Nicolas Lirio (00:00.13) I gotta tell a little story about my freshman year high school with my phi physical science teacher, Mr. Evenhouse, said that he was saying your sense of smell comes from like real particles. And one girl goes, Wait, someone someone farts? That's real poop particles? And he went, and and this dude was like 90% socialized. You know, he's like a true science teacher. You know, he'd been like forty years. Aaron Van Wyk (00:27.202) See Kent Boucher (00:27.564) Easy. Nicolas Lirio (00:29.23) And he went, Well, yeah, yeah, it is real poop particles. Like n didn't understand the humor in it. Did it just let yeah, yep, it's real poop. and the other day I was driving, driving home to Knoxville, and there were these giant ditches between the road and the f and the field. You know how some fields are real close to the this was not giant ditch. And then airplanes flying over, spraying chemicals on this field. just drive under. And and you could see it when the plane was right above where I was driving through, there wasn't any like chemicals coming out of it. Right. Well but Kent Boucher (01:01.686) Well it's well known that when you turn a sprayer off, zero percent leakage. No dribble. Nicolas Lirio (01:07.202) Yeah, no no leak. Well, and so I pass right under there and my car just like covered in little specks of liquid. Yep. And and then maybe ten, fifteen seconds later I start to smell it. And all I could think about was Mr. Evenhouse like, Yeah, real poop particle. And it's like it's like when you smell it in the air, you're not smelling the smell of chemicals. You're just smelling chemicals, like real chemicals that are there in the air, right next to you. So like anyway. Having a good old time. This is a little precursor because we've got some chemical experts, true experts, coming on the pod here in the next month or two. So we're excited about it. Kent Boucher (01:43.736) But Nick, if you could only see how little of amount of that hard chemical that that chemical that would be harmful for you to ingest, if you could just see how little of an amount that is. Yeah. You would thank him for allowing you to smell that chemical smell. Aaron Van Wyk (02:00.344) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (02:01.612) Yeah. I don't know. Water th the water they use in their field smells chemically. Kent Boucher (02:06.066) Every every big ag apologist who offers that up, I just wanna say to him, then drink it. Go ahead. Yeah. Take it in. It's just such a small amount. You drink that amount. yeah. It's the amount of one shampoo bottle for a thousand acres. Drink a shampoo bottle of it then. Yeah. Aaron Van Wyk (02:11.789) Your Nicolas Lirio (02:22.178) Yeah, I'd I know Aaron does. just big drinker. Aaron Van Wyk (02:28.995) yeah, on a regular basis. Nicolas Lirio (02:31.862) Try to feel just try to feel something. Anyway. Kent Boucher (02:34.498) Didn't you ask him if he was hanging out at some bar once and he's like, no, I have morals. That was his response. Nicolas Lirio (02:41.272) Well all right, we should just jump on in. Aaron Van Wyk (02:48.766) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (02:50.52) Coffee time Wednesdays with the Prairie Farm Podcast. Aaron Van Wyk (02:53.87) Can't hit us with the jingle. Kent Boucher (02:55.87) Two Nicolas Lirio (03:03.34) At Hoxy Native Seeds, our mission is to provide native seed and education for landowners and land managers that care about their ground. So the education, we're doing that through the podcast and interviewing experts and the stuff we put out through our website. But the native seed that we provide, whether we grew it or we work with other producers that grew it, we are here to provide that for you. It's what keeps the lights on for us and it's what we love to do. Most of our seeds grown right here on our farm. HoxynativeSeeds.com. and if you need a little help with consultation, not sure what's put on your ground, we would be happy to help you with that as well. Give us a call, hoxynative seeds.com. Welcome back to the Prairie Farm Podcast. Coffee Time Wednesday. I'm your favorite host, Nicholas Leroy, with favorite co-host Kev Boucher. And your favorite guest, the co-host of the host, Aaron. Aaron and White. Kent Boucher (03:49.005) Hey hey. Aaron Van Wyk (03:55.648) And what's Riley say? Howdy howdy. Kent Boucher (03:57.464) Yeah, that's right. Nicolas Lirio (03:59.018) True. a couple of things, Riley. You you better not be listening to this right now. You better actually be on break. You better not be checking in on this pie, all right? I'm gonna we're gonna know. Kent Boucher (04:09.55) How many times do you think Riley's checked the company website while on vacation? Yeah, like I'm gonna say I'm gonna say not including email, I'm gonna say he's checked our company website. We have like a like a back end website where you you know, you type in the right thing and then you gotta log in and all that. I bet you he's been on that three times per day since Nicolas Lirio (04:35.726) Three times per day. He's taking the whole week off. I think no, I don't think so. I think he's checking his email three, four, five times a day. yeah. Kent Boucher (04:47.202) Yeah, email I'm gonna I'm gonna set the over under at ten for email. Nicolas Lirio (04:50.28) And today, checking the email. Kent Boucher (04:52.574) I bet I bet you I bet you he's been on the ERP three times. Nicolas Lirio (04:56.192) A day. Okay, yeah, you you you might be right. Yeah, just to just to see what's going on, what Judd's putting in Kent Boucher (05:02.014) Just the kind of guy Riley is. He's he wants he wants to make sure everything's going well. Nicolas Lirio (05:06.476) I tried to also get him to take last Friday off. So he'd have Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday through Friday, and then Saturday, Sunday off. And he was not about it. He was like, No, I'll I'll be here Friday. I d I've never taken ten days off. I don't know what I'm gonna do with that time. so we we brought in a guest. We we pulled a slugger. Thanks for being here, Aaron. Aaron Van Wyk (05:20.95) That's what Kent Boucher (05:22.866) man. Aaron Van Wyk (05:28.086) Yeah, no problem. Kent Boucher (05:29.23) He's only losing profitability on his farm that requires him to be there at all hours of every day. Nicolas Lirio (05:36.056) Dude, I the more I look at AG, if you pay yourself a salary, like I don't even know. Like profitability and farms just don't seem to go together. You know what I mean? Like but they'll they'll be like, well, it's profitable by seventy thousand dollars. Well, if you paid yourself a sixty-five thousand dollar salary, how much profit is it? Well, I guess five thousand then. It's like they're counting no other job counts salary and profit. Aaron Van Wyk (06:00.41) You have to look at it as a hobby. So half those hours are hobby hours. Leisure time. Kent Boucher (06:08.864) Nick's hobby farm conversation. Nicolas Lirio (06:27.298) Yo, that's funny. That's funny. I've got three topics, and we're gonna vote. We're gonna do a little vote on which ones we're gonna do. First one, wildfires. Yeah. Second one, poop lettuce. And third one, the Colorado River Drought. And for anyone listening, we're gonna pick two because otherwise it gets too long, can't go into depth. And then the next week, next week we'll pick one of these that we didn't pick. Kent Boucher (06:52.152) Well, I think we need to circle back to the explosive diarrhea lettuce because I Aaron and I have both seen since lettuce was blamed for this impressive outbreak. I don't think it's lettuce anymore. They the When did you see that? 'Cause like yesterday. Nicolas Lirio (07:10.902) The FDA yesterday said that they or yeah in Aaron Van Wyk (07:17.846) I can't remember but it was something along the lines that it was not correct that that was causing the outbreak. But regardless, I think we've had enough poop talk from you, Nicholas. Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (07:26.574) No, okay. Well what what I found that was actually coming from Mexico, Mexican farm because there's a different Kent Boucher (07:34.306) Like, interesting. From what I've from what I've Nicolas Lirio (07:39.468) If that's we'll we'll we'll swing back around to it next week, but I wonder if that has anything to do with the like trade tension there is between the the US and Mexico right now. You know what I mean? Kent Boucher (07:49.352) I don't think America's too interested in her supporting anyone's feelings towards us. Didn't we just slap more tariffs on Canada and one of the reasonings was all the smoke coming over the border? Nicolas Lirio (07:56.246) I know. Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (08:04.128) man, I don't know anything about the tariffs, but I did look into the smoke coming across the border, and we should talk about it. All right, so as of July nineteenth, which was when the article that I read was written, there were about eight million acres that were consumed by fire. most of the fire they expect to go on for months, and some of the fire, less than most, they were thinking about a third of it they expected to continue until snow fell on. the health implications, there is real hazardous air. For instance, Duluth, Minnesota smashed their record of air quality index. Over 300 is considered hazardous. I lived through a fire crisis in California. We got up to I think 570, and they're at 934. 934. just to like show how bad it is. there were people, many people. Yeah, we should we should shoot them a message, see what it's like up there. there have been many people that have like literally the helicopter had to come and get them out of their spot that they were in. the boundary waters, obviously, there's I don't know how much ash is considered a pollution, but when houses and stuff are burning, then it immediately becomes a pollution issue. and so you know the boundary waters are affected in the in that way. and they're having an issue with I guess. Air conditioning because it's like you can kind of lock your house in and keep the air quality a little better. But as soon as you turn on air conditioning that isn't like totally state of the art or you open a window, then it, you know, becomes quite hazardous, but otherwise it's ninety degrees in your house. So what do you do there? and then for Kent Boucher (09:54.635) because it's circulating the same like carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide from all the smoke. Nicolas Lirio (10:02.274) Well, what I what I read was just a a news article from ABC where they just interviewed one person and that person said, Well, in my house I can set up an air filter, but like just a one you buy from Walmart. But as soon as you either open the windows or turn on the AC that pulls, you know, is is circulating air from outside, new ones that really like if your construction in the last five to ten years, you can have a really tight house that will circulate it or even has its own air filtration system on it. but most of them are not that Kent Boucher (10:34.72) So is the threat the particulate that's in the air, like ash and dust? Or is it carbon monoxide? Nicolas Lirio (10:41.962) No, no, I it's it's ash and dust. It's just like pure air quality in terms of pollution. but I don't know. It fires are interesting. They need to happen. And the and the better we are at suppressing them, the worse they are when they finally come out of their shell. And I don't know if you guys have put any thought into that, but I I I'm curious what you think. Kent Boucher (11:04.92) I just think the Native Americans had it figured out with when when there was a flood, volcano erupted, you picked up your house and you moved it to where that wasn't happening. And and instead we we said, nah, sheetrock and you know, wood beams and steel and concrete. I'm staying here no matter what. And and bad things happen. But obviously that's how we've set up society and and it is a shame that that Nicolas Lirio (11:15.092) Ha ha ha. Kent Boucher (11:35.01) that is the cost of like living in those areas, right? Some some some areas, this is a Luke Fritsch concept that he's marveled about. It's just how we choose to live places where where they don't they aren't set up well to necessarily support human life naturally. yeah. The there so in other words we can live we live there for other reasons, right? We don't live there for the fertile soil or the abundance of of calories. We live there because it's beautiful. It's a getaway. We like the climate. Whatever it is, right? And unfortunately, pairing that with a non-nomadic w way of, you know, viewing the land and living on the land, you set a permanent fixture in some of those extreme areas. And you know, when fire does have to happen, I mean just think about it. You have it's it'd be like never taking the garbage out in your house. The way the the cycle of matter is in a forest, in a pine forest, is you have all these needles that are building up. Yeah, some are decomposing, but a lot of them takes many years to do that. And then all and when you look at which I believe is what most of that is, right? Boreal forest throughout throughout Ontario. You know, those Nicolas Lirio (12:52.984) That was my understanding at least, yeah. Kent Boucher (12:57.612) Good survival situation is using pine needles and things because they have I think it's called resin, high resin content in the sap of of pine that is like turpentine. So super flammable. And all it takes is, you know, a spark and enough of that fuel load built up over the years, then you got yourself in a super flammable area, you know. Nicolas Lirio (13:24.622) I don't know. Aaron, what do you think? Aaron Van Wyk (13:26.792) I think what Kent said s kind of rings true to like living on the coast. Like you wanna live on the coast but a hurricane might come through and you need to be aware though that's gonna destroy everything. Yeah. So if you're gonna live in an area prone to massive wildfires, you might get a massive wildfire come through and lose everything. I don't know if there's a way to mitigate it, you know. Yeah control it. And another thing is the smoke, you know. You might not be anywhere near the actual fire itself, but the smoke is gonna affect Such a huge area if the wind shifts. Nicolas Lirio (13:58.648) Think if you had to guess the most habitable place, let's just say the United States, what do you think is the most habitable for humans? And I mean well rounded. Like think of how harsh winters would be, how hot summers would be, water, soil, fertility. What do what do you think? Kent Boucher (14:18.144) I think probably somewhere like southern Wisconsin, southern Minnesota, you have lots of lumber resources not far away. You have tons of water, you have fertile soils, you have fairly I mean, yeah, the winters get a little worse than they are here. but pretty, you know, moderate w climate throughout the year. yeah, probably probably somewhere around there. Maybe maybe like a Michigan like a southern Michigan too, maybe. Nicolas Lirio (14:46.03) Anyone's ever done a study on it. Aaron Van Wyk (14:48.182) I was thinking it had to be a lot farther south just to avoid the cold winters. true, yeah. You know, I was thinking like Southern California sounded pretty good. yeah, yeah. Hawaii parts of Kent Boucher (14:57.934) Maybe not Southern California because there again you wouldn't be able to dr you wouldn't be able to grow much food. But like Northern California, wine country California, that's probably that's pretty cradle of civilization either. Aaron Van Wyk (15:03.352) True. Nicolas Lirio (15:10.722) Yeah, that's up there for me. I think what do you call it? The Ohio River Valley, right? Wars were fought over that. And then I don't know as much about it, but I assume where the Missouri Kent Boucher (15:24.374) I'm changing my answer. I know w right where it is. Nicolas Lirio (15:26.466) Well I I would say it's Illinois. Why? Kent Boucher (15:29.624) Think about Illinois got everything. You go down into southern Illinois, it is huge, dense forest. You go but you don't have the the killer cold of like you know, the dense forest in parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan. And then you have tons and tons of arable, good crop growing ground of Nicolas Lirio (15:50.796) You have I was thinking somewhere around where the Missouri pours into the Mississippi. Kent Boucher (15:57.75) that would be in Illinois. Yeah, K Cairo, Cairo, Illinois. Nicolas Lirio (15:59.308) Is that in Illinois? Well I figured like there you have plenty of water and I knew that it was somewhere in the Midwest where they'd have arable acres. and I knew it was further south than Iowa so their winters wouldn't be as as strong. I I feel like there's something you know, where you have rivers you got a lot of forested area usually. Kent Boucher (16:17.89) Missouri would probably be very good too, actually. Maybe it's f maybe I changed my answer to Missouri. Nicolas Lirio (16:20.013) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (16:23.758) Like the Ozarks in the Midwest man issue Kent Boucher (16:26.764) When we went to visit Steve, that place was it's the Mormons, right, that believe Missouri was Eden and I get it. Aaron Van Wyk (16:35.212) You know what I mean? Kent Boucher (16:37.262) Not a lot of things we agree on. But maybe so. You go down to that place and there's just so much biodiversity, you know what I mean? Nicolas Lirio (16:39.566) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (16:49.782) Almost Eden South Missouri Dude I that is interesting. What is the most habitable place? But we don't we don't pick those places. We're not Kent Boucher (16:53.485) North Missouri. Kent Boucher (17:02.802) No. Take me to Colorado where there's no water, tons of rock, and and very few animals and plants. Nicolas Lirio (17:11.8) Well, I I mean I lived through the paradise and campfires in northern northern California, the Reading fires. I mean they were they were brutal. And and it got me thinking, so I've been thinking about this for years. Can you even have regimented fires like we do with prairie burns in giant forests like that? Kent Boucher (17:32.258) I just Aaron Van Wyk (17:33.036) I don't know how you would control it. Nicolas Lirio (17:35.224) So it's like Kent Boucher (17:37.194) Maybe if you could get like the community in on instead of like having trained professionals, like maybe instead of training everyone to r run a riding lawnmower, maybe we train everyone to use a drip torch and play the wind and like, all right, you know, it is you know whatever communities burn week, all week we're gonna be going around and we're gonna be the whole community is gonna be participating in And controlled burns. And you do it every single year so that that fuel load couldn't Nicolas Lirio (18:10.466) That's what I I I mean, I don't know. Kent Boucher (18:13.368) Because you couldn't staff it you just couldn't staff it. It would you you'd need so many people. Aaron Van Wyk (18:17.908) And the terrain's so rugged. You know, thing around here, if we do a prairie burn, yeah. I don't know what you usually figure for a fire break, but I always think like twice your height of what you're burning you need in width. Yeah. As a break. So if you're burning a hundred foot tall trees, two hundred plus foot fire break. Yeah. So now you gotta go in through with dozers and track hose and clear and maintain a massive fire break. Nicolas Lirio (18:42.87) That is Aaron Van Wyk (18:43.274) True. And then it doesn't take much of a wind to jump, you know, two hundred feet not very far if you're burning a massive forest. Kent Boucher (18:48.494) Yeah, it's almost like we should have entire communities participating for one, just to have enough people. Nicolas Lirio (18:54.124) Yep. It'd have to be in the culture, like it'd be part of like growing up. You would just learn how to Yeah. Kent Boucher (18:58.774) Once again, what did Native Americans do? It was part of their culture, burn the prairie every year. Yep. And and you can't I mean, when you're in those extreme places, 'cause there were people that lived in those extreme places. There are Native American tribes that lived year round up in Canada and in the coldest, harshest places and in some of the hottest places too in our country, driest places. But they lived with the land, not just observing the land, right? And not And when we have our climate controlled permanent structures that we exist huge amounts huge percentages of our our life hours in, what we're saying is whatever the climate is out there, it's different in here. Mm-hmm. And and which is I understand I do the same thing, right? If you know me, you know I hate summer. you should have smelled Aaron and me the other day when we were riding in a truck together. both of us were completely soaked in sweat. But So I do the same thing. I'm not virtue signaling here. I'm just saying like whatever the solution is, we probably wouldn't like it that much because it would mean that we would have to become a part of where it is that we're we're living. Yeah. Not just an observer, not just someone who can snap great pictures of sunrises and sunsets, but living hand in hand with the land. Nicolas Lirio (20:19.982) Well and that is a hu it would be like even if it was all the communities, you would still have a bunch of government oversight, you know, and and and and that kind of thing. So you're talking about a huge expense added to each household. You don't Kent Boucher (20:33.782) No, that's my that's my point of the the the community had to be a part of it to save on that expense. I think I think if we if you're gonna pay your way out of it, think of how many people would have to be working for the Forest Service. I mean, and our our country just cut a bunch of those people yeah their jobs. So we we would have to have just such an immense number of people on the government's payroll to take care of all that. Now maybe the private sector takes over where communities are like Yeah, whatever it costs, set up your your prescribed burning company and we'll pay you to come in and and now that you're many billions. Yeah. Yeah. I mean think of like the c the California paradise fires last year and what or Palisades Fire, yeah. And what was the what was the other one? yeah. Or that was two years ago, right? Nicolas Lirio (21:12.992) Billions of dollars a year, probably. Nicolas Lirio (21:29.528) Palisades was no, it was last summer. Kent Boucher (21:31.726) Last summer I can't remember. But what a terrible disaster, right? And think of the the the it was where all like some of the mo the wealthiest people in our world were living, you know, the neighborhoods of the ultra wealthy were burning. I mean, think of the cost lost. I'm sure it's still not even realized, you know. Nicolas Lirio (21:52.918) Have you sorry. Aaron Van Wyk (21:54.298) I was just gonna say, I wonder what the time frame for another disaster like that to happen would be, you know, after they burned all this fuel load off. How soon could something like that happen again? I mean, are we talking like fifty years, a hundred years? Kent Boucher (22:06.85) Bet it's three years because three years. They I mean they don't have near the people when I made my knock on Colorado earlier, they're like, they got all kinds of elk and all that. On a square foot basis, the amount of life compared in prairie country to out west, not it's a drop in the bucket. But so here in pr I'm saying that because in prairie country, if you got a prairie that hasn't burned in three years, I view that as a major fire hazard. Right. Like Nicolas Lirio (22:24.279) Yeah. Kent Boucher (22:34.55) It would not during a dry time of the year, you threw a match out there, you're you got some serious burning going on. And and I gotta think in those forested areas, it's probably fairly similar. You you got all that leaf litter, all the all the sticks and twigs, you know. I don't know, maybe maybe not three years, maybe more like five to to ten, but I bet you it's not long. Nicolas Lirio (23:00.704) If you're thinking about cover crop for your land or your landlord's land or something that you might be managing, you've got to check out Iowa Cover Crop. We have worked with them many a times personally, and even though they're a small company, they are as efficient as any of the big companies that we've worked with. They do a fantastic job and also super educated. Those poor guys, we have pestered them with more ignorant questions than maybe any other company we've ever worked with on anything, and they answer Really well and very promptly. We really appreciate them. If you're looking for cover crop, check out IowaCovercrop.com. You're not going to regret it. And let them know that the Prairie Farm Podcast sent you their way. Man, I the are you familiar with like what do they call that? Metrons? And it's the idea that it's like a person, we try to imprint ourselves on the world, right? And at a most base level, you do it. By existing and then secondarily by reproducing. You're imprinting yourself on the world. But we as humans have gotten very powerful. So another way we can imprint ourselves in the world is by getting other people to think our thoughts that we originally came up with. Or another way is to buy land and control that land how we want it. But it's interesting that just as a civilization, we have imprinted ourselves in the world by saying everywhere that I go, there will be a bubble of the temperature that I want it to be. Everywhere that I go, I will have the amount of light in that room that I my eyeballs need to see with that. You know what I mean? And and we're just like in our build our houses are getting bigger. Our imprint is getting bigger and bigger and bigger on social media. You know, our imprint, our footprint of people consuming us is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And I just think that's interesting. And and I but to some degree, unless we are going to fully control a whole forest. which we do not have the resources as a country to do, to do that to all of our forests, without doing that, we would have to we have to deal with the forest being itself and not how we want it to be has to be itself. I think if we're gonna live how we wanna live currently, letting giant forest fires I don't think this is good, but letting giant forest fires happen every ten years in an area, I I think that I mean, unless we Nicolas Lirio (25:17.846) I'm okay with us deciding, hey, we're gonna put a a ton of our community resources and it's gonna be part of our culture. And this is our forest. If a community like owned a forest, like this is we have the best forest in the state of Iowa. This is our forest, we manage this forest, we burn it every other year, whatever. unless we're gonna do that, having these giant burns to me is like the best alternative. And I don't think it's a good one. I don't Kent Boucher (25:38.766) Well the obvious unfortunate is first of all loss of life, injury to humans, and then loss of property. And I think and and I was thinking along these lines this week too, of our conversation just in my goings on out in the field or whatever I think is what it was when I was mowing last week. what's unfortunate is there was an era in American history where we really thought we could control. nature, right? Think of all the dams we built. all you know, land slapping down the railroad, killing off nearly all of our wildlife, straightening rivers and and streams and laying down an interstate system everywhere, right? But what we've there was a limit to that where yes, our technology would allow us to get away with that, right? And then we've bumped up against whatever that limit is, right? Like like Aaron's saying, these dense population areas along the coast that just seems like every ten years get wiped out by by a hurricane. In fact I think isn't it there's some wild thing with homeowners insurance in Florida now, I'm pretty sure where it's like the they had to pass some significant laws to where it would and it's included like within your own your income taxes, maybe down there or something like that. That like help subsidize insurance companies so that people can still have it. Nicolas Lirio (27:06.466) Well, the state has to beg insurance companies just to hold insurance in that state. And a lot of insurance companies are so like a lot of like in Iowa, that I think it's like thirty years, they kind of do the math on you need to pay for your house in insurance every thirty, twenty to thirty years. Well in in places in Florida right now it's like every five or six years. Right. Kent Boucher (27:24.024) See yeah. And and and an interesting thing about our society, which is always, you know, throwing away and making new things, is we don't really do that much with housing. when a house goes up, it usually stays occupied forever, right? The you know, until it's you know totally fallen apart or something. But but there's I mean, I lived in a house in Davenport that was built in the year nineteen fifty, I believe. And I would bet that who's ever living there now, which I think is still the people that bought it from us, they're probably close to the tenth family that's lived in that house. Find a car that's had ten different owners, find you know, really anything that's had, you know, other than maybe land, right? These structures stay pretty well permanent. So if you have neighborhoods that were set up during that era of we can control all of this. And then someone buys that house thinking that it's gonna be fine because people have lived here forever. And then the once every fifty year fire happens, yeah, you know, they're they're the the the big losers in the end, right? And I almost think that when we have these these big events that show us, hey, you thought you could do this, but nature's actually saying every fifty years, no, you can't. And if you factor in climate change, it might be every twenty five years or something like that that no you can't get away with this. then we should probably in part of the recovery process of that, maybe have some some zoning regulation. Like, look, we learned this area here, it's just too risky. People dying, it's causing insurance companies to go out of business, like what happened in California when you were there. Remember that? All those those like smaller insurance companies they Like literally every one of their clients had a total loss claim. So they could like they can't cover that. Yeah. You know, there's maybe the step forward is okay, w how do we pull back away from where we're bumping into nature's limits for what we're we're capable to do? Nicolas Lirio (29:36.684) We're actually even in the Midwest Farm Bureau gave out a thing in twenty twenty four that said if we have another year like we did twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five, I don't they kind of alluded to like we won't be around anymore. You know, the the weather the weather things and i it was very interesting. I was actually just this morning pulling a clip out of our podcast with Dr. Larry Weber where he was like, Well look, we're getting as much rain. We might even be getting more rain in the Midwest, but They're happening in more isolated events. So the stronger And it's similar to the fire. If we had a fire every year that would sweep through, it'd be a lower grade. It's like a l- it's like a half inch or one inch rate versus like one event every 15 years and it's just sweeping through and destroying everything. I don't know. I don't know what to do. If if we want to just keep deciding that we're gonna do things how we Kent Boucher (30:08.888) Big five inch downpours. Nicolas Lirio (30:29.834) want to do things, we just need to get over the fact that nature's gonna kick us really hard every ten to fifteen years. You know, or whatever that that actuary number is. But I don't know. Have you ever you've never lived anywhere besides the Midwest, have you? Aaron Van Wyk (30:42.766) nope I've always lived within about a twenty minute r radius. Nicolas Lirio (30:46.22) Man. Do do you like anecdotally remember a difference in weather from when we were kids to Aaron Van Wyk (30:53.728) I I don't know. It's such a small time frame. One you know. Kent Boucher (30:58.702) It's just Aaron Van Wyk (31:02.798) Hard to notice thirty years of, you know, change, but I've heard other people are a lot older talk about how they don't remember the rivers flooding as frequently as what they do now. Yeah. And maybe that's a symptom of it's flooded the last three years in a row, so now it's really evident in my mind, you know. Yeah recently. Twenty five years ago, I forgot. actually in ninety three, four, and five and eight it also flooded, you know, but Yeah. So I d I don't know. You'd have to look at those statistics, I guess. I Nicolas Lirio (31:29.354) I really like that answer. I'm a big like what is what is the actual trend of the graph, you know, say, but yeah. All right, we should move on to topic of Colorado. Colorado River, everyone's heard that the s there's not enough Yeah. Sorry, not the state, the river. Yeah, we know you feel cancer. Kent Boucher (31:43.544) Colorado getting some attention today. Kent Boucher (31:49.046) It's beautiful state, I love Colorado. Smells a little skunky around there anymore, but it's a beautiful state. Nicolas Lirio (31:56.31) it is a really cool state. My actually Kevin Kinkade, he was just recently on the podcast. You guys probably heard him. He's the CEO of a local hot rural hospital. And he was the one who brought this to my attention. We all know that the snow pack is low and the Colorado River is kind of at like a record drought in terms of how much flow is going through it. Here's what I didn't know. the basically There are about forty million people who rely on the Colorado River for water. seventy five percent of the water used in that forty million. Well think about you start getting to Phoenix, Arizona, Las Vegas, I believe is. There was one other major city. And you know, if each of those Kent Boucher (32:31.086) 40 million. Kent Boucher (32:39.99) Eighth of the country's population. Nicolas Lirio (32:42.668) Yeah. yeah. It's a huge. Los Angeles, a bun a big chunk of Los Angeles depends on it. So the seventy-five percent of the water that gets used from the Colorado River by humans is for agricultural purposes. and the nineteen twenty two Colorado River Pact was written to help states kind of divvy up who gets what water, when, how much, what happens if the river gets low, all this stuff. Except That the n late nineteen tens and the nineteen twenties were so one of the wettest periods of the Colorado of the any recorded time of the Colorado River. and so because of that, we've actually been overusing the Colorado River water by almost 20% every single year. So how do you use more water in a river than actually is there? We had built out large lakes, Lake Powell and Lake Meade. Which has made national headlines. We've built out these lakes. Well, even without this record low snowpack, with which is basically giving no water to these major lakes or reservoirs, we were already just declining these lakes every single year, going down. But here's where it got kind of interesting to me. Lake Powell is 34 feet above the minimum power pool, where they where their infrastructure is set up for hydroelectricity. Okay. But the engineers thought of this. So decades and decades ago, they set up like low, I don't and I'm not an expert in this, so forgive me. This was explained to me by a guy who understands engineering infrastructure very well, and my tiny brain was trying to understand it. they said Kevin. Kevin Kevin, and and and they set up these like a secondary infrastructure to be able to pull from it. But that secondary infrastructure that's lower in the ground, these giant cement like tubing basically, if it pulls water, the the cement isn't high enough quality. It's kind of decayed over the years and years. it starts it starts decaying the cement on these dams. I mean, you're talking like the Hoover Dam. Yeah. Right? And so they Nicolas Lirio (35:07.712) Everyone for years, no problem, no problem. We got those secondary ones, we got those secondary ones, not anymore. Can't use those suckers. So now they truly are thirty-four feet away from not being able to have any power. And they ain't getting anything from the snow. and in a lot of these areas there's aquifers, but they are drain where Kent Boucher (35:27.842) Well, aquifers aren't gonna do anything for electricity though. No, no, just for Yeah, irrigation, drinking water, stuff like that. Nicolas Lirio (35:32.022) I just read for the act. The last few years they've realized there's less water in the aquifers