WEBVTT 00:00:01.490 --> 00:00:06.947 Today is August 7th 2015. My name is Christina VM interviewing for 00:00:06.980 --> 00:00:12.706 Arizona State University Dinner 2440. I'm asking you to um, interviewing 00:00:12.739 --> 00:00:18.925 Mr Arnette Duncan. Arnette Duncan. Can you spell, can you spell your first 00:00:18.958 --> 00:00:24.925 name? Sure. It's a RNO tt and Duncan is D UN. Can thank you. And then 00:00:24.958 --> 00:00:30.776 could I ask you to say your title as well and the organization that you 00:00:30.809 --> 00:00:36.676 work for for? So I work with a lot of really need people at Duncan family 00:00:36.709 --> 00:00:40.695 farms. Um just west of Phoenix, about 30 miles west of Phoenix in Goodyear 00:00:40.728 --> 00:00:45.515 , Arizona. Ok. So let's talk a little bit about um, your background and 00:00:45.548 --> 00:00:53.548 how your family got into farming. Ok. Um So my biological father passed 00:00:55.109 --> 00:01:00.815 when I was four or five. My mom remarried when I was eight or nine. And um 00:01:00.848 --> 00:01:07.406 so my dad, since I was young enough, um, you know, I just, my stepfather 00:01:07.439 --> 00:01:12.596 is my dad. So he is the third generation farmer, his farm, his family 00:01:12.629 --> 00:01:18.156 rather actually homesteaded in Arizona, the southwest corner of what is 00:01:18.189 --> 00:01:24.936 now Seventh Avenue and Southern in South Phoenix. And so I grew up as a 00:01:24.969 --> 00:01:30.885 little kid going out to the farm, you know, all summers, weekends, 00:01:30.918 --> 00:01:34.885 holidays, really, any time that we were needed and we were pretty much 00:01:34.918 --> 00:01:42.918 needed all the time. And, uh, and I just loved it. Um, you know, back then 00:01:43.138 --> 00:01:48.977 the farm was that classic Central Arizona cotton, you know, forages, 00:01:49.010 --> 00:01:57.010 cereal grains and, you know, you know, an, an, an odd, uh, an odd little, 00:01:57.689 --> 00:02:01.766 uh, you know, seed variety here or there that you would try. But for the 00:02:01.799 --> 00:02:06.596 most part, um we didn't do any vegetables. My dad, my dad did a few 00:02:06.629 --> 00:02:10.936 watermelons here and there because that's kind of what he grew up doing 00:02:10.969 --> 00:02:17.467 when he was in high school. Um Anyway, that he uh that was our, that was 00:02:17.500 --> 00:02:22.146 our, our first foray into uh vegetables, fresh fruits and vegetables was 00:02:22.179 --> 00:02:26.297 watermelons. And so my dad came by that, you know, years ago when he was 00:02:26.330 --> 00:02:31.335 in high school, um I was gonna say when all the uh when all the men went 00:02:31.368 --> 00:02:36.217 off to war in World War Two, there weren't enough guys around to harvest. 00:02:36.250 --> 00:02:39.856 And so he and his high, he organized his high school, but he's mostly 00:02:39.889 --> 00:02:44.606 football players and they went and harvested watermelons. And so that just 00:02:44.639 --> 00:02:51.346 stuck with my dad. And so shoot, he, he grew melons for decades. 00:02:51.379 --> 00:02:54.505 So tell me what it was about the farm and going out and working at it and 00:02:54.538 --> 00:02:59.126 , and what you enjoyed it. But also, you know, kind of you were young and 00:02:59.159 --> 00:03:03.416 it was hot and it's hard. Can you explain kind of, you know, it's funny 00:03:03.449 --> 00:03:06.987 looking back, you know, when, if you look at what we did today, looking 00:03:07.020 --> 00:03:13.237 back, given today's regulations, um, present age, uh, obviously, you know 00:03:13.270 --> 00:03:17.245 , now that I'm, now that I'm in my late fifties, you know, I look back on 00:03:17.278 --> 00:03:22.207 what we did and just am amazed at some of the things that we did and, and 00:03:22.240 --> 00:03:28.036 , uh, you just learned so much from being out on the farm, um, frequently 00:03:28.069 --> 00:03:31.717 on your, on your own with, you know, you with your, I was with my brother 00:03:31.750 --> 00:03:35.846 and my cousins. We're all about the same age. And, um, you know, our, our 00:03:35.879 --> 00:03:40.835 first jobs on the farm were, were basically 00:03:40.868 --> 00:03:45.457 cutting weeds, digging ditches, you know, the, the romantic part of 00:03:45.490 --> 00:03:52.547 farming. And, uh, and it was just, you know, but lunchtime and, and of 00:03:52.580 --> 00:03:56.585 course, and of course, any of our breaks that we would take, we weren't, 00:03:56.618 --> 00:04:02.495 we probably weren't tired. We just wanted to play. Um, but we took breaks 00:04:02.528 --> 00:04:05.696 and sometimes, you know, if, if the lizard got away from you, it would 00:04:05.729 --> 00:04:11.577 take a lot longer to take that break than another one. But, um, we had fun 00:04:11.610 --> 00:04:16.197 out on the farm. We learned to drive, um, we learned to drive tractors 00:04:16.230 --> 00:04:20.416 first. We learned to drive tractors before, before we could reach the 00:04:20.449 --> 00:04:25.116 pedals. And it wasn't as necessary to reach the pedals. My dad would just 00:04:25.149 --> 00:04:28.616 move the seat back on the tractor. There was a hand clutch on the John 00:04:28.649 --> 00:04:32.995 Deere tractor and, and so you could kind of scoot around to hit the brake 00:04:33.028 --> 00:04:36.406 on the left side while you were working the clutch with your hand. And, 00:04:36.439 --> 00:04:42.906 and so you, you learn to do things and, and become, I guess, self self 00:04:42.939 --> 00:04:46.276 supporting you, I guess it's a pretty good place to just learn how to do 00:04:46.309 --> 00:04:51.495 things and, and in and in doing that things that we thought were just 00:04:51.528 --> 00:04:55.836 average every day friends that we went to school with because I grew up in 00:04:55.869 --> 00:05:01.096 downtown Phoenix. Um, you know, when I was a young guy, we were, we lived 00:05:01.129 --> 00:05:07.676 on about 32nd street in Oak. And so we just drove out to the farm. Um, but 00:05:07.709 --> 00:05:11.416 , uh, yeah, it was just, it was just fun growing up on the farm, the 00:05:11.449 --> 00:05:14.666 things that the things that we did that our buddies downtown, you know, 00:05:14.699 --> 00:05:19.317 just were amazed that we could drive, you know, and I started driving cars 00:05:19.350 --> 00:05:23.825 and trucks when I was a little guy too, you know, and really, um, trying 00:05:23.858 --> 00:05:26.645 to get, you know, to the pedals and everything. There were, there were 00:05:26.678 --> 00:05:31.187 times when, you know, the old, uh, the old thick telephone book came into 00:05:31.220 --> 00:05:36.137 play frequently. So anyway, it was fun. It was fun. And then on top of 00:05:36.170 --> 00:05:43.046 just being a kid out on a farm without a lot of rules there, there was, 00:05:43.079 --> 00:05:47.856 there was this attraction to the outdoors. Um, and I couldn't put my 00:05:47.889 --> 00:05:52.967 finger on it. Even when I got into college, I didn't know. Then my first 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:57.015 year in college, um, you know, I was, I was always attracted to the 00:05:57.048 --> 00:06:02.296 natural sciences in, in high school. Um, I didn't have that opportunity to 00:06:02.329 --> 00:06:08.217 do the 4h or F fa. I went to, I went to Catholic grade schools. I went to 00:06:08.250 --> 00:06:13.515 brophy prep. Um So, you know, when, when buddies in uh in agriculture 00:06:13.548 --> 00:06:18.937 would say, hey, remember an F fa when we did this and Yeah. No, I don't. 00:06:18.970 --> 00:06:24.156 Um But I always enjoyed the natural sciences and, and when I got to my, my 00:06:24.189 --> 00:06:30.387 freshman year at the University of Arizona in Tucson, I just II, I wanted 00:06:30.420 --> 00:06:35.656 to be in agriculture. I wanted to be working outside here. We sit in my 00:06:35.689 --> 00:06:40.555 office, but this isn't the place that brings me joy. It's walking fields, 00:06:40.588 --> 00:06:48.588 it's being out um working the land, I guess. Um And it's just, 00:06:49.238 --> 00:06:53.205 it's, it's kind of funny when people, when people ask me today, what are 00:06:53.238 --> 00:06:57.406 you going to do? When are you going to retire? And, you know, I think 00:06:57.439 --> 00:07:01.257 classic farmers don't, I don't know that we ever retire really, you know, 00:07:01.290 --> 00:07:05.627 you just slow down a little bit. But my answer is kind of a pat patent. 00:07:05.660 --> 00:07:11.567 Just a, you know, I, I see myself as an Agra and I'm a consultant to my 00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:14.895 own company after I get out of everybody's way, you know, because there 00:07:14.928 --> 00:07:20.606 are these, these, these, these guys that are coming up in the, in the 00:07:20.639 --> 00:07:25.086 company are so sharp, they're dedicated. They come preloaded with so much 00:07:25.119 --> 00:07:30.197 really cool information. Um that, yeah, at some point in time I'll be 00:07:30.230 --> 00:07:34.046 getting out of their way and, and just hopefully still able to contribute 00:07:34.079 --> 00:07:38.015 at a level and, and I know I'll always be able to enjoy the farm. So, you 00:07:38.048 --> 00:07:42.406 know, hopefully they'll be patient with me and, and let me hang around. So 00:07:42.439 --> 00:07:46.217 let's talk a little bit about the work ethic. You learned working on the 00:07:46.250 --> 00:07:49.526 farm and growing up on the farm, kind of how has that played a role in 00:07:49.559 --> 00:07:53.825 your life today? 00:07:53.858 --> 00:07:58.887 You learn that hard work is what is just what everybody should do, you 00:07:58.920 --> 00:08:04.067 know, it's just hard work, isn't that difficult? If, if, when you do it 00:08:04.100 --> 00:08:10.236 every day, it's just not that difficult. Um And then when you, when you 00:08:10.269 --> 00:08:18.269 see today to, to this day, um I have a respect for people who work hard, 00:08:21.838 --> 00:08:26.705 who, who actually appreciate 00:08:26.738 --> 00:08:34.196 the art of agriculture or plumbing or electronics or, or carpentry or, or 00:08:34.229 --> 00:08:41.355 whatever it is. Um There's an artistry to that and I appreciate that at 00:08:41.388 --> 00:08:46.064 every level and to this day, you know, we have, we have wonderful people 00:08:46.097 --> 00:08:50.216 that, that we get to work with, you know, at an entry level position on 00:08:50.249 --> 00:08:56.936 the farm and, and I like to go around and, and go out and, and sometimes 00:08:56.969 --> 00:09:00.157 over in the California, one of the California farms, we have rocks 00:09:00.190 --> 00:09:03.025 everywhere. We had to pick up rocks because they were literally killing 00:09:03.058 --> 00:09:09.005 the equipment. And the only way we could do that, um, at that point in 00:09:09.038 --> 00:09:12.765 time anyway, was literally just walk out with our, with our hands and, and 00:09:12.798 --> 00:09:16.307 pick them up and throw them in a trailer. And so I remember the, you know 00:09:16.340 --> 00:09:19.846 , going by the I still to this day whenever I see a rock crew, you know, I 00:09:19.879 --> 00:09:22.996 want to go out, walk out and shake their hands and say, thank you for 00:09:23.029 --> 00:09:28.236 doing this. I know this is a, this is a hell hellish task. Thanks for 00:09:28.269 --> 00:09:30.706 doing this. And they're like, they're looking at me like, hey, what are 00:09:30.739 --> 00:09:33.596 you talking about? This is what we do, right? You know, you're paying us 00:09:33.629 --> 00:09:39.135 to do this, we do this, you know, we're good. Um And, and I just want them 00:09:39.168 --> 00:09:44.186 to know now I, I appreciate you being here. Um You could do any, you can 00:09:44.219 --> 00:09:47.996 do anything for this price, you can do anything anywhere and I just want 00:09:48.029 --> 00:09:53.537 you to know that I appreciate you doing this here today. Um And I'm sure 00:09:53.570 --> 00:09:59.356 that as I'm driving out there going, so who was that guy anyway? And, but 00:09:59.389 --> 00:10:03.667 I, you know, it just, it just gives you an appreciation for the value of 00:10:03.700 --> 00:10:11.025 what everybody does. So um hard work is hard work. I mean, but I got, I, I 00:10:11.058 --> 00:10:15.467 have to tell you a story. My uh my older son went to work with his uncle 00:10:15.500 --> 00:10:21.145 for a couple of weeks in a uh in a large food service venue, uh country 00:10:21.178 --> 00:10:27.125 club of some sort. And so, you know, Kel was, was kind of interested in, 00:10:27.158 --> 00:10:30.765 in that industry at the time. And, and so, you know, his uncle said, hey, 00:10:30.798 --> 00:10:34.927 come on out, take a look at it, see what you see, what you think. So, you 00:10:34.960 --> 00:10:38.236 know, I'm sure he probably started washing dishes, you know, bussing 00:10:38.269 --> 00:10:41.976 tables here and there just doing what anybody can do just stepping off the 00:10:42.009 --> 00:10:48.005 street. And, uh, so he'd go in early in the morning and, you know, work 00:10:48.038 --> 00:10:50.836 his work, his hours clean up from the night before whatever that looked 00:10:50.869 --> 00:10:56.875 like. And, uh, and I'll never forget that. Uh, he, he called me up the 00:10:56.908 --> 00:11:01.356 next day after work and, and he said, hey, I got to, oh, no, I talked to, 00:11:01.389 --> 00:11:05.547 I talked to, uh, I talked to my brother-in-law, his uncle, he called me up 00:11:05.580 --> 00:11:08.797 and he said, hey, I want to share you share with you an interaction that, 00:11:08.830 --> 00:11:12.116 uh, that one of my, one of my supervisors just had with cal, he said, 00:11:12.149 --> 00:11:17.996 you'll get a kick out of this. So, um, so he goes on to explain that Kell 00:11:18.029 --> 00:11:24.206 had come in early, worked all morning, um, stayed a little later to kind 00:11:24.239 --> 00:11:29.717 of help prep for something. And then they had a few people not show up for 00:11:29.750 --> 00:11:35.476 what was a large gala event that night. And so they looked at Kel, the 00:11:35.509 --> 00:11:40.236 supervisor, looks at Kel and just says, Kel, would you even consider, you 00:11:40.269 --> 00:11:44.976 know, helping serve tonight? And he said, sure, you know, I just point to 00:11:45.009 --> 00:11:49.976 where I go what I do and sure I'll, I'll do it. And so they gave him his, 00:11:50.009 --> 00:11:56.807 his, his white coat and, and, um, gloves or whatever it was and he, uh, he 00:11:56.840 --> 00:12:01.326 stays, he stays that night, late, late into the evening and works all 00:12:01.359 --> 00:12:06.057 night, helps clean up. And, um, and then shows up early the next day, 00:12:06.090 --> 00:12:09.936 which by that time is probably maybe four hours later or something shows 00:12:09.969 --> 00:12:15.547 up to work and starts doing what he normally does. And the supervisor came 00:12:15.580 --> 00:12:21.316 in, made a point of coming in to just to mention to my brother in law that 00:12:21.349 --> 00:12:27.537 Kell, what that, when she went to Kel to say, wow, 00:12:27.570 --> 00:12:31.907 that, that was incredible. I mean, the fact that you literally worked all 00:12:31.940 --> 00:12:37.476 day was just amazing. And, and, and what the report from my brother in law 00:12:37.509 --> 00:12:43.446 was. So Kel right, right off the bat, looks at her and says, oh, wait, you 00:12:43.479 --> 00:12:49.106 think that was hard work? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Um, harvesting 00:12:49.139 --> 00:12:55.557 packing watermelons at 100 and 13 degrees, you know, for 8.5 to 10.5 hours 00:12:55.590 --> 00:13:02.557 a day. That's work. This, I can do this all the time. So if that gives you 00:13:02.590 --> 00:13:05.936 an indication as to, you know, the level of appreciation that you have and 00:13:05.969 --> 00:13:10.346 , and just learning how to work hard, I think K explained it pretty well. 00:13:10.379 --> 00:13:15.217 He absolutely did. Can you tell me a little bit about kind of the? And so 00:13:15.250 --> 00:13:18.336 you get an idea that I don't have a problem telling you things. In fact, 00:13:18.369 --> 00:13:21.836 you're gonna have to shove me up when I get. So I have as much time as you 00:13:21.869 --> 00:13:26.907 do today. So my, my schedule is open. Um And it's a great story. So that's 00:13:26.940 --> 00:13:31.177 perfect. Tell me a little bit about um the harvesting of the vegetables 00:13:31.210 --> 00:13:34.417 and the family dinner table and what that was like kind of that 00:13:34.450 --> 00:13:39.537 interaction between your family and 00:13:39.570 --> 00:13:44.005 cooking. And so, 00:13:44.038 --> 00:13:46.135 so 00:13:46.168 --> 00:13:51.307 interestingly when, when the, when the boys were little, when I have, I 00:13:51.340 --> 00:13:56.186 have two boys, um, 2.5 boys, 00:13:56.219 --> 00:14:00.635 the half is that, um, because I know you're thinking, well, what is that? 00:14:00.668 --> 00:14:04.525 Um The half is a young man, 00:14:04.558 --> 00:14:08.797 young man came to us, uh when he was 14 or 15, his freshman year in high 00:14:08.830 --> 00:14:11.996 school. Uh He was on the basketball, the freshman basketball team with my 00:14:12.029 --> 00:14:17.525 younger son Sean and um 00:14:17.558 --> 00:14:23.037 his, for lack of a better definition, his family, his, his, his home 00:14:23.070 --> 00:14:30.226 situation kind of imploded and so actually maybe exploded. So, uh, he 00:14:30.259 --> 00:14:35.366 didn't have anywhere to go. So my younger son invited him to come home and 00:14:35.399 --> 00:14:40.826 spend the night and, um, you know, get dinner or whatever. And so, you 00:14:40.859 --> 00:14:47.746 know, he came over and, and we got to meet Javier is the young man's name. 00:14:47.779 --> 00:14:55.667 And, uh, so we got to meet, we got to meet hobby and so basketball starts 00:14:55.700 --> 00:15:00.875 and Kathleen's, you know, bringing hobby, you know, the, the, the freshman 00:15:00.908 --> 00:15:03.696 team, they get to go last, 00:15:03.729 --> 00:15:06.557 they're last, they're low on the to or, yeah, they're low on the total 00:15:06.590 --> 00:15:10.177 pole. So, anyway, um, 00:15:10.210 --> 00:15:15.797 Kathleen goes to take half home one night and there's just police caution 00:15:15.830 --> 00:15:22.706 tape around the entire house and make a long story short. There was 00:15:22.739 --> 00:15:26.336 his, his, most of his family was in jail and his younger sister had been 00:15:26.369 --> 00:15:30.057 taken away. He had no idea where, but there was no one to talk to the 00:15:30.090 --> 00:15:34.996 neighbors just said everybody's gone. And so have you spent the night? And 00:15:35.029 --> 00:15:41.177 , um, so we washed his clothes, got him a toothbrush. Um, 00:15:41.210 --> 00:15:44.486 and he was good to go to school the next day, but he couldn't find 00:15:44.519 --> 00:15:49.047 anything out about where he was supposed to go stay, whatever, everybody 00:15:49.080 --> 00:15:53.496 was in jail. So he spent the night again and then he spent another night 00:15:53.529 --> 