Nicolas Lirio (0:00)
Kent had an awesome hunt this weekend. I want to hear about it, but first, in honor of the buck that you were hunting this weekend, I made a list of all the people who were younger than you when they killed their first buck. Number one, we've got the king himself, Jonas Boucher. sorry, deer, first deer.

Kent Boucher (0:18)
Well, not a buck, but a dough. Approximately let's see, you're eighteen or nineteen years younger.

Nicolas Lirio (0:26)
The Hunter and Bambi also got one younger than Ken. Daniel Boone at the ripe age of two and a half years old. Davy Crockett following close after at three years old. and of course, former president Joe Biden when he got his first buck last year. younger than Kev Boucher when he got his first

Kent Boucher (0:40)
That's my right.

Kent Boucher (0:50)
I was like there's a joke in here somewhere but

Nicolas Lirio (0:53)
But Ken has sundown, it is it is eight fifteen in the morning. It is. But you did. You you had an awesome awesome hunt this week.

Kent Boucher (1:01)
Yeah, it was it was just like a really I never got bored 'cause I was like almost always inside of the deer. Or I was I was trying to get to where I th that deer. So that's cool. So I'd I had walked in from through some C R P actually in the morning to the same area and I ran into a deer in the dark, which

Nicolas Lirio (1:14)
A deer or the or that deer?

Kent Boucher (1:29)
is just a risk you take. Some people refuse to go out to the stand in the morning until it's gray light. So they can try and avoid that. I'm here to tell ya the difference between what you can see in gray light and no light isn't much. So if all it takes is that deer to have its head down, you know, eating something and you're probably not gonna see it. So I always try to go in in the dark. but I spooked a deer and I never saw what it was, but it was just one deer. So this time of year and really all times of year, does just often are not by themselves.

Nicolas Lirio (2:05)
It makes it tough on the road, man.

Kent Boucher (2:07)
Yeah, they they usually don't have just, you know, solitary movement patterns. Maybe when they're in heat, which we are getting, you know, a few weeks away from the from the heart of the deer rut. So not entirely impossible, but very unlikely. So I thought, you know, it's probably a buck. And I've had success in this area in the past. So the wind was blowing in the right direction, so I decided, you know, even though I got busted this morning. I'm gonna try going in that way again tonight. The wind is is right for it. And there's standing corn there and I was planning to hunt from the standing corn. I do have a tree stand, a couple tree stands in that area, but the wind was not right for either of them. So I was like, you know what? As long as I still have standing corn here, I'm gonna use that to my advantage. And as I was walking, I was like, you know, Kent. You're not exactly a thirty inch guy walking through thirty inch rows, but you may i it you should try to use the corn rows to just help give you a little bit more cover. And yeah, and I the whole time I was thinking, skinny guys, you know, they have all the advantages when it comes to when it comes to hunting. And I you know, 'cause I when I walk through there it's like, wow, bison are back in Iowa, you know? And and but thankfully there was wind on Nothing crazy, but it was like eleven miles an hour on on Saturday. And so I was I was like, you know, if I walk through the corn while the wind is blowing, I should be okay. And I'll go four or five rows into the field. So I'm, you know, pretty far in there. And so that's what I did. For the first half, I could go pretty quick because I I knew I was far enough away from where deer were most likely to be. But then I was watching on GPS, like tracking how far down the row I was. And once I got to like the halfway point, I would only move when the wind would blow. And because it's an evening hunt, the wind is dying down as as this is happening. So the wind would pick up, you know, all the corn leaves would rustle and the the stalks would start shaking and I'd I'd walk as far as I could, like in a kind of almost like a walk sprint, you know, and then as soon as it laid down, I would stop. And then when I got to like the last, I don't know, fifty yards from where I wanted to be, I would only walk

Kent Boucher (4:30)
if the wind was blowing hard. So it couldn't just be like, there's wind out. You know, I can hear wind somewhere in the cornfield right now. It had to be like right where I was at and enough to like be creating enough movement. So I was going like a step to a half step at a time. Wow. And plus I was in rows four and five. So I needed to get up to like row two to have a clear view and shot. Well, right where I was getting to within twenty yards of where I wanted to be, I happened to look over and I saw this movement. that was against the wind, right? So if you if you hunt deer or watch wildlife enough, you start to like you just develop this sense for movements that can only be done by a an animal, right? Not necessarily a deer, could be a bird, could be a could be a squirrel or a rabbit or something, a pheasant. But like that part of my brain triggered. I was like, what was that? That that really looked like an ear flick. And so I just stopped and I watched and I watched and I was like the you know, the first time you're like and you can't verify it for sure, you're like, okay, it's probably just me hopefully wanting it to be this thing, right? But I had that feeling like, I don't know, six or seven more times. Like, whoa, what was that? You know? And the last time I could have sworn I'm looking with my binos and everything, but there's just too much too many corn stocks, too much it was bedded in the CRP in the in some reed canary grass and in some like ragweed and sawtooth sunflower. Just bedded in there real nice, sun beaten on it, right below this dead ash tree. so I have EAB and reed canary grass to thank for this hunt, I guess. and he's just bedded down there and Or at least I thought he possibly could be. But the last thing I saw just looked like the side profile of an ailer. And I was like in the technically I wasn't didn't even reach where in my mind when I game planned the hunt where I planned to be standing, I wasn't quite there yet. But I was like, you know what, this is a pretty good spot here. And and because of the flooding, there were some stocks that just never really amounted to anything.

Nicolas Lirio (6:33)
This is when you were still.

