Welcome to the Grazing Grass Podcast Episode 106.
Your network is your net worth. Who you surround yourself with is who you become.
You're listening to the Grazing Grass Podcast, sharing information and stories of grass based livestock production utilizing regenerative practices. I'm your host, Cal Hardage.
You're growing more than grass. You're growing a healthier ecosystem to help your cattle thrive in their environment. You're growing your livelihood by increasing your carrying capacity and reducing your operating costs. You're growing stronger communities and a legacy to last generations. The grazing management decisions you make today. impact everything from the soil beneath your feet to the community all around you.
That's why the Noble Research Institute created their Essentials of Regenerative Grazing course to teach ranchers like you easy to follow techniques to quickly assess your forage production and infrastructure capacity. In order to begin grazing more efficiently. Together, they can help you grow not only a healthier operation, but a legacy that lasts. Learn more on their website at noble. org slash grazing. It's n o b l e dot org forward slash grazing.
On today's show we have Rachelle Meyer of Wholesome Family Farms. And if that sounds familiar to you, it's because on episode 91, we had her husband Jordan on. Jordan talked about their farm, their operation, their journey. We asked Rachelle to come on and share more about her side of the journey, as well as marketing to the consumer, and time management. It's a really good episode, and I know those two topics you may at first be like, Hmm, I want to talk about grazing animals.
Those two topics are so very important for farmers, so I encourage you to listen. It's a really good episode. I've already taken stuff from it and applied it in my personal life, so I think you'll really like it. And before we get to Rachelle, 10 seconds about my farm. On my farm, grass is growing not as quickly as I want, but it is growing. Getting a little bit of rain, we could have more. I'm having a few calves born to cows that I purchased. The rest of the cows should calve in May.
and the sheep should, should lamb in May. So getting ready to really pick up on that. Last week we celebrated 1, 000 members in the grazing grass community on Facebook, which is very exciting and Levi won a free book for being our thousandth member. It is just continuing to grow. I think already today I've approved like 20 new members. Loving the conversation and what's going on over there. Enough about my farm and the podcast. Let's talk to Rachelle.
Rachelle, we want to welcome you to the Grazing Grass Podcast. We're excited you're here today.
Yeah. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
So today's episode is just a little bit different because just a few episodes ago, Your husband was on, Jordan was on episode 91. Now we have you on to talk about your part and we'll go further there. So to get started, Rochelle, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your operation?
Yeah. So I farm with my husband, Jordan, and our seven kids in Southeast Minnesota. We're what's called the driftless area. And we have what I like to call a regenerative kind of conventional dairy. And then we direct market raw milk, grass fed beef, pastured pork, pastured poultry. And then we also have a grazing enterprise where we graze goats. And then we also just actually got sheep. So they're new to the farm and that's in a nutshell, what we farm.
And we really focus on, just soil health and being able to raise our kids on a farm. And just really enjoying nature and doing all the things.
Just that list of items you all have going on immediately. How do you get to it all? But we're going to talk about that a little bit later. And before we get there, did you grow up on a farm? Has this always been a dream of yours? Oh,
No, I did not grow up farming. I actually grew up in the country, so I grew up on a farm. My dad died when I was seven. He did have beef cows, but I really don't remember that part of my life. And then my mom turned our entire 360 acre farm into CRP. And then back in, I believe it was 2019, she had rented that farm out to a neighboring farmer. And then that's when Jordan and I, looked at that farm and we were like, Ugh, we need to switch this farm over.
And so then we turned that farm into grass. But backing up a little bit Jordan and I went to the same high school. We met, I was 14, he was 15. And I just started coming out here and I just fell in love with farming. Truly, I really did. And I just knew this is where I wanted to raise my kids. This is where I wanted to raise a family. I wanted to give my kids the same lifestyle Jordan had growing up. And so then we just started down the regenerative path together.
And that's how we ended up here.
When you all met he, they were doing conventional dairying and as well as some other things And you mentioned there that you all got Interested or introduced to the regenerative side and started going down that path Tell us about that journey when you started or what caused you to be interested in it and how you learned more
Yeah, so most people don't know this about me, but I am actually a retired nurse at my young age. I went to college for nursing, and when I was a nurse, I had met an older gentleman at the nursing home. And we had just chatted and he's I would really love it if you and your husband would run my farm. And so it was just a really good opportunity that farm hadn't been sprayed in years. And we could jump right into organic row crops. So we started rentering that farm with his brother.
And Jordan was just listening to a lot of YouTube videos at the time. And so we started with the organic row crops. We're doing, some no till and planting cover crops and, rotating with some small grains and stuff like that. And then we actually went to a soil health summit in North Dakota. And this was back in 2018, the fall of 2018. So we had been, organic row cropping for three years now. And we listened to Gabe Brown and Jay Fuhrer and I think Christine Nichols was there.
It was just a lot of really good soil health speakers. yeah. And we just left that no joke. We left that just buzzing the whole car ride home, Jordan. I just talked about what we were going to do immediately. Things we were going to change, how like our farm could just. Really start working with us because we were struggling on the organic row crop side with just the weeds, you know The weed issues and the cultivating which we didn't want to be doing and so we were like we're getting pigs.
