Government vs. Farmer
We've yet to meet a homesteader who loves the government. Subsequently, we've never heard of a government (in the modern era at least), actively promoting homesteading. These two worlds collide regularly. Not that they're completely incompatible, however, when government is out to grow its reach, farmers and homesteaders are often some of the first people affected.
This episode discusses large-scale versus small-scale farming, fires on a large cattle ranch, and if you need to worry about your homestead producing more carbon emissions than a huge farm.
Tyler talks about a loose-leaf tea sampler and here is a link to that delicious tea!
https://amzn.to/49hA4Ye (this is an affiliate link and if you purchase it from our link it'll help us fund this podcast).
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Transcript
So I've been drinking a ton of Coca-Cola like stupid amounts lately and.
::Do you love me?
::Like just straight Coca-Cola.
::Well, yeah, I mean, I'm not adding anything to it.
::We're not like diet or like, no, no. OK, so.
::Regular regular Coke, regular coke and man, the high fructose corn syrup has got me really self-conscious, you know, like I don't want.
::To be drunk.
::Like you're getting.
::Now I am getting slower. I'm getting slower but I think it's just my age, right? And I realize OK, if I'm getting slower than the aging a little bit 33.
::Once it's just starting to start numbering around.
::You should get on that.
::It's not.
::Right. But it's a soccer player. I notice it maybe more than somebody who's not.
::You noticed.
::You noticed the speed? Oh, yeah, I remember I.
::I went from I think I was like 32 when I joined an over 30 Hockey League. Yeah, I was like, well, these people are at my speed now. I was like, I went from being one of the slower players to one of the faster players. As soon as I joined I.
::Was like OK, but.
::Everybody was way more.
::Guild, but it was a slower game, so it just gave you that like half.
::A second extra time and stuff it.
::Gives you an edge.
::Was great. I loved it.
::That's how I am in, in soccer where we transitioned to an over 30 league. My wife and I and and we I do. I feel like I'm the fastest.
::Dude, you got it.
::There's a lot fewer idiots, yeah.
::Player out there.
::In over 30 leagues here.
::There's it's amazing how reckless some of them can be. Like some of them have a bit of an ego and they'll come in real hot and.
::See this one. This one doesn't make sense to me. Is like.
::Just hit you.
::People playing at an elderly age for sports, relatively elderly, right over 30 for sports, you're you're slowing down, right?
::Like you're.
::Like you don't want us. You're telling. Yeah, well.
::You have the job. Most people are like.
::I gotta go work tomorrow.
::I gotta go to work. Yeah, I got stuff to do. I.
::Can't be doing this.
::Even if it's from a desk, I can't have a knee immobilizer on while I'm sitting.
::There all day. So when I'm rolling with these kids at at MMA or, you know, jujitsu and they like just.
::You know, put their knee right in your solar plexus and they're just like cranking on it.
::Like dude, I got. I gotta work in the morning. Please stop.
::The morning well also that is you go when you do MMA so.
::Yeah, I don't.
::You're going to.
::Know how bad?
::Fair enough, MMA is great. Two soccer.
::So so I'm looking for an alternative right to coke.
::Oh, oh, I gotta bring this back in. Yeah, I got you this all stem from Coca-Cola. I gotta get it out of my system. Cause this was I was drinking like 3 Cokes.
::Day and I know there's people that may drink more than that and some of that drink less but.
::That was way too much for me.
::That's a good, solid hundred. Well, there's what?
::Like around 40 grams of.
::Sugar in a in a coke so.
::Yeah. It's like 36 gas sugar.
::If you can, so you're talking like, oh, well over a.
::100 grams of.
::Sugar just out of coke. And that doesn't count.
::All the other things that you potentially need to.
::And if you're not burning it, I mean, you're just storing it, right?
::3 three years ago, for a New Year's.
::Resolution. I decided not to drink soda anymore.
::You only carbonated drinks. I might do like a ginger beer. Every once in a while. Like with a with a mixed drink. But like, I don't drink. I don't drink any drinks.
::Here and there.
::Also, when you you know, even if you do like Jack and the and coke, you're you're having a far less coke than you do. You don't have a whole can of.
::Coke and pour like five shots.
::Of Jack in there, you know.
::So it makes it a different drink whereas.
::When you're drinking it straight.
::Well, as I was doing the same thing though I was drinking 3-4 sodas a day at least, and then I just stopped cold Turkey and it was really weird for like 2 weeks. I was like, what am I going to drink water like? And but then, like, now if we go to.
::You're going to finish the cane.
::You know Costco?
::Or whatever you get the the glizzy and the drink for $1.50, right?
::You know my even like lemonade or.
::You know my wife will get Sprite or something like that if I accidentally drink out of her Sprite instead of lemonade. It's.
::Like, Oh my God, where is all the?
::Sugar like I don't know how to do it. I had to I.
::Had a gluten free Oreo last night.
::And it's they're actually pretty good. They're they're not. They're not much different. You should try it. I have one here. We'll we'll try it afterwards.
::Sounds horrible.
::Oreos, Oreos. Oreos, Oreos are just horrible.
::They're vegan. You know what regular Oreos are vegan.
::How do they make the best on the inside?
::No dairy, no egg, no nothing in there. Yeah.
::It's wrong. It's wrong.
::Well, I had I.
::Had the Oreo though, and like my mouth, just like lit on fire from all the sugar and I was like, what was?
::Happening. It was weird.
::So what did you move to?
::From the coke, when you when you called Turkey, we went to just water, yeah.
::Just what? Just what?
::Well, you know what? You could you know what?
::If you, because those bubbly makes like a couple different, they make a bubbler, you know, bubbly in the, like basically like like kind of they make a bubbler, which is, I think, 60 milligrams of caffeine. So close to a cup of.
::Coffee then they.
::Make another one. I can't. I can't remember exactly.
::What? But it?
::Only has like 20 or 30 milligrams of caffeine, which is less than a.
::Coke. But there's no sugar.
::So you try something like that like if you like.
::The little bit of caffeine that coke provide.
::You minus the sugar so good.
::That's a good option. Yeah. I went to tea.
::And that's what I'm sharing this morning with.