Kent Boucher (6:52)
So it allowed for me to like move rows closer to the outside because there'd be like a couple stocks down or something. So I'd have room and I I'd like nestled into this spot in between rows two and three, and there were like two stocks that just weren't even there. So I had room to like kind of turn and adjust to aim and stuff like that. So that's that's kind of where I ended up standing. And when I saw that s what I thought was a side profile of an end, I'm like, man, I just really think there's a buck. bedded in there. And what he did was he he must have been like kind of crawling out of his bed like almost like a dog crawls across the floor, you know, and slowly stood up because it's pretty flat where I'm at. There's not really like a dip or anything. And he I don't I don't think he was aware I that I was there. I had the wind, you know, I was deep enough into the corn. I don't think he could have seen me. But maybe he did, maybe he had a sense and that's why he was like so sneaky. But he he like went back into the timber and then circled for the next forty five minutes. He was probably just browsing around. So you're just Well, I couldn't see him anymore. I just ha I I knew I was in a good spot and it was likely there would be deer there at some point that night. But I was I was you're just Yeah, I was just standing in the corner and I w I was just thinking this

Nicolas Lirio (8:00)
Watching

Kent Boucher (8:16)
If if it's not a deer, I although I I think sixty to seventy percent chance that I'm watching a buck in his bed right here. I'm gonna just I'm gonna go all out for it. And sure enough, about forty minutes after I saw that side profile of his antler, he shows up about fifty or sixty yards later and he's making a scrape. So, you know, he's you know, peeing all over his back legs down into his scrape and he's got his head all up and he's checking the the licking branch, which by the way, makes when you're gutting the deer, you don't to worry about the bladder problem near as much if you shoot him while they're making a scrape. Just just a little tip there. Bladder was empty. but I so I I saw him there and you know he's got his whole head lifted up. I can see his rack. He sees a nice buck. And I just quick dial my scope to nine. Put it on his shoulder and shot him in the throat.

Nicolas Lirio (9:17)
So how far do you make it then?

Kent Boucher (9:20)
The But that's the other part of the story. So the night before I've been I had switched to these new bullets. I'm gonna give them a pro a shout out here because this is how I learned about them. It was a free advertisement from the hunting public who I'm a big fan of. they said, hey, look, when we when we hunt with a muzzle odor, we use Barnes brand bullets. we don't get paid by them. We aren't sponsored by them at all. We just believe in them. And I ri and it takes you forever to work. through a muzzle loader stockpile of ammunition because it's it's a fifty caliber bullet. Almost all your hunts are a one shot kill, right? So I kept that in mind and last year when I shot my Wisconsin buck, I was out of my old brand. You can message me if you want to know what it is. I won't I won't dog them on the podcast. But I I actually recovered the bullet. on my Wisconsin buck and I was very unimpressed with how the mushrooming of the of the round was. And I've had problems in the past with poor blood trails from that. So I I I'd been wanting to switch for a while. So I switched to these barns and I was shooting the night before and my I don't know if I knocked my scope when I was hunting last year or something, but I was hitting way like four inches off target to the right at ninety yards. So I I took four shots the night before, which is a ton of muzzle loader shooting 'cause you gotta like clean and and everything else. and they're expensive. The bo the box comes with five bullets. Or I mean fifteen bullets. so I I practiced shooting and I dialed over sixteen clicks. I did, you know, all the conversions and stuff for MOAs at that distance and how many clicks I needed, which should be about four inches, but I still hit right. I don't know if my bullet

Kent Boucher (11:17)
I do know that some corn leaves and stalks like moved when I shot. Like I could see like the little pff Yeah. And I thought, maybe I, you know, deflected or something. And I was shooting freehand and was a sixty yard shot. So I had no rest or anything like that. So it might a you know, I could have dude could've just pulled my shot while I was still off target by like a foot, you know. But here's the thing shot him at the throat. Here's the thing. A neck shot I've d my first deer I ever killed. Was the last time I had a neck a throat shot? It is such an effective shot. yeah. So so you asked, did he run off? I couldn't tell. The cloud of smoke from the muzzle. That's another disadvantage with muzzle, is you get that big if it's a if it's a calm day, you get that big you know, and it's like cannon fire going off, you know? And you gotta wait for the smoke to clear to be able to see what happened. Well, there's nothing there. Like I can't see anything. So I'm like, boy, where did he go? So I It was this was like when there was a half hour of light left. So I waited about fifteen minutes. Normally I like to wait a half an hour, but I was like, I need to go get some intel while I still have some daylight. I can clearly see he's not in the area, so I don't think I'm gonna spook him. so I I went over and I start looking around. I'm like, okay, you know, I I did some I like made a mark in the mud. X marks a spot where I was standing in the cornfield so I could like look exactly at what trees can I see from this angle, you know, get a point of reference. I'm looking up all right, which one of these trees was he making a scrape under? there he is. He died exactly where he was standing. Wow. I mean, he didn't move an inch. And I think what happened was just the concussion of a fifty round bullet at only sixty yards away, ripping through his throat, like that concussion hit his like spinal cord, you know, and I'm not I'm not saying it paralyzed him, but it probably like stunned him. You know what I mean? And because we'll go through the jugular, it by the time he comes to, he's already dead. You know what I mean? His blood's gone. So the bullet went in at his throat, and I actually recovered the bullet in his opposite side hip. So it, you know, bounced off of a bone or something in there and redirected, rerouted through him. And when I f when I recovered that bullet

Nicolas Lirio (13:41)
Is that normal to like get a bullet way off where you shut

Kent Boucher (13:45)
yeah, once it start gets inside of you know, once once it gets in the body and it hits a bone or something, it it just has so much energy behind it that it

Nicolas Lirio (13:53)
I just feel like it would have enough energy it could go through the bone.

