Oklahoma Cattle Rancher on Food Supply Chains and Government Overreach During COVID Lockdown

Vance Crowe [00:00:00] As the crow flies on the Vance Crow podcast. Jared McDaniel, welcome to the podcast.

Jerod McDaniel [00:00:09] How's it going, Vance?

Vance Crowe [00:00:11] It's, it's interesting, you and I have known each other for a long time. We've done a trip all the way up to Alberta, Canada where we saw the aggravation and we did a podcast together there. But I've never actually had to a time to sit down and interview you. You are an Oklahoma cattle rancher. You live out in the Panhandle way the hell away from people. You've got a bunch of kids and a wife and, and you live in rural America and you are a very interesting guy. You have a podcast that I think is probably the maybe cleanest and simplest in terms of, you don't put on any political spin on stuff. You've gotta sit there, you have to know the industry, but you open it right up and you talk about things that are in an uncensored way, things that people don't often talk about. And a lot of people listen to you, and a lot of people don't agree with you, but they sure want to know what you have to say. So my audience isn't necessarily that same cattle hard scrabble in farmers. I know I've got a lot of ag there, but there are a lot of people that are listening there in all different kinds of industries from all over the country. So why don't you gimme a rundown. What is Coronavirus in AP on April 1st, 2020 in Texa Ho, Oklahoma? What is going on for a guy like you?

Jerod McDaniel [00:01:33] The, it's pretty much life as, as normal in terms of like work and what we do on a daily basis. I mean, now we have the kids home. Everybody's kind of in the same boat with that, so, and it's really kind of cool. It's, it seems like life has gotten more simple. We're all, you know, at home doing stuff together. It's, it's really a kind of a cool transition that has almost kind of evolved through all this. So, I mean, normal everyday life for me is getting up, you know, feeding cattle, getting ready to plant corn, probably in about a month or so. So we we're just all in prepping, getting ready, going to, going to town, just working on that.

Vance Crowe [00:02:14] And when you say we're gonna go plant corn, talk about what that, it looks like in today's day and age, a modern age, what is it like to go out and plant corn?

Jerod McDaniel [00:02:22] Okay, well, before you plant, you've gotta get the ground ready and I'll, I'll strip till. So that basically involves one pass with the tractor, actually creating little strips that we're gonna plant onto, which will ban fertilizer in the actual strip width. Then we will sometimes put down a chemical as a barrier to weeds and then incorporate that with water, kind of pre water, get everything settled in ready to go. And then we actually plant, so where that's, we put the tractor with the planter in the field and basically go one pass across and then probably spray again, and then we're ready to go.

Vance Crowe [00:02:54] And then what are you planting when you're doing that? You're taking seeds that you, you made last year, obviously, I know that's not how you do it, but, but a lot of people don't understand where do you even get seeds to plant?

Jerod McDaniel [00:03:06] You bet, you bet. No, it come, that comes from most seed companies. You pioneer, there's oh, Bayer who has all DeKalb Monsanto channel, or not Monsanto, but anyway, just seed companies basically generate the hybrid seeds and we buy 'em and go plant those.

Vance Crowe [00:03:26] And, and then you also buy chemicals and things like that ev every single year? Or how, how do you do that?

Jerod McDaniel [00:03:32] Yeah, yeah. Typically I buy chemicals from our local warehouse or, you know, if they don't have something you can find it online. They, you can pretty easily find chemicals and, and inputs now. But, you know, for the most part, we're fortunate to have good local solid supply. So all that stuff is basically on hand for the season. So I think we're pretty good with that, you know, as far as actual in inputs that are in the, so

Vance Crowe [00:03:53] That, that was my exact point. I've been hammering on you. So full disclosure, Jared and I talk with a couple other friends all the time throughout the day, we're texting back and forth with one another. And today, when you and I talked, I was a little worked up because I have concerns about how are the farmers gonna make sure that COVID-19 doesn't knock 'em out from actually farming. And you seem totally cool about this, but I was talking with my buddy Brian Scott, and he was like, I don't have a plan if I get sick. I don't, I don't have a backup plan for planning these acres. I probably ought to get one,

Jerod McDaniel [00:04:28] But

Vance Crowe [00:04:28] Do you have one? Are you worried about that?

Jerod McDaniel [00:04:31] Yeah, the plan a don't die. That's kinda like the first, you know, I, there's a, there's another guy that works with me and you know, between the two of us we're kind of splitting our odds that we can get it done. And then of course, you know, I do have a wonderful wife and a large family that, you know, strapping kids that they know how to run and, and take care of cattle. So, you know, if we had to that we've got a several, several able bodies willing to step in and do work, unfortunately.

Vance Crowe [00:05:00] How old are your kids that they could handle cattle?

Jerod McDaniel [00:05:03] Oh, 15 and 16 year olds easy. I mean, no, that's, that's not a problem. And

Vance Crowe [00:05:08] Is a dad, you're like confident they can get in there. Even if I'm not there, I don't, you know, like what do you, what do you think about your kids interacting with your livestock? And

Jerod McDaniel [00:05:18] That's, that's why I have all these years prior to this, we've had them in the, in the facilities, working animals with us, you know, they're left to go handle whenever it's time to sort, when it's time to bring 'em up, you know, they can vaccinate, they can work cattle, they can sort, they can gather, you know, anything, any able-bodied grown man or woman could do, they can function to do it. Now they're still gonna make mistakes, but that's part of the learning process. And, and in times like this, they're expected to step up and do do what's necessary too. I mean, it's, it's not fun. But they also understand that that's, this is a life we have and, and especially now that they're at home, that's something that, that takes place. And even younger kids can do it, you know, or, or ones that are in the, how old did you start

Vance Crowe [00:06:01] Your kids doing this kinda stuff?

Jerod McDaniel [00:06:03] Oh, when they're young, they go with us. You know, like when you're driving out working, you have something that maybe they can ride along or they ride in a tractor. They're always there kind of observing. But actual hands-on, usually about 10, 11 is kind of when they start to get like, where they can build some fence or do things with their hands or, you know, there's no point in getting the young kid hurt. They need to understand how, how to take a fall or something of along that nature. You know, they have to be old enough to, to get the hell outta the way so they don't get hurt.

Vance Crowe [00:06:29] You know, you really do have a different existence right now than people living in the city and not just because of the work that you do, but also I think there are a lot of people living in the city right now that they are, they are 100% responsible for their kids. They're not turning any of the responsibilities over to the kids to be able to help the family survive this challenge. Do you know what I mean? Like, the experience of the parent is, I mean, you're trying to provide for your kids, right? But of course you've gotta a fall back there where your kids could be asked, Hey, your mom, you know, isn't feeling well and is gonna be out for 20 days. You gotta step up and take care of these things.

Jerod McDaniel [00:07:07] Yep. No, they would totally be able to do it. I mean, and, and, and the thing is, the older ones can take the younger ones and teach them and, and it's a continual learning experience. And honestly, one of the neat things is since we've been kind of, you know, on nature's lockdown or whatever you, whatever the hell you wanna call it, ever since we've been on that, and nobody's calling

Vance Crowe [00:07:27] It nature's lockdown, you, you made that sound like that was just,

Jerod McDaniel [00:07:32] That's what everybody they called it. But no, the, the thing is, is I do think that it, it provides a great real world learning laboratory because we have the kids out doing things now and they're learning at a more exponential pace. I mean, before they're learning stuff in books, it's really cool to think about they're actually getting more good out of every day's ritual and learning at home than they did probably sitting there waiting to take some tests to determine that they've actually, you know, learned something or not throughout the year. It's, it's kind of funny when you think of how we're approaching education to people really now that, now that, and I think that will change.

Vance Crowe [00:08:11] I think as, as parents that have had a good relationship with their kids and have the time while they're at home. They, they may be, you know, crushed under other deadlines. But if you had the chance to spend some of this time at home with your kids focused on their education and you got along well with your kids, you watch them take off. My brother Dan, you know, Dan, his son Oliver, I mean, he couldn't have a better teacher than Dan 'cause Dan knows all his tricks. So all the things that that kid would've done to try and get away with stuff, Dan knows how to handle that. And also how to motivate him and how to get him going. I, I just think that the ag lifestyle, that culture part of it is a huge difference between parents living in the country and parents living in the city. It's why I'm so interested in hearing, hearing how you and Julie have taken care of homeschooling. Now that COVID is going on, what do, what are you guys doing day in and day out?

Jerod McDaniel [00:09:05] Well, you know, just like everybody else, the first couple of weeks are kind of like, oh, this is happening and we're here and we're hanging out and it's kind of, you know, a new adventure, but there's not a lot of structure. Then you start to get a little bit down the road and you're like, all right, well we have this time. Let's make good use of it. Let's not, you know, piss it away on, on just sit, sitting there staring at screens. There's, there's other things that we can accomplish right now. And we start, you know, we really have no clue how to do it. So the best way to learn is just by doing. So they made a schedule, I think it was art, math, reading, see what else? Recess, you know, pe any kind of physical thing outside. And then we have shooting, which is really cool because we've had the kids little BB guns and 20 twos depending on their age, you know, the little ones aren't ready for a 22 yet. But it's just been really cool. Every day you go out and take a paper plate and you just shoot 10 rounds into it. And it's, it's a little competition I look forward to every day. But it's also teaching 'em the skill of marksmanship and firearm safety. You can, you know, you're raising your kids 'cause you don't know what world they're gonna be in, but they damn well better be ready. So

Vance Crowe [00:10:13] That's, man, I, I think that people probably hear what you're describing and although they don't understand naturally the amount of work that you have to do, I think there are a lot of people that wish they had an opportunity, they kind of freedom to be able to walk out into their backyard and, and do shooting lessons with their kids.

Jerod McDaniel [00:10:31] And you could BB guns, you could shoot 'em all day long. They don't make any noise. You could do that, you could do that today. I mean, they could probably buy 'em online and put a paper plate 10 feet away and just, or pellet guns, you know, find a piece of plywood. That's all you need. You know, you could even shoot it in your living room unless you're just a really shitty shot, then you probably like break a TV or something.

Vance Crowe [00:10:52] So how much of the, the guns and ammunition and things that you have at your house do you have there for protection of yourself and your family?

Jerod McDaniel [00:11:06] Basically all of 'em. Or, you know, if they, if we had to hunt for food, that would be another use for 'em. But no, basically all the guns, I mean it's, it's, it's not like you can only use these guns for home defense. They're kind of all for, for that. And, and also we use them, you know, pretty actively for, you know, we have coyotes or stray dogs that will wander into the yard. People typ typically don't know have this, but out in the country, people that are tired of dealing with animals will just drive and open and dump 'em and then will, those animals will show up at farmhouses. You know, you don't know who this dog is, where it comes from, but yet sometimes you have to deal with a strange dog that maybe hasn't eaten or, you know, it may be crazy, it may be friendly. Sometimes you have to dispatch a dog. And firearms are very handy for that. So

Vance Crowe [00:11:54] Yeah, you wouldn't wanna be in a situation where you didn't have one in that case.

Jerod McDaniel [00:11:58] Yeah, I mean that, those are just real world things. Snakes, you know, snakes are always around in the summer. You need to be able to shoot a rattlesnake if you see one. There's, there's numerous things that, that we actually have practical daily use for guns. And pretty much everybody, even before this, everybody always carried firearms. It wasn't like a, you know, this isn't some change of pace in our world. Now I understand like other places that may seem different or radical, but that's, that's pretty much how everybody exists. It's, it is a, a very much a culture of self-reliance. You know, you, you look out for your neighbor, but first and foremost, you look out for yourself and your family.

Vance Crowe [00:12:33] So you take COVID seriously. I know that because, you know, when you talked about going to Walmart to pick up some bikes for your kids, you, you did gloves, right? So tell me about what your, what, what do you think of this disease? What is it, how do you think it works? How dangerous is it? What are your thoughts on it spreading?

