Seek Wisdom
Seek Wisdom
Life is a Garden: An Interview with Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm
In this interview with Joel Salatin, we use the metaphor "life is a garden" to discuss what he's learned about life from his career as "the most famous farmer in the world." Joel has published 12 books, been featured in bestselling books and award-winning documentaries, and spoken at places like Google headquarters.
This interview series continues the discussion surrounding my recently released illustrated children's book A Good Life. Each of the interviews in the series features a guest who uniquely embodies one of the ten metaphors presented in the book.
I've known Joel for several years, and this conversation was recorded at a picnic table on his farm on a hot August afternoon. Joel and I explore the concepts of permaculture, natural seed banks, and monocultures, and what we can learn about our individual lives from these ideas.
The farther we remove ourselves from Humus, the harder it is to be human.
Jeremiah Pent:Joel Salatin believes that in order to best understand ourselves and build healthy cultures, we need to understand how nature works and how we relate to it. Joel Salatin is my featured guest on this episode of seek wisdom When I began thinking about a farmer, I'd like to interview about what we can learn from the metaphor life as a garden. Joel Salitan was the first person that came, came to mind in the late 1990s our family was living in the suburbs of fort worth, Texas, and I developed a desire to have my own little farmstead in our backyard. We cleared the brush, planted a big garden, and built a chicken coop for a dozen barred rock hens. The garden was therapy for me and I was always tempted to spend more time in it than maybe I should have. Very long story short. All of that developed into an interest to move our family to the Virginia countryside and live in more harmony with nature than it felt possible to do in the suburbs. As I researched that idea. At some fateful point, I came across the book you can farm by Joel Salitan and became a student of his controversial take on what good farming looks like. In 2001 we loaded up the truck and moved to Madison County, Virginia, and I had some opportunities to interact with Joel on his Polyface farm and learn from him in person. Joel's had quite a journey over the course of his farming career. He's been featured in bestsellers like the Omnivore's dilemma by Michael Pollan, appeared in award-winning documentaries like food inc. Been featured in Smithsonian magazine and had opportunities to speak at places like Google headquarters, his farm and swapped Virginia services, 5,000 families, 50 restaurants, and 10 retail outlets. He's authored 12 books and writes a blog@thelunaticfarmer.com I recently flew into Richmond, Virginia and drove out to the beautiful Shenandoah valley where Joel's farm is located. We sat down together at a picnic table on a hot August day under the welcome shade of some willow trees. Joel sported, his usual suspenders, Straw hat and a layer of dirt and debris from a project he'd stepped away from for our interview during the interview and occasional breeze was a welcome reprieve from the heat, but it did wreak some havoc on my microphones. You'll notice a few shifts in sound quality where we did our best to remove the wind's attempt to get in on our interview. I hope you'll enjoy the discussion and that will give you some good food for thought in your own pursuit of wisdom. I'm here with Joel Salitan, author, speaker, and someone who's been called the most famous farmer in the world. Thank you, Joel, for allowing me to visit you here at your farm today for this interview. It's a, it's a privilege. Thank you. It's great to have you. Let's start with what prompted this interview. I recently wrote a children's book entitled a good life in it and orphan boys that's out on a journey to find a good life and meets 10 different people along the way. Each give him a different metaphor for life. The first person he meets is a farmer who tells him quote, life as a garden. It's soil, can sprout forth both good and bad plants with equal opportunity for both to thrive. It is up to us to pull and cast away the weeds and to plant water and nurture the good things that we desire to grow in quote. So I'm curious, is there any part of that quote that resonates with you most at this stage in your farming, gardening and in life experience?
Joel Salatin:Yeah, I would say the one that resonates most is just the fact that you have to participate. I think we live in a time when, um, when many people either either feel their participation doesn't make any difference or things were so dysfunctional that there is no use to participate or just beyond hope to participate. And so, you know, a garden's a lot of little things. Yeah. I mean there's a, it is a big thing, but most good gardeners don't spend hours and hours at it. They s but, but what's key is to spend 30 minutes a day. Right. And I think that that is, is a great, um, metaphor for life that it does respond to participation. You can't just check out, you know, no, no frog wakes up on the edge of the pond in the morning and says, you know, I don't think I'm gonna participate today. And yet there's a lot of that in our culture. That's true. You know, when I'm checking out. Sure, sure. In the food sphere, for example, right now, I think the statistic is that 80% of Americans have no idea at four o'clock what they're going to eat for dinner. And yet, and yet those same people are very aware of whatever's happening in the Kardashian healthful. It's not like we're not, we're not, not aware of things. It's, it's what we choose to be aware of. Right. And, and so, you know, participating in this great creation stewardship is just a wonderful, a wonderful thing. And along with that, there's a lot of thinking in the radical environmental movement that we shouldn't participate, that we should abandon the environment. We should, you know, get away from it. And so our participation, like a garden can either be helpful or abusive. So
Jeremiah Pent:That's interesting you bring that up because you, you sort of find yourself, I think just from experiencing you over the years and the things that I've heard you say and things that I've read of yours, you're almost in this no man's land where you, you don't, you don't fit in the broader culture that has, has checked out and is watching the Kardashians. Right. But the people that you would think you would fit more with, which the environmentalist types have a problem with you just because of the, of your, uh, the way you orient to the land and the way you think about it. So I, I know there's probably some loneliness there and frustration there, sort of life on the edge of both of them.
