I'm really happy to have Bryson Lipscomb Trip Farm. He's a local farm. What he's known for recently, I guess is the fact that he took on the state and we still have good milk because of it. Yeah, and so Bryson, Yeah, Bryson, welcome. What I want to do is, you did a tour duty in Afghanistan. It's not like you haven't given to this country. And you've got people that you care about that given to this country, given everything, and so let's just talk about where you grew up. Let's talk a little bit about your military service, and then we'll work from there. So yeah, well, thank you for having me do it. So my wife and I we both grew up in Rostburg, Virginia, well Comsburg High School. I graduated in two thousand and nine and she graduated in twenty eleven. I went off to Fhareum College to play foot ball, was my initial path, and she went to Liberty University to get a nursing degree. That was the initial direction. And then. Football didn't end up working out for me because I hurt my shoulder and then I just realized that I really hated school. When you're not playing the ball right, And I had always wanted to join the military. I didn't know it was going to be the Army. I actually tried to join the Marines at the time, but that didn't work out, so I joined the Army. And yeah, I went to basic training down in Fort benn And, Georgia to become an eleven Bravo and infantry men and then I was My first duty station was Fort Stewart, Georgia, third Infantry Division, and from there I was you know, we deployed out of there with the first SF group to cause the Ruska in Afghanistan, where we did vso ops. So what is a vso op? Well, that's a good question. I can't remember what the I think it's VIA. I think SAMES for like village security something, village security. So we basically had a. Small camp right outside of this bizarre whatever you want to call it, a village, right, and uh, you know, we were working with the local police and army trying to I guess establish help them establish local governments and whatever. Uh So you got to you drank a lot of tea, didn't you a lot? Yeah? I wasn't the one doing. The media were you were too busy on the gun. Yeah, I was. We were like Overwatch during those meetings. But yeah, a lot of that kind of hearts and minds type stuff. So what year was that that you were in a game? We were there twenty twelve to thirteen BA all right, yeah, late twenty twelve, and that's. When they got really really good at roadside bombs and everything else. Yeah, we had we didn't have a lot of that. Until you went into the more populated areas. What was nuts is they had these guys they called them the CMRG, the Countermine Reduction Group. There were this group of Hazarian dudes, so you know, something like that they were. They would they would literally we had them at the airport in Kabble and they would just poke poke the ground and then they put up like it's safe here. Yeah, I didn't know. Like in Afghanistan, there's like different sects of people. You know, You've got like the Pashtunes travel, yeah, travel and h but the Hizarians were like the dudes that wanted to kind of like, you know, be more modern. You know, you'd see him walking around with blue jeans and a leather jacket on, right, and uh, listening to music, and uh. It was great. We were at camp and a condoman these dudes would pull guard for us twenty four seven, so we didn't have to do that. All we had to do was focus on, you know, ourselves in the mission and we could do our shirts that we had made for that. We called it Combat Summer Camp. Because it was just so sweet, man, like that place had been there for ten years. Super small camp and it was only like thirty of us there, but it was uh like a full day's maybe two days drive in a vehicle to the nearest fob so and it was a drive you didn't want to make, you know, on the sides of mountains and stuff. So you got to appreciate what a jingle truck was. Oh yeah. And then like but we we what was great about that is you didn't have all these higher ups coming around all the time because we were out there. I loved night shift, but yeah, uh we were out there. You know, we were left alone and like I said, since we were with us f guys, we didn't have to shave, we didn't wear patches. You know. We got like some really terrific training from those guys. You know, when we were on mission we had, you know, whatever assets you wanted on station was there, like, but we were so far out. All of our supplies came pushed off the back of a C seventeen and came paris in most of the time parachuting and sometimes burning in. So like all your fuel, all your food was pushed off the back of a seventh. And hopefully they strapped it in right to the parachute. Yeah, I've got a video on my Facebook of like it would be like four barrels of JPA or MOW gas to a palette and sometimes you'd get a barrel that would just fall off. Normally they hit the. Ground, just splash and that's it. But one time bro it caught a spark and went boom, and we. Were all like, yeah, you know what you had to do for entertainment fact, Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was awesome to see that, and uh oh, we're so fired up. But you know, we would do that DZ security like two or three times a week, So you talk about complacent, we were just all right. But we would normally just jump on the four wheelers and go out there and do it. Maybe a couple humbies for like the fifties or no horses. No, No, we weren't that cool. But you know, so we were out in the middle of nowhere and we really got to enjoy that that kind of freer life like a lot. What do you think about the culture of the local culture. It reminded me. Afghanistan reminded me of almost like the Old West movies of the Native American culture to a certain degree. Yeah, I really did not understand it. And you know, I wasn't a Christian at the time, but one thing that stuck out to me was like, all these people are Muslim. I was like, these people are devout in their faith, you know what I mean. I'm like, they don't have nothing, but they're praying five times a day and they think whatever they think is the is it, you know, and don't tell them no other way, you know what I mean. So I had respect for him for their commitment to their faith, you know what I mean. But as far as the rest of the culture goes. It was nuts. It was cool to see. Like at the time, I had zero intentions or inclinations that I was going to become a farmer, right. I didn't grow up. In that world, no idea, but I can remember sitting on the back of a humvee because we had like these open top humbes with like bucket seats facing back, and you'd have like a two forty on the swivel. Sometimes we would just be chilling back there while we're doing something, you know, and you'd see these guys come back with their little herds of sheeps or whatever they were. They used to have those sheeps with the big fat button we called. Yeah, that was the craziest thing to see that. Yeah, don't stare too long, you know, you been out, yeah, bro. But I would see like the I would see these things come by, and like these dudes would climb up in trees and like shake the branch to get the leaves to fall to the ground. Yeah, so they could eat it. And like they had a real connection to their food, you know what I'm saying. Like you'd go through the bazaar and they'd be like freshish meat hung up you know in the market, you know, dust and all flies and all. But I remember having like a moment of like I'm like this is good. Way, Yeah, like this is cool. Uh. I never waste anything. No, no, not at all. But it was weird because I didn't. I didn't really understand that I was having an appreciation for that until after the fact, you know, but they I did admire it, but it was some strange stuff, you know. You know, you know as well as I do. They have some. Strange the main love I never got used to. That's a strange and it's a real shame, like how they treat young boys. It'll make you mad. It explains a lot. But we'll go onto that cultural ride talk about kind of like when y'all traveled and convoys and stuff like that. What was that like, Because you said you'd been at a lot of different camps, right, or different camps that you had to drive to towards then. Uh so, yeah, we I was basically in two different camps or Camp Anaconda, which was a pre existing one, uh that we actually shut down basically gave back to the Taliban essentially, and then from there we went up to north into the Musai district of Kabul and. We built a new camp. So it was kind of like two exchange. We went from like this camp that had been there and been worked on for like a decade plus. Uh, you know, hard side buildings on the inside, you know, you didn't have to worry about much to like, all of a sudden, we're living in like this force pro tent. You know, showers and MRIs for months. On right next to the Capitol. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, really close. Everybody else was eating good. Yeah, and uh so it was really I think it was good as an infantrureman to go through that process, or any soldier that had to go through that process, to like to actually like, Okay, we're now digging in mortar pits, we're filling sandbags and hesco barriers. You know, we went from like what we called combat summer camp to kind of the suck and uh you embrace the suck. Yeah, you're in a tent with thirteen fourteen dudes and it's not cold. It's no, no, it was not at the time. You know we were if you know, those forced pro tents come with the little ac units and if that thing went out, like it's a problem, that's a whole that's a different kind of stink. We didn't have showers. You know a lot of baby wives going around. I used to man, people would send me the big Huggies pack, like the uh, the shade butter. I like the shade buttered baby wives. Because I felt cleaner because of that. They just smelled good, you know. But yeah, you're you're laying on a one of those god those terrible green foldable cots, you know, right next. To it, the ones that are there's nowhere you can lay that. They are comfortable. They're not wide enough for anything or long enough. You know, if you're over six feet you're just screwed. You know. Oh that really sucks. I was. I was ready to come back after that. Yeah, but we were talking before the show. We did travel through like on our way from Anaconda to this new place, we stopped in Bogram Airfield for like a couple of weeks, and then you just see this completely different scenario of deployment, you know what I mean. And that was really really mind blowing. Like people were walking around like making uniform corrections and all of this and that. And you had to walk on the right side and what are you doing? People were ran like pet belts, you know what I mean. You had to wear your roadguar vest, you had to have your last thing. You know. It's probably because something I got run over by one of the big big trucks. Yeah, yeah, but that was definitely a different experience. I mean, we loved it while we were there, for we were eating good good for sure. But yeah, then we pushed out. I remember we took black Hawks out. Of there. And we stopped in this uh Afghan Army base, which was like they had these uh it was like the old king and queen palaces. I don't know, I guess Afghanistan kings and queens back in the day. You're talking about where the Canadian posts used to be. The Canadians were out there. It's it's a it's the old palace up on the hill. Yeah, yeaheah, yeah it was. It was the last king of Afghanistan. Yeah, and he got he got killed up there and I think two three and then Taliban but like. The Russians killed him, right, yes, yeah, because there was like bullet holes. Oh, it's all pocked out. They so that used to be the best place to eat because right below that the Canadians had a post and they had French chefs and everything else. It was like made to water food. They're probably gone by the time you got there. That was four five. But yeah, the Canadian if you got to go to the Canadian post to eat. It's the first time I heard of Afghan was like, uh, this little kid came up to me. It was like fuck cars eye George bush Good. I was like, okay, all right, so yeah, there their friend. But then from there we pushed out to the little new camp we were building. There was like one hard side building there. I think it was like, so, did you have a view where you were at you could see that palace from where you were at or well that was just the initial like stop point at that Afghan base was there, and then we left there and went out and built that. You might have been It might have been the same post because it's your it's up on the hill and it's you kind of go around the side of it to get to that post. It's probably the old Canadian post. I could see them putting a and a there, so oh it was anywhere you put a and a it was just a ship hole. Yeah. Everything was at worst a different Afghan Army base. Worst porta potti I've ever seen in my life, and you know you've seen some bad ones. Pink toilet paper. No, this it might have been. I didn't have time enough to look. I had so dude. We were going to this base, and our officer at the time was like, listen, guys, don't be out here taking the dump, you know, by the truck, you know, don't be pissing out in the open. Be respectful, you know, show these guys some respect. And I had to pee so bad because you're just nippets, right, and water, yeah, hopefully more water than rippets. But I was like, I gotta go, bros, I gotta go. And like, it's a portage on over there. And as I'm walking to this, this blue portage on, there's like a few Afghan dudes sitting there and they all kind of chuckle as I go by on my way to this. And I should have known, man, as soon as I opened that door, bro, not only was it like poop all over somehow, all over the walls, the the you know, you sit on the toilet seat and that's over top of like this container where all the poop goes in, completely filled up on the top, yeah, and then to the toilet seat filled up, and then someone had laid a fresh one right on top. And I was like, damn, like I can't I can't live. I went back to the truck, I did. I pissed on the tire of the humvee and uh or matt V whatever you want to do. Yeah, I was like, y'all, that's the man article fifteen. I'm not doing this. H I was an impactful experience to see that portage on. But yeah, I don't know where we were mussai uh Kabul noah. Yeah, but with that camp was, like I said, a whole different experience. Uh So a lot of times when people talk about combat, they talk about all these different things and and the intensity of it. But what was it like you lost a buddy over there? What was that? What is that like to be on a deployment where you lose. Well, I mean. So we we weren't in like crazy you know, combat situation. Sure we got shot at, but I always say, like, it's nothing like some guys you know, you know, and my friend that that I lost, he was in a different unit ahead of me. And I'll just tell you, until that point, man, until you have somebody that you personally know get killed, like lose their life and then they're no longer there anymore, it just it wasn't really real to me. You know, you do all this training, I was a PFC. You know, all you do is train, train, train, train, train, train, and it's monotonous and it seems like. This is ridiculous. Yeah, it's like, you know, whatever, whatever you get, you get tired of the song and dance right, and then when something like that happens, it's just like, oh. Lock back, and it's like, Okay. Now I'm watching, you know, memorial videos on Facebook of freaking amazing grace being played on bagpipes in this guy's hometown back in Florida as his caskets coming through and his mom's crying. You're like, oh my god, like that. It wrecked me for like a week, you know what I mean. But it's solidified in me that like, Okay, this is real. You know, this can happen anytime, any day. Now. Of course, you still get complacent even after that, you know, you just get war out. But now that that's it was really nuts and it'll piss you off, of course. But you know, at the same time, why were we there in the first place? You know? I mean, I think that's the hard thing is I think people that have never been in that situation, I think I was fortunate I didn't have that and it's just we were a much smaller group, so we didn't never we never lost somebody that were I mean, we went to places where you know, soldiers and stuff were killed, but we were never in a situation where like a guy next to you or somebody that you trained with or or something else, or that you knew that we lost him. Yeah, like this guy that you know, Mike Metcalf that got killed. I was like just an airborne school with him, you know. And then he was like the coolest dude, wild dude, maybe one of the only dudes that could pull off an eleven bang bang tattoo on his body, you know what I mean without getting hounded for it because he was covered in tattoos. So it just kind of blended in with all the other ones. But the dude was like a bull rider, a surfer, a skateboarder, Like he did anything he wanted to do, you know what I mean. Like and then, like I said, he had deployed just before me, uh and got and then got killed in I ed and it was like, of all the people, this dude, you know what I mean, It. Always seems like it's like us, like the one dude that you're like, yeah, in the world could it have been him? So yeah, And then when we first got to Afghanistan, Uh, we were with the SF team one one two two out of Okinawa, Japan. They had just lost two guys, like literally just lost two guys to a Green on Blue, Like two dudes. That was what was going on a lot when you were there, Yeah, a lot. The locals were like, there was actually I don't know his name, but at some big fob, this general got shot in the back. You know. It was nuts. And then these guys, like I said, they had just lost two of their their buddies, one guy shot in the back of the throat and one in the back of the head I think. And the Green on Blue is you got the green being. The yeah, the local guy and the blue being us. And like they were, uh, you know, just having one of the meetings with them, and these guys I think were up on the roof of the place having tea and they were just getting up to to leave and they heard like the ak you know, rack back and that was it. So when we first got there, we walked into that mentality of like if these guys don't trust a single soul. And that's kind of how we. Were raised, if you will, in Afghanistan, like you need to pay attention, yeah, because these these dudes could do anything anytime, like don't trust them for half a second, and we didn't. And that's what kept us safe throughout you know, our time. Like we were just we were as hard of a target as you as you ever could have been. And we had great leadership terriff out you know, the master sergeant with the team in the in the team captain. We're both experienced, hardened guys, and we would just go out with like just the sharpest teeth you could ever imagine. If we were starting to get you know, shot at no matter how far away it was, like find something suspicious and shoot it, you know what I mean. Yeah, I called it death blossom, like everybody shoot for sixty seconds and don't stop right and yeah, send a message. We'd go through valleys and if it was just too quiet, we would do that, just start shooting, you know, just up into the mountains like where. Y'all at, you know what I mean. But that's how you should be, that's how you stay alive. We went from that mentality. I'll remember a story when we were at that a fan base outside that palace. We were up at the range, like we were fixing to push out to set up this new camp. And like I said, we had that mentality of no trust, right, but you're in now. We're with this other team with a third group who were like super like on the mission of Hearts and Minds, and we're working with these guys and you know they're they're one of us, you know. And we were up on the range one day zero on our. Weapons and just killing time really and all of a sudden, these three Afghan soldiers come walking up the hill behind us, and I'll never forget bro because we all, like one guy sees them. I was like hey, hey, hey, and we all turn around. It was like ten of us and all you heard was like all the safety is going off, you know what I mean, And like now we're eyes on these dudes, and like one of the team guys was like. Hey, what are you guys doing. You guys need to chill out, you know, yeah, like you haven't been here long. No no, no, no, no. You don't trust you know, But that again, that's how you stay alive. You start trusting people, you know. And letting your guard down and just walking through life like that. That's when you get got. So you finish your tour in Afghanistan, you got back and then you got out. How'd you end up back here? So I got back from Afghanistan, I got re Did you get married before you left or no? I got reassigned to Italy And during that time is when my wife and I got married. And did she finish at Liberty? She did. Remade the decision for her to stay home and I went to which was the right decision because once I joined the one seventy third bro, that was a different ball game. Going from third ID to one seventy third. I was like it was almost like walking back into basic training, you know what I mean? Oh, it was high speed, dude. I mean I was a DEPLOYE four, you know, I thought I was a stud walking in there. And then you got you know, a little E two's that can basically quote the Ranger Handbook to you. And that was the expectation, because that's just that place is just a pipeline to ranger school, you know what I mean, Like, if you're going to be a squad leader, like you're going to Ranger school, right, it was nuts. Like, so I realized real quick there I was better. Uh a little bit. Yeah, hasten this learning curve as quick as I can, or it's going to be rough. But I had a blast there. Man, they trained their training tempo is bananas, man, they're they're I said, it was right decision for my wife and I had to, you know, for her to finish school here in the States and me go there because we were never you would have seen her. Yeah, in Italy maybe twenty five you know, forty percent maybe of the time and the rest time you go out. Yeah. One reason is like. There's no training grounds in Italy, so we had to go to these other Slovenia, Estonia, I mean, name a crap. Hole and we were there. Yeah, we were in Ukraine in twenty fourteen training their soldiers to go fight Russians. We're not gonna blame you for the war bro going on. I talk about being, you know, brainwashed, because like when you get into farming and this then the type of farming and the type of business that we are, you realize how brainwashed you were. And I was like, man, I was the Army is great at brainwashing because when we were there. It was twenty fourteen, right, that was when the coup was happening, essentially, you know, that's when. That you knew nothing about it. I knew zero. I'm just here on the ground training people doing like that. Like I also had like made zero effort to look it up while I. Was there, you know, if I need to know the real Telmets. Yeah, all I cared about at the time was like, when can we go to Leviv to get drunk? Like the next time we can go, uh, you know, just have a good time. And uh. And I think that I think they want you to have that mentality, you know what I mean. I think they kind of breed that in their culture for many reasons. But yeah, I didn't know what we were doing. Maybe somebody did. But the loss are easy to lead. If you don't know what's going on, you you'll just be like, oh yeah, that makes it this degree. Man. We went to some like craft brewery in Leviv, and Laviva is a beautiful city, Like a beautiful city. I would go back if it's still there. Uh. We went to this craft brewery and we were getting these beers, you know, some type of I P. A or whatever. You know, and they've got like, uh, you know, these custom labels on the on the on the bottle. And this one brewery everything. The bottle labels they had posters on the wall were all like characters of like Trump, Obama, I'm sure some different other people, but like I didn't know what the words were saying, but it was a by the picture, like they didn't like Americans or specifically the American government, Like that was obvious. But I just like, I'm just here to drink stupid. It's so stupid. But so I did. I didn't deploy with one seventy third, but we certainly did a lot of training and like I said, to some time in Ukraine. Uh. And then from there I got out and came back home and I worked. I had a. Regular job. I guess you could say. I worked for a manufacturing type facility. I was a supervisor there. Drinking heavily, I should mention. At the time, I. Think that was kind of like the fallout from being in the military, like the expectation of drink and then you get back home and you don't have that stimulant. Oh yeah, for sure, Like. That's it felt like, I mean, I should only speak for myself, but that's like all we did in the army was like just drink. It was the culture. Yeah, and then but you always had, you had We'll training really really hard, and we'll go out, we're gonna do really good, and then we're gonna come back and drink and then we're gonna repay. It was definitely work work hard, work. Hard, play hard. And then when you don't have anything to work hard on like that, just you just go like I'm gonna still play hard. It becomes real bad habit real quick. But my wife, you know, she was a register registered nurse working for the hospital and and I was like, said, a supervisor at this manufacturing facility. I had like. All the things on paper that I thought you were supposed to have, you know, like a good title, a good salary, a four oh one K, you know, good insurance. I had, like I don't know, the gold package and you know this bull crap. And but I was just I hated my life. Man, You're like, this isn't me like. It just well, one reason is like you go from the military where where you either you know, are allowed to be a really great leader in thriving that leadership role, or have really great leaders that you can look up to. I went from that to like this corporate manager type role where you they might call you a leader, but you were not a leader. You were told how to manage these people. And right, so that was killing me. On top of I was killing myself with alcohol, and eventually, I mean, thank the Lord, twenty eighteen, I quit drinking and then continued to work that same job. And then that's when I really started, like with a clear head. I was like, okay, I really you know, and I talked to my bosses about it. I was like, can you move me out of this role? Can I do something else? And you know, they don't really like doing that taking a guy from. The It just monotonous for you or yeah, yeah, it was didn't really, it didn't really you didn't really have a mission at that point. Yeah, you're going through the motion. That's right. It wasn't fulfilling. Ok I just didn't like, it wasn't for me. It played a part in my life, you know. And then and then I moved on and so and then about twenty twenty came along when you know, COVID came around. Okay, and uh, you started to see just a lot of silly stuff. Happening around you, and that was making me antsy. Man Like, like a buddy of mine told me, he was like, I can I believe people are going after toilet paper that hard? Like it's like, okay, so you're dirty, Yeah you got water, Yeah you can figure it out. I got a bidet. Yeah that's right, exactly right. The friends have known about it for years. Yeah, these people have no idea what they're missing. Yeah. Yeah. It was nuts. You just start seeing a lot of just silly, stupid stuff happening, you know. Supply chain, and you're sitting there going like this this, and. Like these these men, these quote unquote men around you that are just laying down and complying with, you know, these silly, nonsensical rules, and it's like I just started. Really hating it at that point. And then about uh so, let me just say, my wife and I sat down, we crunched the numbers, trimmed some fat out of our finances, and uh I walked away from that job and took another job at another manufacturing facility where I wasn't in a management position. I just wanted to go be. And come in, come in and come back. It took me about four months to realize I really hated being just a cog in the machine, you know what I mean. They'd be calling me bro, like, hey, you got to do this mandatory overtime, which is funny because that used to be my job. I'd call people, hey, bro, you gotta work. If you don't want to come in, I guess I got to write you up. You know, it is what it is. You know. Now I'm on the other side of this, and I was like, f this, man, I'm out, you know. But during that time, uh, you know, I used to I say it like I was an NPC. Like a lot of people were instill all as far as their food goes. I would go into Sam's Club every week in Lynchburg, and by usually my favorite thing was to buy was chuck ros beef chuck rows, and we were barbecue people. I love smoking meat, and I would just smoke those chuck roast in the beginning of the week and then we would just kind. Of eat on fat throughout the week. And I never once stopped to think about, like, Okay, where was this animal raised, what did it eat, how was it raised? And treated? You know who raised it. What's in it? You know? What's not? Is this even beef? You know? I didn't have any of those questions that a lot of people were talking about now. I just went in there, looked for the highest weight, lowest cost, right until in twenty twenty one, I went into Sam's Club and meat went short. First. I mean in this area, it was a short period of time because of the regulations, We're creating employment shortages for the big packing houses. So it created this little ripple effect. I went in there and it wasn't there. The meat was not there, and that was like a moment from my wife and I was like, oh, snap. Yeah, we don't want to be at this. We rely on someone else, someone we don't even know, to feed ourselves, to feed our family, right Like. We did not like that realization of dependency. And so my wife actually pitched it to me. She was like, can you think we could raise a pig? And I was like, sure, yes, I'll start looking at it. I was like, well, you don't get just one pig, you know, we got to get a buddy for it. So I got two pigs. And then uh. I took another job at the time because I was starting to get this little, you know, idea of a farm, and I wanted to be home more. And it's I want to say this, like when I left that first job, it was the first time that I made the conscious decision to walk away from like material gains, you know what I mean, a promotion or a raise, and pursue instead happiness, you know what I mean, to be corny. And I took that other job. I made less money, but you know, I was going to have a little bit more freedom in my life. Didn't like that job. Took a third job, now on point nine miles away from home, making less money than I ever had, you know, even in the army. But I'm home a lot more. I'm less than a mile from home. On lunch, I could run home and you know, do something. And things start really evolving a lot quicker, you know what I mean. We start putting pictures of these pigs on Facebook, and you know, the communities reaching out like, oh, are you going to sell sausage? Or can I buy half a pig? So we buy a few more pigs, and it's just like more pressure, and especially during that time, you know, there's a lot of demand for local source meat wish that would come back, but so we just kept leaning into it. You know, we had never been business owners or entrepreneurs. This was our first venture into that realm, right, but it was just obvious pressure, market pressure for that type of thing. So we just kept doing more and more and more and more. I sold my boat to buy my first big group of pigs. Big group. It was twenty pigs, but it seemed like. A lot of a lot of pigs. And you know, the first year we raised like and sold like I forget how many, maybe like twenty some pigs. The second year was like fifty pigs. The third year was one hundred pigs, and you know we were set to do like, well, this year we've done like close to one hundred and fifty or so that you've raised it, right, and but we kind of this year, like I said, was really transformational for the farm and our family because we decided to kind of shift gears as far as the pig operation goes, and focus more on producing piglets than pork. But you know, all those steps just just led to a higher level of living, essentially, a higher level of fulfillment for me. Until we've gotten to this point. So you're investing in you instead of somebody else's. Yeah. Yeah, Like I say, my hobbies, man, all my hobbies are business related, so I don't even know if they're really hobbies. You know what I'm saying. I don't fish anymore. I kept my fishing. Poles, but just in case, Yeah, just in case I have a friend that wants to ask me to go fishing, you know. Give a shout Outah, yeah, I'll trade you a pack of this amazing sausage for a day on the boat. Yeah, when it's stripper season, when the striper running up from Kerr Lake up the Stanton River. We live like a few minutes from the Stanton River. Yeah, I'll put that offer out there. I'm like, bro, I got twenty pounds of sausage for somebody that wants to. Take the anybody. Yeah, and it works. But yeah, so you get into the you get into the rhythm of having your own business. You're seeing it grow. So like on the pork thing, I think that's what people miss is Like what you talked about is talk about the gap between what you saw at the supermarket at Walmart. So's how old I am the supermarket. But no, you go to SAMs. You get a piece of meat and you're like, Okay, this is I don't think about any of how this came from or anything else. Talk about how that goes to the point of like you're producing your I mean one hundred and fifty pigs going out the door. That's a significant number. How do you transition that and how do you make the end product that you're putting out better? Well? I think about the food like this, When you are buying food from someone and you're putting that food in your body, in your mouth. Is there anything more intimate than that? You know what I mean? No, I agree, And how the majority of this country buys food. They don't think about any of that, imply right, they're. Just oh, well it says USDA approved, the government said it's good. Whatever. I just trust it. And that's the key word is trust. We have that blind trust in what bro like nothing. Essentially, you're just hoping it works out. You don't know anything about that food, and so when you start thinking about it, it's hard to like not think about it, right, Like, think about the hands, the actual hands handling that meat on its way to that package in Walmart. You know what I mean, where did it come from? How many different hands did it? You know, where did the cow come from? Was it killed in Argentina and then shipped here? Was that cooler? Actually cool the whole way? You know, all these different things? What was sprayed on it? Like, because they spray chemical sanitizers on carcasses to keep them from molding during those transportation you know type situations. So I have a friend who runs a company called the Regenaissance and he says it best. He's like, yes, you should make it your goal to be able to shake the hand that feeds you, and that that should be the goal when you sit down and eat, Man, look at that food, do you know where it came from? Do you know who raised it? Do you have that level of trust? And if you don't, I think you should at least start thinking. About it. Until the point you know we've gotten to now like we I love that I can feed my family, my wife and my two sons, now meat that we know absolutely everything about you know, there is no question, there is no doubt. And if I can't raise it at this point, I know another man that does and we get it from him. Bro. If we if we go out to eat, which is a rare to eat one because we don't have much money, but too we don't have the time. It's not worth it, it's not it's not you know, and you have to kind of just swallow that golf ball and like, we know what we're doing here, but we're just trying to have a good time, you know what I mean? Oh, I agree, And. We're mainly out for the service and experience you know nowadays, but. Just sitting at a different table really, that's all it is. Because I think when you look at the level of service you get when you go out to eat, the quality of what you're getting on your plate, it's a toss up. Yeah, yeah, it really is. And then all the things that put in our foods these days, it's just absolutely crazy. So what do you know of all the like when you did your research on what you were going to do, Like and you know, we talked earlier about Bobby Kennedy and what he's doing, you know, Robert Kennedy, but what he's doing as far as food, you know, trying to make America healthier. What what do you see as a farmer needs to be done to make America healthier? I think local farmers need to be supported about one hundred percent more than they are now by governments and by these, uh, these bureaucratic agencies. You know, Triple Oaks farm is a is a private membership association. And one reason we privatized our business is to distribute raw milk. But we had to find that and educate ourselves about that avenue. And another way that people distribute raw milk is her shares. That's another avenue. But my point is farmers should not have to figure out these ways to work around regulations. The regulations, the statutes, the laws should be in place to support those farmers, you know what I mean. Yeah, I think what people lose is it is a government by the people for the people, not a government that kind of reverses that role. It tells people what they're supposed to do. I understand you have rules and regulations, but what you're saying is one hundred percent correct, is like these people are providing a service, they're local support what they do unless they do some crazy But like I think, like what you said as far as what what are you actually getting on the table when you go to a big chain, you know it's probably not gonna be pure like what you're raising. No, Like when you go to food line or wherever and you buy a pack of Jimmy Dean's sausage, you are supporting a pork industry that raises. Hogs in hog houses is what they're called. These pigs live on concrete, slatted concrete, meaning there's grooves in. The floor to get all the waste out. Yeah, when those pigs poop on that floor, their feet will push it through the gaps. They don't see sunshine because they're in a warehouse. They don't get fresh air. Air has to be piped in, especially in the summertime to keep them from getting too hot or you know, they don't get to root, you know, in expression get the natural ability which pigs do, you are getting you know it's not grown in a lab, but it might as well be. It is a sterilized environment. They do have to sterilize those those hoghouses in between batches of pigs, because these pigs will get sick from just about anything because they've just been bred to be like this fast growing, you know, also really lean pig that only thrives in that type of environment. If you take if you take a hoghouse pig, one of those big pink pigs, and put it out and put it out in the woods. Bro he would last three weeks, maybe he would die. That's what you're getting. You're getting that you don't know. And of course you know when you're buying that that sausage, you don't know what that pig was fed. You know. I don't know if you've seen the videos, but they literally will take bread from these big what do you call them bakeries that has expired, and they won't even bother to take the bread out of the plastic packaging. They grind it all up and the pigs eat it. And you want to talk about microplastics. I'm just on top of just not healthy for the for the animal. At best, they're feeding it a conventional you know, genetically modified covered and pesticide grain feed. You know what I mean, that's what you're getting. You need to think about that when you buy that at the at the store. That animal lives under stress its entire life. Specifically, that's why they rip their teeth out. They call it clipping teeth. As piglets. They piglets have these little sharp needle teeth. They clip them out because when pigs, when any animal is under stressed, they start fighting one another. They dock their tails, which means cut their tail off, because when they're under stressed, pigs will bite each other's tails, they'll start fighting, right. They do that because they're putting them in this tight, crazy, high stress environment. Joel Salaton puts it like this. You and I can go to like say, a Virginia Tech football game in the stadium, packed full of people, right, and you can be shouldered or shoulder with thousands and thousands of people, and you'll probably be pretty stressed. Especially if you come from the military. Your anxiety is probably going to be elevated. And you could do that for a few hours, you know, once a week, maybe once a month or whatever, not for your entire life, right, you know, think about if you had to live in that stadium with that many people, what would the bathroom situation look like, what would the food situation look like? What would your overall health be like? Well, that's what we are subjecting these animals to live in that type of environment. So when you support a local farm that's doing it, you know, you don't even have to raise pigs the way that we do. But the way that we do it. These pigs live in the woods and pastures depending on the. Time of season. They're fed a non genetically modified feed that is pesticide free tested for that they eat acorn, like right now it's acorn season. Bro, My sALS got out the other day. My fault. I scared them accidentally. And I only keep a man with like one little thing, single strand of electric fence, right, so if they want to, they can get out. And it's the worst time for them to get out because the ground is covered in delicious pig food. You know, there's chestnut oak acorns, white oak acorns, red oak acorns, and they thrive on that stuff. They're getting all the vitamin D from the sunlight, man, which it literally changes the nutritional value of that pork the sunlight alone, not to mention the added food stuff. So that added forge, the high quality feed that we feed them, the exercise that the pigs get when pigs are in like these. Hog houses, man, they're like I said, they're packed in there. They can't go anywhere, you know, they're just walking like you would in a jail cell. Back from one. My pigs are running hills, right now like they're athletes. Now, sure there's drawbacks to that, it's from a production standpoint, it takes. Well. And then also those pigs and hoghouses are breeds of pigs that grow really fast. Right, we raise what's called heritage breed pigs, old line, old genetic pigs. They grow slower, but they put on more fat. Right, And it adds to the to the length of production time that exercise extends that you know that production time too. So that is a production So from the time you have a piglet till the time you slaughter them, how long does that easily take? So in a hoghouse situation, you're looking at like four to six months. Typically for us, we're eight to twelve months, depending on the size of the pigs. Some I might have a few pigs that. Over achievers, yeah, but they're just studs. And then some need a little bit more time. And when we have the freedom to do that to give that to him. So you're not on a timetable like they are in the slaugh rouse. No, like you're just like, okay, he's not ready. Yeah, we'll wait, Yeah, we we wait till that animal is ready. And honestly, the more time. The whole name of the meat production game is get that animal from point A to point b uh, meaning a young animal to a finished, butcher ready sized animal as fast as possible. Right. And but what we've learned in the in this farming business, in this meat business, is there is no substitution, There is no replacement for that time. The more time that animal is alive, the higher quality that meat is. And when when I first started this farm, I thought like I was under the impression that, you know, like an old cow, for instance, would be you know, old tough beef. You know, it's the opposite. Bro. The best steak I've ever had in my life came from a seven year old Holstein cow, you know what I mean? Because that to get like a high level of marbling or intermuscular fat IMF percentage is what they call that they need time. Some of the best pork shops we sell come from cells that we call three year old, four year old cells. Again, I thought it would be that I was like, man, these pork shops will be tough. And then when you've been into that first one, you're like, wait a minute. And I had a mentor tell me that before and He was like, you know, it should be your breeding animals. You're breeding stocks should be the most well taken care of animal on the farm. You know they've been getting. Really you know, a high level of nutrition and care of their whole entire life. And again that time just raises that I am f that marbling and that meat. It's phenomenal, man. The flavor is no comparison. Bro Port butt from Usal is just phenomenal. Now I won't I won't sell Old Boy because that's a different story, right, you know, he's got a different, different thing going on as far as hormones. But yeah, dude, that there's no replacement for time in the meat production game. And then the industrialized UH meat business and the commercial you know, centralized animal feed operation business KFO farms they call them. The whole thing is from point A to point B as fast as possible. And it's so for you, what do you think UH works best for you? As far as for people that are interested in, you know, buying local, how do they go about doing that? There's several ways. You know, we're not involved in any farmers markets, but that's a good way to go out there and get to know some farmers in your area, you know, you can just google it. Honestly, most people have websites these days. You know, Triple Oaks Farm pm A has a website you can like. If people are looking for raw milk, there's another website called realmilk dot com. You know, you just go in there and put in your zip code and it'll if people are registered, it'll it'll bring it up in their area. It's fairly easy. I mean, it's twenty twenty five. You can if you want it, you can find it. So for you, as far as on your business model and things like that, what works well for you, as far as bringing more people in with the association that you. Have, well, what's been working the best is just social media. You know, we we put our story out there. You know, we are constantly posting videos, pictures of the farm, the operations of the farm, giving our members that transparency that we personally want in our food. We provide them because you know, first and foremost we're feeding our family, you know. And then from there, you're not giving people stuff you wouldn't need yourself. Absolutely not, absolutely not. So it's not like, hey, I'm gonna like cut a corner here. On this off on the cousin. No, that's it's just the opposite. No, when I talk about that trust, like you're you're putting something in your mouth, you're giving something to your children. You have to trust me, and I know I have their trust and I would never do anything to violate that trust. Man. Uh No, it's it's it's of the upmoons sense. So talk about talk about what the association is and why you started it. Like, yeah, so you know Triple Ox Farm we started, uh, you know, you don't know what you don't know in the beginning, and you got everybody telling you good advice. Yeah. Right, So we were like an LLC in the beginning. We had our business license, you know all this stuff, and bro, I just need to some of the best advice I can give young farmers out there is don't do that. Don't LLC your business. Don't have that business license because what we learned is like any permits, any licenses you have at the state with the government regulating, they are contracts. You are signing away your rights. For instance, we used to sell raw milk as pet food and we did it and we because we wanted to sell raw milk and retail stores. You know, I was trying to figure out how to move more milk, and that seemed like, you know, the only way to get it into a retail store is to sell it as pet food, which required a livestock feed license, okay, which is really easy to obtain. But what we found out the hard way is when you sign those licenses, you might as well kiss your Fourth Amendment rights to private property away because you are giving them access to your farm any twenty four seven three sixty five. They can show up whenever they want for absolutely no reason. Do you want that with your home? No, with your family as the provider and protector of your family. Is that what you want? Absolutely not, So don't do any permits. So that's how we started, you know, we we did it, you know, their way. You know, with what the state. Recommendation. Yeah, yeah, And that's only one way, right, there's nine ways to skin this cat. I call it, you know, coloring inside their lines, which is what they want they be in the government. They want you in their compliance. So we when we started distributing milk, it was under a herd share program where people would sign this contract basically purchasing interest in the herd, so they are part owner of a cow or the herd, however you have it worded. And then instead of since raw milk is illegal to sell in Virginia for human consumption, they are no longer buying a good, but paying for a service because they own the cow. So they're paying us a service fee to milk and board their cow. It's that silly, and that's how we began. But we really didn't like that model for several reasons, but one being that, you know a lot of people that's like a subscription based model her shair thing. You know, people are getting a gallon of milk, you know, every week or every other week, or multiple gallons a week, and they're paying for it up front every month. And a lot of people don't like that commitment. I get it. They don't want to be, you know, involved in any of a subscription model. And we had folks that just wanted to come to the farm and buy a gallon of milk freely on a on a like a retail basis, and we're like, well, how do we handle this customer? You know, we don't want to just say no to this sale. So we started researching and trying to figure it out, and that's when I first heard from Joel Salton what a private membership association was. Essentially, to summarize a PMA, it is under our constitution, under specifically the First Amendment, we have the right to freely assemble, privately associate, and privately contract. That is what a PMA is protected by Amus Miller in Pennsylvania, you know, pretty famous Amish guy been under attack from his local government for years now, runs a PMA. I called him during that time. I was like, hey, bro, what's a you know, like, how does this look boots on the ground like I have? And I just basically puked all my morals and values and you know, hatred of the current industry and regulatory system that we were in. And he was like yeah, and it's like, what do you call like that German kind of accent whatever. He's like, yeah, yeah, that German Dutch accent. And he's like, yeah, sounds like we pretty much are on the same page. And he gave me a little bit of coaching and put us in contact with the group that he worked with, and we started dissolving these these contracts, these permits with the state. And again, like once you start going down this road, you start realizing and learning more and more things and wanting to separate yourself more and more from the government, and it just, you know, it just kept evolving until we were we made the full commitment to go all the way into the private realm of commerce, and everything that we do now is under private contract where our members pay a membership fee, and once they're in our private association, they have access to locally raised, nutrient dense food that they can trust, raw milk being one of them. That's really cool. So you recently had a had had somebody come see you about regulatory issues, and how did that go? Yeah, So we, I think it was in July we got my first and my wife's first ever. Subpoena summons. We got served, as they say, you've been served. Yeah, and that's what he said too. Is I thought it was just to use something you saw on TV, you. Know, but no, he said it, Uh you know, is this uh this Campbell County deputy came down our driveway and gave us this fat stack of paperwork and I was like. What in the world is going on? You know? And sure enough it was. It was a summons to a court hearing on behalf of the Virginia Department of Health. Uh, the plaintiff was the commissioner of the Virginia Department Health. Her name is Karen Shelton. She was accusing my family of unlawfully selling raw milk to the public and called my family a threat to public health. And but this was not because you got to complain about something you sold or anything else. This was strictly Yeah, that's a great point. Thanks, thanks for bringing that up. Yeah, we've never had a complaint about raw milk, you know. So one like you went to a restaurant and a bunch of people got sick, and they said, hey, this is the this is the problem. Yeah, this was just hey, you've come to realize this. And so they never cited a particular incident. They just said the fact that you did this was a. They just hate that we talk about it openly, you know, raw milk, and that we're a PMA, you know, each summons file or paperwork. You know. There was three packs and we posted a picture of this on our Facebook and Instagram and stuff. My wife got one personally, I got one personally, and the farm got one personally. So they were really trying to cover their bases, you know what I mean. But I think there was only six or seven pages of writing. The rest of it was screenshots from my website and Facebook, so that's all. Yeah, there was no complaint. So their case was basically your social media, Yeah, about your association. Yeah, they're like, oh, they were completely disregarding PMA's private membership associations as a lawful entity, as a constitution protected and Supreme Court upheld right, And like I said, these are First Amendment rights, and we do believe in the Constitution. You know, you and I swore an oath to defend this constitution, fought to protect that Constitution whether you went to war or not. When you signed that contract, Bro, you're essentially saying, I'm willing to die to protect this Constitution, to protect these these God given rights. And now I'm home and I have this bureaucrat telling me in writing that my belief in this is erroneous and misguided. In I mean she said that in writing. So she was appointed I would guess by the governor. Yeah, she was appointed in twenty twenty three by Governor Younkin. What's her history as far as public health? A medical she comes from. She comes from Bristol, Virginia, where she specialized as a as a gun. Of Okay, all right, yeah, so that doesn't have a whole lot to do with farms or food or health or anything. So when you talk to different people that have farms, what are what do they tell you that do they go like, welcome to our world or what is is it? It almost like when I listened to all the different discussions about farming and everything else, and I listened to some of the regulations, and I listened to the fact of like I've heard stories of like you can't grow this now because we have too much of it, or you can't sell it locally, or you can't do this. So like and you mentioned this earlier, like regulations are not realistically for public health. A lot of times it is more along the lines of like we want to tell you where what you have you have invested your time, effort, and resources in, We're going to regulate how that is dispersed. Yeah, it's it's it's not this has and this goes for all food. It has absolutely nothing to do with food safety and everything to do with control. Okay, all they want to do is control the local food producers, because ultimately, if you can control the food, you will control the people. Like you mentioned toilet paper going short, imagine when food goes short, right, Well, all of a sudden, all those assets that we have running around on our private land are real, true assets in currency, you know what I mean. We can we can barter and trade in that currency. We can support our community and keep our community alive with that currency. Which only makes sense especially with you know, with everything that goes on in the world. I think about what they talk about with China as far as control and all the you know, for what they're trying to do with Taiwan with the chips, you know, the chips that go in computers and cars and everything else, and like what if everything shuts down and we are so dependent on computers to get resources here It's not like it's not like there is a warehouse full of stuff within a certain distance of where you're at, and it certainly isn't sustainable if you lose electricity. Those things, the assets that you have run around on your farm, you can determine when the best time to put them into the food, you know, into food production as opposed to Okay, we're gonna let them continue to grow. Yeah, So that, I mean, COVID should have taught everyone a valuable lesson on how dependent we are on other people for lots of things, you know, pharmaceuticals being one of them. Food, I mean, you name it, you probably saw a shortage of it during that time. But man, so many people just went right back to that complacence. I think it just it's just almost like that it didn't happen, Like COVID never happened. Like the fact that like one of the things that I always hang up on is is they talk it's talking points Fentanhel's killing all these people, which it adds is it's one hundred percent is but how many people died from COVID? And we have never truly had a conversation about like how how it got here? You know what I'm saying. Yeah, for some of this, I'm getting a little thirsty. All right, So what's the difference between this milk and any other milk? All right? So when people say raw milk, right, you shouldn't call it raw milk because when you go to the store and buy you know, ground beef, you don't call it, you know, raw beef or raw chicken. You just call it what it is, beef for chicken. Hey, this is this is just milk, you know, but it's kind of catchy, you know, raw milk, so it sounds good. Yeah. Raw milk is unpasteurized, unhomog non homogenized milk, natural milk. Like you said, like flavored milk. Yeah, like strawberry milk, you know, I. Mean like it actually has flavor. It doesn't. Yeah, it's not like creamy water. Uh yeah, because the depth of the taste of that. My wife's gonna give me a hard time for talking about depth of flavor. I do watch some cooking shows full disclosure, but like it is, it's it's it's not just drinking something just