00:15:58.755 and he spent another night and, you know, my, 00:15:58.788 --> 00:16:01.336 my wife, Kathleen, 00:16:01.369 --> 00:16:06.005 who is, let me just say this, it's always better to really marry. Well, um 00:16:06.038 --> 00:16:10.696 , she is absolutely the better half. She took Abby out and just said, you 00:16:10.729 --> 00:16:15.525 know, why don't you, why would it be easier to stay with us if, if he had 00:16:15.558 --> 00:16:19.037 a little bit of clothing because he, he couldn't get any clothing that the 00:16:19.070 --> 00:16:24.206 house was shut down. So, um, so we bought some clothes, um, probably got 00:16:24.239 --> 00:16:27.177 some deodorants and, you know, whatever else those guys need when they're 00:16:27.210 --> 00:16:32.586 a freshman in high school, we, we got that stuff and so the, uh, the half 00:16:32.619 --> 00:16:38.797 , um, started and so we have 2.5 boys. 00:16:38.830 --> 00:16:44.625 But anyway, um, when, when, uh, the original two K and Sean, uh, were 00:16:44.658 --> 00:16:51.206 little guys, we decided to open the farm up to the public and that was in 00:16:51.239 --> 00:16:59.239 the early nineties. And, um, and so you talk about dinner around the table 00:16:59.509 --> 00:17:04.585 and, and so it was really fun, you know, to, to have the boys out on the 00:17:04.618 --> 00:17:07.426 farm, right? Because they're, they're little guys and they're, they're 00:17:07.459 --> 00:17:11.137 cruising around on the farm and they, they were catching toads and chasing 00:17:11.170 --> 00:17:16.034 lizards and all the stuff that I did and they were having a ball, but I'll 00:17:16.067 --> 00:17:23.986 never forget, never forget. Um, our youngest son who was shoot 22 at the 00:17:24.019 --> 00:17:30.016 time, two something. And, um, 00:17:30.049 --> 00:17:34.746 with Kathleen had gone to get a pizza and she, she pulls down the tailgate 00:17:34.779 --> 00:17:40.045 of the truck and, and, uh, you know, we dive into our to our juice and, 00:17:40.078 --> 00:17:45.367 and pizza. And Sean says, mom, are we ever gonna have dinner at our table 00:17:45.400 --> 00:17:50.075 again? And she looks at me, 00:17:50.108 --> 00:17:54.305 I almost half choked on the pizza and it was like, ok, so we might be 00:17:54.338 --> 00:17:59.266 spending a little too much time at the farm here. How do we back off? And 00:17:59.299 --> 00:18:06.785 so we just, you know, we made a point of starting to have dinner time and 00:18:06.818 --> 00:18:11.335 making a point of, of, you know, not sitting in front of the TV, but 00:18:11.368 --> 00:18:16.976 sitting down with each other at the same table and, and having dinner. And 00:18:17.009 --> 00:18:21.467 what was really, what was really interesting is I enjoyed, I enjoy those 00:18:21.500 --> 00:18:28.607 moments so much that, that and it's a joke in the family that I, uh I, I 00:18:28.640 --> 00:18:33.406 put my fork down, maybe take a drink of milk or water or whatever and, and 00:18:33.439 --> 00:18:37.246 uh, and I just sit and, and kind of look around the table and just sort of 00:18:37.279 --> 00:18:43.986 take it all in and, and so, and so Sean the same younger son, the same guy 00:18:44.019 --> 00:18:49.815 says, you know, pops, it's a little creepy that, that you just put your 00:18:49.848 --> 00:18:52.926 fork on and kind of just stare at us for a little bit. He said, I get it. 00:18:52.959 --> 00:18:55.575 It's kind of cool. You're just enjoying the moment, but it's a little 00:18:55.608 --> 00:19:03.608 creepy. And so after we all stopped laughing, I just said, I absolutely 00:19:03.828 --> 00:19:08.127 love these moments and you're right. I would just I would just freeze this 00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:11.206 right now if I could, you know, and I'd, I'd look at those guys and say, 00:19:11.239 --> 00:19:14.976 I'd like to freeze you right where you're at too because this is, you guys 00:19:15.009 --> 00:19:19.156 are just so fun all the time and, and they're just like, they just hit you 00:19:19.189 --> 00:19:25.206 , you know, and just go. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Pops. Um, so dinner was, 00:19:25.239 --> 00:19:30.426 dinner was just time with family, you know. So breakfast and dinner, I 00:19:30.459 --> 00:19:34.107 didn't have lunch with them and, and I got to the point where I'd start to 00:19:34.140 --> 00:19:37.887 go into work just a little bit later just so that I could have breakfast 00:19:37.920 --> 00:19:41.776 with them before they went to school so that I could see them twice a day 00:19:41.809 --> 00:19:45.545 . I get to see them in the morning and get to see them at night and I'd 00:19:45.578 --> 00:19:49.717 stay at work a little bit later, but I'd still get them at night and, and 00:19:49.750 --> 00:19:56.476 in the day and to me that, that was twice as much time and, and I think it 00:19:56.509 --> 00:20:00.486 was the same with them. Um, 00:20:00.519 --> 00:20:04.575 but I, I'll never know because I'm not gonna ask him. But to me it was, it 00:20:04.608 --> 00:20:08.397 was a significant thing and then it happens at the dinner table that makes 00:20:08.430 --> 00:20:13.127 it so important. It makes you enjoy those stories, stories about what you 00:20:13.160 --> 00:20:17.426 did during the day and, and, you know, for us, I gotta tell you, you know 00:20:17.459 --> 00:20:21.026 , when they were that age, it wasn't so much about the preparation of the 00:20:21.059 --> 00:20:24.226 food or anything. And oh my God. And when they got older, it definitely 00:20:24.259 --> 00:20:29.256 was not about the preparation of the food. Because as they grew their six 00:20:29.289 --> 00:20:36.936 , they're 65 and 64 J six or 61 and their friends, we had the, we had the 00:20:36.969 --> 00:20:40.976 , you know, the Kool Aid house if you will. So all their friends and we 00:20:41.009 --> 00:20:45.166 loved it. We wanted to have that house where everybody came, you know, we 00:20:45.199 --> 00:20:48.045 wanted the house that everybody came to because we, we love knowing what 00:20:48.078 --> 00:20:54.795 they were up to, you know, and, and, um, and just enjoyed, enjoyed that 00:20:54.828 --> 00:20:59.406 time with them so much but honest, honestly, I'll never forget Kathleen 00:20:59.439 --> 00:21:02.877 running back into the back room one time just going. You got to come out 00:21:02.910 --> 00:21:06.335 and help me. She's going, I literally cannot prepare food fast enough to 00:21:06.368 --> 00:21:10.196 get in front of these guys. II, I just, they're, they're, they're starving 00:21:10.229 --> 00:21:14.996 , you know, there's, there's no chunks out of the furniture yet. But, you 00:21:15.029 --> 00:21:19.496 know, you gotta, you gotta give me a hand here. The microwave isn't fast 00:21:19.529 --> 00:21:24.085 enough. So, uh, so I went out and, and here's, you know, part of the 00:21:24.118 --> 00:21:27.976 basketball team, some guys from the baseball team, football team and, and 00:21:28.009 --> 00:21:32.166 they're all big, they're all big guys and they were just tearing through 00:21:32.199 --> 00:21:37.496 the food. And so I, I have to admit that, you know, when, when, uh, in, in 00:21:37.529 --> 00:21:41.456 their formative ages shall we say? They probably weren't eating the best 00:21:41.489 --> 00:21:46.055 stuff around, just massive quantities of it. You know, as they're tearing 00:21:46.088 --> 00:21:50.206 through me, you know, huge numbers of calories every day as they're, as 00:21:50.239 --> 00:21:54.166 they're lifting in the morning running and then, and then, you know, open 00:21:54.199 --> 00:21:57.726 gym or whatever the season, you know, look like. So, yeah, we were just 00:21:57.759 --> 00:22:01.266 trying to keep those guys, you know, full 00:22:01.299 --> 00:22:06.325 anyway. Yeah. Sorry, I digress. No, no, no, it's great. So today, let me 00:22:06.358 --> 00:22:12.726 share with you today is so funny because uh just the other day. So now, 00:22:12.759 --> 00:22:15.887 you know, when, especially when we're in season here in Arizona, you know 00:22:15.920 --> 00:22:20.196 , now it's, it's uh, you know, I harvest, I harvest things and I take them 00:22:20.229 --> 00:22:24.666 home and, and, you know, we juice a lot, the boys juice, they, they love 00:22:24.699 --> 00:22:30.627 doing the juicing thing. We do a lot of juicing, um for breakfast and, and 00:22:30.660 --> 00:22:34.736 even to drink with lunch and maybe dinner. But, you know, for Kathleen and 00:22:34.769 --> 00:22:42.315 I dinner is a large bowl of salad with, with different ingredients. Um, 00:22:42.348 --> 00:22:47.867 but then the entree, you know, fish chicken usually will be on top and 00:22:47.900 --> 00:22:51.545 that's, that's dinner. And then we usually get out of the same bowl, you 00:22:51.578 --> 00:22:54.967 know, handing it back and forth and carrying on conversations about what 00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:58.717 she's doing, what I'm doing, what the boys are doing and, and uh you know 00:22:58.750 --> 00:23:02.035 , visiting about friends and, and just that's, that's dinner, but it's 00:23:02.068 --> 00:23:06.647 basically a salad with something on top and that just seems very natural 00:23:06.680 --> 00:23:10.776 to us. But, uh, I, I can't remember which, which one of our boys it was. I 00:23:10.809 --> 00:23:17.276 think it was, uh, I think it was Sean was over the other day. And, uh, and 00:23:17.309 --> 00:23:20.156 he's looking kind of rummaging through the refrigerator really quick and 00:23:20.189 --> 00:23:24.176 he's going ma, you don't have anything to eat in here. The only thing I 00:23:24.209 --> 00:23:31.285 see is there's, there's just ingredients. Yeah. And so we just, we just 00:23:31.318 --> 00:23:39.318 loved that statement so much. Um, because, you know, and, and yet he, uh, 00:23:39.358 --> 00:23:44.416 he enjoys good, healthy meals with us, but at that moment he just wanted 00:23:44.449 --> 00:23:48.565 that thing to throw in the microwave because he had, he had a short period 00:23:48.598 --> 00:23:51.387 of time and, you know, to have lunch or whatever it was he wanted, he 00:23:51.420 --> 00:23:56.906 needed to get going. So, anyway, uh, that's, that's dinner for us. So 00:23:56.939 --> 00:24:01.055 that's, those are meals, meals have been, you know, I guess just, just 00:24:01.088 --> 00:24:05.867 whenever whatever time we can get to hang out with each other, what made 00:24:05.900 --> 00:24:11.176 you decide to go into the family business? And at what point did you make 00:24:11.209 --> 00:24:15.217 that decision? Do you think? I just knew, like I said, well, early on in 00:24:15.250 --> 00:24:20.825 my, in my academic life, um, I just knew I wanted to be outside. It was, 00:24:20.858 --> 00:24:24.565 it was pretty quickly that, that I transferred that interest of just being 00:24:24.598 --> 00:24:31.107 outdoors to really wanting to learn about, um, agronomy. So, uh so I got 00:24:31.140 --> 00:24:35.785 my, my degree in Agronomy and plant genetics. I, I graduated in the early 00:24:35.818 --> 00:24:42.137 eighties and just went out to the farm. Um, the family farm and so started 00:24:42.170 --> 00:24:48.506 , started working in the family farm and doing that classic central 00:24:48.539 --> 00:24:55.717 Arizona, you know, row crop configuration. But, but there were signals to 00:24:55.750 --> 00:24:59.976 me, um, 00:25:00.009 --> 00:25:06.835 that, that I picked up. Um, I studied, I had the opportunity to study some 00:25:06.868 --> 00:25:11.065 , you know, the sale of commodities. So I, I studied the commodity market 00:25:11.098 --> 00:25:15.535 actually, you know, bought some futures, you know, with my dad's, with my 00:25:15.568 --> 00:25:21.815 dad's blessing and, and uh we went in together and, and we, we bought and 00:25:21.848 --> 00:25:27.295 sold cotton so that I could learn um how to buy and sell cotton, how to 00:25:27.328 --> 00:25:31.565 market more efficiently because, you know, the easiest thing sometimes in 00:25:31.598 --> 00:25:35.236 the fresh fruit and vegetable, any crop that you're growing, any part of 00:25:35.269 --> 00:25:39.916 agriculture, the easiest thing to do is to produce the most challenging is 00:25:39.949 --> 00:25:47.949 to market. And, and so I wanted to learn this thing about cotton marketing. 00:25:48.469 --> 00:25:54.526 And so uh it just happened to be at a time in, in the marketing in the, 00:25:54.559 --> 00:26:01.867 in the overall distribution of, of cotton as a, as a global commodity. Um 00:26:01.900 --> 00:26:05.535 It was just shifting from a domestically grown, domestically used 00:26:05.568 --> 00:26:12.467 commodity to global. And so for so for the first time, for an example, 00:26:12.500 --> 00:26:18.085 you'd see a massive hailstorm go through, you know, the cotton belt and 00:26:18.118 --> 00:26:23.825 the market didn't budge and it was, it was, it was earth shaking. You know 00:26:23.858 --> 00:26:28.446 , it was, everybody in the room was looking at was looking at the reports 00:26:28.479 --> 00:26:35.607 of, of potential damage to the cotton crop and, and yet there was no 00:26:35.640 --> 00:26:39.075 movement in the cotton market in the futures market. And what in the world 00:26:39.108 --> 00:26:45.805 was going on unbeknownst to us growers. Um 00:26:45.838 --> 00:26:51.887 There were reports that other countries had now had the ability and wanted 00:26:51.920 --> 00:26:59.585 to move cotton into the world market. So the world, the world marketers, 00:26:59.618 --> 00:27:04.256 the uh the world buyers of cotton took that into consideration. And so 00:27:04.289 --> 00:27:08.887 market didn't budge the in the inventory was now out there and the United 00:27:08.920 --> 00:27:16.246 States inventory of cotton was just one of many. And so at that point, you 00:27:16.279 --> 00:27:20.065 start to realize, you know, my, my immediate reaction was to look at the 00:27:20.098 --> 00:27:23.825 price of cotton that day and just go wait, that means we're going to have 00:27:23.858 --> 00:27:28.785 to grow cotton for this amount. That's not gonna happen. So then you 00:27:28.818 --> 00:27:36.196 realize as a, as a commodity grower that, that now you're dealing, now 00:27:36.229 --> 00:27:41.857 you're farming the government and now you, you play to the whims of the 00:27:41.890 --> 00:27:45.166 not to say that it's the whims, but that's, I'm sorry, that's the first 00:27:45.199 --> 00:27:50.776 word that comes to mind of the, of the federal government. And so trying 00:27:50.809 --> 00:27:55.436 to figure out what you're doing every, every other year or at the very 00:27:55.469 --> 00:28:01.127 least every five years. Extremely challenging. Um, and not only that, I'm 00:28:01.160 --> 00:28:04.936 a farmer. I like growing crops. I don't, I don't want to have to farm the 00:28:04.969 --> 00:28:09.097 government. That's not what I do. That's not what I get enjoyment out of. 00:28:09.130 --> 00:28:15.607 So that changed how I looked at farming. It changed how I look at 00:28:15.640 --> 00:28:20.377 marketing. So I wanted to get into crops that could stand on their own 00:28:20.410 --> 00:28:24.147 where I could put a budget together. And, and so by the way, you ought to 00:28:24.180 --> 00:28:28.217 know that, that around here we use a lot of sports analogies. So we use 00:28:28.250 --> 00:28:33.406 the, you know, if so if you're batting in baseball and you step up and, 00:28:33.439 --> 00:28:37.006 you know, there's an average of a certain number of certainly strikeouts 00:28:37.039 --> 00:28:41.647 walks, um, singles, doubles, triples, home runs, you know, if you're 00:28:41.680 --> 00:28:44.976 putting a budget together and it requires you to hit a, you know, a double 00:28:45.009 --> 00:28:48.545 or a triple every time you step up to the plate. Man, that's, those are 00:28:48.578 --> 00:28:52.936 tough odds, like almost impossible. But yet that's what we're looking at. 00:28:52.969 --> 00:28:56.276 So then who's, how do, how do we make money without the government 00:28:56.309 --> 00:28:59.795 stepping in and saying, oh, hey, let me carry that ball for you and throw 00:28:59.828 --> 00:29:05.305 it a little further into the field. Um, oh, that was tough. So I wanted to 00:29:05.338 --> 00:29:11.575 get into something that would allow me to be profitable. And so I really 00:29:11.608 --> 00:29:16.897 wanted to get into more of the fresh fruits and vegetables and, and so, uh 00:29:16.930 --> 00:29:21.656 , we started to do that. And it was right about that time when we first 00:29:21.689 --> 00:29:25.717 started into we as a family, my, my dad, my brothers, we all farmed 00:29:25.750 --> 00:29:30.696 together at one point um in my dad's company, agricultural enterprises. 