100% Humboldt
Humboldt County CA USA is the home of some of the most iconoclastic, genuine, and interesting folks in the world.
We are getting curious about the movers, shakers, and difference makers in Humboldt County CA-Home of the giant redwoods, 6 Rivers, and the vast Pacific Ocean.
We will discover what makes people live/evolve in the beautiful, diverse, isolated, and ever-changing Northcoast of California 100%!
Listen in and learn what it is to be 100% Humboldt!
100% Humboldt
#80. Thomas Nicholson Stratton: Future of Humboldt Belongs to Those Who Dream Big
Thomas Nicholson Stratton embodies the spirit of agricultural innovation in Humboldt County, transforming traditional farming into a showcase of collaborative community building. From his roots in Northeast Oregon to becoming an integral part of Humboldt's food landscape, Thomas shares the remarkable journey that led to Jersey Scoops, Nicholson Livestock, and the emerging Loleta Meat Co.
The conversation flows through Thomas's formative years in Union, Oregon, where his 4-H background instilled values of service that now drive his business philosophy: "My head for clearer thinking, my heart for greater loyalty, my hands for larger service, and my health for better living." After falling in love with Humboldt and joining a dairy family, he's now managing nearly 1,000 acres with ten employees across multiple enterprises.
What makes Thomas's approach revolutionary is his focus on soil health as the foundation for community wellbeing: "When we focus on the community below the ground, we're able to impact the community above the ground in a greater way." This philosophy extends to Jersey Scoops, where they transform their dairy's milk into premium ice cream featuring collaborations with local producers like Patch's Pastries, Shake Fork Farm, Fogline Coffee, and soon Dick Taylor Chocolate.
Beyond business, Thomas is helping revitalize the town of Loleta by restoring the historic Meat Market building and positioning the community as a future gateway for the Great Redwood Trail. His involvement with Leadership Redwood Coast and initiatives like Redwood Region Rise demonstrates his commitment to addressing regional challenges through collaboration rather than competition.
The conversation tackles complex issues facing Humboldt County—housing, healthcare, economic development—with Thomas advocating for solutions that emerge from listening to those directly experiencing challenges. His vision includes creating processing infrastructure for everything from meat to textiles to seaweed emulsifiers, keeping economic value within the community.
Join us for this inspiring discussion about community-centered business, sustainability, and how focusing on others creates prosperity for all. Listen now to discover why Thomas hopes to be remembered as "someone who put others first, a servant leader who supported others in creating what they want to accomplish for the better."
About 100% Humboldt with Scott Hammond
Humboldt County CA USA is the home of some of the most iconoclastic, genuine, and interesting folks in the world.
We are getting curious about the movers, shakers, and difference makers in Humboldt County CA-Home of the giant redwoods, 6 Rivers, and the vast Pacific Ocean.
We will discover what makes people live/evolve in the beautiful, diverse, isolated, and ever-changing North Coast of California 100%!
Listen in and learn what it is to be 100% Humboldt!
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Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors, it's Scott Hammond with the 100% Humboldt Podcast, with my newest best friend, thomas Nicholson Stratton. And it's not just because I brought ice cream right, it is Well, we'll get there. Thank you for having me, thanks for coming, you're welcome. Tell me you have Foggy Bottom Boys there, so that must mean something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure do An iteration of a convergence of a full life lived it feels like, for the amazing experience that I've been able to achieve. But I'm from Northeast Oregon and fell in love here in Humboldt and came down to live here 10 years ago as part of a dairy family and just loved every minute of it and getting to experience the life in Humboldt. We're so blessed here.
Speaker 1:Oh man. So we want to hear all about Jersey Scoops, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, jersey Scoops Nicholson Livestock.
Speaker 1:Lolita Meat Co.
Speaker 2:Oh, is that? Are you going to get the exclusive?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Maybe in Scoop they call me Scoop Hammond, so tell us about your story, thomas. So you grew up way up in Burns or somewhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, actually all the way about an hour from the border each direction.
Speaker 1:Ontario.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just a little bit further up north.
Speaker 1:So Ontario is where all the Boise people go for weed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh there's so many things, especially alcohol laws, fireworks laws. There's a lot of state crossing.
Speaker 1:Do they come over to you guys? Is Oregon looser Back and forth too.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah. So alcohol for one, fireworks for the other, sales taxes for Washington, property taxes for Oregon. I mean, it's just, it's all right there. Yeah, it's all right there. You could have all sorts of different enterprises. Well, there's not much up there actually. I grew up in a small town called Union Oregon, so it's a bedroom community, very similar to what Ferndale is. From a university community, it's called LeGrand Eastern Oregon University. It was Eastern Oregon State College for a while. So so many similarities. How many students there? Great question. I think there's probably about 3,500. So it's not huge.
Speaker 1:It's pretty big for that area.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's a beautiful area, it's secluded, just like we are here, so I feel right at home. You know, every time I come through the Redwoods it's that different smell. It's like for me it's the pines when I go to Grand Ronde Valley, right, right. So, yeah, similar community. I actually met Cody, my husband, at a Starbucks and our mutual friend, his polo teammate. She and I grew up together and we just said hi and introduced each other there. Yeah, it was 2007. I was a senior in high school, he was a freshman in college. Polo's a thing For horses. In Eastern Oregon there's not much else to do except for ride around on a horse. We're not talking about water polo either. No, no, we're talking equestrian hitting balls with sticks. It's pretty intense, it's a pretty rad sport. Actually. He's an athlete, that's for darn sure. Yeah, you gotta be tough, polo ponies are a whole other money pit probably.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I mean actually one of our friends that grew up there, quinn, he's amazing and he's done international championships. Wow, was in the Olympics this last year, right, his mom was Cody's polo coach and you know, what's funny is that they all said we should be together as soon as we knew each other All of our friends I mean just barely met each other Kept in contact for 10 years on. Facebook and you know MySpace, when it was a thing, MySpace.
Speaker 2:And we're, like you just know, two queer people. You think that you know, come on, that's not how it works Right. But come on, that's not how it works Right.
Speaker 1:But they knew. They knew, oh cool, good to be known, and I was going to make a comment about polo, so I played water polo.
Speaker 2:Oh really.
Speaker 1:In San Diego growing up, different polo oh yeah, didn't take a horse, just a ball. Yeah, and the ability to swim well. Yeah, and not to die in the pool, which is important.
Speaker 2:So you went to grade school and middle school and high school, yeah, so fun fact actually four days a week all the way K, through post-secondary education, all the way through university, ended up going to Johnson and Wales University. It's a marketing business hospitality school. It was in Denver, colorado. They've consolidated campuses now so it's no longer there. But yeah, it's four days a week for me. I hope to achieve, or maybe now that I'm working seven days a week. This is my payment. You got to pay back.
Speaker 1:I got to pay back those extra days. All those four-day weeks yeah, I did that at Humboldt. I was able to go four or five days. Gosh Never studied on weekends. It's life-changing, you know, yeah. I just had this other life balance and thought I'd be an ocean major and I was a recreation major. Perfect, go figure. I got a good education. Humboldt is and was great, and what'd you end up with? Recreation administration, liberal arts.
Speaker 2:Very cool.
Speaker 1:So minors in PE, theater, recreation and oh business you have to have a business background.
Speaker 2:There's a business underlying everywhere good education my mom was a school teacher for 36 years as a physical education is she still there?
Speaker 2:still goes and substitute, teaches and everything. What does your dad do? He's done maintenance crews, rock construction companies, anything that's like a machinist working to getting things problem solved at a large scale with large pieces of equipment. So I got to grow up riding cats and digging in dirt. So all the mechanical stuff, big dump trucks and rock crushing, which is probably really useful in the ranch today. I'll tell you, between my grandfather and my dad, all the skill sets that I have learned over my lifetime have been invaluable to the creations that we're starting right now.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, that's really cool, I like so. You went to school in Denver, so that's all being useful now too.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I had the belly of a BA with business administration and then got my degree in marketing and really focused on behavioral consumer science. So you know why people make purchases or buy ice cream. That's good, yeah, I mean. And the way that we like to address it is you know, is it a deficit mindset or is it a growth mindset? Right? Is it, is it scarcity? And is it, you know, fear, or are we joy and abundance Like we're like? We want to go for the joy and abundance. Yes, we do.
Speaker 1:Everybody wins that way.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go on camera here. It's time. It really is time. It might be, it might be too soon. Where is it? Do you have it? Do you have it? Do you have the?
Speaker 1:bag the ice cream.
Speaker 2:I mean, hopefully I didn't get it. No, here we go.
Speaker 1:Our producer, Nick, has the ice cream. So yeah, Is this too soon?
Speaker 2:It's like not at all, I mean this is going to melt if we don't do it. This is about the perfect temperature.
Speaker 1:I'll pop it so yeah, get it on, get it on the mic too, oh yeah. Oh, look at that. Oh man, this looks really man. Absolutely. I feel like I jumped the gun. Joni's going to be so embarrassed, oh wow.
Speaker 2:So there's chunks of Patch's triple chocolate brownie, and Patch's just opened up Patch's Pastries, another location on Main Street in Fortuna. That's where the main bakery hub will be, and so that's one of our six current collaborations for flavors Shake Fork Farm with their strawberries, fogline Coffee with their coffee we're working Really. Coffee, oh, it's really good.
Speaker 1:You ever had Phil's Coffee in the Bay Area?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:H-I-L-C. No no, no.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, Is that where I need to go next?
Speaker 1:Well, yes, yeah, so we always love Black Rock up in Oregon. Oh okay, black Rock coffee's killer. I haven't had them either. It's really good. But Phil's is like it started in the Mission District and they're really diverse and really small, but everything's a pour over. You can pick like 20 coffees.
Speaker 2:And this is what Rob and his family and team is aiming for at Thogline. So most of them are small cultivators. A lot of them are women-owned that they're purchasing from directly and in the case of the coffee ice cream we're providing, it's called Minka and it's the darkest roast that they have, but it's actually really light compared to everywhere else. They don't go for that second pop in roasting as you would do, like Starbucks coffee is, you know, the burnt?
Speaker 1:flavor and fog line. Are they up in Valley West or are they the guys? You would do, like Starbucks coffee is you know the burnt flavor and Fogline? Are they up in Valley West? Are they the guys? Yeah, valley West. They're not the guys. By the co-op.
Speaker 2:That's yeah. Yeah, this is off right next to the Food Hub North Coast Growers Association.
Speaker 1:Speaking of dark, I'll make segue. Yeah, very smooth segue. Yeah, I had dark dark chocolate. Yeah, Tell me about the association with these guys.
Speaker 2:You guys are, yeah, you know, we're excited to finish our collaboration. So we've worked together and I will say to preface you know I wrote a little article with the Impact magazine for Nancy Olson and the Eureka Greater Chamber and it's about that. It takes a lot of work to collaborate and it's a lot more than just buying something off the shelf, but that's how you make a relationship work and business work cohesively. So we're just finaling up the details there. But yeah, our chocolate ice cream. We're looking forward to having Dick Taylor chocolate.
Speaker 1:It's huge. I got to think Nancy was a guest on the show. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:She was very excited when I heard I was coming.
Speaker 1:Nancy, hey, what's up? No, I love that, I think so. Let's back it way up. So Jersey Scoops is in Lolita, california, right over here on my map. Do you ever see me use my prop Ready? Lolita sits right over here at South of Eureka, which is in it's in California, in Humboldt County, california, and Lolita is. I'll let you tell the story of Lolita and then the story of how you guys are there as the Jersey Scoops, which my wife went to today, and I'll talk about that. But I'm done talking, you talk, you got it. That ice cream is really good, by the way. Thank you, is there coffee in there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, none yet, nick, you probably need some too. It's delicious. You know, I am so grateful to have a family that I was able to join in the Nicholsons, because I have a lot of big, hairy, audacious goals and I gained those through 4-H my head to clearer thinking, my heart to greater loyalty, my hands to larger service and my health for better living for my club, my community, my country and my world. I mean, that's what I live for four generations.
Speaker 1:Can you say it one more time, because it's pretty important stuff. Yeah, you got it. Yeah, repeat it.
Speaker 2:Slowly, with hand motions, my head for clearer thinking, my heart for greater loyalty, my hands for larger service and my health for better living for my club, my community, my club, my community, my country and my world. So that's four generations since the program began in the nation. Our family's been involved, wow. So I first moved here and fell in love, moved here and then got a job at the Cooperative Extension Office with UCANR University of California, agriculture and Natural Resources.
Speaker 1:So you know one of my other guests, yana Yana. Yeah, I thought so.
Speaker 2:Yana's amazing Fire expert Knows about fire, she knows about it, all she gets to have. She's surrounded by brilliant scientists and is one herself, and gets to interface all of the pieces together, which is really amazing to see live and how that works.
Speaker 1:Shout out to Yana. That's super sweet.
Speaker 2:She's an amazing person, oh yeah, and so that was my first experience in Humboldt right, that family there and Leslie Canifax, who has been a part of the community for a long time, ran that office so well. So what did you do with them? For them, so, essentially, I coordinated the 4-H program. So between here and Del Norte I coordinated all the program aspects.
Speaker 1:It's a huge thing.
