Kent Boucher (00:06.958) There's gotta be a better way to do that. Maybe. I was kind of thinking that was your weekly workout right there. Did ya? Did ya? Nicolas Lirio (00:23.51) And I'm in a lot of pain and I want you guys Did you run around the entirety of the outside of Knoxville or how do you calculate your 10 miles? Did you run around the track? Nicolas Lirio (00:38.771) use the Nike run-up. makes me... that's why, remember, I was like, should I get a wall... yeah, you were telling me about that. I forgot. The old Apple Watch. Kent Boucher (00:51.608) So is this the grounds keeping? Does this include mowing your mums? It's just three things and I talked to him about it and he was chill with it. I think he's going to use the terminal lower to do it after. The Grasshopper. If we're hurt with itself for two thousand bucks or Kent Boucher (01:08.044) Yeah. There's housing wire Yeah, there's a jumper a jump from the battery box to the I saw that when I looked at it There's a piece of housing wire yellow housing wire Just hang out there It's one way to start a motor What's he turnin' up? might have to have your wife do it. It's a push start. It's a push start. All right. All of the equipment on this farm runs and it's all in the same building and that building is on fire and you have enough time to pull out one major piece of equipment. Riley Rozendaal (01:33.939) I'm Kent Boucher (01:52.022) Little agco. It's not super valuable, but we cannot use the pull type combine without the little agco. Yeah. And we know none of them are inside, so I don't have to pull them. Co. Nicolas Lirio (02:08.522) I I'd probably take the big seed cleaner because it would take the most time and hassle to put it back together. Little AGCO, you drop 25,000 bucks and yeah, that sucks. Like take out a loan for another tractor. the... Yeah, as far as stuff that can't be replaced. I'd take the twin. The old pallet hooker. Kent Boucher (02:34.19) That cannot be remade. mean that was just pure genius. Kind of a Banksy type of. One off invention right there The old flash in the pan inventor the one hit wonder I'm When we eventually get something that actually can put bands on pallets I'm gonna put that in the frame I'm hanging out hanging on wall Nicolas Lirio (02:53.262) Well, so for reference, everyone, Kent invented a thing that is a clip at the end of a stick. It is like suspiciously useful. Zip tie to the end of this thing. One black zip tie one binder clip from oversize binder. Yep oversized binder clip and old broom pole And life is 90 % better. You haven't haven't zip tie or you haven't strapped a thing to a palette in a while I know Riley's Kent Boucher (03:26.126) for myself. I take advantage of that invention every day and I dream of the day we actually have professional equipment to do that. Okay, you gotta strap 100 pallets. No, no, no. You gotta strap 200 pallets without the pallet hooker. Or wrap, wrap 50 pallets by yourself in one day. Nicolas Lirio (03:57.326) if I could strap 200 pallets in a day. Dude, were, were... No, no, no, you don't have to do them all in one... I mean, you gotta like, you gotta go until, you know, like full work days until... don't know because by the time you get to like fourth or fifth palette that you're rapping without a rap. Yeah, you're like in pain. And so it's not like, that's kind of miserable, but I could do that for a few hours and get 50 of them done. They get worse every single one you add on. straight a bar Kent Boucher (04:24.191) yeah, you get so dizzy and you're bending over and everything else. And I tried to go the opposite way on the next palette and it didn't make it. And then half the wrap keeps going but the other half stays on the roller. So it's all screwed up, you gotta back up. I would do the strapping pallets anytime. Yeah, it's like what? Nicolas Lirio (04:42.254) Really? The 200? Yeah, but there's 200 and it'd take days and it's miserable. I'd take that. I'd take that. just... Yeah, nice. Let's ask the guy who's got to do it all the time. Well, I'd ask the audience to imagine if you've ever done that yard game where you put your head on a baseball bat on the ground and you spin around for about 30 seconds and then try and run straight a direction. That's what it's like wrapping pallets when you gotta walk around it. You're looking down at it and you're walking around it. I would wrap them every time. Yeah, because the first pallet you wrap, or not wrap, I would band. Because the first palette you wrap you get confident. go, okay, I'm a little queasy, but you know what? I did pretty good. The third palette, no good. When I first came on the team here, well, I mean like officially, you know, after college and, and, I remember being like, okay, we're like a little local company that is little local stuff. And then someone from like Illinois called and they wanted to order seed. And I was like, I don't know if we shipped that far. Like we might deliver. Kent Boucher (05:49.038) And then there's a $10 million sale and Nick's like, you're in Illinois. that's too bad. well, and I called another company that was a couple states away and Was not about that sale about something totally different and I remember talking to them like I Know more about Prairie than you and I don't I'm not an expert my dad Definitely knows more about Prairie than you I think we should like and you're selling across the whole country. We should do more than just our little regional area. We should at least do Iowa. so basically, yeah, we do Iowa and states touching Iowa is the vast majority of where we ship. But I think ecotype matters. Usually if people are complaining to me about ecotype, it's because they didn't have the right ecotype, so they lost money. Usually it's a money thing. So I try to... or like a academic or academic adjacent organization that's ordering the seed also cares a lot about ecotype. Oh yeah, but in the other direction. Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's true. Well, I got wait, I want to hear Riley's answer. One piece of equipment. Riley Rozendaal (07:09.976) I said the twin. Yeah, because it's a one-off. Yeah, yeah, that's else within reason we can probably find. It's just painful. yeah. Kent Boucher (07:17.27) Yeah. I take my answer back on the little agco. I would probably go with, what you said as far as the, big seed cleaner, just because everything's so modded up on that thing. It workflows really well. yeah, Riley's answer is really good too. I just don't want to talk about it because it's top secret. Well, if you had, let's say, I mean, it'd take a week minimum of a couple people working on our big seed, on a new big seed cleaner to get it knowing what they're doing. But just having the peace of mind that ours works, you know, and every time you set something up that big doesn't always work. You can have headache after headache after headache with it. You want to something cool I learned though from Will when he was here? Yeah. Give a shout out to a company we do a fair bit of, I don't know if we do really business with them. We buy stuff from them, they buy stuff from us. Mostly just tray Nicolas Lirio (08:14.126) Commodity traders we trade with But yeah, Commodity Traders International out of Mattoon, Illinois, the Mattoon Green Wave. I mean, if you're looking for like older shake and shift clipper style, there's like two companies in the U S that still work on them and, and, and know what they're doing. Yeah, they're f***ing mills. Kent Boucher (08:36.206) Yeah, these guys know everything about them. And I was asking about our Clipper 116, which they say is not a very popular. It hasn't been through its existence a popular size, but we love it. It's. Yep, it's a weird size machine. And it's very old, turns out. I asked him how old it was. He said, well, you can kind of tell if I remember correctly. That's a very weird size. Kent Boucher (09:04.878) it's the first World War. If it was made after the first World War, the wood that makes the machine is filled with knots. It's like a real knotty pine or oak construction. But if it's pre-World War I, then you'll see zero knots in the wood, you know, in the framing of the machine, because it was like, you know, that was a craftsmanship thing for them. did not. Right. Yeah, we use only the finest lumber, but during wartime lumber was in such demand that they had to use the Cast off stuff to make new machines and ours does not have any knots. So it it's probably like around 1900 is is a year on that thing, which is pretty cool because whenever we give tours people ask how old is that and I think the big one Carol said is from like the 60s. It's not that old but that little 116 which we use just as much if not more than the Big Seat cleaner, that one is truly over 100 years old, like 125 years old possibly. Man, that is wild because we rely a lot on that. Kent Boucher (10:20.942) You I mean we've had to fix some things on it, but you keep that stuff greased up and stop running it when it's making weird noises. Use all your senses as Carol would say. The Vanderbilt was once asked, he was the richest person in world at one point. He was once asked, how do you... Tycoon right? He's got the Vanderbilt Mansion. Yep. And how did how did you stay ahead of your competition? And he said that he invested in the new technology first of what was going on. We don't do that. We were literally trying to bring things back that didn't exist or that haven't existed for 100 years. You know, the prairie ecosystems and and turns out older equipment is often easier or honestly, it's just like. Nicolas Lirio (11:16.918) So expensive to get fancy machines to do this stuff and If John Deere wanted or some big company they could invest a bunch of money and make a cheaper version But they're not gonna invest a billion dollars to invent a way to build something that 30 people are gonna buy or 100 people are gonna buy I think there's definitely exceptions to this, I'm sure, but I think overall we've passed the point of diminishing return on buying new. We've talked about those reels would be like, this is an $850,000 house. shows the just, cheap materials and stuff like that, which I need to put into correction. My brother, Jake, who's a building inspector, Terrible work. Kent Boucher (12:05.262) said that the construction for houses now is back to two by six. For a while it was two by four, but now it's back of course it's a nominal two by six though. Not a dimensional. was better. Nicolas Lirio (12:18.798) It's hardly bigger than a traditional two by four. Right, right, but I think you know just a lot of things the the components that make it up like have you ever if you've worked on any kind of like small engine or You know, maybe not an engine itself But like a pump or you know some some like highly mechanical device, right? Got a lot of moving parts you you crack into a lot of those things anymore and half of it is plastic Kent Boucher (12:53.166) That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. Kent Boucher (13:07.564) Right, it's just, I think some of it probably is planned obsolescence, which we've talked about before. Which a podcast guest and listener or friend of the show, Derek Orth, texted, I meant to tell you this Riley, he backed you up on your, what's it called, Speed Queen? Those things are bulletproof, he has one. And Nicolas Lirio (13:35.822) Well, and that's interesting because Derek deals with cows and so his clothes are gross. But I do think we've crossed some threshold where buying new, again, there's exceptions, but a lot of times it's not better quality than if you had the old version of that thing. Yeah, we don't, we don't make anything better. Right? You know, just not how we operate. My wife and I, um, she loves to flip furniture. I'm, sure. Oh yeah. I'd be shocked if we broke even with the time that she has spent on it, but she loves doing it. Loves loves doing it. It makes really cool stuff. Judd was like losing his mind. He's our artsy guy on the team about cool. thought it was then, uh, and, The furniture I bet is number one. Kent Boucher (14:21.066) I said he Nicolas Lirio (14:25.932) She won't even look at something if it's less than 50 years old. She's like, ugh, no. Other things are gonna fall apart. Yeah, that's when we were furnishing our apartments and then houses for the most part, that's what we would do is we would go to those, what do call them? Like upcycling stores or whatever, furniture flip stores. We'd go to all those things back when, I don't see many of around anymore. There's a really nice one in Des Moines, but they, mean, they, they, it's kind of interesting. They set a price and then on that price tag, it has a date and then a lower price and then another date and a lower price. And so it's saying, Hey, if this is still here at this date, it's where we're selling it for this price. then just keeps going down. That is kind of an interesting idea. Yeah. Creates a little urgency in there. Yeah. Yeah. it a little bit. I know, I remember thinking like, this is brilliant. Kent Boucher (15:13.006) That's how we got most of our furniture because you get it for a decent price It was just so much better quality than what you would get it at the big box furniture store yeah, absolutely. Well, should we jump in? Should we get started? Welcome back to the Prairie Farm podcast coffee time Wednesday. I'm your favorite host Nicholas Lirio with your favorite co-host Ken Boucher. Hey, hey, any favorite co-host to the coast. Riley Rosendahl. We got to talk about the new studio a little bit. Nick deserves a little credit for this. Well, Nick and Riley. Riley vacated the premises. Ha! I've been drinking and taking magnesium supplements. That's all we'll say. Riley said, Hey, I need an office closer to where the seed is stored. Kent Boucher (15:58.582) from you. Hahaha So we jokingly say that Riley is HR. And when we first said that, he's like, I am not, I'm no, I'm not HR. But occasionally someone will say or do something and Riley will be like, all right, HR is here. Kent Boucher (16:24.398) Nick's colorectal Hey colorectal we talked about that last week. Yeah And you know, I'm pretty sure I don't have it it's healthy So a lot of this stuff well some of it was actually sent to us in the mail different cool things old newspaper clippings from the farm old pictures from the farm, but if you're watching on YouTube you'll see there's stuff behind us because we moved where we're doing things because Riley needed us to stop setting up and tearing down in the middle of his work environment. Yeah, right in the middle. Right where he mixes seeds. Nicolas Lirio (17:05.71) My favorite sign if you're looking at if you're looking at the YouTube video you can see it's right behind me. It's an NFO collective bargaining bargaining like metal sign. Yeah, my grandfather had when he was in the NFO. He was the rep for the region and that is just like a cool piece of history. It doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, you can actually hear Carol talk about that. yeah. In a couple episodes and then also with Larry Turb Show. Larry Terp. I was like, mean, I was 100 or more episodes ago, probably. I think it's like June of maybe 24. Oh yeah, maybe 150. Because we do about 100 episodes a year. Kent Boucher (17:49.55) Yeah, so I'd go back to that range June of 24, think is when we had the... I don't know if you can see it in frame, when Kent is talking, Kent say some stuff. Hello. Hello, check out this cool sign behind me. We have a sign of my daddy won the no till award for Jasper County and that's the only sign we could actually hang. He actually got second place for no till corn and no till beans in 1984 and just wanted to prove to everyone that he was doing conservation way before it was cool. But the one where he got second place, actually was second place to the whole state, not just Jasper County. So it was a cool thing and he was really proud of those awards. So I wanted to, a little bit. honorable. And Alex had to retrieve a few of them from the old house before we tore it down. Riley Rozendaal (18:31.406) What brings value? My dad. He was like literally like walking on like the baseboards because there was no floor. He did not like maintenance So he had this house that he grew up in and his dad grew up in it was like a hundred year old house and he took it over when he took over the farm and he Never fixed anything on that old house and it was falling apart and he moved Right out of that house into the house that I grew up in. I mean probably 15 years before he even met my mom but 15 years before he moved in well he Yeah, Dandelions, Dutch White Clover. Riley Rozendaal (18:44.942) just trying to think of something else. Nicolas Lirio (19:05.902) didn't move any of his stuff except for some of his clothes. It was just a different house on the farm property. When that one, there was like rain coming in through the roof on this first house he lived in and a raccoon living with them. And he went, I should probably move to that other house. So he grabbed a few of his clothes. So all of his stuff was still in that house, including some of these signs and some other stuff. So yeah, it's cool. A lot of, a lot of history here. If you send us something good, assuming that it is. Yeah, we'll throw it on up there. Cool enough. We'll throw it on, we've got some cool gold plated enough it'll probably end up there. Paul Sun I'll leave his name out of it Paul Sun wrote us a letter and that was really really cool got the cool I mean, I'm pretty sure it was a letter that he was doing for homework, you know, he's like learning how to write So there's like four words per page, but it was awesome. One of my favorite things have ever gotten in the Yeah, that's that's very true man. All right. Well, I have a topic for us today Last year about this time. We talked a little bit about lawns and people were very excited about Riley Rozendaal (19:50.062) I'm giving them medium. I think they maybe present, people see stuff on them just because there's so many dandelions. Still better handwriting than my own. Kent Boucher (20:08.954) yeah, I mean you don't have to worry about any farm guilt when it comes to ag runoff and you start thinking about lawns, right Nick? Yes, yes, you can tell that most of the nitrate runoff comes from fertilizer on lawns because that's not what the data says at all. In fact, Dr. Keith Schilling. I would say that's of a higher value, would be my guess, just because it's coming in after I think of dandelions, usually. You want to something funny before you get into it? Yeah, yeah. So this is a this is part of a good story as well on old stuff. So I've had this decrepit old backpack. You guys know the one the green backpack. yeah. And my wife turns out has hated it since the day I got it. I didn't know she hated it ever even back when I I guess it was somewhat new. I found it in a trash can. You didn't know it? Nicolas Lirio (20:55.534) He got the thrift store. Kent Boucher (21:02.734) My door my door basement and I was I was a janitor in my dorm and I was cleaning up and I said I'm perfectly And I needed one real bad because mine was falling apart completely and So I snagged it and I've used that thing since roughly 2011 2012 time frame so about 15 years Well for all of those 15 years Caitlin has hated it and for the last Five, she's really hated it. Because it's just completely falling apart. Neither of the zippers work anymore. And she said she hated it because it was always flop. It was just like, very, yeah, it was just like, looked like trash. Why? Nicolas Lirio (21:41.762) It's little better than a napkin sack you'd tie around a stick. It's a little better. a knapsack. But so so she's been telling me you need to get a new backpack. You need to get a new back. And I did some, you know, five minutes searching around for a good one. I wanted one that had a laptop sleeve like this one had because I carry my laptop in it when I use it. And. But I wanted like a nice backpack and I thought I found one at one time, but it was too big. It was too big and too bulky. So I had like a temporary replacement that just didn't work out. It's worth more than your car. Kent Boucher (22:20.782) and I ended up using it for hunting instead. And so I'm back to using the old green floppy backpack that came out of the trash bin. Well, this last week, my wife went to some garage sales with her work friends. And she's like, I got you a new backpack. All right. So she brings it home and it still has the $5 sticker on it. I think I'm gonna leave it on there. Hahaha. It's the funniest thing because the backpack she got me not only is it used, but it is the backpack I had before I got the one. It's the same make and model of that backpack. And so things have come full circle. But anyways, while I was cleaning out my Really? Nicolas Lirio (23:11.49) Trying to get back to the man she first fell in love with. That's right. So while I was cleaning out my old backpack, there's, you know, know, how backpacks are they got like three pockets, you only use one of them. Yeah. So I was getting into the pockets I never use. Right. And I'm pulling out these old papers from when I was teaching and stuff and found some old pay stubs, which were interesting and depressing. But I found this paper and I had forgotten about this, but I was asked to go and judge a an FFA science fair at it was like for all these high schools in this region in Illinois. And these kids presented their research and stuff. And here was this paper that this girl like 10 years ago had done a study on this exact thing that you're talking about. Ag runoff and lawn runoff and what's the, you know, who's the real culprit here and the tone because it's a high school kid and And I'm guessing her personal background was very much on the ag side of things. The tone of the whole paper was very much, and everyone thinks it's ag's problem, but when you look at the concentration of what's being applied on, it was very interesting to see that. Well, that's true data. I mean, if you look at how much fertilizer, yeah, it's many, many, many times what they put on ag. Kent Boucher (24:43.766) And if we had 30 million acres of golf courses and residential lawns, it would... It would be better. We'd have less nitrate runoff. And the main thing, I can't remember who told us this, but the main thing is just that there's like real plants still on the ground that could take up the nitrogen. So they, can dump way more nitrogen on them. But actually that's not quite what I'm talking about today. I've got, is about lawns. It's a little different. know, have you seen the popular square meter, don't mow it, let it grow. yeah, like no momay type thing. Yes, but or no mo lawns or save the bees, leave the dandelions. Have you seen, you've seen all these, all these law? Yes. Okay. So I was trying to figure out which of these sentiments are actually good, which ones are actually relevant. So I dug it. did a little digging and by far the entity that has done the, or at least put the most out there that I could find was a university of Minnesota extensions. Yeah, mean like the sentiments, yeah. Nicolas Lirio (25:42.102) similar to Iowa State Extension except Minnesota and which makes sense because Minnesota has their nomo or nomo lawn like what would you say? Well, they have like a grant that you can apply and replace your lawn with replace your lawn with things we'll talk about here in a second. think they just call it no more made, don't they? Kent Boucher (26:06.734) Wait, so you're saying, no mo, just permanently, you're getting rid of lawn species and putting in something else. Yes, that is, mean, there's a bunch of, there's the no mome, right? And that was because early spring bees really struggled to have, cause what was there, what in April and May, think of the prairie species that are there. They're very expensive. They're very dainty. They're very fragile. They, they need more help. They're not like big blue stamp. They're not like New England aster stiff golden rod that are really hardy that hang out in ditches in the fall. Right? So the early spring was when these bees needed the most help. but it's not I mean, the sentiment is good. And I actually found an old quote from Chad gravy on our podcast. Yeah. He said, the more effort you put into your lawn, the less value it has for anything. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, you're just trying to get it down to a monoculture of one species of grass. Yeah. Exactly. So, I want to start with, just going to go through a few species on whether they have real value for bees and some of them kind of talk about butterflies, but mostly we're talking about bees. Kent Boucher (27:16.494) Wait, are these native or non-native? I believe all the ones I have here are non-native. fun of Friday that I could guess a few. See if they're on your list. We've obviously got Danny like yep, I got that here Dutch white clover. Kent Boucher (27:40.792) What about Red Clover? Nope, I don't have that. It's too tall. What about what about this is definitely gonna be too tall but it'd be interesting because there's so much of it wild parsnip. No Nope, not on there. These are things that are in lawns. So real short, Wood Sorrel. That's a common one that's real short. Plantain maybe. Nicolas Lirio (28:06.41) No, I didn't. I didn't have that one on here. The. Here's I mean the self heal or heal all. Pretty common now that one's a little busier. White clovers definitely on here. Violets are on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then creeping Charlie. Right, so we'll start with our good friend the dandelion. All right, Kent Boucher (28:14.862) Okay, yeah. Kent Boucher (28:24.854) Yep. Nicolas Lirio (28:32.128) Low, medium or high on, yeah, four Bs. The... Utility? This would include native bees or? Yep. I'm gonna say hi. Okay. Nicolas Lirio (28:51.726) It's basically a fast food burger that but you could break it higher because it flowers when we don't have anything else. Yeah. Right. And so because of that, it's like, well, McDonald's will get you through. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and so that's where that one, the Danny lines, I thought that was interesting and be like. of starvation. Kent Boucher (29:13.112) their arteries on data lines. White clover. Obviously not native. What do you think for value to bees? I'm going to go, well, rather you guess first this time. Kent Boucher (29:34.51) It does last a long time too, like it goes. But it's not, I don't see White Clover up yet at this time of year, and I've already seen Violets and Dana Line's up. I'm gonna go medium on it. In terms of just native B value overall, it is high and probably the highest non. Riley's kicking my butt. He's doing a good job. And so the USDA, what the information that comes from the USDA did a big thing, specifically Dr. Susanna Lerman, I believe is how you in 2018 looking into how valuable are our common non-native species for native bees. Heal all was high. Violets are high, but for specific bees, I think there's a bee called a violet mining bee. It's serious concern right there. Nicolas Lirio (30:23.298) There's a specific so it is very high for some of them and not and a lot of them are just irrelevant and then the great spangled Fritillary butterfly caterpillars have to be on violets. And so Is that a native butterfly? I wonder why it has to be a native. Yeah, I believe so. Yeah. All violets are non-native. Yeah, there are there are native violence. that's true. Nicolas Lirio (30:48.076) And then Henbit is a moderate, it's a medium. definitely better than nothing. That doesn't surprise me because it's got such a short window of bloom, you know? Yeah. Yeah, and they did a study with let's see if I can actually find the name of the guy it's on. It's in here somewhere that he looked into what actually. He looked into what actually is in the components of the nectar or of the pollen of the specific plants and does it match with what bees need for their physiology? And so that's where a lot of this information is coming from as well. Creeping Charlie is bad. It's just not, it's not good for bees. It's not that useful and it smothers other. That's a story we got to tell sometime. Not good for you, not good for us. Nicolas Lirio (31:40.928) Here is what was really interesting. So the no mo thing, like if you just let your Kentucky blue, okay, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm just thinking of the not good free I'm telling him, not telling him. Nicolas Lirio (32:08.942) If you plant native grasses like Buffalo grass, or if you have tall native grasses and a wildflower mix, the ticks, there's a lot more space for the sun to dry out the ground because the ticks want that moist, warm, humid conditions. so when, uh, Kentucky blue or fescue, or if you have brome in your ditches or something, they get tall and then they just kind of fall over. They of all over. They start trapping in moisture and they create this perfect tick condition and rat condition. Uh, it's so. Really? If you are going to leave and like a meter square meter and not do anything with it, that's fine. But don't hang out in there and don't do your whole yard like that. If you're going to do your whole yard, put some pretty wildflowers down and and do it that way. Now. Yeah, so the no mo may was all based on a study in 2020 in Wisconsin about. That's interesting. Nicolas Lirio (33:06.83) that bees can live off of the non-natives healthily and happily if we just stop mowing in May, it really help the bees. So the whole movement was started in 2020 with that. In 2023, they reviewed that journal and debunked it really bad. They said that the people who did the study grossly misidentified a lot of the bees and a lot of them that they were saying were getting enough nutrition off of it weren't even native bees and They said that they weren't tracking them later in their life well enough and that a lot of the data was misused. I don't know what that means in research terms, but misused. And I just thought that was interesting because there's all this sentiment of like, we got to do, we, you know, we got to save the bees. We've got to have the dandelions. We've got to do this stuff. And, and I am a proponent of, you know, not manicuring your lawn. There's a lot of just human value of getting over things looking a little messy. I don't mean like a disaster, but like a little messy. but it means a lot more to actually just have like 50 square feet of a wildflower patch, you know, for the bees. here, was, something interesting in the university of Minnesota extension. They put out a whole thing that said better than no Mo may. yellow flowers. Riley Rozendaal (34:11.028) Yeah, I saw a bunch of it last year. Nicolas Lirio (34:30.35) is actually not raking your leaves. is. It does way more for the bee, but the native bee population to just go up your leaf. Yep. And David Majewski was as message. You see Majewski, uh, he came on the podcast and that was like his big thing was like, don't rake your leaves, dude. I'm all for not raking the leaves. Big fan of not raking. Have you noticed that, um, not to get in the difference of like different generations and worse or better, but we, the hybrid. Kent Boucher (34:51.416) No kidding. Nicolas Lirio (35:00.396) like millennials and Gen Z years are now homeowners. A lot of us are homeowners. We don't, we don't win the best garden competitions in town. And I wonder if when, you know, boomers and Gen Xers were when they were twenties and thirties, if any of them were winning their best lawn in the neighborhood or whatever, like, is it truly a generational difference or is an age thing when we get older and we'll care a little more about Think I've seen too many Too many prairie species in ditches to rationalize mowing them You know if you're coming up to a four-way intersection and you want to clean up the edges or something whatever but safe the amount of Prairie rose and other other remnant species I've seen that have been just completely just cut to the ground You know there it's a little shrub that stand an inch and half tall because every month it gets you know the top whacked off it for I can definitely see why lawn manicuring became a big deal because if you retire, you still want something to do, right? And there is an aspect of like farm work where when you're in the tractor, whether you're, let's say you're disking, like that's kind of fun. You know what I mean? Like it's just going back and forth. Well, it may be not fun, but it's predictable. And it's, there's true satisfaction that comes. No reason on a straight road. I don't know. I can't see the value in it Riley Rozendaal (35:46.546) I actually don't. live on a half acre and I've done what Kent has done and I've given up some of my mow area. Like there was a spot along a ditch that the previous owners mowed. It was like a 10th of an acre and I just gave it up. But it was so intensively graded for the highway I was by that I haven't found any remnant species out there. I've got like a prairie section of my from equipment running well and getting some kind of work done with it, whether the work is needed or not, right? And a lawnmower, a lawn tractor allows you to do that. It allows you to hop on there and I don't think most people really consider why am I mowing today other than they think to themselves, does the lawn need mowed today? Is there a... property in like a garden where I put plugs, but I don't have like a free ranging backyard prairie. worth in mowing at all. That's not the question, right? The lawn was invented for man, not man for the lawn. Kent Boucher (36:30.798) And so the, you know, people feel like they're getting something done and it's relaxing too. I love to listen to podcasts. yeah. And I love them. Yeah. I enjoy it. And so then what do do though, when the grass is cut and you can't, you can't go in and get any closer to the fence with that, with the edge of your deck, know, like there's, there's nothing left to mow for five days, right? well, could get a little toe behind 10 foot sprayer that I could hitch up to this lawn tractor and I could start spraying for dandelions and then I could start. And so I don't, know, and then yes, you get the reward of the golf course appearance when you're done, but I think a lot of it is just coming from people that want something to do where it's kind of work with your hands, kind of operate equipment. Something to fuss over, right? I think that is totally true. Well, and back to the timing, like, were boomers doing this when they were younger? Well, when they were younger, they had, you know, like me, four kids, they limited resources to not be spending on 2, 4D for their lawn and not buying the latest lawn mower, but just something you had to wrestle with to get it to start every time you went to do it. And I mean, that's how was when I was a kid. And in fact, my dad couldn't wait to start, you know, putting us on the lawn. And so he could be doing whatever else he was busy with at that time. And now you go to my dad's house, man, he loves mowing the lawn. You know, he's one of the first in his cul-de-sac to have that being fired up every year. And so it's, and he's retired now. And so, so I think it probably steps up the older you get, the more time you have and more resource you have to put into it, you know. Nicolas Lirio (38:19.114) I think that I think that's true. And I would say the good side of it is like, if you have more time, you like take care of your stuff. And that is how a lot of people view. They're taking care of it. It's like well intentioned, like, this is my corner of the world. I want to take good care of it. I to make sure it's manicured. I to, I just think we could reframe what taking care of. definitely. What does it mean to tend the garden? You know, and, and, cause I mean, older people, their houses also tend to be cleaner. than people with kids still at home. so there's that. The bees are in trouble when somebody comes up with a riding lawn breaker. Yeah Yeah, that's very unified. Kent Boucher (39:03.15) I'm not talking about those drag behind lawn sweepers. I'm talking about something you can sit right over top of the riding action. You don't have to worry about a little trailer or anything. Yeah, they need to. Honey, we have made a terrible mistake. I just imagine the bees like talking to each other. We purchased the wrong tunnel. need to get out of here. Oh, man. Yeah, I just there's a lot of movement on the lawn thing and I don't have all the answers. I just think it would we should probably funnel that movement in a direction and not just like, oh, I care about conservation. I let my lawn grow all the way up and Yeah Nicolas Lirio (39:40.302) It does whatever it wants. You know, I think being intentional and I want to be really clear. I'm going to get kicked in the butt for this. am much less concerned about native, the term native, the idea of native than I am of ecological health. The thing is you just can't separate the two. So, but there are some, I mean, the pheasants, one of them made a, made a good home. I think like there's like some of the species that we had. that we had mentioned like not Danny lines aren't going to take over the world. You know what I mean? It was too late. But, uh, but so with the non-native, I'm just thinking like ecological diversity that helps the flora and fauna that are existing and have existed here for a long time. And so I think we should try and figure out how to do that. Now I do believe the absolute best thing you can do for your yard and the ecology around is have a backyard prairie. You can find it at hoxie native seeds.com, but I know Mo law and I think is, is not away they already have. Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (40:40.639) the end of world even though it's not native. You know what, think, Judd asked me last week when he was here working with me, he was like, how often do you just hear Carol in your head? Yeah, mean, often, right? Or you just look at, it's more of a way of how you start looking at things. You look at them like Carol did, right? And when I think of No Mo May, I used to be a big proponent of that, but then I started thinking, Carol would be so concerned about some weed that was growing in that No Mo May weed patch. multiplying like, uh, he wouldn't be worried about dandelions. He'd be worried about wild parsnip or queen Anne's lace or, or a sour dock or something like that, that can really get going. And then it's, you know, now it's spreading into, to places where it's truly, yeah, a lawn is, is a habitat value of zero for most houses. Right. Um, but, uh, if it spreads into your nice prairie, now you've taken some that has very high. habitat value and you've reduced it by allowing a dominating invasive to show up. There's no question that a prairie loaded with wild parsnip is not, that's not good, right? That it lost a lot of its conservation value when that happened. so there is some responsibility too, if you're going to just let things be to try and take care of some of those problems. But, and I think part of the middle ground on it is do no mow may in your ditches. Like there's parts of my ditch in front of my house that historically my family always mowed, right? And I'm sure they have to grin and bear it when they drive by now, because I don't mow that part of the ditch anymore. I just let it grow. I figure it's a little bit of escape cover every now and then you might get a thing of a common milkweed coming up in there. Kent Boucher (42:40.366) But I do on occasion get a nasty invasive that shows up in there. And so then I just turn the zero turn, go down into the ditch, mow that little patch of whatever it is coming up in there. It's usually that one weird African flower that has like the super long, yeah, the section S. Super long buds. So listen. Nicolas Lirio (43:08.908) How Mullen kind of the common evening primrose No, it looks, the leaves early on kinda look like Ohio spiderwort, but then the buds on them are like super long and kinda bulbous. But anyways, I get some of that, so you just go in and mow them because I know they'll take over if I don't get to them. you gotta, I mean it's a little bit of both, but I don't think that the county should be paying to. mow every ditch on every gravel road. I think that's a waste of resources and I think that the wildlife in the area are worse off for it as a result of it being cut down and then letting it grow. But in yards, there might get a give and take. What do think Riley? Nicolas Lirio (44:37.176) know you've got prairie on the farm, you got any prairie in your yard? Nicolas Lirio (45:07.497) Enter. Kent Boucher (45:18.37) Yeah, I don't think I've ever, I mean, I've found some native species that come up. One of my favorites is a carpet vervein, grows on gravel. yeah. That's so cool. I think I showed it to you at my house once. But other than stuff like that, know, everything, all the prairie in my yard is stuff I've planted. You know, I don't think there's... Kind of like Riley said, when they were digging the ditches out and everything, you know, that soil just got so mixed around and everything. There is some remnant though on the farm in some, you know, far corners of the farm and stuff, which is really fun to find new species all the time. But all the prairie in my yard I've planted. Bye! My first house had was on like a old, old brick mason like stove factory thing. And so that place was all cleared out. And I'm pretty sure that. It was on a like they used their used Nicolas Lirio (46:16.237) Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, there's like a little cellar that was like an oven that's still kind of there. It's really interesting. But so the only prairie there is it's just the stash of what? No, don't worry about it. It's like Pokemon cards. And so and then the second house, have like a eight foot by eight foot spot that Nick keeps his stash. Kent Boucher (46:31.948) Stash. Nicolas Lirio (46:43.68) as we're planted. And actually what I did was I took, so what we do guys is when we test seed, we take, when we clean seed, we get like a Ziploc baggie and we have that. And so every time the test runs out, if we still have some on the shelf, we'll take some out of that bag and go and test it. Well, we had a bunch that we had sold all the seed off the shelf and we have like 12 little baggies of seed. So I took all of those little baggies of the test seed plus the, plus like some backyard prairie or something. And I planted it in this spot. And this would be the, this would be year three. So I asked the home, the renter not to mow that area. And so I'm excited to see, just had him mow it through year two, which John Judson says that they do sometimes. So I was like, well, just mow through year two and then we'll have something pretty year three. But yeah, if you have any questions on lawns, check out the prairie farm.com and go to the Prairie Farm forum there. We really appreciate y'all and well, we'll talk to you again next time. Every little bit helps. Kent Boucher (47:42.358) first run of the new studio.