to drink it. Yeah, you can actually taste the depth of and just it tastes a whole lot better. Yeah. To me, it tastes kind of like melted ice cream. I mean this the milk that we offer our private members comes from Jersey A two A two cows. You know, Jersey cows produce a high butterfat content milk. They don't produce as much milk as like a big holesting that's your big black and white you know classic look at. Jersey cows are the like tan, they're like brown, like brown. Yeah, the ones everybody think are so proty. Yeah, it's super cute, very friendly, smaller framed cow, very docile cow. Chill cows. Yeah, we take. Kids homeschool tours to see them, you know what I mean, The kids love them, especially the casts. I mean, the caps will be sucking on your hand, you know. But so you know what unpasteurized and non homogenized means is. You know, store balled milk has been pasteurized, which means cooked. They take it up to you know, there's varying types of pasteurization, but they'll take it up typically to about one hundred and eighty degrees for a period of time, cooking that product eliminating all the nutrients, good bacteria, and potentially bad bacteria, which is what they justify. Well, if there's anything bad in that milk, you know, we'll kill it. And the homogenization process, which is often done at the same time, is putting that milk under pressure, which destroys the cell walls of the fat and that keeps the cream from separating in the milk. So with with with raw milk, if it's been sitting there for like a day. You'll be able to see that cream at the top and then that skim milk. Just shake it back up and get go. Yeah, that's why you gotta shake raw milk up. If you don't shake it, you're getting excuse me, just cream. And then my wife and I all the time, Uh, well, oh my god, you're like, I know you drank the good stuff. Yeah, we'll accuse each other of us cream stealing. Like, I see you not shaking that milk up. But I didn't know that. Man. I grew up on pasteurized skim milk. And like when we first started getting this milk. Uh, I just reached in the fridge, grabbed it and turned it up and I was like, my god, that was a thick, a thick. Swam that that was good milk. But it was Dude. The cream is the best, dude. Uh, put that in your coffee or make whipped cream with it, whatever you want to do, butter Uh, it is the absolute best. If the fat is where the money is in milk, that's the gold. But let me and I have my boys weird enough. They all have peanut allergies, and I really do believe there is something to be said for what we feed our kids and whether they have outgies or not, because I think if you have locally grown food and milk and things like that, like I feel like you get because I mean the proof is if you have natural honey, like I'll take that, I'll take a swallow that a day, and that my allergies are like totally different. Yeah, because you have all the components and it's I think people sometimes think, well, we're making it safer. No, we're just we're building it for mass production. Yeah. Yeah. And the peanut allergy thing, you know they what do they tell us, like, don't give your kids peanuts before they're a certain age. Well, when they're a young kid, that's when they're developing immunities to all these things. Right, so we say give them peanut butter, give them nuts, you know, give them that raw honey, that raw milk, and let their bodies develop, you know, everything to to turn into a really healthy, hard to kill individual if you will, you know what I mean. And raw milk is one of those products, just like raw honey. You know, we have. Moms that tell me all the time, Uh, my kid has psoriasis is one thing I hear, you know, skin issues, and. They love milk. But when I give my children pasteurized milk, there's psoriasis blows up and it gets terrible. And you know, they then they found raw milk and they not only does it taste great, you know, to them, but like their kids love it and their satis and so they can have this product. And I had this woman, Oh my goodness, let me tell you this story. This other farm used to distribute raw milk to this particular family and then they stopped. And this one, this was the story. This woman and her kid that hassoriasis. They stopped distributing raw milk for whatever reason. Uh, and her kids asking her for milk, like I want some milk, Give me some milk. So she goes to the store and she said, I had to buy this her words, junk milk, and I gave it to my kid. And now he's, you know, his skin is a mess, he's itching, he's uncomfortable, he's can't sleep. And she calls me. She's telling all this to me on the phone when she finally found us, and she's I can tell she's in tears because she felt guilty for what she was doing, but she was trying to give her kid what her kid wanted, and she was so thankful to find someone offering unpasteurized milk so that she can then feed her children, you know, the food that they want, and know that it's healthy and nutritious, and then her child not have those flare ups, you know, not have those negative health impacts. We've got. I mean dozens of people that have come to us and said like, oh, I'm lactose intolerant, and then they'll try raw milk and like, oh wait a second, all right, I'm actually just pasteurized milk intolerant because when you cook that milk, you destroy an enzyme called lack taste, which your body needs to properly digest lactase. So when you're drinking pasteurized cooked milk, you don't have it. So your body doesn't know exactly what to do with this incomplete products. But when you put this complete, unadulterated natural product in your body, all of a sudden, everything starts working better. I got an email this morning from a guy who was like, I just feel better after having this first glass, and he was going on and on about how thankful he was for us offering this product. So you could say, man, it's more than just food. It's more than just milk, and so this is a medicine for people. You know, people thrive on this food, especially raw milk. Man. It's so I think about and this is probably a good way to end it. Like for me, I feel like somebody that has taken the time served their country and the jobs that you had that kind of served you from a standpoint of like financial security and things like that, you never got any satisfaction from, right, But now here you are providing people the opportunity and serving them in a way that works well for your family, works well for other people. And I'm sorry that the government is the way they are, but I well, first of all, joyed my glass of melt. But aside from that, I appreciate the fact that number one, for your service to our country, but also the service to our community by giving them good, healthy food. Well, thank you for that. And we certainly saw that and we were incredibly humbled by that community and our members and supporters during this whole you know, court case scenario being pursued by the Department of Health, because we put that information out to the public and it was a tremendous outcry. People were fired up about, you know, their right to choose this food being endangered by someone who has nothing to do with with that food or their family. You know, one is not affected by you being removed from that process exactly. Like they just viewed it, and they being you know, the bureaucracy of the Department of Health and that unelected official. They just viewed it as, Oh, we're just shutting down this one guy, right. They don't think about the thousands of people and family members that their neg negatively impacting by making that decision. These people are consenting adults, like are you a parent now you have children? Okay, you as a husband have the right to choose, the god given right to choose where and how you buy food, how you feed that family. I believe in that right. And for someone just to come out and say, no, you don't, We're going to tell you what you can and cannot buy, how you feed your family, I think is a tremendous violation, degradation of our god given constitutionally protected rights. Man. But we saw that support from the community man during this time, and ultimately I think it's what created the enough pressure on those people to drop the case before the pre trial hearing. Well, that's awesome and I appreciate what you do. I appreciate you coming on and educating me and hopefully a lot of other people. And appreciate what you do. And thanks for having you all right, brother, Thanks
