Do Farmers Have A Hero Complex? | The Granary | XtremeAg

00:00:00 Feed the world. If you ate today, think a farmer. You know what? There's a little bit maybe 00:00:04 of a hero complex going on in production area, culture. Do you suffer from it? Is it real? That's what we're talking about in this 00:00:09 episode of the Grainery. What You ready for a conversation with some real farmers about real issues? 00:00:17 The best part. You are invited. Support your yourself. A drink, grab a snack. Most importantly, pull up a chair. Welcome 00:00:27 To the greenery. Hey Guys. All right. So funny thing happened and you said the last time we were here to film, 00:00:40 you said, you know what's interesting? You said farming's actually cool again, when I was in high school, you are like, you were the, 00:00:46 the farm truck driving. You hung out the v*g guys, but nobody else thought it was cool. The rise of country music's popularity. 00:00:52 The, uh, thing that country's cool. It's, it's kinda like, Hey man, you guys farm. That's neat. And also it doesn't hurt that 00:01:00 for the last 20 years we've been in a pretty damn good agricultural economy. So the thing is, you can get a little bit like, 00:01:06 oh no man, I'm a farmer. Do you have a hero complex? No. No. I mean, we, like I told you last time, like when we, 00:01:13 when we, when I was in high school and through college years, I, I mean, truthfully, we hid the fact that we were from the farm community. 00:01:21 You almost embarrassed. You were embarrassed about it. You hid yourself from that. I mean, they might not have done that out in the Midwest, 00:01:27 but where I was from, you hid that fact. You didn't dress like a farmer. You weren't wearing cowboy boots. 00:01:33 I mean, now all of a sudden it's cool. We got these town kids that are wearing red wing boots to school and dirty jeans 00:01:39 And shoot. I think about selling mine on eBay. You know what I'm saying? Like, lemme work in these. You definitely do it. Lemme sell these. 00:01:45 Do our, do farmers have any real complex? Is there such a thing? You told a lot how awesome you are. You, oh, gain today. Think a f**k. It's only you 00:01:52 Kissing his ass. There is a lot of that thank of farmer, but it, it's not working like it was in the early eighties 00:01:58 for my dad or even the seventies, like it was for my grandfather. It, it's not that hard anymore. 00:02:03 It's not that hard of work to turn around on the end of The road. I wouldn't hit the auto steer. 00:02:07 But it's, it's a lot of long hours. And I think what changed things is, is the technology that we have out there now. 00:02:14 You know? And, and it's made it really cool. I mean, the things that we can do now. Yeah. I mean, back when we was on a 40 20, you know what I mean? 00:02:20 Like, things was a little rough. They were a little different. Cableless tracker, thankless job. 00:02:25 You know what I mean? Like, money started to be made. Things could, the economy got better. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Equipment got better. Everything's nice now. 00:02:33 I mean, tractors cost more than Lamborghini. So there's A cool factor to it now. But there, and then that's neat. 00:02:39 And that's actually something we're all very excited about. And they are agricultural people, you gotta admit. 00:02:43 'cause you are not like some of the people that go to some of these meetings, you know, 00:02:46 if you ain they think a farmer, it's a little overdone. It's a little overdone. I mean, do do you, did you think the person that uh, cleaned your shirt, 00:02:53 you know, it's a little overdone. Am I right? I'm just listening still. You mean real complex? Uh, no, I do not ever, I was like, 00:03:03 temple, you know, we kind of hid it when we was running around, you know, in high school and stuff. And you know, they'd be like, Hey, you know, 00:03:09 you gonna code college now? I ain't you going in college, you're going to work. You know, because that's what we did. But, um, I don't know. 00:03:15 I I can kinda see that now, but it's definitely changed times have definitely changed. Like you said, there's kids all the time. 00:03:20 Every, every kid's got a four wheel drive truck and Yeah. Yeah. Got boots. And, and I like it. 00:03:25 Like, I think it's cool. Like, I, I think it's cool. I think it's a good role model to have, you know, and I think I, not to say we're role models, but, 00:03:31 but you know, I think it's, it's cool to, you know, the working people, working class. Barbara Mandrell came out with a song 40 years, 50 years ago. 00:03:40 I was country when country wasn't cool and country's cool now and that there's something to that. But I really do gotta say the one thing. 