. This one's pretty serious. Yeah. This is in Fishers, Indiana. And there's an outdoor museum and you can see how things operated in the 1800s. And then they go a little step further and they actually have a program called follow the North Star, which allows

you the chance to see what it was like to be a slave trying to escape. Yeah. Which I wonder how they do that. I think they have guys and dogs running after you. Really? Yeah. Tracking you. That's what I took from it. Yeah. That's tricky. I mean, that's living history right there. Yeah. I don't know if I want to do that. Can you see yourself running through the woods like, I hate agritourism. Yeah. This is horrible. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any

drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that will piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil asset for it. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast, the show that presents the latest science based strategies to help us live happier, more joyful lives. In a special new year season

of the Happiness Lab, I look at the pressures we all feel to change for the better in 2023. And how if we're not careful, those pressures can make us feel worse. If I'm honest, it's just hard, man. It's really, it's really, it's really hard to be present. With the help of my favorite scientists and experts, we'll look at overwork and explore whether striving for career success is really the route to happiness. Too many of us bring the best of ourselves to work and then bring the leftovers home. And we'll see why latching onto fad new year's diets and exercise plans may not be the best way to give our bodies what they're really craving. When I look back now, I think how unrealistic of me to think that an issue as complex as an eating disorder or

disordered eating or body image could just be fixed because it's a date on the calendar. Listen to the Happiness Lab on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. So Josh, one of the ideas behind agritourism is that people will be so inspired by their trip that it will form sort of a relationship with the farm and that they will want to support that farm even after they have left the farm. This appears to be like a long-term goal of agritourism. It's not just short-term. It's more like they want to remind the city slickers that farms still exist and that the city slickers are welcome to come by and empty their wallets there. Keep coming back again and again. Actually, that works because I was raised as an agritourist going to McQueen

Orchard in Holland, Ohio. Really? Pick apples. And still to this day, my family, when we visit Ohio, we'll go to McQueen's. We schedule it around the time where the apples are ripe. Amazing. Best donuts in the entire world. Like, I kid you not. Really? Yes. Everything's just perfect there. Just go to McQueen's. Apple fritters too, I bet. Apple fritters. They're apple ciders. And the apples themselves, you just climb the trees and pick them and eat them and take off your shirt. It's awesome. So where I was going though with the repeat businesses, you've heard of the CSA, the community supported agriculture programs. Yeah. And that's when you sign up as a collective. Well, you sign up personally. You form a collective as a whole

and you basically pay money up front to get a box of vegetables like once a month. I mean, the programs are different. Deliver to your home or sometimes you go pick them up. Right. And the cool thing is, and you should know this because some people might not think it's so cool, is you don't know what you're going to get. Yeah, but you get a lot of what you don't know what you're going to get. Well, yeah. So you got to be open-minded. You got to be willing to experiment with vegetables you may never have cooked with before. It's probably a good idea to know how to can things. Yeah. Because you really get a lot of stuff. This is one of the things I've always heard from people who have co-op subscriptions. Yeah. All this kale. All this kale. Tennessee

Tech has a program. They say that they're the first university in the state of Tennessee to offer degree in agritourism because they say this is the future and you're going to need managers and people that know the trends in this business. I think this represents the people who are like theme parks are going to get into this. You think so? Yeah. Like let us land, that kind of thing. No. I wouldn't call it that, but possibly. They got a couple of stats for you. Yeah. Yeah. It's successful, right? Well, yeah. I got one for the state of Colorado at least. They say that agritourism contributed $2.2 billion to their state's economy and that 13.2 million visitors engaged in last year in agritourism in Colorado. It's pretty awesome. So the one I have is from

the 2007 U.S. Census of Agriculture. 23,350 farms in the U.S. I have some sort of agritourism thing going on, right? Yeah. And about 3,600 of those were making 25 grand or more a year from it. Yeah. This billion number seems really suspecting me. I wonder if it's not a million for Colorado. Yeah. Because the total for all of the U.S. in 2007 is 566 million. I don't know if that was gross revenue because it sounded like your stat was like economic impact. Yeah. That would include like the gas people got coming into the state and the hotels that they stayed in when they were picking apples. That's the same time. But that's what the Colorado State Extension Service said. Well, they're pretty well known to be rather liberal with their numbers. Yeah. Hippies.

So let's see. What else, Chuck? I don't have much else, do you? Greatest winery scene of all time, not in sideways, found in the British comedy series Absolutely Fabulous. Really? Oh, yeah. You know, I didn't watch that show. I knew it was supposed to be great, but I didn't watch it. In that particular episode, it was hilarious. Really? Yeah. Well, I think going through winery is a great way to participate in agritourism. And not just wineries, they have like homegrown breweries now, too, as well. Like brewery trees. Yeah, I'd like to do that, too. Like people grow the hops on their land and make the beer and you drink it. Yeah, I'd like to go to the Sierra Nevada plant. I would, too. It's one of my goals in life. Go find where they make that sweet nectar.

Have you been to Sweetwater? No, I've never been there. Oh, Chuck. I know. Right down the street. It's like a good little happy hour place. That's what I hear. Yeah, it's fun. Give you tastings and all that. Is that agritourism? No, not at all. Industrial tourism, maybe. Yeah, that's visiting a brewery. Sure. That's it. That's agritourism plus a touch of industrial tourism, just as an extra little nugget. That was free. Yes, it was. All right, so if you want to learn more about agritourism, read an article by Robert Lamb just to complete the series. You can type in agritourism, a-g-r-i-tourism in the handysearchbar at housestuffworks.com. Yeah, and support your local farm. Get on the internet and there's something nearby. Yeah,

there's a ton of stuff. Oh, and actually, what's that website? You got one? I do. I give you the one for the apprenticeships. Yeah. If you want to actually be the person working that people are gawking at, right? If you want to gawk at people working in a farm, go to ruralbounty.com. I thought it would be agragalker. It's the same thing. Okay. It's time now for administrative details. Administrative details. You ready? Should we set this up for people who don't know what this means because it's the worst title ever? It is not. It's very succinct and to the point. These are gift thank-yous from fans that send us things in and hopes that we will promote their little Etsy site. Well, not just gifts, like sometimes correspondence. Yeah, correspondence,

postcards. So it's been a while and we've gotten some pretty good stuff, a lot of stuff. This is going to take like an hour. It is. I just want to say thanks to Mr. Cohn at Waterford Union High School in Waterford, Wisconsin for those nice letter and the information on goats that produce spider silk, including a drawing. Go Badgers. Yeah. Yeah, he was actually... Was it Badger? The Badger. He was the mascot for a while. Wisconsin. Oh, I thought I made that up. No, you're thinking of Wolverines. He's a lucky guess. You go. Center College women's volleyball team sent us one of their t-shirts. They are the Spandex Mafia. So, yeah. We all three got one. Yes. Thanks to Kristen for even more Nugget. Thank you. It's

delicious. Oh, yeah. Kristen Ferguson with her Nugget. Yeah. Thanks to Sarah Michelle for the copy of Dianetics. Hardcover, no less. You got that? Yeah. Wow. I got that. Jeremy and Heather in Asheville, North Carolina make eco-friendly artwork, custom woodcarved wedding cake toppers, and they sent... They made a little Josh, a little Jerry, and a little Chuck. And they're really awesome looking. I put it on Facebook. Yeah, you were very proud of this. I just thought they looked really cool. And they were... They look like us. And you can shop with them if you would like at urastarhouse.etsy.com. That is urastarhouse.etsy.com. Nice Chuck. Thanks to Kentucky and Nicky for the postcard of the London Eye. Yeah. Thanks to Milda Kevin at

jdebugroasters.com. That's j-a-d-a-b-u-g roasters.com for the not one, but two pounds of coffee. Now, why didn't I see any of this? You always give me the coffee. I just didn't even pass this one by you. Man. I'll bring it in for you if you want. David Pauley, San Francisco. He runs a small print shop and he sent some cool custom concert posters that he prints. And I collect these posters and he said he would keep me in mind for the future and send me some of these. That's very nice. Did he send you two of these two versions of the same? Is that the one I have? Jerry got one too. We all three got one. Okay. That's very cool. Very cool. I would have liked to have been at that festival. Thanks to Casey from Huntsville for the very nice letter and the sketch of the octopus.

