Friends and Neighbors

Hello Friends and Neighbors! In this episode Troy catches up on all the exciting happenings at Sunnyside (not to mention a few mishaps) and explains how his friends and neighbors have been there to help. Plus, there's a way to get additional details and produced videos about the many happenings at Sunnyside by joining our newsletter. Simply click on the link below to subscribe and you'll have access to the other antics around the ranch.

https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/sl/so8PkyQ

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Hello, friends and neighbors, and welcome to Sunnyside. Man, it's been a while. It's been a couple weeks actually since I put out the last episode.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

And I promise, I'm gonna get back on track. The last episode, though, that was lots of fun, wasn't it? We had uh Dr. Jim Brock on uh with us, who was uh his acting career and uh all of the experiences that he has as uh he uh uh you know plays a doctor uh during the days, an actor who plays a doctor in real life, as he would say. So uh that was a great episode. It was great to have Jim out here at the studio at Sunnyside and uh just the opportunity to talk about what he was doing. And we're gonna have more guests as we as we come up, as we line those up. I've got some great guests uh coming on the show uh in the next few weeks and looking forward to talking to all of them and sharing their experiences with you, our listeners. So I'm gonna get you caught up on exactly what it's what I've been doing that has uh taken me away from the microphone. And uh man, have we been busy. It's springtime, and that means it is everything is uh happening. And uh it surely has been. So I I'll just I'm gonna today is a today is an episode where we are thankful truly when I say friends and neighbors, hello, friends and neighbors, it's the friends and neighbors around Sunnyside, and this has always been a theme of the show, whether it is uh their stories and their interests in life and the ways that they impact of other people to make uh them help be the sunny side of other people's lives. And I I that's something that we'll continue to do as we share other folks' stories. Um, but it has always been a huge part of the experience here at Sunnyside for us to be able to uh lean on one another when we need to. We can always lean on our family, and I'm fortunate because our family is close by and we're able to lean on them uh and they on us. And as our friends, uh the same thing. We always say that uh Sunnyside is a good place to have to fall back to in the zombie apocalypse. And so uh our friends, you know, they have to they have to meet their um they have to meet their uh standards, you know, like they have to have a use if the zombie apocalypse come. You can't just be a useless person who happens to be a friend. You have to have some skills. So sharpen your skills, friends, uh for the zombie apocalypse, which who knows could be happening uh anytime uh in the future, maybe. I don't know. But we will um uh we'll talk we're not gonna talk about that today. We're gonna talk about our friends and the folks that are surrounding us here at Sunnyside that have really made these last couple of weeks very productive for us here at Sunnyside Farms and uh all of the things that we've been we've been engaged in as springtime is just now uh upon us. And so the first thing that I'm going to um mention is that we I've decided that uh if you've been listening to this show, you know that um I I much prefer to be behind the microphone and uh to tell the stories and do the interviews and sometimes share my opinions about life and politics and all things therein, religion, you name it, all the stuff you're probably not supposed to talk in polite company. Um and it's nice to be able to sit behind the microphone in my studio here and and do that and share that with you, and I hope you enjoy that. But it is um not my favorite thing to actually be in front of the camera. And uh we have cameras. We use them on the other podcasts that we do with the Gridiron Club uh for the Waldorf Gridiron Club. Uh Andy Buffet and I sit down with uh a player or a coach, and it's nice for their friends and family and fans to be able to see them. And I have done the uh episodes here on the uh sunny side of life with the camera. And I'll tell you what, uh, we did that with Stacy Besh. In fact, uh, I've got to get Stacy's uh big sign up in the yard, big one that says uh Stacy Besh, she's uh running in the primaries, as you know, for the District 5 Senate seat for the state of Iowa. And she is going to be uh that's coming up in June, so we're just a month away. It's May already. Hooray, hooray! It's the month of May, and uh that means that uh she is working hard uh to get elected. I think she's gonna do it. I think she's got just a huge following. Everybody seems to like her. She's just all over the place and she's uh making an impact. And so we'll get the sign out for her today, and uh that'll be in the yard and uh it'll be out there for once this primary is won. Uh Stacy get out there and vote, and uh you vote for in the Republican primary anyway. She's running uh against uh Dave Rowley. And if uh she wins that primary in June, she's basically it because the Democrats don't have uh any opposition, so she will be the senator then uh come the general election in November. So it's not the November election that matters so much. Not that not that every election doesn't matter, but uh the Republican primary in June, actually uh coming up very quickly, does matter. So uh you need to uh you need to plan to get out and and uh do your due diligence if that's the uh primary that you're voting in, and and get out there and vote for Stacy Besch. So that is all happening then. Now, so we've done that video uh version with her, and you can go back and check that out on YouTube. And I have uh Sunnyside Farm Studios does have its own channel on the uh on YouTube. That's where all of our uh podcasts for YouTube are presented, uh, whether they're audio or video, uh, all four of them are out there: the Bible in a year experience, the uh Sunny's this show, the sunny sign of life, uh Mr. B's Dinner Party, and of course the Waldorf Gridiron Club. And so there are also some videos on there, and I've posted some things before. Uh, we had the sheep experience where I went out and helped my friend Don Johnson uh shear sheep last year uh in the summer, and uh, you know, I recorded that. Uh, and um I don't mind doing the video um editing, but it is just a lot more than audio, and they've got stuff to do. So here's what I have decided. According to people that know these things better, now that I've been doing this for about five years, and I started, you know, slowly just paying attention to the best way to do uh these shows, uh everybody says that you need to have uh a newsletter, you need to have uh basically um um a mailing list, an email list, a way to communicate with the people who support you uh by listening to your show or watching your show uh or you know, whatever. And so I have that. We just started at a Sunnyside uh farms studio, um Sunnyside Farms, I dropped my pen, a Sunnyside Farms newsletter, which I haven't even sent out yet. But I but I I had to pick up my pen. But I will uh and and um so and I don't intend to be an aggressive newsletter writer, and I'm not a Substack writer. There are I rely on the expertise of um a lot of other people that are out there, and then I get to decide, just like you do, whether their expertise is worth a darn. And so um we'll have a newsletter. I encourage you to sign up for it. There will be a link in the show notes. You can just click on it, input your name, get your email address there, and I'll be able to communicate with you. And what is the advantage to that? Why would you want to have yet another email in your inbox uh every so often? Maybe every month, maybe monthly. You know how it is. Um, but I want to be able to share with the people that listen to this show and that are the customers of Sunnyside Farms and Sunnyside Farm Studios and all these things. I want to be able to share with you the things that um you might enjoy uh beyond what we do share on this show. And I thought, what a great way for me to justify spending the extra time to set up cameras, to document the things that we're doing out here, and to show people what it is that we're doing, uh and not to have this constant YouTube presence where you have to constantly create content. I don't know how they do it. I watch a lot of YouTube stuff, and and um, and actually I watch probably more YouTube than maybe a lot of other things because I can search for what it is that I want to see. And if you're like that, um if if you've ever made a YouTube video or any video for that matter, uh you know that it it's just it's it's a lot of work. It's you got to set up cameras, you gotta set up angles. Sometimes there's lighting involved. Um, you have to know what you're gonna say, which usually isn't a problem for me. Um, but you just have to have just so much more uh involved with video so that people can, you know, sit in their chair and look at the screen and watch and be entertained. And I'm I do that. I I'm entertained by watching YouTube videos and movies and everything else, just like everybody else. But I also know how much it takes to do all of that. And I'm not opposed to it. I've got the equipment for it, but it's a lot of work. And uh why should I why should I spend so look, I'm not a 20-something that is just dedicated to filming every weed that I pull in the garden so that you can see how I pull this