::Ohh it was a transition *** ** * *****. That's this.
::I I brought the solid Chai to share with the guys here today and I found I I drank a lot of leaf loose leaf tea when I was.
::Little my parents were big on like experiencing experiencing different cultures, so we would do, you know, we had we had like a small table that we would sit on pillows and make our own sushi. We'd make our own green tea from the leaves. And so for Christmas this year, I got a new teapot and a bunch of tea leaves that I can now.
::Make whatever I want. So that's what we got today is masala Chai. I figured if I.
::Want to change?
::My health and not be consuming so many.
::Of the processed.
::Sugars. This is the opposite. I mean we've got this.
::And it's really it's a lot cheaper to.
::Make you know.
::Oh yeah, super, super cheap. It may take longer, you know, like it's not for the impatient person. I think it generally takes me like 20 minutes to get it start to finish.
::$0.10 a cup or.
::Whatever five, yeah.
::Where? Where do you get your tea ingredients from?
::It's just Amazon from Amazon, yeah.
::We'll post there.
::You tried the the.
::Turkish markets, the Middle Eastern markets.
::No, I haven't been. No, that we've got a lot.
::Of that around here.
::We do especially out in out in Dearborn, but when when we were living in Detroit, we would venture out to Dearborn because that was one of the closest.
::Places in Detroit at the time we lived there, they didn't have any big supermarkets. It was only like really small local, like, quickie shops downtown where we lived. So we'd have to drive out to like Allen Park or Deerborn or something like that.
::He makes it sound like he lived there in 1963. Yeah, at this time.
::Four years ago, when?
::He was.
::It was 88.
::Seven years ago, eight years ago.
::But I mean, even just then, it wasn't that long ago and they were still not major chain stores aside from.
::Whole Foods, which is crazy expensive.
::But we would go to.
::The the Middle Eastern markets and the Turkish markets in Dearborn and they would have some of the most amazing like coffee and it's super cheap, but not in the coffees incredible.
::Yeah, I mean, we started with, I bought like a sample box came in these little 10s. I think there's like 12 of them in there. And I, I I'm such a nerd and like big on stats and information I went through after I had a cup and I would rate.
::The tea. So I could go back later because there's so many in there. It was like, OK, this is like a 7 out of 10, you know, and then I can flip them over and say you.
::Hey, I mean, let's.
::Know what I might buy some of that later. Yeah, you know what we need to.
::Do we need to do?
::A and set. You know they do wine testing like where you have to try the wine. And you guess where it's from. That's what type it is going to do. Teeth.
::13 small years.
::Similarly, yes, that's exactly it. That's right.
::Yes. So I love it. It's good. It's got great health benefits, it's reduces.
::Lowers your risk of type 2 diabetes. anti-inflammatory.
::You know you're at risk for that when you're eating drinking 3 Cokes and.
::Yeah. Then you can add honey to it, which is great for.
::Gut cleaning and.
::Anti anxiety anti depression as.
::Yeah, Yep. Yeah.
::Well, pretty much every possible.
::Thing you're experiencing, just drink some tea.
::You drink some tea. That's the morning.
::And there's been at least.
::Lower your chances.
::Take the edge off and.
::Then we'll get you for taking.
::And and different different types of tea could benefit you different ways. Ginger is good for the gut as well.
::So much you.
::Been through the throat.
::Sometimes I just take we.
::Cut up ginger and squeeze the lemon in there.
::And then pour the hot water.
::Over top of it and.
::That stuff is a powerful, powerful drink, you know.
::It'll get your nose. It'll get your throat. Get.
::Gets everything working.
::I I have to confess, I I do still drink Cokes, but I don't start my mornings with them. Something about while I'm working. I need that. I need that like.
::Skinny baby steps.
::That that drive and I don't get it from and it may be just like an addiction, but I don't get it from anything other than coke where like I can I can bury my head and just go and all of.
::A sudden it's 5.
::Sounds like an addiction.
::Maybe he's getting the old school stuff that.
::Has cocaine and we can we can post.
::You know the the stuff that you buy.
::For the tea, we can just put a link for that. Yeah, the description below. So just you know, click down there, read the description. You can find out what Tyler made. What what most solid.
::Masala Chai don't say Chai tea.
::Chat right there.
::Because no. Yeah, well, if if you want to be technical, Chai means Chai. Chai means tea. So if you say Chai tea, you're literally say.
::It doesn't taste.
::Like chat like what I've had traditionally. It's plenty.
::Tea tea Tees. I mean tea. Tea. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
::Motion a little redundant? Maybe. So we say. Masala Chai, right? That's that's the best way to do it. At least this is masala Chai.
::All right.
::Is like blue G tea.
::Talk. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
::I like it. I like it well.
::Welcome to talk talk.
::We are not going to talk about tea the whole time. We'll we'll be drinking with the whole time. Feel free to make some for yourself as you watch along, we are going to talk a lot about what's going on in the world. Kind of a a little bit of a newsy episode and we want to really dive into first what's happening.
::In the EU, lots of these farmers are protesting tons of regulations that are being passed down. These are kind of culminations of things that have been pushed for several years and they're starting.
::To come to fruition that are really just killing farmers profits and what they're trying to do, which we'll we'll dive all into that and we're also going to.
::Hit on the.
::Seemingly, I mean, it just seems like an endless amount of fires of American farms, cows and chickens and all, all these farms that are just being.
::Unfortunately, destroyed and we have no idea how it happened and it feels like there's a war on farmers in America and and we're just being told, oh, their farm caught on fire, which not to say that farms couldn't catch on fire. But we're going to dive into everything that's happening with that. And then we are going.
::To close with the probably.
::So you're like on social media somewhere. You saw this article that says that holsters DIY.
::Veggie like plant growers and chicken Havers like us homesteaders that they produce five times more carbon than we're the ********, so we're going to dive into that. But let let's let's 1st jump into the EU regulations. Tyler. I'm just going to let you kind of run with it and then we'll just we'll just drop all last questions.
::Tyler's been been diving into this really deep. So let's let's jump into just give an explanation of what's happening and maybe what the the the main regulations are that are holding farmers back.
::Yeah. So we have this all stemmed from some protests that that popped up in France about a month ago and then those kind of.
::Led to other eruptions of protests in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, other areas where the farmers realize they can't survive unless they take action. So the big thing that seems to be the the big deal.
::In Europe, is the European Green Deal that was brought about their goal in the EU is to be completely carbon neutral.
::By 2040, and this may not impact the everyday homeowner as much as it does the farmer.
::Right. Somebody who's actually.
::I own a farm and they're under regulation from the EU in order to sell their products, because if you don't know in the EU, in order to sell things, you have to meet their regulations or else you just can't. You can't sell anything. Whether if if you're in.
::You can't even selling from people across the street. You're not allowed to unless you meet EU regulations for the entire European Union. Restrict it even goes.
::Yeah, and it actually.
::Even although didn't.
::Britain left the EU, so it's that's a.
::Yeah, it will.
::Bad example.
::It even it it even goes deeper too, because depending on the city or county regulations, you may not actually be able to sell.
::Outside of your jurisdiction, essentially. So depending on your farm size, and depending on what you're selling and where you're selling, you can only sell locally grown things. You can't import things to help you know you know, be able to have more things to sell to make you know your place more attractive at all, or draw more attention.
::I'm I'm a huge fan of Jeremy Clarkson and Clarkson Farms. Is just an amazing show, but he he actually goes through this quite a bit where he's got he wanted to build his own store on his own farm of 2000 plus acres. And they're like, no, can't do it. He's like, well, go do it anyway. Found a way to do it.
::Amazing show. It's such a fun.
::Met the regulations and then went through this whole process and this maybe TV magic but did go through the whole process of like they started importing things and they're like you're going to get tagged.
::Well, wasn't there?
::Something to do with the town like didn't want.
::There was a lot of town regulations. Yeah, it was almost like, like an HOA of the town was just like, no, we don't want you to have this. Bring too many people. We want to keep our town quiet. But that that stems more from there's there. There's a lot of setups like that throughout the EU where you have more regulations like that.
::To have the shop and.
::And do you know, do you know the nether? I remember.
::Last year in.
::The Netherlands, the.
::Government was paying farmers to just sell them their land. I don't know if that came up in any of your research, but they were because I think they were the initial country to start protesting because the government was trying to go hey.
::I didn't. I didn't see anything.
::We'll just give you.
::Well, X amount of money for for your land per acre or whatever it was they were trying to pay off, farmers.
::To create conglomerates of farming land, and the farmers actually protested last year with that. But that had nothing to do with necessarily the EU regulations, but they were kind of the tip of the spear in revolting against the BS that was happening in their country.
::Yeah. So let's go into the EU Green Deal.
::Little bit, what we're seeing is the farmers are getting restricted on their land use. They're being told that they need to put 4% to the side to recover, which is honestly a good thing. But as we look into more and more of the restrictions, we're going to see that it's overall not really the best thing for the farmer. So we've got.
::4% of land that needs to rest to recoup. We've got a higher gas tax on the people that are going to continue to use diesel.
::So farmland farm equipment is like strictly diesel and so.
::It has to be because it's you. It requires so much power. You can't use regular gasoline for.
::Oh yeah, so they're stuck. They cannot use electric. You know, you cannot convert a farm into electric farm equipment.
::Not not without a ton of money they do.
::Ohh. Ridiculous. Ridiculous amounts of money.
::Have them, but they're.
::In the infrastructure you would need on the farm itself to be able to power and charge those electric. Ridiculous.
::Yeah. Yeah. Warehouses. Yeah, right. So we've got that. There's a reduction in pesticides and herbicides, anything that may kill something that's attacking the crops.
::So they want them to essentially use less efficient equipment.
::Protect their crops less and have less land to pharma. So all these combined are giving the farmers way less income than they could survive.
::And their what their transportation costs are increasing to.
::Exactly to to get the stuff in and out. So so they literally will not be able to survive with these new restrictions. And there definitely needs to be something done to maybe make them more efficient. But forcing this on the farmers.
::Making them have.
::To pay fines for this type of thing.
::They're going to just crumble.
::Well, that's what their point is. Yeah, I think that that's the whole reason they they want these farmers to crumble because when they can come in, a bigger company can scoop them up and they can do what?
::They want to do although.
::Do we see it as a bad?
::Thing that they.
::Can't use certain pesticides and herbicides.
::That like there are.
::No, not at all.
::Things in the US I.
::Mean we use Roundup on freaking everything like the state and it's horrible for you. Yeah, and most.
::Of that actually.
::Is already banned in Europe.
::They're trying to ban even more stuff.
::I don't know that the problem is the regulation. The problem is going to somebody and saying, hey, here's how you've done it for the last however long we need you to stop. OK, what do I do? We just need you to stop or we're going to.
::Find you. Yeah. What the what am I?
::Supposed to do? I don't have a solution.
::And in order to get to a place where you want to not use the same amount of pesticides on your crops, well, you got to change your whole infrastructure. Who's going to?
::Pay me to.
::Do that like. It's not fair. I've been operating under.
::These rules for.
::So long and yeah, I mean they maybe they, they've given these farmers let's say 10 years.
::To to switch.
::Over. That's not very long when you consider a business that is at such a huge scale to go hey, in 10 years, you've got to basically switch your whole processes.
::Well, and not on on.
::Not only that, but on top of the processes, the equipment itself like we talked about like you, obviously you can't just go pour gasoline into diesel vehicle. That's not how that works. So you can.
::I mean, you can once.
::Well, where?
::You do anything one time.
::But to switch over all of that equipment, let's say you did have the infrastructure.
::See, you did have the the power on site on the farm to be able to switch over to electric.
::Vehicles, electric farm equipment, electric farm equipment is going to cost way more than.
::Diesel because it's it's.
::We just better off paying for paying the taxes, probably.
::Yeah, because at the end of the day, you're going to spend easy 2 to $3,000,000 on farm equipment that's needed in order like brand new farm equipment.
::Or way more than that.
::Tractor. Yeah, right. Yeah.
::Depending on the size of the farm.
::I mean, a tractor itself will easily cost you $300,000.
::For a diesel.
