Millennial Farmer

Eric Girouard  0:00  

This is Bucket Talk, a weekly podcast for people who work in the trades and construction that aren't just trying to survive, but have the ambition and desire to thrive. The opportunity in the trades and construction is absolutely ridiculous right now. So if you're hungry, it's time to eat. We discuss what it takes to rise from the bottom to the top with people who are well on their way and roll up their sleeves every single day.

Jeremy Perkins  0:28  

All right, on this episode of Bucket Talk, we got Zach Johnson, the Minnesota millennial farmer. Zach, welcome to the show.

Zach Johnson  0:35  

Hey, thanks for having me. Good to see you.

Jeremy Perkins  0:38  

It's good to see you too. Our good friend Randy said I needed to to get you on the podcast. So leave it to the master pipe layer to make the connection. I suppose. Yeah, Randy had been on the show earlier, bringing us through a life of drain tiles and and firefighting, and he had a wild story, and I'd love to hear your story and get to know you more. You're out in Minnesota. You have a large scale farm, correct?

Zach Johnson  1:07  

Yeah, we're in western Minnesota. What kind of west central area, not too far from from South Dakota or from North Dakota? Really, full time on the farm, just dad and I. I'm sixth generation family farmer. My wife and I live in the house. I'm sitting in the shop right now. My wife and I live in the house. Bought the farmhouse for my parents a few years ago. You know, three, 400 feet from here, and possibly raising the seventh generation on the farm right here.

Jeremy Perkins  1:35  

Wow, wow. So seven generations, that's a lot of people think that, like, alright, it's handed down to you. It's, you know, I wish I had an opportunity to start a farm where others get it handed down to you. But I assume, over the years, it's been hard to keep the farm. Is that correct?

Zach Johnson  1:52  

Yeah. I mean, otherwise there'd still be a lot more farmers, right? Because it's, I mean, when this farm started, over half of the US was farmers. That was in the 1860s 1868 is when we, when my ancestors came from Sweden and started this farm. So we homesteaded in, I believe it was 1876 I think it was, was when it was all officially homesteaded. But yeah, I mean, there's so many people that would like to farm that really, I don't want to say they don't have the opportunity to, but it would be very difficult, especially if they they had a goal of trying to be a farm like ours is right? So, yeah, it definitely hasn't been easy, particularly through the 80s. I know I hear a lot of stories from dad and grandpa had a lot of stories about the 80s, and they both went through some, some really hard times there, and and we lost a lot of farms then, and we've lost a lot of lot of livestock farms around the turn of the millennium. There was a lot of hog barns, hog farms kind of running out of business, out of the hog industry around us. And yeah, it's, it's not an easy thing. I'm fortunate that my ancestors, my relatives, have been able to hang on to it and and give me the opportunity that I have had to be able to to do what I love doing. So let's

Jeremy Perkins  3:09  

start in the 1860 1860s when your family came over from Sweden, were they farmers there, and this was just like a natural thing for them, or did they come over not knowing what they wanted to do, and farming became something they they ended up into,

Zach Johnson  3:27  

no they came. They came over knowing they were going to farm. The US had the Homestead Act back then, where, if you, if you immigrated and and could actively run the farm for five years, the government would actually give you a quarter of land. So we have that same quarter of land, which is a half mile kind of behind me here. That's the original homesteaded piece. So we're the only family that's farmed that in the last 160 years, 100 and you know, really ever since production egg started. So

Jeremy Perkins  3:57  

So enlighten me on what a quarter of land is. Is is that acreage wise, what are you looking at?

Zach Johnson  4:02  

A quarter of land is a quarter section. So a section is one mile by one mile, a square 640 miles. So a quarter of that is, is 1/4 is 160 acres.

Jeremy Perkins  4:14  

Oh, wow, wow. So you got a lot of property to maintain, yeah.

Zach Johnson  4:18  

Oh, yeah, yeah. Then that's the, you know, that's the main quarter. We farm about 25 2600 acres now, yeah, we don't own all that, nowhere near all that. But, yeah, we're always, we're always trying to add to the acres, you know, because you kind of have to in business, you got to go forward or backward, right? But, yeah, it's, it's really difficult when it comes to land, because it's so competitive. You know, if there's a any piece of ground around here, similar to anywhere, any piece of dirt comes up for sale or for rent, there's 100 guys on it right away. So, you know, we try to grow, but we also, we're not the, we're not the alpha dog farmer out there trying to run everybody off the, you know, out of the county. So we've been able to maintain. Ian, and we're pretty happy with that.

Jeremy Perkins  5:01  

So that's an interesting point. Do you see that? I know that there's obviously competition at some, some point in in the United States history, you know, the ebbs and flows. But do you feel like we're in a time where farmers work more together, less competitive, because there's not a lot of farming operations out there anymore? No,

Zach Johnson  5:22  

I think it's, unfortunately, I think it's more competitive, and they work less together now, because it's, it's so, so difficult to add to the operation, to to add acres and to find more ground to farm in order to, I guess, to say, progress forward and make the operation bigger. It's so difficult because there's so many guys out there that are really willing to to pay big dollars just to have that ground. You know, the bigger the farms are, generally the more efficient they are. Yeah, and so the more efficient they are, the more acres they're able to run, the more, the more, the more they're able to cash flow that ground into the operation easier, and so it just gets more and more difficult all the time. Yeah,

Jeremy Perkins  6:06  

and I haven't really looked into it much, and I don't know where you fall on this, but I'd love to get your point. I mean, you hear, you know, Bill Gates buying all the farmland recently, and, and it's hard to compete as a as a family farm, with, with that kind of money, and is that kind of what you're seeing with with operations coming in, it's just like, I hope that whoever is going to lease me this property has has an affinity for family farming, and will take my smaller offer rather than this large payout. That's not going to progress the the farming industry,

Zach Johnson  6:42  

yeah, that's definitely part of it. A lot of the big, really, big dollar purchases we see and rents really, are oftentimes coming from companies or investment groups like, like the ones that Gates has out there, which is true. He does have investment groups out there. You know, he doesn't call them Bill Gates Incorporated, but there are investment groups out there that he's either a big part of, or the owner of, or majority owner of, that are buying up a lot of farm ground, and then to them, I think the idea is just to rent it out for the highest dollar. And there, again, you're competing against the biggest farmers, and a lot of them have a lot of times these the big farmers have another income coming in. They're not making all their dollars from the farm. They're able to sort of subsidize and grow that farm with another income that comes from somewhere else, whether it be custom farming or a trucking company or maybe their wife has a good job, or somebody within the operation has investment dollars coming from somewhere else that they want to put into that operation to grow the farm.

Jeremy Perkins  7:50  

Now I did. I did a podcast a while back with five Mary's ranch, and she was talking about how they had to get innovative with with the way they do things. They had to own it from essentially farm to table they were doing. I mean, at the last time I talked to her, she was looking at, you know, potentially operating a restaurant that was a steakhouse. And, you know, it would go from her cattle all the way through her butcher shop, her export and then all the way there. And it's, it's like, you know, trying to conceptualize that when you're wanting to get into the farming industry is hard. I mean, we're trying to do it ourselves. But I feel like these niche areas generate more interest and more value, but there's only so much of it out there, you know what? I mean? Yeah.

Zach Johnson  8:41  

So that's one of the things I talk about a lot with with farmers that want to be, say, a first generation farm, but they don't have the opportunity like I do. So number one, the first thing I tell them is, all farms don't look like mine. You know, if you want to farm, it's going to be very difficult to jump in and have a farm that looks like the one I'm sitting on and part owner of today. But it doesn't have to be that way. If you're happy with, you know, 10 acres and one tractor and a few head of livestock, whatever you want that to be. There's a lot of opportunity out there right now to do this sort of thing you're talking about when it comes to like direct to consumer stuff, you know, CSAs have become, uh, extremely popular. Farmers markets are popular. All that direct to consumer stuff is so popular. So I think there's a lot of opportunities there that often gets overlooked, where, if you just truly love agriculture, there are ways to do it that look different than, you know, a fleet of brand new John Deere machinery and working 10,000 acres. And I know you said you talked to is it five Mary's farm? Yeah, yeah. And so they're talking about vertically integrating everything they do from top to bottom, Yeah, huge opportunity there. Um, on one hand, smaller farms probably have an easier opportunity or an easier way to capitalize on that than I do, because I'm so set up and so invested in exactly the way that I farm. Yeah, you know, I don't know anything or have the time or the resources or the know how to understand how I would start processing my own product and putting it into my own food, into my own restaurant, right? Yeah, so I think in a lot of ways it's easy for me to say because I'm not doing it, but I think in a lot of ways, some of the smaller farms have more opportunity to get creative when it comes to marketing stuff differently.