Joel Salatin:Yeah, it is. It's a, I mean, it's, it's plus a negative, you know, I'm, I'm disliked by many in the, you know, in the conservative religious right, who view me as as a, you know, a tree hugger. You know, what's the matter with genetically modified organisms and you know, are you against science or are you against, you know, dominance and blah, blah, blah. And then of course, I irritate the other side by suggesting that the answer is not always a government agency. Right. And that a business is not necessarily worse than a bureaucrat, right? Uh, both. Yeah, absolutely. And so that, that's why, you know, several years ago, uh, in this, in this, uh, yeah, you're right, there's no man's land. I took this self ascribed moniker and now I get introduced every, you know, when I go and speak at conferences and stuff, this is my, is my official introduction is a Christian Libertarian, environmentalist, capitalist, lunatic. And, and give that some, and everybody will hate you before you start, yet. Well, well, so, so it just says, you know, don't, don't stereotype me, you know, don't write, don't put me in that. Don't put me in that box because we do, we do like our pigeonholes, they're comfortable. Uh, you know, I wrote this book, uh, three or four years ago, the marvelous pigness of pigs, and it's basically a conservative Christians environmental ethic and, you know, in their eye, I say, why is it that if I ask, do we have to use styrofoam at the potluck? Can we use dishes from the thrift store and wash them? What are you some kind of Commie Pinko tree hugger? You know what I'm saying? And so, yes, there, there is both of that and yes, that's the bad part. But the good part is it's also, it's also a big bridge. You know, it's a bridge to both groups as well. And, uh, I mean, everybody eats. And so it's a, it's a big tip. You know, I've, I've been able to speak twice at UC Berkeley, Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Rutgers. Most Christians don't get to go in and share a pro-life stamps. It's not your Christian hat wearing promotes. And, uh, but, but I do unapologetically. And what's amazing is I don't get booed. It's interesting because I think it's because they've not met a Christian who is willing to wrestle with these thornier issues of stewardship. How shall we then care for God? What's God's return on investment? You know, a dead Zine, a dead zone, the size of Rhode Island is probably not a good return on investment for God's creation. No. So, so, you know, being, and I don't have all the answers, don't even begin to think, but I think we should wrestle with them. We should at least wrestle with them.
Jeremiah Pent:I liked, I like the wrestling metaphor and I like people that, that don't fit anywhere because I feel like I'm one of those as well. And I think that the types that stay on the edges in a sense, um, our, our bridges, uh, of these, of these different camps, it's almost like we, we walk around on the edges of the pigeonholes and, and we're looking into all of them and going, hey, there, there's actually something over here that you guys have to offer here. And, and so, um, even though it can be a lonely and frustrating place sometimes, um, I think there's a place for us. And, uh, so I'm, I'm glad you're one of those. Um, but there are a few things I learned from you Joel, that that have really stuck with me for some reason and I think they'd be fruitful topics for this discussion of, of life as a garden. Uh, I believe that I may have read the first one in one of your books and here's the basic idea. You said that when you buy a farm, don't immediately start making changes to the land. Like putting upon here, clearing some trees there in order to make things the way you think you want them. Instead, you suggested that people walk around on and get to know their farms for about a year before they make any major changes, I think even suggested walking around when it rains, snows, et Cetera, to see how that particular piece of land responds to various kinds of weather, water runoff. Microclimates uh, that's a fun idea all by itself. Uh, etc. Why do you give that, that kind of a dice?
Joel Salatin:Well, because it's so, uh, it's so easy to run in, you know, with our agenda, if you will. You know, the, the land, the ecology is a lot, is a lot bigger than our agenda and this is a permaculture concept. You know, Bill Maulson really introduced me to that, that idea and said, you should carry a notebook, visit, visit your place. I mean, this is even before you move there. Okay. Visit it every month, 12 months and just walk it. And I mean, for example, see where wet spots are. Well that's not where we want to put a road. You know, see where the frost pockets are. Well, that's not where you want to put an orchard. See, see where the, the, the dry spots are. You know, that's where you're going to want to add maybe some extra compost. Eh, you know, there are actually, there are actually tunnels of warm air and cooler, just like rivers of water across the landscape. There are, there are rivers of warm and cool air. Interestingly, we have one here on our farm that I'm at least one that I'm very familiar with. It runs down along a road that we have. Interestingly, that road is lined with old apple trees and I can't help but think somebody's long time ago, you know, maybe in the twenties or 30 when they planted those trees, they were aware of that warm tunnel of air. And so it was, they're not frost prone, even though it's in kind of low ground, that tunnel of air and you can go out on any crisp spring morning or evening or fall, you know, when it's change of seasons, w w on the edges, we call it the, you know, the shoulders of the season, you can go out there. I mean, you can't tell it in the summer. You don't feel it in the winter. You don't feel it either. But on the edge is on the shoulders of the season. That's when you feel that tunnel. And it's about, you know, it's about 50 feet wide and it's just, it's just a tunnel of warm air. Um, and that's where, that's where the old timers planted the apple trees. So I think there's a lot of wisdom in, um, this is not mystical. I'm not, you know, gay, a creation, worship. But I think there is a lot of wisdom in letting the land and letting the ecology talk
Jeremiah Pent:to us. Well, yeah. Uh, I think it's a powerful thing. Yeah. The book of job, um, you know, a job is responding to, uh, to his friends. Um, he says, ask the animals and they will teach you or the birds in the sky, they will tell you or speak to the earth and it will teach you or let the fish in the sea inform you. I mean, that sounds like it could have been written by an environment. Environmentalist. It's someone who, who has a humble approach to learning from the creation. Right. Um, even in the proverbs, the idea of, you know, go to the ant, you sluggard, consider its ways and be wise. There's all kinds of things in scripture that tell us that the creation is something that is, is designed to teach us something that we need.