weed. Uh, or um, this is how I cut a piece of wood. Um, I can show you those things. We can show you the sawmill activities, which will be firing up here very shortly because we've got lots of things to get through in in the angry baker, uh the angry baker sawmill over there. Uh so I can show you that. I can show you the things that we're doing with our beef operation, the things we're doing with the to develop Sunnyside Hollow for pasture for beef and for other things. I can show you the meat chickens. We're gonna talk about all of this today. Um But why should they get it for nothing? You can get it for nothing. You can get it for nothing by signing up for the newsletter. That's my point. If I'm going to make videos, I want to share it with the people that I know care about them. I'm not concerned about getting advertisements on a YouTube channel. I know that that's a way to make money, but you have to produce so much content all the time, and you have to use trickery, trickery to get people to watch your video with dumb, you know, titles like slay, you know, destroyed, banned, all of that other stuff. And I I admit I've been guilty of using some of those uh titles in some of my uh earlier uh podcasts uh to gain attention. And I guess that's the for people that are in the business of this that really make it their life, and they probably have podcasts of their own about telling other people how to make better podcasts and better videos and all of that. I mean, that's your career, good for you, good for you. Um, but they're not also making anything useful. So so they're just helping people make uh content, and content creation is uh an enormous thing now, and everybody's a content creator. I don't mind being a content creator. I like doing this as a re as a recorded in audio for you. But if you want to see video of the different things that we're gonna talk about, the different things that we've got going on, if you've been following Sunny Side of Life for a while, you know that there's just a lot of things that are going on, and I'm constantly doing little projects or big projects or you know, or or whatever. If you want to see that stuff, then you need to register for the newsletter because what then will happen is I can do a private, I can do a private YouTube link that my newsletter folks have the opportunity then to see these different things. If you have the link to that channel, then you'll be able to see those things. And sure, I guess you could share that link with other people that want to watch it. That's fine. But my goal is not to just uh throw out to the world every dumb thing that I do. I want to be able to share the dumb things that I do with you, the people that care whether I'm doing dumb things or not. And so that's how I've decided to do it. I'm going to have private links to YouTube so it's closed to the public. It's just for the people that uh I send it out. It'll be newsletter videos. Uh, you'll have links in there that you can watch. Uh, you'll you'll be able to see you know what it is that I'm doing. And uh I will not be sending out newsletters all the darn time because I don't like getting all those emails in my inbox either. I want it to be something that you look forward to, and I want to be able to keep you up to date on the different things that we've got going on here, some of which you might end up uh wanting to be a uh a customer for. And so I want the people who listen to this show who sign up to uh join our uh newsletter, I call it a newsletter, like I said, it will be sporadic, like many of the things that I do, but you'll get them, you'll see them, there'll be links in there. That's how you can see the videos. You're the one I'm gonna show what I'm going. If you were to, you know, like look, you could do an open house, and every swinging Charlie can come in and just look at all your stuff, and then you gotta have somebody in every room to make sure that they don't steal anything, because you don't trust them, you don't know who they are, and all they want to do is pick around and pick into your business. And that's basically what YouTube is for all of the folks that just generally publicize all of the things that they've got going on in their homesteads and things like that, in my humble opinion. Or you can just have friends come over uh and neighbors, and uh they can see what it is that you're doing. And I can show them, I can spend time showing them this. Hey, I'm working on this project, and this was a really dumb thing that happened to me. Or I'm glad I did it this way. I'll never do it that way again, whatever it happens to be. I'd like to share that with my friends and neighbors, and that's you. And uh so we'll continue to talk about it. This goes out to the public, everybody in the world can listen to it. But if you want to see the stuff as I produce that extra amount of labor, as time allows, and as the newsletter sporadically comes out, I will present those things to you, uh, my friends and neighbors here on the sunny side of life. Just make sure you go to the show notes, sign up for the newsletter, and that way we can stay in touch and you can get extra stuff that uh the regular public doesn't get. Why? Because the regular public aren't my friends and neighbors, and you are. We're gonna talk about friends and neighbors today. So enough rambling on after 13 minutes of that explanation. Uh, let's talk about some big things here. First of all, the beef is all gone. Um, the beef is all gone. Sadly, my my steers went away to wherever cattle go. Uh, they go to the locker. They go to the meat locker in Conger, a USDA inspected uh meat locker for us, and they did a great job. Uh, and it's all sold and it's out there and delivered, except for I just have some beef sticks and summer sausage uh in the freezer uh that um we intend to use for, you know, I can sell them, I guess. I can uh those are USDA inspected. I've got all that stuff. Um so they could sell some of those. If you want some, oh, what is it? Honey barbecue, we've got honey barbecue, we've got those garlic parmesan, there's the original, there's hot, there's uh uh jalapeno cheddar. You know, there's some good beef sticks in there uh from these uh sunny side farm steers. But um, that's all that there is there, and some sunny, and some summer sausage. So um I've got those things in a 72 cubic foot freezer that I purchased at auction. I was very busy winning an auction um and that actually happened. I won that auction the day before Jim Brockon came out here and did his episode. And then actually when he came out here, because we did it if you recall, that episode came out on a Tuesday. I had just gotten back from picking up this enormous commercial freezer from Iowa Falls, uh a couple hours away, an hour and a half away. And so in order to do this, this freezer thing is a stainless steel three-door 72 cubic foot commercial freezer. It's got its digital thing, the thermostat on it. I've discovered mistakenly that um if you uh uh open it up and it's you know six below inside, uh keeping everything perfectly frozen, then if you open up those doors, it's amazing how quickly you get uh you lose the the cold air in a freezer. Like you would be shocked. You probably don't even notice on your regular freezer at home or above your refrigerator or below your freezer, however you have it, you probably don't notice how quickly you lose the cold in there. But it's astounding that temperature, uh, how quickly those big doors and they just you know comes in. And obviously, the more humid it is, you know, then you're gonna get some humidity inside, and that's gonna freeze and all this other stuff. So, what this freezer does is that once you close the door, you open it up and then you close it, and if it gets above a certain number over zero, it locks you out. It's a safety mechanism, which is a pretty cool feature. I didn't realize it had it. Um, and then it goes back down to where it needs to be, and then you can open up the door again. It doesn't take very long. It's an amazing compressor, it does a great job. But I was surprised as I was, you know, sorting meat and putting it in the freezer for customers to pick up. Um, that you can't just open it up and then throw some in and then close the door and then turn around and then open up the door again. You have to you gotta be prepared to put it all in at once. Uh and uh and it it takes like two minutes, so it's not like it's a big deal, but but that was an interesting feature. And maybe you knew that. I did not know that. Things I learn uh just by happening uh to experience them. That's the way I guess that's the best teacher for me is experience. So got this big freezer, picked it up on a Tuesday. Uh I had to use this is another a friend and neighbor. Uh neighbor by about five miles away, but friend for sure, uh Josh Diamond, uh who owns Diamond Spray Foam, he's got this cool trailer that uh that just goes all the way down on hydraulics right to the ground. And that's pretty sweet. And that's good because this big tr this big freezer was on casters, uh, but you're not picking it up, and you don't want to use a forklift because there's all kinds of stuff underneath it. So you gotta roll it on to this uh trailer. And I did not, I did not have a trailer of that sort, and uh it's quite heavy. I think it's an 800-pound freezer. So um, so I borrowed his, he let me borrow his trailer, uh, and it's super cool. Like I said, just you push a button, it goes lowers all the way to the ground. You roll the thing right up on there, and bing bang, boom, you're on your road. Not quite though, because um I was totally prepared. I brought some cardboard, I put it on the corners of the stainless