00:03:46 Obviously we all love agriculture. We work in this industry. We do sometimes pat 00:03:50 ourselves on the back a little bit too much. Okay. Maybe that's part of the hero complex. You go to enough ag meetings, you go on social media 00:03:56 and it is like, I work so you can eat. I have farm so you can Eat. No other 00:04:00 industry does that. The guy that puts in highways doesn't, uh, uh, say, you know what, if it wasn't for me out here on this, uh, piece 00:04:07 of equipment driving around on a steamroll, you wouldn't be able to drive to work. We, we give ourselves a little, 00:04:13 Sometimes a little too much credit. I really think that I farm so my family can make a living and I enjoy it. I don't, you know, I I don't feel like it's work. 00:04:22 Um, it, I wouldn't say that it was not uncool, but it wasn't glamorous when we were in high school. Yeah. And then it got to be cool all 00:04:29 of a sudden when you got to Iowa State and you're around all those other kids. Yeah. All of a sudden, all 00:04:33 of a sudden I'm like, holy cow. But I would agree with you, uh, Amber has laughed at me before because the, the Carhartt stuff that we'd wear 00:04:40 and things like that, all of a sudden that's a big deal. Or the John Deere hat. Mm-hmm. 00:04:43 All of a sudden that's a big deal. And, uh, the Barbara Man drill song is correct. But, but I do agree that it's overdone 00:04:51 because I, I I don't think it's glamorous work. I think I do think there is something nice and, uh, uh, to be around your family. 00:04:58 Um, I read the other day that, uh, when your kids are 12 years old, you spent 75% of the time with them, you will. 00:05:04 Yeah. That's what I think is awesome. The benefit Of being in agriculture is you. Yes. That's the benefit of being in agriculture to me, 00:05:10 is of being around my family. There's Another thing that is kind of interesting, and then we've done a lot of these recordings here at the 00:05:14 Greenery where they say, you know what? I work a lot. You guys all talk about how would you spend four more hours 00:05:19 an episode that we already did. How would you spend four more hours if I gave it to you? And nobody else gets it. You know, all 00:05:23 of you went back to spend time with a family. Here's the reality. There's people that work in factories, that work in white collar jobs 00:05:29 that are gone on the airplane. They're gone 70 hour weeks and they work a lot too, but they're not working next to their dad 00:05:37 or their sons and daughters. And that's one benefit about agriculture. Yeah. I mean, we're, we're any, any given time, you know, 00:05:43 I mean, there's three generations that are in the field with us that are around each other all day long. You know what I mean? Like that's, that means something 00:05:51 like, and and you say that, yeah, I'd spend more time maybe at home with my family, you know, with my, but you're spend a lot 00:05:57 of time with your family in the business. I spend a lot of time with our family in the business. And you're, and you're so intertwined that sometimes I think 00:06:05 you need to learn how to unlock from that. And that's part, probably part of the biggest problem with us. 00:06:10 You know what I mean? Like, we don't, I have a great relationship with my sons, but sometimes I don't think that they see me as their dad. 00:06:17 They see me as some guy that's, you know, raising hell about something and not getting work done. So they, they don't get to see the other side enough. 00:06:25 You have to wear more than one hat. Yeah. You're not just the dad. You're also the boss. You're the mentor, you're the farmer. 00:06:30 I struggle with the same thing. Well, and we're getting to the point now. We're trying to get, you know, we're trying to shove more of 00:06:36 that responsibility off on our sons or daughters. We are. And, and I think, honestly, for all of us, I think that we've done a good, a really good job of that. 00:06:43 And I see myself stepping back and being like my father, you know, and the new generation, new generation to come. 00:06:50 'cause I, I want them to go out there and do that. But, you know, it's very different for them. You know, go back to the hero complex and all. 00:06:59 They actually are jumping into a career that is immediately cool. It was not immediately cool for us. 00:07:06 I felt like when I did it, maybe I wasn't smart enough to do anything else. Not also, is it cool they're not immediately broke 00:07:13 like we were when we started That A lot cooler. But You, you, you know, we talked about this before too. You think about the pressure that they feel, 00:07:23 and we don't realize how much pressure they feel because back when, you know, we started farming, you could make some mistakes and recover. 00:07:31 It was tough, but you could recover. We can make a mistake now. Lose the farm. Yes. Because the inputs are so high. 00:07:39 So, you know, our children are making way riskier decisions than what we had to do at the age that they're at. 00:07:48 In my opinion, I'm a little jealous of my sons at times because of everything we've got going on to make the farm successful. 00:07:56 I don't always feel like a farmer anymore. And I think that my son's gonna do the farming, then I have to run the business. 00:08:01 I gotta do we, Maybe they're Your hero. We haven't heard from Chad for a minute. Uh, all right. 