Joel Salatin:Sure. Well, I think that the physical creation is not some, you know, unspiritual disembodied part of God's manifestation. I, I think that the physical creation is actually a, an object lesson of spiritual truth. Absolutely. So, so here at our farm we're constantly asking, you know, say a visitor comes in when they leave, when they drive out the lane, do they say things like, oh, so that's what forgiveness looks like. Oh, that's what abundance looks like. Oh, that's what mercy looks like. You know, do they ask those kinds of questions? And, and I think, I think, uh, if I may go where angels fear to tread here quickly in the interview, um, I, I think that the way that that physical part of a farm speaks to you is going to be very different. For example, if the chickens are out on pasture versus confined in a factory confinement chicken house, there are different moral lessons or spiritual law, object lessons, if you will, that come from those kinds of, those kinds of things. And so the question then, so when I sit in my pew is what's on the menu reflective of what I have, what I believe in the Pew, you know, we say we say we believe in being a good neighbor, for example, treat others is the golden rule. You know, the way you'd want to be treated. Well, you know, is polluting the water or stinking up the neighborhood. Is that being neighborly? No. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and so, and so what happens is you begin, as you go down this path, and I'm not interested in, you know, starting a new cult or anything like that, but when you wrestle with this, you start appreciating, wow, the god who knows the hairs of your head. And when a sparrow falls and the lilies of the valley are adored, more beautiful than Solomon is all his glory. That God has a moral interest. He has a stake, he has a divine interest in, in what
Jeremiah Pent:we do. Right? And the, and the creation isn't some side show. It's integral to the things that we need to be taught. I need to understand,
Joel Salatin:right? I mean in revelation 21 it says, you know, I will destroy those who destroy the earth. And there's all sorts of, I mean when, when, when he is your life. So, you know, came into the promised land, they could cut trees but they weren't supposed to cut fruit trees. So God had a, you had a landscape plan and I think it behooves us to, to come alongside, not intimidated, but actually, you know what people say, what floats your boat, what drives you? And I say it's because I can step out that back door every day and have the honor and privilege of coming alongside God as Creator and participatory. And I don't know if that's a word participant orally. We can make an app that, but at least it says, well and participatory Lee caress this thing that was so beautiful that he made and created and put us in and to be able to participate in that, to caress it and to massage it and to, to work alongside.
Jeremiah Pent:That's pretty cool. It is. That's pretty cool. I didn't know whether we'd, we'd ended up this way, but since we did, um, you know, we're obviously both Bible readers. So the life is a garden. Metaphors is a significant one for us. Uh, the Bible's account of humanity begins in a garden planted by God himself, uh, the fall of humanity through disobedience results in our being cast out of that garden. In fact, it was eating involved in that fall. Uh, at the climax of the biblical story, Jesus spends the night before his crucifixion in a garden and prayer to his father after his resurrection. He is mistaken by Mary Magdalene as the gardener, which we know in a greater sense. He was a special thanks to my old testament professor Doug Green for that insight. Uh, finally, the story of the Bible ends with that vision of John Revelation where access to the tree of life is restored in the new heavens, the new earth. Uh, it provides healing to the nations. Uh, so the Christian worldview is strongly shaped by that idea of a garden. Uh, I guess we've already talked about what we make of that. I'm seeing that as, as integral to, uh, what we're meant to know and what we're meant
Joel Salatin:to learn. You know, if I may say, just talk to talk to parents and kids for a minute. One of the reasons that I'm such a, um, a proponent of children in gardens is because we live in a day and age now where video games dominate the average person's childhood. In fact, even in young adulthood right now, I think the statistic that I'm aware of is that the average American male between 25 and 35 spins 20 hours a week playing video games. That's the statistic right now, not, not women, but men. And the thing, the thing about a video game and that is that it's all fantasy. And the thing about a garden is it's real. It's real. You know, if, if, if the tomato plant dies, you don't press a button and get a new tomato plant and do on Minecraft, right? Yeah. Plant tomatoes. Yeah. And that's, and, and, and I would suggest that that's a problem. Let's just, you know, life is not some sort of a, a fantasy thing where, uh, where you mess up and you just can, can hit rewind and everything is okay. And I think one of the beauties of children in gardens, and this is being documented now, not by the Christian community, but by the, the nature principle, you know, Richard Love and other people. But there's, there's just an incredible spiritual element to children in gardens. There's, there's a life reality sense, a common sense reality that this isn't just a game. And I think that it's from a, from a a life affirmation standpoint. I mean, we've got all these, you know, murders and kids, you know, I mean, look, society is breaking down. I think there's no question about that. And, and I can't help but think part of it is children don't have any chores. They don't pull weeds in the green beans. They don't, they don't help. Can, can the corn and gardening, food production is one of the most foundational and fundamental portions of family living, or at least it has been historically. Right? And, and so when you take away that very visceral foundation of life, you and more children from their dependence on something bigger than themselves, right? And it moves our rules view towards being egocentric, self-centered. The universe revolves around me. The game revolves around me. When do I want to play? When do I want to stop? How many points have I scored? How many points have I not? But the whole universe revolves around me. Whereas in a garden, I mean, one of the first things you realize in the garden is that seed sprouts, without me doing very much, the weeds come shortly without me doing that. They don't just appear without me doing that. They don't sit down and, and, and the fruit doesn't get tick. That's right. Without me doing very much. And so, so we find that, that there's this, this incredibly awesome life theme messaging going on that's way beyond us. And I just think that that's one of the foundations of wisdom and common sense.
Jeremiah Pent:So, so take this idea of, you know, when you get a farm, you get a garden, you get a piece of property, be slow. About how you get to know it and how you'd make changes to it. Apply that, you know, metaphorically to the average person's life. What's the principle there? Um, that we need to think about. We have, we don't own a farm, but we are just approaching life.
Joel Salatin:Well, uh, maybe you need to, um, know your romance before you say I do. Seems to be rather important. Yeah. And do you do some research? A search? I would say the slowing down of letting things develop, uh, try things. You know, so many times our institutional education or schooling system is all set on. Find out as early as you can. You're your life track, get on it so you can get a job, you know, for somebody as opposed to for one thing, letting children play and discover and then, and then to, to try a lot of things as a teen. One of the, one of the big tragedies, again we go to young people to me is that we've taken all these, uh, these adult world interactive things that, that, that young people used to do and we've called them exploitation and child abuse. And so kids hit 18 and they haven't had life experience delivering newspapers, stocking shelves, whatever.
