Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I sat down at my computer and I wrote a letter to the universe. And I'd been following Kathy Freston on Instagram because I bought her books. And, you know, I I remember seeing her on Oprah and being like, oh, I want whatever she has because she had, like, this just glow and health and sparkle about her and, and she's vegan. I bought her book. That was a long time ago. But anyway, I sent the letter to rich roll, and I sent it to Kathy, and Kathy answered the letter.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: That was a clip from today's guest, everybody. Welcome back. I am super psyched about today's interview. I always love when we talk about vegan stuff, but it's more than just about, like, veganism. It's more than just about, like, the philosophy of the diet or the lifestyle. It's also about how those things interact with the real world, with business, like with family, with how we view our footprint in the world. This is an incredible conversation. And even if you're not vegan, and I say even, especially if you're not vegan, there's something in it for everybody. Before we get to it, please subscribe to the podcast and turn on your notifications. My name is Oran Arslanian, and this is one step beyond.
Jennifer, welcome to the show.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: I have been real excited about this conversation. It hits kind of every note of what makes me excited to talk to anybody. But for the uninitiated, for those who don't know, who are you and what do you do?
[00:01:47] Speaker A: My name is Jennifer Barrett, and I am farmer.
For most of my life, I was a chicken and cattle farmer. I started in the chicken industry when I was in 9th grade with my parents. And in 2016, my husband and I did a plant based diet, which woke us up. And so now we are vegan, and we continue to manage the farm.
We still have 230 cows and manage the land and the cows. It's a big job.
We still consider ourselves farmers, but we are in transition, still trying to find a path forward in plant based agriculture after having left behind animal agriculture. So it's still hard for me to, like, pinpoint exactly what I do because I still do consider myself a farmer. But we're not actually farming anything. We're just managing the land and the cows that still remain, which in and of itself is, is a whole big job. But I'm also a writer and a photographer and a mom and a grandma. And my family is very important to me. And so my days are filled with lots of variety of lots of things.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: All right, let's get into it. So you'd mentioned, was it 1989, when your family got into the industry of raising chickens?
[00:03:41] Speaker A: It was in 19. 87.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: 87.
[00:03:45] Speaker A: Whenever we started here on the farm, we moved from South Louisiana. My dad was in the oil field and oversaw different jobs, and so he. We moved a lot. The longest we ever stayed anywhere was two years. And so I was used to moving around a lot. And then in 87, when the oil field, you know, crashed and dad got laid off, we started over, basically, and moved to Arkansas, where my mom's parents lived. And we had family here, so we moved to Arkansas. And then my grandfather's brother, my great uncle, had this property here in Wicks, where we live now, and offered that property and the chicken farming business to my dad.
So we jumped into chicken farming after living in middle class suburbia all my life and moving out to middle of nowhere Arkansas, in the hills and raising chickens in 9th? Yeah.
[00:05:06] Speaker B: So is it 9th grade? How old were you?
[00:05:08] Speaker A: I was 1414.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: So you transplanted into this place, into this industry. And not that, just that, though. You actually. Part of living there was that you were actually like, part of farm operations. You were actually involved in doing stuff on the farm, right?
[00:05:25] Speaker A: Absolutely. That was my dad's. That was a contingency. Dad was like, if we're going to do this, everybody's going to have to be involved. It's going to have to be a family operation. And, you know, we had to, you know, basically promise that we were going to be involved in working and taking care of the chicken farm. And we did.
And then in 88, we got our first small herd of cows as well, and started understanding and being involved in a cow calf operation as well.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: What was your day to day like in terms of being involved? And not just at 14, but in your first run at being a part of the farm before you and your husband later on took it over, what were you doing? What kinds of stuff were you involved in?
[00:06:17] Speaker A: The day to day stuff was like every day, dead chickens had to be picked up. So the whole floor, the barns were big. There was a 600 foot long chicken house that held 30,000 chickens. Then one of them held 20,000 chickens. It was 400ft long. And then there was a 300 foot long one that held 15,000 chickens. So it's 65,000 chickens. And the floors had to be walked every day. You had to pick up the dead chickens. You couldn't just leave dead chickens in the floor and they die 24 hours a day.
You're going to lose some with that many chickens in a building. And so one of the farm practices is to keep the floors clean, which is picking up the dead birds. So that's one of the things.
When we first started with the old technology, the waterers had to be cleaned. I used to go through with a toilet brush, and they had these big, like, dome shaped waters, they call them place ons. And they would get moldy and the chickens would get, you know, poop would get slung in there. So you'd have to go through daily and, like, clean these waterers. And I could go on and on, but there's so much different equipment that had to be dealt with. We had feeders that ran with chains, and those would often fail and would have to be repaired.
And so I got to be involved in not just, you know, ranching is, it's not just taking care of animals. It's taking care of all the equipment that goes with taking care of the animals. So I learned, you know, basic skills, like, you know, plumbing and electrical and things like that because you just, you know, to keep things running.
So. But, you know, on the daily, it was, you know, getting the chickens picked up.
Sometimes in the summertime, we would just go through and walk through the chickens to get them up off the floor to keep air circulating because there was a, a risk in the summertime of them getting too hot. And if they all sat down and didn't get up and get air moving, they could suffocate and you'd have, like, a big kill off. And which did happen a few times when summers got hot and the chickens were big and just, like, attractor bucket loads of dead chickens coming out of these chicken houses. I could really go on and on about what is involved in the day to day life of a chicken farmer.
[00:09:10] Speaker B: I wanted to ask just to get a sense of how this teenager who was in suburbia, how deeply you were involved when you made that switch. You were really in the mix, really doing the stuff.
Just out of curiosity, why were the chicken, I know we're talking about tens of thousands of chickens. Why indoors? Why do they have to be inside.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: In such cramped quarters to control the environment, to control.
Because the way that a chicken farmer makes money is by the pound, and the way the industry makes money is by the pound. And if a chicken is outdoors, it's moving, it's exercising, it's burning off the calories that it's eating. When they're indoors, they're contained to, you know, small quarters, so they don't they?
They have just enough room to get up and eat and drink and then lay back down. That's the fastest way to grow a bird.
If they're running around outside, they're not going to. It's going to take forever for them to gain weight.
[00:10:21] Speaker B: Yeah. So, and that would be the difference then between, uh, like, a chickens farmed this way versus free range chickens. Free range chickens would have the fringe. Okay.
When you made the shift from, again, living in the suburbs, just being a normal teenager to doing this, did you have any, like, shell shock, not to excuse the term shell shock, but did.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: You.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Did you have any shell shock of being like, oh, like, so this is how we treat. I don't mean shell shock living in the country. I mean shell shock, like, understanding how chickens were raised.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: Absolutely.
Because I was a consumer. Like, I lived in the suburbs and I didn't understand where chicken came from. You just went through the McDonald's drive thru and got the chicken nuggets. And I even remember when chicken nuggets became a thing. You know, it used to be just like fried chicken. You had to do it the old fashioned way, and then when chicken nuggets became a thing.
And so the first time that we came to the farm, the chickens had just been sold, so the houses were empty. The first chicken house that I stepped into was that 600 foot long one. And I walked in the middle door. And so there's 300ft on this side, 300ft on this side. And it was so massive and the waters and all of the equipment and everything, the feed lines hanging from the ceilings, I remember it was just like this kind of visceral experience of realizing, oh, this is how, this is where chickens come from. This is how they're raised.
And really kind of feeling like, oh, how smart, and how, like, like, duh, how else would you raise them? You know, they have to come from somewhere. And when you think of it, on the scale of, you know, how many people are eating chicken, how many people are going through the McDonald's drive thru, and you know, that, of course chickens have to come from somewhere. And me making that connection of, this is how it happens in that moment with an empty chicken house and then going through the process of getting ready for baby chicks.
We were helped out by the community and also the field techs who worked for the integrator, the company that we raised for.
And then when it came time for baby chicks to come back, then they came on a bus.
They're in crates on a, like, tall crate, you know, the crates are stacked, and they came on a bus, and a guy would a dolly them off of the bus and into the chicken house, and then you dumped them into the floor. And so there's just, like, crates of baby chickens. And I remember just, like, like, being amazed and also, like, this is crazy that these boxes are filled with baby birds, and we were just dumping them into the floor. And, you know, we had neighbors there to help us, and it was a pretty fast event. Like, every, like, all hands on deck, and somebody's pulling the dolly and taking the empty crates out, and. And the house is just filling up with baby chicks, and you have to be careful about how you're walking so you don't step on them. And that part, to me, whenever all those baby chickens got placed in the house, to me, that was, like, for one thing, I've always been an animal lover my whole life. You know, I loved animals. And then to see that many baby chickens in one place, it felt like such a responsibility, like an overwhelming responsibility. Like, how are we?
It just felt huge because it's so many baby birds and. And feeling that constant need to be checking and making sure, you know, that they're okay, making sure that the. That they have water and feed and then making sure that the water lines aren't leaking and making a, you know, a mess and.
Or that the feed lines are working. And. And it's constant 24 hours surveillance of these houses of baby birds.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: So you come from a multi generational family of farmers, because not only your parents take this on, but it was in your father's family before that, and then it was carried on by you later on in your story, and we'll get there.
What's standing out to me is, like, your initial introduction to this was like, oh, this makes sense. And then when you're seeing it's happening, it's coming from a place of care, like, oh, we have to take care of these. Of these animals.
When was your first recollection of a time where you said, hey, is this right? Was that, like, way down the line, or was there any of that mingled in along the way?
[00:15:42] Speaker A: When I look back on it now, I can see that I was always questioning it. Like, there was always a question mark there. I can admit that now, but I don't know that there was a time before, like, the big awakening that I allowed that question to even come up or because it was too confronting.
It was something that I varied and, you know, dissociated from.
So I've been finding out in the last few years how good I was at dissociating. But there was always a question mark there. And there were times when, like, I would see something happen, like, because the chickens, not only you had to pick up the dead ones, you also had to cull them. So the sick ones or the weak ones or the ones that were not going to make you money going across the scale at the. At the plant, they had to be culled out.
So.
And I could never do that job. I never could cull the chickens. And so Rodney did that job, or my dad did that job. I just picked up the ones that were all dead. I did not. Or I would pick them up and put them in the bucket. And so I think realizing that that was probably.
It was not when I was a teenager, because I just was a kid then, and I accepted that this was the way it was. But after I had my own kids and we came back and started raising, then I started having some.
A little bit of ethical questioning because I was like, I can't kill these birds. I cannot make myself do it. There's something in me that won't allow me to kill them. And I genuinely thought that men had a gift, like, to be able to carry out this thing, that because I was too sensitive and too, you know, I was too sensitive to do it, which sensitivity in animal agriculture is like, a weakness, like you. And so I really thought that, you know, Rodney and my dad and that men were given this sort of gift or ability to be able to kill animals, you know, to kill.
Kill the animals for our food, for meat, and then if they need to mercifully kill them, and which I couldn't do. So I know when I started thinking along those lines, then definitely there was the question mark there.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: I love how you said you wouldn't let those thoughts or those questions come up. You were actively pushing them away and even. Not even consciously doing it, just, they weren't coming up. I think there's probably, like, a lot of wisdom in terms of, like, you're young, it's how your family makes a. Makes a living. You made this big life change. It's your day to day. There's. There's all the. All of these things.
Something, though, to go back to the comment about loving animals, I firmly believe that people, a lot of people who farm animals, who are hunters, who are involved, like, I know a ton of people, like, countless people who eat animals and also love animals. And I don't see a contradiction that I think both things are possible, are totally possible, but it's the. How strong is somebody's ability to, like, push down those questions that they might have or to maybe not push them up and then be able to rationalize their way through them? I just want to get your thoughts on, like, you know, because you live in a farming community, is there a disconnect between people loving animals and then being part of animal agriculture?
[00:19:52] Speaker A: I can speak for myself as a farmer and knowing how we treated our animals and knowing how if you're going to be a good farmer, if you're going to be a good chicken farmer and a good cattle farmer, you have to take care of them. They have to be healthy and well cared for. And there is an element of love.
If your beliefs, which most people are, is that, you know, animals are here for us for food, which, of course, that's what I believed, then then there's this kind of story that you tell yourself about symbiosis and that, you know, that it's the circle of life, and.
And with that comes this sacrifice, and.
But that, you know, the health of the animal is so important to the farmer. Cause, I mean, it's not just. Not just for the health of the animal, but before his pocketbook. I mean, you know that if you're gonna be a good cattle rancher, you have to take care of your cows. If you're gonna be a good chicken farmer, you have to take care of your chickens and or goats or whatever it is. And so one of the things that was hardest for me to hear in the vegan community was that, you know, the farmers are cruel and murderers and all of these things. And it just, like, hurt my heart to know that people think these things about farmers, because I honestly don't think that people who have not been around farmed animals can have that intimate knowledge of their lives. And there's something there. I think that farmers, it's hard to say love because they love their animals, which whenever I was, you know, farming, I. The chickens, to me, were chickens. I mean, like, we, we took care of them. We took care of our business. When it came to chickens, that was our bread and butter. When it came to the cows, we had cow calf operation, which meant that, you know, babies were being born and, and being involved in birth and, you know, the event of a birth and, and making sure that the mama is healthy and that, you know, that the baby's nursing and all of those very tender moments of, of life.
Those are things that we, as farmers found.
We didn't find that, you know, any less miraculous or, you know, we didn't find less wonder in it because they were just a number or a commodity.
They were still, it was still our cows and we were still, you know, involved in that whole process of, you know, birth. And then, and then you have to make the very necessary decision to take the calves to the sale barn, you know, whenever they're weaning weight and ready to go. I mean, it's just part of good ranching practice. That's what happens. And that was the part that I think all farmers dissociate from. I think you just have to dissociate from the end, final thing that has to happen to an animal for them to become a food product.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: I really feel that as the kind of plant based farming moves towards being more viable, economically viable, and as we're talking about the idea of maybe more farms converting to that or starting off from that, many people are raised with the idea that animals are our food. And really, like, historically, like, I mean, from like a circle of life, as we're talking about like any of this stuff, it's like, well, yeah, there was a time where that's totally, totally true. It makes total sense. And we're also not talking about like mass scale factory farming or kind of like independent farmers who are like, then in these big contracts, which I know we'll get to later on, that has the kind of like the illusion of being independent farmers. But you're kind of part of this big system. I'm not talking about that. I'm just talking like, most people are raised with the idea that animals are our food, just in many other, just like, the circle of life for many animals involves eating other animals. So we're raised with that idea and then getting into a space where it's like, you're in an industry like that and you have these moments of being like a human being who, like, is marvels at like, the natural, the natural beauty of like, of life and things happening.
All of that is totally real. And people can totally care about wildlife and totally can care about animals and totally can care about the well being of things. And what's also true is that when you live off of something or you're part of an industry, your ability to dissociate. I'm like, beyond the point where I'm going to argue with vegans about stuff like, which is part of even why I do stuff like this on the podcast so I don't have to.
We can vilify every human being. Fantastic. Great, let's vilify everyone at the same time, it's like if we're talking about doing, like, real, like, large scale, meaningful, actual change, a farmer probably loves animals and probably loves nature and is just really good at dissociating because people can dissociate from anything awful or terrible if it is deeply connected to how they make a living or their well being or how they take care of their family. And it could be farming. It could be all sorts of industries that have negative things. And I think the idea that we, like, say, like, oh, all farmers are murderers and they're heartless and they're this or that is, like, I think it is the most obtuse thinking. And to me, it's the hallmark of someone who doesn't take their politics seriously if the first move is to dehumanize people. I just want to get your thoughts on that. How have you stayed close to your community amidst the change that you've done on your farm?
[00:26:23] Speaker A: Well, it was a little messy at first. And I'll tell you, like, I didn't want to be vegan. I did not. I fought it so hard because I was a farmer. It was just, I really thought vegans were so misinformed and just. And crazy and animal activists were just, like, did not understand.
And.
And I knew how the community talked about, you know, vegans, and so I didn't. I know I didn't want to be one, but it just got to this place where I was like, I am one. Like, I am a vegan. I just, like, the last thing left to do is to call myself that.
And so my community was at first shocked, and we kind of got ghosted a little bit by, you know, people. My parents were definitely not happy at all, and.
But I think that it just takes time. And it's been since 2018 that we. We closed down our chicken house operation. And so there's been, like, this, like, you know, kind of, it dipped down into the darkness, and we kind of felt very isolated, and, like, nobody's going to understand this. And the more I tried to explain it to anybody, the worse it got.
So, you know, we did go through this period of just kind of feeling isolated, and we still are out and about in the community some. And, you know, we still have to buy feed from the feed store and, you know, talk to the, you know, we. It just kind of slowly people started to realize we are still Rodney and Jennifer Barrett. And.
And then it just started to get more comfortable out in the community. And then last month, my dad died.
He was a beloved member of the community. He was a male. He carried the mail and just loved on the whole community, and so they loved him back. And he had a liver transplant in zero three.
And then this past February, was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. And then three weeks later, he had died. And so during that time, after he was diagnosed, terminal. And then until he died, the house just was filled with people from the community.
Every day there was somebody there. And so while I was there as well, and, you know, in this transition of life, he.
It was like.
It was so, like, amazing to see these people who I've known and loved my whole life, you know, since high school who feel like family to me, rally around my dad. And then.
And then, you know, just to feel like, because they embraced us as well. They embraced the whole family, including me and Rodney and my kids. And, um, didn't nothing mattered that we were vegan. That shit didn't matter at all. All that mattered was that we were beloved and that we were seen and witnessed and that they rallied around during this time of loss.
And so this is just very recent that this has happened. And it just really, like, healed something for me personally because I, you know, tend to get a little depressed and feel sorry for myself sometimes. I mean, I'm a very happy person, but I'm much. I overthink things a lot. And. And being. Having been a topic of conversation and having, you know, kind of been thrown into this position when, like, my whole life, I didn't want anything more than just mind my business and out here on my farm and have a quiet life and.
And then to become, like, this topic of conversation among the community and everything and being these, like, weird people, you know, crazy vegans, then I.
During that time when dad passed, to just see individual faces and hugs and. And love and then the way that they, you know, everybody showed up to the memorial service, and they even made sure that we had vegan food there at the memorial service, these church ladies. And, I mean, it meant so much to me. And I think the way that we stayed, we just stayed true to who we are. And they eventually, you know, the shock of it kind of wore off and, you know, they found out we're just still human beings.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: Let's get back into the story. So your family taken over the farm in 87.
You were 14. You were very, very involved in the farm. You're, you know, you're being raised there, and then eventually you go off, you start your own family, and you're living elsewhere until you have an opportunity to come back and take over. The farm from your parents. So tell us. Tell us about that and kind of going forward from there.
[00:32:17] Speaker A: Okay. So I married Rodney in 91, and we moved to Huntsville, Texas. Had our kids and jobs and everything there, and. But always came back to Arkansas to visit. We loved the farm.
I. I feel like I belong here, and I always have. And so when Rodney and I were having our kids and everything down in Huntsville, we always came back to visit, and we were always trying to figure out how we could move here.
And buying a farm was really expensive, and it was hard to show how it would cash flow and all of these things. And so to be safe, we just kept our safe jobs in Huntsville. But then the opportunity came up for us to take over this farm because my dad, he was carrying the mail part time and got the full time mail route. So he had that job, which meant that the chicken houses, he wasn't going to be here to take care of the chickens. And they were actually thinking about selling the farm, and we didn't want them to sell the farm.
So we just, like, pleaded with them to let us take the chicken farm over.
And they tried really hard to talk us out of it because they'd been doing it for 13 years at that point and were tired of it. I mean, that was about all they had wanted of it. And so they really wanted to sell out. And so we just asked them if we could take it over, and a lot of conversation, and they finally said, okay, they said, it's yours. And so we raised chickens in those old chicken houses until 2006.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: There's a lot of big business that's involved with running agricultural farming at this level. So what could you tell us about some of the misconceptions, some of the traps, like some of the struggle of the north american farmer?
[00:34:32] Speaker A: I know from a chicken farming standpoint that it does look like you are signing up for to be self employed, to run your own business, to.
They're going to provide the chicks, they're going to provide the feed. They're going to sell it. They'll do all the marketing. They do all of the shipping, every. I mean, like you, all you have to do, all you have to do is go to the bank and borrow enough money to build these facilities to house the birds. And so the farmer's responsible for the debt on the housing.
They're responsible for running the house, the electricity, the propane, all of those components that go into raising chickens. And so by the time, and then we are paid on a tournament system scale where the farmers who every week, the plant has x amount of numbers to give out to the farmers that sell that week to be spread among x amount of farmers. And if you are above average in weight and livability and all of those things, then. And Rodney. Rodney's like rain man and knows all of these things, and he could tell you he'd go way into it. But this is just me from my creative, you know, brain that they take. So if you're above average, you get above average pay per pound.
If you're below that mark, you get below that average pay per pound, which is significant if you know, like, because if you're raising, you know, millions of pounds of chickens, that, .01, you know, sent, it adds up to a lot.
And so depending on where you fall on that scale when you sell your birds, you really don't ever know how you're going to do. When we first built our new chicken houses, we were in the top 1% for a few years, and even that, we were struggling to get by, but so half your check goes to the bank, and then what you're left with, you pay for propane, you pay for electricity, you have to keep the floors have to be cleaned.
The litter work has to be done. There's equipment. So much equipment. Tractors, litter equipment.
You've either got to have the equipment to do it yourself or hire it done. So it's just like, so much money, it costs the farmer so much to raise those birds that most farmers, most chicken farmers either have cattle to supplement income, which is what Rodney and I had, or one or one of the family members farmers works off the farm as well.
A lot of people with chicken farms also work for the school, like my dad, he worked for the post office, because the money's not there to.
It's a cash flow kind of issue. And every farmer, because, like, what we were hoping for and waiting for was the day your farms paid off, because once you get it paid off, then you don't have half of your checks not going to the bank, which, you know, it's a lot of money. And so that's kind of what every chicken farmer is aiming for, is to get the debt paid off. And then what happens is you get five years in or one year in, and they want you to upgrade your cool cells. You got to extend your cool cells by 18 inches or some crap like that, or you've got to add another fan, or you need these different feeders, or you need these different waters, or, you know, they implement all these different kinds of new technologies, and then it's on the farmer to pay. The, the company does not pay for that. The farmer has to pay for all the upgrades to the housing. And so every time you feel like you're getting a little bit ahead and paying down debt, you got to go back to the bank and refinance because you got to put in new whatever. And so it's this never, ever getting ahead. I don't know many chicken farmers who have paid off their farms, and if they have, it's because they inherited some money or something. You know, they don't do it just from raising the chickens themselves.
Now, back in the day, I've heard that you could, back in the seventies and eighties when they first came online, people were making money and that's why people stopped.
Like back in the, I think the forties and fifties here in wicks, all of these fields and farms around here were fruit orchards and there was a cannery and, and then when people started making money raising chickens, then everybody switched over to farming chickens.
But it, it is a scam. It. I'm just going to flat out say it. It's a big, fat scam.
They, they really make you feel like you're going to be independent. And people like Rodney and I, who were really young when we got into it and able bodied and felt like a 15 year commitment to pay off loan wasn't anything.
But then that 15 years turned into 20 years turned in.
It was never going to get paid off. We got 15 years into it and we still owed almost as much as we did when we started. And it just felt like, you know, this, you were drowning in it. And it wasn't like we live in a mobile home and we, I mean, we don't eat out. And we were like, it's not like we were living some fancy life or anything. We just. The money's not there. And they would just, Rodney would call it pencil whip you to death. You know, they, you'd feel like you were getting ahead and then something would happen and then you'd just like, have a really bad batch of chickens and then they'd give you like a five flock average or something. But it still just, it never, ever, it was just enough to keep us working. Just enough to keep us working. We never felt like we were getting ahead. And we were very committed to it, not just because of the financial obligation and, you know, we felt that, you know, we went to the bank and we borrowed this money, and it's our obligation to pay this back and, but because we do feel that we belong to this land. And we feel like we wouldn't even know what else to do. We really wouldn't even know what else.
[00:42:38] Speaker B: Thanks for sticking with me here and kind of building up all of that, because it's what makes what happens next so miraculous. You're multigenerational families or farmers. You love the land. You are deeply committed to the land. You're swimming in debt, but you're committed to paying it off. And you're part of a farming system that's kind of tricked you and trapped you a little bit, and there's no clear way out. So tell us where veganism and that awakening that you've mentioned a number of times, tell us the path on that.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: Hey. So in 2011, I quit drinking and went to aa, and that was the first little step. And then in 20, 2013, or maybe it was 2011, I get my dates confused. Rodney was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. And it was very scary. It was like a really terrifying diagnosis.
And because he was.
[00:43:42] Speaker B: And what. What is that?
[00:43:44] Speaker A: Ulcerative colitis is. Ulcerative colitis is a inflammatory disease of the bowels. And he was. It was. The symptoms are awful, as you can imagine.
It was very much affecting him. Being able to work, sleep, anything. It was just. It was really. The symptoms were bad. And then getting that diagnosis and then, you know, you go down the rabbit hole of, oh, my God. It just was not good.
So the doctor who diagnosed him gave us, like, zero hope of a cure.
It was just something that had to be managed with medication. And so I started digging and trying to figure out, like, there has to be some other way. There has to be some other way to fix this. And so over the course of a few years, we started doing things like, we. We stopped eating as much processed foods, like, things like we weren't eating like crap out of boxes, and, you know, we were eating more veggies and more like, what we thought were healthy animal proteins.
And then I started going to the chiropractor, started learning some things there about, you know, health and foundational wellness, which started waking up some, you know, some light bulb started going off there, started using, like, some essential oils and trying to, like, get him better naturally.
And meanwhile, I was also on my own little health journey because I had always been overweight. And around 2013, I started my own path to, because I was just done with being overweight and started exercising, and, you know, we were cleaning up our diet, and I started beachbody coaching.
Beachbody is the big company. P 90 x three. I started that. That's what the program I started with was. P 90 x three. Started losing weight and feeling better, started integrating exercise into my daily life and just loved it and started feeling so much better. And then in 2016, we were going through some marriage stuff that was pretty hard, and. But we started going to a counselor who was very much encouraging us to be very vulnerable with each other and honest. And so in this kind of tender time that Rodney and I were in counseling and everything, we decided to do a program that was three weeks long. It was a beach body program that was called the Ultimate Reset. And we thought, oh, how wonderful this would be. You know, we're kind of resetting everything. We'll do the ultimate reset.
And since I was beachbody coaching, my coach encouraged me to do it. She said, because you need to be a product of the product, and this is. This is one of the products. So it's a good thing to go through this thing, this program.
So we. It was a little bit of an investment, which for us was like, you know, it was a thing, so we committed to it. It was three weeks long, and breakfast, lunch, and dinner was all laid out in this book where, you know, you. You bought your groceries, did the meal prep.
So for those three weeks, the first week, there was, like, a little animal protein, egg, and maybe, I think there was some salmon. And then the last two weeks, it was all plant based. We also gave up coffee on this thing.
And by the end of that three weeks, I felt so good.
We both did. We were just sleeping really good. We had a lot of mental clarity and energy, just this, like, really, like, natural energy without coffee. And we were just feeling so good.
And Rodney's ulcerative colitis symptoms were gone. Like, gone. We knew that that was something that could go into remission.
But after we did the program, he was having zero symptoms, and we were feeling so good, but we were still going to work every day in the chicken house and still taking calves to the sale. And so it was kind of when I was going to work in the chicken house, and I had so much more energy to be a good chicken farmer with this plant based diet. I was very aware of how good I was feeling on this plant based diet, and I was also, when I worked in the chicken houses, I had a respirator on and goggles, and I would put, like, a shower cap on with the bandana on it to keep the stink out of my hair, and I put in my earphones, and I would listen to podcasts. And so because I was in there for a couple hours every day, and I would just listen to podcasts, and one of. And I would listen to rich roll. He was, because I had listened to his book, one of my friends had recommended his book, listened. Started listening to his podcast, and it was like, it's hard to even describe it. It's hard to even describe how.
How much I was starting to understand the benefits of eating plants and then what the actual fuck is going on in this chicken house right now?
Like, why is this happening? I started really asking questions, um, about my own diet and my own personal health and how I wanted to move forward. And then, um, then I started to consider the consumer. And that's when I really started to become an ethical problem for me, because I was like, it. It's just, it's not just me that I'm hurting by choosing to eat animal protein, but I started to think about, like, who is consuming this? And I could not. I was trying to imagine, is anybody going to be grateful for this chicken? Is anybody going to put it on a salad and eat it with gratitude? Or is it going to provide health and nutrition to the consumer?
And I just kept going, no, it's going to go to the plant. They're going to do whatever they have to do to it to kill all the pathogens and stuff on it, inject it with saline or whatever else they do to process this bird that has been raised so fast that because Rodney and I had tried to eat some of the chicken that we raised, instead of buying it, we would thought we would just, like, process it.
We even had one of our friends take some and raise them for a couple weeks after us and then processed them for us. And we couldn't, they couldn't eat them. They were so tough. It was like, I don't know what they do to them at the plant, but I knew that something was going on at the plant. And then when I was buying chicken, it was deep fried, it was breaded, deep fried. It was very processed, this piece of meat. And.
And then starting to, like, learn and understand the consequences of that. That animal that processed me as a class one carcinogen, learning that was like, it was devastating. It was an impossible position to be in to understand that you're, like, raising this product. You're part of this system that is cranking out this product that is, like, literally making people sick. I don't know what you call that space of, like, actually being immersed in this, like, thing that you now know is like a big fat lie. And I didn't want any part of it anymore, but absolutely no way to even begin to know how to get out of it.
[00:53:02] Speaker B: I just want to reflect on the intensity of that. You're early day vegan, so you're just kind of, like, early in the diet.
You're literally listening to podcasts about veganism as you're in your homemade spacesuit cleaning out, like, you know, cleaning out, like, these farms filled with, like, tens of thousands of chickens. Like, what an insane moment. Yeah.
But then you find yourself, like, you got this ethical thing that kicks in here. And again, it's like, I'm going to keep returning to this. It's like people who have been raised in.
In an industry that has something to do with, like, animal processing. Like, whether it's like, I don't know, you could be, like, a butcher or you could be a farmer, whatever it is, or people raised with the idea that's, like, deeply rooted. It's just part of your life that animals are our food.
It's not about people not giving a shit. It's not about people being bad people. It's about people having a certain kind of life experience that's formed up their thinking about other living beings. But also, you tie in economics and how you make your living, like, how, you know, and, like, debt. I loved how you talked about all, like, the debt and all those things that trap you into a thing. Making a shift and talking to people about making that shift, it's difficult. And it's not at all weird that people would get defensive or angry or upset about it because it goes way deeper than just being like, oh, yeah, animals do have a right to live. It has so there's so tons of stuff that's involved with it. So that leads us to this point where you're like, I don't want to do this anymore. But you've got the debt. You've built your life with this. You've committed to it.
Then what happens?
[00:54:48] Speaker A: We did the reset in May of 2016, and by December 2017, Rodney and I had gone round and round and tried to figure out any other way. We were still from that time in 2016. We weren't vegan. We were just introducing more plants into our diet. And we had done the reset and everything, and we did go back to eating animal protein again, but we were moderate in it because that dissonance was still there, and I still couldn't.
I was still trying to figure out how to be a chicken farmer and be a vegan. I was trying to figure this out, okay, to possibly make this work. And, um, so in that span of time, by December 2017, I was.
It was hard to even go in the chicken house anymore. So one day, Rodney and I had just sat out in the truck before we went in. Just sat there talking and talking and trying to. I was just, like, in such a state. I mean, like, crying.
Just like, my mind was, like, fucked. It was so crazy to be in this position. And so I came home from doing chicken housework that day, and I sat down at my computer and I wrote a letter to the universe.
I was like, because I had been listening to rich roll, and I was like, there's enough vegans out there. And I'd been following Kathy Freston on Instagram because I bought her books. And, you know, I saw her on Oprah and really felt a connection with her and wanted. I remember seeing her on Oprah and being like, oh, I want whatever she has. Because she had, like, this just glow and health and sparkle about her, and she's vegan. I bought her book. That was a long time ago. But anyway, I sent the, the letter to Richroll and I sent it to Kathy, and Kathy answered the letter. I got an email back from her the next day, and she put me in touch with someone who was in farm transformation or was involved with the program that they were, they were trying farm transformation.
And that person put me in touch with Sean Munson, who's a documentary filmmaker who did the film Earthlings.
He came here. I can't remember what month that was, but everything kind of snowballed after that.
Once the vegans came in and the farm transformation culture, I guess it's, there's came in.
We stopped raising chickens in September of 2018, and then the rest is history. I mean, there's been from that time. That's a whole other story from the time that Kathy answered my letter and that ball got rolling.
For us to be able to even consider quitting, getting out of the chicken business, and back then, it was definitely a leap of faith. It was 100%.
We felt like we had a safety net to catch us after the fall. Um, but we've been, we free fell for a while. We really did, um, after we decided to, uh, to cancel our chicken contract. Um, but I'm, I'm fairly newly learning about, like, quantum physics and the law of, the law of attraction. And I can see how, like, looking back on everything that I've been held and taken care of and that whatever this is that's happening, whatever it is that's happened to me, my awakening, Rodney's awakening, whatever it is that's happening here on the farm now with our relationship with the cows we still have, and that it has been such a monumental. Like, I've never heard of anything like this before. And so I feel like it's important and impactful, but it also feels scary and uncertain.
There's been times when I wanted to go back to raising chickens. There was times when everything was so uncertain that I was just like, at least then I knew what I was doing. At least then there was. Even though the.
The debt at the bank and everything was over our heads, like, at least every day when I woke up, I knew what I had to do and.
And how to do it.
And then being in the space of. I don't know what's coming next. I don't know what's going to happen to the farm. I don't know, you know, if we'll even get to stay.
There's been, like, really times of being pretty freaking scared about what's gonna happen next.
So that's that part.
[01:00:35] Speaker B: What was in the letter to the universe?
[01:00:37] Speaker A: Desperation. But also, it was a cry for help. It was a message in a bottle. It was. Here's my situation.
I'm in this hell kind of situation going on here, and I don't know how to get out of it. I love my farm. I love my life. I love my family. I don't want to leave here. I don't want. I don't know what to do, but I know I cannot continue this. Is there anything anybody can do to help us out of this situation?
[01:01:12] Speaker B: And what was the help that you received? Like, real specifically, I'm interested in all the people that you were connected to. What's happened with the debt? All that debt that you and your husband took on?
[01:01:24] Speaker A: Well, through a series of people, we finally were connected with a foundation who is committed to. And their mission is to encourage people to eat a plant based diet and to move people away from eating animals. And so this foundation has now they are. They have taken on all the debt. They've paid our debt, the farms paid for, but it's theirs, and they're now paying us to continue to manage the cows that are here. So the debt that we had on the cows, because the cows were a commodity, which we had taken out a loan at the bank to buy, they've paid for everything. The farm note at the bank is clear.
The cattle notes clear. Everybody's safe.
The barrett's are safe. The land, the cows, everyone is safe and being taken care of.
And we're getting a fairly an income to, you know, to live and take care of ourselves. And I don't know any more specifically.
I could go through the whole list of people, but that kind of a shit show, it's been.
Looking back on it, I can see where we were very vulnerable and in a place of. We were afraid and vulnerable, and people like that get taken advantage of, and some things happened, you know, that promises were made that didn't get fulfilled and, you know, things like that.
But, you know, ultimately, we ended up under the umbrella and the care of this wonderful foundation whose mission we were very much aligned with. We're still trying to.
Okay, so the foundation also invested in transitioning one of our poultry houses into a mushroom growing facility.
And that was what we were really hoping would come to fruition. And that's kind of the path we were on this whole time was changing from chicken farming to whatever else we could grow in those chicken houses to make us a living, you know, from chickens to whatever. And we had feasibility studies. People come through specialists and to determine which would be the best, you know, most cost effective, best way to go. And just kept coming back to mushrooms. Mushrooms were going to be the way to go.
We were ecstatic. It still are about mushrooms. Crazy about the WHole MuShrOOm world still feels very Brand new, and, you know, it's just opened up to us. But they. The investment was through a specific phase of the project where we went through research and development and very much proved that we could grow mushrooms in there. It was successful, but things like outsourcing the substrate was cost prohibitive, and we had some issues with.
With. With that substrate and with this new technology, and that was supposed to be this, you know, new thing that was going to take over the mushroom industry.
And.
And then there was also issues with getting contracts. ROdney and I were not involved with any of this planning.
There was a consultant and another, what you call, organization that was kind of heading up what was happening here at the Farm.
So we were just carrying out instructions here, and it was going really well. We were growing mushrooms, and it was gorgeous and beautiful, and we were really excited about it. But since the distribution part was an issue, marketing the, you know, people who were trying to get us a contract, they were. It was a bit ambitious, if I may say so. They were thinking really large scale, big, huge industrial contracts, and none of that ever came to fruition. And so currently we have this beautiful, state of the art mushroom growing facility that's shuttered, and we're still in conversation with people. We're still looking for a way to move that forward because in my mind, I can't imagine anything more complete, wholesome. It's like this. To go from the depths of stinky, dark, shitty chicken house to gleaming, glowing mushrooms, I just can't think of anything more profound and beautiful and to streamline it in a way where other chicken farmers can adapt it.
But it, right as of right now, it's just at a standstill and not at a standstill because we're still hopeful and we're still in conversation, and the facility is still there. I mean, it's there that is there.
And so there's so much potential in that area. There's so much potential for it to actually happen. I don't know what has to line up exactly for everything to, you know, to happen, but I do feel, I have faith that if it's come this far, if it's come this far, that I have faith that it will. Something will happen. Somebody will see it. Somebody will see the benefit, the potential, the beauty in it, and that, you know, it will come back to life.
[01:08:32] Speaker B: First of all, thanks. Thank you for sharing all that. And it's a cool story. It's a really interesting story.
But that transitioning to plant based farming from agricultural farming and, like, you know, like animal animal farming to plant based farming, it's like, yeah, got to figure it out. Like, it's the figuring it out that I think is so interesting because think of, like, old timey farming. You know, it's like someone's got a farm and they raise some cattle, they raise some crops, or whatever it is, it's like, that's not what you're doing. You were doing, like, modern farming with these big barns and 60,000 chickens, and, like, you're stuck in the economy of a big corporation that's selling you the chickens, selling you the feed, like, doing the marketing and everything, the idea of farming this, like, kind of natural, symbiotic thing with the land that wasn't what you were in, and you're trying to kind of find your way back to that through plant based farming. And of course it's going to be difficult, and of course it's going to be like, it's like you had this grand experiment with mushrooms and let's see what happens next. But the willingness to take that leap and kind of figure it out as you go along and keep that positive energy, knowing that positive energy will attract, like, minds, I think that's awesome. That's amazing. I did want to ask you a question. And by the way, that's, like, for anyone here who's like, oh, I thought this was going to be a happy ending story. It is a happy ending story, right? Like, you're still figuring it out. But there's a couple things I really want to hit on before we move to the end.
What do you think would have happened had your letter of the universe gone unanswered? So you put out this letter to the universe and you sent it to two people. How dare you? Ritual for not responding. But where were you, man? But anyways, uh, what would have happened? Where do you think you'd be right now had, had no one answered?
[01:10:19] Speaker A: I've actually asked Rodney that, like, what would we have done? And he said that we would have quit anyway. He said I would have figured something out because he could see how much it was taking a toll on me, and.
And it was on him, too.
It was just such an impossible thing to.
Because I believe that, you know, farmers are people of integrity. I'm not saying that that's exclusive to farmers, but that Rodney and I really, we strive to be people of integrity and honesty, to know what we know.
And then in that position, to have been stuck, we still didn't feel.
I mean, we were definitely stuck financially in the debt and everything, but our spirits were not stuck. And I believe that it would have been, come what may.
Whatever happens, no matter what happens, we cannot continue down this road. It wasn't just for us anymore, but when we really started to consider the consumer, it was like, I can't raise a product that's going to make somebody else's baby sick or you or, or my friend or I can't continue to, like, just participate in this thing. And so I believe that if the letter had gone unanswered, that something would have happened eventually and probably in short order, that we would have figured out some way to quit, even if it was selling out, which that was not. What we wanted to do was, you know, to sell all the cows, sell the land, you know, sell the farm, keep one tiny little piece of it or something that we could afford and, you know, I don't know, live in a cabin woods for the rest of our life. I don't know, but we could not keep going.
[01:12:44] Speaker B: Do you mind if I contrast your, your young self with your adult self?
[01:12:49] Speaker A: No, I don't mind at all.
[01:12:50] Speaker B: It stands out to me that at 14, when you saw how chickens were raised, that they were raised in these giant barns where they're so crowded that they had no space to move and they had no space to move because that increased their weight rather than just letting them run around, like run out there and kind of burn off calories or whatever. If we can find chickens in these big barns, then we can get more money for them. And at 14, you're like, oh, that's smart. Like, oh, that makes sense. That makes sense to me. And then you as an adult running a business, that while there were a lot of financial challenges, you're making a living and you're, you saying this, this might make, this might make sense from a business perspective, but I'm un, I can't sustain this from an ethical or spiritual perspective. And those, those two things where it's like, you can totally see the logic of it at like a young mind, but after, like, as an adult, after living this life, being able to be like, yeah, it still makes sense, but it doesn't make sense for my spirit or my soul or what I think it's right. So, no, come what may, and I love that you said that, come what may come way, I'm going to get out of here. And that's going to even start with just writing a letter to the universe, which is the least logical thing to do. So we're like, at 14, we're like, well, that makes sense to, you know, like, whatever age you were and you wrote that letter. It's like, dear universe, but it's the thing that helped you make this, like, profound change in your life.
[01:14:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
I feel like, I know that I'm a very highly sensitive person, always have been. And my compassion, especially for animals, has been this huge, like a beach ball that I have had to keep repressed throughout my farming career, throughout. I mean, because you have to make tough decisions when it comes to cows and goats and chicken. I mean, like, they are a commodity. And so livelihood wise, the compassion stayed down. And then when I embraced veganism, that compassion, it, like, it for a while, it was a, it was a mess. It was a big mess.
Like, for a few years, it took me a while to regulate, but I just, I grieved it. I grieved. Grieved the, I grieved for my own soul, for my, for having been, for having lived all of those years repressing my compassion and making choices that I knew in my spirit and in my intuition and intellect that were against my own, my own sense of what was right and wrong. And, and so, honestly, at 14, I felt like a responsible adult because I had entered into agreement with my dad and with my family, and we were taking. We were, you know, I was getting up at the bus came and picked us up at 07:00 a.m. and I had to get my little brother up, and we had picked up chickens before and done all, you know, like, I was responsible.
And then at 50, oh, I'm 51 now. I'll just turn 51. I feel like a kid. I feel like my. That compassion has turned me into, like, a.
Filled with wonderment and curiosity, and I let my love and my compassion just pour out onto. I don't hold anything back anymore. I don't. I don't. When it comes to my grandchildren and my. My personal pets, the cows, now everybody gets it, just like, I'm just gonna give it all.
And it does feel childlike, and I'm so free in that I cannot even explain the freedom that came with just letting my compassion out, just no longer feeling like I have to make any decision about anything that would compromise that for me.
And there's a level of freedom that comes with that that I can't even describe.
[01:17:36] Speaker B: Let's hit the last stop, because this is, again, like, part of the good news story for me.
Tell us about the cattle that you're now the steward of and how the relationship with them has changed since changed, since you've changed the.
[01:17:51] Speaker A: Well, as much as I love to talk about mushrooms, cows are exponentially. I cannot even. I could go on and on and on.
[01:18:00] Speaker B: You find it very moving.
[01:18:02] Speaker A: It's been healing. Kathy. Breast moving.
But my friend Kathy has called me the Jane Goodall of cows in 2020 was late 2019.
They still all were wearing numbers in their ears. They were still part of the cow calf herd. We stopped breeding in June of 2018, about the same time we stopped raising chickens. But so they all had numbers, and we kept finding ourselves having conversations about number 45, number 77, number 13, and I couldn't even hardly bear it for them to be referred to as numbers. So I decided that we were going to exchange all of their ear tags with names.
So I had to come up with 250 names. That was a whole thing.
That was a challenge in of itself. Came with 250 names, custom made, 250 ear tags with names on them. So they all have an identity. Every one of them has a name and an identity, and most of them have had a baby and have their babies with them.
The herd that we had when we stopped had all been bred. And so the winter of 2019, we had calves, so our cow herd doubled, and they're all still here. So. But what happened was it.
It allowed the mothers and the babies to all remain together, which never happens.
A ten month old calf is about at weaning weight, and that's usually less than a year. They are taken from their mothers and taken to the cell barn.
So for calves to still be with their mothers almost six years later is almost unheard of.
The cows that we have are brangus, which is a cross. They're an f. One cross between a Bremer and an Angus. And they're very known for their salty disposition. We used to call them velociraptors.
I mean, a bunch of monsters, fire breathing dragons, and. But the reason that they are that way is because they're. They have. Their maternal instincts are so developed that they make good mamas. That's why a lot of cattle ranchers choose brangus, is because they're good mamas.
And so now, all these years later, having gotten to know them as these individuals and their names and who their babies are, and watching them, their social structure in this undisturbed environment, them allowing us to be part of that, there's still some that are, that don't let you approach. You know, they're still kind of leery, but most of them, if I'm standing out in the field with them, they don't care that I'm there. And many of them now will approach me for social grooming, which is me scratching them.
I mean, I've had them get up from laying down to come over to me now, and it's. I really think I should try to find some sort of research grant or something because I don't think this has happened in the history of ever of a cattle herd of this caliber.
You know, going from cow calf to a velociraptor, fire breathing dragons, to being this, you know, herd full of.
I hate calling them cow puppies because it sounds. I don't know, but they are. They're just. They're very sweet, very trusting, and being out with them and just being witness to their natural social structures and how emotionally intelligent they are and how wonderfully, like, funny and quirky, and they all have their own personalities. And just like your dog, it's. It's been healing. Um, I'll tell a quick story, like, really quick. One of the. The things that stays with me. I think about this one cow every single day. Her name was baby and she was a bottle calf. Um, a lot of times, you know, you, when you're raising cow calf, something always happens every calf season where one of them ends up needing to be bottle fed.
And so this one, this particular bottle baby, I had a herd of goats, and she took up with the goats. She thought she was a goat.
She would not stay with the cow. She stayed with the goats. And since I was more intimately involved with the goats and her, it. I got attached to her, and I named her baby, and we ended up taking her to the sale barn because that's what farmers do.
We didn't raise. We don't raise calves for pets.
And she eventually just. It was time, and she had to go to the sale barn. And I.
Every single day, I see the look on her face when. And I don't torture myself and beat myself up about it like I used to, but whenever we offloaded her, she went into the chute at the cell pens, and just with all the other cow, all the other cows that were there, just another head of cow, a cowboy slapped this tag on her ass. They all get a number when they're going through the auction.
And. And then she. She looked back at me, like, confused.
And I shut it down. I shut down what I was feeling and went back to the truck, and just. And Rodney, even when he got in the truck, he was like, you know, we can go back and get her. We don't have to sell her. And I was like, we already made this decision, and it's already. I mean, like, we're farmers. I was being so, so practical, so, so practical. And.
And, um, I thought I was, like, carrying out good farming practices, and, um, I think about her every day, and.
And I think about her when I'm out with the cows. And, um.
And it has healed me to, um, forgive myself for carrying out this act that any farmer or rancher, I mean, that's not unheard of.
It is to me now as a vegan, to look at that situation and go, how could I make that decision? It would have been like taking my dog and giving it to somebody to euthanize and cut up for meat.
I hold that memory very sacred and precious to me because it was such a profound act and action that was completely against my nature, and I knew it when it was happening. But in the name of agriculture, in the name of good cattle farming, ranching practices, I had to make this decision, which I know every farmer and rancher does. And that's why they don't name their cows. That's why they don't do that.
[01:26:41] Speaker B: You know, I. So I can't see Monica right now. Monica's. Monica and I are married, so she's, like, sitting right around the corner from me, and I know she's got tears in her eyes based on that story. And, like, someone listening to this podcast who thinks veganism is stupid, stupid. And who thinks that animals are here for us to eat would be laughing, would be like, oh, that's. That's totally. That's so corny. Da da da da da. But if you sub in a dog, they'd be like, oh, yeah, you know the thing, and I've hit on this a couple times on the podcast. It just depends, like, what angle you come at. Like, to someone who's vegan or cares about stuff like this. Like, the story you just told is, like, super powerful and haunting and. And matters. And to someone who doesn't care about this stuff, it's ridiculous and stupid. And for someone who is involved in animal agriculture, it's very easy if you're vegan, to be like, oh, you're a murderer, and you're a terrible person. Where on that side, that person's like, well, no, it's just like, good ranching practices, how it's raised. It's how I feed my family. None of this stuff is black and white. Like, what one person's, like, incredible, incredibly powerful story is another person's genius joke.
The way that one person makes their living and is, like, difficult and noble in their mind is murder from another person's perspective. And I think to create any, not just change in how we interact with the world and the natural world in animals, but even, like, from a business perspective, a whole lot of, like, how do we talk about these things in a respectful way and, like, really get there with each other over time? Which, going right back to some of the earlier conversation, when you're talking about your community, it's just like, you kind of outlasted them. Eventually. They're like, yeah, okay, you're still our people, right? You outlasted them. And, of course, a sad event brought you all back together, but you're still there. Well, listen, thank you so much for sharing everything that you shared. Incredible conversation. Before we get to the end, we're going to take you through the crucial three. And the crucial three is three increasingly difficult questions before we get to the close. You ready to go through this process? The process of changing over the farm from being agricultural based to being kind of like a sanctuary and kind of figuring out how it could be plant based?
What have you learned about yourself as a person that you wouldn't have known otherwise?
[01:29:06] Speaker A: Smart I am and how strong I am.
I felt like I had done, like.
Like I kind of had been bamboozled, and I never felt like chicken farming was ever taken as, you know, a really intellectual job anyway. And so I kind of felt like I was. I don't know, but my, my very curious mind led me down this to finding this truth. And so I have found out that curiosity is good and that I am smart. And I don't think I would have known that if I had just kept on chicken farming. I don't think that I would have, you know, I don't know. Those are the. And I also my resilience and I think feeling that I'm taking care of no matter what, I really believe that. Now.
[01:30:11] Speaker B: What kind of advice would you have for people who are struggling?
They're in an industry or in a position where they're financially tied to something that they deeply disagree with. And it doesn't just have to be animal aggregate culture, you know, could be whatever it is. What advice would you have for someone around following their conscience and being able to do that?
[01:30:35] Speaker A: Well, I definitely wouldn't quit my job.
I wouldn't recommend doing that because that was really hard, and. But I would very much.
I think that people who are seeking to do the right thing, that there's always a right thing to do. And my other little piece of advice would be to look for the helpers. That's. That's a quote from Mister Rogers, and that was something that I carried with me. Kathy even said that during times of struggle was, look for the helpers. They're always there. Look for the helpers.
If you don't find them writing a letter, then keep looking. They're there. They are there. The helpers are there.
[01:31:22] Speaker B: Heck yeah. All right, final question.
Where do you see yourself five years from now? Ten years from now and 15 years from now? So each one five, then ten, then 15. You and the farm.
[01:31:42] Speaker A: Oh, that is hard.
Well, five years from now, I would like to see the cows on more land. Right now, they are like, there's too many for the amount of land we have, so we're having to ship in hay. I would love for them to be spread out more and have enough land to sustain themselves. It seems like a big ask, but it's. That's where I see myself going, because the cows to me are like, the cows in the soil have taken, like, this big priority in my life.
And so I see the farm possibly a little bit bigger land wise.
The cows are still fairly young, and so they'll still be here. That that job will still be there ten years as well.
We'll still have cows about the 15 year mark. That's probably when they're really going to start dwindling off and.
But I see myself writing a book, possibly, and this is, you know, kind of in the works, making a movie and to share my story in as many ways that would make an impact on.
I don't feel any longer like I have to save the world, but I do feel that I have something to say. And whether that's through writing a book or whatever I see myself writing and possibly speaking, I still have far to go. But by the 15 year mark, as much as I've evolved just over the last six years, I think by the time I'm. I mean, I'm 51 now, so how old will I be in 15 years? 66.
Doing something pretty cool. I don't know what it'll be.
I can see myself having a pretty fucking cool life, so. Yeah.
[01:34:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Excellent. All right, as we're closing off anything that you want to share with the audience, any last words?
[01:34:22] Speaker A: Eat more plants, eat less animals, and follow your heart.
As scary as it is and even, no matter what position you may be in where you feel like you cannot, that it always pays off to listen to your own intuition and follow your heart.
[01:34:51] Speaker B: Heck, yeah. All right, well, thank you so much for being on the show, everyone. I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. I'm a big believer in following your own heart and eating more veggies. And we'll see you next time on one step beyond.
[01:35:13] Speaker A: What that. Beyond.
