Wine Growers Bios Steve Sangiacomo is a third-generation partner at Sangiacomo Family Vineyards, located in Sonoma, Californiawhere his family has farmed since 1927. He grew up on the ranch and began learning the ropes from his father andextended family at a young age. As far back as he can remember, he clamored to tag along with his father anduncles during early morning frost protection after which he enjoyed a special treat — doughnuts. He took to thefields early and recalls jumping off a tractor to race to seventh-grade orientation. In his early 20s, he beganlearning the family business from the ground up and in his 30s he and his brother Mike took over the reins.Mike Sangiacomo is a third-generation partner at Sangiacomo Family Vineyards, located in Sonoma, California,where his family has farmed since 1927. He has lived and breathed agriculture from the day he was born. Hisgrandfather taught him how to prune fruit trees from the ground up when he was eight years old and was tooshort to climb the ladder. Later he was thrilled when, at age 12, his uncle Buck let him drive the fork lift duringharvest. Shortly thereafter he began assisting at the inspection station for pears as they were sorted for thecanneries. When the family business transitioned from orchards to vineyards he began learning the intricacies ofgrapegrowing and has never looked back.About Sangiacomo Wines:Farming is in our blood. As third-generation farmers in Sonoma, we’ve upheld our family’s tradition of growingpremium grapes since planting our first vines in 1969. Our Sangiacomo wines reflect our passion for the region,focusing on complexity, freshness, and terroir. We farm over 1600 acres of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay across 15vineyards in four AVAs: Carneros, Sonoma Coast, Petaluma Gap, and Sonoma Valley, with additional CabernetSauvignon in Oakville, Napa Valley. Each vineyard block is farmed with an artisanal approach, highlighting theunique microclimates and soil diversity of our land.Don’t forget to like the podcast on all platforms and leave a review where ever you listen!Websitewww.Farm4Profit.comShareable episode linkhttps://intro-to-farm4profit.simplecast.comEmail [email protected] to YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSR8c1BrCjNDDI_Acku5XqwFollow us on TikTokhttps://www.tiktok.com/@farm4profitConnect with us on Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/Farm4ProfitLLC/
That was our first turbulence we've had. That's pretty cool though to see, like literally we're flying through the crumbs. Where else do you think you'd fly Tanner? Above there? Below there? Typically below the clouds is rougher than above the clouds and going through the clouds is a little bit rough, but... Join Corey. You boys want some popsicles?
david so tanner what i really gotta know is the juice worth the squeeze and tanner all right it's about time to wrap this baby up they're my favorite like farm for fun it's time to put aside the stress of the work boots sit down grab your favorite adult beverage and listen to the boys from farm for profit yay it says applause
Oh, what a new segment, Corey. We don't get to do this very often. What a fun relationship we made when we went out to the World Ag Expo. We got to talk to the Sonoma County Wine Growers Association. Yeah, not our normal path, but I tell you what, it's pretty good wine and I'll accept.
It is going to pay off huge dividends for us because they have shipped us two bottles of wine and we're going to taste one today and meet the actual wine growers.
grape growers themselves so welcome to the podcast gentlemen how you doing we're doing great yeah we're excited to be here we've got steve and mike and uh i'm going to put their name in the show notes but it is pronounced san jacomo if i did that correctly first try yeah that's right yeah we had a little coaching before we got on camera i'm just gonna say that because it does not sound like it looks wine grower and partners how's things going for you guys
We're doing great. 2024 season is upon us. Harvest is coming probably in the next month or so. We're almost to the fourth quarter. We're big sports guys around, so we like to attribute everything into quarters and halves. We're getting close to the fourth quarter. Harvest is our fourth quarter. It's turned out to be, so far, a great vintage.
We've still got a little ways to go before the goal line. Things are looking good.
So the growing season's been good so far, no major issues?
No, we had a little bit of a heat spike. Other than that, survived it well because it was early on in the season. And things look good at this point, like my brother said. The important weather's really kind of at the very end, so we'll see what happens. But as of right now, we're looking good. Yeah, we've had beautiful California sunshine.
That's what you need.
Mother Nature so far has blessed us. So we need some more California sunshine to get us to November. So that's all we ask for.
And you guys are in Sonoma Valley, is that correct?
We're in Sonoma Valley, yeah. We farm across multiple areas of Sonoma County. Sonoma County is made up of different AVAs in American Viticulture areas. So there's 20 AVAs in Sonoma County, and we farm in Sonoma Coast, Carnera, Sonoma Valley, and Petaluma Gap. So we're four of the farm in different areas of Sonoma County.
That's very cool. And you guys are brothers or related?
Others, yeah, we're a multi-generational family. Just like many of the farming operations, the grape growing operation, wine operations in Sonoma County, I think over 70% of our vineyards out here and operations are multi-generational family businesses. So very down, roots run deep around here in terms of, in more ways than one, through the vines and through our businesses out here.
And are grapes the only thing you guys grow?
As of now, yes, no. Yeah, no, we're just growing wine grapes right now. In the past, our family had to own pears, apples, fruits, and cherries, but over the decades and stuff, this is about what's left that is profitable. So farming is about profit. This is about profitability, and unfortunately, we're left here in Sonoma County with just one crop left. There are some apples.
There are some operations that are still farming apples, but the majority of it's all wine grapes right now, just go to the market and we make amazing wine as we'll be tasting here soon. So we'd love to be able to share with the country and the world.
I know I'm making Corey wait. I keep asking questions instead of letting him taste it. There's no one stopping. I can just stick. You could, you could. So you'd mentioned and kind of described your crop this year as a vintage. Do you ever go back and compare the year that you're growing in to years in the past to see if it's going to yield the same types of wines?
Yeah, every year. It's a new chapter. It's a new journey. That's amazing in my wine life. It's the best alcoholic product to drink. I'm not biased at all. Don't worry. I'm not biased. But every vintage is different. It's not like there's no recipe wine. There's no recipe. It's like other beverages. They all taste the same. Some, they're different. Some are different for their own reasons.
If it's weather, if it's
late growing seasons early growing seasons i mean it's mother mother nature's our boss i know you're a big farming community you understand you farm where mother mother nature is um you know calls the shot so that has a huge influence on each vintage and um you know they're all they're all different um i i'll say you know every vintage is is always my friends are how can you say every vintage is the best because it is all right so what do we have here what'd you guys send our way
So this is our 2022 Sonoma Coast Chardonnay. So it's from our state family brand. So we sell growers, like a lot of growers in Sonoma County. We sell to multiple wineries. We actually farm 1,600 acres in Sonoma County across 14 different individual vineyards. And we sell to over 90 wineries, which is a common theme with a lot of growers. They start and say, hey, let's start making our own estate.
And just so they can, you know, consumers can understand our interpretation of our grapes through our wine. And we have other winemakers do their own iterations. And winemaking is art. And we like to say grape growing is art as well. So grape growers play just as big a role in the final product. And we like to educate consumers that, guess what? Guess where wine starts? It starts in the vineyard.
So this is our 2022 Sonoma Coast Chardonnay.
And how are you supposed to taste wine? Are you supposed to swirl it and then drink it? I mean, I know when we taste bourbon, you swirl it and you sniff, get a nose feel for it. Do you do the same thing with wine?
Absolutely. Yeah, you move it around, get a little of the aromas going, a little sniff, what kind of flavors. And then the next part is, or the aromas, I should say, the next part is tasting it for the flavor and texture. So, yeah, you're breaking, you're soaring up, breaking up all the enzymes. And it just basically... It's not.
It's basically when you put the romaine, just tell me what you smell. It's like it's the first thing you smell.
It smells like a good time. I don't know.
Definitely get some fruity notes. I had like a pear note almost.
Pear. There you go. Bingo. Do you have the tasty notes in front of you? No. No.
We printed off like 65 pages of paper, and I haven't looked at any of them yet, so no.
I don't know what that is. So it's a test. Yeah. So pair a lot of fruit notes. So Sonoma County gets a lot of sunshine. We're in California, but we're in the cooler parts of the cooler regions. We're on the marine coastal region, we call it. So we're really close to the Pacific Ocean. We border it. It's California. A lot of our vineyards are, you know, just miles away.
So we get a lot of that ocean influence, marine influence in the day. So it allows the grapes to get ripe. Then at night, It cools down and allows the vineyards, the grapes to maintain acidity. So you get brightness and great fruit flavors. And then you get acidity that really adds to the textural element to the wine.
So when you taste it, you're getting fruit and acidity, which is great with food. And then it allows the palate to linger. Do you get some acid in the wine? Do you get some acidity?
I did a little bit.
A little acidity. It does stick around.
Yeah. It is good.
It is very good.
I don't drink a lot of wine. This is why it's exciting for me to be able to get some exposure through Sonoma County. What would you pair this with meal-wise?
Mike, I think if you like fish, obviously, but any of the lighter meats like chicken and pork and then any type of vegetarian goes real well. Any type of sauce is usually lighter sauce, but even though I'll go with a little red sauce as long as it's not too dominant. So it's pretty flexible.
We just had some shrimp jambalaya for lunch, and I think it would have been fine with it.
It's kind of spicy. Got some leftovers. This would be great.
Yeah, that acidity allows for the flavors of the food to be exemplified. And there's a touch of oak on it. So we, you know, new oak is, you know, winemaking in general is like, you know, you want a kiss of oak, right? You don't want, sometimes there's some Chardonnays, you know, Chardonnays got a kind of a bad rap in the last,
decades where just you taste it and there's this all oak and a lot of just, you know, you really aren't even tasting the vineyard, the terroir. And there's a big renaissance of Chardonnay where winemakers and just wineries are really cutting back on the oak. And so this has about 22% new oak, which means new French barrels. So you get that really kind of that oak expression.
And then all the rest of it goes to neutral barrels, which allow for all of our vineyard and all the hard work we do all you know, all year to come through in, in, in the, uh, in the final product.
So. Wow. So 1600 acres. I imagine you guys are growing more than one variety of grapes.
Yes. Yeah.
So more than just this Chardonnay.
Chardonnays are a dominant variety, but we also grow Pinot Noir, uh, a little bit of Merlot and a couple other small varieties, a little tiny bit of Sauvignon Blanc, um, and a couple other one and a half, two acre varieties and stuff that we're playing around with. But, uh, Pinot and Chardonnay are our two main varieties.
I didn't realize.
So we're Burgundian varieties. So it's in Burgundy of France where it all started, right? And so the Burgundy part of France is a very similar climate to some parts of Sonoma County, not all. Sonoma County has different weather microclimates. And so where our vineyards are, We grow the Burgundian variety, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, just because they're really cool.
They accelerate and do very well in these types of climates. So Pinot Chard is the majority of what we grow. In Sonoma County, there's Pinot Noir, Chardonnay. We grow a lot in Cabernet. Those are the three main varieties. Having said that, Sonoma County has microclimates where it grows everywhere. I think over every 20 plus varieties, maybe even more than that.
The majority is Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet.
This may bring out my naiveness when it comes to wines. I didn't realize when you pick up a Chardonnay that that was the type of grape. I just thought you could put any grapes in and make a Chardonnay just by aging it or processing it or whatever it was. I didn't realize it was variety. Very naive. Did you know that? Yeah. No way.
Yeah.
Yeah, you're saying that now.
just a little google search on the right so on the label this beautiful label you have san jacomo it says it says san jacomo which is obviously the winery's name and then below it's sonoma coast and that's actually the region of sonoma where the aba which we talked about uh earlier and then it says a chardonnay variety as you just alluded and then the vintage on there it'll even go as specific as sometimes they'll they'll put um
Vineyard-specific wines. So for us, we'll put, you know, some of our – one of our 14 different vineyards. So it'll be San Giacomo. It'll say Green Acres, Sonoma Coast, Chardonnay. So that's some of the, you know, the writings that goes on labels and some of the educational components.
Wow. That's cool. Can we get this in Iowa?
Can we get – So we don't – for us, we're about 4,000 cases, so super small states. brand. We sell 97% of the fruit we grow. We only use about 3% of our favorite blocks and vineyards. So, for us, we have a wine club at our website, sanjargonwines.com, and you can buy online. We direct shift. We're not in Iowa yet. We don't have distribution in Iowa.
Wow, but direct shift's close enough.
You're in Ohio. We're not in any of the... We're just in a couple small states. Yeah.
So we have the first two bottles. And we have the first two bottles and we can order more.
Yeah. Which I think I will.
And the UPS driver that delivered was giving Tanner. Yeah, I got to tell you this.
So I totally caught my wife off guard. You know, right. Wine gets shipped to the house. It's in a beautiful box and it's encased in a very good fashion. And the UPS truck driver says, you know, you really shouldn't buy and ship wine this time of year. Our trucks get so hot, and that's just not good.
You just start going through the education of what we're supposed to do and when we're supposed to buy wine. And my wife goes, oh, well, my husband's going to drink it. And he just kind of went, oh, well, tell him to put it in the basement and let it chill before it gets started. It was all about educating until he realized that I was the one drinking it.
Well, it should have come in ice. If it didn't, then I'm going to call our ship. It is very difficult to ship wine this time of year because of the heat, and they should come with ice. Did it come with ice?
No. Oh, boy. Uh-oh. Somebody just got in trouble. I'm going to tell you right now, though, it's still pretty good. It's great. Yep. We chilled it.
It survived, right?
Yep. As instructed, we chilled it before drinking. It has been an absolute pleasure to not only try the wine but to meet the two of you. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.
Well, you guys got to come on. So you were out visiting, you said?
We went to World Ag Expo Farm Show in Tulare, and then we got to meet – The representatives from the. Yep.
Correct. Yep.
And.
Well, you got to come out to Sonoma and visit us.
We would love that. I think that's the plan this night. If we get to go back out next year is to grab a couple of days and head your direction. Sure. A couple hours away from Tulare.
Well, it's not that. Yeah, it's not that far.
I think I got a guy that has a house out by Sonoma. Oh, so maybe we could Airbnb that for. Oh, yes. Our cook has a guy. I do have one question for you guys before we do let you go. What does the Sonoma Valley Wine Growers mean to you, you know, for helping move your product and promote you?
Oh, the Sonoma County Wine Growers?
Yeah.
Yeah, no, it's a great organization. It helps us just basically promote all the great wines we're growing in the area. You know, we haven't reached everybody in the world yet, and certainly in the country. So, you know, it's a great organization. helped us promote the wines and, you know, get it in front of people so they can try it because it really is a great product.