We're getting chickens We're getting turkeys. We're getting cows and we did
Did you do that immediately or do you ease into it
we went in like whole hog We a month later. We got our first six beef cows And and then that following spring, we got chickens, we got the laying hens, the baby chicks, we got meat birds, we got baby turkeys. We started with just four pastured pigs. And so we just did it all just because we knew how the diversity could change our soil the fastest. And we're like, we're just going to do it all. That farm that we were renting had no fencing our home farm. So we used a little bit of the pasture.
There had no fencing. So we were literally starting from scratch.
Oh yes, yeah. So did you get, did Jordan go out and work on the infrastructure? Did you go out and work with him?
I helped Jordan quite a bit. At the time we only had four kids. And so it was a little more to manage. I would honestly say Jordan did a lot of the grunt work. He was out fencing. Through dark with a headlamp on, he was getting up early, doing all the things. I primarily was like taking care of, the chickens, the baby chicks, raising them up, just doing the tasks I could bring the kids with. More of the fencing was his end and building the actual infrastructure, stuff.
And so it was a team affair. When you have kids and you're farming, it has to be.
It does, yeah. And it, it's so beneficial to, that you're both working together with the same goal in mind. And we did talk to Jordan about getting that infrastructure going and getting set up and getting started. But one thing that we may not have covered too much with was The marketing side, how did you all, did you start that and think, oh, we're immediately going to start selling to the consumer, or did that come later?
We came into the raising of all the pigs, chickens turkeys, knowing we were going to market direct to consumer. And then our end goal was having some finished grass fed beef. And I started our marketing business with the end goal of beef in mind. We wanted that to be like our signature product, but knew that was going to be a couple years down the road. So we figured it was easy to just try and market four pigs. I think we just started with 50 meat birds.
We knew if we started small, we could build that foundation that you need.
y'all got the chickens and you're thinking, oh, we're going, chickens and pigs, etc. were going direct to consumer. Did you start immediately Working on or cultivating that market or was that something you waited till you had product in hand before you did?
So we started, I think just before the meat birds were ready, we were just we have 50 meat birds. If we don't sell them all, we could eat through them. And so I just was like, I just reached out to the local community. I think we started with maybe 12 turkeys. And so I was like, Hey, I just put a post on Facebook. We just started Wholesome Family Farms. This is what we're doing. Would anybody be interested in it? And I think I sold all 50 chickens. We sold, all 12 of our turkeys were sold.
So I think starting with that small number really helped and it helped give us a little bit of a pat on the back Oh, you can do this.
right. Yes. Yeah, how did that go for you? You got the pasture poultry going the turkey and you got them sold. Did you get really good feedback initially?
Yeah, a lot of people just couldn't believe, the flavor, honestly, that's what a lot of it was. They just couldn't believe the difference in taste. And then I had been studying marketing a little bit. I started researching and just learning a few things because I knew I wanted to build a website and have a more of a consistent customer base. So I just learned the power of relationship building.
And so I, every customer that bought a chicken, You know, they got a recipe on how to cook a whole chicken. So it was just. Little things that we were doing to build that long standing relationship. And I think that's what helped us going forward as well.
And I've noticed that looking at your website, you've got it where they can sign up and get a free recipe, and then I assume you're emailing your list every so
Yeah, they get a weekly email list actually. So every single week, yep, every week it's just a relationship building email. Sometimes I'm selling something and it's just like recipes. Tips and tricks, family life what it's like being a mom. It's basically all things that Jordan and I are interested in that our customers would also be interested in. And I always say that relationships build trust and trust builds that's your sales.
So if you can really focus on building that strong relationship in the beginning, sales will just be a lot more natural and a lot more easy for you.
On the email list, and you're sending that out each week, and it's tips and recipes and just keeping people in touch with that, just continuing and building that relationship. I know for example, on the grazing grass podcast, we have an email list that I don't do a very good job of. I'll be the first to admit of that. But I know for me, I don't get a lot of people opening it. Do you see a lot of success with people opening
I have. This is actually it is a very good open rate. I have on average a 70 percent open rate and my list is almost six, almost 600.
Oh, yes. My, my thoughts on that, and this is me and my thoughts, but you're doing it consistently. You're building that relationship. And just like everything we talk about, relationship makes a huge difference. And that's something I haven't done on the grazing grass email list. I need to work better on.
Yeah, honestly, I could probably tell you it's the consistency. I send out a Sunday email and my customers are waiting for that Sunday email. If I don't send it on Monday or Sunday, I'm getting emails by Monday. I'm waiting for your recipe or how, I'm getting emails. How's it going? So it's the consistency and then providing the valuable content. I'm sure for you, everybody's getting what they need by listening to your podcast episode.
It'd be just your people that are missing an episode here or there, that email would help remind them, Hey, I always release a podcast on Thursdays. Go check it out.
Yeah. Now, when you think about Your email list and them getting it. How are you? Are you building that email throughout the week or do you just sit down and type it out on Sunday and
Yep. So actually, I am a week ahead of time, if that makes sense. I find that. In case life happens, because I don't know when my kids are going to get sick. I don't know.
yeah.
Something is going to happen. So I find that if I'm a little more prepared, it helps. It's good for me. So I usually write it out the Sunday before I pre schedule it. And then if anything changes, we're like our farm store hours are changed for the week or whatever else it might be, then I just quick, we'll go in and update it, but otherwise I'm writing them a week in advance. I sit down for, it only takes me about 45 minutes now to knock out an email and schedule it.
