CALEB SADLER (00:01)
Welcome to Beyond Agriculture, the podcast that takes you beyond the scope of Ag and into the real life stories, conversations and events taking place in our community. Who we are and what we do is Beyond Agriculture. Hello, and welcome in to Beyond Agriculture. We're in the studio, as I would call it here today in the conference room at the Paris branch of Ag Credit this is Caleb Sadler. I've got Tom Zack Evans with me. And we also have Ben Robin behind the scenes here today. And guest with us today is Mr. Mike Meyer. How are you doing, Mike?
MIKE MEYER (00:44)
I'm doing great. How are you doing?
CALEB SADLER (00:46)
Really good.
TOM ZACK EVANS (00:47)
Yeah. So Mike Myer is an area extension director for the University of Kentucky, and we're going to talk to him today about some work life balance and then also some of his experiences with 4-H here in Kentucky and growing up in 4-H and then also working as a 4-H Program Director.
CALEB SADLER (01:14)
Well, I can tell you, I kind of have a long standing I mean, we all do around the table here. We've known you for several years at that point in time. But the only thing I go back to is the day showing cattle. And then right after that, I actually interned with the extension program in 2014. And I got to work alongside Mike at that point in time was 4-H. That was Harrison County. It was yeah. I was down in Harrison County for a year. I think I interned my true advisor or however that program works now with Gary Carter. But I did work with Mike in the 4-H program with the 4-H camp that year.
MIKE MEYER (01:50)
Yeah. We got to work together for you. We've had a lot of good interns came through Harrison County. But I'm excited to come over with you guys because it is fun because I do have a personal relationship with all of you, which at some point that we still do our work together, cross paths throughout the year. So I was really excited when you all gave me a chance to come over and chat a little bit.
TOM ZACK EVANS (02:07)
Good deal.
TOM ZACK EVANS (02:08)
Well, Mike, let's jump in here and if you can tell us a little bit about yourself, your farm operation, your family and your work history.
MIKE MEYER (02:18)
Yeah. Mike Meyer live in Harrison County. I grew up since three, my parents got divorced at an early age and part of a military family. My dad spent his career in the army. My mom, when they split, moved to Cynthiana, and she started at Toyota. So she was actually one of the first ones when they opened just retired last year. So that was our route, I guess, to get to Cynthia. She remarried somebody from Harrison County. And so I've been in the community since I was three and grew up on the East side of the county. East side graduate there out Salem Pike, which if somebody has been out that side. It's one of our little one Lane roads that you're lucky if you get over 35 miles an hour. There is no fast go at it no matter how you go. But I grew up, we personally only had a small place, about 15-20 acres, and we did a lot of commercial Bush hogging and hay production for people. So we spent a lot of time doing that. But personally, we didn't have a big place. We had some chickens and turkeys and all those things there.
MIKE MEYER (03:24)
First part that I had to do with 4-H was because I had a couple of friends that were doing tractor driving on Friday afternoons at the extension office. And at the time that was with Mr. Greg McCauley.
TOM ZACK EVANS (03:37)
I remember those days.
MIKE MEYER (03:38)
And Kenneth Leach.
TOM ZACK EVANS (03:39)
Yes, sir.
MIKE MEYER (03:40)
And the whole point of us going was because I was like, this is a great opportunity for me to not have to ride the bus home. I got the ride extension office. I'd take my thirty-five cents at the time and I'd get a pop out of the pop machine and we just got to hang out as friends. So, like, if you were a late bus rider, you're like, well, if I could do something different, you get to ride a different bus, go to different place. That's what was fun about it. So that was my first exposure, I guess, to extension office and 4-H and Mr. Roberts and everything and doing those. And then from there got into the last, like judging next. And that's where my wife now currently where we met. And I would consider one of my best friends, Shannon as well. And we've known each other since, first part of fifth grade. Last time, judging land, judging that type of thing, did a lot of traveling together. And then we got married in 2008 and so been married for a little while now going on, what is this, 14 years?
MIKE MEYER (04:33)
It'll be 14 years this October. We've got four kids, eight, six, four and two. Now, this is our birthday season. We call it calving season. You're familiar with that?
CALEB SADLER (04:44)
Yeah.
MIKE MEYER (04:44)
This is our time. So we got pretty much like March, April, May, and then Cohen's outlier. We lost a little bit of time in there on the last one, but eight, six, four and two are the kids, Ronan, Willow, Tamson and Cohen. And you all know how it is with kids. It's a lot of fun. But I'll tell you, like, I had a friend that just had a kid this spring. Yeah. It's so hard to get used to the sleeping and everything. And you all know with multiple kids now, it's almost like almost you don't remember what it was before, right. So then after a while you just becomes the normal.
CALEB SADLER (05:19)
Now, Morgan says that to me all the time. We're sitting at the house and she goes, what would we do right now? If we didn't have a kid to sit here and watch at that point in time.
MIKE MEYER (05:27)
It's like one of our favorite conversations. It's kind of like we'd sit around and be like, Now I know we were married for this long, and it's like, what did we do every day when we got home? Okay? Yeah, we made dinner, and then we'd watch these shows, and that was like The Big Bang Theory times and stuff. And we go up there and we watch a few episodes or something, and now we're like, it's almost like that's. You don't even remember it a lot. If you have kids, it all just starts to blend together. But they're fun. Shelley and I have 97 acres on Connorsville now on the west side of Cynthiana, and we do an LLC with my brother in law and sister in law Shannon and Kevin Farrell. And so we farm together with a portion of the family farm plus our part. So our main part is we have about 80 cows. Most of them are Gelbvieh,Simmental , Sim- Angus, Balancer, and we've got a few Red Angus and that type of thing. But a big part of what we did early on was bull and heifer production and then showing on the calf side after we started having several kids.
MIKE MEYER (06:23)
Of course, your time kind of shifts a little bit, near as much showing.
TOM ZACK EVANS (06:27)
Right.
MIKE MEYER (06:28)
We definitely want to get back to it, but just for now, it's kind of transitioned a little bit, but we do quite a bit of hay. We roll about 1600 roles a year, and that's like our biggest part besides the cattle. And it shifted a little bit. We're slowly getting back to the purebred side of things a little bit and marketing some cow calf side.
CALEB SADLER (06:47)
Are you all primarily fall, spring or year round calving?
MIKE MEYER (06:50)
We're pretty heavy on the fall side. It fits. And that's one of those adjustments I kind of wrote down earlier. Just adjusting to a life of not being a full time farmer is trying to learn these little tweaks that make it work for you in your family situation. And for us, we needed to have it was important for us to have calves in August. September tried to get them out of the way by October. That way, they've at least got a little growth before getting into winter because we don't have the time to check them like other people do. And that was a huge adjustment for us. We found that the first couple of years after we were all getting jobs and doing things, we couldn't pay the attention to them in January when they were being born in February, like some people can. And we were losing a few more than we wanted to. Right. Because half the time we're not getting home till after dark or late.
CALEB SADLER (07:37)
It's funny you say that, too, because I can relate to that in my life as well. We started farming. We picked up another farm in 2019, and that's all we do is fall calving cows. I think I only have a few Springs, and that's just because some fall cows ended up being open and moved over. I didn't want to sell.
TOM ZACK EVANS (07:54)
Yeah.
CALEB SADLER (07:54)
And it all comes back to the schedule.
TOM ZACK EVANS (07:56)
That's what's happened in our situation, too. We've gone almost all fall cabin because it is better weather, a little more convenient to check on them and keep them fed.
MIKE MEYER (08:10)
I think that's the key and part of what I've done to kind of chat with you all about today. And it's just a lot. I think now the norm is families that have some kind of a job on the side or a primary source of income, and then you're part time farming. There's very few people anymore that are what you would consider. I guess full time farmers like Randy and Wanda Wade.
TOM ZACK EVANS (08:31)
Your mother and father-in-law are some of the few left in the county.
MIKE MEYER (08:34)
Yeah. And that's wonderful. But it's just the way times have changed now and different things. I think that number is going to continue to get smaller and smaller and smaller, and us finding ways as parents and the next generation to still make some of that work while having a career off the farm is going to be important.
TOM ZACK EVANS (08:54)
Here at Ag Credit, we refer to that as a lifestyle. That's a lifestyle segment, and that's a big segment of who we loan, too, because all of us sitting here, we want to raise our families on the farm. We like that way of life. We want to instill the work ethic and the responsibility that you learn on the farm into our children is a quality way of life. But as we all know, it takes a lot of money to farm. And so it takes those all farm jobs to store more all the time.
CALEB SADLER (09:28)
Yeah, exactly right.
MIKE MEYER (09:30)
Especially this year. I tell you, I went and filled up my truck yesterday. Usually I'm one of those that does some stuff on. I'm not one of these doomsday prepper people, but I am one of those to try to be cautious of, like how much fuel is in my car and having a few things at home and rainy day stuff.
TOM ZACK EVANS (09:49)
Sure.
MIKE MEYER (09:50)
So very seldom do I let my truck get down to where it's like dinging at you or something like that. And it was yesterday. I've just been putting it off and put it off. And it was $5.19 when I stopped to get diesel yesterday.
CALEB SADLER (10:02)
We were just talking about the same thing at lunch. So I drove back through Carlisle from working on a tractor on Wednesday night, and diesel was $4.66. I told myself I'm going to fill up tomorrow night when I come back in there. Well, I got to Paris and didn't fill up again. The next day I pulled in there. It was $4.89.
MIKE MEYER (10:20)
Yeah.
CALEB SADLER (10:20)
And I pull in the Paris is $4.87 last night. And literally when I leave the house this morning, it's $5.09.
MIKE MEYER (10:26)
Oh, my gosh. And I couldn't believe I was like, Mike, it's such a rookie move. I was like, I passed it ten times in the last week and it was lower. And I was just like, I don't want to stop. And then it cut off at $100 and it still wasn't full. And I was like, that doesn't happen too often. But, man, it's tough and it's only going to get worse for a period of time. It's exactly what you're talking about.
TOM ZACK EVANS (10:45)
Yeah. This inflation is the worst that we've ever experienced in our lifetime, as we all know. Mike, let's move in now to talking about your work history, starting back when you first got out of College.
MIKE MEYER (11:00)
Yeah. Well, I've been an extension for a very long time. I tell people this story younger kids when I used to be an Ag Ambassador at UK. But when they come, everybody's got a career that they want to do. I'd say 75% of the people that go into Ag and Animal Science want to be prevent. And I try to tell them that's going to change. It did for me, that's going to change for the majority of them. And what did it for me? One time, Randy and Wanda were out of town and I was going to be pre bad and do all that stuff. And I got scared off two things. One freshman year, if you get into some of those chemistry classes same way here, they teach you quick. They say if you want to be a vet, your science GPA needs to be like a 3.6 or higher, 3.7 or higher. And my first couple of chemistry, I was like, it wasn't quite that. Now I got better. Of course, I'm one of those that you had to get into what your study habits are because everybody is so different. And mine was I have a very short attention span.
MIKE MEYER (11:58)
And so I've got to just study for 10, 15, 20 minutes. And when I caught myself wanting to play a video game or something, I just stopped and did it and then come back and study again. And it worked out perfect. And then I had 4.0 and 3.8 the rest of my college career. But I remember one night Randy and Wanda were out of town. I think they were showing it like the National Gelbvieh Junior Show. And the girls went and I stayed back and I was working with one of our calves, and she was one of our heifers. She was having calves ended up having twin bulls. And I was trying to pull them forever and I couldn't. So then I had to call the vet, and it was a Saturday and it was one that was down here and they were backed up and everything else. And by the time that they had gotten out there, it was like 12:30 on a Saturday night and he had his young kid with him at the time and he was just like, yeah, it's his birthday. But he had to tag along with me and just broke my heart for some reason at that moment because I was like, golly, and not that for anything for me.
MIKE MEYER (12:54)
You make those sacrifices in any job you take. But it was a lot of just asking questions for me after that and thinking most of the time when you're starting out as a vet, you're going to be at the bottom of the totem pole, you're going to be some of that stuff. You're going to get the weekends, you're going to get the holidays, you're going to get some of those things. And I completely understand. But I decided then it was part of what went into my decision was that I'd like something a little bit more flexibility for me. It's a need of mine to be involved in a lot of different things and I just need a career that's going to allow me to be flexible and be involved in my community and stuff like that. That's part of where my extension I was like, why did I never consider before 4-H was such a huge part of me growing up. I've said I probably went to 21 States alone, just on 4-H activities and events, whether it be judging teams. From the amount of times I've spent vans and land and livestock judging and meats judging and dairy judging all the way from Colorado to the East Coast and down to Georgia and Florida and everything else to Wisconsin for the national contest for dairy judging and so many things, why did I never consider it? Like so many people in extension gave back to me because they were a volunteer from Jeff Brown back in the day to land judging all the way up to the people, the Steppels that worked with Shelley Shannon and I in livestock judging, Mr. Roberts, Dr. Monty Chapel at UK, who gave us a start and stuff when we were on the judging team there and everybody else. And I'm going to miss 15 people. But just something about being able to be a part of a young person's life or development of life and life skills, soft skills, leadership development, communication development over a long period of time turned out to be very instrumental for me, saying, Why am I not even considering that? So I was an intern twice as well. I switched from prevet to just doing animal science in general at UK. And then I was interned twice, once in Harrison County and once on campus. And then I got a job as a 4-H agent in Franklin County for three years right outside of College. So I started on October 1. Shelley and I got married October 11 right after that. And then I was there for three years and then Mr.Roberts retired in Harrison County. I came back and I was an agent in Harrison County for ten years.
TOM ZACK EVANS (14:58)
Okay.
MIKE MEYER (14:58)
And then I just took this position as our Extension Director last January. And so I've really enjoyed it. It's a big switch for me, but it's got a lot of positive things. I do miss getting that day to day interaction with kids and working on clubs and groups, but I'm finding ways to do that through other areas. I'm volunteering now.
TOM ZACK EVANS (15:18)
That's what I was going to say. I know you're still heavily involved with coaching some sports teams. Obviously your Church. Tell us a little bit about that.
MIKE MEYER (15:29)
Yeah. I love the sports things because in your mind, God gives us all different talents and stuff. And I always wanted to be this excellent ball player of some sort. And it was never in my cards.
CALEB SADLER (15:44)
I had that same goal. And then I got involved in lifestyle judging. So, yeah, there you go.
MIKE MEYER (15:49)
It's just funny because you're like, I love playing basketball. I always wanted to be an awesome baseball player. And I never got to play baseball, though my family is a little more limiting on what they would let me do, but I love playing basketball and I still do. But I was just never quite good enough for putting that focus on that sport to do that. But working with my kids, they seem to be getting a lot more of maybe Shelley's kind of build and speed and athleticism and stuff, which is going to be good. So they started playing younger. And what's neat to me is I go and first I'm getting them into rec league and got Tball and stuff. I want to be with them. And I got the best advice anybody's ever given me when it comes to family stuff from Kevin Gaunts. When we used to play ball on Sundays and just pick up basketball down at City Hall and we were talking outside, we were getting ready to have our first kid. Shelley was pregnant at the time, and we were talking and stuff, and he was just telling me it was just like the best time you can spend with your kids is just time with your kids.So whatever they're doing, that's the best use of your time, even if you don't know it or whatever. Because Kelly, his daughter, was getting into some soccer stuff. He'd never done anything with soccer. Well, he just learned started with reckless, same thing he said. But I learned. And now he's a high school coach. And so that was really neat. And I just took that advice to heart. So, I mean, anything that they're doing, I'm not going to force him into stuff, but, you wanted to try baseball. Fine. I'll coach T ball. I'll learn soccer. Soccer is really big thing right now, and they're doing a lot of that. And I never played a day of soccer in my life.
CALEB SADLER (17:14)
No, I hadn't either. Morgan played all through high school, my wife and the one rule that I never could grasp my mind around was offsides. It makes no sense to me.
MIKE MEYER (17:24)
Yeah, but it's tough.
CALEB SADLER (17:26)
You pick it up, you start to learn it.
TOM ZACK EVANS (17:29)
Our kids have played down at Rec League with Mike and it's funny. Mike takes his soccer coaching very seriously. We'll laugh down there. If we hear someone yelling pretty loud at the kids,
MIKE MEYER (17:44)
It's probably me. Yeah, I take it all serious. And Shelley just cracks up too because she's like, Now, Mike, it's just a game. If we're playing a sport, we're playing to win now. It's funny, though.
CALEB SADLER (18:00)
If you're not first, you're like, that.
MIKE MEYER (18:01)
That's right. And it's so much fun though because I love just seeing just like anything. And I think a lot of that sent back to forage stuff too. But in the careers that we do, the benefit to me is not how much you're getting paid because certainly none of us are getting rich off of this or anything. But I say this a lot about 4-H agents and different things. It's life changing. When you see a kid that was 9, 10 that struggled with stuff that then turns out to be 17-18 and get an elected position or get their first job or just emails you for a reference letter or something like that's, what means the most to you? You see him get an award on stage. We're just like, man, I remember when that kid was struggling. I see that even with like a youth sport. I remember Ronan. I was about ready to kick him off my own team in T ball when he was four because my dad had come into town and my stepmom to watch one of his games and he got out running the first because he was goofing around getting down there. And I tell him about that and they got him out and I said, dug out, you're out. And whatever. He's like, no, whatever not. I was like, I'm like, you're almost done for the game. Watch yourself. I'm ready to get my kid out. And then now it seems like he's on a travel team, a young travel team and stuff, and just turning to a really good little player and just seeing even not just him change, but all those kids I work with, just seeing them succeed in something, it's just so rewarding to see him struggle. I used to kid around about Will Banks and Wyatt and then of course, both of them going to College on judging scholarships and stuff in Junior College and everything. Kevin and I laughed because we almost kicked Will out of practice one day when he was a kid from just talking and everything is judging practice. We did put him in kind of like a quasi time out for a little bit because such fun personalities and wonderful young men and I'm so excited to see where they're going. But that's a prime example. Just remember the way they were when they were 8-9.And now to see them getting paid to go to College and get their education from judging and doing those things, it's just super rewarding.
TOM ZACK EVANS (20:02)
Yeah. 4-H. We mentioned on the previous episode about how important 4-H and FFA are for our youth and how most all of us have come through those programs as well. And my theory is for every kid that can be involved in a project, that's one more kid that will maybe go down the right path. But tell us a little bit about some of the experiences that these kids get at 4-H. Maybe for people out there that their kids have never been involved in. It some of the experiences, life lessons, leadership skills that kids gain from 4-H.
CALEB SADLER (20:41)
And I would say probably and Mike, you can probably allude to this a little bit better. A lot of those kids that get the most out of that program aren't necessarily the ones that are from a farming background or involved in agriculture.
MIKE MEYER (20:52)
Well, if you think about it, go back to kind of we could hit on a little bit later, too. But just the way that society like the Ag society and community and culture is changing now to not be in as much full time production. It's the same deal if you think about it, in our youth base, it used to be back when 4-H was just getting started 100 years ago, every family owned a farm. Like either it was either one or both of your parents were a farmer. So they lived on a farm, they did something with it. They did something with food preservation, they did something with textiles of the sorts. And now if you think about it, it's no different than the people in the careers you think about it's like what, less than 2% or something like that of the population is ag related. It's no different. So our kids are the same way. And some of my most kids that were the most successful and even something like last time judging when we did that was I had a set of twins that lived in town. They had nothing to do with it before they were let's see, they started they were in 7th grade, 8th grade, I think they lived in one of the little neighborhoods in town. They had nothing to do with the farm or anything. They came because a friend wanted them to come and just to get involved with it. Then they liked it and they picked it up and they did an awesome job. And they were one of our intermediate teams that won the state contest like two years later, and they were actually the second and third high individuals in that and off the team. It's little stuff like that. What you talk about, we think of 4-H might be for the Ag side here's the unique thing about 4-H. A lot of times it's because we compared to FFA directly when really they have a small portion of things in common anymore. 4-H is seven core content areas. One of those is agriculture. The rest is either leadership and communications, health and health and natural resource and all those different areas. So it's a small portion that overlaps. But our hope is that you would have something available for any kid in the community if we could get them in. We've got something for any interest in the community. And if it's not there, then our job is to try to find a volunteer to create it. So if it's something to do with a tech club or something to do with Stem or something to do with robotics or leadership or communications or whatever it is, if there's an interest and we can find a volunteer, then you can make it happen in 4-H. And that's the neat thing about it. And what I love about 4-H is there's no other organization where you can influence a kid's life from pretty much the time that they turn five or six in Cloverbud to the time that they're 19 and then hopefully transition them into being good members of community and society and being a citizen as a volunteer. Give you an example that is Tom, Zack, my son, went to Clover Bud Camp. Was it last year? Did you go last year?
TOM ZACK EVANS (23:32)
Last year, yeah.Evidently, I'm signed up to go again this year. My wife signed me up yesterday.