::Tractor at that scale. Let's say you have 500 or 1000 acres that you're forming. You're going to need something that's big enough. That's easy. 250 three, $150,000. That's if it's diesel. If it's electric, we see electric prices are way higher than any diesel or gasoline vehicle. So you're probably going to spend another 10 to 20% on top of that, if not more.
::A giant.
::And then what happens when your battery dies?
::Yeah. And then you can't phone.
::Exactly. The battery probably costs 100 grand.
::Ohh my gosh.
::Right. And then you can't. You can't farm, then you can't harvest. Then you can't cultivate. Then you're losing out even more money and.
::Food production goes down.
::So then who is gonna who's going to pay? It's going to.
::Be people like us, the regular person who the prices are going to have to go up because the farmer is going to go well.
::The only way?
::For me to.
::Do this is for me to raise my prices exactly, and then we're sitting here going well. But I just want my 15.
::Dollars an hour minimum wage.
::And suddenly that's nothing, because everything is going up all over the place. And then your $100,000, your job is nothing because everything keeps on going up every. And this is where it starts. And I think that that's what our listeners need to remember is that.
::Almost all of inflation to meat starts with food because as soon as soon as food is more expensive then everything else is going to become more expensive because in your your transportation costs variably are going up. That's making the food more expensive like everything is going to affect every aspect of your freaking life and.
::Nobody even knows about this thing. Nobody even knows that this is going on. That's what blows.
::My mouth and and you.
::Go well. Somebody needs to produce some carbon.
::Some things are going.
::To just produce energy, we need to burn energy. To make energy. We know that. So what do we want it to be? Do we want it to be this factory? Do we want it to be?
::Food production. I mean, I'll take food production all day. That should be the one that isn't limited and then limit all the other things that are, you know, creating a whole bunch of plastic ******** that we don't need.
::I mean, I'm.
::Well, I I think something too that is often overlooked is.
::Humans are not the major contributor of carbon's catastrophic events like volcanoes erupting puts way, way, way, way, way more carbon. And I don't know the stats on it, but I know I've seen videos and.
::Maybe if Joe's feeling adventurous, you can find something on the carbon emissions of a volcano eruption, but they're insane.
::Well, it's almost like.
::Climate change has been occurring for all of.
::Earth's existence. Yeah, up and down. I'm.
::Going down. Yeah. Temperature change. We've seen temperature.
::Changes to three degrees throughout, yeah.
::And in recorded history, not just like, ohh we, we guessed that it changed. This is like within the last thousand years where we can measure we have legitimate.
::Records of weather patterns and this has happened before. I mean, this is all this is, it's all about.
::We look at it's all taxes. How do we get the government bigger? All this is making the government bigger. Whether this is in the EU and similar things are happening here in the US where a carbon tax is consistently talked about, especially on the left, that a carbon tax needs to happen. It already happens with our gas.
::Because we get you get taxed to be on the road like you get, you know, hey, the more gas you put in your car, you are paying a carbon tax because you're using gas. Therefore you're paying more taxes to the votes and it's all.
::Just a way to get the government money. It's all just we're we're.
::You know it's it's their job is to funnel as much as they can in order to fund, you know, I I'm not saying I agree with it, right. But it's literally their job.
::Is it, though? Is that their job? OK.
::That's that's their.
::Job they've given themselves, yeah.
::They have made it their mission.
::I don't necessarily agree with that. I believe the small government, but so an interesting thing about that is, is government trying to to tax and and and decide where to put all this money is the US and its its role in this European issue that we have. You look at a country like Poland.
::Poland's biggest issue? Maybe not the Green Deal, but cheap imports. We've got a Ukraine war going on and the Ukraine agricultural sector has been devastated by the war from Russia. And in order to help Ukraine, the US has has given at this point.
::What I've read is $250 million just to the agricultural sector and what this is doing.
::Thing is, they're they're.
::Giving money out to the different farms and this is allowing the farmers to then sell their grain, whatever they're growing, much cheaper than they typically would. And you look at a country like Poland, their domestic grain now costs more than if they brought it in from Poland.
::From Ukraine as an import, as opposed to.
::Yeah. Yeah, sorry, from from Ukraine. So our actions here in the US are affecting the world economy on the other side of the.
::Gold and contributing to these riots, these protests.
::But we have no money for the border.
::Well, I think even too with the bill that just passed yesterday, there's another $60 billion that's going to Ukraine. And that's not including the, I think, 15 going to Israel. And then there's another, you know, whatever. But inside of that, I think there's another 100 million. And from what, if I write correctly, another 100 million that's going to the agricultural sector.
::The Israel.
::So a total of 300 and.
::$50 million.
::But it's the borders.
::Yeah, it's that. It's madness. It's absolute madness that you can pass a bill.
::And call it a border bill and it not even be a large percentage of the.
::Bill, it's like this tiny little little. I mean, it's still billions, but it's yes.
::The keyword focus on what we.
::It's this tiny.
::Little portion and it's just their way of getting money over you credit. It is a Ponzi scheme.
::Like you know, it's.
::Oh well. Oh yeah, we'll.
::Help you with this? We just need.
::A little money for this over here and it's.
::Autonomy. More money. It's it is absolutely insanity.
::And and people are just.
::Uh, what do I what do I? What do I do?
::I don't. I mean, yeah, there. What do you do?
::It's it's hard to know what you can do from your house. You know, like in reality, we don't have a lot of power alone. That's how we heal. Yeah. You need this organization, right? I think this is a good stopping point.
::You've got to be prepared and that's what.
::We're here for is to be prepared, yeah.
::Yeah, let's take a quick break and.
::Yeah. Yeah. We'll take a quick.
::Then we'll come back.
::Break and then we'll just jump back into farms and burning down and then in the US. Alright. Sounds good. OK, welcome back. Talk talk here second-half. We are going to dive into things happening in the US right now in farms. Dimmitt Texas. Huge fire.
::Maybe let's touch on. Let's touch on the US yeah, yeah.
::But there's also been, what, 500,000 livestocks and animals have died since 2020 and fires just crazy.
::To think about.
::That was a uh.
::Year one year in a year.
::Ohh in a.
::In 2020 in 20/20/20.
::20 and I mean, obviously there's been more since then. There's just been tons of farms and went on fire and that and that isn't necessarily doesn't mean that there's a arson on every single one of them or a conspiracy. Obviously farms light on fire. There's a lot of old barns, horrible wiring.
::You've never seen.
::Horrible wiring before.
::But there was 2.
::It happened a massive fire recently in did at Texas and I want Tyler to tell.
::So it was a year ago last April was the big fire. There was actually a smaller fire in January at the small at the same farm. So, but let's go into.
::The April one.
::First, the April one. They have this. This is a massive cattle farm. They have 10s of thousands.
::Of cattle they've grown enormous and they are extremely efficient. They have the most expensive equipment.
::They literally have these giant platforms that rotate, and by the time the cow gets around the whole platform, it's done being milked and and they just have these things stacked up. Super, super efficient right. And and because they have so many cows.
::Sounds like a great life.
::They have so much ****.
::Literally. And what are you going to do with?
::So they they pump these out with these, uh, these special trucks, they they suck them up. These vacuum trucks and they pour them in the lagoon that they create. And their goal is to eventually get these bio gas digesters that will take this manure and turn it into natural energy so that the farmers have.
::You know, they're literally making money from ****, you know, it's it's a little bit weaker. Exactly. But the the goal of it is to, you know, supplement their income a little bit by making use of all this **** because there there is an A massive amount of it on these farms. So.
::Or sure. Or sell your compost or.
::Whatever you have.
::I know how much **** I get.
::From 40 chickens, so I can only imagine 18,000 cows.
::Yeah, they truck out all day with this stuff. And what, what the issue is they've, they've got these trucks from Mitch. It's a company that makes these these vacuums.
::I was pooping every 3.3 seconds.
::And there is surprisingly no regulation on them, so there's nothing in the US. There's nothing in the country where there's made, but nothing is regulating them. So they kind of have a pass through the market and they're such, they have such a small clientele.
::That maybe the government didn't think it was going to be a big issue, but it definitely became a big issue on this farm. So what we see is.
::How many trucks do you know how many?
::Trucks they have on this farm, OK.
::I don't know the the research that I said didn't say. What I do know is that in January they had one of these trucks light on fire at the lagoon. OK, so we have. And so here's the here's the conspiracy here. Yeah. Here's the conspiracy here. We have a truck with no regulation.
::While it's dumping **** into the ****.
::We're missing ****.
::That's being used on a farm that has a lot of value to the country, OK and its first fire is at a lagoon of ****. We're not. There's nothing to lose. But we get a prime example of what could happen.
::If maybe this were in a more important area. OK, so this didn't really get a lot of coverage. They they they parked the truck, they took the tires off and left it.
::If I'm owning a truck and my ship lights on fire both literally and figuratively, here I want to know what caused it and I'm going to be really skeptical of that brand. I'm going to want, you know, stuff looked at.
::It's like when an airplane crashes. All that models airplanes, they they take them right out. They need to figure out what happened.
::Make sure that it's not going.
::To happen again, right? Spoiler that did not happen. They parked it, shocked. They they weren't worried about it at all. Yeah. And three months later, four months later, in April, they had the not the exact same truck, but the same model.
::In the House with the all of the cows ignite and burned.
::I mean, they had so much loss, they burned, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And not even right away. I mean, even these suffocated. And just they're getting burned. They're getting suffocated. This is a massive multi $1,000,000 loss.
::18,000 cows. So it killed 18,000 cows.
::Who was that? That isn't all their cash.
::Done. Burger.
::Yeah, yeah.
::Send the dogs in there.
::And so you know there there was an investigation by the fire department. Nothing seems malicious, but it was the same truck driver that was in the the one that led him fire in the lagoon, the same driver, the same driver.
::Is in both fires, which is a little weird, but also the fact that we have it in a safe zone and then maybe a practice run.
::Not saying that's what happened, but there's something weird there. And then we have the full-fledged accident that just literally.
::At the very least, you have a a very obviously very flammable situation that isn't regulated.
::And because of that, you know there's massive loss to tons of cows which are directly affects you at home because the cost of meat is going to net, you know that that's going.
::To affect it.
::Not that there's there's hundreds of thousands of.
::Livestock and and so it's. It's not as if that individual event is going to make your meat go up, double the price or your stakes. But when one thing happens, yours want to keep your eye out because you never know what can happen again. And there's other things using the same things. Right. And fortunately, we're not using.
::Oh yeah, yeah.
::It happens in bodies, right?
::Same **** things on our homestead we don't.
::Really need.
::It will be that.
::Although now I have a I have a really good use for my old vacuum cleaner. Think I might take that into liquid fitting.
::Come on.
::Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Liquid bindings are sponsored.
::This this is a.
::This is a kind of an insight into an overall potential issue is as farms get larger and larger and we have, you know, a single source farm right for a single source.
::Product and that is very large and then we have a catastrophic event that affects like you were just saying, it affects the pricing of beef. It would be the same if it was vegetables, if it was fruits and all these.
::Different things. So really the what we.
::Can do as individuals. Is be able to produce or as America. We should be producing.
::On a lot more farms and smaller farms, so that way it's a lot more spread. It's not like a conglomerate.
::Not according to the University of Michigan, which?
::May be transitioning we we.
::Yeah, that's good.
::Can keep on keep on coming back to to it, but there was a a study done by the university.
::Michigan, which the headline does say you know five times more carbon emissions from smaller farms, from homesteaders, which is, it's certainly everyone's making their headlines. So you click on the article to actually read it, which most people don't actually do. They just go ahead and skip ahead. But this article.
::The study does ultimately say that.
::People that do this on their own, that do it at small scale, it's inefficient and the bigger guys do it more efficiently, they produce less carbon. Whether that means anything or you give a ****, which I don't. I'm happy to produce more carbon if it means that my family gets gets the food that we want, and that.
::But you can know.
::It but.
::Regardless, it's not necessarily saying don't do this, but.
::Yeah, explain how this all ties in together with the you know what we're talking about, how we want farms to be efficient, but at the same time, we've got these little guys like I don't have.
::The money to be that efficient.
::No, and I don't think you should. I think. I think the big take away that I learned after reading the article, I had some hasty conclusions after seeing the title, right. Sure. But when I actually clicked on it, it's really good data and the the basis of the data.
::Is that you know, as Mark said.
::Had a large farm that produces, you know, hundreds, thousands of acres of of corn is going to be much more efficient than 500 little tiny farms because each little tiny farm is going to have to build their own little small structure. They're going to have to bring in their own fertilizer.
::That is, you know, typically from the box store.
::So it's going to cost more. There's more plastic packaging that's involved with that and and so generally.
::There, there's more people, more people, probably to till that small area of land because you've got, let's say one person is telling that and there's 500 farms like that and that's 500 people, whereas with a more efficient machine, you could do all that acreage with just a few people and and some big *** machines, but.
::Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
::So. So their main point was and, and they're not demonizing the small farm in the article, they're saying grow tomatoes at home because tomatoes have to be flown in and their carbon footprint for for tomatoes, I mean, we're talking not that much difference, but.
::But if you.
::Grow them at home. Then they don't don't need to be flown in. Same thing with the spirit is they give those two examples is if you're doing those two.
::Then actually your.
::Farm is more efficient if you're growing.
::Slow on their perennials, so you can just keep.
::Yeah, and. And everybody that I know that close, close tomatoes gets thousands of, I mean it, it just goes crazy.
::On getting them over and over too.
::This thing is.
::Just loading him.
::Ohh my gosh.
::And the spare? I'll tell you what. If you plant asparagus, if if you want to plant one thing this year, you're just like, I don't know what to plant. Go plant some asparagus somewhere. Doesn't even that stuff grows like a weed, but it'll grow up and you'll see the little spare.
::Just and then you just just don't touch it. It'll turn in. And it's actually really pretty looking Fern. And and then it.
::Will just start.
::Popping up more and more and in like 3 years you can have a ton of asparagus, and asparagus isn't always cheap. You can get your own asparagus and you you don't need to spray anything on it. Nothing will eat it. Nothing really touches it.
::It's super easy to grow and it.
::Just keeps coming back every year.
::I know most humans that won't eat it more.
::And more and more, it makes your pee.
::Smell funny. I actually I I this.
::Is a. This is a I guess am I guilty? Confession is that when I eat this?
::I guess and I I go to the, I go pee afterwards. I actually. I'm like, yeah, I like this. I it's not like I I'm getting off on the smell already, but I like the smell of it. I think it's interesting, you know, like, OK, like this. It's called asparagus. Asparagus acid is what's.
::You're going to be labeled.
::As it's my little treat for eating.
::And how did you know that?
::And then and then the.
::Next person that walks in there goes.
::Whoa, somebody had asparagus?
::Do you know that only 75% of people can smell asparagine acid? Really, yes. So some people say yes. So some people they, they initially thought that not everybody's pee smells. But it turns out that not everybody has the gene to smell it.
::So there are people.
::That can't. One out of four people cannot spell it.
::Oh, that's a digit, Sir.
::So there's some people that just don't smell.
::The acid. I'm not one of those people.
::Yeah, me neither.
::Unfortunately, I yeah. So one of three of three.
::So the real article really pushes, you know, if you're going to do it at home, then you can do it better, you know. And I think honestly.
::To each their own in this matter. But if you're really concerned about the carbon footprint, which I don't think any of us really are, if you plant some trees, you're going to offset that carbon dioxide that you're producing but.
::Well, I I think even take it a step further is my argument would be regardless of what.
::You're growing whether or.
::Not that that produce or that.
::Food has any sort of.
::Large carbon footprint for that specific one that if you're doing it at home and a bunch of people decide, hey, we're all going to start growing like.
::We had victory gardens back in world one in World War 2, where everybody was growing their own stuff. You do that specifically to offset transportation and logistics costs, which are never going to be less CO2 emissions.
::Well, and and that's just less money, right? Like you don't have to spend money on transportation costs. Great. You could charge less. You could you?
::See you there.
::Know if you're if.
::You're just trading and maybe selling to your neighbors.
::You're not as worried about. Well, I have to transport this to the farmers market. Even or like I have to buy a spot. And the farmers market to be able to do that like it's it's a lot cheaper if you can do it yourself, which is hard to do. I mean, there's there's more. There's time involved with that. But yeah, I mean, and I think taking this back to the fires and the potential for these huge farms.
::For things to go wrong because not everything's as regulated as maybe it needs to be. Sorry, I feel like freaking Joe Biden in the debate. There's a fly on my face. They my my.
::Garden is likely not going to just light on fire like I've got that up on a big *** farm like I don't have the infrastructure where I'm worried about my stuff.
::You're not using massive diesel engines, you know.
::Well, I mean.
::Yes, I'm using a diesel engine, but it is the is like a small tractor. Yeah. Like a little sub compact tractor.
::You have you have a tractor.
::We're not talking about an unregulated, you know.
::Right, right. Vacuum shift sucking. Ohh. But like, I mean, what's the the most likely scenario for a fire is like OK.
::Right.
::Head back here and you have a little you have a.
::Light in there.
::I suppose the light could catch on fire, so unlikely, yeah.
::Very unlike maybe a heat lamp.
::There's a heat lamp that falls into the hay, then yeah, the likelihood is a lot higher, but just don't do that.
::Yeah. Yes. But I think I think this is really about construction is what I would want to get into is if you are taking the time to actually do your farm right to, to have good construction, that's not going to fall.
::Right, right.
::Apart and through.
::Well, I'm playing ahead, yeah.
::Three years, so yeah.
::Plan ahead, run your wiring correctly. There's no real danger.
::And that happening.
::If you're doing it properly and you're planning to do it properly, right. If you're going to just haphazardly throw your stuff together, maybe you're on a budget, you know, start maybe a little bit smaller, smaller scale, and then once you can save up and build something, a solid structure that you know is going to last, then those those events are less likely to happen.
::To you.
::Yeah, and that's that also goes into like knowing how to build things yourself makes it a lot cheaper. Like you can go and you can buy a $5000 shed, but you could also build a shed.
::Yourself for two or three you can.
::Building a bigger shed.
::This year? Yeah, I'll help you make it.
::I want to. I actually I actually want to build I I want to build a shed for things to put in, but I also want to build like a a little auxiliary.
::Office somewhere in the woods like a little cabin office thing. So that's.
::Yeah, that's that's on the. Yeah, that's that's probably probably going to see I coworkers, right, come on in, guys.
::Fun be fun, work with the chickens.
::I got to collaborate in here.
::Your mother.
::That's a lot of.
::Female coworkers. You have great diversity numbers.
::Dude, it's like when I worked at IKEA in college on my dash. I I think it was me and this other guy and there were 28 of 28 women in our department, so it was.
::Two men, 28 women.
::They'd be like, alright, mandatory staff.
::Meeting to go in and they're like.
::Alright, we're ready for the.
::Gossip. Here we go. They're like.
::Mandatory staff meeting or mandatory.
::I don't even know what to do with that.
::But yes, back back to your homestead I.
::You do need to do things efficiently because it's going to cost you money, like like let's just take it back to carbon emissions aside, all that you don't want to not plan ahead like if you're planning on doing something, at least map it out. You know you have to do everything all in one year or even in like 1 decade. Maybe you plan it out for like, here's what I'd love to have in the next 20 years.
::And the long run, yeah.
::Well, you're going to start with this little tiny spot.
::But if you don't plan it out, you might have to tear that building down in order to do something else. So be efficient with where you put it and how you're, you know, maybe in the future you're going to design some traveling roads around your your spot. Granted, you're not doing that if you've got a little half acre or something, but I've got five. I'm like, I'm thinking through, you know, what do I want to do long term?
::I don't want to knock down trees to then go oh, shoot. I could have used those trees as a as a little barrier and I could have done it over here. Yeah.
::I think it would be interesting to go into maybe at a different podcast, an expectation for what it would cost to start something you know, like if you're, if you're looking at this podcast thinking I really want to hope to, but I don't know what even I should attempt. You know, where I should even start with this thing, I think.
::You should really go into it some.
::Point startup costs, you know, like I think my duck enclosure. I've got three ducks now. The cost maybe with the pen and the house like 4 or $500 total. And I hope to get, you know, I hope to breed my ducks and get more egg layers and essentially be kind of self-sufficient.
::Released with eggs and the girls love it. It's a great family tool, you know, to teach them responsibility.
::Tyler has daughters. He doesn't have a hair. Him just in case you are.
::I think it's amazing, right? And I think everybody should be willing to put.
::In a little bit of effort, if you're sitting.
::And you didn't have that before and you got some ducks. You got them for.
::A part A.
::Birthday party, he says to me. Hey, can can I buy these ducks and I'll just give them to you when our birthday party's over and you can have the ducks? I said, yeah, sure. And then it was like, I don't really want to give them away.
::Yeah, yeah.
::I love them too much and and now you have a bunch of. I think I got.
::Like half of them. But you've got a bunch of them.
::Yeah, more than half. Yeah. I bought 16 and it all started with my life wanting, you know, my my 2 year old loves ducks, paper ducks, rubber ducks, cartoon ducks, you name it. She sees a duck. She was yelling at it and pointing. She was so excited.
::Couple by Jack Eaton.
::My wife just kind of flippantly was like, will you be cool if we had, like, a duck party and we got?
::Little ducklings and I was like, done done.
::I and they're so cheap. I got 16 for like 95 bucks shipped to my house.
::Yeah, that's what.
::68.
::You don't know. You don't know they.
::Come in the little box they do.
::They come alive.
::One day, the top one day old and they are the darn cutest things. And so.
::Of course.
::You can do the same with chickens. You can do the same with pretty much every like foul you can get like little Guineas in your in a little box and.
::They sit and do so. We had we had. We lost one just that happens right. It's if you if you have livestock you're going to have dead.
::Rock. So we lost one and had it came actually with a broken leg and we called several duck farms around in the area and all of them were like, just put it down it. It's not going to have a life. That duck is meant to be big and fat, and it can't fly. And if it can't move its legs, it's going to sit there in the mud, just put it out of its misery. So we lost one.
::We had that we had that Cup 4, so you took 11 and I think maybe some raccoons or a fox got into some. Yeah.
::Got a couple of them. Yeah. And then you took some back, I think now I have. I had I have six that are still alive from that, that's.
::Yeah, just looking.
::That's good.
::And I have one leftover. I got miscavige's that are like these weird looking ducks. They have these nasty jowls, but yeah, I have one left. I think I got 8. And now, like most of them got eaten by things. Ducks are hard because ducks want to be. They like a shelter, but they don't want to be confined. But now my ducks.
::Blow into the chicken coop. They'll display. They walk in the door and the door closes. You know, this is like an automatic door. So yeah, they they like it and they know they're good. But yes, I agree. Startup cost is important. Going back to that, just that it's good to know what it cost.
::Yeah, yeah, we'll go with.
::But also you can, I mean you knew how to build it and you did your thing and and you weren't really worried about, you know, if it costs a couple extra 100 bucks to get something nice and good that you're good, you can definitely start cheaper if you if you want to build something. I mean, I got two dog houses that I use for some chicken things. I got two dog houses for 20.
::Oh yeah.
::Each beautifully built by a high school wood shop class, and they were like, hey, we have some extras. Could you just give us, like, 20 bucks? My friend worked at high school. Like you can scrounge for things that people just don't want. Facebook marketplace. You could. You could do that if you don't want.
::Ohh yeah.
::To do that.
::Or don't need to. You can spend a.
::Little bit more, but you definitely can be go cheat.
::I would even argue that you could probably contact the high school with a wood shop and say like hey, I would like to buy one of these and I want to support your wood shop class.
::I'll buy the materials if your class can put them together and you have the wood shop features overseeing everything, making sure it's done right and then just let them have a project, let them learn to trade while you get something of good quality out of it for super.
::Cheap. Yeah, and I'm actually my.
::I think honestly, the students would love to see it being used too. Like when you make something you wanna, you don't wanna just be like, oh, I guess it's done and trash like to and honestly, it could be a fun field trip too.
::You don't want to go in.
::The trash, yeah.