And so I just sit down on the same days every week, every Monday, I'm writing emails in my blog posts and I just crank them out that way.
Oh, very good. And I, I totally, you've got to have that lead time in there because you don't know what life's going to throw at you. And with you all, with so much going on and all your kids, your schedule could be turned upside down pretty quickly.
Yeah, and I have learned that over time, you have to, I never used to do this, but I actually allow margin time in my schedule. So Fridays, personally for me and the business side, the marketing side, meeting with customers, I schedule Fridays off. And I do that because I know Jordan's probably going to need my help with some extra tasks that it takes two people throughout the week where I might not be able to write my blog post or whatever that might be.
We also homeschool, so I know that somewhere the schedules are going to get changed. So if I just block Friday off and schedule nothing, I can catch up on the tasks that I had scheduled at the beginning of the week. And still not, fall behind.
Yeah. And you mentioned there about blog posts, so you're doing blog each week
Those are usually monthly,
Oh, monthly. Okay. Let's talk about your direct marketing a little bit more and how you go about that. You are doing weekly emails, you're doing your blog posts, you've got your website where it's gathering emails. Is that the extent of your direct marketing, or do you do other stuff as well?
Yeah, so we also do a farmer's market and we are at the farmer's market every Saturday May through October And so that's another way that we've been able to expand our reach a little bit
What do you find is the benefit of the farmer's market?
Yeah, honestly our primary goal for the farmer's market is to Like my number one thing is serving customers and just getting them on my email list because I know if I have them on my email list, I can sell to them then year round versus just through the market season, May through October. So that is my goal just to meet people, connect. And get them on my email list. If I get a sale, great, but I know I can sell through them now all year long.
right. And I'm sure that being there in person that they start building that familiarity with you and they see you a few times. And then if you can get them on the email list, I think that works as a great funnel there. I know for us, we go to a farmer's market in Chelsea, not as a vendor, but as a consumer. And we always stop by the same booths. And a lot of times we buy something at a booth because that's a booth we stopped by and we just figure out what we're going to buy
Yep. And actually this is a little bit of a sneaky thing on my part, but because we have seven kids, guess who gets to come to the market with me, the youngest. So I always have a baby and I'm usually wearing them on my carrier. And so then everybody stops by, Oh, what's your baby's name? Oh, and they're just, goddling over this little baby, this cute little baby. And then I'm like, Oh, by the way, let's chat some more.
And it's honestly a great way to get people that probably normally would just keep skirting on by to get them to come and stop. Yeah.
I had wondered about that when you started saying that. I wonder if the kids go, but, so you take the youngest there, and that works as a traction as well.
Yeah. So the youngest one comes with, and then actually. Jordan, he watches the others, so they stay home with him.
Oh, yes. He is building himself quite the work crew.
He is.
You are selling so many products, so many different products, in that you've got your poultry, you've got your chicken, you've got your eggs beef, pork, milk. Is there anything in particular that you find people have a lot more questions about? Or gravitate towards?
raw milk. It has been by far the easiest product to sell. And I don't know if it's because I know how to market now, so my website really attracts those people, or if it's just because the consumer is changing in general, people are becoming more aware of their health and how to nourish their bodies, and they're really doing a lot of self research, and so when they come to us they know that's exactly what they want. And also too, there's just not many farmers that are selling raw milk.
For Minnesota, are you all able to sell the raw milk at the farmer's market or is that on the
Yes. Everybody has to come on farm to get their milk.
Oh, yeah.
So what's beautiful though, is I have a little jar of milk sitting on my booth at the farmer's market. And it's amazing because people can see the cream has separated. So they can say, see that, half the jars is practically cream. And they're like, Oh my, is that raw milk? A lot of people are coming up and they're like, I used to drink raw milk as a kid or I remember my grandpa talking about it or whatever. And it's another eye catching piece. And then they're like, oh, how do I get this?
And it's come to the farm. And granted, a lot of those customers, it would be a 50 minute drive for them. And I would say 80 percent of our customers are driving over 45 minutes to come and get our milk.
Oh, wow. Are they coming weekly? Is it bi weekly? How often do they drive out
It really varies for everybody. Our milk stays good for a minimum of two weeks. So some people are on, an every other week rotation. Some people come for a month and then they freeze half of it. So it just depends on how far they have to drive, how large their family is, and what they're also wanting to do with them milk products. Are they just consuming it, just drinking it, or are they also making yogurt and kefir and cheeses?
Are you finding a lot of people are just using it as flood milk or are a lot of people making it into other products?
I would say most of our customers are just drinking it as fluid milk and then. Making it into other products are the ones off. So that's a lot of my recipes that I send out. It's here's a yogurt recipe. Here's a sour cream recipe. So then they'll try that recipe with some other milk that week. And, just to try new things. And I would say that it's, it has helped our customers learn how to cook differently.
Oh, yes. Have you received any negative feedback from the raw milk sales?
No, we haven't had one unhappy customer yet.
Excellent. That's great. And let's keep it that way. I find the raw milk sales very interesting because, as I've talked about before, I grew up on dairy, had, always had raw milk. I miss it. I don't. I drink a lot of milk still yet, just because Growing up I always did, but the milk in the store tastes different than raw milk. And I kicked around the idea of getting some cows for raw milk and selling some. And I haven't got there yet.
But then also when I think about it, I think dairy goats would be easier or even dairy sheep. Do you find when consumers are searching you out, they want raw cow's milk or they want raw milk or do any of them are like goat or
I would say I've only had three people looking for goat's milk, never sheep milk. And goat's milk there really isn't anybody around here doing it, and all three of those people had infants that they were looking to supplement formula with because they couldn't tolerate even cow's
Oh, okay.
And so yes, I would say everybody, all of our customers are looking. So there is another there's a couple of other raw milk farmers within a pretty close vicinity to our farm, but specifically our customers are looking for one, the a hundred percent grass fed, they do not want these cows getting any grain, which we don't do. So that is a very specific thing they're looking for. And the A2, they are very specifically looking for an A2
Oh, okay. Yeah so that's important to know, and I'm glad you brought that up. It's grass based, grass fed not grain, and it's A2A2 milk. Very interesting with that, and when they come to the farm, are, do you already have it packaged in jars or something, or they bring in their own container? How are you all doing the
Yeah, so in the state of Minnesota, customers have to provide their own jars.
Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't know what the law is in Oklahoma. I know they have to come to the farm to get it, but I'm not
Yeah. Yep. And I actually We're talking about how customers can get milk. I have a couple really good resources. This one is for farmers and if Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund, I highly encourage any farmer wanting to sell raw milk or even any farm products to and to consumer to go on there and sign up. It's 125 a year and they have lawyers right there ready to go. And so we had a lawyer write up contracts for us. You don't have to in the state of Minnesota.
We personally just wanted that for our farm. And so you can do that for any of your farm products. And then the second resource is for somebody looking for raw milk. This is how I would say 80 percent of our customers find us is On Google because we are listed on real milk. com.
oh okay, interesting. I one of those sites I'm familiar with. The other one I was not. I do know, I just know from my wife's co workers, one of them, she's always talking about needing to find somewhere with raw milk. It does seem to me, that the market for raw milk is increasing.
It really is. And like I said, I think it goes back to consumer education and just the average consumer now is just seeing how food is medicine and it is a lot cheaper to invest on the front end in your food than it is on the end of being sick.
Oh, yes, very true, yes. In addition to your raw milk, so you, they have to come to the farm to pick up raw milk. Do you also sell, direct to consumer, your other meat products from the farm? Or are those just at your farmer's
So they can come on the farm. I'm out in the farm store right now actually is recording this and we have freezers we have a fridge with eggs and we have freezers so everybody can shop. All of our meats are in here in freezers labeled, and then we have the fridge with eggs in there, and so people can come, they can order ahead of time, and I can have their package ready to go, or they can shop as we chat too.
Do you have farm store hours? Or is it by
We do both, so we just do every Tuesday and Thursday evening. Just from 5 to 6 p. m. Just because that's really the only time that I know I'm 100 percent gonna be home and not milking cows or doing something else. And then we just do by appointment kind of any other day of the week and we just will figure out something that works best for both of us.
Oh, very good. Now a logistic question that I don't even know about your area do you all live on a dirt road, paved road, how far is it to town? I know you mentioned already that most of your raw milk sales are a fair distance away.
Yeah, so we, so it's the highway to get out to the farm here and then we just have a, I don't know, maybe a quarter mile, just like a gravel road to get to the, to get to the farm store in our driveway here. So that's not terrible. And then it's just a seven minute drive To Caledonia. Caledonia is a population of 2, 000 people, so we live relatively close to town.
Oh yes, of course Caledonia is not huge, but it's a decent population there. Of course, I say that, a lot of people are going to laugh at me for calling that a decent population. I live at Chelsea and it's about 2, 000, or I live near Chelsea and it's
Okay, yeah.
My, my big thing when I think about selling on the farm, and I haven't done that. I think at times that's where I want to go and at times I think it won't work as good as I think. My wife says I get in my head too much. We live on a gravel road and we're about you get out of town, you hit a paved road for about six miles, and then you've got a mile and a half of gravel. And to me, just growing up, I'm always like I'm on a gravel road, I can't do this.
But my wife says I get my head on that, and people would come out here and get it. I just need to let go of the issue about the gravel
I agree with her 100%. It's training your buyer, though. We started, when we started the farmer's markets it's training them buyers to still come to the farm in the winter months, even though it's inconvenient for them.
you, it's just you go to your favorite stores I'm sure you sometimes go out of the way to go shopping, so if you think about what are the thoughts that you're thinking when you're wanting to go to these stores, it's because you're looking for something specific, whatever that might be, so it's just really understanding what that end consumer wants and then just training them.
Oh, yes. That's great advice. Going on with your farm store just a little bit. You're selling all your products there. Have you all considered or even thought about having other people sell product in there for you? And the thing that comes to my mind, I'm not sure you all have honeybees. So honey might be a product as well.
Yeah, so we do, we we have partnered with another farmer for a couple years now selling honey, We just sell out very quickly, so it's whoever comes into the farm stores who gets it. Yeah. I haven't dabbled into offering a bunch of other products, and here's why. One, I would have to market that product at a significantly higher price. I'm talking significant because it's using my resources in order to sell that, right? It's using my marketing skills.
