Ep. 30 - Drought Conditions, Be Aware & Talking About the County Fair

It's the 30th episode and Stone County Extension is back at it bringing you researched based information and talking whats going on in Stone County Arkansas.  This week updates about the Stone County Fair.  

The County Fair is a stressful time for County Extension Offices all across the State and Stone County is no different.  Anna talks about bringing entries to the fair and what judges are looking for so you can make sure you're bringing items to win that prized Purple Ribbon.  Tyler gets somewhat triggered about complaints & past experiences.

Also drought could be a very real concern soon and Tyler gives some management practices that producers could implement to get them through a  drought. 

Transcript

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How's it going? We're here. Stone County Extension saves the world. It's August and it's hot.

It is hot.

It's like 110 degrees.

We went to the races. I've not been to Batesville Motor Speedway ever. And the heat index was 114 when we went.

Addie actually went.

Whitney saw her.

Did she? Yeah. she was with her buddy. I think her dad races.

That's what we were wondering. I don't know if they were in that race in particular is what we were talking about. Whitney knew, I think it's Hasland maybe.

Yeah, Hasland.

But we were at the topless 100. Like I said, I've lived here. You know, I'm A Stone County girl and I've never been. And I didn't know what a hot lap was. I learned all kinds of things. And it was really cool when all the engines fired up and were moving around. But it was hot. So.

And with it being hot, that's kind of what I thought I'd talk about today is kind of dealing with drought stuff, but we'll get into it a little bit later. Like I know that the grass in my yard is really dry. That fell. Your stuff's falling.

There's always something. Oh man.

So anyways. We'll get reset.

It's going to be one of those days, Michelle. It's because I'm here.

And so we're in, I'll be talking a little bit about drought today and then the Stone County Fair's coming up, our favorite time of the year. Stone County Fair will be the first week of September and.

It's always a busy week.

I think you're talking a little bit about some stuff with the fair today.

I am going to talk a little bit about your fair entries and then putting your canned goods in the fair. I had a person come in this week wondering what the judges look for. So I'll give a few tips on that. I do help teach fair judging schools and those are a lot of fun. If that's something you think you might be interested in, let us know. There's always people looking for fair judges, especially like quilt judges. That's one of the hardest ones to find.

A quilt judge.

A quilt judge.

What old, do you know what they have to judge on? Like what are they?

Well, you know, I'm not as familiar with quilts, but they're going to be looking at stitching and the fabric and like they'll know, they know what direction you went if you switched up directions or you changed and just overall, you know, quality and fabrication. But I feel like you really have to be good at the craft to understand what you're looking for.

Yeah, I could judge. That's a nice quilt. And then I'd take it and put it on. Oh, this one's warm. That's a good quilt.

Oh, that's a good quilt.

That's a blue ribbon. Put on another one. This one's not so.

Oh, that would be your criteria.

This is not so warm. Not so comfy.

When you have someone that's really good at a really good judge who knows the craft, they really teach you a lot. It's nice to walk around with another judge if you're interested in and that kind of thing. Or say that you like to enter those items and you're like, why am I not getting that first place ribbon? And so understanding their theories and what they're looking for really helps.

Do you know how to sew?

Not really. I can do a little. That's one thing I would really like to learn and be better at is sewing. It's interesting how the arts kind of what, that kind of went through a phase, it was uncool.

Yeah.

And now it's back.

It's back. I like to watch guys on YouTube like sew their shirt, like make their own shirts and stuff.

That's pretty cool.

I think I'd like to learn.

Well, I think Brandon would do really well, especially like when you're talking about the patterns.

Yeah.

And you know, you're taking construction of the item that you're making. You know, there's some math and some thought definitely put into that. So.

As we roll into it, do you got anything coming up updates that you want to kind of give? We're kind of in for ag stuff. I'm more going out on farm visits. So don't have too many like educational programs this time of year. It'll probably be more into the fall when I start kicking those out.

Yeah, what I have coming up is I talked last week about youth leadership applications are due September 11th, if you have any 8th or 9th graders in the county, homeschool, public school, we'd love to have them. It's a great program. And also on Tuesday of next week, we have a shooting sports interest meeting for 4-H and we're bringing shotgun back because you do archery And then most of my stuff kind of gets rolling again post-fair. So Mediterranean cooking, I have a class right before the fair, but it's already full. So I'm going to hit that in September. So that's going to be kind of my fall thing as Mediterranean cooking. And then my cooking club, 4-H cooking club starts back in September.

Where are y'all doing the, or where's the meeting going to be, the interest meeting?

The interest meeting is going to be at the Stone County Extension Office at 205 Martin Street. And we're the Rock Building and it'll be at 530 on August 25th. So hope to see you there.

Are you doing any first shot fundamentals? Are y'all just doing like interest meeting?

We are purely interest meeting, answering a lot of questions, probably trying to figure out a good meeting date. And you know, this will be Brandon's like first 4H meeting in his life. So it'll be good for him. It'll be fun. It'll be good.

Yeah. We can take a break if you want. So let's see. Well, as we get into the educational, or before we get into the educational, you wanted me to talk a little bit about iLead. Well, so I've graduated. What iLead is, like the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture's kind of internal leadership program. It's a year-long thing and there's every other month there's a session and we go somewhere around the state, look at like a research station or an extension center or a research extension center.

I didn't know there was a difference until...

And see, meet a lot of people, see different things, but this, what was it, past Thursday?

Yes, you had your.

We had our graduation and we went up and talked a little bit about our I lead projects kind of that's the last thing is you give a little presentation and mine was about the community garden and I try to make my stuff funny when I'm presenting. I had I like to put in some gifts or jokes and And then I had pictures of our little cat that we had found, little fuzz or little bit.

That was in somebody's car around.

Yeah, it was in Samantha Barker's car. Like we get up to leave in the October deal from the hotel and we're carpooling and she's like, Tyler, I think there's a cat under my hood. And she popped it and sure enough, there's a little kitten there. We're trying to decide what to do with her. And one of the guys had called some shelters and, you know, little things like crawling around on. us and being all cute and stuff. And then I was like, what? I'll keep this thing. It's coming home with me. It's coming up with me. And she's been a good cat.

Yeah, you had a lot of pictures of her. It was funny. Just when you thought you, it's like she had so many photo ops in the PowerPoint. That was great.

But talked about the community garden. I think we're sitting pretty good. We've got 8 raised beds out there right now. I think a couple of more folks are wanting one and we can build as as people want one, what we're doing with those raised beds is, you just let us know. We're not charging right now. We're just trying to grow this naturally, but it's your bed, your 4 foot by 8 foot raised bed that you can grow whatever in. And it's good for about a year. And as we grow, it may turn into, we have to have some rules and we may have to, you know, do rental something. I don't know how it's gonna go. It's just.