Keep listening, Casey, and we will keep you laughing. Right? Jennifer of Lynchburg, Virginia sent us little enamen Christmas ornaments. Very cute. They are very cute. Yes. Thanks a million to Kate in Sunnyvale for our awesome card. That's the one that has us as the Estonian wedding couple. Oh, yes. And thank you to Matt and Zach at the Our List podcast. Have you been on there? Yeah, they sent us shirts. Yes, they did send us shirts. And at first, without reading the card, I thought it was a drawing of us. I did too. These guys are our doppelgangers. Yeah, I saw it and I was like, it's sort of a good likeness, but not really. No, I'm like, oh, okay, it's them. So they have a podcast called Our List. Do you want to check it

out? It's Our List podcast, I believe. And speaking of shirts, Standard Clothing in Print in Canada, North Carolina sent us some shirts. And I got a Hoosiers t-shirt, a Jimmy Chitwood number 15 Hoosiers t-shirt. It's because you are a well-loved celebrity. And Jerry got one, and you got one, different ones. And that is Standard Clothing in Print.com. Thank you to Amy who sent us her copy of her doctoral thesis, Ametrica, with an exclamation point about the metric system and how it should be used in America. And it's pretty awesome. I wrote a blog post on it. She mailed it. I got it like two days later. Oh, cool. So you could check that out. Just type in AMETRICA and it brings up some stuff. I don't think she has an actual site for it, though,

although she's on Twitter, a much neglected Twitter account, Ametrica. Interesting. I got two more. Matt invented his own chewing gum. It's good, too. It's called Think Gum, and it's supposedly brain-boosting with herbal extracts and naturally caffeinated. And you can find that at Think Gum dot com. And my last one, a little controversial in my house, we got handmade soaps sent to us from Jan Marie Silvera. Yeah, world soaps, W-H-I-R-L-E-D soap. And I told Emily about this because everyone knows my wife makes her soap. She was like, let me see that. She checked it out and checked out the, she immediately looks at the ingredients. This is the first thing she always does. She's like, oh, it's actually, you know, made of essential oils and olive oil and palm

oils. Good soap. Yeah, it's really good soap. Thank you to Cameron. Your letter got to us just fine. Thanks to the pinks for sending their CD. Pinks. Thanks to Elle Michelle down in Panama for the postcard. Very titillating postcard. Yeah. Thanks to Vanessa for the jackalope postcard. Still got some more Chuck. Hang in there. Thanks to Jan from Niagara Falls for a postcard of the namesake of her hometown. Thanks to Amarit and Boone, North Carolina for the nice letter. We'll see what we can do. Thanks to Laurel who sent us the Meyer Lemon vanilla bean marmalade. I didn't know about that either. Okay, I was, I didn't know if I gave you some or not. You just funneled some of these straight to Josh's house. I never even hear about him.

I had to ask you for the gum. Yeah. And I gave you the whole box. Thank you to Nick from mudrivercoffee. Mudrivercoffee.com. You got more coffee. You, this is where I got the idea to just keep the two pounds for myself. I was like, well, we'll split this. You're like, you're the coffee guy. You keep it. I did say that. Awesome coffee. Let's see. Thanks to Katarina from Lenefalue Hungary for the nice postcard of Joseph Stalin. Thanks to Robert for the route 66 postcard. Thanks to Zach Netzer for the awesome mix CD. Thanks to Andrew Smith at Andrew Smith art.com for the DVDs. Did you see those? I did. Thank you to Jen from Australia for the postcard of the theme park. And thank you to Staff Sergeant

Russing Kozahar. Koziar. I think it's Koziar for the postcard from Afghanistan. Be safe. That is it. Yes. All of you, not just the Staff Sergeant. Yeah, everyone be safe. And thank you very much for sending us some stuff. If you guys want to run in droves to the stuff you should know Facebook page. And if you have a link that you want to share with everybody, please do because all the stuff was great. Thank you. And if you want to send us something, you can find our address by emailing us at stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The HowstuffWorks iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes.

Rob, they call civil answer. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Langston Kermit. Sometimes I'm on TV. I'm David Boring. I'm probably on TV right now. David and I are going to take a deep dive every week into the most exciting groundbreaking and sometimes problematic black conspiracy theories. We've had amazing past notable guests like Brandon Kyle Goodman, Sam J. Quinta Brunson, and so many more new episodes around every Tuesday, many episodes out on Thursdays where we answer you, the listeners conspiracy theories. Listen to my mama told me on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast.