118. Part 1: Audacious Value-Added Ag with Hearthside Vineyard and Winery

Our guest on today's episode is Hayley Moen. She is the owner and founder of Hearthside Winery and Vineyard. This is a new business in Oaks, in my hometown, and we are so excited about not only this business, but about what it means for the future of our community to have a young, bright mind like Hayley return. Um, so we dive into just where this idea started, what she's run into so far, and this will just be the first. I'll just put it right out there. This is gonna be a multiple part series about this particular business just because she's got a really long runway before she's open. But there is so many connections back to what it makes for a prosperous small town, and we really dive into a lot of those facets in this conversation. I'm going to just forewarn you right now, you're going to just feel— you're going to feel some envy with this one that we get to call her ours. That happens sometimes. But the hope and the intention of this episode is to help you think differently about how you might put yourself in a position to attract and recruit somebody like her back to your community. Our youth leave. They do, especially if you don't have a school, if you don't have a higher education institution in your community, often after high school they leave, and that's okay. I don't get overly worked up about that. The question is, do they know that when they're ready that there's a place for them back home? And that's some of what we talk about in this amazing chat with Haley Moen. Please enjoy. Hi, Haley.

Hi.

Welcome to the Growing Small Town Show.

Thank you.

I'm super excited to talk to you. So let's take our listeners back, I don't know, what, a year? Let's just start at the beginning. When did this idea of moving home and starting a winery in a vineyard— where the hell did this idea come from, Hailey? And the other piece of this too I want to know is, was Oaks, like, was your hometown always where you anticipated doing this? Like, did those ideas come up together? Or just kind of how did you start all of this?

So I was near the end of my master's degree at NDSU, and I really had to choose at that point. So just a little bit of background, I did my entire master's degree during COVID and during the entirety of that, I might have talked to like 3 people during it. Yeah. Doing my entire education like that and getting kind of towards the end of it, I really had to figure out what was going to be next.

Right.

Wasn't going to go on for a PhD.

By the way, that was your plan.

Yeah. Yeah. That was originally my plan to go on for a PhD. And I understood that if I did a PhD in plant science and plant breeding, it was most likely going to take me out of the state and that I was probably never coming back to North Dakota.

Right. So that was your master's? That was your focus in your master's? Yep.

Okay. So for my master's, it was plant science with an emphasis on plant breeding. And so as I neared the end of my master's, I really started to think like, do I want to leave my state? I understand it's going to be another, you know, 5, 6 years to finish up a PhD and then probably get a job that's in a huge city because that's where they're available. And then it just kind of sunk in after a while that I'd probably never be coming back. Right. So I kind of started thinking from there. Figuring out like, how do I take the thing that I love, which is, which is plants, agriculture, right? You grew up—

you are a farm kid.

Yep, I'm a farm kid, right? I am considered a fifth generation farmer. And that just kind of sunk into me towards the end that I was potentially never going to be able to do that side of things. I was going to be stuck in a lab or primarily working behind a computer with the route that I was going, right? And from there I kind of just decided Nope, that's not what I truly wanted.

Right.

But then kind of at NDSU, I had some experience with the horticulture side of things, kind of dealing with what I consider the more fun plants.

Right.

And yeah, and from there I got introduced to just cold tolerant grapes and cold tolerant fruit in North Dakota. And I kind of just started to run with that thought a little bit. It was just this little tiny seed. Pretty much that, you know, it'd be nice to do something like that, you know, maybe someday way off in the far future.

Right. And you were all of what, 21?

Yeah. Well, I was a little maybe 23.

Okay. 23, 24.

Yeah.

Again, that doesn't, it doesn't so much matter, but it does in the sense I try to put this into some perspective for everybody listening to this. Right.

Yep.

Yeah.

So, you know, around 23, this was just the, okay, I will, I'll go get my PhD and I'll work for 5 years. And then as I got a little further, it's like, okay, I'll go get my PhD and I'll work for 3 years and then I'll go do this. And so on and so on.

Pretty soon you're like, maybe I don't really want this.

Yeah. And it turned into, I'll go get my PhD, I'll work for 1 year, right? And then I'll come back home and I'll do this.

And at that point, what the hell am I doing? Right? I love— okay, so I want to pause just for a second here. I love this part because I think this is— you have embraced at a really young age something that I want to impart just to all people, I swear, is just this, like, you get to change your mind. I don't know why or how, but sometimes we're wired— again, I think it might be that Type A kind of hard overachieving, maybe a little bit of perfectionism, a little bit of control freak. Like, these are not things I'm pinning on you. I'm simply saying, like, I think there's sometimes there's this setup of, but I said I was going to do this. Right. And then it feels like you're breaking some sort of contract with yourself when all you're doing is being honest.