steel freezer, and I and I brought some uh, you know, uh the the packing blankets that you'd have for moving, uh, and I put that on there, and then I had the straps. Now when it comes to straps, my friends, my experience with the 1133rd Transportation Company as the truck master, which is kind of a misnomer because I was never actually licensed as a truck driver or as a mechanic, but for my last year and a half in the National Guard, my final assignment was being the truck master of the 1133rd Transportation Company for the National Guard. And um, but they yeah, I I learned a lot. I learned a lot. And one of the things that I definitely learned uh by working with that company, even though I was not a truck driver myself, was how to properly uh strap things down. And every time I strap any load down, whether it's on the gooseneck that I uh use when I'm carrying machinery or whatever it happens to be, uh, or just a regular trailer and you're strapping things down low and it's on the hitch or whatever it happens to be. When I strap things down, friends, I mean I strap it down. Like there's no getting away. I'm strapping that sucker because it would be such an embarrassment, just as a man. As a man, it would be it's embarrassing if you lose your load. Leave that alone. If you lose your load on the highway, leave it alone, then uh that's a that's a bad thing. Your manliness is being judged by every passing human being. Uh by other men, certainly, but I suspect uh women as well. So you have gotta know how to tie down your load and make sure that it's secure, it's not going anywhere because you cannot lose it for safety purposes, I suppose, more than anything, but also ego. You can't you can't lose that. So I take great pride in how I strap things down. I'm always worried that in the back of my mind, or somewhere on this road, wherever it is on that I'm journeying to and fro, that there will be someone from the 1133rd Transportation Company who knows my bald head and they can and they see my strap-down load, and they would be I want them to be proud of me. I want them to say, that's a truck master. He knows how to strap that load down. My fear is that they'll see it and think the complete opposite. They'll go, he was never a truck driver, he was a truck master fake for his retirement assignment, and and he doesn't know how to strap something down. That would be horrible. So it's horrifying. This is the things that I deal with. I don't know what motivates you, but fear uh and and uh and broken ego is also a good motivator for people like me. So I really try to strap things down. This was a great trailer. Rolled right in, got it in the position, put the cardboard on, strap I had tape, gorilla tape, which by the way, I mean, once you take that off, it still has some residue um of the of the tape. But anyway, so I I've got all this stuff and I'm like, oh no, I can strap it down. All of the hooks for strapping things down on this particular trailer are on the floor. Which is great. And I was prepared for that. Bought a big brought a big block with me, a block of wood, slap it behind the the wheels, lock the casters in place, and then strap from the bottom behind, you know, on the bottom around to the front, uh, big cargo strap, you know, really hold it, held it in place forward. And then you have to support it over the top. And then and then you can't really there's like no other places that you can there's no other places uh that you can strap to. The sides are are they don't have they don't have uh places to receive uh really any type of hook uh for a strap on the walls of the trailer. Also, this particular trailer does not have a tailgate. Yeah. So you've Got something on wheels that weighs 800 pounds that is strapped forward and strapped over, and um fairly it was like a hobo operation. Okay, this was a situation where I strapped I really strapped the heck out of this thing, this freezer. It took me an hour. That's why I was late to record the episode with Jim Brock on because and also I didn't want to drive like a maniac on the way back because I've got this you know seven foot tall, eight hundred-pound freezer that I just purchased, and um it was precarious. Uh I got it was strapped down, it was ugly, um, it was it made it. I I did stop one time just to uh there was a there was a little piece that was kind of uh of the of the stainless steel on the top uh that was starting to come off and it was and because of the wind. And so I you know taped that back on and everything like that. Like a hobo. And um and it worked. I got here, I pulled in, we did the episode with Jim Brock on, and now we've got this amazing freezer and it works great. And um, you know, those are the type of things which I did not film. Now I would have filmed it. I would have filmed it, I would have sent it out in my newsletter, and you would have seen my my frustrating attempts, and then you could have criticized me. This is why I'm not putting out to the world any of these videos. I'm decided like I do too many dumb things uh and get away with it as far as like my work stuff that I'm trying to do here, uh, that I don't need the world of ri other weirdos that are sitting there watching YouTube, like me, taking the time to make comments on my videos. I will accept comments from friends and neighbors with whom I will share future videos via the newsletter of the the good and dumb things that I have going on at Sonny Side. I was not interested, just not interested in um other dudes' opinion, just randos on the internet from Ohio or whatever. Who cares? Like, go watch something else. And so um that's why that's why we're moving just for video stuff to the newsletter, so I can accept my again, a little ego challenge there. But I'm very thankful to my friend Josh Diamond for lending me that trailer. It worked perfectly for what it was supposed to do. I returned it in as good as condition as I found it, which is a rule for me. He was happy that uh it worked out, and we've got a great freezer where we can put almost three entire steers in there, which is amazing. Uh, and so that is uh that's great. Now it's not all it has now is beef sticks and and uh summer sausage, but uh you know, yeah, it does what it's supposed to do. So last Sunday, last Sunday, we we did a controlled burn. Talk about friends and neighbors. Um, we did a controlled burn at the hollow. So we've got a place I've been talking about. We purchased call from the county. It's uh about 80 acres, not quite, just a little bit on there, 80 acres. Uh, and it's uh really um a very it's a variety of soil types. Let me put it that way. There's uh there's about uh there's a lot, there's a four-acre pond on it, and there's another pond that is um smaller, but it could be larger. Uh it that maybe that could be four to eight acres, depending on you know how full we we get it, um, if we decide to develop that any further. And then it's just a lot of gravel. That was old, those are old gravel pits, but they've been there for 40 or 50 years, and so they're pretty well established. They've already got some fish in them. They got pike on one side, and who knows what else. And then on the other side, uh the main pond, that's got uh bass, and it's got uh it's already got bass, it's already got bluegill, um, and uh some other things in there. We don't know, we don't know exactly what is in there. But um they, you know, the kids ice fish and uh the uh uh you know our friends and neighbors that we allow can fish it. And uh anyway, so we've been developing that, and and and that is the main part of the other 50 acres, is supposed to be pasture. Why? Because we are trying to grow this healthy American cattle that beef, not when I say American, I'm gonna be careful about that. They're made here in America, you know, and uh I wanna I it's not something that's I'm trying to scale into some you know cattle baron empire. I do joke that I'm a cattle baron. Obviously, that's not true uh as we're getting into this and we're developing and and figuring things out, but I do know this cows eat grass, grass is provided by um the soil, the rain, and the sun. It's the ultimate conversion of solar energy from the sun to the grass into the cow. God gives you high protein source, and uh, and you have got cows. And so I'm got to develop this fairly poor land. Now, there are some places that is really nice rich soil, very few, very few places like that. There are uh there are some sandy, gravelly spots in the land. There's a lot of wet spots and boggy and uh peat type places in the land and everything in between. And some clay. It's just a variety. Why? Because it's an you know gravel area, gravel pit area. And the county for many years did rent it out to farmers, including my dad who had rented out uh and you know, they say it was 50 acres of tiltable land, and they were lying, uh, because I mean theoretically there's 50 acres of tillable land there, but really it maybe most years you would have like 20, 25 acres, half, uh, because it has a tendency to flood out. Now, what I um am trying to do is I'm trying to just work it one time, just one time, so that I can get a beautiful pasture established, and that those uh those uh native grasses and and when you when you when you establish a pasture, uh unlike my alfalfa field, it's it's a it's 18, 20 different varieties of plants. Uh they work together and uh live with one another, and the cows go along and you rotationally graze them across so they're not just in one spot all the time, and then you see just keep moving them every day or two. And um that's the way I think that uh herdsmen are supposed to do it. It's not the way that you know big beef does it. They put them in feedlots and they, you know, they get very efficient by you know just running their food down there, and the cows see the sun and they get some of the fresh air occasionally, but for the most part they're just sticking their heads through the thing and eating um what's given to them and drinking water and getting fat and off they go. Same thing, you know, they get more air and sunshine, I suppose, than maybe you know, like confinement hogs and chickens and things like that. Um, but I think, you know, I think I think I've discovered that cows like to have their hooves in the grass in the mud, they like to go out, they just like to be, you know, on the pasture. And so we're trying to make that. We're trying to make that little piece of heaven uh down there. We're calling it Sunnyside Hollow because I think it's the lowest part of the township. It seems like that's where everybody else's water drains, and that's part of why we have ponds there. And um, so we're trying to develop that. But the guy who was renting it from the county, uh, God bless him, um, he had some difficulty with the with the the har the harvest. It wasn't very he had some spraying issues and it was like just a mess. And so he didn't get it, he didn't get his uh beans out of there, what was left of them, and there was still some like old corn stuff there, and it was just a mess. And and then of course there's these huge sections that weren't planted, and those are now just like you know, like weeds and and snake grass, uh, which sounds scarier than it is, but uh all of this stuff. And so we have to do, my dad says, you gotta do a controlled burn. Well, there's one guy, talk about friends and neighbors, that uh friends and neighbors that you can call that you can count on. So I called Todd Lewis, as he as you recall, he's in my first season. We had him on this show, and he was a fire jumper, and uh he'd done all of that work with the um the federal and just going out and and and jumping into fires and putting fires out and working, preventing fires, and all this other stuff, and he had a controlled burn business here and just everything. So I call him up and I said, It's great to have friends and neighbors that are experts that I can rely on, because I've got my cattle expert to my west, and Lucas Woogie, I'll talk about him in a little bit, and then I've got you on my east. And he's like, I don't know if I can be called an expert, because I think he thought I was talking about farming, which he is an expert, and and and many other things, uh, compared to me. And I said, Well, Todd, what I need to do is I need to uh do I need some advice on a controlled burn down here. And he's like, I'll be right there. That's not how he talks, but it'd be funny if he did. The next thing I know, his Can M four-wheeler side by side is like burning by. He's meeting me down at the uh at the pond area, and he's looking at these, you know, this acres, and he's like, Yep, no problem, we can do this tomorrow. So the next thing, uh uh a week ago, uh, yesterday, we're doing a controlled burn, and Todd is burning along. Literally, he I see I was moving the chickens that are in the chicken tractor, the hens are in the chicken tractor right now. I was moving them, and I see one can-am go by, zoom, and then another one right behind it, zoom. And then uh I was like, what is this? Well, it's two can-ems, and and uh Todd's got his daughter and her friend in one and Tod's in the other, and they've got their little fire starters, and then he's got his little fire putter outer or whatever he's got going. Like, what he's he's got that he made it, you know, and it's in there. And um, I'm like, Well, it looks like we're gonna do this. So I finish my little chores with the hens, and then I drive the my I oh I've said this before, I overbuilt the the chicken tractor that I made, and it's so heavy that I need to use a tractor to move the chicken tractor, which is not what you see on YouTube. Yet again, one of the reasons that I am not going to post these videos publicly, uh, at least for a long time, I will just share them with my friends and neighbors of the newsletter. So you want to see my chicken tractor and how I have to move that honker, uh, then you'll have to, you know, subscribe to the newsletter. That's how that's gonna go. Anyway, if I'm gonna set up the camera so that you can watch me with my little process of this giant this it's too heavy. Uh to you can't move it without using a tractor. I tried using a gator, it does work, but the gator's too jerky. I don't want to run over any chickens again. And so um, anyway, that'll be on the newsletter. So I was I finished that and I'm like, well, I told Heidi this is where we're going. They're gonna they're gonna start pretty soon. And by the time I got down there, which was like 15 minutes later, that it doesn't take that long to move that chicken. So it's just like I was talking to Heidi and I was like, oh, he hasn't called yet, whatever. He'd already done like a he'd already done like a control, like a I don't know what he calls it. He's like a control strip on the west side. He was working on a control strip on the north side. The wind was out of the southeast, and so it was pushing. Uh they were gonna just then work down, and I thought this whole thing is gonna go up like boom, tinderbox. Um, and it really didn't. I mean it it was a very controlled burn. It was a the wind wasn't like ridiculously strong, it was out of the correct direction. We got most of it burned. There is video of that, but only again for subscribers to the newsletter as we work on developing this place that we want to turn into beautiful emerald green pastures and paddocks so that we can have our little cattle moving from one place to the other along the pond. I went to Ireland last year, as you know, and so that's like feels like I want I want it to look a little bit like that. Minus the mountains and um, you know, whatever. The Guinness signs, I suppose we can put those up. But anyway, uh, so so he comes and does this. Todd Lewis, his daughter's uh daughter Ella and her friend, they they did all the work, by the way, uh the the two girls, and they're just out there. These are FFA girls, and they're just like boom, setting fire, setting fire, walking along, not a big deal, boom, boom, boom. And Todd and I are actually just jaw jacking with each other most of the time. These girls are just like burning 50 acres or 25 acres or whatever it was of stuff, and and uh they did a great job. And Todd's like, nah, you don't have to pay me. And I was like, Yeah, well, I'm gonna pay those two. So, and I did, and uh and it did not all burn, not all of it got uh to there were just a couple spots some of the stuff that was like bean residue that didn't come down, it wasn't close enough together, it just really didn't catch. Um, but that was easy to knock down uh with a disc. So very happy and thankful to have a friend and neighbor in Todd Lewis and his uh helpers, his daughter and her friend, came out and they set fire to Sunnyside Hollow. And then later in the day, after they'd left, it was burning down, everything was controlled, you didn't have to worry about where it was gonna go. Um, it started burning into the pond, which is fine. Um, but we were like, eh, some of these trees are older growth, and we're gonna want to keep those. And there was enough sap running in the trees that you really didn't have much to worry about it, according to Todd. But Heidi and I went down there and checked on it a couple times, and we're like, you know, let's just put this out. It's pretty easy. So I got a little, uh I have a little pump that I can just uh runs on gas and throw the one end into the pond and hook up a garden hose to the other end and and a couple hundred feet of garden hose. I'm like just spraying it out. And guess what? Who says you can't fight a prairie fire with a garden hose? I did, and it went out. It was also not a raging fire, and so there is that. I wouldn't want to, you know, try that with a raging fire situation. But now uh we're gonna have uh the now we can get it uh dried out and we can and and we've been working it. So we did recondition some of the you know where I have the cattle um uh where I had the cattle. I built a small uh pasture for them. Uh, and that is just uh it's very small, and they were there um all the time. They loved going out there, but it needed to be reconditioned, and so uh I went and I did that. I got it all tilled up and then planted that with uh uh a grass mix, uh, which was great. I used also a grass mix for the uh there were some damaged parts or just uh some of the alfalfa field that we have kind of got hit by army worms, and then some of it had been uh it wasn't very successful because of shade and and uh and then there was some water, you know, uh flooding uh in the last couple of years, and so I just hit those spots, tilled them up, and reseeded those with a nice grass mix. So we'll have alfalfa, mostly alfalfa, and then there will be spots that are gonna have have hay, grass hay on it that will also be for good bales, and you know, cows like that too. Um I got all of that done, and that was thanks to Lucas Woogie. He's also a a dealer, called him a dealer. He got my uh he got my seed mix for me and uh hooked me up with that, and and so those things are done. What isn't done is I haven't been able to plant yet the the sunny side hollow. And it's May, you know, and I'm not a I'm not a grain farmer, but I'm starting to get a little nervous. I want to be able to get out and get into the field and get my get my get my crops. I want to establish this pasture. And and it's a tricky, it's a tricky area. It doesn't always drain very well. And so I've just got to get in when I can and hopefully get this thing established, and hopefully we don't have a wicked wet year so that it can be established. And then once these native grasses are established, then you know their roots will go down six, eight feet into the ground, those tapers, and they'll really carry water. Uh, it'll just change the dynamic. We're not gonna try to work it every year. Um, and so hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, uh we can get a beautiful pasture established. And then the pasture itself, um, because it's not being tilled up, you know, just via erosion and tilth, um, erosion control and tilth, uh, you're gonna gain, you know, up to a quarter of an inch a year in topsoil. Um, and I don't intend to tear it up again. So if it stays that way for 40 years, we get 10 inches of topsoil, which is a great deal. And I'll be really old then. So we'll see, we'll see how it turns out. But that's the plan. And thanks to Lucas Boogie. He's also uh he's also uh loaning me his trailer. Uh he's got a great big cattle trailer, and uh uh he's loaning that to me for a day because guess what, folks? I gotta go get more cows. More cows! And this time we're getting Akausha. Akaushi? Akaushi cattle. Big news here for the listeners of Sunnyside uh uh uh life sunny side of life. So what is Akaushi cattle? Well the Akaushi is known as the Emperor's breed, it's the or the Japanese brown, it is uh one of the four Wagyu uh Wagyu breeds. All right, so you've heard of Wagyu? I mean I'm saying that right, I don't know. It's a Japanese word. Wag means uh Japanese and U means wa means Japanese, and you means cattle, so it means Japanese cattle. And this particular breed of the four types of wagyu is called Akaushi. It's spelled A-K-A-U-S-H-I in English, and a bunch of funny weird little symbols in Japanese vertical. And then um, so this so so it did not exist um in the United States until the 1990s, uh, outside of Japan. So it it came to the US in the 1990s. Um, they're known worldwide for their distinct marbling. I mean, it's incredible, and that gives the Akahushi beef just that melt in your mouth texture. It's rich and it's got a buttery flavor. Nothing like it in the world. Not um uh uh every Akahushi is waigu, but not every Wagyu is Akaushi, is what the folks at the Akahushi Association have to say about that anyway. So uh it was uh imported in 1994 to the US um from full blood Akaushi. Uh, and since then the genetics have increased uh with carcass performance and the premium grade opportunities uh for this cattle. These cattle um 51 uh average 51-52 percent prime and 47% choice uh for their meat. Uh it's a they're they're excellent uh cows, they're docile, they're they're they they give uh birth easy. Uh they are uh successful in all climates, and that's important up here because it can be very hot in the summer, very cold in the winter. And um I'm just very excited to them, and they're also they're brown and they're nice-looking cows, and that's what we had before because we had a nice cross of Charlet Jersey, uh, and uh that's a different breed than this, and that that that beef has been very good. The customers have been very happy with that. Now we're gonna try something different, the Akaushi cattle. The interesting history of the Akaushi is that when they created that breed in Japan a few hundred years ago, um, one of the things that they crossed, one of the breeds that they crossed to get this particular breed was the Red Devon. Um, the Red Devon cow that I've been talking about on this show for a couple of years, which is exciting to me because I'd like to introduce that heritage breed of Red Devon, which is also excellent marbling, and it is George Washington's favorite um cow uh that came over to the United States in the colonial period in the 1600s. And so um I think it's marvelous that here you have this uh uh just the emperor's breed of Akaushi Wagu, um, that is actually a in their lineage is in some way tied to the very type of uh steer that I'd you know also like to have. So, so in in in the uh Red Devon. So uh we're gonna get uh we're gonna get those uh and um picking them up um from um a guy named Titus, uh Titus Steiner at Cottonwood Ranch, we'll be picking those up. And I'm very excited about it because um they just got excellent uh attributes, fantastic meat. Look it up, Google it. Tell me what uh Wagyu beef costs per pound. Google it, my friends. If you're already a customer, you already got sunny side beef, and you're thinking, dang it, dang it, I really wanted Wagyu beef or Wagyu or however you say it. I really wanted that, um, but uh I'm not gonna be ready because I got a quarter or I got a half, uh, and uh I'm not gonna be ready in November. Well, my friends, uh guess what? For me to buy this little beef herd, I had to get them at 580 pounds. Yes, that's right, that's right. So they're not gonna be ready till February. So kind of right back to where we started. My goal was to not have to do a lot of feeding in the winter and just to be done in the fall and kind of relax a little bit. Um, and I will get there eventually. But my friends, if you want this, you gotta take advantage of when the time is uh when it's there. And so uh that's just the way it works out. So it's gonna be about 10 months before we can uh have these uh be sharing these cuts with you uh of uh of this Akaushi um cattle. But it is uh so it'll be ready, I think, in February. Um they the the health benefits that here's the thing that the fine the folks that have already purchased from me uh the beef that we had, uh one of the things that they were obviously. The most interesting is they they know me and they got an idea of how we're raising uh the cattle now and what our goals are for the future for raising cattle, but they also like the idea that it's like you know, it's a healthy product. It's it's your hamburger is from you know one steer, not from a thousand at the end of the trimmings of the day at the meatpacking plant. Uh and so this is this is just that's just a that's just a cool thing. But that's the health benefits is something that's important. People uh want healthy food. And here's the interesting thing, um, you may not know about Akeishi uh cow, you probably don't know anything about them. I didn't know anything about them uh uh until just a little while ago. Um they're called the Emperor's Breed, uh, and uh they they are there's nothing like them genetically or phenotypically, uh, which is pretty cool. The the the breed was influenced um as I mentioned by um our the the American blend of Akaushi and Aki Usi influence cattle. They perform efficiently, they improve consistency, they maintain uniformity in their meat, they maximize the gap between profit and loss, which is important for me if it's in the business I'm in. Um and they just have um uh great great carcass merit. All right. And so they they do finish a little bit smaller. So a quarter of beef um is last year's was like about 200 pounds, is what your carcass weight is what you're charged for. Um these would probably be more like 175, if that makes sense. So your finished product would be more like maybe 150 uh pounds of actual meat that you're paying for 175. So the the the they're they do finish a little bit smaller, um just uh as compared to like the big fat uh, you know, uh the Angus and things like that. But they are um uh really, really good. Uh really good and great for your health. Why? Well, it turns out that if you um let's see, it turns out that regarding health, um it it comes down to the type of fat. So marbling is fat in the in the me in the muscle, and that's what makes it tender and delicious and and and all of the stuff that people like. Um this this meat is how that's how this these these these cattle are, uh but it is uh they have significantly higher ratios of monounsaturated uh fatty acids than the beef that you're probably buying at the store. What does that mean? So uh it means uh lower levels of the undesirable LDL blood cholesterol, um uh but it doesn't decrease the HDL cholesterol levels, which is the good cholesterol. And it also in the case of oleic acid, it uh helps to reduce cardiovascular disease. So there are some benefits to this type of beef beyond the regular benefits of beef now at the top of the food pyramid, uh, just because of the type of uh fatty acids that it has, the monounsaturated fatty acids, that are beneficial uh against the risk of coronary heart disease, uh, prevention of high blood pressure. They've seen that the oleic acid, which is the most abundant fatty acid with these uh monounsaturated fatty acids, um, helps to pretend uh uh be protective against breast cancer. Um, and obviously it's good for the folks that are diabetic. So if you're on an anti-diabetic diet, um this is this is uh probably the best type of meat you can get um and all of that. And and it's delicious. Did I mention it's delicious? Yeah, so way to go, Japan. Way to go. And now we've got them here in America uh since the 1990s, and uh we'll have them here at Sunnyside for you to be able to purchase. Now, if you're interested in that, uh once again, you should subscribe to the newsletter because that's the best way for me to keep you up to date beyond this show of the inside details, and then you'll actually be able to see them. I can show you what I'm doing and uh you can enjoy that. It's a little bit different. I was thinking, you know, if you're spending fourteen hundred dollars on a quarter of beef, um, you know, sometimes that is cost prohibitive for people, even though you're saving 40% if you were to buy it on the market from the grocery store. Sometimes it's hard to come up with$1,400 uh for a quarter or$2,800 or$3,000 for half of a beef um processed uh in your freezer. And I get that. But you can uh we can work some things out. Well, there will be information in the newsletter uh as it comes out of how if you are say, hey, I want to put my order in now for a quarter or a half or whatever, and uh, but it would probably be better for me if I just paid it forward a little bit, maybe a hundred bucks or so uh a month, and then just a balloon payment at the end, a lot easier for me to swallow so that I can then swallow the beef. No problem, we can set that up for you. I can give you details when this first newsletter comes out. You can only get it if you're registered. You see what I'm doing here? It's all tied together. Now the price for Akaishi beef is a little bit more. It was seven dollars a pound for what we were selling this last beef. This is going to be$8.50 a pound. That's right, a buck fifty difference. There's a couple reasons for that. One, uh, processing costs were a little bit more than I anticipated. No problem, that's the way the world works. But secondly, um, you cannot buy this beef for uh Waegu hamburger is eight bucks a pound, and steaks are forty-five dollars. Okay, on average. So uh$8.50 uh for uh uh uh flat fee uh for for Akaishi beef, yeah. That's a heck of a deal. You won't get that anywhere else, and that's a sweet thing that's going on. You'll be able to experience it, and everybody's happy. But it's a little bit more uh maybe for you to uh to take a bigger bite for you to take financially.$8.50 a pound seems like a lot. A quarter is about gonna be about 175 pounds, is my guess, um, is what you're gonna be billed for. So it's still gonna cost you about the same thing as a quarter of the other beef. It's just that you're gonna get a little bit less um uh meat this time. Uh so it's gonna cost a little bit more, but there's no way, no way that you can get it in the store uh for these prices. So I'm pretty happy about that, happy to introduce it and very looking much looking forward to having that Akayushi Waigu beef in the uh freezer uh come February for you. So stay tuned, register for the newsletter. As we uh as I now, in this last week, I was jumping back here to Sunny Side Hollow, trying to prefer a prepare a place for these uh cattle. I'm uh have to establish this pasture and I have to work the land. As mentioned, we got the control burn done thanks to the Lewis family, but also um now we've got to get in there with a disc. And now it's planting time, so all of the grain farmers are very busy getting in the field, working it up, getting it ready to plant planting, uh, doing all the things, spraying, all of those things that they do. And so um my brother, Justin, he does the grain farming, and uh I am just trying to do this little cow thing. He thinks I'm crazy, I think he's crazy. So uh in a good way, you know, like we just Cain and Abel on the different different uh different types of farming. Uh and so but he needs the equipment, so I know to make sure that I'm not interrupting his schedule. This is his busy time, so but I I do want to get in the field to get this one time plowed up and I can do it. So I I rely on my dad uh to give me the advice like what type of equipment would you do you have that you would use to dock this down? He said, we should disc it. So he's got a big 30-foot disc, puts it on the big tractor, and then I, you know, rent it from him, and so then I'm going to go and disc this thing up. He gets it ready for me, and and this is now I did not film this, but I should have. And uh you would have enjoyed it because see, with my dad, he always said he's like he I'm sure he trusts me, but he's also, you know, like every dad, including myself, just a little bit skeptical of your son's aptitude. And and uh even though I'm 51, my dad is still like, I mean, this guy, he's probably not gonna do something stupid, but he couldn't. I've seen it before. And so he gets it all ready for me. Uh, I take note of the hours, and I'm like, off I go, and and you know if I'm and he's like, just don't get it stuck, don't drive through the middle, because there are some very wet spots down there in the bog. And I'm like, no problem, dad. I mean I own this land. Anyway, 15 minutes later, I was stuck, and I had a um what I'd done is I'd come around the pond and I was like, this is getting pretty soft. I need to uh I need to turn around, and I did, and then that was it. I was stuck. Uh but it's 15 minutes. Now, my dad, here's the problem with the Sunnyside Hollow, um, one of them, is that it's uh it's a good thing and a bad thing. It's like it's directly south of my parents' house. So they my dad's in the yard where he had just had this tractor not stuck and the disc hooked up to it, all ready to go for his eldest son to you know not get it stuck, and he did. And I know he's watching me because my brother's with him, the grain farmer, and he's looking at me, and I know he finds this hilarious. I don't even need he's like he's a half mile away. I'm clearly in the middle of this field, and I'm stuck in a bog, and he's like, I know they're laughing at me. There's no way in hell that I'm gonna have unless I absolutely have to, trundle back on up to the home plate, to the farm, and my head hung low and explained to my parent, my dad, and my brother, and I'm stuck, and everything else is hooked up, all the other big tractors hooked up to other stuff. So it's not like this is an easy thing for them either. So I'm like, I have caused a problem that I have got to solve. And uh I assure you that the little tractor that I have is not gonna pull out this monster and it's and everything. So I uh got out, I uh assessed the situation like you do, good military guy. I uh stepped out as straight out in front of me. I hadn't buried it, I was just I was like, okay, I'm stuck, I'm gonna spin myself into trouble if I keep going. So I just walked out and it got it started getting more solid about 10 feet away, and then a little bit more, and then a little bit more and a little bit more. And I'm like, if I can just get this front wheel assist tractor 10 more feet, I think I'll be able to get out of here. And so I raised the wings on the disc. I got it up as high as I could, which didn't really help too much because it was pretty stuck back there. Uh, and I just kind of slowly crept forward. I'd get about six feet, and I have to back up a little bit, and then I'd go forward again, I'd keep going, and guess what? I walked that sucker out of there without having to get any help. And I was so thankful to Jesus because I did not I did not want to have to go tell my dad he knew I got it stuck. I mean, it's also pretty dang obvious uh because there are some gigantic uh treads in the uh middle of the field out there, which he said don't go in there, and I didn't intend to, it wasn't my plan, but uh I realized very quickly it's hard to turn around with the plow. Anyway, so uh that happened, and uh I worked, uh I still got 25 acres left to work of that 50 acres of tiltable land because it's still wet. But fortunately, it has been windy and sunny, and hopefully that's drying out. So I'll just keep working at it, chipping away, chipping away, chipping away until I can get it, and then I'm gonna plant it and then hopefully not have to worry about it again. But that did occur. So I will uh keep my I always got my phone on me like every other American. And so uh again, if you're a subscriber to newsletter, these are little moments of my life that I can just say, here's what happens. Um, and and I would probably not share it if uh well I would, if I didn't get, you know, if I had gotten stuck, then there would have been a whole family operation of getting me unstuck. If you've ever seen a big tractor get unstuck in that situation, uh it's uh something to observe full show. So that's the prep preparation of the sunny side. Thanks to my mom and dad and and just like letting me use their equipment and trusting me to go out there and not get it stuck. And uh fortunately it worked out as I continue to prepare that place for these cattle. And that is not all that we're doing over there at Sunnyside Hall. Like I mentioned, we had these ponds, and so one of the things that we also did in my absence was we stocked the main pond, 4,000 hybrid bluegills, 800 largemouth bass, 800 channel cats. We got 48 grass carp in there. There's we put 20 gallons of fat head minnows, which it does 20 gallons doesn't seem like a lot, but when you realize that it's 20 gallons, like without water, obviously they're in water, but that's what the measurement is of minnows. That's a lot of minnows. And those are just for food and uh all of that other stuff. So pretty, pretty excited. That came from Fry Hatchery, Jim Fry Hatchery out of um West Union, Iowa. Don Fry is uh who I've been working with and talk about again, friends, not neighbors. That's not two hours away, two and a quarter. Um uh, but uh but friends, and she's able to, and actually maybe a distant relative, to be honest with you. And so uh great hatchery, they know what they're doing, and uh we used them last fall to help uh stock it with the the fathead minnows just so they'd have food over the winter. Now they came out again, and and we just continue to work with them as we develop this little uh playground for for us uh and our and our friends as we as we try to make this a nice little fishing spot, which is private property. So you have to subscribe to the newsletter to see what that's all about. Anyway, um then uh we did uh I've had uh we've had uh we've had a crew of of painters here and stained at at the uh Sunnyside ranch because uh we always go with the same guys. That's a guy named Kevin Onstead. He's out of Albert Lee, Minnesota. Onstead painting is uh who we recommend to anybody who wants anything painted or stained or taken care of. Uh we have a stucco home, and so it's important that you get the right people that know what they're doing. He always makes it right before he paints it uh and and fixes cracks and things like that, and just does a great job. We had him paint a house in town. Uh, he's painted our house before, he's painted several of our friends' houses uh because he just does a great, great job. And guess what? They also stained henhalla. So that hen house that I've been talking about, which you will be able to see in greater detail if you're subscribed to the newsletter, and I'll make those private videos for my friends and uh neighbors in the newsletter. But uh henhalla was stained and it just looks amazing. It's stained really dark, really dark, and it's cedar. Uh, got the got the supplies, the cedar side, and all the stuff to build henhalla uh from Adam Upmeyer, who we've had on the show. And um, and uh, of course, he has got the lumber yard uh down in Garner. And uh Hanhallo looks looked great before it was stained. Now it's like it looks like it's been there since the Vikings, and that's what it's supposed to look like. So pretty excited about that. Those hens are gonna love it. Those ungrateful hens, which are now in the chicken tractor, they're out there uh just they don't even know because they're dumb birds laying eggs, but uh they're about to move into Hanhalla and it is going to be sweet. Uh so looking forward to keeping you updated on that as well. But again, how to subscribe to the news. I'm just if you haven't figured it out yet, there's a there's a point to this whole deal. But then what will I put in the what will I put in the chicken tractor when I've got all these hens in the Hanhalla? Well, my friends, I'm glad you asked. Because the same people that were concerned about the health uh and the and of the beef that we were raising, making sure that uh they were getting their meat from a quality family farm, um, were the same people that asked me, hey, uh what have you ever considered raising, you know, like pasture pasture chickens for meat? And I was like, Yes, I have because I listened to Joel Salatin and read his books. If you know who Joel Salatin, S-A-L-A-T-I-N, is, and he's also known as the Lunatic Farmer. There's lots of stuff. He's on he's on YouTube, he's got books out, he's been around for a long time. Um, I appreciate what he has to say. And meat chickens are um obviously valuable. Now at the store, you can go buy your chicken, uh, which comes from um these huge factory farms where the chickens are all crammed in together and then have it in small cages, and they inevitably some of them are gonna die, so the other chickens just smash their feet and just push the little chickens, uh the dead chickens, through through the grates. It's gross, it's terrible, it's just terrible, terrible, but it's very efficient. It's very efficient because if there's one thing America likes, it's good chicken. We like our fried chicken, we like our chicken wings, we got chicken fingers, we like our chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken. And uh since reading uh Joel Salton's books and just doing some of my own research, I do love some fried chicken. I love it. Love the chicken, but uh knowing where the chickens come from makes me not want the chicken. And if you're like that, then you're probably gonna want some pasture-raised chicken. And so, yeah, because of suggestions of uh customers from the beef that say they're concerned about their chicken. Do you have chicken uh that's raised on pasture? Uh, which by the way is way better. Like a thousand percent. That's maybe not accurate, but many, many, many, many percentages greater than what the healthy wise, and just the vitamins and the minerals and the contents of the things that you need, the fats, the acids, the things that you want in your protein, uh raised on the pasture, chicken's way better than what you can possibly get uh in the store. Same thing with the eggs. Eggs are the same way, it's ridiculous. Um but we don't know because we're consumers, and we're just like, uh, let's get some eggs and get some chicken. Let's go make some chicken tenders. Chicken tenders frozen in a box. I mean, the more processed it is, the more the probably not the good is for you. Probably not good for you. But it's chicken, it's healthy. Anyway, so we're gonna try it. We're raising those. And let me tell you how this thing worked out. So I got these meat chickens now. These are Cornish crosses, is what these are. So they're the white ones. Um, I'm not interested in heritage breeds breed chickens for chicken for meat chicken. And the reason is is because uh they have what this go, they call them like the like the razor or the blade chest, like they have no breasts. And listen, breasts are important, okay? So Americans like their big breasts. And I'm talking about chicken and turkey and those type of things. I'm not raising turkey, but um, that's what we expect. And so you need to go with a certain type of breed. Otherwise, if you go with the heritage breed, you're gonna get a whole lot of leg and some wing uh and thigh, but not much breast. And uh just not interested in that. So, so neither are neither are my customers. They know what they want the chicken to look like, but they don't want it to be full of chemicals, full of antibiotics, uh, you know, void of the the nutrients that you would get if the birds are out there eating the the bugs and the feed and the grass and the out man, chickens love alfalfa. They just destroy it. I found that out too. Uh anyway, you so we're doing that, and here's how it worked out for me. Like, I went to uh Baumgarse, because I'm just dipping my toe, dipping the toe, and I was like, we'll get some meat chickens, raise them for the family, maybe some of my customers. So see how this goes. And so I bought 30 of the Cornish Cross chickens as day old chicks, which is what they are when they first come to the store. And I happened to be there when that occurred. So I'll take a third, they didn't look very good, but I was like, they were most of them looked okay. So I bought 30 of them, and eight of them died within a couple of days, and I was so mad. Uh, it's not Bombgar's fault necessarily. Um, not naming them because that's just that happens to be this place where you got them. Um they get them from somewhere else, their hat, whatever hatchery that is. And unfortunately, eight of them died. Well, that's like 25% loss. So it's down to 22. And I was like, well, based on these numbers, I guess I'm gonna have to buy more uh because I want more than 22 chickens. And so uh went back to Baumgars a little while later and I'm and I and I got uh went to uh uh I got 40, thinking to myself, well, 25% loss is gonna be about 12. Uh I'm gonna lose 12, so I'll be down to 28, and that'll give me about 50 chickens. That'll give me enough for you know our family and you know for some you know friends and neighbors who want to who want to buy some some chickens and and we'll give this a shot. The people that have asked me will have chickens and they can give it a shot. And none of those birds died, none of them, not a single one. So now I have 62 birds, um which is great. I'm happy. So much healthier birds, and now they are just doing a fine. These birds grow very fast, they eat an awful lot, and so um they are kind of they're kind of expensive to grow, uh, particularly on a small scale, but um they are going to be once they get their feathers on, right now they're still kind of fluffy and still a little cool once they get their feathers on uh here in another couple of weeks, they're going out into so the hens are going to the hen hala and the other birds are going out into the um into the tractor. And you know what? My wife doesn't like me saying this, but I may have to build a second tractor. But I've learned you don't have to make it so damn heavy. Uh so we've got some other models of of things we can build for maybe another chicken tractor, and uh and they will be for sale as well. But I looked up what these type of pasture-raised chickens that are on grass um for meat, it's five bucks a pound for a whole chicken. And these chickens are usually like eight pounds. So it's like that's forty that's 40 bucks. Uh six to eight pounds, you know, 30, 40 bucks uh for a whole chicken. And it's like$7 a pound if we break it down and it's got bone in everything, including the breasts, right? And it's like, and it's gonna be eight bucks a pound broke down with boneless breasts. Okay, so bone in everything else, but then boneless breasts, eight bucks a pound. And they're gonna they probably yield eight, eight pounds, eight pounds, eight, maybe ten. I mean, which was we'll see. Usually they're between six and eight, but we're gonna try to get them a little bit bigger for you. But I was surprised at what that costs, and then you go to the grocery store and you look at their prices, and it's it's like, but Troy, it's like two dollars a pound or five dollars, two to five dollars a pound, depending on you know the the the the the cut the type of cut that you're getting. And I'm like, yeah, that's what the price is for fecal soup chicken. If you want that, there it is right there for you in a in a little. Plastic container of fecal soup chicken. So, but this is uh less than what other folks are charging around the interwebs um for the same types of meat chicken. So we've got some to sell. More information about that in the newsletter. If you want healthy chicken that's like