Regenerative Ag Stories on the Grazing Grass Podcast

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0:00:00 - Cal
Welcome to the Grazing Grass Podcast, episode 124.

0:00:04 - Andy
You control the farm or ranch. Don't let it control you.

0:00:08 - Cal
You're listening to the Grazing Grass Podcast, sharing information and stories of grass-based livestock production utilizing regenerative practices. I'm your host, Cal Hardage. You're growing more than grass. You're growing a healthier ecosystem to help your cattle thrive in their environment. You're growing your livelihood by increasing your carrying capacity and reducing your operating costs. You're growing stronger communities and a legacy to last generations. Legacy to last generations. The grazing management decisions you make today impact everything from the soil beneath your feet to the community all around you. That's why the Noble Research Institute created their Essentials of Regenerative Grazing course to teach ranchers like you Easy to follow techniques to quickly assess your forage, production and infrastructure capacity in order to begin grazing more efficiently. Together, they can help you grow not only a healthier operation, but a legacy that lasts. Learn more on their website at nobleorg slash grazing. It's nobleorg forward slash grazing.

On today's episode, we have Andy Youngblood of Youngblood Farm, located in Lower Arkansas, la, la. He's in Southwest Arkansas and we have a wonderful conversation about his journey to where he is now and we talk a lot about cattle, cattle breeds. Then he also had goats and sheep for a time, so we talk about that and then, for the overgrazing section, we dive into silvopasture and how he's getting his silvopasture and how he's managing it. For the bonus segment if you are a grazing grass insider, the bonus segment will be available to you soon. Be sure and listen to 10 seconds about the podcast. In just a moment I have more news about that. But for the bonus segment we're going to talk about raw milk. He does have a milk cow or two, so we'll talk about that a little bit on the bonus segment over on Grazing Grass Insiders. It's a really good episode. Andy and my path crossed about 25 years ago, so it's very interesting catching up with him and seeing what's happening there. 10 seconds about the podcast.

First for the podcast, let's do a review and remember we love five-star reviews and positive comments. This review comes from Broken Oak Farm. It says excellent resource. The Grazing Grass podcast is a wonderful resource for those interested in regenerative farming. Cal does a wonderful job of getting granular with each guest and their operation. I enjoy Cal's style of interviewing and he does a wonderful job of disseminating information that is wide-ranging and beneficial to the farmer. Thank you, broken Oak Farm. You were much too kind with those words, but I appreciate it.

Just a moment ago I mentioned about the Grazing Grass Insiders. That is available and there's some perks to having it and I'm working through trying to make that more beneficial. But one of the perks is the Grazing Grass Insider podcast, which includes bonus segments from each episode. However, I noticed yesterday when I was working on some stuff that podcast is not working correctly. So I apologize to the Grazing Grass Insiders. I'm working on that. I'll hopefully get it back up within the week so you can get back access to those bonus segments. I apologize for that. I should have checked sooner. One more thing about the podcast we had some issues with the video for this week. If you're watching on YouTube, video won't be near as fascinating as usual. I apologize, but I think we got the audio version going good. Well, enough of that. Let's talk to Andy. Andy, we welcome you to the Grazing Grass podcast. We're excited you're here today.

0:04:30 - Andy
Well, thank you.

0:04:31 - Cal
Cal, it's wonderful to be here and I appreciate the invite. Andy, to get started, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your operation?

0:04:37 - Andy
Yeah, I don't know if I can tell you a little bit, but it's been quite a journey. But I'll do my best to keep it short. But I do have to go back a ways, actually back to about. Well, I guess about 87 when I graduated high school, Grew up in a small town of Granite, arkansas, which is southwest Arkansas, and this area is a lot of beef, cows and poultry operations and that's about all there is here.

Well, I headed to college in the fall of 87 with a mindset of which a very conventional mindset, and what a lot of folks do that go to school for ag-related purposes in this area was how to best work for Tyson Foods or Pilgrim's Pride, get that job and maybe do a little farming on the side. Actually started college with becoming a veterinarian in mind, but that university chem took that out of my system. So settled in with an ag business degree, graduated in 91, got married August 3rd 91, graduated August 9th and went to work for Tyson Foods in North Arkansas August 12th. So it was a pretty busy couple weeks. We lived there for a year. Both of us are from this area and had an opportunity with Tyson to come back here. That's about all there is in Grannis. We don't have a stoplight or a stop sign even, but there's a Tyson plant there.

But I actually came back to work with Tyson's Pork Group, worked for them for six years after having worked at a feed mill for one year in north of Harrison, arkansas, rocked along for a little while and we were farming a little bit, so to speak, very conventionally. We had fenced a property and got what few cows I had off of the range. We called it Dad Leased Warehouser Timber Company and we had he had cattle on actually several thousand acres of rangeland, brushland. But we gathered the few cows we had, put them behind fence and started trying to raise them on grass not grass farming. We were still conventionally farming at that time. 2003 rolled around and Tyson was doing an expansion with her poultry in the area. So Tracy and I looked at that as a way to get back to the farm and building broiler houses. So in 2003, 2004, we built three conventional brawler houses.

She was a public school teacher in the WIC school system. We both came home in 2004. She left the school system. We began homeschooling the kids, say we I guess it was her and the mouse in her pocket but started homeschooling the kids and I left Tyson Foods as my last tour was. I serviced hen farms, was trying to farm at that time and the farm was just stagnant, it was just conventional, it was like everyone else is around, nothing amazing happening. The soil. I still had to use some vaccine, had to spray some pastures and things at that time, and a lot of the conventional practices. In 2000, I think it was about 2006, tracy's dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and that caused us to check a lot of things and she actually started researching her family line and Cal. Literally everyone in that line had died of cancer.

So it freaked us out a little bit because or at least for her and our two children we had. Our son was born in 95, our daughter was born in 2000. Well, we started looking at things. You can't change your genetics, right. So what can we change? We can change what we eat and how it's produced, and we started researching our food system and found out it wasn't what we had been led to believe and what we thought. It was A friend up the road who was about 30, about 35 miles from me. He had been doing a little rotational grazing and he introduced me to Joel Salatin's book Salad Bar Beef, and that was probably the first book I read. As far as regenerative agriculture, and man.

It just was like a light switch came on. So we made the decision to start quote unquote grass farming, which I just think that was a new concept because I'd had cows or been around cows all my life. But we kind of jumped off the deep end. When we first started we had some beef cows, but we added to that a milk cow that we were going to drink raw milk from, a couple of grazing hogs, a breeding pair of large blacks, sheep, goats, and a few years later we actually added some honeybees to the deal.

There was no one that I knew around close anyway that was selling grass-fed beef, but as we looked into the model we realized that might be an opportunity as well. Not only could we feed ourselves but we could provide good beef, good clean beef, for other folks as well. Found a gentleman in North Arkansas about four hours away was the closest one that I found. A gentleman in North Arkansas about four hours away was the closest one that I found and got a recycled Red Angus Faro bull from him and I said, well, all I had was my conventional range cows that had a lot of ear on them and talked to him about that and he was actually using Beefmaster to cross with this Red.

0:10:03 - Cal
Angus.

0:10:05 - Andy
So well, I have no other advice, so we're going to go that route right now.

Okay. So we found a farm in Texas Temple Texas I believe it was that was selling Beefmasters. Got to the farm and he had some heifers for sale and didn't know the need for a smaller frame framed animal at that time. But it turned out to be a blessing when we got there that he said man, all of my big heifers are gone. He said they've been picked through, they're already gone, so all I have is these smaller frame heifers here. So and they were bred heifers. So we bought we're able to buy 17 bred Beefmaster heifers, put them with that to Red Angus bull after they had calved, and that's where our journey began. We do have done some different breeds and do a different breed now. Even. I see that would have been. That was 2007, 8, when all of that was taking place.

0:10:59 - Cal
At that time, Andy, were you still managing those broiler houses?

0:11:04 - Andy
Yeah, yeah, we yeah for quite a while after that. But I felt a little hypocritical because I didn't follow that model anymore, didn't believe in that model. But we had a pretty hefty note that had to be paid off, oh yeah.

Because I wasn't going to walk away from that. As a matter of fact, we kept them from. We had our first flock in 2004. We're finally able to. We'd wanted to sell the broiler houses for quite some time, but we did what we thought good broiler producers do and we built them right behind our home that we my father-in-law had built. We raised our kids in, and if it wasn't for a thin patch of trees, you could see them very well. So we didn't want to have someone else raising chickens in our backyard. So in 22, actually, we finally had peace about selling our home and we sold our home and the third-brower houses. So that was the last piece or leg of what I would call our conventional farming.

0:12:08 - Cal
And Andy just jump in real quick. I completely understand that. Andy and I met a number of years ago in the late 90s and I'm not sure when you came up here if we had chicken houses at the time. We were either in the process of building them or we built them shortly after that time and we had four chicken houses and the dairy going. And I struggle with that. With the chicken houses Now, I will say it was amazing that chicken litter could make rocks grow grass, so it just. We spread it on all the land here and our pastures improved greatly because of it and then, because of really it became a health issue. My parents were running chicken houses. It got hard for them and they sold out Right and they sold the farm. Now, luckily for us, we built the chicken houses about three-quarters of a mile away from my house and a couple miles from my parents.

0:13:08 - Andy
Yeah.

0:13:09 - Cal
So we weren't tied to them as closely as we were, Right right. And it turned out we had an opportunity to buy those chicken houses back a few years later and we store hay in them now.

0:13:18 - Andy
Yeah, they're great for that. Yes, they work out great for that.

0:13:21 - Cal
Yes, they work out great for that, but I understand that feeling. You're a little bit hypocritical there when you're trying to do this regenerative stuff and yet you've got all these chickens in this commercial house growing them. But at the same time we have to make a living so that the farm is sustainable, and that's a hard one for me, so I can see how it can be hard for you as well.

0:13:45 - Andy
My daughter, my service man knew it, but she had a little flock of hens down the road and we were careful. We tried to be careful about biosecurity because that was a big thing with the integrators. We had separate boots and she actually used a different door to the house. But we always wanted to have hens of our own not just our daughters and we do now. We've got several laying hens.

0:14:10 - Cal
Yeah, I had some laying hens I had to get rid of when we put in those chicken houses. I took them to my grandpa and gave them to him.

0:14:19 - Andy
Yeah, they frown upon that. Oh, yeah, yeah, they frown upon that, oh yeah.

0:14:25 - Cal
So tell us a little bit. You, a health scare really got you into this Tracy's dad going through his cancer battle, and I hear that a lot in that. Health reasons bring people or they start researching more into their diet, into their food sources, and they end up saying, hey, we've got to do something about it.

0:14:49 - Andy
Yeah.

0:14:50 - Cal
And regenerative. So you started thinking we've got to do something. And you got those cows and heifers. Tell us a little bit more, I say cows and heifers, that farrow bull. And you got some beef master heifers. Tell us a little bit more about the journey going there, as you incorporated those practices into your farm.

0:15:10 - Andy
Okay, yeah, we call that our when we had, when our late father-in-law was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and all the research that came from that or after that. We call that our paradigm shift, so so so we started looking at things non-conventionally, I guess we'll call it.

Yeah, we started with the Beepmeister heifers. I still have some of that blood in my herd and we're at Angus Bull In 2008, I believe it was I had subscribed to the Stockman Grass Farmer Acres Mother Earth News and this name kept coming up Gerald Fry, and he talked a lot about minerals and different things and I started researching him a little bit and, lo and behold, he lived in Arkansas as well. Well, I called him up and loved Mr Gerald. He was a great man, but wanted to talk to him about minerals and he said well, you just need to come see me and I think that's actually when I found out.

He lived in Arkansas, a little town called Rosebud, so Tracy and I made the journey there, coming from the conventional side and.

I'm not known to be real politically correct and I apologize for that. But I don't mean to ruffle any feathers. But, coming from the conventional side, a lot of people that have information aren't terribly willing to share it, even on the conventional side. So we met Mr Gerald at the feed mill where he bought his ingredients for minerals, and I suppose that we would meet him. We'd go into the feed mill. He'd say you need this and that I'll see you later. We talked in the parking lot for an hour probably and he finally said let's go look at some cows.

0:16:48 - Cal
We looked at cows.

0:16:49 - Andy
He talked a lot about his thoughts and the system in general. At the end of the day we went back to the mill and he said, okay, you need this and this. He invited us to Mr Gerald. He was a very big proponent of Red Devon.

There were two breeds we were looking at the time when we were looking to start selling grass-fed beef, which were Red Devon and South Pole. Mr Gerald invited me to a—and I'd investigated the South Pole a little more and had actually thought I'd found some bulls. He invited us to the Red Devon Conference the following year, which was almost a year away before this conference was taking place. So get to the Devon Conference, and my son and I were the only ones able to go to that.

We probably had chickens and that was the one thing with the chickens Somebody had to be there. The work wasn't hard. It was nasty work but it wasn't hard. But they were very confining. Someone had to be around. So Ben and I went to the conference.

Well, lo and behold, teddy Gentry, the developer of the South Pole Breed, was there at the Devlin Conference giving a speech or a talk about his tenderness testing. Got to meet him, talk to him between sessions quite a bit and was looking more at the South Pole breed, and he said if you'll come to my farm in Fort Payne, I'll sell you a couple good bulls. So the next year, early 2010, tracy and I loaded up, made a little vacation out of it. We went to his farm, picked out two bulls that they brought to the South Pole field day, which was in Texas the following or that fall. But at that Devon conference I met what became some of our closest friends who were Devon breeders.

So, anyway, got the South Pole bulls, kept them only a couple years and ended up selling them and going the Devon route, red Devon route Our friends who we later opened a brick and mortar meat market. In 21, however, we went back with South Pole. We found some bred cows and a bull and we have a lot. Actually had a Michona in there for in 2015. I used a Michona bull and have a lot of half-bloods and quarter-bloods. I used them Shona bull and have a lot of half-bloods and quarter-bloods, females still in the herd from him and a lot of the Devon influence as well.

0:19:10 - Cal
You know I am fascinated by breeds, so the red Devons I find fascinating. I've read on them and they sound—in fact at some some point. I would like to get some Now. Currently I'm running South Pole Bulls on some South Pole cows and some Corriente cows. One thing that's interesting there you went away from South Pole to Devon's and then you came back to South Pole's Was that transition?

0:19:46 - Andy
mainly because of your friend's influence, or was there some other things you were looking for in that transition?

uh, I think maybe yes, on both counts, when we were looking at as a, as I mentioned earlier, when we started looking to sell grass-fed beef and grass-fed and finished beef the two those were the two breeds we were looking at red devon and south pole. There weren't any red devon breeders around that I could find until we met our friends who happened to be and they're only an hour and a half from us, but I didn't know of them prior to that. So we had those for I guess, bought our first ones from them in 2011 and then so 10 years. The problem I found in Red Devon are great cattle and there used to be large herds of them in the deep south, but most all of that production now is in a different climate in the northeast or the north, which provides a thicker, heavier hair coat. That was the issue we had with the Red Devons and is their hair and their heat tolerance. I'm in South Arkansas. We absolutely. They are great cattle.

Gourmet beef on grass just needed a more slick-headed animal, and that's what Teddy Gentry bred the South Pole. If you have South Pole, you know that. But that's what Teddy Gentry bred the South Pole for was raised to produce beef in the South's heat.

0:21:07 - Cal
Right, yeah, yeah, with that slick coat and stuff. Now, also, in addition to the Devon and South Pole, you mentioned Marchonas. You used the Marchona bull for a little while. Tell us about his heifers that you raised out of those crossings. How did they perform? How did they look? And I'm saying this as someone who I've heard about Marchonas and I've seen some pictures, but I've yet to meet- one in person.

0:21:38 - Andy
The Marchona breed is African and our little bull actually came out of old Mexico. We drove about eight hours south and the guy I don't know how many hours north he drove to meet us, but came out of Mexico. He was black-hided and I would liken him to a small-frame fine-boned brangus.

They have that look about them, very heat-tolerant, even though they were black and they can be red. I've actually seen a couple bulls that were red and white, spotted with very little white, mostly red, but I think the main color of them is black. As far as what I've seen, hard to describe Johann Zietzman in his book man, cattle and Veil, he describes it as they have an affinity for man or through the generations they have developed an affinity for man because in Africa they depend on man for their survival, from lions and crocodiles and such. But what's hard to explain to me is the way that bull would look at you. It was just a different look and our bull wasn't aggressive, so to speak. Different look and our bull wasn't aggressive, so to speak.

But I did find a different temperament on a lot of the offspring and we kept a lot. We in 16, he calved, we calved a lot of, got a lot of heifers out of. Him Went through. I won't tolerate bad temperament. I grew up with range cattle and I used to enjoy that. But I'm getting older and I don't heal as quickly or move as quickly anymore.

0:23:06 - Cal
Right.

0:23:06 - Andy
So I don't. So we culled pretty hard but we were able to keep several half-blood Meshona females that have made excellent mamas. They do well here in the South. The insects heat temperament was probably, if I were to say, a reason that we went away from them. I would probably say temperament. Good friend, 35 miles north that I referenced earlier, they have a large herd of pure mishona, several crosses, and they just love them. Don't have a problem with temperament. So maybe it was my bull.

0:23:45 - Cal
But anyway do have a pretty good influence of that in our herd. I think I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but the first South Pole field day I went to I was just shocked by how calm the cows were. And we've had some crazy cows. I grew up on dairy so I know what tame cows are.

And we have really worked with my dad's herds to get them calm and we don't tolerate any attitude. The only attitude provided is I was going to say my wife, but that'd get me in trouble, so the only attitude's from me. So we've worked and we have a real docile herd.

I really like them, but it's taken us time and when I look for cows I make sure I'm bringing pretty docile herd. I really like them, but it's taken us time, and when I look for cows I make sure I'm bringing pretty docile stuff in. But I was just amazed, even with that background how calm.

South Poles were with all these strangers walking around them at that field day. I was just shocked by it and I wondered if the Michonas would have some of that same characteristics, because I've heard with their development in Africa and where they had to be so close to people and where they were pinned up nightly, I wondered if they might share some of that.

0:24:56 - Andy
And again, cali, it might have very well been our bull and the females the majority of those heifers we kept, but there were a few that were culled because of temperament. But yeah, absolutely, the South Pole and the Devon breed. They are extremely docile animals and, growing up with the range cows, you didn't have to push cows out of your way. Now when we work cattle through the lot which is pretty rare we put our cattle through the corral very seldom but it's almost. Maybe they're too gentle, almost you almost have to push them out of the way and push them into the pens and push them down the chute.

0:25:34 - Cal
That's what my dad's complaint is. He's like these cows are too gentle. Yeah, You've got to get a healthy balance in there.

0:25:41 - Andy
Which my wife would probably say that you can't get them too, gentle.

0:25:45 - Cal
And.

0:25:45 - Andy
I must admit that when they're out in the fields and not all of our cows can you put a hand on out in the field, but there are several of them that you can and I appreciate that.

0:25:55 - Cal
I'm a fan of that as well. In fact, before we got on here or started recording, I mentioned we'd just taken a family trip with my parents, my siblings and their kids, and my kids and grandkids. It was great, yeah, but my dad had to bring up the story, or it may have been my brother, one of them's guilty Growing on dairy. One of us had to go feed calves.

0:26:19 - Andy
Oh, yeah, yeah.

0:26:20 - Cal
And I love feeding calves, but they would not always let me go because they would say well, if cow goes to feed the calves until the end of May and every calf will have a name and they're all pets. So I enjoy calm animals yeah absolutely.

0:26:41 - Andy
In college I worked at the college dairy some. I don't think I enjoyed it, maybe as much as you did, though. Yeah, there was a gentleman from Foreman who grew up on a dairy also and he and I started school there the same semester and he loved the dairy. So most weekends my, my dad, I lived in the ag dorm, so with that came the responsibility of weekends.

You were on the dairy, but my dad expected me to come home and work on the farm during college, but jason was his this guy's name and he wanted to be there on the weekends milking the cows. So we, most of us, gladly, would let him.

0:27:23 - Cal
Yeah, when I went to OSU, I go out to the dairy and I'm applying for a job and the farm manager at the time, Glendon, he's like so you grew up on dairy. And I said, yeah, we dairy. My folks still dairy. I'm going to school for animal science. I'd like to go home and dairy, he says. Usually when people grow up on a dairy, when they get to college they don't go to a dairy and look for a job.

0:27:50 - Andy
Hi. Well, maybe you and Jason were the exceptions to the rule, but I can probably see that, although I grew up raising beef cows, that still is still my passion. I still want to do it, so maybe I can relate in that regard.

0:28:06 - Cal
Yeah, Going back to your story, some you added. Besides beef cattle, you added some other species in there.

0:28:15 - Andy
Yeah, we had learned that raw milk, the benefits of raw milk, and actually learned and it gets over my head real quick. But my wife can talk a little bit more about A2A2 milk. So we started looking for an A2A2 milk cow and we started out with, as far as the milk cows, with buying for lack of better words, I hate to call them rejects, but it was from a spent, almost spent dairy cow from a cull dairy cow that didn't work, not when you were trying to transition them to grass.

Actually, we went through. I forget. Tracy and I were able to do the SOG conference several years ago and that was. Some of our slides during the presentation were of the milk cows we had gone through until we finally found one that would work and actually.

Mr Gerald Fry. He found some grass genetic jerseys that were A2A2 as well. So yeah, the milk cows, we had hogs I say hogs growing up, but it was just a. It was feral hogs that were out on the range where the cows were. But we would work the pigs when dad could catch them in the traps we had built out in the woods.

And a year or two or three later you might catch a barrow that we could take to the house and corn feed for a little while and then butcher for home meat. So that was different. Also, buying hogs we bought a breeding pair of large blacks that were grazing hogs and started raising some pigs. They incorporated some Berkshire in there at one point, tamworth, and that was actually a really good cross, the Tamworth-Berkshire cross Goats. We had goats and it was Kiko and Spanish breeding and then a lot of mixed stuff and my daughter at one point had a few milk goats and I do believe the saying that to contain a goat you need a fence that will contain water, because I and not well, I say that. And then there was a gentleman we let bring some goats up here on our property because he had no other place to go and he was about to carry them to the cell barn and man Cal. He contained his goats with two poly wires, two stretches of polybray. But a goat has a sixth sense that they know when there's a problem with your charger. Yeah, and that's what started our problem with goats, because we had a pretty good goat fence but would have probably get some dead shorts and that sixth sense would kick in. And then they had to retrain goats or not, or they trained others to get out, but he would. The only time goat sack got out of his two wires is if he had a problem with his charger. Um so, and that was pretty amazing to me, because even my sheep would look at three wires and laugh so, but also had katahdin hair sheep for a little while and I mentioned a little bit ago but made the tough decision just last year had so many fingers going on. We had some building projects and I need to probably back up and talk about that just a minute in a minute to the building projects, but too many fingers going different directions. I didn't feel like I was doing a very good job with any of them. So we made the tough decision late last year to sell the sheep.

I would like to get sheep back someday because I think they add a lot of things to the farm. We initially got the sheep and goats because we try to actually practice beyond organically. So we were going to use the sheep and goats for brush control for broadleaf weed control. Sheep and goats for brush control for broadleaf weed control Just never got all of the infrastructure in place for them to either have a flird with the cattle and those smaller ruminants combined, or a leader-follower program. So the sheep and goats were always at one place. They were, and I rotated them, not extensively as we do the beef cattle, but did rotate pastures with them Would certainly like to get the sheep for certain back someday because of those attributes, and Greg Judy was able to be at his farm a few years ago and his sheep seemed to eat as much or more as goats as far as the brush, the broadleaf weeds. Of course, they eat grass too, which that's wonderful, but yeah, I guess that was it.

We added bees in 2015. Bees are wow. That's a whole other skill set, a whole other lot of learning. Every time I think I have something figured out about bees, they teach me that I don't and I need to learn five more things. The thing that the building projects I mentioned earlier. When we made the decision to sell our home and the chicken operation in 2022, we reinvested that money. We built a new home, but my wife has always, for years, had wanted to do short-term rentals, airbnb type situations, so we reinvested a good portion of that into we have three rentals short-term rentals and the house. But a lot was going on. We had some builder issues. They ended up finishing our home ourselves, but that kind of contributed to the decision to sell the sheep. Just so many things going on and not able to do any of them well.

0:33:34 - Cal
Yeah, I get that. And one thing you mentioned there was the Airbnb just at the last lodging portion. There was the Airbnb just at the last lodging portion. I know of some other farms that have ventured into that to provide another income stream. How is that working for you, of course, for everyone else? You're in southwest Arkansas and the view may be a little bit better than what we have up here where I'm located.

0:33:57 - Andy
Yeah, cal, we don't have a lot of industry in this area. We don't have a lot of well in the industry. We have cattle, chickens and timber is about what we have here. But I this may be a biased opinion, I don't know but I tell all my friends that this is God's country it's. We have some beautiful scenery. We have the Cossetot River is. We're really close to a place called the Falls and it's the only class five water I hope I'm saying this correctly between the Rockies and the Appalachian Mountains. When it's in flood stage it's class five water.

So we have really drawn, tried to make a draw with that, with our rentals. We do have one that's in the middle of our farm. It was actually housed us for about 16 months. When we made the decision to sell the farm, tracy had made a deal on this. It's actually a finished out one of these storage sheds that was finished out Literally the day it was delivered. I showed the farm for the first time and when she made the deal on it we had not even made the decision to sell her home in the chicken houses. So God was just providing us a place to live.

Had hoped to only live there for about six months, but it turned out to be 16 months due to the issues we had with our builder. But it's going well. We're. I think April I believe it was marked the beginning of our second year Still gaining, you know, trying to gain traction. So far it has done as well as what we set our books up for it to do the winter, the cold time. It was dead.

April started to pick up. May was really good and hopefully this summer will be, but it looks like it's going to be good. We call the one that's in the middle of our farm, we call it bunky and I can look out my window. It's less than a quarter of a mile from our home, but it's in the middle of the farm, so not used to. We live in a very rural area and, uh, not used to having neighbors real close and so so we've had guests there. That's been a little different, because they're where I milk the two cows that I'm currently milking. It's about 150 yards from this stay and also that's where our chickens are and some beehives are there. So that's been different, getting used to folks being around or on the, actually on the farm.

0:36:20 - Cal
So oh yeah, love the idea of a couple cabins. I've talked to my dad about it a little bit and I'm the only person well my wife agrees with me that would like to do it. So we're not getting anything done right now, but I think we have a couple of excellent spots. I think it'd be another income stream one day. You you know they announced a theme park coming in 30 minutes.

0:36:44 - Andy
Okay, okay.

0:36:46 - Cal
We'll see if that happens. If that happens, I think it really changes some dynamics and I really can't afford more land then. But we'll see what happens with that, but I really like the idea of lodging another way to another income stream, as you're looking at that on your phone.

0:37:05 - Andy
Yeah, and that initially was why we looked at it Quite honestly. It was trying to figure out a way to replace the chicken house income because we had wanted to go a different route for quite some time. Actually, the selling of our home as I mentioned earlier that we'd raised our children in that my late father-in-law built for us, that was the big holdup in making that but still we were looking that we needed to replace that income somehow.

0:37:34 - Cal
Yeah, andy, this has been a wonderful story, but we need to transition just a little bit been a wonderful story, but we need to transition just a little bit. Let's transition to the overgrazing section, and you'd mentioned in that part of Arkansas you've got cattle, chickens and timber, Right right. So if you've got timber, then we need to talk about silvopasture, right right. So for the overgrazing section, let's dive a little bit more into what you're doing with silvopasture.

0:38:02 - Andy
Okay, cal, that's been something that's intrigued me for a while, and yet I know probably very little about it. In 2018, I somehow came in contact and I can only remember the gentleman's first name was Gregory, but he was maybe you would call it a liaison for University of Missouri's Agroforestry Center or department which they have one of the more famous in the country.

I understand as far as agroforestry department Came in contact with him. He invited me to a field day they were putting on in Columbus, missouri, which is a long ways from Grand Isle Arkansas.

0:38:40 - Cal
Oh, it is.

0:38:42 - Andy
And of course we still had the chickens. So I made the journey on my own, was able to go. Tracy blessed me with watching the farm while I was gone, but he told me he said it's just a field day, but if you come up I'll make it worth your while. Didn't know what that meant at the time, so went up, learned quite a lot there at that field day and he told me at the end of the day he said that is real close to where Greg Judy farms.

Had met Greg Judy, talked with him, been to a couple conferences but never been to his farm to see what all was going on there, he said. He said if you'll take one of my students, I've arranged something to you can go to. Y'all will go to Greg Judy's farm and he'll give you a tour.

And sure enough I expected, as busy as he is, that an intern or something like that would tour us around. But Greg was there and he said hop on the four-wheeler, let's go look at some cows. So he actually tossed me off the four-wheeler. I don't think he even knew it. But the, the young lady, the student was uh, forgive me but I forget the european country that she was from very interesting young lady who was very interested in agroforestry. But she was on one fender of the four-wheeler, I was on the other. He was talking to her, we were flying across this field and he tossed me and I don't think he ever knew it. But I hit my feet running and jumped back on the four-wheeler and it just went on, he never stopped, but he's got some neat things going on there, some of which is out here forestry or silvopasture.

Silvopasture is I don't know if it's official definition, but by definition it's the intentional growing of trees and pasture together. It is also, I've learned, that it is also one of the it's in the top 10, I believe, number nine internationally ways of sequestering carbon, which that's certainly a hot button these days. To sequester carbon.

But didn't know that. When I became interested in it I wanted it as it was. Those are all that's great, don't get me wrong. But my interest in it was keeping the cattle out in the field. I didn't want them in the heat of the day going to the creek bank and depositing all their manure on the creek bank in the creek when the cooler parts. So I needed some shade. I am in South. As I mentioned earlier. I'm in Southwest Arkansas. The July and August days get pretty warm out there in the field. So felt like we needed some shade for the cattle but wanted to provide that out in the field so they can put their urine and their manure out on the field and fertilization out there for me which that's our fertility program anyway but needed to transition where the bulk of that was going. So a lot of benefits from it. Still learning it, I think. If I'm remembering correctly, the end goal is 35 to 40% shade.

A couple ways to create silvopasture. One is obviously to go into existing timber and thin timber I guess. The other is to plant trees into existing pasture. We're, I guess you would say, blessed on the property we're on now that we're still trying to create the silvopasture here, but it was cleared a few years ago. We were able to buy some property from a timber company who didn't want the dirt, as they called it. They wanted the trees, they didn't want the dirt. So we were able to buy the dirt from them A lot of rocks with that dirt, by the way here in.

Southwest Arkansas. But we don't use herbicides, so with the thinning of a forest there's a lot of sprouts that come back. So when we were finally able to get a dozer on the property to do the land clearing, I instructed him at that time to leave a lot of trees and was just starting to learn about silvopasture and didn't realize how many I need. So I, he, he worked a day or two and he said well, go look, see what I need to do. And I came back and made a big mistake. I said take half of those out.

0:42:35 - Cal
I should have left those.

0:42:36 - Andy
so now as I'm bush hogging, still have some sprouts coming up, so I'm leaving a lot of the hardwoods that are coming up and probably leaving too many, but I can always go back and thin.

0:42:47 - Cal
And as a tree.

0:42:48 - Andy
obviously, as a tree grows, it will provide more shade, so I'm going to need more trees now to obtain that 35 to 40 percent shade, as opposed to a 10, 20-year-old oak tree.

0:43:04 - Cal
It's going to give a whole lot more shade than a 5-year-old oak tree or hickory tree. So, if I understood you correctly, you didn't go in and plant any trees. These are all coming up on their own and you're leaving them, managing them, so they continue.

0:43:16 - Andy
I have actually planted some trees.

0:43:18 - Cal
Cal. I have actually planted some trees Cal.

0:43:19 - Andy
Planted a few black walnuts, but in this year and I'm starting to enjoy that's a whole other segment, I guess but an orchard. I sold my food forest with the property that we sold, so I'm creating a new permaculture orchard. So I graft a lot of trees, but not planting those out in the pastures at this time, which that's not unheard of to do. But in 2020, we partnered with a company and planted polonia, which my neck of the woods is a little, I believe, just a little north, to plant them. They're more of a. I don't know if I'd call them a tropical tree, but we have lost some to winter kill here.

But, they are. I'm told that they hold the Guinness Book of World Records to be the fastest growing tree. And so my thought was which this company we partner with obviously is looking for timber, but my thought would be some real quick shade.

0:44:16 - Cal
And they do grow quickly.

0:44:18 - Andy
We have lost a lot during the winter here. Deer like them. We have an incredible whitetail population and for the first three years deer didn't bother them. We had a winter keel last winter of 23,. Lost a pretty good percentage of them and when I have an incredibly strong root when I say winter kill I'm just talking about the top growth Went back to cut the dead tree out. Well, there's tons of sprouts coming back that I have to thin down to one stem. Well, the deer found them then and they seem to love polonia. So none of those that winter killed have been able to regrow because the deer keep them eating off. But anyway, the ones that are there, they grew quickly. Hopefully most of those will make it yet, but I guess those are the only trees that I've planted. A lot of good species for that Interested in hedgerows or living fences.

Oh yes, I have a bed right now that I overwintered some hedge apples and have a lot of the young Bodark it goes by a few different names Osage, orange but going to do some hedgerows as well with those and probably do a living fence around the orchard with Bodark and a few other prickly things. So, yeah, we have a pretty incredible whitetail population around here and they're hard on apple trees I.

0:45:50 - Cal
I think live living fences or hedgerows are great. I would love to do some with hedge apples or bodark oh sage orange, but my dad already thinks'm crazy. So I'm trying not to go too far. But one of these days I plan on doing some because I love the look of it. There's so much about it I like. I love the look of it. I think it provides a habitat that edge habitat, or it's not really edge habitat.

It's edge of your field habitat, but it's providing some habitat for some smaller mammals and birds and stuff there, which is wonderful.

0:46:24 - Andy
There's an old saying that with the use of Bodar Crosage Orange, in four years you can have a fence that is horse high, bull strong and pig tight.

0:46:36 - Cal
Oh yeah.

0:46:37 - Andy
Hopefully it'll be deer height as well. Because I'd put a seven-foot fence around my old orchard and I've seen them jump that, oh yeah.

0:46:50 - Cal
But with the boat arc, I don't know.

0:46:53 - Andy
I'll cut that out. I lost my train of thought there.

0:46:55 - Cal
Anyway, I think that's fascinating. We'll see how that goes. Your Polonia trees, Royal empress, it's also called royal empress poplar black locust.

0:47:07 - Andy
They met willow make good the silver pasture trees and you can also pollard a lot of those, for and some people do that steve gabriel has a book I read, the civil. It's called entitled civil pasture, that there are four species of trees that he uses to actually pollard in front of livestock or in case of drought he can provide forage for his animals. So I think that's pretty interesting as well.

0:47:35 - Cal
Yeah, I think so too. Are you doing anything when the trees are young to keep your cattle from hurting?

0:47:42 - Andy
I guess what I'm doing right now. Cal is running a pretty low stock density right now.

Oh, yeah, because the cattle, especially this time of year with the young vegetative growth. They like hickory, they like oak, they love, they relish, sweet gum. But that right now is the only thing I'm doing. As a matter of fact, some of the black walnuts that I'd planted, I noticed they nipped a little bit out of the top, but I think later summer tree tubes are incredibly expensive and it would be certainly cost prohibitive for the number that I would need for this. So that's why I'm trying this route. And the patterns wouldn't really work for electric fence too, because I've got some unusual patterns out in the field. So some people use electric fence simply to keep them off of the trees they're trying to grow into silvopasture trees.

0:48:33 - Cal
I know for us, and this is just me not thinking about it, but Dad wanted to graft some of our pecan trees this year. So got in touch and it's been a decade since we've grafted any. So dad got OSU Extension to come out and do it and just make sure and show us so we know for sure we're doing it correctly.

But when we went to look at our trees, we just have a grove of pecan trees that's grown's grown up, and we've always wanted to expand it. We just never have, and now it's actually too crowded. We're thinning it some now, but we got out there and we were looking for young trees to graft and we didn't have very many. And then, when I thought about it, I've been running goats and sheep for about 15 years and so that has took out all my young trees or really young trees.

Now in doing that we've identified a whole bunch of just brand new trees coming up that I'm going to do a better job of protecting, but I got to figure out how to protect them. I'm not running goats in that area, so that takes away a little job of protecting, but I got to figure out how to protect them. I'm not running goats in that area, so that takes away a little bit of an issue there, but I still have sheep coming up there, so I'm on there's three of our paddocks that we run through that I will have to make sure I don't let the sheep into that area, so we can get some growth.

0:49:56 - Andy
I'm not sure about sheep and goats because I've not tested that, but I've had pretty good results with this young orchard because there's no fence at all around it. I mentioned we had a pretty good whitetail population around here. Have you ever heard of Sepp Holzer bone sauce? No, I haven't?

0:50:11 - Cal
I made some bone sauce a few years. Sauce okay, and it says it.

0:50:15 - Andy
The name implies you actually get some large marrow bones and there's a whole process to making it. But paint it on the trees and it's so far. I'm having success with it, keeping the deer off. Now again, I don't have experience with sheep and goats in that manner, but it might be worth a try.

0:50:33 - Cal
Oh yeah, Might be worth it. I'll have to look that up and see. Well, Andy, it is time we go ahead and transition once again to our famous four questions Sponsored by Ken Cove Farm Fence.

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0:52:06 - Andy
Man Cal. I struggled with that one actually, because I don't know if I can narrow that down to one. You've already listed them. Yeah, and actually I pulled some books out of my small library before the podcast began and, as I mentioned earlier, Salad Bar Beef by Joel Salatin was probably the one that kind of started our journey. If you don't mind, I'll just rattle off a few of the names here that I've set out here.

Holistic Management, island Savory, reproduction and Animal Health by Charles Walters and Gerald Fry. Newman Turner has a series of books, but one I got a lot of out, or maybe the most of out was Fertility Pastures, restoration Agriculture by Mark Shepard. Lot of out, or maybe the most of out, was fertility pastures, restoration agriculture by mark shepherd, soil grass and cancer by andre voyson.

I mentioned silver pasture a moment ago, a book, silver pasture, by steve gabriel a lot of good information on a lot of things in the book by johan zietzman, man, cattle and Veiled. That was a good book If you can find them, the Bonds by Lectures.

Oh yes, here's an interesting book. It's not so much talking about production but it's by Wendell Berry, and it's talked a lot about what has happened to American agriculture, but it's by Wendell Berry the Unsettling of America, culture and Agriculture. Forest Gardening by Robert Hart, another one by Andre Voisin. Grass Productivity I couldn't find it. But Comeback Farms by Greg Judy that was a good book. Grass Fed to Finish by Alan Nation Another one. I guess one of the first books I read was Management Intensive Grazing by Jim Garish. I mentioned periodicals earlier. That's probably I'm not real good to just sit down and read a book. I have read a few over the years, but I've been doing this a few years. Subscribe to some periodicals that I get a lot of good information out of, one of them being the Stockton Grass Farmer. That's probably of the periodicals that I get a lot of good information out of, one of them being the Stockton Grass Farmer, that's probably of the periodicals my favorite. Cal, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Bible.

That gives me a lot of guidance every day for a lot of different applications, but yeah there are a lot of books, but there's a lot to be learned and there's, thankfully, a lot of information out there.

0:54:28 - Cal
Yeah, you gave us a tremendous list of resources, Andy. Just if you go through and read, use that as a reading list, you'll be so far ahead.

0:54:39 - Andy
There's a lot of good information in those books. I'll certainly agree with that.

0:54:44 - Cal
Yeah, Our second question, Andy what is your favorite tool for the farm?

0:54:49 - Andy
Man, that was another one. I struggled with that, narrowing it down to one, and I again, I guess. I can't of course, a quad, a four-wheeler quad, and my quad is not rigged out with all the cool apparatuses, the hangers, holders, and which I think are a great idea. I've just never taken time to do it.

0:55:06 - Cal
Partly because.

0:55:07 - Andy
I'm on some pretty rough ground most of the time, and mainly what I use my quad for is to get me to the fence. I still put it up and down by hand because simply because of the ground I'm on. I can do it quicker that way, and the quad's always loaded with O'Brien's gear, reels, and-in posts and some fiberglass posts usually.

0:55:30 - Cal
I say usually, it's always as a matter of fact if my wife needs to use it.

0:55:32 - Andy
She usually has to unload a lot of that stuff if she's going to be hauling anything. I think something we often overlook is and Jim Garrish did an article about this a few years ago on the Grass Farmer, I think it was, jim we need to take care of ourselves and part of that begins with if you're like me, you walk a lot, you need some good footwear and, I'll be honest, this still gripes me to pay 120, it's 150, 200 bucks for a good pair of boots. But I actually wear rubber boots in the mornings because do some tall grass grazing and it's usually wet in the mornings.

0:56:04 - Cal
And I don't like wet feet.

0:56:06 - Andy
I've never been able to do the leather boots that are waterproof. I guess my feet sweat too much and they just don't work for me. So also a good pair of boots for after the grass dries off, but take care of your feet. Grass farmers, our running gear are pretty important to us. I use a multi-tool. It's on my belt, I use it multiple times a day and I use a leather one, oh yeah. I think it's the Wave.

0:56:40 - Cal
Just on the subject of footwear, my wife and I was talking about that today. I'm like I got to get some new boots. Like you, I struggle with the cost. I remember buying rubber boots off the supply truck on the dairy and they were a lot. I remember them going up to $16, and DadBow had a fit. And I go buy them now and they're over $100. But yeah, and I need a pair of work boots. I was telling Debbie I need more support in there.

0:57:09 - Andy
I'm getting to that age, I've got to figure out a good pair for that Well and, having said that, there are a lot of things I wish I had done differently when I was younger. As far as taking care of myself Since 2020, I think it was June of 20, yes, I've had ringing in my ears. Oh, yes, I've had ringing in my ears. Oh yeah, I don't know. It's all caused by loud noises, hearing loud noises with unprotected ears. As I was growing up, I used to run chainsaws, tractors, weed eaters a lot of farm tools without ear protection. So you know, protect your ears as well and your eyes.

0:57:42 - Cal
Oh, yeah, yeah. All great advice there. And that leads us into our third question. Would you tell someone just getting started a?

0:57:50 - Andy
little segment it's called. God Made a Farmer and man. When I saw that, I wept because that was me. That's all I've ever wanted to do was to be a farmer, and so grateful that I finally learned a good path to do it on.

But with that there was a point in life it became obsessive to me where I put it above all else. So I guess if I were to tell a young beginning farmer or any farmer is, don't let that you control the farm or ranch, don't let it control you. Remember its place, its priority that actually, because of that I've dealt with some anxiety and I've had four bouts of what I would call crippling anxiety, and it was largely in part to do with my obsession of the farm. Things weren't going like I thought they should be going. We weren't to the point we needed to be. We got to get there. So slow down, take a breath, keep at it and just control it. Don't let it control you.

I would also say, when we first started, if I were some of the conferences we went to or the books I read by the quote-unquote big names, the people that were doing it successfully my first impression was I thought, well, I've got to do it in Granite, arkansas, just like they were doing it, or just like Joel's doing it in Swoop, virginia, or just like Jim Garish or Greg Judy. It's not what they're doing there is. Take the good from that and what you can use from that, but more than likely, you're going to have to tweak it a little bit for your zip code. I think that was very important because to know, because I wanted, I thought I had to do it just like they did it for it to work right. But and it may very well be that it works just like, but it might not. Also, and don't be afraid to tweak it, to your career.

0:59:53 - Cal
I love that. Tweak it for your zip code and you gave tons of great advice there, andy.

1:00:03 - Andy
Our last question where can others find?

1:00:05 - Cal
out more about you.

1:00:06 - Andy
Um, I don't do a lot of social media. Our web address is youngbloodfarmcom. I have a Facebook account and it's just Andy Youngblood. That's about all else I have.

1:00:20 - Cal
I've really enjoyed you coming on and sharing. I feel like we just barely got into it.

1:00:25 - Andy
We could talk for hours.

1:00:28 - Cal
But I really enjoyed it.

1:00:30 - Andy
Maybe one final book or thought. I think I learned of this one from Joel Salatin as well.

Don't remember where I picked this up, but he had read a book years before called the Farming Ladder. I went to a few libraries looking for it and finally had a library secure me a copy of it to rent out, but obviously I wasn't able to keep it. But there were several quotes in that book that I wrote down, but the one I thought about for today was it was just simply work. Muck thought there's a lot to that. Again, I don't want to offend anybody, but I believe Big Ag has dumbed the American farmer down to believe that things could be fixed with a shot of this or a sack of this feed. The Bible even talks about the hardworking farmer and not to say that we have to work hard all of our lives. But if you're farming, there's going to be some work in it. We do need to learn to work smarter, not harder, but, muck, to me that's my fertility program right there.

But thought may be the one I struggle most with. I like to get in there, work, get it done, but we need to get back to learning to observe what's happening as I graze through this paddock. What's happened to this? What can I do differently? How can I do it better? Or was it perfect this time? We need to observe and think about our processes and think about how we are to heal this land, and I think Johann Zietzman mentioned in his book that a cow should not only produce beef, but she should also have the ability to improve the ground upon which she grazes. And I believe that Our cows we take care of our animals very well. We pray they only have one bad day in their life, but they're a tool. They need to work like I am every day out there as well, and that applies to sheep or chickens or whatever as well, I think.

1:02:27 - Cal
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree, yeah. Excellent advice there. Well, Andy, thank you for coming on and sharing with us today.

1:02:33 - Andy
Well, thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure to be here.

1:02:37 - Cal
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