than they thought, and they're pulling at a higher rate than they planned to 60 years ago when they were setting up some of this infrastructure. So 40 million people in the United States have a water crisis, and there was let's see, I want to find it. Phoenix is investing in recycling sewage back into the drinking water system. and San Diego is trying to sell its extra Desalinated? Desalinated Sal yep, to Nevada. Kent Boucher (36:06.338) Desalination plants. Kent Boucher (36:10.69) Using ocean water to pull the salt out of it. Nicolas Lirio (36:14.232) Which I which is Isn't that what we should be doing? Like there's like unlimited water in the ocean. Aaron Van Wyk (36:19.726) Crazy. Nicolas Lirio (36:22.484) okay. Okay. That I wondered that. I didn't look into it but Kent Boucher (36:25.26) That's been one of the concerns with you know, what's going on in Iran is is if those desalination plants were hit then you would have Nicolas Lirio (36:36.329) Aaron Van Wyk (36:36.876) People died water crazy. Kent Boucher (36:38.222) And water. Nicolas Lirio (36:40.046) interesting. Interesting. Well I I think that Kent Boucher (36:45.524) 'Cause they take so long to not only, you know, get a steady flow but just to set the pla thing up and crazy expensive and Nicolas Lirio (36:53.624) So Phoenix did this giant study, just recently, or a study like they looked into what do they actually have to do with their water if they're going to actually make a difference and get their usage down meaningfully where it would they would be able to sustain this lower amount of water. And it it was wild. I mean, obviously no watering the lawn, but no public pools, No, basically the golf courses would dry up. The and they they went through all the ramifications of this and it was I mean, it was dramatic. Like places that Kent Boucher (37:31.916) So in other words, turn it back into the desert. Nicolas Lirio (37:33.954) Yeah. Well that's kinda what I was thinking. I like, maybe we aren't supposed to be there. You know, I don't know. Kent Boucher (37:39.842) But it sounds like when you start pulling all that stuff away. 'Cause that's what makes those places attractive, right? Is the weather where you can go and shoot golf in January and you can go and hop in the pool in in March and you can, you know, do all those those things that you can't do anywhere else, but it requires that grid to exist. Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (37:58.254) Well and they I mean Seth explained to us the reason Arizona has so much of the United States produce is they get so little rain, but they've got enough water Yeah, they can control how much water there. Well if you can't be putting that consistent amount of water on. I I'm interested to see how the snowpack thing goes long term. Obviously we can find fixes for the next three months or four months and you know, the federal government could step in for that amount of time. But what's gonna happen if Kent Boucher (38:08.342) That's a known variable. Nicolas Lirio (38:26.678) If the snowpack continu like four out of the next seven years it's like this. Kent Boucher (38:31.148) Well, and that snowpack isn't just like a really snowy winter than we got Yeah. We're talking glaciers. Like a lot of the western states used to have glaciers even when I was a kid and they don't anymore. And that glaciers take millennia to form. You know, they're they're not a it's not a quick it's not a quick comes right back, you know. You sure a a a snowy year helps for that following year. It'll take a lot of a lot of snowy winters. to to really have long term sustainability brought back. Nicolas Lirio (39:05.228) Yeah. I don't know have you looked into it at all? Aaron Van Wyk (39:07.148) I I really haven't looked into it other than the headlines. You know. It's it it's a looming threat that I guess if you live there you'd have to be concerned about, wouldn't you? Nicolas Lirio (39:19.03) I that's I'm like, isn't this kind of like existential, you know? Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Kent Boucher (39:25.186) I mean, Aaron Van Wyk (39:25.848) Can they pump water from somewhere else? We move oil through pipelines across the country. Is there like talk of pumping Mississippi over to the desert, you know? Like Kent Boucher (39:38.478) Yeah, that's Well then I I'm sure that's what the first attempts would be, right? Is when in doubt, what do we do? We lean on fossil fuels, right? That's why you can live on the top of a mountain is because fossil fuels can bring you what you need to survive. Aaron Van Wyk (39:45.966) But the scale and that's Aaron Van Wyk (39:55.478) If you had to carry it, you wouldn't do that. Right. Kent Boucher (39:57.514) Right. So I I imagine that's what the attempts would be, but even let's say you know, a hundred years from now, or or let's go even longer, two hundred years from now. If so that's a roughly a quar or no, a what did we say, an eighth of the country's population surviving off that water. Let's say that gets cut in half. So now you have a sixteenth of America's population that has to be redistributed. Where are they all going? Nicolas Lirio (40:26.71) Yeah. Well, I I mean, if a bunch of them are coming to the Midwest, which would be interesting, I don't know, I I think rural communities would invite the growth, you know, if every rural community grew by nine percent or something like that. Yeah. But here's what I was more worried about the vegetables. If they if they say, Hey, we can't get water out west, we need to do it in the Midwest. They can grow the vegetables here. That is that definitely can happen. but it's not the variables aren't as known. Kent Boucher (40:39.576) Twenty million people, a lot of people. Nicolas Lirio (40:54.028) Which me cause we get like more sporadic rain and stuff like that, that they would be more expensive. That's why the vegetables aren't grown here in the Midwest. They're they're cheaper to grow elsewhere. Yeah. and so I I don't know where they would all go. But I looked I just looked it up. The US uses about eight hundred and fifty million gallons of oil, not barrels, gallons, and it but