Jeremiah Pent:And yet they think at 18, they become this magical thing called an adult and then all of a sudden they're going to have these privileges that a lot of times they're not even ready for it because they haven't had that responsibility, uh, previous to it, but they still have this magic idea of 18 means something special. But I've found, you know, in our little micro climate culture. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. So also, I guess just this idea of slowing down, uh, as you approach a complex system and being humble, tell me, you don't seem to be a slow mover from all the experiences that I've had with you. You're a man of action. Um, I'm guessing you might've learned that the hard way. A, is it true or if idea of go slow and take some time, how did you,
Joel Salatin:well, you know, I, there, there is a balance there. I mean, there's, you can be, uh, look, it's as bad to be a milk toast at decision making, right. As it is to be attention, uh, as, as it as it is to be overly, uh, whatever knee jerk men making decisions. If we want to look to societal, how many times do people get aggravated about something in society? And the first thing they want is I want to law. And um, you know, a lot of times those quick government agencies and actions then become, they actually cause more trouble than, than good. And usually society on its own, whether it's the marketplace or philanthropy or awareness or whatever changes and adapts to the, to deal with the situation, right as it is
Jeremiah Pent:even in, um, in business. I know several years ago, Tom Peters, uh, the management consultants had this, uh, phrase that he coined called management by walking around. And the idea was essentially, if even in the corporate world, you need to be walking around and looking at your people, looking at what's going on. You can't, you can't manage the complexities of a business, uh, at a, at a desk isolated from what's actually going on. So this idea of just wandering around and seeing what's happening over time is very important. That observant and that, yeah,
Joel Salatin:absolutely. And, and it, it also affects like our decisions here at the farm. I think where I really, uh, have really adapted this is don't jump off the cliff. Make small decisions, do tests, do trial things first. You wanna you want to try a new marketing scheme, you want to try new messaging, you want to try a new whatever sales technique, we'll, we'll, we'll test it. And I'll tell you today, the, the venture capitalists, I mean, who demand 10, 12%, 13, 14% return, the pressure that that puts on an innovative business is just, is horrendous. Horrendous. And so what you do, and you get over your skis and for all, for all the businesses that venture capitalists have helped to create, I wonder how many tragedies they've created by putting undue pressure. You know, the, the, the tortoise, the tortoise won the race, not the hair. That's, that's a great tortoise label for this principle. Yeah. And so I ascribed to the, to the idea that, um, there's not about speed. It's about trajectory. If you're going the right direction, don't worry about how fast you're going. Just continue continuous bottom. Because most of life, most of life is a slog. It is even most of gardening as a[inaudible].
Jeremiah Pent:So should I have put life as a slug in my children's book? That doesn't market as well. Joel doesn't mark. Okay. Maybe I'll put that in volume two. I think we usually cover that up a little bit with saying things like gut persistence. We do well, I'm, I'll actually, I'm, I'm interviewing, um, Jonathan Bailey, who's, who's the, uh, executive vice president of National Geographic a tomorrow[inaudible] on life is a journey. And so that's the life is life is a journey. It's probably the positive spin on life is a slog. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We'll, we'll see what Jonathan has to say about that tomorrow. Let's, let's move to another of your insights that stuck with me. I think it was at one of your field days here at Polyface farm. You said, uh, there was an enormous amount, a enormous bank of seeds and our top soil at any given time that are just waiting for the right conditions to germinate, sprout and grow. You said some seeds can sit there for years in the soil just waiting for the right conditions. Uh, and that's why some years on a farm you have problems with missiles or other weeds. Now that won't show up other years. Uh, did I understand that that correctly? Yes,
Joel Salatin:absolutely. And in fact, I recently had the privilege of doing a conference in Australia with Dr. Christine Jones, who's one of the foremost biological agronomist in the, on the planet. She just went into this almost a soliloquy thing about seeds and it was just, it was just so perfect. I, you know, she's not a Christian or anything, it's, I know, but it was really profound the way she pointed this out and it took this idea of a, of the seed bank in the soil. Yes, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of, of seeds in the soil waiting for the right conditions to germinate. And what was she did? She said, I want you to consider, um, she said, I want you to consider the intelligence of a seed intelligence of the seed. So a clover, a red clover, for example. We know we found an sprouted, but that will sprout red clover in the Egyptian tombs, the pyramids. Okay. And they've taken a couple of them and they, and they've sprouted. All right? And so they're viable. We know they're viable. So she said, just imagine, just imagine you're a red clover seed and you know, you come up into blossom, the bees fertilize, you know, and you're good. And then, and then the blossom dies and the seeds, you know, a cow doesn't eat you or whatever, but you, you know, you fall on the soil. And next spring, should I sprout? I don't think so. Not this year. Next spring. Chesbrough Ah, no, I don't think it's quite right this time. You see where this is going? Let's say a hundred years. A hundred years. A hundred springs? Nah, not quite right. 200 springs. 300. I'll, I'll abbreviate this version just to get the red clover, so, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So, so we go on down and year 1000, 1000. You know, I think, I think this is a good year. This I'm going to sprout this year. And that's just when we talk about intelligence, uh, the understanding of creation, I mean the, the uh, of God's infinite ability to put decision making within his, his creation, but then life decision making within life. Um, that's just a profound, profound thought that these seeds are all out here. You know, it speaks to a couple of things, you know, one is that the, uh, that the soil should be close. I mean, that's a very visceral ecological principle that clean tillage and exposing soil is absolutely the most damaging thing that can ever be done, uh, to the soil. And of course, you know, civilizations arisen and falls
Jeremiah Pent:because if it goes on is that because it messes up that seed bank and that media exposes it rather than giving it the protection though it, because if it unclothed
