Ep. 275 (Coffee Time) How to Manage Land for Better Water Quality and Doug Duren’s New Podcast w/ Doug Duren
Doug Duren joins us as we dive into his thoughts on land owner’s responsibility for water quality. Who is responsible to pay for our water quality? Is it the water consumers, or the ones who dirty the waters?
We also have exciting news about Doug. He is starting his very own podcast, Listening to the Land: Conversations about Conservation, and he is hosting it right here on The Prairie Farm Podcast! We are excited to have you, Doug!
Check out this episode of the Prairie Farm Podcast to find out more!
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00;00;00;00 - 00;00;24;06
Unknown
The Savannah restoration that we're doing is going really well. I'm really excited to show it to you guys. But one of the things that's happening in there, much like when we did the shelter at Harvest in what we call the Big woods, opening that canopy up some, we're not going to remove the whole thing. Right. Because the old hickory in there now was that we're going to take a few more trees.
00;00;24;06 - 00;00;47;02
Unknown
But it's almost like you do that and all of a sudden woodpeckers show up red herring. Tucker's periods are always around. Yeah. And then some of the other grassland birds, all of which I can't name right now. All right. But, it was really cool to see that happen that quickly. And some of it, maybe they were always there, I don't know.
00;00;47;03 - 00;01;07;18
Unknown
Yeah. But, because it's opened up more now, you see them flying from tree to tree and then you hear him calling and, you know, and it's just. And you just feel good about doing good things for species that need our help a little bit. My wife and I were just talking about this last night. This is Summer is my fourth favorite season.
00;01;07;18 - 00;01;29;16
Unknown
I wish I actually heard you say that if I wasn't on your podcast on the way down. I have a lot of questions about the water in Iowa. Yeah. Yes. Us too. Yeah, and we need to talk about that in this episode. But, we after the kids go to bed, sometimes we'll take the kids to if it's early enough, but last night they're already in bed, and we get out and we go check her gardens and.
00;01;29;18 - 00;01;52;02
Unknown
Yeah, sweet corn time here. So we got to pick a few years last night and and, it start out though, I have a one year old prairie that I, I did all the prep work without herbicide. I did just smothering. It's about, 5000 square foot prairie. And, it's doing really well for just a year old.
00;01;52;14 - 00;02;31;27
Unknown
And I've kind of experimented with some different mowing techniques and stuff on weed management, and it's come through that white clover. Well, yeah, it is. And, and Sunday I noticed there was so there's been a covey of bobwhite quail that have been hanging out on the gravel road that my house sits on. And, probably about a quarter mile from this prairie or Sunday, I pull up in the yard was a church with my kids in the morning, and we got home and getting out of the car, and you can just hear one of those bobwhite just sitting right there in the yard.
00;02;32;02 - 00;02;50;08
Unknown
Wow. And, I've never I've never experienced that at that house before. And I've been going there my entire life because my grandparents lived there before I did. Oh, yeah. And, I saw a couple monarchs last night when I got home from work just fluttering around by the wild Burgum on the gray headed comb flower and so forth.
00;02;50;08 - 00;03;10;13
Unknown
And and we just talked about that, you know, it's it's kind of a shame that they set it in, Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will go. They kind of ruins it. But that phrase is so true. Oh, it is. And, Pheasants Forever has said that for years in, Man, I and you just.
00;03;10;13 - 00;03;30;08
Unknown
And you see it. Right? So I mean, in terms of pheasants around me, the pheasants that we have around my neighbors, raising them and letting them go and. Yeah, sure. And my, my cousin brought up some, quail that he raised and he let go, and we opened the box and they flew off, and you can hear him whistling and stuff, like gathering and stuff.
00;03;30;08 - 00;03;52;14
Unknown
He goes, well, you'll never see them again. Yeah. Who knows where they're going to end up? Not I'd like to think that I'm going to, as this Savannah project in this grassland project continues, is that we are building the habitat, then that, either natives will return, native bobwhite will return to or introduced ones will return to because they have a habitat where they're going to feel safe and be safe.
00;03;52;14 - 00;04;14;15
Unknown
Right? Right. But, yeah, it's really, those are the most gratifying things. I wanted to go back to what you said about, you asked him about the white clover. Yeah. That's white clover clover coming up in that came back, you know of course this is a spot that was horse pasture when my grandpa was a kid.
00;04;14;15 - 00;04;43;04
Unknown
And so there's all sorts the seed bank there I really probably should have done three years of you know. Well not 3 or 2 full years of smothering. Yeah. Just to try and get everything. But, you know, so many interesting how I have to manage that going forward. Well, and the reason I ask is that, you know, the spot where one of the pollinator, where I used you folks seed, by the kiosk over here where we parked Clover.
00;04;43;07 - 00;05;04;12
Unknown
So I got white clover all over, and it's like, man, it's really thick in there. And I'm the, you know, the brown eyed or black eyed Susans are coming up through it, and and I mowed that, you know, I called you guys or messaged you about, cutting off that annual flu fleabag band. Yeah. And I did, you know, sort of one of those things.
00;05;04;12 - 00;05;22;21
Unknown
Oh, I wonder what have happened if I wouldn't have. And, in places where, you know, like with the more we went along with it, you know, it's the brown eyed Susans or black eyed Susans are are a real tall. But then the one that's way in the back is really pretty clean. And that'll be interesting to see what that looks like.