And do you know Sonoma County is the most sustainable wine region in the world? So 99% of our vineyards in Sonoma County are certified sustainable.
Yes.
And this was led, I mean, to your question, Corey, this was led by the Sonoma County wine growers, Carissa, and I'm part of the board, and we put a stake in the ground in 2015 to be the most certified wineries in the world, and
About three or four years ago, we attained that, and there's a certification process that all of our vineyards go through with the third-party monitor comes in and assesses the whole program that's all around sustainability.
That's awesome. I will tell you, most of the flyover states still use the Napa word, but what we learned from Carissa when we were out there that you guys supply Napa with most of the wine is That's going in.
Well, there's plenty of room for all of us in the wine world, and Napa's a great, they're a great neighbor, but we just, we're here to promote Sonoma, and so you just, you know, when people say Napa, you say, well, Sonoma grows, they grow great wine, but so does Sonoma as well. Yes.
We're excited to be back out there, and now, over this series of interviews, we're going to get to make a lot of friends, and we're probably going to end up with a really happy couple of days while we're out there. Love it. Exactly.
You're going to be wine and dine. Wine and dine.
I love it.
It's a dream.
Yeah, I love it. So if our listeners want to find you, what's the best way for them to look you up?
SanGiacomoWines.com. W-W-W-S-A-N-G-I-A-C-O-M-O-W-I-N-E-S.com.
Awesome. Please come visit.
If they mention this show, they get a free hosted tasting by Mike and I. Ooh, that's huge.
That's a big time. That's great. I love it. Gentlemen, thank you so much for hanging out with us.
Thanks for having us on.
Cheers.
Cheers, cheers.
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This is a first experience for the Farm for Profit crew. We have recorded a podcast from a train. We've recorded a podcast from a boat. And we've recorded a podcast... Wait, we've done one on a boat? We've done one on a boat. No, we haven't done one on a boat. We need a boat. We have done a distillery. We've done a... yeah? Uh-huh.
I remember the one we were going to do on a boat, and that would have been an extremely good show. On a pontoon. Cars pontoon. I know a guy with a boat, but I don't think it'd have anything to do with farming. We are now recording one live in an airplane. How high up are we right now? We're 3,500 foot. 3,500 feet above the ground. So we are not quite in the mile-high club of podcast recording.
We're in the half-mile club. We're in the half-mile podcast club. We got the whole crew here together headed down to a business meeting. Isn't it fascinating, guys? As a podcast, we get to go to business meetings. Yeah. We've got probably one of the most interesting people that we know flying us down there. We have to say that. We have to say that. We have to say that.
Ah.
So every time you call into the airport, that's what you got to read back to them. So that is our guest today. AJ Whitman here hauls my pigs and now hauls me around. Welcome to the, this is probably a farm for fun show, wouldn't it be, Tanner? It has to be a farm for fun show. That's what we're doing. We're having a ton of fun. I did ask when the beverage services started.
He said hot tamales in that little drawer over there. Apparently it's bring your own. Yeah. Yep, I screwed up today, sorry fellas. That's alright, you got a return trip home to make it up for us. I'll bring the beer. There you go. So what do you think listeners want to know from a podcast from the sky? How the crops look, maybe? Alright, we're flying over, uh... We just crossed into Missouri.
Southeast, uh, well, yeah. Just crossed into Missouri, seeing lots of, uh... Wind turbines. A lot of wind turbines. And most people in southern Iowa that I know don't like wind turbines. They want them gone. That's because we're in Missouri now. That was probably the line right there. Wouldn't you say, Cory, Central Iowa looked like there was some bonding issues?
Probably going to have spots of no yield. But otherwise, overall, it's looked okay to good? Yeah. Definitely some challenging spots. We flew out of Ames, Iowa. Ponding was pretty bad. You can tell spring was a challenge there and it got a little bit better as we went southeast. Southeast looked pretty good. I haven't seen much for water damage since probably Knoxville.
It looks like all the ponding that we have down here is on purpose. You know, acreage ponds, what these are. People that like to hunt, fish, recreation, that's all recreational ponds. So, AJ, we always give our guests a chance to introduce themselves to our listeners. So, why don't you tell them a little bit about who you are and what you do? Oh, yeah.
My name is AJ Weekman, and, of course, I'm flying these guys around. So, I'm a pilot by hobby, mostly. And I own livestock and farm equipment for a living. That's what I do for a living. I've been doing that for, this will be a year 20 for that. I really enjoy it. Farmer flies too, don't you? Yep, oh yeah, yep. Ben Farmer, can't forget that. Ben Farmer, this will be year four for that.
It's been a great experience. Obviously things this year don't look as good as the previous three, but we all knew that was probably coming. So I fly for a hobby and really enjoy it. So do you have a cattle pot then, or a hog semi that you're hauling mostly wood animals? Yep, livestock trailers. And we haul anything that'll walk on there. Sheep, goats, pigs, horses, don't matter, cattle.
And we go all over the country, 48 states, and there are 18 of us. Oh, wow. So 18 livestock trailers running. And like I said, I got all farm equipment myself. And we do a little bit of driving and work. But yeah, most of it, most of it, Came from hauling pigs. That's where we got our starters, hauling pigs. So what's the trucker term for your trailer?
Like when they say pot, like a pot-bellied pig? Yeah, yep, yep. Livestock pot. Livestock pot. And then what are you, lowboys, or what are you hauling equipment on? Yeah, yep, it's a lowboy. Ag trailer, it's got aluminum slide outs, you know, so you can haul sprayers and all your grain carts and all the big wide stuff that can't get on a normal width trailer.
Now the real question, what kind of tractor do you pull it with? Yeah, what's your ride? I drive a Peterbilt. Yep, driving Peterbilt. It's a 2016 glider. It's been kind of a project. I've been in the making for six years. It took me to put it together and I finally got it back in September, so. Didn't you blow one up earlier this year? That was the truck.
Like I said, it's been an interesting one, so. Does that got a heat and polar transmission? It does. It does? Yep. Got a big cat in it? Cat engine, yep. Yep, just kind of unfortunate we must have had a bad crank in it because we broke the crank at, what was that? 40,000 miles. Pretty early in the game. Where you at? California? I was on my way back from Oregon, actually. Well, Washington.
I made kind of a west coast trip there. I hauled some fertilizer out there. Ended up on a boat going to, it was in Totes. So I took a van, took Totes of fertilizer from Liquid Grow in Williams. I'm sure everybody's familiar with Liquid Grow. That went on a boat in Seattle, Washington, and that product went to Anchorage, Alaska, to a farm up there. Oh, really? Yep. Was that Grown Corn's farm?
You know what? Yeah. Well played, well played. So, yeah. Yeah, and I was working my way back, and I was actually hauling floor dry back out of Nevada, and I got back to the Nevada-Utah line, and it laid down on me. Just started knocking and quit running, so... Up in Alaska, you could have got, remember we interviewed the guys from Edison, or stealing Edison's idea.