Joel Salatin:the soil, the reason the seed bank is there is so that no matter what the condition is, there's something there that will jump up. And sprout and put vegetation on the soil and put, you know, biomass in. And of course, you know, uh, one of the things about tillage is th th the tillage just so unnatural that we spent a lot of time, uh, trying to keep tillage. You know, if you're going to apply more knowledge to the average, that means your plan. Okay. So you're taking, if you're going to, if you're going to plant an annual plant like squash or watermelon or, or, or whatever, you're gonna have to somehow get rid of that, saw the lawn, the grass of whatever. Okay. Out there. Now, you know, interestingly, what is w a, I don't know if you're familiar with Paul Gautschy who wrote back to Eden and he's developed a, a 12 inch wood chip mulch system for gardening, but it does it with deep, Deep Mulch, uh, with, with perennial deep mulch. So instead of tilling, you're simply adding carbon all the time. Okay. You know, on this because it decomposes and goes clothing and more and more on your clothes. Yeah. Yeah. So how would you, if we're going to take this idea of, of that at seed bank that's just waiting for the right conditions, apply that to the average person's life, how do, how do we play with that metaphor, uh, in our lives as a, as a principal? You know, I, I think certainly one would be ideas. I mean that God doesn't want our mind, uh, our life stagnant there, there are all sorts of ideas and, and, um, and I would say I would say the average person, you know, I do a lot of traveling and speaking and I found, I find tremendous resonance in this idea that the average person does not allow themselves to dream. You know, we grow up, we want to please mom and dad and we want to please the teacher. We want to please the employer. We wanna, you know, we want to please the preacher. We want, uh, whatever, you know, uh, the president of the philanthropic club or the, the coach of the soccer team or whatever. Right? And, and, and we, we grow up, essentially wrapped up in pleasing people. Now, I don't want to get, I don't want to get into rebellion here. Sure. That, that other balance, that there's another balance there. But, but I think, I think typically people come to to adulthood. Um, so, so, so constrained by all of these people in their life who have w who have steered them at outward expectations. Yup. Yup, Yup. That, uh, they've, they've never actually sat down to dream. And the reason, the reason that I know that this is critical is because there's been a book written about, about death, bed sayings of people. And by far and away the number one is I wish I had had the courage to do what I really wanted to do. That's the number one.
Jeremiah Pent:Okay. That, that brings up, I've asked my kids through the years, various times, how can I be a better dad to you? And there's this recurring theme, which is always painful, which is you don't encourage us enough. Yeah. And I've tried to get better at that. I'm still not, fortunately, my wife is, so we balance each other out there. But, um, those dreams that I think a lot of people have. So if we're going to tie it all into this, this seed bed that's there, if these dreams or these seeds that are inside of us, I think oftentimes it's, it's parents and other adults who may be see that potential in kids and they can create, uh, let's use the idea of watering. They can water those seeds and give them some nurturing that could bring more out of kids than really we're getting now
Joel Salatin:and create, create a habitat, a habitat that allows the expression, uh, to come out.
Jeremiah Pent:Let's move to the third Salatin insight that had an impact on me. And that's the idea of monocultures. Tell us what a monoculture is and why they're problematic.
Joel Salatin:Well, monocultures are, are where you have just one plant or one animal, uh, in a, in a landscape. So, obviously the most common in the u s right now would be, you know, corn and soybeans, corn or soybeans or a, you know, or a factory, a factory farm, uh, of, uh, a Tyson chicken house, uh, uh, uh, beef feedlot, uh, anything where you have, um, where you don't have an integrated, diversified mosaic of other beings in it. Uh, so, so it's essentially a one being a one being scape landscape, but one being scape. Okay. And the problem with it is of course a well, there's no ecosystem that is a monoculture. None. None. Why? Well, because that's how nature balances it out. I mean, the, you know, the frog eats the bugs, the bugs eat the plants. Uh, you know, the plants, uh, you know, keep the oxygen cycle going. You know, there's this tremendous, uh, there's tremendous, yes, yes. Um, synergy and symbiosis that comes with a diversity. So, I mean, for me it's just enough to know nature never has a monoculture. So if you're going to plant green beans, do them in small clumps, like at like a quilt. So we have a little, a little group here. Then we have some strawberries and we have some nasturtiums and then we have some cabbage as opposed to the San Joaquin Valley of California where you have, you know, a 500 acres of strawberries, right. Uh, that is fumigated and blah, blah, blah. What happens is that when you have that level of concentration of one thing, it truly incentivizes pathogenicity because you have a concentration of just one thing. You're, you're in w and you're in, you're inviting a particular pest again in there as well. And to have epidemic, uh, yeah, yeah. Or conditions. Yes. Uh, there's a what 98% of bugs are actually good. 2% are bad. And so there's always this, uh, this tension, right? But you know, between the good and bad things, bugs, and if you, if in a monoculture, there's no environment or habitat to develop a competing species that will check the proliferation of the one that wants to attack the one that wants to attack whatever is, is the dominant thing. And, uh, and so then you had this proliferation, so apply this to, to our own lives. Where does that principle of monoculture sneak up on us and just the, the living of our lives? Yeah. Well I think, uh, to me the most obvious one quickly is the, the gifts, the gifts, the very gifts in a church, in a fellowship group. And if, if a fellowship group becomes so narrow in, in view that it has no room for anybody else, it's easy to actually get off on a tangent to actually actually, you know, development, we'll call it develop into an unhealthy and unhealthy situation. I need any complex community of people where you get too many of one sort of gift. Will you end up with, well goodness, I mean look at marriage are differences between men and women? Sure. I mean, I know it's not culturally acceptable right now to, to, to suggest that there are differences, but there are some really big differences between men and women. I mean on a, on a macro scale. And so the fact that God didn't see healthy that Adam would be alone, but he would have a help meet that they would be helpful for regional. I mean, Theresa, I mean, and I so many times when I'm discouraged, she's not, and when she's discouraged, I'm not, how many times has gotten us through so many, so many[inaudible] yeah, absolutely. And so the, the complimentarity the complementarity of man, woman of the, of the different, uh, gifts in a, in a body of believers, for them to all exercise in business, to have to have people who are engineered types, art types, introverts, extroverts, um, all those things there they bring, they bring richness. They, they bring richness. And I would say, if I could, one of my chapters in one of my books, uh, recently, uh, you're successful farm business is all about reading, reading, eclectically you know, I read stuff that probably conservative Christians would be, would disown me. Okay. But, but I think it's good to see how somebody frames and argument. For example, God, God is a woman or, or, or I mean or, or gay, uh, um, that, um, you know, the earth is actually living, thinking, breathing organism. As you can imagine. I run a lot of liberal circles with my, you know, mental Carmen with deaf communities, which is important. Yes. And I think reading eclectically is, is really good. And, and in fact it's really saved my, saved myself several times and I've gotten in debates with chemical industrial minded folks and the food and farming sector and I've read their gurus, but they haven't read mine. And it's wonderful affair. It's wonderful in a discussion to be able to quote their gurus to them. I'm aware of yours and I can say, are you aware of mine? Well, no, I've never heard of, you know, whatever Raymond and Dorothy more in the homeschooling movement. Oh, I've never heard of, um, you know, uh, Sir Albert Howard, the godfather of composting. And then I can just smile and say, I've taken the time to read your gurus. I think you'd find it interesting to read a couple of mine.