Jeremy Perkins  10:37  

Yeah, it was, it was interesting because, like, I knew nothing about agriculture, we just decided one day to pick up and and we had an opportunity to run a horse sporting facility. And then through that, you know, we've started our own small micro farm, if you will, gotten to pigs. We've actually gone through a lot. We went, we started off with goats. Realized we don't have the patience for milk and goats, and we sold them off. But now we're in egg production. I had a low scale, and also with pigs at a low scale, but I wanted to get into cattle a little bit, and a buddy of mine down the street just owns a small cattle cattle farm, and now I'm starting to get into that. I just butchered my first cow. It's hanging right now, ready to be packed. But it's interesting because, like, now I'm gaining interest within my community, they're like, Oh, could you do that for me? Or, you know, can I get a quarter beef off you? So I see the potential in it. It's and it's just resources out there. There's not enough knowledge anymore. Like, we really had to find the right people to help us out. And we went through a lot of people and a lot of time and money trying to figure out, like, how we were going to a run our property, B animal knowledge like none of us went to vet school, none of us went to any sort of school. So it was kind of learn on the flyer, you're working with farriers, you're working with vets to get as much knowledge as they got. And yeah, it's been hard for us, but I mean, definitely a fulfilling way of life, to be honest with you. Yeah,

Zach Johnson  12:20  

for sure. You know, we don't. We had livestock here, actually, right where I'm sitting here. This was, this was a cattle yard when I was younger. And then after that, it was a hog barn, not the building I'm in, but where the old building sat right here was a hog barn. And we got out of that when I was probably eight or 10 years old. So we haven't had livestock in my adult life at all, but there's definitely an attraction to it. You know, I would love to have a few head of livestock around here, I think, some of the time. But I also know that the commitment that comes with that and with everything I've got going on right now, I'm just not sure that that I could really make that work or be feasible, or, you know, I don't think it'd be a real smart decision. But, yeah, it's, uh, for those who enjoy it, it's, it's very, very rewarding to be able to see the fruits of your labor as as sort of cliche as it sounds, to see the fruits of your labor ultimately come to fruition is extremely rewarding.

Jeremy Perkins  13:22  

Yeah, and I also the other thing too, I wanted to get your take on this, because obviously I'm just dipping my toes getting wet with with the whole agriculture side of things. But what I've started to realize is, as much as people want farm to table and and, you know, CSAs and all of this stuff and like, take a weekend trip to go look at a farm. A lot of people don't want to be near a farm. And what I've I've come to find out is is, like, some of the hardest conversations and some of the hardest battles that I fought have been with my neighbors, and not for anything like, you know, I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary. It's just farming practice, basic farming practices. But when you start a tractor up at six in the morning, your neighbor doesn't like it, and you're like, well, I need to do this. You know what I mean? And and now you're starting to see this trend, at least in my area, I'm in New England, that there's farm first communities. So there's actually, like, bylaws in place for farmers, but then there's also communities that don't give farmers farm first rights, and it's hard to farm in those areas because of that. I don't know if you you're seeing any of that out in your your area or your neck of the woods, but it's funny, like anytime something goes wrong, the farmer gets the finger pointed at him.

Zach Johnson  14:42  

Interesting. We, you know, nothing like that. I mean, I can do whatever I want at any hour of the day, as long as I'm not getting too close to any of the neighbors that are trying to sleep. But we don't, I mean, we're, I think we're just so sparsely populated out here that there's plenty of room for that. Um. So we don't have, we don't have issues like that.

Jeremy Perkins  15:03  

Yeah, it's been, it's been pretty some areas, it's been hotly debated. I mean, even down to, you know, just the smell of manure, right? And we got our manure trucked out on a weekly basis, and it's just like, Well, you got a manure pile? Well, yes, they're byproduct of the horses. You want to come and see this beautiful property. You want to you want to have farming in your community, but you don't want to deal with, I guess, negative impacts of farming, which is not a negative impact, like, it's amazing, I mean, but yeah, no. So I was going down a tangent. I was just wondering if you saw any of that, because in one hand, you have people that are really supportive of the farming community, but not actually supportive of the whole practice. You know what? I mean? Yeah,

Zach Johnson  15:50  

no, there's definitely some of that. I did have a friend last fall that was pretty upset that he was getting a lot of corn dust in his yard, the little red wings that you get during corn harvest, and he was getting a lot of that in his yard. But, you know, he loves living out in the country, and he loves supporting the farmers, but he was upset at the guy that farms around him because he got all the dust in the yard. Well, dude, wait until it rains one time and that stuff's gone or a windy day. You know, I don't know what to tell you. I mean, dust is part of living in the country sometimes, right? I've, I'm sorry, it is what it is.

Jeremy Perkins  16:23  

So for people that are new to the show or new to farming, what is your main source of income? What is your what is your primary crop?

Zach Johnson  16:32  

Corn would be like, that's kind of our big cash crop. So we, right now, we grow two, two crops. It's corn and soybeans. We had 100 acres of wheat last year, which was kind of interesting. I've never grown wheat. Dad is 64 years old, and he has never grown wheat in his life, so it was a little bit interesting. We learned some stuff there. Didn't have a real good crop, but hopefully it'll be better for next time. But corn and soybeans are our main crop right now we grew kidney beans, which is a like an edible dark red kidney bean, that we grew for for a few years, but that's been several years now too. So at the moment, really just corn and soybeans.

Jeremy Perkins  17:13  

Now, why? Why the expansion? Was it more for trying something new? It was it corn prices were down and you wanted and wheat prices were up, and you're like, oh, let's give it let's give it a go.

Zach Johnson  17:24  

Actually, what it was was I, I am, became part owner of our local shooting Park in Alexandria, Minnesota. So we've got a trap range out there, and there's about 100 acres of farm ground attached to it. So I own a quarter of that park and a quarter of that land, and it only made sense for me to farm it now that I owned a quarter of it. And it's really, really coarse ground. It's really, technically, it's a gravel pit. Basically, it's all gravel underneath it, but it's not an irrigated it's not worth running an irrigator out there. So it just doesn't have the nutrient holding or the moisture holding capacity to grow corn. So they've always had a soybean and wheat rotation out there. So we just, we went with the wheat and and that was kind of what went into that decision, was that the options were just pretty limited,

Jeremy Perkins  18:15  

interesting now when it came to education on farming practices, and obviously you grew up around it, and you obviously absorbed that knowledge. Did you have continuing education? Did you go to college or or farming high school, or high school? Was just the end of

Zach Johnson  18:35  

I went to tech school for two years up in northern Minnesota, in Bemidji, but I didn't go for anything agriculture related. I actually went to tech school to learn how to build race car engines. So it was, it was a lot of automotive machining and a lot of turning wrenches, and I love doing that. And it was, you know, definitely a lot of stuff to learn there that that I was able to bring back to the farm. Looking back on it, though, if I, if I could make the decision again, knowing what I do now, I would probably go to a different school and try to put more emphasis on on ag, business management and managing the actual farm, and crunching the numbers and really understanding the management side of the farm, I think is a huge thing that I would like to have, have done some continuing education stuff on, yeah,

Jeremy Perkins  19:24  

I was when I went through college in the later years of my life, I went to business school, and one of the projects that we had was, you know, like, what would you change about an industry? And for me, one of the one of the things that I saw is, is that across the trades, a lot of men and women are really good at what they do, and then when they want to make that jump to whether it's shop ownership or management or what have you, it's really hard to go back to college at that point in time to get that basic set of skills. It's almost like they need, like, an accelerated two year degree on, you know, business management around, you know, owning a shop, or starting an LLC, and dealing with taxes and depreciation and all that stuff. Because I would assume there's a lot of things that a lot of money that's gone out the window for no reason. And if you just had that basic knowledge, like, Oh, I could depreciate my my truck, or I can depreciate XYZ, or I shouldn't have, you know, my house as part of the business, right? Because if I lose the business, I lose my house. And there's a lot of things that people don't really know on whether you know, and that's kind of the first thing people do is they leverage their house to start a business. Well, what if the business tanks? They they lose their house too. So it's, it's stuff like that that you try to make work that, just like a a simple educational class on like, best do's and don'ts practices would be amazing.

Zach Johnson  20:59  

Yeah, no, I agree with you. I think even, even in the egg community, I see a lot of farmers that are so good at turning wrenches and working on everything themselves, and you know, they can fix or build anything. But it's obvious, not all of them, some of them, it's obvious with some of them that they really don't have a fantastic understanding of the management side of things, and vice versa, right? I can't split a tractor in half and rebuild the transmission in a rear end. I I've never done that. I don't think I'd, you know Sure, if given enough time. I think I can figure it out, because I've turned enough wrenches, but that's not a strength of mine. But I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on the management stuff. And I think there's just everybody's got strengths and weaknesses, right? But like you said, all the intricacies and the details of what you should and shouldn't do and how to set the business up for for success, and on the management and financial side of things is also a pretty big part of what we do. So for me, it's just there's so much value in knowing the right people and having relationships with with people that do understand those types of things.

Jeremy Perkins  22:08  

Yeah, margins are tight, and you gotta try to retain as much as you can. And you know, same with same with management, it's really hard to find people nowadays, and you know, you want to do what's best with them, but at the end day, sometimes there's a cap there. There's only so much you can offer them, and it's really hard to stay in some of these trades, definitely with us. I mean, there's only so much we can pay a barn manager, right? Somebody to help you out with the day to day operation, and usually it's more time consuming and intense than hell a job at a coffee shop would be, you know what I mean, and now they're starting to pay the same amount of money, if not more, and now you just gotta find people that are passionate about the industry to then fill those roles. So it's becoming it's becoming difficult. Yep,

Zach Johnson  23:03  

for sure. Yeah. It seems like with every industry it it is. It is getting difficult to stay on top of it, with with finding people that are good at what you need them to do, and motivated to be there. And it's not always easy to to pay the right people, either, because margins are not, you know, especially in agriculture, in what I do, margins are thin. There's not a whole lot left over there to pay people that. Yeah,

Jeremy Perkins  23:26  

yeah. Now you mentioned a shooting range. How is that another business of yours? Is that just something that kind of runs itself and is is a local thing, or there's profit out of that as well.

Zach Johnson  23:40  

So the answer is pretty much yes to all your questions there. It's another business that we got into, partially as real estate investment and partially as business investment. There's a group of friends. We kind of all got together and and really saw, I guess, each other's strengths and the value that we all bring to the table within that business. And so we've got the the largest trap range in Minnesota now, and we hold the largest single largest shooting event in the world every June with the Minnesota State High School league trap shooting. And it brings in almost 30,000 people over nine days. And then we've also got the the adult league for trap shooting there that comes in a couple weeks after that. So yeah, there's definitely value there when it comes to the shooting. We've also got an event center there where we can do, like, weddings, graduations, whatever, whatever kind of event you want to put on. We'll have a lot of like, corporate stuff that will want to come in there and do an event for their business. We've got 149 camp sites on the grounds, all with full hookups. So it's a it's 100 and I think it's 160 acres. There 150 some acres that we've got out there right along the interstate on the east side of Alexandria. And it's been, been. Cool to be a part of. We've been opened and operating as a new business now for a little over a year. Business was in place before, but we bought it out from the previous owners. So we're excited to kind of see where that goes and try to build that business and see what we can we can make of it. That's crazy.