00:08:05 So you thought us a little harsh, but you also agree with me, the thing about if you ate the day thing a farmer, 00:08:10 and I said, please get over that. I think that probably had a lot of merit 70 years ago when there was 00:08:15 more of a scarcity issue. I'm afraid that I tell my ag audiences this. I'm like, Hey, you gotta lay off of this. Yeah. 00:08:22 Be prideful about what we do and the accomplishment we have here. But I said, remember these people in suburbia, 00:08:27 they weren't told by everybody else. They do buzz with that. They had to, you know, 00:08:30 cough up the gratuity. It just seems a little Yeah. But Yeah, but you gotta remember, I mean, we're trying to bring, think about where you 00:08:35 and me live at Chad, like the reason we wanna do that, thank the farmer thing. And you wanna promote that as much as possible 00:08:41 because you can overrun because of the moms that are, that are the matriarchs of their family. Yep. And they, those matriarchs are buying food 00:08:49 for their children, and you need them to realize where the food comes from. That's, that's where it all backs up. 00:08:54 I mean, your area is throwing son. Mm-hmm. Like, They're the ones that are gonna be the driving force. 00:09:00 Well, I mean, we've said that all along. That's the ones we're trying to educate, you know, because we want 'em to know. 00:09:05 You know, and then when we do, like years ago, we, we had where we was doing two or three field trips a year from 00:09:11 first, second, third graders, you know, and it was, we were trying to teach them, you know what farming really is 00:09:16 because they're our leaders of the next generations, you know, of this country. You know, talking about the cool factor. Uh, I know. 00:09:23 And you sometimes, I don't dunno if I ever told you I was in soil judging. I was really good at, I don't know if I've ever told, 00:09:28 I've never heard, this was Amazing at ninth Nation, 97 times last, The 19, there wouldn't Be seven. There wouldn't be 10. 275 00:09:34.155 --> 00:09:34.355 So anyway, he's still Got a coat. He'll drag it out. He Talk about, yes. Talk about the 00:09:40 Cool Factor. Uh, So you talk about the cool factor. You know, your buddies will pick on you about soil judging, your buddy's talking, you know, pick on you about, uh, 00:09:47 you know, uh, your cruising, Hey, this ain't tractor speeding up a little bit. So you got a little bit of that razzing back in the day. 00:09:53 And I think that you're right, there's more of a cool factor associated with production agriculture than there was back then. 00:09:58 And it's, uh, it's, it's something that, you know, I think it's a good thing for our industry. There's even less people endeavoring in it, 00:10:05 but somehow it's got this cool factor attached to it. Now. Shoot, we even got an app. 00:10:09 I mean, you got apps, you got games. Oh yeah. You know, farming simulator farming Simulators. Yeah. 00:10:15 But think about where that all stemmed from. I mean, think about what John Deere did years ago, you know, even when we were kids. 00:10:20 I mean, they are, they are blueprinting or imprinting children from day one with all these books. You know, we had Johnny Pop book 00:10:28 and all, you know, I mean, you read the book and it was a neat book. And, and then they have all these toys. That's that. 00:10:34 I mean, that's imprinting over a long period of time. That's really getting it out there too. You know what? That got me. Gotta go 00:10:40 Joe. You don't even gotta, We just gotta go. Are you ordering Johnny? 00:10:44 All right. I gotta come up with something here that I really, I think, alright. It's kind of cool now. Ags been a really good place 00:10:49 for the last 20 years. Um, we might be moving into a downturn. What happens when your kids are all, uh, in their thirties 00:10:56 and ags not cool anymore? Hey, you guys, uh, are really hard on the environment. Use too much water. Are FK Junior says, 00:11:02 you put chemicals on our food and you're poisoning our children. Are we on a cusp where a year from now it's gonna be like 00:11:07 we're gonna be embarrassed or we almost hide that we're farmers again because, uh, they're being told from people like RFK Jr. 00:11:15 That Chad puts glyphosate out there, Chad, to use his fungicide. And they, and he's uh, he's put poisoning your 00:11:20 kids fruit loops. I think that the, uh, food is health, food is medicine movement that kind of grew or evolved out of the sustainable movement 00:11:29 or is now included in it. I think that continues to make farming cool. I, I, I think it depends on the message that's being sent. 00:11:37 I think it depends on the part of agriculture that you're in. But where we farm, you know, Chad 00:11:42 by Huntsville Temple in the Chesapeake Bay and me in those hills, uh, the sustainability that we're trying to look at 00:11:48 and the efficiency we're trying to look at, I think that we remain cool. And I think that less and less farmers, 00:11:53 you get the less connection that people have to the land as generations go on. 00:11:58 I think farming remains cool. I think with, um, you know, one social media pre presence. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Like they, they've, 00:12:06 they've made farming really cool. Like that's what's really kind Yeah. Catapulted us to the next level. 00:12:13 But the education that's out there now that it was never out there before, I don't think 00:12:17 that it's ever gonna become an embarrassment or anything. Anything like that. You know, you 00:12:21 got different ways to farm. You got regenerative farming. Yep. You've got organic and you got conventional farming. 