To start off Tanner, Corey, and David welcome wine expert Duff Bevill to discuss the nuances of wine tasting, particularly focusing on Sauvignon Blanc. Duff shares his extensive experience in the wine industry, detailing the differences between two Sauvignon Blancs from different regions in Sonoma County. The discussion covers wine styles, tasting notes, and the influence of terroir on flavor, while also touching on personal wine preferences and the availability of the wines discussed. 15 minutes in:Gavin Spoor and Farmer Grayce, two influential farmers making waves on social media. Gavin shares his journey into agriculture, his passion for popcorn farming, and how he creatively connects with his audience online. Farmer Grayce discusses her experiences as a young female farmer, tackling misconceptions about women in agriculture and fostering a supportive digital community. Together, they explore the power of storytelling in farming, the challenges and rewards of building an online presence, and the impact social media has on connecting farmers and consumers. Listeners will gain valuable tips on content creation, authenticity, and balancing farm life with digital engagement. Want Farm4Profit Merch? Custom order your favorite items today!https://farmfocused.com/farm-4profit/ Don’t forget to like the podcast on all platforms and leave a review where ever you listen! Website: www.Farm4Profit.comShareable episode link: https://intro-to-farm4profit.simplecast.comEmail address: [email protected]/Text: 515.207.9640Subscribe to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSR8c1BrCjNDDI_Acku5XqwFollow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@farm4profitConnect with us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Farm4ProfitLLC/
I can farm full time now and get the opportunity to work with these great companies that have products that they want to show off.
I don't know why we all just want to throw good money at bad and just go lose money farming. We all, it's a fricking disease.
Have you noticed that everyone is like, how can I make more money to supplement the farm? It's like, why? We shouldn't have to be doing that. You know, what is going on?
There is a podcast in Iowa. Thoughtful profit was named by the Facebook. One day when the recording's done We'll take our mics and go One day when the recording's done We'll take our mics and go
You know, we get to do a lot of fun things, guys. And one of these is drink some wine. This is one of the most fun segments we did.
It is. I mean, we get a drink and we get to drink wine and we don't even know what we're talking about because we've never been big wine drinkers. We didn't have to buy the wine.
Yeah.
And bingo. And the experts just get a laugh at us.
Well, it's exciting to introduce our new wine expert to the podcast, Duff Beville. He is the founder and partner of Beville Vineyard Management. So welcome to the show. Glad to be here. Glad to have the opportunity to talk to you guys. I know it's going to take Corey a while to get these bottles open. So let's first start talking about the wine that Corey has in front so he can mess around.
I'm going to do the Lambert Bridge. Okay.
All right. And I got this new wine opener, so everyone can... It came off the TikTok shop, so everyone can... It's like a basketball pump. Have you seen one of these?
Never have.
It, like, puts a needle down. We'll see if it works.
Hold on. If he has it, if the wine guy has not seen a bottle opener like this... It pushes air into the bottle.
And it pushes the cork out.
Yeah, this is not going to work.
What? On TikTok? Oh, no! Whoa. Wow.
It worked well. Duff, you need one.
I guess so. I came to Sonoma County, uh, uh, in 1973. So it'll be a 52 plus years. Well, it'd be 52 years in March of 2025. So, uh, been a long time. I moved here to, to work for a guy who was, there was a great wine, great boom going on in California in the early 1970s. And I was part of that. And, uh, five, five years later, I started my own company. I've had it ever since. So, uh,
And the interesting part of this whole circle of life is the guy who I came here to work for, his son, his only son, is a partner of mine now. It's sort of a handoff process now from the guy who got me involved full-time in agriculture. His son has been my partner for quite a few years, and he's taken over the company for us. We farm about 1,500 acres of wine grapes in Sonoma County.
We have 150 employees, something like that. Holy smokes. The reason I sent you those two wines, I always look for some kind of little story that might add a little interest to it. In Sonoma County, and I'll make this brief, there's Sonoma County is a recognized wine grape appellation. And within Sonoma County, I think there's 18 Appalachians. Now I should have checked that.
I kind of lost track at 13. And we manage vineyards throughout Sonoma County, but my wife and I also own some vineyards too. And the two wines you're sampling there are from two vineyards that we own. One is in the Russian River Valley, and the other is Dry Creek Valley. Dry Creek Valley, that's this one. Both of them are Sauvignon Blanc, and that Sauvignon Blanc is the same clone
So these two are the same clone of Sauvignon Blanc, and the vineyards are roughly the same age of the Sauvignon Blanc from the Russian River, that Nori. We planted that in 1999. So it's 20, what's that, 25 years old. And then the Keegan property, which is the other one, the Dry Creek Valley, that one's almost 30 years old.
And so what's fun about this, I hope, is you get to see same variety Sauvignon Blanc, two different Appalachians. The vineyards are about 15 miles apart. The Russian River Valley is a much cooler region than the Dry Creek Valley and two different winemakers. So the two the winemaking style Sauvignon Blanc, a common denominator of Sauvignon Blanc is citrus flavors, fresh cut grass.
It's been described as smelling like fresh cut alfalfa. And the two styles that are typically made of Sauvignon Blanc is they pick them a little less ripe, still ripe, but a little less ripe. And that emphasizes brighter acidities, a little more citrus qualities. Like have you ever taken a any kind of a citrus and rub the skin. Rubbing it.
What you're doing is releasing all those aromas from the oils. And so you do that to a lemon, it smells like a lemon. You do that to an orange, smells like an orange. And if you do the grapefruit, smells like grapefruit. Sauvignon Blancs, when they're freshly fermented, smells like you've stuck your head in a big bucket of grapefruit rinds. Not the bitterness, but that fresh grapefruit.
That's what Sauvignon Blanc does when it's very early in the fermentation, finishing the fermentation process. The other style of Sauvignon Blanc, they pick it a little bit riper, and so it stays on the vine, you know, usually 10 days to maybe 14 days longer than that other style. So it gets a little bit riper, and it starts moving from those citrus qualities that I just described.
That becomes more reduced, and it becomes starting to have more like tropical fruits. So mango, I don't know how much you guys get mango back in your supermarkets back there. Yeah, right. I've heard descriptions like lychee nuts. I don't even know what a lychee nuts tastes like, but lychee nut is one of those descriptors, but usually just riper fruit flavors.
And those guys and those styles, they tend to ferment them and keep them a little bit longer or keep them in oak barrels. And so it adds complexity. So the more ripe, they want to have more complexity. Less ripe, different kind of complexity. So both of those wines are made in a similar style. They're both about 13, almost 14% alcohol. Or I think one of them probably says 14% alcohol.
And the other one's 13.9 or something. 13.9, yeah. Both made in the same style, same philosophy. But the vineyards are 15 miles apart. So they're going to be different. And I'm hoping you guys can see the difference between the two.
And that's wild, right? 15 miles doesn't sound like that much. As far as a mileage and difference between locations.
It'd be like the corn at Dave's farm versus the corn at my farm.
You guys in the Midwest can probably see 15 miles in any direction over here.
We can in some places.
Yeah. So over here, you're lucky to see more than about a mile in any direction over here. So, So in your operation, how far apart from one end to the other are you? Well, let's see. On the north end of Sonoma County is a little town called Cloverdale, and we're up close to that town.
Sonoma County is a million acres, and it probably takes you 45 minutes to drive from the northern end on Highway 101 to the southern end, assuming no traffic. Well, we break our operations up into four districts. So we have four managers. Okay.
And just because of the amount of acreage or amount of distance you'd have to cover to get them, even though they're pretty small vendors, they range from six acres to 75 acres in size, but they're scattered all over the county. And Russian River flows right through it. And there's only a half dozen bridges on the Russian River. So if you're farming
You have two vendors across the river from each other. It might take you 45 minutes to get to each one of them because you've got to drive around on a bridge to go over the river. So we break it up into districts. Most of us, most of the guys in the vendor management business here, that's how you operate.
You break it up into regions, assign supervisors to those areas, and they have their own equipment operators and their own form, and their own personnel. So there you go.
Dave, what did you think of the first wine?
I think it's very good. It's an easy drinker. It is. It is. I went wine tasting on my honeymoon, and I thought everything was so dry. Was that just last year? No, 22 years ago, and I've not been a wine drinker since we went out to California and tasted good wine. I've actually been drinking more and more wine, and this is very good.
The initial thing I notice is the corks are different. Does that have anything to do with it?
Do each one have – I don't even know about this.
The Lambert Bridge has what I would call a more natural cork. Traditional. Traditional, and then this one is – Darker brown cork. This one I would say is not fake, but man-made or white.
Do you see a little cap like a segment on top of that cork on either end of it? Or does it look like one solid piece? It looks like one solid piece. It looks like tofu.
It looks like tofu.
Maybe it is more natural. It's just different. They're definitely different.
Is there anything to the shape of the bottle there, Duff? This one is a traditional look of a wine bottle. This one's got a whiter, fatter brim on the bottle.
They're different styles, and again, that's part of the marketing. The Lambert Bridge is in what's called a Bordeaux style. Okay. Because Sauvignon Blanc Bordeaux, it's an original region. And then the other one you're pouring right now is a Burgundy style bottle. And then you get into colors, and there's smoke, and there's green, and there's all sorts of different shades. It smells different.
Does it? Do your finger test, Dave.
I did on this one. So I had a guy tell me once that the deeper the hole on the bottom of the bottle, the better the wine is.
But I think he was just screwing with me. The purpose of that is, it's really mostly for red wines, is my belief, my understanding. And so when they're lying on their side aging for years and years and years, they start dropping sediment out. And so when you get ready to drink that bottle of wine and you turn it upright, you want the sediment to fall down into the edges.
So when you're pouring the wine, it's not getting in your glass. So that's sort of part of that story on that.
Dave, when you make your millions and you start your own vineyard and your own wine company, I do want you to make a bottle, though, that your whole finger can go up into.
And he's only doing it because it's less volume. Yeah. So for the same price, it's just less volume. This is good, and I do taste a difference. I felt like I had an orange citrusy in the first one. Yeah. And this one, more mellow maybe is the right word?
Could be. Now, it's interesting. The Lambert Bridge is 100% Sauvignon Blanc grape, but the Nori is, and I just read, and I have the owner of Nori send me some footnotes on tasting notes, and I didn't realize he blends that. with 3% of a variety called Gewurztraminer, and that's an Alsatian or a German-Austrian grape variety that goes back hundreds and hundreds of years.
And that just gives it a little bit different, like, I think, fruity quality to it. So there's an influence of that in there, too, and I can't tell you exactly what it is. What are you getting out of it?
What you said about easier – It is. It's just like, this is a wine that get me in trouble. It just, it goes down.
It's fruitier to me. It's fruitier to me.
So not a, not a citrusy. I'm not going to say sour is the wrong word. Not a citrusy, but more of a fruity.
It's fruitier. Yeah. And it's not dry at all. Very, very good. And it is different though. Between the 15 miles.
I like this one better. I like the Nori.
Yeah. I like the Nori better.
If we were talking bourbons, I would call it smoother. Okay. I call it smoother, right? Yeah. But this one was an easy drinker, though, too. It just had a little bit more sharpness. There you go. Sharpness.
And that's the acidity. And that's a winemaker style. They'll choose to make them in one particular style or the other, and they have certain emphasis and the balance. And both of them are – the reputation of Sauvignon Blanc is it's really good with seafood. That's like the go-to. You want to have like a Cabernet Sauvignon or a Zinfandel. They sell just steaks, hamburger even, you know. Right.
But Sauvignon Blanc is great with fish. I mean – The truth is all of us guys in the business, we drink it whenever we want to drink with whatever we want.
We drink it whenever we want to drink it.
We don't care. The comments you're making, you made a comment earlier that you had some bad experiences with wines before you came back to California and gave it a try. Yes. With some better quality. A lot of people confused, like both of those. are bone dry. There's no residual sugar at all in those wines. So all that, that sweetness you're sensing is actually, and that's a goal of a winemaker.
That's the fruit that's coming through this, the quality of the fruit coming through. And that's, that's a plus. I mean, that's a compliment to the grower and the winemaker. When you're, you're sensing that sweetness to it, that's fruit that you're, you're picking up. They're not, not sugar, which is, which is a compliment to a very good either of these.
Yeah, absolutely. Do you have a favorite grape or is that like picking out a favorite kid?
No, I like Sauvignon Blanc. Spending all my adult professional life in Dry Creek Valley. Dry Creek Valley's history is Zinfandel. It goes back to the late 1860s, like 66, 67, 1867. So Zinfandel has been in this valley forever. And I was lucky enough to come here when a lot of the old children of Italian immigrants were still, they were in their 70s and 80s when I met them.
And they were all, you know, ancestors of that red grape that their immigrant parents planted and grew. They didn't bring it from Italy with them, but they planted that grape before Prohibition. And then after Prohibition. And so we, you know, my favorite red grape still is Zinfandel. There's others, but still Zinfandel. And I love Sauvignon Blanc.
Sauvignon Blanc does really well in Dry Creek Valley. It's made me money. So I like it for that side of it too, you know. But yeah, my favorite white grape is Sauvignon Blanc and favorite red, it's got to be Zinfandel still.
Well, we appreciate you taking the time to talk through this and tell a little bit about your story and help us expand our wine experience as it needs to grow.
I'm glad to like wines and hoping to come to California and see you sometime.
I think we would love to do that. If our listeners want to buy wine from you guys or want to buy or have access to the products, can they get it?
The Labrador Bridge is a pretty small production, and I think it's only for their tasting room and their wine club. Okay. And Norrie's the same thing. He's a one-horse operation. He sells – he's actually –
uh a japanese immigrant he came here to work in the wine industry many years ago started his own winery after he got a lot of experience and so he sells most of his wine back in i think most of it goes to tokyo i think so it's a small production too that's available i mean uh you can get that his uh his uh facilities here in northern california so if you go online with either one of them
you can figure out how to get your hands on those wines.
On the back, this says lambertbridge.com. Awesome. So for this one, I think you could just probably put that in on your URL browser. Corey's got to pull the other one out of his ice bucket.
Yeah, noriawines, N-O-R-I-A, wines.com. Perfect.
Well, it's been a pleasure, Duff. And hopefully, yes, we do get to come out and shake your hand in person. Sounds good. Thank you, guys. It was nice to meet you. You too. Are you guys nervous this time?
Not at all.
You're not? No. Like it's finally, or were you ever nervous when you were on? Excited is the word.
Not really. Yeah.
Honored.
They just didn't care.
The scene has changed a little bit. They didn't care.
We're not at some hotel room.
We're not a hotel, but we actually have a media room. Yeah. I don't know if we've ever told you this, but one of the most downloaded episodes that we have is the interview that we did at Farm Progress Show.
Really?
Yep. With you and Ethan. Wasn't it with Ethan?
Yeah. Cool.
Yeah.
I did not know that. First generation farmers.
I think people really...
really just took that in so yeah and and uh when we did the interviews in the hotel room where we were just joking about how awkward that was when we set you guys up and you were both on the show with each other but we aired them like 60 days apart because we did one where we focused on gavin one where we focused on but then we were both in the other's episode yeah it's like oh yeah that's kind of neat but but your your episode did better than his in the winter
I'm not surprised.
I was also the night that Tanner decided I can't touch the equipment anymore. Oh.
Oh, yeah.
Yes. After you guys left, I was putting it away. What did you do? You left. I didn't leave. I left the room because you shit your pants.
I didn't shit my pants. I farted. Okay.
There had to be at least a little bit of residual. That was bad. And he left, and I was like, well, I don't know where he went, but I guess I'll just put all this stuff away. And I did not put it away correctly.
It took twice as long to set up the next time. Because I'm like, all right, the headsets go in this drawer.
Where are they at?
We don't have any headsets. They're just in that drawer. They're in that drawer. Wadded up. Where's the headphone cords? They're not in the headphone cord drawer.
Did you have him labeled?
No. No, but he's a very particular guy. That was funny. We set up today in less than 15 minutes.
I don't mind it. I still don't touch stuff. I'll touch the cameras. That's all I do.
Do you guys have anything like that in your relationship?
Do you guys fart in front of each other now? Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, we do. We're getting the tough questions answered. Sure do. I bet you didn't think you were going to be talking about that today, did you?
No. It wasn't on my radar.
No. That's true Corey for you right there. So as you reflect on that question that I asked you, are there things that you do and he doesn't do? For example, in my household, I rarely do dishes. But in exchange, my wife rarely does laundry. And I'm saying we don't do it. It's just I don't load the dishwasher the right way, so it saves us an argument.
And she doesn't wash my clothes the right way, so it saves us an argument.
That's fair.
I would say we both have our own chores that we handle at our own houses. But, like, if Grace has been spending more time in Missouri than I have in Kentucky, if I'm trucking all day, she ends up surprising me by having all the laundry done and the kitchen's clean. I'm like, I walk in like, this is so nice.
Yeah, I'm pretty much the best.
Or, like, she's got, like, mac and cheese cooked. I'm so hungry. Like, this is perfect, you know. It's great.
No, it's more of, like, what needs done and who's available to do it.
Yeah.
That kind of thing.
Yeah. So are you guys living together now? Not really.
Part time, I guess.
Yeah. When I'm in Kentucky, I stay at her house because where else am I going to stay? When she's in Missouri, she stays at mine.
Because it's what? Five hours?
Google Maps says five. It's four and a half.
It's four and a half. Yeah. Nice. Someone can still beat the GPS, I guess. Right.
When you're going on 64 across Illinois, you just find whoever's driving the fastest, and you get right behind them, and you just follow them the whole way.
Yeah. So that always makes me nervous, because I feel like the cop's not going to pull over the first car. They're going to pull over the second, the one that's easiest to get to.
Yeah. That's why I'm the first. I'm always the first.
You're the leader.
Yeah.
So was that 2023, early 23 that we had them on?
We were talking 22. Well, the shows aired. We recorded them out at FBN, which would have been December. Okay. But, yes, they would have aired the first part of 23.
So what have you guys been doing for the last two years? If people are living under a rock, I guess.
Well, we're still dating. We ended up getting a show on Acres TV.
Yep, since then we've launched our show on Acres called Dirt Poor. Yep.
Been to a ton of farm shows together.
Still not tired of each other, huh?
Still not tired of each other.
Not yet. Not yet.
We're working on a Mack truck restoration that's going to the Mack Museum.
Yep.
Oh, you don't even get to keep it?
Nope.
We're donating it.
That's so cool.
So Grace has got it in my shop, and she's going to finish repainting it. We'll put everything back together and take it out to Pennsylvania.
So do you guys have restoration experience at all before this project or anything like that?
um not really i've we repainted a semi at the farm a few years ago and um our main tractor we repainted that too but that's really all i got i'm not hardcore restoration when i started farming i mean if i was buying used junk i can't i'm fine running old stuff but it can't be ugly so i'd rattle can it or fix it up put new wear parts on just basic stuff what was the grain cart
Oh, yeah, the grain cart. Oh, I forgot about that. I forgot we did that. We do a lot. Yeah, I have an ugly. I love Parker grain carts, but it was old and rusty. It never spent a day inside in its life. So, like, two weeks before harvest, I was like, we're going to paint that block.
No, it was four days. Like, it was close.
Hey, that might have kept you from going to the field too early.
Yeah, probably.
Some guys are like, oh, I'll just try it today. I'll just, wait, it'll go. It'll go. Yeah. Yeah.
That cart's nice. I mean, everything about it was immaculate. It had new flighting, good tires. We put a new tarp on it. Just the paint was so ugly. It was so embarrassing to drag that behind a nice tractor next to a nice combine. So we spent a couple days, and I was able to make a YouTube video out of it for Grace's channel because she was needing some content. Harvest hadn't started yet.
We totally restored a grain cart. Completely forgot about that.
And it was black, right?
Yeah, it was green and rusty orange, whatever. But yeah, now it's pitch black. Got new decals for it from the John Deere dealership and slapped those on and put a rear view camera. The only thing it doesn't have is a scale, but it's got the rear view camera. We ran a monitor into the cab for all the road travel.
Is that your only grain cart? Yep. Has your farming operation expanded in the last two years?
Gosh, I think it's about the same size. I've dropped some acres to the south and picked up some acres to the north, but as far as total acre size, it's pretty well right where it was.
Gotcha. So just trying to consolidate a little bit.
Yeah, the being spread out thing, I mean, you pick up what you can where you can find it, but I'm going too many different directions. And with going down to Kentucky, you can only do so much.
Right. And being four and a half hours apart, You don't get to bring your stuff up and help her out.
No. I need to get a low boy. Yeah.
We need to figure that out.
Yeah? Yeah. Or the same vice versa. Because I've always wondered, I'm two and a half hours from the farm that I grew up on, and I spend a lot of time helping my in-laws.
Mm-hmm.
And there'd be some times to where it'd be handy to, hey, why don't we just swing up there and knock this out quick? Or, hey, we're down a tractor. Can we go get it? It's still a day to go up and back, you know, as far as getting something put together. But I've always wondered that.
How do you decide, like, if you guys both have harvest to do, how do you decide who goes where?
there's so many factors like um he's got his hired guy and then sometimes his brother helps out his hired guy's brother helps out so there are some days that he'll just let them
Yeah, there's some days where Jaron and Shannon will be harvesting, and I'm down in Kentucky. So there's stuff happening at my farm, and I'm not even around town.
So it just depends on, like, everybody else that we work with. And like I said earlier, what's needed done where. It's all hands on deck. And who can do it. Yeah.
As long as a job gets done. Doesn't matter who does it. Yeah.
Yeah. You guys had amazing yields, at least in Missouri. How was Kentucky's yields last year?
Not our best.
Not the best.
Yeah. Not for me, but I know that we had some insurance claims. Okay. Yeah. Overall, just not a great year.
Yeah. Had to be a record year for you.
Yes.
Beans were like right on average. The earlier the beans were planted, the better they did. But every planting date they got later, you just watched the yield monitor drop. So our beans were super average. But corn, like we were cranking out 250 bushel corn. We've got 130 bushel county averages. It's like, we're not going to see that for another decade. Right, yeah.
That's crazy. So was the secret just the weather? Yep, 100%. Yep.
Yep.
That's interesting. We saw the same thing on our soybeans. The earlier planted beans, of course, we had four different planting dates because of the rain this spring. Yeah. But our early beans knocked the socks off of anything. It didn't even hold a candle. We're 20 bushel better.
Dang.
Yep. And every one of those bushels counts in a year like this.
Yeah.
Yeah. We call it bushel on our way out.
That's kind of the last. I thought that was a drone flying out the window. It's just a plane. I was like, oh, boy, here we go. That would be kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah, that's what we do in Iowa, right? Like, oh, below break even, and then 250 bushel. At least we made some money, I guess. But those years that you don't and it goes down, we were just average where we were.
So it's kind of hurting a little bit. Don't have that extra 20, 30 bushels to sell. It would help out a lot right now.
I had a couple fields beat my APH or T yield or whatever, and I still had a claim on them because of the revenue difference from spring to fall. So that was weird. That's never happened before for me. So what did you do with all the crop? Did you just go right to town? A lot of the corn went to town. I was forward selling some of it because I still don't have a bunch of grain storage.
But then I rented a few bins off of neighbors for seed beans, growing seed beans for two different companies now. So half of them have gone to town. The other half are still in the bin.
Are you still growing popcorn?
This past year I didn't because we got so much in the warehouse I was able to just keep selling what I had. But then this spring we'll plant some again.
Is that sale still going well?
Yeah, and honestly, I've focused much less on it because the row crop operation's grown 100x of what the popcorn has. But now with the climate that we're in with crop prices, I might go back to focusing on it some more. Cause I really enjoy it, but it's such a small portion of my income now that it's like, it doesn't even exist. I just do it. Cause it's what I've always done.
Right. When you're selling it by the ear, right?
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Which is way different than selling it by the bushel or the bed. Well, that's, that's, you know, for us, it's fun. We've talked about this before. We, dad still grows a couple rows of popcorn. We still hand shell it with, well, Is it hand shelling if you crank the sheller? You're cranking it by hand. I always think of that as just the blisters on your hand from hand shelling it.
But Corey brought a popcorn popper into the studio, and so now we get to pop popcorn. Winterhoff popcorn for our guests that hang out in the studio. I'd like to try some spore popcorn side-by-side. I think it would be a great test. That beats some good content there. We wouldn't rig that at all. I don't think it would take much to beat Tanner's.
Do you grow yellow or white popcorn?
It's yellow.
Yellow? Okay, that's what I've got. So it would be a fair comparison.
I don't know if it's the machine or your popcorn, but I feel like we don't get a... good pop. Or if we do get a good pop, it has to stay in there too long and it's a little burnt. Gets a little bit past it? Yeah. I think it's the oil. That could be.
It's finicky. I've got guys I sell kettle corn kernels to and if they're just heating up for the day, that first batch is almost junk. They throw it out. You need it heated evenly all the way across and then that second batch, world of difference.
There's an art to it. So Corey starts up a popper and he's reading the instructions. The only time he ever reads something is when he turns the popper on. I look over there and the freaking thing's on fire. It's not on fire. It was smoking. It was smoking pretty good. What are you doing? Because it says it needs to preheat for five minutes. I've never done that in my life.
I do think we need better oil, though. What's the best popcorn oil? Do you know what that is?
The lady that I buy crap insurance from, her husband swears by coconut oil. Really?
Yep. So we're doing canola oil right now. Does it taste like coconut? No, it's pretty good. I'm not a big fan of coconut.
No? It's not coconutty, you know, when you're eating it.
Like when they sprinkle the coconut sprinkles on like chocolate or something. I'm like, why? You're not an Almond Joy fan? No. Ew.
What a shame.
Yeah.
But coconut oil, no. I don't really feel like it tastes like anything.
Yeah. I mean, I guess I drink, like, Body Armor has coconut water, I think, in it. What is he, a hypocrite?
Another Kettle Corn customer. I don't taste any coconuts. They swear by Corn Oil. I think it's Mazzola, or I don't know what the brand name is. It's a yellow bottle. You get it at Sam's. They buy it in bulk.
That's all they use is Corn Oil. We just got to find whatever Tyson's uses. You guys don't have Tyson's down in your farm and home store that pops popcorn when you go in there, but we just got to do whatever Tyson's does because that's the best popcorn that you can have. It is good, but it's weird when you see people just bare-handing it in there.
I don't do that. Nope. It's just a community popcorn kettle.
no it's like i don't know where you've been or if you washed your hands i uh when cory originally asked you guys what you've been up to the last two years uh i don't know if you saw i commented on one of his tweets the other day and i said so how come you haven't proposed yet where's the ring i asked him out this morning yeah yeah we need to go back to seven no she's looking at me i get the evil eye a lot hey last night at supper
There's a guy walks in. A couple have been sitting in a booth for a little while. A guy walks in with flowers. Like he went to the bathroom and came back with flowers. And I'm like, what? I don't think anything of it. And then all of a sudden he gets down on one knee and he proposes. I couldn't get my phone out of my pocket fast enough to actually do that for him.
Yeah.
But I gave him my card and I said, text me. I'll send you the pictures I got. And then I was like, oh, that's creepy. I just took pictures of somebody that I have no idea who they are.
They're enjoying their special moment, and you're like, hey. And I handed them my business card. Here you go. To be fair, if that was me, I would have totally appreciated that.
Well, I hope they did. Did he text you? Yeah. In the moment, I was like, oh. That was their moment, and I handed them my card. It wasn't like in the moment moment, but it was pretty quick after it happened.
Yeah.
Because I didn't sit down between. Yeah.
So we need to find out where they're going to supper tonight so you can sit near them somewhere. We can double it up in Kansas City. That's right. Tanner's now new gig is engagement photos. Engagement photos.
Far for profit.
Creepy engagement photos. He just tries to find out where you're getting engaged and doesn't actually talk to you beforehand. Yeah.
And I take the pictures right after you do it, so, like, you only get the reaction. Yeah.
You don't get any of the important parts. There's no setup. Yeah.
It's like, oh, crap, I'm supposed to be doing something. Like, this is the moment. Do it. Yeah. So where are you going to propose tonight?
How are you going to do it? I haven't decided yet. I want it to be memorable. It's got to be memorable.
Oh, and she's right. I can see it in her eyes. Every day with you is memorable.
So, Rachel, our chief marketing officer that we brought on the team, she was, like, creeping in her fiancé, now fiancé's boyfriend's, like, email trying to figure out, like, when she was going to get divorced. Oh, really? Do you want to know, like, how or when, like, or do you want to be completely surprised?
I think I want to be surprised.
Yeah.
But I'm not good with surprises. I don't like surprises.
Yeah.
But I think I want to be surprised.
Now, does it matter? Does he have to worry about if you're in your farm jeans or if you're in your event jeans? Does that matter at all to you?
No. I mean, as long as I have... I don't look like I just rolled out of bed. I'm pretty...
Yeah. Pretty good. Do you want your nails done? Yeah. We only know this because of what Rachel wanted. She's like, I want to make sure my nails are done. I want to make sure. Because for pictures, I want it to be.
I want to make sure I have makeup on. Make sure I'm not in my sweatpants. And so she was analyzing. I think it's going to happen at Thanksgiving because the family said, don't wear sweatpants. No sweats. Because we're going to take pictures. And she's like, I think it's going to happen.
Is that where it happened?
Maybe.
It's funny, those little clues, though.
Yeah. She was just... I think she ruined it. I mean, that's what she got, what she wanted, but like... Oh, you can't ruin it. They're happy. Yeah. They are happy.
They ruined it for us. It wasn't for us. It was even funnier because we're getting this side of it, and we're playing along with it. So she tells Matt when she thinks it's going to happen... that she's busy with work stuff and can't get away. So he texts me and says, hey, I plan on proposing as the sun sets this day. Does she really have to be at this meeting? And I went back.
I said, period, period, period. There is no meeting.
Oh, no.
And he goes, what? I said, I think you're getting played. I suggest you play her back. So he did. Apparently he sent her a message and said, oh, that's fine. Don't worry about it. I'll just go by myself. And so she sends me. I'm in between this. I don't even need people. Sends me a message that says, oh, he's actually not going to do it because I said I had this meeting.
So now I've got to tell him that there is no meeting. Just go do it, guys.
Oh, gosh. You've been extra ornery lately telling people lies. Not lies.
Yes.
I don't tell lies. You've told people lies. You said that my wife is pregnant. She is. Congrats. She's not pregnant. Oh, she's not. If she is, it's got a problem.
You said it.
I didn't say it. Yeah. Literally, someone the other day asked me, or they were like, hey, congratulations. I'm like, for what? Aren't you guys expecting? I'm like, no. What? And it's him. Straight-faced. I got enough crap in my life. I don't need to deal with that.
That's fair. That's fair. Yeah. We were talking. Corey thought he saw a drone, and we were talking ahead of this. We've become good friends with the folks over at TerraClear, and it helps that we're local to them. But you got to experience a different side of TerraClear.
Yeah, they came out and picked rocks. And it was like, I loved it. TerraClear is awesome. What they're doing is great. It was cool. I've got a farm with a ton of rocks. What they did was great. But they were sweating bullets the whole time because it was like one mishap after another the entire time.
When it comes, we'll give you a good first impression. And it didn't go well.
Yeah. But I enjoyed it. Like, okay, you want me to just start from the very beginning? Okay. So they send out a company that flies a drone and maps it and finds all of these rocks, right? Well, they came out. They were running it fine. Well, then they had some trouble with the drone. And then right at dark, one of the guys lost a drone.
Okay.
And he's from the city. So I'm like, well, I'll help you find it. So, like, we meander down. It's in the woods.
I don't know.
way in the middle of the woods he's scared to death because he's from the city I'm like come on we're like we are apex predator nothing like everything's scared of us not the other way around but he's like shivering as we're walking through the woods with our phone flashlights finally find the drone it's in a million pieces so they can't finish flying the drone so there's a couple fields that didn't get mapped
well then they come back out and they're finally there to pick the rocks in between harvest and trying to get winter wheat on the ground they sneak in the perfect time but then the skid loader starts having issues so they only get like three quarters of what's supposed to be picked that's just I mean that's life that's how it goes that's farming but what they did get picked was great and I mean they were picking up rocks the size of me with these skid loader buckets and just zooming around I'm saved I don't know like five days worth of walking around and they did it in a couple hours with a skid loader
So, yeah, this is a cool company.
It's exciting technology. It's just fun that they're real people. You know, we get to hang out with Brent and Travis, and it's kind of neat to see that behind the ag tech because when I first got introduced to them, I'm like, really, rock picking? That's what we're putting technology into is picking up rocks, and it makes freaking sense. Oh, yeah.
Yeah? Yeah. It makes your life easier, but if you run a rock through the combine, like, how expensive is that?
I did it. Yeah, I was going to say, he did that this year.
Wait, was it on a field that they picked?
It was – no. Wait. Well, it was in a field before they picked it because I was combining the beans so that they could come. Yeah. So, hey, if they would have been there last year to get it picked, I wouldn't have had that problem. I wouldn't have had the breakdown. I wouldn't have had the expense.
Do you guys roll? Do you ever roll your beans or your fields for rocks or anything like that?
No, and in northeast Missouri, we really don't have many rocks at all. This was an old— And the glacier didn't make it down there. It's a reclaimed coal mine ground, so there's 500 acres, and it's just peppered with rocks. And if you get the rains, you can have a good crop, but it's just thin topsoil, just on the rougher end of things.
So, man, it is the perfect place for TerraClear to come do some work. Yeah.
They got a cool, or have they told you about their cool ground rig to take pictures? Like they don't need drones anymore. Really? They still can use drones. But the problem with it is from the time they fly it and the, what did they say? Five millimeters? Five millimeters per pixel from the drone height. So it's such a huge file. It takes three days to get a map back of your rocks.
Now they can literally, they can go on anything, go on your tractor, but they have it on like a gator. And it's just big like antenna looking thing with cameras on it. They can literally drive it and be picking it within an hour. Yeah.
Dang.
Wow. Yeah. Because it's one millimeter per pixel. One millimeter per pixel. But the fact that you don't have to upload to a cloud and, you know, do all this kind of stuff, like with huge files, they can actually just do it right there.
Which I know when we first started having the conversations, we're like, could you put it on the bottom of the corn head or the bean head? You know, is it something that you could do while we're already making a pass? But then again, every farm has to have that technology. If you want them to come pick your rocks. You said they could put it on like your planter. Yeah.
You know.
So it's kind of neat to see where it's evolving and how it's going to get more accurate and just become a normal part of your operation. But even just having the maps and driving to where the rocks are, that saved us time.
Right. Just having the map, because that's what my plan is on the rest of it. They weren't able to pick with the skid loader. I still have the map. I go right after those rocks. It's marked, and that rock's not moving. So I can go there whenever I want and get them.
That's true. Did you guys get any of this snow? Yeah, we did. You're not used to seeing snow.
We get it every now and then, but nothing like they do up north. This was my first experience pushing snow. So I got a buddy with a landscaping company. He needed help pushing snow because his business has blossomed. And down in St. Louis, he's running like 17 skid loaders in a snowstorm. Well, it was me and three other ones. And we got sent to a hospital complex.
We showed up Friday night at 11 p.m. And we left Monday at 6 p.m. And we slept in our pickup for about four hours during that. It was miserable by the end of it.
Yeah, that's my memories of snow. I had a lawn care landscaping snow removal business on the side for a while. And I loved it. Storm's coming. Couldn't sleep. Excited to go out and do it. And about four hours in, you're like, this sucks.
Yeah. The new wore off so fast.
You were in a tractor skid loader?
Yes. Which made it even worse because you're just sliding everywhere. Yeah.
Yeah, I just bought a track skid loader, and I was kind of thinking I want one of those box blades or whatever. They look kind of nice. But I've also heard you don't want to go cheap on those because if you don't have the spring trip edge or whatever, it'll put you through the windshield.
Yeah. The ones we were using were spring trip. I was looking at them just because I was curious what they cost. He's running a dozen of these things. They're like $10,000, $15,000 for a used one, $20,000 for a new.
Yeah. Yeah, you can find them for $2,000. Those are not the spring trip ones.
What we need to do is just wait until someplace that always gets snow doesn't get snow for about four years and all those guys liquidate because they don't have any snow to push. Then we can get them for a dime.
There you go. I wish those would have. And maybe they did exist when I was pushing and I was too cheap, which is probably the case, to buy one. So I just use a large material bucket. So that's what I had. And, yeah, if you hit a curb, uh-uh. Those arm bars went right into your gut. I don't think I ever actually hit, I might have hit my head on the windshield, but you just, you can't see it.
You can't, you know, anything about it. It was always a challenge to me, something that I enjoyed. Like, I'm going to put snow in the best spot. Like, I'm going to pick where the pile goes as long as it's not, you know, the third time it snowed and now your pile's kind of out where it is.
But, like, I want to put this in the most convenient spot so whoever has to do the lawn care in the spring doesn't have rocks in the, whatever it ended up being. It was a big challenge. And then I hated it when someone was parked there. It would have been the perfect place. That has to be the worst.
I don't like pushing snow at our studio because there's no great spots to put it.
There's not.
No.
There's not. One of the places that I had as a contract was a strip center that had Gold's Gym and a Hooters restaurant. And it starts snowing. And either way, you know, most times you're pushing snow in the dark. So either it was me helping the drunkards leave Hooters late at night. I just fill the bucket with snow and then push on the bumper of their car without scratching it. Yep.
Or it was me pushing out the cars that came in early to work out at the gym. I'm like, really? You couldn't skip a day? Yeah. No. No days off. You couldn't skip a day? So you always went and you know what parking lot to start, where to start based upon what time of day it was.
Have you ever had a snowstorm start in the day? Because I got to talk to him. He's like, every time we push snow, it starts in the middle of the night. Yeah, our last one did. Our last one did, yeah. It did?
I guess it started at like 8 a.m.
8 a.m. That's so much nicer than showing up at 11 p.m. I was trucking corn all day.
It was nice because people really made it to work. Like you had to get up at 4 a.m. and make sure people get to work type of deal. Yeah. It was no question, though, that they did not know how to handle snow down here as much. Because we stopped at the Walmart in Cameron, and there was just piles of snow everywhere. But then you looked over, and I don't think they got that much snow in Cameron.
Like, you could see the grass still.
Yeah. But they were struggling. We get a lot of those two- and three-inch snows. It's only every couple years we get eight or ten like we got.
Did you get any ice?
Yes, and that made it more difficult than anything because we're trying to push snow, and then you've got a layer of ice, and then it snows again, and then it sleets again, and it just was not working. And you couldn't get a very big bucket full. Like you said, because you're tracks.
Yeah, well, the tracks, and it's just that ice is so much heavier than fluffy snow, so you can't push it very far, so you've got all these little piles everywhere.
So did you make it a content opportunity?
Yeah.
Because do you have a YouTube channel? So you just give your stuff to Grace for that.
Yep. Grace is the YouTube queen. She's good at it. I've never got into editing. How's it been going?
It's fine. I've taken a lot of time off the last few months.
Yeah.
But I like doing it.
I don't blame you. All this is hard. Especially when we're all doing other things. We all put that together. It takes time. That's why we've built out a team around us because it never gets done.
Yeah, that's what I need to do.
Which Grace has a girl from home, Allie, that helps out, and then Brianna, she edits.
Yeah, and I've started training Brianna in YouTube videos and slowly handing that off. That's nice. I don't know. I'm really particular about my YouTube videos, which is also why I've kind of stopped because I'm a perfectionist when it comes to those. So if everything's not perfect, I'm like, well, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it.
So you don't just whip out the camera and just record.
No, and I used to be that way, but as I get more into it and I find different things that I like to do, I get really fixated on the... So you're planning your content a lot more now. Yeah.
That's kind of neat. Yeah. So the Mac thing, did they ask for it to go to the museum? Did they ask for that?
They gave me an option. They were like, if you want to donate it, you can. If not, you don't have to. And I was like, well... I'll just donate it. Why not? It'd be cool to have something in a museum. Right.
Well, and I'm sure the content's been doing well.
Yeah.
For it, right?
Other than the primer didn't go on very well the first time.