I've seen some good stuff come out of this.

It's going pretty good. And so I'm excited about that.

And it's also an educational place for you.

Yeah, that's what I use it a lot for, is to do educational programming. That's why I wanted to build it.

We have our asparagus class, you know, we grow up preservative kind of classes we do.

So it talked about that. What all y'all do? You started. It was your first eye lead.

Yes, it was my first eye lead. So day one, we got photos and then Dr. Molinais spoke. He's more over the AES side.

Yeah, so Dr. John Anderson, he's over the cooperative extension and then Dr. Molinais, yeah, research, or the AES?

Yes, so Dr. Molinais spoke with us and then Dr. Anderson and they talked a little bit about what they do, but then their leadership and where they've kind of progressed through to get to where they they are. And Dr. Mullinay talked about how he realized he needed to gain more experience in leadership as he worked his way up through. And Dr. Anderson spoke and he spoke about what qualities he believes is in a leader. And we all kind of worked through that and we did true, no, we did real colors is what it is now. And You had done that last year and brought that to us. And that's like a personality kind of assessment. And it's always funny because I'm always complaining that I'm a blue, which is really ironic for a blue. But it's great to understand. And one thing we got really onto as a group was how emails are worded. And it was funny, the gold group thought the blue group was kind of ridiculous because I say like, I like my emails to start out with like, good morning, good afternoon. And then I kind of go into my subject and they're big on sending like one line. I need you to do this.

Yeah.

And we all said like we consider that's aggressive.

I never know. Like I'm always like, hey, so and so. Hey, how's it going?

Well, I just like revert back to if I was having an actual conversation to somebody, how would I start? And when I worked in construction, if you called somebody and just immediately started talking about what you needed, I don't know it like it just rubbed people the wrong way. But if you said, hey, do you have a minute to talk about this? they're a little more open to talking about it. Yeah, or they might say, what, I'm really in the heat of something right now. I'm going to call you back in a little bit. And now if I call them back, or they forgot to call me back, it might be a little different next time. But, it's just funny. We were talking about how you conversate and the different communication styles and how that relates to our different personality types and, you know, how the golds, they're very list task oriented. The blues are more into emotions and feelings. The greens are really problem solving, which was interesting. The bulk of like the researchers were golds and greens.

Yeah.

And like, I think it was me and almost everybody in my group was agents. And then there was one orange. Who was that? was Lane. And she does a lot of like the 4-H camp. So she has photography camp and what was the other one? performing arts. And I'm actually like a blue orange, but I'm more orange. That's what I am. Yeah, I'm more, no, you're orange.

Well, I'm orange, like I scored high on orange, blue, and green were all pretty close, but I'm an orange. And then gold was very low.

Gold was very low and my green is getting lower as I get older. My problem solving, I guess, is going down, but I feel like I'm more orange at home, which is more outgoing. And so we did that. was our first day. And then we had an evening session too. And then the second day was the ropes course. And normally they.

How'd that go? Did you get up there or did you, were you scared?

Historically, I'm scared of heights. And I, what is that, 15, 20 feet off the ground? It's way more than 10, I'll say. And I went up there and I made it through multiple obstacles And, but man, that Tarzan swing, I just, I had like 2 false starts. Cause there's nothing, like it's just a rope and you're hanging on. It doesn't even have a knot for your feet. So I was nervous about that. But I finally like, I finally went like Camel was like, you can do it. I'll grab you. And she had to grab me or I would have been, I'd said I'd still be hanging up there. And then?

Is she in your group or was she just?

No, she's in our group. And we had a large group. We have like, I think 20 people. And then I finally got over to that and then it was Rupesh's turn. And so, but we all had to help each other. Like we all were like explaining how we got through that obstacle or you have to watch each other clip off. And so that's where the teamwork elements and He did that one and I think he was like, I'm good. I conquered my fear. Well, I tried to move on and then I started to get stuck on one and I started to get the shaky legs and I was like, I can't do it. I can't, get off of here. And so, someone come get me. I don't know how they're gonna, I don't know how that little old David was gonna get me off of there if I got stuck. And so they helped talk me out of that one and I was like, I think I'm good. I feel like.

Did you zip line?

I did. And that made me a little nervous too because you kind of drop down and go. But I was really proud of myself for doing all that. And everybody, I mean, the participation was very high. There's only a few that weren't able to do it. And then that afternoon, we did some other problem solving and they said, like we had two groups on platforms and we had to, there wasn't enough boards to truly easily get across. And you had to work together and like one group, they dropped theirs. And then we ended up what did Ryan say? He was the sacrifice. He fell off with the board and then you had to like, you had to open this deal and it decided what you did. Well, thankfully he was able to come back, you know, because it was like floor is lava.

Yeah.

And so But apparently it's not uncommon when they have adult groups there that they get mad and yell at people for dropping boards and stuff. And I thought, this is just a team building exercise. This is it.

Trying to work together, learn to work together.

Like the floor isn't really lava, but they all work together. And I felt like I wasn't that big of a help on it all. But I was like, yeah, that'll be good, you know, encouraging.

Are you a yeller?

No, I did go, oh no, when the board fell.

I think I need to yell more. I think as far as leadership, I think I need to start yelling and be more angry. I think that would help us a whole lot.

How? Us.

Yeah, help run this office. If I just come in and just started yelling.

Yeah, that's not going to work out well for you. I'm screaming. Anyway, enough of that.

It might. We should try it. I'll try. I'll start yelling.

And then we had an activity in the afternoon. We stole a golf cart at the 4-H center.

Watch out.

We didn't really steal it. We borrowed it. You weren't supposed to walk like you had to count your steps and you were going to lose if you were stepping.

Yeah, you should have just took it and then just drove, drove out of the 4-H center and just drove to Little Rock, drove down Ferndale.

And a golf cart.

Yeah, that would have been fun.

We just borrowed it, but it was really good team building. You know, we had to work together to get it started and all that kind of stuff.

Good team building. Like I think doing something mischievous. I think that's what we're going to do next year as a team building is We're gonna go out and toilet paper someone's house in the evening. I think that would be good team building.

That's an expensive team building.

Or we could throw dough.

Oh gosh, better not. Well, it was good team building. And then Pictionary was a lot of fun. And I mean, we were like 8 to 830. You know, these are long days, but I felt like the group meshed really well. It was great to get to know everybody. And then the third day we went, are we getting close on time?

We got a minute.

Okay. And then the third day we went and toured the state office and then the system's office, which I didn't know existed.

Yeah, I didn't know that existed until we got down there.