It's using it's taking up space in my farm store. It's It could potentially a customer might not want eggs because I have something else or whatever that might be, right? And so the way I look at it is I would have to charge a significant dollar for that product and then it would, then it's sitting on the shelves and then I have to worry about moving it and stuff like that So we, we really haven't gone down that route.
And I get that Inventory management is enough for just y'all's product. If you're then buying wholesale and selling or some other agreement, that's a whole nother level of complexity and overhead
Yeah, it really is
I know we've talked about the different products you all have, and you all have a wide selection. Is there anything you think you're missing that you would like to add in the future?
Actually, that's really funny you mention it. We are actually downsizing. We are going the opposite direction You
Oh, okay.
Specifically because I found our customers love having all the products, the beef, the pork, the chicken, the milk, the eggs, but it's more on my end. I can only market so many products and do a great job. And that is what my goal is I would prefer to sell 10 times the amount of raw milk, then divide that over maybe five or six products because. When you're selling this many products, your finances are diversified. Your marketing skills are too diversified.
And so it's really hard to just focus on that one thing and ensure that you're at a high enough profit margin, you're selling and moving enough products. And then it's the buyer decision fatigue. They just can't decide. And so we are backing off. We actually will not be raising pigs for 2024. Or meat chickens. And so we will just be strictly raw milk and 100 percent grass fed beef. And also too, it's just, it's our farm itself.
We also have sheep, we also have goats, we also have the conventional regenerative dairy. And Jordan and I and his, between Jordan and I and his dad, we're managing a little over 1200 acres. So there's only so much that we can do without having to hire a pretty extravagant labor force.
And you didn't even mention seven kids
Yes.
so you all have a lot going on. Yes. So I get that about, I hear from some farmers, they're like we added this product because our consumers are out here and we're trying to stack whatever they buy something else. But at a certain point you do get that decision fatigue and they only have a set amount they can spend. And then how are they going to spend it? And if there's too much thought into it. It may
Yeah. And I actually found after I ran and crunched some numbers, we actually make more money just selling raw milk and grass fed beef than when we did when we had all the products. Because our consumers are actually. I'm educating them better on how to use just those two specific products, and so then they buy more.
They actually buy more, they understand how to use it better, versus me having to teach them how to cook certain cuts of pork, and certain cuts of beef, and for them to remember how to cook a whole chicken, and remember all these milk recipes. I find my consumers Their average buying amount has increased because of that.
Oh, interesting. Yeah which I can see somewhat because as we think about what, as I think about what we cook in our household and we're very much beef centric because we've raised beef cows forever, so we always have beef in the icebox. Chickens, a pretty good one we have in there. We processed a lamb last year just to see how it would go.
And we like lamb and we enjoyed it, but we did not cook it very often or fix it very often just because we're like, Oh, we got to figure out a recipe that we like because we haven't really been exposed to it.
Yep. That's exactly the same way. We find that our customers because they're going down the health journey, they do shy away from pork a little bit just because, um, Just because, people are looking for, the non soy, non corn pork. And then some people's bodies just react to pork differently. And then a lot of times it's then they want bacon. That's, we use a natural cure, but there's still the curing process, just reacts differently to certain people's bodies.
So we find a lot of people just want to eat clean beef, nothing in it, raw milk, and that's just what they want.
Interesting. I can fully see that. Now you mentioned something there. When you're feeding like for your chickens, are you all going to continue to do your layers and selling
We actually, so we're not doing eggs either. We're doing them for ourselves. This spring going forward we only have 50 chickens. If we have extra eggs, our customers will get them and we usually, we just give them away as a little free gift. Otherwise our family just eats them. And that's just specifically not because the enterprise wasn't profitable. It's because. We have found we are spread too thin, and so we need to really focus on the things that make sense for us and our farm.
Oh, yes. I'll go ahead and ask the questions about the layers since you all are consuming them yourselves. Are you all, are you using non GMO
Yes, so they just get a non GMO feed from the local feed mill. We did, for a few years, that's how we raised our turkeys. We actually grew our own it was like a Peas, flax, lentils, barley, oats, a mix. We just grew that ourselves. We didn't even grind it or anything. We just gave it to them whole. And our turkeys, they grew actually too fast off of it.
Oh,
that was actually, it was it was, we made so much more money growing the feed ourselves.
Oh, yes. I know for us to get non GMO feed, it's just outrageous here, and I'm not 100 percent sure, I know there's certain portions of the market that's very concerned about it, but I'm not sure it's a great concern in our area yet. We're probably working that way though.
Yeah, I think it goes both ways. Either consumers already know they really want it or other consumers, they just are more wanting just to support that local farmer that they know are raising really healthy, clean food.
And I can see that, yes. Rochelle I really there's been a lot we talked about, but I really want to talk about time management, and that's going to be our overgrazing section. So let's go ahead and transition to the overgrazing section where we take a deeper dive. And like I said, time management because you all have so much going on. Your kids, the conventional, the grass fed, the store, the farmer's market. Let's talk about how you manage your time just for a little bit.
Yeah, so I actually learned this process back in 2019. I learned the power of mindset. So I actually learned a whole different concept of time and how you can manage it and how most of the time, I'm saying time all the time most of the time, actually people tell themselves thoughts that they prove to be true. So for example, some people say, I'm too busy. I can't get it all done. When you tell yourself that you're never going to get everything done because all of our thoughts.
Create our actions, which then give us our results. So I learned that if I tell myself I can be a really organized person, I know how to manage my time. Then I actually found I was more productive when I did schedule things. I was more willing and apt to actually follow through with the things. And then I learned how to actually schedule my days with intention. So I was actually doing the tasks that needed to be done. I prioritized. And then everything else wasn't meant to get done.
And when I learned those concepts it really changed how we managed our farm and how we managed our family and how we managed our life.
One thing before I ask you more on that that self talk is so huge. And one pet peeve I have all the time when you ask someone everyone's always so busy You're not really busy. It's what your priorities are. We'll go on because I'm sure I say I'm too busy too often as well. So when you learn that power of mindset and you're going through that, how did you change your system so that you could implement it and what's that system look like
Yeah, so before I learned the concepts of mindset management and time management I like to say we just wung it. We just did whatever needed to be done at the time. So if the feed guy showed up unexpectedly, we just unloaded the feed. We just did whatever was happening. And when you're doing that, you feel like a victim. You feel like everything is happening to you. The cows got out. Oh, now I got to go put them back in. Oh, now the feed guy is here. Oh, we got to go do that.
Oh, I also forgot to run, order chicken feed. Now I have to go run and go get chicken feed. That's what our days looked like. It was just like doing whatever was happening to us. And so then once I learned that I can actually live a life based on my priorities, and I actually, how I teach this to people is, You really our brains are actually meant for survival, right? It's the caveman. We grew up when we were first developed.
All we had to worry about was surviving the saber toothed tiger, feeding our families, just living off the land. That's what our jobs were. It was just to survive. We still have the same brains, but we have different circumstances around us. So really, your brain can only focus on one priority at a time. But society teaches us we can have all these priorities.
So I like to tell people to pare it down to five, to pick your top five priorities, schedule those things, and then everything else wasn't meant to get to. You can get it, you can get to it at a later season of life or maybe in the wintertime or later on, but right now you only need to worry about those top five things.
And when you're talking about those five top things you're talking about for me, instance. My marriage, my kids, are you using broad subjects like that, or are you trying to pinpoint them a little
Nope. So it's for example my top five priorities right now are number one, my family, number two, it might be my health. Number three, my fa my farm business. Number four, if there is a number four, stuff like that. Faith actually for me is number one, then my family. And then it's my health, and then it's my farm business last. And so everything else If it doesn't get to, it wasn't meant to get to.
And so once I started, we started living our days like that it frees you up to just not worry about the other things that you can say no. So easily, if someone's will you join this? This committee board to help us do this project. It's sorry, that's not one of my top five or five priorities right now. Maybe in a different season of life, I could help you, but right now I can't. So it just makes it so clear and it makes it, exactly what to say no to and what to say yes to.
Cause you can only take so many things on your plate.
Yes. And I think as you mentioned earlier, if you're running and putting out fires just because you're waiting on things to come to you, you are worn out from just that mindset of doing that. So just changing to your priorities and working from that direction makes a huge difference, or I would believe it would. When you
Oh, I was just going to say, not only is your brain warm out for, from all the decision fatigue. But truly, you are wasting more time than you realize.
I know for me, one thing I really struggle with, if I have something scheduled, like at noon or one o'clock, I barely get anything done in the morning because I'm so concerned about that afternoon's appointment. I don't know how that fits into everything, but that is me.
And a lot of it is because of the thoughts that you're thinking about that afternoon appointment. So is it thinking, oh, what happens if this other task takes too long and then I'm late?
Yes,
That's what it is. It's
I need to go do this. But what if it ends up taking longer?
That is a thought. that is a thought. You get to decide how long tasks take. And this is a mindset bendy thing people do not realize. People say, a blog post will take me four hours. No, you decide how long a blog post takes you. I choose that a blog post takes me one hour, and I write it in one hour to completion. And if I'm not, I would say if it's not See, the problem is most people want it to be perfect. And I strive for B plus work now. I am totally okay with B plus work.
If I have time later on, a couple weeks down the road, a month down the road, and I say, I would like to rewrite that blog post, and it could be An A minus. I'll go in and rewrite it then, but I strive for B plus work and I choose how long tasks take.
Oh yes. I know if I have a deadline, I'm really good at procrastinating till the deadline's here. So if it's the deadline is in 24 hours or the deadline's in two weeks. I can use that all that time to get to that deadline and actually do
But then when you get to the deadline, you're cranking it out.
I am. Yeah. It's easy at that point. And I know just my mindset there has to change and working on that because when I'm stuck or when I'm right up against that deadline, Oh, I can do it.
And it's all because of what you're thinking, in the moment. That is the power that gives you to get it done, right? It's I have to get this done. You're feeling, really energetic, really motivated and you crank it out and you get it done. That is how Jordan and I act with every single task on the farm. And in order to do that, you have to think thoughts that make you productive like that. But you also have to give yourself the space to be able to think and rest.
Because that's what your brain wants. Ultimately, your brain is meant to avoid pain, seek pleasure, and rest. That is what the human brain, like this is scientifically proven, that is what the human brain is meant for. So if you can fulfill these, those three things in your day, I, I save it for the end of the day, but I tell myself, I'm going to work really hard, really productive all day long. And then at the end of the day, I can rest with my kids on the couch and watch a show.
Oh yes. Yeah. Very good. I do know that I struggle there because I keep going and I keep going, or I feel like I do. And then, all of a sudden, I'm just completely exhausted and I end up taking a day or two off. And I just feel like I didn't get anything accomplished. And my wife's always you just need to let go of that. You don't have to be doing something all the
And that's it too, right? When we are working so hard, oftentimes as farmers, we will work until we are burnt out. And then when we're so burnt out and we finally want to rest, We literally shame ourselves for resting. We're like, oh, we can't take a break. We should be doing this. So actually, you are still using energy. Because you're telling yourself these thoughts like I should be doing this. I can't be resting. There's a million things to do. Now I'm going to get behind, right?
All these thoughts are using energy in your brain. So when you're still resting, you're not actually resting. So instead, it's just, you just got to let it go. Whatever got done today. Great. It's still going to be there tomorrow because everybody knows on the farm, you're all, it's, you're always going to have something to do. Everything is never going to be done. So you have to live in the mindset that it'll still be there for me tomorrow.
Which is so true. And I'm on that journey, but I'm not as far along on that journey as I would like to be.
And
One thing when you talked about your
Oh, I was going to say that right there, telling yourself, I'm not as far ahead on the journey as I'd like to be. That's a thought that's not serving you. Just,
I have too many of those thoughts, so I need to
yeah. And it's just starting to become aware of the thoughts that you, that, that aren't serving you anymore. Jordan and I, we got rid of. The thoughts of you can't hire help or you can't make, if you hire help on the farm, you can't make money or, I'm too busy. I can't get it all done. Like we, we just don't say those things anymore.
Oh, yeah. How did you get to that point where you all didn't say them? Just a conscious decision? Did you have to, did you all provide feedback on each other to help each other do it? How did you get there so that you didn't have those thoughts or
Yeah, it just really, it starts just being intentional and actually having conversations in your own brain more often. That was my path. Jordan's path is totally different. He took a, he listens to podcasts and actually, so I am a certified mindset coach now. And I have educated him enough so we can coach each other. So it's he'll say stuff and I'm, I'll catch him and I'll be like, that thought's not serving you. And he's Oh, you're right. Or vice versa. I'll say stuff.
And he's that thought's not serving you. And it's Oh yeah, you're right. So it's catching each other, but also being more intentional with yourself and the thoughts that are going through your brain. You really have to learn how to slow down. And this has been really challenging for me because my brain goes 100 miles an hour. If most people haven't figured that out already, I talk as fast as my brain goes, or I try to.
And so I have had to learn to slow my thoughts down and catch myself and then ask myself is that thought serving me or is it not serving me and how can I change? And so it might be putting sticky notes on my computer to remind myself thoughts that I'm working on because it's thoughts actually create a pathway in your brain. So they actually create your belief system. And so it's basically like driving down a paved road. That path is so easy. Just saying I'm too busy. That path is so easy.
It just, it comes naturally. It's easy for your brain to say. So it just naturally says it. But if you're working on a new thought, like I can be organized. That's like driving on a dirt road. It's rocky. It's going to be hard at first to tell yourself that. So you have to keep reminding yourself. And I like to put sticky notes everywhere. And then eventually that dirt road will become paved and that will be your new pathway in your brain. So it's just working on those things.
You mentioned a very practical example right there, using post it notes to help you keep, help you think the right things. What other practical, and I hate to say the word practical, but what other things do you do day to keep you on track? For example, are you using to do lists? I know you're working with priorities. Do you do reflection upon those?
Yeah, so I actually do not believe in a to do list anymore. Because it overwhelms Your brain does not know how to decipher a to do list and decide what is priority, what is not priority, what makes sense to work together, it just, it, your brain does not work like that. So I have found that I sit down every Sunday, and I actually sit down I do a to do list, so I break down all the things that need to happen in four different areas.
So my farm, My marketing, my personal life, and then anything that's upcoming that I need to know. So I break it down. And then I prioritize them, and it all goes on the calendar. Every single thing I think about, I sit down a little over an hour and I do this, and everything that comes to mind from ordering a kid's birthday present to my kid needs to go to the eye doctor and get their eyes checked. Everything that comes to mind in that moment gets pre scheduled.
And so that's how we keep track of everything that's happening in marketing, in business, in farm life, in our personal life. And I have found that process has saved me 10 to 20 hours every single week because I can prioritize and actually focus on the right tasks that are going to make me money and move me ahead.
You mentioned a couple things there. One, you can focus on those tasks that, and prioritize them, that's going to move you ahead. And I find that when I think about it, when I know the actions I need to take to move ahead. But then I often get, end up doing something else and putting those off. But one way you talked about there was using a calendar to keep it all scheduled and going. So your calendar is your master list. Maybe list is the wrong word. But that's keeping you on track and going.
So the calendar isn't what's keeping me on track and going, yes, it's knowing what's coming next. But truly, Cal. The reason why you don't follow through with tasks is because you're not operating in what I like to call a be do have mindset. You think that when it comes time to take the action, you're just gonna whimsically take the action. That's not the way our brains work. We actually have to be operating at a higher level.
In order to do the things, I have to become a totally different person. We have to identify as someone else. Because when you take those actions, it's going to be really hard, and our brains, they don't want to work, right? They want to avoid pain, seek pleasure, and rest. That's what our brains want to do. So if you have to take action, that means you aren't going to be resting anymore. So you have to become a person that does the things.
So when it comes to writing an email, of course, I would rather be outside playing with my kids, but I tell myself, I am a person that keeps commitments to myself. And then I do the things. Or if, we get up at three o'clock in the morning to milk cows. Do I always want to get up at three o'clock in the morning? No. I get to. I get to be the person that gets to wake up at three o'clock in the morning and milk my cows so I can have the farm and life I want. I get to be that person.
That's the difference.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, very good. The calendar, are you all doing that electronically? Do you have a whiteboard? Do you all share a calendar? What does that look
Jordan is not a calendar person and I have learned to be okay with that. So I still calendar every single Sunday you And then he, we just every single morning we have what's called our morning meeting and I, we call and talk on the phone and it's, Hey, what do you have going on today? What do I have going on today? How do, how can we reach a common goal and still get everything done? So I use my calendar and Jordan will I need your help here. Can you fit in here?
I always set aside like a three hour chunk in the morning, usually from eight to 11, I know Jordan is probably going to need my help with something. So I just don't schedule anything that way. If he's Hey, can you help me move cows today? I'm like, yes, I can. And if he doesn't ask me to do something, then I can work on, other things or work ahead or just spend time with my kids.
So we communicate every single day what he needs, what I need, and then I schedule all the business, marketing, family life stuff on my schedule.
Oh, very good. Let's transition just a little bit before we get to FAMOUS 4. Talking about this coaching, you provide coaching available for others. Can you tell us how that works and how someone can could get in touch to get started on that or to do that.
Yeah, so I actually started a membership for farmers. So it's an online community where farmers can learn our marketing strategies, our business strategies, our time management processes, all of the processes that we have used on our farm. To grow. And then I also offer mindset coaching for them so they can, that's what I found is the difference.
You can consume all this information on YouTube, on podcasts, but it's you learning your own brain so you can change your thoughts to get the results that you want in life. And you can't do that without a mindset coach. Once you have a mindset coach, you can learn how to do it on your own. I will forever have a mindset coach, 'cause I have seen how important that is for me and my growth. I have grown exponentially every time I have invested in myself and especially in mindset.
So I wanted to be able to open that up to farmers. And it was something that I felt like I wanted. I wanted a community of a, of farmers that were also aligned with what we were going after. And so I created it, basically because Jordan and I were feeling lacking. Like we wanted a community of farmers. We could bounce ideas off each other.
And when we first started, we would have loved to have somebody that was giving us the business strategies that were working, whether you're selling direct to consumer or just a regenerative farm, and just having your commodity enterprises, right? There was just nobody out there that had the mindset like we did. So we built this community so farmers could have the resources that we wanted when we first started.
And how does someone join that community?
so I have a website. It's the mindful farmers.com, and that's where you can learn about, more about Jordan and myself and the community itself. And then I also have a free private podcast for farmers. They can head over to the mindful farmers.com/time, and that is where I actually break down my entire time management process. And in a free private podcast series for them.
Very good. Those are excellent resources. We will have those in our show notes for our listeners. But it is time for us to move to the famous four questions. Same four questions we ask of all of our guests. So Rochelle, what is your favorite grazing grass related book or resource?
I would say my favorite resource is probably YouTube university. I have found that I am actually a very visual learner. So I like to be able to listen and then watch the videos and specifically people that are like Greg Judy or Gabe Brown, when they're on farms and like really getting into doing things. That's where I have personally learned.
It's a tremendous resource. I thought you might say the mindful, mindfulfarmers. com.
I guess maybe I should plug in Jordan's YouTube channel. Wholesome Family Farms YouTube channel is where it's at.
Yes, exactly. Our second question, what is your favorite tool for the farm?
Oh, my favorite tool. I would say my cell phone. I would say that because If my kids are crabby, I can hand them my cell phone. If I need something from Jordan, I can hand him my cell phone. If I need to look something up, I need my cell phone. And as vague, as naive as I sound, I used to never be one that was all for technology, but your cell phone can be a really great resource. I can, Jordan, if I a really great app is called Fields Area Measure.
And so we are going to utilize this a lot this year since we have high schoolers helping us on our farm, we can map out the paddocks and then just send it to them in a text message. Here's the paddocks, here's the pins where the corners of the fence need to be, and basically we can pre plan for them without having to be there. And so there's a lot of apps and resources on our phones that, that can really help us be more productive.
I completely agree, our third question, Rachelle, what would you tell someone just getting started?
Yeah, I would say to go find a farmer that is doing what you want to do. And I always say your network is your net worth. Who you surround yourself with is who you become. So if you can find a farmer, Ask them questions, it will save you so much time, so much money, so many mistakes, and I would say probably 99. 9 percent of the time, most farmers are more than happy to share, what works and what doesn't work.
What's that saying? You're the average of your five
Yeah. Yup.
I think that really comes into play there, yes. And lastly Rachelle, where can others find out more
Yeah. you? can head over to themindfulfarmers. com.
I appreciate you coming on. We'll have that link in the show notes, but really enjoyed you coming on and sharing about what you and Jordan are doing as well as the coaching and time management.
Yeah. I really appreciate you having me and I hope that both my episode and Jordan's episode is just helpful for people and just to really inspire them. What's possible. Yeah. Yeah.
I completely agree.
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