I Spent A Day with Joel Salatin & Talked About Everything

Step by step, I walked 100 miles.

What you cooking, carnivore? Got some eggs, some sausage. Public place sausage. When you're checking into this place, you get to opt into whether you want— there's all sorts of things on the breakfast menu you can order and have be here. Phone! A real life phone! And not just a phone, Yellow Pages. You remember those? White Pages. I'm not too old. These are from like 2023. Coffee grinder come with the house? Where did you bring that?

Came with the house.

That's old school. Yeah, that's old school. Hey, Gideon. Breakfast is ready. Do you know what that is?

A phone.

Hey, we've got one, but we don't use it that much. Wait, how many pants you got on? 3. You don't need 3.

I do too, it's cold! Can you move?

Yeah, I can move. Look. You're gonna be that kid from The Christmas Story.

I can't put my arms out! Still ain't sure just what I'm trying to— We're there.

Ready for this interview? It's gonna be a big day. It's always a big day when you're with Joel. It's always something to learn, always something to be inspired by, and always a good laugh.

You want to put that down somewhere?

Should I? Is that awkward? Yeah, a little bit.

Okay.

So Joel, for those that don't know you, who are you?

So I'm the Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic farmer.

Yeah.

We've got 8 events scheduled for next year for the—

heck yeah—

Lunatic Learning Center.

Keep it here on the farm when you can, right?

Oh yeah. This is the bathroom.

Yes. Now what'd you end up doing on that? Because you were— you had all kinds of—

yeah, we're going to— we're going to an earth— to an earth berm.

Okay.

Uh, system.

Okay.

And, um, so it's a flush toilet, but it's not set up yet. Um, it, it's going to be out there.

Okay.

The inside, the inside's real close. Worst case scenario, if we don't get all the, you know, the, the earth leach field done. Yeah, the— I don't want to call it a leach field. It's an actual— it's a, it's a, it's a windrow, um, it's a windrow, uh, um, hydrologic plant biomass thing is what it is. And if we don't get that done, the worst case is we just have to pay for it to be pumped here till we get it done.

All right. When you work the land, you see the land, you physically interact with God. God can also be found in Christ's body, which is people. Yeah, but they tend to disappoint.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I like this, this other perspective too here. Uh, but is it enough? Is it enough for somebody? Can this be somebody's sanctuary or church? You ever heard anybody say that? Yeah, well, I don't go to church.

Yeah, we're admonished to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. So, so there is, there is a lot of value in, you know, in social interaction for just for accountability, for encouragement, for a multitude of counselors, you know, all sorts of things. It's pretty powerful, especially to see, you know, to see the, um, the healing and the progress from year to year, and, and to know that you can, you know, be a part of that. Yeah, so it's very, very profound.

It's your fancy side by side. You've upgraded.

You had a Bronco or something? I did. I had a Bronco.

Oh, he's upgraded from the Bronco.

Yeah, the Bronco lasted 3 years and it finally just got— it got, uh—

it's still not a vehicle from the same decade that we're in, right? No.

No, this is a 2007. You don't need a seat belt.

Oh yeah, it won't even work. So what would you be doing today if I was not here?

Um, I've got some stumps to cut from where they did some, um, they did some chipping last week while I was gone, and I'm the one that cuts the stumps down. And he said, do you really want this for your career? Do you want this for your life? Let's stay here. I said, absolutely. I said, I don't want to ever leave this place. I want to be right here all the time. And he said that I'll never mention it again.

This is it.

Yeah, this is it right here. We had a fence that came up. This road was not here. That road was not here. And so it was just, it was just here. And I had— we, we just met here on a— it wasn't like we had an appointment. We just— yeah, he was coming from one direction, I was coming from another. We just met right here and we had this, had this discussion right here.

Yeah, good for him having the foresight to listen to you and your respect.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, uh, there's a profound time. It wasn't, it wasn't an argument. Yeah, he just, you know, he— when, when he— when we left Venezuela, or when we, you know, got pushed out of there, the, you know, the machine guns were coming in the front door. We fled the back door, stayed about, I don't know what, 8 or 9 months while Dad did everything he could to try to stay, to get protection. He met with, he met with, you know, interior minister ag, you know, all the top in Caracas. And just nobody, nobody would give us the time of day. I mean, just nothing. We had a deed, you know, he paid for it. He was 39, and I think that's one reason he died early. He never, he never got over it. And I wish now, one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't, that I didn't have him talk about it more. But he never, never talked about it. But it just, it broke his heart. He was there 12 years He loved the people, loved the language, loved the culture.

Wow.

I mean, you know, we had bananas and pineapples in the yard, you know. I mean, how can you not like that? And of course, now looking back on it, all of us, we realized it was a blessing because if we had stayed there and been— let's say we'd been successful— well, then when Chavez and then now Maduro, well, we'd have, you know, we'd have— everything would have been lost and you'd lost. And it would have been— it would have been bigger. Yeah, yeah.

We had that same story. My dad got a letter, the big offer on land.

Uh-huh.

When I was 15, we weren't doing much with the land.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. He said, what do you think? I didn't have a vision for it. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

At that time.

Yeah, yeah.

I said, no, please don't.

Uh-huh.

I never mentioned it again.

Wow, isn't that something? That's really wonderful.

What a great, great story. And Jonah has the same story. When we were talking about this, you know, and we were thinking we might get crowded out with that development We talked to Jonah about it and he said, yeah, we can sell and move, but when I get older I'm gonna save up and buy it back. That was firstborn's way of saying, yeah, don't do it, don't do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're there. We're going—

no, well, I'll see if we can—

it's kind of nice side by side, you got heat in the air.

Oh my, let me tell you what, it might not— might just be too slick here.

To get some inspiration here. We started on our graveyard at our place.

The writing's on the other side. Oh, this is a VA because he was in the Navy. Okay, World War II. So this is a VA marker. Okay, the same kind they have up, you know, at Arlington and— okay, all that. We came up, uh, the two of us, and we picked this site, um, and then we went down to the county and had to get a special use permit for a family burial plot. And so we had to, you know, we had to mark it on the, on a, you know, on a plat, on a deed map. So we've got a, we've got, we got 10, uh, they, we gave us 10 spots. So, uh, that's good for a couple generations maybe. That was in '88. And so, yeah, he, so we, uh So, I mean, the whole thing was kind of cool. I mean, when he passed away then, we, because it was going to be here, we didn't need a vault or anything. And so I actually had a neighbor come down with his backhoe. We didn't have a backhoe or anything. He came down and dug the, it's right here, dug the thing out. And then I came up with a stick to make sure it was wide enough. And measured it and all. And then the morning— so we didn't do any embalming or any of the— just, you know, kept the body in a refrigerator and then got a casket, cheapest one there was, a pine box if you will. I didn't have the carpentry skills to build one, or I'd have built one anyway. So a couple days before, we basically had a reception here at the farm. And over, you know, course of 2 or 3 hours, drop-in, you know, people could come and meet people and stuff rather than, you know, funeral home or anything like that. So everybody came here to the farm and we had a good time with meeting people there. And then the morning we came up here, we put everybody on a We put the casket on a hay wagon and everybody rode up here. I drove the tractor and mom was sitting right on the front of the hay wagon, and we got partway up and everybody just rode the wagon up, and we came up. Everybody was supposed to bring a shovel. So this is— I don't know if you've ever been to a Jewish burial, but it's very similar to a kind of a traditional Jewish burial. And we came up and we're halfway up and mom yells at me from the— hey, I'm driving the tractor— she says, "Wouldn't dad just love this?" You know, and she was just— it was like a big party, you know, it was kind of cool. This was woods just like that.

Yeah.

And we bought that chipper and came up and started clearing this field.

Okay, I see a little old stump there, almost rotten out now. Yeah, yeah, your stumps eventually rot out, huh?

Yeah, eventually.

Okay.

Yeah, so, so the fields that you're working on— yeah, yeah, this is, um, yeah, I would never even tell you. This is, this is 30 years. So in my lifetime, I've seen this go from forest to, to this. And okay, there's still a couple stumps here, but not much, not much. They're pretty much all All gone.

Well, let's clear it up. There's talk of you being an advisor.

Oh, no. Well, the government—

what's going on?

Well, I got a call. All that happened was I got a call, and so my name got put in a pot of who knows how many other names. I haven't heard a word, so I don't anticipate anything happening. But I am certainly a friend of RFK Jr.

All right, I'm seeing his water system here. We wanted to see how he's keeping his Cows' water. Okay, so you have the 100-gallon tank.

Uh-huh.

You're saying— is this coming off the mountain?

Yeah. Uh-huh.

Somebody's filling it up right now? No. What's— is it not going to over— oh, this is the shutoff. Okay.

Yeah, it will overflow.