Well, to be honest, when I had finally decided I wasn't going to do my PhD, I felt like a failure.

Of course you did.

This is a plan I have had since 10th grade at school that I was going to reach a PhD in plant science and plant breeding. And I had pretty much turned my entire life going in that direction. So it was hard for me to sit down and decide, oh, I'm not actually doing this. There is something else out there that I want to be doing more. Right. So it took a while to actually just get over the thought process of that you weren't a screw-up. I'm not a screw-up.

I'm not a failure.

I'm going home. And I kind of told myself, like, you know, people say go big or go home. And I always say, no, I'm going big and I'm going home.

Yes.

I love it.

I love it so much. And again, I think this is super important because I mean, I've met a lot of people in the work that I do. And when you first came back and you were first talking about all this, I was like, oh, it's like, this is exactly what— this is exactly what all of our communities can have. Now, I think there's things that we have to— I think communities have to think about things maybe a little differently to be a place where somebody like you would want to return. And as somebody like you, I simply mean you absolutely could have gotten the PhD. You are smart enough and you are capable enough. And so I think internally for you, it's that constant, like, looking yourself in the mirror and saying, like, you're good enough and you're smart enough and talking to people. Like, the Stuart Smalley thing that everyone makes fun of, it's like such a thing because you need to talk yourself through that. Nobody is going to help you overcome that, like, shame, that shamey, weird, gross feeling of like, ugh, I'm not doing what I said I was going to do. Like, you have to work through that. So I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you for saying, like, you forecast it out. And even just the process of going, okay, I'll do it for 5 years. Okay, maybe 3. Like, you knew something was happening instinctively inside you that you knew that wasn't the right path. Okay, so, but that's still a big gap between going, I don't want to get my PhD, and I'm going to come home and do this very complex and challenging business. So tell us a little bit, like, what else was going on? What were some of maybe the confluence of things that happened, right, that make this all work? What were some of those things for you?

So, uh, one of them was just during school, just being exposed to the horticulture side of things. And then also, uh, NDSU had their own small vineyard there as well. It took me a while to even realize that North Dakota grew grapes in the first place. So that was a completely new field. You know, I was working on barley and wheat and stuff that kind of North Dakota is known for.

Traditional.

Yeah. So to hear something as non-traditional as a fruit crop being grown quite successfully in the state, it piqued my interest. But, you know, I was a bit more methodical when I ended up picking out a vineyard. You know, when I sat down and tried to figure this out, I'm like, okay, I want to grow a crop and I want to make something out of it.

Right.

And so I had visited a couple of places. I visited Carlos Creek Winery and I had also visited Cottonwood Cider House in here in North Dakota.

Yeah, they've been on our podcast before.

Cottonwood has been so cool. I absolutely adored their place. And I think for them, it was like going there really instilled to me that you could do something like this, that, you know, you know, they're obviously from a farm and they kind of just decided we're going to plant a ton of apple trees, right? Right.

They were a traditional, you know, when she and her husband took it over, it had been a traditional farm, but then when they got it, all of the equipment had been sold off, right? It was traditional in the sense of like growing row crops. Yeah, kind of a thing, right? They no longer have the equipment, the same kind of a thing, right? They just have this desire like, we want to grow something and make something with it, which is so cool.

And then the other side of things, I also wanted to kind of have the aspect of bringing people together and enjoying something that I've made kind of in one place. So that kind of narrowed it down to, you know, a brewery, but I didn't really like beer, so I wasn't going to do that.

I would have approved of that.

Yeah, just so you know, a cider house. Be able to do kind of the same thing about the Cottonwood Cider House or a winery. And I sat down and I did feasibility studies on all three of these things to figure out what would work and specifically what would work in Oaks, North Dakota, because I knew if I was going to start anything that resembled a farming operation, I was going to need help.

A lot of help.

So then, which transitioned to, you know, I checked off the box, didn't want to do a brewery, didn't quite want to do a cider, but I had just enough experience with grapes and vineyards to be fairly comfortable delving into that subject. So I looked into it, I looked into my market area and stuff like that for the, you know, if I could get people to travel to Oaks, you know, how far did you figure that out?

Haley, can you share just a little bit about that? Because you had a really cool process and again, like so wise beyond your years, but I will say like So we'll do a lot of these discussions, right? Like, just start. Like, I say that a lot, just start something. Your thing isn't something that you just start. Like, your thing that you're purchasing land and you're putting up a big building and you're physically planting a crop, like, feasibility is a really critical part to make a decision to do this. So what were some of the things that you did to help you determine, like, would people travel? How much wine is consumed? Like, we talked about all these things. If you'd share even just a little bit about how you approach that, because it was really smart.

Yeah. So, I mean, one of the first things I need to figure out is what part of the population is considered frequent wine drinkers, and that's considered a bottle a month.

I'm laughing because I'm like, I think it's like, put up a picture of Rebecca. I'm like, there it is. There she is, your wine drinker. But yeah, it's important.

And that came down into 1 in 3 people are considered frequent wine drinkers.

Astounding.

Yeah, right. There's a lot of people that drink a lot of wine, and a lot of us do it at home where nobody sees it.

Therefore, you wouldn't necessarily know.

So I kind of took that static percentage there, and I started applying it to the area and said, okay. And I started looking up how far people would travel for a day trip, right? And it'd be about 100 miles is how far someone would go to visit something in a day and then drive back home, right? So I took a big radius, 100-mile radius around Oaks.

That gets you almost to Fargo.

Almost to Fargo, just short of it.

Yep.

And I pretty much there, I drew up the— or I brought up the 2010 census, and you can actually select a radius around your town.

Yep.

And at that point, I started looking or piecing it apart of how many of those were 21+.

Right.

And then from there, I started going, okay, what does one-third those people look like. And then I started to find, which was actually a significant number of people just in this area.

Right. Yeah.

And so then I just started going a little bit further, like, okay, I know my target audience is primarily females age 21 to 45. Right.

And so just under the— just in the group makes me feel good. Healy.

And so I just start piecing it apart like that. And then I finally got— I found some more statistics that just started stating how many bottles a year where do, you know, people in these groups tend to buy. And then just in the 100-mile radius, in my specific target group, yeah, almost a million bottles of wine are bought a year, right? So I figured if I could just get 1% of them—

is that 1% market share is what you projected based on?

Well, I would sell out of wine at my maximum capacity is like 46,000 bottles was just 1%. Yeah, that group, that's Amazing. Yeah, it was pretty significant. And then from there I said, well, I don't need to look any further from there. Like, I can do it here. It is feasible, right? And then the, the other aspect of it was the fact that from there I had to start transitioning into actually becoming a farming operation in this spot, right? So then I went home, sat down with my dad, and I said, Dad, I think I'd like to start a vineyard.

And what was his very first reaction?

He told me to come back in a week, and if I still wanted to do something like that, if I was serious about that, then from there we'd start working on it and I'd have to prove it to him.

Yeah, right.

To be able to kind of make this work in conjunction with that farming operation.

Because one of the things I think is super interesting about this is I think a lot of people listening to this, or a lot of people that maybe, again, like agriculture is— not all of our listeners are rooted in agriculture. Some of them are, but I think there's that notion perhaps of like, oh well, she's just doing something that her family did, but you're not. It's not the same at all. And so I think the other cool part of this is a little bit talking about your dad and just how he came along. Farmers, they know what they know and they know farming and they know the crops that they plant. I mean, it isn't reasonable or it's not— they don't get ROI on like the expansion and diversification of crops far outside of what their setup is designed to do, right? So like obviously they can rotate crops, but we're not talking like barley to grapes. They're not the same thing. And I don't know that a lot of people even get that. So I think that's a cool part of this too, that your dad didn't look at you and go, oh kid, like you're being ridiculous. Obviously he raised you. You're not a silly flighty young girl, which we're going to talk about that a little bit too, because I would love to hear how that's gone for you because of course that's what people do. But I just think that's a neat part of this, that your dad being a, you know, a fourth generation farmer didn't look at you and say like, no, this makes no sense. Yeah, it's a cool part of the story, I think.

Yeah, and it took him a while to kind of fully understand the whole idea of the operation. It started with, "I could grow grapes successfully," and that's the part of that that he can really wrap his brain around. But when it comes to bringing people to Oaks and just even convincing the average Oaks person that, if you build it, they will come type situation. And I had to sit down with him. I said, here's my market research, here's projected revenue and projected, you know, expenses that I have for this. And by the end of it, you know, his first thing is, you need a business plan and a big one, right? So I went out and I did a big business plan. I think by the end of it, it was over 60 pages long, right? And one of the most helpful things in the world, because then we were able to sit down and say, okay, If this changes, then what, how does that change?

And we're, by the way, we're gonna, in the show notes, we will link to the Live Plan. Oh, so people can check that out because honestly it's so cheap. If you have the desire to have versatile, flexible projections that you can tweak, you're gonna have to do a lot of front-end work. And again, there's resources I'll link for North Dakota folks in particular. I'll link to all the local resources in the state that where you can get that kind of help. But I think for a business that you literally, if you wanna play with levers, Right? You want to say, okay, if I change this or if I change this, if we do less of this, if we add Insider, which is something I know you talked about, then what does that do to my forecasting? So powerful. But you really took the time to dig in and do it too, which not everybody can or wants to, but there's help for them too.

And I had the time to do it too. I know a lot of people are so, you know, time crunched to be able to keep their business open. But with the vineyard and winery, You know, we wanted to focus on, you know, authentic wine made from authentic North Dakota grapes grown in the state. And there are, you know, a handful of wineries that do that. But, you know, I knew I had to start with a vineyard before a winery.

Right.

And in order for a vineyard to produce enough grapes, you know, you have to keep them not producing for 2 years. And finally, on the 3rd year, you get a half harvest. So I understood that, you know, I have a very long runway here to get this going. So I said, you know, if this— I kind of call it Tetris, but all the blocks are falling at once, right? They have all the time in the world right now to turn them and match them up so that when they all land, it's a straight line, right? Yep.

That's a great example. That's a great analogy. I think the other thing that's funny is, you know, me being here in economic development, you know, community development, like bringing people to Oaks is what I live for. So of course I was very, very stoked when you were like, I want to do this thing. It's so funny because what people in town or like random people say to me is like, what's going on with the winery? And I told you this just yesterday. I was like, and I want to look at them and be like, what do you mean? What's going on? Like, it's going to be your biggest challenge probably, right? So how do we— and this is part of it is I was like, I have a podcast. Let's tell the story because we want— I mean, there's so much you get to do in bringing people along, which is awesome, but it's a long tail, right? And so tell us a little bit about the vineyard because you just planted.

Yeah.

So baby vines, let's talk about them.

So 2 days ago we just got done finishing planting our vineyard.

It's so exciting.

It comes out to approximately 4 acres, which is almost laughable to the average farmer because they're farming hundreds and thousands of acres from. And so when I say like, oh yeah, I planted 4 acres of grapes, they look pretty confused until I finally say like, well, it's nearly 2,000 vines that someday will translate to almost 15,000 bottles of wine. And then it starts to click for them. Right.

Yeah.

So we planted 9 different varieties of cold tolerant grapes that were kind of made for the area that would survive the winters. Mm-hmm. And we knew that, well, when we first started looking at this, it was such a vast number of vines to begin with. We knew we needed to start to automate this. So, you know, we went out, instead of hand planting 2,000, we went out and found a tree planter. And so we were able to use a tree planter just pulled behind a tractor to be able to plant our entire vineyard, which worked really well. It still took us 3 days and 4 people to get it done.

Right.

But You know, we're pretty proud by the end.

Yeah. Well, and I think too, I would love to ask, like, another thing that you've done, which you've done really beautifully and very smartly, I'll just say, is, um, you've intentionally networked already within, like, if there were any existing channels, which there are in the state of North Dakota, right? There's a Grape Growers Association, there's another winery groups and grape growers groups, and you've inserted yourself into these groups to try to build connections and build relationships. Super important. What feedback have you gotten as you've been talking about the actual grape side, like the vineyard side of your business? What have people been saying to you? How has that landed for you? How have you been maneuvering? I mean, any of it. Say, here, we're planting a flag and this is what we're doing. It's visible. Everyone can see it, which means everybody has a freaking opinion about it. Oh, yeah. And that can be really hard. And you're young, Haley, and you're a female. And again, not That's not a thing except you're in agriculture. So it is a thing, unfortunately. Right. So let's talk about kind of the mental stuff, like the stuff that you've been hearing. Well, how you've been maneuvering it.

I'll start off with the positive end of things. When I first wanted to do that, you know, there was a couple of grape growers in town and, you know, I got to get out and talk to these people. And they have been just, you know, for the most part, like just wonderful sources of knowledge that have allowed me to get hands-on experience. That's really cool. But talking a bit more in the abstract that people aren't from the immediate area but still grow grapes. You know, I've really struggled a bit because, you know, a lot of them have said things along the lines of, well, you can't plant that many grapes at one time. You can't actually take care of that large of a vineyard at once. That's a lot of work. Oh, and you say, well, I'm 25. Yeah, I'm wired for work. Yeah, I want to work.

Uh-huh. Right.

And just some of the other things that I've been told is you know, since I'm doing a vineyard and a winery is, you know, one of the biggest things that someone told me was, you know, you can't be a good vineyard and a good winery. You can be one or the other.

Right.

And it was a short conversation with that person. And I just essentially, by the end of that phone call, I was just kind of aghast.

Right.

That you would even—

aghast is a really sweet word. That's like not on my brain. I'm just like, Mm-hmm. But again, like, I— so early on when you came to me, we talked about this and I said, like, you're going to have a lot of people that say a lot of things. So, okay, I mean, I have opinions, right, on how you maneuver this, but how have you, you know, how have you not felt deterred or even just doubtful? And maybe you have, but— and that would be totally normal. What are you doing to keep yourself grounded, stuck on the mission, focused on your purpose, all of those things that we all have to do if we're going to do anything of any scale at all. Right.

Well, I would almost go as far as, like, I'm pretty much a dog with a bone when I get on something that I really enjoy. And I'll sit there and I will research it to the nth degree and keep researching it and keep proving it. And as long as it looks okay in a theoretical model, then I can start moving forward with the actual practical steps of things.

Right.

That's kind of what I've been doing. And even with the comment that you can't be a good vineyard and a good winery, right? And there might be some worth to that if I was doing this all by myself, if I was the only one going into this. But I have the backing of my entire family and my husband. We kind of all decided, yeah, we're going to do this and we're going to do it together. And that was who came out and helped me plant it was my family.

Right. Of course.

And so that's been a huge help just as far as being able to bounce so many different ideas and theories off of specifically my dad and be able to say, like, does this work this way? Does this work that way? And being able to just sit down and even theoretically go through what this looks like in the years to come. And I think from there, it's just been a whole bunch of clarity that, you know, we can almost see the end point and we've come up with the hundreds of steps that have to come before that. And it just means we start checking the box off of them.

Right. Yeah. I feel so connected to this part of the process for you because I swear, like, the scale of what we did here is so much smaller than what you're doing, like, in a million ways, honestly. But I remember having that— it's a resolve, right? Where, like, once the decision is made that we're doing it, then there's really no failing. It's like, yep, we're going to do this, you know? And then, like you said, you just go, okay, here's a challenge. Now how do we— and it's just a constant navigating, problem solving, like building up your resource net. Like, there's— everything is solvable. Everything is figureoutable, like, when it comes to real challenges. And that's why I'm so dang proud of you, because you are— you're 25. You came back to—

there's so many people locally that are like, well, that's never going to work.

I mean, that's just what people do, right? But I love that you're just like— and the whole thing is, is like, you know what, maybe it won't. I mean, anybody could argue that, but why are we going to spend our time sitting on that fear? Instead, why don't we put everything that we have, everything that we've been given? You're smart. You have a great support network. You have a background that positions you beautifully to do this work. And you've got me. You know, like, you've got us. You've got Oaks. You've got people behind you, Hailey. Like, and I think that it's just such a story of hope, a story of intelligence. Again, you're not just— I think I loved yesterday when we were chatting and you were like, It's funny for you because when you say like, I'm going to do this, you automatically can sense if the person you're speaking to is like, oh, she's just a silly girl who likes to drink wine and thinks this would be a fun little side thing. And you're like, and not to take that on as like a truth that you have to defend. You're going to spend a lot of mental energy like battling that out right in your head.

Yeah. One of the biggest things that I've probably dealt with and we've kind of came up with a word for it is Whimsy. You know, I would not consider myself a whimsical person, but when you look at the—

that would not be top 20 adjectives I would use to describe you.

I love that.

Oh, she's so whimsical.

She's so whimsical. But yeah, when I talk to certain people that don't really know much about me, right, or don't even know even my education background, right, you know, here they see a young lady—

sounds whimsical.

Yes. Here they see a young woman that wants to create this huge business And, you know, if I didn't have the type of background that I did, both my education and my farming background, you know, it might look a little whimsical as far as wanting to create an entire farming operation for grapes that really aren't a thing in North Dakota quite yet. And I kind of just— I shrug most of it off because they just— they haven't took the time to even get to know a small bit about me.

So that's a key thing here. So this is— I'm gonna say this for all of our, like, community people that might be listening to this, not necessarily to the entrepreneur, okay? Because entrepreneur, this is not on you. It's on you to shrug it off 100%. But what I wish more people would embrace is just the pure art of curiosity, because really the only way to avoid that judgment of just like, oh, well, a silly girl, young girl. She's so— oh, that's cute. I have felt that. And I remember saying to you, like, that proverbial, like, pat on the head, you can feel that. Oh, it's like the worst. But the only way to get through that is to say— I mean, seriously, it could be as simple as, oh my gosh, tell me why. Tell me why this is the thing you want to do. Ask a question. I mean, that's not a question, it's a statement, but it's a tell me, right? You could start any sentence with the words tell me, and that literally will keep you out of judgment. And that's not on you, Haley, that's on the rest of us. So again, this is like a note to all my small town friends. If you really are, if you find yourself standing in judgment of somebody or something, why don't you consider, A, going to that person versus whoever else? Might not be able to answer any questions about that situation because they're not the person. Like, go to the person and ask. Ask a few questions because you'll learn really quickly where they're at. And then again, if you still feel like judging it, I guess that's on you. But well, it's just a difficult thing to struggle through when you're where you're at.

Just gearing more towards like the community folks, for instance, and on the positive side of things, you know, I think those that are talking negatively about something like this, you know, it's such a It's a fairly small percentage, but sometimes it seems like they're the loudest. Yeah, but the amount of people in the community and the amount of businesses that have not only written letters of support or expressed— For grants and things like that.

Yeah.

Or expressed verbal support or even those other farming operations that have helped me make this work out there, whether it be equipment.

Yeah, like your tree planter came from a neighbor, right?

Yep.

Yep.

Or even shop time or being able to— we planted over Memorial Day weekend. And we didn't really expect anyone to be around, but we had businesses in Oaks open on the weekend so that we were able to get parts when things broke down. We were able to find a farmer to be able to use his shop to find something. And I was just super appreciative that the community, I still felt, was really there and we were able to find what we needed and be able to make this happen here without having to go 40 minutes for something that we needed. So I was really impressed with Yeah, that. And I'm like, well, that's why I chose here, right?

So that's a really— it's really important because I certainly never want it to sound like all small town people do is complain, right? I just know that being the person trying to do the thing, sometimes those negative voices do feel the loudest. And then you have to remind yourself, who knows you? Who believes in you? Who is there for you? Who's actually in this thing with you, right? The negative voices aren't. They're just not. And it isn't our job to convince them either, right? You don't have to prove— you actually don't have to prove anything to anyone except maybe yourself because you feel that drive to get it done, right?

Yep.

Yeah. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about what else is happening at the site. Like when you find yourself being open, and again, you don't have to necessarily do an anticipated open date. You don't have to say it out loud unless you want to. But when that happens, what can people expect to find on site? Because we haven't even talked about— we talked about the vineyard. We haven't talked about the facility.

When I like literally just did this with my hands, like rub them together.

It's just so exciting. It's like very like mad scientist. Sorry.

I'm so excited about it. When I sat down and needed to figure out what type of building was going to go out there, we knew we wanted a winery, a tasting room. And maybe in the future an event center, because we knew weddings were a big aspect of vineyards as well, and they kind of go also on beautiful land.

Yes, you're on a really beautiful chunk of land north of Oaks.

Yes, it's probably one of the most beautiful spots I've had the privilege of being. Stand out, we are— you can be able to see the James River, right? And a whole Bear Creek. Yeah, super beautiful. But when I knew that I needed kind of a building that would fit the location. I sat there and I'm like, well, I could build a steel pole barn. You could. And I'm like, I could figure that out. I could find the funding for that. And it just, it felt wrong. I felt out of my depth at, because I'm not an architect, I'm a plant person. And so from there I started thinking like, okay, I'm out of my depth. I need to go find a professional at this so that I can continue to do what I'm good at.

Right.

And so You know, I went out, applied for a grant, you know, got this grant and was able to hire an architect out of Fargo and pretty much do the entire grounds and everything from, you know, the minutia of something like a parking lot.

Oh, it's such minutia. What a great word to describe the crap that you don't want to ever need to get good at.

Yep.

Everything.

Like, why would you do that? To get everything up to code. Code. Yeah.

And codes are like the most awful thing with building buildings. People don't realize that.

Yeah.

But like, that's—

and the more I looked into doing that myself, I knew there was no way I was going to be able to do it as well as a trained professional. So I knew I needed to go find funding to be able to get something like that done.

Right.

So I went out and found funding.

Right.

And, you know, here, actually tomorrow I have one of my first meetings with the architect and he going to have a whole bunch of drawings and visuals. So I'll be really happy to share those on social media when the time comes and kind of give people something that seems tangible out there.

Right.

Because I can see everything in my head.

Yeah.

No, I say a lot of times, well, can't you just see it? And they go, nope, nope. And that's okay. They don't need to.

Exactly.

So it will be really exciting just to have some visual renderings of what that site will look like out there and We're really excited to be able to, you know, phase a lot of this in all the way to something like an event center where we can have anything from weddings to reunions to just parties and stuff like that out at that location as well.

Right. It's so dang exciting. And by the way, again, for our listeners, going out and finding funding, that's a phrase that is going to trigger a lot of people, right? Like, how do I find funding? Okay, first of all, I just want to be really clear about this because I know what funding, Haley, sourced here. It is specific to North Dakota for one, and is specific to people that are value-added egg producers. So it's a really specific, narrow target of funding. And I know how hard it is to start and to be like, where am I going to get capital? That's a whole conversation for another podcast, right? It's a big challenge for people that are starting up. But the other thing too is that grants are not guaranteed. I want people to hear that. Like, you can work really, really hard. Put a grant proposal together and not get it. And it's not because you didn't do it well. It's not because you weren't thorough. So I'm not saying you were lucky at all. You worked really hard on that grant. But I don't want people to also mistake— and also, I mean, it's a drop in the bucket of what your entire project is. Again, we don't have to get into the numbers of that. That's nobody's business but yours. But when we say I had to go out and find funding, and people will be like, well, how'd you do that? That's how she did it. It was a really specific, narrow bucket of funding in North Dakota.

Well, and luckily that something like a winery, when you're growing your own grapes as well, fits so well into exactly what value-added agriculture is in the state. And I think it's a, it's a great thing to get more people into of, you know, taking a product from North Dakota and making something out of it that is purely North Dakotan, right, from there.

I love that. And I also remember you talking just about high-value crops and how different that is in the mindset, right? Because again, you're looking at smaller acreage, but that could be— and let's talk about this for just a quick second as we kind of wrap this part of our conversation— but you've talked about like, that could be a way that our farm kids that have such a love of the land can get back into farming, and it won't look traditional, but that's okay. So, I mean, is that still kind of a core premise that you have for what, like, the future of, you know, 20 years down the road, like, what agriculture looks like in North Dakota?

I'd call it a nice, like, passion project on the side because I've met way too many young people like myself, or that just, you know, they want to be in agriculture, except in their particular farming operations, they may have, you know, 3 children that want to go into agriculture, and all of a sudden, even your couple thousand acre farm can't sustain right, that many people, right. And so one of them ends up getting kicked out, essentially. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the brutal end of it. But, you know, when I started looking at high-value, low-acreage cropping operations, I think it's really underutilized in the state, just because, especially with an increase in like plant science and plant breeding, that, you know, there are avenues now for you to be able to grow a high-value crop, whether it be with like a high tunnel operation that's Essentially like a mini greenhouse, right? Or something like cold hardy fruit or apples. I think we're moving as far as just science and plant technology to be able to grow some more of those weird crops here in the state.

Right.

And a lot of them, while they're extremely labor intensive, they only require a couple of acres of land to be able to produce something to live off of.

Right.

So I think that's just a really positive aspect that I think has been kind of ignored in the state for a long time because we've been corn, soybeans, right?

Yep. Yep. Yep.

For sure.

Barley, wheat. And again, you get out west, it's like sunflowers and canola, right? But I mean, those are still traditional crops, massive amounts of acreage needed for those things to be successful. So I just think, again, it's what I love so much about this conversation, Hailey, besides just the fact that you belong to us. Which, yay for us. I always giggle. I'm like, I have this podcast and I'm like, people are going to be massively jealous of Oaks, North Dakota. And I'm not really sad about that or mad about that. There's an energy being created here. And I want to end with that kind of conversation with you, but I'm so dang proud of you. I just, I've known you your entire life, which is special to me, but this is bigger than me and this is bigger than Oaks. This is bigger than you. This is a really cool thing that we're all going to be able to witness happen. And it takes tons of moving parts. So let's talk about the community aspect of it, because I said to you yesterday, like, if I could literally just get 25, 50, 100 more people like you to come back here— and again, when I say like you, I just mean with, you know, some life experience. Like, again, we always go, we don't want our young people to leave. I do. It's fine. Go ahead. Go leave. Go learn some stuff. Pick up whatever cool things out there you can, but then know that there's a place back here for you, and we'll welcome you back here if you have the desire. There's not a thing you couldn't do. I genuinely believe that. And I know I stand alone in that in some respects, because people are like, well, not really anything. And I was like, test me on this, because I'm pretty sure with the internet, we've got really good broadband here, Hailey. Right? It's crazy. So what do you think a project like yours, the mastermind group that we're doing right now where you get this energy, what do you think this means for a community like Oaks? Not just your business, but kind of the other young entrepreneurs that happen to be popping up in Oaks right now at the same time. What do you think about all of that?

Well, yeah, right now with the 5, 6 young people that we have just alone in Oakes, North Dakota here that I think the energy is just absolutely electric as far as we're excited when we get in a group. Everyone's excited to be able to progress each other's businesses. And we've talked a bunch about collaborations between the different types of businesses and there's so many of them. And then I think from there we have this deep need to get the rest of our community excited as well. We want you to know what's going on. We want you to be happy for us because while we're figuring out all the inner workings, at the end of the day, you're getting a vineyard and winery. And I'm happy to do that for the community. And I want to be able to provide the community with a place to be able to go enjoy the outdoors, to be able to go enjoy something that you don't think would ever be in Oaks, North Dakota. And so I think Just from that, it's just, we'd like our community to get just excited. And I'm beginning to see that as I talk to more people and communicate with more people. It's like when it finally clicks for them and you can just see their eyes light up and pretty much they understand that this could potentially be really big for our community and draw lots of people in and really create more community.

Right. I think the other thing too, and this is something I learned, and again, so this isn't about me, but it's when I hear you say things, I'm like, "Oh God," like, I remember that feeling, right? It's also realizing that a lot of people actually, I think it happens in small towns potentially because we're a little more insular. Like if we're not leaving the community and kind of experiencing things outside of the four walls of Oaks, then these new ideas that we try to bring back here are really truly foreign to people, right? And so we have to be willing to show people. Like, we can try to explain it early, bring them along, show them all the ways, you know, tell them what we're doing. But I know for me, there were a lot of people that until they walked into the completed facility and experienced something here, that it would— took that for them to go, Oh, like, I get it now, right? And that's so hard because you're going to fight that. Like, how do you not see this? Like, clearly this is— but that's part of the journey. And that's why— I mean, seriously, it's part of the journey of starting something new, right? Being an entrepreneur, it's having it all mapped out in your head very much like, can't you see it? And they absolutely can't, right? And being able to have some peace with that And we find peace by knowing who we are, staying tied to our mission, and being well supported.

Yeah. And I probably have such a great support network.

You do.

That I'm able to bounce so many ideas off of and be able to say, like, "Well, so-and-so just said this to me." And without skipping a beat, my support group says back to me, "Eh, it's okay. They don't really know you." Right. And that's okay.

Yep. Yep. It's just such an exciting time for small towns everywhere. Everybody listening to this, you know, I just want them to know, like, we are limited only by our imaginations. I swear we are at such a point in time where so many things are possible. And again, I'm going to remind everybody a couple of things about being in a small town in a small state, right? We have less than a million people in the entire state of North Dakota, right? Like 780,000 people, something like that, right? As our total population. That means that if you wanna figure something out, fewer steps, like way fewer steps to the person with the answers. And sometimes I think we need to remind ourselves of that tight-knit thing can absolutely be ugly sometimes, but it also means that you're resourced. Those, the connections to those resources are faster. You get your answers faster. And generally speaking, we want to help people succeed. So again, where I just come back to, man, if there was ever a time to put your dream down on paper and chase it and start it in a small town, it's the time. And I'm so excited for you. I'm so excited for Oaks. And this is not the first time you're going to be on here. I mean, my gosh, we've got— we've got like a pretty solid runway before you're going to be open, but you'll keep coming back because I have a feeling people are really going to want to follow this story. And maybe we'll see like buses of people coming in from out of town, right? Well, I would love that. Yeah, yeah, so me too. I would love it too. It'll, it'll be awesome. So, uh, Hailey, keep going. That's what I'm gonna say right now. You're doing an amazing job. Just keep going.

Thank you.

Okay, we'll have you back soon.