Jeremiah Pent:Yeah. In some ways it's, it's honoring the, the image of God that we would believe is, is, has been placed on, on all human beings. Um, there's something there that we can resonate with or something that we can communicate with and, and, and sometimes there are things that we have to offer each other because we're creating an image of God. Let me turn our attention to the idea of parenting and education for a minute because it's interesting that we, we refer to other people and to our offspring with gardening or plant metaphors. We say things like he's a bad seed or the apple didn't fall far from the tree or she's really branching out. They're putting down roots in the community. He's really flourishing. In fact, his parents, we use the term nursery as a room. We prepare for a new baby, but we use the same term for a place that we go to buy plants for our gardens. Um, so let's look at parenting first. At what, what advice would you give, uh, parents in relation to the gardening metaphor and child rearing?
Joel Salatin:Oh, well, ah, yeah, that's such a good one. I would simply say, I don't apologize for, uh, for greenhouse kids. Uh, the highly of a greenhouse is to give them a head start. In a protected environment. So they actually flourish when they get out and get and get buffeted by the real thing. The greater culture out there. It really wants children at the earliest age to be exposed to. Seems like, to me, everything that's out there. Sure. All right. And, and, but as a parent, uh, there's nothing wrong with having that, that little, you know, cold frame greenhouse. Um hmm. It doesn't impede growth. It actually accelerates grow. Sure. So, so the whole point of a, of a, of a greenhouse is not to hold them back. And so when people say, Oh, you're, you know, you're, you're sheltering the children. Well obviously that could, that can be overdone as well. Certainly there's a timing. There's a line of Ben, I'll tell you what, when we were, when we were homeschooling our kids and you know, quote unquote sheltering them from a lot of things and we didn't have it, we never had a TV. I just said, you know, we've got greenhouse kids and I'm proud of it and you know what, they're gonna handle the world. We're going to handle things better cause they're going to be stronger when they get buffeted than the ones who've been buffeted by cloth, by wind and by when or when they're so, so tiny.
Jeremiah Pent:I liked that metaphor very much. I'm guessing you might have some strong opinions on the subject of Education in relation to this gardening metaphor. I think it's, it's interesting that the first experience most kids have educationally is something we call kindergarten, which is literally German for children's garden. Uh, what advice would you give parents about educating their children in the context of the garden metaphor? You've talked about the protective idea, but as far as, well, what are you going to feed them with, you know, in that, in that greenhouse?
Joel Salatin:Yeah. Well, you know, I think generally I'm a, I'm a, a visceral discovery kind of guy and I really think that a lot of it is just in understanding our kids and knowing them. But we had to, Daniel was a late reader. Uh, he's got a little dyslexia issue, but, uh, you know, we had a bunch of school teachers in our family and wait, if he's not reading by seven, you know, I mean, you're just a failure. And of course we were very early in that we were in that, you know, 40 years ago before it got traction like it has today. And with, uh, with a family on both sides full of school teachers, we were under the microscope, you know, and so I can remember early on, you know, pushing him and then I got ahold of some Raymond and Dory, you know, better late than early in the different stuff. And we just stopped. It was so, uh, it was just terrible. And at 10 years old, he got elected to the be a historian or a reporter or something for the four h club in four h and in the car coming home, he just announces from the backseat, well, I guess I better learn to read. So they got elected to this position and in three weeks he was reading at 10th grade level, just he was ready. The seed, the seed met the right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It met the right condition on her daughter. Rachel on the other hand, she was an early reader and took right to it, like a, like a duck to water and just sailed through. No, no problem there. And so, and so I think, I think a lot of this, um, some of the application is in just appreciating that you raised, that you raise a tomato plant really different than a squash plant. Really different than a beat.
Jeremiah Pent:Yeah. We're back to the monoculture idea. I've lamented over the years that God didn't give me seven children that all had the same personality because if I could have figured out what the first one, then if the second one had been this same... but that's not what God chose to do. And I say that facetiously obviously, because I really appreciate what each one is brought to the family, but there really has been, uh, reinventing the wheel with each one. Right. And we've learned new things with it. We've been humbled with each one. Yes. Which is good. Yeah. We've had to slow down, you know, all these principles have come to bear. Right. But each one has been so unique.
Joel Salatin:Yeah. I mean, some are verbal and some are more sight oriented. I mean, we now know that. And you know what's interesting, we know this and yet everything in the, I'll just say the institutional education system is geared around cookie cutter formulas and that's why 80% of remedial education is spent on boys because boys brains are not developing at six and seven like little girls, boys bodies are developing girl's brains and development, six or seven. So they accelerate academically, boys in the same situation. They're fine if you wait until nine or 10, this is the whole point of better late than early and they'll do fine. But do we have enough faith in our kids that they're endowed with enough curiosity to not now I'm sound like this whole, you know, really unschooling and all that business, but, but um, well they, I, I, each of those approaches has it's extreme element. It, yeah. You've got an element of wisdom to it.[inaudible] wisdom add an element of extremity. Sure. Well, so you know, we don't just turn the kids loose and say, well yeah, go stick your figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. We don't just go sit and figure it out, but we also don't, don't have to be rigid about it. And if they're not reading at this level at seven, I'm a failure or eight and I wash parents, even homeschooling parents go through the ag stuff of wool. You know, we'll, Betty did this at seven and Johnny isn't doing it yet. He's nine and Oh, I'm such a failure and I go through all this angst.
Jeremiah Pent:Yeah. And that's just, that's a microcosm really of a bigger, even a bigger issue there that rich Karlgaard is the publisher of Forbes magazine. I just read a book by him called the late bloomers and he's looking at just the developmental process of some, a lot of times young young men, um, who don't really start to figure things out until their, their 20s and sometimes these late bloomers, you know, what's forties and 50s before their, their productive years come. And a lot of that is because of all the things that we've talked about, where the conditions for their particular gifts, the, the educations that they've received, the discouragement from various people along the way, all sort of create this situation where it takes them a long time to figure out really what they're good at. But sometimes there's some brilliant things that came out in, in the forties and 50s. So there's a, that's kind of a microcosm of, yeah.
Joel Salatin:Yeah. They, they aren't, they aren't, they aren't bill Cody at, um, at 12 years old carrying u s mail on a pony express as a hostile Indian country. That's right. I mean, there are those types. Imagine. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Um, I want to read this. Uh, this quote gets you to come on
Jeremiah Pent:comment on it from a Friedrich Frobel. You've probably heard it. Free to approval was, was the one who created the, the concept of kindergarten. He said, let us protect our children and let us not allow them to grow up into emptiness and nothingness to the avoidance of good, hard work, to introspection and analysis without deeds or to mechanical actions without thought and consideration. Let us steer them away from the harmful chase after material things and the damaging passion for distractions let us educate them to stand with their feet rooted in God's earth, but with their heads reaching even into heaven there to be home truth.
Joel Salatin:Wow. I wonder if that's on any kindergarten in a school system in the u s hi. I doubt it, but that's the man mean. Got God in it. You know, you can't, you can't, you can't have a, you can't have God in, in a, a classroom. I mean, that sounds like an incredibly lofty,
Jeremiah Pent:a lofty goal, but it was, I mean, it starts with the idea of protection. I liked your greenhouse metaphor as well. But that whole, that whole gamut of, you know, feed on the ground, a dirt under the fingernails, uh, the chores, like you mentioned, the wish the farm life allows people to do. How do you, you know, most of the people are gonna hear this, are probably going to be people in the suburbs or cities, urban areas. How do they take advantage of the life as a garden ideas when they're so far from that? What would you say?
Joel Salatin:Yes. It's a great question. One that I get asked a lot. I mean, we are, we are human. A human, the basis of human is humus. I, I believe and listen up, you know, I'm not saying if you live in a city you're corrupt, but I will venture to say that the farther we remove ourselves from humus, the harder it is to be human, to be all that the human is. And I mean, when you ha when you are familiar with sheep or you're familiar with plants or sowing seed, all of the biblical
Speaker 7:Well, from the parables to the, to the, um, narrative are richer. Sure for, for having knowledge of that. So a couple of things in the city. One is do something that's not just pet oriented in your home. You don't, you can get, you can get from, for example at Vermont, a vermicomposting kit that sits under your kitchen sink. Don't use a garbage disposal. Throw your stuff in this little verb. You know, it's, it's the size of a, of a dish pan. All right. It sits under your sink and enjoy the worms. That'd be so scary for so many people. Yeah. But it's, but I mean, kids are bad. I can think of something. My kids would be really fascinated by worms and um, I mean, my favorite warm story was, uh, was actually, uh, a garden to school program in California when I went and spoke and they had a big worm bed.
Joel Salatin:And the first assignment for all the kids when they came out was to bring food. And, uh, so the kids would all bring, yeah, they bring Twizzlers and stickers, bars and cheerios and stuff, and they put them in the worm box. And the teachers, you know, put in an apple and a piece of ground beef and you know, uh, an orange in their end, kids come back next week, they pull up in the box, they pull out their Twizzlers, they pull out their snickers bar, they pull out their, you know, stuff. And over here, the apple and the orange and the in the ground beef is gone. And the obvious, the obvious, uh, lesson of the day is why would you want to eat something? Worms won't even eat good. Powerful. Okay. And so, and so these are, these are life lessons, uh, in the home. Um, so, so do something, I mean, we, we often have pet dogs, pet cats, but in the same amount of space and for a lot less money, you could, you'd have two chickens in, in a footprint that's wasting smaller than a, than an entertainment center. And a yes in your, in your house, you know, two or three, they yell at your kid kitchen scraps, give you a couple of eggs. And you know, what a great role model for teenagers, you know, chickens are the chickens. Get up early in the morning every morning, happy to rooster, be in there, no, not inside the house, no, not inside out. And uh, and, and they spend all day turning trash into treasure. And as soon as it starts to get dark, they go to bed. When a person want to put in a metaphor for that is a good metaphor for teenagers. So, so, you know, my point is there are things if you really want to, again, if you really want to participate in the, in the mystery and the object lesson of creation and all that it entails, there are things that you can do in the apartment in New York. Okay. Um, I mean, some people have access to a roof. You can have a, a hive of honeybees. Uh, I mean, there are, you could grow some plants or whatever, uh, beyond that. Then instead of just putting attention on whatever, visiting museums and going to soccer camp and you know, all the things that you do, how about putting some attention on making this connection? So do you know a farmer? Have you ever visited, have you gone to a farm tour day on a farm? Have you, have you gone as a family to help a farmer? Clean-Out a horse stall, feed a pig, build a fence? We to garden, harvest squash. I mean, I can scarcely imagine a farmer who if you had a, uh, a controlled family, uh, who would turn you down on, on labor, in wealth on, on some health. Absolutely. So there are things you can do in the home. Obviously if you have a postage stamp yard, you can race some vegetables. Uh, you could have, you know, again, a couple of chickens just so everyone in the family understands. A, I'm completely dependent on a biological creation that's completely beyond my comprehension and often seems to have its own agenda. You know, why did this tomato plant and get mildew and fall apart? And this tomato plant is fine. Well, I'm not, I'm not always in control and wow, that's a powerful lesson. It is for, for families to humbling one, which is always, it sure is. Yeah. I'm not always in control. So those are just some islands or things that folks can do. As you know, in my book, I introduce children to 10 metaphors for life. Life is a garden, a game, a race, a canvas, a test, a symphony, a battle, a journey, a story, and a gift.
Jeremiah Pent:Are there any of those other metaphors that particularly resonate with you or is there a completely different metaphor that you feel is a good one for approaching life and your own purpose at this point?
Joel Salatin:I liked the journey when, I mean that's a, that's a powerful one. As you know, it's not a, it's not a destination until it's over. You know, very few people are doing in their forties what they thought they would do in their, when they were 20 I, I think that too many of us are becoming what we feel paranoid if we don't have it all worked out. Right. I've got to have it worked out. You know, I, it, I got to have this plan, I gotta have this plan, you know, but boy, I'll tell you what, you can plan to rigidity, um, to where you, you almost make yourself sick. Well, I was going to be at this point at 28, but I'm not there. And, uh, and to be able to take advantage of other things that come along, you know, things that you wouldn't even have thought of. I mean, I can assure you that we're, Theresa and I are right are right now, never even in our imagination, when we were in our early twenties and starting out here, we just wanted a farm. That's all we wanted. And the tragedy was that there were so few young people making a living on a farm, on a small farm. And so the worldstar beating a path to our doorstep. What is this? What, what's, what's the secret sauce? You know? And then, and then we got, you know, we got a bigger pulpit, if you will, but it was not because we desired it, had a plan for it and had a, you know, we're going to have this much money in the bank or, or, or have this whatever, you know. No, no. It just, it just stumbled onto it almost in serendipitous. It's just, it's just, I'm quick to tell people most of the best things in my life have been completely serendipitous, but it was a confluence of good decisions that got leveraged. It's kind of like Paul Angles in little house on the prairie books. He said, you know, sometimes I think success is really spelled w o r. K. Right. And, uh, and I think there's a lot of truth to that.
Jeremiah Pent:You've got more energy than it seems fair for one person. I will say that. But considering the highs and lows of, of your own personal journey, if you were to give one final piece of advice to those listening about their own life journeys, uh, what would it be?
Joel Salatin:Yeah. It's, don't quit. Don't quit. The a, the Peter Drucker learning curve, you know that you come in at a certain point and then, and then you always go down on a new venture, a new whatever it is, you always go down and then you, you, you have to come back up. Well, that, that's generally three to five years and most people sometime in that three to five years finally give up at, and I am quick to tell people I'm not smarter, I'm not stronger. I just think that we wouldn't quit. Yeah. We, we just stayed with it. And my goodness, when you, when you stay with something that long, you get pretty good at it. Yeah. And you really get a lot better at it. I think, you know, there's a book about, um, about the, the decades of a man's life and earning capacity. And it's interesting that the highest decade of earning in a Ma in a man's life is the sixties because it takes that long to develop the skill, right? The connections and the capital to come together and leverage that whole life's work. The next most common is in the seventies and it's not until the fifties that the, the, the third and the third one is in the s in the 50s. So, um,
Jeremiah Pent:oh, that's very contrary to the sort of the leanings of our culture. You know, you've got all the different, uh, well rich Karlgaard mentioned this and this is late bloomers book. You know, we've got these 30 under 30 featured and uh, all the different business magazines are 40, under 40. And it's this huge push for, you know, you've got to ace the sats and all these things that like, if you don't do something by the time you're 30, you're a washup and you're a failure, which is, you know, again, there are the, there are the prodigies, but they're the exception, not the rule. Absolutely. And the rule seems to be much more of this longer development. Again,
Joel Salatin:it's the tortoise, it's the tortoise, not the hare, the tortoise, not the hare. And, and so, so my advice is always, I tell people just don't quit. You know, they come with, well, this doesn't work. This doesn't work well, don't quit. Right. Just just stay with it and you know, you'll, you'll figure it out. That does. That doesn't mean there aren't enterprise. We've, we've quit enterprise. We've tried and tried and don't. But I'm telling you, your, your basic, if you know what, what makes your heart sing. Don't quit on that. Don't quit. Joel has been a pleasure. Thank you for taking the time out of your very busy schedule this time of year after the discussion. Uh, I believe that will sow some good seed in the hearts and minds of those who hear it. And so thank you for your investment in us today. Thanks for coming. And that brings to a close this episode of seek wisdom for a resource page with links to all the resources mentioned
Jeremiah Pent:in this episode. Visit seek wisdom podcast,[inaudible] dot com to purchase my illustrated children's book a good life. Visit your local bookstore or buy it from your favorite book seller online. This episode is brought to you by pattern media. If your business needs quality, website design and maintenance pattern media can help. Just visit pattern media.us. That's patterned media.us. Thank you for listening. I'm Jeremiah Pent.