What was the company with the... Edison Motors. Edison Motors, yeah, stealing Tesla's idea. That's what it was. Really? So as a trucking company owner, are you the owner of all the tractors, owner of all the trailers? You work as a broker, dispatch? How's that work in a trucking business? So I am owner of the trailers.
mostly i would say 70 owner operators and then i own four or five trucks myself so but a lot of his family i got my dad i've got three brothers that all drive you know that all got their own trucks so they're considered owner operators and then i got a couple drivers of my own trucks but yeah i do i don't broker i i'm not considered a broker i just line up the loads for my guys and
Once in a while, if I need help from a buddy, you know, a neighboring trucking company, then I guess I wouldn't call it brokering because they don't take any money from that. I'm happy that they're helping me. They help me go to the load, so they get all the money. So I'm not a broker. But yeah, we work together a lot like that.
So are your loads mostly for the same clients that you've had for a couple of years or how do you go about? It's not a hot shot for livestock. I assume it's clients you've worked with. Yep. Yep. So I have a couple of bigger integrators that I've been hauling for. And it's been since 2012, so what's that, 12 years now? Yeah.
So that's some of my bigger ones, and I've got some very small family-owned farms I've been hauling for 20 years. What's the value add in a trucking company versus you versus someone else? I wouldn't even know what to ask. I mean, what sets you apart? Cool Peter belts. Yeah, that's part of it. That's part of it. We do have nice equipment, a lot of reliable equipment.
My goal is to always be on time. Obviously, I can't control all that, but I pride myself and my guys, of course, to be on time more than not. We can't help, obviously, when a pack and plant gets us backed up in a day or something like that or a washout, you know.
There's some variables in there, but for the most part, I pride myself on being on time and just having a good service for my clients and my producers at Hall 4, like Corey. Yeah, I will say, you know, so A.J. Halls, Our pigs, I don't line anything up though for that. So I have no say in who hauls my pigs. It's the company that I grow for. I gotcha. But I don't know.
I've been farming hogs since 2013. AJ has had some trucks on our farm since then. Not consistently though until about 2020 was when we switched to our new pig supplier. I tell you what, the value that added is, yes, they are on time. I don't have to worry about it.
When it's just a revolving door, if you don't know what trucking company is coming to your site, who the driver is, all that kind of stuff, it's a little nerve-wracking when they're going to show up. Because if you've got three loads in a day, and you start loading the first load, the first load is maybe supposed to start at 7 o'clock at night, and then you start loading a half hour early or so,
It may show up at 6.30, but the next guy that comes is an hour late. All of a sudden, you got people there that you're paying, sitting around, you know, and it just ruins everyone's day. And everyone gets backed up. Yeah, all you guys got other things to do, too. And when you're waiting on trucks, I mean, that ain't no good. Because you're paying them guys to sit there.
You could be off doing other things or having your guys off doing other things, you know. Yeah. So how much, when I think of selling cattle, we always talk about shrink on the cattle, you know, depending on the haul and how far. Does the hauler make a difference on that to, like, practices? It could have some difference to do with it, yes.
Mainly in, like, your loading practices or how, what we call a stocking rate, you know, how many animals you put per compartment. If you don't use your head and don't spread them out as best you can, you cram the animals in there and, yes, they're going to shrink harder. So, yes, there is something to do with that too, and there again, I'd probably micromanage that a little bit.
You know, if I know that the guy going there hasn't done this very much, I'll say, hey, this is how I want you to load the trailer. Yep. Just to make sure that they don't, you know, just because they're maybe not educated or aware of how to do it. And everyone's got to learn at some point, but that is the nice thing about AJ's people is they mostly have experience and experience.
Tell you what, when you get someone in there that doesn't know what they're doing, that does make or break a load and load times. You get a good driver in there, you can load them as fast as you can take them to them. Or sometimes you've got to wait on the driver stalking the truck. And sometimes that's the pigs. I mean, you might just get a bad group of pigs or livestock.
And I can't speak to sheep or... cattle or anything like that, but I can talk to the pig side of things. Yep. Yeah, and as far as driver experience goes, you know, once in a while you're going to get a new guy in there that doesn't understand, but he has to learn.
They have to learn.
Somebody's got to teach them somehow, you know, they've got to learn somehow. Yep. And trust me, I've had some guys that start off pretty rough, and they are some of my top guys right now. Yep.
I mean, they've never hauled livestock before they come to me, and, you know, I've had some complaints about it, but after they got educated, you know, they understand what's going on now, and now they're some of my top guys. Yep. So we're going to do a reality show, Tanner. We're going to put you as the trucker and I'll just sit side and we'll go load and see how we do.
Oh, I think we'd be just fine if you've got me driving.
I've made several trips out to Schuyler with cattle and it's just, it's actually kind of like this flight.
It's relaxing for me when I'm not doing it full time and they're my in-laws cattle. I mean, I knew what my load time was and I knew I could get there. Probably the biggest worry I had is the reliability of the equipment. When I worked at the fire department probably 10 years ago, we had a pot tip over right at Highway 30 and Interstate 35. And it's just interesting.
It's all aluminum trailer that we had there. And I went through sawzall blades. I remember calling on the radio. And they're like, what do you need? And I'm like, I need sawzall blades because we were cutting out all the animals that were in because it was tipped sideways. Everything was bent up. The gates were all busted in there.
And we just, man, I just remember going through like a hundred sawzall blades. But we were just cutting away at this trailer until we got everything out of there and offloaded it to another trailer. And it's interesting, though. Just a side note. Rollovers are never good. I want to know, you said you've been doing this for 20 years. Yes.
There's been a lot of things that have changed in the livestock trucking world in the last four years, let alone 20. Yep. How was it back in the day? Man, it was a lot easier. You know, back then I didn't think that. It's been 20 years ago. I was 19 years old, 18 years old. And I thought that, I mean, it was pretty overwhelming at that point for me. But now looking back, it's like, man,
They're trying to push all these e-logs on us. They're trying to push all these hours of service rules and all that stuff. And back then, all you had to do was fill out a paper logbook, and you could budget however you wanted to.
Now, they're making it so hard to do that because they've got all these computers hooked up to the trucks, and they've got an e-log in there, and it runs off your ECM, so it's pretty hard to cheat on them. There are still ways around it, but maybe I'm not supposed to say that, but... So is it the DMV or the DOT that's the hard portion, or is it like USDA and like some of the USDA requirements?
USDA is pretty laxed. I mean, they really are. They understand what's going on out here. The DOT is what... They're the ones that don't understand or maybe don't care. You know, that's maybe a better term. They don't really care. They're just supposedly... doing their job, you know, protect and serve or whatever, however they say that, but it's all about revenue. Yeah.
You know, so all they're doing is just looking to make a good name for themselves. On their setting, Rules and laws for more over-the-road type people than livestock. And then they expect the livestock guys to abide by the same rules. Well, it don't work. You can't stop on a 100 degree day or a 90 degree day with 100% humidity in Iowa.
You can't stop for a half hour break on the side of the road to load pigs on. It'll kill them. It's not just shockers, but the way that you deliver pigs and animals at the plant. It's changed a lot too, right? Yes, it has. Yeah, so we're not allowed to use our electric prods at the packing plants anymore.
And there's actually a big integrator now here in Iowa that will not allow us to use them while we're loading the pigs from the farm. They don't allow the load crews to use them in the barns. It's pretty wild. I mean, it can take a long time to load pigs at them places. Because Cory knows probably as much as anybody else that loading a pig without a hot shot, that can be pretty difficult. Right.
You don't use them all the time, but there's certainly times that you need it. Right. Hey, you got the one that's standing right there in the front of the line, not moving. Yep. Your phone's effing with his... It's fine. It's fine. Don't worry about it. I don't know if you noticed. The magnet spins the compass, so don't worry about it. As soon as I saw it spinning, I went, oh, there's a magnet.
We're going down. We're going down. The old school compass isn't working. No, this is only for if all this shuts off on me randomly. Yep. That would be called what? Flying by instruments or what? Well, actually, if all that shut off, then you wouldn't have instruments. No, you're just flying by sight and sound, I guess.
What would happen if we did come up on a storm, like you tried to fly above or around it? Flying by the seat of your pants, isn't that what it's called? That'd be pretty close, yep. Flying by the seat of your pants. How it feels in your seat. Yep. What other terms have come from airplane pilots that we use? Oh, boy, I don't know. I'm not trying to think either. Wasn't that balls to the wall?
Wasn't that a pilot? Oh, yeah. Because it used to be a ball for your throttle or something. Oh, yeah. Some of the old planes have a round ball or knob on the throttle and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So that makes sense. I've never heard that before. But yeah, that makes sense. Balls to the wall. Yep. Yep. Yep.
So back to the trucking side of things, you know, everything's continued to change and obviously everything's gotten more expensive. I remember one of the first pots that my in-laws bought compared to what a new pot costs right now. That's crazy. Have your fees for hire been able to follow that trend as well? Absolutely not.
It's been that way for since, I mean, you ask the guys like my dad, he's been trucking for 45 years now. So it was a family business that you kind of got into. Yep. Okay. Yep. It was I mean, I learned it from him so He started farming and he kind of quit trucking. Well, there wasn't enough room for me on the farm So that's when I picked trucking up and I love it.
I still do love it Obviously there's days that aren't great, but there's that way in anything, right? But no the equipment cost is definitely it's it's it's ridiculous or you know, we're all for the same rates we were on for and you know, back before the, before COVID, you know, and equipment is almost doubled in cost and parts and tires. I mean, everything is almost doubled. Yep.
You know, my first brand new livestock trailer I bought was in 2012 and I paid $81,000 for that trailer. I picked up a very similar specced trailer Sunday morning and it was $168,000. Holy crap. It was double the cost. So, it's kind of the same in growing the pigs. We've been paid the same rate since 2013. We've never had an increase. But yet, the barn costs.
Yeah, look at what it costs to redo your barn. Right? I mean, yeah. It probably costs about, just to remodel your barn, probably costs what it did to build them. So we're putting in gates and doing some solid sides and stuff right now. Yep. Probably should be looking at slots and that kind of stuff, even though they're not bad, but like, you know, you're doing all that stuff.
My barn's a 26 years old. So, I mean, yeah, we got a quote a year or two ago. I think 2022 we got a quote. It's three quarters of a million dollars to redo everything. We paid less than that for the site. Yep. Let's talk about this a little bit. So I went to the Western store yesterday, Western Edge, and got to talk with owner Melanie Edge.
$3.99?
We're under $4. So under $4. So we just cut every farmer's paycheck in half now and caught twice as much to borrow it. What do you guys think the next three years looks like? It feels negative. It doesn't look good. And I'm not probably a good one to ask because like I said, this is year four for farming for me. So I've seen nothing but good until this year. I feel like it's sideways.
There's nothing that seems like it's going to break a lot of news out up or down. I mean, you'd have to come up with a lot of demand for this to go up, or you'd have to come up with a crop failure. See, you know, like, I don't think, somebody asked me the other day, and I don't think new trucks are going to go back to $30,000. So everything costs more.
Now, I've tried to charge more, and yet I'm getting beaten up even more in price because now it's that competitive because everybody's worried about it so that they're all lowering their prices. I don't know what the right stance is. Do you just...
I think Cory's got a good theory on why truck costs are as high as they are based upon his most recent discoveries, or at least paying more attention to what he discovered. Well, we're looking at upgrading the wife's minivan, and we're looking at maybe going to an SUV. Yep. Well, if your wife does anything for the farm or the business, I mean, that's a business expense for a vehicle.
Well, you can't pull the bean head with the minivan? Actually, it's got a... See, you can ride that off. Yeah, but you can only... If it's under 6,000 pounds, you can only ride off $20,000 of it. Okay. If it's over 6,000 pounds, you can ride up to 80% of the value off towards your business. So I'm looking at SUVs, right? And they're more than dang trucks now. They're ridiculous.
I mean, they're nice. But then I'm looking at the minivan. I get a brand-new minivan with all the bells and whistles... You know, yes, it's a minivan. I get that. You just don't get that six inch extra six inches of clearance. But you get that for like mid 50s and you're not getting into a low quality SUV for 75. And I think that's I think that bump up is because you can ride it off.
Yeah, it could be, yeah. Well, that costs twice as much for registration of that vehicle. I know that, because you could buy a truck. My wife and I looked at a truck versus an SUV, and it's like $400 a year to register the SUV, and it's like $90 for the truck. So as long as you get a four-door truck with a bed, as long as there's a bed in it, then you're, you know.
I sent Corey a text that said the bed's got to be at least six foot. It can't be a short bed. So is that why they put all these newer pickups at a 6.5-foot bed? Probably. I think it's exactly why. At least that's what they claim they are. Yeah, someone probably came up with those ultra-short beds, and then someone got audited and found out they couldn't. Ride it off like they wanted to.
Register your old El Camino. I don't know, I'm just wondering even, should we be... So it's my first year of farming, so unlike you, AJ, I'm starting off just on the assume we're going to lose money. But it makes me wonder, should we budget better and start backing off our personal expenses You know, because we went out to eat last night and we'll go out to eat again next week.
Should we start tailoring that back or is that going to trigger the economy to do something different because everybody's doing that? Everybody's hesitating. That's a good question. I've often thought about that myself. Yeah, where do you start cutting costs or how do you make it work? You know, me, I'm not going to lie to you, I've got nice equipment.
I probably should maybe downgrade some of that. But the problem is right now nobody else wants to buy my stuff either because they're not making money either. So, yeah, do you start cutting out stuff of your home life or your personal life? I don't know if that's the right thing or not. Yeah. You know? To me, that feels like a lot of resort. Yeah, I agree with you.
It really ain't fair to your wife or your kids. Yeah. You know, it ain't their fault. So I don't know. And that's why we're... doing, working as hard as we are, because we want nice things for our families and, you know, to have a good life. Yep. But that's exactly right. We don't have to push Farm for Profit as hard as we push Farm for Profit.
But Corey does always give me shit for trying to save my way to prosperity. I feel like if you just always run a lean ship, Then that's what you don't have to worry about. If it doesn't work and your ship's already as lean as it can be, then it's really shit. Well, I've even thought about marketing some of the farms.
You know, my gal at my office, the office manager says, hey, we could save if we only mailed, you know, promotional mailers to 15 miles away rather than 20 miles away. Probably saves $2,000 in auction. Well, you know, where's the line? But and then also, you know, every time we send one out, we probably promote our business, too.
I just wonder if all business owners are thinking that way and how they decide to cut back if they do cut back. Or is this the time to go forward and over advertise your business when everybody else is not?
