“Pigs were an excellent, creative way for me to radically start improving the landscape. So, you think about all of these destructive tendencies of pigs, like the rooting, the wallowing, everything. Conventional farming would have you go out and just like spraying chemicals all over these weeds and like ripping up the ground and tearing everything up to get rid of them. Regenerative farming, I started harnessing the pig's destructive ability to rip up the soil, get rid of all the nasty invasive plants that my cattle wouldn't eat, and I would just move them around the pasture and plant new forage behind them.”
“I actually, as a kid, went with my uncle to one of these places that he worked at, and I was so excited to go to this pig farm. And I thought I was gonna be, like, interacting with pigs, like, on a field or something. And I went into this massive warehouse, And my job for the day was walking down this massive aisle. The pigs were so loud, you had to wear ear protection, like screaming, louder than gunfire. And I was just shoveling dead piglets that mamas had rolled over on because they're just, like, standing in these crates side by side on concrete slabs. And I just shoveled hundreds of dead piglets into a trash can all day long.”
“I will say that, like, my initial I I think that self help books are just rote and banal. They all just repeat themselves. I'm not I've never been big on self help culture. Like, when I first started picking books, it was just because I was curious about the human condition coming out of the military, as I'm sure you were. I just I was curious why I viewed the world the way that I did and I wanted to find some answers. I started out with, like, the Robert Greene and the Jordan Peterson, and then started diving into, like, the deeper philosophical questions of the meaning of life.”
Juice pulp transformed beef nutrient density and flavor
“The pulp, 100%. The the juice pulp that I feed my animals from from Alchemy Juice, not only does it have a direct impact on the flavor profile and the overall health of my animals, my my animals' immune systems are incredibly robust because of it. The citrus pulp, in particular, when my when my mama sheep and my mama cows are eating that, they're lactating like crazy. Like the amino acid contents are like 2,300 higher than USDA grass fed. We've got vitamin C in our beef, which is there's no vitamin C in beef whatsoever, but that's just a direct reflection of them eating all the citrus pulp.”
Infantry guys struggle most with civilian transition
“I feel like the infantry guys, we have the hardest time with that civilian transition because if you think about it, the types of guys who the infantry appeals to, we're not the high honors, stud athletes. We're kind of like the misfits, the knuckleheads, like we don't really have any other options. So, we like find ourselves in the infantry. The infantry kind of forces us to kind of be this best version of ourselves, and then we go and become a civilian again, and we've become the best version of ourselves, and we no longer have like a mission or a purpose that's going to demand us to be the best version of ourselves anymore.”
“Well, I mean, like you just said, prior to her, the only tool I really had in my toolbox to solving problems was a hammer. Anything gotten put in front of me, it just took a hammer and just started smashing everything violently. And once she came along, it like it forced me to get in my toolbox and figure out different tools. Like, I don't need to use a hammer for problems that require a paintbrush. She's been the catalyst for me lightening my grip on things and becoming softer instead of constantly looking forward to the next thing.”
The Farmer's Bowl: simple format, perfect macros, no counting
“The the the responses have been overwhelmingly positive, really. People look at them, and they're like, wow, they're very simple, they're very practical. A lot of people want to know, what's the macros? And the thing is, I haven't counted a macro in over a decade. I don't need to. If you were to plug any of my bowls into MyFitnessPal any single day, those macros come out damn near perfect every single day, which is doing a hand two handfuls of protein, a handful of the carbohydrates is like the only thing with some wiggle room.”
Drought forced a pivot from cattle to Dorper sheep
“I mean, this prolific drought has, you know, guided me into making the decisions of raising a drought tolerant sheep on my farm. Do did I really start out wanting to be raising sheep? No. I would prefer to be raising predominantly cattle, but due to the land that we had in this drought, it forced me to kind of shift my focus and use an animal that would perform better in this drought, which is a South African breed of meat sheep called Dorpers and so that's what I mainly focus on at the farm.”
Combat perspective shifted after becoming a father
“It's not until, really, after everything that you have, after the dust is settled, really, that you like start to think about the things that you did over there and like how, if the shoe was on the other foot, maybe all of the experiences that you had, you had those for a reason. I start to think about, you know, just living out on my farm with my family now and like the way that we used to just roll up on these houses and these families and just take over. Like, we certainly weren't winning any hearts and minds, and we just couldn't understand why we were losing so badly over there, and it was exactly why.”
Built a homeless-to-CrossFit comeback eating diner scraps
“I was riding a bicycle. A bicycle was my transportation, getting out of the Marine Corps. I'd actually gotten a DUI shortly after my combat deployment and shortly before getting out. I was just kind of a wandering, aimless drunk on a bicycle that was moderately enthusiastic about competing at a high level in fitness. I had seen this diner that slang these massive portions of food and these skinny fashion girls never ate all their food, so I just started swinging in there and getting some extra food to keep in my backpack.”
Got rhabdo from a Murph then broke toes on a horse
“I got invited to go out and do MRF, which is the Memorial Day workout where you do freaking a mile run and a 100 pull ups and 200 push ups, 300 squats, and a mile run-in a plate carrier. I probably hadn't done a pull up in six years. I don't know what I was thinking, but I just I went and jammed through a MRF. And then, like not eight hours later, I'm peeing dark brown Coca Cola and I can't straighten my arms. And then, I'm out there doing all the farm chores and because my arms are so blown up, you can't straighten your arms. I was leading my horse, I'm leading this 1,200 pound thoroughbred with my bent arms like this. She steps on my foot, breaks two of my toes.”
