Welcome, millions, perhaps billions of faithful podcast listeners. We are your host, Jason Kimber and Dave Simmons. We'll bring you along with us as we share life stories from our experiences living in small towns, or in Jason's case, an unincorporated community. That's true, along with genius suggestions for solving the world's problems and a whole lot of laughs.

This is The Small Towns Podcast. Just another beautiful day here in the old, uh, podcast studio. Small Towns podcast. Jason Kimber, Dave Simmons. I'm Dave Simmons. By the way. We've noticed that we don't really, we, there might be people out there that don't even know who's who I know. I'd like to think that when you hear my angelic voice over these radio waves, podcast waves, I'm not quite sure what they're referred to anymore.

I. That you would recognize and put my voice with my, I gotta get my picture up somewhere. Do you? Yeah. We've talked about putting our pictures on our, uh, little website and stuff. Then I think, I don't really know that we should remember 'cause you're deuce and a half. They, well, and they say, you know, like the camera ads like, 70, 80 pounds.

Yeah. And we don't even have any, I dunno, that could get interesting. We're shaking things up a little bit today. Um, well listen Dave, I, let me just turn it to you because this is big news in studio. Yeah. This is big time news, big for the first time ever, folks in the Small Towns podcast. We have a special guest with us today.

Dun dun dun. And it's our good buddy Nick Zollinger. Refer to him as Nikolai, almost as if there were two of them. Yeah. Well, to me, to me, uh, Nikolai Zollinger, actually, I don't even know if you know, but in my head it's. Nikolai Zho. Hey Nick. Thanks for joining us. Hey, thanks for having me. I was so excited when you guys invited me to be on the podcast, so I couldn't wait to be here.

I, we've thought about this a lot. I. The only thing that could make this podcast even just a little bit better, I think this is gonna help us get that one two star rating right up to a five. Yeah. Somebody gives a two star rating and we're really pretty hurt about it. Well, Jason gave me the stats. So you guys have 22 million followers and 15 million active listeners.

In our minds, yes, in our minds. I just. A platform like that, how could you ever say no to getting your message out there about, I don't know what your message is gonna be, and this, I guess that's the, what we need to do is, is kind of in the spirit of the whole small towns idea. That's true. We need to kind of introduce Nick and where he comes from and.

And uh, how we know him. Yeah, that's good point. So I know, I know Nick, when Nick and I actually call ball games local high school ball games on the radio together, have done for the last couple of years, and that's been a lot of fun. In fact, a lot of our listeners are hearing more than the game a lot of times on, on our broadcast, don't you think?

Yeah. We'd like to share a little bit about our personal lives, whether they want it or not. I think that's part of the experience listening to us on the radio. I would sure. Like to hope so. And Jason, you met Nick many years ago. Yeah, I, Nick and I worked together, um, for a lot of years. I mean, I've known Nick for, I.

Oh geez. It's been 15, 16, 20, almost 20 years. Years. Probably a long time. A long, long time. Our relationship started at the Preston Golf and Country Club. Oh my goodness. I remember I tell you, high quality facility. Jason had a membership. I did. Really? I did. Doesn't show,

really? Does show. Oh, listen, I um, Yeah, I got nothing. I'm still just as horrible golfer as I was then. Well Dave, I love when you referred to Jason as deuce and a half. Yeah, he's dee and a half. I like to say he's two something. Ready to do something. Listen, I'll have, you know, first of all, I mean this could, this is a great thing about this podcast.

I mean, it can take any direction it wants to go. I stepped on the scales the other day. I like right at two 50. You look great. Think I feel great. And Dave has a calibrated eye. Well, he does. And I'm getting my tonsils out tomorrow, which as I understand, I'm gonna drop like 20 pounds over the next couple of weeks.

I, oh, I thought you said your tonsils weighed 20 pounds. Well, they couldn't. That's that's a big set of tonsils. Yes, they are. No wonder they're gonna get out. I can't even breathe with those things in there. No word on the street. You get your tonsils out. You're not gonna eat for like, you know, two weeks.

Uh, popsicles. But don't you worry, I'm gonna like popsicles. I'm gonna like get, like you're gonna fight through that. Yeah. And I'm gonna get like three double cheeses tonight and just like, are you allowed to eat before surgery? Uh, I can eat solid foods clip until 11:00 PM tonight. Well, you get cracking then.

Yeah, I'll do what I can. Can I tell you a quick story about my tonsil removal experience? Absolutely. Yeah. And then I'll get right back into. Like your small town age. We gotta, yeah, go ahead. Yeah. I don't remember the age. This is an embarrassing story. I don't know why I wanted to tell it, but, oh, that's why we're here.

Yeah. I don't remember the age, but my mom bought me brand new pajamas. You know, I had to get up early the next day and then just straight to the hospital. How old were you? I can't remember. Probably gotta be younger than 40. You're younger than 44. Yes. Much younger. When you hear the result of what happened to the pajamas, you'll know that I was at an age Oh boy.

Is susceptible to waking up in the morning with soiled,

so don't worry. I, in one of our most recent podcasts, I. That I firmly believe that every grown man has pooped his pants at least once. Well, that's, that's so go ahead. That's a stat that I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna fight on and we're not gonna have any of our fact checkers even. Look that my poop your pants story tops 'em all.

Oh boy. Okay, well, we're gonna, you ever want put it in in that? We're gonna circle back around. We'll circle around, circle back to that one. So yeah, brand new jam. He's going to bed. Gonna wake up maybe five o'clock in the morning. Go get the tonsils out. Woke up. Wetter than Wet, and my mom was so mad at me.

And I, how am I supposed to control this? I don't know. I'm six years old. Yeah. I listen. I was probably nervous about getting my tonsils out. That's on your mom. So Jason, you wake up tomorrow and you've wet the bed. Yes, buddy. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Nervous. But the problem that I've seen here is I don't think Heather's got any new pajamas lined up on that.

They might. Some. Some, I hope so. Underoos or something? Oh, I hope so. Some Brooks Brothers, some Brooks brothers. Pj, A nice two piece. A nice two piece. That'd be good. Or it's just a one piece with a flap in the back. Oh, hey. That'd be handy. I think we have a friend that his father used to wear one of those.

Oh, did your grandpas ever wear those one? Those single suitors? Hundred percent. They have a belt on 'em. Oh yeah. What's the belt holding up or is it just aesthetic? That's just a style. It's aesthetic. It's, it's just aesthetic. Like accessories. Make the outfit there. Yeah. You can't raise your arm in those.

That cuts you right in half. Grandpa Z rocked the one piece with the belt. One day we'll all be there. Oh yeah. Can't wait. My grandpa loosely did two. I know. At what age are you okay to go ahead and switch over into the one piece four? We're there, huh? Do you think you can ever dress that up with like a tie?

I don't know Why not? You got a belt on, you put on a nice pair of shoes. Oh yeah. You put on a nice pair of shoes, some cowboy boots. Oh, so Nick comes from a, what I learned is actually an unincorporated community. You don't say just like Old Brown reminds another unincorporated community, only this part of the county, but a Logan zip code.

Yeah. It doesn't take you three and a half hours to get there. No. And you can't access it on a paved road on a, a really nice pave paved road everyth. That's true. It's a good, good place. You got gas, you got bookend gas stations at each side of the road. Each end of the road. Yeah. Well then let's tens and bobs.

I don't know high. Well, are those still open? One of 'em tens. I don't want to question your sources, Dave. Yeah. But that hardly seems like unincorporated area. Well, that's what the Wikipedia says. Well, listen then it's true. Um, that's right. It is unincorporated. 'cause that's almost basically like in a metropolis.

It's right between two other little towns. But College Ward is the name of, so you did you guys call it a town? The city. Whatever you wanted. It's our ward. Okay. It's the, that's the ward. It's the college ward. Okay. I like it. So, so college ward is a place where correct grammar isn't necessary. In fact, it might be frowned upon.

Yeah. A hundred percent is frowned upon. Yeah. We frown upon correct grammar out. If you enunciate college ward, get on our ward. We don't take kind of you folks around here. Get on outta here. So Nick, you grew up there your entire life. Born and raised there. Born and raised. Same house. Same house. Yep. So tell us a little bit about your family, mom and dad and, sorry, I wasn't born in that house, however you did get, you were born in the hospital close by, right.

Grandpa Z. Born and died in the same room. Wow. Believe that. Okay. That's actually quite admirable. Lived in the same house is entire life. Did he ever leave that room? Well, yeah. Sometime along the way between birds death. Yeah. At some point he left the Some point. Yeah, and then he came. Okay, got it. Yeah.

Fair enough. Good question though. Well, I thought about it. I kind of clear those things up. So tell us a little bit about your family. A bunch of brothers. Three. Three brothers. Three brother. Two older. One younger ages. Between the four of us. Yeah. Two, four, and six. Really? No sisters? No sisters. But one thing that I love, I don't want to jump in here a little bit 'cause we gotta do a deep dive into the family as well, and maybe even what you did.

You know, what do your parents did for a living? But one thing that I love about Lizer family is when I first met Nick, I mean, I was obviously introduced to him as Nick, but as I have met all of his brothers and his family, I'm the best of them hands down. Except your mom. I thought we were just talking about brothers.

Oh, for sure. Yeah. Brothers hands down. But they all have nicknames. Do you have a nickname? I have plenty of nicknames, but like, I, I didn't realize that I, I love nicknames. Really? I didn't realize, I actually thought Nick's younger brother's given name was Chop. C h o p. Yeah. Chop. Yes. Chop. It's not, I would hope it's not, no.

Titan went in for his, you know, his baptism interview, Titan, uh, Nick's son. Son. My son Titan. Yeah. Just turned eight. So he's in there and the, and the Bishop's asking him, Titan. What's your full legal name? His full legal name is Titan. Michael Zollinger. Mm-hmm. Named after my little brother. Chop CHOP's.

Really? Actually. Michael. Michael? Yeah. Yeah. Well, Titan says, my name is Titan Chopped Zollinger. Does he even really know? We helped him. He helped him understand. Put that on the old birth certificate. That's too funny. I do love that though. You got a great family. Tight knit. Okay, so, so all brothers, no sisters.

Which is better on the plumbing for sure. Better or worse. It's way, it's better to have just boys. Those ladies, they, they wreak havoc on the plumbing. But, um, So you grew up on a farm. True dairy farm, dairy farm, dairy farm, dairy farm, farm, dairy, farm milk, cows farm. Yeah, that's important clarification there.

Between a hundred and 120, maybe we got into 140. I don't remember. And we call it a head, right? 140 head. 40 head, yeah. 140. Head. Head. That's how many cows you're milking at any certain time. Now you have calves and steers and dry cows and a mix of different. A variety of They are included in the head. No.

Your head Is what You're milking. Milking at any given point? Yes. How many are you milking that produce the milk that you're sending off to Gossner or wherever Now when you're like getting raised in Gr Creek and Creek? I just wrote him, threw that in there. I, I got it. I'm picturing like little Nikki Z out there sitting on like on a three, on a bucket.

On, on a, sitting on a bucket. Maybe like a tts. Yeah. Can you say, I think you can, but sitting on like a three stool, like a three-legged stool. Now? No, not that way. Shooting your brothers for months. Exactly. Like, hey, hey, I have shot my brothers. I've shot warm milk, milk out of the tea into his mouth. Oh, yeah, I've done that too.

I've done that too. Guys, now, you know, you're living in an unincorporated community. Delicious. If you're drinking milk straight from the tea, I mean now, like, right on. It's like, you gotta be like 10 yards. Like, well that's, that's quite a shock if you can't, no, not 10 yard, but just like, you know, a couple feet away, like, eh.

He did that way up by.

I hope we get some sound effects in that. Yeah. We'll see our guy's good. He's really good. So, so at what age did they put you to work on this farm? Oh, way too early. Yeah. Child labor. Child labor laws. Yeah, for sure. If it wasn't your own farm. I wanna say I started like actually doing work on a daily basis when I was nine or 10.

Really? Yeah. So is it really like a 4:00 AM type of deal? You gotta be up? No, no. Well, I mean, my dad was up. Early every day. But the kids, you know, I mean, I didn't have to do anything before school, let's say that. Okay. Okay. That's probably not typical for every dairy farm kid. Right. But I didn't have to.

Okay. But if you were to kind of walk through your day-to-day chores, if you will. Yeah. And maybe you could give us a high, give us a low, like what's the, because it seems like it might be a little bit more fun, is there was our job that you just hated, hated. Yeah. Is there, was there, was there a part of it?

There was some. There was so many jobs. I hated thinking about the farm. I thought I was the most picked on human being in the world. Yeah. Having to work on a farm. All my other friends didn't have to work on farms, you know, I thought I was just, It was child abuse in my eyes. Yeah, I hear you, brother. But there was several, several things I hated.

Would I ever trade it for the world looking back now? Never. Hmm. Right. Greatest learning experiences I ever had, but some of the jobs, my responsibility was feeding the calves growing up. Mm-hmm. You gotta be at a certain age to be able to milk. Right? Take some knowledge and you gotta be tall enough anyways.

There's some intricacies about milking a little, a little finesse, if you will. A little finesse. Yeah. You gotta be of age to start milking. In my younger days, feeding the calves was my responsibility. Okay. All right. All of them. Well, you feed the calves two different ways. You either feed 'em from a bottle, Or we would train 'em to drink from a bucket.

Well, if you could teach 'em to drink from a bucket, far more efficient, easier, way easier. Mm-hmm. You just dump the milk in the bucket, you put it up to the calf's head, they suck it right out of there and you're done. You don't have to hold the bottle for five, 10 minutes, you know, till they get done drinking well.

I had this problem with cats tipping my buckets over. Oh, cats are the worst. I love 'em. You know, feral cats out on the barnyard? We've had a few about those. They come over and tip my buckets over, drink all the milk outta the buckets. Well, I decided I was gonna get back at these cats. Little revenge. Oh boy.

A little revenge here. So I'd let the cats sneak out there and get in the bucket. Well, I'd be watching 'em from around the corner of the door. And you're probably around 9, 10, 11 years old. Yeah. Because they tip it over. I gotta go back, tip 'em back up, fill 'em with milk, you know, twice as much work in my eyes.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Just a nightmare to deal with. Yeah. Nine year old problems, right? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'd go out there and wait for the cats to sneak in the barn and they'd be in there drinking the milk. I'd come shooting in there after 'em and just, Boom. Blast the bucket off. They'd all run. You'd kick the bucket.

Yeah. You imagine it's like wearing a steel helmet, someone hitting the helmet with a hammer.

Oh. I don't know if it was because the brain damage or what I did. I know, but those cats didn't come back. Well, good. So you gotta teach him a lesson. You teach him a lesson. Who says you can't train a cat? Um, like in my mind, like you're like, I got a very over active imagination. So first of all, I'm picturing a little nick out there with a couple of bottles, you know, and he's.

Bottle feeding these calves. He's like, Hey, no, let's just, let's belly these calves up to the bar and give 'em a big old. Big old bucket, you know, maybe they'll kick back and just tip 'em back. A few tall cold ones, I don't know who, I don't, they lack the opposable thumb, so I don't think they're like tipping back the bucket.

They're, they're not picking the bucket up in any way. I don't know who came up with the idea to feed 'em from a bucket, but it was a genius idea. Took feeding the calves from a our job to probably a 15 minute job. Well, that's not bad. Maybe a half hour job. You can get right back to your cartoons and whatever you need.

Yeah, for sure. Messing around with the brothers. So did you have to ever be a part of. Helping a calf be born? Oh, several times. Really? Because I've heard that there's an apparatus of some sort. Oh, like something that's called like a. Come and get me or a go get come along. A come along. That's what it's, I don't think it's a come and get me.

I think it's a come and get me or pull me out or a what's it called? A come along. Come along. A come along. A come along. Okay. So, so walk us through this buddy. The the mama cow is struggling, struggle, dilated to a TED weather. Yeah, a hundred percent a face. It's out there. Well, I don't think all the time because if that's the case, then the come along is probably not necessary.

Well, isn't it because they're like breach or something? Yeah. You don't know what the problem is going on, whether the calf is oversized because it's not like you're monitoring its size as we go along. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, you just, it's go time calf decides, well, their Clarabelle looks like you're progressing nicely.

The calf is weighing 2.5 pounds. We should be expecting a four pound calf. No, you, you have no idea. So this thing's gargantuan in there, or it's breach. Sure. Or it's twisted up in a ball, who knows? Mm-hmm. But it's stuck whether it's a come along, whether it's a four-wheeler, whether it's a shovel stuck in the ground.

First thing you do to get the calf out is you hook chains. To it hooves. Just above its hooves. Right. Okay. Like basically it's ankle or that's not the come and get me. No, that's not the come along. No. I mean it come along as something that you're hooking. It's like a ratchet. Yeah, like a ratcheting device.

Oh. You know, like you ever seen those ratcheting straps that you tighten something down with? That's basically a bigger size of that to come along. Yeah. That you attach then to the four-wheeler and pull it out. Well, no. I mean, we never used a come along, but I've seen it. We've seen it. We've seen it done.

I don't know that we, we may have had one big Uncle Jake talks about. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So you'd hook a, come along to this side of the barn, you'd hook the other end to the calf and you'd ratchet it out of there. I see. Got it. Just a little help. It's a little help. Just, yeah. We didn't really have a come along.

Yeah. I never used one in my days. The calf birthing process for me. Very based on who was there. Yeah. Are you gonna say anything that's gonna get you in trouble with your dad? No, I don't think so. I mean, he's the one that left me there alone. He's gonna be what? I turned my bag for five minutes. Oh no. Next thing you know, little Nick is a bovine ob g yn.

He got, he got the whole herd hooked up to a, like a whole fleet of four wheelers out there. The four wheeler one I was with my dad. I remember that for sure. Okay. That thing was stuck. Yeah, but most of the time, most of the time you hook the chains to the ankles of the calf, whether it's the front ankles or the rear ankles, depending on what way it's coming out.

Sure. Most of the time, front ankles, right? Yeah. You get a hold of the other end of the chain and you just Constant pressure. Yeah. Pull up baby right out of there. Most of the time, just with your weight and leaning back, you could pull it out and then the Catholic. Yeah. Onto the world stage. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Followed by a lot of others. Yeah. Unmentionable things. Listen, I pulled, I. Couple of lambs in my day. I mean, being the shepherd that I was growing up on the farm, yes, he did grow up as Shepherd knew. I knew he was a shepherd. I've pulled a few lambs, a Belgian shepherd a quarter be quarter one quarter Belgian Shepherd.

Yep. We'll get back to Nick's, but that reminded me as a shepherd. Yeah. Didn't you, didn't you have an instance where you had to save the life of a poor little sheep? Yeah. You know I did buddy. I'm glad you bring that up. Um, kind of goes along with kind of life back on the farm again because you wake up every morning.

Picture, Nick. He wakes up every morning. He doesn't know what to expect. Right? I mean, the life of a farmer is one of just constant surprise. Yep. Beautiful thing. Roll with the punches. Roll with the punches. You gotta figure out what's gonna go. My dad had a sweatshirt that was worded slightly different, but yeah, general idea.

General idea. Same old. Something different. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, this is a fall day, you know? And I've told the story enough. I hope. I don't think this has been on a podcast. It has not. Okay, good. I know it hasn't. Good, because I was hoping it would come out soon. Well, yeah, now's the right time. Okay, well now is the right time because that was a fall day.

Uh, my brother, my older brother, Wade and I were raking some leaves and I've referenced my CES pool. My, you know, my cesspit, if you will, episode number one. That's right. Where you blew it up. Blew it up. But that's where all the poop was. Yeah. From our house. Right. Gross. I realized that fecal fireworks.

Exactly. Yes. That's exactly what was fecal fireworks. That's exactly what it was. Pono and, because after that I love the pno. Yeah. After that poque, there was nothing covering that, which caused a little bit of a hazard, but not for us kids because. That stench caused enough of a, you stayed away. You stayed away, right?

Yeah. It's enough of a deterrent, but it didn't necessarily deter. That's why I would be deterred the out on mosquito. Yeah. Yeah. But it didn't deter the animals. No. So I was raking the leaves. One beautiful fall day and as a shepherd. My instinct. Your senses. Yeah. My senses are always just kind of honed to a sharp fine point and I was kinda like, what?

What kinda like on lasting, like what Timmy Timmy's in a Well your kids wish that they, your senses were the same for them. They've sense adult, but I hear some distress coming over from what is to the south end of our yard. I run over there and guess what? I find one of my lambs. Has fallen into the C suspect.

Oh boy. You just turn and walk away. No, you, you, you, you just cut your losses. No, that's one less t-shirt we can make. Horrible, horrible. You guys are, that's why you're not shepherds. Well, but you're not shepherds. I'm not saying I I wouldn't, he would, yeah, I'd crawl right in there. I was a good shepherd. Uh, you guys are definitely more along the lines of team wade of my older brother because I was like, panicking.

I'm like, wait, wait, wait. I need some help. His initial reaction was fantastic. He threw his rake down. He thought something was wrong. He ran over. He much like you guys, he assessed the situation, saw the landman there, and he is like, Nope, that lamb's gonna, he got in there, he's gonna have to figure out how to get out.

I'm like, no, can, can you imagine? Like, apparently it must be an animal instinct mother. It's like this mother paddle, little doggy paddle. Little lamby paddle. Yeah. It must, every animal does swim. Yeah. It's a beautiful thing, but it's not going to be able to keep that up forever. Yeah, it's quick too. That's, yeah.

It's not, the more, it gets several systems, the more you move, the more you're going down. But this is even grosser than most spools. 'cause it's like, Our waste that's in there. It's like, oops. Thick. You know what I mean? It's like thick. It's different. Yeah. It's different. Human waste is much different than, well cow with animal waste.

Yeah. You guys are in a whole new world for me. I don't even know. You don't wave, be any of it. No. I am a shepherd and I'm not gonna leave my sheep, so I mash all the weeds down. I army, crawl over to the edge. Oh, I arm McCrell over to the edge. He is so gross. And the little sheep, he somehow, I think he sees what's happening.

He's gonna get as close to me as he can. He meets me halfway. It's a very tender moment. I reach out as far as I can and I just grab kind of right behind his haunches, kind of his, his front shoulders, if you will. Yep. And it's fall, so he's still got a pretty good wool coat on him, you know what I mean?

Like Yeah. Good shepherd would do Exactly. Shouldn't wanna jerk his arms out. So no, hasn't that hurt by the shoulder? First of all, he is in there and I just kind of sink my big old mey pause in there and I pull him forward and I just pull him out of the muck. But he just basically lands right on top of me.

And it's kind of like, I wish somebody would've been filming it 'cause it was like one of those just like victory, like, you know, the sheep is safe and I'm expecting a little, he's heavy. First of all, that wool is now like, I think wool's. Quite absorbent. Yeah. You know what I mean? So it's like, it's like sheep spongey.

It's like, but it has soaked up a lot of nasty, nasty stuffs shake. All of a sudden I'm like, exactly, spoiler alert, because it's coming, but I'm looking in that wall and I'm like, that looks familiar. So nasty. But he just, I don't remember eating corn like that sheep, that little lamb was laying right on top of me.

And for a split second, I'm thinking, you know what? I'm a good person. I have saved this sheep. W was to sure to be a horrible way to die. Could you think of a worst way of dying? I can't. I can't even, horrible. He kind of, and Jason's poop. He kind bounces. He, he kinda just bounds off me. And then he said, Nick, he did that shake.

Oh, he did. The shake got in your mouth, didn't it? Oh gosh. It got everywhere. It got everywhere. And at that moment I was starting to question. My shepherding instincts. I'm like, you know what? Shoulda left. I was like, shoulda have left coming outta my mouth. I'm like, shoulda have left him. I, I roll over.

There's basically like the reverse of a snow angel, you know, all the ground that's so bad where my little, you know, 10 year old body frame was. As I saved this land. He runs off, joins the rest of the flock. You know, they all scurry away from him. Yeah. Like who he was. He was like a pariah from there on out.

You know what I mean? Yeah. I just am like covered in. Excrement. I'm walking to the back door. My mom must have been witnessing this from afar 'cause she sees me so walk, shame My friend walk shames a walk of shame. She sees me and she's like with her eyes, she's like, you're not coming in. She pointed to the hose and I just went over there, stripped down, hosed myself off.

Fast forward to the spring. You know, we're she our sheep now? Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you have to fast forward to the spring. Can, he's a black sheep now. I mean, well, more of a light brown. You gotta clean that sheep, don't you? How? Like, what was some wool? Hose him down. I dunno if you use, I know. I can't.

Clean him. You gotta hose him down just like you hosed yourself. Maybe I'm not as good as shepherd as I thought I was. Yeah. Next kid rainstorm will hose him up. Yeah, that's what I thought. I'm gonna let everybody's gonna hun him that poor little guy. He was the black sheep. He was smelly. He was smelly. So we fast forward because I didn't clean him.

That's one big dingle berry. Oh. Stuck about it. Wool. Wool is very stained. Like it stained. Well, he was stained. Oh, he was stained. Fast forward to the spring. He has not been cleansed. Um, my aunt and uncle had quite a large sheep operation, and so they'd bring in like a whole crew. They'd set up camp and like take a whole week long to share their whole, their whole flock.

They'd just bring one guy over. I had about 75 head. Does that mean you're milking those? No shit. See, it's different then. It's different. Yeah, for sure. You make new every day grazers. I'm not, yeah. I'm not however many you're grazing is the head. Yeah. 'cause I'm not milking 'em sheep and he said them sheep.

So apparently grammar is not a big deal. Well, I get, I slip into it. I slip into it, buddy. Yeah. My job as the shepherd was to just. Make sure that this guy was always had a sheep in his hand. She to she, because he was fast. It's kind of quite fun to watch. He'd be sitting down on the ground and kinda that the sheep, they know what's coming.

Yeah. They just kinda lay down there and just take it, you know what I mean? It might be kinda like a nice little, little haircut. You know what I mean? Well, I, I see him coming. I, I see all stinky, stinky coming along here. I sent him to him and he looks at him and he is like, oh, it had not been a kind winter, you know, he's all poo brown, you know?

And I'm like, just hurry. Just hurry. Just get it done. So he just shared him and he went to, then somebody else takes that fleece and throws it in the big wool sack. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let's throw, let's go ahead and set that aside. Yeah. 'cause nobody's gonna like, I don't know, maybe we don't want a t-shirt made out of that.

Well, you could maybe like, like a nice brown. I guess like you smell that's a bit almost like a, like a little bit of a nut. Nutty, nutty, nutty. Peanut butter aftertaste. What is that? Almonds? Cinnamon, roasted almonds. I know, but that these are farm stories. Well, you have just jogged my memory on please. One of my most unfavorite days on the farm.

Okay, please. Okay. It was branding, castrating, dehorning. Oh, all happens in one day. Foot trimming day. Oh, all that is a day. I take that back. The foot trimming was a different day for the milk cows. You gotta keep them hoofs nice and clean. But the steers and the heifers that are like, I'm gonna say they're probably between one and two years old.

Okay. You get 'em all rounded up and you castrate 'em, you dehorn 'em, and you brand them in one day. Rough. It's a bad day for that guy. Yeah. It's not bad for you. It's bad for him. It's bad for everyone. Yeah. It's just not a good day. Usually it's in the summer, it's hot, stinky. That branding, the smell of the brand.

You'll never forget the smell. Once you smell it never goes away. It's like in your naturals, burned into your nose. But the And his hide, but the, you're right. Yeah. Let's little Z minus in, is that what it is? Z? Yeah. Everywhere. Dairy had their own little brand, so you knew That's my cow. My cow got out and it's in your corral.

Now give it back. Okay. But the sound. That a baby, a one year old steer. Oh, that's, sorry. A one year old bull. Oh, makes it what? I feel bad right now for him. Do you? Yeah. Kind of. Do you? Yeah. I wouldn't want, you know, ran in my cheek. No, it ain't the brand, bud. Oh, it's kinda strange. Oh, we went, we just went south in a hurry.

We went south in a hurry. We did. Do you know the process I that they go through? I do, yeah. They just get up in there with like a nice real solid clamp. They used to cut 'em clean off, put 'em in a bucket, and then I don't know who oysters right. I don't know who, but they'd come pick the bucket up and off they'd go cooking those things.

Oh my gosh. I feel like our podcast took a very, because I do, I usually like write up a little bit of a synopsis beforehand. We're gonna have to put some warning on not for the of heart. But farm life is not, I mean, it's subscribers only. Exactly. The sound I, I'd sound the same way just to scream for help.

Like when Wesley screams, when the, he's in the pit of despair. Yes. It just goes through the entire place. Oh, yeah, yeah. Which is a great reference to Princess Brad. Princess of course. Classic. Yeah. You know the Bella that they would make when you de-horned them. Like a low, like

I bet that's exact close. It's kind Almost close. Almost. That is very close. Uh, like a low Yeah. Beller when you take their horns off. Yeah. But that

you don't, wait a minute, A minute. Maybe we, maybe we don't need sound effects. Nick, also the new sales guy, side guy. Wasn't the goat problem, man. But anyways, well, listen, I tell you what, but it's, you know, it's, you know, farm life, ranch life. It's not, it's not for the faint of heart, but we're grateful. Yeah.

Grateful. Well, yeah. Hey, without farmers, you don't have food, you know? And listen, I, I'm here to tell you those double cheeses, don't just grow on cheese, uh, trees. I almost said those double cheeses don't grow on cheeses. Cheese, which don't make no sense. No. But I'm grateful. So I mean, if you see a ranch, you see a farm, give 'em a big old hug and maybe kiss on a mouth.

I wish. Okay, now you're going a little farm. Now you're being ridiculous. You say you're being ridiculous. I wish every day my kids could have grew up in a farm. I, I know. I agree with you buddy. Things you learn, the experiences you have. I mean, I got plenty more. Well, I, there's, but what, you know where that came from?

There's gonna be a lot more, I think we gotta have a part two to this. Oh, for sure. There'll be a part two. Okay. So we, we are probably hitting our time limit with this podcast, but, We want our listeners to realize that the next time we drop another pod, it's gonna have to have a part two of Nikola Allinger.

Are we good with that? I like you might go from 22 to 23 mil. Nick's got a pretty wide circle of influence. He does? Yeah. Okay, well let's utilize that. Thanks again, folks for listening to another episode of The Small Towns Podcast. We're pretty sure we've changed your life for the better. If not, well, we'll try again next time.