Well, I want to get back to a little bit more fun conversations here with AJ, because this flying privately in a plane is already something that I think I'm falling in love with, and that's not going to cut expenses for far from it. Well, I mean, it's not a, this isn't considered a PJ. That'd be a private jet. This is a, what would you call this, PP, a private plane? It's PPP, private pop plane.
No PJs, no hop toes. Yep. be considered a private plane. Yeah. Well, let's fly somewhere and go look at a twin prop. Yeah, we can do that too. As you, AJ, you said that you've owned planes for almost as long as you've been driving trucks. About half the time. This is probably about year 10 for me owning a plane. And you originally got it for personal use enjoyment.
What's some of the coolest places you've flown to? Oh man. I know it wasn't Houston. So actually, funny story, that's where I bought this plane from was Houston. Really? So I did all the training in this plane down there. Okay. And yeah, I got that from down there.
But probably some of the coolest places I've been to is, I've been up into Montana and actually going out, believe it or not, going out to Vegas about twice a year in this plane. And that's a long flight. It's an eight-hour flight. But it's a lot of fun. I mean, different country. I've been into Florida. I flew my family down to Gulf Shores, Florida for spring break three years ago.
And, you know, we stopped in Nashville for the night on the way down. They're just kind of, you know, just something extra to do for the whole trip. And it's just, I mean, it's cool places like that that... Not everybody says they can do or have done or can go do that just on a whim. Yeah. What's it like flying into a big airport like Vegas?
Or do you not fly into Vegas, I don't know what it's called, international? Yep. So, man, I can't remember what they call that one either. But no, big airports, like real big, busy commercial airports, like Dave, you asked about maybe stopping in St. Louis on the way back tomorrow. They will allow me to land there. They don't like it. Yeah.
Because they got a lot of big planes coming in and out of there. They don't want little me jumping in and out of there. So as I was telling Corey, there's nine miles from there, there's a small little airport, and we could have landed there and just Ubered over there quick. But same way in Vegas. The big main airport there, I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head.
I fly into Henderson Executive, which is 20 miles west of town. Nice, small, private. It's a private airport, I guess. How big do you have to be? Like a nine-passenger jet? Let me rephrase this first. What's the difference between your plane and a jet? I know a jet engine, but there's got to be a huge significant difference in flying a jet versus flying a plane. It's mostly speed.
Them jets go a lot faster, you know? If a controller's got you in the pattern and they need you to speed up, this thing won't go that fast, just to keep out of the way of other planes. Like them big commercial planes. And there's what they call jet wash also. Them big jets put off a lot of, or jet wake, I believe is what they call it. This little plane would just be thrown all over in that.
So they don't like it when I go in there. So we just stay away. We go to the other airports, you know. Des Moines, that's a smaller airport. They don't, you know, planes like this fly in and out of there all the time. Yeah. But you get in the big metropolitans like Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, you know, you just stay out of them big ones.
You just go out to the surrounding, you know, outskirts of town and land there. It's a lot more relaxed atmosphere for guys, you know, planes like this or guys like me. Yeah. So is it like dodgeball? If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball. Is it the same thing? If you can fly a plane like this, you can fly any plane? I wouldn't say that. All the basics are the same. Let's put it that way.
All the basics are the same. It's the amount of training you've got to do to get into something like flying the big jets. It takes a lot of training. I mean, you've got to put a lot of hours in the seat and dedicate a lot of time to it. Therefore, it probably needs to be your full-time career. Yep. So...
Something like, you know, what we discussed earlier, maybe we went into a bigger plane, a twin or something like that. I would have to do some training to fly it, but not as nearly as extensive as flying a jet or flying a commercial airline jet, you know. How long do you think you'd have to spend on that? Oh, probably another 50 hours would be my guess. 50 to 60 hours, I suppose.
So you'd have to buy it, and then basically have an instructor with you in that plane? Yep, you hire an instructor. They go out and they just show you, and then once they feel that you are worthy or safe to fly that plane, then they'll sign you off. And is that only good for that specific plane, or then you can fly any twin prop? A lot of them are specific...
model or make specific a lot of different planes have different features and how they operate like especially for like in the in the cabin throttles and flaps and all that stuff they want they want you to ride with an instructor that has a lot had a lot of time in that plane so you understand how everything works in it or the characteristics of a lot of them are different weights there's different horsepowers you know so you just gotta you gotta understand you gotta go through all the weight and balance of all the different planes so you understand how to load it you know how to not put too much weight or
160, 320, 240.
Is that 1,000 acres? It's got to be almost a full section there, 640 worth, because there's a huge substation right there too. Right, and you can tell that there's more in the process of being put. Yeah, those are becoming more of a thing up here. I mean, you see that a lot more. I don't really like seeing it.
I had a couple of guys say that they would rent their ground out and they were getting $1,100 an acre rent on that. Yeah, that makes it sound like a 20-year contract, don't they? Yeah, and it goes up every year. That's hard to turn down, especially what we're looking at for corn prices right now. Obviously, it's a good investment, but...
It's a matter of are you going to feed into, will you feed into that trend, you know? Right. No different than the windmills, you know, they're kind of the same thing. Yep. So when Dave sells farms with windmills on them, they always sell better. Do they? Well, it's just they got income. Yeah. It helps the cash flow.
A lot of what we're doing is production agriculture, and those guys want to make money just like all of us. So it's just a cap rate. It's a capitalization rate. You know, if you're making, what, 12% in a Edward Jones account or something like that, most rentals, houses in town, you know, what are we, 8%, 10%?
Get to a T-bond, you're probably 5%, and then you get to farm ground, and we're down to 2.5%. So if it's got any extra with cell phone towers or wind turbines or solar farms, well, then you still get the cool asset you want of farmland. Right. So as you think about all the places you've flown into, AJ, where are some of the shittiest places you've flown into? Oh, boy. Probably in Oklahoma.
That was fast. Yeah. I figured you were going to say Nebraska. No. Actually, Nebraska's got a lot of nice airports. I've been to a lot of nice places there. And that's mostly been, I mean, I use that for what I would call business use. Like, we'll go out there and look at trucks.
You know, if we've got a driver that's looking at a truck or I'm looking at a truck, we'll fly out there and look at a truck. It saves a lot of time. Or, you know, I had an owner-operator buy a truck out there in Nebraska last year. We went out and looked at it on one Sunday, and he'd come home and think about it. And then, yep, next Sunday, hey, let's go buy it.
So he'd give them a ride out there, and he drove the thing home. So yeah, Nebraska's got a lot of nice airports. Oklahoma, on the other hand, it's pretty desolate out there. There's not a lot of people and they just don't care as much. There's certain things that they have to do to keep, the city has to do to keep the airport open, which makes it safe for us to fly in there.
But like, the facilities, man. That one I stopped in Oklahoma last week. Had to go to the bathroom, and the FBO, which is what we would call the gas station, you know, you walk in the office, and, well, this place, I mean, I'm serious, all there was was a desk in there with a map laying on top of it, and a restroom in the back. That's it.
And there was no air conditioning, and I'm telling you, it was hot. What do you need for a runway to land this or take off? Can you put it down on grass? Yes, yes. I have a grass strip six miles from my house and it is a 2400 foot runway. And that's probably about the minimum I would want to do for a grass runway. Grass runways, there's a lot of resistance, you know, on your wheels and stuff.