00:12:27 So you have those three different categories and we're, we're evolving every day. And as long as we can continue to educate 00:12:34 and show that we're evolving and we've got carbon programs and all these things that we are showing 00:12:39 that we're doing the better thing, and with the technology that we have, it actually proves that we're doing a lot better job 00:12:44 and we just continue forward. I don't think that it, I don't think it goes the other way, Daniel, Chad, 00:12:49 Do we lose the hero complex? And it reverts to a villain complex because they're gonna say, I don't know, 00:12:55 our life expectancy is it's supposed to be. And we got diabetes and we got And it's you Farmer's fault. I mean, we gonna get to where there's that. 00:13:02 I don't think so. I mean, I, I really don't, I mean, I I think that people understand that, um, you're gonna have people that are 00:13:11 uneducated in everything you do. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what it is. I mean, we can call it what it is, but it's uneducated. 00:13:16 That's what our goal is, is to educate 'em. I mean they, they think that, you know, you're spraying this stuff on here when, you know, we got 00:13:22 kids and grandkids at homes that we wanna go home to. Yeah. Right. Like, I promise you ain't gonna hurt me before I hurt you. 00:13:26 Yeah. You know, so. Mm-hmm. So, I mean, it's just, it's just there. You're in and you'll always be in that 00:13:31 with social media the way it is. Before you didn't know about that stuff. Well now everything good and bad gets put out. So 00:13:38 We do a thing of this. I mean, I don't Think we'd be a villain deal, but We do do a thing where I go 00:13:41 to these agricultural meetings all over, you know, the country and even up north of us and that. And, and, uh, they do, they do a little bit of, uh, a friend 00:13:49 of mine said, I said, how is the Veterans Day program in your school? He says, I think we're getting to 00:13:53 where the veterans are almost getting uncomfortable because they've been thanked and Yeah. Carried on about and carried on. He's like, yeah, okay. 00:13:59 Listen man, this is nice. I went and did my part of my country. Uh, alright, thank you. Thank you for the recognition. 00:14:05 Let's move on. Now there's some of that with ag where, you know, and if it wasn't for you, God made a farmer. I mean, nobody else pleased. So God made a dry cleaner. 00:14:14 Nobody else, nobody else gets a Paul Harvey recording out at the meetings to open the meeting 00:14:18 and shows a video of, so God made a construction worker. I mean, it's a little overdone sometimes. It is. 00:14:24 And I'm gonna tell you, you know, that's a big deal. 'cause I drove 80 mile an hour all the way up here. Didn't hit many potholes. 00:14:31 I thanked them the whole way up here. So I'm, I'm, I'm like, I'm in on that. We'll start that deal if you want to. 00:14:36 Got me a construction worker. You got that right. I Remember my first, okay, this is when I first got a little bit embarrassed. 00:14:41 It was 40 years ago, a group, Alabama, obviously from Alabama. And I saw them in concert at the Indiana State Fair. 00:14:47 And I remember in 1985, their song comes out 40 hour week. It was amazing. It was feel good. What did they say? 00:14:55 There are people in this country who work hard every day, not for, for fame or fortune. 00:14:59 Do they strive, but they deserve it's time to get recognized. And one of the lyrics is from Detroit auto workers 00:15:05 to steal workers to waitresses to policemen. Hello. Kansas Wheat Field Farmer. You work a 40 hour week for a living, 00:15:12 just descend it on down the line. And as soon as I heard it, the very day I heard it on FM radio in 1985 when it first came out, I'm like, oh God. 00:15:19 Within a week there'll be a bunch of ag media going in there and saying, oh yeah, we work more than 40 hours. 00:15:24 I was wrong. It took a day and a half. It took a day and a half. Yeah. And that was the first time you talk 00:15:29 about being embarrassed to be an ag. I was embarrassed of ag because of all that thing. The music was about thanking blue collar people 00:15:38 and making the America great. And of course we're an ag have to go with it. Well, hey there, Alabama, 00:15:42 we got 40 hours in by Tuesday noon. And I'm like, oh, b******t. Come on man. Get, get off of it, man. Come on. 00:15:50 You don't have that same with action. Nope. Well people, you, you know, you know what made it cool? We, When all these songs that come out nowadays 00:15:59 and they talk about a man's rough hands and women dig it now. That's what made it cool. So the tough part, and here we go. 00:16:05 So we went from Alabama Sport just saying, I mean, tell me along by way if, if Matt was here, they would say, by the way, show us your hands. 00:16:11 'cause they always have to do the callous contest and Matt loses. Uh, I could see that Matt, Matt loses the callus contest 00:16:20 and then they even have to do mine. I said, dude, I still work for a living. See I got the most ca when Mrs. Mason met me. 00:16:26 And she says, I've been wondering why are your hands SoCal? I said, I'm a farm kid. 00:16:30 She says, you're a come, you've actually bailed hay for, uh, like eight years. Have you? I said, no, he just has really dry skin. 00:16:39 Do you really work a hundred a week? Not every week. A hundred hour week's. A lot a week. Do farmers flat hours? Do farmers over? 00:16:47 Do farmers over bill their hours? If they actually were billing for it, all their clients would send back 00:16:52 and say, no, you didn't really do that many hours. I have some South African guys that work a hundred hour weeks 00:16:57 and uh, I'm not there every hour that they're there. No, that's a lot. You work 80 hour weeks? I think so. I don't think I 00:17:05 work, uh, you know, what's your Short week? Uh, 10 hours racing. 20 or 30. I mean, I don't, I don't know. I mean, I see 00:17:13 where you're going, but like, um, There's a lot of weeks. I would probably only do 30 hours a week. I would tell 00:17:19 You. I don't know about, I mean, we work till it's done. I mean, we just work till it's done. 00:17:22 I mean, who, I mean literally, how, how, when have you ever punched a clock? No. You define work. 00:17:29 I'm not trying to say I work all the time. Yeah. But it's just life. Yeah. It's Just, it, it, I mean, I don't, I don't think any, 00:17:34 I don't think any of us like really keep up with your hours. Like, I mean, I don't what's considered work. 00:17:39 I mean, you have, you have like this time of year, you know, we may show up to shop at 00:17:44 and maybe they're like, this week I'm gonna be there at the shop one day. Yeah. We're doing this. I'm gonna be there one day. 00:17:49 So how many hours of work this week? I don't know. So that's what I'm getting at, you know. But then there's, you know, when you take this time of year, 00:17:55 you take the people in the office back home. Yeah. It's trying to get tax stuff done to see the year stuff. 00:17:59 Uh, we're going through all that. I mean, you look at it, dad and Stewart's at the shop, at the house right now, 00:18:03 they've been in office for a month. And I bet you won't let them clock their hours because you don't wanna do that. 00:18:08 So that's, I mean, that's a bad deal. So, I mean, what is, what is a Define work? Def 00:18:13 Define work. You know, because we're all just Work doesn't done work doesn't, I mean, it's, it's any hour than you spend 00:18:18 and you're contributing back to the operation. You Said that you were, It doesn't matter One hour this week or one day this week, 00:18:24 but how many phone calls did you answer on the way up here? Exactly. Which is work. Which is 00:18:27 work. Which is work. That's my point. He did six on the way from lunch until here today. Yes. In 10 minutes. Yeah. That's my point. 00:18:34 So I'm not trying to say that we're work all the time, but the, the difference between personal life and work, it just, it blends back and forth then it, it's 00:18:40 Just, it's just running a business. It's just running. But how many, how many people? It's just how many people that are you friends with that aren't from the farm 00:18:48 that is like, oh, you guys only work three months outta the year. Yeah. And they Oh yeah. They're right. To an extent. 00:18:53 I mean, we've worked, you know, a couple, three months in the, in the spring you're Duck hunting, you're goose hunting, 00:18:58 You know? Yeah. Triple. Like you're not, I I am that guy. And I think I usually tell you, I would never say three. 00:19:03 I would say usually it's about three weeks and three weeks. So it's really about a month and a 00:19:06 half that you guys are working. Right? Yeah. I mean, so I think any entrepreneur, It's just that time. You're putting in 00:19:12 a lot of hours. My, my uncle Ace had owned the gas station. I don't know that his hours are any different than ours. 00:19:16 You know, any entrepreneur you remember also When you run, It Blends back and forth when you run your own business, 00:19:21 thinking about business as part is work also. Yeah. When you're driving a car and you're thinking through the next venture 00:19:26 or whatever that thing is, that's work too. Alright, so back to the thing about do farmers have, and I, I was being obviously, uh, instigated to throw 00:19:32 that thing about do you have a hero complex? What do you think that farm people should be proud of and should also not keep carrying on about? 00:19:40 Because part of that thing is we, we go on Twitter for crying out loud or Ag Twitter, which, uh, there's a lot of, you know, um, pride in this. 00:19:50 And I think that sometimes there's stuff that they're missing a boat on. I, I think they should be proud of making it, 00:19:57 Staying in Business. I think they should be proud of staying in business. I know. I think they should be proud of 00:20:00 putting kids through college. I think they should be proud of paying for the home place. Or, or maybe their wife get to remodel a kitchen. Yep. 00:20:07 You know, I mean, I think there's, there's, there's so many things to be proud of. And, and that's what I think 00:20:13 If you're making a living, if you're making a living and you're working with your family and you're, you're paying your bills 00:20:18 and you're paying your own way, I think you're wealthy. It doesn't matter how many acres you have or anything like that. 00:20:23 You're, you, you're, and Then by, by the way, if you're providing for your family and you're keeping the business going, you're doing so and, 00:20:29 and, uh, every day getting better in it. You are a hero. I mean, does That mean that you wanna farm 1200 acres or 12,000? 00:20:34 If you are taking care of your family, you're successful. Who do you wanna be a hero to? 00:20:39 I wanna be a hero to my kids. Nobody else. I don't care about anybody else. Caroline damn sure ain't gonna think I'm her hero, but you know what I mean? 00:20:45 I wanna be my kids. She ain't Never hollered a Superstar. No. Well, You've kind of been my hero at times Temple, 00:20:52 Um, until I agitate you and then you really agitate with me for a while. He only heroed himself when we were in the middle 00:20:58 of trying to film something. And his damn phone started making Donald duck noises. I about took it away from his hands 00:21:04 and broke it. But other than that, And I did answer the call. Yeah, of Course. 00:21:08 It might have been work. It may have been work. And you constantly tell us work's just different for other people. 00:21:14 I might didn't need to take that call. I'd say that, uh, the thing that may be, there's too much pride in that. 00:21:20 I, I kind of wanna tell everybody. And, and this is interesting because I'm talking to a bunch of high yield people 00:21:24 carrying on about how, how big our yields are. That's neat. But we carry on about it so much. And you kind of wanna say, I'm not sure that 00:21:34 that's the one you should lead with. I, I, I just, uh, Well, I think that that's kinda where, you know, with the guys in extreme ag, we kind 00:21:40 of have gone away from the high yield thing and it's been about ROI for us for the last four or five years. That's 00:21:47 The important number. That's the important number. And environmental gains. And, and, and that's what we should be proud of. 00:21:51 We should be proud of that. Right. Because that's, that's the return that keeps the business going. 00:21:57 I agree. It's economics and environment. What he Would say that when he gets a participation trophy, correct? 00:22:03 Well, yeah. I mean, uh, hey, remember the, the, hey, remember the guy, the guy that loses the game always says, Hey, you know, I was really just here some exercise 00:22:11 anyhow before we played a good game. I just, yeah. I just really know. It's really, it's about sportsmanship. That's right. 00:22:16 I'm only saying that 'cause my kid's beating me this year. Exactly. What do you think that, uh, 00:22:22 when I said you were complex, I'm sure your mind started going, what, what did you think? You think, oh man, he's gonna start picking up farmers. 00:22:27 No, I'm not picking up farmers. I'm just saying you can see, you can see a little bit of this. Sometimes we, we pat 00:22:31 ourselves in the back a little bit too much. I think how he pointed to a Jew when he was saying that. So it's almost like he thinks it's you. 00:22:37 Well, it's kinda like the Matt Miles thing. Failure and success. I, I do think that people shouldn't talk about 00:22:43 how hard they work or things like that. But then part of the reason also that agriculture, uh, is cool, you know, like for example, my good friend Craig 00:22:52 and Julie bought and 80 acres this year. And, and he doesn't farm. He's an insurance agent, but he bought 80 acres. 00:22:57 He's been saving, he always wanted to own land. And he said he took Julie out there for the first time and she said, it's just cool to own American farmland. 00:23:04 There's a, there's almost a spiritual connection Yeah. That we sometimes take From Liz Mason has gotten that way 00:23:10 because she is, her parent grandparents were basically tenant farmers. And then they finally had, 00:23:15 and when we bought our first turn ground, that was the same. That was a very prideful thing. Yep. 00:23:20 She's like, I'm glad that we have worked hard enough that we can get to where we own a farm. And that was a very, and 00:23:25 so there is something to that. There's A lot of pride and, and inner inner confidence that comes with with that. 00:23:30 Yeah. And uh, that it's more than an asset. It is. Uh, which by the way, uh, that's something you should be proud of. 00:23:38 What do you think, what's the thing that, uh, you know, you talk about the, the person that is the hero is the person that, well, I did it right. 00:23:43 I've stayed in business. I've kept it going. I came, uh, you know, I got my kids that are in that thing. That's hero enough. 00:23:49 Yeah. I mean, I'm, I that's enough for me. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I mean, what else is there? Well, what 00:23:54 Else is there being, having a bigger yield than temple is one of the things. Well, I mean, you know what I mean? 00:23:58 It's just, that's what you do with it. What you're, I mean, it's not really an accomplishment. Yeah. You made a bigger yield, 00:24:02 but to accomplishment is, what did I learn from that? Yep. Like what did I learn from it? What did I bring back to my farm? 00:24:09 What did, what are we gonna advance next year? How are we gonna do a better job of we'll just get into it feeding this country. 