Ep 29 - Exploring Leadership, Fall Forages, & Safe School Lunches

On this weeks episode, Stone County Extension focus a little bit  on leadership and leadership skills.The reason, Anna is starting iLEAD (University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture's Internal Leadership Development Program) and Tyler is graduating from it the same week.  Tyler discusses what he learned through iLEAD.

Anna promotes Stone County 4-H Youth Leadership which is starting back.  This is for youth in Stone County around the age of 13-14 (8th & 9th grade) to participate which involves monthly leadership educational programs.  

Anna also discusses how to pack safe (think food illness) school lunches and some of the research.

Tyler gets into fall forages: extending grazing, what to plant, planning ahead.

Transcript

I'm burning up now.

This is how I'm going to come in with you laughing.

Oh, man. I've been crying and laughing.

I love when a laugh hits. Like when that on the way home.

When we got tickled.

When we got tickled. I love getting a good like getting tickled. you kind of, you ever get that where you, it's kind of boring and then something just happens, tickles you to death and you just can't, you laugh so hard. I love that.

And like randomly, ever so often you think about it, you get tickled. Oh man, I could get tickled about that all over.

Oh man, yeah.

Oh man.

We're recording a podcast. That's probably like our.

An hour, at least an hour.

An hour of that will never be heard. I've done deleted it because.

You know, one thing that used to get me so tickled is my in-laws can snore. Like, sorry, Wayne and Karen, if you're listening. But they can do some snoring. And I'd make like little chainsaws that it'd be like a double chainsaw. I'd go, I mean, I could laugh. And if Brandon would just hold up like those fingers, like I'd bust out laughing like for years. I love to laugh. I think laughing is.

People out there, well, what the hell is what you're laughing about?

Well, can't. I can't.

So we've attempted to talk about like Mondays where if we like them.

We got to talking about leadership and.

I think we'll get into it. Bad leadership. Yeah.

I'm sorry. I just get so tickled about things sometimes and I've just been crying.

But some funny things, I guess, this morning coming in, how are y'all on a Monday morning after a weekend? You primed. I wasn't primed this morning. And I walk in and I was singing. This ain't not exactly reflects what time, but it's. It may, or how'd it go? Maybe half past 10, but I don't care. It's 8 o'clock somewhere. And I rolled in to the office and I said, good morning to everybody.

We're in the back to school schedule. Well, and you worked Saturday, so, you know.

And I wasn't, it wasn't half past 10. It was almost. Yeah. I don't know, woke up and kind of got around and it's just like.

And it's like we said, it's the last day of summer break for our kiddos. And our kiddos start school back tomorrow. And that means I've got to get gone really early and hope and pray that road work's over. That plagued us this spring. Even though I like me some nice roads, it's tough in the in-between phase.

Yeah, I seen a deal and it was like, we're not gonna, we're doing Rd. work. Oh, on some of these roads that have potholes and stuff. No, on one that we did about three years ago.

Well, they chip and sealed this road and If I see them laying on chip and seals, I'll immediately get ragey.

Yeah, it is like, it's going to take us a day to remove it and a day to pave it, but then we're going to leave it there unfixed. It's got to sit. Then he's like, it's got to sit undone for a few months.

Yeah, And they've ground it down and like, rah.

Yeah.

Well, it feels like there's just, it feels like the road work's never done. It's like laundry.

Have you been down Allison? Like.

I was late for my dentist appointment because I had forgotten the grade work. That one's been going on a while. They're working on the bridge.

I rolled up there and it's like 5, zero, zero. I was like, okay, 5 minutes. No, 500 seconds is what it was counting down. I was like, dang.

How many minutes?

Divide that by 60.

I swear off math after my math. Not really, but kind of.

I don't know. I think it has something to do with like, we have calculators on our phones and so we don't do it in our hands.

We weren't going to.

Yeah. You're never, yeah. So back to school, you have any funny school memories?

I'm sure I do. I was thinking about the time. that I hit a kid in the head with a rock. I accidentally, I meant to hit him with a rock, but just not in the head. And my parents, it was in first grade, and my parents got a letter that I assaulted a child, which granted, if my child had got hit in the head with a rock.

Yeah.

I'm sorry to report that I think it did permanent damage to my child. Their life has reflected a traumatic head injury. I did enjoy school. Whitney enjoys school. But man, middle school was tough for me. And she's going into 6th grade and I'm not said anything because I don't want to put that in her head.

Well, it seems like, you know, like 4th, 5th.

I liked 5th.

Girls got mean around 4th and 5th grade. I remember they were all fighting.

I remember the change started for girls at the end of 5th, but I remember 6th. It was like, I felt like I had to get new, I didn't have to get new friends, but I felt like everybody changed. Like all the groups like shifted and then, you know, you're going through all those changes and some people are way more ahead and I was way more behind and And then I had that stupid haircut that my mom let me have, that bob. I've been scarred by that haircut. You will never see. If I have short hair, somebody did that to me.

We had bowl cuts. I had bowl cuts throughout elementary school.

I'm pretty sure Karen gave Brandon every like, trendy haircut.

Yeah, I had a rat.