Oh, yeah. That was a disaster. No, we didn't put primer on it, remember?
Or not primer, paint. You can tell the story.
What time was it? It was like midnight.
Yeah, it was late by the time we got it prepped.
And we were trying to get this truck painted. And the first layer of paint we put on, when I sanded it down, there was a few spots that broke through the old primer. And all of those spots, it started to like shrivel up and get all bubbled up and blistered all around the truck. So I had to completely re-sand it all.
She was like, let's hurry up and paint this. And then it didn't hurry up anything.
Did not go well.
Nope.
It's all part of the journey, like they said this morning, right? Just going to make it that much more special. Yep. If you just had the truck at the end, it wouldn't be that special, right?
Yeah, but I mean, I don't know if painting it twice is really going to... No. I'm really going to change my outlook on it.
I absolutely do hate redoing things. Now, as a restoration, it runs, right? It's not just going to be a museum piece that sits there. It can and will run.
Yep, it does. I actually drove it from my house to Gavin's house.
Five hours, bobtailing, single axle. She was broken.
It was rough. I'm still recovering. She broke like nine bones. Like nine bones. My back is still recovering.
Yeah.
84.
84. Mm-hmm. Are you still double clutching?
Yes.
Yeah.
Yep.
By choice or for content?
By choice. I mean, I think at this point, if I started floating them, it'd go more viral.
Yeah.
I should try that.
Can you?
Yes. Can you do that?
I'll just give you a shot.
Yes, I can.
Oh, shoot. I still remember the comment section. Just every time. I should say thank you because that was like Friday night entertainment for me for like four weeks. Because we knew you and you feel bad and you understand that it's also just part of the game. Yeah. And you kind of go through that as well. I know that there's people out there – we were talking about it on the way down here.
We feel bad for some of the folks that have been guests on this show that have trolls, that you put something out and it's just immediate, nope, this doesn't exist, or you're wrong, you have no experience, you don't – whatever it is. Whatever lie or half-truth or whatever it is that they put out. And then I –
like i still remember our interview with the new york farm girls oh and i i understand they've all gotten older and gone their own separate lives and married and do it's not as feasible to do it like they used to but i also know why they're not as forward-facing anymore yeah it's just too bad you know there's some yeah it just sucks really cool stories that could be told that aren't getting told anymore i think if you don't have trolls though you're probably not doing it right
Negative comments always are louder than the positive ones also. I mean, there's a lot of truth to that. Twitter's been the worst lately. Everything else is so positive. Twitter's like, man, there's just a group of people that want to be angry at the world for no reason.
There's a few people on Twitter that really just kind of do all the poking of the bear, right, and just get everything riled up. And then there's a couple others that kind of jump on. And we just learned last week that Corey's one of those.
Always getting blocked.
Yeah, Damien had me blocked out. We had to call him out because I literally don't know why. I cannot.
Do you think it happened on accident? No.
Damien was saying that it was because he was literally... Have you seen his hands?
His hands are huge.
I'm kidding. What did he say? He was like, I know two people that I've actually physically blocked and I would have thought I would have remembered you. But maybe I was on some rant back in the day or something. He's like, I don't need to see that. So, gone.
I don't think I've ever blocked anybody.
Yeah.
I really don't.
Do you try to respond to any of the trolls on Twitter?
Not really because it would be a waste of time. People's biggest gripe on there is that they think I'm doing it strictly for engagement because I'm getting paid. It's like I've never made a dollar off of Twitter. Now, I've made money on other platforms. I've never made a penny. Twitter is like my dad and grandpa.
So if I want to know something about farming, something of repair or agronomic question, that's where I go with that. And I think I'm just like baiting for engagements. I just like either Twitter or New Ag Talk. That's like my go-tos if I want advice.
Yeah. So – Have you had anybody on any of your platforms push back on the fact that you're a beginning farmer and because of your influence, for lack of a better term, are not having the same experience as other beginning farmers are having?
Yeah, a little bit. Probably more so than someone that's not making the content, I would say for sure. But that just comes with it at the same time.
It's probably a different argument that they're coming at you with versus the one that some guys get with daddy's money.
Yeah. I get those. I mean, in a way, like, they're just jealous, right?
They're just mad. Like, you got a fancy new, you know, vent tractor or planter or whatever, like, that you wouldn't have otherwise. Yeah.
It's these people that...
go and comment on your stuff or you know make posts about you and they'll say you wouldn't have any of this if it weren't for social media and then you go to their page and they're trying to do the same thing you are yeah sure it's like you're just mad because it's working for me yeah yeah it hasn't i found something that people can relate to yeah that's ultimately what it is that's why people watch right but it's it's no different than going to town and getting a job i mean it's a supplemental income
Yeah, that's what it is. I can farm full time now and get the opportunity to work with these great companies that have products that they want to show off.
I don't know why we all just want to throw good money at bad and just go lose money farming. It's a freaking disease.
Have you noticed that? Everyone is like, how can I make more money to supplement the farm? It's like, we shouldn't have to be doing that.
What is going on? I'm excited here in about a month to do a show on that. That's one of the things that I hope we get done, what we plan to get done, and it is. It's fascinating.
having been in finance i i got it a lot to where it was you know i got i got to work this job so i can have insurance for for the family is one thing but to say i got to go do this job to cover what my operating loss is going to be yeah yeah it's like man so i can go bust loosely you know i have to go push snow for 20 hours and then drive a truck for 20 hours so i get to go drive a tractor for 20 hours like something's broken here it's a disease man it's a
I don't know if we'll get that out of our blood, right? No.
And it's never, never going to change because you even, we've talked about this before, too, that you've got doctors and lawyers and celebrities, athletes that now want to farm. So same thing. They're taking money earned from a non-agricultural job to step into the field to do what they think they want to do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
At the same time, every generation goes through it. So I'm not even 30 yet. I'm only 27. So these guys that are 50 and 60 and 70, they all went through the same stuff. I mean, they were working hard and doing other things to make ends meet while they built the farm. And now they're finally to the age where they've got that asset that they can rent out for retirement.
And they deserve every penny they can get because they worked their whole life for it. I just got to figure out how, you know, our generation's version of that. Is it going to look the same as theirs or different?
Absolutely not.
It won't. Yeah. So Tanner wanted, wants to do a show on it. I want to ask you right now, have you changed anything knowing that we're going into a downtime for this year?
Yeah, I've been force-feeding myself Dave Ramsey content, which I don't know if it's good or bad.
You don't need a $60,000 tractor to farm 40 acres. You could go on the comedy circuit.
You just dress up like Dave Ramsey.
I love that TikTok sound.
People just went off on it. My mentality's definitely changed on it because, see, when I started farming in 2017, we've not had a we didn't have great years, but we didn't really have a bad year and prices were always going up and everything was inflating. So like you couldn't make a wrong move. And I'm the first to admit, I've made some mistakes in that time period too.
So I'm trying to figure that out and navigate the world where stuff is now dropping like a rock in value and situating myself where I can at least survive that. Cause I still don't, I don't, I own the two acres I live on and that's it. So navigating this environment we're in on a,
crop share and only cash rent basis you know how how do you do that so looking at specialty crops figuring out what you can how to run lean without cutting too many corners right it's next couple years are gonna be tough yeah what about you grace
I'm just really pushing social media hard. I'm trying to really focus on that. Obviously farming, but mostly what I'm focusing on changing is being more consistent on YouTube.
Will YouTube penalize you like TikTok? Well, if you don't feed TikTok... You know, it takes a while to get back to that. Does YouTube do that too?
Mm-hmm. From my experience, yeah.
Yeah. I mean, we try to put something out, what, daily, right? Yeah. And it's expensive for us because we've got to pay to have good content.
Because we choose to not edit it, right? Yeah. Yeah. And for us, we didn't even get a position where if we had somebody make it for us, you know, we might as well use it. There's no sense in not airing it. Right. Putting it out as far as that goes. And your dad's still working in town.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yep. So he works at a local factory. Yep. 40 hours a week.
Yep. And is your sister helping you farm?
No.
No.
She's not. She told me if I got cattle, she might be interested. Oh. So she's interested in that for like the beef tallow skin care side.
That's been a fad I've seen.
Yeah, it has. So we've talked about that. And hopefully if I get into cattle, she'll want to work with me a little more.
It's going to be a tough time getting cattle because they're still pretty high, aren't they?
Oh, yeah. The market is still, yeah. Well, we heard here that they don't expect it to be a bad year for cattle. They expect it to be a volatile year, but still in the upper range. So not fall out of bed. So is that a goal? Are you going to have cattle by the end of 25?
I really hope so.
Yeah? Cow-calf, feedlot, what are you looking at?
Feedlot.
Yeah. Little mini fuzzy ones?
No, those are show cattle.
Those aren't feedlot cattle.
Maybe one as a little pet.
There you go. Yeah, you need like a mascot. And then you'll have your Grace's skincare line. Yeah. Homemade.
Yeah, and I'll let her manage that.
Homemade beef tallow.
Yeah.
We'll be kicking out ribeyes and hamburger.
Maybe we could fry the popcorn in beef tallow. Oh.
Yeah, tie it all together. I can't even eat popcorn right now.
Really? What?
Yeah, I'm doing that carnivore diet thing. Oh. Popcorn turns out is not meat.
Well, what's the other one that's kind of like carnivore? Like you can scavenge it. If you could find it out in the wild or whatever, you could eat it. Yeah, who was telling us about that? So just figure that you walked through this wild popcorn field.
And you found these seeds. And you went to the fire that you were cooking your.
Oh, my God. They popped.
Yeah.
Wow. This is neat.
It's seeds. It's natural.
Yeah.
Birds eat it.
Yeah. Popcorn's non-GMO. I mean, you can't get any more closer to nature than that.
It is kind of crazy to think, like, you put a cup of popcorn and it's just kernels. And then it turns into this big bowl. And then to think that if you ate that whole bowl, you just ate that whole cup of kernels.
38 to 44X is what that expands.
So why is it, though, when you poop, you don't poop out popcorn like you do corn when you eat sweet corn?
Well, if you eat the whole kernel without it popping, you might.
I bet.
I've never examined. Don't know.
I like the old maids. I love the old maids. Those are the best.
And then the ones that just kind of splinter open but don't fully explode.
If you could breed a variety that just popped like that,
You can. It's just moisture. The ones that splinter open but don't fully explode, it's just because they're a little too wet. So if you can bump your – the trouble is you can't store it as long as real dry popcorn. So you're going to have to sell it quicker. But, yeah, it's only moisture. It's like the popcorn that splinters but doesn't fully explode is probably 16% or 17% instead of 13.5%.
That's the only thing that makes it do it.
The more you know.
Literally, the more you know. How dry do you get your popcorn, Tanner? Maybe that's our problem. So we probably get it too dry because there's no real moisture test. Our test is a pop test. So we'll let it dry on the cob, and you'll hand-shell, put it in the popper, and if you end up with only four or five old maids left over, it's time to shell it. Otherwise, you leave it sitting on the rack.
What about the ones that never pop?
Old maids, could be a couple things. It could be way too dry, could be way too wet, or could have a scratching of that skin. Because if there's just a little bit of a nick in that kernel's skin, all of that pressure can escape. It'll never explode. That's what makes popcorn explode is that the, what is that, pear cap? I should know that as a popcorn farmer. The moisture can't escape.
It holds it in. It's so thick and so hard. That's what makes popcorn.
Pear carp. I think.
Makes it explode as it keeps it in until the last second.
Are you Googling it? Do you have internet here?
Yeah. Oh, Google just says it's the hole. Encapulates the minuscule water droplet within each kernel. This protective layer is a vital role in containing the moisture, preventing it from evaporating during the cooking process.
So you've got to be real careful, real gentle when you're combining it, because if you scratch those kernels or nick them at all, it's not going to pop.
Yep. Better get a my corn head. Be gentle. There you go. Boom. Look at this. Good boy. Just laying it on. Yeah. Huh. Are you going to get any cool new equipment this year?
Any big partnerships? We've got a planter to restore. I've got to pick that up. We're going to go pick that up after the weather quits. But it's an old one. We're going to restore an old John Deere 7000. Oh, yeah. Yep, that'll be cool.
I just sold a John Deere 7008 row.
Gosh dang it. Oh, man.
Sold it last spring because it was my replant planter. And it just pissed me off. It was so dang wide.
so mine's got that kelderman fold so it's like super narrow i can put that behind my 1066 pull it up on a gooseneck and go anywhere with it and and so we're pretty close to town and it's just traffic so bad and i gotta have two tires of that thing in the dang ditch and some of the ditches are you can't yeah so i got so pissed i just literally listed on facebook marketplace
And there was a lot of replant this year. A guy just came, bought it the next day, and hauled it away.
Marketplaces.
Yeah. So now I've got to find another replant planter.
We've got a manual fold 12-row 7000. And after all the wet spots that I got to replant this spring, I got sick of getting out of that tractor and trying to swing those wings back.
I was really thinking like a Kinsey twist fold would be nice. But my God, those things are gold.
Yeah. And the 12 rows bring more than the 16 rows do.
You got one for sale, don't you? Or did you sell it?
Yeah, I got a 16 row box fill.
Why are they so expensive? Just convenience?
I mean, they're good planters. They're amazing planters.
Yeah.
But planters have all been on the market so long, everyone's got their design perfected pretty well.
Did you know you could get a John Deere twist fold like Kinsey?
Mm-hmm.
That's kind of cool. I saw that.
It's got a different style of lift and twist, but yeah.
I've never seen one in the field, but I've seen them.
in in their brochures or whatever those like their db8s or whatever the eight row or i don't know i don't know what it would be but i need her i need a replant planter but then then my mind goes to well if i'm gonna buy one it'd be nice just to have a second planter so maybe i should just get a little bit bigger so then it could be my bean planter yeah right or whatever and then you start looking at the 16 rows or yeah yeah and it's like oh yeah i don't want to spend that much
You go the total opposite end of the spectrum. I've got a friend from home that just bought a used DB60. That's the 47 row 15 inch.
Oh.
So you don't need to replant anything. You just go plant it once. And if you have to redo it, do the whole field.
There you go.
Instead of doing the little nooks and crannies.
Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot of row units back there. I bet that thing's heavy.
But those aren't bringing nothing.
No.
I mean, the big anything resales junk right now.
Yeah. Yeah. We actually picked up a second DB80 last year because of that. Nobody else bid on it. Finger slipped. Okay.
Let's go.
I literally was wanting to, I was like, oh, I'll throw a bid at that. And someone else had a higher bid. And so then that's why auctions work, right? Like I was like, oh, I wonder how high they're. And so I went up like $2,000 more just trying to figure it out. I'm like, oh, that's where he's at. And then like three minutes left, no one else ever bid. I'm like, oh, shoot.
i had one of those had a bit on a peterbilt truck it was just sitting there going okay oh you were pissed yep i put it in there at thirty thousand nine hundred dollars or something i'm like nobody's gonna you know people are gonna bid 30 and they're gonna stop so i'm gonna definitely have this and i got on the phones talking to one of our partners on the phone and i got off and went oh
And it sold for $31,000. Dang. And you would have went, like, to $40,000. I would have went close to $40,000, yeah. Day cab, wet kit, perfect for us to haul manure in a side dump or a belt trailer.
Yeah.
You know, no emissions type farm truck. Dang. So I called the guy. I was like, maybe they bid it and bought it back. And he goes, no, it sold. The guy just got off the phone with us, couldn't believe the other guy stopped bidding. I said, yeah, the other guy was on the phone.
Yeah. Freaking dumb. That's why I like to bid at the last minute because someone might be on the phone. Yep. Words.
It was actually Corey that was bidding against you.
If that truck shows up in his driveway, I'm taking it.
He's going to surprise you with it like an engagement ring.
Yes. I'm over my Peterbilt disease. I had one. I had to have one. A 379, you know, 2006 and no emissions, all that. And I loved it, but it had so many issues. And I'm like, why is that truck so expensive? And it breaks down just as much as the crappy Freightliner or whatever. So I sold it.
You know what doesn't break down? Mac. Mac R models. They just go.
I was told... I wish I could... give the credit to who told me this because i really like the quote but they said the cheapest thing about a semi truck is the purchase price it's after that they get expensive cheapest day anything to do with that semi truck's the day you bring it home then they start nickel and diming you which that's yep i feel like that's all there's always something wrong yep
Always. I've got one right now that I can't haul grain unless Grace cranks it over for me. Cause I got to hold pressure in the fuel tank to get it to prime. Cause I changed the fuel filter and it lost prime. I must've cracked a hose somewhere. Leave it for 15 minutes.
It will not.
So yeah, that's a two person job.
Yeah. No, we've got trucks that have their quirks, too. Someone has to hold the wire on the starter or someone has to pinch the cable.
There's two things I don't enjoy about mechanics of any diesel motor. It's sucking air and electrical. I hate electrical.
Which is weird because I love electrical when it comes to house, to wiring as far as anything with inside of a building.
I think because you know, especially if you're wiring new construction, but you know where stuff's going and all that. When something happens on a truck and they just got these wiring harness wires going over it, I don't know where to start.
Yep.
I don't know where to start.
Yeah, it's miserable. So do you guys know where you're going for trade shows? This is going to air in January. Do you know if people want to come see you in person, where they can find you?
100%.
Are you doing a party again? Maybe I shouldn't say anything.
Maybe, but it's for girls only. Sorry. Oh, so Corey can go and I can't?
That's sexist.
I don't know. Maybe we'll do something.
Gavin and us will have a boys party. Yeah. Damn right.
Okay, fine.
What, was he going to go to yours?
Maybe. Yeah. Farm show for sure. We were talking to Dawn this morning, maybe Commodity Classic, which I really like that show.
Commodity's awesome. Commodity's cool. It's weird this year. It starts on a Sunday.
Yeah, that's what we hear.
We've only been once, so I don't have anything else to compare it to.
Yeah. I've just never been to a show that starts on a Sunday. I'm not excited that it's in Denver because normally it's fun to look forward to a little bit warmer temperatures at that time. But I guess we'll just have to figure it out. Yeah.
So is it not on the same days every year? Like how Farm Show is always a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday?
It used to be. This is the first time it's been like this. When I went in New Orleans and went in Orlando and then when we went in Houston, it's always been the same days of the week. This is the first time it's started on a Saturday.
They probably put too much promotion into it and then they realized they double booked or something. That's true. Which... That happened to me at my wedding. My wife and I booked our venue. And the next week they go, oh, crap. Someone else has a wedding that night. And so they gave it to us for half price to do it on a different date.
Oh, nice.
And we were cheapskates. We didn't have money at the time. So I think we got the Vittoria Lodge in Ankeny for $400. Whoa. Dang, that's nice.
It doesn't matter what lodge it is and where it is. $400 is still pretty good. You can't rent the studio for that. Yep.
Yep, and I think you could bring your own food and beer there, right? So that was cheap, too, if you don't have to pay $300 a keg.
That was cool. I feel like someone wants us out of here, but not to cut that short. I feel like they just peep in and peep out. I think everyone takes a phone call out in the hallway, and they're like, oh, there's an empty room. Oh, crap, Gavin and Grace are in there.
Nothing new we got going on.
Yeah, my rehearsal dinner. So that was the Friday night football game when Iowa State beat Oklahoma State when they were ranked number one. So we loaded up the pickup for the reception the next day with all the beer from Hy-Vee, which is Campus Town Hy-Vee. And everybody wanted to know what tailgate we were going to. I was like, ah, didn't think about this.
I think I was at a wedding that same day, and I remember I was almost late because of that game.
Because of the game?
Yeah, because it went into overtime, didn't it?
Yep. Two overtimes? Yep, and then they won it on a field goal kick. It was pretty cool. We'll be at those shows as well. We'll be at the National Farm Machinery Show. We missed it last year. Came back. Can see everybody again.
You going to be at the grain bin again?
Oh. I don't think. With Sukup? We'll have something to do at the Green Bay.
Yeah. I don't think we're going to be camped out there. Right. We might just pop in.
Gotcha.
Yeah.
I think that's probably going to be our trade shows more this year than anything else is less of a standard permanent setup. Yeah. Yeah.
It stinks when you're like you have to stay here or you have to be there. It's so much better to go float around. Yeah. So. Yeah. When is the show coming out?
This should be a couple of weeks. Before NACAID? This will be just ahead of NACAID.
Let me find that schedule. Anyone in the Indianapolis area or interested in drainage tile and conservation will be in Indianapolis.
This will be the week of NACAID.
Come see us this week.
Yep. Right now we are set up hanging out at Naked. So North American Conservation and Drainage Expo. I haven't had any drink yet. I'm still learning my words. It's residual. Residual. Yeah. That's the way these go.
Do you guys have tile in Missouri?
couple guys are starting to do it up on the flats but we've got a real tight clay hard pan so they're doing real small tile super close together it's shallow like 15 feet apart or 20 feet apart and little bitty tile but it's not very common at all you wouldn't need much of a machine for for that No, they bring in full-size ones, but I don't think you do. But we've got a weird soil type.
And the guys that are doing it, I don't know. They've got big square fields, and it's like right where the glaciers stop. So it's pancake flat. If you work the dirt wrong, you're back in water up on a quarter section. It's just pancake flat. And then you get into the hills and hollers, my stomping ground, just south of there. But a few of them are doing it, not a lot.
Yep. Gotcha. Nice. You don't farm anywhere where all this McBee ground is coming up?
No, they're in the northwest. What a wild thing that is.
Holy cow. It's like every day I get a thing from, what is that, Common Ground or whatever? Like, oh, 11,000 acres. Here's 6,000. Yeah. What's going on there? Yeah, we know what's going on there.
As does everybody else. Yeah. Yikes. Well, that's cool. Thank you for missing a keynote speaker. Hopefully we were just as entertaining as they could have been. This is the keynote. This is the keynote.
I mean, we didn't have to do this. Yeah, thank you. You didn't have to do this. But, man, when we're together, what better time to do it?
Oh, yeah.
It's fun getting together. We could ask these questions over a drink, or we could record when we ask you these questions. It's just kind of fun to catch up. Yeah.
We've got to do it every couple years and see how we all keep progressing.
Yeah. That's right. So at the end of 25, we want to see Grace with cattle. And a ring.
And a ring.
And a ring. What kind of cattle?
Just Angus.
You know what's really good about this? If she has a ring, that means Korn went back up to seven bucks.
I think it's going to be a long time before Korn gets a seven. I bet someone gets a ring before then. Oh, look at you. Wow.
Yay.
That would be great if Korn went to seven.
We got this on video, so it doesn't have to go up to seven for me to get a ring.
For the first time, he's backed out of it. So have you guys looked at ring styles? Do you know what she likes? I get hints all the time.
I flat out tell him what I want. There's no hints. All the time.
Okay.
Yep.
all right cool so what's what's going to be at the end for for gavin what are you going to have at the end besides a ring on her finger the end of this year yeah i would love to get some grain storage of my own i've either been hauling it into town at harvest or i've been renting neighbors bins and i want to buy a couple acres and put up some dedicated storage for efficiency's sake and just
A couple weeks ago on Twitter, maybe just a week ago, I love grain systems. She can vouch for me. We go on a road trip, I'm taking back roads to see grain systems because I call them castles. They're like the farmers, you know, that's their thing.
It's that farmer's legacy, right?
Yeah, it's that farmer's legacy. It's that giant castle. It's got all these different sized towers on it. I mean, they just look like castles on the hillsides. And I'm like redesigning how I want mine to look. That's what I want. Obviously, I'm not going to start with that. Sure. But I want to lay the foundation for it.
Yeah. Start the right way. It would be very exciting to start a new grain site. I'm just going to say that right now because I'm very thankful that my grandpa had the forethought to put grain storage up. But things are so different now than they were then. But now, if you could start over, you could. It's endless. I think about it every day. It's endless what you could do.
You're preaching to the choir. Well, when you're ready, talk to us, and we'll get you hooked up with our friends at Sukup and at least get you a quote. I mean, there's a lot of good companies out there, but they've been tremendous, and they've helped a lot of our friends out. So, yeah, they've got dealers everywhere. I love it. Well, this has been fun.
Corey, what do you tell the listeners? Crack a cold one. You deserve it.