00:29:30.729 --> 00:29:37.726 And uh and so it was, it was actually right around that time when we 00:29:37.759 --> 00:29:40.637 realized that 00:29:40.670 --> 00:29:46.357 that um we had very different, we being myself and, and, and my brothers 00:29:46.390 --> 00:29:49.936 and my dad just had different ways of farming and, and what was important 00:29:49.969 --> 00:29:54.426 to me was maybe not as important to them. And so, you know, with 00:29:54.459 --> 00:29:57.156 everybody's blessing, Kathleen and I kind of broke off and did our own 00:29:57.189 --> 00:30:02.236 thing. And so it was sort of a slow, it was a transition that, that took 00:30:02.269 --> 00:30:06.377 place in the mid eighties and, and, uh, and finished in the late eighties 00:30:06.410 --> 00:30:13.857 around 88. And so we started, we started our own farm and, um, and 00:30:13.890 --> 00:30:19.246 sometimes it's just better to be lucky than good. And we grew mostly 00:30:19.279 --> 00:30:24.857 vegetables, still growing a little bit of cotton at that time. Um, but we 00:30:24.890 --> 00:30:30.347 did, we did well enough to keep going and there were some extremely 00:30:30.380 --> 00:30:38.166 slim years. Um, there were times when, when I'd go home and Kathleen and I 00:30:38.199 --> 00:30:40.956 would grab the boys and we'd, we'd look at them and just say, listen, guys 00:30:40.989 --> 00:30:43.137 , 00:30:43.170 --> 00:30:50.196 here's a wrap. Um, and to look at really young faces, really young faces 00:30:50.229 --> 00:30:55.535 and to try and, and let them know that you know, listen, it's not all lost 00:30:55.568 --> 00:30:59.305 or anything, but we're gonna have to be tight here, you know. So when your 00:30:59.338 --> 00:31:02.766 buddies come and they've got a new skateboard and, and you're not able to 00:31:02.799 --> 00:31:10.799 get one here's what's up, here's what's going on. Um, so they learned, 00:31:10.939 --> 00:31:15.107 they learned early on, you know, you, you save when you can and, and when 00:31:15.140 --> 00:31:19.676 you, and when you, when you'd hit a home run and you'd, and you'd have a 00:31:19.709 --> 00:31:23.815 good melon crop or broccoli or whatever potato, whatever that crop might 00:31:23.848 --> 00:31:28.835 have been. Um, you save it and you wait and, and you hold on to that and 00:31:28.868 --> 00:31:35.266 you learn to be conservative. And I think, I think learning to farm on my 00:31:35.299 --> 00:31:40.446 own during a period when central Arizona agriculture was not really 00:31:40.479 --> 00:31:44.387 swinging from the trees so much. Um, it was very difficult. It was, it was 00:31:44.420 --> 00:31:49.226 , you had to, if you could make it at that time, I think you can make it 00:31:49.259 --> 00:31:54.607 anywhere. And, uh, and so we learned to farm in those in those times. And 00:31:54.640 --> 00:32:02.476 so you really learned to save and budget and, um, be conservative, 00:32:02.509 --> 00:32:08.526 fiscally conservative. So, anyway, so now I've been taken off, what was 00:32:08.559 --> 00:32:13.456 the original question? I'm gonna follow up with a, a question about the 00:32:13.489 --> 00:32:18.496 decision to, um, split up. I mean, what was that impact for you? I mean, 00:32:18.529 --> 00:32:25.147 personally, it must have been one of the hardest decisions you made and 00:32:25.180 --> 00:32:30.877 how did you make that decision. It was really interesting. Um I'm kind of 00:32:30.910 --> 00:32:36.295 a systems guy. Um, we also joke about a fairly, fairly healthy level of, 00:32:36.328 --> 00:32:41.607 of O CD in my family with me. And uh so there's a lot of funny jokes about 00:32:41.640 --> 00:32:45.916 that and, uh and I, and I wear that badge um somewhat proudly. So I'm, I'm 00:32:45.949 --> 00:32:52.055 good with it at the very least I'm good with it. Um 00:32:52.088 --> 00:32:56.166 Because, because at the end of the day when you're in agriculture, I don't 00:32:56.199 --> 00:33:01.825 know that having a healthy amount of O CD doesn't help you, you know, pay 00:33:01.858 --> 00:33:07.565 attention to detail um to create systems of efficiency that, that help 00:33:07.598 --> 00:33:11.236 everybody, you know, work together more efficiently and, and so that you 00:33:11.269 --> 00:33:14.926 don't, so that you can work smarter and not harder because that at the end 00:33:14.959 --> 00:33:17.696 of the day, I think is what has helped us kind of move forward a little 00:33:17.729 --> 00:33:21.906 bit. Um 00:33:21.939 --> 00:33:28.196 So the decision was, was Kathleen and I went to have dinner with my folks 00:33:28.229 --> 00:33:33.906 and, and I wanted, I had an, I had an idea and uh so I, I wanted to meet 00:33:33.939 --> 00:33:38.467 with my dad with my, with my parents in general knowing that knowing that 00:33:38.500 --> 00:33:42.347 there was a chance that, that this could go, you know, one or two ways. 00:33:42.380 --> 00:33:46.785 And uh one was that he would, he would like the idea and move forward with. 00:33:46.818 --> 00:33:52.085 And the idea was, um here's, here's how we can organize this farm. So 00:33:52.118 --> 00:33:56.335 that the brothers aren't overlapping and yet not dropping the ball or 00:33:56.368 --> 00:34:00.085 creating gaps in between us. So here's how we can organize this so that 00:34:00.118 --> 00:34:05.906 here's how the literally an organizational chart flow of personnel flow of 00:34:05.939 --> 00:34:10.146 equipment, you know, and, and, you know, I, I thought, I thought I had 00:34:10.179 --> 00:34:13.425 laid out pretty well, you know, and actually my dad did too. He looked at 00:34:13.458 --> 00:34:16.896 it. He said, yeah, that'd be great if I wanted to do that. But he just 00:34:16.929 --> 00:34:20.655 looked at me. He just looked at both Kathleen and I, he said, I have never 00:34:20.688 --> 00:34:25.686 wanted you guys to farm together, never wanted to. That would be the worst 00:34:25.719 --> 00:34:29.945 idea in the world for you guys to farm together because unbeknownst to me 00:34:29.978 --> 00:34:34.467 , he and his family had tried that and it didn't work very well and he 00:34:34.500 --> 00:34:39.345 didn't want to create that situation that threw us all into the, into the 00:34:39.378 --> 00:34:45.195 same bucket and, and, um, and, and tight work environment. He just thought 00:34:45.228 --> 00:34:50.405 I'm not gonna do that to you. So he just said, I just have always wanted 00:34:50.438 --> 00:34:53.727 to create an opportunity for you guys to get in here, learn and then go 00:34:53.760 --> 00:34:58.936 and do your own thing. And so I'm looking at him going, I guess it's time 00:34:58.969 --> 00:35:04.155 for me to go do my own thing and, and, um, you know, and Kathleen kind of 00:35:04.188 --> 00:35:11.626 grabs my leg and my mom starts crying and, and, um, and I just said, great 00:35:11.659 --> 00:35:16.997 , um, I didn't know that, you know, we, we, we might have, we might have 00:35:17.030 --> 00:35:21.436 started a transition a little bit earlier so that it wouldn't be just, hey 00:35:21.469 --> 00:35:26.787 , tomorrow, I'm gonna go out and start my own thing now. But, um, no, it 00:35:26.820 --> 00:35:31.267 was, it was great with their blessing. Um, Kathleen and I, you know, 00:35:31.300 --> 00:35:34.566 literally jumped off the cliff together holding, you know, each other's 00:35:34.599 --> 00:35:40.526 hand. And, um, and we joke about those, not that moment per se, but I have 00:35:40.559 --> 00:35:46.066 to say after that, you know, uh holidays and dinners with my family became 00:35:46.099 --> 00:35:49.945 a lot more fun because we weren't, you know, grinding about the farm and 00:35:49.978 --> 00:35:53.586 what was supposed to have happened that day or, or did happen or whatever. 00:35:53.619 --> 00:35:59.577 And so it became less about work and all about family stuff again. So it 00:35:59.610 --> 00:36:04.796 was good. It was great. And, uh, and Kathleen, I still joke about the 00:36:04.829 --> 00:36:10.747 amount of work because her thought was, you know, that was a big place and 00:36:10.780 --> 00:36:14.977 , and when I got out of school, you know, I, I thought I'd be able to come 00:36:15.010 --> 00:36:18.916 in and just turn the agricultural world on its ear, you know, because, hey 00:36:18.949 --> 00:36:23.905 , I know how to do this stuff, right. And, um, I guess it's good to have 00:36:23.938 --> 00:36:27.686 self-confidence, but still that was ridiculous thinking because I get out 00:36:27.719 --> 00:36:30.396 of school and, and I could have worked, you know, I could have worked 30 00:36:30.429 --> 00:36:35.227 hours a day and, and that farm could have absorbed every last minute of 00:36:35.260 --> 00:36:42.296 that. And uh as I, as I later found out, um but when I started, when 00:36:42.329 --> 00:36:46.796 Kathleen and I were doing our own, you, you work just as hard, if not 00:36:46.829 --> 00:36:52.126 harder, but it feels different. It's just different when it's your place. 00:36:52.159 --> 00:36:57.017 And I think any business owner, any entrepreneur would feel that uh not 00:36:57.050 --> 00:37:00.606 that I'm an entrepreneur, any, any individual business owner would feel 00:37:00.639 --> 00:37:04.456 that when you, when it's your place, there's just a different feeling 00:37:04.489 --> 00:37:09.526 about it. It just feels right, it feels good. And, and so you know that 00:37:09.559 --> 00:37:13.967 every last minute that you put into it is benefiting you and your family 00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:17.706 and, and the people that you get to work with hopefully. And so it's just 00:37:17.739 --> 00:37:22.217 got, I don't know, just you don't get tired, you get physically tired, but 00:37:22.250 --> 00:37:25.655 you don't get emotionally tired. So you mentioned that you weren't an 00:37:25.688 --> 00:37:30.236 entrepreneur, however, you have to manage the business, you have to market 00:37:30.269 --> 00:37:36.807 , you have to produce. So in some ways you are an entrepreneur and in your 00:37:36.840 --> 00:37:40.405 own, right? Oh, I know, I joke about that. So just, you know, I just, I 00:37:40.438 --> 00:37:43.195 just, I jokingly go with the motto of, you know, it's better to be lucky 00:37:43.228 --> 00:37:47.106 than good. And uh and I just think that I've been incredibly lucky in my 00:37:47.139 --> 00:37:52.807 life. Do you think your business skills helped you manage and kind of 00:37:52.840 --> 00:37:58.526 transform uh the farm itself? I, I wouldn't really call myself, a, a great 00:37:58.559 --> 00:38:04.796 businessman. Um 00:38:04.829 --> 00:38:07.925 I think there's a certain amount of logic that goes forward. There's a 00:38:07.958 --> 00:38:12.827 certain amount of 00:38:12.860 --> 00:38:17.026 remember the respect for people, 00:38:17.059 --> 00:38:20.916 having a certain level of respect for the people that you work with will 00:38:20.949 --> 00:38:26.646 get you. Mm 00:38:26.679 --> 00:38:32.537 You can create good teams and we have really good teams still do. So let's 00:38:32.570 --> 00:38:35.865 talk a little bit about choosing to start on your own. The crops you chose 00:38:35.898 --> 00:38:42.477 , why you chose them. So we chose to. So we chose to go into fresh fruits 00:38:42.510 --> 00:38:46.557 and vegetables as much as possible. Although ironically enough at the time 00:38:46.590 --> 00:38:51.916 that we broke away, um financing 00:38:51.949 --> 00:38:56.026 the financial, the financial institutions were, were set up and organized. 00:38:56.059 --> 00:39:01.006 So be so much around the guarantee that the government throws, you know, 00:39:01.039 --> 00:39:05.175 that safety net underneath the commodities that you could borrow money all 00:39:05.208 --> 00:39:10.037 day long to grow, grow to go grow cotton and the, the whole, remember the 00:39:10.070 --> 00:39:15.436 Central Arizona, you know, grouping all of that. And yet I'd look at the 00:39:15.469 --> 00:39:23.469 bankers and say I can show you, I can show you how in a budget that won't 00:39:23.559 --> 00:39:27.997 work. And yet you're telling me that you won't lend me money on vegetables 00:39:28.030 --> 00:39:33.026 , but you'll lend me money for the cotton. And um it was really 00:39:33.059 --> 00:39:40.836 interesting to go through that, that cycle with, with the lenders. And so 00:39:40.869 --> 00:39:43.146 um 00:39:43.179 --> 00:39:46.936 fascinating to me to this day that they would have locked me into a 00:39:46.969 --> 00:39:51.416 business that I think would have gone out of business by now. Um, that, 00:39:51.449 --> 00:39:54.925 that model, you know, wouldn't have worked. And yet here I was looking at 00:39:54.958 --> 00:39:59.986 them saying, let me show you something that's newer and, and it's being 00:40:00.019 --> 00:40:03.497 done, you know, it's not like it's, it's new, you know, it was new to 00:40:03.530 --> 00:40:07.146 these lenders, I think. But, uh, but let me show you something that really 00:40:07.179 --> 00:40:12.227 does have a chance for succeeding. And so we, we got one lender that, that 00:40:12.260 --> 00:40:20.260 believed in us. And so we move forward and you know, it, it, it worked. 00:40:21.119 --> 00:40:29.017 And so we went into uh melons during the summer, um potatoes, broccoli, 00:40:29.050 --> 00:40:32.717 cabbage. So, so literally, people always ask me, let me share this with 00:40:32.750 --> 00:40:37.037 you. People always ask me, what do you grow? What do you grow? What do you 00:40:37.070 --> 00:40:39.695 , what do you want to grow? And I always look at everybody and just say, 00:40:39.728 --> 00:40:43.095 you know, I can tell you today what we grow. But if you ask me tomorrow 00:40:43.128 --> 00:40:45.776 and maybe there is something different, they're like, what do you mean? 00:40:45.809 --> 00:40:48.646 You know, don't you grow the same thing all the time? And I looked at him 00:40:48.679 --> 00:40:54.876 and said, I'm gonna grow whatever I can sell. And that may be totally 00:40:54.909 --> 00:40:59.227 different tomorrow because I can tell you what I'm doing today is totally 00:40:59.260 --> 00:41:06.827 different than what I was doing not too long ago. And, and so I hope 00:41:06.860 --> 00:41:12.736 that we are sharp enough that we are observant enough to identify the 00:41:12.769 --> 00:41:16.776 opportunities and take advantage of the opportunities or work our way 00:41:16.809 --> 00:41:20.146 through the challenges that then creates opportunities, but to be able to 00:41:20.179 --> 00:41:25.885 recognize opportunities, um I think that's, that's significant, you know, 00:41:25.918 --> 00:41:33.356 and, and so we went with, at the time, what we thought would make money. 00:41:33.389 --> 00:41:36.736 And so it was fresh fruits and vegetables and a little bit of cotton. And 00:41:36.769 --> 00:41:40.155 then we slowly did away with the cotton. It just didn't work in our 00:41:40.188 --> 00:41:46.675 rotation as far as um the agronomic and, and everything about it. So we 00:41:46.708 --> 00:41:50.646 went to fresh fruits and vegetables. About that time, we opened the farm 00:41:50.679 --> 00:41:56.385 to the public and we were, we had the shoot, Kathleen had, I wanna say 00:41:56.418 --> 00:42:01.175 25,000 students a year coming through the farm on educational tours, we 00:42:01.208 --> 00:42:06.106 had festivals um parties. 00:42:06.139 --> 00:42:12.695 Basically, the the farm became a way to share the farm with everybody. 00:42:12.728 --> 00:42:15.986 There were so many people that didn't still to this day don't have an idea 00:42:16.019 --> 00:42:20.175 as to what farming is about. And, and I by that, let me the example I give 00:42:20.208 --> 00:42:25.566 is the, is always the uh the UE garden. So we thought uh it, so let me 00:42:25.599 --> 00:42:28.956 tell you, we, we thought we were because uh because our are open to the 00:42:28.989 --> 00:42:32.686 public portion of the farm is, is kind of what we're known for, even 00:42:32.719 --> 00:42:38.967 though it had to close in 2002 people told me about it. And it was, it was 00:42:39.000 --> 00:42:43.115 so fun. God, you talk about the great people, um, wonderful people that, 00:42:43.148 --> 00:42:47.017 that we had the opportunity to work with. Anyway, Kathleen built an 00:42:47.050 --> 00:42:54.727 absolutely phenomenal program. Um, she took a corner of the farm and 00:42:54.760 --> 00:43:02.276 turned it into a and educational and entertaining place. And I say those 00:43:02.309 --> 00:43:07.436 two things because we found out that if you can make something 00:43:07.469 --> 00:43:12.376 entertaining and educational at the same time, it has a much greater value 00:43:12.409 --> 00:43:15.276 to people 00:43:15.309 --> 00:43:23.217 and, and a farm can be that like that. There are so as an example, the, 00:43:23.250 --> 00:43:26.936 the um the, the pick your own because we thought we were selling 00:43:26.969 --> 00:43:29.126 vegetables. When we opened the farm in the pub, we thought we were selling 00:43:29.159 --> 00:43:31.997 fresh fruits and vegetables. They're right in your backyard. They're gonna 00:43:32.030 --> 00:43:35.396 taste better, they're fresh. That's why you should come and buy your, your 00:43:35.429 --> 00:43:40.077 fresh fruits and vegetables from us could not have been more wrong. We're 00:43:40.110 --> 00:43:44.977 here. We are in Arizona where basically 90% of, you know, all of the 00:43:45.010 --> 00:43:49.356 greens from, for the country come out of here during the winter. We get 00:43:49.389 --> 00:43:55.577 pretty fresh stuff here. So it's not that big of a deal and you know, the 00:43:55.610 --> 00:43:58.977 fruits during the summer, it's just not that big of a deal because we're 00:43:59.010 --> 00:44:06.046 in Arizona. Um But we just thought that people wanted that um because 00:44:06.079 --> 00:44:09.227 people always said, well, God, we'd love to buy your stuff. Why can't we 00:44:09.260 --> 00:44:13.845 find your stuff? And so we thought we were selling vegetables. Um So we 00:44:13.878 --> 00:44:19.537 had this amazingly beautiful, I mean, literally people would come in and 00:44:19.570 --> 00:44:23.077 take pictures of the wet rack that we had with all the fresh fruits and 00:44:23.110 --> 00:44:27.327 vegetables that we were growing. And, and because it's yours, right? You 00:44:27.360 --> 00:44:30.517 and because you have one person in the market and that's their job is to 00:44:30.550 --> 00:44:34.126 make sure that that thing is, is full all the time. And I mean, it was 00:44:34.159 --> 00:44:37.586 beautiful. It was, it was literally take a picture of it, you know, hang 00:44:37.619 --> 00:44:42.836 it up on the wall kind of thing. Um But people would walk in mom and dad 00:44:42.869 --> 00:44:49.385 and 2.1 kids and they'd walk in and, and go, oh you harvested the carrots. 00:44:49.418 --> 00:44:55.396 We, we thought we'd be able to dig our own like, so, you know, I'm, I'm 00:44:55.429 --> 00:44:58.747 dumb but I'm not an idiot. So after a while, we're kind of looking at each 00:44:58.780 --> 00:45:03.936 other going, they don't, they don't want us to pick this stuff for them. 00:45:03.969 --> 00:45:08.666 All of this right here can go away. We're, we're literally just the 00:45:08.699 --> 00:45:12.256 demonstration gardens. We, we've got this other place right out here. 00:45:12.289 --> 00:45:17.307 We'll just, we'll let them go pick it. And so we had the, we had the UEC 00:45:17.340 --> 00:45:22.606 uh gardens and it never ceases to amaze me to this day how little people 00:45:22.639 --> 00:45:27.517 know about what they buy in the store every day. Um So the example I 00:45:27.550 --> 00:45:31.577 always use is uh broccoli. So we had you plant a little bit of broccoli 00:45:31.610 --> 00:45:35.416 each week. So that when it, when it's time to harvest, it doesn't all come 00:45:35.449 --> 00:45:39.256 on at the same time, you, everybody keeps coming out each week. Right. So 00:45:39.289 --> 00:45:42.686 you have to have the same amount of broccoli each week. So, everything 00:45:42.719 --> 00:45:47.327 that we grew out there was done that way. So, right next to each other, 00:45:47.360 --> 00:45:51.506 you had these little, these small planted areas where here's this week's 00:45:51.539 --> 00:45:55.195 harvest and then next week's is right next to it. And next to that is the 00:45:55.228 --> 00:46:01.916 following week and so far, so, so on this, on this one area, uh you have 00:46:01.949 --> 00:46:07.836 these, these beautiful broccoli florets, 00:46:07.869 --> 00:46:12.126 continuation of an interview with Mr Duncan. So we were talking a little 00:46:12.159 --> 00:46:17.537 bit about um the, the farm becoming um you were using the role of 00:46:17.570 --> 00:46:23.856 education and um recreation, you said, yeah, you were telling that story 00:46:23.889 --> 00:46:27.155 and I was telling you a story about the broccoli. So we actually had to 00:46:27.188 --> 00:46:32.807 get, get to the point where um it's funny, you know, so we had the, so we 00:46:32.840 --> 00:46:37.327 had these areas where there's absolutely beautiful, you know, six inch 00:46:37.360 --> 00:46:42.287 beautiful florets on, on the broccoli and, and uh but people kept 00:46:42.320 --> 00:46:46.506 wandering off into the wrong areas, you know, and, and uh so when, you 00:46:46.539 --> 00:46:50.345 know, you get kids and, and even dogs and things like that running, you 00:46:50.378 --> 00:46:55.186 know, there's a lot of destruction and they just don't get that. Um So we 00:46:55.219 --> 00:46:59.706 courted them up this, this area, not ready yet. So we had, we put arrows, 00:46:59.739 --> 00:47:06.227 you know, pick here, not there, pick here. And, um, and so it was really 00:47:06.260 --> 00:47:12.195 funny. And so once again, we use broccoli as the example, but, um, 00:47:12.228 --> 00:47:15.956 people didn't know what broccoli florets were. 00:47:15.989 --> 00:47:22.916 So instead of instead of harvesting the ripe, ready, ripe broccoli, they 00:47:22.949 --> 00:47:29.186 would look across the, the, the little yellow taped off area, disregard 00:47:29.219 --> 00:47:37.057 the pick here arrow. And, um, and go into where the broccoli was an inch 00:47:37.090 --> 00:47:41.217 in diameter, an inch and a half in diameter. And they would, they would go 00:47:41.250 --> 00:47:44.615 ahead, you know, because 00:47:44.648 --> 00:47:48.126 we just had, we just told people to go out to the U pick, right? And you 00:47:48.159 --> 00:47:55.077 could, you could fill your bag and they'd pick half a bag full of broccoli 00:47:55.110 --> 00:48:00.566 at one inch in diameter, which had you allowed that to, to get to full 00:48:00.599 --> 00:48:05.126 size would have been half a pickup load, you know. And, uh, and so they 00:48:05.159 --> 00:48:09.635 just wiped out that, you know, what would have been maybe three or 43 00:48:09.668 --> 00:48:15.236 weeks later. Now we have nothing. And so we, we had to try and find a way 00:48:15.269 --> 00:48:19.227 to educate people. And so we actually had to have people out there to show 00:48:19.260 --> 00:48:25.217 people how to harvest things. Um And it was at a, at a foundational level 00:48:25.250 --> 00:48:29.546 , kind of sad that people didn't know that. You know, we jokingly people, 00:48:29.579 --> 00:48:34.106 we all in the food industry kind of jokingly refer to broccoli as trees. 00:48:34.139 --> 00:48:37.827 But some people hear that and they think that broccoli comes from trees 00:48:37.860 --> 00:48:40.595 and they're looking around for the broccoli trees. We've actually had 00:48:40.628 --> 00:48:44.557 people ask for broccoli trees. And so, you know, we can, we can laugh 00:48:44.590 --> 00:48:50.217 about it, but at some level, it is kind of sad. Um, but that's sort of why 00:48:50.250 --> 00:48:53.436 the, you know, the farm, the farm opened to the public out of frustration. 00:48:53.469 --> 00:49:00.706 Too, strangely, frustration with 00:49:00.739 --> 00:49:05.736 going to my, my wife. Um I already tell you how wonderful she is. Yeah. 00:49:05.769 --> 00:49:12.796 Anyway, you can tell us again though. Um she um she was in early 00:49:12.829 --> 00:49:19.086 childhood education, her job with the state of Arizona um through des and 00:49:19.119 --> 00:49:25.695 DDDDDD de development. Anyway, early childhood education, she, her job was 00:49:25.728 --> 00:49:33.217 in the uh in Maricopa County to find programs for Children 0 to 5 who were 00:49:33.250 --> 00:49:38.577 challenged. And so, 00:49:38.610 --> 00:49:43.057 um we went two different directions in the morning. And so at one point in 00:49:43.090 --> 00:49:47.736 time, we decided that, uh and this was a really long story but, but 00:49:47.769 --> 00:49:52.925 literally just consolidated into one sentence where we decided to blend 00:49:52.958 --> 00:49:56.885 our careers. And so 00:49:56.918 --> 00:50:02.686 she created the educational programs on the fireman and it was to have to 00:50:02.719 --> 00:50:10.166 have someone so talented um and so passionate about what she does create 00:50:10.199 --> 00:50:16.327 something at a farm that isn't, that isn't just educational but 00:50:16.360 --> 00:50:21.175 entertaining and safe because she redesigned the corner of the farm. I 00:50:21.208 --> 00:50:24.425 mean, literally if you think about running along a fence and rubbing your 00:50:24.458 --> 00:50:28.066 hand along the fence, you know, all the fences had to be sanded so that 00:50:28.099 --> 00:50:31.646 you couldn't get a sliver something as simple as that. She literally would 00:50:31.679 --> 00:50:38.327 look at everything and because of where she came from, where kids got hurt 00:50:38.360 --> 00:50:43.526 in the strangest ways that she saw the worst case scenario in every 00:50:43.559 --> 00:50:47.865 situation and we would correct it when we could. Um, no, we would correct 00:50:47.898 --> 00:50:50.905 it. Um, 00:50:50.938 --> 00:50:58.938 so, so anyway, um, when we would go to lunches dinners with her friends 00:50:59.168 --> 00:51:04.356 and they found out that I was a farmer, it was a mixed reaction. Some 00:51:04.389 --> 00:51:08.827 people's reaction was really one of, oh, you're the guys who are poisoning 00:51:08.860 --> 00:51:15.425 us with the pesticides. And so I got to the point where, you know, I just 00:51:15.458 --> 00:51:20.595 sort of absorb that and then look back at them and say, so you could 00:51:20.628 --> 00:51:27.356 continue to believe that which is fine or would you really like to know? 00:51:27.389 --> 00:51:34.896 And, and usually that person would say I'd love to know, um, and some, and 00:51:34.929 --> 00:51:39.356 , and if they hesitated, someone else at the table usually said, I don't 00:51:39.389 --> 00:51:44.077 know about her or him, but I'd love to hear. I'm curious, what is the real 00:51:44.110 --> 00:51:50.916 story about what's going on? Um, so we would talk about farming and, and I 00:51:50.949 --> 00:51:54.135 just say, you know, it's just amazing to me how little people know about 00:51:54.168 --> 00:51:58.727 farming. And so I get it, you're, you're afraid of what you don't know 00:51:58.760 --> 00:52:01.885 about because I'm afraid of things that I don't know about. Or at least 00:52:01.918 --> 00:52:07.416 I'm curious and wonder about them. And so I used to go and give talks to 00:52:07.449 --> 00:52:13.057 labor groups, to regulatory agencies to, for some reason, people invited 00:52:13.090 --> 00:52:20.486 me to talk to them. And so I remember being at, at one meeting and saying 00:52:20.519 --> 00:52:27.416 , come out to the farm, just come out and, and you know, where regulatory 00:52:27.449 --> 00:52:30.796 agencies will call in advance and kind of warn you that they're coming out 00:52:30.829 --> 00:52:37.186 , don't call me, just come out, just show up, just show up that day. Call 00:52:37.219 --> 00:52:39.776 me and say, hey, are you busy in an hour? We'd like to come and see the 00:52:39.809 --> 00:52:44.296 farm. I'll show you around if we're doing something wrong, we'll correct 00:52:44.329 --> 00:52:48.827 it. And I'm sure that we're doing a few things wrong. But I think on the 00:52:48.860 --> 00:52:54.436 other hand, you're going to be amazed at what we are doing. And so 00:52:54.469 --> 00:52:59.017 people call me and they said, were you serious about that offer? And I 00:52:59.050 --> 00:53:03.276 said, yeah, we'd like to come out. I said, when will you be here? And they 00:53:03.309 --> 00:53:06.175 said you're serious about literally just have, you don't need, you don't 00:53:06.208 --> 00:53:09.595 need to go and like have a few days to hide things. And I said, I don't 00:53:09.628 --> 00:53:13.695 even know what I would hide. Um, come out if you've got time this morning 00:53:13.728 --> 00:53:18.037 , come on out, I'll, I'll take the time and if you guys don't mind 00:53:18.070 --> 00:53:21.666 checking fields with me. I'll show you around what we do. Let's have an 00:53:21.699 --> 00:53:27.816 open discussion, ask me what you want to know and you can only meet so 00:53:27.849 --> 00:53:34.626 many people, you know, one truckload at a time. Right. So we opened the 00:53:34.659 --> 00:53:39.425 farm to the public. We wanted to educate people at so many levels. You 00:53:39.458 --> 00:53:45.977 know, Children about nutrition, even our own family, about nutrition and 00:53:46.010 --> 00:53:48.916 where to get things and how to harvest them and how to, you know, just 00:53:48.949 --> 00:53:53.037 where they're grown. Yeah, you, this broccoli right here is probably, you 00:53:53.070 --> 00:53:56.896 know, that truck. So kids got to go out in the field and literally harvest 00:53:56.929 --> 00:54:00.546 broccoli, which doesn't require a knife, which is why we chose broccoli. 00:54:00.579 --> 00:54:03.365 They could just snap it off with their little hands and put it in their 00:54:03.398 --> 00:54:11.247 bag and, and what is so cool is that these kids 00:54:11.280 --> 00:54:17.717 came out with a preloaded concept of, of what they knew about? I mean, 00:54:17.750 --> 00:54:20.436 they, they knew what they knew about broccoli. They didn't like broccoli. 00:54:20.469 --> 00:54:23.905 In fact, I could always tell when the, when the tour guide would tell the 00:54:23.938 --> 00:54:27.396 kids they're going out to, to uh get broccoli because you'd hear the bus 00:54:27.429 --> 00:54:31.997 going by and you'd hear this e you know, as the bus is driving by and 00:54:32.030 --> 00:54:36.155 every child was, was reacting to the uh the information that, oh God, 00:54:36.188 --> 00:54:40.827 we're going to get broccoli. Um and then they get out there and they start 00:54:40.860 --> 00:54:44.796 picking their broccoli and they eat broccoli in the field and it's, wow, 00:54:44.829 --> 00:54:48.945 it's actually, it's actually really good. Um, so they're eating broccoli 00:54:48.978 --> 00:54:52.046 and they, and then they pick the broccoli and they take it home and now 00:54:52.079 --> 00:54:57.776 it's their broccoli. So they go home and they, it's like the first little 00:54:57.809 --> 00:55:00.416 fish you caught right when you were a kid. And that thing could have been 00:55:00.449 --> 00:55:03.175 four inches long and you take it home and you want mom to prepare it that 00:55:03.208 --> 00:55:07.577 night for dinner because it's your fish. Well, they had their broccoli so 00:55:07.610 --> 00:55:12.296 they take it home and they want mom or dad to, to prepare it that night 00:55:12.329 --> 00:55:16.675 because it's their broccoli. And we started getting letters from parents 00:55:16.708 --> 00:55:21.626 and teachers who were saying, wow, you just converted my kid. Now, now we 00:55:21.659 --> 00:55:28.776 go to the store and, and every broccoli there has got to be yours. So 00:55:28.809 --> 00:55:32.905 we're gonna buy your broccoli and we're taking it home and we're probably 00:55:32.938 --> 00:55:38.595 cooking it that night because they've been to that field and picked the 00:55:38.628 --> 00:55:41.686 broccoli probably in the plant right next to the one that we're about to 00:55:41.719 --> 00:55:49.115 eat now. But they had a whole different association with not just, not 00:55:49.148 --> 00:55:54.345 just the farm but their food and you bridge that gap. And for us that was 00:55:54.378 --> 00:56:02.378 , that was really rewarding, hugely rewarding. 00:56:02.989 --> 00:56:07.467 And we hear from people to this day we've been closed for over 10 years. 00:56:07.500 --> 00:56:12.695 You know, it's 2015. Now, So we've been closed for 13 years and we still 00:56:12.728 --> 00:56:18.175 hear from people who say I loved your farm. I used to go to your farm when 00:56:18.208 --> 00:56:21.175 I was a kid and I love that place. I loved going there more than 00:56:21.208 --> 00:56:29.208 Disneyland. It's like, ok, wait, wait, you're kind all right. But 00:56:29.280 --> 00:56:34.046 to, to think that we contributed in some way to, you know, healthy 00:56:34.079 --> 00:56:39.135 lifestyles. Fantastic. Fantastic. Tell me about bridging that gap from, 00:56:39.168 --> 00:56:45.836 from farm to table with the Children and why that's so important even to 00:56:45.869 --> 00:56:49.456 this day, it was important to go to the field, you know, not just have a 00:56:49.489 --> 00:56:53.787 table where the broccoli was sitting, we went out to the field and they 00:56:53.820 --> 00:56:58.776 saw they would get literally in an area where we had already harvested. Um 00:56:58.809 --> 00:57:02.327 which actually, ironically enough kind of opened things up a little bit so 00:57:02.360 --> 00:57:06.166 that it was easier for the kids to walk through there. Um And we could see 00:57:06.199 --> 00:57:11.267 them all the time, you know, back to safety, right? Um We could see them 00:57:11.300 --> 00:57:16.537 at all times and, and they could see the harvest taking place. So they saw 00:57:16.570 --> 00:57:21.166 the harvester, they saw the tractors, they saw the, they saw the, the 00:57:21.199 --> 00:57:26.626 broccoli being cut trimmed, placed on a table and, and in the ta the table 00:57:26.659 --> 00:57:31.186 that's on the harvester that, that they saw people packing that broccoli 00:57:31.219 --> 00:57:35.717 and, and putting it in a box and the box sliding out on a conveyor to the 00:57:35.750 --> 00:57:40.876 trailer where it was then stacked on a pallet and the trailer driving out 00:57:40.909 --> 00:57:44.905 to the end of the field and leaving the field and, and we kind of help 00:57:44.938 --> 00:57:48.916 them, you know, in their imaginations bridge that gap of, ok, that trailer 00:57:48.949 --> 00:57:53.445 , now that trailer is going to another trailer that looks very similar to 00:57:53.478 --> 00:57:59.396 that and that broccoli is going to the stores downtown and a percentage of 00:57:59.429 --> 00:58:05.046 it was going right downtown Phoenix. It wasn't in our name, but um it was 00:58:05.079 --> 00:58:12.477 going there and those kids bridge that all the way through and it was, and 00:58:12.510 --> 00:58:16.717 it was other things, other aspects of the farm too because to me, and it 00:58:16.750 --> 00:58:19.686 was really interesting because while you think that all of our educational 00:58:19.719 --> 00:58:24.727 tours were uh were given to um 00:58:24.760 --> 00:58:31.425 to people who are basically uh 4 ft and under, they weren't. Um It was 00:58:31.458 --> 00:58:34.736 fantastic. We had 00:58:34.769 --> 00:58:42.717 postgraduate programs from Thunderbird come out from a su from U of A from 00:58:42.750 --> 00:58:49.586 high schools because because on a farm, biology chemistry, this is where 00:58:49.619 --> 00:58:53.155 the rubber hits the road man out here. You want to talk about any of that 00:58:53.188 --> 00:58:56.307 stuff? I'll tell you how your biology class here's how it's working here 00:58:56.340 --> 00:59:03.557 every day. Um And then to make it age appropriate. So back to the four and 00:59:03.590 --> 00:59:10.247 unders 4 ft and unders, um we had a uh we had an earthworm tunnel that we 00:59:10.280 --> 00:59:15.356 created with a grant um from Arizona Department of Environmental quality 00:59:15.389 --> 00:59:21.155 and it was fantastic. Um So, in essence, you, you have to use your 00:59:21.188 --> 00:59:25.727 imagination, but you're basically walking underneath this cement structure 00:59:25.760 --> 00:59:31.787 that this sort of. So we, we, we took some large trees and, you know, put 00:59:31.820 --> 00:59:35.646 these large trees and bent them over this, what, what basically was an 00:59:35.679 --> 00:59:39.635 upside down pool or, or what today would look like, Fred Flintstone's 00:59:39.668 --> 00:59:46.956 house. Um But it was so as the tour guides were going into this thing, you 00:59:46.989 --> 00:59:51.796 could enter it and, and what you saw were soil profiles hanging on the 00:59:51.829 --> 00:59:55.916 wall that would, that would, you would describe kind of, here's a, here's 00:59:55.949 --> 01:00:00.416 a kind of a classic Arizona soil profile which would show you the 01:00:00.449 --> 01:00:04.497 different colors and textures of the different layers of the soil as 01:00:04.530 --> 01:00:10.037 they've been um laid out, you know, 5 to 6 ft deep and then compare that 01:00:10.070 --> 01:00:16.166 to one out of the Midwest or something like that. And uh and then to have 01:00:16.199 --> 01:00:21.356 the earthworms that when you come around and you get inside, so you're 01:00:21.389 --> 01:00:27.046 under the soil. Um You could see the earth worms and we would take and 01:00:27.079 --> 01:00:33.706 grind our, our office paper weight waste and we dump it into the uh to the 01:00:33.739 --> 01:00:37.526 earth worms, add a little, add a little water to it. Um Throw a little 01:00:37.559 --> 01:00:41.236 more compost on top and man, you'd, you'd see it just start moving, you 01:00:41.269 --> 01:00:46.037 know, and, and so the kids got to see the earthworms actually with their 01:00:46.070 --> 01:00:50.037 earthworm tunnels and, and sometimes, you know, we, if the timing was 01:00:50.070 --> 01:00:53.186 right, we could throw the uh throw the paper in there and they'd, they'd 01:00:53.219 --> 01:00:59.467 start eating it. So they saw this activity under the soil and, and then 01:00:59.500 --> 01:01:03.506 you, you know, we turn around and we'd show them. So we had uh the Phoenix 01:01:03.539 --> 01:01:09.827 Zoo helped us put it together. Phoenix Zoo and the Arizona Desert 01:01:09.860 --> 01:01:17.026 Desert Museum uh outside of Tucson. They all helped us put this, this um 01:01:17.059 --> 01:01:21.256 place together, this very special place together and, and they all played 01:01:21.289 --> 01:01:25.365 a special role. In fact, 01:01:25.398 --> 01:01:30.816 if this looks like a real snake, the guys at the Arizona Desert Museum 01:01:30.849 --> 01:01:37.146 built that for me, made that for me and, and so snakes use burrows under 01:01:37.179 --> 01:01:43.287 the ground along with um toads. So, I mean, you, you put that guy out 01:01:43.320 --> 01:01:47.467 there and looks fairly real, looks extremely real. In fact, I've had 01:01:47.500 --> 01:01:52.517 people freak out when they see the snake on my desk. Um 01:01:52.550 --> 01:02:00.550 So, so I forget about these things. Um But um so, you know, there was, 01:02:00.918 --> 01:02:05.126 there was this, this example, these different examples of tunnels and, and 01:02:05.159 --> 01:02:09.977 holes and, and what essentially what the soil looks like if you had the 01:02:10.010 --> 01:02:15.405 opportunity to be underground. And so at, at this level, at this level 01:02:15.438 --> 01:02:19.577 being, you know, inches below the soil surface and then, oh by the way, 01:02:19.610 --> 01:02:23.546 there are roots that were coming down through, through the surface because 01:02:23.579 --> 01:02:27.345 what we were telling the kids to use their imagination and that imagine a 01:02:27.378 --> 01:02:32.436 huge tree has blown over in a massive storm and this root ball has pulled 01:02:32.469 --> 01:02:36.916 up. And then in that storm, the water kind of raced underneath and created 01:02:36.949 --> 01:02:40.776 this little area where you could get in underneath the soil and see what 01:02:40.809 --> 01:02:45.566 it looks like. And you and kids are fantastic with their imagination so 01:02:45.599 --> 01:02:49.135 they could see this. They were there in their minds, they're under the 01:02:49.168 --> 01:02:53.577 soil, looking at the earthworms, digesting the, the paper waste and 01:02:53.610 --> 01:02:58.655 looking at these, these very lifelike figurines and where they would be in 01:02:58.688 --> 01:03:02.905 the soil and the roots coming down through the, the top of the ceiling and 01:03:02.938 --> 01:03:06.327 everything. And so they kind of ducking as they move through and, and it's 01:03:06.360 --> 01:03:09.936 kind of an eerie place and, and so there's flashlights where you can, we 01:03:09.969 --> 01:03:13.666 could, you know, shine the light because there's no light in there except 01:03:13.699 --> 01:03:18.037 for the light that the, the tour guide had. And so they could, they could 01:03:18.070 --> 01:03:22.546 identify these, these areas specific to, you know, what they wanted the 01:03:22.579 --> 01:03:28.557 kids to be focusing on. And so at the end of the tour, basically, kids got 01:03:28.590 --> 01:03:33.905 to understand that the soil is a living medium and that there are as many 01:03:33.938 --> 01:03:41.477 microorganisms living in, in literally one small clot of soil that had 01:03:41.510 --> 01:03:45.175 that there are people on the earth. So they would, they would kind of say 01:03:45.208 --> 01:03:51.287 so when you go out and you, you look at that, that clod, there's living 01:03:51.320 --> 01:03:58.095 organisms in there as many as people are on the earth. In fact, animals 01:03:58.128 --> 01:04:03.327 and humans on the earth. And they, and you see these kids walking out and 01:04:03.360 --> 01:04:06.925 looking at a dirt clod, picking it up and instead of throwing it, they 01:04:06.958 --> 01:04:10.916 place it gingerly back down on the ground because they got it, they get it 01:04:10.949 --> 01:04:18.845 , the soil is a living medium that, that we require. We live with all of 01:04:18.878 --> 01:04:23.916 these, these organisms and they help us and we help them and, and that's 01:04:23.949 --> 01:04:28.456 where you sort of bridge that, that really nerdy science and to the farm 01:04:28.489 --> 01:04:33.956 again. But that's also how the rubber hits the road as far as the science 01:04:33.989 --> 01:04:39.756 that we learn in grade school, high school. And then certainly the 01:04:39.789 --> 01:04:45.316 application of that science into a business format. How does that look to 01:04:45.349 --> 01:04:49.595 post postgraduate people who are interested in that as well? So we had 01:04:49.628 --> 01:04:53.845 everybody of all ages coming out and all levels of education coming out 01:04:53.878 --> 01:05:00.227 and it was, it was fantastic. Tell me um kind of the most memorable moment 01:05:00.260 --> 01:05:03.615 you had when, when the kids, like you said, they got it, especially the 4 01:05:03.648 --> 01:05:08.336 ft and under when they got it after they've been on the farm for sometimes 01:05:08.369 --> 01:05:16.369 it's the most simplistic. Um I'll never forget being on the yard and um 01:05:16.398 --> 01:05:20.956 seeing a bus arrived and the little kids came piling out and they ran 01:05:20.989 --> 01:05:26.796 right over to the petting zoo, which we had a petting zoo. Um, because a 01:05:26.829 --> 01:05:32.396 vegetable farm is not allowed to exist without, you can't have a farm 01:05:32.429 --> 01:05:36.095 without animals. So, basically everybody is. So we had a vegetable farm. 01:05:36.128 --> 01:05:39.296 We started inviting people out to the vegetable farm and they're like, 01:05:39.329 --> 01:05:45.827 where are the animals? Well, it's a vegetable farm. So, hm, 01:05:45.860 --> 01:05:51.595 do we have a problem here? And basically the teachers are saying, yeah, we 01:05:51.628 --> 01:05:55.445 kind of expected a farm. It's like, well, this feels like a farm to us. 01:05:55.478 --> 01:05:59.997 But, um, no, we really did realize that everybody's perception of the farm 01:06:00.030 --> 01:06:03.655 is basically the front cover of Charlotte's web where, you know, yeah, 01:06:03.688 --> 01:06:07.287 you've got the, the spider web in the corner, you know, the entrance to 01:06:07.320 --> 01:06:10.376 the barn, but you've got the horse leaning over the freshly painted fence 01:06:10.409 --> 01:06:14.506 , talking to the goose and you see the pig in the background, you've got 01:06:14.539 --> 01:06:18.577 the red barn, the white si, you know, the silo and the, and the house with 01:06:18.610 --> 01:06:22.546 the white picket fence. And, 01:06:22.579 --> 01:06:27.706 and so we sort of needed to meet people's expectations along those lines. 01:06:27.739 --> 01:06:31.845 And so we did and there's, and so we're gonna get into another story at 01:06:31.878 --> 01:06:37.717 some point in time about that petting zoo. Um, but, but when I saw the 01:06:37.750 --> 01:06:40.925 kids come running over, you know, I, I just thought, well, you know, I got 01:06:40.958 --> 01:06:44.396 a, I got a little bit of time so I went over and I was leaning up against 01:06:44.429 --> 01:06:49.135 the, the fence and the kids came, the kids came running up and, and the 01:06:49.168 --> 01:06:53.845 first teacher who rightfully kind of jogged across, you know, to be there 01:06:53.878 --> 01:06:56.717 , you know, where the kids were so that they don't, you know, get in 01:06:56.750 --> 01:07:01.425 trouble or whatever. Um, so the teacher and I are leaning across the fence 01:07:01.458 --> 01:07:05.497 , you know, I introduced myself and we're looking at the animals and, and 01:07:05.530 --> 01:07:11.675 a little girl came running up and, and she said, oh, teacher, look at the 01:07:11.708 --> 01:07:16.227 cow as she's looking at a little potbelly pig. 01:07:16.260 --> 01:07:18.467 And, 01:07:18.500 --> 01:07:21.095 and I looked at the teacher and she said, there's a reason why we're here 01:07:21.128 --> 01:07:27.195 . I was like, wow, that, that, uh, ok, I didn't, I didn't realize we had 01:07:27.228 --> 01:07:33.077 that much of a gap here. Um, that one kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. 01:07:33.110 --> 01:07:37.595 And so you asked me, what was my reaction? I'll never forget that one. I 01:07:37.628 --> 01:07:42.336 said, ok, I get it. I get it. This is, wow, this is education at a 01:07:42.369 --> 01:07:46.876 foundational level, isn't it? And, uh, she said, it absolutely is. And 01:07:46.909 --> 01:07:50.856 that's why we love coming here every year. She said, so I think this is, 01:07:50.889 --> 01:07:53.936 this is my, I can't remember what year and, and she just said, this is 01:07:53.969 --> 01:07:58.956 fantastic. I said, I'll be sure to tell Kathleen that. Thank you and Kelly 01:07:58.989 --> 01:08:04.615 because we had, you know, Kelly Maguire who, um, became our, our tour 01:08:04.648 --> 01:08:08.376 guide the head of our tour guide. So we ended up with, I wanna say, like 01:08:08.409 --> 01:08:13.896 10 part time people who were leading tours. Just incredible people, people 01:08:13.929 --> 01:08:18.437 who were retired and spending their winters out here who just enjoyed kids. 01:08:18.470 --> 01:08:23.305 And so they'd come out and they teach and they were just the most awesome 01:08:23.338 --> 01:08:28.425 people that we got to know. And, um, when you get to work with people who 01:08:28.458 --> 01:08:32.826 are doing things because it's just fun to them. It's amazing. You know, 01:08:32.859 --> 01:08:36.546 all the ideas that come out and, and just the wonderful programs that you 01:08:36.579 --> 01:08:42.756 can create. So anyway, I digress, please. So tell me about the decision to 01:08:42.789 --> 01:08:48.107 close and how hard that was and how sad it was for your, for your family. 01:08:48.140 --> 01:08:52.036 Oh, it was, um, 01:08:52.069 --> 01:08:57.067 I mean, it's tough to go back to that time but um, we had to close because 01:08:57.100 --> 01:09:02.986 of activities at Luke Air Force Base, um, where it was deemed 01:09:03.019 --> 01:09:06.856 inappropriate if not unsafe and inappropriate for large numbers of 01:09:06.889 --> 01:09:11.424 students to be underneath the what is now referred to as the southern 01:09:11.457 --> 01:09:19.457 departure corridor after, after 911, after 911, um, 01:09:19.578 --> 01:09:25.764 the Air Force started, started training in earnest and by that, I mean, 01:09:25.797 --> 01:09:31.436 they started practicing with more live ammunition and since there had been 01:09:31.469 --> 01:09:36.066 so much development at the other end of the runway to the northeast, all 01:09:36.099 --> 01:09:40.625 live ammunition sorties were going to take off to the southwest at all 01:09:40.658 --> 01:09:45.857 times of the day. And regardless of whether there was a 10 mile per hour 01:09:45.890 --> 01:09:49.555 tailwind or not, um, because the reason that they always took off to the 01:09:49.588 --> 01:09:53.666 northeast in the morning was to take off into a headwind. So we didn't 01:09:53.699 --> 01:09:57.487 have the noise, we didn't have the activity. And so when they turned 01:09:57.520 --> 01:10:00.857 around and started coming over the top of us, you know, we started asking 01:10:00.890 --> 01:10:04.737 and, and then they found out, you know, who we were, what we were. And 01:10:04.770 --> 01:10:10.786 anyway, regardless of the details of it, um it was deemed unsafe to have 01:10:10.819 --> 01:10:14.476 that many students, you know, we had at any given time, 6 to 900 students 01:10:14.509 --> 01:10:20.796 on the grounds at any, at any one time. And so literally larger than some 01:10:20.829 --> 01:10:28.397 schools. And so, uh it was, it was best that we not be there. And so we 01:10:28.430 --> 01:10:32.506 had to close, it was an incredibly difficult decision, um emotional for 01:10:32.539 --> 01:10:39.586 everybody. It was um it was at a time also when, when we had worked so 01:10:39.619 --> 01:10:44.487 hard for so many years to actually make it be sustainable where it was 01:10:44.520 --> 01:10:49.196 economically sustainable for the first time, literally after 10 years. And 01:10:49.229 --> 01:10:51.897 , 01:10:51.930 --> 01:10:59.286 and so for everyone's ideas and programs and hard work to, to never feel 01:10:59.319 --> 01:11:03.996 that fulfillment of the ultimate of, of success. They were, they were 01:11:04.029 --> 01:11:08.996 cheated out of that. They were cheated out of the not us. The they were 01:11:09.029 --> 01:11:12.706 cheated out of the job that they loved going to every morning. It was a 01:11:12.739 --> 01:11:17.487 blast, you know. It was, it was really fun. It still is. I mean, I love 01:11:17.520 --> 01:11:21.406 farming but that was, that was a lot of fun, you know, and we still hear 01:11:21.439 --> 01:11:24.595 about it today. So it was, it was difficult. It was difficult. It was the 01:11:24.628 --> 01:11:27.506 right thing. I'll never, I'll never question that. It was the right thing 01:11:27.539 --> 01:11:35.539 to do. Um, but it was difficult. You're right. Do you miss the kids? Yeah. 01:11:35.569 --> 01:11:40.135 Yeah. Um, I miss the kids. I miss the people. I miss the programs. I miss 01:11:40.168 --> 01:11:48.168 , uh, I miss the Nunes. I miss being that close to, 01:11:48.729 --> 01:11:52.226 to the people who could let you know what you, you know, when you, when 01:11:52.259 --> 01:11:58.286 you get that close, when you're, when you're able to sell vegetables and 01:11:58.319 --> 01:12:01.175 to people, they tell you what they like and they don't like. And so you're 01:12:01.208 --> 01:12:04.765 , you're never closer. People that go to farmers markets are never closer 01:12:04.798 --> 01:12:10.385 . I think, I think retailers would love to know what people that, that, 01:12:10.418 --> 01:12:14.567 that sell at farmers markets, what growers know about what people want, 01:12:14.600 --> 01:12:21.135 what they're willing to buy, um, what they're willing to pay for and, and 01:12:21.168 --> 01:12:26.527 I, I, they may, they may want to or they may not want people to know, you 01:12:26.560 --> 01:12:30.906 know, why things are priced certain ways, you know, because that can be, 01:12:30.939 --> 01:12:37.885 that can be too much information shall we say? But, uh I loved, I love the 01:12:37.918 --> 01:12:41.805 feedback, the direct feedback that we got, we learned so much about what 01:12:41.838 --> 01:12:46.845 people, what people need and what they want. And I have to tell you that 01:12:46.878 --> 01:12:51.626 I'd prefer to sell things that people really want versus what they need 01:12:51.659 --> 01:12:55.305 because someone will pay anything for what they want and try to try to 01:12:55.338 --> 01:12:58.586 work you down to the lowest price on things that they absolutely need 01:12:58.619 --> 01:13:03.345 because they got to have it. So, so we just, and it's just fun, you know, 01:13:03.378 --> 01:13:06.647 to sell to work with people and at a level where they want something and 01:13:06.680 --> 01:13:12.256 are having fun with it. So let's talk about um the move to go to Organic 01:13:12.289 --> 01:13:18.107 Certified Organic. Oh, yeah, yeah. So, um remember the whole thing about, 01:13:18.140 --> 01:13:23.187 you know, the, the motto of better to be lucky than good. So we got into 01:13:23.220 --> 01:13:28.876 organics pretty much by accident. Um, 01:13:28.909 --> 01:13:34.055 we got into composting pretty much by accident. Um, and one leads to the 01:13:34.088 --> 01:13:40.666 other. So we opened the farm to the public and, 01:13:40.699 --> 01:13:45.376 and while it was going to be about educational tours and that's it when, 01:13:45.409 --> 01:13:50.107 when parents and chaperones and teachers and bus drivers and everybody 01:13:50.140 --> 01:13:54.687 started coming out, they're looking at this place going, I wanna have, I 01:13:54.720 --> 01:13:58.746 wanna have my child's birthday party here or we want to do this here, you 01:13:58.779 --> 01:14:05.555 know, could you have a, you know, a festival would be great. So we, we 01:14:05.588 --> 01:14:09.226 erroneously started down the road of trying to be all things to all people 01:14:09.259 --> 01:14:14.706 and so we did have, you know, festivals, we had birthday parties and, and 01:14:14.739 --> 01:14:19.446 so, so we'll just end it at festivals. But with the first festival, we, 01:14:19.479 --> 01:14:23.946 you know, we throw this festival and, and we have no seating anywhere. So 01:14:23.979 --> 01:14:27.906 we talked about what we could do and we, we took a bunch of straw bales 01:14:27.939 --> 01:14:31.586 from barley that we had on the farm and, and uh we took those straw bales 01:14:31.619 --> 01:14:37.406 and we made um seating around um all over the place. So we, we created a 01:14:37.439 --> 01:14:43.706 little stage. Um We had seating for the, for the entertainment. We had um 01:14:43.739 --> 01:14:48.326 seeing around trees, we created with the, with the bales, we created a 01:14:48.359 --> 01:14:53.976 little, a little maze for the kids to, to go through. It was really neat. 01:14:54.009 --> 01:14:58.836 And obviously if they got stuck, they could just climb out. So that was 01:14:58.869 --> 01:15:03.156 easy. Yeah. And for Kathleen, that was great because you could always see 01:15:03.189 --> 01:15:11.189 the kids. Um, they were never out of sight. So, uh so we have these bales 01:15:11.310 --> 01:15:16.456 and it, it just so happened that it was a, a very wet winter. And so we 01:15:16.489 --> 01:15:20.515 have these straw bales that are, that are out and after the festival. Um 01:15:20.548 --> 01:15:23.937 and I can't remember which festival it was or what or what the reason was. 01:15:23.970 --> 01:15:28.937 But anyway, um we decided just leave the bales out there, you know, why 01:15:28.970 --> 01:15:32.687 not? We'll use them. They're seating now for, you know, the different 01:15:32.720 --> 01:15:37.187 school groups that are coming out. Um, but then it rained and rained some 01:15:37.220 --> 01:15:42.616 more and rained a little bit after that. And the bales got so wet, um, 01:15:42.649 --> 01:15:46.805 kind of like a, a really large sponge that there's a certain amount of, 01:15:46.838 --> 01:15:49.527 there's, and you should know there's a certain amount of seed that gets 01:15:49.560 --> 01:15:54.166 packed into the straw bales from the barley. So that seed started to grow 01:15:54.199 --> 01:15:56.647 out the top. 01:15:56.680 --> 01:16:00.406 It germinated with the moisture from the rains and it literally would rain 01:16:00.439 --> 01:16:05.976 like every four days. And so it was perfect germinating moisture. The 01:16:06.009 --> 01:16:09.826 barley grew up got to be four or five inches tall. And Kathleen, you know 01:16:09.859 --> 01:16:14.237 , yeah, I come into the office she's saying, hey, um, I think he could do 01:16:14.270 --> 01:16:17.187 something about those bales, you know, that we can't really use them very 01:16:17.220 --> 01:16:21.746 much right now because they're growing. And, uh, so I'm looking at the 01:16:21.779 --> 01:16:25.527 bell going. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that happens. She's going, yeah, I didn't know 01:16:25.560 --> 01:16:29.925 that was gonna happen. Um, so what I'm looking at going, why do you know 01:16:29.958 --> 01:16:34.595 it's gonna rain? And, and so, uh, so we went out and just flipped them 01:16:34.628 --> 01:16:38.175 over and, and they dried out on the bottom and, and everything was fine 01:16:38.208 --> 01:16:42.976 until it rained again. Uh, which was, I don't know, about 56 days later, 01:16:43.009 --> 01:16:47.406 it just kept raining. So sure enough, what happens the bottom now starts 01:16:47.439 --> 01:16:52.336 to grow because, you know, it gets warm, sunny in between the rains a 01:16:52.369 --> 01:16:55.156 little bit. And so, you know, it gets a little bit of, it's got the 01:16:55.189 --> 01:16:58.786 moisture, it's gets, getting some warmth, it germinates as well. So now 01:16:58.819 --> 01:17:03.006 we've got the stuff that we rotated down below, it's moist, the stuff 01:17:03.039 --> 01:17:07.126 that's up on top and, and the stuff that's down below and, and the bale 01:17:07.159 --> 01:17:09.796 itself are kind of starting to rot. So things are starting to get a little 01:17:09.829 --> 01:17:14.406 ripe around there. And so we have that, we have that classic conversation 01:17:14.439 --> 01:17:20.446 of honey. Is there any way? I was like, yeah, yeah, we got to get rid of 01:17:20.479 --> 01:17:24.246 this because this thing smells bad even in the office. So we went and I 01:17:24.279 --> 01:17:27.076 mean, each of these things now these bales weigh like three or £400 a 01:17:27.109 --> 01:17:33.265 piece. I mean, they weigh a ton. Um And so we, we haul them all out and 01:17:33.298 --> 01:17:40.135 back and we just, we throw them into this pile. And recently we've, uh we 01:17:40.168 --> 01:17:44.946 have found out that, uh, you know, our vegetable farm was supposed to have 01:17:44.979 --> 01:17:50.726 um animals on it. So we started the petting zoo. So we clean the petting 01:17:50.759 --> 01:17:55.406 zoo every morning. And so we had this place out and back where this pile 01:17:55.439 --> 01:17:59.706 of stuff from the petting zoo was. And so we just threw the, you know, the 01:17:59.739 --> 01:18:04.906 , the wet soggy bales on top of that, pulled all the string and, and wire 01:18:04.939 --> 01:18:09.706 out of it and just stack it up on that. And um, you know, and then we just 01:18:09.739 --> 01:18:12.656 kept throwing every morning, we just keep throwing the, uh, the manure 01:18:12.689 --> 01:18:17.845 from and anything we cleaned out of the, out of the petting zoo on that 01:18:17.878 --> 01:18:21.296 and then it rained again. And, and then Kathleen came to me and said, hey 01:18:21.329 --> 01:18:24.515 , you know, um, you know where we put that new garden in, we're gonna 01:18:24.548 --> 01:18:28.196 bring the kids in from this, this direction and then take this other place. 01:18:28.229 --> 01:18:32.217 So can you move that pile just to, it doesn't have to move very far. Can 01:18:32.250 --> 01:18:38.246 you just move it a little bit, you know, one way? And so, um 01:18:38.279 --> 01:18:41.546 I didn't expect that 01:18:41.579 --> 01:18:47.046 today is August 7th 2015. My name is Christina VM. Interviewing for 01:18:47.079 --> 01:18:53.217 Arizona State University Dinner 2440. I'm asking you to um interviewing Mr 01:18:53.250 --> 01:18:58.786 Arnette Duncan, Arnett Arnette Duncan. Can you spell, can you spell your 01:18:58.819 --> 01:19:04.876 first name? Sure. It's a Rno tt. Ok. And Duncan is D UN can thank you. And 01:19:04.909 --> 01:19:10.687 then could I ask you to say your title as well? And the organization that 01:19:10.720 --> 01:19:16.416 you work for for? So I work with a lot of really need people at Duncan 01:19:16.449 --> 01:19:20.777 family farms. Um Just west of Phoenix, about 30 miles west of Phoenix in 01:19:20.810 --> 01:19:25.476 Goodyear, Arizona. Ok. So let's talk a little bit about um your background 01:19:25.509 --> 01:19:33.509 and how your family got into farming. Ok. Um So my biological father 01:19:34.640 --> 01:19:38.425 passed when I was four or five. My mom remarried when I was eight or nine. 01:19:38.458 --> 01:19:46.458 And, um, so my dad, since I was young enough, um, you know, I just, my 01:19:46.930 --> 01:19:52.187 stepfather is my dad. So he is the third generation farmer, his farm, his 01:19:52.220 --> 01:19:57.536 family rather actually homesteaded in Arizona, the southwest corner of 01:19:57.569 --> 01:20:04.425 what is now Seventh Avenue and Southern in South Phoenix. And so I grew up 01:20:04.458 --> 01:20:11.006 as a little kid going out to the farm, you know, all summers, weekends, 01:20:11.039 --> 01:20:14.967 holidays, really, any time that we were needed and we were pretty much 01:20:15.000 --> 01:20:23.000 needed all the time. And uh and I just loved it. Um, you know, back then 01:20:23.220 --> 01:20:29.055 the farm was that classic Central Arizona cotton, you know, forages, 01:20:29.088 --> 01:20:37.088 cereal grains and, you know, you know, an, an, an odd uh an odd little, uh 01:20:38.000 --> 01:20:42.206 you know, seed variety here or there that you would try. But for the most 01:20:42.239 --> 01:20:47.296 part, um we didn't do any vegetables. My dad, my dad did a few watermelons 01:20:47.329 --> 01:20:51.595 here and there because that's kind of what he grew up doing when he was in 01:20:51.628 --> 01:20:59.175 high school. Um, anyway, that he, uh that was our, that was our, our first 01:20:59.208 --> 01:21:03.015 foray into uh vegetables, fresh fruits and vegetables was watermelons. And 01:21:03.048 --> 01:21:08.836 so my dad came by that, you know, years ago when he was in high school. Um 01:21:08.869 --> 01:21:12.737 I was gonna say when all the uh when all the men went off to war in World 01:21:12.770 --> 01:21:17.286 War Two, there weren't enough guys around to harvest. And so he and his 01:21:17.319 --> 01:21:21.416 high he organized his high school, but he's mostly football players and 01:21:21.449 --> 01:21:25.586 they went and harvested watermelons. And so that just stuck with my dad. 01:21:25.619 --> 01:21:31.437 And so shoot, he, he grew melons for decades. 01:21:31.470 --> 01:21:34.937 So tell me what it was about the farm and going out and working it and, 01:21:34.970 --> 01:21:39.206 and what you enjoyed it. But also, you know, kind of, you were young and 01:21:39.239 --> 01:21:43.487 it was hot and it's hard. Can you explain, kind of, you know, it's funny 01:21:43.520 --> 01:21:47.067 looking back, you know, when, if you look at what we did today, looking 01:21:47.100 --> 01:21:53.326 back, given today's regulations, um, present age, uh, obviously, you know 01:21:53.359 --> 01:21:57.336 , now that I'm, now that I'm in my late fifties, you know, I look back on 01:21:57.369 --> 01:22:02.286 what we did and just am amazed at some of the things that we did and, and 01:22:02.319 --> 01:22:08.116 , uh, you just learned so much from being out on the farm, um, frequently 01:22:08.149 --> 01:22:11.805 on your, on your own with, you know, you with your, I was with my brother 01:22:11.838 --> 01:22:16.095 and my cousins. We're all about the same age. And, um, you know, our, our 01:22:16.128 --> 01:22:20.946 first jobs on the farm were, were basically 01:22:20.979 --> 01:22:25.546 cutting weeds, digging ditches, you know, the, the romantic part of 01:22:25.579 --> 01:22:32.626 farming. And, uh, and it was just, you know, but lunchtime and, and of 01:22:32.659 --> 01:22:36.675 course, and of course, any of our breaks that we would take, we weren't, 01:22:36.708 --> 01:22:42.555 we probably weren't tired, we just wanted to play. Um, but we took breaks 01:22:42.588 --> 01:22:45.777 and sometimes, you know, if, if the lizard got away from you. It would 01:22:45.810 --> 01:22:50.976 take a lot longer to take that break than, than another one. But, um, we 01:22:51.009 --> 01:22:55.756 had fun out on the farm. We learned to drive, um, we learned to drive 01:22:55.789 --> 01:23:00.416 tractors first. We learned to drive tractors before, before we could reach 01:23:00.449 --> 01:23:05.027 the pedals and it wasn't as necessary to reach the pedals. My dad would 01:23:05.060 --> 01:23:08.416 just move the seat back on the tractor. There was a hand clutch on the 01:23:08.449 --> 01:23:12.717 John Deere tractor and, and so you could kind of scoot around to hit the 01:23:12.750 --> 01:23:15.777 brake on the left side while you were working the clutch with your hand. 01:23:15.810 --> 01:23:22.626 And, and so you, you learn to do things and, and become, I guess, self 01:23:22.659 --> 01:23:26.187 self supporting you, I guess it's a pretty good place to just learn how to 01:23:26.220 --> 01:23:31.595 do things and, and in and in doing that things that we thought were just 01:23:31.628 --> 01:23:35.916 average every day friends that we went to school with because I grew up in 01:23:35.949 --> 01:23:41.187 downtown Phoenix. Um, you know, when I was a young guy, we were, we lived 01:23:41.220 --> 01:23:47.777 on about 32nd street in Oak. And so we just drove out to the farm. Um, but 01:23:47.810 --> 01:23:51.496 , uh, yeah, it was just, it was just fun growing up on the farm, the 01:23:51.529 --> 01:23:54.765 things that the things that we did that our buddies downtown, you know, 01:23:54.798 --> 01:23:59.385 just were amazed that we could drive, you know, and I started driving cars 01:23:59.418 --> 01:24:03.925 and trucks when I was a little guy too, you know, and really, um, trying 01:24:03.958 --> 01:24:06.746 to get, you know, to the pedals and everything. There were, there were 01:24:06.779 --> 01:24:11.256 times when, you know, the old, uh, the old thick telephone book came into 01:24:11.289 --> 01:24:16.237 play frequently. So, anyway, it was fun. It was fun. And then on top of 01:24:16.270 --> 01:24:23.126 just being a kid out on a farm without a lot of rules there, there was, 01:24:23.159 --> 01:24:27.937 there was this attraction to the outdoors. Um, and I couldn't put my 01:24:27.970 --> 01:24:33.046 finger on it. Even when I got into college, I didn't know. Then my first 01:24:33.079 --> 01:24:37.095 year in college, um, you know, I was, I was always attracted to the 01:24:37.128 --> 01:24:42.376 natural sciences in, in high school. Um I didn't have that opportunity to 01:24:42.409 --> 01:24:48.296 do the 4h or F fa I went to, I went to Catholic grade schools. I went to 01:24:48.329 --> 01:24:53.595 brophy prep. Um So, you know, when, when buddies in uh in agriculture 01:24:53.628 --> 01:24:59.015 would say, hey, remember an F fa when we did this? And, yeah. No, I don't. 01:24:59.048 --> 01:25:04.187 Um, but I always enjoyed the natural sciences and, and when I got to my, 01:25:04.220 --> 01:25:09.897 my freshman year at the University of Arizona in Tucson, I just ii I 01:25:09.930 --> 01:25:15.476 wanted to be in agriculture. I wanted to be working outside here. We sit 01:25:15.509 --> 01:25:20.156 in my office, but this isn't the place that brings me joy. It's walking 01:25:20.189 --> 01:25:28.189 fields, it's being out um working the land, I guess. Um And it's just, 01:25:29.319 --> 01:25:33.286 it's, it's kind of funny when people, when people ask me today what are 01:25:33.319 --> 01:25:37.487 you going to do? When are you going to retire? And, you know, I think 01:25:37.520 --> 01:25:41.336 classic farmers don't, I don't know that we ever retire really. You know, 01:25:41.369 --> 01:25:45.717 you just slow down a little bit. But my answer is kind of a pad patent. 01:25:45.750 --> 01:25:51.845 Just a, you know, I see myself as an Agra and I'm a consultant to my own 01:25:51.878 --> 01:25:55.116 company after I get out of everybody's way. You know, because there are 01:25:55.149 --> 01:26:01.187 these, these, these, these guys that are coming up in the, in the company 01:26:01.220 --> 01:26:05.425 are so sharp, they're dedicated. They come preloaded with so much really 01:26:05.458 --> 01:26:10.666 cool information. Um That yeah, at some point in time, I'll be getting out 01:26:10.699 --> 01:26:14.595 of their way and, and just hopefully still able to contribute at a level 01:26:14.628 --> 01:26:18.286 and, and I know I'll always be able to enjoy the farm. So, you know, 01:26:18.319 --> 01:26:22.616 hopefully they'll be patient with me and, and let me hang around. So let's 01:26:22.649 --> 01:26:26.626 talk a little bit about the work ethic. You learned working on the farm 01:26:26.659 --> 01:26:29.777 and growing up on the farm. Kind of how has that played a role in your 01:26:29.810 --> 01:26:33.906 life today? 01:26:33.939 --> 01:26:38.976 You learn that hard work is what is just what everybody should do. You 01:26:39.009 --> 01:26:44.156 know, it's just hard work isn't that difficult. If, if, when you do it 01:26:44.189 --> 01:26:50.317 every day, it's just not that difficult. Um And then when you, when you 01:26:50.350 --> 01:26:58.350 see today to, to this day, um I have a respect for people who work hard, 01:27:01.949 --> 01:27:06.786 who who actually appreciate 01:27:06.819 --> 01:27:14.277 the art of agriculture or plumbing or electronics or, or carpentry or, or 01:27:14.310 --> 01:27:21.446 whatever it is. Um, there's an artistry to that and I appreciate that at 01:27:21.479 --> 01:27:26.147 every level and to this day, you know, we have, we have wonderful people 01:27:26.180 --> 01:27:30.305 that, that we get to work with, you know, at an entry level position on 01:27:30.338 --> 01:27:37.046 the farm and, and I like to go around and, and go out and, and sometimes 01:27:37.079 --> 01:27:40.256 like over in the California, one of the California farms, we have rocks 01:27:40.289 --> 01:27:43.107 everywhere. We had to pick up rocks because they were literally killing 01:27:43.140 --> 01:27:49.385 the equipment. And the only way we could do that um at that point in time 01:27:49.418 --> 01:27:53.095 anyway, was literally just walk out with our, with our hands and, and pick 01:27:53.128 --> 01:27:56.425 them up and throw them in a trailer. And so I remember the, you know, 01:27:56.458 --> 01:27:59.937 going by the, I still to this day whenever I see a rock crew, you know, I 01:27:59.970 --> 01:28:03.076 want to go out, walk out and shake their hands and say, thank you for 01:28:03.109 --> 01:28:08.317 doing this. I know this is a, this is a hell, hellish task. Thanks for 01:28:08.350 --> 01:28:10.786 doing this. And they're like, they're looking at me like, hey, what are 01:28:10.819 --> 01:28:13.675 you talking about? This is what we do, right? You know, you're paying us 01:28:13.708 --> 01:28:19.226 to do this, we do this, you know, we're good. Um And, and I just want them 01:28:19.259 --> 01:28:24.265 to know now, I, I appreciate you being here. Um You could do any you can 01:28:24.298 --> 01:28:28.086 do anything for this price, you can do anything anywhere and I just want 01:28:28.119 --> 01:28:33.616 you to know that I appreciate you doing this here today. Um, and I'm sure 01:28:33.649 --> 01:28:39.437 that as I'm driving out there going. So who was that guy anyway? And, but 01:28:39.470 --> 01:28:43.756 I, you know, it just, it just gives you an appreciation for the value of 01:28:43.789 --> 01:28:51.006 what everybody does. So, um hard work is hard work. I mean, but I got, I, 01:28:51.039 --> 01:28:54.555 I have to tell you a story. My, uh, my older son went to work with his 01:28:54.588 --> 01:29:00.425 uncle for a couple of weeks in a, uh, in a large food service venue, uh, 01:29:00.458 --> 01:29:05.916 country club of some sort. And so, you know, Kel was, was kind of 01:29:05.949 --> 01:29:09.987 interested in, in that industry at the time. And, and so, you know, his 01:29:10.020 --> 01:29:12.885 uncle said, hey, come on out, take a look at it, see what you see, what 01:29:12.918 --> 01:29:17.845 you think. So, you know, I'm sure he probably started washing dishes, you 01:29:17.878 --> 01:29:21.546 know, bussing tables here and there just doing what anybody can do just 01:29:21.579 --> 01:29:27.515 stepping off the street. And, uh, so he'd go in early in the morning and, 01:29:27.548 --> 01:29:30.196 you know, work his work, his hours clean up from the night before, 01:29:30.229 --> 01:29:36.376 whatever that looked like. And, uh, and I'll never forget that. Uh, he, he 01:29:36.409 --> 01:29:40.467 called me up the next day after work and, and he said, hey, I got to, oh, 01:29:40.500 --> 01:29:44.397 no, I talked to, I talked to, uh, I talked to my brother-in-law, his uncle 01:29:44.430 --> 01:29:47.696 , he called me up and he said, hey, I want to share you, share with you an 01:29:47.729 --> 01:29:51.607 interaction that uh that one of my, one of my supervisors just had with 01:29:51.640 --> 01:29:57.277 CAL. He said, you'll get a kick out of this. So, um so he goes on to 01:29:57.310 --> 01:30:02.717 explain that Kell had come in early, worked all morning, um stayed a 01:30:02.750 --> 01:30:07.946 little later to kind of help prep for something. And then they had a few 01:30:07.979 --> 01:30:14.756 people not show up for what was a large gala event that night. And so they 01:30:14.789 --> 01:30:18.876 looked at Kel, the supervisor looks at Kel and just says, Kel, would you 01:30:18.909 --> 01:30:23.635 even consider, you know, helping serve tonight? And he said, sure, you 01:30:23.668 --> 01:30:28.135 know, um, just point to where I go what I do and sure I'll, I'll do it. 01:30:28.168 --> 01:30:34.317 And so they gave him his, his, his white coat and, and, uh, gloves or 01:30:34.350 --> 01:30:40.015 whatever it was and he, uh, he stays, he stays that night, late, late into 01:30:40.048 --> 01:30:44.866 the evening and works all night, helps clean up. And, um, and then shows 01:30:44.899 --> 01:30:48.437 up early the next day, which by that time is probably maybe four hours 01:30:48.470 --> 01:30:53.416 later or something shows up to work and starts doing what he normally does. 01:30:53.449 --> 01:30:58.706 And the supervisor came in, made a point of coming in to, just to mention 01:30:58.739 --> 01:31:05.496 to my brother in law that Kel, what that, when she went to Kel to say, wow 01:31:05.529 --> 01:31:07.626 , 01:31:07.659 --> 01:31:11.996 that, that was incredible. I mean, the fact that you literally worked all 01:31:12.029 --> 01:31:17.546 day was just amazing and, and, and what the report from my brother in law 01:31:17.579 --> 01:31:23.536 was. So Kel right, right off the bat, looks at her and says, oh, wait, you 01:31:23.569 --> 01:31:29.196 think that was hard work? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Um harvesting 01:31:29.229 --> 01:31:35.647 packing watermelons at 100 and 13 degrees, you know, for 8.5 to 10.5 hours 01:31:35.680 --> 01:31:42.635 a day. That's work. This I can do this all the time. So if that gives you 01:31:42.668 --> 01:31:46.015 an indication as to, you know, the level of appreciation that you have and 01:31:46.048 --> 01:31:50.416 , and just learning how to work hard, I think Kel explained it pretty well. 01:31:50.449 --> 01:31:55.277 He absolutely did. Can you tell me a little bit about kind of the? And so 01:31:55.310 --> 01:31:58.416 you get an idea that I don't have a problem telling you things. In fact, 01:31:58.449 --> 01:32:01.786 you're gonna have to shove me up when I get out. So I have as much time as 01:32:01.819 --> 01:32:06.746 you do today. So my, my schedule is open. Um And it's a great story. So 01:32:06.779 --> 01:32:10.616 that's perfect. Tell me a little bit about um the harvesting of the 01:32:10.649 --> 01:32:14.336 vegetables and the family and dinner table and what that was like kind of 01:32:14.369 --> 01:32:19.616 that interaction between your family and 01:32:19.649 --> 01:32:24.086 cooking. And so, 01:32:24.119 --> 01:32:26.217 so 01:32:26.250 --> 01:32:31.406 interestingly when, when the, when the boys were little, when I have, I 01:32:31.439 --> 01:32:36.265 have two boys, um, 2.5 boys, 01:32:36.298 --> 01:32:40.706 the half is that, um because I know you're thinking, well, what is that? 01:32:40.739 --> 01:32:44.595 Um, the half is a young man, 01:32:44.628 --> 01:32:48.876 young man came to us, uh, when he was 14 or 15, his freshman year in high 01:32:48.909 --> 01:32:52.076 school, uh, he was on the basketball, freshman basketball team with my 01:32:52.109 --> 01:32:57.626 younger son, Sean and, um, 01:32:57.659 --> 01:33:03.135 his, for lack of a better definition, his family, his, his, his home 01:33:03.168 --> 01:33:10.305 situation kind of imploded and so actually maybe exploded. So, uh, he 01:33:10.338 --> 01:33:15.446 didn't have anywhere to go. So my younger son invited him to come home and 01:33:15.479 --> 01:33:20.937 spend the night and, you know, get dinner or whatever. And so, you know, 01:33:20.970 --> 01:33:28.536 he came over and, and we got to meet Javier is the young man's name. And, 01:33:28.569 --> 01:33:36.317 uh, so we got to meet, we got to meet hobby and so basketball starts and 01:33:36.350 --> 01:33:40.956 Kathleen's, you know, bringing hobby, you know, the, the, the freshman 01:33:40.989 --> 01:33:43.765 team, they get to go last, 01:33:43.798 --> 01:33:46.666 they're last, they're low on the to, uh, yeah, they're low on the total 01:33:46.699 --> 01:33:50.265 pole. So, anyway, um, 01:33:50.298 --> 01:33:55.876 Katherine goes to take off home one night and there's just police caution 01:33:55.909 --> 01:34:02.786 tape around the entire house and make a long story short. There was 01:34:02.819 --> 01:34:06.437 his, his, most of his family was in jail and his younger sister had been 01:34:06.470 --> 01:34:10.135 taken away. He had no idea where, but there was no one to talk to the 01:34:10.168 --> 01:34:15.076 neighbors just said everybody's gone. And so have you spent the night? And 01:34:15.109 --> 01:34:21.265 , um, so we washed his clothes, got him a toothbrush. Um, 01:34:21.298 --> 01:34:24.576 and he was good to go to school the next day. But he couldn't find 01:34:24.609 --> 01:34:29.135 anything out about where he was supposed to go stay, whatever, everybody 01:34:29.168 --> 01:34:33.467 was in jail. So he spent the night again and then he spent another night 01:34:33.500 --> 01:34:38.866 and then he spent another night and, you know, my, 01:34:38.899 --> 01:34:41.406 my wife Kathleen, 01:34:41.439 --> 01:34:46.116 who is, let me just say this, it's always better to really marry. Well, um 01:34:46.149 --> 01:34:50.796 , she is absolutely the better half. She took Abby out and just said, you 01:34:50.829 --> 01:34:55.607 know, why don't you, why would it be easier to stay with us if, if he had 01:34:55.640 --> 01:34:59.126 a little bit of clothing because he, he couldn't get any clothing that the 01:34:59.159 --> 01:35:04.296 house was shut down. So, um, so we bought some clothes, um, probably got 01:35:04.329 --> 01:35:07.256 some deodorants and, you know, whatever else those guys need when they're 01:35:07.289 --> 01:35:12.666 a freshman in high school, we, we got that stuff and so the, uh, the half 01:35:12.699 --> 01:35:18.876 , um, started and so we have 2.5 boys. 01:35:18.909 --> 01:35:24.726 But anyway, um, when, when, uh, the original two K and Sean, uh, were 01:35:24.759 --> 01:35:31.286 little guys, we decided to open the farm up to the public and that was in 01:35:31.319 --> 01:35:39.319 the early nineties. And, um, and so you talk about dinner around the table 01:35:39.529 --> 01:35:44.675 and, and so it was really fun, you know, to, to have the boys out on the 01:35:44.708 --> 01:35:47.515 farm, right? Because they're, they're little guys and they're, they're 01:35:47.548 --> 01:35:51.226 cruising around on the farm and they, they were catching toads and chasing 01:35:51.259 --> 01:35:56.116 lizards and all the stuff that I did and they were having a ball. But I'll 01:35:56.149 --> 01:36:04.055 never forget, never forget. Um, our younger son who was shoot 22 at the 01:36:04.088 --> 01:36:10.076 time, two something. And, um, 01:36:10.109 --> 01:36:14.836 we Kathleen had gone to get a pizza and she, she pulls down the tailgate 01:36:14.869 --> 01:36:20.107 of the truck and, and, uh, you know, we dive into our, to our juice and, 01:36:20.140 --> 01:36:25.446 and pizza and Sean says, mom, are we ever gonna have dinner at our table 01:36:25.479 --> 01:36:30.166 again? And she looks at me, 01:36:30.199 --> 01:36:34.376 I almost half choked on the pizza and it was like, ok, so we might be 01:36:34.409 --> 01:36:39.345 spending a little too much time at the farm here. How do we back off? And 01:36:39.378 --> 01:36:46.876 so we just, you know, we made a point of starting to have dinner time and 01:36:46.909 --> 01:36:51.425 making a point of, of, you know, not sitting in front of the TV, but 01:36:51.458 --> 01:36:57.067 sitting down with each other at the same table and, and having dinner. And 01:36:57.100 --> 01:37:01.555 what was really, what was really interesting is I enjoyed, I enjoy those 01:37:01.588 --> 01:37:08.687 moments so much that, that, and it's a joke in the family that I, uh, I, I 01:37:08.720 --> 01:37:12.746 put my fork down, maybe take a drink of milk or water or whatever. And, 01:37:12.779 --> 01:37:17.135 and, uh, and I just sit and, and kind of look around the table and just 01:37:17.168 --> 01:37:22.796 sort of take it all in and, and so, and so Sean, the same younger son, 01:37:22.829 --> 01:37:29.536 same guy says, you know, pops. It's a little creepy that, that you just 01:37:29.569 --> 01:37:32.567 put your fork on and kind of just stare at us for a little bit. He said I 01:37:32.600 --> 01:37:35.385 get it. It's kind of cool. You're just enjoying the moment, but it's a 01:37:35.418 --> 01:37:43.418 little creepy. So after we all stopped laughing, I just said, I absolutely 01:37:43.939 --> 01:37:47.336 love these moments and you're right, I would just, I would just freeze 01:37:47.369 --> 01:37:51.067 this right now if I could, you know, and I'd, I'd look at those guys and 01:37:51.100 --> 01:37:54.817 say, I'd like to freeze you right where you're at too because this, you 01:37:54.850 --> 01:37:59.027 guys are just so fun all the time and, and they're just like, they just 01:37:59.060 --> 01:38:04.765 hit you, you know, and just go. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Pops. Um, so dinner was 01:38:04.798 --> 01:38:10.506 , dinner was just time with family, you know, so breakfast and dinner, I 01:38:10.539 --> 01:38:14.187 didn't have lunch with them and, and I got to the point where I'd start to 01:38:14.220 --> 01:38:17.956 go into work just a little bit later just so that I could have breakfast 01:38:17.989 --> 01:38:21.857 with them before they went to school so that I could see them twice a day 01:38:21.890 --> 01:38:25.635 . I get to see them in the morning and get to see them at night and I'd 01:38:25.668 --> 01:38:29.777 stay at work a little bit later, but I'd still get them at night and, and 01:38:29.810 --> 01:38:36.555 in the day and to me that, that was twice as much time and, and I think it 01:38:36.588 --> 01:38:40.487 was the same with them. Um, 01:38:40.520 --> 01:38:44.666 but I, I'll never know because I'm not gonna ask him. But to me it was, it 01:38:44.699 --> 01:38:48.496 was a significant thing and then it happens at the dinner table that makes 01:38:48.529 --> 01:38:53.217 it so important. It makes you enjoy those stories, stories about what you 01:38:53.250 --> 01:38:57.635 did during the day and, and you know, for us, I gotta tell you, you know, 01:38:57.668 --> 01:39:01.116 when they were that age, it wasn't so much about the preparation of the 01:39:01.149 --> 01:39:04.555 food or anything and oh my God. And when they got older, it definitely was 01:39:04.588 --> 01:39:10.265 not about the preparation of the food. Because as they grew their six, 01:39:10.298 --> 01:39:17.635 they're 65 and 64 J six or 61 and their friends, we had the, we had the, 01:39:17.668 --> 01:39:21.067 you know, the Kool Aid house if you will. So all their friends and we 01:39:21.100 --> 01:39:25.256 loved it. We wanted to have that house where everybody came, you know, we 01:39:25.289 --> 01:39:28.116 wanted the house that everybody came to because we, we love knowing what 01:39:28.149 --> 01:39:35.135 they were up to, you know, and, and um and just enjoyed, enjoyed that time 01:39:35.168 --> 01:39:39.476 with them so much. But honest, honestly, I'll never forget Kathleen 01:39:39.509 --> 01:39:42.956 running back into the back room one time. Just going. You got to come out 01:39:42.989 --> 01:39:46.416 and help me. She's going, I literally cannot prepare food fast enough to 01:39:46.449 --> 01:39:51.946 get in front of these guys. II I just, they're, they're, they're starving. 01:39:51.979 --> 01:39:55.076 You know, there's, there's no chunks out of the furniture yet. But you 01:39:55.109 --> 01:39:59.567 know, you gotta, you gotta give me a hand here. The microwave isn't fast 01:39:59.600 --> 01:40:04.175 enough So, uh, so I went out and, and here's, you know, part of the 01:40:04.208 --> 01:40:08.067 basketball team, some guys from the baseball team, football team and, and 01:40:08.100 --> 01:40:12.237 they're all big, they're all big guys and they were just tearing through 01:40:12.270 --> 01:40:17.576 the food. And so I, I have to admit that, you know, when, when, uh, in, in 01:40:17.609 --> 01:40:21.536 their formative ages, shall we say they probably weren't eating the best 01:40:21.569 --> 01:40:26.135 stuff around, just massive quantities of it. You know, as they're tearing 01:40:26.168 --> 01:40:30.296 through, you know, huge numbers of calories every day as they're, as 01:40:30.329 --> 01:40:34.256 they're lifting in the morning running and then, and then, you know, open 01:40:34.289 --> 01:40:37.897 gym or whatever the season, you know, look like. So, yeah, we were just 01:40:37.930 --> 01:40:41.345 trying to keep those guys, you know, full 01:40:41.378 --> 01:40:46.406 anyway. Yeah. Sorry, I digress. No, no, no, it's great. So today, let me 01:40:46.439 --> 01:40:52.805 share with you today is so funny because, uh, just the other day. So now, 01:40:52.838 --> 01:40:55.976 you know, when, especially when we're in season here in Arizona, you know 01:40:56.009 --> 01:41:00.166 , now it's, it's, uh, you know, I harvest, I harvest things and I take 01:41:00.199 --> 01:41:04.527 them home and, and, you know, we juice a lot, the boys juice. They, they 01:41:04.560 --> 01:41:09.976 love doing the juicing thing. We do a lot of juicing, um, for breakfast 01:41:10.009 --> 01:41:14.187 and, and even to drink with lunch and maybe dinner. But, you know, for 01:41:14.220 --> 01:41:20.067 Kathleen and I dinner is a large bowl of salad with, with different 01:41:20.100 --> 01:41:26.265 ingredients. Um, but then the entree, you know, fish chicken usually will 01:41:26.298 --> 01:41:31.116 be on top and that's, that's dinner and then we usually out of the same 01:41:31.149 --> 01:41:34.607 bowl, you know, handing it back and forth and carrying on conversations 01:41:34.640 --> 01:41:38.265 about what she's doing, what I'm doing, what the boys are doing and, and, 01:41:38.298 --> 01:41:41.527 uh, you know, visiting about friends and, and just, that's, that's dinner 01:41:41.560 --> 01:41:46.067 , but it's basically a salad with something on top and that just seems 01:41:46.100 --> 01:41:50.305 very natural to us. But, uh, I, I can't remember which, which one of our 01:41:50.338 --> 01:41:55.536 boys it was, I think it was, uh, I think it was Sean was over the other 01:41:55.569 --> 01:41:59.635 day. And, uh, and he's looking kind of rummaging through the refrigerator 01:41:59.668 --> 01:42:03.786 really quick and he's going ma, you don't have anything to eat in here. 01:42:03.819 --> 01:42:10.196 The only thing I see is there's, there's just ingredients. Yeah. And so we 01:42:10.229 --> 01:42:17.286 just, we just loved that statement so much. Um, because, you know, and, 01:42:17.319 --> 01:42:23.326 and yet he, uh, he enjoys good healthy meals with us, but at that moment 01:42:23.359 --> 01:42:27.897 he just wanted that thing to throw in the microwave because he had, he had 01:42:27.930 --> 01:42:31.156 a short period of time and, you know, to have lunch or whatever it was he 01:42:31.189 --> 01:42:36.756 wanted, he needed to get going. So, anyway, uh, that's, that's dinner for 01:42:36.789 --> 01:42:40.845 us. So that's, those are meals, meals have been, you know, I guess just, 01:42:40.878 --> 01:42:45.626 just whenever, whatever time we can get to hang out with each other, what 01:42:45.659 --> 01:42:50.876 made you decide to go into the family business and at what point did you 01:42:50.909 --> 01:42:55.156 make that decision? Do you think? I just knew, like I said, well, early on 01:42:55.189 --> 01:43:00.737 in my, in my academic life, um, I just knew I wanted to be outside. It was 01:43:00.770 --> 01:43:04.385 , it was pretty quickly that, that I transferred that interest of just 01:43:04.418 --> 01:43:10.906 being outdoors to really wanting to learn about, um, agronomy. So, uh, so 01:43:10.939 --> 01:43:15.607 I got my, my degree in Agronomy and plant genetics. I, I graduated in the 01:43:15.640 --> 01:43:22.217 early eighties and just went out to the farm. Um the family farm and so 01:43:22.250 --> 01:43:28.586 started, started working in the family farm and doing that classic Central 01:43:28.619 --> 01:43:35.796 Arizona, you know, row crop configuration. But, but there were signals to 01:43:35.829 --> 01:43:40.027 me um 01:43:40.060 --> 01:43:46.925 that, that I picked up. Um I studied, I had the opportunity to study some 01:43:46.958 --> 01:43:51.156 , you know, the sale of commodities. So I, I studied the commodity market 01:43:51.189 --> 01:43:55.626 actually, you know, bought some futures, you know, with my dad's, with my 01:43:55.659 --> 01:44:01.897 dad's blessing and, and uh we went in together and, and we, we bought and 01:44:01.930 --> 01:44:07.376 sold cotton so that I could learn um how to buy and sell cotton, how to 01:44:07.409 --> 01:44:11.656 market more efficiently because, you know, the easiest thing sometimes in 01:44:11.689 --> 01:44:15.317 the fresh fruit and vegetable, any crop that you're growing, any part of 01:44:15.350 --> 01:44:20.006 agriculture, the easiest thing to do is to produce the most challenging is 01:44:20.039 --> 01:44:28.039 to market. And, and so I wanted to learn this thing about cotton marketing. 01:44:28.548 --> 01:44:34.586 And so uh it just happened to be at a time in, in the marketing in the, 01:44:34.619 --> 01:44:41.946 in the overall distribution of, of cotton as a as a global commodity. Um 01:44:41.979 --> 01:44:45.626 It was just shifting from a domestically grown, domestically used 01:44:45.659 --> 01:44:52.555 commodity to global. And so for so for the first time, for an example, 01:44:52.588 --> 01:44:58.217 you'd see a massive hailstorm go through, you know, the cotton belt and 01:44:58.250 --> 01:45:03.916 the market didn't budge and it was, it was, it was earth shaking, you know 01:45:03.949 --> 01:45:08.536 , it was, everybody in the room was looking at was looking at the reports 01:45:08.569 --> 01:45:15.696 of of potential damage to the cotton crop and and yet there was no 01:45:15.729 --> 01:45:19.166 movement in the cotton market in the futures market. And what in the world 01:45:19.199 --> 01:45:25.897 was going on unbeknownst to us growers. Um 01:45:25.930 --> 01:45:31.976 There were reports that other countries had now had the ability and wanted 01:45:32.009 --> 01:45:39.666 to move cotton into the world market. So the world, the world marketers, 01:45:39.699 --> 01:45:44.756 the uh the world buyers of cotton took that into consideration. So market 01:45:44.789 --> 01:45:49.277 didn't budge. The in the inventory was now out there and the United States 01:45:49.310 --> 01:45:56.546 inventory of cotton was just one of many. And so at that point, you start 01:45:56.579 --> 01:46:00.555 to realize, you know, my my immediate reaction was to look at the price of 01:46:00.588 --> 01:46:04.175 cotton that day and just go wait, that means we're going to have to grow 01:46:04.208 --> 01:46:10.866 cotton for this amount that's not gonna happen. So then you realize as a 01:46:10.899 --> 01:46:16.987 as a commodity grower that that now you're dealing now you're farming the 01:46:17.020 --> 01:46:22.866 government and now you, you play to the whims of the, not to say that it's 01:46:22.899 --> 01:46:27.546 the whims, but that's, I'm sorry, that's the first word that comes to mind 01:46:27.579 --> 01:46:32.076 of the, of the federal government. And so trying to figure out what you're 01:46:32.109 --> 01:46:36.857 doing every, every other year or at the very least every five years, 01:46:36.890 --> 01:46:42.107 extremely challenging. Um, and not only that, I'm a farmer. I like growing 01:46:42.140 --> 01:46:46.246 crops. I don't, I don't want to have to farm the government. That's not 01:46:46.279 --> 01:46:51.976 what I do. That's not what I get enjoyment out of. So that changed how I 01:46:52.009 --> 01:46:57.656 looked at farming. It changed how I look at marketing. So I wanted to get 01:46:57.689 --> 01:47:01.437 into crops that could stand on their own where I could put a budget 01:47:01.470 --> 01:47:05.425 together and, and so by the way, you ought to know that, that around here 01:47:05.458 --> 01:47:10.817 we use a lot of sports analogies. So we use the, you know, if so if you're 01:47:10.850 --> 01:47:14.616 batting in baseball and you step up and, you know, there's an average of a 01:47:14.649 --> 01:47:19.446 certain number of certainly strikeouts walks, um, singles, doubles, 01:47:19.479 --> 01:47:22.976 triples, home runs, you know, if you're putting a budget together and it 01:47:23.009 --> 01:47:26.555 requires you to hit a, you know, a double or a triple every time you step 01:47:26.588 --> 01:47:31.326 up to the plate. Man. That's, those are tough odds, like almost impossible. 01:47:31.359 --> 01:47:34.746 But yet that's what we're looking at. So then who's, how do, how do we 01:47:34.779 --> 01:47:38.416 make money without the government stepping in and saying, oh, Hey, let me 01:47:38.449 --> 01:47:43.027 carry that ball for you and throw it a little further into the field. Um 01:47:43.060 --> 01:47:47.107 Oh, that was tough. So I wanted to get into something that would allow me 01:47:47.140 --> 01:47:54.366 to be profitable. And so I really wanted to get into more of the fresh 01:47:54.399 --> 01:48:00.086 fruits and vegetables and, and so uh we started to do that and it was 01:48:00.119 --> 01:48:04.366 right about that time when we first started into we as a family. My, my 01:48:04.399 --> 01:48:08.476 dad, my brothers, we all farmed together at one point um in my dad's 01:48:08.509 --> 01:48:15.607 company, agricultural enterprises. And uh and so it was, it was actually 01:48:15.640 --> 01:48:20.726 right around that time when we realized that, 01:48:20.759 --> 01:48:26.437 that um we had very different, we being myself and, and, and my brothers 01:48:26.470 --> 01:48:29.925 and my dad just had different ways of farming and, and what was important 01:48:29.958 --> 01:48:34.506 to me was maybe not as important to them. And so, you know, with 01:48:34.539 --> 01:48:37.256 everybody's blessing, Kathleen and I kind of broke off and did our own 01:48:37.289 --> 01:48:42.317 thing. And so it was sort of a slow, it was a transition that, that took 01:48:42.350 --> 01:48:46.467 place in the mid eighties and, and uh and finished in the late eighties 01:48:46.500 --> 01:48:54.500 around 88. And so we started, we started our own farm and um and sometimes 01:48:54.890 --> 01:49:00.076 it's just better to be lucky than good. And we grew mostly vegetables 01:49:00.109 --> 01:49:06.076 still growing a little bit of cotton at that time. Um But we did, we did 01:49:06.109 --> 01:49:10.425 well enough to keep going and there were some extremely 01:49:10.458 --> 01:49:18.256 slim years. Um, there were times when, when I'd go home and Kathleen and I 01:49:18.289 --> 01:49:21.036 would grab the boys and we'd, we'd look at them and just say, listen, guys 01:49:21.069 --> 01:49:23.156 , 01:49:23.189 --> 01:49:30.277 here's a wrap. Um, and to look at really young faces, really young faces 01:49:30.310 --> 01:49:35.256 and to try and, and let them know that, you know, listen, it's not all 01:49:35.289 --> 01:49:39.246 lost or anything, but we're gonna have to be tight here, you know. So when 01:49:39.279 --> 01:49:42.546 your buddies come and they've got a new skateboard and, and you're not 01:49:42.579 --> 01:49:49.857 able to get one here's what's up, here's what's going on. Um, so they 01:49:49.890 --> 01:49:54.756 learned, they learned early on, you know, you, you save when you can and, 01:49:54.789 --> 01:49:59.366 and when you, and when you, when you'd hit a home run and you'd, and you'd 01:49:59.399 --> 01:50:03.656 have a good melon crop or broccoli or whatever potato, whatever that crop 01:50:03.689 --> 01:50:08.737 might have been. Um, you save it and you wait and, and you hold on to that 01:50:08.770 --> 01:50:15.166 and you learn to be conservative. And I think, I think learning to farm on 01:50:15.199 --> 01:50:20.527 my own during a period when Central Arizona agriculture was not really 01:50:20.560 --> 01:50:24.446 swinging from the trees so much. Um, it was very difficult. It was, it was 01:50:24.479 --> 01:50:29.326 , you had to, if you could make it at that time, I think you can make it 01:50:29.359 --> 01:50:34.675 anywhere. And, uh, and so we learned to farm in those in those times. And 01:50:34.708 --> 01:50:42.708 so you really learned to save and budget and, um, be conservative fiscally 01:50:43.250 --> 01:50:48.726 conservative. So, anyway, so now I've been taken off. What was the 01:50:48.759 --> 01:50:53.515 original question? I'm gonna follow up with a, a question about the 01:50:53.548 --> 01:50:58.546 decision to, um, split up. I mean, what was that impact for you? I mean, 01:50:58.579 --> 01:51:05.226 personally, it must have been one of the hardest decisions you made and 01:51:05.259 --> 01:51:10.956 how did you make that decision? It was really interesting. Um, I'm kind of 01:51:10.989 --> 01:51:16.376 a systems guy. Um, we also joke about a fairly, fairly healthy level of, 01:51:16.409 --> 01:51:21.696 of O CD in my family with me. And uh so there's a lot of funny jokes about 01:51:21.729 --> 01:51:25.996 that. And uh and I, and I wear that badge um somewhat proudly. So I'm, I'm 01:51:26.029 --> 01:51:32.135 good with it at the very least, I'm good with it. Um 01:51:32.168 --> 01:51:36.246 Because because at the end of the day when you're in agriculture, I don't 01:51:36.279 --> 01:51:41.906 know that having a healthy amount of O CD doesn't help you, you know, pay 01:51:41.939 --> 01:51:47.647 attention to detail um to create systems of efficiency that, that help 01:51:47.680 --> 01:51:51.317 everybody, you know, work together more efficiently and, and so that you 01:51:51.350 --> 01:51:55.006 don't, so that you can work smarter and not harder because that at the end 01:51:55.039 --> 01:51:57.796 of the day, I think is what has helped us kind of move forward a little 01:51:57.829 --> 01:52:01.987 bit. Um 01:52:02.020 --> 01:52:08.277 So the decision was was Kathleen and I went to have dinner with my folks 01:52:08.310 --> 01:52:13.996 and, and I wanted, I had an, I had an idea and uh so I, I wanted to meet 01:52:14.029 --> 01:52:18.437 with my dad with my, with my parents in general, knowing that, knowing 01:52:18.470 --> 01:52:21.326 that there was a chance that, that this could go, you know, one or two 01:52:21.359 --> 01:52:26.317 ways and uh one was that he would, he would like the idea and move forward 01:52:26.350 --> 01:52:32.175 with. And the idea was, um here's, here's how we can organize this farm so 01:52:32.208 --> 01:52:36.425 that the brothers aren't overlapping and yet not dropping the ball or 01:52:36.458 --> 01:52:40.166 creating gaps in between us. So here's how we can organize this so that 01:52:40.199 --> 01:52:45.987 here's how the literally an organizational chart flow of personnel flow of 01:52:46.020 --> 01:52:50.226 equipment, you know, and, and, you know, I, I thought, I thought I had 01:52:50.259 --> 01:52:53.446 laid out pretty well, you know, and actually my dad did too. He looked at 01:52:53.479 --> 01:52:56.987 , he said, yeah, that'd be great if I wanted to do that. But he just 01:52:57.020 --> 01:53:00.746 looked at me. He just looked at both Kathleen and I, he said, I have never 01:53:00.779 --> 01:53:05.777 wanted you guys to farm together. Never wanted to. That would be the worst 01:53:05.810 --> 01:53:10.015 idea in the world for you guys to farm together because unbeknownst to me 01:53:10.048 --> 01:53:14.555 , he and his family had tried that and it didn't work very well and he 01:53:14.588 --> 01:53:19.437 didn't want to create that situation that threw us all into the, into the 01:53:19.470 --> 01:53:25.286 same bucket and, and um and, and tight work environment. He just thought 01:53:25.319 --> 01:53:30.487 I'm not gonna do that to you. So he just said, I just have always wanted 01:53:30.520 --> 01:53:33.946 to create an opportunity for you guys to get in here learn and then go and 01:53:33.979 --> 01:53:39.116 do your own thing. And so I'm looking at him going, I guess it's time for 01:53:39.149 --> 01:53:44.237 me to go do my own thing and, and, um, you know, and Kathleen kind of 01:53:44.270 --> 01:53:51.696 grabs my leg and my mom starts crying and, and, um, and I just said, great 01:53:51.729 --> 01:53:57.076 , um, I didn't know that, you know, we, we, we might have, we might have 01:53:57.109 --> 01:54:01.527 started a transition a little bit earlier so that it wouldn't be just, hey 01:54:01.560 --> 01:54:06.876 , tomorrow, I'm gonna go out and start my own thing now. But um no, it was 01:54:06.909 --> 01:54:11.805 , it was great with their blessing. Um Kathleen and I, you know, literally 01:54:11.838 --> 01:54:16.425 jumped off the cliff together, holding, you know, each other's hand. And, 01:54:16.458 --> 01:54:20.937 um, and we joke about those, not that moment per se, but I have to say 01:54:20.970 --> 01:54:26.595 after that, you know, uh holidays and dinners with my family became a lot 01:54:26.628 --> 01:54:30.196 more fun because we weren't, you know, grinding about the farm and what 01:54:30.229 --> 01:54:33.756 was supposed to have happened that day or, or did happen or whatever. And 01:54:33.789 --> 01:54:39.666 so it, it became less about work and all about family stuff again. So it 01:54:39.699 --> 01:54:45.206 was good. It was great. And uh and Kathleen, I still joke about the amount 01:54:45.239 --> 01:54:51.845 of work because her thought was, you know, that was a big place and, and 01:54:51.878 --> 01:54:55.226 when I got out of school, you know, I, I thought I'd be able to come in 01:54:55.259 --> 01:54:59.916 and just turn the agricultural world on its ear, you know, because, hey, I 01:54:59.949 --> 01:55:04.006 know how to do this stuff. Right. And, um, I guess it's good to have 01:55:04.039 --> 01:55:07.765 self-confidence. But still that was ridiculous thinking because I get out 01:55:07.798 --> 01:55:10.487 of school and, and I could have worked, you know, I could have worked 30 01:55:10.520 --> 01:55:15.317 hours a day and, and that farm could have absorbed every last minute of 01:55:15.350 --> 01:55:22.406 that. And, uh, as I, as I later found out, um, but when I started, when 01:55:22.439 --> 01:55:26.876 Kathleen and I were doing our own, you, you work just as hard, if not 01:55:26.909 --> 01:55:32.226 harder, but it feels different. It's just different when it's your place. 01:55:32.259 --> 01:55:37.095 And I think any business owner, any entrepreneur would feel that uh not 01:55:37.128 --> 01:55:40.696 that I'm an entrepreneur, any, any individual business owner would feel 01:55:40.729 --> 01:55:44.546 that when you, when it's your place, there's just a different feeling 01:55:44.579 --> 01:55:49.595 about it. It just feels right, it feels good. And, and so you know that 01:55:49.628 --> 01:55:54.046 every last minute that you put into it is benefiting you and your family 01:55:54.079 --> 01:55:57.777 and, and the people that you get to work with hopefully. And so it's just 01:55:57.810 --> 01:56:01.845 kind of, I don't know, it just, you don't get tired, you get physically 01:56:01.878 --> 01:56:05.437 tired but you don't get emotionally tired. So you mentioned that you 01:56:05.470 --> 01:56:10.237 weren't an entrepreneur, however you have to manage the business, you have 01:56:10.270 --> 01:56:16.635 to market, you have to produce. So in some ways you are an entrepreneur in 01:56:16.668 --> 01:56:20.095 your own, right? Oh, I know, I joke about that. So just, you know, I just 01:56:20.128 --> 01:56:22.956 , I just, I jokingly go with the motto of, you know, it's better to be 01:56:22.989 --> 01:56:26.976 lucky than good. And uh and I just think that I've been incredibly lucky 01:56:27.009 --> 01:56:32.817 in my life. Do you think your business skills helped you manage and kind 01:56:32.850 --> 01:56:38.196 of transform um the farm itself? I, I wouldn't really call myself a, a 01:56:38.229 --> 01:56:44.876 great businessman. Um 01:56:44.909 --> 01:56:48.006 I think there's a certain amount of logic that goes forward. There's a 01:56:48.039 --> 01:56:52.906 certain amount of 01:56:52.939 --> 01:56:57.107 remember the respect for people, 01:56:57.140 --> 01:57:01.015 having a certain level of respect for the people that you work with will 01:57:01.048 --> 01:57:03.425 get you. 01:57:03.458 --> 01:57:06.737 Mm 01:57:06.770 --> 01:57:12.616 You can create good teams and we have really good teams still do. So let's 01:57:12.649 --> 01:57:15.946 talk a little bit about choosing to start on your own, the crops you chose 01:57:15.979 --> 01:57:22.555 , why you chose them. So we chose to, so we chose to go into fresh fruits 01:57:22.588 --> 01:57:26.647 and vegetables as much as possible. Although ironically enough at the time 01:57:26.680 --> 01:57:31.987 that we broke away um financing 01:57:32.020 --> 01:57:36.095 the financial, the financial institutions were, were set up and organized. 01:57:36.128 --> 01:57:41.076 So be so much around the guarantee that the government throws, you know, 01:57:41.109 --> 01:57:45.246 that safety net underneath the commodities that you could borrow money all 01:57:45.279 --> 01:57:50.107 day long to grow, grow to go grow cotton and the the whole, remember the 01:57:50.140 --> 01:57:55.515 Central Arizona, you know, grouping all of that. And yet I'd look at the 01:57:55.548 --> 01:58:03.548 bankers and say I can show you I can show you how in a budget that won't 01:58:03.640 --> 01:58:08.076 work and yet you're telling me that you won't lend me money on vegetables 01:58:08.109 --> 01:58:13.126 , but you'll lend me money for the cotton. And, um, it was really 01:58:13.159 --> 01:58:20.296 interesting to go through that, that cycle with, with the lenders. And so 01:58:20.329 --> 01:58:23.226 , um, 01:58:23.259 --> 01:58:27.015 fascinating to me to this day that they would have locked me into a 01:58:27.048 --> 01:58:31.536 business that I think would have gone out of business by now, um, that, 01:58:31.569 --> 01:58:35.015 that model, you know, wouldn't have worked. And yet here I was looking at 01:58:35.048 --> 01:58:40.067 them saying, let me show you something that's newer and, and it's being 01:58:40.100 --> 01:58:43.576 done, you know, it's not like it's, it's new, you know, it was new to 01:58:43.609 --> 01:58:47.226 these lenders, I think. But uh but let me show you something that really 01:58:47.259 --> 01:58:52.305 does have a chance for succeeding. And so we, we got one lender that, that 01:58:52.338 --> 01:59:00.338 believed in us. And so we move forward and, you know, it, it, it worked. 01:59:01.199 --> 01:59:09.107 And so we went into uh melons during the summer, um potatoes, broccoli 01:59:09.140 --> 01:59:12.796 cabbage. So, so literally, people always ask me, let me share this with 01:59:12.829 --> 01:59:17.116 you. People always ask me, what do you grow? What do you grow? What do you 01:59:17.149 --> 01:59:19.777 , what do you want to grow? And I always look at everybody and just say, 01:59:19.810 --> 01:59:23.175 you know, I can tell you today what we grow. But if you ask me tomorrow 01:59:23.208 --> 01:59:25.996 and maybe do something different, they're like, what do you mean? You know 01:59:26.029 --> 01:59:28.857 , don't you grow the same thing all the time? And I looked at him and said 01:59:28.890 --> 01:59:35.376 , I'm gonna grow whatever I can sell. And that may be totally different 01:59:35.409 --> 01:59:39.726 tomorrow because I can tell you what I'm doing today is totally different 01:59:39.759 --> 01:59:46.906 than what I was doing not too long ago. And, and so I hope 01:59:46.939 --> 01:59:52.817 that we are sharp enough that we are observant enough to identify the 01:59:52.850 --> 01:59:56.866 opportunities and take advantage of the opportunities or work our way 01:59:56.899 --> 02:00:00.226 through the challenges that then creates opportunities, but to be able to 02:00:00.259 --> 02:00:05.967 recognize opportunities. Um I think that's, that's significant, you know, 02:00:06.000 --> 02:00:13.446 and, and so we went with at the time, what we thought would make money. 02:00:13.479 --> 02:00:16.826 And so it was fresh fruits and vegetables and a little bit of cotton. And 02:00:16.859 --> 02:00:20.237 then we slowly did away with the cotton. It just didn't work in our 02:00:20.270 --> 02:00:26.746 rotation as far as um the agronomic and, and everything about it. So we 02:00:26.779 --> 02:00:30.406 went to fresh fruits and vegetables about that time. We, we opened the 02:00:30.439 --> 02:00:36.467 farm to the public and we were, we had a shoot, Kathleen had, I wanna say 02:00:36.500 --> 02:00:41.256 25,000 students a year coming through the farm on educational tours, we 02:00:41.289 --> 02:00:46.166 had festivals, um parties. 02:00:46.199 --> 02:00:52.777 Basically the, the farm became a way to share the farm with everybody. 02:00:52.810 --> 02:00:56.076 There were so many people that didn't still to this day don't have an idea 02:00:56.109 --> 02:01:00.265 as to what farming is about. And, and I by that, let me the example I give 02:01:00.298 --> 02:01:05.647 is the, is always the uh the UE garden. So we thought, uh it, so let me 02:01:05.680 --> 02:01:09.046 tell you, we, we thought we were because, uh because our are open to the 02:01:09.079 --> 02:01:12.765 public portion of the farm is, is kind of what we're known for, even 02:01:12.798 --> 02:01:19.055 though it had to close in 2002 people told me about it and it was, it was 02:01:19.088 --> 02:01:23.206 so fun. God, you talk about the great people, um, wonderful people that, 02:01:23.239 --> 02:01:27.076 that we had the opportunity to work with. Anyway, Kathleen built an 02:01:27.109 --> 02:01:35.109 absolutely phenomenal program. Um She took a corner of the farm and turned 02:01:35.329 --> 02:01:42.546 it into a and educational and entertaining place. And I say those two 02:01:42.579 --> 02:01:48.567 things because we found out that if you can make something entertaining 02:01:48.600 --> 02:01:55.357 and educational at the same time, it has a much greater value to people 02:01:55.390 --> 02:02:03.305 and, and a farm can be that like that. There are so as an example, the, 02:02:03.338 --> 02:02:07.027 the um the, the pick your own because we thought we were selling 02:02:07.060 --> 02:02:08.967 vegetables. When we opened the farm in the public, we thought we were 02:02:09.000 --> 02:02:11.817 selling fresh fruits and vegetables. They're right in your backyard. 02:02:11.850 --> 02:02:14.737 They're gonna taste better, they're fresh. That's why you should come and 02:02:14.770 --> 02:02:18.286 buy your, your fresh fruits and vegetables from us could not have been 02:02:18.319 --> 02:02:24.196 more wrong. We're here. We are in Arizona where basically 90% of, you know 02:02:24.229 --> 02:02:28.237 , all of the greens from, for the country come out of here during the 02:02:28.270 --> 02:02:35.166 winter. We get pretty fresh stuff here. So it's not that big of a deal and 02:02:35.199 --> 02:02:38.277 you know, the fruits during the summer, it's just not that big of a deal 02:02:38.310 --> 02:02:45.515 because we're in Arizona. Um But we just thought that people wanted that. 02:02:45.548 --> 02:02:48.976 Um because people always said, well, God, we'd love to buy your stuff. Why 02:02:49.009 --> 02:02:53.416 can't we find your stuff? And so we thought we were selling vegetables. Um 02:02:53.449 --> 02:02:59.397 So we had this amazingly beautiful. I mean, literally people would come in 02:02:59.430 --> 02:03:03.076 and take pictures of the wet rack that we had with all the fresh fruits 02:03:03.109 --> 02:03:07.147 and vegetables that we were growing and, and because it's yours, right? 02:03:07.180 --> 02:03:10.476 You and because you have one person in the market and that's their job is 02:03:10.509 --> 02:03:14.217 to make sure that that thing is, is full all the time. And I mean, it was 02:03:14.250 --> 02:03:17.656 beautiful. It was, it was literally take a picture of it, you know, hang 02:03:17.689 --> 02:03:22.925 it up on the wall kind of thing. Um But people would walk in mom and dad 02:03:22.958 --> 02:03:29.467 and 2.1 kids and they'd walk in and, and go, oh you harvested the carrots. 02:03:29.500 --> 02:03:35.476 We, we thought we'd be able to dig our own like, so, you know, I'm, I'm 02:03:35.509 --> 02:03:38.845 dumb but I'm not an idiot. So after a while we're kind of looking at each 02:03:38.878 --> 02:03:44.015 other going, they don't, they don't want us to pick the stuff for them. 02:03:44.048 --> 02:03:48.777 All of this right here can go away. We're, we're literally just the 02:03:48.810 --> 02:03:52.336 demonstration gardens. Well, we've got this other place right out here, 02:03:52.369 --> 02:03:57.385 we'll just, we'll let them go pick it. And so we had the, we had the UEC 02:03:57.418 --> 02:04:02.687 uh gardens and it never ceases to amaze me to this day how little people 02:04:02.720 --> 02:04:07.595 know about what they buy in the store every day. Um So the example I 02:04:07.628 --> 02:04:11.647 always use is uh broccoli. So we had you plant a little bit of broccoli 02:04:11.680 --> 02:04:15.506 each week. So that when it, when it's time to harvest, it doesn't all come 02:04:15.539 --> 02:04:19.217 on at the same time, you, everybody, it keeps coming out each week, right. 02:04:19.250 --> 02:04:22.756 So you have to have the same amount of broccoli each week. So, everything 02:04:22.789 --> 02:04:27.515 that we grew out there was done that way. So right next to each other, you 02:04:27.548 --> 02:04:31.586 had these little, these small planted areas where here's this week's 02:04:31.619 --> 02:04:35.277 harvest and then next week is right next to it. And next to that is the, 02:04:35.310 --> 02:04:41.717 the following week and so far. So, so on this, on this one area, uh you 02:04:41.750 --> 02:04:46.378 have these, these beautiful broccoli florets.