They have some tragic bowls. One day I was talking smack. This was before the mullets had come back and I was like, mullet. And Brandon's like, look around the room, everybody in this room's had a mullet. I got so tickled. They're like, yep. Yeah, he had a rat tail too, I think.

Yeah.

I remember the Nike swoosh was really popular, like shaved into the back of your head when I was in elementary.

Bowl cuts.

Bowl cuts. Man, I. I just feel for middle school. I think it's just a tough time.

Did you ever have like, we had like a band or like a boy band come to the school and put on a performance about like, it was like, they were like, they'd come to the school and do, I can't remember their name, but they'd come to school and they would do like anti-drug stuff, don't do drugs. And I remember, there was like one part they would, a couple of them would do karate and stuff. And we thought that was so cool, man. I bet you did.

I can see it on you. I'm shocked you didn't join a boy band after that.

Dadgummit.

Probably got to quit rambling. We probably need to rally.

So let's rally. So, you know, I always looked back to our, I enjoyed like the first. Yeah, it's like it's a new opportunity for me to do good.

I got to see all your friends.

Yeah, I got to see my friends.

That was the main thing.

But usually I'd fall into my old ways, get my name down, get detentions.

You know what? I never got D Hall ever.

Well, I. But I hated getting in trouble. Like I don't. I didn't think it was possible. I was like, they had, I remember in first grade, they had the Panda Club, which is like on Fridays, if you didn't get your name down, you got to go be in Panda Club and they'd watch a movie or do something fun and have a little party. I think I got to do it like once. Once or twice the whole year. And then in kindergarten.

You're truly showing out.

And then kindergarten, like, you get your name down once is like 5 minutes off recess, 2 times, 10 minutes, three times, that's full recess. I never got a full recess, but I got 10 minutes.

You never got a full recess.

Never got full. No, I never got to like losing the entire recess. But I think a majority of recesses, I had to sit at least 5 to 10 minutes.

What would help, because I think kids just have a lot of energy and that's why some are getting in trouble, is instead of removing time off recess, they should have to run like ups and then die. Because it just seems like And that's not always the case, but some of your smartest and your most energetic kids seem to get in a lot of trouble because they can't stay still or, they're bored or something like that. And it's almost like if you could give them a major challenge, that may help. I don't know. Just a thought.

That's what we'll start doing when they're acting up at 4-8 stuff. Get out and run.

Five laps.

Five laps.

We don't have much acted on, thankfully.

Well, next time they do, I'm using that. So you got I lead. You start I lead.

I start I lead this week. I'm in cohort 6.

And I'm graduating from cohort 5.

So tell us a little bit about what you've learned.

Learned about how I'm an improved leader. You want me to give you my quick tips on how to take charge of a group? real quickly.

Sure.

To where everyone looks at you and thinks that you're the leader. Oh, man, that's a leader.

Yeah. I need to know this.

All right. When there's an opportunity, like this, you know, they put you in a group and they're like, all right, we need you to write down ideas. If you'll be the writer, bam, people think you're the leader right away.

Okay, because you took the initiative to just write everything else.

Just be like, yeah, I'll be the writer or I'll be the scribe. And like usually you'll get up and you listen to. And so Then you're not having to come up with a bunch of ideas. You can listen to other ideas, write them down, gives you a second to think, and then you be like, oh, what about this? And then all the info, and so they're kind of looking at you to give the presentation. You got to be able to do that too. You can't wuss out then and be like, I can't talk in front of people. You just got to hop up and do it.

And that's your tips.

That's my tips. Just do it.

Automatically look like a leader.

Look like a leader. Two things.

We'll see.

Showing leadership.

I'm afraid they couldn't read my handwriting.

Don't matter. I have about the worst. I'll write in cursive, sloppy cursive. Like when I'll start.

I kind of do the half cursive.

Well, if it, I'll start writing in print and then I'll start moving to half cursive. And when they start saying a bunch of words that I don't know how to spell, that's when I really start writing cursive.

So they're not sure if you spelled it correctly or not. That's one way to do it.

Yeah. So tips, tips. So What have I learned? I guess one thing that I wish I would be better about is networking, I guess, because.

You had a lot of opportunity to network.

You do have a lot of opportunity to network. Like you're going all around to looking at the different stuff that extensions got going on throughout the state, different research stations, extension centers. And, but I'm not a networker, so if you are, that's what I'd give you advice, like get to know some of the people a little better, but. you'll learn, it's all about different personalities is what a lot of this, the first part is. Yeah, how to navigate some personalities, learning what your personality is, learning what other people's personalities are.

Work through that one section you brought back, some of the true colors, and we did it here at the office, and we all three have different main personality traits.

But then it's I don't know. Like you'll learn some conflict resolution towards like, that's one of the like the later things we did. You do have a service project that you pick. What are you thinking?

I already know. I'm already thinking 4H leaders, like trying to volunteer, volunteer, trying to like promote, build up, like explain effectively how to lead a 4-H club in a way that's beneficial for the leader of the club, the members, just trying to promote that and but support them in a way that they can continue and feel supported. So try to grow a few leaders up out of here.

Okay.

That sounded a little funny, but try to get more 4-H leaders for our kiddos.