That's better than the, uh, the ones that sit up on top of the tank.

Yes, yes, yes. Oh yeah, this is better. Full flow. Full flow.

Okay. But the beauty is What's the brand on that one?

You know, this is a, um, the Neville— Neville Supply out of Michigan. This goes straight to here.

Okay.

Okay. And this is simply a dribble so that it never freezes.

Oh, you thought of that. Yeah, it's not going to overflow because they're going to keep drinking.

Yeah, uh, well, it overflows at night and it just— it just runs down— runs down there.

Okay. Yeah, that's neat.

That way you don't have to— it doesn't freeze.

Yeah, that's cool.

And if it's going to get— I mean, we're running it pretty short now, I mean small, but if, you know, when it was zero, we had it cranked up a lot, a lot heavier when it was zero.

So it's simply just tall enough they're not going to be able to step in it. You got a pile here. Is this people dropping it off, or is this— no, recently made this?

Oh, we've been chipping. Yeah, we're okay. We're trying to soak up. We've got 350 head here. Okay, so they're dropping 17,500 pounds of manure and urine a day. Wow, that's a lot.

You're gonna go through a lot of wood chips.

So we— yeah, so we, uh, we, we got caught. We got caught with that snow. We had one week of stockpile left, so we were in good shape. We were— everything was good, and then that snow came. And, and it, you know, it snowed and then it, and then it rained and got cold and the top capped over so the cows couldn't go down through it. So we had to come in and we've been, we've been pushed, we've been struggling to catch up ever since. It, it, if we'd had that week, we'd have been in good shape. We had, we'd had everything, you know, set, done. But then we were short of chips, we didn't have the barn ready. It was just So we've been a little bit—

How long were you able to stockpile? How long into the season?

Well, that snow came.

Let's see, you keep going further and further stockpiling?

Well, yeah, it depends. I mean, we've got— Yeah, we've got animals out right now on no hay, on stockpile.

Okay.

That we've gone— Now that the snow's gone, we've gone back to— In fact, we've still got a week here, and so our plan here is that once things even get a tinge of green, okay, we've got a week here that we can go out and then the grass will, okay, you know, be ready. Um, so we're planning to stop a little early, uh, here. But yeah, we've still got animals out on the rental farms. We've got, we've got herds. The big cow herd, um, is still on stockpile. We fed them hay there for whatever, you know, 2 weeks while the snow was on, and now we've— we're, we're back to stockpile. So, okay.

All right, now to the, uh, capitalistic aspect, which could be the entrepreneur, I expect. Man, he's giving me a bunch of seeds, huh? Yeah, I'm gonna be set for a while.

This is the people— I mean, you've ever heard of them?

I think I met him at a— okay, it's a kit ready to go.

Uh-huh. 50 heirloom seed packets. Yep. And, uh, and this is the home garden. This is 30 heirloom seed packets.

Okay, so these are different levels.

They're different levels. Yeah, yeah.

You're just starting out, maybe.

That's the flower garden kit.

Okay.

And this is the, um, medicinal herb collection.

Oh, cool.

36 medicinal.

And that way you don't have to pick and choose.

That's right, that's right, that's right. You just get this, you don't have to sit there Yeah, it— and man, they sell, they sell, they sell a lot of them here because, you know, people, people are intimidated. They're intimidated by everything that's, that's new.

Yeah.

And, uh, they've never done anything like that.

Yeah.

We are so out of everything, really.

It's crazy.

It's crazy.

Our inventory manager ships.

Yeah, she's in charge of inventory and she's just going nuts because she's just getting all these requests and we just don't have it. We are, we're out of— I mean, you know, we get— we take 12 beef up and it's all gone in a week.

Wow.

I mean, it's crazy. It's crazy.

What are you gonna do?

Well, we gotta— we've got to we can expand the chickens and the pigs fast. So we'll do that this summer, probably double, virtually double everything. Beef though, we're stuck with the grass, and unless we get more land, we're stuck with where we are.

Any prospect for more land?

There is. I've got some discussions going on, not to buy but to rent, you know, to manage.

Yeah.

So we'll see, but that's a slow process, you know.

You—

it's just a slow process.

This This is an old wood boiler, isn't it?

Well, that's a— yeah, it's an outdoor wood stove.

Yeah.

The charcoal we feed to the pigs.

Okay.

That's a tonic for pigs.

And this is free choice to the pigs?

Yep.

Just occasionally?

Mainly if we have a little bit of an issue. We have a self-feeder. We have a barrel that we put on little angle iron extensions so they can self-feed.

Only when you have an issue?

We would love to have this so that every batch of pigs we get gets this for a month. We would love to have that happen as a cleanser tonic, get them going.

That absorbs the toxins.

We've had pigs, Justin, we've had pigs that you thought would be dead in 2 days, they eat charcoal and in 2 weeks they're ready for the county fair. I mean, it's like a— it's unbelievable.

I just went on a meat lover shopping spree. I can't think of a better place to to do that. Looks like Gideon went on a chocolate milk shopping spree. Okay, we got some, one for each of the kids. Let me show you what we got here. I wanted to get stuff that we don't have a lot of or any of at home. Okay, let's get out stuff that doesn't have to be in the cooler. These are neat, sausage slices. Big old thick New York strip steak. We don't get a lot of New steaks off of a beef cow, and they sure aren't that thick because we don't grow them that big, I guess. Look at these ribeyes. That's 2 ribeyes. Sausage links for Mom. She's trying to eat more protein, so she likes a variety of meats at breakfast. Sausages are killing me. Yeah, they're good. Did you get all the chocolate milks in there? Yeah, but one because I'm gonna drink one. What'd you get on your carnivore shopping spree? Got some meat sticks and some milk. Nice. Which is not really a 2-milk reward, but whatever. Does it taste like our chocolate milk? It tastes good though. It doesn't? No. Is it good? Yeah. We're on our way home. You saw snippets from Austin's footage, which is going into our show on Abundance Plus called The Lunatic Farmer. Get that on Abundance Plus, full edition plus, full version plus. The first time we came and visited, uh, Joel It's a good one. All in Abundance Plus. It is interesting, the difference between raw and, uh, regular. Just like the difference between carbonated water and flat. I like this, liking it is— Difference between 2% and whole milk? Yeah, whole milk and raw milk. It's like you can taste the nutrition in raw milk. So long, polyface. You feeling awake? Yeah, I got some, uh, Relight energy in there, so— Oh, Relight makes the energy one? Yeah. Rest area. About halfway there. I don't think we're gonna need to get fuel before we go home. What is it? I'm so homesick. We've just been gone one night. It happened to me in Florida too. We were like, we all got so homesick. I just want to be home. I'm wondering if it has to do with what we went through in the hurricane or moving into our old new house, you know? It's our house we've always lived in, but we totally rebuilt it. We love it. I don't know, maybe with the hurricane, we— in my subconscious, we shouldn't be far away. How you holding up? Good. I got the iPad going with a keyboard. All you'd ever need to run a business right here. What's the ETA? 5:13.

Whoa.

You good, Austin? Victor Justin. Good driver, good chauveur, good filmer, good travel buddy. Oh, uh, he's just gotta pee. He's supposed to be peeing outside because he's supposed to be unloading the stuff. Is my girl the only one come see me?

I don't know where everybody else—

not even old Henry came to see me. Oh, oh baby, I'm so glad you're home. Happy to have you. You guys smell nice. What'd you cook? We cooked Surprise! I smell some potatoes or something frying. Oh man, give me some! I haven't eaten in a day. Let's go!

Hey, little man! You gotta pee?

Oh, okay. How you been? You having fun with Ashley? No? You miss Gideon? Hey, what are you You remember him? You remember him? Yeah, it's like you haven't even been gone. You're like those kinds of friends, you'll be separated and you just pick right back up where you left off. Come here, Josiah, I got a surprise for you. We got you a little gift and we got Mama a gift. You should get something for me. Got you a gift. You helping cook? Does it have to do with horses? Is it money? No. Strike 2. Sorry to be such a disappointment. What's the surprise?

Is it a pony?

Last I knew we were having fish. A fish is in here. Sweet potato fries. Yum.

Fried in lard.

Yum. And then your favorite, green beans. I will kill those sweet potato fries though. I'm sure you will. Saying I got a surprise for everybody. Henry's gonna be the most happy. Okay, this is for Mom. Oh, times 2. This is for Henry and all the kids.

One?

Make it— stretch it out. I got some for Papa. Big thick ribeye steaks. New York strip steaks for Mom. Valentine's Day is coming up. Just saying. Oh, I got one more thing for you. Oh, sausage patty. How is it? Good. All right, good. It was good supper. All right, person to the clockwise of the dealer gets to go first. We're getting off the screens at night, playing poker instead. Oh, Papa, Papa, I have a joke. Happy day.