it uses about three hundred and twenty-five billion gallons of water. So you're talking about a multiple of four hundred in terms of volume, which I you know, I don't know if we could that Aaron Van Wyk (41:28.212) Yeah, it'd be that'd be massive, but I'm sure somebody's looked into it, you know. You'd have to, wouldn't you, at this point? Look at every variable possible. Kent Boucher (41:34.316) So Nicolas Lirio (41:35.97) Man, I I mean you do wonder like how much is in Lake Superior, like how much could Lake Superior Kent Boucher (41:42.966) Great lakes are gonna put get drains put on Nicolas Lirio (41:45.3) No man, I no one quote that idea. Travis, if you're listening, that's not who it was. Aaron Van Wyk (41:50.958) Now the whole upper Midwest in forty years is phasing a water crisis. Nicolas Lirio (41:56.27) my goodness, dude. Yeah, I just I mean there's something to be said just like using less. I'm not I'm not a regulation person, but we should socially shame people that have lawns in places that lawns can't grow. Like if you're in Iowa, I mean we already don't love lawns here at the Burmara. But if you're in Iowa and and your lawn is fine and green most of the year and you got a two-week period where you could water, you know, it gets kind of brown. I I kind of understand that. I don't love it. I kind of Kent Boucher (41:56.504) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (42:25.528) But if you have to water it, like in Northern California when people have lawns, what the freak? What are you doing? Kent Boucher (42:32.256) I'm on it my way, man. Aaron Van Wyk (42:34.434) When you have to install a sprinkler system with the lawn. Nicolas Lirio (42:39.178) man. One of my best friends, he's a sprinkler, he's a sprinkler contractor out there, right? You have to have like a plumber here, you have to have license and everything to do it. and he was like, Well, yeah, I like new builds more. And I'm thinking, New builds? What the heck? He's Yeah, when people put in houses, they put in their sprinkler system with their lawns, because otherwise they can't have lawns. And that that was upsetting for me. Aaron Van Wyk (43:00.974) Yeah. Just skipped the lawn. Nicolas Lirio (43:03.598) Yeah, I know. Like there are really cool rock yards. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? I I just and there are these epic parks, you know, because California does a pretty good job with their parks. So I'm like, just bring your kids. Kent Boucher (43:14.408) Hey look, there's one thing we're good at. It's mowing down the rough playing start of slapping some zinnias. Aaron Van Wyk (43:21.792) I mean. Nicolas Lirio (43:24.502) The hostas through man. Well everyone, thank you so much for listening. just a reminder, if you got prairie question, we have had epic prairie questions on the forum. And shout out to Steve Newren and Luke Clark for swinging in without me even asking, just answering these these great questions. really appreciate you guys, everyone who's been asking that they're they're they're great questions, you know, and so I'd highly recommend going and look at those very nuanced niche things. If you're not a prairie freak, it probably won't interest you that much to be honest. But if you are a prairie freak, it's the place to be. thanks for listening. Thanks for Aaron for coming on out here. Yeah. We will Aaron Aaron Van Wyk (44:03.278) Yeah, thanks for having me. Back to work. Kent Boucher (44:07.79) Yeah, what's going on on an organic farm right now? Are you done cultivating corn? Aaron Van Wyk (44:12.194) Corn is it's to the point where it's just is what it is. You either got the weeds or you didn't Soybeans are still weed zapping or maybe some lake late cultivation going on, but Kent Boucher (44:24.576) You say weed zapping, do you have an electric Aaron Van Wyk (44:27.532) I I don't but I got a friend that has one so I get videos of him doing it. It's it's cool to watch. I don't know. I don't know. Is this your f I ha I I haven't personally done it. I have a friend that does it on his farm. He's not doing it on my farm. I thought about asking him what it would cost him to do it, but I don't know if it would ROI. Kent Boucher (44:32.312) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (44:32.782) An ROI? Kent Boucher (44:35.758) First year doing it? Kent Boucher (44:40.203) he's not doing it on anything. Nicolas Lirio (44:47.598) So I'm I'm thinking like some of our fields where the pardon me, where the mare's tail it's like you can't use chemical on mare's tail, the amount of chemical you'd have to use to kill mare's tail. And then also it's like not the end of the world to have it, but the really tall ones that get in the way and add more polio. Kent Boucher (45:01.58) Just it's just hard on the pictures around here, okay? Nicolas Lirio (45:04.982) I was thinking more like it adds a lot more foliage than the combine has to deal. Aaron Van Wyk (45:05.466) Yeah. Aaron Van Wyk (45:09.464) But bear's tail might be hard to kill 'cause a weed zapper relies on a wet, juicy plant to explode all the water molecu molecules. So if you have a stemmy hardwood thing, like the bear's tail tall. Yeah. They're hard to kill. Nicolas Lirio (45:20.148) Kent Boucher (45:24.662) They're just the ultimate weed. But thank goodness they're native. Aaron Van Wyk (45:25.752) Yeah, they are. Water hemp though, easy to kill with a weed zapper. They're juicy and full water, so ill fry them. Kent Boucher (45:31.223) yeah, I bet that yeah. Nicolas Lirio (45:35.726) Yeah. That's fun. Kent Boucher (45:37.038) How are they on Canta Thistle? Because I hate Canta Thistle. Aaron Van Wyk (45:40.052) I I don't think they were the best on Canada thistle. Kent Boucher (45:43.059) Nothing is. Nothing is. I I hate cancer so much. Aaron Van Wyk (45:46.87) You know. Kent Boucher (45:48.972) You what, Candid, it's not your fault that it's named after you. I don't know why it's named after you, but evidently it doesn't come from Aaron Van Wyk (45:54.712) From you. Nicolas Lirio (45:56.558) my goodness, dude. All right, everyone. Thank you so much for listening, and we will talk to you again next time.