MIKE MEYER (23:38)
I mean, Ronan comes back and we're like, well, what do you like about it or whatever? And he was just like, oh, yeah, it was awesome. Of course, he's been for we've dragged him around there since he was three or four with us both being parents and 4-H and stuff. But I was like, well, who talked to my best friends, Tom Zack and Clay. And it's funny because it's Shelly and I just laugh about it. The hardest thing to get in for, just in general. But definitely 4-H is positive male role models or positive male volunteers. And you would think you're just like, oh, you got all these dads, but you can't get dads involved. It's very hard. And it's comforting for us to hear that, to know that even though Ronan's there and I'm not there, that he's getting a positive male role model in that situation. And that's our hardest thing to find. It's our biggest limiter when it comes to volunteers or anything like that. If you think of you, like your PTOs at school, they're mostly all moms. I went to one a couple of years ago, and it was funny. And Mr. Hoskins at West Side and I rolled into the library and I was like, I’ll help. Anyway, Fall Festival is coming up. It was me and Mr. Hoskins and about 25 ladies in there. And I was like, oh, God, I'm ready. And I ended up building some stuff for Fall Festival and different things. And I don't mind, but it's tough. But 4-H is unique in the fact that it gives you a chance to see the building process of soft skill or leadership development from the time they struggle with it, when they start through, when they circle back around to the application side as either like a club leader, a junior counselor at camp, an elected position, or when they're leading a club or activity like Harrison County. Our culture is that the Clover Bud Club for the young kids is led by the Team Council. And so those kids are that's part of their program. And development of the program is for them to lead Cloverbud Club for those really young kids. And the to see them transition of that is really unique that I think is specific to 4-H in general and set up well.
CALEB SADLER (25:31)
And you were talking about volunteers and things like that. And I know from an Ag Credit standpoint, we love to help any way that we can, too. And I can talk. Just recently we helped at the Kentucky Volunteer Forum. We taught a class on budgeting. And any time that we can get involved to try to teach or educate those people in those communities, we love to do that as well.
MIKE MEYER (25:51)
Yeah. And that's so huge anytime. That for you all. Specifically, what I've always liked is Shelley and I have utilized that credit for a long time. And what's made the biggest difference to me, not only it's twofold one, it's just the culture of what you all have here, just in the people in the system and how approachable you are. And the fact that with our lifestyle the way it is, I know that I could get assistance or help, whether it be from Ben or from Tom Zack, anytime that I call or he's going to be able to text me and say I try not to bother him too much after hours. But the difference is I have a relationship with you all, and it's made it so easy for Shelley and I just not only in supporting of our career and forage and extension, but then also our home life with kind of what we talked about there being able to help us get things done. So it's been wonderful and we certainly appreciate it.
TOM ZACK EVANS (26:40)
Well, that's ties back in. Most all of our loan officers here are involved in their community. And it's just like Mike and I, you know sharing, we have kids on the same soccer teams together. We participate in extension activities together, numerous activities, Farm Bureau . We've got Ag start coming up here.
TOM ZACK EVANS (27:09)
Yeah. That's a big one that we participate with. And that's TriCounty. I think there's three. Is there three or four counties?
TOM ZACK EVANS (27:15)
There's going to be two or three counties, I think this year. Yeah. Participating in that. But that's a program where we work with extension and kids they're not given a farm, but they get a hypothetical farm and have to decide based on the farm's capabilities, what it can actually sustain, whether it be livestock or crops. They utilize a soil map to help them determine what can be grown on the farm and its capabilities. So they meet with conservation folks. We come in one day and talk about loans and credit and loan making.
CALEB SADLER (28:00)
The biggest decision there, probably from the student standpoint, when they sign up for that program, is whether they know or are capable enough in the back of their mind to say, I want to be a part time farmer, like we just talked about, or a full time farmer.
MIKE MEYER (28:13)
Yeah. That Farm Incorporated program is huge. And it's been such an eye open to me because all of them think that it's one or two things when you get kids. None of them know about necessarily the behind the scenes cost everyone's just like, I want a tractor or I want a new dually this year, or whatever it is. And this is just what I want. But they don't understand the implications of paying taxes or insurance or how the processor works or the fact that you got to have certain things in place to be able to borrow money at that rate or to pencil things out. And I think a lot of them, it's just you asking me like, who and here is going to be full time farmer. You'll get several of them that will say that. But then after they go through the process and they realize it's like, I don't know if I could even afford this. Like, how do people do it.
TOM ZACK EVANS (28:56)
After they make their budget.They come back and they're like, oh, we're going to need a job to support this because we have a negative bottom line here. So we try to make it as real life as possible. For a long time, the kids didn't have a credit score. So we started a few years ago and we actually base their credit score on their GPA.
MIKE MEYER (29:16)
Yeah.
TOM ZACK EVANS (29:16)
So we had high and low credit scores. And then we explained to them the implications of having a high or low credit score. And then, of course, we went on to tell them what they can do to increase their credit score and to do a good job in real life with that.
MIKE MEYER (29:34)
And it's not even the point of just to scare them off because some are just like, oh, yeah, it's to inform you would hope that the intent is like when people get out of high school that they never find themselves in a bad loan, that they never find themselves in a bad financial situation. Because the last thing you want for a high school or even College. I mean, the big conversation now is kids go to a four year College versus two year versus going out and getting a job. And I'm sure you all have friends like that too. But when I graduated UK, Shelley and I were very fortunate. I work during College. She got a lot of scholarships. I didn't get so many in the beginning, but I worked there in College and plus at mine. And I think between us, I don't care. I mean, I think we owed $3,500. But between the two of us, when we got married and that was all mine that I owed, I had friends who graduated at the same time that owed $80, $90, $100 thousand on a four year loan. Well, then if you try to get into agriculture, not even just agriculture, go try to have a car payment on top of that or an apartment payment on top of that.
CALEB SADLER (30:30)
There's nothing left.
MIKE MEYER (30:33)
Yes.
CALEB SADLER (30:33)
And it goes back to you were talking about pre vet majors back in school. I was that when I went into College at UK, I was a prevent major brother's a vet. Yeah, he is my oldest brother is a vet. And I guess you could say that's probably what turned me off to the most is because he was still going through vet school. He's eight years older than I am and he was still going through vet school when I was getting into College. And I was like, I just don't know that I want to tie up ten years of my life to go to school. And that is a huge commitment and a huge financial commitment at that point.
MIKE MEYER (31:01)
It is. And I don't think there is a wrong decision at all. It's just a matter of letting people make the most informed decision based on what they want their next ten or 15 years to look like. I'm still in school right now. I finished a Masters awhile back. I'm working on my doctor and I got 6 hours left and I'm done. And I say I'm completely done with classes. I don't know, but I'm thinking this December is yet done. But there's no way I could have done full time school right after I got out of Bachelor's. I was going to have to make it work with my career. I just needed to space it out a little bit and it was fine. But just helping kids make and young adults, period, just people that want to get into, period, make good positive decisions that fit their lifestyle. There's not a wrong one, two year, four year specialty school, trying to full time farm. There's not a wrong decision, I don't think. But what fits your personality, what fits your work ethic, what fits your time? All that stuff is kind of important.
CALEB SADLER (31:55)
Absolutely. My parents always thought that I'd be the one of all three of us that wouldn't go to school. I'd just come back and farm. I went to your degree. Here I am today.
MIKE MEYER (32:05)
Yeah, go ahead.
TOM ZACK EVANS (32:06)
No, you just brought up some good points. There kind of what we were talking about today on the whole worklife balance and I forgot about that going back to get your doctorate degree. What are some of those techniques and habits that you've incorporated into your life to help you balance time between your kids, the farm, your job, all your volunteer organizations you're involved in.
CALEB SADLER (32:30)
The amount of time it takes to put up 15 or 1600 rolls of hay too.
MIKE MEYER (32:34)
Yeah. Well, and it goes into a lot of things that I actually jotted down some little notes here because it's funny, I didn't want to forget because Shelley and I were just talking about some stuff. And one thing that I just started doing this past year was started working in collaboration with Maysville Community College. I teach a leadership class for businesses so a business can get a hold of Maysville. And I've got a six meeting series, basically, where they'll send their administrators or supervisors, and I'll work with them for six days. Basically, it's 4 hours per session on consecutive Fridays. And we talk about some of those things, and they'll ask a lot of that, too. And I tell them I don't ever think that I'm busier than somebody else. It's what I need in my life to do. It's just because of my personality and the way Shelley, we just talk. It works good between us because we're both kind of high octane as far as time goes, and we're very understanding of each other that she needs that, too, in a different way. I'm doing that, too, and we're kind of making it work. But I think for a lot of us, I don't know that there's ever a work life balance. Part of what I described to that class is I tell them it's more of just priority management. Everything we do is just managing properties at the time, because I don't ever want work to come across as a negative connotation. I don't ever want people to think like work is an awful thing. I can't take care of my family this way. Work is super important. There are days where I've got to put work number one over my family. There are days when more days that I need to put family over my work. It's just not a matter of saying like a definite list for life because I want to make sure that I'm doing everything I can to create a positive and as successful and set my kids up as well. If that being the case, somebody has to make money. And if somebody to make money or to be efficient. Sometimes I've got to put some work stuff over family stuff. That's just the way it goes. But checking the priorities at a different time and having good property management, I think is super important. And that's what I try to stress to people is say, hey, when can I find those opportunities for us, for instance, that we are most effective with our time? So number one, Shelley and I try to we found out quickly that if we're not careful, we miss a lot of talking time with our kids and we start to see it in the way that they act or different things because we'll get home at five or 06:00, one of us is somebody picks up kids, somebody's making dinner. But we've tried to put in some core establishments to do that. Number one is we're both going to be involved with whatever there is they're doing. So for me, definitely right now, they're doing some sports and some farming stuff and things like that. Well, then I'm going to coach a team and I'm making that a priority. So when it's time to do soccer or baseball or whatever, then I'm going on and I'm putting those practices because I'm coaching, I can control the practice. So then I'm going to put those in my schedule, and those are a priority on those days for me. I'm not scheduling work stuff over those. So I definitely know that I'm priority management that way. The second part is that we're really trying to control is those breaks that are definitely with schools. So like a younger family, spring break, fall break, Christmas break, no matter what, we're not planning work stuff there in those times. Like, we're just not doing it. I'm clearing my schedule. I'm putting in extra hours beforehand if I can, but I'm clearing spring break, fall break, and Christmas break, no matter what. So something that's worked good cheap for us. We've been going to the Gorge now for probably two and a half years with the kids during spring break or fall break or whatever, we rent a cabin, and cabins are a little bit more expensive than, like a hotel, not at the hotel, but that's our only expense. So we hike during the day, they take their bikes, we Cook meals in the cabin. We stay for three days or whatever it is, and they love it. And we just spend time together with each other. We'll pack a cooler, pack the van down, take the truck with the bikes and everything, and we just go on trails and just hike and they got to have a hot tub. So we do the hot tub thing, whatever they're all about that we try to preserve those times, those definite blocks that are no doubt family. Fall break, spring break, Christmas break, and we don't schedule work over those. And then we'll make those priorities during where we can control. We'll do those different things. We've kind of made it a pack. Like, we don't do work until after the kids go to bed the best we can. So when we come in with them, then we're not doing work stuff until after they go to bed. Now that's an adjustment sometimes they always work perfect. But we try our best to preserve those times there on the farm side of things, a couple of things that we try to incorporate is and I just jot down a few notes because I just think part time farming in general is kind of tough. But a couple of things you have to try to remember we have to look at equipment a little bit differently. We've got to have stuff that's a little newer or more dependable. Just because if I'm taking days off, I don't have time, it's got to work. It's got to happen. And just because the days that I'll tell you what, I bought a new roll bailer two years ago, I guess and part of that was the fact that I'd been peace and mind together for probably the last I bought it at an auction. It worked great for five or six years and then I kept breaking the same pull chain like two times the summer, three times the summer and I just got started in may and I just got hay cut and I had just that three day window. That's all I got because I got to go back to work. I don't have a can do the next day broke the chain right away and I was like, I'm done. I called, I ordered a new Bailer. It was here in three weeks. I was like and that's just part of it. That's part of what we have to I've made that choice to have a farm off the farm. It takes away flexibility of the farm so I've got to have equipment that I know I can rely on that's going to be there and it's going to work the best I can when I have my window to do that. So sometimes on the management side, like that is really big, Especially if you have office farm jobs, you got to kind of work in place, I guess it's got to work.
CALEB SADLER (38:06)
We were having such a great conversation with Mike, however, it went a little too long and we decided to break it into two separate podcasts and two episodes. So next we'll bring you the second half of our conversation in the near future. Stay tuned to our next episode with Mike Where we talk about estate planning, planning and transitioning to the farming operation to the next generation. Thanks for listening to Beyond Agriculture and be sure to rate subscribe and share our podcast with your friends and family.