Jerod McDaniel [00:12:55] You know, just like anything, you see it go like wildfire in the news and you watch all this stuff and how it moves, it, that's very, it's hard to ignore. You can't, you can't say this isn't real. I mean, part part of me wants to believe that, you know, this is just a dream you wake up from, but that's slowly fading as every day goes on. But for the most part, I think it's more of a, it's kind of a fascination with how everything is going, how, how the society is reacting to it. I'm really puzzled and kind of enamored with just society rebuilding itself because it has to, not because it wants to, which is something entirely different that I've ever experienced in my lifetime.

Vance Crowe [00:13:34] You know, one of the, One of the people I'm gonna have on tomorrow for the podcast is a guy that runs an HVAC company. And I, I wanna know how are people treating the people that are going in and fixing your heating and cooling and your plumbing and your electrical in your house when everybody thinks that a stranger is full of toxic chemicals. Yeah. So you need this person to come to your house and yet you're like, I don't know, they might spread this terrible disease to my wife or my kids or my in-laws, you know, like whatever. And you,

Jerod McDaniel [00:14:07] Yes, you, you spray 'em with Lysol and when they come in, you just, you house 'em in that. I mean, I don't know. I mean, you could take extreme measures and, and there are, there reaches a point you have to realize that we are existing in this, in this reality. Now I'm many groceries and I may think like Walmart is, is the pit of whatever thing that is, is going on just because of interaction. And it's like a, you know, a staple place. But you can shut down that insecurity of, of dying or whatever and just go get shit done. You know, go take care of it, wear gloves, be safe, wash your damn hands, do all this stuff that's practical. In, in, in reality is very easy to do. And protect yourself and protect your family. Keep your, you know, don't have your, don't have your people all running out and playing with each other. Just stay away for a little bit. I mean, in animals, and you see this in nature, even a, a sick one will, will tend to isolate itself. And I'm sure that's some kind of evolutionary thing that, you know, hey, get the sick one out of the herds. So we don't just infect everybody. And, and animals also have, you know, undergone years and years of vaccines to keep them from sick. 'cause they gather in a herd. I mean, you look long term at this and you, I think you could actually see how you have kind of the, the nucleus of cities is almost the perfect breeding ground for this. And I'm not saying it's right, wrong or anything that people live in cities. I'm just saying that's a fact that any kind of concentrated human gathering is just perfect place for this to happen.

Jerod McDaniel [00:15:41] And fortunately, like where we live, it's very wide open and actually very sparsely populated and ironically has been kind of dying a slow disease of its own, of just economics, you know, substance. So there's, there's a whole

Vance Crowe [00:15:55] Together. Yeah. Like put together, you are in your own podcasting studio, which is actually a building that you own in your downtown, right?

Jerod McDaniel [00:16:04] Yeah, yeah. It's a, it it was been a, I think when I was a kid it was a video rental store. It's been several things over the years. A friend of mine had it, he owned a trucking business and then he, he built another office. And so I bought this from him and then turned it into what it is now. But yeah, I mean, real estate is so cheap. It's, if it hasn't imploded on itself and collapsed in a downtown, you can pretty much probably offer someone 10 bucks a month or something, you know, some ridiculously low amount. You could probably rent any building in any downtown because

Vance Crowe [00:16:35] The other, the otherwise the value is $0.

Jerod McDaniel [00:16:38] Exactly. Exactly. No one wants to be the guy who rents for nothing. But the fact is, is that there's, there's tons of real estate out here. It'd be interesting to see if someone from a city doesn't see that and say, why don't I just go buy a building in, in small town rural America and live in a building. It's totally doable. And, and it's, and it's probably a wild investment idea that people haven't capitalized on yet because it's still, every downtown in every small town of America has at least five to 10 buildings wide open.

Vance Crowe [00:17:05] Well, so going back to your kind of example where cities are the Petri dish, right? This is where things are gonna end up coming up. And I have a friend, I don't know they'd wanna be connected with this quote, but they refer to cities is CAFOs, right? The confined, yeah. What, what is that? What is even a CAFO stand for? Confined animal feeding operation.

Jerod McDaniel [00:17:24] Yeah, confined animal feeding operation now, which yeah, which

Vance Crowe [00:17:27] Like to a rancher, that's a fine word. Fine CAFOs are fine. But to people living in the city to say, Hey, did you know you're living in a cafo? They, they would be upset about that man. They would not want to think about the fact that they're stacked on top of each other. Being fed from

Jerod McDaniel [00:17:42] I

Vance Crowe [00:17:42] From the countryside.

Jerod McDaniel [00:17:44] I don't mean to, I'm not saying this degrading, I don't think it's a bad thing, but they're feedlots. I mean, essentially people exist in those areas and it's very concentrated. It's very efficient. I mean, this is one thing that I think is gonna be phenomenal to watch going forward is, is these new efficiencies that are gonna come out where you're gonna see maybe some real badass stuff. Like you'll get maybe a complete database of cattle producers across the United States and then you could then take that, go with it. And then anybody who was interested in buying directly from a rancher, you could go to them. We could bypass the whole old market of, we take it to slaughter. Slaughter takes the processing, you know, like the whole roundabout way we could bypass that

Vance Crowe [00:18:27] Dude. Okay. And that's, you just gotta figure out how

Jerod McDaniel [00:18:28] To need figure how to do this.

Vance Crowe [00:18:29] We, but you and I have been talking about this for a year at this point. Yeah. Like I've been saying, Jared, what does it take for me to get a cattle like a cow from you? I wanna slaughter it. I'll put it, I'll get a freezer, I'll put it in there. And you were like,

Jerod McDaniel [00:18:42] Man,

Vance Crowe [00:18:42] You don't even understand how hard that is. I have hundreds and hundreds of cattle, they're all over my property, my hundreds of acres. But to get 'em slaughter and sent to you is really difficult. And I was like, man, not only would I pay money for that, a lot of people I know would pay money for that. Think that's, and then we can get around this country of origin labeling argument that you guys are always into. Just let me buy from my farmer.