::Like if we go and we deliver it to the House, we can see the animals like use it right then and there and there's so much more pride pride that goes into your work that you're teaching these kids to be, you know, self-sufficient to learn how to build all their own. And they get to see.
::The benefit of it?
::Well, they sold those dog houses for like 3 or 400 bucks, but I got the I got the last few scraps. It was like I was like, they're like, like shingles. They're nice. And apparently this year they're making chicken coops. So I'm going to find out about those.
::It's OK.
::Oh, there you go.
::OK.
::Let's let's wrap up any final thoughts before we we do that like homesteading, about the what we've already talked about what we've.
::Covered anything else?
::Yeah. I I I think the the real point of this, this whole talk is about the government versus the.
::That we want to tell our listeners.
::Regular man, all these topics that we talked about today are the government is, it appears, to to be either squeezing, you know, for more taxes, you know, if they're, if they're restricting farmers in the UK from using their regular equipment so that they can make more money.
::Bring in more. Or maybe they're trying.
::To run them out of town so they can.
::Yeah. Or or who's pushing the taxes? It's the people who have the money to lobby them to push the taxes, which could be a bigger farm. Who wants their land and.
::Maybe there's something else.
::Exactly. Or we or we've got something like the homesteading article.
::I mean what?
::Maybe the government wants, and I definitely believe this is true. I shouldn't say. Maybe. But the government wants us to rely on them for everything. And if we if we're not reading the article and we see that title, we immediately jump to. You know, this is this is the government trying to take away and fear monger us. And I think that's the goal.
::As a we, we basically live in this society where the government is controlled by big business. So the big business is just the like governments, the arm of big business, not the other way around, correct. So big business goes well, we're losing money, these ******* that are growing their own food, their backyard, damn it. And so then they start to.
::Figure out a way to.
::Tax you and to make it harder to do what you want to do and to buy seed. And we didn't even get to like the, you know, potential feed causing your your egg layers to stop laying and and we we'll get to that on another show. But yes so many so many little aspects of why.
::Fear mongering.
::Bigger corporations may not want you to do this, but that's exactly why you should do this 100%. Why you should do this.
::Because they're absolutely could be a time that comes when there is a.
::Huge food restriction.
::Or a shortage of certain things. We saw it in again with the Victory Garden stuff. We saw it in World War One in World War 2, where there was actually rations of the amount of food that you could buy from any of the market.
::Yeah. Really Great Depression, yeah.
::Exactly. So if that ever happens, you have to supplement your own food. And guess what? If you haven't started something and you're not growing anything and.
::Happens. You're **** out.
::Of luck. Don't even think about coming here. Yes.
::Those seeds are going to be gone. Those those sounds are going to be out of stock. Everybody that could be, it's going to.
::Even if you do have access to it, it's going to take weeks, months to grow, but you you don't just all of a sudden go grab a seed and.
::Be gone.
::Yeah, yeah.
::Then hey, I've got asparagus in a week. Ohh.
::And you have to know how to do it exactly.
::I think the hard part here is where we live. We have a a climate that changes and ultimately we can grow in the spring and summer and maybe a little bit of part of fall, but in.
::Winter, what do we do?
::You can basically grow lettuce under your little cover, but that's yeah.
::Yeah, yeah.
::It's it's a.
::Yeah, you're right. What do you do? Where do you eat meat?
::At least we can be sufficient for, you know.
::Quarters of.
::The year. But you know we've got to have.
::But that's where you.
::Eat and you just and you properly store yes foods like doing lime, pickling for eggs and being able to store eggs like for us. I knew that this winter all of our chickens are going to stop playing, so I've got nine dozen eggs downstairs and glass jars. So if we ever run short, which luckily we haven't yet.
::I've got nine dozen eggs that will last me up to two years in that lime pickling juice.
::Things you will have to do an episode where.
::We pickle some things, yeah.
::Yeah, that'd be fun. I think another interesting thing that we can do, as you know, a home city culture is finding people that have what you don't have. For example, me and Joel, he he grows far more eggs. I guess he doesn't grow them, but he his chickens lay far more eggs than my ducks lay. And we go through.
::Eggs like nobody's business.
::But my wife makes sourdough bread and his wife doesn't make sourdough bread. So we have a little bit of a trade deal going on where I give him a loaf of bread. He gives me a dozen eggs, and we're supporting each other, and we don't need. He doesn't need to make the sour dough keep the.
::Starter going and do.
::The chickens, right? So finding people a community.
::That that can all kind of assist and essentially barter and trade the different crops and.
::You know, there's no taxes on trading things either. That's, you know, that's right.
::No, no, there's no sale that's involved. And so there's no government.
::People trying to get their piece of the pie.
::And you know where it's coming from? Like if if, Mark, if you if you've got.
::Your fruit for us and I've.
::Got vegetables? I'm growing and we trade I.
::Know you didn't spray a.
::Bunch of Roundup, but and and glyphosate all over your.
::Stuff and you know the same with mine, so.
::Funny story. My neighbor got a couple of few doors down. He sprays his grass with Roundup and the neighbor next door to him is suing him. He took him to court because they grow organic vegetables and they're suing them for getting round up on.
::Their vegetables, it's.
::Oh my God, that's amazing.
::Yes, I love like.
::And they're they're biting the neighbor.
::These people are suing us, blah blah blah, they're.
::******** and like.
::No, you're the asset. Yeah, I'm on their.
::I'm on their side, sorry.
::Side I hope you they're.
::Like we're gonna move, there's.
::Like good riddance.
::When you put your house up for sale.
::Let me know, maybe I'll buy it.
::All right. Well, I think that's that's all the time we have for today. This has been cotac find us on.
::Let's see Instagram and TikTok where **** T.O.K the podcast.
::You can find us on there. All the links, all the, all the places to find us are below in the description, subscribe to the show. You don't want to miss anything.
::Officially on Spotify, Amazon Apple Podcast has all that stuff. So wherever you listen to podcasts wherever you want to watch, you know, watch us on YouTube as well. It's all there.
::Yep, Yep.
::Can I listen? Yep.
::Love it, gentlemen. Good work and to our listeners. Thanks for listening. And we'll see you in the next episode.
::Thank you.