00;05;23;15 - 00;05;40;15
Unknown
One of the things that we did on this filming, we just did that. Yeah. It's top secret, so we can't talk too much about it. I don't know if it's top secret or not, but, was to visit a bunch of the different projects, and we've been working on over the years, and one of them is one that I did.
00;05;40;17 - 00;05;57;26
Unknown
Man. Well, more at least 15 years ago, if not more, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, where they gave me a couple of bags of seed if I did all the prep work. And yeah, and, you know, it was one of these places where I had a lot of smooth broom minutes and dealing with that mess. Yep.
00;05;57;28 - 00;06;21;26
Unknown
And I mold it and I sprayed it and I mowed it and I sprayed it, and then I seeded it down. And I think I broadcast it, and then I just went over it with my all purpose cedar without seed in it. Yeah. And just to settle it. Right. And it didn't seem like it did that great to Springs.
00;06;21;26 - 00;06;47;13
Unknown
Well, I guess three springs ago, we had, one of my sharing land groups there for a turkey hunt and, a couple of really smart people about Burns and whatnot who were a part of it. Doctor Mark Connell, who you should have on some time. Yeah. Mississippi State was one of them. And, famous last words from Mark where I think somebody ought to go over there because it's going to get real close to that spruce tree.
00;06;47;16 - 00;07;10;17
Unknown
That fire went through that spruce tree. Really? No, no, no, but, I mean, it was fine, but, but it did. He was I think he was concerned about all of the spruce trees out there. I just the one he's getting some Smokey Bear paranoia. You're on the next commercial we had. You know, I had done a mineral edge all the way around, and it was pretty late.
00;07;11;04 - 00;07;29;11
Unknown
And then we had that drought a year, and I have so much to learn about. Okay, here's one you burn for this, here's one for that. And we burned. And it was pretty green. So it must have been, you know, the third week in May already second or third week in May. But we had pretty, you know, plenty of fuel there.
00;07;29;11 - 00;07;52;10
Unknown
And it burned really well. Good. And holy moly, this year, last year it looked good. But this year we did some filming up in there and there's birds and butterflies and, I mean, there's a hummingbird flying past me. That's awesome. You know, and just a really nice mixture of things. And, and Mark, my dog was in there, snooping around looking for pheasants.
00;07;52;12 - 00;08;12;19
Unknown
And it's not a big plot. Sure. From there, the area around it, it's spreading to it. Just like in my year. And this year, we burned the CRP strips that we had done. And, mostly, you know, grasses and forbs with the five big grasses. And and that was one of the things that I want to both pick your brain and more about brains, I should say.
00;08;12;21 - 00;08;37;17
Unknown
And, Mark McConnell's about how do I when should I be burning to encourage forbs the most? You should not have any trouble encouraging, especially the big blue stone. Boom. But we burn that this spring. Ten years of fuel. Just balls of fire rocks. It was it was cool. Yeah. You know, if you're in the fire, it was really cool.
00;08;37;17 - 00;08;55;01
Unknown
Yeah. And we had a good group of people there, and it's so funny because it was smoldering and, you know, or or real, because there was a lot of green at it, too. So there was a lot of smoke, and I was on the upper side with someone else, and it was so loud, the roaring and everything.
00;08;55;01 - 00;09;10;24
Unknown
Yeah. You hear the people on the other side. We did not hear. You guys are up there, man. Just look at that fire. Yeah, I like it. Looks good there. We got some people down there to slow down that fire last. So it was a like a 62nd fire or. Oh no it well it was a long it's a pretty long strip.
00;09;10;24 - 00;09;32;01
Unknown
I mean it's probably probably 500 yards across and up in those trees where we took that path up through those trees. Everything is where we take. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm thinking that we took, like a zigzag back and. Yeah, yeah. That's it. Okay. Up. We call it a big ridge. And, there's two strips up there. That's where you did all that parsnip management two.
00;09;32;01 - 00;09;41;12
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. All right. All right. We got to get this podcast out. Let me, let me, let me jump in.
00;09;41;15 - 00;09;53;29
Unknown
Coffee time Wednesdays with, the Prairie Farm podcast. Can't hit us with the jingle. Dee dee dee dee dee dee.
00;09;54;01 - 00;10;12;10
Unknown
Welcome back to the Prairie Farm podcast. Coffee time Wednesday. I'm your favorite host, Nicholas Leary with favorite co-host camp out here. Hey. And today we do not have your favorite co-host. You have a guest host. Yes we do. Our, one of our favorites, Doug Doeren. Thanks for being here, Doug. It's just so many favorites to choose from.
00;10;12;10 - 00;10;36;28
Unknown
Yeah, there's a bunch who are fortunate to have a lot of favorites, but you're at the very tippy top, as I'm sure you say that to all the girls. Well. You know, it's just something I gotta say. And. And he always would. My my dad would always if I really pushed. Hey, we should we should support this thing just because it was a good thing, like, local FFA and they're like, oh, you get to be on the shirt and you're like, no, nobody looks at that.
00;10;36;29 - 00;10;56;11
Unknown
You're not getting your money back on a local off of it. But, you know, I want to be there for the local kids who want to be an AG, and just they're actually in a greenhouse. That might be the only time in their whole life they're in a greenhouse. So I like doing those that no matter what, if it was $150 or $5000, whatever he would, he would push back.
00;10;56;11 - 00;11;14;16
Unknown
But he never pushed back about sharing the land net. Not a single time. And I think, yeah, I think by the time he met you, he was like, man, this guy, and and oh, so are we going to start talking about, like, up in the the sponsor? Yeah. Yeah. Well, this would be a great time, Diculous.
00;11;14;18 - 00;11;42;02
Unknown
But it's a great time to bring him up for sure. But it's pamphlets. Yeah. I'm sorry, I just and I think I'm probably trying to avoid, talking about Carol too much, but, because I know I'll get emotional. It's it's, it's the first time I've. I've been back since, Carol passed. And, there are few people in your life that when you meet them, you know that you're instantly friends with them.
00;11;42;15 - 00;12;01;27
Unknown
And, that's why I fell about Carol when I met him. And, mostly, I think it started with when he pulled up with his golf cart and said, those guys will do that just fine. You. Because as I recall, when we were doing that filming, that was the hottest day of the year. It was. Yeah. No.
00;12;01;27 - 00;12;24;15
Unknown
And you got the worst shovel. You got the only shovel without a sharpened. So we still have that shovel. It calls it the shovel that almost killed. Well, I hope you're hanging on the wall. Yeah, spray painted gold, but it was, you know, I mean this sincerely. It was just a great joy of my life to to get to meet him.
00;12;24;15 - 00;12;52;17
Unknown
And, that day when you guys are all working your tails off. And he was. We were driving around, and he was. I was just asking him questions. And, you know, you have to prompt him a lot because he likes to talk about he like to talk about the place and but, I had some specific questions and some of it was philosophical and, and, and we didn't have a camera and I that's the only regret I have is that we didn't have a camera or a microphone.
00;12;52;17 - 00;13;19;07
Unknown
I should have just turned my phone on because there was so much, knowledge and wisdom and goodwill and, and humor and, everything coming out of him, and to to I mean, I know enough about conservation and what it takes to do what he did and that what you guys are continuing that, it was certainly no easy task for him.
00;13;19;07 - 00;13;44;05
Unknown
And, the commitment to the commitment to him, to it that he had, really, really boiled down to he said to me, girls, heck, Doug, anybody can grow corn and beans. Yeah, yeah. There's so many things that I said. He said that I, you know, I like I treasure that stuff. Yeah, yeah. And you could tell he was he was thoughtful.
00;13;44;05 - 00;14;06;01
Unknown
I feel like Kent and I sacrifice things. But then I just it really does pales in comparison to, like, he just gave up like three decades of his life with, no benefit other than what he saw on the land. Yeah. No. Yeah. And, yeah. About seeing value beyond the dollar. Carol was was living a living example of that.
00;14;06;04 - 00;14;10;13
Unknown
Yeah.
00;14;10;15 - 00;14;35;22
Unknown
I think also, maybe the reason that he and I connected the way that we did is because we both have a property that, you know, family property and that we were very, connected to. And, some of the small things that we were talking about is the stuff that keeps you going day to day. I mean, I like to say sometimes that every day is a new adventure, you know?
00;14;35;23 - 00;14;55;15
Unknown
Yeah, that, that that, Well, let's see what you know, the world hasn't planned for us today, did I? Oh, no. You're good. So it's it's coming. No, it's it's, It's let's see what the universe has, laying out there for us today. And, you know, you guys and he say that differently, but, we're certainly kindred spirits when it comes to that.
00;14;55;15 - 00;15;23;03
Unknown
But the connection to the property and the joy, really, the joy of every day. And I think I laid that Ray Wylie Hubbard line on him about the day I keep my gratitude hired. My expectation is I have really great days. And, and I don't know, we just and I mean, I know you guys miss him, but, it's it's I mean, I was pulling up here today and, you know, seeing the old house be knocked down and know what the story was about that.
00;15;23;03 - 00;15;49;00
Unknown
And, and you're, you know, it's, it's your time now. You know, it's your time now. Yeah. Yeah. My sister was texting me after Carol passed away, and and, you know, she's, you know, asked me, are you going to be able to do it and going to be able to, you know, you know, keep, keep Hoxie going and and everything.
00;15;49;00 - 00;16;15;27
Unknown
And of course, when I was hired, that was the idea was you're the guy we're training to to do the operations here. I said, well, you know, it is a little overwhelming at times when I consider everything that Carol knew. And, you know, you don't replace people like Carol. You know, you can't be his replacement. You know? And, but I said he was a really good teacher.
00;16;15;29 - 00;16;40;24
Unknown
And now it's time to take my test. And and that's that's really the phase that we're in. And there was a really neat moment, and I got to try not to be emotional here, too. Right. It was the day after Carol passed away. And just I mean, you understand, this day with over 30 different species were growing, the species don't care if what's going on in your life.
00;16;40;24 - 00;17;02;12
Unknown
It's time. It's time. And we had already swath the prairie June grass. About a week before Carol passed away. And that's one that can stay in a windrow for quite some time. But Carol, one of his last bits of instruction was, I actually like it when it gets rained on a little bit, because then it feels better in the combine,
00;17;02;15 - 00;17;25;15
Unknown
And, and, So how do you gain that knowledge? Yeah, I know doing it. That's exactly right. And Riley and I, we were working on it together, running the old pull type combine and, and, we start, we hit this problem with the machine and just start round like crazy. I'm like, oh, no, we got a bearing going out or something, so I.
00;17;25;15 - 00;17;50;22
Unknown
You stop and I'm like, son of a gun, Riley, this is that this is the cylinder bearing. You know, this is a major fix. You know, we got to pull this thing apart. And Riley goes, wait a minute. And he looks at the depth gauge on the cylinder. You know, the old bolt, those threads from all the decades of vibration, they all widen out, a bullet sunk down, and the cylinder was sitting in there kind of crossways and rubbing on the bottom of the tray.
00;17;50;24 - 00;18;11;04
Unknown
And so it sounded like a shot bearing, but bearing was just fine. And he's like, well, I just listened to Carol's, podcast yesterday and he said, in there, always be observant. And, so I'm being observant. It just felt like in that moment, Carol was there with us, you know, it's like, yeah. So his training carries through.
00;18;11;04 - 00;18;32;25
Unknown
And just like that time when, when you were with him on the golf cart and and, you know, you can recall that that special conversation you had with him. And, you know, I also think of it too. And there's a there's a good friend of mine, he's he's conventional corn bean guy and, and he runs cattle. And he used to allow me to hunt his place when I lived back in the Quad City area.
00;18;32;27 - 00;18;56;10
Unknown
And, he once showed me his picture in a shop when I was over talking to him, and it was a picture of him and his dad. At this point, his dad had just passed away suddenly. I mean, not not totally unexpected heart thing or stroke type thing. It was a picture of Google Earth, was was updating their maps, and they happened to fly over during planting season and they would run in tandem, corn planters.
00;18;56;12 - 00;19;16;15
Unknown
Oh, wow. And you know, he's over here. And they caught him and his dad out in the field working together. He's like, yeah, I'm just kind of proud of that picture. You know? It's just me and my dad working together. And so I, I now sense that Carol, of course, was was my boss and not my father, but in many ways father son type of relationship on the farm, you know, the mentor, mentor your mentee.
00;19;16;15 - 00;19;38;00
Unknown
Yes. And, and, so I understand that connection now, but also I, I got that connection a little bit when, Carol, you probably remember this, Nicholas Carol would say things. Yeah. My dad always said, you know, and it would be some, some practical piece of wisdom on when's the right time to do something. Yeah, yeah. Like one.
00;19;38;03 - 00;19;53;28
Unknown
My dad always said, don't pick up too much with a shovel. And he lived by that. When he would shovel things, he'd take the small, slow clumps of dirt. But he said that all the time when I was growing up, my dad always said, don't take more of the shovel falls off your shelf. It seems like a silly thing, but I, you know, he dug enough holes.
00;19;53;28 - 00;20;18;18
Unknown
He. Yeah, he knew it was. He had like 100 of those. You know, my dad used to say like, what the heck's the matter with you? You, you know, we we were joking. Are you think it was my name? We are one of our favorite. So dad would, he'd be really upset about something, and he'd be on the side of a bench and he'd, like, stick his neck out for anyone who's listening, who can't see.
00;20;18;18 - 00;20;42;04
Unknown
You could see it on YouTube. He'd stick his there. Son of, Man. That's. You knew he was upset about what he was doing right there. Sometimes the next word was kid. It could do it. That's funny. Oh, man. Well, you know, we weren't. I don't know what we were going to talk about. Yeah, yeah, I was I was planning on talking about what you brought up about water.
00;20;42;19 - 00;21;01;29
Unknown
Well, speaking of water, I was going to say one of the reasons we got on this track, we said, Doug is one of our favorites because we got a lot of water under the bridge with Doug at this point and and transition and, get him a medal and, and, that that's true. You know, these I was thinking while we're sitting here, I was like, this isn't Doug's first time in the shop.
00;21;01;29 - 00;21;16;15
Unknown
You know, we just had a guy come in here that's helping us with some of the cleanup, and he's like, I've never been back here, but this is really neat. I'm like, this is all that to Doug. He's already been wowed by all the machines, and he's even gotten to learn about some of them that none of you will get to learn about because they're,
00;21;16;18 - 00;21;37;09
Unknown
Oh, yeah. That's that's the trade secret. Yeah. The secret machinery. That's true. And we the ground separates and we pull it up out of here. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. No. But, so do you listen to our water episode on Friday and water is like the hot topic in Iowa, as it should be, we think. We do not think this should just be a fad.
00;21;37;09 - 00;21;58;17
Unknown
We should be, thinking about maybe even upset about how our water is handled. But Doug texted us and he's like, I got some thoughts on this. Oh, yeah. So one of the things that we that I've heard my whole life is I don't know where I heard it first or who said it first or anything, but everybody lives downstream.
00;21;59;09 - 00;22;17;07
Unknown
Yeah. Right. I'm at the top of the watershed on our farm. I mean you go half a mile up the road and there are the first springs of the watershed, the Continental divide of Richland County of the, of the Driftless Area. Yeah. The folks that were there for meeting or filming were really impressed with the word quest.
00;22;17;11 - 00;22;40;07
Unknown
They're like, explain that to us. And that those are the lobes of the Driftless Area. On one side is rough and one side is smooth. Because of the way the glaciers melted and the water went up over and the erosion began in the Driftless was formed by erosion, not by eruption. Right. And then the water flowed back and formed the smooth side.
00;22;40;07 - 00;23;08;14
Unknown
So I, like I said, live on our farm, is on the smooth side. We don't have any that we have small rock outcroppings. We're not the big dramatic ones that the Driftless Area is sort of known for. And I don't want to disparage anybody, but let me talk about my neighbor a little bit. My guess is that they won't be listening to this podcast, so it does, but it's it's and I mean, I think this it could be anybody, right?
00;23;08;16 - 00;23;41;26
Unknown
That I know that people were interested in in this particular neighbor was interested in doing, having the National Resource Conservation Service come out and, help them with some, conservation stuff that they wanted to do. And, the conservation service technician said that's those are good ideas. But first we're going to deal with we need to deal with what you're doing to the creek and creek, depending on where you're from.
00;23;43;24 - 00;24;01;29
Unknown
And the way you're pasturing this. And they actually used our place as an example. And I'm very proud of this. That I mean, it was a it was a NRCs equipped project that we did where we protected us the spring that was next to the barnyard where the water used to just run through it, run through the barnyard.
00;24;01;29 - 00;24;19;16
Unknown
The cattle would drink out of it. And it was kind of. Yeah, you know, because it's a it was a good, strong spring until the we've had this recent drought and it's barely a trickle right now, but we did a spring, protection project and they used it as an example like went in, we dug this big hole.
00;24;19;17 - 00;24;40;01
Unknown
We had to put time and money and everything into it also. But they they was a big funding project. And and then the water is piped in with a big concrete tank was built and that water is in there for the cattle to drink out of. And then it drops back down into the pipe, goes down to the stream and drops in, and the water at the.
00;24;40;01 - 00;25;00;12
Unknown
Once it was settled and really working well, the temperature, the clarity, the pH of the water at where it was coming out of the ground was the same where it was being dropped into the stream because of the marsh, probably 500ft of pipe that it's in and only exposed in that one spot that the cattle could still drink out.
00;25;00;12 - 00;25;19;07
Unknown
And everything was great. Yeah. As I said, we were in drought conditions, as you guys were for 2 or 3 years, and it, it dried up now when we had a big rain, all of a sudden, we must be getting close to that aquifer, being recharged at the same level, because all of a sudden water will be running into that tank again.
00;25;19;10 - 00;25;46;10
Unknown
But it was a ten, 12 gallon a minute. Spring at that point, which is not a huge spring, but still pretty good. But oh yeah, there's there's bigger ones around. But, and that was a project that they told that neighbor about. And he goes, well, we have something like that. And they actually do, but a little barnyard that they pasture in all winter long and, it's right at the top of the watershed.
00;25;46;12 - 00;26;08;11
Unknown
So when you think about that, right? I mean, when I was listening to your podcast on the way over here yesterday, and the idea that, well, there's sediment, there's water quality and so all of that, I was happy to hear you talk about sediment in the Gulf of Mexico. Yeah. And point the ultimate downstream thing.
00;26;08;11 - 00;26;36;02
Unknown
Right. I mean, I used to work for an engineering, company, civil engineering company and civil engineers used to have the attitude of, well, when you get that storm water, you want to get it off your property as fast as you can. And now it's like, that's your water, right? Yeah. Let's hold that water. So that's why you see detention basins even in, you know, like developments in, you know, shopping developments and then, residential developments and that sort of thing while they're holding that water.
00;26;36;02 - 00;26;56;15
Unknown
And they might use that water. Golf courses do this, and they use that water to not that I'm a big fan of what golf courses do to for to the, to the land. But so that idea that you're saving that water I did work with, with a couple of developers where we were doing rooftop gardens, and part of what we were doing in our buildings was holding that water and then reusing it.
00;26;56;15 - 00;27;16;29
Unknown
So you actually have a system that's kind of constantly recharging. I've been thinking for that exact same reason. I mean, grandpa always talked about putting a pond out in the back part of our farm just to have another water source. And then so dad always talked about putting it another way, you know, we just never got around to it.
00;27;16;29 - 00;27;37;00
Unknown
So. So for 60 years, I'm going to talk about putting in a pond. You strike me as the kind of guy who might get that done. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. Leavers. But it, it's so it's so vitally important. I'm a big fan of the water access laws. Like in Wisconsin. We have a wet foot law, right.
00;27;37;00 - 00;27;59;03
Unknown
You walk up a stream bottom and and as long as you're within, it's not actually only to have your feet wet. You just have to be in the ordinary high water mark. You can walk up it and fish it, including our creek, which is. And that was the rest of the story about that, about that creek is that when I was a kid, it was wide, it was shallow, it was muddy.
00;27;59;06 - 00;28;21;00
Unknown
And I have no idea what it was, but it didn't support anything other than chubs and shiners right there might there were a couple of holes in that creek, but we were, you know, when we were abusing the land. Right. And, and that abuse meant that we put a lot of cattle on it. You can still pasture a creek bottom like that.
00;28;21;00 - 00;28;42;26
Unknown
You just have to be thoughtful about it. Right. So our land use changes going into CRP, and you guys have been to the farm where all of our land is highly eroded. Right? Qualifies. And then the bottoms are, is that pasture land? And when I was in the beef cattle business, I will be in the beef cattle business again.
00;28;42;29 - 00;29;05;16
Unknown
I would pasture have been much more lightly. And the DNR came out three years ago, the fisheries people, and they took samples of the water. And even with this neighbor up the road that was having that. Now, that was mostly during the winter because his cattle were out on pasture. But during the winters, when I look at it go, it's muddy and yeah, crappy.
00;29;06;19 - 00;29;27;25
Unknown
And they came out at about this time of the year and it was three summers ago or four summers ago. And they took water samples. They took, they measured depth, they measured speed, they measured volume, they measured pH. And I remember the guy stepping in and going, oh, it's cold enough. I said, cold enough for what?
00;29;27;25 - 00;29;50;09
Unknown
He goes, trout. It's like, you really think there's trout in here? He just looked at me with a little grin on his face. And so after the doctor said sampling to find out, you know, in that, this 100m of, creek, you know, which isn't as though an a straight line isn't a very big area because the creek goes back and forth.
00;29;51;06 - 00;30;06;27
Unknown
They do all that work in there, you know, they're in there measuring and and going through and checking this and that, walking through it. And then he says, okay, well, now we're going to shock it and see what you have in there. I was like, so don't you go to a different part of the creek because, I mean, for crying out loud, you were just there flopping around, you know, slurred it up.
00;30;06;28 - 00;30;28;07
Unknown
And he said, you want to be humble as a trout fisherman? Watch this. In that 100m, which is again, is very, big. And about the four turns that were in there, there were 15 brown trout. Wow. The biggest was nine inches all the way down to fish of the year. So the little fry that had been, you know, that's been there.
00;30;28;07 - 00;30;41;15
Unknown
So, you know, and I mean, if you want to talk about feeling like a proud father. Yeah, but and then wanting to be a little, you know, if greedy is the right word, but, like, are there any brook trout? Because that's our native trout. He goes, I think I've grown up a little bit further and went around the corner.
00;30;41;15 - 00;31;02;15
Unknown
We would find some. But this is this was the designated area and that we want to do that in. So, so even with that, that neighbor doing that, but then when you drive along it, that creek, you just it's just none of that land is being abused, like I was. I mean, there's all kinds of other issues that we have to deal with.
00;31;02;19 - 00;31;44;13
Unknown
Wild parsnip is one of them. And, you know, and all those things that we're, we're dealing with, but we are really, as an area beginning to see the results of better land management in, in those highly sensitive areas. Yeah. So when you guys were talking on the podcast yesterday about or that I was listening to yesterday about buffer strips and that sort of thing, one of the things that I'm doing with the the Village of Cazenovia, which has, well, I'm ancient, I guess, but it has a, 55 year old water, you know, sewage treatment plant.
00;31;45;10 - 00;32;13;06
Unknown
It's a village of 300 people, so you can't. I mean, the village doesn't have, unlimited resources to redo the the the water treatment plant or the sewer treatment plant as it, as it needs. So one of the things that they can do, to balance the, the nutrient output down at the plant that goes into the river after the water is treated and everything, and they're essentially they're lagoons, right?
00;32;13;06 - 00;32;42;04
Unknown
Settling ponds is upstream. So in this case, everybody lives upstream, right? If they can do nutrient, prevent nutrients from going in, phosphorus being the big one, then and pay for that, then they get nutrient trading credits. And so there's the point is, is that there's less nutrients in that watershed. How that happens helps them with their their water treatment plants.
00;32;42;04 - 00;33;05;28
Unknown
So one of the projects that's on the books, we may get it done this fall, may not be until next summer is there's like four corners in our pasture and that bottom that just traditionally blow out. And, they want to come in and rock them. And there's been an engineering firm involved. And, they have the plans and we, we agreed to it.
00;33;06;01 - 00;33;22;08
Unknown
There's really no cost to us. We get the improvement, and then we have to, you know, monitor it and and kind of maintain it. But for the most part, anything big happens and they come back and fix it. But what a great thing that is when you think about it, right? Buffer strips are just no brainer to me.
00;33;22;08 - 00;33;41;10
Unknown
Yeah. Well, so here's a question. I know you got thoughts on this, and I asked it on the podcast last Friday and I and I get it, doctor Larry Weber I got a ton of respect for him. Love that he came on. But he's got a, you know, a university, position. He probably is keeping some of his thoughts more closely to his chest.
00;33;41;13 - 00;34;04;16
Unknown
You don't do that as much, Who's whose responsibility is it? And who should be paying for cleaner water? Because we get if you're not a farmer, you get benefit of clean water. If you are a farmer, you get benefit of the monetary side of farming that ground how you're farming it. So who should pay to clean it up?
00;34;04;26 - 00;34;36;26
Unknown
Specifically for the nutrient? Well, I, I really enjoyed that part of the conversation. I thought that was a very, thoughtful question on your part and and discussion. And he, he did, avoid the answer a little bit. And I'm not going to avoid the answer, but I'm going to say a few things. One is, when Elder Leopold wrote in River of the Mother of God that conservation will ultimately come down to rewarding the private landowner for conserving the public resources.
00;34;37;08 - 00;35;04;10
Unknown
You alluded to that about, well, should there be programs to do this? Yeah, right. And, I think that we educate I mean, almost everything in conservation, this is where my head goes, right? We educate. Yep. We incentivize, we regulate. And that's almost in a ascending or descending order, right? I mean, if we and maybe I ought to add philosophize that the beginning.
00;35;04;10 - 00;35;21;23
Unknown
Yeah. Because I mean some of this work if you have, if you have a philosophy like it's not ours or it's just our turn, you have something that, you know, my philosophy is that you have something you can hold it up against, that you're honoring the past while you plan and implement in the present to do the best you can for the future.
00;35;23;28 - 00;35;49;24
Unknown
I think that. Wouldn't it be wonderful if somebody could go, you know, it'd be really good if I didn't plow right up to the edge of this stream, up to the edge of this river, or plant up to the edge of it. And so we do have that education part to do that philosophy, the philosophy being a part of the education, like let's do the best that we can as opposed to maximizing profits.
00;35;49;24 - 00;36;26;03
Unknown
So, you know, I think about maximizing profits and financial viability. And I've been learning a lot about that from, some of my friends a little further west. And I think, well, Carol and I spoke about this as well. When, when you are borrowing, which is what you're really doing, you're borrowing from everybody else. And you're not paying the full cost of that product or that revenue, which is really the case with I think he brought that up.
00;36;26;14 - 00;36;52;19
Unknown
Your guest brought that up yesterday when I was listening that what is the full cost of that production. And should we be paying that full cost. And that's the push pull of and I think we should be. So in the case of, of something like that, I would like to think that people would look at it and go, well you know what, it's the right thing to do.
00;36;52;21 - 00;37;13;27
Unknown
And then that the public through farm bill programs like, you know, equip or CRP or whatever, that they would say, yes, it's the right thing to do. Let's do that. Yeah. I am not maximizing profit on something like that because I'm not planting corn and beans. But there's a bigger, maximizing by ability. Yeah. You can. Yeah.
00;37;13;27 - 00;37;34;13
Unknown
But so but that land is still financially viable. I could make more money on our farm. Yeah. By planting corn and beans in an area that really shouldn't be planting corn and beans anyway. Yeah, but the way the system is set up, I could get we could get about 25% more just straight rental on our land than when we're getting for CRP.
00;37;34;13 - 00;37;56;21
Unknown
In fact, CRP prices have gone on. I've got another parcel that's going in, and it's less than it was in the last, the last go round. But I am in the fortunate position. We are in the fortunate position as a family where we don't have to. We concern ourselves about financial viability. We don't concern ourselves about maximizing profit.
00;37;56;26 - 00;38;22;21
Unknown
Yeah. So easy for me to say, right? Yeah. I'm not. I don't have a big farm loan that I'm trying to do or anything like that. But when you go a little step further and I'm going to be out in South Dakota here in a couple of months, on a property out there, and the person who owns some and manages all of it, is one of the first farm bill biologists in his.
00;38;22;21 - 00;38;48;29
Unknown
He really talked about a lot, talks a lot about Red Acres and Green Acres. Why in the world if you've got land that is marginal? Yeah. And then you're going and putting the same amount of inputs in and getting 30% or 40% less return, how about if we as a society want we want to reward that private landowner for serving the public's resources.
00;38;48;29 - 00;39;05;04
Unknown
Right. So there's a balance in between there. All that. Yeah. But you know what happens with with CRP and those programs of corn prices go through the roof. All of a sudden people are plowing stuff that hadn't been plowed for a while. I've seen this happening since the mid 80s when it happened. Yeah, when it crp first, first happened.
00;39;05;06 - 00;39;25;27
Unknown
So I think there's to answer your question in a roundabout way, is I think that everybody's responsible for that, that there should be programs for it because of their all multiple benefits from one action taken. Boyd. If you want to get a politician to listen when you say for every dollar you spend, there are multiple benefits. And here's what they are.
00;39;25;29 - 00;39;49;28
Unknown
And we talk about water quality. We talk about air quality. We talk about wildlife habitat. We talk about statics, and what those economic benefits are. They may not be a direct benefit to that landowner. But we also need to address that issue. It's like, well, wait a minute, I'm not why would I put those inputs into something that isn't as good?
00;39;51;04 - 00;40;19;09
Unknown
Education philosophy, incentivize and then regulate? Yeah. That's everybody's water. Yeah, right. I mean, I've been through this and other conservation issues, which I'm, you know, going down to Missouri after I leave here to talk about chronic wasting disease regulations that friends in the about deer management that friends in the hunting community fought against. Yeah. Now those roosters are or chickens or I guess there's roosters and chickens coming home to roost.
00;40;19;09 - 00;40;51;12
Unknown
Yeah. But, and that's what I'm dealing with now because we abandoned management, all right? Because the people, the smart people knew smart people weren't really as good at putting them, you know, getting convincing the public because maybe they needed to be with their scientists. Right? Yeah. And then, you know, they need to adjust and stuff. But the distrust of what happens, you know, so much is so much in, in doing the right thing is the willingness to, to think about it a little bit and then adjust as well.
00;40;51;12 - 00;41;16;24
Unknown
Right? I mean, that's part of it. I'm sorry, Nicholas, that was a long answer. No, that was awesome. It covered it in depth, and I think it's a realistic answer, too. But, we're poor listeners here for coffee time. Wednesday is great. Extra special. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. But before we take off, Kent has a little announcement about what we're doing with Doug moving forward.
00;41;16;27 - 00;41;40;00
Unknown
Yeah. So, Oh, this ought to be fun. Yeah, yeah. This a surprise? Yeah. Doug doesn't know I needed a new mechanic. Yeah. He's going to be out digging for big, big, big, in my opinion. Great. A shovel just for you, unsharp? Yeah. Sharpen. No. So, like. Like we were talking about Doug is one of our favorite people.
00;41;40;00 - 00;42;05;01
Unknown
And somebody who obviously shares a a, very close, tie similar mindset, I guess, is a is a way that I should say it with what our founder, Carol, had about the land. And, because of that, we are teaming up on this project and, and, with sharing land or with it's not ours. It's just our turn philosophies.
00;42;05;18 - 00;42;32;00
Unknown
Doug is going to, be hitting. Yeah, every quarter roughly. So not, you know, it's not like your normal quarterly, work meeting where you can set your watch to it. But it'll be roughly. Every guy know me. Well, you. But every quarter where Doug is going to have an installment and, it'll be his show, and it'll air on this feed and it'll feature, the subtitle.
00;42;32;00 - 00;42;52;21
Unknown
I don't think we've quite settled on the main title, but we know the subtitle is Conversations about Conservation. Yeah. Which we thought about making the the main name, but it's so hard to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so, that will be coming soon. There will be features in it. On sharing the land. There will be some conversations about different cooperating landowners.
00;42;53;00 - 00;43;10;08
Unknown
Maybe we'll even get some, access seeker point of view on there. We've had access seekers on this podcast from our own Sharing the Land experience here at Hoxie. I've actually already had them out this summer to do some work, and, some have contacted us about coming and helping with some more. And so that's going to be a part of it.
00;43;11;00 - 00;43;27;01
Unknown
And then, just whatever else kind of, you know, comes up the contribution space that Doug's got thoughts on. The reason we're we're doing this one. We love being with Doug. We love hanging out with, we we but, there's a lot of you guys, a lot of people we've interviewed, a lot of people that listen in that we're friends with and we love.
00;43;27;07 - 00;43;57;00
Unknown
But Doug is is someone where we thought to ourselves, if more people thought like this person, would the world be better? And it's like a resounding yes. So we want his thoughts and his conversations to have a platform here. So we're excited to, to hang out with you. Oh me too. And, the, you know, the title that I working title that I came up with, with was listen to the Land Conversations about conservation.
00;43;58;13 - 00;44;22;06
Unknown
And, I said, though, when I, if I ever was going to have a podcast that I would call it. What was I talking about? Yeah. As my mind tends to wander about the conversation you did, Doug has this. He has this look where he gets he, like, starts on a topic. He starts telling a story. The story ends up being five minutes and the end of the story, he has this look where you can tell he's going, crap, where were we again?
00;44;22;10 - 00;44;47;12
Unknown
Yeah, but you usually get yourself, you know, and you get it's great. And I and I so appreciate you guys, being willing to do this. I mean, really, the thing that's held me back from doing a podcast is one having good people to do it with, because I just want to sit down with myself. And I so enjoy both the coffee time and, and your podcast, and I've gotten a lot of great feedback from people about the times that I've been on.
00;44;47;12 - 00;45;05;04
Unknown
But, you know, to be perfectly honest with you, that I, I don't listen to a lot of podcasts regularly, but I listen to yours regularly. Appreciate it because there's I mean, it's fun to listen to and also there's a lot of good information and, you know, topics that I think are important for us all to be thinking about.
00;45;05;04 - 00;45;27;20
Unknown
And, I promise you, I'll at least I'll try to keep his promise. And that is I'm not going to tell you this is the way it is. As I, as I talk, I think about my family and the stuff that we're doing on our property. And when we put together our mission statement for our LLC, it's like we wanted to do the best thing for the land.
00;45;27;20 - 00;45;57;20
Unknown
So you have to be open to what those things are. We wanted to honor my family's legacy. Yep. I and my family 120 plus years now. And we want to honor the memory of my of my younger brother Matthew, who passed away tragically 30 years ago. And then the last one is to be a good example. And sometimes being a good example, means that you also just have to kind of fess up and go, you used to go like that, now it goes like this or.
00;45;57;20 - 00;46;18;07
Unknown
Yeah, that was seemed like the right thing at the time. And I think there's a lot of that in common. Absolutely. That, you know, folks before us did the best they could, could with what they had and, and their thoughtfulness. I think about that with my great, great grandparents, my grandparents, my parents a lot.
00;46;18;09 - 00;46;39;21
Unknown
Yeah. So yeah I'm excited to do it. That's awesome. Well we we really appreciate it. We enjoy hanging out with you and and for everyone listening we will talk to you again next time.
