Dad Laughed At Me Starting a Farm! But Years Later ~

It was the Great Depression. We had nothing. It was a time when if you didn't grow it, you didn't eat. I mean, we got down to where we didn't have anything to eat. That's how my dad grew up here. And Miss Mayfree, a neighbor down the road, can affectionately remember 70 years later. So when they come up and give us our bags, we had an orange and an apple and 2 or 3 nuts, I think it was. Just, I don't know. I'll never forget that. They just simply couldn't grow it. So they were hungry. They were on the verge of starvation. And she can still remember seeing bobbing heads coming up over the horizon one day. That was Christmas Day. Wow. And both of them was carrying something. And they got up there where we were sitting. I said, "They're bringing us something." And that day began a life-saving ministry for Miss Mayfree. So as you can imagine, my dad was terribly in love with this land and the way they were sustenance farming. They were growing enough for their family, but also enough to give. But as he aged and grew older, it became more lucrative for him to get into business, and he became a traveling salesman. Now he kept cows probably more for the tax write-off and the nostalgia than anything else. But as I matured and Rebecca and I became more health-conscious, we started to grow our own food. And a mentor gave me one of Joel Salatin's books, Salad Bar Beef, and said, hey man, you can make a living, or at least a side income, growing beef on your land. And I had this— I got this book by Joel. It made perfect sense. It was talking about moving animals every day, getting more from your land. I started implementing that, and I had these electric wires throughout the place. This is where I would run my first cow, and I would have all these wires. I would have a— I had a wire going through here, and then every day I would put up a new wire as we move the cow around. And my dad absolutely thought I was nuts. He kind of bucked that. He kind of laughed at me or mocked it a little bit, and he would call them my crazy wires, Justin's crazy wires. And they became a kind of a source of contention, I think, because he did it so different. Maybe it was a little bit of a threat. I mean, he did it good enough that they could provide for their family and give away, but here— so, so here I was doing something completely different. It just didn't jive right. So we're doing Joel's system, and I see and think that things are getting better. Now, the grass didn't always look this good. If you go back and look at old vlogs, you can see most of our pasture looked about like this, okay? Brown, spotty, weedy, okay? This is— but this, this is just a little patch amongst it all. But then we go on, we kind of take a detour, and our family goes on the Great American Farm Tour. We travel all of America in about 10 months. So we introduced my dad to our show, our vlog. 'cause we're gonna know he's gonna want to keep up with us. We didn't think he'd be interested in it because he wasn't a big supporter of the farm. So we gave him the show for the Great American Farm Tour, and over time what happened is my dad went from my biggest critic to my biggest fan. And he even got to see me at Joel Salatin explaining the crazy— why the crazy wires? What we call the mob stocking herbivorous solar conversion lignified carbon sequestration fertilization, we're getting way more production than you do if you continuously graze. Not long after we got back from the Great American Farm Tour, my dad took a turn for the worse. He's getting older, he's 86 years old, and eventually, pretty much on his deathbed, he got real, you know, intimate. And thank goodness for that. We had some good times with him there at the end. We were talking about a show where we were moving the lambs and the cows, and we were talking about how we were going on one of these fields. He knew that field very well. This is what we call North Field, not because it's in the north, it's actually on the south part of our property. It's facing north, so for whatever reason we've called it the North Field. It's the worst part of our property because it faces north. And because up there it's probably 30 degrees in steepness, so it doesn't retain the moisture well, the nutrients well. But we've rotationally grazed this, and that's what happened. Our sheep feel like— our cows and our sheep were about in there, and Dad and I were talking about— I was talking about how the cows, how they, they've helped improve it. And we brought this a long way because that especially was pretty much young forest, and it shows what rotational grazing, giving land rest, will do. I'll never forget the spirit of what he said. You know what, I'm gonna have to read because I think, uh, look, I put it in— I put it in my foreword to Joel Salatin's new book. Um, I told this story. I'm just basically telling you this story in a movie. You've got it looking good up there. The way you move the animals around has really helped. Basically, I'm sorry for laughing at you. So, Pop, if you're watching this, thanks. Thanks for saying that. He went from my biggest critic to my biggest fan, and that was because I was using these Joel Salatin methods and because my dad could see me explaining. And it had been, been a minute, and I think he could see the change himself. One reason my dad might have mocked is because farming becomes something that was drudgery and difficult and didn't pay. But times have changed. Joel has taught a younger generation how to sit pretty on the farm and have a really decent income while doing something really meaningful. You're reading this, or, well, you're watching this because you want to live a more meaningful life, a life where you call the shots. Work outside with your family, make a great living, all while leaving the earth a better place, not worse. Fortunately for you and I, Joel has already taken decades to fine-tune these strategies. He's graciously shared these steps inside invaluable books like Salad Bar Beef, Pastured Poultry Profits, and others. No doubt one of the keys to success with Joel's system is the mobile infrastructure. I'll find myself studying the pictures in his book and doing my best to implement them, and I ended up uncertain if I was doing it right. Now I couldn't be more excited that Chris Slattery and Joel Salatin have partnered to put together step-by-step plans for building the said infrastructure. The perfect guidebooks are already here, so I'm thrilled to say the perfect companion is now here. I encourage you guys to check that out right now. We've got a link down in the description where you can get Polyface Designs, this, this whole book, or you can go to polyfacedesigns.com. But I want to be real with you guys for a minute. I want to thank you very much. This is real. This is uncut. Nothing pretty is going to go over this. I want to thank you guys because as of this morning, I'm filming this on— well, you're probably going to see this Saturday. So Friday, as of Friday morning, we had sold 3,009 copies. Yeah, our goal was 1,000. I thought that was impossible. But I was thinking about this last night. Why is this so special and why am I thanking you? Because, I mean, you're going to spend— well, it's on sale right now. So if you're getting it now, $79, and if you're getting it later, $90, it's a steal. Like somebody emailed me and said, I was thinking it was going to be $120. I'm thinking it would be way more worth more than $120. I myself have already implemented 3 of these plans. The pig ramp, the chicken winter housing, and the, the chicken waterer cover. Gosh, each one of those have paid for itself. But anyway, thank you, because when Joel asked me to sell 1,000, I thought it was impossible, and I thought I would do my best. But even though I thought it was impossible, I kept thinking about it, and really I didn't want to disappoint him. I'm really doing this to support Joel, and Joel has done so much for this regenerative ag movement. Like, you wouldn't have me without Joel. It's that big. And there's many more like me that he has inspired, countless. And I will tell you guys, margins aren't that great. This is not a great margin for me. This is the, the least marginal in profits product I've ever sold. It's not about that. It's about supporting Joel, and he's about getting it to you guys as low cost as possible. Guys, it's not cheap to print a full-color 568-page book. This is a steal. That's 50 years of him tweaking plans that you don't have to go through. You just have to go to the plans and you might modify it a little bit for your situation. But anyway, Here's the thing. Last night I was thinking, what— why did I want to push this bad? So I did want to, I did want to support Joel, but now we're going on a year of my dad's death. We're only like 10-ish days away from that. So of course I'm more nostalgic, and I was getting excited with Rebecca last night. We were talking about how many we sold. I think it was like $2,700 at that time or something. And I hugged her and I— like, this is our big sale in revenue. And I said, we've done it. And I still don't— I can't— because we've come so far. And 5 years ago, we were diving in dumpsters, living off food stamps. And I'm hugging her, but every time I get a rush of excitement, I think of my dad. And I guess that because he can't be here. He said he would watch the vogs, and maybe he is, but I can't hear him. He may be hearing me, but I'm not hearing him. And you know, when we were milking with Joel and he came for the workshop, I said, so my dad passed away in November, it's August, and the one thing I miss the most is just him being able to be proud of something. Yeah, so accomplish something good and I'll know he's not watching the vlog and he can't see it. I won't hear him saying, right, good job, I'm proud of you. Yeah. Does that ever go away? No, never goes away. No, welcome. Be glad you had him this long. So you'll still have moments of accomplishment and you'll have that feeling. You can't shun it. It comes. There's not a child in the world that ever gets done craving parental affirmation. You do something great and you want your dad to be there. Jill's dad's been had for, gosh, decades. He still, still longs for that, misses that. It should be tears of joy, but it's also tears of sadness. It was very fulfilling, don't get me wrong. That's why I'm thanking you, because here's the big thing: I didn't want to disappoint Joe, and I don't think he would have been disappointed. I mean, he would have been happy if I would have sold it. I had already sold a couple hundred at that point. I think he would have been happy. He's not like that. But what a son wants from a dad is that they want the dad to be proud. They want to know that they're good enough. And so I think my relationship with Joel or any older men at this point has changed. Because in some ways they fill in that gap. Nobody will be my dad, but older men can play a special role that nobody else can. So to have somebody that I admire like Joel Someone I look up to, someone that has helped me tremendously. When somebody like that gets excited and says, "Thank you. What a blessing this has been." This is amazing to see him excited. To create problems for him because he's going to have to go to the printer, guys. He's going to have to go to the printer again. He said we wouldn't have a problem until we sold 4,000. Well, we're at 309, and the weekend rush is now upon us. We're going to go over 4,000. So thank you guys. I know, I know, in my— let's just put it out there, you know, in marketing it needs to be about you, and it is about you. It is so much about you. This book will revolutionize your farm, and that's been the message, and it will revolutionize your life. But there is a moment for me too, and that's why I'm thanking you. Because you guys believe in me, you believe in Joel, you stick by us thick and thin, up and down. We've been through a lot together, and many of you are my members of my member area. You have my t-shirts. You've got the Great America Park Tour. My dad loved you guys from the bottom of his heart because he saw— I didn't know— I didn't mean to get this emotional. He loved you guys from the bottom of his heart because he saw what you were doing for us. He also saw what a blessing we were to you guys, but he saw what a blessing you were to us, and you blessed his heart. He loved you guys, and I love you guys too, deeply. Your positive comments, supporting us by getting the products, even more by getting the products and actually doing it for telling other people about us word of mouth so people then go to YouTube and search us out. Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. And if you don't buy the book, if it's not right for you at this time, I still love you. You're watching. You're still— if you're still watching this, I love you. I give you a virtual papa bear hug. I should maybe hug— here, I'll hug this tree in honor of you guys. Okay, here, this is you. Okay, I'm giving you a big hug. Wait, you want to test it? Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. I mean it from the bottom of my heart. As my granny would say, thank you, thank you, thank you. That story in the beginning with Mayfree, my dad, him coming around to it, that's from the Ford from Polyface Designs. Um, if you guys want, join my email list Get Joel Salatin's bundle. I'll give you a free sample from that. How about I give you my foreword? Like, you can go read the full foreword because there's some things in the foreword that a video just can't capture, so it's good to just read. And then what else will I give you? I'll give you one of the videos where Joel and Chris go over one of those builds. So I'll also give you a link to buy the book if you want to get in on that. So that can all be found at PolyfaceDesigns.com. A bunch of free stuff just for giving your email, and once you get inside that, there's a link on that page where you can go and buy it. So I encourage you guys to go and check it out. I really— obviously, I really believe in it. You know, you know it's coming from the bottom of my heart.