Are You A Different Farm Dad Than Your Own Dad? | The Granary
7 Jan 2523m 5s

In this episode of The Granary, Damian Mason and the XtremeAg crew dive into the lighter (and sometimes not-so-light) side of being a farm dad. The big question: “How are you different from your dad?” The guys reflect on balancing tradition with change, the struggle to let go of control, and how farming with your kids is both rewarding and maddening. Pull up a chair, pour yourself a drink, and enjoy this real talk about family farming with a dose of good humor and honest moments.

This episode is brought to you by Nachurs.

00:00:00 Farming's a family Business. The guys from Extreme Ag family, farmers, you know what? They farmed with their dads, 00:00:05 and now they got their kids farming with them. So I'm gonna ask them the question, how are you different as a farm dad from your dad? 00:00:12 That's what we're talking about in this episode of the Grainery On A farm. 00:00:16 The work's never really done. We're calling the day anyway because my friends from extreme ag are coming over. 00:00:21 You ready for a conversation with some real farmers about real issues? And the best part, you are invited. 00:00:28 Pour yourself a drink, grab a snack. Most importantly, pull up a chair. Welcome to the greenery. Hey guys. 00:00:43 All right. I've been to everybody's farm. First farm. I went to Chad Anderson. I met Mike, your dad. He was in a recent episode of the Extreme Ag Show. 00:00:51 Likable guy, farm guy. You grew up farming with him. He still keeps a hand in the operation. Your father's deceased. He's a farmer. 00:00:58 Went through a lot of scrapes. You talk often about him. You, your dad's 85 or six years old 00:01:04 and still came out, ran a combine last month. When I'm at your farm in Maryland, Pretty Crusty old 00:01:09 son of a b***h, to be honest with you. You farm with your kids, you farm with your kid, you farm with your kid. 00:01:16 How are you different as a farm dad than your dad? Honestly, I would say that, um, I'm a terrible teacher. I don't have patience. Dad had patience when he was younger. 00:01:29 He's now, don't get me wrong, he's way better being patient with his grandchildren than he ever was with me. 00:01:35 I mean, we've talked about that before, but as far as like, I don't have patience and I'm not a very good teacher. 00:01:41 And that's the one thing that I really would fault myself about. And he was very good 00:01:46 and very patient where he would actually be like, look, this is why we do this. This is how we do it. 00:01:51 I'm better at going out here and teaching somebody else that I in my own kids. And that's terrible. That's terrible. 00:01:58 It's a terrible quality, but I don't know how to fix it. I think that's, I think that's every father. 00:02:03 I think that's every father IIII mean Matt. Matt. Why is it that that lane will call me and you? I, you, you're right. 00:02:10 I'm no, I'm, I'm, I'm serious. I'm not being negative to Matt. I'm just saying like, it's easier for me to tell Alexander 00:02:15 what he's doing than it is to tell Jackson. Yeah. Easier for you. You talk Jackson. I do. About things more than you know. And what 00:02:22 Happened when Lane spread? That field, wrong Chemical. He called me. I called 00:02:25 Chad. Oh yeah. You know, he was in tears. And He was like, tell him now. I said, no. It was like Friday. I said, no, don't tell him. 00:02:31 Tell him Monday. There's no need ruin on the weekend. That was my advice. Him. And you're like, but you Know, you Gotta realize 00:02:38 Who Wayne's talking to too. This is a guy. When we was South Dakota and we were out there talking, 00:02:43 we're getting ready to go on stage. I'm getting ready to go up there with Matt. Matt gets a phone call that he's, he's not gonna get one bag 00:02:49 of beans so he can plant these beans that he needed to plant. It was his third crop. Second crop beans. 00:02:55 What was it when you were doing that? My second crop beans, that second crop of beans. He was going wheat beans, then beans behind beans. 00:03:02 He's missing one bag of corn, one bulk bag. Now he's getting ready to lose his mind. It ruined his whole day. I know why. 00:03:09 Lane didn't wanna call his dad. I know why he'd called me or call you. I understand that. Uh, 00:03:15 Why does that make you, uh, why does is it, we're talking about who It's natural chief. It's not like you're gonna, he's a 30-year-old man. 00:03:24 It's not like, oh, dad's gonna spank me. But he feared coming to you first because of the screwup. He made 00:03:31 It What you bad? No, I don't. Wait a minute. I don't, I'm before, before you answer, um, let's get the clear the waters. 00:03:37 Yeah. It wasn't a fear. It was a how do I handle this? You Know, guidance. Guidance. You look at guidance. 00:03:43 Well, it's just like it was a catch 22. You know, he's going to tell him and he's going to know before he tells him like it's when he sprayed, 00:03:50 like he's gonna be dead tomorrow. Well, but it's like Matt was Gonna know, Would you do it this 00:03:55 way or would you do it this way? Either way it's gonna get done. I think our kids' problems are, and, 00:04:00 and liens is especially, it wasn't, he ain't scared of him. He ain't scared of him. He ain't scared of him Approve. Yep. 00:04:07 I don't even know if it's It's disappointment. Approval disappointment. It used to be Scared. 00:04:12 And you know, this is something that really transitioning that I've had to, when we talk about wanting 00:04:19 to keep control Yeah. Is three or four years ago, whatever. I said, yes sir. It today I'll say, we need to do this. 00:04:27 Well, I don't know if I wanna do it that way. I'm like, oh, okay, well we're gonna do it that way. It's Like, well, I don't, you know, 00:04:36 and so we butt heads a lot more today. And that's the part you're working on now by like, alright, well tell me how you wanna do it. Yeah. 00:04:42 The coolest thing in the world was when he come to me, he was in tears. I'm down in a drainage ditch. 00:04:46 It's 110 degrees and I'm mad at myself. Anyway, shoveling a drain out and he comes up there in tears. 00:04:53 The cool thing about that whole thing was he went to them first. And I thought that was, that shows the relationship 00:04:59 we have as a family. Uh, a non-blood family. Yeah. You mean? Yeah, he can call, He can call Chad or he can call Tim will say, Hey, 00:05:08 I'm fixing out to face down with this. You know what's even better than that? If I'm not here tomorrow, they're gonna get a lot 00:05:13 more phone calls than that. Yeah. Well The thing is, you kind of went the direction of I'm worse as a pharm dad than my dad 00:05:22 because I'm not patient enough to teach. It's things you're probably better at than your dad also. And it's not like you're just patting yourself on the back 00:05:29 to say that there's stuff that Mike Henderson is better than that than you, but there's things you're better than him. 00:05:35 And it's, it's, I mean, you don't do, this is not an analysis we Typically do, but 00:05:40 It's kind of a, uh, self-improvement exercise to do. That's a terrible idea. I I, I, that's a horrible idea. I'd say that I'm getting better at communicating 00:05:52 with my whole family. Maybe they're getting better at listening. No, I'm definitely getting 00:05:58 Told me they were getting better. Listen, you were the same. They're just getting better. Listen, 00:06:02 I did not say that. Just to clarify. I did not say that one time. Disclaimer. I disclaimer. I, I'm just telling you, 00:06:08 I'm getting better at communicating. Where before I'd get angry, go sit in the corner and freak out and be like, I told you, blah la la So you, 00:06:17 one, you gotta get better at communicating. Two, you gotta get better at handing over some responsibilities before you even get better at anything. 00:06:25 That you're gonna be better at what your father already did. Because obviously your father did a good job. 00:06:30 Because none of us would be here and the physicians that were in if it wasn't for him and what his father did. 00:06:36 And I think with every generation, as long as we keep leading by example, right? We're, you know, dad's doing better than 00:06:44 what his father did. And I'm trying to do better than what my father did. And as long as you keep leading by example 00:06:50 and you keep teaching the next generation, whether it be a woman or whether you know a girl or a boy or whoever it is, and, and let them figure it out. 00:07:00 I think that we're gonna all get better in time. It just takes a lot of time. And you, I I just really struggle with the, 00:07:07 with the control thing. And I'm trying to get better at that. How are you different than Mike? 00:07:15 I ain't gonna near the patients he's got, but, you know, sometimes I think that Yeah, but how Patient was he 30 years ago? 00:07:22 That's where I was going. You know, like I, I think that, you know, let's look at where, let's look at where, where 00:07:29 our farms was, where we were financially and where you were mentally, uh, 15 years ago. That puts our kids when they was 15, 16, 17. 00:07:40 You know, Jackson's 26 today, happy birthday Jackson. Right? Uh, but so go back 10 or so years ago. So let's go back. 00:07:45 Teenage boy. He's a teenage boy. But farm wise, financial wise, you're still trying to get over that hump, you know, as a young farmer 00:07:55 or, you know, or, or there was some, you know, look at where the economy was then, or look at the date or look at the land you took on or look at the camp. 00:08:02 You know, I'm just saying like, you're so uptight. It's just, it's like raising kids. Okay. You know, you, you start raising kids, you know, and, 00:08:11 and you give an analogy of like, you know, you want to, you got this line and we're gonna try to keep that kid on that line the whole time. 00:08:16 Well, it ain't about keeping 'em on the line. It's about how many times you can cross the line. Like if you cross it 00:08:21 and you just, you know, your kid goes this way and then you bump 'em back and they go this way and he's like, however many times you can cross the line 00:08:25 and you scored right more because you was on the line the most. So the farm's the same way. 00:08:30 I feel like, you know, as, as many times as we can cross that line when we was crossing 00:08:34 that line was further radiuses. And I know that's the way out there Saying that you and I, instead of us trying 00:08:41 to keep 'em on the line and we're keeping our, like this, you and me, we've been like way crossing the line 00:08:48 and way crossing. I'm just Saying that And Right about it. All I'm saying 00:08:51 is, is that I think we are doing a better job because we're 10 years older. We're more mature. Yeah. 00:08:58 We're, we're, we're letting the stuff roll off the stuff that was really, really important to end ain't as important 00:09:03 as it used to be because it always gets still. Well, it goes To the point where you're saying that, 00:09:06 You know, and at the time we want it done right then, right out this way. What did dad tell me that one time We ain't never knocked, 00:09:12 got done one time. I know that that's not proper English and it's hard to understand him, 00:09:17 but he's like, I don't know why you're so worried. We ain't never got, we have never not got done one time. Never not got done. 00:09:23 Yeah. He could've said, we always get the crops done. But anyway, That's not the way he says. So 00:09:28 This is the most quiet And he didn't have near as much. This is the most Quiet you've been in any, uh, conversation. 00:09:33 I've, I'm with you. Is this just too contemplative or are you afraid that he gets too emotional because you're farming with your son 00:09:40 but your farming with your father got cut Short? Yeah, it's kind of, it's kind of both. 00:09:45 I mean, honestly it's a tough subject. You know, my dad up until I was 12 was made bad decisions. Yeah. From when I was 12 on, he was my hero. 00:09:54 So, you know, I can't say that I would change a lot from what he'd done. My problem was when I was 30 it was over. 00:10:01 So I didn't get to see my dad get older and quit and things roll off his shoulders. You know, he still had that drive, 00:10:08 you know, when he passed away. So I didn't get to see the older man that y'all see today. You know, I tell both of them us all time. 00:10:14 If you get mad at your dad, go hug him because he, he might not be there. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it's, it, it, I I get p****d off. Yeah. 00:10:22 Because I'd like for him to be able to see. Yeah. So, so when he changed his life when I was 12 and he was climbing the mountain Yeah. 00:10:31 And when he passed away, I just kind of took the sword and kept climbing the mountain. Yeah. You know, 00:10:35 and I hope that in, you know, you know, a lot of people say they looking down on us or whatever. You realize he could, 00:10:41 He's still shaping you today. Yeah. Because you realize what we just talked about with Lane 00:10:47 and our kids being disa you know, they're worried about us being disappointed. You realize that you're still doing that today. Yeah. 00:10:54 Because you're worried about disappointing your father that's not here. You're still trying to prove a point 00:10:59 Every day. That's exactly right. Alright. You said communication is the thing that you are not as good at. 00:11:03 And I didn't bring it up. You basically said that, but then you also said, my dad's more patient. Well, when you're 85, 00:11:10 of course you're gonna baby the grandkids. It's a different time in life, et cetera, et cetera. What thing do you need to be better at 00:11:15 with your relationship with lane communication? I've been down to your firm number times. You seem to communicate pretty damn well. Well, 00:11:21 I've had to overcompensate and try to make sure I do everything correct because I didn't get that learning as I got older. 00:11:30 Yeah. Right. You know, so I've had to overcompensate and try to almost sometimes walk on pins and needles to make sure that that relationship is 00:11:38 where it needs to be and, and, and what worries me as much as anything. I know he's about the age when my dad passed away. Mm-Hmm. 00:11:45 He is the age when my dad passed away. Mm-Hmm. There's so many things that I didn't learn because I was off jacking around. 00:11:51 Yeah. You know, thinking about other things that I've tried to make Lane pay more attention at 25, you know, of course 00:11:58 with the death of Billy Lane had to completely change from the lane. We're talking about lanes earlier. 00:12:03 He was in a fertilized lane spreader truck. That was his job. Yeah. And then when Billy passed away, he had completely changed, 00:12:10 you know, and for three months because I wasn't in the position to be able to make decisions. 00:12:14 So there's been a lot of weird stuff happen there in, in my relationship. I, you know, I'm just, but I, it's still been, 00:12:21 and we're are absolutely best friends and we do not go to bed at night mad at each other. That's one thing that we make sure we don't do. They ain't 00:12:30 Slept before, but you ain't. That's Right. What do farm dads, what Do farm dads get wrong? 00:12:35 What if everything Dads get wrong? Same, same as other dads? Same as same people. I mean, laundry 00:12:41 Cleaning business or owning McDonald's franchise. The only thing better, the only thing that we're in the same boat in any generational business, 00:12:48 whether it's cleaning business or supermarket or restaurants or what have, you know, the only way you get out of 00:12:54 that is if you're at a factory or an executive job and your son goes and does an executive job or something somewhere different. 00:13:00 Or daughter is Yeah. Our daughter or whatever I'm using son. 'cause I, I'm referencing Yeah. 00:13:03 I'm referencing Lane, but every dad makes mistakes. Yeah. You know, and, and we may make 'em mistake in a plow on the 00:13:10 dirt and they may make 'em in something else. You Know, the mistake that we do make, Matt, is we, we tend to forget how much stress 00:13:17 that our kids are under when we're trying to hand a hand a baton off or hand a torch off, whatever you wanna call it. 00:13:22 Because if they make a mistake, they know that it costs a family farm. Mm-Hmm. If you're in a different situation where, you know, 00:13:32 and that's any business that you're in, that's a family business. But we tend to forget how much pressure they're under 00:13:38 and they feel that pressure every day. And that's what, that's the cross that they gotta bear. I mean, it's, it's tough on 'em. 00:13:44 And we're hard on 'em all the time. I mean, I'm telling you, when I say I'm hard on my kids, I mean, I'm hard 00:13:49 On them and I probably don't see that as much because my baton got dropped. That's what before it could be handed off. 00:13:56 So when it was, when, you know, uh, I didn't have, it was like one day I had someone making decisions for me and the next day I had to make my own decision. 00:14:05 The difference is, is you built your family farm, you built your own legacy. Um, and you really did. You know, Touche. 00:14:12 I don't know how you did it. You know, the rest of us, we were, we're farming a generational farm and we tried not to lose it. 00:14:21 Now we were putting the pressure on our kids and we're forgetting what we went through. We're trying To take, it's hard today to not lose it than was when you 00:14:28 Started, like we talked before, we could make mistakes back in the eighties, nineties, the early two thousands, 00:14:34 and we could recover from some of that. Well, nowadays, man, we make one big bad mistake. You know, you realize some 00:14:40 of the pressure we put on these kids, they do realize that we can lose it all if they make a mistake. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. 00:14:48 You talked about your Dad, Mike being a patient, Very patient more so than you, I don't think even in 20 years ago, he ran at your speed. 00:14:56 You, you are, um, different in from your father in your pace, uh, pace you talk, the pace you walk, 00:15:03 the pace you work, the pace you run. Is that an accurate statement or did he just slow down when he got No, 00:15:09 I mean, no, I don't, I mean, I, I try to think about that as well. You know, when, when we come into the farm, 00:15:14 and again, I say, I say we, I say it's like me and Stewart. Okay. It does. So, so, 'cause you know, 00:15:19 because it, it's, we work a little over 7,000 AC acres now. Right. Well, when we come outta school, you know, um, and, 00:15:26 and Stewart chose to go get a degree, which I'm glad he did because, you know, it helped us in, 00:15:31 in the things he does on the farm. Well, we, we come to work and it was, we worked 1700 acres, 2000 acres, you know, 00:15:38 and, and so it was a different caliber then, you know, to what it is now. Now did we work harder then? 00:15:45 I think we worked harder then than we do now. I I really do. But I think now is way more stressful, you know, 00:15:52 because it's just, it's, it's the cost. It's, it's, it's just, it not even the thing higher, it's higher stakes gambling. 00:15:57 Well, ain't it? I mean, it's just, you know, where we was playing, you know, me and you was talking about that 48, 40 on the way up here, 00:16:02 you go buy brand new and for what, 28? Yeah, 30, 32. I don't, I don't remember. I don't even know. It Might, he might make 40 back in the day. 00:16:10 I mean, I don't know. I mean, dad bought a, I can remember dad buying a brand new 45 55 and I think it was 49 to $52,000. 00:16:17 So Yeah, you, you, you know, so I mean, The difference between you and your father as you're playing at a different table in the casino with, 00:16:25 uh, a thousand dollars, uh, in front of you. And, and I been playing at the $5 table. And, and that's why, you know, the, it's not 00:16:31 Insulting, it's just, it's just, It's Just the $5 table. Them, I mean, 1700 acres at 00:16:36 that point in time was pretty big. Well, but in today's world, this is all Insane. And 00:16:39 Then, you know, we just, we just done that episode, you know, and we talked about the interest rates then. I mean, you play that, play that game, go buy it 00:16:46 and then let's go the interest rate deal, you know? So Yeah. But they played 18% interest at one point too. I 00:16:51 Know, I know. Yeah. That was real. So, So I mean, I almost think today, today's economy is worse than the eighties 00:16:57 because of the cost of the good. Well, I'll tell you what the tell tale on it. Look at the, look at the num, look at the numbers 00:17:03 of suicide rates among farmers. Yeah, true. That tells the tale. The, the, the mental thing is the real deal. 00:17:10 We're, we're, we're gonna spoiler alert, we're gonna cover the mental health issue and another recording. 00:17:16 And, uh, that's not something that is, shouldn't be talked about, never recording because farmer mental health is, uh, a, a very big concern. 00:17:24 Um, so I I I wanna get that, but we're gonna do that exact, that deserves its own topic. Yeah. About the thing with your parents, you know, to say 00:17:33 that the numbers are bigger now. Yes. The acreage are bigger than your father, your father, your father ever had. 00:17:37 There's no question. But to Temple's point, the eighties we're in our first year of a downturn, Matt, they made it through more than a decade. 00:17:47 You know, you felt from 81 till sometime in the mid nineties before there was even a light at the end of the tunnel 00:17:51 before you even come up for air. Uh, they, they must had some fortitude. I farming A little bit of that myself. 00:17:58 Well, you gotta remember back in that. Yeah, well, you gotta remember back in that you, there was a lot of people that went out 00:18:03 and the people that get that went out, they're gone. And the only, the strong survived. So you have that, that's what's, 00:18:10 that's what you're seeing here. The strong ones that have survived and that's trying to pay us on to another generation. 00:18:16 You know what I mean? There's, that's two generations ago. Don't think for a minute 00:18:20 that you won't hear about that too. Don't think for a minute that you don't, I didn't go through that. 00:18:25 You know, I started farming in, uh, 92 was my first crop. But don't think for many that, you know, all the details 00:18:31 that I told you during that thing, it wasn't stuff that I went through. But, but you remember 00:18:35 that they would make sure they put that in you. Like we're putting, I told me that the other day. I kind 00:18:38 of got, I mean, this is right before Harvest started this year for us. And I was putting in the dumps. 00:18:43 I'm like, man, we got bad crops. We got bad money. We got, you know what I mean? Talking about interest rates. And I'm like, it's, you know, we don't have a good market. 00:18:51 Like, I'm really worried. He said, you ain't seen tough. That's what he told me. And I mean, 00:18:55 he had some other choice words, he called me. But in the end, I mean, he's, they're right. We, we hadn't seen tough. You went through part of it. 00:19:03 That was at the start of my, where I was, I was back in 1985 is when I kind of started. Dad handed her the first farm, and I kind of sold 00:19:11 That. I was 89. So you were before me. Yeah. So I know, I know that the way your dad talked to me, over me cutting my finger over 00:19:17 crap, I'm, he got you on. I'm pretty sure that he would tell me and you that we, uh, we ain't men enough. 00:19:22 You know the word. We ain't men enough farm. Then. You Know the word he used. I do remember the word he Used, Chad. 00:19:27 It's one little prick in his hand from it. More than it was more than a prick. It was, I mean, I think I needed three stitches and 00:19:33 Went and got him a bandaid. Yeah. And said, here you, and then left it at that. I was like, who I Was. I wouldn't even put 00:19:39 it on. Like, I was like, no. Like, no, it, it ain't hurt. I his field that you went over 00:19:43 and you got wrenches out so he could actually beat the crabs. And the thing is, No, he went and got brand new bolts outta the bolt band 00:19:49 and they were threequarter bolts eight inches long and was handing 'em out. I was There. No, I mean, 00:19:54 I, I, the worst thing about mine is they took it to TSA. Like, I, I don't even know. I took ts a like 00:20:00 When you think about how you were different from, uh, the dads than, than we grew up with. We can talk about they went through a different time. 00:20:06 Of course, everybody's got that whole thing. What about them? The idea that these, these these kids are looking at you 00:20:13 and what's the thing you're saying? You know what, I'm really glad about my dad. I'm really glad that fill in the blank. What's Lane say? 00:20:21 I'm really glad that when I gave him this opportunity, my dad, uh, is really, uh, introspective my dad. Um, makes, are you gonna 00:20:30 Answer all the question I'm throwing on there? I don't know. Well, I think that, yeah, Yeah. You 00:20:35 Contemplated I've ever seen Mr. Matt Miles. Well, Well, I mean, I think, I think Lane would be like, he would be appreciative, you know, that. 00:20:43 But now he didn't, I didn't hand anything over to him. I mean, he's paying me interest on anything that I'm, I'm involved with, with him now. 00:20:49 'cause I wanted him to pay his way for and learn that, that that's the way it is. But I think he, Hey Lane, I think there's respect. 00:20:57 Yeah, I think, I think he's got respect for, uh, well, I'd say absolutely has respect. He definitely, And then, and then the, the French, the closeness, 00:21:05 friendship, you know, that we have, I mean, he said it on video several times where he said, dad was my best friend. Well, 00:21:11 The, the one thing that I tell you about Lane is, you know, when he called me back, I said, how'd you make out? 00:21:17 He said, you know, I didn't, there was two things that was going to happen is either he was gonna get really mad or I didn't know. 00:21:23 I didn't know how to handle that problem. And he said, I didn't get my business partner who I thought I was gonna get. 00:21:30 I got my dad. And he said, and that meant a lot to me. And it did. That's a, that's a very interesting thing. 00:21:36 Sometimes you're a business partner with your kid that's in the business with you, and sometimes you're the parent. 00:21:43 You have to be Both. That's it. And you have to separate 'em at attacks. Yeah. That's, that's a really valid point right there. 00:21:50 All right. We asked a question, how are you different than your dad? And how are you going to have whether the operations, 00:21:57 'cause most farms in this country are still family farming operations, whether they're incorporated or not. 00:22:01 We talk about these kind of topics right here at the grain reef. We always ask you to pull up a chair for stuff, for drink. 00:22:06 Grab yourself a snack, make yourself at home. 'cause you know what? You're part of the group and we're very happy you joined us. 00:22:12 This episode of The Grain Reef is brought to you by our forensic Natures. Nature's Fertility products are, uh, fortified with bio. 00:22:17 Okay? That's their technology. And actually here at XT Extreme Ag, we have a partnership with Bio kay. 00:22:22 Go to natures.com and check it out to learn more about it. These guys all use their products to great success. 00:22:28 Also, share this episode with some that can learn from it. Enjoy it. You know what, it's just real farmers sitting here 00:22:33 having real conversations about real things that you think about. And this time we talked about the different 00:22:38 ki different situations from your debt to you, to the people that you're going to pass the next your farm 00:22:43 onto for the next generation. Till next time, thanks for being here. 00:22:46.115 --> 00:22:46.975

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