Kent Boucher (13:56)
You know, it will too, yeah. But I oftentimes when I butcher my own deer, I will rec if I kill it with a muzzle odor, I will recover the bullet many, many times. Rifle not so much, but but muzzle odor for sure. And I did again, I butchered that deer this weekend and I found the bullet and I know Riley will be interested in this, but I took a picture of the bullet. It is perfectly mushroom. Yeah. And not only did I find the bullet, but I found the polymer, little plastic polymer tip. they put on there for like better flight, you know. I found that like in his armpit. So really. So it was kind of cool to recover all that stuff. But yeah, he didn't he he not a it might have been my cleanest kill I've ever had in my life. Wow. And and you know that that that was just it was too perfect for it not to work. You know, as far as how old is the buck He's probably three years old would be my guess. He's not he's not like some ancient old monster. And I've killed ancient old monsters before, but this phase of my life, you know, we're still in harvest season. My by some miracle my parents the only reason I hunted this last week is my parents called me during the week like, Hey, there's an event at your sister's church that I think the kids would really it was like a laser tag night or something. I think your kids would love to go to. Can we come get for the weekend? It's like, sure. So you know, I had I had my you know, of course my wife works all weekend and everything. So I have my own like little hunt camp at at home and myself by myself. Slept slept by the wood stove. Actually I watched a lot of of hunting shows on YouTube so I'd fall asleep next to the next to the wood stove. But no, it was just a great time. It was it was it was I watched that I was I was engaged in that hunt. for at least ninety minutes because I saw that little ear flick right when I was getting to my spot and I just so I never got bored. Yeah. Right. It was it was it was it was a complete engagement. So it was like to to not to not seal the deal with a kill there, he would have had to be a pretty small buck for me to have let him to let it let him go. And he he is a nice buck. I mean he's the third biggest buck I've ever killed.

Kent Boucher (16:21)
And I've killed a just shy of a one seventy eight is my biggest, so and the one after him is one fifties, so it's not it's not a not a not a small buck, but but yeah, it's just a great

Nicolas Lirio (16:35)
It's a cool story. I I mean, actually Judd and I were talking about you this w weekend, maybe yesterday, and I was like, you know, of Kent's skill sets, like on the farm, his best one is his intuition with plants. Just like real strong intuition. And what was it, Noel Gandhi calls you the muzzle loader king? And I I think that that just like your intuition with biology, maybe it's 'cause you spent Nine years getting that biology degree? Something

Kent Boucher (17:05)
Well it started out as a as a art music degree, okay? Art music philosophy degree.

Nicolas Lirio (17:15)
So after six years of that, the but I think your intuition on just biological behavior is pretty strong. and your your gut feeling. Yeah.

Kent Boucher (17:26)
Yeah, I y I I and you were teasing me earlier about, you know, not killing a deer taws in my twenties. And I think that's a big part of it because I had to learn it largely on my own. I did have some good friends that mentored me along the way, that first doe that I ever shot in the throat. that was from a smooth bore shotgun at about seventy yards with a rifled slug, Riley. Well

Riley Rozendaal (17:51)
There's there's better ways to do it, but you gotta as long as you get it done.

Kent Boucher (17:55)
She was on the run but not on the sprint. and so yeah, I I I I had help with that, but but I've had to learn like deer behavior so much on my own to figure out how to hunt these things. And that I attribute to a lot of my, you know, experience and success with with with the last several years. Yeah. So it's it was it was a treat. It was right it was on my home farm. I w I literally walked To the you know, like I n I didn't have to drive anywhere, I just walked out my front door with my muzzle loader and went down to hunt. So That's cool. Pretty pretty special. Well

Nicolas Lirio (18:36)
We've got a busy day. Wish you'd get on started.

Nicolas Lirio (18:44)
Coffee time Wednesdays with the Prairie Farm Podcast.

Riley Rozendaal (18:48)
Can't hit us with the jingle diet.

Nicolas Lirio (18:58)
I want to tell you a little story about our team here at Hoxy Native Seeds. Years ago, years ago, my dad and I were talking. What is the point of this company? We knew that it was conservation. We knew that we were growing seed to help people, but we we didn't know where we were going, what we wanted to actually do. Did we want to mostly plant on other people's land? Did we want to mostly grow native seed with high high quality ecotypes? Did we want to mostly consult with people? We didn't quite know. So we we spent months, literally months. Boiling it down. And we came up with this goal: that we want to provide education and native seed for landowners and land managers who care about their neighbors, their investment, and the wildlife around them. Now, of course, with education, you can go to hoxynateseeds.com and we've got a huge native plant database. We've got a learning center, we've got tons of podcasts that you can listen to to learn some of the stuff from the foremost experts. But for the native seed, that's actually what pays the bills on everything else. So if you need native seed or guidance on your native seed journey, planting a prairie or a wetland or a savanna mix or even a shady mix, remember our goal is to help you not just with the native seed, but we want to educate you every step of the way. So we're not just gonna ship you seed and ghost you afterwards. We're gonna take care of you. We have people that call three, four, five years later with management questions, and we're here to answer them. That's what we want to do, but it's all paid for. Buy the native seed sale. So go to hoxynative seeds.com and we'll talk to you soon. Welcome back to the Prairie Farm Podcast. Coffee Time Wednesday. I'm your favorite host, Nicholas Lirio, with your favorite co host, Kent Boucher. He's got that post deer hunt glow to him.

Kent Boucher (20:33)
Hey hey.

Kent Boucher (20:37)
That's right. And we're all working till eleven tonight, right? Riley probably is.

Nicolas Lirio (20:40)
Honestly, we might.

Riley Rozendaal (20:44)
It's hard to tell.

Nicolas Lirio (20:46)
And co-host to the co-host and also assistant farmer to his father these days, Riley Rosendah.

Riley Rozendaal (20:51)
Howdy howdy. Yeah, we're

Kent Boucher (20:53)
We're yeah. How many acres do you think you've been behind the wheel of a combine this year, Riley?

Riley Rozendaal (20:59)
I don't know. A decent amount. It's been good. I I like running Combine when it r you know, when when Combines work, that's fun. no, haven't gone there yet. That'd be last. So

Kent Boucher (21:05)
Are you guys all done down south?

Nicolas Lirio (21:08)
You guys do that last, right?