way better for you than what you can buy in the store because you like it, uh you'll have to pay a little bit more for it, uh, but uh you'll know where it's coming from. So those will probably be ready at the end of June or around the 4th of July period. Wouldn't that be great? For grilling as well. All right, folks, listen, it's been over an hour. I've been yapping or rabbing on. There's one more story I have to tell you. I probably wouldn't film this necessarily, but I gotta tell you. Um, so my son, the youngest boy, Colin, he's got a um he's in track, he's in baseball, he's in basketball, he's in football, he's he's just doing all these things. And so he's and and and so three of the things are happening at the same time. Track, for which he went to state in a high jump last year, and he's helped set school record this year in a medley. And then he's also uh still doing basketball with an AAU group, and then he's also uh practicing for baseball because it's springtime, and in America, we just can't control ourselves. We just have to continue to do tons and tons and tons of sports all at the same time. That maintaining his grades and everything else. Anyway, at a track meet about a week and a half ago, he pulled his hamstring uh during a medley uh or a relay, and so he um or might have been the open 200 or whatever, but anyway, he pulled his hamstring, his left hamstring. This is concerning because uh we're running out of track meets. Uh next week is going to be conference. No, conference meet is this week, actually. Uh so conference meet is important, obviously, to the team. They want to win conference again. Uh then district, which is the state qualifying meet, is next week, and so he wants to be able to clear the high jump, get in to go to state again, and be a part of this medley and go to state because they set school record and they were lifted pretty high in the state, so that'll happen. But in order to do that, you have to be able to perform. So um we took him to the doctor. We were just gonna send him to the physical therapist and uh needed a referral to do that. So we took him to the doctor, went to the Hancock County Medical Clinic, and we got a and it was and it would happen to be in Garner, got an appointment set up, and this is the best appointment ever. This this was this is Dr. Hill. I mean, I never met this dude before, but he's been practicing uh sports medicine and orthopedics since the 1980s, and he's worked on everything from you know, obviously the high school athletes all the way to the Olympians, and and just kind of like you know, Jim Brock on, but he actually is a you know, like he's a medical doctor, not a chiropractor. And so this guy is also like the kind of doctor I need to go get a physical from Dr. Hill because this is what I want my doctor to be like. He is like a no nonsense, old-timey doctor who's seen it all, he's heard it all, and he's not afraid to lay it out on the line. And this is exactly what my son Colin needs to hear, because he's very gifted athletically, and he can do uh just about anything. Uh however, sometimes he has to be inspired to really lay you know lean into it, you know, to really put in the extra effort uh because he's really talented and he can get away with a lot of talent, but talent runs out without work, right? So he does work at things, he does have his things that he likes to do. But I mean, give him the opportunity, he's gonna take a seat or whatever, relax a little bit. And so this doctor has also been working with another high jumper in another part of the state who's gonna go on to D1 or could go on to D1. But the way this Dr. Hill says it, he's like, I don't know. I don't know. It's not how he talks, but to me, this is the way everybody talks. I don't know. He's kind of lazy. I don't know if I even give a damn anymore. You know, so so he he could do it, but he just wanna put the effort in. And I'm like, great, this is great for my son to hear. Like, I need to hear from a doctor his attitude about here's a kid who could do it, he's a D1 talent, and yet if he doesn't put the work in, why should I care either? Which is good for every athlete to hear. Like, if you're not gonna do the work, why in the world are we paying for you to get better? Why in the world is this stuff now? Now, it's not to say that Colin doesn't do the work, but it's good for kids to hear that. And this guy would just go on and on, and he's like, I don't know. Maybe I should give you uh just give you some believe is probably what you should do, you know, whatever. And then he kind of asked more questions, and he's like, Well, it turns out that he found, you know, that Colin went to state for high jump last year. He'd like to go again, he's got the possibility to do so. He's set this for the record with the other guys on the team for the for the medley, and he's like, All right, here's what we're gonna do. And I'm like, what is happening right now? Is this and he's like, I think we're gonna do because of your skill level, uh, we want to get you recovered a little quicker. So I'm gonna give you, you know, he gives him a little steroid there, he gives him uh uh something to make sure that his stomach's okay with with that, and then um uh something else too. But it was like it was it was all like, you know, it's all on the up and up, it's all whatever, but it was like it's funny how it changed from one thing to the other when it was like, I'll just give you some relief to well, we can make this happen a little bit faster. This doctor, I mean, he just was like he would say things that were so uh just like blatant and funny, and like, I don't give a damn, you know, whatever this is gonna work or not. You're gonna do this, you're gonna be good, you're gonna be good, you're not gonna be good. I don't, you know, like I here's what you gotta do. I've seen it all. You dopes are out there, you say, Oh, I'm stretching, I gotta teach you how to stretch. You don't know how to stretch. It's like you're out there just standing around hopping around like an idiot. You this is how you stretch. So like he shows them how to stretch. I'm like, I want this guy to be my doctor. I'm gonna go in for a physical at 51 and be like, hey, uh, and he's just gonna be like, oh my God, what have you been doing? So that is uh that is that is that was a great experience. Great experience for my son to have. And then we also I'm gonna, I don't think I'll be able to get Dr. Hill on the show. Uh, but uh, but I will uh try to get uh this next guy and we'll let that happen as it comes uh down the road. But we had the opportunity then a week later to go experience some aqua therapy. Uh there's a guy that does aquatherapy, and he's just like amazing, and his whole story is tremendous. He's been he's got a very interesting career, very interesting uh artistic um things that he's been doing throughout his life, and then he's got this amazing um not really a practice, he just helps people out with this aqua therapy, and it is phenomenal how he is able to just like really work out the problem. We've taken uh our son Jack has gone to that when he had an ankle situation, and it hurts a little bit, but he gets you uh kind of back in where you need to be. And so uh Colin will be already back running and jumping and doing the things that uh he's supposed to be doing, and uh hopefully uh going on to state here in another couple of weeks. Keep our fingers crossed and we'll keep you updated on that. That you won't need to be a part of the newsletter to know how uh how Colin's doing. We'll just keep you informed. Higher on the show, and that is it, folks. I know it's a little bit longer than what we've done, but I've missed one uh and so I want to get back into it. And it is all about friends and family, it's about the neighbors that are taking care of each other, it's about friends that I can rely on. Hopefully, I've given you lots of examples. These are all people that are part of my life that help make the Sunnyside uh uh farms and sunny side studios, all of those things work better uh to uh be able to accomplish the things that we're trying to do uh as a family, and then for you, our listeners, and then for our customers in all these different capacities. So I'm very thankful for all of the friends and neighbors, including you. Uh, and I want to be able to share more of our life and experiences with you, but I want to be able to do it uh uh uh via the newsletter for videos and things like that and keep you up to date. So I encourage you to click on the link, sign up for the newsletter, be a part of that. I'm not trying to sell you anything other than what I'm already trying to sell, which is usually just you know, meat or sunny side biographies, if you're interested in that type of thing. So, like uh keep up to date what's going on, see some of the things that happen and on video that makes it worth the time to to do that and uh and enjoy being a part of uh being a beer, you are you are as the the sunny side uh of my life in so many ways, and I hope to continue to be the sunny side of your life as much as I can.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:21

When the shadows fall and doubts begin to creep, remember together we're strong every week. Lift your neighbor up with kindness every day. Let your actions speak the words you want to say.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:38

The Sunny Side of Life is a weekly production about our life on the family farmstead here in Iowa, the liberties we prize, and the pursuits which make us happy. None of this is possible, of course, without Christ in our lives. For the Lord God is our stun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory.