Ep. 27 - Storing Hay & Laundry Day

America is celebrating it's 250th this weekand Stone County Extension is still here providing neutral researched based information for all of our clientelle.  

We are glad to live in a country that over 100 years ago saw the need for land grant universities to be established, then for those universities to conduct agicultural research and the need for this research to get out to the public. This led to the creation of Cooperative Extension through the Smith-Lever Act of 1914.  

This episode Tyler is supporting a new look which Anna is unsupportive of. Anna talks about practices to get laundry clean. She gives some tips on getting out stains, water temperature, load management. Tyler continues on hay production and talks storage covered vs. uncovered.  They tell some stories about memorable July 4th stories towards the end.

Transcript

It's my new style. This is how I'm going. I'm going to be a sunglass wearer.

I don't want to clean the smudges off of them.

I'm going to wear them all the time.

And then I'm going to get me out. I'm not. Just because the sunglasses doesn't mean it shouldn't be clean.

I don't want to be able to Any rays to come in here. It's like I'm a blind man.

Let me see those. I want to see how dark those are. You get to wear glasses. I don't get to.

Yeah, she's trying to make me take them off.

These are so nasty. Clean these nasty glasses. Oh my gosh. Hold those up to the light and look at them.

Yeah, they're dead. Fine, I'll clean them.

Yeah, clean them. You may have to get some cold water after that. One time I used hot water on my prescription, bubbled up the extra coating I had for glare.

These are just some cheapies.

I know that's what I'm saying. Don't use hot water because that'll definitely ruin the cheapies. They're still dirty, but they're bitter.

But yeah, I'm going to start wearing them and then it's going to be my thing. And it, I just, I'll get to wear them wherever I go. Like I'll be able to sit under training and I'll be able to just sit there and they'll be like, oh, Tyler gets to wear sunglasses. This is a goal.

And then someone else will try to wear theirs and they're like, no.

You can't wear sunglasses. Tyler's already adopted that. is the thing. And then one day they'll be like, Tyler, do you have anything to say?

No, go.

No. I'll be like. Tyler.

Tyler, do you have anything to add?

That's the goal. That you're going to.

Master like sitting straight up when you sleep. Yeah. There's got to be some sort of military trick to that. I would think they can master sitting up and being asleep.

Man, yeah. what's going on? We haven't been doing these podcasts like Anna's been avoiding it.

Well, it's my fault.

Yeah, it is. That's why I've been blaming it all on you.

Well, I don't like to admit what I do wrong. I didn't really do wrong, but I've just been busy, yeah. I've been places. Like this month, I was at the HC State meeting one week, and then I think we recorded the next and then I was gone to church camp all week. And then this last week we had one day we could do it and we had someone come in and we weren't able to get recorded. So that's just how it goes some months.

But it's all right. It's all right.

I mean, I didn't do it on purpose.

Yeah. But hopefully as we kind of get adjusted, We can start getting more weekly. I think the weekly, we're getting a few. Like we got a couple of fans. We got some fans, I think.

Yeah, it may have been the shout out Laura Dr. Hendricks did for us.

So either way, we're very happy to have you. But we're back. We're recording again. We're. I'm continuing talking about like the hay that I was talking about. We've got a lot of guys there cutting hay. They're really into it. Obviously, this week has been crazy.

Well, this week's hot and dry, and it's like the longest stretch of days we've had without a chance of rain, but there's a chance of rain for this weekend. and America's birthday party might get ranked on.

Yeah. You were real patriotic yesterday. You were given a rant.

Maybe at the end I can get on a patriotic rant. Yeah, I was thinking about all the things American and what we should be doing this week to celebrate. I was thinking of it like a party. Like, you know, if you were to have an American birthday party, what would you have at it? But anyway, I thought of my rant. So if we can get me going towards the end, I'll get us a good patriotic, patriotic boost.

Well, let me tell you what I did. I'm starting, I was like, you know, I was thinking about it last night. I was like, well, you know, we're about, it's July pretty much.

Yes, tomorrow.

And I was like, you know, I haven't even started my New Year's resolution yet.

We talked about those on the podcast at the beginning.

We spent months into the year. So just a reminder.

Half the year's over.

Half the year's gone. But I exercised. I'd lifted some weights last night. And guess what happened afterwards?

You felt better.

I fell. I threw up. I'd eaten some. Do not blame it on that.

You did not eat all day. I don't care what, do not listen to what he's about to say. He did not eat all day. He went and worked in the community garden, hardly drank anything, come in here looking hot. After last podcast, we literally talked about this. And you do it again and then you're going to blame it on. You don't eat anything all day and you're going to get a green olive with feta.

What do you think is going to happen? I ate like five or six of them. Like I got home and I was like, I was like, I need to get some energy. So I was like, well, I'll eat some of these olives and I ate some of them. And then I was like, you know, I had bought some like spicy pickles. I was like, I'll eat a couple of those. Cause I wasn't really planning on working out yet, but it's Monday and I'm like, oh, if I'm gonna do it, I gotta start on Monday and stay motivated. And so I'd sit there and ate a little, you know, the olives and pickles and maybe some rice pudding. What? And then I think.

And then you wonder why. And add that on, you had gotten hot a bit.

Well, I was done over that. But then I ate a kiwi. And then, so then I went and worked out. And that was fine. But then it was afterwards, I was kind of laying there. And drink a glass of milk. Are you kidding me? And I was laying there in the bed just kind of, before I went to hop in the shower and I was like, all right. And I just...

You made eye contact with the toilet.

And it said, it's time, buddy. It's like every time, like I get this salty taste in my mouth and it's like, I can't hold it back then, but I.

Was just kind of laying.

I was laying on the bed. Well, it just like it's right before it happens. I get like a salty taste in my mouth, but I was like laying there in the bed and I was fine. And I was like, I'm feeling all right, feeling all right. I kind of rolled over and that movement set it off. And I was like, nope.

Did you make it to the bathroom? Okay, good.

But. Okay, so you ate. I ate all that stuff. And as it's coming up, I was like, What did I eat that was sweet? What did I eat that was kind of tangy? I forgot about the kiwi. Kiwi. All right, so that's what I did last night. But I'm back to working out, a little bit sore. Speaking of working out, we did our camp last week.

We did. It was a good camp. Basically, I feel like the reason we did this camp is Because you wanted to make us all exercise.

Yeah.

But it was fun. I had a good time.

This healthy lifestyle camp, we is teaching them, about being active, doing some exercises.

Well, in proper form, and the exercises we did were purely body weight because of our age group. And so teaching them proper form to prevent injury and also just doing the exercise correctly.

But we had how many 12? Or not quite 12.

We had at least, I think we had 13 or 14. 13 or 14. And also, so we did that. We did exercises. We learned about warming up, cooling down. Y'all had fun playing tag. Just trying to let them realize that exercise isn't always like a planned out thing. It can be fun. And then let's see what else we played. Fruit bingo. And I thought that went over well. because I didn't have just fruit. I had like radishes and sugar snap peas. And I was glad everybody tried something. And we also did an exercise like rethink your drink. So I'd have them come up and measure how many teaspoons of sugar they thought were in different drinks. And that's always a good, hands-on element. We finished it out with some yoga. So it was a good day.

It really went by quick.

We got off schedule. It really did. It got quick at the end.

We had to abandon There was another portion we were going to do, but it was like, what time is it? Oh no, we're about to be supposed to be done in 15 minutes.

Yeah, we did that yoga like. How to do yoga quick. Moving fast.

But it was good. Yeah, I thought it was good. I was sore.

We all were sore. I asked some kids and they were sore. My child was sore. I think she said she did 25 push-ups from her knees. But she's like lean, mean.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's good for kids to know.

I don't feel like I'm very strong and she can climb a door facing.

A lot of 4-H kids may not particularly be in sports, so they're not going to get that like how to do form of an exercise really.

I don't really remember them teaching form that well necessarily, but we must have because I know Form pretty well just from sports and school.

I thought it was good. I think it went good.

Yeah, it was good. And then you also had, well, staying along the line of 4-H, we also had our Bull Shoals 4-H Outdoor Day at the State Park Pavilion.

Man, those hot dogs were good. Whoever cooked them.

They did a great job. Whoever bought the nice hot dogs also did well.

Yeah.

Because they know what's a good hot dog. That makes a difference too. they were an all beef hot dog because we had someone who couldn't do pork or a few that couldn't do pork and they're my favorite hot dog anyway. So it's just kind of an excuse. They were the best hot dog. And we had game scene investigators. So they had different tracks and blood and different things and had to figure out what animals and what happened at the scene. And The state park staff did that and tree identification. So it looked like she had really taught them some details on leaves and categorizing. And then Paige in Baxter County, the ag agent there, she took lead on bait casting. And then the Game and Fish, Heather Pittman from Fred Barry Nature Center did stream team. And sadly, it had rained and the water was up too high for them to get out into the White River. Right, and they have a great spot to get into the White River down there near the pavilion. But she had pivoted and had this cool activity where you were learning like if there's more of this type of bug, the stream may be unhealthy and she used Skittles. So you know they were paying attention when they were putting Skittles on the sheet and stuff. And then We'd kind of released everybody, but the state park staff taught kayaking or went out kayaking with anyone that wanted to. And that was fun. We were there till about 3 and swimming and kayaking. And that was a good outdoor day.

Sounds cool. Yeah. I abandoned when y'all went kayaking.

Yeah, I went swimming. I had a bug bite me that I really, I'm still have a big mark from it. I don't know what got a hold of me. But yeah.

So you're talking about washing clothes today?

I'm talking about laundry. It's just...

Well, I know. Why were... Why?

You've kind of like the inspiration to the things I talk about. Because of stuff you say here in the office, like you overheating on us anytime you go to the community garden. So we talked about that. And then we were just talking about how to take care of, you have a particular brand of shirt that my husband, well, actually, I think you're kind of why I ended up buying those shirts.

Yeah.

Because they're just really good shirts, but they kind of have a certain way that you have to take care of them for them to stay nice. And we were talking about that.

I get pit stain. I'm just a gross. Disgusting. Like if you examined my body, you'd be like, what?

The Petri dish would be a growing space.

Athlete's foot.

Toe fungus.

Yeah, man. But, and pit stains.

Well, but you were out working in the hot, hottest day and hot days and sweating and it's humid and dirty.

Sometimes. forget deodorant. Sometimes I wear it and that usually gets.

Yeah, that can cake up.

I have to wear the soft solids because I'm just gross.

I mean, I wear men's deodorant, so. Or actually, let me rephrase. I wear antiperspirant.

Yeah, that's.

And I know, but everybody's so different as far as that goes because One of Brandon's family members, he doesn't have to wear it at all. I don't think Brandon really would have to wear deodorant.

I've heard some people have that jean that they don't have to.

Yeah, one of my friends, she never sweat and I absolutely have to have something or I can't remain a professional individual.

When we were in like growing up, I remember we were, is it church, like one of the guys brought his girlfriend and she's from Off somewhere, I think, around Jonesboro.

Off in there from 2 hours away. Yeah.

Well, she wasn't from Stone County, but she was like, I'm allergic to my own sweat. And I was like, what?

Is that real?

I don't know.

I thought she was making it up. I wouldn't survive. She may have meant she doesn't like to sweat.

Maybe. That's what I would take it. I'm allergic to my own sweat.

If I was allergic to mine, I couldn't go outdoors.

Yeah, I don't know, but I thought that was crazy. I'm obviously not allergic to my sweat, but it is got stains. It accumulates. It accumulates.

It messes up your laundry.

Makes stains, man. you should have seen like my shirt after getting done working out, 'cause it was I was in my basement and it was... It was getting real humid down there. I shut the garage door and it was getting so humid. It was like puddling water on the floor. And I was like, what is going on? I look over and Lauren was doing some laundry, but the vent thing had come off and it was just pumping hot air in there. And me in there working out sweating. So I was like, man, but I wonder if that's like that hot yoga. or like working out in the sauna. Maybe I got, I sweated out some toxins if that's a thing. Maybe that's why. I'm just full of toxins. That's why my sweat stains my clothes so bad.

Yeah, and you smell like onions.

I do like to eat onions.

Maybe that's why you smell like onions.

I don't like cooked onions, but raw onions.

Onions is one of those things that I've liked more as I've gotten older. We were talking to my daughter about that the other day, how your taste buds just changed because she's eating meat now, whereas she wouldn't eat it really before. And it's just kind of interesting.

All right. Well, I'm going to learn how to do laundry.

You want to learn it? So I'm going to learn how to do laundry.

I want to learn.

I want to learn the laundry. Well, so, you know, you're talking about pit stains and everything. And me and Madison were just kind of giving you advice on laundry. And I feel like I have, it's hard learning knowledge sometimes how to do laundry. I grew up as a kid and I would do towels and washcloths and that would be about it. So it's like you get to college and I would just dump everything into the washing machine all at once, everything.

And you're not supposed to do that.

And that's not the best practice. I mean, I did get it cleaned, but you know, I remember in college it was like they would pack the washing machine as much as possible. And that's not fully getting your clothes clean. You have to have room for the clothes to move freely with the water and the detergent because you don't want the detergent to just stick on the top or be down in the bottom. And interesting thing about soap is that the molecules in soap disturb like viruses and bacteria and And then they'll also like there's like heads and tails and some of it'll bond. You're looking at me. I can kind of see your eyes. Some will bond with the water and the other will bond with fat. So that's why you have to have detergent to wash your clothes effectively because of those different bonds and those disruptions. And we want to sanitize those nasty things that get on your clothes, those when you say toxins and the funguses and those type things. So it's important to not overload. And one piece of advice, and I've been better about this as I've gotten older is, you know, you talk about how nasty your shirt was yesterday. If you are in a situation like that, you can just immediately wash it. Whereas if you're going to let that shirt sit for days with all those stains, then it's going to be harder to get them out. So And another thing too I've been better about with time is it's okay to have little loads of laundry along the way instead of just letting it pile up. So like we were clearing out an old garden spot and we were nasty. And so I would just go in and we threw all that in the washer and just wash it and it was done and it wasn't all stained. But anyway, so try to get your clothes in the washing machine as soon as possible. If you have stains, the sooner you can get to a stain, the better. A lot of times I have to pre-treat. So I use dish detergent a lot, but you could use your washing detergent, liquid, or you could make a paste and put like, you know, you talked about your armpit area and put it there and pre-treat before it goes in the washer. And I always wash the really heavy stuff together. And another thing too about those stains is don't dry it until you've got the stain out. So it may take multiple attempts to get the stains out. I really noticed that with grease. It's like I'm the main one that does laundry in my house. I know everybody's kind of different. Like some they'll each will do their own laundry or, you know, I kind of do everybody's laundry in.

Yeah, I'm knocking all over the place. Do like should you separate like the say your towels or Yes, and are you going to talk about like?

Settings? Yeah, I am. So like I said, you want to, I was going to hit stains first. So as soon as you can, get them in the wash, pre-treat as needed, get them going and don't dry them until you've gotten your stain out. If it's, if you can get it out. And then we want to Sort clothes, I say sort clothes as you take them off your body. So I have different hampers for different, and really mine's based on soil level, which you could do your hampers based on color, just depends on your space. So I have like Brandon's.

How important is the color?

Well, that's going to matter when you're washing it. So you're pretty much just lights and darks. And the reason for that is mainly like, if you wash something white with something red, it could bleed over or you can even kind of fade some things. Blue like blue jeans and blues also one I've noticed that'll bleed. So just lights and darks and then like I said I would divide them by soil level also. And then you want to go further and divide them by material. So if you have a lot of like if you have like the man-made the polyester type things you want to do that separate than like cotton. So I always think of it like my nice like little polyester type work shirts versus denim, you're not going to want to wash that together. And one reason you don't want to do like towels and all that together is lint. Have you ever washed like things together in one material? It's like it attracts every bit of lint. So you want to keep that, keep those separate too, because sometimes even if you put it through the dryer, it won't get all that off and you got lint roller and And of course you're going to notice that on your blacks and your dark stuff. So separate soil level, color, and kind of fabric style. And so one other reason to do different with the fabric is because you're going to need a different maybe wash temp or a cycle for that. And I'll get a little more into that. But one thing too is pay attention when you're buying your clothes. Like I'm not going to buy stuff that I have to take to the dry cleaner very often because we don't have that here.

Yeah.

And so I don't want to have to worry about that. And those type of clothes are going to be harder to clean. And so like I said, first things first, take them off, get those stains out. One thing you can also use to get stains out, so there's like you can use bleach, but you're only going to want to use that on a light color, chlorine bleach. But then there's oxygen bleach. which says it's safe for all colors, or you want to make sure it says that. I've used that before and I've had that faded pair of jeans. So I'd be careful with using an oxygen bleach. And if, I mean, I'm not going to say any brand names, but you'll know what I'm talking about if you go there and you got chlorine bleach and you got your oxygen bleach. So it can still, but also those symbols on your laundry, you could print one of those little guides and that's going to tell you if cold water, hot water, can you even dry it? And I draw very little now. And we were talking to you about that like.

A lot of like t-shirts.

Yes.

Drawing them, they shrink up.

Very bad. And that brand that Brandon wears bad to shrink. And so I have to pay, I always hang dry. And I don't like to hang on a hanger because that can cause some stretching around the collar. So I have a drying rack. I also have a clothesline, but I hang on the drying rack. The reason I like it is because I try to do a load of laundry A day. That's like one of the, I only have three people in my household. If you had more, you'd probably have to do more because I don't like a big, huge pile that I have to deal with all at once. So if I'm good and I do a load of laundry a day, I never have like a big bunch to catch up on. But I'll run that load through and I'll hang everything on my rack. So I usually try to do load size based on what I can fit on that rack. And then also I don't have to fold it till the next day. So I like that. But know your care labels and I'll talk about water temps here in a minute. But yeah, sort by color, fiber content of fabric. So it said, you know, you can do cotton and linen together, wool and acrylic together, and then you can do those man-made fibers like polyester and blends together. And then it even says texture. And I never really thought about that. If you have smooth fabrics and then those really rough, I guess it can cause some issue with the fibers during washing and drying. So like it gave the example of corduroy, which that's not very popular these days. It was really popular when we were in school, which is like 20 years ago now.

Yeah, dang. Yeah, we're getting old.

Did you graduated in 05, right? Yeah, I graduated in 06 and we're going to try to have our reunion this fall. And so, yep, recare labels and soil. So if it's really gross, like I'm not washing it with stuff that's not. Brandon has a lot of like greasy things. So like mechanics or anybody, farmers are going to have a lot of, I feel like, greasy clothes.

Yeah, but in the. pesticide training we do, we talk about how they need to wash, like if they're out spraying pesticides and it gets on their clothing, that they need to wash that separate from everything else just so it don't cross-contaminate.

That makes sense. And I'm sure you need to take that off as soon as you come in from spraying and go ahead and do that load of laundry.

And also like if you get like any undiluted, like just the, they say just toss that.

Just throw it away. Yeah, I mean, and some of those chemicals or any kind of chemicals you could get on, you also eat like the fabric. But I don't know about the pesticide.

I know that stuff that we test Johnson grass with, like all of my, I noticed like I don't have a pair of jeans anymore that don't have a little hole in them from that.

I kind of melted part of the table with it one day. So if I mean, if it'll melt a table, you don't really want that on your clothes. Yeah, you don't want to get it on your clothes.

And I'll be super careful. And I don't know. I guess it, I mean, careful enough that I'm like, all right, I don't want to drop it on any of my clothes.

You should just do it out there on the concrete. I don't think that's the best spot.

It finds a way.

Yeah, that's a good point. All this laundry talk really applies to everybody and farmers and people spraying pesticides for sure. That's some of the nastiest laundry is working on the farm. Laundry.

Laundry. Yeah.

I used to make homemade detergent and it just couldn't hold up to the farm in life.

My dad, if you're working cattle, you're going to get crap all over.

Yes, everywhere.

Yeah.

In your mouth.

Oh. Everywhere. Like you'll be out there like hoping that, you know, I'm just going to stand back and I come from church and I'm just going to come check out, see what's happened. Hopefully nothing will get on me. Oh, you need me to give a shot? All right, I'll just reach out here. Oh, no. Well, my shirt that I got to wear to church got a big old glob of poop on it.

Well, it's like when you work them and one always gets like a big bunch of diarrhea and slings that tail and stuff and it just gets everybody or it's just piling up and just.

Yep, so farmer's laundry, gonna be dirty.

Yeah, I remember like the chicken houses. It really clings to the clothes. If you're trying, it never feels like you're saying like church shirt or something, you're trying to like be nice or you're just trying to stick your head in. And that's also when I feel like you will problems to happen when you're wearing the good clothes going there. But yeah, farmer laundry. Yeah, greasy, stinky, poopy. Yeah, I need to get detergent for that. And you want to not, I had a little note on here, sometimes you don't use enough, and then sometimes you use too much, so you really should. make sure you're using the right amount.

But of laundry detergent.

Yeah. And like I was talking earlier about how you don't want to have too much clothes in there because you need that water to move because you need to get all that poop and then just, your body oils and odors and stuff. So you got to have enough water in there. And interesting note, I didn't know this. So a lot of times now we just use like a pod type or a liquid detergent. But it said if you're dealing with a lot of mud and clay, that the powder detergent's going to be better for that. So I thought that was, I thought about.

It makes sense that like that clay would cling to the powder in the water.

It says granular detergents work well on mud and clay soils, whereas liquid is more effective in removing greasy, oily stains. So that's something to think about if you're more into the dirt work, then it may be good to have like a granular powder.

Do you even have a lot of granulars anymore?

Not as much, but you can also get, they still have like washing sodas and borax and things like that, even if you don't see so much like powder detergent, but they do still have it.

What would you use like borax for? Is it?

Well, I use borax when I make homemade soap a little, but you could just use a little, it's just like a booster, just an extra. But like I said, be careful with those things because I've had some like color fading from getting a little too happy with the extra stuff. But if you've got something real bad, and I mean, you can always wash it more than once.

Yeah.

You know, don't think once and let's just dry it and it's that forever. But your water temp's going to matter too. So I had a note here. Hot water remerves. It remerves dirt from heavily soiled items, kills more germs than cold water, fades the dyes in some color. So if you have something that you're not wanting to fade, you may be more worried. And then tends to cause wrinkling in some modern fabrics like permanent press. That's going to be your man-made fibers. So you would want to use hot water like greasy clothes, work jeans, even though, it seems like they're going to fade a bit, jeans, no matter what, but towels, washcloths, socks, undies, things like that. So use hot water on them. Warm water, it does get lightly soiled clothes clean. It does not kill germs unless you have a disinfectant. So you can add a laundry sanitizer in. also, and it is safe for most color clothes, whereas cold water, it's going to have to have a cold water detergent. And I think that's something we don't always pay attention to. So look at your detergent and if you mainly wash cold on certain things, make sure that it is a cold water detergent. And I mean, I got to check mine. I have to have a hypoallergenic detergent for me because I'm sensitive to those kind of things. But it may take more detergent than normal in cold water. It doesn't kill germs, like I said, unless defectant, but you know, you got that delicate stuff, cold water has its place for sure. Just make sure your detergent's meant for cold water. And I think that's important. We're probably not always washing our clothes in warm enough temps, but then it just kind of, it depends on what you're doing. So like if you're a farmer, you're probably going to need to use that hot water. versus if you just have, my work, business casual clothes will be fine, mostly in the cold water. And so I, like I said, I'm really big on hang drying. Now, I don't like to hang on a hanger. because of, like I'd said, it can cause some stretching. So I use a drying rack. And I mean, if you're trying to save a little bit on energy, that's a great option.

Yeah.

And then I also have a clothesline and I love my clothesline at the new house. I got a pulley system one off the back porch as it's cool. We had to move it because we put in a ball goal, but I love that. So I recommend if you want your clothes to last longer, air drying is really where it's at. But your clothes are a little more crispy.

Crispy.

So if you like crispy clothes. I like crispy towels and wash clothes.

Yeah, I do like crispy towels. Doesn't ask. This seems like they absorb water better.

Yeah. A line hung towel. It just slurps up that water. And another thing too, do not, it's hot. like Stone County, Arkansas is humid and hot. If you put stuff in that washer, you better plan on getting that out pretty quick.

Gonna mold.

Or it's gonna stink. And it's like, have you used a towel or one that had been like wet and it's like that moldy mildew smell? And I can't stand that. That's hard to get out of there. And I'm, and I worry like, I think people get nose blind to that. And so you want to make sure that you're pulling that stuff out of your washing machine when it's done, especially in the summer around here, because it's going to stink. And that's hard to get rid of that.

Yeah.

And I don't want my clothes stinking.

Stink.

I mean, usually already stink enough. Yeah, let's not let's not add add to it. Summer's already hard as it is. So another thing I like to do when I'm on it, when you're doing things like you should. When I get home from work, I just start a load of laundry. Like I get up on Sunday morning, I start a load of laundry. And I may just do one a day, but that keeps the pile away. So, because I don't want to spend my weekend just playing catch up on all my housework. You know what I mean? Like that's just not what I want my Saturday to be is dishes and laundry. So yeah, do a load a day if you can. I understand like if you're having to go to like a coin laundry, it's going to be a little more difficult. But if you're doing coin laundry, like we talked about pre-treating, you can do that at home before you go for that. But yeah, I don't want to do the weekend catch-ups. But I'm trying to think if I got any other notes that I thought were important. I think I got it. Oh, I've got what chlorine bleach may be used on. versus oxygen bleach. But I think I've already pretty much addressed that. That's going to be like your towels, your sheets, pillowcases, tablecloths, socks, undies, things like that. So. maybe now you're a little more prepared to do your laundry.

Let's see if we can get those pit stains out.

Well, get to them quick. Pre-treat.

They've done set in. I wonder if you can hear that.

I can.

And then y'all can dang. I stem.

Stamp.

That's I think that's what it's called.

I just always call it fidgeting.

Fidgeting. Yep. I don't know why I do that with my hands. I'm a weirdo.

Your hands, you do a lot of certain things. I don't know what to do with them.

Yeah.

When you get excited and do that.

And I'll just do this when I'm.

Yeah, you do that too. And you like to talk with them and like, you like to.

Tack you. You don't want to be sitting too close when I'm giving a presentation.

Sometimes I catch myself using the hands too much. I'm like, reel it in, reel it in. I think a little is good, but yeah, you can kind of overdo the hand movements.

Yeah, sorry.

Or people in general. I'm not meeting you necessarily.

Sorry to annoy you folks.

Well, usually when you're using your hands, it's more, you're more excited about something.

Laundry.

Laundry is so exciting. I know everybody's riveted for that.

Yeah.

But I mean, there's, we were telling you how to do laundry. And how old are you now?

39.

So I mean, years already, oh man, there's always more to learn.

Yeah.

It'd be nice if I could talk correctly.

Well, I mean, I think that's the hillbilly.

Yeah, just kind of boom power every now and then.

Yeah, dang on, dang on right, man.

Usually at home when I mess up, I'll just turn it into like a string of mess up. But I kind of have to be in that headspace.

Well.

We didn't talk about the hoop house.

The hoop house? Yeah, we had the hoop house, our high tunnel program with Tanya Ernst. What we did, it was June 23rd. We went and toured lads the high tunnel, Add and Casey's high tunnel. And then we went to Shirley and toured Wade Lucas high tunnels there in Shirley. And then we went to the Shirley Community Center and they like taught about it, like how to run a high tunnel, how to plant disease and pest issues, irrigation that you wouldn't want to use. It was good. We had...

Those tomatoes. It was cool what they were doing over there. And he pulled, I don't know if you were over there when he dug up, he had already dug up most of his potatoes, but he left one and it was a Yukon gold and it was just huge. And it was just so easy for him to just pull them up right there in that soil that, you know, he's able to keep it loose because he's not, you know, just tilling down into it. It's really got me considering one when I finish a few of my projects at the house, then I'm thinking about one. Yeah, we don't have great soil right by my house. And I thought, well, if I brought it in and build it up and did it that way, it'd be easier. Yeah, it would be a little easier for me. And I was just trying to think of what I could myself handle.

Yeah, that was good. I know people probably in the garden dealing with different types of issues. It's we're really just now hitting hot. it's hasn't been that hot.

Yeah, we've been pretty fortunate that it's the last week in June before it goes back.

This next little bit, we're about to get, you know, 90s and mid-90s and above. And what'll happen, I always get calls about people, their tomatoes aren't blooming. Well, when it gets real hot, they'll quit blooming so much. And it's just temperature issue. You can either wait till it kind of starts cooling off and they'll start blooming again, or you can kind of shock them to maybe bloom, like go in there and like prune off a few branches, limbs off a tomato plant or a plant that's not flowering. And it kind of shocks it saying, oh no, I'm dying. Something's happening to me. I need to make babies. I gotta make babies to preserve my generation and it'll try to bloom out. So you can try that. Japanese beetles becoming an issue. I know I've had several questions about that.

My daughter is currently getting paid $0.10 per Japanese beetle that she recovers. It was, it started at $0.25, but apparently there was so many that grandma. Grandma had to change the, this reminded me of like when I got paid for having all A's. I was a valedictorian and it had started out, I think it was like 10 bucks an A. That dropped down to like a dollar from grandparents. But anyway, that made me think of her little Japanese beetles.

It went from 25 cents to 10 cents.

But I think she had, I'm trying to think of the count. I think she was at 400. So Was that 40 bucks?

Yeah.

That's pretty good. But that's what that means. And Karen said she didn't keep count of what Karen had.

Yeah.

So that tells you how bad they are.

So what they do, they feed on like leafy material. They'll like skeletonize a leaf. but one will find something that they like to eat and they produce a pheromone that tracks all their buddies. So hand picking, going out scouting, and doing that hand picking, make sure to remove them early. But say you get out there and there's a bunch of them. Well then, it may be time to consider using an insecticide. There's various insecticides you can look at. It kind of depends on what you're spraying on, but get something that's labeled for controlling Japanese beetles and that is labeled for use on where you're spraying it. But they also make these Japanese beetle traps that a lot of people do.

I've used them. I know there's mixed feelings about them.

There's mixed feelings. They do work because That fur melon you'll see, you'll trap hundreds of them. It'll be full. And if you have like chickens, it's good to like just dump them out and feed them. But think of it, it's you're attracting them. So you don't want to hang those up like say right next to your garden. You want to hang them up at the perimeter because I was looking at a deal. It said somewhere around, it'll catch around 70% of the Japanese beetles that are attracted. It sounds like a lot, but that's 30% that's out there eating everything else. So I mean, when you hang them on the perimeter, hang up several, not just one.

Do you wait until you have them already?

Wait until you have them.

That's how I've done it.

If you're hanging them up and you're not having Japanese beetle issues, you're bringing them in. You're bringing them in. But if you already have them, then hang them up around the perimeter. Also, think about wherever I'm hanging them up, what's next to them? Can I consider, 30% are escaping, so they're going to be attracted to that area, but they're going to be eaten. since they didn't get caught. But those are some ways.

We can deal with them. They just built these raised beds and they had got compost and she thinks they were in that because she's not historically had them at her house. I mean, some years worse than others.

It could be some years. So they're Japanese is a little scarab beetle. Some people will call them June bugs, but they're not. They're not June bugs. June bugs are a little bit bigger.

A little bit. A lot bigger.

Beetle size, they're probably 3 or four times the size of a Japanese beetle. A Japanese beetle, it's kind of greenish color, kind of has an orangish, shiny, shimmer colored, what do you call that, they cover their wings with?

I don't know, but yeah, they do have it. They're pretty obvious to figure out what, that that's them.

That's them. But they are, they lay eggs and that it's a grub and it's in the soil and then they'll pop up. So it is possible that it could have been in soil that she's brought in. But the thinking of that way, I forget how quick turnaround time is from, they get bread to lay eggs and pupate. But you can use like, say, like a granular or something like a grub killer to kind of lower the population. If you're having lots of Japanese beetle issues, that might be something to consider as a white grub control. Japanese beetles, what else are people dealing with? If you're having problems with like, we've had a lot of rain, probably a lot of disease out there, some blights. We have aphids. Aphids come in the. could be issues.

Chinese privets come in.

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff. So just what we need to do about managing diseases in our gardens, good to practice a good fungicide spray schedule, spraying every 7 to 10 days with a fungicide just to protect those plants from getting it, because once they get it, it's hard to control. So if we can prevent that from ever getting a disease you also want to say back in the spring or back when you planted them or selective varieties, look for varieties that are more resistant to say blights.

I would like to say something on that. Arkansas blacks get such a bad rap. But mine look beautiful. They're unharmed, untouched, whereas my two other varieties I got to pollinate with them are just struggle best. And on the other note of an Arkansas black apple, I have them in my refrigerator from when I harvested them last fall. And they are, I followed the recommendations on how to store them. So it's like in a bag with a couple holes poked in their refrigerator. They are pristine and they're almost a year old. But anyway, that tells you about the varieties because the other two I planted are notorious for some of these fungicide disease issues, but I needed what was recommended to pollinate with Arkansas blacks. But they just look beautiful and amazing on their own.

Will get fire blight, but it's like even if they do, like the tree might look bad if you don't deal with it, but it'll still produce apples.

I mean, I do spray, but.

Yeah, and you have to.

It clearly, they hold up better than the other two varieties I have.

I think more like it's, I like to look at like what I think is trending. And it's like, you know, it seems like the past, what, about 20, 30 years, it's like organic. Organic is kind of the, in the back of everybody's mind is the best, But it's kind of like, I think more people are realizing, oh.

There's some diseases associated.

There's some diseases we might have. That you can't control organically. We're going to have to, and there's some things that.

Just don't do well here.

That don't do well without organic. And so if you want it or that won't do well if you're trying to do it organically. And so I think more and more people are realizing, oh, we need to adopt the best management practices to get these to grow. So.

Well, your climate matters and it's notoriously difficult for fruit trees here.

So quick review, talking hay, our Over the last couple of episodes, we've talked about, making hay, hay's the kind of a big deal here in Stone County. It's a big source of our winter feeding in our cow-calf operations and just raising livestock in general. We talked about, improving the quality, looking at cutting at the right maturity. There's a point where grass will start going downhill and its quality losing crude protein and energy as it gets more fibrous. As that fiber increases, the overall quality of that grass drops. And a lot of times, guys, you know, it's easy to say, go out and cut at the right maturity at that boot stage. But weather plays a lot into it. And so we're just now really getting warm. A lot of guys are making their second cutting now. Some guys have made a second cutting and might be onto their third even if they kind of timed it right, because we were real dry throughout the winter and last fall. And last summer we were early spring was still drier than normal. And spring was dry. And it really didn't start raining here until towards the end of May. And some guys were, got out and made their, got a cutting before then, and then some guys weren't able to, but probably a lot of guys are on their second cutting now, which is kind of the better cutting because we can, we're more into that time where we can cut at that right maturity and also get that quick drying to lock in those nutrients or lock in that nutritional value. We, you know, that's a goal is to have it wilt and dry fast. Because if it's more of a slow, as it kind of decomposes more or less, it'll lose some of that nutritional value, the crude protein the energy, it'll get drained out as some of that carbohydrate and whatever. I'm not a scientist, but you know, I am a county extension agent.

But he is an agent.

I am an agent. So anyways, there's some losses. To put it on farming terms, if we ain't able to dry it fast enough, you're gonna lose some of the good stuff out of there. So We are talking maturity, cutting at the right time, cutting at the right height can also help preserve the grass we have in the field. If we cut too low, could cut through that crown where a lot of grasses store carbohydrates and it's harder for them to regrow. So we're prolonging. We might not get as many cuttings if we're cutting too low. So we're raising up to about two to three inches depending on the type of grass you got out there. That's also goes to play into the nutrition is the type of grass, is it an improved forage species? That's one of them that has more nutritional value, say like a Bermuda grass or a tall fescue or something like, we can't really do like, bahia grass is one that they use like in southern Arkansas. It's, there's a lot of it'll grow kind of wild here, but I wouldn't like go out and seed my field in bahia grass because it's, are kind of a little bit too cold. But those are improved varieties that are going to be a little bit more nutritious, say, for when we're cutting for hay. One thing we saw, you can cut Bermuda grass real low because it typically stores its energy in those stolons and those runners that it puts out. But what we've seen in some of our hay verification projects is that if you say, rather than cutting, an inch or, where you've seen it, they pretty much scalp the ground. If we'll leave that at like two to three inches, it regrows quicker.

And so we, my family cut hay. It's been about two weeks ago. And I was surprised at how much regrowth has already taken place. So they didn't cut too low. And it was, I was like, I feel like they're going to have to cut hay here really quick because of how quick it bounced back. Whereas I've seen fields before, it's like it scorched the whole field when it was cut really low.

Like if we're thinking about it, again, we want to be grass farmers and manage our forages. If a goal is with like Bermuda grass fields, it's like every 28 days. be cutting hay.

So that makes sense. If it's two weeks ago, then.

Halfway there, especially like think of you, if you go in, you cut, you get it dried down to that below 20%. We'll talk about why 18% is probably the goal to shoot for drying today. We talked about spontaneous heating that could happen, where if it's too wet, that spontaneous heating occurs, and that also loses some of the good stuff.

And the fire.

And could possibly start a fire if you start too early. But if we can get it less than that 20%, it doesn't go through as much of A heat. It will go through a heat, but if it's real wet, it can jump up there and be like 140 degrees in that internal temperature. Yeah. Whereas if we're less on the, it's a little bit less on the chart that I was looking at or the graph. So spontaneous heating. So today we were going to talk about storing. I feel like there's one more thing I was just going to remind everybody about. Oh, fertilizing. After we go in there, like you mentioned, it's regrown. Did they fertilize it any?

I don't know. I don't think so.

Didn't get it.

Not this time.

Well, think about how.

But I feel like they might have fertilized.

Well, think about, you know, how much we're taking away. If we're able to go, yeah, there are some nutrients like your, if you have good phosphor, if you have good fertility, your phosphorus, potassium, there should be enough in the soil, that is the goal anyway, that you may have to come in and add some supplemental at the first of the year, but it's relatively gets in there and it's not going to all go away. Like with nitrogen, however, it's on a cycle. Like in the nitrogen fertilizer we have, if it's, say, we throw out some urea, it's really volatile. If it doesn't get a good rain on it, we're losing a percentage of that turning to a gas. But if we're able to say we have good fertility, we made a cutting, and then you were able to go in there, like you say, and throw on, like, say, 50, 60 pounds of nitrogen, think about how tall that stuff would be, and how much more you would get. So fertilizing, putting back what you're taking out, and fertilizing is, we're spending money up front for, we're gonna, I've mentioned, you know, spending $1000 an hour, spending $1000 this winter. where's your money going to be more beneficial to you? Probably right now. Fertilizer has kind of come off. I know it might stay still expensive, but it's kind of dropped.

It's at least not continuing the upward trend at the moment.

It's not continuing an upward trend. But even though it is expensive, I think it's worth it to apply some fertilizer, at least what you've took away, to so that our field ain't.

Just on a downward trend.

That's the goal. But storing hay, so we've cut it, raked it, bailed it, and we're hauling it. Where are we going to put it? Are we going to store it outside where a lot of hay gets put? What do you see? You see it, they'll stack it in, you know, rows. And there'll be four or five rows, they'll space it out, but they'll just stack it out there on the ground. I would argue also spending, let's say, let's spend some money to say, put down some gravel. if you're going to say have to store it outside. And maybe I argue with you to spend some money to not only lay down some gravel, but also if you have the ability to buy some tarps to cover that. Because if you look at some studies that have been done, and we have a lot of this information that I'm talking about, we have like a whole MP, one of our fact sheet books, booklets.

It's on hay production.

On hay production. You get in there and look at some of the studies on losses. They were having from being stored outside, So a bale, 4 by 5 bale, weighs roughly 1000 pounds. Oh, what did I say? 1000 pounds? No, 750 pounds. A, like a 5 by 6 is going to be more of that. 1000 pounds. Now, a 750 pound bale, you might say it's a bunch of crab grass or something. That may get close to 900. So let's just say we're making 1000 pound bells for easy math. So we're spending all that fuel time and fertilizer for baling that money, we're just our input costs that are fixed. We've spent all that money to create this hay bale. It's an investment and then we're going to go and we're going to store it outside how much dry matter losses do you think would happen from getting rained on and having soil contact? There I am. We've talked about me using my hands and I'm done.

That's the thing about if you're only listening, you're not seeing.

I've done, yeah. That's why you gotta kind of go watch the YouTube video every now and then to see our movements. I'm like doing the robot.

I would say, I think you've told me before, I don't know if this is right, was it 20% or more?

Somewhat like outside soil content, like, yeah, like total losses is somewhere around, it's like 18% on one chart that I saw. They did a study, I think it was tall fescue, and they did several different like wrappings, like net wrap, they did the twine wrap. I think one of them, they completely.

Like those marshmallows?

Like a marshmallow wrap, completely covered. That lost the least because it's completely covered. But think about, okay, we've lost from that layer we get like a 18% loss. So that's 180 pounds per 1000 pound bale.

Which is a lot.

That's gone.

Waste, yeah.

So let's say we've made 100 bales. That's, what's that, 180 times 100.

1800.

1800, 1800 pounds of That's wasted feed that you've lost by. or pounds of dry matter that you've lost by storing outside versus storing inside. And a lot of that, like that soil contact, a lot of that loss is right in there. I can't remember. I think it was more than like 20% with soil loss or with soil contact. So storing, think about that as when we go to store, some guys have the ability to store some hay bales inside. But those hay bales that we have to store outside, maybe it would be worth it to us if we could run, make us a gravel pad or something. Or put something down on the ground to prevent that soil to hay contact. And then possibly some sort of covering if you're able to tarp them to keep a lot of that rain off of them. Because Again, we're getting a lot, we've spent all this time and money to create this product and then we're losing a percentage of it.

Yeah, what point adds up to a hay barn?

Let me, you talk, I see that book right here. I'm going to grab that so I can give you all accurate information just to push home like, okay. Say things, okay?

Things that are entertaining. know it's funny we're talking about all these all these round bales and I still remember you don't remember the square hay bale days. Yeah and that's back when.

We just I don't think we ever did squares when I while I was old.

I remember doing squares and I remember putting them in the old hay barn that I got married at and they had a like a conveyor belt that would carry them.

So this is A lot of information that I've been talking about these last couple episodes and this episode come from this management of hay production MP. It's MP 434 if you're looking it up online. But so storage losses, I was looking, what I wanted to look at was the soil contact layer. So.

In the weathering effects section.

Yeah, in the weathering effects, this is what it says. It is easy to overlook the importance of the bottom of the bale when discussing weathering losses. Some reports suggest that approximately 50% of the storage losses in hay stored outside occur at the hay to soil interface. So.

You're reading voices. It's almost condescending. It was a little snooty.

Well, it was a fake. It was supposed to be.

You're supposed to sound like you know what you're talking about.

Sound. So, but it's a gravel pad, maybe. Like, how much is a load of gravel? We got, we paid, I think, 120 bucks for like a.

Yeah, you're going to pay about 200 bucks to get that delivered.

Yeah.

But speaking from experience.

Speaking from experience, well, so put a pencil and paper to it. How many hay bales you got out there and the losses?

Yeah, I really think you should put a pen and paper to it because for some operations, just dealing with the weather loss might be your best option, whereas others, the gravel or you need a barn at some point.

That's what I'm arguing for is that we consider these factors and we're not just, you know, we're not just farming because that's how grandpa farmed. But, you know, we're looking at actually trying to produce a good product and produce something good.

Do you ever think about, well, I've got a rabbit hole. I'm gonna let you finish. There go my rabbit hole.

I think that's pretty much, I think, what I'll finish up with. So looking at this final thing, In that study I was talking about done, it was done in Kentucky with tall fescue, and they were measuring the weathered layer around the bale in plastic mesh wraps that were on the ground that stored outside. They saw actual dry matter losses of 10.6%. And that's the net wrap? That's like the plastic mesh, yes, net wrap. solid plastic like the marshmallows, they 3.6%. Wow, that's pretty low. But I don't know how much it cost. Sizzle twine on the ground outside lost 18.2% actual dry matter loss.

What's sizzle twine? That's like the plasticy twine.

Yeah, something like the orange. I think it's like the. like the brown, but it may, I'm not sure if sizzle twine includes like the colored, but it's like the, not the net wrap twine, but like the rope twine is what it would be. And then they also did. I've never heard it called that either. I just.

Sizzle.

Yeah. And then sizzle twine inside. So they had actual dry matter losses of 5.7, but then I think we also have to consider the depth of these weathered layers. So the plastic mesh wrap on the ground had 2.1 inches of weathered layer. Solid plastic wrap on the ground was inches of weathered layer. The sizzle twine on the ground outside was 4.4 inches of a weathered layer. And then the sizzle twine inside was 0.

That's interesting. I feel like I've seen it more than that. More than 4 inches, which I know that would depend on the grass and the the climate and all that, but I almost feel like it's more.

Then dry matter loss with all weathered layer considered lost, which is the entire weathered layer is considered to be unrecovered dry matter, is because it's not necessarily all of that's going to be bad. not all of this may look funky. It may look funky, could have molds. That is something else to consider that I almost forgot is molds, funguses can also cause some issues when we're storing them outside. But can also happen if we don't get, if we're say, storing it to, we didn't bail it at the right moisture. We bailed it at too high moisture, even if we do store it inside and it doesn't go through that heating and burn, could mold. But so with all those, considering that whole layer is lost, the plastic mesh wrap, there was 23.3% lost. The solid plastic wrap on the ground, the marshmallow was 7.8. The sizzle twine on the ground outside was 34%, 34.1. And then the sizzle twine inside was just 5.7.

Man, 37%, that's a lot.

So what's that? A 1000 pound bell? That's 340 pounds.

One out of three bales essentially is waste.

So I have a lot. So something to think about. Now, how much is that gravel pet? because.

Sometimes a barn may just be too far out of reach at a time, which, you could do your gravel pad hoping eventually you'll have that barn there, baby.

Or it doesn't have to, something to prevent that soil layer contact, soil to hay contact. But yeah, then molds.

And then that's something if you're going to be getting a new baler, you know, you may think about what kind of wrapping system, twine system, based off of that information.

All right, I think I'll just encourage everybody, get you, test your hay as well.

Yeah, I know what you got.

Know what you got. If you got questions, if you're listening and you're like, I don't know if he knows what he's talking about, but I want to do something different or I just want to check, give us a call and we got forage specialists that we can get access to that we can bring up to your place and look around and.

That's one cool thing about extension is we know who to call.

We know who to call. That's just what we want this podcast to be, to educate you a little bit, make you think about, you know.

You know, do you every now and then get a wild hair and you're like, am I doing this the best way? Because I do that sometimes.

Am I doing this the easiest way? Like, am I working? Yeah, I'm out here sweating, heat stroke, getting my shirt stained, pit stained.

Or I feel like I'm doing a lot for 30 calves. I was like, should I have all, should I buy a $30,000 baler?

Yeah, that's what the type of stuff we're wanting y'all to think about. All right, time for our rabbit chasing.

Oh, I already forgot what I was.

I knew it was gonna be good. It's about hay.

It's about hay. Oh yeah, that's what, I mean, it's not that much of A rabbit hole, but have you ever thought about how just 100 years ago they were Cutting hay with a handheld, like, what are those called? Reaper.

Like A scythe.

Yeah, And putting it in a wagon and just throwing it loose into a barn like Gary Don talks about, that's how they did hay. Can you think about that? Which people didn't have near as many cattle then because, you know, there wasn't freezers and refrigeration, but that's just not that long ago in the grand scheme of things. for Brandon, that's just two generations ago.

Yeah. That's...

You little round bell your whole life, kid. I mean, it's just wild to think of how far agriculture's come in 100 years or less. It's just crazy to me. Sorry, that was my thought. I like history, so...

It is cool. I just, my deal is like, how... How did they, like I'm not good with mechanical things like engines. Like I've kind of looked into it now, but I never like thought about like how they work and like, but I'm like, how did they, No, okay, I got to put this part here and this part and if it don't?

You take, this is my beef with some things. Like, how expensive a baler is. Just let's say a simple twine baler. You take the belt off and it's like, how, why does this cost so much? And I'm sure there's somebody that knows exactly why it costs so much, but like you just look at it and you're like, Yeah, you're paying for someone's intelligence, I guess, maybe. I hope. I have a feeling they're probably not profiting as much as they should for their ideas. But just looking at a bailer, I'm like, gosh, this is that much money?

Like Eli Whitney developing the cotton gin, like with I lead, we went around and seen those like the how the cotton gins are now. And they're all these huge machines and just cotton's flowing through there. And it's like they showed us like the little hand crank thing. And it's like, just think of like you're used to, you'd have to sit there and like, I guess pick out all the seeds. And now some guy invents a little deal and you can just feed it in and it separates all the seeds out. And then And then I'm real, like you're doing your FCS skill-a-thon team. It's like, how did they, how do they figure out how to weave all this stuff? Like.

Well, I'm the one that didn't think silk still came from silk worms. And it does. That blew my mind.

Well, I thought it was all synthetic now.

At least I knew that. one of the girls on the team knew all about it. And I thought, I guess in my mind, it was synthetic.

All right. Yeah, we've got about four minutes. Dang, this is going to be a long episode. But we've got time.

We've got to make up for it.

Yeah. Funny stuff.

Well, I was thinking, you know, it's the anniversary of, you know, it's 250th. It's America's birthday, friends. Like 250 years ago, we said, no, we're done. We broke up.

What was it? We said yesterday we come in and it's like.

We shouldn't be working this week.

It was crazy busy. Like it was like this, that, bam, bam, bam, call, can you come like this, do this? And it's like, deck of it. It's the America's 250. Everybody needs to chill out and just, and then Anna got around. So kind of set.

Well, before I go on my tirade, what are some of your friends? fun 4th of July memories.

My family has always had like a fireworks stand at Shirley. So like.

Do they still have one?

I'm not sure if they still do or not. I don't think they are. I don't think they do it anymore. But like my uncle Johnny Clark, he used to run one there. And then after he passed away, like Cole and Tyrene and them started running one. And then So we'd always do a, as always, we'd go to Fairfield Bay and watch their fireworks show, and then we'd go and do our own little fireworks show. At your grandparents? Yeah, there at the fireworks stand. But what I thought of was maybe a, I don't know the correct term for This may or may not happen really, but let's pretend this was an imaginary story of what happened. So let's say there were two friends and they decided they wanted to make a sparkler bomb. And what this is, you get like those certain type of sparkler and you wrap it up real tight with some tape and you leave a fuse and you light it and it makes a big boom. I forgot about that. These couple of buddies go up in this town that may involve viewings.

Of mountains.

Of mountains.

A burn ban?

Well, maybe not a burn ban.

One time it involved a burn ban.

One time there was a burn ban. And these particular friends, went up on this viewing mountain and tried to light this sparkler bomb. And rather than blowing up, the sparkler bomb shot off like a bottle rocket into the woods on this particular viewing mountain and started catching leaves on fire. And so these couple of buddies went over there really quickly and were able to get it contained before.

The cops came.

Before anything happened. That was an exciting thing.

I forgot about that. Y'all didn't wrap it well, I guess.

I guess. I remember like right after a burn ban, like dad used to have like these like super loud firecrackers for like scaring like birds out of the blueberries. And we took one and threw it in a culvert somewhere. That was the loudest boom I think I've ever heard. But one time we had some of those firecrackers. And it's just after a burn ban and we were down at the church and Paul Ballantine like come through and.

He was constable too.

And he's like asking us, what are y'all doing? And we're like, oh, you know, we missed 4th of July is kind of after because of the burn ban, but now it's rained and we're just lighting some firecrackers here in the parking lot. And he's like, oh yeah. And I grabbed one of them biggins. And I was like, yeah. And I was like, listen to this one. And it's like, boom. He's like, oh no. My gosh, what are those?

Yeah, where did your dad get those?

You can get them online, like look for like bird scaring firecrackers.

That sounds like fun. I remember letting off one of those, or some people I know, let off one of those sparkler bombs down at the river one year. And that's the biggest one I'd ever heard. But the person that showed us how to make it, I think, had made that one. And they had good technique.

There is like, you got to get it tight.

Yeah, I think we went down to the river because it was a burn ban. One of my favorite, when I think of...

Oh, while we're talking about fireworks, we did, and I've seen it before, and it's funny and a good reminder is be safe around these fireworks because it is Some people's last weekend.

With 10 fingers. Oh man. One of my favorite memories growing up. Are we good on time?

Yeah.

Okay.

I just thought it sounded weird.

Okay. So I had seen a TikTok one time. I was like, if you could go back as a child and like relive a memory. And so my favorite childhood memories was with my family. We would always say down the road and we'd have a big fish fry with all of my Sutton family at Avison Bill's and we'd have a big fish fry and they'd all fess over the homemade ice cream and it was always the best homemade ice cream. We'd swim at Randy's Pool. Well, one year, well, I would go around it because I was the youngest, like there's kind of an age gap between me and everyone. And I would swindle people out of money to go buy fireworks. And it used to seem like $200 for fireworks was like, in my little kid memory, as good as going to a big show. one year, I'm pretty sure Warren and Stephen and all them had come up and they were letting off the Saturn missile. So everybody's lined up kind of at the house watching the fireworks. When they're running back, they knock over the Saturn missiles towards everyone.

Oh man.

And they start shooting off and you know, like they scream. They're like, meow, meow. One went under my, somebody was sitting in a lawn chair and it went between their legs under the launders, going under the truck and people were running here and there and it's just screaming. And man, I thought that was the best moment ever. Looking back now, gosh, we could have, somebody could have got a little injured, but.

Lose some toes.

Oh man, and then I think we were a lotting them in the road one time, like those long little firecrackers, you could get them all strung together. and a car went by and I think it kind of caught on their muffler and stuff. They didn't stop, thankfully. We were all there watching.

We all were armed with fireworks.

I have another good memory of Dad and Brandon one time letting one off, and I guess they thought it wasn't going to be very big. You know how I could kind of like make strobes of light, some of them? Well, like you'd see them like this, and then hearing a little bit, they'd be a little further. It was almost like a little clip action movie of them trying to run.

Did y'all ever? Like we'd have like Roman Candle fights.

I really didn't do that much, but I remember shooting bottle rockets at.

Yeah, we'd have bottle rockets.

Brian one time, yeah. And I don't think we ever hit him. That's really not a safe thing to do at all.

We're just talking about what we used to do.

And there's a risk involved.

At all.

Doing this.

But this is, we're talking about history.

Historical.

This is historical what we did. We'd have bottle rocket wars. We'd shoot, I remember shooting Roman candles at one another.

I feel like they used to be more stout too. I guess it depends now.

Yeah, probably.

Yeah.

But, yeah. Any other cool stuff?

If I can get on a rant.

Yeah, tell us about it.

So this week, I don't know if I can do it, but I'm gonna try. Yeah, but.

Everybody's calling, we're thinking, man, I thought it was gonna be chill week, maybe a few calls, but like yesterday, I was like, hope not every day is like this.

And it was a full moon coming, and it's America's 250th birthday coming up this week, and we should be at home. We should be at home. We should be grilling, We should be porch sitting. We should be shooting targets. We should be fishing. We should be skinny dipping. We should be dipping ranch into everything. We should be saying America. We should be smoking meat. Like we should just be having a big party and not being at work this week. And we should be thanking a veteran for our freedom. and allowing us to act up and protest and say what we want and live in the best country in the world. And that's the United States of America.

Yeah, what you gonna grill?

We're gonna have fish fry. So I've already grilled some wieners. I caught them on fire too. You better be careful with some of those pork sausage brats. Anyway, it's a little side note. I want a successful griller. I normally am. I'm normally a grill master at the house.

Sometimes, sometimes.

Sometimes it just turns out so good.

You got to pay attention to it. That's one thing. That's why I kind of got into grilling. Mom never would. Like everybody would always.

She caught a few fires.

Everybody would always come over and stuff and hang out. We would be, you know, hanging out, having a good time, swimming. and mom would cook a bunch of burgers. Well, she would not pay attention. You got to.

Well, she would put, you remember, she'd put foil down on the grill and then it'd catch the fat on fire.

Yeah, they'd be crispy. They'd be. You got to pay attention.

Yeah, especially pork. Like you can't really walk away from a grill that has pork on it or that fat catches on fire. But Anyway.

Our dinner. I was thinking of a video I saw these cats are like the Dutch oven cooking and like that thing is like red hot.

Are you serious?

Yeah, like glowing red.

And he's like, oh no, our dinner.

And he like pulls it out, like opens it and it's just a black piece of charcoal. And it's like, our dinner. I was like, yeah.

Man, that's one thing I do miss about having an outdoor day at Blanchard. I always like doing the campfire cooking. Not ever burn anything.

Yeah.

But I didn't get it red hot. Man, that's hot.

That's hot. It's like going. Yeah.

Oh, me.

All right. Happy 250th. Have a happy 4th of July.

Independence Day.

Independence Day. Don't be safe. Don't lose your fingers. Don't get arrested. Yeah.

Be safe. Call a friend. Happy Independence Day.

Cool. All right. I'm going to Belhay.

Woo!