#66 - Dairy Farmer Beth Wojo Talks Dairy Farming, Family Business & Farmer Life

On Episode #66 of Good Times, Noodle Salad, Matt sits down one-on-one with Farmer Beth Wojo for an honest and fascinating conversation about life on the farm, family legacy, and finding purpose through hard work.

Beth shares what it was like growing up in the family business at Wojo's Greenhouse, why she made the transition into dairy farming, and how navigating a difficult divorce shaped the person she is today. Along the way, Matt and Beth dive into the surprisingly clever, low-tech solutions farmers use every day—simple, elegant tricks born from generations of problem-solving and ingenuity.

If you've ever wondered what life is really like behind the scenes on a working farm, this episode offers an authentic look at resilience, family businesses, agriculture, and the practical wisdom that keeps farms running.

🎙️ Topics include:

• Growing up at Wojo's Greenhouse
• Transitioning from greenhouse work to dairy farming
• Life after divorce and personal growth
• Clever farming hacks and practical problem-solving
• Family businesses and rural life
• The realities of modern agriculture

If you enjoy conversations about farming, entrepreneurship, resilience, family businesses, and the people behind essential industries, be sure to like, comment, and subscribe for more episodes of Good Times, Noodle Salad.

#Podcast #DairyFarming #Farming #Agriculture #FamilyBusiness #WojosGreenhouse #MichiganFarming #RuralLife #Entrepreneurship #GoodTimesNoodleSalad

Transcript

SPEAKER_09 0:37

There was a breeze every once in a while.

SPEAKER_04 0:40

And it felt orgasmic when it came by, didn't it? It was like, oh my gosh. Dude. I thought about so I've been I've been in talks with like well, first of all, I'll introduce you. You're Beth Wojo.

SPEAKER_09 0:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 0:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 0:54

Not legally, but yes, I go by that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 0:56

So I did a little bit of research about your family and the farm, and I saw that there's like 75 letters in your last name.

SPEAKER_09 1:03

Yeah, well, my maiden name, yeah. Um, red on. Yeah. Okay. But I'm going back I'm going to Wojo now at this point. Yeah. Uh it's I just gotta legally change it, right? And that's a whole deal to do. But um easier to say.

SPEAKER_04 1:17

So yeah, your is it your dad then?

SPEAKER_09 1:20

Or my parents, both my mom and dad ran Wojo's greenhouse. Okay. So the last name Waja House was obviously from my dad.

SPEAKER_04 1:28

Right on. Is your dad Mike or Joe? Joe. Okay. So is it so Joe was the owner?

SPEAKER_09 1:36

Joe and my mom Julie, yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:38

Okay, right on. And then so, and then you guys are not did did your dad end up retiring?

SPEAKER_09 1:44

I was trying to like do like a quick has not exactly. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:47

Um because I heard that you guys went like uh employee owned, which was a big deal for a greenhouse. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:53

But so technically he sold it, but then still is an employee there. Oh, right on. Right. So he gets his shares back as well in a way. Right. Um, but he's working, he's the main grower still, which is a big deal. Um, and that's his growing capabilities. I mean, he's great with it. So the way that he's learned how to do all that, which I don't have a green thumb exactly, so good for him. Um, but that's what's made it what it is. Yeah. And then the organization from my mom and the scheduling and the keeping things in line of doing the rest of the production, this you know, um, that just they did an amazing job.

SPEAKER_04 2:34

Yeah. Yeah. They're um so reading about Wojo's what do you what is it? Wojo Greenhouse? Or like what is it?

SPEAKER_09 2:43

I think there's two different names, one for the one in Ortonville, one for the one in Davison, technically. Yeah. Like because they're two different LLCs, because the one in Ortonville is the production and the retail. Oh. And then the Davison is just retail.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

Oh, right on.

SPEAKER_09 2:57

Um, so something like Wojo's nursery or what you know, whatever it is. I hate to say that I don't know it, but I wasn't.

SPEAKER_04 3:06

I mean, it's the weeds though. Yeah, yeah. Do you so you work do you work for the uh for your parents?

SPEAKER_09 3:12

No. No. Um I did a little bit when I was younger, but I got into cattle so early. I think I was like 11. Nice. And uh that just sparked my interest way more. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:24

Yeah. Dude, gardening is a like I got in I got into gardening as an adult. I uh before 30, I don't think I would have been able to garden and like enjoyed it. Like it's so it's it's such a long game to like it is reap what you sow. I mean, you know. But yeah, so I I could I could see like, oh my god, we're gonna freaking put stuff in dirt again. And then cows, you know cows is a longer game. Is it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 3:54

It takes about two years to get a finished butcher steer.

SPEAKER_04 3:58

Okay, yeah. Wait, so uh is this like a family because you were like 11, so was it like a family friend or something that you came to work for?

SPEAKER_09 4:07

Um down the road from my parents was a dairy farm, and I just they had one little calf out in the field with the cows. I was like, Can I can you catch that for me? I want to pet it. And they're like, No, but we have other ones because uh with a dairy farm, right? They take the calves off mom so they can milk the cows. So then I started going down there feeding the calves, falling in love with them, and then uh that's how I ended up getting my first cow. They gifted me a calf. Um, she was the only red calf that they had, so like a brown colored and they gave her to me for Christmas. I still have her. Oh, and I'm gonna go. She's gonna be like uh 14 this year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:43

That's awesome. Yeah. What's her name?

SPEAKER_09 4:46

Her name's Pumpkin.

SPEAKER_04 4:47

I was gonna say she's keeping her that long. You gotta you gotta name her. Yeah. Pumpkin.

SPEAKER_09 4:51

Oh, I I almost name everybody, you know, it's just fun. Oh, do you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:55

I see, I've always heard that you like you you you can't or shouldn't because you get this like emotional bond to 'em.

SPEAKER_09 5:01

Yeah. I have to say my first two steers that I um raised out for butcher, I cried for weeks the week before they left.

SPEAKER_04 5:08

Oh yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 5:09

Yeah. I mean, I was just I did a couple pigs like ahead of time thinking I would get ready. But you don't for me, I don't grow attached to the pigs like I do the cattle. So when I took my first butcher steers in, it was sad. I got their hides back, actually. So I have their hides all tanned and and in my bedroom, and so that's how you remember them. But yeah, you know, it's what they're for.

SPEAKER_04 5:31

Right, right. That's that's why you have them. Right. But that's still gotta be hard.

SPEAKER_09 5:35

Like, I don't okay, so they're not like a dog, it's not like killing your dog.

SPEAKER_04 5:40

But it's c it's it's like it's not that far off though, yeah. I mean it's they have personalities.

SPEAKER_09 5:46

They have personalities for sure. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_04 5:50

But you're not snuggling with it on the couch. No, they don't come in your house, and there is a separation there, you don't really walk them, you know.

SPEAKER_09 5:58

Yeah, um, some of mine I feed donuts too, you know. That's the closest they don't do tricks or anything for them, they just mouth them and um yeah, so I mean But yeah, it's not like a and they're not loyal like a dog. Like I've got four dogs, you know. I have enough dogs in my life, but when you think about it, they're they are a little different and they're not like horses either. So there is a little bit of difference.

SPEAKER_04 6:22

I'm so glad you're not a horse girl in here.

SPEAKER_09 6:24

Oh, I'm sorry, but I do have a horse and a mule.

SPEAKER_04 6:27

But you're okay, but I can tell you how to make a couple of things.

SPEAKER_09 6:28

But I'm not one of those stereotypical horse people.

SPEAKER_04 6:31

Yeah, I can tell right away that you're not a fucking crazy horse girl.

SPEAKER_09 6:35

No, I'm a cattle person. Uh I used to ride for like eight years on and off when I was younger.

SPEAKER_04 6:41

Right on.

SPEAKER_09 6:42

Um, but yeah, now I just have a mule and a horse. Do you know?

SPEAKER_04 6:46

How old are you?

SPEAKER_09 6:47

Twenty-seven.

SPEAKER_04 6:48

Twenty-seven. Do you know Haley Paulie? Um she grew up out there.

SPEAKER_09 6:52

Does she have an older brother?

SPEAKER_04 6:53

She has a younger brother named Garrett.

SPEAKER_09 6:56

Oh no.

SPEAKER_04 6:56

Okay. Right on. She uh she seems to know just about everybody in that area. So I always ask like that's my like she's like my north star when it comes to like Ortonville and that whole area.

SPEAKER_09 7:07

Yeah, no, I haven't heard of her.

SPEAKER_04 7:09

Right on. Okay, no worries. Yeah, she uh she grew up riding and she works for a local farm somewhere. Okay, but I've done it.

SPEAKER_09 7:16

I'm sure I know somebody who knows her. Oh yeah, it's a small world. Like as soon as you like Ortonville's small.

SPEAKER_04 7:20

Yeah, yeah. The uh okay, so to give you some background on me and my interest in talking to you. Um I I I never I never worked on a farm. I mean, the closest I ever got was like going to a hunting property up in Bad X and like driving by them. And uh so I and then I watched a series on YouTube. There's a YouTuber named uh the the channel's called Smarter Every Day. Okay. So he's a he's a engineer. Uh I think he works for the army. But anyway, he did a series about farming, and I I think the series is literally called like farmers are brilliant or something. Okay. So it's like a clickbaity like where they suck you in, like, what? Because you you know, stereotypes like aren't farmers dumb, you know? Right. And then it goes into all the engineering of like all of this machinery and how they you know they they have to fix everything and like bypass all these like gatekeeping things that like John Deere does so that you they try to prevent people from fixing their own shit. Sure. Um, and then you know, all the whatever. He so he he goes into the engineering of it, and I was completely fascinated because I being an ignorant person, uh you know, I would have never thought that much engineering and ingenuity went into farming.

SPEAKER_09 8:37

A lot of ingenuity, that's absolutely right on.

SPEAKER_04 8:39

Yeah. And so that sparked my interest initially, and then I don't know if you've heard of Clarkston's farm, the uh that little family farm. So on there is a Clarkston's farm in Michigan, but this is uh this is a TV series.

SPEAKER_09 8:53

Oh no, I haven't.

SPEAKER_04 8:54

Okay, so uh Jeremy Clarkston from Top Gear, they did a oh so Top Gear was like a 30-year run like car show.

SPEAKER_09 9:03

Yeah, I can't say I've ever seen any or heard. I mean I've heard, yeah. No worries. Not my thing.

SPEAKER_04 9:07

But so I so he has anyway, so he bought a um he bought a farm and had a guy running it for whatever amount of years while he was doing his TV show. He just had a guy running his farm and he doesn't know anything about farming, he just bought one because he wanted to retire to the countryside or whatever. And so the series is him like, oh, the guy that ran the farm for all these years is retiring. I guess I'll figure it out. And then so like the series is like, oh, I'm this rich dumbass who's gonna like try to figure it out.

SPEAKER_09 9:37

But he's actually brilliant, he plays the dumb guy, but I'm sure that sounds really entertaining, dude.

SPEAKER_04 9:42

It's so good, but it there it goes in, it goes into the weeds of farming. I mean, it goes into the politics of like the shit that you guys deal with, it goes into like actually him like kind of apprenticing, even though he's like a 60-year-old man, he's you know, yeah. I mean, it's it it's captivating. And I was like, I gotta get a farmer on. So, like the first one I reached out uh was LC Scramlin at Scramlin Feeds. And uh for whatever reason he fell through. I don't remember what happened, but that was about a year ago. But now I'm back on this kick. I'm like, I gotta talk to farmers. Like, I did like there's so much that I don't know about this.

SPEAKER_09 10:14

I gotta I'll do what I can for you.

SPEAKER_04 10:16

Yeah, I'm do so I'm excited to have you here. That's me. I'm gonna land my plane. I'm excited, I'm excited to have you here so I can pick your brain about all this random shit that you guys get to do or have to do that I yeah, I'll try to pull from other folks as well.

SPEAKER_09 10:29

I mean, obviously I have a community around me, so yeah, and gosh, they're probably all farmers just because that's how you get along. Yeah, you got something in common.

SPEAKER_04 10:38

So Yeah. So the uh okay, so I guess my first I I well, what is like a regular day of work for someone that works on a cattle farm then?

SPEAKER_09 10:48

Um so I do a little bit more than cattle. Like I've got poultry, pigs, uh, sheep. And so normal day is just gosh, you start the morning making sure everybody's fed and watered, and then you move on to fencing projects or cleaning out barns or any extra things that happen, they get out or something. That's been too much lately. Yeah. Um, but you know, or trying to make last couple days made a couple uh water wagons for hauling water because it's so hot out, so they're really drinking it down. But um I mean, really just it's a lot of care, a lot of nurturing.

SPEAKER_03 11:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 11:30

The uh And I'll say, I'll say I don't get up very early, actually.

SPEAKER_04 11:35

No?

SPEAKER_09 11:35

No. Um I think I think I start my day around 8 30.

SPEAKER_04 11:39

Oh, that's I'm jealous of that. Well, what time does your day end though?

SPEAKER_09 11:42

Right, that's the that's the catch. Sometimes it's like 10 o'clock. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:47

That's brutal.

SPEAKER_03 11:47

It's brutal.

SPEAKER_04 11:48

Yeah, my uh our our buddy Haley, um, she you're working at these farms. Uh sh I mean, she would be at our house hanging out and be like, oh, I gotta go, I gotta go. Right. Uh do whatever with the horses and the yeah, I gotta feed and water and whatever. Like right now, I gotta go. And we're like, what? It's like 8 45. Like my work day ended six hours ago.

SPEAKER_09 12:09

Yeah, because like there are animals that are on like a 12-hour schedule, like you feed them or you know, eight to twelve hours, right? You feed them at maybe eight a.m. and then you gotta feed again at five or six.

SPEAKER_05 12:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 12:22

Um, because they eat twice a day, right? Unless you're I'm more so of a grass-based, um, so I do a lot of pasturing. So it's not so much having to be scheduled to feeding grain or something like that, with like it is with horses. Um but yeah, that's you gotta be on time. Yeah. Or they'll they'll cuss you out.

SPEAKER_04 12:46

The animals get an attitude with you, they know that you're late.

SPEAKER_09 12:49

Absolutely. Or they or they get out, right? Like, hey, you didn't feed me tonight. Um, I'm looking for my food. Yeah, I'm gonna come find you.

SPEAKER_04 13:00

Dude, that's awesome. How big is this uh farm that you're working for?

SPEAKER_09 13:05

Uh so I own my farm.

SPEAKER_04 13:06

Oh, oh, right on.

SPEAKER_09 13:07

Um, I've got 60 acres and I rent another 40 pasture.

SPEAKER_04 13:14

Right on. Yeah, yeah. That's a killer. How old were you when you bought it? Because you're young.

SPEAKER_09 13:19

I think I bought my first the so I bought two parcels. The first one was 24 acres with the house, and I bought that in 2019, so I would have been 20, almost 21. I'm a January baby. So yeah. We're the best. We're the best. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 13:40

Um it's the w I think it's the worst. I would have much rather had a June or July birthday.

SPEAKER_09 13:45

No, statistically, if you went to public school, you actually excelled more so than your um classmates. Because of because you were a little older.

SPEAKER_04 13:54

Oh, you know what's funny? I was I was just reading uh Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers. Okay. And he was talking about there's a advantage to being born in January, February, or March as a hockey player.

SPEAKER_09 14:08

Oh, it's strictly as a hockey player.

SPEAKER_04 14:10

Well, that that was what he was talking about specifically. Okay. But like Yeah. Yeah, he was talking about how uh the way that they separate ages in Canada for youth hockey leagues, there's a significant advantage to being born in January, February, March because you're up to like 10 months older than your you know your teammates. So then you seem more talented, you seem more skilled, and you are more skilled and more talented because you've had 10 more months of practice of and then and and then that effect is compounding because then you get extra attention and extra game time and extra coaching and blah blah blah, and then all of a sudden it's like now you're 17 and you're you've had exponentially more experience on the ice than your teammates that were born in August or whatever. It sucks for them.

SPEAKER_09 15:03

It sucks for them. Sucks sucks, loser. No, it's just I get it though, like birthdays as a kid, you can't go out and do summer fun things. You're stuck in trying to find something inside.

SPEAKER_04 15:14

Dude, I had I had a birthday party at Joanne Fabrics.

SPEAKER_09 15:18

That's sad. Yeah. That's really sad. As fuck.

SPEAKER_04 15:24

There's a picture. Paige came across this picture of me with classmates, and I'm wearing a sweater vest. I don't know why. I don't know where I found it.

SPEAKER_09 15:34

How old were you?

SPEAKER_04 15:35

Like nine or ten. Like old enough that it'd be embarrassing. Right. You know, anything beyond like four, you're like, what are you doing? Okay. And so I'm wearing a sweater vest, and I got my buddies around me, and we're we were gluing journals together with little felt like animals and characters. I'm like, mom, like, I thought that was a cool birthday. I that is the lamest shit of all time.

SPEAKER_09 16:00

Like, probably for a young boy, absolutely. Yeah. I'm sure your mom had a great time.

SPEAKER_04 16:06

Yeah. Glad she had a good time. I didn't live that shit down for I mean, I still haven't lived it down. It's been like 20 years.

SPEAKER_09 16:13

Still on your mind.

SPEAKER_04 16:14

Dude, it still bothers me. I'm like, yeah, that was lame as fuck.

SPEAKER_09 16:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:17

I would have like, we couldn't have done the roller rink or bowling again. Right. You know? Where'd you do your birthdays?

SPEAKER_09 16:24

Um, mostly at home, I think, if I recall. Yeah. Um every once in a while, like a Chuck E. Cheese, right? Or like one of those indoor arcades or something.

SPEAKER_04 16:33

See, that's the way to do it. You know, if you're like, you know, take us, take me to a Jeepers or whatever. You know? Don't fucking take me to Joanne Fabrics. It's this abuse.

SPEAKER_09 16:43

I can't say that I've ever heard anybody else who's had a birthday at Joanne Fabrics.

SPEAKER_04 16:50

I'm not a straight guy. That's for fucking sure. It was forced on me, dude. Oh man. There's some embarrassing ass shit that I've that I've that comes up from my childhood.

SPEAKER_09 17:01

It gives you character.

SPEAKER_04 17:03

Sure. Yeah. Trauma. Trauma creates character for sure. Getting fucking bullied for having the lamest birthday of all time.

SPEAKER_09 17:13

Well, yeah, you build character, you learn how to fight, I suppose. Sure.

SPEAKER_04 17:17

Yeah. Yeah. What's your uh what's your birthday?

SPEAKER_09 17:21

Uh January 15th, 1999.

SPEAKER_04 17:23

That was my grandpa's birthday. 15th. So my my grandpa's birthday was the 15th. My brother's is the 19th, and mine is the 22nd. Okay. So we would just have like one trend. We would just have one big dinner.

SPEAKER_09 17:33

Yeah, everyone in my family's getting laid and that would be uh April.

SPEAKER_04 17:41

April. Yeah. Yeah. Look at us getting late on Easter, Sunday, or whatever. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 17:46

You know, after church.

SPEAKER_04 17:50

Oh man. Dude. So okay, so you got so you so you have cattle and you have ch ch I'm trying to circle bags. Chickens.

SPEAKER_09 18:02

Uh jerkeys seasonally.

SPEAKER_04 18:04

What kind of ducks do you have?

SPEAKER_09 18:05

Oh, um a few different kinds. Okay. So my ducks lately, I I don't feed them water that I have a pond. Right. So they they do whatever they want to do. Um blue Swedish, black, Swedish, Cayugas, which are those all black ones.

SPEAKER_05 18:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_09 18:23

And then I have a few call ducklings. Um C-A-L-L. Like for um, I think most people use them for actually calling in wild ducks and shooting them.

SPEAKER_04 18:33

Oh, right on.

SPEAKER_09 18:34

Um, but they're like they're like really small. So they're the cutest things ever, right? And um that covers that. They kind of just do their own thing. A bunch of them had babies this year. They just all decide they're gonna lay on eggs.

SPEAKER_04 18:48

Is there an income from these ducks?

SPEAKER_09 18:51

Or are they just kind of like um I used to collect eggs and sell the eggs, but I stopped cooping them up and then they I'll probably sell the babies come this fall, right? Like 'cause I don't need forty ducks. No. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:06

Yeah. So w uh so what are the uh what I guess what are the income like generating animals that you have? Yeah, the cattle, obviously.

SPEAKER_09 19:16

Cattle, because I sell uh grass-fed, grass-finished beef on a rotationally pastured um program. I sell my lambs the same way, and then I do meat chickens, so like your regular Cornish cross, and I have them in chicken tractors that you move every day, so it's like another rotational grazing type of thing. Okay. Um and then the um the hogs, which I'll sometimes raise in pens or uh in paddocks and like move them through the brush because they do a great job at clearing. And then there are the turkeys, which are seasonally for Thanksgiving. But I d I'm a little crazy. I do like 300 of them and that's a pretty good source of income, the turkeys. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:02

When when do you start the rotation for turkeys?

SPEAKER_09 20:05

For to be on time for I actually uh process them before Thanksgiving. Okay. So which that requires me to have a walk-in freezer or rent one. Because we're talking about like 300. Well, you start with 300, you usually end up with like 250. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 20:21

Um because of like coyotes or um okay, turkeys are dumb.

SPEAKER_09 20:28

Yeah. Uh this year I bought in 300 turkey poles and about a hundred of them never learned how to eat. I like you have 200 eating and drinking and figuring it out. You'd think the other ones would look and be like, oh, this is what we're doing. I don't know, bad batch or something.

SPEAKER_03 20:48

So they just like starve the dead. They just starve just don't figure out.

SPEAKER_09 20:52

It's really sad. But man, maybe I'm just like a little uh I don't know, cold or like hardened to it, but I it's hard to get sad sometimes about it because it's gonna happen. Yeah. Right? Um but it is sad. And uh so anyways, yeah. So you're talking to like 250 turkeys that are like 15 to 24 pounds. The freezer space for that's pretty crazy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:19

Yeah. So oh so is it like a rent like a trailer freezer that you rent?

SPEAKER_09 21:24

So I used to rent one up in North Branch. Uh huh. Okay. Um and from a really kind woman, and this I think it was last year I started setting up my own, ran into some problems with the electricity, so I gotta get that figured out. Um, and then I'll have that up and going so I don't have to like go all the way up to North Branch, bring a certain amount of turkeys back because people don't all pick up on the same day. So it's like, okay, I need a I need a fifteen pounder, I need two twenty pounders, this, that, and the other thing. Yeah. Make sure you don't bring any extra because there's nowhere to put them. And I have seven chest freezers. I mean it's it's a little absurd. Yeah. But yeah, so the walk-in freezer for that is a big component.

SPEAKER_04 22:09

Do you do all your own butchering?

SPEAKER_09 22:11

No.

SPEAKER_04 22:11

No.

SPEAKER_09 22:12

No. Um when I was married, we did all of our own chickens and some of the turkeys. And it was so it was like every Saturday in the summer. We're just killing chickens, we're gutting chickens. All day. All day. And then you gotta package them. I mean, it was a whole you catch them in the morning, you'd you know, you'd have a couple friends come and help you out. They never really liked it either. So I felt bad for them. But we'd feed them lunch and ice cream, and then in the afternoon you'd go and you bag them all up and you'd weigh them and you tag them and then you put them all in the freezer. It was a whole day. It was bad.

SPEAKER_03 22:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 22:51

So when I went through my divorce, I was like, no.

SPEAKER_04 22:54

Yeah, so now you're gonna be now your workload is doubled, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 23:00

Yeah, I got some farm hands this year. I hired in. Um I sized down on a couple things, but not too much because the demand is there.

SPEAKER_04 23:10

Were you and your husband running the farm full time together?

SPEAKER_09 23:14

Or did you have a he had a part-time job. I still have a part-time job. Okay. Um I work at a dairy farm as well. Right on. Uh it's like five minutes from my house. Wonderful family. I've been there for eight years. We're done.

SPEAKER_03 23:26

Um is it Cooks by chance? No.

SPEAKER_09 23:28

Okay. I do buy a lot of bull calves from Cooks, though. Right on. They're a very nice family as well.

SPEAKER_04 23:33

Yeah, I thought about reaching out to uh Quinton. Quentin. Yeah. I was gonna call him Q. I was like, I know it's a weird name. Yeah. Okay. He's a real nice guy. Yeah. He I I watched him do a little sp spiel to kids, and I was like, he seems like the nicest guy on earth. Because it's like a field trip.

SPEAKER_09 23:48

Yeah, they do a lot of little tours. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, uh Dairy Farm I work for is Wiles. They do sweet corn in the summer. They're on Gale Road. I think that's considered good rich. Right on. So anybody that needs sweet corn, hit them up. It's the it's the sweetest sweet corn you'll ever have.

SPEAKER_04 24:04

I might hit them up because I'm trying to grow some and it's not going well. Oh. Now they won't give out their secrets, but uh no, no, but just to get just to have a hookup because mine's not going well. Yeah. Dude, growing vegetables this year has sucked.

SPEAKER_09 24:18

I uh it was a it was a hard start. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:21

Yeah. I mean, I had a uh I had something like a dozen uh tomato plants die because of the late frost that I didn't expect at all. Yeah, it was like it like frosted in like the third week of May.

SPEAKER_09 24:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:35

I was like, what? And and and then I lost an entire crop of tomatillos to uh these gross little orange slugs. I don't know, I don't remember.

SPEAKER_09 24:43

So there you go, get some ducks, I'll bring you some.

SPEAKER_04 24:45

Dude, that's why I was asking about ducks. So I found uh I was so I'm I'm a whore for AI, and I know that's controversial. Man, it's so controversial.

SPEAKER_09 24:54

I can only say I've used it about four times.

SPEAKER_04 24:56

Yeah, okay, so I did but I I'm just using it the same way I would have used Google, right?

SPEAKER_09 25:01

Right. So what's the difference? And every time you Google search now, AI comes up anyways.

SPEAKER_04 25:06

Right. So like, well, that and it's just I can just put exactly what I want to say instead of trying to think of like what's the best way to look this up. I can just say, like, hey, I got these stupid fucking orange slugs on my tomatillos. Right. What can I do to get rid of these things? And they're like, get a oh, it was a weird, it was a weird style of duck. They're like a tall standing ducks. Runner ducks. Runner ducks. That's right. Yeah. They look super cool. They're funny as hell looking. Yeah. And we uh so I was like looking into getting them, but because I'm in Waterford, I have to have five contiguous acres to get poultry. To have any livestock at all. So I'm like those damn rules. Like for real. I can't have a duck.

SPEAKER_09 25:44

Yeah, and they're not that loud or anything, you know.

SPEAKER_04 25:47

Yeah, so I was thinking about just like doing it and do it anyways. Do it anyway, and just see what happens. And but we live I well, I don't want to give up my fucking address, but I live, I live close enough to the rulemakers that it'll cause a problem.

SPEAKER_09 26:03

Yeah, it'll cause a problem. That they'll catch it quick.

SPEAKER_04 26:05

Yeah, not in an hoa, but like the township itself will be privy of what the fuck I'm doing real quick. That's really frustrating. Unfortunately, yeah, yeah. I I wish I could get property. I just we're just not there yet.

SPEAKER_09 26:22

It's a lot of work. Yeah. It's a lot of work.

SPEAKER_04 26:24

I know, and I have so much shit going on already. I'm like, I can't like having a garden is kind of stupid for me. Because I'm I'm busy from 4 a.m. till nine o'clock at night every day. Right. So it just doesn't make sense to have property too. Do you have kids yet? If three, yeah. I got three kids, I do comedy, do the podcast, and I work like 60 or 70 hours a week.

SPEAKER_09 26:46

So um no wonder why you're drinking a coffee right now, first of all. Yeah, but how many Red Bulls do you drink?

SPEAKER_04 26:54

So I j you know what's funny is I'm so sensitive to caffeine. If I if I really if I get the right amount of caffeine, I feel like a million bucks. Right. One extra sip, I'm like, I'm dying.

SPEAKER_09 27:05

Really? Do you get shaky?

SPEAKER_04 27:06

Oh, I get shaky, I get anxious, I get like weird pains, and I'm like, is that a heart attack? And then I'm like trying I'm like fighting off the fucking anxiety demons, and I'm like, no, I'm fine. Like even though it's felt like this a million times before, this time it's real, I'm dying. That's hard.

SPEAKER_09 27:23

No, I go through a lot of caffeine.

SPEAKER_04 27:25

Do you? Yeah. You have to when you're fucking busy for you know.

SPEAKER_09 27:28

I mean, you just when you gotta peel yourself out of bed, yeah. You need something quick.

SPEAKER_04 27:32

Dude, I tell you what, I I so okay, so being a pipe fitter, there are days where I work myself, like work my ass off, and it like it's you go home feeling like you did something. You know, like you're like, ugh, like I I moved so much, I did so much, and then when you sleep, you sleep like you died. Right. And so I'm in a way, I I I don't have days like that all the time. It's it's but I'm envious of people that get to feel that feeling more often because I love the way that feels. I'm a fucking workaholic. So like crashing, like I like the type of tired most people don't like this. I like the type of tired that like I'm pissed right before I go to bed. I'm like, fucking leave me, I'm going to bed. Like, I like that feeling. I like being so tired that I'm like, I'm going to bed. And then I just got kids. Yeah. They know me.

SPEAKER_09 28:28

They're used to me. How old are they?

SPEAKER_04 28:30

Uh 13, uh, 13, nine, and seven.

SPEAKER_09 28:35

Okay. So they're old enough to start to understand that.

SPEAKER_04 28:37

Oh, they do they get it. They're like, I hear them talk to each other. They'll be like, oh, dad's tired again. Don't you Jamie, stop, because dad's tired. Oh man. I mean, I don't go running around ripping heads off.

SPEAKER_09 28:49

I'll just be like, all right, it's a stop asking me questions. Right, right. You just get a little short short with them.

SPEAKER_04 28:55

I get I get the only time okay, to be fair and be honest, the the the main the only time I get actually shitty with them is if they're being crazy in the car. For whatever reason, I cannot handle that.

SPEAKER_09 29:09

No. There's too much stimulation.

SPEAKER_04 29:11

Way too much.

SPEAKER_09 29:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:12

And then they're like bickering and arguing and pushing and shoving on each other because somebody has something that the other one wants.

SPEAKER_09 29:18

Normal kid things.

SPEAKER_04 29:20

Completely reasonable. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 29:21

And my unreasonable 32-year-old brain is like No, I think it's reasonable for you as well.

SPEAKER_04 29:31

I mean, I'm trying to be frustrating. Trying not to kill off Saul on the freeway, you know?

SPEAKER_09 29:36

Right, yeah. It's really stressful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're thinking about no. Okay. No. Oh man. I'm not sure about that whole thing. Yeah. I uh I love to help the community. I love to like watch my best friend's sister. She comes and works on the farm and all that.

SPEAKER_04 29:53

But your best friend's sister has a or your best friend has a sister that's so younger. Younger that it's like, yeah. Okay. So she's 12. Right on.

SPEAKER_09 30:02

Um and I bought her the horse and all that, and we're doing a lot of like farm stuff together. But man, sometimes. I love her though. She's a really good kid. Yeah. So I won't say anything too much, but um, you know, they're kids. They're kids. And you gotta teach them, and I'm already doing like 500 other things, and I'm like, can't you see that I'm busy right now? Yeah. You know? Yeah. But that's they'll learn.

SPEAKER_04 30:26

That is the hardest thing. So, like, I'm like I've said, like I'm a complete workaholic. Like, I I love getting shit done that I'm interested in.

SPEAKER_09 30:34

Were you one of those kids that had to have like a bouncy ball seat in school? Fuck you, dude.

SPEAKER_04 30:46

I've never felt so accurately attacked in my life. I'm just wondering. Um, no, I never had I never they didn't do that shit. They never gave me. They didn't do that shit yet. They didn't no, they didn't do that shit. They just put me in the back of the classroom and like make me put up this like trifold thing, so I was like blocked in. Literally, yeah, they treated me like fucking livestock. They're like, we gotta eliminate all possible distractions from this idiot. No, yeah. I don't know. I was absolutely a problem in school, dude. Okay, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_09 31:16

Okay, so I'm starting to understand it more now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Appreciate that.

SPEAKER_04 31:19

Yeah, I mean, like, I'm a fucking stand-up comic. Like, does anyone normal do that? Fuck no. Let me answer for you. Absolutely not. We're all weirdos, we're all like getting our affection from crowds that kinda hate us.

SPEAKER_09 31:33

That's fair. That's a fair assessment.

SPEAKER_04 31:35

It's fucking weird. It's the weirdest hobby of all time.

SPEAKER_09 31:39

It's a hobby? Like you don't get paid?

SPEAKER_04 31:41

I don't get paid, no. No. We do it for fun. It costs it costs me a lot of money to do to do standards.

SPEAKER_09 31:46

Okay, so it is a really hobby. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:49

Well, only not because they you charge to go on stage, but because it the time and the time and the in the gas and the you know, and the and the effort that goes into it. I mean, like, I don't even can I don't count the labor of it because I love it so much. Like sitting down and writing or whatever, like I love that part of it. But it is like like if you want to hit multiple open mics a night, you might drive 150 miles. I mean, yeah. I mean, like there's like Wednesdays, there's um I just look at my calendar instead of trying to remember because my brain doesn't work that way anyway. But uh, so like on when okay, so Wednesdays, to give you an example, uh there's the Ann Arbor comedy showcase, the roadhouse in Lavonia, and then Keisha's comedy house in uh in East Point. So those are all like at least 30 miles apart from each other.

SPEAKER_09 32:41

And you go and hit all of them?

SPEAKER_04 32:42

I try to. Well, the Ann Arbor comedy showcase you have to like be selected for. Oh yeah, some of these some of these mics, uh the some of the open mics they'll they'll call them open mics, but it's really like you message, you run a mic.

SPEAKER_09 32:55

You have to schedule.

SPEAKER_04 32:56

I'll message, hey Beth, I'm I'm available for these dates, and then you have a thousand comics telling you the same shit, so then you have to do it like a lottery, like all right, these 15, these 15, these 15. And then you'll message me and say, Hey, I got you for this week. Okay, and this week, and this week, and it's and then so it's like a more of a showcase than an open mic. So a lot of people are scheduled, but some of them aren't scheduled, some of them are like show up go up, and those those can take a long time depending on which one you go to. It might be like you go up at 1 a.m. on a fucking Monday.

SPEAKER_09 33:30

Ooh, who's out there watching comedy at that time?

SPEAKER_04 33:34

Other comics.

SPEAKER_09 33:35

We're all just trying to Oh, so you're just all nerdy.

SPEAKER_04 33:41

Some of like the bigger stages, you get real comedy fans. Okay. And then like those those mics are like a treat. Those are like I mean, it's just like the best when you get to do comedy for a real comedy audience. Oh, dude, it's so good. Like, because most of the time we're doing them at bars and like there's like sports on, and like people just could not give a shit less.

SPEAKER_09 34:05

I mean, maybe they'll pay attention when everybody laughs, but then they missed it. Right.

SPEAKER_04 34:09

Right, right. Yeah, I remember one time I was like, I was like, uh you guys are watching like reruns of curling, and you're not paying attention curling. Like, it's first of all, it's curling and it's it's a fucking replay. Like, it's not even live. Like, what this is more captivating than all of these like really good comedians that are here.

SPEAKER_09 34:29

Oh, I couldn't believe that they're just there to drink, right?

SPEAKER_04 34:32

Yeah, right. But then getting to do there's one night stands right down the road here in Waterford, getting to do one night stands or Mark Ridley's and Royal Oak. Oh my god, it's fucking chef's kits.

SPEAKER_09 34:44

That's pretty cool. The only thing I can liken it to, like in my life, is people that show their horses, right? Like they don't get paid, you maybe get a ribbon, and it's your whole weekend, and it kind of sucks. But like for the love of the game, right?

SPEAKER_04 34:58

For the love of the game, dude. Yeah. And like there's the one percent of comedians that make a living doing it, that are like there's like there's like the point oh one percent of comics that are like gajillionaires, you know, like the Bill Burrs, the Nate Bargazzi, Manuscalko, like all these guys that are like all these names that I don't know. Okay, uh Dane Cook, uh I don't want to go too hillbilly and like feel like I'm pandering. Larry the cable guy. You know, you gotta know him, right? Right, yeah, okay. All right, so he's like 0.1% of the comics who's like got a hundred million dollars, right? And then there's like the guys that make like two grand a weekend to go do it, and they're and they're like those are guys that have like millions of followers. Right, okay. So it takes a lot to get a little, then and then there is a huge gap of like no income down to like like I'm paying I'm you're paying to do it.

SPEAKER_05 35:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:58

But but I love but for the love of the game, do you think?

SPEAKER_09 36:02

Yeah, yeah. My farmhand's been saying that, and I was like, you know what? I kind of like that. Yeah. Yeah. For the love of the game. It's perfect. Spot on for that.

SPEAKER_04 36:10

I mean, it's it's addicting. You go, you you spend all this time writing this stupid thing that you want people to giggle at, and then you you manipulate it and you change the order in which you do the jokes within the bit, and then you you like you just you you rearrange this in a hundred different ways, and the first way that you had it arranged seems like the final product, and then you do it on stage and it completely eats shit, and you're like, Whoa, what what? Hold on a second, these jokes are good jokes. Why did that not land? And then you rearrange it, and then someone laughs really hard at something you didn't even think was the funny part, and you're like, wait, hold on. Okay, so then I listen back to the to the audience, and I go, Okay, so they laughed at this and they really hated me for this, so let's get rid of this part. They don't like when you call your cool, yeah. You know, like one of my bets I called my father-in-law a Dingleberry for a joke.

SPEAKER_09 36:59

And they're really not that bad. It but I I mean it's gross, but Right.

SPEAKER_04 37:04

I mean, it's like but it's a it's a joke, right? And I don't really mean it, but in the context in the context of the set, people I lost the audience. They're like, fuck this guy. So like I so like alright, I gotta get rid of that and like write something else in place of that to explain the context.

SPEAKER_09 37:22

The context where it's actually funny. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:24

So like so playing.

SPEAKER_09 37:25

It's like a writer, a director, uh editor, all in one.

SPEAKER_04 37:29

Oh, it's yeah, I mean it's completely addicting. Yeah. It's it's like a puzzle. It really is. Yeah, it's a puzzle of like how can I arrange this to create tension and then break the tension by people by making people involuntarily just like blah blah blah blah blah. You know, it's it's the I've never thought of it that way. It's the weirdest hobby of all time, and you can only do it in front of people, like you can't perfect it. Without the audience, yeah, you can't do it. Yeah, because you need the feedback. You're not playing guitar, you know what I mean? You're not you're not doing scales. You have you have to you have to have the feedback so that other people can tell you what was good or bad about it. But like no band is doing that. No, they just practice in their garage and and then they release it, and it is what it is when it's over, when it's released, you know. I love it. I love it. I absolutely love it. That kind that joke that um that I was referencing, the the context of that bit. I have a five-minute set, and it's like I have I'm in the dog house, and my fiance won't tell me why. I have three theories, and like these are the theories. And so, like, I go through like progressively worse things that I've done.

SPEAKER_05 38:38

Great.

SPEAKER_04 38:39

To like go, okay, are is this why? You know, so like the first one is like I shaved my face, and she doesn't like what I look like. Oh, because I always have a beard, and then it's like, and then and then there's jokes about what I look like and why I look like what I look like, and blah blah blah. And then I move on, I'm like, all right, number two, am I in trouble? Because Paige, my fiance, found a heart that I carved that said M plus L, which was my ex-girlfriend, the man in Laura. I was like, but it was 15 years ago. Burn it. It was 15 years ago. Like, why would she why would she be mad about that? And then I'll and then I go on to say, well, and here's my best defense Laura is dead.

SPEAKER_09 39:15

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_04 39:17

So what the fuck does Paige have you worried about? Okay, and I go on to Yeah. I'm like, what is Paige worried about? She's gonna find me in bed with a box of tissues, a bottle of lotion, and a fucking Ouija board? Like, what do you you know?

SPEAKER_09 39:32

I don't know you.

SPEAKER_04 39:35

Got some tarot cards. Uh and then the last one is uh the one where I call my father-in-law Dingleberry is uh uh Am I in the Doghouse? Because I found out my mother-in-law was hot as fuck and I could not stop talking about it. Oh my god. I I found this picture of her when she was I found out she was like she was younger than I thought when I saw the picture. She was a good sign. Yeah, it was I I a good shot around the same page. Yeah, yeah. She was I was like, damn, that she is hot as fuck. And then I found out she was like 17 in the pictures. I was like, oh, I feel like a creep. Yeah, no. But it was it's hard to tell though, because it was from seven 1973.

SPEAKER_09 40:18

Right, so it's like an old picture.

SPEAKER_04 40:20

The old pictures, old style.

SPEAKER_09 40:22

Like it's hard to like if I see like a 17 is close to 18, but um, it's not legal. All right, Epstein.

SPEAKER_04 40:29

Oh no, no, it was I felt gross after I found out how old she was in that picture.

SPEAKER_09 40:35

But but I'm like from a picture standpoint, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:38

But I was like, damn, like she's like, who is this woman that's in these pictures? Like she is, and it was Paige's mom. And so like I can't I could not stop talking about it. So I did this like stryzand effect where I didn't want Paige to say anything to her mom, but then like I wouldn't shut the fuck up about it. So Paige's like, I'm just gonna tell her. Like, this is and then so her mom thinks it's hilarious, so it's actually like okay, like the joke is kind of twisting it, me being like Paige is mad at me for it. She really wasn't, she thought it was fucking hilarious that I was like simping from my mother-in-law, like, damn, she was so hot, and uh, but in the in the yeah, the the jokes are fucking so stupid, but that in that joke, I'm like, you know, our dad comes over and he's like, if you wanna if you don't want your chicken to be dry, you gotta use indirect heat. And I'm like, don't talk to me about how to cook you dingleberry. Like, you're men fought wars for women that look like your wife. Like, why are we not talking about that? You know, it's so stupid. I completely lost the audience on that one. They were like, what the fuck is this idiot talking about?

SPEAKER_09 41:42

It's because they also don't know how to cook chicken. They wanted to know how.

SPEAKER_04 41:45

They're like, wait, hold on. I'm taking notes here, and he's talking about dingleberries, obviously. Right, yeah. Yeah. They didn't think about that. Maybe that's what you that's right. Maybe I should have finished the advice and then moved down. Listen, kicking chicken, don't flip it too much. You're good to go.

SPEAKER_09 42:00

Throw it in a crock pot. That's all I do.

SPEAKER_04 42:02

A crock pot?

SPEAKER_09 42:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:04

Boneless, skinless?

SPEAKER_09 42:06

Whole chicken.

SPEAKER_04 42:07

Whole chicken. Whole chicken in the crock pot.

SPEAKER_09 42:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:10

With what else?

SPEAKER_09 42:12

I don't know, you make rice or something on the side. You gotta have fast meals.

SPEAKER_04 42:16

You don't have a lot of time as a you just throw the chicken in the crock pot, you walk around.

SPEAKER_09 42:19

Oh, butter, butter, water, yeah. Oh seasonings. Yeah. I'm not that white.

SPEAKER_00 42:25

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_09 42:26

My parents were, but I'm not.

SPEAKER_04 42:30

Dude, uh yeah. I never I never thought about doing a whole chicken in a crock pot. But I but I do a turkey in a roaster.

SPEAKER_09 42:38

Right, it's like the same thing. Or you cook a whole chicken in the roaster. See, the good thing about like a crock pot chicken is um you can make broth afterwards. Yeah. And then you can use your broth for your rice or your soups or whatever. Yeah. That's a good idea.

SPEAKER_03 42:51

I've never thought about this.

SPEAKER_09 42:52

I just I try to put everything I can in a crock pot.

SPEAKER_04 42:55

Just to set it, forget it, walk away. Absolutely. Go work and come home and have a meal.

SPEAKER_09 43:01

I'm like really bad at doing it lately, but yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:03

Yeah. Dude, are you I have a horrible habit of like going to gas stations and buying just bullshit all the time? I can't do that.

SPEAKER_09 43:11

I love gas station food.

SPEAKER_04 43:13

Dude! Gas station people.

SPEAKER_09 43:16

Yeah. No, I I hate to admit it, but yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:19

I dude, I spent it.

SPEAKER_09 43:21

Why is it all so good?

SPEAKER_04 43:22

I spent 25 bucks at the gas station this morning.

SPEAKER_09 43:26

Okay, what'd you get?

SPEAKER_04 43:27

$25. I got a Pop Tart, a monster coffee, and a bag of beef jerky. It was $25.

SPEAKER_09 43:33

Oh, well, the beef jerky. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

unknown 43:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:35

But it I mean, it was a big bag if I'm gonna like if I'm gonna play like if I'm gonna like defend myself and stuff that bad, right? It's $25. I could have microwaved an egg for like 30 cents.

SPEAKER_09 43:46

That's true.

SPEAKER_04 43:47

And made coffee at home. But I spent 25 bucks. This is the shit that I do that I'm like, it's death by a thousand cuts, you know? Right. It's like every time every day I wake up, I go spend twenty-five bucks on nothing. Instead, I just Getting up ten minutes earlier.

SPEAKER_09 44:02

Yeah, or even those like little microwave meals for breakfast and stuff, those are so much cheaper. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:09

See, I I'll convince myself when I'm at the grocery store, I'm like, nah, I'm gonna eat real food only. I'm not gonna eat that.

SPEAKER_09 44:15

And then I don't you gotta budget for the fun stuff.

SPEAKER_04 44:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 44:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:19

Yeah. I get see, that's that's the problem is I don't budget.

SPEAKER_09 44:21

And then I'm like, you're like, where'd all my money go?

SPEAKER_04 44:24

Dude, one time I went the bar right next to the studio here. When I was going through I wasn't married, but it might as well have been a divorce. I was with her, I was with my ex for 13 years. We had three kids, blah blah blah. Right. Um when when the beginning of the end started with her, I would spend every day at that bar so that I didn't have to go home and deal with her bullshit. I was just like, I'll wait till she has to go to work because she worked nighttime. Oh so I'd go, I'd get off work, I'd go to the bar, and I'd just wait until she was going to work. And then I got a call from my bank, and they go, Is do you go to a place called Shark Club? I go, Yeah. And they go, You spent three thousand dollars there in February.

SPEAKER_09 45:11

Holy shit.

SPEAKER_04 45:12

Like, does that sound right? And I was like, uh, and I did the math mentally real quick. I'm like, it's been like a hundred bucks a day every day. Oh my god. I'm like, holy shit.

SPEAKER_09 45:22

You're like, yeah, that's me.

SPEAKER_04 45:24

Uh I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fucking me. Oh my god. So I'm like, what am I doing? I had to stop. I was like, for and I was drinking like a lot.

SPEAKER_09 45:33

Too much, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:34

Yeah, because like you're there, I was there for like five hours. So, like oh, right.

SPEAKER_09 45:39

So, what else do you do at a bar for five hours? Right.

SPEAKER_04 45:41

I'm drinking a dozen beers like every day. It was ridiculous. It was so dumb.

SPEAKER_09 45:45

You might as well just go to the park. Oh, wait, you can't drink in public never. Forget about that.

SPEAKER_04 45:51

It was just like, here, I can hide here, you know. I can just I can come here, watch TV, play on my phone, talk to chicks on Tinder, whatever I was doing, and fucking drink beer and talk to like all my high school buddies either go there or worked there around that time. So I would just hang out with them. And I was like, oh my god, I'm spending like as much as I'm making at the bar, you know, at the time. I was an apprentice pipe fitter, you know. Okay. Oh my god. So I was like, all right, I gotta stop doing this. So I started going to the gym every day instead. I was like, this was that was the way to go. There you go. I went from like replace it, yeah. Everything shrunk fast, and I felt so much better and I looked so much better. Then girls started swiping on me.

SPEAKER_09 46:34

You had to get rid of the last one.

SPEAKER_04 46:36

Yeah, dude. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 46:38

I guess at that point, yeah. If you're willing to go looking for something else, you should probably just send it.

SPEAKER_04 46:42

Oh, yeah, no, we were done. Oh, yeah, we were done. I wasn't cheating. Yeah, no, I wasn't cheating.

SPEAKER_09 46:47

Were you still living together then or something? Yeah. Oh, you were done, but living together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:52

That was very toxic. It was so I I I moved when we I found out she was cheating on me. I was like, I'm out. I'm done. Fuck you. And I packed a bag and I left. I went and moved in with my brother at his apartment on the other side of town, like 40 miles away from here. And I was at work, and a guy I was working with was like, Hey, do you know about this like abandonment clause for custody battles? And I was like, I don't know. Oh. I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. And so he tells me when he went through his divorce, uh, he found out that because he left the home, it was more likely that they would side with the woman because the kids were at home with her. They're like, Well, they're already used to you being gone, so why would we give you custody? So you went back. So I went back. Good for you. And then it was very chaotic. It was toxic and miserable. It was for the kids, yeah. I didn't well, because I love being a dad, and at that time I was convinced that she was was did not want to be a mom. Right. I was like, she doesn't even want this, she doesn't want these kids, she's only doing this could to spite me. It was what I felt. But if I'm honest, I think we just brought the worst versions of each other out, you know. So I mean she still sucks, but she still sucks.

SPEAKER_09 48:11

You know, and I'm sure her whole family's telling her she's not the problem. You know what's funny?

SPEAKER_04 48:17

You know what's funny is that her family is my dad's side of the family because she doesn't have any family, and they sided with her when I left her. Seriously? Mm-hmm. So my whole dad's side of the family was like took her in and fucking kicked me out.

unknown 48:32

Damn.

SPEAKER_04 48:32

Yeah, and that's fucked up.

unknown 48:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:35

Makes me rageful. Like there's as a dad, there's nothing that my children could do to make me side with a visitor in our family. Right. And uh yeah, they've they fucking exiled me and took her side. They completely soaked up all her bullshit lies. And then even when even when she literally wrote a letter saying that everything that she said that I did to her was a lie to try to clear my name out of some random fucking spark of conscious conscience. Uh even then they were still like, nah, it's you, it's your problem, you're the problem. I'm like, alright, yeah, go ahead, go to my fucking go to my dad's family Christmas. That's so weird. I won't be there.

SPEAKER_09 49:20

That's so weird.

SPEAKER_04 49:21

Yeah. Infuriates me.

SPEAKER_09 49:25

Yeah. No.

SPEAKER_04 49:26

Yeah. It's toxic as fuck. That's crazy. I dude, I I started a fucking family fight unintentionally, because I was just trying to hold her accountable.

SPEAKER_05 49:37

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 49:37

I was just trying to like recently, I like I found out that she she lied to like she my my dad and his wife watch my kids for her. They don't talk to me. They don't do anything for me for the kids. They help her or they don't help me. They never have. So I find out that my ex was lying about where the kids were going. Oh. She said that my my work schedule changed. She lied to them, told them that my work schedule changed. That's why the kids weren't coming to his house anymore. I go, that's not true. I'm a pipe fitter. Right. It all stays the same. It's all it all stays the same. I still I work at 6 a.m. I get out at either two or four or six. That's that is it forever.

SPEAKER_05 50:23

Right.

SPEAKER_04 50:24

So I sent out a text message. I was like, hey, I just want to let you guys know, like, I found out this that's not true. It's a complete lie. And I put my dad, my stepmom, my fiance, and my ex all in a group chat so no one could say that they didn't understand what was said. Or and no, and nothing could be conflated or misconstrued. Right. It's all in a group chat with everybody. So I put, hey, this this schedule change is not real. This it's all bullshit. This this is what's happening, this is what's happening. I'm concerned about it. And I want you guys to be aware that this is not a lie. I don't know where the kids are going. I don't know if they're being left home alone. I suspect they're being left home alone overnight, which I don't like. No. You know, it's I mean, even though the oldest is 13, it's overnight. It's not the same as like, you know, your home.

SPEAKER_09 51:12

Four hours during the day. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:14

They never they didn't respond to me. And then my sister calls me and she's like, What the fuck? What did you say to them? And I so I'm sh I'm like, what are you talking about? They're all attacking her because she's the one that let the lie slip. She didn't even know it was a lie.

SPEAKER_09 51:28

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 51:29

She was just like, oh, hey, so what's your schedule number? Exactly. Yeah. So don't hold the person accountable who's leaving kids alone. Don't worry about what she's doing. Attack the messenger because the messenger started a war, is what they were telling her. And then threatening to kick her out of the house. I'm like, you guys are fucking scumbags.

SPEAKER_09 51:49

They sound like a great family. They suck. They're with them anymore.

SPEAKER_04 51:54

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely suck. I'm like, you guys are like, I'm talking about safety here. And I'm like, I'm worried about like where my kids are and what they're doing. And I'm just saying, hey, you guys are involved with her. You can you can you guys hold her accountable? And they're like, we I and then they did start to respond to that group chat and they said, like, you act like we're in cahoots with her.

SPEAKER_05 52:15

Aren't you?

SPEAKER_04 52:15

You absolutely do you not invite her to Christmas? Do you not invite her to Easter? That's so weird. You fucking didn't. How long were you together? 12 years? 13 years.

SPEAKER_09 52:26

Oh. So they grew attached.

SPEAKER_04 52:30

No. Oh. No, no. No. They I tried to make it work so vigilantly with my ex, and they were one of the biggest obstacle obstacles in my relationship.

SPEAKER_09 52:43

That's so weird.

SPEAKER_04 52:43

They fucking hated her. They called her trashy. They called her a whore. They called her a drug. I mean, they not exactly in those words, but they implied sure. She's a scum, she's a problem, she's a bad mom, she's this, she's that. Like they implied all these things over all these years. They made my relationship with her so significantly harder. And then I leave her.

SPEAKER_09 53:07

You take her side.

SPEAKER_04 53:08

And then you take her side.

SPEAKER_09 53:10

Even though they've kind of been trying to get you to break up with her the whole time? The whole time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:15

The whole time.

SPEAKER_09 53:16

That makes so much sense.

SPEAKER_04 53:17

I it's insane. It is insane. Absolutely insane. And then I mean, I mean, Jesus Christ, there's so much to it. Like my stepmom, my ex broke her phone or or her phone got shut off or whatever. And so she was my ex was using my son's phone. Okay. And so I go on my son's phone to check it, make sure he's not doing anything he's not supposed to be doing. Right. But she's text messages between obviously between my ex and my stepmom. And my stepmom was coaching her onto like, don't talk to him, don't talk to the ma don't talk to his mom. Like she's like coaching her on like how to make things in court go her way.

SPEAKER_09 53:58

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 53:58

I'm like, oh, look at that. Like my suspicions here in black and white are confirmed. Like you're never, you have never been in my corner. In 20 fucking five years of you being in my life, you have never been in my corner. And that was like the first time I was like, oh, here it is in black and white. She is against you.

SPEAKER_05 54:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:20

It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy.

SPEAKER_09 54:23

It's fucking, I mean, it's family stuff's kind of wild.

SPEAKER_04 54:26

It's incredibly wild. I mean, I like I like I I never thought I'd be envious of people that have like boring family lives. But like now I'm like, you know, I'm in my 30s. I've got fucking-d kind of nice. I'm like, damn. Like, we hold on. You just get to like you guys are just gonna like go to dinner, and there's like no fight? Yeah. Or drama. No drama. Yeah. There's no like underlying elephant in the room.

SPEAKER_09 54:50

Just kind of enjoy each other's company. Crazy. Wouldn't that be nice?

SPEAKER_04 54:54

Dude, what's that like? My mom's side is like that. That's the Arabic. The Arabic side is like that. They're all fucking they're all lovely and sweet and family oriented. Yeah. And then this side is fucking psychotic. I like I'm getting married in a couple months. I don't think they're coming to my wedding. I don't think I'm gonna let them come to my wedding. Like that's how bad it is.

SPEAKER_09 55:13

I wouldn't. Your wedding's for you.

SPEAKER_04 55:16

But okay, so I have a hard time with that though, because it's like I feel like I'm like socially obligated to invite certain people.

SPEAKER_09 55:26

You're not.

SPEAKER_04 55:26

And there's like cousins and shit that I like. I mean, like, I I care about them, but they're they're not in my daily life.

SPEAKER_09 55:33

So, like, are you doing a ceremony and a reception? Yeah. So just invite them to the reception only.

SPEAKER_04 55:40

That's the part I don't want them to. Oh. I don't want them to hang out. Go to the fucking ceremony and dip out. I mean, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_09 55:47

I don't know if you're Okay, do it the other way around.

SPEAKER_04 55:48

I don't even know if I want to do that, honestly. Like, these people have colluded against me for five years.

SPEAKER_09 55:54

Like, I I think you got your answer.

unknown 55:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:57

It sucks though.

SPEAKER_09 55:58

Flip a coin.

SPEAKER_04 55:59

Yeah. You know, I I had a I don't know if it was a buddy or if I read it, but I heard that you're supposed to flip a coin and then you pay attention to how you feel when you see the result. Like, cause like the flipping the coin.

SPEAKER_09 56:11

If you're disappointed and you wanted it to be the other way.

SPEAKER_04 56:14

Yeah, then you know the how you actually feel about it.

SPEAKER_09 56:17

Right.

SPEAKER_04 56:18

Yeah. I don't know. It's complicated, man. It's like you want like I want to be the bigger person, the forgiving person, and be like, you know what, whatever. Like they're fucking idiots.

SPEAKER_09 56:28

I mean you can invite them, they probably won't come.

SPEAKER_04 56:31

They probably will come, just like and like recruit fucking information for my ex. Oh. So they can so they can report back to my ex. Dude, my ex is so fucking disconnected from reality that stupid bitch asked if she could come to the wedding. I'm like, do you know that you like ruined a lot of my life? Are you kidding me? Like, you think you're gonna come to my wedding?

SPEAKER_09 56:51

For what?

SPEAKER_04 56:52

She cheated on me with a 60-year-old guy that was feeding her Vicadins. Like, you're not.

SPEAKER_09 56:55

Okay, that's crazy. But why would she want to come to the wedding?

SPEAKER_04 56:57

Why the fuck would you want to get a plate and party with us? What? Bitch, no. If we if we shook hands and walked away, like I tried to do, maybe, maybe we'd be we would be that cordial. But like, you cheated on me with a fucking 60-year-old man.

SPEAKER_09 57:15

Was it like a sugar daddy thing?

SPEAKER_04 57:17

It was a Vikandon daddy. It was uh, oh he buys me fucking I mean, so yes, but she's basically a prostitute for drugs and alcohol.

SPEAKER_09 57:25

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 57:26

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_09 57:28

What a great mother.

SPEAKER_04 57:30

Dude, I I I shouldn't say too much. We haven't even scratched the surface. I mean, there's so much shit that she's done to the kids and fucking, you know, I mean I I want to be vicious and like go for full custody out of protection for the kids, not out of not out of vengeance, but like but I don't know I don't know what's more damaging. Their mom being a fucking idiot or not being around their mom. You know? It's complicated, man. It sucks. This took a dark turn. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_09 58:02

That's okay. I asked. Yeah. I asked. I'm good at that. I'm like, yeah, just let me see how much I can wedge out of you.

SPEAKER_04 58:08

Oh, dude, I'm I'm an open book. I I fucking I cause family fights because I'm honest. People don't like that. And I'm not some people use honesty as a justification for being a piece of shit to be. Absolutely. And I'm not like that, or at least I try not to be like that. But I do like I don't, I won't filter because my dad's a fucking lying sack of shit. He's there probably has been a dozen honest words out of his mouth in his entire life. Great. And uh so I don't know what a normal amount of truth is, so I just I just don't filter the truth. Yeah. Or or at least I'll be like, hey, this is my full opinion. And it is what it is. Like, if you don't like it, you don't like it. If you do like it, cool. But at least you know where I stand.

SPEAKER_05 58:54

Right.

SPEAKER_04 58:55

But I I don't know what a normal amount of truth is because I refuse to be the liar, so I don't know, like, you know, if Paige's like, oh, does this make me look fat? I'm like, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 59:04

You know what? She actually probably appreciates it. No.

SPEAKER_04 59:07

Sometimes. Sometimes she gets mad. Like she'll she doesn't ever look fat. That's a bad example. But the but she'll put on like a she'll put on an outfit for like a concert or something. She'll be like, does this look good? I'm like, eh. I don't really like it, but it's it looks fine. She'll be like, what don't you like about it? We don't have a lot of time. And I'm like, I'm just not a fan of fucking overall shorts. I think it looks stupid. Like I don't know, it's not you, it's the thing itself. Yeah, you know. But yeah, so she gets frustrated. She does get frustrated with that, but I but it's a slippery slope. Like apparently it's in my genes of being a fucking fantasy alcoholism.

SPEAKER_09 59:46

Like, oh man, my parents were alcoholics. I can't touch beer.

SPEAKER_04 59:49

I don't know. I don't know. Well, I I don't know. I definitely lied when I was younger. I made up everybody does. I'm no, I made up a lot of shit. I like fully was following in his footsteps, just like completely fabricating experiences I never had.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:04

Huh.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:04

And I heard I was unintentionally eavesdropping, and people were talking about me they wait the way they talk about my dad. And I was like, oh hell no, I am not. And that was like my stomach. My stomach fucking hit my asshole, and I was like, oh no, I'm a piece of shit. And it was like, all right, I'm never doing this again. I'm never making up another thing. I I can't do it, you know. And it, dude, I I have such a complex about it that I'll like Google things as I'm sharing it. Like just regular like factoids. I'm like, hold on, let me fact check myself because I might be making shit up right now. You know, like my buddy uh today, my buddy showed me a picture of a tortoise that got loose in Fenton. Okay. He's like, dude, I like I'm I had to escape somebody's like personal fucking, you know, whatever. Yeah. And I was like, Did you know tortoises have like nerve endings in their shell? So like you can like scratch them and they'll feel it on their shell. Oh, really? He's like, Really? And I'm like, hold on.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:57

You're like, let me check.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:58

And I literally like had to stop and Google it. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's real, it's real. I didn't completely make that up.

SPEAKER_09 1:01:03

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:03

I have a I have a complete fucking complex about being a lion sec of shit.

SPEAKER_09 1:01:08

I get it, it makes sense. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:10

Dude, I mean, I I thought I thought about jokingly starting a list of like all the lies I can remember that I was told by my dad. Just just to make jokes, I probably talk shit about him on stage, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_09 1:01:25

Is that like your form of therapy?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:27

No. Oh no, there's some people that absolutely use it like therapy and it's cringy and uncomfortable for the audience. Okay. Yeah. I I go up there and just try to have fun. Okay. But I will I will frame it in a way of like me trying to work through something, but it's normally like I'm I'm for fun. Yeah, it's for fun. I'm not actually trying to work through like what I'm talking about most of the time. Yeah. You know. The first few sets I did, I was bitching about my ex. And there were some good jokes in there, but they were like, I could it was like bumming the audience out. Like the audience would laugh at the joke.

SPEAKER_09 1:01:59

They're like, oh haha, this is also really sad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:02

Dude, I did uh so in comedy, there's uh like a stereot stereotype of like, okay, there's the comedy clubs, and then there's there's gonna be like a comedy club that's the black room where it's a completely different vibe because it's uh black people, you know, club. It's like their go-to club, okay, you know, and so that here it the one that I did was Keisha's in East Point. By the way, Keisha is the nicest woman on earth, and I fucking love it. It's like hanging out in someone's basement. Like you show up to the club and you're just like you feel like you're hanging out with your buddy. Yeah, like it's it's the shit. I love Keisha's club. But I went up and I did the bits about my ex at that at that club, and there was an elderly black woman in in like the front row of the audience, and every time I told the joke that was kind of fucked up about my ex, she'd just go, like, like it was like an it was an empathetic, mmm. Like, oh, I'm so like it was like I'm sorry you went through that. And I was like, and in the middle of this and I go, hey, this is I'm okay with this, like it's okay now.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:05

Yeah, she'd be like, I can laugh about it now.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:07

She was like, mm-mm. It was like like she might as well have been saying, Oh honey, are you okay? You know, it's like don't be empathetic. I'm trying to be silly up here. Yeah, yeah. You're fucking this up for me, dude. It's hard to be funny when you're like you have empathy for me right now. Right. Stop it. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:25

She's probably the sweetest woman ever. She probably was.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:27

She had a big ass church hat on, which I thought was hysterical. Yeah. Because it was like a Wednesday in East Point.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:32

Well, Wednesdays are church nights too.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:34

Oh, yeah. I I did grow up like that too. But you're at a fucking comedy club. You know, you don't need a hat with the colour.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:42

But she just came right from church. She wants to get her laptop.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:45

She just wanted to look good, I think. She just wanted to look good. And she did. She looked great. But she was I'm trying to remember the fucking joke.

unknown 1:03:52

Oh god.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:54

Oh, I don't I don't think I'm gonna remember it quick enough. But I was oh, I was I go, uh uh one of the jokes was like a lot of people say that their ex is crazy, but mine was like certifiable. Like she said three stints in the sid. And like the joke is like I sent her there, like I'm the one that called, but it still counts. Like they didn't have to take her, right? You know, they just were like, Oh yeah, he's right, and took her. See? Damn it. Oops. Oh, honey. Yeah. Oh, dude. And then it's like, oh, the mandatory hold is 72 hours, right? Three days. Yeah. They held her for 30. They kept her for a month. Wow. Ten times the minimum hold. Wow. Yeah. Which is like, that's my proof that she's fucking nuts. They had to keep her for three days. They kept her for a fucking month. Like, oh Did she have a choice? No. No, no. She was forced to stay there for a month. Really? Yeah, she's fucking crazy. I didn't know they could do that. She's fucking crazy. Well, you can get committed for 72 hours. Like, that's the minimum psych hold. Oh, but they have to evaluate you. They evaluate you and they can keep you.

SPEAKER_09 1:05:04

So she kept her from a month failing the evaluation. Yeah, she's crazy as fuck.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:08

She's crazy as fuck. Found out she was fucking a dude while she was there.

SPEAKER_09 1:05:12

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:12

Yeah. She was like eight months pregnant.

SPEAKER_09 1:05:15

Ew.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:16

And was fucking a dude that she met in the psych ward. Ew. Yeah. That's so crazy. I mean, there's so many stories about how crazy this bitch is. It's insane. Like she put me through fucking hell.

SPEAKER_09 1:05:26

She was somebody now.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:28

Uh the most recent development is that her friend's boyfriend was cheating on her. Was her her friend's boyfriend was cheating on his girlfriend with my ex.

unknown 1:05:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:47

She's just come back. And my kids are like privy to this.

SPEAKER_09 1:05:50

They're like, oh, uh Does she like tell them everything?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:54

No. They just see it. Just see it. Yeah, it's just obvious that she's what she's doing. And the kids know. They're like, oh, you know, so and so is over again. Right. But his girlfriend's not. It's like, oh, we spent the night. Right. And there's three bedrooms and we slept in the other two. Right. You know, it's just like the kids are not dumb. You know? And then the kids will like literally come and tell us, like, oh yeah, mom told us not to tell you that so-and-so has been spending the night at our house. It's like. So she's literally telling the kids to be a liar to their parents. Like, lie to your go lie to your dad because I'm up to something that's frowned upon.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:32

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:33

It's so stupid. You know, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:37

It's not a way to live.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:38

No, it's just like it's tense and exhausting.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:41

I guess though, if that's all you've ever known, that's what you're gonna seek out.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:45

It's not what she's always it's not what she's known. She had a good family. Really? Yeah, her mom was so she was a she's adopted from India. Her and her sister were both adopted from India by a successful case worker woman.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:57

Oh like she was she ran So someone with empathy, someone with the means.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:02

Right. Yeah. She died with a half million dollars in her checking account. Like she was a not that that quantifies good person, but like she but she was a good like she was an empathetic, hardworking person. She cared about kids. That's why she adopted kids in the first place. She was a single mom, which might have been part of the issue of the kids.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:23

Not enough attention.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:24

It might have been like a friend versus parent thing because it was one-on-one. There was never like a parent parents against kids. It was like parent versus two kids. And I don't know. I didn't see it gets tricky. Yeah, I didn't see a lot of the dynamic to be to be honest with you. But like knowing the whole family over 13 years, it's like, dude, what the fuck? Like this is a good family. Everyone in this family she's okay. She was she parted a lot and she had to get past that. But like she's very responsible. I mean, she's like she works like whatever jobs. Like she's got like retail, like she's got like several retail jobs that she's had for like 15 years. Okay. Like, so she doesn't have a career per se, but like, you know, or like a like a skill set or training or whatever, education. But like she's very responsible. Like her credit is immaculate. She's always like done all the right things financially. So like I but that did not trickle over trickle over to her sister, my my ex, at all.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:29

Like uh when the day that I found out that all of the cheating and shit was happening, I found out while we were we just had my daughter's fourth birthday party, and everyone had left and the kids were sleeping, and then me, my sister quotes, sister-in-law and my ex, who was I was still with at the time, were sitting in the the living room watching a movie, just like zombieing out because we were so exhausted from the birthday party. I get a text, I go read it, I have like full adrenaline, like what the fuck is this real? And I start going through all the proof that the person who put her on blast sent me, and I was like, Holy shit, this is real. I confront her about it, and her sister was immediately like jumping down her sister j down my ex's throat, going like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Are you serious? You're really doing this to him? Like, what is you know? And I mean to give her I'm so I'm to give her credit, she doesn't owe me anything, and she's she was in my corner. Okay, you know what I mean? And I I wouldn't be in anyone but my own sibling's corner. Right. I might be like, what the fuck, dude?

SPEAKER_09 1:09:35

Unless your sibling really did something fucked up.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:38

Yeah, yeah. It would it would depend on the situation, yeah. But like, yeah, cheating. I would be like, what the fuck? Like you're an asshole, but like just you guys break up and whatever. If you need to move in with me or whatever, we'll figure it out. Yeah, you know, but she was like barking at her sister for me because she was like, This is not okay. Yeah, you know, but I don't know. What a complicated fucking situation. All right, we we drove into my divorce. No, I'm kidding. No, okay, we don't have to show that's okay, that's okay. We're good. Yeah. We was okay. So I do want out of curiosity, was yours cordial?

SPEAKER_09 1:10:19

No, I I divorced him.

unknown 1:10:23

Why? Why?

SPEAKER_09 1:10:26

Are we whispering?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:27

Well, I don't know, because it's funny.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:28

Um we did, like you said, bring out the worst in each other, and he like would say he's willing to work on it, but the work duh never showed. Okay. Um, and that was like I was like, that's enough.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:46

Um I was like, this is just not like do I want to live this way for the rest of my life? No.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:51

And wondering if it's happening again, if it happened again, who's it gonna be he was honest about it, which was the weird part. He was honest about it the first time it ever happened.

SPEAKER_09 1:11:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:02

Do you I don't know if I believe that. Just being around.

SPEAKER_09 1:11:06

Oh, you're saying he did it before? I think he did it. Maybe.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:09

I don't know. I mean like I di I did a I did like a men's therapy thing for like and through doing that I found out that a lot of people have a tendency to come clean once it's inevitable. I see. So it like I d I don't know. I don't I don't I don't get what you're saying. I I don't know if I don't know unless it was like a drunken stupor thing where it's like I can't believe I did it, I'm so sorry. I would never it wasn't like that. It was like, oh, I have a side piece then.

SPEAKER_09 1:11:44

It was really complicated.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:11:46

Yeah. So um I mean he was he I don't know, his family loves him. That's fine. Yeah. A lot of people still love him. Um I mean he is on the outside a very lovable person. Yeah. If you don't like he just has a lot of demons, I as he would say. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:04

So the personality flaws that I that's the funny thing about my dad is he's a very lovable, likable person. Yeah. But then as soon as you have like real life involvement with him, you're like, oh, you you're fucking this is hard to be in a life with you.

SPEAKER_09 1:12:19

No. And I'm not sitting here being perfect, yeah, but um and just bringing out the worst in each other. It's just it's not gonna work. Yeah. Things just don't work sometimes. Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:29

So see, that's it to circle back to like my situation. Uh like so me and my ex were each other's like first real relationship. We started dating when we were like 15 or so. That's relatable, yeah. And so like 13 years, it's like it's all we ever really knew. So when I got out of that and then I started dating people, and they had histories that I would learn about, and I'm like, what the fuck? Like, you know, you're number two, you're number three, you know what I mean? Like, and then I like that was really hard for me to get past. Like really, uh, yeah. Especially if especially if the girl I was dating had a dating history with like a friend or a friend of a friend. So like that person's kind of around still.

SPEAKER_09 1:13:14

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:15

I'd be like, what the f like I can't get past that. Like it was r it was really fucking difficult for me. Because I was so immature, I'm so immature about relationships.

SPEAKER_09 1:13:24

Right. Yeah, because I mean, first of all, that's all you had ever known. It wasn't a great one. Maybe you didn't have the um you know perspectives from a good one if you're it sounds like your parents split up at some point. They did, yeah. Right. So how are you supposed to know?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:38

Right, and like my mom and stepdad have an excellent relationship. Yeah. My dad and stepmom have an okay relationship, I guess. But like I it's seeing I don't know, like whatever normal became for me and my ex, it was super toxic and miserable, and it just felt like that was regular life, like that was what relationships were supposed to be.

SPEAKER_09 1:14:03

Yeah, then you find out they're not, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:05

And then it's like I literally have made the joke, like, I didn't know you could like your partner. Right. Like I didn't know, like Paige is like my best friend. Like, I fucking I get bummed if I don't get to see her after work. I'm like, what the fuck, man? Yeah, I want to see my book. That's how it's supposed to be. You know, that's how you suppose I had no idea that's how it was. Oh, you're supposed to hate them. I thought it was supposed to be like you have to be there, you could just deal with them and then like take it out on their butt cheeks later, you know. Like, that's what I thought a relationship was, and then yeah, so it like but I also like because my relationship with my ex was so vicious and like fucking demonstrative. I is that the right word? That's not the right word, destructive, just fucking toxic, whatever. Like, I didn't understand that people could just decide that they don't work together, and it'd be like okay okay, yeah. Like I didn't know you I thought you had to like burn the world down when you break up with somebody. I didn't know it could be like, hey, like your circle overlaps with my circle of friends, and we tried and it doesn't work, and that's okay. Shake hands, walk away, and it's like I'll see you at parties at the barn once in a while.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:07

Right, mature people would do that.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:09

I didn't know that was a thing. I was like, this motherfucker, and this it's war now. You know what I mean? And like, so like you know, dating somebody that's like, oh, they're fucking they they dated a guy that is her best friend's guy friend's friend or whatever the fuck, and then it's like I'm gonna run into this motherfucker. Like, I can't do that. It's like I got I have like the fucking dating brain of like a 13-year-old. I I you know, I had to like really work through that. Yeah, it was fucking it's hard to do that.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:39

Oh yeah, you know, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:41

Were you guys super young? I mean, you're young, you're young.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:43

I I mean, so he's like, I think, oh, five years older than me, maybe four, maybe four years older than me. Okay. Um, but he came from a very religious family. So I was like his first love. And he was like, I have to make this work. And I was like, this really isn't working. Yeah. And I like for a while I wouldn't talk to anybody about it. And then I started talking to my friends, and they're like, Oh, this doesn't look good. And I was like, Oh, this doesn't look good. And I feel bad. I mean, I definitely did a lot of things that were um inappropriate or unreasonable. Um I think we just both pushed each other. I think that's the problem. Yeah. And there's no there's no excuse for either person. Like, I can't excuse away what I did. It happened, I did it. Um if anybody asked me personally, I would tell them, I'd be honest, and here's what I'm doing to not do it again.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:16:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:45

Yeah. There uh i there is definitely something in a in a relationship that's toxic like that where you like kind of push past the line, and then like, but that keeps happening, and then all of a sudden the line is like, Oh, I fucking threw a candle through the wall, and you're like, Well, that's not fucking okay. Right. Like, but it it didn't start there, it started like way back at like fuck you, and then like and that was like whoa.

SPEAKER_09 1:17:10

And it just keeps escalating, but then it got both sides for in my situation, both sides keep escalating, and I'm like, Well, he's never gonna end this because he doesn't believe in divorce. Yeah, and I was like, We're gonna kill each other, yeah. And it happens.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:22

I mean, it just it just there was just a uh domestic violence fucking murder today that was all over the news.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:28

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:29

You know, it's like so that shit definitely happens. I mean, that's you know, and it's horrific, but like if you're not getting along, man, just to fuck out just to get divorced, it's okay, yeah. It's okay and it's a and honestly, a lot of times, like I mean, my god, if I didn't if if me and my ex didn't break up, like I didn't even know that the life that I have could be.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:50

Yeah, you know what I mean. You never know when you're missing out. God, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:53

That I would go through the hell that I went through with my ex a million times to be able to get to this life again, you know what I mean? Like some people just don't see it, like they don't incredible, they don't see like it can I wish she was here. I know, dude. She's damn I love her, man. She's the best. The uh compared to like how much hell I've gone through with like I I I I remember like writing vows jokingly when me and Paige like first started dating. Oh my gosh. And uh, but I wrote in there that like oh you know, like comparison is the thief of joy, and and like, but it's not when you when you go like, oh, like this is how it was, and this is how amazing it is. Like it's that's not the thief of joy. Like when you're looking at how bad it was and now how good it is. It's the opposite of it. You get to you get to center yourself with comparison because you I mean, whatever your normal is, you get adjusted to it, right? You get a new absolutely you get a new truck, and it's like, oh, this fucking thing, you know, oh it's not that cold in my car right now, right? You know, but like 15 years ago, I'd be like, come on, please start, please start. You know what I mean? So like my new normal is like so bitch ass compared to like how I used to be. I used to like roll my window up on my Jeep with a fork under the trim. Oh my god, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_09 1:19:17

So like now my drive-throughs were hell, dude.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:21

I'd go through backwards and like have my passenger order. No, but the uh, but like so there, like I'll get lost in the weed sometimes. Like me and her will argue about whatever the fuck, you know. Like we we're getting married in September, so it's like, oh we got this fucking thing that we're bickering about. Yeah, and then I like sometimes I'm like, dude, I gotta like realign myself and like recenter myself because like this is this is what we're arguing about. Right. Hey, I I I don't want to go out to eat this many times this month. Like we need to cool it on that.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:52

When like my arguments used to be like, I'm gonna fucking kill you, I'm gonna fucking kill you too. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you know?

SPEAKER_04 1:19:59

Yeah, and like that was my life for a decade. Yeah, and now it's like do we really care about this? Right. Do I really want to do that?

SPEAKER_09 1:20:08

Does this make the difference of where we should be right?

SPEAKER_04 1:20:11

Yeah, so I think comparing to uh old situations is important. I think it's I think it's important to like realign your recenter yourself and like remember.

SPEAKER_09 1:20:22

Yeah, see how far you come in a way.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:23

Yeah, yeah, fuck yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:20:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:26

How long has it been that you've been single or divorced?

SPEAKER_09 1:20:30

Um not quite a year yet. Not quite a year. Oh, so it's fresh. Yeah. Yeah. Which is alright.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:35

Yeah. Do you how are you feeling? Like is it feels like the right decision?

SPEAKER_09 1:20:40

I feel like the Yeah, I mean, there were definitely times where I was like, oh, I just need to have him back, I just need to have him back. But even through the divorce, during the process, there was a there was a lot of hurtful things said. And again, I'm not innocent, but um it's just that's not the life that I would want to live. And I would rather be alone if I have to be. Right? Like I feel bad because I still every once in a while I would still really like him. And he has good character, um, just relationships weren't what they should have been.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:20

Sure.

SPEAKER_09 1:21:20

Yeah. I mean, I hate to speak so poorly about him, but yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:24

Well, I mean, well, you're not you're not. You're being pretty neutral for I mean, there's there's definitely people that are like throw the baby out with the bathwater when they get divorced. Like, fuck him. He was a piece of shit, his mom's a bitch, you know. Like, you're not doing any of that. Yeah, okay. You're saying you're like, all right, I wasn't trying to keep it cool.

SPEAKER_09 1:21:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:39

You're like well, you were saying, you know, you're saying, you know, you're not innocent, but you guys, you these are the issues that you didn't like about it, or whatever.

SPEAKER_09 1:21:46

It's just better to be separate. I don't want to drive him to do some of the things that he was feeling, you know. I don't want to put that on somebody.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:21:53

You know, that's not fair.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:54

And some I mean, but sometimes it's just like, hey, this just isn't gonna work. Like, even though there's a lot of things that I like about you, which is obviously what you would have attracted you to him in the first place. But you know, when you get into the weeds of like the you get down to the nitty-gritty, you have to live together, you have to work together. Work together is huge, yeah. Dude, I mean the fact that me and Paige can work together is fucking crazy. Yeah, I I have never been able to work with somebody because I'm a workaholic. I like I want to work a hundred hours a day, you know.

SPEAKER_09 1:22:22

So like to find somebody that's only have 24, so I know.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:27

I know. Uh, and it sucks, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_09 1:22:31

Some days, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:33

But to like to find somebody that like you jive with and you can work with and you can live with work and personal and share your space. I mean, just to just to be able to vibe like personality-wise, hobby-wise, social circles, and sexual, like all like to be able to jive in all of those aspects of your life and your family life.

SPEAKER_09 1:22:57

Family's a big one too, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:58

I mean, that's huge. That is so much that you have to, like, so many boxes that need to be checked for you to have a good life. And like, if one of those things is a miss, it's like, okay, maybe you can be okay. But if it's like two or three of those things are set up, like he's really funny and he's really fun. He makes me laugh really hard, but he sucks at work, he sucks with money, his mom's not nice to me, or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, whatever the situation is that I'm making up. I mean, it's like, I mean, that can tear a relationship apart. And what do you what are you left with? Like, okay, he's funny, but blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_09 1:23:31

Funny, stay friends.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:32

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_09 1:23:33

Yeah, I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:35

But so, but it feels right right direction, it just didn't work out.

SPEAKER_09 1:23:40

I definitely like if we had just been co-workers, because he was farming at the same time, doing the same type of farming that I'm doing. And um, yeah, if we had just stayed co-workers, that would have been a great match. Yeah. That would have been a great match.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:53

Like best friends on the job. Yeah. But because you guys ended up married and yeah, it just too much pressure, I'm guessing, right?

SPEAKER_09 1:24:01

Like in almost too much time together. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:06

Well, you definitely gotta have time apart too. That's so important.

SPEAKER_09 1:24:09

I mean, like you have to have your own friends.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:12

That too.

SPEAKER_09 1:24:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:13

Yeah, especially like, oh god, like me and Paige's uh me and Paige's friend group is very intertwined now that we've been together for a few years, and sometimes it's like man, like I wanna be able to just be like fucking there's not a lot that I like stay home. There's not there's not a lot that I like a vent about with Paige because like we have such a good relationship. Okay, but there will be times where I'm like, dude, what do you think about this? And then like in the back of my mind, I'm like, fucking, you're dating her friend, and like you're gonna fucking tell her, and then she's gonna tell Paige, and then Paige is gonna be like, what the fuck? And then I'm gonna like I might as well just I might as well just keep it to myself, you know. But not that there's a lot to vent about. I mean, like, we have a great relationship. No, but it gets around, you're saying, but like any minuscule thing, like man, I fucking, you know, some sometimes I just wish whatever random thing, right? Like fucking nah.

SPEAKER_09 1:25:03

Yeah, I'm sure it's little things.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:05

I I cleaned the bathroom and she covered the sink with makeup things and goddamn it, you know, and then and then that you know, I I vent for a second to my buddy, and then it turns into a big thing because it's circled back to her or whatever.

SPEAKER_09 1:25:16

You gotta write it down and burn it. That's the safest way. Do you really do that? I don't, but I've heard of it. That is fucking hilarious. Sometimes I'll write out a text to my best friend and then I'll delete the whole thing. So it's kind of the same thing. Oh, I've done that. I've done that. So, like you get it out and then it's gone. Yeah, nobody else has to see it.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:37

Yeah. I've definitely done that. I've done that just because I'm like, mm, the consequences of sending this is gonna be way more annoying than the release I get from sending it. Yeah. I've sent some horrific text messages though, too. Not about page, but in general.

SPEAKER_09 1:25:52

Yeah, you gotta clarify that.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:53

Dude, I I started using speaking uh a while ago, we were talking about Chat GPT. One of the things I did with Chat GPT is I would write up text messages of something I wanted to convey to my ex about the kids. Yeah. But I would type it the way I type it to her because I fucking can't stand her. Um like, you know, this is what we need to fucking do, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I'll go, all right, let me cut like highlight it all, cut it out of the fucking text message box, paste it into Chat GPT, and then write in, hey, make the person receiving this text message like more receptible to what I'm saying. Oh my gosh. And I'll and I'll hit enter and then it'll be like bloop bloop. Instantly, it's like, hey, so I was thinking the maybe with the kids' soccer schedule, we don't do travel because it's really, you know, demanding on them. And it's really demanding on us. I I I've been considering talking to you about doing rec only so that our schedules are not so strained or whatever. And it's not how I would say it at all, but it's the point. It's the right, it's all the right point. And then she and then you know, I send her it, and she's that's crazy.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:02

Okay, yeah, that sounds good. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:04

But like if I would have sent the text message from like, what the fuck, dude? Why'd you sign that up for fucking travel? This is fucking, we talked about this. What the I don't have any fucking time, dude. I basically work three fucking jobs, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:14

And she she's not gonna look at that and be receptive. She's gonna be like, fuck you.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:18

I have to say though, you should probably practice doing it in yourself.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:22

Well, yeah, but that's yourself. Absolutely. Yeah, I agree. But this is baby steps.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:27

Baby steps, you're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:28

It's like learning to do it.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:30

Yeah, because somebody has to teach you if you nobody.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:32

My parents are not like that at all. My parents are burned the house down, they don't hold their cards close to their chest at all. Yeah. You know, I mean they're they're just like it. Okay. Yeah, yeah. They're their their emotion is whatever it is. It's coming right out. You know, so there's no hiding it. So I don't know how to do that.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:49

Well, thank God for Chat GPT then. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:51

Yeah. That's a fucking I'm gonna clip that and then just have I can't believe a farmer said thank God. What about data centers?

SPEAKER_00 1:28:00

I don't know.

SPEAKER_09 1:28:01

I don't know. It's a whole big deal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:03

I don't I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_09 1:28:04

Robots stole my job at one point. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:07

Dude, I I don't know how I feel about these data centers. Wha w what are the rumors in your circle? You have a different circle than me with uh with working in.

SPEAKER_09 1:28:16

Um there's definitely like the water consumption uh concern. But there is a lot in agriculture where we reduce water consumption or even recycle the water. Um there's farms out in California that flush their the dairy farms flush their pens with water, but then they recycle the water and dry out the manure and use it as bedding. So like I just I don't know. Are we gonna run out of fresh water? I have no idea. There's farms with regenerative agriculture that work on retaining water like as much as they can instead of all this runoff. Um so by planting specific crops? Yeah, you can do like crop rotation, always have a cover crop so that your soil always has something with roots going down to contain because you have to have air or pathways for the water to go down. You can't just have bare ground, right? With nothing that's gonna hold the water. Um there's the uh rotational grazing, which increases the root system of the plants, which then increases your water capacity. So I don't know. I mean, is it really gonna take that much water? I have no idea.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:30

Yeah, I don't I don't I see I my instincts when this first started being a thing people were talking about where it's like, oh, here's another, you know, left-wing talking point that everyone is latching on to. Oh my god, the data centers are the end of the world. And I thought it was gonna pass in like a couple of weeks. Yeah. I was like, eh, whatever. Like there'll be a new, you know, ice murder or whatever, and then that'll be the next thing people are talking about. And but but no, I like ignorantly, I was like, oh, I build cooling tower systems for a living. Like this is a very normal thing. If you go to Detroit and get on a high we go get into a high rise, you get into the Hudson building and look down, every single four-story or better building in Detroit has a cooling tower system cooling it. Okay. You know, like the they the Okay, so it's really not so it's not uncommon. But but the thing is that most of those are closed loop systems.

SPEAKER_09 1:30:28

Oh, and the data center centers aren't.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:30

Not necessarily closed loop systems.

SPEAKER_09 1:30:32

Well then they could just regulate that and shouldn't everybody be happy?

SPEAKER_04 1:30:36

They should be, but then the the thing is the I don't know, these these tech companies are doing a lot of gross shit. Like in Saline, they sued their way into forcing the approval. You know, like the city council voted it down and then they just OpenAI, who runs ChatGPT, sued Saline and was like, You actually are not allowed to tell us no. And they forced they're forcing the build.

SPEAKER_09 1:31:01

And so like I don't I don't know what it seems really entitled in um yeah. Because like there's farms that struggle with stuff like that and they can't just sue their way in. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:12

Right. Yeah, I mean, and these these companies have billions of dollars of funding, right? They have the money to sue. And they and you know, the article that I was reading said that their annual budget is like a million bucks. Like Salines whatever fucking budget is like a million bucks a year. So it's like you the power difference, the power dynamic there is so skewed in the in favor of the tech company, it's like incredible. Like you like it was it's David versus Goliath, but like you know, you just there's no winning.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:46

Who won though?

SPEAKER_04 1:31:48

Open Goliath won this time, you know? Goliath won this time. I but it is but it is, and it's it's getting built, and there is so much money being sent. Oh, you're talking about this specifically. This specifically, the saline data center job. There is so much money getting thrown at that data center, it is insane. Like being up, there's miles of pipe going in this building, and my local and all the locals around us, I'm a union pipe fitter, so all of the locals around us are working doing work for that data center at fab shops. I mean, you can't find fit, you can't find other work, right? You can't well, there's other work, but there you can't find fittings for pipe fitting. Oh there's there's no Vic collars, there's no Vic couplings, there's no Vic 90s, which are the uh Oh, because it's all being taken up. It's all being taken up by the same job. I mean, the company Victalic, I I heard a rumor that the company Victalic is literally buying up foundries so that they can make more fittings for this data center because there's none like they can't there's stuff that's back ordered. We're building a hospital right now. There's fittings that are back ordered.

SPEAKER_09 1:32:58

Where are you building a hospital?

SPEAKER_04 1:33:00

In Troy.

SPEAKER_09 1:33:00

Oh, okay. I thought I was at the Detroit one.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:02

No, no, in Troy. There, uh so I'm building a hospital right now. That we can't there's fittings that we tried to order that are back ordered. They don't even normally they have a date, like hey, this is expected in X amount of weeks. There's not even a date because it's just back ordered forever. It's just back ordered indefinitely. Yeah, could be years, we have no idea. Right. And it's all it's because all these fittings are getting taken up by the saline job. The saline job is fucking huge.

SPEAKER_09 1:33:26

Wow. I mean it's and I hate to say it though, but like um it's helping people feed their families.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:32

That's the yeah, it's a double-sided sword, right?

SPEAKER_09 1:33:34

It is it really is, or whatever. Yeah, double double-edged sword.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:37

Double-edged sword, thank you. Yeah, it's a double-edged sword because there's a lot of money to be made, but it's also like, am I you know Is it ethical? Yeah, is it ethical? Right. Yeah, I I don't know.

SPEAKER_09 1:33:48

No, that's hard.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:49

And especially when you know that the people of that town don't want it there.

SPEAKER_09 1:33:54

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:54

That's that's hard for me. That's hard for me to justify. Like I can't go out. I don't know if I I don't I don't think I can go out there. Knowing that the townspeople don't want it there, I don't think I could go work there.

SPEAKER_08 1:34:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:06

But they're paying, I mean, me and my my me and my buddy were doing the math on what they're paying, the per diem they're paying. And he said he's if he goes there and works six tens, six days a week, ten hours a day, he'll make two hundred and ninety thousand in one year. Right. Because they're paying so much money over and so much per diem because they need guys so desperately to get out there, and they have all of this money. They're so fully funded. That's so crazy. It's like one pipe fetter is gonna go make three hundred thousand dollars in a year as a guy just on the tools. He's not even a foreman.

SPEAKER_09 1:34:37

Right, yeah, it's labor.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:39

It's like Jesus Christ, like that's like life change. Like, I mean, we uh an average union pipe fetter is probably making a hundred thousand, maybe a hundred and fifty. Okay to to make three hundred thousand in a year to work a schedule that we normally work anyway, right? It's like life-changing money. Yeah, you know, it's like, oh, I could pay my house off this year and then just coast for the rest of my career, you know what I mean? It's like so the temptation is like fuck, dude, like three hundred dollars a day per diem. Like, I don't, dude, can I can I say no to eighteen hundred dollars a week just to show up to work?

SPEAKER_09 1:35:16

That's hard.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:17

I mean, that's fucking hard. Most people aren't making eighteen hundred dollars a week, and we're and we're like having to turn down eighteen hundred dollars a week just to show up to work, you know? Just just to show up to work, I gotta turn down eighteen hundred dollars a week. And that's and that's not even the wage. The wage is right in in addition to that. Yeah, it's crazy money. It's I don't know, but like ethically, I would feel like you'd feel conflicted about it. Yeah, like I like I feel like a scumbag going there working, knowing that people don't want it there.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:50

And I had I got into an argument, maybe not maybe I shouldn't say argument, but I got into a debate with the guys from uh breakfast at 2 p.m. They're CDs on the table, that's where I'm pointing. Yeah, yeah. Um I got into a debate with the guys from breakfast at 2 p.m. and I was like, this is fucking like I build these systems for a living, it's not that big of a deal. Like, people are being so dramatic. I I think I was wrong.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:11

I think I was wrong because like then you start seeing videos of people that live around these data centers that are built, and they whine like hell, like you know, yeah, like jets all day, all day, never ending, no relentlessly whining. And then there's videos of people turning on their faucets and they have like no water pressure at all. Like the water pressure is so minimal you couldn't even get your shower head to start, you know, and you're like, oh, like but these are supposed to be closed loop cooling systems that but they're not because they're making up, you know, they have to make up fucking tens of thousands of gallons, you know, of whatever is off-gassing from being so hot, okay, you know, it goes out. So okay, so a cooling tower basically you have I can kind of imagine it, but fins, you know, and so you have uh mains, you have water mains that go through the building, yeah, and air blows past these mains to cool to cool whatever the whatever's in the room. So in turn, because those BTUs are being added by their BTUs are being added to the water by cooling the room off. The heat is getting into the water, basically. Okay, and so and then so it circles when it comes back, it it loses some, is what you're saying. Yeah, it's so it loses some to the atmosphere because so what happens is that that water is gonna pour over these fins. There's fins. These things are the size of buildings, like they're huge. But there's these fins, thousands of fins, and they basically pour the water over the top of the fins and it creates like a waterfall. It trickles down. So then the air outside basically cools this water from however hot it got from cooling the building back to you know, whatever the standard, you know, water temperature in a pipe is the from ground like a groundwater temperature is like 57 degrees or something. Like whatever comes the coldest you can get your water out of the tap is pretty much always the same temperature. It's like 57 degrees. That's what the cooling tower is hoping to do. And interesting. So, but you're gonna lose some of that from there's a huge fan that's on the top of them. So they that you're gonna lose some water by blowing water up and away in the form of mist. But then there's also if the water gets so hot that it becomes evaporated, it evaporated, you know, it becomes steam and then it fucking off-gasses in the atmosphere. So you're losing water.

SPEAKER_09 1:38:37

I see.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:37

But normally it's not it's not as significant as it is at these data centers. Like at a at a regular building, you're making up water sometimes. You know, but like apparently at these data centers, they're having to make up water constantly, and like to the tune of tens of thousands of gallons. Really, you know, uh I don't know, in in tens of thousands of gallons a day. I don't know. I don't know if that's accurate, right?

SPEAKER_09 1:39:00

But you gotta fact check yourself.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:02

I know that's it's I I I don't know how often, but apparently they have to make up water a lot more than a regular closed circuit cooling system does. Wow. And and this is where the problem comes in, is that these this infrastructure wasn't built with this thing in mind. So there's not enough to feed this monster of a data center and all of the homes and businesses that surround the area that were there first. It was like designed for a small town and houses.

SPEAKER_09 1:39:38

Right, and now we're putting in a data center.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:40

Now you're putting in a data center that has, you know, maybe 30-inch diameter pipe, you know, like pipe this big. Right.

SPEAKER_09 1:39:46

It wasn't built for that.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:47

It was not built for that. You know, I mean picture, you know, fucking filling up your swimming pool with your garden hose, you know.

SPEAKER_09 1:39:53

It's like I've seen people do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:55

It's gonna take fucking forever, right? And like, and and then everything else is dip dip deplenished in the meantime, yeah. It's diminished because of it. So I I don't know, dude. It's a complicated issue because I get it a little bit more now.

SPEAKER_09 1:40:10

Yeah, I definitely didn't know all that.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:12

There's a there's a local independent reporter called Debate Her. I don't know if you've seen any of her videos. She's going to the she's going to all these like council meetings, like trying to hold people accountable for reneging on their contracts or what they said these council people said they were they were gonna do, and then they're approving like data centers and they're approving flock um security systems. I want to have her on the podcast because obviously she's gonna know way more about this than I.

SPEAKER_09 1:40:39

Yeah, that'd be really fascinating to hear from her.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:40

I want to yeah, I want to have her on the podcast to talk about this because I like I don't I don't know. Like I'm not married to any of I don't I'm not married to my ideas. I I try to move like move on with the best presented data or best presented arguments. Right. Okay, you know what? Stay open-minded. Yeah, and I think in this case I was wrong. I think I was I think I thought I knew what was happening based on the fact that I've built cooling towers. Right. And but now that I'm seeing what's actually happening and like the gross shit that these tech companies are doing by like suing their way into towns, and I'm like, alright. I was wrong. Like I I gotta, I gotta, I gotta own that, and I wanna and I wanna bring somebody in that can show me or tell me what what it really is, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:32

But that'd be cool, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:34

Yeah, it's it's complicated, but it's I have cognitive dissonance about this. Like I agree with myself and I don't agree with myself because as much as I'm against big brother coming in and just taking over, it's also like everything is tech now. Like every fuck like your fridge has fucking Wi-Fi, you know what I mean? Like mine doesn't, but some people's fridge, mine either. I'm I have a fucking basic ass white fridge. Yeah, but and so not mine either, but like I don't like tech is the like we're in the age of technology, right? Like cell phones and laptops and our smart TVs and everything is streaming and smart homes where you can adjust all your stuff from your phone, everything, right? And like all of this takes storage and data, and we all want our pictures of our kids and dogs and all that shit to be in the cloud and stay in the cloud and be safe, and and all of those things require data farms and data centers.

SPEAKER_09 1:42:28

It does, and we use it every day.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:29

And we use it every day.

SPEAKER_09 1:42:30

Like I look at I look at pictures we wouldn't want to live without it.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:34

But people are suffering. So, but somebody's suffering four pictures of my kids from 12 years ago to be in the cloud. So it's like I don't know. What do you do? What do we do? What do we do? Do we build these data centers in fucking the desert? Like, I don't know. What do you do?

SPEAKER_09 1:42:50

There's no water.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:51

There's no water there. But do we build them in the ocean?

SPEAKER_09 1:42:54

Do we build them in the ocean?

SPEAKER_04 1:42:55

I don't know. Like, well, you gotta desalinate the water. I don't know. I I have no idea. I have no idea what the solution is. But like I I do I made I made the comparison, like you don't want to be the guy who the guy who like made dashboards for horse-drawn carriages was real bummed when cars started getting built. Right. You know what I mean? And like, do you want to be that guy who's like, we shouldn't have cars because I won't have I won't be able to make wagon wheels anymore. You know what I mean? Like, do you want to be that guy? You don't want to be that guy. You don't want to be the guy that's like, let me hold back humanities to keep me comfortable. But also, like, I don't know, is this thing so necessary? I I don't know, dude. It's complicated as fuck.

SPEAKER_09 1:43:41

We made it necessary. That's absolutely the truth.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:43:44

Yeah. But I don't know. I can't agriculture's not um innocent either, right? There's AI all over in it. Yeah. Yeah. There's uh I worked for the dairy farm, they have robots that milk the cows.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:58

I heard they have this uh well cooks have one too.

SPEAKER_09 1:44:00

Cooks has one, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so you can go and watch it and everything. That's all has to be run by AI.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:06

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, that there's also like fucking robotic combines now. Yeah, absolutely. Self-driving combines, yeah. I mean it's it's crazy. But but what it's what it is capable of doing is amazing. I mean, you like watching the most recent season of Clarkson's farm, they were they were talking about being able to scan the soil, take samples from the soil, and then like fertilize sp specific spots of the soil.

SPEAKER_09 1:44:38

Add more seed in certain spots too, yeah. Exactly. Absolutely. So you get it's a lot of efficiency.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:42

Yeah, and it's so like it's incredible. Yeah, it it's amazing. And like, so do you want to hold back and just like plant blindly and go, oh this see if it works. See if it works. Oh, just drill the whole field no matter what the fuck it looks like and just hope that it worked, and or we use technology, but this technology's uh a double-edged sword. It is so it's I I don't know, man. It's it's it's it's so complicated. I don't I don't know. I was I was fuck, I was thinking about something. I was gonna ask you. Shit. With farming. Ah drawn a blank. That's okay. The but yeah, I mean yeah, I there's there's so much technology that's coming out that's making things more efficient and better. And I think I I think one of the things that AI is doing that I think maybe the people on the left I I'm like center left. Like I'm like, I would say like I'm a I'm a Democrat, but I'm not quite liberal. You know what I mean? I get it.

SPEAKER_09 1:45:42

Like I'm like it can almost like a can uh oh no, I what do I like to call it? Like I have gay friends and I have black friends. Like it's almost like a liberal Republican, right? Like you can be a little bit more free in your social status, but you still want like government out of your business.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:00

Yeah. Okay, that's spot on.

SPEAKER_09 1:46:02

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly how like you don't have to be a liberal Democrat. Yeah. And you don't have to be a conservative Republican.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:08

Right on. Okay, so I would say I'm a so I'm I don't know. If that fits or not. No, I you it's for me spot on. That is spot on. Like I'm I'm a I'm a union tradesman, which automatically puts me on the Democratic side because Republicans are not a friend of labor in general. But I'm also like a fan of conservative family values. Sure. And I think like a family unit and a community unit is far superior to government assistance. Government assistance and fucking yeah, and government compelled speech. Yeah, government in general, yeah. I mean Jesus Christ, some of the red tape that you guys have to jump through just to survive is insane. Oh. I mean, I know I mean I know I'm preaching.

SPEAKER_09 1:46:49

Not me personally, but uh good friends of mine. They've literally been uh attacked by their neighbors for several years now of them trying to farm, they've gone through all the GAMPs, they've gone through the MEEP certifications and all that just to be able to have their right to farm.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:04

The right to farm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:47:07

There's a Michigan right to farm. Um it's it's if you're GAMPS generally accepted uh agricultural management practices, so G A A M P. Um if you're GAMPS certified in the state of Michigan, you have the right to farm.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:25

And that is based on where you're at?

SPEAKER_09 1:47:27

Like is is it a thing like you should be able to fight the township in certain s um aspects, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:34

Okay. So this is like a thing to protect people people's right to grow their own food.

SPEAKER_09 1:47:38

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:39

So did this whole thing did this come out of people being stopped from having gardens and stuff, like in their own.

SPEAKER_09 1:47:46

I actually don't know how it started, but I think Michigan's the only state that has it. Huh. The Michigan right to farm.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:51

I'm gonna I'm writing this down because I gotta read about this. Yeah. Right to farm.

SPEAKER_09 1:47:55

You'll probably find out more than I do.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:56

Let's chat, let's learn together. Let's chat let's chat. Chat GPT. Let's let's burn down a farm to grow to build a data center so we can learn about farming.

SPEAKER_09 1:48:05

Great.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:10

Gamp certification in Michigan.

SPEAKER_09 1:48:15

And it's really not all that hard.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:18

In Michigan, GAMPS stands for generally accepted agricultural and management practices. Despite what people sometimes say, there isn't a universal GAMP certification. Instead, a farm or follows or instead, a farm follows or conforms to the GAMPs established by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, M D A R D. Okay. The main benefit of complying with GAMPS is protection under the Michigan Right to Farm Act. If a farm is operating according to the applicable GAMPS, it receives significant protection against nuisance complaints and lawsuits. For example, complaints about odors, noise, dust, or normal farming activities. It's not absolute immunity, but it's an important legal defense.

SPEAKER_09 1:49:05

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:07

GAMPs cover areas such as care of farm animals, manure management, nutrient management with fertilizers, pesticide use, irrigation, water use, farm markets, site selection, and odor control.

SPEAKER_09 1:49:19

Yeah. And you can take it one step farther and go into MEAP, which is M-E-A-P. Um, I believe. Yeah, MEAP, M-A-A. It should be. And get MEP certified, which is just a little bit more stricter version of GAMPS, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:36

Okay, M-A-E-A-P. Oh, right. There's another A. Yeah. M-A-E-A-A. M-A-E-A-P. They call it MEP, but Michigan Agriculture.

SPEAKER_09 1:49:46

Environmental Assurance Program or something. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:49

Voluntary Environmental Stewardship Program run by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. Unlike GAMPS, which is known for supporting compliance with the Right to Farm Act. MEAP is a recognition program that helps farms protect water quality and the environment. Yeah. Okay. So the farm goes through an on-farm assessment, and if it meets the standards, it becomes meep verified.

SPEAKER_09 1:50:11

Yeah. And that one's a little bit harder to do. I've been trying for a few years, still haven't gotten to the point where I'm certified.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:17

Okay. So there's certain rules and regulations that you have to abide by.

SPEAKER_09 1:50:22

Right. Like all your oil, your fertilizer, etc., has to be contained in case of any spills, um, where you fuel up. Basically, they're protecting the water from any contamination of fuels, fertilizers, manure. Um, you have to have certain manure management practices, right? So if you're composting it or et cetera, it has to be done a certain way, it has to be covered or on cement, or there's there's a lot of rules to it. Okay. Um, it doesn't go into any of like animal welfare for the most part. It's mostly about the environment.

SPEAKER_05 1:50:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_09 1:50:56

Um, so in my case, I have an old abandoned well on my property, and I either have to get it reinstated and test the water, or I have to cap it in order to continue my meat certification. Okay. Um, that's one of my biggest things. But I like I've everything else. I've done my spill kits for my oil, etc., fuel.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:15

Um And there's things like keeping like combustibles away from fertilizer, that kind of shit, or no, actually, I don't think so. Okay.

SPEAKER_09 1:51:22

I mean, obviously that's recommended, but I'm just trying to think of like what else to do. I guess you have to have like certain containments for um For certain It's really so nothing gets in the soil or the water.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:33

Okay. How does that w I guess why would you want this certification? Does it benefit you as a product? Like if you're like, oh I'm it's a selling point for sure. Okay.

SPEAKER_09 1:51:43

Um for me, it's more so just like personal ethics and morals. Like I'm doing the right thing. Yeah. And here's the proof of that. And here's the proof of that.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:51

Okay. But it doesn't necessarily benefit you financially or in the marketplace.

SPEAKER_09 1:51:57

It could. It could. Um there's not a lot of well there are. There are a lot of meep certified farms just in my area. Um, I think my neighbors are the only ones that I know of.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_09 1:52:08

Yeah. So yeah, when you produce a product from something that's meep certified, right? People that really care about that certification will pay more for your product. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So there's that benefit.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:20

Yeah. Okay. So it's like, yeah, like we're doing it right, we're doing it clean. Right. You know, you're not like, you know, my animals aren't.

SPEAKER_09 1:52:27

I'm not chucking the manure in the water. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's going downstream.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:31

They're not sludging around in their own shit and like, you know, you're getting sick animals or whatever.

SPEAKER_09 1:52:37

And again, like it doesn't really go into animal welfare. Gamps does a little bit more. Okay. I think if I'm um they have like uh certain animal units you're allowed to have per situation, like barnyard size or pasture or whatever. Okay. Um MEAPS MEEP uh has more so your locations of how close you are to other houses, how close you are to your well with your animal lots, um etc. Or where you put your manure piles for spreading for later, right? It has to decompose and then you spread it later.

SPEAKER_04 1:53:14

Um they're just like safety uh regulations like hey don't. For the environment, yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. So like So GAMPS I think goes into the little thing. Don't store your manure directly over your well and you know, contaminate your well and make everyone sick and whatever. Make your you know Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's the uh so I I haven't talked to a lot of people local, right, about about the red tape that they have to jump through, but watching this uh watching the show Clarkson's Farm, there's an incredible amount of red tape that he has to jump through as a guy trying to have a farm in England. Like I so I Oh, it's worse over there. Yeah, yeah. It it seems fucking horrific. Like it like the I think it I think it's like five seasons that they've gone through, and they always like wrap up the same way at the end of the season. They they go over like the finances of the of the farm and like how it works. Oh really? And like there was a year where he made like a hundred and fifty, he profited like a hundred and fifty bucks after like and it's like you moved like two hundred thousand dollars worth of hundred and you profited a hundred and fifty bucks.

SPEAKER_09 1:54:18

Yeah, well, you know, less than taxes.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:21

And then I mean, uh but then he's like I gotta spend you know 70,000 on seed and fertilizer for the year. So I I profited negative 69,850 bucks, you know. And uh but like well that but that's not the red tape, the red tape stuff that he has to deal with with the with the government over there is inc in insane.

SPEAKER_09 1:54:42

I don't know much about it. All I've heard in some situations is that they limit how many cows you're allowed to have on certain farms or how big your systems can be. Um I but other than that. But then also I think there oh what was it? It was a few years ago. Uh Germany, I think it was Germany, passed something about it was an Animal Welfare Act, but it was like really, really hard to comply with.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:09

Just way too strict.

SPEAKER_09 1:55:10

Yeah. I can't remember what it was. I wish I could. But it was like um it was just really strict and almost impossible. Like people who made that have no idea what you actually have to do to comply with it.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:24

I'm gonna I'm gonna look it up because I'm curious.

SPEAKER_09 1:55:25

Yeah, Chat GPT.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:28

Here goes another gallon of water. Uh I wish I even knew what animal it was with.

SPEAKER_09 1:55:40

I can't I can't even remember.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:56

I just I just broke JetGBT. It gave me an answer from something I was uh typing in about work like 10 hours ago.

SPEAKER_09 1:56:03

Oh wow. It wasn't cooled off enough.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:06

It's for real. Okay. Let's try again. It just gave me an answer from a thing I was asking about pipe fitting. I was like, I I typed it, I typed in a question about pipe fitting. Germany's livestock welfare system is considered one of the strictest in Europe, but it's not a single rule. It's a layered system of constitutional protection, federal law, EU law, and detailed husbandry regulations.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:31

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:32

The core legal foundation, very strict baseline. The German Animal Welfare Welfare Act, and that says what it's actually called in German underneath it. I'm not even gonna try.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:41

No, don't.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:42

You'll get cancelled. Yeah, I'll say like a slur in German, trying to pronounce it right. Um this is the main law. It states that animals are sentient beings, not property in the legal sense. You cannot cause them unnecessary pain, suffering, or harm. Husbandry must reflect species specific needs. This is stricter than many countries because it legally centers animal welfare, not just farming efficiency. Detailed livestock housing rules. This is where the real strictness comes in. It sets specific minimum standards for farm animal, uh, farm animals, kettle, pigs, poultry, etc. Examples of requirements. Minimal space per animal, mandatory lighting and ventilation standards, requirements for solid flooring versus slated flooring limits, rules on group housing, sp especially for pigs and calves, limits on confinement, regular inspections and monitoring requirements. I mean, like that all sounds normal though. Like there's definitely but maybe but maybe the numbers are just like you know, you gotta have 20 square feet for every single animal or something like that.

SPEAKER_09 1:57:49

I'm starting to think, I think um, and maybe it wasn't Germany, but I know they're strict, and we just proved that. But there was somewhere over there that made it where you couldn't um you couldn't kill baby chicks like at all. So in the States Even if they're sick or like Well like hatcheries hatch out chicks, right? And they all come in whatever gender they are, whatever sex. And usually you end up killing a lot of the males, right? Because for egg production you want the females. So they'll um I'm pretty sure they just grind them up like alive. Which I know it sounds horrific, but it sounds terrible. It does actually, now that I say it out loud. But I'm pretty sure that's what happens. Um and there might be other cases where they suffocate them or something different, some other forms of Jesus. But yeah, anyways, so now you feel bad.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:51

Now I f now I feel like you're that black woman in the crowd who honey. So they're like putting them in like a shower and like just giving them Zyklon B. Yeah, you know, just gassing them to death.

SPEAKER_09 1:59:05

Wrong topic.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:06

Um They're probably the I mean it's better than putting them in a fucking grinder alive. That's fucking brutal.

SPEAKER_09 1:59:13

But that's so fast.

unknown 1:59:15

Oh man.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:16

Okay, and it's be and it's because they want maybe I'm hardened to See, I didn't I never I never thought about that. So they so they're they want the females.

SPEAKER_09 1:59:23

So if they're not allowed to kill any of the males, they have just a ton of males that where are they gonna go? What market is there for them?

SPEAKER_04 1:59:31

Just for meat, right?

SPEAKER_09 1:59:32

I mean like well if they're an egg-laying chicken breed, there's no there's not a lot of meat to them.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:38

Oh huh. So how does that I mean, okay, so you have these you said it's called a hatchery. Yeah. Okay, so you have all these fertilized eggs.

SPEAKER_09 1:59:48

Fertilized eggs and they and the chicks hatch from an incubator.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:52

And then so does someone like sit there and inspect them and go, oh, that's a boy. I'm pretty sure, yeah. And then like a girl. Okay, that good that's in this save pile, and this is the this is the discard pile. This is the discard pile, and then they just like take a crate of them and just go like and just crunch them up.

SPEAKER_09 2:00:08

I mean I that's far as I understood. I could be wrong. Dude, that's wild. Could be wrong, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:14

But I mean, it man. And then and I'm gonna do that.

SPEAKER_09 2:00:19

I'm sure it goes in our hot dogs or something like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:22

Or dog food or something. I mean it's like getting used or something. Yeah. I mean, hopefully it's at least getting used.

SPEAKER_09 2:00:27

I'm sure it is because a byproduct is it makes money. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:31

Yeah. And like I I mean, I guess that's a silver lining, is that wasn't a complete waste. I I don't know. I mean, that's that's kind of fucking brutal. I don't see this is like the more I learn about I don't know. I don't want to talk down about fucking any farmer in at all because we work our asses off. Work your asses off. But the the more I learn about homesteading, the more I'm like, God, I wish I had the time to just do that. Because it seems like the right way, you know what I mean? Instead of like this building that has a gajillion fucking birds in it. Right.

SPEAKER_09 2:01:05

Versus like, hey, my family has a more community-based um local food source.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:11

Yeah, and a local economy where it's like, hey, I'm growing vegetables, you have beef, I'll buy a quarter of one of your cows and I'll give you fucking corn for the year. Or whatever the fuck, you know what I mean? Yeah, back to the traditional like the real like a an an actual like trading society instead of I get that.

SPEAKER_09 2:01:27

I but my only thing I have against homesteaders sometimes is is um but well everybody learns as they go, and I was there once. But if if you've got sick animals, you have to get a vet. And it's really hard to get a good vet for livestock. Yeah. It's incredibly hard. The only reason I I have mine is because I started uh seven years ago now, eight years ago with her, and since then she stopped taking all new clients for her practices.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:57

So they end up with fucking like a cat and dog vet that doesn't really understand livestock, or like what happens with homesteaders?

SPEAKER_09 2:02:04

They die. I don't know. The uh in in Michigan, right, you can always take something MSU. Um or you do uh yeah, and that leads me. They used to be able to sell antibiotics in TSCs and tractor supplies, and they um stopped that sale, and you now have to have a vet prescription only and follow the regulations of your vet prescription. So you have to have a vet if you want to treat your livestock with antibiotics if they're sick.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_09 2:02:33

Um, but then again, it's really hard to get a vet.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:35

Did they s did they stop that because everyone was doing antibiotics, so things were becoming resistant. Resistant? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I mean that makes sense. So like it does it it, you know, as much as these like whenever hear whenever I hear like regulation, my brain instantly goes like fuck the government.

SPEAKER_00 2:02:52

Or like, don't try it on me, you know.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:53

Like I know, but like that one makes sense. I mean, you know, you don't want antibiotic resistance. Then what do you do? We don't we haven't figured out the next thing, you know. Yeah, what do you do? So I mean that makes sense, but what uh so is MSU MSU's uh agriculture or not agriculture, uh the college. They yeah, Michigan State University. Are there are they they're a veterinary school then?

SPEAKER_09 2:03:14

Yeah, they have a veterinary clinic there.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:16

Okay, so you could so if you're desperate you can You can drive them up there. And then kids work on them for the classes?

SPEAKER_09 2:03:21

Um I'm pretty sure there's like doctors and then students alongside you. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:26

And it's f is it free?

SPEAKER_09 2:03:27

Oh no.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:28

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_09 2:03:28

But it's actually in my experience, when I've taken animals there, it wasn't any more than an emergency farm call out to my farm. Oh, okay. And they're they have lots of different perspectives and options for you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:44

Um seems like MSU would have better resources than just one vet who maybe is could be wrong. Right.

SPEAKER_09 2:03:51

You know, and then you have like a Right, you have a team of doctors versus one and so in some situations it's really hard to do. There's a benefit to that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:59

What if so, like what is what are some of the examples of like like when when when would you have taken your animals up to MSU?

SPEAKER_09 2:04:07

Um for me, most part is like uh I had a lamb with what's called joint ill infection in the joint, and it was a Saturday. Vet's not on emergency call. She had a baby, she's busy. Yeah. I'm not gonna bother her. She's busy. Um so we just took the lamb up to MSU.

SPEAKER_04 2:04:29

Um and that's like a fatal thing, like an emer that's an emergency to have. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:04:34

So they can lose first of all, they can go septic from that. Okay. From that infection getting in the bloodstream. Which will kill 'em. Yeah. And then um they can lose their joint. Um, I ended up actually losing this lamb to joint ill, which it's sad, but again, I'm like hardened to it. So um, but it was worth a try.

SPEAKER_04 2:04:55

So this is an infection specifically like in a moving joint. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:04:59

So it's it'll usually be like in calves, it'll usually be in a knee or an ankle. Um I've seen it in shoulders, I've seen it mostly in knees, though. Um joint ill. Yeah. It usually stems from um an infection getting in through the navel. Um that's the most common way. It can also come from an infection in the stomach that gets into the bloodstream and it settles in a joint, basically.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:28

And where where is this infection origin? Like is it is it a soil thing or is it a like where there is a pen thing?

SPEAKER_09 2:05:35

It could be a pen thing. Um so like when newborn calves, lambs, piglets are born, you usually dip the navel with iodine because that protects it, dries it off, keeps it from seeping in anything else. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:50

But if it's so there's like a direct there's like a direct line from the outside world into their inner body.

SPEAKER_09 2:05:57

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:57

So they they're flopping around on the ground. Yeah. They could get bacteria from the dirt or the barn or you know, whatever. Yeah. And it could go directly into their body, and then they could get an infection from wow.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:09

See, this is the this is the stuff that I don't know anything about, and I'm just like so excited to talk about it. I mean, in a morbid way, but yeah. Right. Dude, that's okay. So they have a dire like Yeah, is that that orange shit that people put on for like surgery? Is that what iodine is? Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_09 2:06:27

So that dries it and it helps it helps seal off that entrance into their body, yeah. Whoa.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:34

There's so much cool shit that I've learned about farming, just like out of curiosity. Like uh when they breed um like when they breed sheep, they'll put like marking paint on the on the ram, yeah. On the ram. Yeah. So that they can see which ones have been bred. I'm like, that's so fucking brilliant.

SPEAKER_09 2:06:49

Like it's so simple, but it's sometimes they wear this little harness with a little chalk block on his chest. Oh, really? Yeah, dude.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:55

It's see this.

SPEAKER_09 2:06:56

You can put you can put paint on. It doesn't last as long. I tried that. It doesn't last as long. Um or you can do the chalk thing. Yeah. And especially if you're putting multiple bucks or rams in with your sheep or goats, um, different colors to see who's been bringing up. Who's doing it?

SPEAKER_04 2:07:13

And then you know which one, like, hey, I want to bring fucking Ram one back because he's fucking everyone. Ram three is useless. He didn't fuck anybody, and I paid for him for no reason. Right. Dude, this is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_09 2:07:26

Like we're we're we're smart enough.

SPEAKER_04 2:07:28

It's okay. So what I love about farming solutions is that they're always the most simple thing, but they're br they're they're still brilliant. It has to be easy. It's still a brilliant solution. Yeah. But it's so simple. It's like, hey, how do you know? Oh, I guess we'll see when they're pregnant. It's like, oh well, how about I paint his chest bright red? Yeah. And whoever's ass is red got banged by this guy. Absolutely. And then also, if this one's red and they don't have viable babies, then the RAM's the problem. Then the RAM's the problem, and we know. Yeah. Dude, that's fucking brilliant. Yeah. I see this is a shit that's so funny, though, isn't it? Yeah. It's hilarious. You're just gonna paint them. Yeah. Yeah. But it's uh it's an elegantly simple solution that is perfect. Right. There's no fat on that solution. I love that. That's the kind of stuff I love, dude. It's it's like it seems dumb to a person that isn't a farmer. Like that's fucking you know, well, no shit. But like, it's elegant. It's it's elegant and stupid, and it's perfect. Tell me tell me more things like this. So I mean, like, does anything come into mind?

SPEAKER_09 2:08:36

Like, what other like so there's a practice at least with turkeys. Um, if you wanted to get them to a certain weight, right? You weigh them all and you just spray paint them based on their weight category. Yes. You just spray paint their back.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:51

Yeah. Yeah. So you got a guy who's having a hard time eating. Do you ever separate them and like f like here? Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:08:59

No, you just take them longer before you butcher them.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:02

Okay. Yeah. Right on. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:09:04

I mean that's most of the time.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:06

Is there there's been a I've seen like I've seen cattle getting separated for like TB, like questionable TB results.

SPEAKER_05 2:09:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:14

Is there any other than that, like, is there any reason that you would separate livestock and like put them in their own? Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:09:24

Literally anything that's contagious.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:26

Just so just illnesses. Not like not like, oh, they're underweight or they're not feeding, or like Well, usually if they're underweight or not feeding, there's probably something wrong with them.

SPEAKER_09 2:09:35

So they're probably sick anyway. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:38

Right on.

SPEAKER_09 2:09:38

A naturally healthy animal will will grow. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:42

There was a in the last see this I can't my only fucking references is like this farming show.

SPEAKER_09 2:09:48

It sounds really fascinating. I think I'm gonna look it up. It's so good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:51

It's on Amazon Prime. Um so uh but there was a calf, a newborn calf that got pneumonia and just could it uh what what is it the what there's a term for like how the ki the cattle get their like immune system from having their first Oh from from the colostrum? Colostrum.

SPEAKER_09 2:10:14

That's the milk. That's the first milk from mom. Okay. That has like a bunch of immunity boosters in it.

SPEAKER_04 2:10:20

And if they don't get that, they're pretty much gonna get sick. Yeah. Yeah. So that was worst case, yeah. So that was that was talked about in this show because uh the this cattle was born and they think because it wasn't like aggressive enough to get in and get it, yeah. Uh it got pneumonia, and then it just did not have the ability to fight off the pneumonia, so it just was like doomed. Yeah. But so colostrum.

SPEAKER_09 2:10:44

So like so the it's the same with horses, with sheep and they all have the same system, they all get they all get their first milk, yeah. So like in dairy farming, you have to uh right, so you you have a cow calve and then you usually save that first milking colostrum for said calves, and then you milk the cow for however long until she's pregnant, etcetera. And you dry her off, you'd make her stop producing milk two months before she has her next calf, so that colostrum actually starts producing like two months ahead of her having her next calf.

SPEAKER_03 2:11:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_09 2:11:19

So and so the So you dry them off so you can save that colostrum for the next calf.

SPEAKER_04 2:11:24

And that colostrum is is completely different from the regular milk? Or is it just crazy?

SPEAKER_09 2:11:31

Yeah. We can even test it to see how much um turbidity is in it, to see how thick it is, right? To see how high quality it is for the calf. Because if you even even if you have low quality colostrum, you'll still have a a bad calf, a bad healthy calf. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 2:11:47

Wow. Do you ever do you ever like surrogate mother like, oh, this one is producing colostrum, we'll put this c calf with this other with the other cow.

SPEAKER_09 2:11:58

Yeah. Um I've grafted calves onto a cow that has lost her calf. Okay. Um I've done that before. But I think something you're referring to is not super common. Okay. Um there's something else. You're saying surrogate calf on the cows.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:16

Like the mom like mom's not producing colostrum the way you want her to. Yeah. Would you put your calf on another cow? On another cow.

SPEAKER_09 2:12:22

So the colostrum only lasts for like people say one day. People say the first milkings, people sometimes say three days. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:32

So this is like you're never gonna have two cows birthing the exact same thing.

SPEAKER_09 2:12:37

Depending on how you breed them. But it's difficult. Yeah. Um because even then they take their own time. Yeah. Um the other thing is that calves and I'm only talking about calves because that's the most I know about. Um I don't I would assume it's similar with sheep and goats and horses. Um their stomach really only absorbs that colostrum for the first 24 hours. Okay. So they So if you feed them colostrum when they're three days old, it doesn't it doesn't do anything. But I I guess there maybe there's not research on it, and maybe it does do something, but as far as how efficient it's gonna be, it decreases.

SPEAKER_04 2:13:13

You s okay, so uh you said that you dry them off, so you get um so from pr producing as a dairy cow, you stop them from that.

SPEAKER_05 2:13:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:13:24

And then you get them back on the cycle to further cattle that that's coming.

SPEAKER_05 2:13:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:13:31

Do you ever has there ever been a cow that you s that you got to stop producing and then they just couldn't produce again? Is that a thing? Were they just couldn't do it?

SPEAKER_09 2:13:41

Unless there's something wrong with the quarter of you know, that it doesn't usually happen.

SPEAKER_04 2:13:48

Okay. Because it's a pretty high demand, like right? Like they're not they would they naturally be producing they wouldn't naturally be producing milk for like inevitably, you know, like or not inevitably.

SPEAKER_09 2:13:59

Uh but like for the longevity. For yeah, I mean like it's not I mean I've seen cows at my work produce for up to two years after they calve a significant amount of milk. Like so my cat my farm that I work for ships their cows when they which shipping them, they take them to the auction, right? They're in your taco bell at this point. Um they take them when they drop below 40 pounds per day. Okay. So that's what, um five gallons. Because that's where their feed conversion they're paying more to feed the animal than they're getting out of the milk. Okay. So that's when they ship them off. And so they've had cows that'll milk for 700 some days that are still not hitting that that 40 pounds.

SPEAKER_05 2:14:46

Oh shit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:14:47

So but we've bred that in them. And you know, and in the dairy cattle. Obviously, beef cattle do not produce near as much milk. Um because right, they're only supposed to feed one calf, and one calf drinks when they're first born, maybe maybe a gallon a day if that. They're taking little sips throughout the day more so than they're like taking away.

SPEAKER_04 2:15:10

How long would they feed naturally?

SPEAKER_09 2:15:13

Like how ideally moms would kick them off like in like deer do, like when they close to have their next babies.

SPEAKER_04 2:15:21

So it would be like up to a like a year or like I I don't know what that is.

SPEAKER_09 2:15:25

Yeah, roughly. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:15:28

Yeah, that's uh that's interesting. Has that number that 40 pounds number has that changed at all with the inflation of how expensive everything is? Because like, I mean I gotta assume. Not that I know of.

SPEAKER_09 2:15:40

I mean for them it's it's they grow their own feed. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_04 2:15:45

So But they're cutting, you know, they're cutting their cutting the alfalfa.

SPEAKER_09 2:15:48

They're using fuel and doing their corn silage and storing it and all that. Um it also comes down to do we have too many cows in the barn? Are there too many coming up to calves soon? Like where do we need to be?

SPEAKER_04 2:16:03

Yeah. Silage. That's uh that's when you cut down like green plants and then kind of let it rot, is that right? Yeah, ferment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:16:12

Okay. Yeah.

unknown 2:16:13

Look at me, no one shit.

SPEAKER_09 2:16:14

Yeah, yeah. It smells really good too. Does it actually or are you fucking with me? No, I like the smell of it.

SPEAKER_04 2:16:19

Because it's rotting, right? It's fermenting, yeah. I guess yeah, I guess that's different, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because it's not molding. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:16:28

But you have to pack it down or store it where it's packed and completely sealed. Otherwise it will mold.

SPEAKER_04 2:16:35

Oh, that's why they wrap it up with that black plastic?

SPEAKER_09 2:16:37

Yeah. Otherwise it like brings in um bacteria from the ground or yeah, the air gets in it and it it molds. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:16:46

So I'm trying to think. So fermenting it, that is that because it's easier for them to digest it?

SPEAKER_09 2:16:53

That's a good question. I'm not a crab farmer. I wish I was. Um it is uh like they ferment their feed. Cows, like giving them beer is good for their gut. Um so I imagine it's easier to store, easier to digest. Probably contains higher nutrients considering you're containing the moisture. That's my best guess.

SPEAKER_04 2:17:14

Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah, compared to like a brown, gray hawk, uh, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:17:19

Yeah. Man, this is so interesting. Yeah. There's just so much.

SPEAKER_04 2:17:23

This is so different than my. I should have brought more people with me, really. We'll do it again. Yeah. We'll do it again. Dude, uh there's so much that I don't know about this world because I'm I'm in such a different world for my for my work, you know. I mean, like building piping systems. It's like I'm I'm either welding carbon steel pipe or I'm soldering copper or brazing copper, maybe gluing PVC. And like, so my whole world is like geometry, and how am I fusing two pieces of pipe together? That's it. Like, so like trying to think about it.

SPEAKER_09 2:17:54

I'm sure there's a lot to that too.

SPEAKER_04 2:17:56

There is. I mean, it's a five-year apprenticeship, and there's a there's a lot of there's a lot of shit we learned during that apprenticeship. I mean, how to draw prints, how to how and why to weld something, and and how a system works and why it wouldn't work.

SPEAKER_09 2:18:09

And if you did something different, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:18:11

Yeah, and so I mean there is a lot to it, but it's just so different. It's just so different to like because you're playing with nature, you know. Like that's yeah, in a in a you're you're controlling like natural cycles to benefit you the most. Like that's it's right, that's so interesting. Yeah, you know, trying to balance it.

SPEAKER_09 2:18:29

If you're if you're efficient that way, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:18:31

Yeah, well you have not everybody does. But you have to you have to be efficient to make a profit, right? I mean Yeah. Kinda.

SPEAKER_09 2:18:38

There's some farms out there that do some sketchy shit.

SPEAKER_04 2:18:41

Oh. But let's get in the weeds. Who's the dirt bag? I can't. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Don't do that. Couldn't. No, but the yeah, it's it's just so different than what I do. Yeah. That I'm like completely fascinated by this. You know, I love I love being a fly on the wall and just like just like, man, this isn't my life at all. That's why I love that show. You gotta watch that show. Yeah, I would love to see you like text me, like, these people are so full of shit. Like, it just ruined the show for me. We'll see. But I I mean I've I feel like I've learned a lot from that show. Like, I mean, you know, like I didn't know about drilling seed and and tram lines and you know, how the harvest works. I didn't know anything about combines. I uh you know, I guess I still would I still don't compare to someone that actually fucking does, but like I yeah, I'm again I don't do so much crop farming, but yeah. They uh in one of the seasons of the show they have um they uh they were breeding pigs, these these weird, like orange-looking pigs. I I wish I remember the breed because Durox? That might be it. That might be it. They have like black spots and they're like in their red? Yeah. Yeah. Durox is what they're called.

SPEAKER_09 2:19:54

The the red ones, the red comes from the Durox. Okay. Yeah. And the spots might be across.

SPEAKER_04 2:19:59

Okay. I wonder if I wonder if it's the same thing. Uh but it's also England, the show. So like maybe they have different names.

SPEAKER_09 2:20:05

Were they like smaller? I don't know. No.

SPEAKER_04 2:20:08

Um yeah, compared to Coonies. I could I could look it up.

SPEAKER_09 2:20:14

You can look it up. I could look it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fact check yourself.

SPEAKER_04 2:20:17

What kind of pigs did what kind of pigs did Clarkston's farm raise?

unknown 2:20:25

I wasn't able to find specific information on what kind of pigs Clarkston raised.

SPEAKER_04 2:20:32

I wasted I wasted all that water for nothing. Clarkston's farm on Amazon. Maybe it'll I think it was like trying to Dig Diddley squat race large white and land race cross pigs. Yeah, that's yeah, I don't know. I don't think that's right. Okay, diddly, diddly it is 300 degrees in here. Squat farm pig breed. Oxford Sandy.

SPEAKER_09 2:21:09

I've never heard of that. They're like Oh, they're cute.

SPEAKER_04 2:21:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:21:17

Oh look, that's what they were doing, yeah. Hell yeah, brother.

SPEAKER_04 2:21:21

Um, okay, so what the fuck were they talking? Oh, um, so in the show, they have these uh dome, like almost igloo-shaped pens. Okay. That that the pigs sleep in. Sure. Um, but when once they started having their their litters or whatever you call them, I would I'm like, I feel so insecure trying I feel so insecure like trying to speak your lingo to you. Like, I don't know what the fuck I'm actually talking about. That's okay. Um okay, so when the pigs have their litters, yeah, w a problem that they were running into is that mom would crush the piglets against the edge of the enclosure.

SPEAKER_09 2:21:55

Yeah, and kill them.

SPEAKER_04 2:21:56

Yeah. So they uh so they came up with this ring that they were welding and like retrofitting these fucking igloo things with like a like a metal ring.

SPEAKER_09 2:22:06

Yeah, because they probably can't use feroing crates over there. That's what we use here. What is that? A feroing crate crate is where the mom is basically held in she can't turn around. She can lay on her sides, both sides, and then there's there's bars to let the piglets go out away from her and still nurse and stay safe. Like like go to the Oakland County Fair. It's coming up soon. Yeah. And they have the miracle birth barn and the pigs are in farrowing crates.

SPEAKER_04 2:22:32

F what are they called farrowing? Farrowing. Farrowing crates. So it's like it's locking mom in a position where she can lay down, but she can't turn it.

SPEAKER_09 2:22:39

But she can't necessarily crush the piglets. Oh, feroing. Yeah. So actually in the States here, we also, if you're organic, you cannot use feroing crates.

SPEAKER_04 2:22:48

Because they're considered inhumane. Inhumane, yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah, I could see why. Yeah, it's like uh it's like those veal pen things, you know.

SPEAKER_09 2:22:58

Kind of right, hutches. Hutches, yeah. Um, I guess not, right? Which like it's kind of like having your because they're newborn calves, they don't you don't want them to be exposed to anybody else, so they should be in a hutch. They don't live there forever.

SPEAKER_04 2:23:14

Yeah. Well, isn't that what they do with for veal? Like they keep them from moving. No. Is that a myth?

SPEAKER_09 2:23:19

Yeah. It's it's old school.

SPEAKER_04 2:23:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:23:21

It's old school veal. Nowadays they they mostly have Holstein's uh steers. Or they might actually keep them intact. They might keep them as bulls. They don't have to dehorn them, they don't have to do anything like that, and they usually keep them in group pens and they keep them on milk until about six months old.

SPEAKER_04 2:23:39

And then that's when they go to slaughter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:23:44

They're like babies.

SPEAKER_04 2:23:45

I thought they were like completely immobilized and like because that would like m keep the meat as tender as possible. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:23:52

I mean they're like in group housing where they have their certain amount of square footage, right? But they're not like they can still run around. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:24:02

That's Farrowing cages. I'm gonna try to remember that. Cause I like I could just picture like the blue-haired people out there just like absolutely up in arms about these things existing.

SPEAKER_09 2:24:17

And I get it. It looks horrific if you don't understand why.

SPEAKER_04 2:24:21

Yeah. Yeah, but like, but if you don't yeah, if you don't know that that is literally to protect the life of eight things, like you're making one thing twelve or twenty, yeah. Yeah oh right. Dude, that's one of the funniest things that happened in the show. The uh, so he Clarkston, Jeremy Clarkston brings in the kid that was working for the guy that was running the farm to help him because he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. And uh so he's this like 22-year-old, just like lifelong farmhand kid. And when he when he uh when he's like, I did a thing, I got pigs, like I'm breeding pigs, and he like come the kid comes back from vacation or having a baby or whatever he was doing, and he's like, How many of these are pregnant right now? And he's like, What's what's the problem? He's like, Count their fucking nipples. He's like, dude, that's one of the funniest arguments on the show. He's like, Count their nipples, you fucking idiot. Yeah, he's like, We're about to have a 300 baby pigs, right? You fucking asshole. Like, we don't have time for this.

SPEAKER_09 2:25:19

No, no, it gets it gets bad fast. Yeah, I haven't bred pigs, but my uh my ducks right now are like I think I have like 50 of them. It's insane.

SPEAKER_04 2:25:29

Yeah, dude, that's fucking awesome. I love this. I love I love I'm really loving picking your brain because I'm like I we we are at like two and a half hours, so I'm gonna I'm gonna cut you loose. Yeah, but we I I'm gonna I want to have you back and and bring your buddies so that so that you guys can fucking just how many people can we fit in here? Two more. Yeah, I can have yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:25:53

It just kicked out, dang.

SPEAKER_04 2:25:54

Well okay, so we can bring one. I'll bring a buddy. Okay, bring a buddy, and then we'll have Paige in here, and then we you guys can just unload all this information on me. Because the the the painting the sheep for to know who was bred who. I mean, that's so fucking cool. Yeah. And then the uh oh fuck, what was it? Uh the the first milk?

SPEAKER_09 2:26:15

Yeah, the colostrum.

SPEAKER_04 2:26:16

Colostrum. I mean that's fucking and then the uh cutting down green the silage, yeah. The silage for the cows to let it ferment so that I mean there's so much shit that I just it's absolutely fascinating to me. And I and all I am I'm just trying to grow like corn and cauliflower and not fuck it up, you know. So like I'm like I'm I'm barely into it.

SPEAKER_09 2:26:40

I don't I don't garden, so I can't.

SPEAKER_04 2:26:42

Not at all. Growing up a fucking wojo, you don't garden. I don't garden. Dude, I mean there were so many questions I wanted to ask you about your parents' place, but we're fucking so far into the pocket. I didn't even know if I'd be able to answer them. Yeah. I mean, like I was reading that they were like one of the first like greenhouses to start implementing, you know, automated, you know, timed.

SPEAKER_09 2:27:02

Oh, I think so. Something like that. And then we have one of the first, or they have um I keep saying we, but I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 2:27:09

It's your family stuff, yeah. So it's still it's still we.

SPEAKER_09 2:27:12

Yeah, they had one of the first, it was one of the machines they have, one of the transplanters that took the plants out of the flats and put them in pots. Um, was like one of 12 in the whole country.

SPEAKER_04 2:27:23

Yeah, I I I did read that too, that they were one of the first to have automated transplanting and and automated uh uh computerized uh timed watering and stuff. Like that's fucking really cool to see this is what I'm saying about like technology. Like to be the I know to be the first guy is like crazy to like to implement a new technology. Like you don't want to be the first guy with an ag robot, you know. But you don't want to be the last guy either. No, you know, because definitely kill the last guy losing your fucking farm. Absolutely. So, but yeah, it's fascinating, dude. Yeah, all right. On that note, dude, let's we'll wrap this one up. What a weird episode. I love it. We did a little bit of everything, we did a little trauma bonding about our I mean I wasn't divorced, but whatever. Divorces and and then talked about the the nuances of owning a farm and and talked about considered AI and what the fuck, how do we feel about it? What an interesting episode. I love it.

SPEAKER_09 2:28:22

Hopefully they like it, whoever listens. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 2:28:24

We're gonna piss people off, but I love that. No, it's fine, it's fine. Not not in any serious no, there's gonna be zero consequence to making people bad. They're just gonna be like, eh, he said AI. He's not allowed to say AI. And then it's gonna be off into the ether. Find some other video to be mad about. Yeah, yeah.

unknown 2:28:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:28:44

But dude, thank you so much for coming out.

SPEAKER_09 2:28:46

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_04 2:28:47

For sure. I want to have you back and you bring in a buddy. Maybe one, maybe somebody that you have do you have a crop uh I could bring somebody.

SPEAKER_09 2:28:55

Yeah. Maybe we'll see if she's got time. Yeah. You'd have to you'd have to catch us like in the winter.

SPEAKER_04 2:29:00

I was gonna say, you want to do you think she could do it in like a um two months?

SPEAKER_09 2:29:05

No, no, no, for for no, she's literally hauling silage wagons.

SPEAKER_04 2:29:11

But yeah, okay, so in the winter we'll bring you back with with uh your buddy.

SPEAKER_09 2:29:16

Yeah, and we'll I'll see if she's interested, yeah. Yeah, she'd be it she's my boss technically.

SPEAKER_04 2:29:20

Right now, yeah, yeah. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:29:22

She might want to.

SPEAKER_04 2:29:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:29:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:29:24

I'm all about it.

SPEAKER_09 2:29:25

She'll know more than me. She actually went to school for this shit.

SPEAKER_04 2:29:27

Oh, right on. Yeah. Well, I mean that I mean, but you're you're living it, and I got all kinds of information out of you that I was sure I was able to pick your brain. That was fucking so fun. I just I don't live this life. So like I'm I'm absolutely fucking fascinated by it. So I appreciate it. Yeah. Hell yeah. On that note. Well, okay, so do you want anybody to follow you, or you just came on for fun? No, it's just for fun. Okay, all right. Fuck yeah. All right. On that note, well, fucking go buy go buy some fucking local produce, local Find your local farm or actually see their farm. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And your so your farm is Silverlining Farm. Silverlining Farm. I didn't want to assume, but I saw the shirt. Yeah. And then your family Wojo's Greenhouse. Wojo's Greenhouse. Fucking go buy a plant and buy a fucking steak. Buy a cow. Buy buy a half a cow. It'll last it'll last you a year if you're you know. Yeah. As long as you cook at home. It'll be cheaper and better. It will be cheaper.

SPEAKER_09 2:30:27

It is cheaper than the grocery store. It's a lump sum at one time, but if you had to buy that at all at the grocery store, way cheaper.

SPEAKER_04 2:30:33

Way cheaper to buy a cow from a local farmer.

SPEAKER_09 2:30:35

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 2:30:36

Yeah. And the quality. And you said it's grass-fed and grass finished. Mine is, yeah. And if you go to the grocery store, a chunk of grass-fed, grass finished beef is about $25 for that. So I'm you know I don't go to the grocery store for meat. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:30:54

Last year I did a few times, I have to admit. Yeah. But uh I was desperately out of stake. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:30:59

Was it like shocking? And you're like, why is this like fucking gray?

SPEAKER_09 2:31:03

No, actually, I don't know. Like, it wasn't that bad.

SPEAKER_04 2:31:07

Really?

SPEAKER_09 2:31:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:31:09

No. But the price though. The price get you.

SPEAKER_09 2:31:14

A little bit, yeah. Yeah. Just a little nice. But I'm like buying ribeyes. What do you want me to say? Fair enough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:31:23

Hell yeah. All right, dude. I mean, let's wrap it up. Fuck yeah. Thank you so much for coming in, man. I appreciate you. Hell yeah. All right. Peace. I've done a hundred purposes.