Sounds like a good plan. I think it'll be good. Yeah, we were talking like our age group. What are we, millennials?

We're millennials. We're a little bit on the older millennial side of things.

Older millennial.

Well, you were saying like we don't volunteer that much, but I think it's because a lot of us are in the heat of busy kiddo times and that's kind of hard to find. But if your kids are doing.

Yeah, if your kids are interested in, you know. volunteering for what they're interested in, you're more likely to do it. 4-H, there's something, for everybody. The point of 4-H as a youth organization is to teach kids, help them find what they're interested in. There's all sorts of different projects that one way or another, like even if you're like a sports kid, you know, that's healthy living, physical fitness. there's a project there that somehow you could fall into 4-H and then you also get out of 4-H what you put in. So if you're not really, you're just signed up in name, you sign up and don't really.

You're not involved.

Not involved. You're not going to get a lot out of it. But I mean, look at some of the kids that have been involved. They've got to go to South Carolina, they've got to go to Louisville, they've got to go to Tennessee, Kansas City and Denver and one of them been in Alabama.

Yep. Or was it Georgia?

Georgia.

It was Georgia.

Yeah. So a lot of opportunities for fun stuff out there. And I think it'll be cool. See what you can do. My project was the, you know, building a community garden, working with master gardeners and facilitating some leadership over that. And I selected something that it's like a multi-year over the course of my career adding to it. maybe it's cool by the time I retire, top deal.

Well, you don't want something so...

Yeah, I didn't want to blow it up real big and then it, you know, it gets unable to build. Yeah, I want a slow build.

So Stone County Youth Leadership Program is something that started here in 2006, but it kind of took a little time off with COVID and I brought it back the 20 year. So this will be my third year already. Isn't that wild?

Wild. Are you enjoying it?

I do. I feel like it gives kids, you know, opportunities to consider careers because I feel like I was very narrowly focused on the availability of careers or the attainability of careers in Stone County. And so we have the youth leadership program. It is a 4-H program and I do have a board. I have Kim Lovelace from Ozarka College, Lily Boren from Centennial Bank, Larry Smith from Farm Bureau and I've had a couple others who've been on my board. So we focus on students that are going into the 8th or 9th grade and any homeschool or public school students in our county And we're focusing on team building. So we go to a ropes course. They learn about public speaking, a lot of tips on that. And that's one thing 4-H is really good about is incorporating public speaking into a lot of different areas. Also, they come up with their own volunteer project for the program. They learn about managing finances. So we go through the Get Real, Here's the Deal program. They learn a lot about banking. They get to talk to different people in Centennial Bank. And that's something that was probably the favorited one of this last group that I had go through. That was probably their favorite social media etiquette, dining etiquette. And that's always fun to do that. And we have several other things. There's usually a big event every other year. 4-H has a 4-H Day at the Capitol. So this coming year we'll have the official 4-H Day at the Capitol will be one of our events. And this past year, I made sure after public speaking that we went through the courthouse and spoke with electeds and some of their workers about what those different offices do. Because I don't know, I graduated and it's like, I was like, how do I, like I went to get tags for my vehicle. I didn't even know. You have to assess and you have to go. And so we learned all that and that was great. And I learned more from doing that as well. So we do this program about once a month throughout the school year. and they have to apply. And so those applications I'm about to send out to the schools this week as school's getting back in session. They're also available at our office and I'm gonna have them available at Ozarka College and most likely Centennial Bank. And you just apply. And that's also for you to learn about applications. I mean, it's all to help you build skills for the future. And so that's a fun program. And that was one of those programs that a lot of people had asked me to bring back when I started. And the timing, it just wasn't working, of course, with COVID. But then I was ready to get it going back. And Tyler helps with that.

I think that's the one deal that I was like, I don't really want to do much.

I think that's about the only thing that you've said. It wasn't that the program itself, it's that you had just really, I think, been burned. That's really what had happened. But it's a good program, especially I feel at that 8th and 9th grade time because although it seems like being a junior and senior is a long ways away and graduating, what am I going to do after high school? It's really a pivotal time to start really, truly considering that. And I love that these kids are getting opportunities to to start considering some options outside of what they may traditionally be. And also, how to be a contributing citizen in their home county. So with the volunteer work and getting to meet with your electeds. And it also always, the more you do, it adds to resumes. And one fun thing is, some of the kids we've gotten to pull into other areas of 4-H, several of them weren't members before. And And so, some have stayed and done more and some haven't, but that's the option that's available for them. And people say, it's a small town, we need more for our kids. Well, here's an opportunity for your kids in our town. And so Stone County Youth Leadership, the applications are gonna be due September 11th. Those will be coming out this week to the public school counselors, but are available at the Stone County Extension Office already and will soon be at Centennial Bank and Ozarka College. And And please reach out to them and please consider, and if someone that is of age or will be coming of age to join the program, please send them our way.

Yeah. So what type, I'll bump the table, what type of like leadership traits or leadership type are you? Like I think you'll get to learn about that.

I'm not sure yet.

When we did it, I think he'll probably do it again, or he, I would imagine, but Taylor Knox, he talked to us about the different types of leaders. Like my...

Yeah, you came back

and said, I came back. I wanted to be the autocratic. Yeah, that's the, like the authoritarian. Yeah.

You know, the older I get, the more I appreciate a leader that offers the support but gives you the opportunity to lead whatever smaller project that is even though you'll have like a common goal because a good leader is not going to be able to do it all and I've seen some people that do try to do everything every little detail and they just seem extremely high strung or stressed out or overwhelmed and I feel like an extension there's endless opportunities for you and so to do things And I think you can easily overwhelm and overdo and fizzle out. Whereas if you could be a good delegator and understand your limits and boundaries, you'll be able to set.

Well, as you go through that and you see like the sacrificial type leaders and the, what is it, laissez-faire?

Laissez-faire.

Laissez-faire type leaders. It's like, okay, I get it that you kind of have to know when to use those leadership files. And it kind of goes, you learn that. And I think that's kind of the big takeaway is like, because you're like, I'm not learning leadership. We're not practicing. It's like, well, that's what your service projects for is for you to practice the leadership. But then we're talking about, you know, the different personalities that, you know, what's your personality and the different personalities that are out there, how to work with them.

There's a lot of, I mean, everybody's so different.

are you more emotional? Are you more, that would be like a blue is like they're more, worried about what people think and how they're feeling and care about others.

Whereas maybe not so worried about what people think in a way that like makes them feel bad. It may make them feel cranky.

Yeah. Like a green is more analytical, like it's problem going to solve. I was an orange, which is.

No surprise.

Like, what would you call an orange? The.

Outgoing, energetic.

Yeah.

Wing it style.

Wing it style. Yeah. Outgoing, wing it style. And then gold is like very organized, operational. That's what Madison is.

And it's great.

It's so great. Yeah. And so I think we're not. You kind of leaned blue.

I did. I hate it.

So you weren't you we've talked leadership and I guess we'll kind of demonstrated our lack of maybe trying to we're trying to describe it yet it's like you'd be it seems like I'm like thinking half the time Man, I don't know what I'm talking about.

I think it's hard to describe.

I can't describe what.

Well, you were talking about the different styles and it's like, to me, you can't just be one. You've got to embody multiple to be a good leader. Yeah. In a leader, like you were saying, what works for certain people doesn't work for everybody. So it's really people reading and

But it is a skill that you can learn is what I think it's.

Yes, and I'm hoping to gain some skills. Yeah, I think I will. I think it's going to be good. There's a lot of people in my group and it's going to be a good week.

I think it'll be fun for you. But you said we're talking school lunches.

So we're talking about school starts tomorrow for our kiddos.

What was your favorite school lunch?

I remember in elementary, somebody made really good rolls. And then in middle school, there was this apple crisp, and it was so good. And I told the lunch ladies, like, this is so good. And one day they saved some for me because there was going to be a, oh man, that's why you tell people you appreciate them.

I don't know what it was, those little, did y'all have the little rectangle pizza?

I didn't like rectangle pizza. when we were in school, everything was still kind of homemade and it got a little, a little different.

Oh man, the pizza Marshall. Question was awesome.

Did y'all have chicken sandwiches?

I'm sure.

Did you crush up Cool Ranch Doritos, put on said chicken sandwich? That was so good.

I didn't do that. I do it on my, like if I make a sandwich at home.

You do that?

I put Cool Ranch Doritos on my sandwich. It's good.

Brandon wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for Cool Ranch chips.

Yeah, Cool Ranch chips and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. That's what I spot found.

That's some cereal. Do you remember Oreo O's? I love those. Those are good. Anyway, you're going to be packing a school lunch. So I've already seen a few parents posting like, what are you going to be packing for lunch this year? I need some ideas. And it reminded me of Tori Smith had done a blog post and I think she even did a news article, maybe a spot on television about how to pack safe school lunches for your child to carry to school. So if you would like to read her blog post in its entirety, how to pack a safe lunch for your child to carry to school by Tori Smith. So she had went through and basically did what I would call a demo to check the safety of different ways to pack a school lunch. And she did a cold lunch and she did three different lunch boxes with that and I'll go through that and then hot lunch and she did two different lunch boxes. So she wanted to see if the food stayed out of that temperature danger zone which is 40 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. So we're sending our kid to school with a lunch that is not going to be kept in her refrigerator or somewhere hot most likely for several hours before they're getting the opportunity to eat it. And so the first one she did is she did a commercial freezer pack to keep it cold and it was an insulated lunch box. Then in the blue lunch box, the second one, she froze the yogurt tube because its claim to fame was that if you freeze this yogurt tube and put it in with your food, it'll keep your food cold and then it'll be ready ready to eat at lunchtime. And then the next one, she in the orange, she used a baggie of ice because somebody may not have had access to a commercial freezer pack for that. Then on the hot lunches, she had a green lunch box where she put soup in a glass bowl. And she also followed, she noted that she followed lunch packing tips from Living Well on the Prairie with Shay Wilson. Even though she's not an agent anymore, you should still be able to read that article where she wanted to make sure that you included a protein, veggie, or fruit and a dairy. So then she had that green lunch box. She had soup in a glass bowl and then she had the purple lunch box where she used a thermos to keep the soup hot or it was supposed to keep the soup hot and the stainless steel thermos. So out of those lunches, which ones do you think stayed in a safe temperature range until lunchtime?

I don't know.

Any guesses?

None of them.

None of them. You've got it right. So they didn't even make it to the two hour mark. She had planned to go six hours. They didn't even make it to the two hour mark. So if you pack that lunch at 7 A.m. by 9 A.m. it was already in the temperature danger zone.

Which again is what?

to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. So you're either wanting to keep the cold foods below 40 degrees Fahrenheit and the hot foods above 140 or 135. It just kind of depends on what resource you're using.

But where would a sandwich?

A sandwich you would want it below 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

Okay.

So that's pretty concerning. So none of those lunches stay cold enough or hot enough. So what can you do to actually make sure that you are keeping those lunches cold enough or hot enough. And so the USDA recommends using two sources of cold. So that's straight from the USDA for packing your lunch from school. Like that's a tip from them. So only one cold source is not going to be enough. So you want to create almost like a sandwich in effect. You want like a freezer pack, maybe freeze your water bottle. It mentioned freezing your juice package or if you put juice or like I was thinking of there's like a brand of little squeezy type in a silver package that we really like. Oh my goodness, Capri Sun, sorry, my mind went blank. We built our house on Capri Suns, but you need to freeze those. And I thought that's a great idea to help maintain that cold.

All right, on this, I have a story. So do you ever drink Sunny Delight, Sunny Dean?

Yes. Yeah.

I can't drink it anymore. Whatever it is. One time, like, We were staying over at a friend's house at Marshall and we got up and they had Sunny Delight for breakfast and I got the worst headache and I was sick.

Really?

Yeah.

And it was for sure from.

I don't know. I associate it with Sunny Delight.

And so I. It's funny how you associate it.

haven't drank it since and I see every now and then and I'm just like, is it even a thing anymore?

Yeah, I think so. I associate grape flavoring with medicine in a negative way where Brandon associates it in a positive way and loves grape flavoring because medicine had that. Yuck. Anyway, our little sidebar on school lunches. But so when you're wanting to pack the lunch and for it to be safe, is it insulated? So make sure you've got an insulated container that you're putting it in. Is it large enough to hold at least two cold sources and you want to try to like, you know, sandwich your stuff and have the items that are the most likely to be unsafe right next to that cold source. So 2 cold sources. Hot foods, so if you're going to be doing, I've seen a lot of people talk about those little insulated containers, either put chicken nuggets in that or chili or soup. Make sure that you're pouring hot water in that, like probably heat it up on the stove in that container to get it really prepped and warm. So when you're putting your food in there, it's not having to heat up the container. Because stainless steel transfers heat. So if you can put something in there that's already got that stainless steel warm, then your food is not going to be transferring the heat out of it into the stainless steel. So warm up water on your stove, pour into that container and get that prepped and hot. It's kind of like the same thought too with a cooler. If you can put a bag of ice in there, get it cooled down and then put your items in, they're going to keep better. Then we want to clean and sanitize that lunchbox every day. So we want to get those crumbs out, the spills. mold, we don't want mold or bacteria growing in there. I'm afraid you're thinking of another story. And don't reuse single use bags. So I wanted to get all that out before you told whatever story you're about to tell. But please be safe when you're packing those school lunches.

Well, I've got several ways that I could go with the story, but we've had that happen where mom on, I guess is on Tuesdays would bring Addie like a lunchbox for ballet and stuff. And she'd one time she'd, I guess, forgot it. And it's like, what is that smell? And then it's like, it's that. I just kick it outside.

Just throw it away.

Yeah, go throw it away. But then you got thinking about this and I told this story on the vet science tour to the youth of the youth. So they got a kick out of it. I don't know.

I bet they did.

So thinking of smelly things.

Smelly smells that smell?

Smelly smells that smell smelly. So when back in the day, working in the blueberries, you know, we had We did something that I figure most normal teenage boys would attempt something about.

Oh no, are you really about to tell this?

The bag of smells? I can't believe. Yeah, so. Well,

I'm thinking about the college jar of smells, but I don't think it's as nasty as the bag of smells.

Hello, it's Tyler Cass and just quick warning, the next like 3 minutes of this video, It's kind of a gross story and we gag during it, but it is funny if you want to listen. But just if you get an upset stomach pretty easy, you might want to skip ahead. Again, it's about 3, a little over 3 minutes long. Well.

Or no, I think the bag of smells was not as nasty as what.

I don't know if I should tell the bag of smells.

Don't tell everything in the bag of smells. Like I don't.

So. What it was like it was somebody's tobacco spit bottle.

I don't know if I can make it through this already.

And so like one day I found that spit bottle underneath the seat and it had been hot. It was hot and steamy. And I opened that thing up. I opened that thing up and it It stinks. I'm pretty sure I took it. I took it and blew it in Dustin's face and he's like, oh. And so we decided we're going to try to make that thing as stinky as possible throughout the year. And I mean, we added all the work stuff to it. A boy on cue, but one point and just random stuff. It was bad. Anyways, how did we get on to the bag of smells?

Because of the stinky lunch box.

Yeah. So anyways, be sanitary.

Yeah, I remember a hose jar of. smells in college. It looked very smelly. I don't know if I'm recovered. And you know, I was thinking too, not just school lunch. It's like, you know, if you're packing lunches, you're a blue collar person or somebody who just packs a lunch and you're out where you can't keep it, you know, in a refrigerator, these tips will work for that too.

But yeah, so

So back to the bag of smells. When you're making your bag of smells.

Yeah. So I guess how, I guess to close it out, the bag of smells, it was bad. Like, I guess that's just what to say about it. Telling the story.

I was thinking about the time I accidentally drank dip spit. It went down. See, it is funny. I don't know if my laugh escaped. The donkey laughed and got out on me. Try to keep that in.

I could actually probably leave this in. On that note. On that note. We've covered several topics.

We've got a little bit of everything today.

Yeah. But it seems like, Really, it's like prime summer, really. Still like a month and a half, I guess, left.

That's what Vernon keeps telling me that it's still summer.

Yeah, we're, I guess, technically halfway through summer. But.

To me, summer's over in schools here.

Yeah, summer's over and it's fall, pretty much. And so we're kind of in that transition zone. So I did want to kind of clear some stuff up. Last week we were talking army worms and I'd mentioned, homeowners need to keep a lookout, especially if you've got like Bermuda grass in your lawn. But I did want to say like the types of insecticides that a homeowner is going to be using is going to be different than say ones I mentioned. Those are for pasture and hay fields. Permethrin. I think is one that's labeled for lawns. What's that one that I always tell the story about? It's permethrin, I think.

Clearly I forgot the story.

Yeah, well, I tell the story about how people call about how wanting to use this product in their pasture because it's labeled for armyworms, but it's only labeled for lawn use. I'm pretty sure it's permethrin. But so we'll kind of want to clear that up if you're a homeowner looking and you do notice army worms out there products you're going to be using a little bit different You can give us a call at the extension office if you do have questions because again everything is so, your operation, your home type deal for what works. It's so dependent that I can't on a podcast give a broad recommendation, but that's kind of what we're doing with this is trying to get you to think about things and looking at the educational resources and the researched information. And so with that, we're moving into a transition where we're towards the end of where our warm season grasses are going to start going dormant and our cool season grasses are going to be starting to come on here at about September. We're in around the first week of August, second week I guess.

Yeah, second week.

Second week of August. So there's some things that we can do to prepare for say fall grazing. If we're going to be having livestock again on your operation it's going to be different especially when we're thinking about the stage of production your animals are in. But We probably want some form of fall grazing, right? We don't want to be having to feed hay. You know, we didn't just spend all summer cutting hay to have to start feeding it in August, hopefully, you know, weather dependent. It's rained here and there. We got a little bit of a rain this last Thursday. So it's rained here and there a little bit throughout the summer. So But not everywhere. I know some places were dry. I went to, I had to go to a place on the lower end of the county or I had to, I guess it was actually in Cleburne County. Amy, she was gone. So I kind of ran over and looked at a pond for her, for a guy. And they, like it rained on me on the way over to this place and it was dry when I got there. But So do, what is our fall grazing availability? Our warm season grasses, they're going downhill. If we're wanting to say stockpile Bermuda grass, this is like your last opportunity really this week. We'd want to put out like 50 to 60 pounds of nitrogen. First thing to do is, I think I've talked about stockpiling before, but you go out and you graze it or cut it low and then go out, fertilize 50, 60 pounds of nitrogen, let it grow up and then come in and start grazing it in October just to kind of extend our hay season. It's like, so we make our last cut, you could do this with a hay field where we make our last cutting of hay, fertilize it and rather than come in and make a third or 4th cutting, we're going to just strip grazing, utilize the cattle to harvest it. And that'll extend some fall grazing for Bermuda grass. We want to have that eaten pretty much or grazed off by December. And then fescue, so fescue will be a cool season perennial type grass. tall fescues, we have a lot here in Stone County. The majority of farms have some fescue on there. Problem with Kentucky, or yeah, Kentucky 31 tall fescue, which is what a lot of guys have, is it's got that toxic endophyte that if they consume enough of it, that it can kind of heats up their heats them up. They can have foot issues or their fur will get fuzzy or their tail will fall out and then they don't gain as good of weight. But in that it's a good forage that's usually from consuming the seed like once it puts on the seed heads. I may be thinking something different. I'll edit that out. So but tall fescue is what's pretty common but I was looking So a lot of guys call me. Another option that's not, that would be a good option. Say you're going to go in, guys like to establish fescue. September, October is kind of the prime time for establishing cool season grasses. So if you haven't done a soil test yet, be sure you kind of have an idea of what your soil fertility is. but we're at the timing for going in and establish if you wanted say some perennial grasses for to cover your grazing or having forage safe in the fall and then early spring, we're looking at some sort of cool season grass, whether that's tall fescue, orchard grass, those are a couple of perennials. Or we can fill in with, say, some annual grasses like rye grass or some of the cereal grains like cereal rye or wheat or triticale. Not a lot of guys, triticale, I'm not sure how to actually say it. Have you ever seen that? Triticale, it's like T-R-I-T.

I'm not the one to.

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

I'm not one to pronounce things correctly.

I don't know. I've always called it triticale, but I've heard people call it triticale. So let us know what y'all call it. Anyways, wheat, triticale, annual, or cereal rye, annual rye grass is a cool season, but it's not one of those cereal grains. People use it that way. One problem I do see with like rye grass is that like it seeds out and it kind of becomes prolific to volunteer back. And so if you're doing that in like a Bermuda grass field and we'll I guess talk about that. I guess back up we're talking about establishing some pasture mentioned or some form of grazing talks establishing cool season tall fescue orchard grass and then I was going to talk some of the problems with that and then I moved into the annuals but back up a little bit to orchard grass. We're kind of right on that zone to where say you do plant it. is a perennial but it seems to go away here and there. Like if you're wanting to keep it a pretty established stand. one thing about that what I was reading is it's a little bit of a more heavier fertilizer feeder than say tall fescue and so if you're doing say a mixture of orchard grass and tall fescue over time that tall fescue is going to outcompete it if you're not if you're not amending. So if you're noticing, I've put out, I've had guys call where I've planted orchard grass a few years ago and it doesn't seem like there's any left. Well, that's probably what's somewhat happened is that tall fescue doesn't require as much, you know, fertilizer to grow and it just kind of outcompetes it. And that's one good thing about that endophyte that because it allows it to kind of be proliferate and stay established here in this part of the world that we're in. So going, if, what am I trying to think? Oh, it's going to mention clovers. What do you, know much about clover?

Crimson clover over and over. There's white clover. There's red clover that's actually like purple.

Yeah, kind of pinkish.

I've always heard kind of mixed things on clovers.

So funny thing about clovers is like guys will have a bunch of weeds out like actual broadleaf weeds And usually what you're going to be applying as far as an herbicide is concerned is going to kill your clover. Guys are always worried about their clover and you go out and there's just like a little patch of clover. And it's like, But on clover, thinking about that, if you do have clover, it's a legume, fixates nitrogen from the atmosphere. It's going to be a little bit higher protein quality. It's good to have its diversity out there. That would be the best is to have a diverse mix of different grasses out there available and forbs, legumes. But clovers, what we're spraying to control broadleafs pretty much is going to wipe out clover. However, White clover seems to be a little bit tolerant to say 2,4-D amine. So if you're spraying less, if you spray less than a pint, or I think it's a quart of 2,4-D on white clover, it can tolerate it somewhat. So if you do like clover or want to have clover as an option in your operation, probably white clover is the way to go. It seems to be a heavy cedar, like even if you did kill it, like Comes back, comes back from seed pretty easy. White Ladino clovers. They're going to be a perennial. I was going to mention about that. So if we were, this were on the timing of establishing, they're also a cool season. September, October is a good time. But we have a fact sheet about, you know, rather than say we're going to go out and seed clover across our whole field. And the seeding rate on clovers is like 4 pounds per per acre of seed. So one study that our old forage specialist did was rather than spreading that out over, say, a whole acre, what if they just did it in some strips? So more likely have more seeds on a smaller space but you're going to have more germinate and you'll have those strips out there and then you can navigate, your spray operation somewhat. But strip seeding clovers is an option if you want it. But I was talking to one of our producers and he's asking about, he had fall grazing, but he's wanting something different than rye grass that he might could plant. for early spring grazing. So I think I was going to talk a little bit about some options since we're right in that time frame of getting the plan together within a month to plant this stuff in September. So any of the, if we're wanting some fall grazing along with some spring grazing, planting in the spring is a good option with some of those cereal grains like wheat or cereal rye. Oats is another good option but really we're a little bit too far north for oats to survive our winter. So if you wanted say some fall grazing you can plant those oats and in about 60 days they'll be mature and you can have fall grazing but what they've seen through trials is that they get a winter kill on them. Around 28 degrees I was reading they get damaged and so oats may not be the best option for fall grazing, but then early spring, it's something we could plant, January, February, and then it's going to come on and be there for us early spring pretty quickly. But wheat, cereal rye has to go through that process of vernalization where it has to go through that cold period to sprout and really pop if you want to use that. Good thing about it is they're not, they don't volunteer. So you're not going to have to be battling them because you'll have that with rye grass. Rye grass is a good option, but it's like in the spring you go and graze it and cut it for hay and it's like it takes it a long time to really go dormant and it's like it keeps trying to produce seeds and then over the course of the year you have a bunch of little volunteers pop up and then if you're wanting more of a say a pure Bermuda stand which that again depends on an operation. Ryegrass might not be an option. Have I made much sense?

No, you went through the perennials and then and then you.

So one thing about most of these cool season like tall fescue, orchard grass, they're larger seed and so you can use a no-till drill to establish them rather than having to go in and disc and prepare a, you know, well prepared seed bed, which is the book recommendation of how, because I guess mention how guys establish. Like they'll come out and they'll say, what if I put it in the fertilizer and just broadcast it? Well think about that, how that seed germinates is it's got to have good soil to seed contact. And if you're just throwing it out there on top of the ground, you're not getting good soil to seed contact. And you know, maybe some of them germinate, maybe some of them don't. If they do and it don't root good, that root dries up and then you've lost it. So when we, if we're really seriously wanting to establish something using good, proper practices, if that's, if we're going to go in and do, say, a broadcast application, going in and doing a well-prepared seed bed, and how I've heard it described is you want it, you know, to where when you step on there, it leaves like a footprint. And then we can go out and broadcast seed. When we're broadcasting seed we typically want to use a higher rate on things like on say like fescue. That's going to be like say 15 to 20 to 25 pounds per acre. Something like clover is going to be like 4 pounds where we get into like wheat, cereal rye, oats, triticale, they're all going to be like 90 to 120 pounds per acre. Rye grass is like 15 to 20 pounds per acre. And the rate's going to vary if you're drilling it or broadcasting it. Typically when we broadcast, we put a little bit more. Again, want that well-prepared seed bed or we can do a no-till drill where we just go in with the equipment and with a no-till drill and drill it in. You can rent those from most conservation districts. Can't you?

Yes.

You're being pretty quiet. Got anything?

I was just thinking how?

Got any thoughts?

My thoughts are the less that you have to feed hay bales, the better in my mind. And just like, I just think about it like, think about if you were a cow, wouldn't it be nice to have a variety?

Yeah, that's, let's try, let's try to extend our grazing.

It's a goofy, but I think like really think about preferences and just, I mean, it's a lot to do hay and feed hay. And if I could just extend that out and my animals are still getting or getting maybe better nutrition, that just seems optimal to me.

A lot goes into play. It's planning and somewhat lucky with weather. Like the past few years, it's been really extremely dry. And so yeah, I've had dry falls and it wouldn't have made sense to try to establish something in say September. So speaking to that, what happens if we can't hit that September date for establishing? You can establish these cool seasons grasses, cool season forages in the spring, but we wanna be careful. Like I mentioned, any of those cereal grains like wheat, rye, they have to go through that vernalization. And so for spring, we wouldn't wanna do that. Rye grass is an option in the spring. Oats is a really good option in the spring. There's spring oat and winter oats, both of those in the spring would work great. Again, they mature in about 60-ish days, so they're pretty fast growing. If you're wanting to cut them for hay, say you're not so much worried about grazing, but you want some early hay, oats is an option. Planting that rye grass in the early spring, like February, will allow it to say not be so mature. Like if we plant it in the fall, it's likely by the time we get around to cutting it in the spring, it's going to be too mature that the quality is not going to be as good. I think we've talked about that before. So, but there's options. Again, each farm's different. You can contact us and come up. Main thing is you kind of want to have a plan of what you want to do. And we're talking about it now so you can have time to plant it. Really what they say is like, you know, you want to plant a year in advance, but.

Weather makes that tough.

Weather makes that tough, but we're at the time frame of September's the timing that we want to do a lot of this stuff for establishing some cool season, say perennial grasses or if we're wanting to overseed. if we've just got warm season grass, if we just got Bermuda grass and we want to extend our grazing, plant in an annual cool season, it's going to help us right away. I was going to mention if we are planting into existed sod like Bermuda grass and we're going in and no-till drilling it, if you leave that Bermuda grass tall and where it can and still, you know, green, it's going to outcompete whatever you put there and you're going to lose a lot of it. So we really want to suppress that Bermuda grass and we can actually force it to go dormant by applying some glyphosate. The rate on that is like a pint to a quart per acre of glyphosate and it will suppress that Bermuda grass and force it to go dormant and then you can come in and drill into that and then whatever you that gives it.

And what time of year would you need to do that? What are you saying right now?

So like I would want to suppress say my Bermuda grass at least a week before planting.

So it wouldn't take that long.

Yeah, don't take that long. But it's something you know, you need to plan on like, okay, do I if I can go ahead and just graze this Bermuda grass or if I can cut it for hay or I can do something with it, get it off of there, and then say you do cut it for hay, we want to wait for it to green up slightly. It's not like when we're targeting say Bermuda stem maggots where we got to get it within that 7 to 10 day period. We wanted that Bermuda grass to kind of green up somewhat and then come in with like a pint of glyphosate and force it to go dormant and then come in like a week later drill into that. And usually timing for fall grazing we're shooting for mid-September. You can For say seeding in general in the fall, I wouldn't go much past November. Like if you get into December and January, just wait till February. But I've had, I have had yaws that have planted in November and it'll come up. But it, for like say rye grass or cereal rye and wheat to go through that cold period, into November, I've had guys be successful, I guess.

That's another, depends on the weather.

Depends on the weather. So lots of options out there for you, but we want to think about extending our grazing season, adopting rotational grazing. Again, if we can, if we do the stockpiling and then just turn them all in there to run free, without limiting them, they're going to trample that, be picky, and then they're only going to utilize a percentage of what they could have. So being smart about it.

Makes sense?

Makes sense. Well, hopefully you made it through this episode.

Hopefully you can pull something together out of a few hours of recording.

Yeah.

Oh man.

Alright, any other words of wisdom?