Jerod McDaniel [00:19:04] Well there's the deal. I think that that's where we're going because how, how much more concerned are people about their food security now? What do, what, what do you think? Do you think people are more jacked up about? Not necessarily,

Vance Crowe [00:19:15] Not everybody, just that it's not everybody. I no, like, so I am keyed up on it, on to the point of probably going over the edge, right? Like I'm, I'm probably a little bit, but I can tell you that right now I could call up 50 people with no problem and sell them a half a cow if they had the freezer space for it, I could do it and I could do it for 10 x whatever the grocery, no, I don't know, 10 x, five x, whatever you're getting at the grocery store. Because people want it and they want it now and they don't wanna have to go to the grocery store. But the reason we can't do that is 'cause the, we don't have slaughter facilities.

Jerod McDaniel [00:19:49] Well I, if I could even get a slaughter space where I could get a butchered and frozen and put in brown boxes, they would then have to find a way to get it from where I live to where they are now in the winter. That would be easy. Bring a pickup, it's frozen outside, throw it in the back, you drive, it's perfect to do in the summer. You've gotta keep it refrigerated. So maybe this is something towards

Vance Crowe [00:20:09] The winter people are willing pay the freight costs, man. People are willing to pay the freight. And, and, and you could have it find some guy that'll do it in the back of a schwan, old schwan truck.

Jerod McDaniel [00:20:18] Hey, and maybe that's the thing. Maybe this is a new employment, a jobs opportunity.

Vance Crowe [00:20:23] Hell

Jerod McDaniel [00:20:23] Yeah, it is. Is beef, straight, straight, straight, beef delivery.

Vance Crowe [00:20:25] And everybody, if you do this delivery right, nobody has to touch whatever's going on here. Right?

Jerod McDaniel [00:20:31] But imagine if, what if it's me and then you look and somewhere over there, there's another guy who is maybe a hundred miles closer, but you could buy from him and his you. That's what you say. You distribute that network and then everybody has access to an immediate beef. That's, they just gotta work out the slaughter problem. There's a website

Vance Crowe [00:20:48] Called slaughter themselves called, I mean that's when you, when I couldn't get it from you, I went out and got it myself. Right? So I I, I wanna look this name up here, but I found this, this company that would send me a bunch of beef and chicken and like, it was expensive, but it's tastes great. And I now they're my friends. So

Jerod McDaniel [00:21:06] I got a question. If it, if, if I hauled a live cow to you, would you kill it and butcher it like in your backyard?

Vance Crowe [00:21:14] I'm not going

Jerod McDaniel [00:21:15] Like the ulti. No, no, no. The ultimate experience, if you could, because think about it, people don't have anything to do. But imagine if they could learn, watch YouTube videos, get all excited, get all their tools. 'cause this is like a, a new sport like home slaughter and then I bring the animal, we knock it in the head and then you somebody takes it and strings it up and then you could have at home slaughter and then you'd go immediately to your freezer just like they used to do back in the fifties. The

Vance Crowe [00:21:40] Same as the people that are doing craft beer.

Jerod McDaniel [00:21:43] Yeah. Kind of like that. Why not? Why not have, why not have, and how many

Vance Crowe [00:21:47] More

Jerod McDaniel [00:21:48] Cool hobbies are we

Vance Crowe [00:21:48] 'cause of the terrible waste that would come with that. I mean, those animals have a significant amount of blood. You have a lot of stuff you're throwing out there. Like people don't keep things clean. Like you, like, I mean, I'm not saying regulate 'em, but people that, like if I told my wife that I was gonna slaughter a pig in the, in the backyard, you just, you're living in a dream, Jared. This isn't gonna happen. But I like the, I like where you're going.

Jerod McDaniel [00:22:19] You get hungry enough. It will,

Vance Crowe [00:22:21] You know, I may need to start doing these podcasts at night like this all the time. I, this is, this is a lot of fun. So let's go back to coronavirus stuff because not, it's not just coronavirus, but the oil prices. Like other things are going on in the world right now. I actually have a significant impact on, on people raising cattle right now. You were telling me about it. I got another friend Brian Mos up in North Dakota, he's got this exact problem. But describe the ethanol problem going on right now.

Jerod McDaniel [00:22:49] Yeah, well it started today with me 'cause we're having a hard time getting future shipments of DDG cubes, which for people that don't know, DDGs are a byproduct of, of the ethanol industry. They're just basically you get ethanol, the straight stuff that goes in your gasoline and you also get a, just a byproduct that's basically like mash left on the bottom of those of fermenters that then it's dried out and it's called distiller grain anyway, that could be made compressed into a cube, which we use to feed our cattle out on range to stimulate the rumen with protein, which then enhances their ability to make use of the grass and sends it further. Has to do with forged resource and grazing and all this stuff. So essentially that's a very necessary ingredient that we have, that we've gotten very accustomed to using. And it's been relatively cheap. It's worked, it's been affordable. It's a very, it was just a great product. But now that we see that with,

Vance Crowe [00:23:46] I don't think most Americans have any idea what's going on with oil at all. No idea.

Jerod McDaniel [00:23:51] Well the, the, the problem with oil now is, is twofold. You have, before all this started, you had kinda had a oil where oil war between Russia, Saudi Arabia, and, and really America kind of is caught in the crossfire because basically they dumped all the oil on the world. And now you started having that, then you had the double whammy of, oops, nobody's driving and then nobody's driving anywhere in the world and oil demand has just went down to nothing.

Vance Crowe [00:24:16] And they're not flying. There's just nobody like they're, they're gonna run percent less flights outta my airport. That is fuel, fuel, fuel.

Jerod McDaniel [00:24:23] Yeah. So you start to get this buildup, you start to get this, this is where we get into supply chain derivatives that are gonna really mess with people. You start to get in, okay, there's a buildup of oil, so then people aren't driving, so we don't need the additive ethanol. Well then ethanol plants start to shut down. Now they still use some, but we don't, you know, we've, our stockpiles are getting big. So now this very necessary thing that you might need, you know, ethanol or oil or all these energy things that the world still works on, there's an abundance 'cause because of the shock to the system. Now if we come out of this and we all of a sudden say, oh, we need all this stuff, all that shit's offline because guess what? You've, you've stopped it, you've choked it out. You know, so it takes a little while

Vance Crowe [00:25:05] To start. Yeah. 'cause people don't understand, like refineries shut down, people go home, they don't have jobs. Literally

Jerod McDaniel [00:25:11] They, they, yeah. There's, there is somewhere in, there is literally a valve that is turned and the oil flow stops going through it. So I don't know if they actually shut completely down, but they basically are, are done.

Vance Crowe [00:25:22] And this relates both to coronavirus and just the regular world. I mean, this would be going on right now without coronavirus. And then you couple that with the fact that you could start shutting these things down and you don't know what kinda wobbly effects coronavirus is gonna have on refineries or shipping or any other number of things.

Jerod McDaniel [00:25:42] Yeah, yeah. And, and, and I brought this, I think I shared this with you in a text and I, I'll bring it up here. You have to look at the people that are deemed essential almost as disposable in a way by society, because you need those people to be out there making all that stuff work. And society has kind of said, well, you are, you know, it, it's like they tell this huge story. Everybody stay inside because it's dangerous. Don't expose yourselves, stay in blah, blah, blah. You know, it's very, very much a real thing. Stay inside. But the people that need like have to go to work to make the food, to, you know, make I literally make the food in a carry out restaurant. People that you know are doctors, policemen, firemen, the people that are deemed essential, they actually still have to go to work and do what they have to do within the context of now they're out with, you know, this supposed boogeyman flying around. So it's a weird dichotomy how you, how that is how you have essential but could also be deemed disposable because you need those people on the front line for society to function and still be able to come through this.

Vance Crowe [00:26:45] I mean, I had a real problem at my house and that is that I got geothermal installed and then I got these wells drilled out in my front yard and because of that, the ground mounted over and you don't wanna like mash it down until after you've gone through a, a winter and then a spring. So it freezes and then thaws and it comes down. But I needed to get that thing leveled out because water was being trapped between that trench in my house and coming in my basement. Right? So I gotta get this fixed and if I wait for the rains in St. Louis, that could be real bad. It could be real expensive. It could cause all kinds of problems in my basement. So I'm like, I need to find somebody that can do this. And there was a guy a couple houses down doing like Bobcat work, skidsteer work. And I just went over there and was like, Hey, what would it cost for you to do this for me? And he was this Mexican guy, I think, and as opposed to Guatemalan or Nicaragua or something. And he came over and he was like $200. He could have said a thousand dollars. And I'd have been like, I'll pay it. Like I, I would've paid anything to have it because there was no way I was gonna get on the phone and be able to call somebody to come down and do that.

Jerod McDaniel [00:27:58] Yeah, well that's where you're gonna get into like real, you know, the, okay, the, the thousand dollars would've been what you paid if you would've actually got ahold of someone to come out and fix it for you. But the guy who was running the skid steer probably would've got like 50 bucks. Well right now that guy just got 200 bucks. That's

Vance Crowe [00:28:15] Right. Instead

Jerod McDaniel [00:28:15] Of 50.

Vance Crowe [00:28:15] That's exactly right.

Jerod McDaniel [00:28:16] And he, he, he quadrupled his wages by bypassing because you and him were connected. So this is the middleman that the, the magic of we'll lose a, a whole bunch of people in the middle, but we'll gain a whole bunch of new things that'll be just cool as hell

Vance Crowe [00:28:30] That nobody ever thought about. I felt nothing. Beef

Jerod McDaniel [00:28:33] Delivery service, man.

Vance Crowe [00:28:35] I, I, I feel nothing but respect for delivery service people. 'cause there are a lot of people sitting in their houses, including myself and these people are saying, now is my chance to make some money and I will tip them whatever they want, you know, like they, they don't ask for it. But like, I try and go way beyond because I'm like, thank you for doing this service, thank you for being one of the people that wants to come out and take some risk, but is getting stuff done. I'm grateful to that.

Jerod McDaniel [00:29:01] Yeah. Well now, and the the weird thing is a little bit that I found is a lot of these things that you think would be real busy from the people I've talked to, like delivery services, they're like, no, we're not real busy. You know, it's like people have kind of shut down. I think that's one of the biggest problems that I'm, I see with the economy is

Vance Crowe [00:29:20] Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What do you mean People think they aren't, if I wanna get delivery for my grocery stores right now, it used to be I could put it in in two hours later. I would have my groceries. Now if I put in an order this morning, Tuesday morning, I will not get something until Sunday night.

Jerod McDaniel [00:29:36] So it takes longer.

Vance Crowe [00:29:38] Oh my god, it takes almost a week now world if I wanna get it delivered, it takes a week. Whereas before it was two hours.

Jerod McDaniel [00:29:47] But you know what's funny? It's probably, it probably explains it. 'cause out here the bottleneck doesn't exist. 'cause people, I think people were probably a little more stocked up in that. I what do you think about that? And when you saw the first runs on, on supplies because they're, they've been replenished. I mean is there, are there places still

Vance Crowe [00:30:04] Out food? No, there, I mean they're, it's not that they're out of food, it's that they're limited quantities of things. So, and people go and then they buy a whole bunch of it up now I think on some of the things they've caught up on because people are only going to eat so much bread, you know? But there, like, there are a lot of things and I think one of the things that this whole thing has uncovered is people in America don't know how to cook. So they buy the packaged, processed, created foods, which is why you, that's a whole nother added component of the supply chain that you have to keep going. Which is, yeah, like, and if you don't, I think Americans right now, some of them are learning to cook and taking the time to cook good, healthy food. And some of them are eating junk food. And we're gonna watch who waddles out and who who runs out really.

Jerod McDaniel [00:30:48] You know, what I thought was funny is, is about day seven or something, day eight, kind of into like the first, after President Trump said, okay, here's the day, two weeks from now. So that's the reference point. But like day seven or nine you go to the grocery store and people are still kind of pretty good about walking around then. And you were, you weren't running out of fresh vegetables and those kind of things. You were running out of shit like cereal because it was like, we have to eat and that's all some people can eat. I mean, and it's, and you know, it, it's really the first time in America's existence outside of maybe the 1920s redline experience. So obviously no, not hardly anybody is alive today that experienced that, but Americans are getting a dose of you can't get what you want. And that's a li I think it's been a, a little bit of a bitter pill to swallow or it's, it's becoming one maybe,

Vance Crowe [00:31:41] You know, and maybe that's a central component of what the American dream is, but you can't see the dream if you've been living in it for so long. Right. Like

Jerod McDaniel [00:31:50] I think you're I think you're exactly right. I think people didn't realize how good we had it. I mean, and, and self included. I'm not cascading anybody, I'm saying that. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:31:58] I mean that's why travel and those kinds of things getting out is really helpful because when I went to the Peace Corps and I was living in rural Africa, there's all these things that you're like, oh my God, I never, I never thought about the fact that having running water at your house means you can take a bath or you can move your feces from inside the house to outside the house and you don't have to go to an house. Like, you just don't think about that stuff now because it's been so central to your life.

Jerod McDaniel [00:32:26] Yeah, well and that's a, that's one of the big things that I think has happened with in the last I heard somebody, I don't even, you know, you hear, you read so much and your brain gets so full of stuff, you forget where you found it. But something to the effect that since 1950 or 60 America has kind of been put on, like the, the leaders are essentially just theater actors. 'cause there hasn't been anything that they have like since the wars ended there, our government really doesn't do anything. It doesn't really protect us from stuff. And so, you know, we have a war every now and then, but for the most part, the people who are in power are just whoever can placate the biggest group the most. Like there wasn't much substance to the people running government.

Vance Crowe [00:33:08] And you know what, I think it's because the Cold War that the government used to keep themselves, you know, like, look, we're really important. You really need us. 'cause we're in, you know, we're fighting tooth and nail with the, with the commies over in Russia after a while, all of these different fights that we were in, but we never actually got in because at this point people have nuclear weapons. Like we lost that sense of like, oh, thank God they're building fallout shelters and they're doing these things for us. And you couldn't get the entire country to rally around climate change the way that you could get 'em to rally around the Russians are evil. And it, it definitely, our country was moving apart because these guys were saying one thing was important and these guys were saying something else was important, but now everybody is focused on this thing is really important. And I think the biggest surprise to me is how quickly people came to accepting government force in this, in this circumstance.

Jerod McDaniel [00:34:07] Yeah. Well we're, we're all living the same so opera right now. And that's, that's the weird thing is we're living in en mass and in the, it's really cr it's kind of like when you're herding cattle, you know, if you, if you, if the entire group was wild or are wild, it's very hard to contain 'em because you might get a, you know, if there's a hundred, you might get 25 going in one direction and then 75 who are still crazy as shit take off the other way. So containing a a herd of animals in, in a sense is very hard to do if all of them are crazy. Now, if just one or two, you control that one and then all the other ones follow it. So you, you don't, if there's just isolated incidents of wild animals, it's then you could gather 'em pretty easy. You just control the crazy one. Now if they're all tame and easy, you just wave some food and they walk right in behind you. And that's essentially where we're at with society is,

Vance Crowe [00:35:03] Whoa man, you

Jerod McDaniel [00:35:06] Know, you don't, you don't have a, all you do is you wave a little money, a little food and everybody comes running. So I mean, we've lost, we've lost our ability to be wild. We we're still animals and, and I think what we're doing is people are living and people are gonna get a little feral, which probably needs to happen. So they have a true understanding of, of, of recognition of where they, where they stood in life before this.

Vance Crowe [00:35:27] What does it look like to get a little feral?

Jerod McDaniel [00:35:32] You live by your own rules that you basically, you know, provide the best you can for your family and don't you, you survive.

Vance Crowe [00:35:40] I think the book that I, I

Jerod McDaniel [00:35:41] Think survival,

Vance Crowe [00:35:42] I think the book that I have read that, that has changed my life the most in, in, I mean, I would say maybe in my life, just that it was like a wake up thing before Coronavirus happened was the undiscovered Self by Carl Young. And in this book he talked about a thing that you actually told me about that I needed to do to change in my podcast. So you at one point told me like, Vance, you have to show your shadow a little bit more. Like people need to understand that the public persona that you put on is not the same as like the guy that got you here and the guy that got you here got in some trouble. And that's what I started exploring, right? The part that gets you in trouble is the part that gives you soul weight. And I think that yeah, when you run into deprivation, you can either enforce, impose that on yourself, have discipline or the world will impose it on you and then you'll find out you weren't ready and then you'll learn it from that circumstance. And I think right now we're about to find a whole bunch

Jerod McDaniel [00:36:42] Of

Vance Crowe [00:36:42] People.

Jerod McDaniel [00:36:44] Yeah, you, you just, just what your phrase there just described America, you're, you, you're gonna get all ready and find out you're not ready.

Vance Crowe [00:36:52] Right. I mean I have been surprised at how much, and people are blowing off steam. So it's, but I am very mindful of what food we buy, what food we store, what food we eat and what quantities. And my wife is pregnant so she can have whatever she wants, but I really think about what I put in my grocery basket now and what I eat because I'm thinking I want to be as healthy as possible. And there are, there is, I'm not saying that we are going to have instability, but in my lifetime there's never been a point where there was potential for more instability than right now. So I think about do I really want to eat this now or do I wanna make sure maybe I have it for tomorrow or the next day, maybe I'll save it for tomorrow.

Jerod McDaniel [00:37:37] Well, and we've, I think we've all kind of entered a scarcity mindset, which is, is what it is. But all, I don't think everybody, you our, I

Vance Crowe [00:37:43] Don't, I think think you No, no, no, no. I think,

Jerod McDaniel [00:37:47] Well we we're very much that way. You, you you, you make the food that you need and ev and you eat everything. You don't waste it, you don't be wasteful. If you get something out, you drink it all or you drink water, you, you, it's a very basic primitive thing. But it's essentially survival 1 0 1. Like get some resources. You might need some food, get some ammunition, you might have to shoot something.

Vance Crowe [00:38:08] There's, when did you start purchasing things? There's basic when, when did you start purchasing things because Coronavirus was around and you wanted to make sure you had it

Jerod McDaniel [00:38:19] January, I'd say January, early February. We were kind of, it was in the news and we talked about it and then we might go to Sam's and buy some extra stuff. Nothing out of the ordinary 'cause with a large family. And we also live very rural, isolated. I mean, you know, I'm, I'm seven miles from my local town, basically 25 from the, the big town with 13,000 people where there's the Walmart and all that. We're, we're pretty isolated, so we already buy in bulk. So it's not a huge transition for us to, to have some extra supplies on hand. But, but we were mindful of it and started early. So by the time it arrived we actually looked around and kind of said, we're basically, we're ready for it. You know, it was, it was a welcome. It's like, oh well something we actually prepared for happened. So

Vance Crowe [00:39:10] Yeah, I I I started taking it serious in the beginning of March. So that, and when I started taking it serious, I mean, you were around, I started telling you guys I'd love to go back and figure out who was the first one of us to start mentioning it and talking about it because I for a while ignored it. 'cause I was like, Hey, I gotta get on planes and I gotta go travel and yeah, and I mean I I I had noticed it when I was, when I had a big trip in Canada start going, I mean if you'd have told me back then, just at the beginning of March, the border between the can between Canada and the US will be guarded and you will not be able to cross freely across it. I would've thought you were an insane person and that's happened.

Jerod McDaniel [00:39:57] Well yeah. And, and I think that really everybody, for the most part, people are pretty much in shock. I think that it's still kind of that dream phase and people are starting to realize, oh, life is starting to really change and, and some of it's starting to come back to normal. I don't know that, I think it's still a matter of everything is so new and so many things are changing and so many new rules are being written like you gotta watch because there's probably a lot of bad shit getting written into law just like there was in the last panic. I mean, you know, that stuff accidentally and intentionally. I'm not, you know, it's just a function of, of crisis and chaos if that's all that is.

Vance Crowe [00:40:36] I, so I have an opinion about people going to churches during coronavirus and I want to just all articulate it and then I'm interested to see what you think of it and, you know, don't, don't hold back, you know, don't pull any punches all

Jerod McDaniel [00:40:51] No problem

Vance Crowe [00:40:53] With the, with the coronavirus. I want public health officials to be able to issue the strongest warnings possible. The thing that says, Hey everybody, this is a very big deal. You should have your employer feel empowered to not make you go to work. You should feel empowered to stay in your home and separate from other people. Everyone should know that sports games should be eliminated. But when you start saying, as a government, this is the phone number to call us. If you see people gathering to worship in, in groups, either, either at all or in groups of 10 or more, you are crossing a line that is the first amendment. Yeah. And if people wanna make the choice to surround themselves with other people and be close to other people, I recognize that, that that puts more people in danger. But on some level, people have to be able to make that choice. 'cause that's the first amendment, the right to the right to assemble, you know, the, the right to, to gather and have speech. I I, I don't think this is a good plan at all. I don't think we should be doing that at all.

Jerod McDaniel [00:42:05] Yeah. Well you run into, and, and I may be butchering this, but Jordan Peterson would talk about the, in Russia, whenever they would, I believe it was Russia, where the people would, could go and say, well, this person is, is not faithful to the party. And then that person would disappear. Do you remember what it it, it was a Gulag Archipelago.

Vance Crowe [00:42:27] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, it's not Viktor Frankl. It's, I I know the book. I read the book and it was horrifying. I got to a certain point on a plane I wanted to throw up. I was you're right though the, the informers.

Jerod McDaniel [00:42:41] But think about it, if, if you had, if you knew someone who wasn't doing what was good for everybody, what do you do? You tell on 'em and then that's a, becomes a weapon. I mean it becomes, it will become, if it stays that way in society, it could become a weapon. Now there's also the reality of this is just a freak out weird time where group gathering groups just happens to maybe be dangerous. So for a a, a bit of time you have to give common sense to people who say, don't do this. You know, I think you give credence to the idea that, okay, let's do this for a while, once the social

Vance Crowe [00:43:13] Distancing may off. Wait, so are you saying if there's, if, if people are doing it, should the police officer be able to stop by there and break it up and send everybody home?

Jerod McDaniel [00:43:21] I think at this point the police officers are gonna be like, yeah, good luck with that. We're not gonna go to that and break up a public gathering. 'cause guess what that police officer has to do? He has to go in the middle of a crowd and, and move them away like bullshit. He's gonna be like, look, if these people all wanna get sick, I guess they're all gonna get sick. Like that's how it's gonna

Vance Crowe [00:43:39] Be. Well that's why, whether it's

Jerod McDaniel [00:43:40] Supposed to be, that's what's gonna happen when

Vance Crowe [00:43:42] I, when I start,

Jerod McDaniel [00:43:43] It'd be like, die. If you, if you have to gather and you get this, then that's on you. Which honestly is kind of a pretty libertarian principle if you really wanna get down to it. And if society would say, enter society at your own risk, now think about that, then it would truly, we would start to really get a marketplace value on risk because then people would say, there's no government telling me not to do it. There's either, I have to weigh in my own mind the risk of going out. Now the people that go out are probably not gonna be real smart and they're probably gonna infect each other and it's gonna be a well, 'cause at the

Vance Crowe [00:44:19] End of the day, how are you gonna force the people that are working to pay for the people that aren't? You gotta have, you gotta have somewhere online people that are doing make the decisions.

Jerod McDaniel [00:44:30] You, you better go read some Anne Rand. I guess that's, that's the, that's kind of the basis of theirs. The, the producers, you know, and I, I don't know. I think that, I think that there's humanity in it. I think nobody that raises food or, or is an essential worker, nobody feels disposable. Nobody thinks that. Like they're not going to dery their human, their fellow man of, of, of food. If you had to, you know, within families and, and communities, like that's not gonna happen to the best ability that people are humans.

Vance Crowe [00:44:58] I

Jerod McDaniel [00:44:59] Now reality is, is if,

Vance Crowe [00:45:00] Go ahead. If

Jerod McDaniel [00:45:01] The world keeps, if the world stays at its current pace where everybody's locked down and a whole bunch of people aren't working, then you've got to have a philosophical discussion of are we really going, you know, whose time is valuable? Or is the time of somebody sitting there watching Netflix who says, I need to get paid my wages. Well maybe you need, like, you need subsistence wages where you can buy some food and some water and a few nice things or whatever. But you don't, you don't need to make sure that the car that's in your garage that is not being used for society makes sure that that payment goes like the, there will be a point of essential and non-essential capital allocation if you want to get to it. I mean, and that will be decided by society. But I think that there's so many levels of,

Vance Crowe [00:45:41] That's truly hard to wrap your head around if you do any of that. That's, that that line ends up becoming how much of the responsibility is born by the state, born by the workers and how much do you get to just take from them? Because like,

Jerod McDaniel [00:45:56] Well I think, I think that it, it will have to be a defined line of not, not even, it won't be like a hey that this day forward, this is what my value is, you know, but there is a point in time whenever, man, I don't know, what are you gonna do if you raise food or you, or you or protect society or doctors? Are you gonna say, no, I'm not doing it. Because that's, that's within a, I mean, I don't know what do doctors and people that like I don't have a, an oath to anything. I have an oath to my family if I have to, I'll shoot a cow in the yard, but that's, that's my existence. Other people, you know, are they gonna not show up for work? The essentials or the people that have to keep going to keep the, keep the world spin. I

Vance Crowe [00:46:36] Think that as long as there is an net for people, they will choose to do the, you know, I imagine myself in this kind of John Locke state of nature. There's no food and I have to shoot the deer that are in my backyard and, and hope that I don't get chronic wasting disease from it. But like outside of that, would I collect food stamps or would I go out and do lettuce harvesting on John Bolt's lettuce farm down in Yuma, Arizona and the Arizona sun all summer long, cutting out, cutting out lettuce in order to make my money. I can tell you that it would be damn tempting to take some check because that work, I know how hard that work is and that is brutal work that those people are only doing to be able to get their kids onto a better life. But they never so had something better. They didn't step down to go do that work. That'll be really hard to do

Jerod McDaniel [00:47:30] Hard. We're all vegetable pickers now.

Vance Crowe [00:47:32] Yeah, that's what

Jerod McDaniel [00:47:34] You don't get. We're all

Vance Crowe [00:47:35] Vegetable pickers. Hope not, man. I, I mean I, I hope that people are

Jerod McDaniel [00:47:38] Able to do work that they need. Well, I, in the, in the sense that you, you mentioned their, their wish was to come here and, and provide a better life for their kids. In the sense, in that sense, we're all in that boat. All we want to do is, especially I think middle-aged people, is get your kids, get 'em through this, get 'em onto, you know, there's a vaccine. Life goes back to normal treasure this time. Make it worth their time to learn something so that when life reemerges, that they actually have an appreciation and have a better understanding grasp of it. So in, in, in a sense, we're all that migrant worker just trying to make a better life for our kids. So we also, so we, if you notice, they don't have a lot of hangups that a lot of really affluent people do because they focus on what is immediate and necessary and most important in the, in their life at that time, which we've all kind of went back to.

Vance Crowe [00:48:26] And man, that is a great way to circle back to the very place we began, which was talking about you and your family in a time of coronavirus. And I gotta tell you, man, I feel a sense of happiness and joy with the fact that you are isolated, at least in some regard from Coronavirus and that you're having this time with your family. It's inspiring and it makes me wanna spend, you know, my time with my wife and make sure that when we get out of the quarantine, that we still think about life in this way. So thank you for coming on the podcast. Thanks for being who you are. And man, keep producing beef because the world needs it. We're all vegetable pickers now, man.

Jerod McDaniel [00:49:08] That's right. Hey man, thanks for having me on and I, I can't say thank you enough for doing all these, this is really cool. I think it's, I think one day you'll, you know, it'll be, it'll be in the stuff where they actually go back and there's a record of real conversations that happened with individuals because there's so much media bullshit that really the only way to get to it is to have real conversations like this in long form. So, and I think people appreciate it. So I've seen a lot of good things out of it.

Vance Crowe [00:49:34] It's been a joy to do. I've gotten to talk with people like you. So man, get back to your family. Have a great night tonight and thank you so much. We'll talk to you later.

Jerod McDaniel [00:49:42] Yep. Peace.

Vance Crowe [00:49:45] Oh wait, one thing, if people wanted to get ahold of you on Twitter, how do they do that? And what's your podcast? People

Jerod McDaniel [00:49:53] Should know

Vance Crowe [00:49:53] About it. Oh yeah.

Jerod McDaniel [00:49:54] And you also forgot me about two weeks from now. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Vance Crowe [00:50:01] No,

Jerod McDaniel [00:50:02] Two weeks from now, what's, you ask all your guests on the

Vance Crowe [00:50:05] Deal? Oh yeah. Two weeks from now. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, let's not end it.

Jerod McDaniel [00:50:10] Alright. Okay. Yeah. Jared mc, just at Jared McDaniel, the podcast is Ag Uncensored. You can get that go to iTunes. It's just ag uncensored, all one word. It doesn't exist. You have to type it.

Vance Crowe [00:50:26] And now let's much, let me ask you the other question. The, the two weeks question, I can't believe I didn't think of that. So Jared McDaniel, two weeks from today, what will the world look like?

Jerod McDaniel [00:50:37] It'll be enchanted dystopia. I think we'll still be getting used to the idea. I think people will be much more hunkered down, but I think they'll be more desensitized to it. And you'll start to see the people who are like, screw this. I've been inside long enough. And you'll start to see that part of society emerging. And you'll also see people who are still screaming to stay at home. And, and somewhere along the line there'll be a breakthrough that's allows some way to test of people who've had it maybe can go work. I think you'll, I think about that's gonna be further out in two weeks, but in two weeks you'll still be calamity. I think we're still getting used to the idea of a new world and, and the rules are still being written. So that's kind of where I see it.

Vance Crowe [00:51:18] Great. Well I hope as they're writing 'em, they listen to what you have to say. So we'll talk later. Jared, thanks for catching me up on that. We'll talk later man.

Jerod McDaniel [00:51:26] See ya.