00:24:14 Yeah. When the land is slowly diminishing, how are we gonna do a better job of that if we're not more efficient in it? Actually, I 00:24:21 Think it's pretty neat that what he says, but also what you said when you were here last time was the cool factor. 00:24:27 Maybe the thing is the hero thing is, is going a wave. You know, thank a farmer. Thank a farmer. Instead it's about I'm doing this thing. 00:24:34 I'm endeavoring in this thing that other people think is cool about. That's the, the part that I guess I would, I would pat my, 00:24:39 I would pat our industry on the back and say, we, we've made something that was, you're almost embarrassed of a few years ago to be, 00:24:44 See, I think we're just all past the whole factor. You know, we're all past the whole peer pressure deal. Hold, don't, 00:24:49 I don't think that thank the farm thing's ever gonna go away. And I think that's only gonna continue to get better. 00:24:54 Because again, it goes back to, I mean, how many of these farm to table restaurants do you know about? 00:25:00 And, and people really think that's, that's a cool factor. Yeah. Like they wanna know where their food is grown at 00:25:07 and how it was raised. Mm-hmm. And they wanna see the, the process. And people are more into their health now than 00:25:14 what they were years ago. Covid changed the world where people wanna know their food comes from now. You gotta believe it. So it's, 00:25:19 it's turned around a little bit. Yep. I mean, you take, like in my, in my area, there was a, there was a butcher shop there 00:25:25 that's been there forever and this family struggled. Not struggled, that's probably the wrong word, But they never did it. But it was rough 00:25:32 Yeah. For years. Um, and it was, and it was hit and miss for 'em. And they couldn't really grow. They enjoyed their job. 00:25:40 Just like we enjoy our job, then all of a sudden covid hits and people wanna know where their food comes from. 00:25:45 And now on Saturdays you can't even go there. Yeah. Because the line is around the building. There's no parking lots at the parking spots in town. 00:25:54 I mean, it has changed and people drive for hours Right. To get to this butcher shop. 00:26:00 And, and I couldn't be any more happy for that family. Yeah. Because they take pride in what they do. 00:26:06 They've sat there and they struggled through all the hard times and they made it. Yeah. 00:26:11 The, uh, Butch makes them hero. You can stay in business. You can stay in business. Yeah. You're a hero. The 00:26:17 other night we're getting ready to go to bed. Then the GOC meat store rings at the phone rings at nine o'clock. 00:26:21 We're like, who in the heck would call at nine o'clock? It was a guy in California and he'd seen us on social media and he wanted to know where his hamburger came from. 00:26:29 Yeah. And he asked Amber a few questions and doesn't will Call you at nine o'clock at night pretty regularly 00:26:34 Though. Well, but it wasn't Will he'd be be on my phone? Not on the meat store phone. 00:26:38 So that, you know, it's the business phone. And it was a guy from California. I, and, uh, he ordered 16 pounds of hamburgers because 00:26:44 He, he's basically conducting an interview to buy Things. He, he wants to know, he wanted to be able 00:26:48 to talk to somebody at the other end of the phone. And he was, he was interested to see if anybody would answer. 00:26:52 'cause he knew what time it was. And, uh, he's like, I, you know, he figured if it was a small hometown deal, like it's advertised to be, 00:26:58 that somebody would still answer at that time of night. It was a little bit of a test. And he wanted to know where his food came from 00:27:04 and he ordered 16 pounds of hamburger and we shipped it to California. I'm Gonna get that number. We're gonna start meeting 00:27:08 you. Start calling about 11 11 40. That's a good idea. I actually, you know what, you can call his number and do that. He 00:27:14 Got it on Facebook. We can get off. Yeah. I actually, you know what I was thinking? I wanna get I one meek, I need the guy, 00:27:19 I need the guy's number in California. 'cause I wanna undercut him and uh, maybe make a little better deal. 00:27:23 I'll take, I'll take his phone calls at 10 O'clock. No, what I'd do is I'd have called him 00:27:26 when you got up at five 30. 'cause that would've been what, three his time be up to call him. 00:27:31 I'd, I'd have called him and said, Hey, I just wanna finish that conversation. Yeah. That hamburger. Hey, 00:27:35 I like to interview my customers. There's people all across the country that wanna know where their food comes from and, 00:27:39 and that's what has made farming a a little bit cool again or cooler. And I just don't, I don't think that that stops is all 00:27:47 of farming isn't cool and, and it won't be because of the things you talked about. Right. But there's a certain segment of farming that is cool 00:27:53 because people have been disconnected from the farm in the forties. Everybody had a connection to the farm. 00:27:58 And now how many generations removed are we from the farm for a lot of people. And now it's circling back 00:28:04 where they want to know where their food comes from. Well, you know, and you, you can bring conservation and all that stuff and the regulation all into it, you know, 00:28:11 and I think that a lot of the arguments, you know, you talked about glyphosate, you talked about some other things 00:28:15 and are we poisoning our rivers? Are we doing this? Are we doing that? You know what I mean? Like, the government has done some stuff 00:28:21 and you know, local, you know, like in my area, they've done things where they've implemented things, whether it's a cover crop program 00:28:28 or doing things a different way. And they've shown that we have cleaned up areas where yes, we were overdo things. 00:28:36 Yeah. We were over fertilized and we were over this, we were over that. So things have gotten better 00:28:41 and now people realize that, hey, look, you know, by this, these practices that were implemented, 00:28:47 farmers are not trying to ruin anything. They are always gonna try to do the right thing. And I agree with you that we have cleaned things up 00:28:54 and changed, but I still stand by and I would defend agriculture from the fact that, or I would at least defend farmers. 00:29:01 I don't know a single farmer that has ever believed he's doing something bad. Right. No, that doesn't mean that he, that they're right. 00:29:07 You're right. But I don't know a single farmer that isn't a conservationalist because we don't wanna waste anything. 00:29:13 No. Because it costs money and we simply don't wanna farm the soil. We don't wanna farm the water waste. 00:29:18 So if mistakes were made in the past, it's, it wasn't because a farmer consciously did that. I will say I've never known a farmer 00:29:25 that consciously thought I'm doing a terrible job. If I were gonna say there's something that's heroic about what farming is doing in the year 2025 when we're recording 00:29:34 this is those exact gains that you're talking about. It's the natural resource conservation. It's the commitment to using less to make more. 00:29:42 And you know, I always had to point that out and people say, oh, these big farms, you know, and I use so much, I said, 00:29:47 you realize we're using less chemistry, less synthetic fertilizer per per unit of production than we ever have. 00:29:53 Yeah. And oh, oh, we, but the old days, I always say like the thirties was a more wholesome in Yeah. 00:29:57 And I pull the picture of the dust bowl, I'm like, well, uh, four states blew away. 00:30:02 Yeah. Is that, is that, yeah. So the hero from my standpoint is how much better we've gotten 00:30:06 and stuff that's good for everybody. That's good for the person in town and good for the waterways and all that. 00:30:12 That's where I think the big accomplishment's been. And using less antibiotics and all that. Right. I have to point that also, you know, my brother 00:30:18 and I, oh well they used so many drugs in these, in these farms. And I said I was 11 years old 00:30:24 with my 18-year-old brother out there shooting these cows full of penicillin that were downer cows 00:30:28 and then, ah, didn't get up. We're gonna sell it and go and get made into burger pretending. 00:30:32 I mean the, we're better at that than we ever were. We weren't better in the eighties. We're worst. There's too many safety issues out there now. 00:30:39 I mean we, technology has changed everything. And it doesn't matter what you, whether it's, you know, it's, we figured out a way that we can cut back on 00:30:47 fertilizer, chemistry, you know, medicine. Like all of that technology has brought all that to, to the forefront. 00:30:53 I brought up the thing about hero complex off on the other direction, about what we should be proud of. 00:30:56 And I think Chad said it best, we should be everybody that, uh, builds their business, keeps in business stays and, 00:31:01 and moves along as a hero. And that's a good thing because this is a tough business. But they're all tough businesses. 00:31:06 They're all tough businesses. Asked your uncle that had the convenience store, how, uh, he thought that was a tough business. 00:31:11 He said when he started you made a nickel on gas, a nickel. And he still showed up to work gas 00:31:18 every, every one at five point. But, but Gas was 20 cents and he was making uh, one 20 cents when he started. Maybe 00:31:24 His dad. Yeah. But, you know. Yeah. Wasn't that either? He made a nickel. Yeah. 25%. Alright, we're gonna wrap this up here. 00:31:32 So ask the question, do farmers have a hero complex, uh, feed the worlds, uh, if day today, 00:31:36 think a farmer, et cetera, et cetera. And of course, my reference to the, uh, 40 hour week song, which I think is a great one. 00:31:41 Anyway, uh, we have these kind of talks right here all the time at the Grainery. You're invited. We like it when you come here 00:31:46 with my friend Chad, my friend, uh, temple, and of course Kelly Garrett, uh, sitting here to my left. Uh, come to the Grammy and join us sometime 00:31:52 because, you know, we got great conversations like this and we want you to be here. 00:31:54.965 --> 00:31:55.885