Jeremy Perkins  25:17  

So not only you have this full time, fully functioning farming operation, but now you're, you're spreading out into to other avenues that are a little bit different, but could tie back. Who knows that's that's awesome. What is your plans for the farm in general? Are you, obviously, we talked about, you know, expanding more and what have you, but, like, what, what would be your dream with the farm? What? What's, what would be the next step for you,

Zach Johnson  25:52  

you know, the in the in the near future, for sure, I would like to pick up some acres. We've gotten to the point where we have very efficient machinery. We've got a lot of grain storage on the farm. We don't have a lot for for full time help. We don't have any full time help. It's just ad and I full time, but I see my kids getting a little bit more involved, and so I'd like to be able to support all of that, which is going to take some more acres. So there's a balance there, as far as you know, how do we get those without, you know, I'm not going to go out and run over the neighbors, because I don't want to see any of them go down either. So we can need to figure out how to do that well, supporting the entire community and making sure that everybody supports each other that way. Long term, I want, I just want the farm to remain successful. And I want all of my kids to have the opportunity to be involved if they want to, if that means none of them want to be involved. You know, that's fine. I want them to be happy. I want them to live life doing what they want to do if they all want to be involved. I want to figure out a way to make it so that that's possible within the operation, to be able to have all their families involved. So that would really be the long term goal, is just to be able to support my kids involvement, if they choose, and want to be involved in the farm, hell yeah, continue

Jeremy Perkins  27:12  

the family legacy. That's That's awesome. How many kids

Zach Johnson  27:20  

we've got three kids, three kids directly, so I've got two daughters and and a son. The girls are eight and 11, the son is 14. And then we've got a niece that we fostered. Also. She's 22 years old, so she doesn't live with us anymore, but we had her from the age of 13 to 18, and yeah, and really did what we could to kind of help her out and get her feedback on the ground, after some unfortunate situations went down with the family and and really, really tried to help, help her out. And still, do you know she lives just 20 miles from us, so she's doing really well now. Awesome,

Jeremy Perkins  27:55  

awesome. So you in theory, you have three more heads to try to fix in or fit into the plan if all three of them want to be part of the the family, and then that comes with their potential families. And yeah, I mean, that's a lot to try to conceptualize and and build out.

Zach Johnson  28:14  

It is, yeah, it's a, it'd be a, it'd be a pretty good undertaking. But that would be my goal, that if they want to be involved, there's a fit for them. Awesome,

Jeremy Perkins  28:23  

awesome. Outside of all of this. How do you unwind? What do you what are you into? Are you into trap shooting, or are you into something completely different, like, what do you in the family like to do to get away?

Zach Johnson  28:36  

You know, I'm into trap shooting, but it's not something I'm obsessed with. I do enjoy doing it, but I don't, I don't travel all around doing it. Maybe did it a couple dozen times last year. So it is, it is a fun thing to do. The biggest thing I really like to do to unwind is to go to the lake. We're here in the lakes area near Alexandria. I mean, we've got, you can't drive a mile or two without running into a lake. So we've got, we got water everywhere. I love going out on on the boat and just relaxing out on the boat with the kids and pulling them in the tube or the water skis or whatever it is. But my real hobby, my big hobby, is dirt track racing. My son and I both raced dirt track cars. That's something that I just love the competition. I love trying to be competitive. I love the purpose and the drive of it all. I don't know that I would say it's necessarily relaxing. It's usually a lot of work and it's and it's stressful, but it's something that gives me purpose and drive away from from managing the business, businesses of social media and farming,

Jeremy Perkins  29:40  

how'd you get into dirt track racing? Was that something that you started go karts at a young age? Exactly.

Zach Johnson  29:46  

So my dad grew up a fan of dirt track racing, and when I was 10 years old, I started racing go karts, and had some success with that, and enjoyed doing that. So when I was 15, we bought a car and and. The rest is history. I mean, this will be my 25th year now, in a in an actual, in an actual full size car. So I've been doing it quite a while.