Kent Boucher (21:11)
He'll be cruising by my house with his wagon train.

Nicolas Lirio (21:14)
Well yeah, you guys go all the way around.

Riley Rozendaal (21:15)
Yeah, go down well you gotta you got to. You can't go down the mile long bridge with equipment. It's that time of year when everybody is cursing equipment. I don't know if it's illegal, I just just don't do it.

Kent Boucher (21:27)
I think should go over the the dam just now.

Riley Rozendaal (21:29)
I wonder if

Nicolas Lirio (21:30)
You called the cops and said, Hey, this would save us three hours. Could you just sit out there for fifteen minutes while we cross it?

Riley Rozendaal (21:36)
I'm sure I'm sure some people are brave enough to do it at three o'clock in the morning, you know.

Kent Boucher (21:42)
Yeah, that's true.

Nicolas Lirio (21:43)
I just wouldn't want yeah, I wouldn't want to. Yeah, I'd be too I'm afraid. I I like feel fear when I'm driving over with a truck, you know, let alone a big ol' it's just like freaks me out.

Riley Rozendaal (21:53)
It'd be fine.

Kent Boucher (21:56)
Yeah, you always have to drive the tractor, right? With a big giant grain wagon.

Riley Rozendaal (21:59)
Well yeah, I usually I drive the grain cart down there and that's always fun. You just hold but the problem is you've got duels and those grain carts are so wide. Your biggest enemy is mailbox.

Nicolas Lirio (22:03)
okay.

Nicolas Lirio (22:12)
Mailboxes. Yes, mailboxes when people are driving with their combines down the road with the head on them. Like when they see a mailbox, they have to go into the middle of the road. They take up the whole boat. my goodness. It freaks me out. I won't lie to Freaks me out. but you all saw the title. I just wanted to go over this a little bit because we recently ran into a program I didn't know existed and called reached out and they said, Well, we're done with it.

Riley Rozendaal (22:23)
You gotta get a little creative.

Nicolas Lirio (22:40)
this year, but if you want to do it for next year, like you'd probably qualify. Please apply. And I was like, you know what? This is like if you're savvy with this, this is the difference between, you know, making it or or breaking it as a newer farmer. So I believe there's 14, 14 little known programs for people who farm and or want to farm. these are mostly for small farmers. So if you're already doing 2000 acres, these probably aren't that useful to you. and we cover national, Midwest, Southeast, and Pacific Northwest on these, or I believe just the West Coast in general on these. Let's go first. The short list, Midwest. The first one that I found was PFI Savings Incentive Program, a two year program for farmers with less than seven years in. You save up to four thousand dollars and PFI, practical farmers of Iowa, but I think they just kind of rebranded to PFI, so it's not just Iowa. will match it dollar for dollar towards a farm asset. plus business and business planning mentor. and the whole point is like if you're able to save up some money for a tractor or you know something, they're basically trying to incentivize not going all in on debt and just give you a little boost. And then also what I think it does for them is it for just a few thousand dollars, they can build a strong connection with a farmer. And not influential in a bad way, but then like they have very sustainable regenerative practices. The people in the organization are very so they can kind of pull you in and be like, hey, these are some good methods to do it, be a part of our network, which I think is very clever. you can go to I want to actually do this correctly, practical farmers.org slash programs. All right, number two, PFI labor for learning. Paid farm jobs on PFI vetted farms. So basically, if we are a PFI vetted farm. We would say, Hey, we've got jobs, and then people come out and they're basically interns. I mean they're paid, but they're just here to learn and do manual labor. And there's usually twelve to twenty jobs a season. and when I looked this was yesterday, Monday.

Kent Boucher (24:51)
Seed mixer?

Nicolas Lirio (24:54)
I think Riley wants to be the one controlling how many pounds of oil.

Riley Rozendaal (24:58)
I I actually enjoy mixing seed for the most part. That's the that's the problem.

Nicolas Lirio (25:01)
should have seen Kent's def face deflate when he used to have to do it. Yeah.

Kent Boucher (25:08)
Yes.

Nicolas Lirio (25:09)
I think I s I counted nine open positions on their website, but it's practical farmers.org slash labor, the number four learning, labor for learning. PFI, lesser known cost shares, grazing, extended rotat rotations, produce safety. So there's a bunch more. These these are smaller, couple thousand dollars. but like one, they'll help you with grazing infrastructure. If if you want to buy electric fencing or maybe even callers. That wasn't specifically mentioned on their website, but things like that, or helping pipe water to a specific area to help promote amp grazing and stuff like that. They will help you with that infrastructure. But again, a few thousand dollars if you're a beginning farmer, like a few thousand dollars goes a long ways. Land stewardship project. This is a Minnesota, western Wisconsin, and northern Iowa. And it is basically like a class, but they're really generous with their scholarships. and the idea is that if you're a beginning farmer, you can go and learn a lot from what are different programs you can apply for, what are different methods, who's doing it well, where can you make money? Where might salesmen in the ag industry actually be kind of conning you out of money instead of actually helping you make more money as a farmer. number five, Minnesota has a down payment assistance grant. You need Up to twenty thousand dollars from the state towards your first farm. you have to have at least eight thousand put in yourself, and you have to have under two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in sales from your current farm ventures. and you can't buy from your parents, which is kind of interesting. for that one, go to mda.state dot mn dot us slash down payment. Really making that available

Riley Rozendaal (27:01)
Biggest the biggest barrier to funding is remembering the URL. That's

Kent Boucher (27:08)
Yeah, no kidding.

Nicolas Lirio (27:09)
Okay, I'm gonna put all of these in the description. So if you just want to see the name of it and the URL, we're gonna have those so you can click, make it really easy. Nebraska Next Gen Tax Credit. Basically, if someone is selling or renting to a non family member beginning farmer, they get a lar ten to fifteen percent, depending on the situation, tax credit on the rent, which for rent's a big deal. yeah.

Kent Boucher (27:35)
Yeah. That's a great program.

Nicolas Lirio (27:38)
you would go to nextgen. Nebraska.gov. And then the last one, the last two for the Midwest, number seven, dairy grazing apprenticeship. This is for 16 states, including Iowa and I believe every state touching Iowa. the country's first registered farm apprenticeship for dairy started in Wisconsin in two in 2010. And it's a two-year four thousand hour, which is full time, paid working beside a a grazing mentor. and you basically come out certified Journey Dairy Grazer. So this is a program that pays you to do it. but it is it, I mean it's basically school. Two years, hard commitment, full-time job, but you are getting paid. you would go to DGA-national dot org. Number eight, North Central National. Sair Farmer Rancher Grant. Riley, had we talked about this one? I I felt like we had

Riley Rozendaal (28:38)
We might we might have. I've mentioned a lot of programs over the years. All this just kinda look at yeah, occasionally, just see what's out there.

Nicolas Lirio (28:42)
Yeah, 'cause you kinda keep track of them. When dude, when you hear about the stuff that Riley will casually be like, Yeah, I was reading up on film.

Kent Boucher (28:53)
That is so true. Impressed with his like ability to focus. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because some of those topics he's read up on there's no way I could last two minutes. You know what I mean?

Nicolas Lirio (29:07)
And he's not reading like a casual like blog. He's reading like the original government documents like

Riley Rozendaal (29:14)
My program My my poor wife. I you know, I'll I'll be reading something at like eight thirty and I'll like turn to and I'll be like, did you know about she's like, Yeah. Glad you glad that's good for you, you know.

Nicolas Lirio (29:24)
You know what? You call me Riley. You you tell you you tell me at eight thirty. All right, North Central Sare Farmer Rancher Grant up to fifteen thousand for a farmer or thirty thousand for a team to test a better way of doing something on your own ground and then to be able to share what you know. It's basically like like they'll give you money to help test something new as long as you document it well. is kinda the deal. So Northcentral.sare s ar e dot org. All right.

Riley Rozendaal (29:27)
Well it's just

Nicolas Lirio (29:53)
Let's go to a national level. There are three that are for any state anywhere. Farmer veteran fellowship fund, one thousand to five thousand dollars for veterans for their first years of farming paid straight to the vendor for a piece of equipment or supplies, which is a pretty great deal. in twenty twenty

Kent Boucher (30:11)
Especially for something like critical that's not super expensive, like maybe a feeder or a maybe some fencing materials or something like that. Like that could that could really take a nice chunk of something off your off your shoulders there.

Nicolas Lirio (30:27)
And I know like a big thing. I've talked to a couple of people who talk about grazing, and they're we just don't have a way to get water to them. We just don't have a way with where they are in we have 18 acres, but we just don't have a way to get water there. That's what I think of whenever I think of infrastructure. I'm like fencing, material-wise, it's not nothing, but it's more just like a labor, just a crazy labor.

Kent Boucher (30:46)
Well, you know, a thousand to fifteen hundred bucks off of a tractor is nothing. But okay. Yeah, so y five thousand dollars off of fencing though. Yeah. That's a big deal. Or five thousand dollars off of a well pump or a that's true, you know, something like that, it could really make a difference.

Nicolas Lirio (30:50)
Five thousand. Thousand

Nicolas Lirio (31:02)
Man. American, and that one is farmvetco.org slash FV Fellowship. Number 10, American Farmland Trust, Brighter Future Fund and Farm to Stay Fund. It gives grants up to $10,000 for farm viability, land access, and transfer and regenerative practices. their newest piece is they've actually partnered with Airbnb. so For Airbnb that has like houses that are kind of agritourism. Basically, they're trying to help bolster those houses to get more people on the land. And the idea is that it would connect people with the land where they're staying on the Airbnb, which I think is pretty clever. You know? yeah. That one is farmland.org/slash brighter future. Eleven organic farming research foundation, farm led trials. This one is for organic or transitioning growers.

Kent Boucher (31:47)
That is clever.

Nicolas Lirio (32:01)
Who wanna run a real experiment on their farm? Now, there was like a caveat. This is intensive like data collection. Like you and and you're responsible for it. but if you are interested in that, it's anywhere from five hundred dollars to twenty thousand dollars, depending on what how lofty of a project you're trying to work on. And it is OFRF.org. All right, last few. Let's go to the West Coast Oregon Farm Crops. We actually have a shocking amount of listeners in Oregon and Washington. Fun fact.

Kent Boucher (32:34)
There's I I was ignorant to the fact of how much of those two states are like good arable age. yeah. But and it took actually when we interviewed Cal from meet eater Ryan Callahan, he talked about the prairies of I think he was talking about the Willamette Valley. is is that Oregon or is it yeah it is.

Nicolas Lirio (32:55)
That's Oregon, I I'm pretty

Kent Boucher (33:02)
That's where the Nez Perce. that's kind of where the Nez Perce war started over was the invasion into that valley because it was such a fertile valley and they'd lived there for so long and they had some really old treaties going back to Lewis and Clark. Yeah. And and Chief Joseph really wanted to be back in that valley after they got pushed out and it it was an incredible book that it that I listened to about him, but that opened my eyes. And then when we interviewed Bart George and his wife last was that last winter? Yeah. Or maybe it might even be last fall fall. Like around Thanksgiving maybe. he he talked about I think it's the east side east of the like the cascades.

Nicolas Lirio (33:40)
Mm-hmm.

Nicolas Lirio (33:54)
Yeah, the east half of Washington and Oregon. Most of the brome and like fescue that the United States uses comes from that. yeah. Yeah. And actually there there's a lot of overlap in prairie species. Like, the really common prairie species that span across most of the United States, they were very relevant. And I mean there's a lot of prairie species that don't overlap, you know, on either either side. But yeah, there's

Kent Boucher (33:57)
Yeah.

Kent Boucher (34:06)
really? They could they produce it up?

Nicolas Lirio (34:24)
There's quite a few. And you can grow anything over there.

Kent Boucher (34:27)
You didn't really care. Yeah, that's really interesting.

Nicolas Lirio (34:29)
Yeah, that's I mean that's where Grant's from, right?

Kent Boucher (34:32)
Yeah, that's true. And far I think I'm pretty sure his grandfather was, maybe even still is, a dairy farmer out there.

Nicolas Lirio (34:42)
Yeah. That that makes sense. Well, Oregon Farm Crops, formerly known as Rogue Farm Core. Or sorry, not Crops Core. a paid four to eight month apprenticeship, on one of twenty plus Oregon farms and it has classes and camps and then it's got Yeah, but basically the idea is that you are highly certified and then you can qualify, like you're more likely to qualify for loans and other things like that if you have this certification. Oregon Farmcore.org. number 13. California Healthy Soils Program. California pays farmers to do soil building practices like compost cover crops, hedros, no-till. And it is funded up to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars per farm, depending on what it but again, California farms are huge. Not necessarily acre wise, but in terms of like

Riley Rozendaal (35:40)
Big investment. Yeah. Yeah.

Nicolas Lirio (35:42)
Yep. and you know, they have Iowa, our infrastructure is the rain that we get regularly and the soil that we have. And the only infrastructure we really put in is tiling. And California, they're building they're building dikes to be able to flood areas for different things. They're having to irrigate everything. They've got a lot more labor in terms of exactly.

Riley Rozendaal (36:09)
Yeah.

Nicolas Lirio (36:11)
And so there's a lot, there's a lot more infrastructure that goes into it. So I don't know, maybe $150,000 for them is like $20,000 for us. But and so they have their last round 2026 is closed and it'll open again late spring of 2027. And you can go to c dfa dot ca.gov slash oars O A R S. and then the last one on the West Coast is Washington Sustainable Farms and Fields. Washington program for free farm planning plus cost share on cover crops, no-till, compost, and tree planting. Basically, trying to help invest infrastructure, and invest infrastructure on getting farmers to do it the right way long term. caveat on this is only about thirty percent of the people who apply get the money and they don't normally cause it's way over applied for. But that one is sc.wa.gov slash SFF. If you're listening to this podcast, that's because you or someone you love really cares about conservation, water quality, or systemic changes in agriculture. And I want to tell you about a company that does all three at the same time: Iowa Cover Crop. Now, Iowa Cover Crop, we've had a long-standing relationship with them, and it has been amazing. Way before they sponsored the podcast. We have connected with them and bought a lot of cover crop seed, and they have bought a bunch of native seed from us. And let me just say they are wonderful people. They're family-owned, community-oriented, and they run a heck of a business. So they've always taken care of us. Now they don't just serve Iowa, they send seed to Iowa and every state touching Iowa. And they don't just do cover crop. They do forage mixes, waterway mixes, any kind of small grain or food plot mixes that you could hope for. Basically, If it's not corn and beans, they've probably got you covered. I highly recommend this company if you are looking for cover crop on your land, whether you've been doing it for a long time or you're just wanting to dabble, we applaud you and we recommend you reach out to IowaCovercrop.com. Okay. I've got three more. I thought I had 14. I have 17. Holy Yeah, I know. So these are for the Southeast. Tennessee Agriculture Enhancement Program. Tennessee pays fifty percent of the cost of farm.

Kent Boucher (38:24)
Cow. I think we're gonna get into all fifty states.

Nicolas Lirio (38:34)
improvements, livestock equipment, hay barns, fencing, genetics, or for diversified farming. So to get into fruits, vegetables, bees, and agro tourism. And it's up to twelve thousand dollars. Kentucky agricultur and that one is

Kent Boucher (38:48)
It's interesting that they specify agritourism. Interesting. I did I I I have a theory for why that is. Yeah. Why all this is espe the one with Nebraska really highlighted this, I think. You're preserving a culture, right? The the the the thing that made Iowa Iowa in today's Americans viewpoint is going extinct, right?

Nicolas Lirio (38:51)
Yeah.

Kent Boucher (39:18)
think of what it is in a place like Nebraska, you know, like I I did a mule deer hunt out there three years ago and we stayed at this this ranch had they had like a camper they let us stay in or whatever. So we're super generous. And the guy had this huge cattle operation and he had kids, but it didn't make sense for either of them to or or they just had no interest. in taking it over and continuing it. And so somebody who's been a whose family has been a staple in this small community is going to eventually be gone from it. Yeah. And and maybe not staple, just like a pillar, right? Would be a better word for a person. Not like a grocery item. but I think that's what these are doing. They're trying to preserve these aspects that we believe to be a part of our our existence and culture and agro tourism might seem kind of weird to be like why why do you I mean yeah, I guess you bring in people for tourism, but really agro tourism I I view that as appealing, except for in very uncommon examples, to a local, you know, group of tourists. Yeah. Right. It's you're not people from California aren't coming to Tennessee to see the farm life.

Nicolas Lirio (40:43)
Have you been to Living History Farms in the last three, five years? I I haven't either. I heard it's it's been shrinking. And I I kinda have a theory that the further we get away from that, the less relevant it is. And now things like the old Threshers by Pella, that event's getting huge, you know, and that's because that's the new antique where people can still kind of relate to it because grandpa kind of remembers it a little bit, you know. But but Living History Farms might just be too long, too far ago.

Kent Boucher (41:11)
Yeah, I well and I mean even stuff that our grandpas know about. I always think back to last harvest season, Riley and I kept popping this flat chain on the pickup head on one of our pole type combines and and you know we're sitting here googling how do we you fix this and it pulls up a picture of the the chain breaking tool, the little flat chain deal, and it's like, we both have seen five hundred of those laying around our. grandpa's machine sheds. Yeah. But we have no idea how to use one. So what did I do? I called my 80 at that time 86 year old grandpa up and he talked us through like what you're supposed to do. But he's 86. Yeah. And it's a miracle that we learned how to use it. And so how much and when you talk about like the old Thresher Day, all that stuff is using those flat chains. You know what I mean? So we're there's not a lot of Zach DeBrian's out there, young guys that learn how to use that stuff that are left. So a lot of that stuff even is gonna be obsolete within ten years. As far as far as obsolete from the the community's knowledge. Yeah.

Nicolas Lirio (42:20)
It is interesting, like what every household knew how to make soap. Yeah. Every single one. Yeah, true. And now it's like grandma will give you a book for Christmas that teaches you how to make soap. And my my sister, she c she will be like, We gotta know how to I mean, who knows? We gotta know how to make she's not a prepper, you know, but she'll she'll be like, I don't know, you know, what if soap goes to twenty dollars? We gotta be able to buy

Kent Boucher (42:27)
Great point.

Kent Boucher (42:43)
I think reasonable people like your sister, they understand the value of knowledge. Yeah. And to just surrender that. I mean, it happens at times it happens, and there's nothing you can do about it. Like when Carol passed away. Yeah. You you the the world lost a huge chunk of knowledge that will never be recovered. yeah. You know what I mean? And and so you can once you've seen the value of that knowledge. And how out of what what a terrible loss it is when it's gone. Yeah. And you just can't get it back. I mean, you can reinvent the wheel, but it's not gonna happen the same way.

Nicolas Lirio (43:23)
biological level and let me tell you look servers know this there are servers who write everything down there are servers who don't and I worked with a guy he didn't he didn't write anything down and he never forgot I forgot way more than he did and I wrote and he said look your brain you can't help it your brain knows I need to remember this I haven't written it down and it knows subconsciously it knows I don't need to remember this I have it written down and there was actually an interesting study that the economist came out with The Economist is like a a paper magazine, I think originally, but they do pretty indepst in-depth studies. And the study was students who use AI do way better on homework. Way better. And way worse on tests. Way worse. And so we're actually losing the long term knowledge. But not I mean obviously that makes us very fragile. But to some degree, we've already we already did that when we did the internet. Like schools started changing. Well, we don't need to know all these dates like we know them now. We just need to be able to analyze the date, you know? And and so there is there's something in each individual human, and then as like a group think we go like we don't really need to remember how to make soap anymore.

Kent Boucher (44:34)
Yeah. You know. Yeah.

Nicolas Lirio (44:36)
So, all right, last couple of Kentucky Agriculture Development Fund. Kentucky puts half of its tobacco settlement money into farms.

Kent Boucher (44:45)
Wait, s read that line one more time.

Nicolas Lirio (44:47)
Ack or Kentucky puts half of its tobacco settlement money into farms. So Kentucky sued the big tobacco companies and got a bunch of

Kent Boucher (44:55)
I see. I thought you were talking about like it went back to like the Homestead Act.

Nicolas Lirio (45:01)
The top set homestead Each county runs a cost share up to five thousand dollars per farmer per year on fencing, water, barns, equipment, diversification, and more. K-Y-A-G-R dot com slash ag policy. And last but not least

Kent Boucher (45:19)
That's too bad.

Nicolas Lirio (45:22)
North Carolina Ag Ventures Farm Grant up to ten thousand dollars for a North Carolina family farm to try a new idea that makes more money, like a greenhouse, a new market, or value added product, and it's funded by the state's tobacco trust. Shout out to tobacco here.

Kent Boucher (45:39)
Man, that is

Riley Rozendaal (45:42)
Thanks, Big Tobacco, for that one. Yeah.

Kent Boucher (45:45)
That is a vague qualifier too there. Something that creates value. Something new.

Nicolas Lirio (45:51)
Make new idea that makes more money. and this is way underplayed. Actually, so I didn't have to include this one. It was like on a list of 40 of them that I looked up and I specifically pulled this one so I can make this point. We as farmers have gotten kind of lazy at marketing and selling. So if you ask a banker, hey, what what does marketing mean in corn and beans? They to them, it means timing the market correctly for corn and bean prices.

Kent Boucher (46:19)
Yeah.

Nicolas Lirio (46:20)
No other place in the world thinks that's what marketing means. You know what I mean? And so we've kind of gotten away from, hey, you actually you need to make something that people want and and people need, which I think most farmers, if you're in the farming realm, do, especially on these niche things like we're talking about today. but secondly, you gotta get the word out that you do it. And Every business everywhere has had to do it and and so the like, well I'm that's not what I'm good at well then you need to find a business partner that's good at that. You know, you n like y i it's just it's just part of how

Kent Boucher (46:54)
Who knows? Maybe maybe more kids would stick around on the farm if they f if the it's bringing home here. Yeah. If if you would have come to Hoxie and there wasn't white collar work, wasn't an option for you. Right. If you're if if you told Carol, Hey, I'm gonna come I'm gonna come help you out, you said, Great, grab a pitchfork and why don't you go grease the all crop and all that stuff

Nicolas Lirio (47:00)
interesting.

Riley Rozendaal (47:01)
Well let's put it let's let's

Kent Boucher (47:22)
You would have you would have been able because you you are an incredibly patient person. You're you're a caring, kind, compassionate person. But you would have been out of here in nine months. You know what I mean? If that was like all you came back because your skill set and although you are a great blue collar worker. Thank you.

Nicolas Lirio (47:41)
That compliment means so much to me. I don't know.

Riley Rozendaal (47:44)
It's true.

Kent Boucher (47:44)
True. I was I was marveling the other day when Rasty was here and you guys were tackling those those bikes. That's hard work. Yeah. but your interests and and best skill set is white collar work. But because that was because that was made available to you by Carol. Market you stuck around and here you are and and Carol's gone. And and you're continuing on the farm because

Nicolas Lirio (48:02)
Necessitate by the

Kent Boucher (48:11)
there was a role that matched who you are and what you enjoy doing. And I just gotta think that there would have been more kids that left the farm who if went to New York City or wherever to go do their white collar job, if there'd been if that had been an option for some of the work, they they may have stuck around

Nicolas Lirio (48:34)
bring I wanna bring it Riley here because Riley you hate the marketing part of ag. Like what what what what do you think of when someone says, hey, if you're gonna do your own ag business, you have to you don't have to be the best at marketing, but you have to put quite a bit of effort into it. Like how do you feel about that?

Riley Rozendaal (48:50)
I think if you do enough marketing research, you don't have to do much marketing. Your product speaks for itself.

Nicolas Lirio (48:58)
okay, okay. I see I see what you're saying. So just make something people need.

Riley Rozendaal (49:02)
Yeah, if you I mean you know, if you're if you're passionate about making strawberry scented soap and nobody wants strawberry scented soap, it doesn't matter how good you are at it. There's no demand, you know. True. I I'm kinda solitary in that. I don't really love marketing, but I I see the I see the the reason for it, but I think what it really comes back to is A farm is a a chance to do something on the land. And every generation brings a different thing. No hardly to every every generation generally changes things a bit just because the markets change.

Kent Boucher (49:46)
You have a saying for that that somebody else a f another friend of mine or ours quoted back to me once farms change one farm.

Riley Rozendaal (49:55)
Yeah, yeah. Practices, farms, they change one funeral at a time because, you know, what what got you here won't necessarily get you there. Yeah. You know, you're we're on what I would say is maybe the the long end of of the corn and bean cycle, where on the front end we got really good at specialization and we got really efficient and when you know Brazil and stuff like that came online

Kent Boucher (50:07)
Well

Riley Rozendaal (50:23)
You know, is is our specialization worth what it was? I don't know. You know. And so you have to start asking those questions. I'm not I wouldn't say, you know, corn and beans is doomed because it's not, but but I think I think any farmer has to ask, you know, what works. What what what are my numbers and what works because that's that's how you know you stay on a farm for for generations. Yeah. You gotta look around.

Kent Boucher (50:50)
Specifically for young guys and gals that we have interacted with who are making it work, they are they are seeking out new pathways. You know what I mean?

Nicolas Lirio (51:03)
yeah. Well dad did that. He was going to like Kentucky to learn how to to

Kent Boucher (51:08)
Yeah. Yeah. So I mean it's it's a huge part of it is I think I think there are some people who there's a good transition plan in place from the old generation to the next generation. The land is paid for. There there's significant financial barriers that are taken down because the older generation is so committed to the family continuing this. and those guys just more or less show up and keep doing the same thing that they they their dad did. Yeah. But those guys are few and far between, I think. I think I think you really do if you're gonna make it as as somebody as a as a young person today who's starting f basically starting from scratch.

Riley Rozendaal (51:54)
Yeah, like a first generation or or something like that.

Kent Boucher (51:57)
You you have to be very, very creative in in how you do it. And I think that that's what these programs acknowledge, right? They're saying, Look, we know it's you're climbing Mount Everest. Here's a rope though. Yeah. You know? And and

Nicolas Lirio (52:12)
How many of them are for exploration? Not just like, hey, if you do this, so so many of them are like, well, if you want to try, you know, we'll help you try.

Kent Boucher (52:20)
Yeah, if you wanna and and if you don't like if you hear all this stuff that Nick read off you're like, man, I could just that kind of stuff just bores me to death trying to research that and find that. That's okay. Maybe unless you have money coming in from somewhere else, maybe maybe you're you're gonna have to look at finding a different way to make a farm work or something. But yeah, 'cause I just sense that this is at least at this point in history, such a critical part. It's kinda like if you wanna be an influencer on social media You gotta be dedicated to living on social media. You have to you have to be doing all the you can't be like, ew, TikTok. I don't like TikTok. I'm not doing it. Well then you're not gonna be an influencer. Yeah. And and

Nicolas Lirio (53:04)
Kent Kent Boucher, he's been doing the dances, the TikTok dances.

Kent Boucher (53:07)
Believe it or not, I do not have a TikTok, so therefore I cannot be an influencer.

Nicolas Lirio (53:11)
People message us on TikTok and we post the ghosts on there and I'm sorry. I mean you message us on T.

Kent Boucher (53:16)
TikTok. But but the point is there's some people that have it in them like that fuels them. They that's their thing, right? And I think we're even seeing that a lot in like YouTube and podcast world where there used to be used to be like the tractor world, right? Where there's five hundred you know different brands and now it's it's filtering down to the most dedicated and willing to stick through it, got the best plan and energy for it for the long run. Yeah. And the same thing is true for farming where if you if you're gonna plan on doing something different like a Jill Bebau or a Matt Hatala or a Aaron Van Wyke or or an Iowa Prairie Bison guy, you gotta you gotta be into this stuff too. Yeah. Finding finding the the help that you need because it's it's such an uphill battle.

Nicolas Lirio (54:03)
Man.

Riley Rozendaal (54:03)
Okay. Gonna solve too many problems. You gotta save something for next week.

Kent Boucher (54:04)
Yeah.

Kent Boucher (54:08)
That's right. Yeah.

Nicolas Lirio (54:09)
We really appreciate you all. If you are need it is getting is it is seed ordering time and Judd and I are paying for it. so if you're getting emails from us at 9 p.m., I'm sorry. That's just that's what we're doing right now. but if you need seed, hoxynatives info at hoxynative seeds.com. Go to hoxynative seeds.com. You can find a bunch there. We really, really appreciate you all. We've got some really cool episodes coming up. Ogalaga Ogalala. Did I pronounce that? Ogalala Aquifer, Trout Fishing. No fence, callers. I mean some really cool stuff coming up. We look forward to chatting with you next time.