Speaker 2:It was really fun, but it was easy. I mean when I say easy I mean I knew the program, I knew what it took A little bit different in California than in Oregon, but I knew the goals and the state was really clear about those outcomes. And that was achieving parity among our community but really reaching into our community in a different way. And then they knew that in 1950s our agricultural community was really reliant upon cooperative extension offices in every single county, basically across the United States, as is those locations for all the services USDA, fsa, your local resource conservation service, your natural resource conservation service but that was in the 50s when 50% of the population was getting their livelihood directly from agriculture.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Now it's 2%. So in the cases of you know what problems we're trying to solve. For the same, there's a limited amount of people to actually help solve those problems. And in this case, for education, for our youth in an agrarian sense, we need now to get into schools and work with schools, which is a huge part of what we try to do as well, gotcha, so Jersey Scoops.
Speaker 1:Sorry, we've got a Jersey Scoops. I'm going all over the place In Lolita, california. Yeah, yeah, actually, cody came in with a goat to Riedel Elementary when I was career day or whatever. Yeah, yeah, and the goat was the big hit and it's pooping everywhere. What are these we no longer have?
Speaker 2:diapers in the house. So when we do those experiences, it really rocks.
Speaker 1:The gut was a hit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, big hit. But so we've taken all that and you know super blessed, with the Nicholson family taking on all these crazy ideas with us to be able to grow. I mean, where we are as a family, as a dairy primarily, to start, is that we are focused on soil. When we focus on the community below the ground, we know that we're able to impact the community above the ground in a greater way. You know so, say to now, at this point, managing just under a thousand acres and having 10 employees across all organizations. You know that's. You know one to a hundred, right. So let's make that acre value. You know one to 10.
Speaker 2:Let's employ more people on the same amount of acreage by creating added value and really building the economic prosperity. And we can do that in a long, slow organic growth process. But it takes people engaged and involved. And people were saying when we started this business was, you know, we did purely social media and we had some eggs to sell. Every now and then it was mostly to my cooperative extension office staff members.
Speaker 1:That was it. That was it. Hard eggs to work.
Speaker 2:That was it, you know, and I had always done that. Four bucks a dozen, it was still eight, but you know, Because you had killer eggs, yeah, they were great. But then we just slowly adding enterprises and scale over time, decided that you know, the milk is what our best opportunity would be as far as a commodity that we had to add value to.
Speaker 1:So do you sell to the cooperative as well as yourselves? Yeah, so there's no longer cooperatives here in Humboldt.
Speaker 2:So what we have is a Rumiano cheese company up in Crescent City and so we have a contract with them and many other dairy farmers and our milk goes into be making multiple products. Actually, Most people think about cheese with Rumiano or their amazing grass fed butter killer, but really what that manufacturing facility up there is is it's a added value. Stack on, stack on stack. I mean it's taking whey, protein powder, lactose powder and then essentially converting 70 percent of the volume of water that's in the cow's milk into the wash down fluid that they have for the plant. They are able to filter it that much to recycle that amount of water.
Speaker 2:And the killer cheese that they have is the dry whatever the dry jack. Yeah, they're famous for that. Many, many, many, many years of awards. Super good cheese. Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1:No, that's wonderful, so tell us about the shop.
Speaker 2:You got it. So, with all the crazy ideas we have, we finally decided to go into some ice cream added value through our dairy product and through a series of elimination, simply because we were looking for three phase power and aalfa. We grow all of our own alfalfa, sub-irrigated, so we don't have to apply any manure because we graze it later. We don't have to apply any irrigation because it's tapping into the riverbed and we really don't have to do much except for cover crop and we leave it alone. So that's our feed operation on a cockropping island. We have a beef operation out in Lolita on Table Bluff, and then the dairy is about three miles outside of Ferndale.
Speaker 1:So you got your fingers in a lot of stuff, yeah, plus eggs and lambs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So those are, those are. They used to be together. The chickens and the beef used to be together, but because of bird flu, we've tried to mitigate all those risks by not keeping it together, because the cows were getting it this winter Still, can you know? We're in the recovery period of that epidemic at this point.
Speaker 1:Do you?
Speaker 2:guys do goats too. We've had goats from time to time, but the saying is where water flows, goats will go, so you have to have great fences.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And we don't have the most amazing fences for goats, because goats get out. Yeah, they'll do whatever they can have the most amazing fences for goats, because goats get out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they'll do whatever they can yeah, they do, including just eating through the wire. You know Right, they elope. They're crazy.
Speaker 2:For sure. We have dairy goats and meat goats from time to time, for sure.
Speaker 1:So diversity, so that's wonderful. So you built this shop and it has amazing ice cream. Yep, my wife and daughter just got back and they said it's expanded so you have lunches and you have a beautiful other section. They said the floor. She mentioned the floor. I go, you say the floor, she goes the floor. You should see it, Scott, it's beautiful. And so tell us about the vision for taking over.
Speaker 2:Lolita I'm going to keep wandering because it's just so many stories that I'm enveloped with with this area and the story behind that space of expansion was Lolita Market excuse me, lolita Meat Market and you know, for many decades that facility was a meat market. Pixie, who was most previously there, got removed for various different reasons from the landlord, none to her fault, it's just they were doing a bakery operation and it was a big to-do. I mean it made you know some articles. So what we're doing is we're paying homage to what that space is. We offer meat.
Speaker 2:We would have loved to have done like a fresh meat counter and service that way. It was kind of actually in the plan and developing but we weren't able to do that because Redwood Meat closed so we no longer actually have that access to quick turnaround for animals when we need it and create that demand. So we're going to have frozen options available and we do right now for that meat. But the space is really honoring what was there previously and that floor, when I showed Pixie the first time after years of just neglect and empty right abandonment, hadn't been touched. And she goes this is exactly what it used to look like.
Speaker 1:Is it redwood or what is it? It's fur, oh it's fur.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's no coloring that we've added to it, or stain or anything. It's just the color of the fur. It's gorgeous. Wow. It's like this off-rust color with very few knots in it.
Speaker 1:So Lolita has all kinds of potential to do crazy stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, lolita is full of energy. It's an amazing place, and the old dairy is being torn down, or whatever.
Speaker 1:That was right. That processing plant? Yeah, yeah, and the bricks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the Matthews are. You know. They have a big vision and they're doing it again in a slow, appropriate manner versus just going after it. The previous owners also tied up into other parts of Lolita. That led to some challenges and some downtime, with all the factors of Lolita cheese going out of business and the creamery going out of business and moving operations. It's full of energy, it's there, so we're trying to think about it the appropriate way. Sure. Nadia's on the chamber and I'm on the chamber, is there?
Speaker 2:a chamber for Lolita? Absolutely, there's a community chamber there. We're tackling that.
Speaker 1:Hey, if you're just joining us, my new best friend, thomas from Foggy Bottoms Boys and Jersey Scoops and a thousand other streams of revenue's talking to us about life on the ranch. So Lolita has that big tunnel, the rail tunnel, which is trippy to go in that thing, and then the graveyard's above that somewhere Just off to the side. Yeah, yeah, have you been to the graveyard? Oh, yeah, for sure, absolutely. And somebody down there has a bar with Seth Kinman stuff in it, like over the bar. I wasn't aware of that. Was it Seth Kinman, the dude that was buried down there?
Speaker 2:I'm not aware. No, I'm not aware fully of that history.
Speaker 1:I'll let you know later. I don't know much, yeah, yeah, please do.
Speaker 2:It's a little foggy, but yeah, I think the piece that I'm super excited about is that you know, right now the county Hank Seaman at these trail projects and really coordinating the steps to move forward and specifically with the Great Redwood Trail tying our trail plan, that we have for. Humboldt into the Great Redwood Trail, which is an amazing project.
Speaker 1:Will it go through?
Speaker 2:Lolita Wasn't even on the map, but we called a few people to say why.
Speaker 1:What's going on?
Speaker 2:Where would it go? The hill up above, I mean, it was going to go through Lolita, but it just wasn't even on the map, as far as a namesake, you know. So we've changed that.
Speaker 2:Now we're. We're really trying to make that the rock and center and gateway for so many activities and opportunities for other businesses to thrive. I mean Cockrobin Island out there has a boat launch. There's beautiful scenic views of the ocean. There's lots of bird watchers that go out there all the time. But you put a kayak out there, you know, ride the tide out and you know, come back in. There's so many amazing things. Table.
Speaker 1:Bluff.
Speaker 2:Lighthouse Ranch, absolutely All the stuff. What I'm stoked, though, is this Great Redwood Trail. The communities come together. We've had Cal Poly student involvement with evaluations and community development plans filed for several grants to really make the parklet that we have there thriving and as a gateway for the Great Redwood Trail. So we'll pre-develop that. The next stage, from Eureka to CR, is taking place right now, and so from CR to Fern Bridge, which is what we've identified to want to participate in the development of, we're starting all those conversations of community charades and development, so it's really fun.
Speaker 1:These are going to be tunnel included Tunneling oh, that'd be fun, it'll be really cool.
Speaker 2:Wow, and the trestle too. If you know the Eel River Drive exit, you'll go underneath the old railroad railroad trestle and, upon the review, when they did their initial CE.
Speaker 1:Years away, but magical.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean 10 maybe for a full completion of a vision. Our hopes is, everything that we're doing right now in preparations is complete community involvement. I mean everywhere. Our Cal Poly students created a map with actual scaled bathroom, parking spaces, camping. There's potential, we have that there, sure, but it's an option. Right, there's varied opinions on all sorts of different things. That should be input. But essentially we'll have everybody participate, put on the map where they would think something could go and in considerations of engineering, plumbing, electrical or otherwise. We'll see where everybody's lines up and try to present that as a potential plan for folks to go forward. So strategically located, yeah, yeah, because people know how to use our community, right, I mean there's been some changes from where people park and the directions of the roads and all the above, and there's various opinions of safety and actualities. But to get that information is invaluable and our community is very willing to participate in sure those how big is Lolita California?
Speaker 2:I think we're like 600 to 700 people within the proper Super small, but we're not a municipality, I mean. So we're within the county Right. We have a utility services district, we have a lighting district, Okay.
Speaker 2:So we get to work together cooperatively. Who does the water? So we have a new group, essentially a whole staff turnover. They're just amazing. You know, we were really scared there for a while. Who are you going to get? I mean, this takes some for a while. It was very detailed and we had a gentleman named Manny who was amazing. Shout out to Manny.
Speaker 1:Manny the water guy.
Speaker 2:He's so much more and I mean really just a very amazing, brilliant guy, and led the steps for us to pass a little levy, for us to increase the size of our sewage treatment and upgrade it because it's extremely old and outdated. But yeah, what we've got going on there is people willing to work with us and community members that know how to utilize the infrastructure we have and the plan that we have moving forward. So that's super exciting.
Speaker 1:So tell me more about your involvement with Eureka Chamber and Nancy and the group that's called Leadership Redwood Coast.
Speaker 2:This is like the fourth year named Allie, who's now moved out of the area. They developed this concept that Nancy had done several times before in larger communities but is time old. I mean really just bringing potential leaders, leaders, people that are growing into leadership roles together and people that are willing to pay money to get that experience.
Speaker 2:And this experience for us was in this year, this year going up to um Pelican Bay prison, uh, talking with the uh managers of the city and the Tolowa tribe about the collaborative project that they have going on in the parkway. They're um really engaging, you know, deeply with inside of the economic development side, uh, in the nature conservancy, the Redwood nature um conservancy, Is that right? Anyway, the foundation saw up there is amazing, and he helps with the Redwood Parks Foundation, and so learning about how that all interacts was very eye-opening. I've traveled up there once a month or, excuse me, once a week for four years with the 4-H program, so very familiar with the community and all the people and love that space and what they are trying to accomplish, and it gave me a whole new perspective.
Speaker 2:We were in Willow Creek last week, we're going to Garberville next week, we have a coastal trip coming up in July. It'll end on Like Shelter Cove down. That way, I don't think we're going that far. I think we're like. I know for sure that I'm always a stop. I've been a stop in agriculture for the last two years, but this year we're going to be out on Cockrobin Island talking about our carbon sequestration project that we're participating in.
Speaker 1:So who's going to lead?
Speaker 2:that. Will you lead that or be a student? I'm going to be a student. Let Cody lead it. I'm sure I'll have something to say. Raise your hand and object to something Just give a hard time On the daily, it's not on the hour. I really don't agree with what you're doing here. That's funny Well the funny part is, is that I'm the one that's involved in soil. He's the one that's just killing it in marketing, and I have the marketing degree.
Speaker 1:He has a soil science degree, that's funny because I figured you'd be the marketing, because you're out at all the demos.
Speaker 2:Well, you see, that's the local part, right. So that's me the front face forward. But you know the 130 plus thousand followers that we have on TikTok and the 40, 50, 60, I don't even know what it is on Instagram and Facebook. That's a lot of him leading the charge and me editing copy.
Speaker 1:That's cool yeah.
Speaker 2:Good marketing. I think it's going to get even better.
Speaker 1:Nice yeah, hopefully we'll have more time, right, I want to hear about those big hairy goals here in a second. You got it. Yeah, you know, take over the world stuff.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about Humboldt.
Speaker 1:No, I like the gateway for the Redwood Trail. That's going to be fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then our trail around the bay is almost done.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited it's going to be cool. My wife's so pumped. I can't say that I haven't walked a portion of it that I wasn't supposed to Bootlegging the trail already. Yeah, I mean they had two by fours across the bridge and they jumped the fence, which was a cone.
Speaker 1:They walked around the cone and they walked all the way up to.
Speaker 2:People are so excited.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially the area, not Breakup, but the other where Simpson was. Oh yeah, redwood Timber, whatever they're called now. Yeah, I should know that offhand and I don't. But that whole that goes around the bay is supposed to be magical.
Speaker 2:It's just got these views of Arcata Bay that are just outstanding. That may not be the easiest parking spot, yeah, but yeah, yeah, not that I know, not that I know yeah.
Speaker 1:They broke know. Yeah, they broke in. So did you so? So nancy, with the greater eureka chamber, has done this amazing thing of leaders that are up and coming. Um, I really love it. I think it's really like it you are the future yeah, I'm not the future.
Speaker 1:I'm 65 and you know fading in some way, but it's. It's all the dudes and dudettes that are amazing and coming along going, hey, let's make this place better, yeah. So let's ask the questions, the hard questions. Yeah, housing, homelessness, healthcare you said no zingers. I didn't say Trump, I didn't say the P word. So if we're talking about that stuff, so this is real hard shit to address here. It's real. What do you fear? What do you see as the opportunities From your perspective? How do you want to talk about that?
Speaker 2:You know, it's a place where I think the intersection of economy, commodity and resource is an opportunity for us to engage together. You know something I haven't spoken about yet, but is Redwood Region Rise, which was spearheaded by North Edge, formerly AEDC, right? Is that Ross? Yeah, yeah, yeah, ross is cool. Hey, ross, yeah, and Susan Seaman and Pam Lots of folks that are great there. Yeah, they're great folks. She knows wine, Does she Really? Hey, rob, yeah, and Susan Seaman and Pam Lots of folks that are great there. Yeah, they're great folks. She knows wine, does she Really?
Speaker 1:Hey, pam, I'll have to let her know. Tell her that she knows wine. Do you really know anything about wine? No, she's a sommelier and she's amazing. Oh really, Wow.
Speaker 2:Susan Seaman's amazing Is Is she still on the city council? She's not. That's when I first met her I was doing a youth program here with 4-H and CR and got to do a little tag along for a moment. So I just know that you know the people that are here and the projects we have in front of us. And this project, specifically Redwood Region Rise, was a different approach and it was from California Jobs First Initiative.
Speaker 2:I couldn't state to you the Senate bill that it came from. I couldn't state to you the Senate bill that it came from. The community has, or from the unfortunate side of greed. Right, you're missing what that connection is. And for me, from a non-economist perspective I don't claim to be, but in the essence of resiliency, if we do have a gap between those places of our indigenous folks, our BIPOC folks, if we have a perspective on poverty in any race, if we see those things as being addressable by a blanket, you're never going to achieve anything thing. And it's really trying to identify those communities need states and helping them discover what those solutions are and those resources in my perspective and that echoes what Mantovus said last week.
Speaker 1:He said homelessness has there's different classifications. About 70% are drug addicted and mental illness, and then there's other substrata of that and you can't throw the blanket on it.
Speaker 2:No no.
Speaker 2:It doesn't work and this concept of housing first, which I'm a cheerleader for by the sentiment and what's been successful in other countries and other communities around our nation, comes with a lot of caveats and those caveats, I feel, are the support mechanisms on the behavioral side. I feel are the support mechanisms on the behavioral side and that comes from you know, my education and understanding and consulting within business is that you have to create those neural pathways, you have to establish those habits, and those habits are things from taking out the trash to really being able to identify daily hygiene necessary to live a different life, and sometimes people don't want to take that step, depending on where they are. But the realities of trying to do economic development while supporting all these initiatives in Eureka is extremely rife with challenges, right. I mean, how do we take a population in which you know my mother-in-law works with you, know directly and working with DHHS, and sees and understands these perspectives that I'm so grateful to understand and see through her eyes and hearing the challenges that exist on the ground floor and really that implementation stage?
Speaker 2:So Redwood Region Rise, I don't think is the real final opportunity to develop these connection points, because the money is finite, right, what we come with from a collaborative state which is the Redwood Region Rise Collaborative from Lake Mendocino, humboldt and Del Norte counties to work across this sub-regional level on the North Coast is to identify the opportunities from those communities and we've done a lot of the data surveying and we've missed the boat on several opportunities. But what we have done is we've taken to task and we've done better than every other county in the state and we've heard that from the state is that we've taken that mission to heart and we've done the best that we possibly can and it's way better than where it has been done otherwise.
Speaker 1:Make us more eligible for more funds, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And that means, from you know, engaging with the community and actually having those conversations, that data, the ability to be able to take that information and move projects forward. And in the case of what we've had the opportunity to do is apply $9 million around the community for these four counties in a way that took a lot of work and a lot of negotiating between leadership and these appointees to a voting block. Again, it wasn't perfect. It had to be done within a very short timeline. Legislature doesn't give you time to solve all the problems, but I'm really proud of the work that we've been able to accomplish.
Speaker 2:I was a business owner that participated and joined in and was just super happy to be able to provide my perspective. But a lot of the organizations are SBDC or food hubs or, you know, cooperatives of small businesses, other agriculture engaged and involved. Economic or economists right engaged and involved, Economists right Visitors bureaus all coming to the table and talking together with those people that need to have their story and information shared so that proper techniques can be engaged in that economic development. I'm kind of dodging the question about the solutions, but I really feel that's a start. I feel the way to address it is by asking those that really know the challenges that they have.
Speaker 1:Well, imagine people talking together and collaborating it takes a lot of work, but it's worth it. It's really interesting, yeah, to watch. When I watch AXS TV and I watch city council meetings, I'm going. I could never do that, oh my God. On and on my ADD, like OCD would be on LSD it would be, I would be tripping. Okay, I mean you should sit down. You could sit down now. Our next.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I started engaging in I wouldn't say politics, but understanding that intersection of politics at age 16. I was the secretary for our city council for a short time as a FBLA advisor a young person that's engaging in that work In Union Oregon. In Union Oregon, it's right up there on the map, it's north, it's way over there in the corner, the top run, it's way over there. But yeah, I mean it was my little first edition IBM ThinkPad that I was typing out meeting notes for the first time for the community and making some changes and moves as wind development was coming in and seeing how that economic Up there especially, oh yeah, were you homeschooled too ever.
Speaker 2:Not luckily enough. My mom was a public school teacher. I mean, I wouldn't say luckily, why would I ask?
Speaker 1:that.
Speaker 2:But no, no, no, I definitely loved my public school experience.
Speaker 1:So my son was a doctorate student at UC Davis and the professors would come to him and go hey, jesse, tell us how the homeschool? We're really kind of into it. We want to really take our kids home. And so Jesse's like he's the expert. I love it. It's really funny, I love it.
Speaker 2:It was a whole different experience.
Speaker 1:Oh man, funny, I love it. It was really great. It was a whole different experience, oh man. So those are some of the issues. Yeah, so we have some hard stuff up. You know that we're up for, yeah, and you know it's funny because it's a little bit trite because we throw out, hey, wind power and the fish farm and this and that and the trail, and that's all good because we need some hope, yeah. But I've had Dr Bill Barnum sit here and go. You know, that whole housing thing that we're going to do is like 3,000 units. There's two built in 30 years. I go, oh shit, that's not good. Yeah, how could we miss it? And so it's not a hopeless message, but it's kind of real that we miss a lot of trains that come through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know not to take the pun too far, but I mean, essentially there's so many projects Last Chance Grade, cal Poly and their expansion, our fiber optic cables, the development of the harbor, the Great River Trail itself. I mean the list goes on.
Speaker 1:The Trail Road to the Bay, all of it, that's going to be great.
Speaker 2:It's amazing that it brings a lot of construction jobs, but among that there's so much detail that you know we have a lot of union workers, we have a lot of non-union construction jobs, but the challenge of interfacing in the program, where it's a one-to-one match, et cetera, it just gets very complicated. So it's not just as easy as saying we're missing the boat right. And then the fact of what's happening with healthcare and our nursing programs within CR and Cal Poly, the amount of arduous work that has to be done to really have preliminary sustainability aspects built in for expansion, for extraction I mean we really are detraction. We just it takes a lot of planning, and I think that's the part where we don't necessarily miss the boat. We just, unfortunately, don't know how to capture the moment, and it takes a lot of that planning.
Speaker 2:I think we're doing it more appropriately, as I either go on Tuesdays after wholesale deliveries and watch our five supervisors on the dais or dial in or watch online. I think that's happening in some ways, but I think the reality, though, is that you know they're really strapped. Unless we create a revenue stream or at least tap into some of these resources that we have in a more appropriate, sustainable way. We'll never have the right answers because we won't have 20% of the funds to be able to pivot when necessary, and that's really the restriction that we have in our community. It's already allocated and we need to be allocating more in other places. I'm hearing two things.
Speaker 1:Lack of funds, which is forever, and the ability to pivot quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Make a darn decision, that's a good one.
Speaker 2:I mean we've done, you know, numerous amounts of economic surveys and we're currently involved in one here now, and I'm pretty hopeful for the group that's doing it, because it's really kind of based off of a tourism economy and it's not just because I have, you know, something that captures a tourism.
Speaker 2:I think what it is is the opportunity to fully tell our story on Humboldt County through information, and that information exchange can happen. From history, it can happen with the Great Redwoods themselves, the ocean, our maritime, our forestry industry, our cannabis industry, our farming industry. There's so many stories to tell. Where we really don't capture that energy is we have 21 different groups trying to market, message the community appropriately, and I think what we're working on and people are really coming to the table to together, is discovering that we could have a unified message to share externally but, more importantly, share internally, that we know we can get behind, because we all feel it, we all see it, we all love it Shop local man, that's right, I mean so. The same message that we all feel it, we all see it, we all love it. Shop local man, that's right, I mean. So the same message that we're asking people to do buy our product here in.
Speaker 2:Humboldt. It's the same message we're doing here locally. I mean, Humboldt made my friend Nick Bown Crawford with the organization for two years, bringing it from a time when it wasn't feeling good times.
Speaker 1:And now there's a lot of that, and now there's a lot of that Pre-pandemic right. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Even was struggling. But what we're seeing now is this resurgence of the organization and some leaders that are trying to really help share what we have the potential to share outside of our community.
Speaker 1:What's the store in Ferdale that the journal owns?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, the hometown store. Yeah that's kind of that a little right? Yeah, it's the flavor, right? So, like literally all of these individuals that are makers and confectioners and artists, they have the space that they can provide under consignment, right?
Speaker 1:So it's a bank right.
Speaker 2:It's a bank in Lolita. Yeah, I think it was a bank in Lolita, yeah, yeah, cody's grandmother actually worked in that bank for some time. She's worked in all sorts of different banks.
Speaker 1:Sure yeah, absolutely. Whoa Is that it? First time, my phone has ever been turned on and went off. Oh, how embarrassing. What a faux pas. If you're just joining me, it's my new friend, best friend, thomas, from Jersey Scoops, and super fun having you. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me, so segue to the quiz. Gosh, you got to earn that map I gave you no.
Speaker 2:Do I get to give you a quiz for the ice cream?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I'll be going first, though I show my rules by quiz. So question number one you have a whole day to do whatever the heck you want in that county, and 9 am 9 pm go. What do you do? No, money's not an object. Yeah, Nice, and I'm going to have a scoop of ice cream.
Speaker 2:Please. I don't want it to melt too much more, I mean it's not going to be the same.
Speaker 1:It's kind of bothering you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I kind of like it when it, but it's a good experience either way, I feel like. But you know it changes on the daily. I was just out in Willow Creek last week. Oh, this is amazing. My husband grew up partially out there in many different places. He's grown up in the county so he has an experience that I seek and often ask questions about, because I'm always up and down delivering all across the county and up into Del Norte and down into Mendocino and over to Shasta Cody's cool, by the way, he's the best.
Speaker 1:He's very understated and he's just Mr Mellow.
Speaker 2:He'd rather be that way than out doing what I do too. But yeah, I guess what I would say is I've really enjoyed Patrick's Point, I've enjoyed the Redwoods up, last Chance Grade, the state park up there, and Jedediah. So that's unfortunately in Del Norte. But you know, here we are, I can see Del Norte on your map, so I feel like I'm still answering and then probably going and walking the New Bay Trail, stopping in at the ice cream shop there, living the dream I mean, that's what we did. Stop at the co-op then and have dinner, and then maybe end up back checking out the swallows that had just migrated back from Mexico in the spring. If we're talking about right now, sure, that's about the time right. Yeah, they just came in a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 1:Are they here?
Speaker 2:They're, yeah, built nests completely built, eggs laid Crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they do migrate. I guess you don't see them in the winter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a day when they just all show up.
Speaker 1:So you're going to do like a whole day of like travel and hiking and fun yeah.
Speaker 2:And there's so much more to do. Pick, because I really want to go back up to Willow Creek now. We just found out that Bigfoot was real. I don't know if you found out.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Bigfoot's been real for a long time.
Speaker 2:Well, I just found out, and I didn't know, that a Bigfoot is actually a female of the variety which of the the Bigfoot variety.
Speaker 1:Yeah, variety of what?