Jeremy Perkins  30:09  

How many enjoy races? How many races in a season you normally do? I

Zach Johnson  30:14  

would say normally now, probably around 25 Wow.

Jeremy Perkins  30:19  

It's a lot, yeah,

Zach Johnson  30:21  

it's, it's a lot. But we used to do, gosh, we did 40 to 50 for several years there now, now I would say I run 2025, nights. And last year, I think my son ran close to 20 nights as well.

Jeremy Perkins  30:33  

Holy cow. And that is that it's got to be an expensive hobby. Yeah, it

Zach Johnson  30:40  

is, yeah, but sponsors help pay for a good chunk of it. You know, once you get a good relationship with a sponsor, you hope they stick around with you for a while. So sponsors help quite a bit. You get some winnings back. It's it's usually not enough. If you have a good year, you have a really good year, you win some big races you might between the sponsors and the winnings, you might get enough back to really pay for that year of racing. And what another way that I've kind of gotten a little more creative to try paying for some of that now too, is is through YouTube, we started a second channel, and we've been able to draw a decent chunk of the viewers from our main millennial farmer channel over to our second channel where we're starting to do some race videos, and it's been a been a lot more difficult of a learning curve over on the race channel, we've had a lot of hiccups, a lot of hang ups with stuff, and it hasn't exactly worked out yet the way I want it to, but we're still working on it, and we got a lot of hope for it, awesome.

Jeremy Perkins  31:38  

Awesome. Any hopes for the for the kid to take it further?

Zach Johnson  31:44  

Yeah, I hope so. Um, we've got a second trailer in the works right now, so we'll be able to haul both cars in the same trailer. And, yeah, we're actually, we're just working on his car. Before I jumped on with you. We got an engine for his car that's all finished up. We're gonna go pick up. And, yeah, I got big hopes, and he loves doing it, so I'm hoping he'll, he'll continue on with the racing and and hopefully the channel as well. I think he's really gonna add more to that channel than I expected or thought of when I first started it. I think, I think long term, people are gonna be more excited about watching his evolution of, you know, being a 14 year old that's behind the wheel of a race car to to what he can do with it, I think people are really going to enjoy that

Jeremy Perkins  32:30  

awesome. That's awesome. Well, best of luck to him. And we're pretty much wrapping up the podcast, so I'd love for you to throw out your channel so people can go follow em and if they have any questions or anything about farming, they could reach out to you. Where can they find you? The

Zach Johnson  32:46  

first place you can find me is the millennial farmer YouTube channel. That's kind of my main foundation of everything. Otherwise, I am millennial farmer on Instagram, Facebook, I think on Tiktok. Also. I'm not as active on there, but millennial farmer, or Zach Johnson will get you there. And our second YouTube channel is called between the rows. So we kind of started it, started it as a, you know, away from the farm type of channel, and it's kind of evolved into mostly a racing channel now, but we'll still get some other videos out there as well. So, yeah, you can kind of find me on on all the normal social media channels.

Jeremy Perkins  33:21  

Awesome. And did you fire up the podcast again? Because that was a good podcast.

Zach Johnson  33:25  

Yeah, we recorded a couple of off the Hus podcasts. We call them recently. They have not posted yet. We don't have them edited. But that was something where three, maybe four or five years ago, we started that off the husk podcast. Had a lot of fun with it. It it was very successful, but we just ran into really time restraints with having three kids in hockey and everything else that we're doing, we just did not have the time to keep recording the podcast. So we're going to, we're really going to try to start to fire that up again, but it's we'll see what we've got time for.

Jeremy Perkins  33:58  

Awesome, awesome. Well, thanks for being on the show. Zach, this was enlightening. I I love farming, I love mechanics, so I think we both hit, we hit on both cylinders there. Yeah, this was, this was awesome. Thanks for taking time out of your day to explain what you do. Thanks again.

Zach Johnson  34:17  

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. And

Jeremy Perkins  34:21  

as a special thanks to our loyal listeners, we're giving $10 off your next purchase of $60 or more at Brunt workwear.com Use Discount Code bucket talk 10. That's bucket talk 10. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai