HOMESTEAD...More Than a NAME

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Are you a homestead or are you a farmstead? We don't know. I told him the other day, I'm like, we're an instead. We're going to do this instead of that. We're going to grow our own food instead of going to the grocery store. [00:00:17] Speaker B: We're going to work for ourselves instead of working for someone else. [00:00:20] Speaker A: Right. It's just an instead. A whole bunch of instead of. [00:00:24] Speaker B: There we go. [00:00:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Have you ever wondered what sets a homestead apart from a farmstead? Well, today we're going to get into and dive into what that really means and why we chose what we chose. [00:00:36] Speaker B: All right, let's do it. [00:00:37] Speaker A: Okay, so we're a farmstead. [00:00:40] Speaker B: That was easy done. [00:00:45] Speaker A: Originally, we just wanted to grow our own food. And as we started thinking about growing our own food, that's whenever we dove into what are the other possibilities, and what choices do we want to make from there? [00:00:59] Speaker B: Yeah, we looked at what food do we want to grow? So start off baseline for us was homestead. We want to grow our own food. And then we looked at what do we want to grow. At the time we were making the decision, we were a ketovore, ketogenic, carnivore lifestyle way of eating. And we knew that we wanted meat. [00:01:21] Speaker A: Yeah, we wanted meat. And meat is really expensive. We knew that we could grow it ourselves and maybe take some of the cost off of us. [00:01:29] Speaker B: That's right. At the top of the list was grass fed beef. We were paying a lot of money for grass fed beef, and we said, we want to have a farm, and we want to grow our own grass fed beef. So that was the top thing that we talked about. And then the realities of how long it takes beef to grow really started coming into focus. And so from there, we said, what meat can we raise quickly? [00:01:56] Speaker A: So whenever we started thinking about that, we started doing a lot of research, and some of the people that we ran across while we were researching, one of them was Joel Salatin. A lot of people who are homesteading, farmsteading in the space today, in 2023, are very familiar with who Joel is and how he farms and the way that he farms and the way that he structured his farm was very appealing to us. It made sense in a lot of ways. [00:02:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Multispecies, regenerative style farming really did make sense. So as we started further down this journey, we got two pigs. We know that we could raise pigs, and in about six months on the property, they would be ready to process, as opposed to somewhere around three years for a calf to grow out to a steer. So we got two pigs and said, how many pigs would we need? [00:02:57] Speaker A: Right. So we came to the determination that we would need probably two for ourselves for the year. That made sense. It's just three of us, four of us sometimes, and amongst other meats, two pigs would be plenty. And then we said, well, what about our parents? Well, we probably should grow one for them, too. So now we're up to three. [00:03:19] Speaker B: That's right. [00:03:20] Speaker A: And if you're going to go out and do the stuff with the feed and feed three pigs, what would the labor difference be between three pigs and seven or ten pigs? Yeah, not a lot of difference. Okay. So then we started thinking about it. [00:03:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:38] Speaker A: And as we moved on through the thought process, we said, we want to farm. We want to grow our own food. But there was one major point. Farming is not cheap, and it's not free, either of those things. And that being the case, what did you say? We can farm, but what? [00:04:01] Speaker B: But the farm needs to pay for itself. [00:04:04] Speaker A: So right there, the homestead that we were originally considered, when you said it has to be able to pay for itself, that's when it switched. That's when it switched to a farmstead. If you're looking for income to pay for the products that you're making, you're a business. [00:04:27] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. That's right. [00:04:29] Speaker A: So once we went into that mindset, we were no longer going to be homesteading. We were going to be a farm business. [00:04:39] Speaker B: Yes, you're absolutely right. That's true. [00:04:40] Speaker A: Right. [00:04:41] Speaker B: Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. So as people talk about a homestead, especially these days, you get the visual of being prepared for whatever happens. Small scale, family oriented. [00:05:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Self sufficiency and sustaining and sustaining, and nothing is wasted. [00:05:09] Speaker B: Right. [00:05:11] Speaker A: And they are about taking care of their family. [00:05:13] Speaker B: Yes. [00:05:14] Speaker A: First and foremost. [00:05:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And that really did fit mentality. Right. We absolutely wanted to do that. So that idea of Homestead really fit for us. And we also looked at a farm, building a farm as a business, and the name of this YouTube channel is air to ground farms. Right. So we also looked at farm as a business. And so that was a little bit at ods with Homestead, as you're looking at business, you're not really looking at just taking care of a family and everything that's necessary for sustaining our own life and well being. [00:06:08] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, that's true. Well, another reason that as we started going down the trail of what do we do? And when we started looking into farms, there were a lot of benefits that that was going to bring to us financially outside of the farm could pay for itself. So one of the main things was, if you are a farmstead, if you are selling your food, if you are farming, whether it's row crops or if it's livestock, meats, and you're selling that, you're a business. And it comes with all the tax benefits that owning a business comes with. [00:06:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:48] Speaker A: And it's significant. And in order to reduce our tax burden for this foreseeable future, whether it be on our property taxes or our personal taxes, income taxes, farming is quite tax beneficial. And having a business is even more so. When we transitioned to thinking about that, we saw the long term financial benefits to owning a business and farming it like that. [00:07:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And so with that, with the mindset that we had of homesteading and the realities of farming as a business, that's when we said, okay, we'll consider this a farmstead, where, yes, we live here. Yes, we provide and produce for ourselves, but we are also a business providing and producing for other people. [00:07:47] Speaker A: Yes. [00:07:48] Speaker B: Farmstead. [00:07:49] Speaker A: Farmstead. And we didn't really know, I don't think at the time that farmstead really was a word or a concept. We were going to farm. [00:07:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Right. [00:07:58] Speaker A: And we were going to farm in the multispecies, regenerative way, but we didn't know Farmstead was really a thing. [00:08:08] Speaker B: No, you're right. [00:08:09] Speaker A: Are you a homestead or are you a farmstead? We don't know. I told him the other day, I'm like, we're an instead. We're going to do this instead of that. Instead, we're going to grow our own food instead of going to the grocery store. [00:08:26] Speaker B: We're going to work for ourselves instead of working for someone else. [00:08:29] Speaker A: Right. It's just an instead. A whole bunch of instead of. [00:08:33] Speaker B: There we go. [00:08:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:35] Speaker B: I don't think that there's a legal definition for I don't think there is either. IRS will accept an no no. [00:08:41] Speaker A: I don't think our accountant would really be a no no. But I like it. It helps my. So if you're out there and you're thinking, what do I have? You just might have an instant. Maybe I have an instead, too. [00:08:55] Speaker B: Maybe you do. [00:08:55] Speaker A: Maybe that I'm a coin that. Okay, that's my term trademark. Don't be using my instead. [00:09:02] Speaker B: I don't know that that makes it trademarked. [00:09:04] Speaker A: I just did. [00:09:05] Speaker B: I don't think that's how that works. [00:09:06] Speaker A: Doesn't work like that. Well, this can be funny. Anyways, okay, so, hey, if you're enjoying this, please hit the like button. Thank you. Okay, so we farm. We farm. We're a business. Let's put that into real life. We did this yesterday. Real life farming in action. We just took 13 lambs to the meat processor. [00:09:34] Speaker B: That is more than what we need for our family. [00:09:37] Speaker A: We do not need 13 lambs and three pigs. That's just too much. And so how many will be for us? Maybe three will be, because we do it annually. Three lambs? [00:09:54] Speaker B: Lambs. [00:09:54] Speaker A: Maybe four small ones. [00:09:56] Speaker B: And that's another thing. We buy our meat from the. [00:09:58] Speaker A: We do. [00:09:59] Speaker B: We bought one the last time we took lambs to the processor. I don't know that we'll buy any of these. [00:10:06] Speaker A: We probably won't buy these. There are a few out there that can be home processed. And we do that kind of thing, too. That's the homestead side. [00:10:12] Speaker B: Right. [00:10:13] Speaker A: See? So we farm for other people. We homestead for us. Ish. So that's how farmstead. So we took 13 lambs to the processor. Well, there's a lot that goes into that. There's the work side of it. So you have these lambs that you've been raising for the past eight months, getting them bred a year ago, and. Well, when are you going to take them to the processor? All of the planning and the decisions that have to be made behind just one species. Just one. And so we had to make appointments for them months ago. [00:10:50] Speaker B: Yes. [00:10:51] Speaker A: Whether we thought they were going to be ready or not, we still had to get an appointment with our processor and get them there. Now, that's a whole nother planning problem, because they're in the middle of a field. So we got these lambs in the middle of a field, and we're going to do a video on that. We got lambs in the middle of a field, and we need to get them into the trailer. [00:11:10] Speaker B: Right. [00:11:10] Speaker A: How are we going to do that? [00:11:13] Speaker B: The scenario is lambs out there in the middle of a pasture. The problem is they need to be at the processor Monday morning by 09:00 a.m. 2 hours away. [00:11:21] Speaker A: Right. [00:11:22] Speaker B: Go. [00:11:23] Speaker A: And so constant problem solving, that's the real farm side. If you're farm studying, you don't just go take care of your one animal by yourself. Grind it up with your home grinder and put it in the freezer. [00:11:40] Speaker B: Yeah. In order to sell meat, it has to be USDA or state. If you want to sell within your state, it has to be state inspected. Or if you want to sell it across state lines, it has to be USDA inspected. And as a business as a farm, we knew that we wanted to be able to sell the meat. We're only 30, 40 miles from Arkansas, so in order to make it cross state lines, we knew we needed it to be USDA inspected. We wanted to ship to our friends on the east coast. We wanted to be able to ship meat to them. And so. Okay, well, it needs to be USDA inspected. Now, find a processor. [00:12:22] Speaker A: Right. That will take you. That's a small enough processor to take a small enough batch of animals that you've grown on your farmstead and not at your feed lot. Yeah, well, it's different. [00:12:35] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:12:35] Speaker A: Because the people who process for the feed lots are not going to process. You're not going to get in there. They don't need your business. They are booked. [00:12:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And a lot of people run into the issues where their local meat processor, abattoir, whatever yours is called, is booked way out, sometimes in a year or more in advance. [00:12:57] Speaker A: Covid helped that out a lot. [00:12:59] Speaker B: You have to make appointments. So take our pigs. When pigs come onto the farm, we make their appointments to be processed six to seven months in the future with beef. We will make that appointment six to seven months in the future. And we haven't ran into any issues with our processor, but I think that a lot of that has to do with the fact that we're making the appointments. So far in. [00:13:29] Speaker A: We. But we didn't know how to do all of this. And if you've watched our podcast or listened for any time, you know that they didn't teach this in air force anything. How to run a farm, how to run a business, how to grow animals. Now, growing animals is the fun part. Producing the food is fun. There's a very rewarding feeling when you take a small thing and turn it into something that is consumable. That is a lot of fun. Being out there, working with them, moving fences, driving tractors, buying hay, hauling hay. All that is the fun stuff. [00:14:09] Speaker B: Stuff it is. [00:14:11] Speaker A: Unrolling the hay for the cows. That's all of the feelsy stuff. [00:14:18] Speaker B: I was about to say, I feel like I'm working for myself when I do that. [00:14:22] Speaker A: Right? [00:14:23] Speaker B: Like, I'm making the decision, I want to haul hay today, and so we all hay, right? Or I want to move the cows today, doing those things. It really does make it feel like working for yourself. [00:14:39] Speaker A: But the reality comes when that was fun and you've got 13 ram lambs now that you're going to get processed. And, oh, by the way, you have to go pick that meet up and, oh, by the way, you don't have anywhere to put it. [00:14:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:57] Speaker A: Or enough space. [00:14:59] Speaker B: That reality hit us, I think it was the second batch of batch of pigs that we had processed. So our first batch of pigs, we got ten processed. We had three or four of them sold immediately as holes. We bought two freezers. Three freezers. [00:15:16] Speaker A: The big ones. [00:15:17] Speaker B: Yeah, big freezer, biggest ones we could find. And we bought three of them. And the remaining seven hogs went into those three freezers and we were like, oh, nice. And over the next few months, we were selling meat out of those freezers and it was working swimmingly. And the next batch that we had processed, we had 17, and that was too many. We hadn't sold all of the meat that we had in the three freezers already. And so it wasn't a surprise. Oh, you have to buy freezers. Right. [00:15:52] Speaker A: We knew that was coming. [00:15:53] Speaker B: We knew it was coming. But just the reality of what is. [00:15:56] Speaker A: The turnover, what is your capacity to hold? How much meat can you hold? How much meat are you going to get back from the processor? What does the pork from ten pigs look like? You have no idea until you go pick that up, how much meat that is. And now you have to sell all of that. That's right, by the way. [00:16:19] Speaker B: Right. [00:16:20] Speaker A: And yes, we knew that. But you don't know it. [00:16:24] Speaker B: Right? There's still a reality. [00:16:26] Speaker A: There's a reality that we came to of, oh, man, we wanted to ship. This is going to be great. We're going to use our Internet. We're going to use the Internet and a website, and people are just going to come in droves looking for this amazing forest of pork. They're just going to Google search it. We're going to pop up as their first, like, oh, my God, look what these people have done. We need to get some of that. [00:16:58] Speaker B: Immediately concerned when we went live on. [00:17:02] Speaker A: The website, like, oh, my gosh. [00:17:03] Speaker B: That we weren't going to have enough pork. I really was. So I'm like, oh, man, this is not going to be good because people are going to. [00:17:11] Speaker A: Oh, it was fun, y'all. [00:17:12] Speaker B: People are going to click on it and it's not going to be there and it's going to be, oh, my gosh. [00:17:18] Speaker A: Or even better. Even better. Or worse. Nobody clicks on it. It doesn't show up in anyone's search. [00:17:25] Speaker B: But that was the reality of, the reality of it was nobody clicks on anything. [00:17:30] Speaker A: Nobody clicks on anything, you guys. And so now, okay, we've got to sell this. What are we going to do? We weren't sure about farmers markets. So we decided, let's go that route, and we figured out how to sell it. [00:17:45] Speaker B: We had gone live not too far before and it didn't sell out. And we were in the process, those 17 hogs were in the process of showing up onto the farm when we said, let's go to the farmers market. [00:18:04] Speaker A: Let'S see if we can offload some. [00:18:05] Speaker B: Of this pork that happens there. [00:18:07] Speaker A: And it worked. That worked. And we found a market and we expanded our market and we started selling it to customers. But we had to really come up with a plan of, okay, now we have some customers and we're going to the farmers market, and this is working out really well. But do we need 17 pigs at one time? No. So production is easy, marketing and sales are less easy. And we had to find what worked for that particular enterprise with the other ones because, okay, we're growing. Those beefs is out there growing. Lamb is growing. If that works out, now you're doing chickens. So at one point we just had a bunch of pork and that was fine, but that was all we kind of could get going because you're waiting on everyone else and everything else. Well, now we have beef, lamb, pork, chicken. Chicken cuts, eggs and milk. [00:19:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:20] Speaker A: And that's a lot. [00:19:21] Speaker B: It is. [00:19:23] Speaker A: But we still only have the amount of freezers. We wound up getting more and more. We have some, like twelve or something freezers, which is the way we like it, but we just need those to work. We don't really want to have to buy any more freezers at this time. We got to have faster sales and more turnover. And as they go out, they come in. And so learning the fluidity of it, there's a learning curve. There is a learning curve. [00:19:56] Speaker B: You are anticipating, if you go back to the homestead discussion, you're anticipating what it takes to take care of your family. And everybody knows you have a deep freeze or two. [00:20:07] Speaker A: Right. [00:20:08] Speaker B: And, okay, we're going to expand that outside of just taking care of the family. Well, okay, we would need to add a deep freeze or two. The reality of it is, at least for us, we ended up having to add a lot of deep freezes. [00:20:26] Speaker A: Right. And we're okay with that. It was unknown. It was an unknown how much. I don't think we still have it dialed in. And I think that we're just going to kind of continue to learn and swerve and do what's working at the time and be willing to be flexible. [00:20:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:52] Speaker A: If chicken selling make more chicken. [00:20:55] Speaker B: Right. [00:20:56] Speaker A: You don't have to make a bazillion more chicken. You just make a little more chicken. If beef is selling, do more beef and learning with what the area can sustain. Really? [00:21:10] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. [00:21:10] Speaker A: More than anything. One of the things that we really did want to do back to the shipping was ship things out. But here once hit reality, and the reality was shipping. Frozen meat is very expensive. [00:21:30] Speaker B: Yeah. First off, you have to keep it frozen. Right. And everybody says, oh, we'll get dry ice. [00:21:37] Speaker A: Where do you get dry ice in the middle of the country? And where do you get dry ice? Even in a city, it's not always readily available. [00:21:44] Speaker B: Right. And then even if you did, where are you keeping your dry ice? [00:21:48] Speaker A: And it dissipates over time. [00:21:50] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:21:50] Speaker A: So it comes with its own challenges. [00:21:52] Speaker B: So we found, okay, well, there's gel packs. We can buy these gel packs. They are supposed to be, pound for pound, as good as dry ice. That's awesome. [00:22:00] Speaker A: Right. [00:22:01] Speaker B: Gel packs are about a dollar apiece. [00:22:04] Speaker A: And they weigh a pound and they weigh a pound. [00:22:06] Speaker B: So every, based on the experience that we gathered by having meat go bad in shipping, you need five, six gel packs. [00:22:16] Speaker A: So you have to ship about six pounds worth of gel for about 15 pounds worth of meat. Right. And by the way, it can't take forever to get there. And United States Postal service won't guarantee anything. So you have to ship it ups at one day ground would be okay. Two day air. [00:22:37] Speaker B: What we found was anything outside of that did not work for. [00:22:43] Speaker A: And we do get discounted shipping. We did find out how to do it that way. We were able to get it places. And it is doable? Oh, yeah, it is very doable. And we do it as a small farm. We do better to take our stuff to the farmers market. [00:23:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:05] Speaker A: The cost of shipping is so high. Well, the reality was you're selling $10 sausage to help. [00:23:12] Speaker B: Just the material in shipping was being about $25 per order. Just for the material. Just the material for the container and the insulative material and the gel packs and all of that is about $25. And then the shipping cost for a two day air shipping is definitely not cheap. And so you've got those costs associated with it. And we're just trying to get stuff to our friends on the east coast, and the cost is getting up there. It really is. [00:23:49] Speaker A: It became quite prohibitive, so we started adding it to our. Y'all, nothing's free Amazon. Right. They've spoiled all of us to free shipping. How do you offer free shipping? Where do you put the cost if you're already not making that much money, the farming and the food industry, the margins are very small and so there's not a whole lot that you're going to make anyways. And then if you are spending it on shipping materials and you're offering free shipping, you're making no money or you're losing money. That doesn't work. That's a horrible business plan. [00:24:27] Speaker B: So what we found was, at best, we were breaking even on shipping. And so we pushed pause on shipping for a minute. We'll still ship to friends and family and those that want us to ship our product, we'll do it. But the reality is, here's the cost of the product. We're not going to artificially inflate that. And here's the cost of shipping. And we would love to put together a container and ship it to you. But us trying to compete with the larger business. [00:25:04] Speaker A: Yeah, we're not going to compete with. [00:25:05] Speaker B: Butcherbox with free shipping. Even if the order was big, the margins are still so small that it wasn't covering the cost for us. That just a lesson learned. [00:25:19] Speaker A: Another thing that we found was we really like the customer interaction that we have. And when somebody makes an order and we don't know who they are, and we just box it up and put their invoice in there or their packing slip and their thank you note and all of the stuff and ship it out to them, and we never saw a face. We don't know if they liked it. We know nothing else about it. The disconnect there didn't feel right to us. [00:25:46] Speaker B: It was weird. [00:25:47] Speaker A: It was really. So we're not Amazon, we're not Walmart. We are people who want to help people put good food in their refrigerator, on their table. And it just didn't resonate with us. It didn't sit well. But standing at the farmers market on a Saturday does. And so as we go forward, our goals, aspirations, if you will, are we're going to increase a farmers market, maybe do the ozark on Thursdays, and we will be at our local farmers market every Saturday. And we love that season. Yes, it's hard to do and get to a market and all the stuff, but it adds so much joy, honestly. And it helps to support the farm enough that, and our customer base in town is growing such that the impact felt is far greater than it was shipping. Being there for me. Well, for you too. [00:26:58] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. [00:26:59] Speaker A: So we know that as we go forward with our farmstead, that the farmers market will be a fixture for a long time, I think. [00:27:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I do, too. [00:27:19] Speaker A: So if you can find a farm, farmers market, a local farmer at a farmers market near you and can support those guys, that's huge. That's just absolutely huge. And that's going to put good food onto your table. If you're a homestead and you're already growing most of your own food, how cool would it be to be able to go out and support another farmstead as they are trying to also grow more food for the community? [00:27:52] Speaker B: Yeah. And if you're looking at, how can I or can I transition from homestead to farmstead, man, for us, we would say go for it. Give it a shot. You create yourself a business, you're going to get the tax benefits of having a business, and you get the joy of being able to share that thing that you're producing that you love on your homestead with other people as a farmstead. [00:28:20] Speaker A: Yeah. You're already going out there and feeding a number of animals and taking care of a number of things to increase that just a little bit and scale it just a little bit. Create the business, get to the farmers market, start selling some of it. Now you're offsetting your costs, and I see huge benefit in that. [00:28:41] Speaker B: Yeah, but do it with your eyes open and know that with it, you have to have marketing, you have to have sales, you have to have a plan of who's going to buy your product, how much are you going to charge for your product? [00:28:54] Speaker A: Right. [00:28:55] Speaker B: That was a huge deal. We didn't even talk about was how do you price your product? It's something to really consider. And where are you going to store your product? [00:29:04] Speaker A: Right. [00:29:05] Speaker B: Just the electric bill on freezers is something to consider. So it's not something we certainly wouldn't say, just, hey, go do it. But it's something to consider. Take account of all of the things that go into it. But we would say, man, we definitely see the benefits of having a business and running your homestead as a farmstead. Bump up your production a little bit and call it a business. Form a business and start seeing the benefits, potentially at least, of having a business. [00:29:42] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. This has been good. So one of the quick story, I have struggled. Am I a homesteader or a farmsteader or a farmer or. I don't fit. I don't fit into any of the molds. And so I'm still just going to stick with insteadter. [00:30:09] Speaker B: You can't call yourself an instead. [00:30:11] Speaker A: I'm just instead of everything else, y'all. [00:30:14] Speaker B: Nobody knows what an instead is. They just learned all the people, all. [00:30:20] Speaker A: The people just learned y'all. They did. [00:30:24] Speaker B: Yeah, they did. [00:30:25] Speaker A: Because I can be my own thing. [00:30:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:27] Speaker A: And you all can be y'all's own thing too. Let me know if you're an insteadter. [00:30:33] Speaker B: Okay. [00:30:35] Speaker A: Did you know we haven't done one in a really long time? [00:30:37] Speaker B: I do. Going back a little ways, we talked a little bit about recruiting and how the military services are having a hard time with recruiting this year. Along those same lines, the air force is still having problems retaining their pilots. [00:30:57] Speaker A: Okay. [00:30:57] Speaker B: And so a recent article came out that talked about this coming year's pilot retention bonuses. And the dollars really to me aren't important. I wanted to read the quote. [00:31:14] Speaker A: What retention bonus? I was just going to say. And on top of their salary, they get an x amount of money to stay. [00:31:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Because right now the air Force is 2000 pilots short. And so in order to try to, there's a certain number of pilots that you can make from the beginning. Just how many jets do you have or airplanes do you have to start pilot training? That goes down to how much maintenance do you have? I mean, like all the way through as you. [00:31:44] Speaker A: How many can we make? [00:31:45] Speaker B: How many can you make? [00:31:46] Speaker A: Finite number that they can make. [00:31:48] Speaker B: Very finite number that you can make. [00:31:50] Speaker A: Okay. [00:31:50] Speaker B: And so because that number is finite, you need to retain more that are getting out. [00:31:57] Speaker A: Okay. [00:31:57] Speaker B: So you plan for. You can make x number, y number are leaving. You need this number out here. So try to keep the number leaving. If you can lessen that, then you can potentially get. [00:32:13] Speaker A: So they like for a balance, this many are going out, this many makeup. [00:32:17] Speaker B: For the 2000 short that you've got. [00:32:18] Speaker A: But we've got 2000 short. How many pilots are in the air force? [00:32:23] Speaker B: I believe that according to this article, there's about 21,000 is what it's talking about. [00:32:28] Speaker A: So that's a pretty large percentage. [00:32:30] Speaker B: Yes. [00:32:33] Speaker A: If you have 21,000, let me make sure. Is that like 10% roughly? Shortage? That's big. Okay. All right, well, let's carry on. [00:32:53] Speaker B: Yeah. 21,000 manned aircraft pilots, about 2000 shy. So just under ten. [00:33:00] Speaker A: Just under 10%. Yeah, that's big. Okay. So we're trying to keep those in. [00:33:06] Speaker B: Yes. [00:33:06] Speaker A: Okay. [00:33:07] Speaker B: And so what I was going to get at was to me, it's not the dollars and cents. I want you to listen to the words that the general officer quoted in the article said regarding retaining. [00:33:20] Speaker A: Okay. [00:33:21] Speaker B: So the requirement to preserve critical skills in our air force has never been more important. Major General Adrian Spain, the training and readiness director at the air force headquarters said in a November 30 release, retaining these professional aviators expertise and experience is imperative in order to outpace future challenges. So the thing that I would like to highlight about this is the general officer in charge of this retaining did not talk about retaining a person. A person. [00:34:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I heard that. [00:34:06] Speaker B: I was so disappointed when I read. Yeah, I was ready. [00:34:09] Speaker A: Is that general officer a pilot? [00:34:12] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:34:12] Speaker A: Readiness? [00:34:13] Speaker B: I'm not sure. [00:34:14] Speaker A: Okay. [00:34:17] Speaker B: I was so disappointed. You're quoting the guy that's in charge of it. And you have an opportunity to really make known how much the service cares for the pilots and why those pilots should stay. Right. Like, you're given the soapbox and now's your time to say, here's why we need you. And on that soapbox, he said, we. [00:34:46] Speaker A: Need to retain the skills. [00:34:47] Speaker B: Need to retain the skills. [00:34:50] Speaker A: Do you know what that says to me? [00:34:52] Speaker B: What's that? [00:34:53] Speaker A: You are ridiculously replaceable. [00:34:55] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:34:56] Speaker A: By something that has a skill. All we need is the thing to have a skill. [00:35:00] Speaker B: Yes. [00:35:02] Speaker A: I enter in AI. [00:35:03] Speaker B: Enter in anything. Right. [00:35:07] Speaker A: Wow. [00:35:08] Speaker B: So as a person. Right. Like at the bottom level, at the end of the day, every one of those 21,000 pilots are people. And so here's some money. We want your skills. [00:35:28] Speaker A: You don't want me, just my skills. [00:35:34] Speaker B: It was so disappointing. [00:35:35] Speaker A: That is disappointing. [00:35:35] Speaker B: I want you to listen to the Marine Corps. [00:35:39] Speaker A: Okay? They do pretty good. They had a pretty good brand in marketing. [00:35:44] Speaker B: They've rolled out their fiscal year 25 retention. I'll read just a couple of words to highlight. Stay marine, continue our legacy. [00:35:56] Speaker A: Okay. [00:35:57] Speaker B: That's their tagline. They want to create an environment where a Marine with proven performance and skills is offered the opportunity to reenlist when they are ready. [00:36:10] Speaker A: A Marine. [00:36:11] Speaker B: Who are they wanting to retain? [00:36:13] Speaker A: A marine. [00:36:15] Speaker B: Now that marine has proven performance and skills. [00:36:19] Speaker A: Right. [00:36:21] Speaker B: I hear that difference. [00:36:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:23] Speaker B: And the air force wonders why you. [00:36:26] Speaker A: Have almost 10% retention problem. [00:36:30] Speaker B: Right. [00:36:32] Speaker A: Or a 10% deficit. Not really a retention problem there. It's a deficit in pilots. [00:36:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, you wouldn't have that deficit if they were sticking around. [00:36:43] Speaker A: And they might stick around if you cared about them. [00:36:46] Speaker B: Cared about them, not their skills. [00:36:49] Speaker A: Wow. Can't figure out why they got problems. [00:36:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Wow. [00:36:56] Speaker A: It is a big bonus. Sounds big as I guess skills are expensive. [00:37:05] Speaker B: Well, as we talked about in podcast number whatever, three or four, I don't remember which one it was. We made the decision to do this life instead of continuing in the Department of Defense. And yes, it was a big dollar sign that transitioned, but we made that choice based on our personal wants, thoughts, feelings. Not on the dollar sign. [00:37:33] Speaker A: Yeah, and a lot of other people do, too. We're not by ourselves. There will be pilots out there that say, I don't care how big the number is, I'm not doing it. Well, I'm good. Thank you. [00:37:48] Speaker B: The reality is, as soon as the commercial airlines dangle a little bit bigger number. If it's all about the number, it doesn't matter, right. The air force still can't retain them because the airlines can dangle a bigger number. [00:38:10] Speaker A: Sure they can. Wow. Well, thanks for that. Did you know? [00:38:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:19] Speaker A: Appreciate it. [00:38:20] Speaker B: You're welcome. [00:38:22] Speaker A: All right, well, thanks for hanging out with us, guys. And until next time. Bye, y'all. Bye.