Speaker 2:There's cryptids, cryptids of the cryptids, oh really, cryptids, cryptids of the cryptids, oh really. According to the highly upgraded video footage of Proof oh, that one, yeah, that one. Everybody likes that one. They really updated it and there's something moving more. I never thought I'd go Bigfoot on the show.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's this guy that died in Hoopa and he had these boots that he would wear with Bigfoot tracks, oh, no way. And on his deathbed. I think it was on the cover of the Times Standard. No, this is 20, 30 years ago. He fessed up, nick. He told the truth that he was propagating the Bigfoot legend. But it doesn't mean there's not a Bigfoot right. No, not at all.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's both. I was hearing from the guys up there that that's for real. I mean they can see depressions from the back. My son is convinced at a six-year-old I mean, it's Bigfoot and Siren Head for him. So I think we need to be out there. We're going to go to the museums and we can see it. We can see it. You haven't seen it yet.
Speaker 1:You heard it here first Bigfoot's real and I have a sub-service scoop story that you're going to tell me. Oh, forgive the pun, you guys are going to build something amazing in Lolita. I want to hear your big dream when we're done here.
Speaker 2:Oh, you got it.
Speaker 1:Question number two.
Speaker 2:What's your big dream? So you know, the big dream for us is that everything we want to do and it's not just on the frozen goods, everything that we want to accomplish within our own enterprises shouldn't just be for our business, and we hope to continue to work cooperatively, that everything we produce can be processed here locally. So our fiber right now, with lost coast spinnery at firm bridge, we can now take from raw wool all the way to the final spun yarn and soon to be a loom, and hats and socks and all sorts of things.
Speaker 2:Same thing with our lost meat USDA processing. There's sites been identified of multiple opportunities. We've applied for grant funding. There's Redwood Region Rise funding that North Coast Growers Association has applied for and has some funding for to do feasibility studies and make that possible either here or in Del Norte. There's some awesome opportunities up in Del Norte as well. So that keeps it really here, close and local, versus the economic demise of having to transport that product everywhere and back again, which is what we're doing twice a month, which is challenging. To go to Huayrica, I get to go do a 33-hour trip for all the pickups and hauls and backdrops and cross docks and everything. That's next week yeah, tuesday through Friday.
Speaker 1:The I-5 is fun.
Speaker 2:It's straight and narrow, right.
Speaker 1:Well, the weather will be.
Speaker 2:I'm convincing myself. Tell yourself that the weather will be better, right, right. But yeah, so the dairy you know a small processing. You know I'd hope to grow that eventually in the future, but there's lots of moving parts and you know lots of pieces I think that we can collectively, collaboratively work on. And another example of you know what these big, hairy, audacious goals are is finding those resources, identifying them and starting to work with the champions to make those things happen.
Speaker 2:I mean, literally what we use in our ice cream as an emulsifier is from brown seaweed, and I'm saying it out loud, you just ate it, you didn't realize it, but it's a naturally occurring product that we can grow, and do grow, right here in Humboldt Bay, in the Bay. So why don't we have a little burner that's extracting that and turning that into the powder that we can use, not just for our product but for multiple different product applications and having those small industries? So that's what we're hopeful for and what I see is that people are here for it and always have been right. That's what we've back to the land, just starting up Farmstead kind of attitude from Spring Hill, farmstead goat cheese that we use some of their milk for for our ice cream it's the lemon lavender. I mean you just name it it. Our ice cream it's the lemon lavender. Oh wow, I mean you just name it, it's all here. So farm-to-table stuff, we can do it and we do it better than anyone else. Number three, I think, in the nation as far as local food consumption at 20% and we're getting better. That's pretty good, it's really awesome.
Speaker 1:The nation, not in the state.
Speaker 2:That's what I've been told. That's amazing, yeah, it's just. It's something that if you see the potential and you know it's there and you hear it from folks like me and others that want to repeat the good news, we can actually do this. It just takes a little bit more work and some more elbow grease. A lot of time.
Speaker 1:Right, gotta hustle, gotta hustle, gotta hustle. Question number three, and then you can quiz me, okay. I can't wait, I've never been quizzed. So question number three where do you go to dinner? If you're going to go to dinner out, cook dinner in. What are you having when?
Speaker 2:are you going For sure? Cody's an amazing chef. I would say so. We do a lot of cooking at home. We a lot of cooking at home. We haven't done as much as the cooking that I was used to when I first moved here 10 years ago, when we didn't have so much going on. We're able to take weekends et cetera. I weren't working seven days a week, so that leaves us to a few options.
Speaker 2:We really are an Eagle River Valley family and so often, what we experience is in Ferndale and across the bridge. So Ivanhoe is open again. Ivanhoe is open again. Haven't been there yet, we will definitely visit. The VI Lowell and Daniels and Jenny Oaks. Hey Lowell, what's up? They just sold. Oh, wow, yeah, new ownership. So that's exciting to see that change. That's a cool place, All of our family dinners that we do Two years tacos.
Speaker 1:Grandpa get to. Yeah, two years in the cantina.
Speaker 2:So you know Gloria, gloria and Jennifer yep, yeah, they're super awesome people and are making authentic product there for our community and just really creating an economic driver that wasn't there for a long time.
Speaker 1:They have a tequila license now, yeah, so dinner you're going to go. You didn't really define it, yeah.
Speaker 2:Where are you going? What?
Speaker 1:are you having?
Speaker 2:If we were to cycle through and again just really referencing. We go a lot of different places, a lot of different times. We don't get off across the bridge very often, at least Cody doesn't, for sure, as a family. So it is two years, I mean. We really just go there.
Speaker 1:So you love two years.
Speaker 2:Okay, you did say that yeah, it's easy, it's always consistent and she's super cool. They're very super cool people.
Speaker 1:Seriously, wow, this thing is killing me. First time it's ever went off in a podcast and now twice. I think I'm special. Yeah, you are. Yeah, it's turned off. Good, sorry about that. Hey, what else do you want to talk about?
Speaker 2:Well, how did you end up in Humble Scott?
Speaker 1:Good question. So I had. Sorry, oh Sorry, oh wait here Question number one how did I wind up in Humboldt? So my friend, I was just talking to Philip, lifelong friend. He and I were roaming the streets as feral hippie children. We were in this rural part of San Diego called National City, lower blue collar poor we're poor kids smoking weed on the streets and we wound up in a career center at Sweetwater High School, one of the oldest three high schools in San Diego County.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:And this is 1977, maybe and this very hot, beautiful Charmaine worked in the career center at night. So we just kind of wander and hey, what's up? We were looking at the microfiche with her and she's amazing and the school looks pretty cool, huh, and the school looked cool too. And Philip goes. We should go, we should become rangers and drive four-wheel drives and smoke weed. And let's do it. And I have really long hair, longer than oh, really Like way longer than it's hard to imagine. I was voted most beautiful hair, wow, wow, blonde streaks. The whole night. I was really a bag of chips. I was hardcore. And then kids and drugs. I'm finished. So Philip wound up getting his girlfriend pregnant and I wound up with a father that drove my butt up to Humboldt State and enrolled and the rest is history. I met Johnny, I met Jesus, I met sobriety, I met a degree in recreation administration All in a very short period of time. And, yeah, and nine kids later, here I am hanging out with you.
Speaker 2:Second question, number two, if you were a recreation and not everybody follows their path from college which somehow I seemingly ended up doing since nine years old, wanting to do marketing, watching the California Raisins commercial and wondering why I wanted to eat raisins all of a sudden, how did you jump from recreation to what you're doing now with insurance?
Speaker 1:That's a good question. We got pregnant, so Jacob our oldest who's 41 now.
Speaker 1:He's a dad up in Medford and I was working in recreation Arcata Parks and Rec up in the Redwood Forest and one of the kids' moms comes up and goes hey, we're hiring for I heard you're looking for work, we're hiring for a radio rep to go sell ad time and got to meet Carlos. He's super cool and we pay and medical benefits. And I go, oh heck yeah, and met Carlos and it was an old, it was called Garcia's. It was where the salt used to be in Arcata downstairs. Oh, okay, and it was Mexican. They had a place that was great. They had a Zapata Burrito, which means shoe. It was big as a shoe. We had a burrito and he goes, you want to do this?
Speaker 1:I got my blue corduroy sport coat, million dollar man, and I said I think I would, I think I could do this, and did very well for a year and then wound up 20 years in newspaper Wow, another 10 at Cox Cable, which is now Sunlink Right, right, All in sales and sales management. And then 11 years ago I drank all the red Kool-Aid I could find and started a state farm agency at 53, which is unheard of. It's like we're really afraid for you. We were going to say something you probably shouldn't. We were really freaked out. Man, you're at 53. What are you doing? And amongst my life decisions, one of the best ones I've ever made it's just really. It's a cool thing being able to be there for people and a good neighbor that empathizes and cares. They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.
Speaker 1:And so it's been a fit. The weird thing is I became my dad. My dad was an insurance agent in San Diego. That's funny, and at 53,.
Speaker 2:I go oh shit. He had it figured out.
Speaker 1:I don't want this DNA, but sometimes the DNA will come and get you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, sorry kids. Yeah, yeah, I'm aware of it, as I, you know, I start making dad sounds that I made fun of my dad for oh yeah. Dad jokes Same same same Morning, weird, same. You know, just like looking at life a little bit differently. It's unavoidable. Yeah, I mean I grew up with all of my family with love and compassion, but my father foremost, I mean really just provided that space and safety You're saying he was a music guy and a worship leader.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so still a music player? Oh, absolutely yeah, plays guitar and sings, really really just loving person and, as is all of my family, I feel super blessed to have been raised in that environment where the condition of love was that you were loved and there was no choice.
Speaker 1:I had a guy my plumber came in today. He's a great guy, trevor goes, you know we've been given an easy path. And I go what path have you been on? And I thought, yeah, I have a freaking easy path. There's people that are like blown up and broken and freaked out and tripped and it's like no, pretty easy path, thank you. Thank you for that Good word, bro, and I, like I received it. I go wow, that's for me and I got. My path is not all that hard.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I'll eat tonight. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have some ice cream later. Yeah, that much is for sure, for sure.
Speaker 2:I feel, pretty good.
Speaker 1:It's like eating at Dick Taylor's. I feel like Mr Chatty, cathy, here Is that. It Is that all my questions. Yeah, are you good?
Speaker 2:I think that's pretty well I got so thanks, it's fine.
Speaker 1:Okay, the conclusion of the podcast. So what do you want to be known for when you leave this earth and we get to go to your celebration of life and you go to your tombstone and all that stuff at Lolita Cemetery? Hey, it could be. We're like coloring it in here. It could be. It could be. It's a little too graphic. Old age, please, old age, what do you want to be remembered for? Known for what are we?
Speaker 2:going to say at the event I really think of others as best as I can first, and that's, I think, from my values I was raised with and who I try to envelop every single day, and who I try to envelop every single day. So I'd hope I'd be known for others first, you know, being a servant leader, a transformational leader and someone that supported others in creating what they want to accomplish for the better. Wow.
Speaker 1:I think you're on that path, dude. Thanks, yeah.
Speaker 2:Seems like Nancy's going to help you. Yeah, I think the entire community when supporting us and all the ways that we get supported. We are so grateful to continue to be able to do the work you know I mean. Right now I can tell you what I'm hinging on is this farm to school work that we're accomplishing. We've done it really well with Ritmiano Cheese Company being able to bring our cheese product with North Coast Growers Association back to the milk shed. It comes from Trying the same thing with our meat and getting into the schools Working with CDFA. We're almost done with our farm to school grant. We've been waiting since October to solidify that and there's going to be so many great things to come because it's our youth as you speak to me, it's the younger becoming my six-year-old and all of his classmates that, if they choose to stay and continue to prosper here, this is the land of milk and honey. Yeah, and it's an amazing space. They are the future and I think they know it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I have great hope in them. Hey man, thank you, you're welcome, appreciate you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sorry, it took me so long.
Speaker 1:It took you a little. I got to chase you down and tackle.
Speaker 2:Well, you're a celebrity too. I mean, I shoot on this day at this time, so if you want to be on the show, nick is pretty booked up here, it's all right. It's all right. Next Stephen Colbert let's do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no thanks for coming. So I'm going to do my clothes now. I'll make a segue to my clothes. You got it, and then I'll shake your hand. I'll be all staged. Okay, are you ready? Yeah, so if you know anybody, actually do your shout outs real quick Websites. Oh sure, yeah, tiktok station, what?
Speaker 2:At Foggy Bottoms Boys. You can get us on social platforms. Okay, we have foggybottomsboyscom. We're currently finishing up jerseyscoopscom, so that'll be the same website, different landing page, same product. Opportunity to check out Lunch only down there, or could you get Lunch? We close up for our winter hours for sandwiches and soup at 7, but we close at 8 o'clock, so we'll be going through the summertime Late snack.
Speaker 2:Late snack always, and if you're in Lolita you know the market's open till 11 there, so you can get our ice cream there too, at the Lolita market we're in Eureka Natural Foods, the Co-op, murphy's Markets, lots of different random corner stores for our ice cream, and soon, by next week, I'll have printed pint packaging that's professional and real and we don't have to stick labels on both sides anymore by hand. And then Whole Foods. The dream is big.
Speaker 1:Hey, dream big man. Hey, thanks for being here. You're so welcome, appreciate it. So, hey, if you know friends that want to like our podcast, love us on gosh, on social media, on Facebook, on I guess that's social YouTube Audible.
Speaker 2:Audible.
Speaker 1:Podcast. I'm on all the, all the podcasts and we're going to be on Access Humboldt, so you're going to be on TV. Heck, yeah heck. Yeah, that's awesome, heck yeah, so yeah, look for us, like us and come back next week. And Thomas, what?
Speaker 2:a blessing.
Speaker 1:Thank you same to you.