More so than concrete. So you're on turf, you're on dirt, grass. Well... It's more resistance. You need more length to get off the ground. Yes. To answer your question, grass runways are... I like grass runways. They're fun. Are they pretty rough? Some of them are. Some of them are. You got to watch out for holes, you know. Go for holes. Yep. Yep.
Have you ever had a close call in-air emergency or anything? Um, well, I mean, I don't know if I would call it an emergency. I didn't think it was. We went out to Nebraska to look at a truck one day and come back, and so this airplane, you've got to manually switch the right and left tank right down here on the floor. See that, Corey? Oh, yeah, yeah.
Okay, so I'll watch the gauges here, and every 30 minutes, you know, I'll switch it back and forth. Okay. I was with a couple guys. We were on our way back, and, you know, we were up 5,500 feet coming back across there and just chatting away, you know, talking. I'd forgotten to change the tanks. And a guy riding right seat with me was a pilot. He'd been a pilot longer than I had.
This thing sputtered and died. Oh. It ran out of gas on the one side. Not a big deal. Yeah. I mean, I knew exactly what was happening. Not a big deal. No, no, no. Hear me out. It's not a big deal. We're trained for that. I mean, we're trained to adapt to situations like that. In fact, our instructor will purposely shut the gas off on us just to see how we react. Yeah. This guy freaked out.
He'd been flying longer than I had. I just, just relax, man. I just told him relax. All you got to do is you flip the tank quick and the propeller's up there still spinning because it's got air on it, you know? The colors up there are still spinning, so all you can do is throw the gas back at it and throttle forward, and it fired right back up, and away we went. It was no big deal.
You know, and if you have little struggles like that, it's got an electric fuel pump. You know, you just flip the fuel pump on and get some more gas up in there. It's not that big a deal. I didn't think it was a big deal. But, I mean, this guy is, you know, he was 10 years older than I was, and been a pilot longer than I had, and he just freaked out. Dude, you can't do that when you're up here.
You've got to keep calm. Right. See, I think that probably comes from driving for a living as well. Like, you get that. Things happen to you in a truck. Oh, all the time. Yeah. If you blow a steer tire, you don't overreact. You just try to gain control and get her, you know, pulled over and stopped. Same thing.
And you end up running out and forgetting to switch fuel tanks, which happens on some of our trucks. Yep. Okay, let's get this figured out. Do what I can to stay safe and get back on the road. Yep, man. You just got to keep calm, otherwise you lose your mind and you don't, then you end up screwing things up worse. So earlier you said your wife doesn't like flying as much as your kids do.
Do you ever try to freak them out just being the pilot? Well, what I meant when I said she doesn't like flying as much as they do, she likes flying and the kids like flying too. What she don't like is the roller coaster, man. When we start going up and down, she don't like that. But no, she's great. Funny story about that was when I first got my license, I had a smaller plane.
It was a four-seat plane. It was an Archer 180. A lot slower, a lot tighter cabin. Anyway, we had this lake in Missouri, or a house at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. And for whatever reason, We had always had somebody driving down for the weekends, you know, when I'd fly down. She wouldn't ride in the plane with me. She just wanted nothing to do with it. Loved going to the lake, though.
So she'd always ride with another family member down to the lake in the car. Well, it just so happened one weekend, nobody was driving down. And I said, I'm going. The kids want to go. The dog wants to go. You know, she's like, well, I'm not going to ride in the plane. I said, well, I'm sorry. You're staying home then. Yep. And I packed my bag and we started to head out the door.
She's like, you're serious. I said, yeah, if you want to go, you're getting in the plane with me. Yep. And that was the first time she rode in the plane, and now she don't want to drive. So, she just don't like it when I start pulling on the yoke and making this thing roller coaster, you know. It's kind of fun, you know.
The kids love it when I push on it hard enough that they're back there floating in the air. Maybe I'm not ready for that yet. No. So my father-in-law's got his pilot's license, and I don't know what level, but he was doing it out of Ames. And he offered to take me up on one of his, you know, continued hours or whatever you have to do to keep it.
And I was conveniently busy, so my other brother-in-law went. And he told me that that was the most scared he'd ever been because as they're landing, They were almost crossways on the runway because of the wind or whatever it was. Yep, crosswinds, yep. And they touched down and my father-in-law said, nope, I got to do better than that. Just gunned it and took back off.
So not only was he scared on the first time getting ready to land, but now he had to do it a second time. And so I've never flown with my father-in-law. Yep, they call that a touch and go. You come in and you got enough airspeed yet, you just hammer the throttle and you go again. It's touch and go. There are some pretty cool, I don't know what you call them, aerial acrobats or whatever.
Corey, I don't know if you guys get to see them, but they usually do tricks and stuff over Huxley. And they've got their smoke screen out the back and they'll make smiley faces or they'll climb up. It seems like they climb as high as they can climb and then spin and go into a nosedive and swing around and like, That would probably do me in.
There's a lot of really good stun pilots out there, and man, I'd love to do it, but you're not supposed to do it with this plane, so. Really? By Big Creek, where the farm is, we get some guys. I don't know if they're quite doing what you're talking about, Tanner, but they're definitely going up and coming down, and you can hear the thing, like, shut off and, you know, turn on, get going real fast.
Another big solar farm over there to the east. So you said you started farming four years ago. Yep. Was that family land, or you just decided to start farming from scratch, or what? It was, yep. Bought a piece of family ground that had, I mean, been in the family forever. And that was the first farm I bought.
I rent the rest from my dad and one other landlord I have, and it's all within, I'm pretty fortunate, it's all within a mile and a half of my house. That's nice. From the bin site, you know. So, yeah, got started with that first 100 acres and I rent 500 from my dad and 100 from another guy, so about 700 acres total. Well, that's not too shabby.
Yeah, so then actually this year we just started introducing cover crops, which, you know what, so far I'm a big fan of. Yeah? I just experiment. I did 300 acres of beans this year. I did 200 acres on cover crops. We did cereal rye for that, and then 100 acres into, you know, tilled ground. I dissed it, and then we field cultivated it this spring.
And I'm telling you what, I've got so much volunteer corn in that tilled ground, and the weed pressure's awful. My no-till stuff looks, I mean, the cover crop stuff looks amazing. It was a good spring for cover crops. It was great. When you get moisture like that, I've... seeing it when you don't have the moisture, it's dry, and then it just turns into concrete. Yep, yep.
Yeah, that makes it a little bit tougher. Yep. We got really lucky over at the in-laws. Oh, that's another solar farm. Is that what you were talking about? Yeah, yep. Huge one. I'm looking backwards for the listeners. I'm the one that's flying backwards, so I get to see things after everybody else does. It's huge. It's huge.
But anyway, over at the in-laws, almost 100% of our acres going to soybeans get rye or some type of a cover on them.
But we always reserve 600 to 1,000 acres that we harvest for the feed yard.
and we got very fortunate this year we got a dry spell right there at the beginning of june we were able to get the crop off and then beans planted and that week it rained off and on for the next two and a half three weeks so it couldn't have gotten any luckier as far as it goes for planting late soybeans putting that together yep if i recall them that weren't really heavy rains they were nice
Nice light soaker rains. It just did a good job. It didn't flood nothing out. Yep. Not everything goes right over there, so it was kind of nice to see that work. Yep. Most things don't go right over there. Speaking of trucks and motors, we've got two with head gaskets out of them. We need to get ready before harvest. Yep. Trucking ain't easy. You got a full-time mechanic? I do.
Actually, two of them. Yep. They keep the... Keep the shop rolling, keep my trucks rolling. We do a little bit of outside work for some of the neighbors. do some aftermarket custom stuff to the trucks.
You know, we dress them up a little bit and we just start working with a buddy of mine out east and we bring in his air ride kits and we put them on the front of these trucks and get pretty fast at that. Does Logan still do a lot of painting for you? He does. He does all my paint work.
I'm pretty fortunate he lives, his paint shop is, I mean, I can throw rocks at his windows and break them and he's right across the grass from me. Yep. So if I need something done, if it's something big, we'll put it in my shop and You know, like a trailer or something like that, we'll come over and paint that. If it's small, we'll take it to his place, and we just work really good together. Yep.
Yep.
Whereabouts are we? We're over top of... We are actually directly west of St. Louis, and we are 38 miles directly west of St. Louis. Something like Columbia, probably. Well, maybe not. We're a little south of that. Yeah, we're about 100 miles east of Columbia. And we just flew through a cloud, right? Well, between the clouds, yes. That was our first turbulence we've had.
That's pretty cool though to see like literally we're flying through the crumbs. Where else do you think you'd fly Tanner? Above there? Below there? Typically below the clouds is rougher than above the clouds and going through the clouds is a little bit rough. Not bad. So as you think about the future of your trucking business and what you've got going on with the farm,
What do you hope that looks like? Are you wanting to fly more? You want to farm more? Want to truck more? Hit the lake more? Well, you know, that's a hard one to balance because I have a definite passion for all of those things. I love flying. I love driving truck and I love farming. I love being at the lake with my wife and kids.
That's great, but it's hard to be everywhere at one time and it's hard to spread my time out to do it all. As far as the future goes, I'm going to grow as the trucking company will allow me to because it is my main source of income. The farm is a hobby. I mean, in all consideration, there's a lot of big farmers around me. My 600-acre farm is a hobby farm. Yeah.
Flying right now is a hobby, but if I get into more of a career with somebody, you know, if we end up partnering on a bigger plane and we end up doing more commercial stuff, I'll probably gear more towards that. And I've got a brother that's helping me run the trucking company, so he can dispatch while I'm in the air, and between the two of us, we'll get it taken care of. Yeah.
Yeah, I would love to pursue more of a career in flying. I do love it. But I won't give up trucking completely. Right. And of course the farm is there, and I'm going to be back there spring and fall to do that. So what's a weekend look like down on the Ozarks with the wife and family? It's good. It's real good. You got a big boat? For that lake, I would call it a not-so-big boat.
It is a 35-foot regal. It would be considered a small boat there. I mean, there's a lot of 60-, 70-foot boats down there. You just take the family over to Redheads, get yourself a cheeseburger? Yep. We do that quite a bit. I love it. So what are we looking at over here, Corey? This is the Missouri River? That one is... It doesn't look big enough to be the Missouri River.
No, it's probably the Columbia River, maybe. But it is quite interesting, you see all the trees, and Dave was talking about the ponds outside the acreages, and then you get next to this river, and it is like a mile of actual farm ground again. They're farming the river bottom. Yep, I can't bring up what that river is. It's good, it's just mucky soil. Yeah.
Well, AJ, we appreciate you allowing us to take over your radios and record an episode for the first time in a plane. My pleasure. We might have to go higher when we come back so we can actually be a member of the Mile High Club. Easy to do. I will be in the front seat. You know what happens when you're in the Mile High Club? I was just getting ready to say, I'm going to sit in the front seat.
You and Dave? You and Dave will be in the back seat. I'll make y'all sit in the back. I'm getting kind of nervous. Jesus. I'm not going to reach over and grab the joystick. All right. Much appreciated. We do ask all of our guests a question just to kind of wrap the episode up all together. What's the best food you've ever had and where did you get it from? Oh, boy.
There's a lot of truck stop, you know, hot beef. I'm guessing it didn't come from an airport in Oklahoma. Well, no, it didn't. And I can tell you it didn't happen for me at truck stop either. Good Lord. That's gone downhill majorly. But I would say probably the best, believe it or not, some of the best food that I've had has been local.
Like Des Moines, you know, 801 Chop House and Johnny's and Fleming's. Man, they're all good. I love them places. They do an excellent job. So it's usually on a date night with my wife, you know, trying to get away from the phones and away from everything else. We'll go to Des Moines and have a good steak supper. Yep.
You don't ever just hop in the plane and be like, I feel like going to Kansas City for barbecue. Yeah, there actually is. I mean, speaking of that, there actually is. We go on a dinner flight once in a while. We'll take maybe another couple with us. Very, very good restaurant called Jones Black Angus, and that's up in Prairie Machine, Wisconsin.
It is literally you land at the airport and walk across the street and it is right there. It's it's. Top notch. I mean, they do a great job up there, too. I would compare that to Johnny's in an 801. Really? There, they do a great job.
So I've got to assume every time somebody new gets in your plane, you answer the same doggone questions over and over again that everybody's ever asked you or we asked you. You'd be surprised, man. I mean, it's... There's a lot of people that get in here and they just, they don't say a whole lot. Because they're scared shitless. I think so.
Until they get used to it, you know, then they'll start asking questions, you know. But, yeah, it's kind of amazing. I figured, you know, I get some people in here that are like, hey, what's this do? What's this do? What if I push that button? It's like, don't push that button. Yeah. But that's what's going to happen if Dave comes up. He'll be pushing buttons. Yeah, for the most part.
I mean, first-time flyers are just, they're pretty quiet. They're taking it in and... As we put more hours on, you know, then they start asking questions. Interesting.
You know, when you mentioned these steakhouses that you go to, I feel like one thing that I can never replicate is whenever I order something that comes with a mushroom sauce or a mushroom glaze, it is impeccably done at these steakhouses, and when I make it at home, I'm just always disappointed. It's hard to beat. I can replicate it. It's easy. I don't order mushrooms. It's not easy.
Hey, this tastes exactly the same. No mushrooms. Yep, yep. Golf course standard. Okay, how long do I have to wait until I see it? Uh, 10 seconds. There's a lot of wet ground over here. All that bottom ground, there's a lot of washout. Yeah, a lot of river bottom right here. But yes, AJ, thanks again. We appreciate it.
If somebody wants you to come and pick up their livestock or come and pick up their wife in this plane, how best do they get a hold of you? Or do you not want that? Pick up their wife? That might be pushing it just a little bit, but... But no, you can, I can give you my phone number now, or if you want to get a hold of Corey or Dave or anybody, or Tan or anybody, they can get a hold of me.
We'll connect them that way, I think that's a good way. Yeah, that's probably better. Awesome. I always got one more. We talked about the old school trucking ways. Yep. Still got any of the old toothpicks? No. I ran out a couple years ago. I always wondered how long they were good for. They got a pretty high shelf life. That's all I got. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
That's a wrap on the first show from the air.