Yeah, that's where Dr. Fields is and then the president of the university.

I'm not certain. I don't know. Or if it was the president of ULL office.

I'm not sure, but Dr. Fields is there and Christina Brockenridge.

You got the tour, you should more recent.

I got a tour of a lot of things and I don't remember every detail. But we talked about what projects we were wanting to do and everybody had really good projects. And I thought, man, and then we got to listen to all of y'all's projects. And I thought, how are we going to get through all of my classes?

Yeah, we got 8 to 10, or 8 to 12 minutes, I think is what it said. So I don't know. I'd limit y'all.

There's 20 of us, and if they gave us 5 minutes, it's 100 minutes straight.

I can tell you, they're like, invite whoever you want to your graduation. I ain't coming to yours.

What a leader. Yeah. Because it'll be long. Yeah.

How about coming?

Well, and then that afternoon, we had really talked about our definition of a leader. And what was interesting is we had five different groups and honesty. ended up in it. And then we really debated that one because it's like, honesty alone may not be the best leadership quality depending on how you use it. But the definition started out with trust. And so when you laughed, yeah, I was thinking about how Somebody in my household is a little too honest.

A little too honest. So, but anyway, what was it he said when he was cutting his hair? That one's the best burn I've ever heard.

Tell him that. Why not? It's funny. Well, I will. So, yeah, because the first part, I wasn't meaning it like a negative. I was just stating a fact. But I cut Brandon's hair, my husband. I was going along the side on the front and I was like, and I was trying to figure out how to deal with the hair because there's not a lot right there. And I was like, you're getting a little thin right there. And he's like, you're getting a little thick right there. I was like, man.

Then you go.

I wasn't. No.

Give him a bowl cut.

No, he promised that my eyebrows and part of my frontal of my hair would be gone if I ever purposely did that. And I think you can both know he'd do it. So he, at first he had thought my eyebrows, but they grow back so fast. I think he thought, well, that wouldn't work. So.

You should talk him into doing it again. I think they're going to come back since we've mentioned them. That's the next style.

You know, I would have never thought a mullet would have. come back. And it's been around a while now.

And that seems like how it went. Mullet was popular in the 90s and then it was the bowl cut.

When was the rat tail? Was it in between?

Bowl cut or the rat tail was in between the mullet and the bowl cut or they were all kind of right there like it was like mullet was going out and then it turned into the little rat tail and then it was.

What was that where just like the whole bottom of your collar basically you grew the hair long?

I mean, you could either call that a molot or a rat tail. And we're back on Triggered, the podcast. So we've had, we're going to be in the newspaper. You excited?

I'm excited about that. I appreciate them doing that.

Do you think we'll become famous in Stone County from it? will be walking and people will be like, hey, can I get a picture with you? were in the newspaper.

There's famous and then there's notorious. So I don't know which one it'll be.

Yeah.

Especially today.

Yeah. Well, Anna's got me in a mood. Yeah.

They don't need the deets.

You don't need the deets, but what was mentioning is the fair's coming up and the fair, it just puts me in the mood. You know, I get that everybody loves the fair. I liked the fair when I wasn't involved in it. I enjoyed the rides, hanging out, going to the livestock shows, walking around, seeing all what everybody brought. That's real cool. But then once you get involved and people start asking you questions and assuming and then blaming you for what they think's not quick enough. Yeah, get a little triggered.

Yeah, we have more of an educational advisory role. We don't have any.

We have no decision-making power. Pretty much what we do here at the extension office is just a good central location that the fair board can say this is where you can get your any your exhibitor number or if you want tags or easy place to pick up the catalog. It's a good central location that you can say. Other than that, we're advisors and.

And if you're looking for a **** to chew, it's not ours.

Well, I mean, you can chew on us, but I might tell you what I think afterwards.

Opinions are free.

Yeah.

Well, anyway, emotions tend to run high during the spare time. And that's the part that's not fun. Yeah, everybody's, you know, you get a bunch of, it's basically a competition. So you have a whole county competing against each other. You know, I guess that's what does it.

I know what does it. I don't know if you'll let me mention it. The money. The money is what gets everybody all cranky. Because in the livestock, they do, if you're a junior exhibitor, if you, depending on, you can make the premium sale.

Okay, I follow you.

And with that whole thing's what causes all the issues is.

And that's like a fair in general thing like.

People want to make the make the premium sale and it's that's where.

They forget too that it's the kids learning to raise this project.

Yeah, they'll say, like a lot of people will be like, it's about the kids, it's about the kids. And then they'll be the ones.

Then the parents are the ones that are.

Yeah, the kids are cool and the parents are.

They have such a good time in that barn.

Parents are misbehaving, you know.

Yeah, the kids have a big time in that barn.

Yeah, that's true. I'm looking forward to our contest. Do you have any funny fair stories?

My parents were both on the fair board, so I kind of grew up around the Stone County Fair. And I just remember I wasn't very teachable, I guess. It's like they would tell me stuff and like, don't wrap that, lead around your hand. That'd be the first thing I'd do. And my poor pig, I'd just slap him all around the ring. And I remember one time we were loading up the hogs to go to the fair. And we were at mom and dad's place and it was mom, granddad, Bob, my sister and me. And it was super muddy and I was young enough, I didn't have to be in there. So I'm just like watching and they're trying to load up a few. And then my sister's standing there and a hog just walks up behind her and just takes a big old pod out of her rear end. If you like on the cartoon where they're like, yeah, and they throw their hands back and grab, like that's what happens. And then when we pull in to unload, they're like covered in mud and stuff. So that was fun. I like it when the hog show gets wild. That's one of my favorite parts. I know it's not fun for the kids, but I like it.

Yeah, when they get a little bit rowdy and they run around the ring.

Like my dad would always make the noise. So I think that's fun. I like seeing all the chickens, all the canned goods, all the different veggies and stuff.

You go watch the beauty pageants.

No, I don't. That's not my jam. But you know, it is a lot of people, but it's not my jam.

I think it would be funny. Have you ever watched a beauty pageant?

Yes, I know exactly what you're about to say.

Have I said this before?

Not on the podcast.

Not on the podcast, but So I think it would be funny. I think this is what we should start doing at the Stone County Fair if we, we're wanting to make it more enjoyable, more fun. I don't know how enjoyable it would be for the participants, but for the crowd, I think that it would be great as if they judged beauty pageants like they judge livestock shows. Do you think that would be funny?

Funny, yes.

I think it's a good bit. I need to work it up.

I don't think that in practice it would go over well. I think it'd be, I think maybe if you had a group of men they might be a little more, they might take it a little better. I mean, if you had a breeding category, that would be, livestock judging.

You can separate your own categories, but the standards would be like, we have in livestock, it's like you have your breeding and then you have your market animals. But so in humans, we still keep the categories, young, Little Miss, Stone County or whatever it is, Miss Stone County. But then you have like the standards that you and so if you ever seen a livestock show like they'll get out and they'll be like all right we got a good pen or a good class of market hogs here I'm gonna go ahead and start the class with this one bear here the spot bear he's got good wide base and he kind of, you can see how he's got good spring of rib and track. I think we should do that. It is like, all right, I'm gonna place this class of Little Miss Stone County in first place here. We're gonna start with the little redhead. She's real tickled. She got a real good grin, nice smile, cute little eyes, and that's a nice dress. And she walks around, her daddy carries around real good. You can tell she's a well-behaved child. In second place, I'm gonna place this little brunette with curly hair. One thing I'd change about her is she kind of cried a little bit. You know, I'd like to make her behavior or her disposition a little bit happier.

We might need to work with her a little more on that.

Yeah, I might need to work with her a little bit more. And to round out to class here, we're gonna go with this little a blonde headed kid here, the blonde, the little blonde, she, just, you could, might could swap them here or there, but for me, it's just not gonna do. I think that would be funny. And then if you move up to like the, like the Miss America pageant, that's where it can really get.

Yeah, get exciting.

Get exciting. I think there's a bit there.

Might be a bit there.

But I think it would, that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna start my own beauty pageant. And that's how we're gonna judge, like a livestock show. Like where it's, you don't just announce the, you know, in our first runner up and second, our second runner up, first runner up and our winner, Like that little judge's score sheet, we talk about it. We give reasons why. Oh, man. The judge has to give reasons why they placed the class that way. I guess that's what the funny thing would be is that the judge has to give reasons why they placed the beauty pageant.

How you did the reasons, but man, you wouldn't talk about fired them up.

So I think that would be funny if there's something there.

It would definitely be entertaining to witness.

I just got a.

I think it'd be funny if like you had if say this was like an agent bit and you got 4 agents up there and then you talked about each of preferably male and you talked about each of them about their qualities. That'd be funny.

Yeah. There's something there. I just got to figure it out. But It's funny thoughts. Speaking of fair, you're in judging.

Yep.

You gonna judge?

I want to talk a little bit about, you know, mainly on canned goods, but entering your items into the fair. So one interesting thing I learned through the years of teaching fair judging is we judge based off of the Dutch system. So there's a Dutch system, an American system, which you probably know this because you've gone, you've done some fair judging.

Yeah, but people don't know.

Yeah, so the Dutch system, everything is judged on its own merit. And that's how we do that at the Stone County Fair. Now not all fairs in Arkansas do the Dutch system and the American system is say you have seven items in one class or a lot and but you're only going to place first, second, third and then the remainder are not going to receive a ribbon or they would only get a participation ribbon. But at the Stone County Fair we judge everything on its own merit with the Dutch system. Now Once you've judged your category, then a lot of times you'll pick a best of show from that. And then that's when you're judging them against each other at that point, which I have also seen in my, I rarely do this, but sometimes they do not even name a best of show if they didn't feel that one really stood out. One important thing is the fair catalog is available online right now and it's coming out this week, which today is the 17th of August, just for a little context of time. But you've really got to pay attention to what's required. So photographs have to be a certain size on a certain type of mat and that's very important and you don't want to get there that day and figure that out. So each item you're considering entering, make sure you go through that. a lot of people call it the tabloid and look at what's required and the amount you can enter into all these different categories. And so one thing that I've noticed is sometimes it's like, you know, why did you bring that in if you hadn't dusted it off, cleaned it up?

I've judged like horticulture and I guess kind of to interrupt you here with a funny story about judging. So I haven't been back, which tells me that they didn't like me. But Izard County, I was judging over there one time and I usually judge like the horticulture and that's pretty easy. For like horticulture, you have to look and there's a certain number of, say if you're bringing in okra, Depending on the ferret, maybe you bring in three okra, 4 okra, 5 okra for the set. It depends. But if there are sets of them, you want them to look uniform. Like you want them to look identical and look good. No blemishes if you're wanting that blue ribbon. But so one year I was judging in Desert County and I got done with the horticulture and they needed me to judge something else because they didn't have a judge for scrapbooks. Oh no. no.

You look like a scrapbook.

I guess. I meant the scrapbooks know what I'm looking for. So I get up there and I'm just like, yeah, I can judge. And so I'm looking through the scrapbooks and the lady that was there like helped like writing down what I was judging. Like I go through and Like I judged this one and there's like 3 or 4, so not many. And I pick one that I thought was the best. And apparently this lady that was helping me, she's part of the EHC and they had won it for like the last 10 years. With their struggle book.

And they lost because I picked a different one.

Oh no. And I haven't been back since.

You stopped for the win streak.

Yep. She's like, are you sure? I was like, I like this one.

That brings another point. I try to get different judges every year, but a lot of times our judges are EHC members. So I wonder if they just naturally.

Yeah. I don't know. They shouldn't have got me. I don't know nothing about scrapbooks. I was just looking at, you know, like how it looked, what looked cool.

Well, it may have, you probably did pick the best one as you saw it. And that's the thing about judging. There's a little bit of subjectivity. Scrapbooks would be tough. Caning, thankfully, is a lot simpler. I mean, because more rules and hort, it would be a little more simple to judge. But yeah, that's funny. Yeah. Well, there's probably a reason you weren't asked. But yeah, I don't bring in stuff with like blemishes and disease and bad spots or dusty or like canned goods. You really got to wash them off. And you just really need to know your categories and it's best if you can have your item already figured out what it's going into before you show up there. So if you can pop in and get some tags here at the office, but sometimes we end up running out of those. But know where you're entering it because it can be really overwhelming on check-in day. Because we do check in, when you get there, you are checking in your items. We don't have an electronic system, which I've seen the positives and negatives to those. But canned goods in the state of Arkansas, do you open them up and try the food? No. They're judged by visual inspection only. Now, taking that into account, if you have the dried food category, is it the judge's discretion if they want to try it? I can tell you, I've had some positives and negatives in that area. So When I've judged dry foods, the first thing I do is pop that open and take a sniff. And if there's any amount of like musty smell, which you would be surprised, there's no way I'm trying that. And then one time I popped it open, smelled good, but I didn't like look all the way around the jar. And then like I saw bugs in it. And I was like, be a little more careful. So the judge may or not may not be trying your dried items.

I'd be gagging.

Yeah. So typically when they're placing, just a little bit of idea what's in their head, best of show is going to have no mistakes and it may stand out in the crowd. So depending on the area you're in, really, you know, I don't know what's going to stand out in the crowd. First place, I typically the way I judge it is I allow one mistake. Second place, two or more. I usually don't like to give out the white thirds. It has to be kind of like a safety risk or something just major. And so with food preservation, one thing that gets people that they may not know is that it has to follow USDA recommendations. So I mean, if it's supposed to be pressure canned, it just kind of also depends on if it's labeled or not. But if it's supposed to be pressure canned, it better be pressure canned. If it's supposed to be water canned, it needs to be water canned. And any paraffin wax or plastic lids are not going to be taken. And the fair rules will usually outline what they're willing to take, but it does say follow the USDA recommendations. And that is the two-piece metal lid system, not the tattler lids or paraffin. Another thing that gets people too is like, I know and a lot of judges are going to know that like you're not supposed to can white nectarines. So if you enter in white nectarines, you're probably not going to get that blue ribbon if that judge knows that there's no USDA recommendations for that. So insert that with like, all kinds of different jams and jellies and stuff. So if you're entering in something odd like that, it may not go well. So just consider that in the canned area. And you're not supposed to can pasta noodles or rice. So if I see that in a canned soup, like I'm that's already a mark down. Also, quarter pint and half pint jars are not recommended by the USDA. So that's going to be a negative. This is a quart. So the quarter pints, they're like, they're really little jars. And then the half gallon, they're usually about this tall. So half pints, pints, and quarts. So this is This is a bunch of what not to do, so we'll talk about it. You also want those smooth sided jars, like the quilted jars are beautiful, but when you're trying to judge, you can't see as well through the quilted. Some fairs have more rules on that than others, but only the two-piece metal lid and ring system. It's a good idea for them to be the same color, but I don't focus really heavy on the brand of the lid and the brand of the jar because it's so hard to to get lids, but some judges may knock you for that. But my main thing when I'm judging canned items is the first thing I'm gonna do is check headspace. So if you're here or if you're watching on YouTube.

I see what that lady means when she's like, that is absolutely disgusting.

So first off, it really bothers me when people bring a dirty jar. And some counties have told me before we do fair judging that they clean them. And I'm like, I'm not. you should have brought it clean. Like other people brought it clean, you should have brought it clean. So that's kind of up to the superintendent's discretion. But this one's dirty. That's gross. And what had happened is it had overflowed. And so it's supposed to have a one inch head space. So that's from the top of the food to the top of the jar. And it looks like it's got like 3/4 to 1/2. So that's first off wrong headspace. So for me if your headspace is wrong you can't win best of show. And it has a lot of other issues so it's really nasty grimy. So make sure that you clean it. Make sure that you have the correct headspace and that's going to vary with whatever product you have. And then this one's just full of air bubbles. And then they like the products above the liquid and it's a different color. So this is probably like a third place. Like this one's pretty bad. It really shouldn't have even been accepted. But I can understand like when people are bringing stuff in, it's hard to like say no. I have had stuff unsealed before. So that's like a DQ. But yeah, head space. Liquid should cover your product. There shouldn't be liquid with like BBQ sauce or ketchup like it should be, you know, like a liquid above it. You know, it should be incorporated. mineral deposits. I've seen like mold because we're going to take the rings off and I've seen like mold and little bugs like around where the ring is. Tyler's like, what? I've seen mold inside. I've seen hair inside jars. So you really, you really got to look through. And then you want everything cut up uniform. So we want everything the same size. Okra and peppers, like whole ones are really tough to win because they're bad to float. they call it like fruit float is another issue. So if you've got that going on, I just wouldn't bring that one in. Another thing too, like green beans, like, you need all the stems off. If there's any blemishes, and you probably see that like when you're doing hort, like, you know, a blemish is gonna be automatic, probably red for you. So no messed up stems or decayed or sunburned, like sunburned spots, no stem ends and canned items. And then another thing that kind of throws people off sometimes like jelly, like it's supposed to be clear. So I'm going to hold it for the fair. Like if I make it at home, I don't really want to run it through the cheesecloth, but I'm going to hold it up to the light and look for all that clarity. So we're going to look for a clear product, nothing uneven, no like foam on top, like I'm gonna knock you down or knock you down a notch for that. If the top of the can item's darker, that a lot of times like a sign of over processing. So that's a negative. But then I've also seen like at the very bottom of the jar, like it was like corn one time and it was brown. So it kind of got caramelized. I don't think they had like a rack on the bottom that you're supposed to have. If anything looks like overly mushy, if those green beans look like they've just disintegrated, that's gonna be a negative. Yeah, no air bubbles, no foam. If you do pickles and things like that, they shouldn't have a lot of really much sediment. And the judges, like they're usually gonna have like a manual. And so like when I go to vegetables, I'm gonna flip over to the vegetable section and I'm gonna be looking at that. One thing, if you have something that was supposed to be gelled and it's not, just call that sucker a syrup. Don't call it jelly when it's like loosey goosey, you know?

Makes sense?

Yeah, I call that a syrup. Juice should pour, so we don't want it too watery or thick. No seeds or layering. So if you want to win, like if you want that purple ribbon, you know, make sure your head space is top notch. Riveting stuff. Yeah, I'm yawning. But I had somebody come in wanting these tips.

Yeah, it's good to talk about. I like we've talked. It's very competitive.

It does. Yeah, no rust on your rings either. That'll get you. I'm just kind of looking through my little thing, but you know, no seeds, no layering. It's always nice to have something, we talked earlier, I said something that stands out. So, what is that going to be? One year it was golden beets and one year Ashley folks had made this really pretty pepper jelly in it. like sometimes when you make a jelly like that, so pepper jelly has cut up pieces of fruit in it or pepper obviously. and sometimes it'll all the pieces will go right to the top. But she had followed USDA recommendations that worked out perfect and it was all throughout and it was really pretty. I think the judges know it was look like confetti in a jar. So it looked great. So anyway, whenever you're bringing something to fair, make sure that it's top notch. Like it's your best. It's your best eggs. It's your best your best squash, your best okra, they're uniform. Like you don't have dust on it. It's clean. You don't have smudge marks on your paintings, your drawings. And just think about that. But you know, it's fun as a kid entering a bunch of different things. And there's so many categories. Like people don't realize, you know, the amount of options and just food preservation and food prep. I know Whitney will be entering the King Arthur flowers.

So isn't that a pretty big contest?

That one's a fun one. I joke like Susan Carroll, one of my EHC ladies, I call it like the grand slam.

Yeah.

Like if you've won every category of King Arthur flour, so there's bread, cake, cookies, muffins, pie. I'm like said she's going for the grand slam.

Yeah, you do try that, don't you? Like the baked goods?

The baked goods. So that's one thing that's like tough now. You know, we have a lot of people with different dietary restrictions. So it's tough to find someone who's like fully able to try everything. But yes, you're supposed to try everything. And one year, one of the judges didn't try the King Arthur flower injuries. And so King Arthur flower, you win monetary prizes for first through third. And so that one's super competitive.

You can win monetary for horticulture items because the master gardeners for grand champion and they have like again, maybe not ever class or category will have a best of show, but there will be best of shows. And then master gardeners, they offer up a monetary reward if you get to that grand champion.

If you look, they have several monetary for juniors. So that's 18 and under for like the biggest or the giant category. I think they give money and like they have several things and phone's ringing. But the kids who do poultry chain, if you're in 4-H and you win, you get an extra, money added on from our office for grand and reserve.

Yeah. Well, I'm going to check that, see what they want. Well... Have you ever been shushed?

Man, it just like irritates you. Even if you do full deserved the shush. Shush.

That makes you want to say something to somebody and you get shushed. Be real loud then.

That's like working with kids, like that's on my list of don't dos.

Shushing kids.

Yeah, like, you know, young adult kids, like 4H members, like I try never to shush.

Young adult kids. Would they be called young adults?

You turned on me.

You turned on me. Well, she's turned on me earlier.

Man, it's so terrible having a coworker that's like, maybe that's not a good idea. Instead of, sure, go ahead and let the consequences find you. Was that not me showing leadership by trying to?

That was you blocking leadership. I was showing leadership by putting out there My complaints, but airing your grievances. But we were having a Festivus moment. I have a lot of problems with you people. Now you're going to hear about them. And Anna said, you can't say that. I said, I can't.

I did not say you can't say that.

This is.

I did not. Stop saying I said you can't say that. is not what I said.

She said, what is this, America where we have free speech? No, she said, this is a dictatorship and you can't say that.

You liar. I said you may have freedom of speech, but not freedom of consequences.

And I said, what consequences? Someone's going to be like, well, he shouldn't have said that, maybe. But I get what he was talking about. And that's interesting. I'm glad he did say it. But now I won't say it. All right, moving on. We've had, we were on such good behavior when Michelle was here.

We took a turn.

Yeah. Turn for, I don't know. I was telling, I got softball games tonight, and I was telling one of my teammates the other night, I was like, you know, we were talking about it.

About the pod.

No, not the pod, just Mischief. He's talking about something. I was like, it's fun to get into mischief. Like, why is that?

I don't know.

There's something about like being a little bit mischievous.

We got into a little bit of mischievousness at I lead and I feel like there's safety in groups when you're mischievous.

Yeah, I think that's good team building for real is.

Well, he said the rules were very vague. No one told me I couldn't or we couldn't. So we did.

Yeah. All right. Sounds cool. We got to move. We got to move on though. I got to get in a different head space. I saw a TV show and they were talking about head space and yeah, your blues really coming out today. Anna got me all riled up.

So when we were talking at Ollie this week and like the blues and they they were making it sound like, we were some of the other commentary from the other color groups were making it sound like we were emotionally like cry. And I'm like, no, that's not really how I feel my emotions. It's more anger. It's more unhappiness. It's not like, oh, I'm sad. No, I'm mad. That's how my blue comes out. And I'm feeling that from, you know, you said blue was your second color. I can get the sense of that today.

I guess that was, you're blue, you were worried about people's feelings. I'm trying to hurt them. I'm trying to hurt feelings.

No, I'm worried about what we're saying being misunderstood or misconstrued.

Well, what I was saying is we don't have, like we don't do the work to put this fair together. And when things go wrong. Yeah, when things go wrong, don't be coming to us telling us how we're disappointing the county for not doing the work when it's like, we have nothing to do with it, bro. You want me to tell you what your issues are? You hobbled in here and You hobbled in here. You complained to me like I want to help you out after you've done told me how terrible I am and I'm disappointing the county and the kids for not having these tags ready. You weren't here. You were gone last week. So, and don't let Anna act like she ain't A yeller. She yells. We've had people come in here and complain and Anna called them back to tell them, you don't ever talk to us that way.

I did. I did. I did. You know, I think what happens is when you're in the first person that they walk in and see, which was Madison, and it was something that it was not that big of a deal to talk to her that way. And I called that lady back and told her that she's not going to act like that.

Well, that's my whole thought is there is nothing that's that big of a deal.

Not here.

That you've got a kind of gripe at me and you don't even know who I am. That lady threatened.

She threatened her. That's why she got a phone call.

With what? I'm going to come down there.

It's kind of like that.

Meet me outside.

It was that. Is that vibe?

What would have happened if we got in three on three, me, you and Madison take on three clientele.

You better hope my crazy streak hadn't come out. That's all I gotta say. I don't know. Hadn't been in a fight in a long time.

How do you think you'd do in a fight? Do you think you'd be good at fighting?

I think I'd be pretty good. I don't know though. If they hit me, it depends on where they hit me. That's the thing.

Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.

That's what I mean. That's what I'm saying. Like you really don't know until.

Yeah.

And yeah, I'm short too. So I feel like that don't help.

I think I'm pretty good about redirecting. Like if you were mad at me, I think by the end of it, I could have you giggling.

Me.

No, anybody.

Maybe.

Like that person come in and complained at us.

How do we redirect you? I don't think you're redirectable.

You got to come up with a more fun topic than the one I'm on.

Well, I mean, you brought up me calling that lady. I did. But she literally threatened Madison. And I mean, not and you do not walk in our office and pick the nicest person in here. And then talk to them like that over something that was absolutely not a big deal at all. It had no, consequential anything. Like nothing bad was gonna happen. Nobody was not gonna get to do the thing or whatever. And to threaten somebody.

Yeah.

And guess who? But I will say that person called her back and apologized.

You got to say something. You got to say something or how they going to know? And I was just trying to say, put out some information.

I did. That's mad. I could get mad about that all over again.

Oh yeah. I like it when you get mad. It's funny.

That's what I say. Like I'm not on, I don't think I'm funny like on purpose. That's what I mean. Like when I react, my reactions are very enjoyable for other people.

That's funny. Yes. She gets.

Well, not even now.

Like all. It's like everything has come to a head and she's about to let you know about all of it. Very loudly.

I have not done that here. Let's clarify.

But I've seen you get hot and lose that temper.

I lose my temper every 15 years and I got to make it till I lost it in 2021. So I'm not very far into my next 15. I'm only a third of the way. It's, oh man, that's coming up. That was Labor Day of 2021.

Oh yeah, it was good. I'm talking about drought today. I guess I can get on my educational topic.

I think we need to.

So we are kind of at the start of drought. It's rained pretty good through the summer, somewhat. Didn't rain much in the winter, not much in the spring. Then June, May, June, 1st of July, got some now it's gotten hot 100 plus degrees like for several days for several days and that'll dry out stuff quick like you'll your grass be looking good now it's all crispy and crunchy and so.

We still have a little bit of green but it's.

There's still a little bit of green but it's drying out quick and yeah if we don't get rain soon things are gonna start drying up quicker thinking about that. I get a lot of calls, not around this time, but it's usually later when trees should be blooming or leafing out in the spring and they're dead and people are calling me and being like, something's wrong with my tree. Well, probably what happened is it thirst to death back during that drought. So Be thinking about that. Even though these big tall trees need water, especially one in your lawn. And when we have these periods of long drought, affects those trees to where they get unhealthy, then a disease comes in and then that attracts insects and people will call and be like, I've had these bugs and they're causing all this issue. Well, it's the bugs have showed up after the fact. The tree got unhealthy somehow and it's like humans. When we're not at our best performance and you know, you're around, it's easier to get sick. So if with these trees, they're not getting watered like they need to be. It's gonna stress them out a little bit. And when they get stressed, things creep in.

They're susceptible.

They're susceptible. So the main thing when we're in this drought is we want to make sure we're watering our shrubs, trees. those bigger things that we don't normally think about needing water, they also need lots of water.

So that's what I'm looking at this week is.

So be thinking about that, your tall trees. But I really want to talk about drought dealing with like our livestock or our forages. And some things that guys might not think about, our guys need to think about coming up with a plan. What am I gonna do during drought? So what's happened, what happens during a drought? There's no forage to eat, grass dries up to nothing, and that's what our livestock are consuming, so what do we gotta do? So let's just go through a few things to think about as a livestock producer. First thing you need to do is if you haven't culled your herd in a while, drought is a good time to get rid of those animals that aren't performing like you need to. What am I trying to think? So maybe that's your older cows, or it may be that you sell your younger heifers and keep your older cows that are good at producing, or if you have that older cow that's kind of gone downhill, it's time to cull. Like we went over, your mom had a couple that we needed to get rid of.

Yeah, she had one 1400 pound cow that was, I think, just knocking everybody out of the food bowl.

Yeah, she's super fat, like couldn't even, like she got stuck in the head. She's so fat. Like you could see the fat like pop.

She had fat on her forehead.

Yeah, she was fat.

She was a big one.

With that grouping livestock into the same category. So we want to go through dealing with cattle. We can body condition score. That's us. We give them a score 1 to 9. One is like extremely thin. Nine is overweight. We want to be somewhere around A5 or A6. Seven is what they say is perfect.

Maybe hard to obtain.

Maybe hard to obtain.

In a drought.

In a drought. But looking at that body condition score, there's info online about what to look for on how to rank them. But group your cattle into the same kind of body condition. That way they're going to have same nutritional requirements. If we have, you know, There's guys around here that have year-round calving season. So you'll have some that are, they got a calf on them. Some of them are pregnant. Some of them are weaned a calf. Some of them haven't bred back in a couple of years. And we don't know what's going on really. If we've, as if we're going to be raising livestock, we've got to become better managers doing simple practices to kind of make sure our herds up to speed The grouping all the animals that have same nutritional requirements is going to make feeding easier. During a drought, group those animals with the same body condition score. If you have some that are too low or too high, maybe sending them out. If they're too high, we can actually feed them maybe a little bit less and they can stand to lose a little bit of weight to come down to say a six or so. But get them grouped together. That way you can feed them all the same thing. If you're not rotational grazing, setting something up like that or having, say we're worried about having to feed hay right now. We just spent all summer feeding or cutting hay. It'd be a shame to have to feed a lot of it right now. But We've had pretty good hay cuttings throughout the summer, so there should be some hay available. If you haven't made as much hay as you think you're going to need, should be some hay available for you to buy. I always recommend that you, it'd be best to get that tested so what it's TDN, the protein.

And if you're selling it, that would be a good selling thing.

And if you're selling it, yeah, that's a good thing to be able to show people like, hey, this stuff will, it's got good enough protein and energy that it'll cover a dry cow that you could go out and that could be all you feed. Something else to think about if you're trying to say save some of your hay stores is maybe we supplement with like grain or something. that's real. A good option is like a corn gluten feed. We can feed them maybe like a couple to five pounds of that corn gluten feed and then maybe just give them a little bit of access to hay for a certain amount of time or a forage or something to where we're going to turn them in there and just keep them on like a sacrifice field or a dry lot and we can come up feed them the supplement that we're going to give them, whether that's grain. You got to think about, energy. We want to have enough energy to maintain their body condition score and have to have enough protein in there to maintain their body condition score depending on their nutritional requirements. If that cow is dry, it's going to be a little bit lower than say if she's lactating or if you've got growing calves, they're going to, they'll consume around 3% of their body weight a day. Bulls will consume around 2 1/2 to 3% of their cows around 2% to 2 1/2% depending on where they're at. So we could stick them in a dry lot and that's where we're gonna feed them and then we give them access to hay for a certain amount of time. That way you know they're not they're consuming enough to activate that rumen but We're just trying to get through the drought essentially.

That doesn't mean that's what you're doing long term.

Yeah, it's not long term, but we're keeping them in one location, sacrifice pasture. That way we're hoping the grass can kind of rest and once it does get rain, recover and grow.

So that everything's not just eat down to nothing.

Yeah, that everything's not just eat down to nothing. Some other things that you can feed, broiler litter. Did you know you can feed that?

I did know that.

Some people think that it's illegal and you may think, but it is something that we can feed. However, like from those poultry houses, they can't have been fed like those chickens, any like mammalian type products like bone meal or something like, none of that can have been in their feed. It's got to be like, know what I mean?

They change feeds up a lot, so I don't really know how they feed them anymore.

But it's usually unlikely that they've got like blood meal or bone meal or something like that in there that they're adding to the commercial feed. Usually it's like soybeans, corn, and a mixture of what they feed. But so we can feed that broiler litter.

But it usually goes through a heat process before you eat it.

And we're just, they can consume a little bit of that. And then we're just trying to get enough protein in there and then add enough roughage that they're able to activate that rumen and just to keep them going. But that is an option that you can feed if guys have broiler litter available, it is an option for drought to feed to get a little bit of protein in there to make it, as far as a cheaper feed source around, that's an option. But what else? You got any questions about drought? I need to.

Well, I did notice we were driving side to sides and we went by a farm and Oni and it was just a tree and underneath it underneath in the shade was a ton of perilla mint.

Oh yeah so noxious weeds that's another thing to mention so just with everything out in the pastures turning yellow what will cattle do is they'll sit in the shade and that's where the certain weed grows called perilla mint or mintweed And it's kind of got a purplish color, can have a purplish green color. But it has a toxin in there that if they consume enough of it, can kill them. And what usually happens is everything's dried up and it's the only thing that's green and it's there in the shade. And so they just set in the shade and eat the only green thing and then they get enough of that toxin and it kills them. our wild cherry is another one that can be toxic. Johnson grass, we can have nitrate and prussic acid issues.

So what do you recommend? I mean, I'm sure you're thinking of more, but what do you recommend to do with them in this situation? Because that perillament, it was like, it was bigger than this table, but it was just solid in that shady spot.

If you're not going to control that perilla men, I'd definitely keep them out of there. Like I wouldn't, like I'd put them somewhere else. Well, you know, think about it. Usually it's in the shade where you're not able to get in there and bush hog all of it. So I'd use chemical option 2, 4-D. It'll kill it. I'd spray it is what I would do. Just And we may not quite be there yet. I was driving around and some fields look still somewhat green. You can tell they're getting crispy, but know that if we don't get any rain, if you've got a lot of that perilla mint on the edges of your fields in the shade, it'd be a good idea to pull them out of there or go in there and spray that stuff. The best time that stuff will start germinating in May-ish. the best time to go in and spray it is before it gets real tall, about, 12 inches tall. And spray it then. May, June is what we're looking at.

Is that a perennial? A lot of mints are, but I don't know about that one.

I can't remember if this one, if it's a perennial or what it is. It's. Are you looking that up?

Nope, it's an annual. And that's according to Mississippi State University Extension Service. Also known as beef steak plant. Common mint, Chinese basil.

I was going to mention on the, like if you do end up having to feed broiling litter or broiler litter, there are a couple things we want to you might be worried about is hardware disease. That's like if when cattle consume something metal, like if there's like a piece of wire or bolt or something metal in that feed and they consume it and it gets down in there and trapped in their stomach, causes like issues. One thing that they which is neat and I've never seen it used, but they actually make magnets that you can give like a bolus and then it's supposed to attract that metal and suck it up so they don't get hardware disease.

I've learned that from livestock skills. So 4-H taught me that.

Another thing that can happen is milk fever. Let's see. So One other thing is like if we are culling and we're selling tax considerations, there are options or I think it's in the law like if you farmers having to sell or cull or something because of weather related, they can defer like their tax payment somewhat. It's mentioned in the MP that studies about that I was reading about drought.

And then also maybe check with FSA to see if there's any.

Yeah, the FSA, NRCS, they usually do some form of program to assist with drought. And it all depends on the drought monitor, the US drought monitor. I think it's three weeks of in a D, at least a D3, I think is what it is, when they start developing something for say some what would that be called assistance usually that's I think it's three weeks in a D3 drought or maybe 4.

This is the 16th driest year to date over the past 132 years.

It's been like, I was worried earlier in the spring about ponds drying up and people not having water for drinking for their livestock.

This says that we're just in a DO in most of Stone County. Part of Stone County is in a D or a D0. Part of Stone County is in a D1.

D1. And as it goes, like I said, stuff's still green out there. So yeah, it makes sense. There are different parts of the county that may be drier or wetter because we have these pop-up showers that'll happen. But I'm pretty sure I've heard this that like for say you wanting to get like drought recovery. I think it just I've heard this and I don't know if it's a real thing, so I'll say that. You might check on it, but I've heard that they, what it takes to start initializing that process to getting like some government money is just somebody's got a call in and say, hey, I'm in a drought, we're having drought issues.

I'm like, yeah, we're like, we're being negatively affected.

Yeah, we're being negatively affected. And then that kind of starts that process.

That's cool.

So There are options out there for drought. Funny story, I think I've said that. A few years ago, we did a drought meeting in July, and that's when that guy come in. Yeah, that was wild.

With the sirens.

Yeah, with the sirens and went to, I don't know, talk to us about something that should have let him. Should have been like, give us your spiel. Let's see. I seen a deal the other day that said you shouldn't ask if you make. Did that make sense?

Yeah, it did.

Yeah, I seen a deal and a guy was like, you shouldn't say that. You shouldn't ask if it makes sense. And I was like, it's a TikTok. And I was like, shut up. Shut up. Who's watching you?

As you watch in.

I'm watching.

Well, I didn't know how they decided like the drought. When did a gift her out money? So I think part of Stone County is in a D2, but a very tiny percentage.

Yeah, I think we got to get to the D3.

Well, I mean, I'm sure we'll be there.

We're not that far away because it's really close. Yeah, if it stays hot, 100 degrees plus, you know, next week it'll be.

Yeah, part of the state's in the D3, so it.

That's my goal is to work with these livestock producers, all the farms around Stone County and get them all top-notch up and running where it's just drought happens, we know what to do. Yeah, drought's coming, time to start thinking about culling. Oh, maybe we need to early wean. It depends on where, that is another thing you can do. Like if you've got a lot of cows, like especially if you've got a lot of lactating cows right now. Let's think about this for spring. Your spring calvers probably would still be on. So what we start spring calving February, February, March, April. So we're what three months from May, June, July, August, four months. So So you'd, if you had a good, calving season with a, less than 90 days, spring calving, they're probably still on the cow if you're, keeping them on there for about 6 months. That's kind of typical. So we're, if we're spring calving, if you're a spring calver and you still got them, they're still on the mamas, early weaning, pulling them off, weaning them early, and that, and then that puts her in that lower, nutritional needs. So different options. Again, all operation, farm operations are going to be different. Everybody's set up different. But these are things we got to start thinking about. We don't want to end up, you know, here in three weeks being in the drought and then start trying to worry about something to do. If we can plan early and have a plan and an idea of what we're going to do if it stays dry, you know, we're probably going to do a little better. Or how would we say that? Probably you'll probably be more likely to make it through.

Yeah, with as least cost added on as possible.

Yeah, it's.

More efficiently, I guess.

More efficient, yeah. You'll have an idea, you'll be more efficient of what you want to do.

More proactive.

Yeah, be more proactive. So drought, hopefully, maybe it'll rain.

I hope so. There's a chance this week. Maybe it'll happen.

All right, so I guess that's all I want to touch on. Do we need to talk about anything else?

I don't know. I feel like we hit a lot.

I think so.

Or at least it took us a while to hit it.

Yeah, it took us a while to get, topped up.

That's those money podcasts for you. got to get warmed up. I've just been out redneck living all weekend. So going to races and sub-sides on the dirt roads and creeks. I've got to learn how to act again.

All right. Well, Hope you all enjoy listening.