Dan: [00:01:18] I’m here today with a very special guest and I’m extremely excited to talk to Tom Wolf, better known as, the nozzle guy.
[00:01:29] How are you doing today, Tom?
Tom: [00:01:30] I’m good Dan. And you’re how are you today?
Dan: [00:01:32] I’m doing amazing. I’m really excited to talk to you. Uh, I’ve been thinking about having you on for a while and you know, we have a kind of a shared history. In terms of the whole spare business, which we’ll get to, but, um, you’re quite an accomplished scientist.
[00:01:49] You’re a go to reference for the entire industry on the vast and complicated subject of spraying. And you’re an agronomist and you’re somebody who empathizes with the people that you serve, which we’ll talk more about. But I wanted to start by breaking things down into three sections of what we’re going to talk to today.
[00:02:11] Which will give us a little bit of a chance to like mentally herd the cats cause you, and I know we could go all over. Hell’s half acre in this.
Tom: [00:02:19] I just say Teddy Roosevlt and we’ll go on a half hour tangent.
Dan: [00:02:25] You don’t want to start with Teddy Roosevelt with me. We don’t necessarily talk about politics on here. We talk about success and the road to success, but I kind of broke it up like this. And so this is broad titles. I’ll give you a little bit of a hint of a roadmap. And the first part of our conversation I’ve got as Batman is to nozzle guy as Bruce Wayne is to blank.
Tom: [00:02:50] Oh my God. Right. I didn’t tell you I can’t think on my feet?
Dan: [00:02:55] I’ll guide you through that. The next, the next part is, uh, being an expert on empathy because you’re you’re scientists, but. One of the, one of the things that you wanted to talk about was, was, uh, empathy and communication. So I’m really fascinated by that. So one thing will lead into another. And then the third section I’ve entitled nozzles are always last to be picked at the party.
[00:03:20] So let’s get right into these, this little roadmap that I built here and to find out I’m fascinated by the fact that you have a really successful public persona, that people immediately associate you with nozzles science, research tips, what’s the best what to do and what not to do. And so I liken nozzle guy to Batman is the crime fighter of Gotham. But if we were to say, who is Batman’s alter ego, uh, who is Bruce Wayne? Who is Tom Wolfe as nozzle guy is to Batman. Who, who are you?
Tom: [00:03:57] Who am I? Who am I?
Dan: [00:03:58] Who are you actually like in real life? Like when you’re not this public public, uh, you know, scientists, when it comes to spraying technology.
Tom: [00:04:10] It’s a good question. Cause you know, I don’t know if anybody really ever asks himself that question. I mean, I would say, I mean, I’d have to go and give you just a little, I don’t know. Do you mind if I give you a little background? I mean, my parents came from Germany. Uh, I was 10 years old when we moved to Brunk Hills and started grain farming.
[00:04:31] And for me it was a, it was a complete. Instantaneous change in my life. I was a boy playing on a dairy farm with 20 cows that we had milked twice a day. Um, I was, uh, I was on the lap of my grandfather when he drove us to the field to mow grass and spend all of my days with him. Um, I, I rode a bike around town, down to the Creek and played with my friends.
[00:05:02] We built forts out of straw bales. We threw dice beets at each other. Uh, you know, we grew beets for feed, right. And it was just fun. It was just, I just had a, such an amazing. Like, I think all farm kids do don’t they could there be a better way to grow up. And then we moved to Canada and it was for my dad.
[00:05:25] It was a dream come true. His childhood dream come true to come to Canada, moved to Manitoba. And it was a huge adventure, unbelievable realization of what I couldn’t have even imagined.
Dan: [00:05:39] Why did he want to move to Canada?
Tom: [00:05:41] I bet our farm in Germany was not viable. It just wasn’t we had, we had a, we owned maybe, um, I don’t even know what we owned.
[00:05:50] We owned maybe 10 acres, 10 or 20 acres where we farmed
Dan: [00:05:53] Well this would have been Mecca. Right?
Tom: [00:05:55] We found out about three times as much. We farmed from 75 acres on 75 individual fields. Each field was, uh, you know, a couple of maybe a hundred or 200 meters long and maybe 10 or 20 meters wide.
Dan: [00:06:08] So is your, is your gift for precision and science?
[00:06:13] Was that packaged with you in your heritage? Was that a gift to you? Was that your inheritance from your background
Tom: [00:06:20] I’m not your stereotypical German. No. No, I don’t think so. I’m culturally mixed. I cherish my German heritage and I’d like to speaking, my own dialect. It’s a super funny dialect. Actually. We all Schwab and are amused at each other when we speak to each other, because there’s language is full of jokes inside jokes.
[00:06:46] It’s a, it’s a funny dialect. It has expressions that are. Simply put funny. We have, we, we make fun of ourselves. Other people make fun of us for the way we speak, but it gives us joy. So that’s part of me, but then CATA came and I grew up in Salinas. The most exciting thing for me was learning to drive equipment 10 years old, like all farm boys.
[00:07:09] I became a farm boy. We were brought up. I’m not sure who you were with today, but our next, our neighbors to the East of the Laudin’s Bruce and Dave were my buddies growing up. And you may know one of them. And, um, and we did stuff together. We, they taught me stuff to talk to me. We lived with them for weeks until our house was painted.
[00:07:29] But anyway, it was just so much fun. I can’t even speak,
Dan: [00:07:33] I just did a quick interview for the show with David on his experience with the Antara agronomy. Cause he’s in the peer group and he did research and this was a previous episode.
Tom: [00:07:44] Yeah, David, Dave’s a good friend. I did a lot of biking together, went to rock concert together with him, his little brother, Bruce. Richard.
Dan: [00:07:51] Do you have any good stories about David that would be more revealing for him than you that you could share?
Tom: [00:07:56] I’ll tell you later, it’s just such, such a great time, but then, you know, learning to operate equipment and working with my mom and my dad and my sister on figuring out how to survive in Canada.
[00:08:07] The support of the community was amazing Brunk Hills and the church farmers around us. So there was a such a positive experience and then we just lived in breathed it,
Dan: [00:08:17] But you’re not on the farm anymore?
Tom: [00:08:20] No. Now see, now I’m a city kid. So now I live in downtown Saskatoon, a unicycle to work. I don’t even drive.
[00:08:28] I don’t own a truck
Dan: [00:08:29] okay, one wheel, unicycle?
Tom: [00:08:32] Yeah. These days. Cause of COVID my bridge access. It has been closed off. So I have to take a detour. I, my, my one way trip to my office where I am now is four and a half kilometers by unicycle. So I ride. Up to 45 kilometers a week on unicycle
Dan: [00:08:50] unicycle. And what’s the unique benefit of a uni, I’m thinking right next on the rack to the segway
Tom: [00:08:56] a segway, it would be easy. Here’s the thing. Um, so a lifelong cyclist, but uh, everybody hates the cyclist, right? Even other cyclists hate others.
Dan: [00:09:09] They do! I’ve seen this on social media where they’re literally blasting people being on the road.
Tom: [00:09:15] Who’s hoppy, when a cyclist is coming towards you? No one,
Dan: [00:09:19] I used to be one of those people. Now I discover the joy of cycling. And it’s like..
Tom: [00:09:23] Everybody hates you. Pedestrians hates you. Car drivers hate you. Other cyclists. Don’t love you. You know, and if you’re a pedestrian who hates you, cyclist hates you, uh, car drivers, hates you. If you’re a car driver, everybody hates you, right.
[00:09:41] But if you’re a unicyclist,
Dan: [00:09:44] another level,
Tom: [00:09:45] no, they don’t hate you. They think it’s awesome. I get positive reinforcement all day long on a unicycle.
Dan: [00:09:50] So you’re a true urbanite. I mean, you’re farming in the community garden
Tom: [00:09:57] and you know, that, that’s kind of the thing. So I said, I was thinking about that. It’s like, like, which foot do I put?
[00:10:04] You know, which camp do I put my foot into? And I have my feet perpetually in more than one camp. It’s a weird situation. I’m, I’m a farmer, I’m a farm boy. I grew up on the farm. I love farming. I love farmers. I love the farming industry. I like crops. I like every thing about it and yet I also live in the inner city and I see all the issues that they have.
[00:10:24] And those are also mine, you know? And so we started a community garden. It’s an organic community garden. It is, uh, you know, I commute, I’m a cycling advocate. I’m a, I’m an advocate for things that are important to my community, right. And my community happens to be the inner city.
Dan: [00:10:45] So Bruce Wayne is actually this like inner city, urban guy who rides a unicycle and gardens in the community garden.
[00:10:54] How did you get from that farm boy to where you are now?
Tom: [00:10:58] My sister once told me, uh, Tom, when you get kids, your friends are going to be the parents of your kid’s friends.
[00:11:08] I’d really what she was trying to say as you’re shaped by your environment. And that’s really, it that’s really.
Dan: [00:11:14] So how does your environment shape you? How did this come to be?
Tom: [00:11:16] You allow it to shape you, you simply openness to being shaped. You know, it’s one of the things my dad taught me. He was like, uh, you know, you, you.
[00:11:25] You have to hear and feel your surroundings and you have to somehow find your place in those surroundings. And you’re probably not going to be able to change your surroundings. So you may have to change. And the same thing happens in any relationship be it with a community or with an individual that you have to allow inputs to shape you.
[00:11:50] And so you actually become a different person and I’ve watched myself change over as I’ve grown older. I change my attitudes change. I get insights that changed me. I changed my mind on issues and that’s kind of the fun ride. To be quite honest, you know, that’s the joy of it all is you said, you know what?
[00:12:10] I used to believe this, but then I changed my mind and you have to be able to be prepared to change your mind on something. And you have to be able to say, look, this is not what I thought it was because now I’m here and I’m living it and it’s not what I thought and I’m going to have to change my attitude.
Dan: [00:12:29] That’s an interesting viewpoint for a scientist. I mean, do you, do you see yourself as a scientist or is it that you’re merely a science practitioner?
Tom: [00:12:38] That’s a good question. See, that’s another thing I’m sort of the, like, I’m basically, I’m analytical, I’m numerical. Like I like numbers a lot and I keep records and I, I studied numbers, like all, like all, I guess I am a scientist in that way.
[00:12:54] Do I see myself as a scientist though? I used science as a tool. You know, it’s a way to arrive at an answer that’s necessary to, for people to know, uh, it’s a way of understanding our world or creation, whatever. It’s, it’s an amazing tool for insight into that. Um, it’s a way of being critical and not believing everything that you hear.
[00:13:14] So that’s good for that too. But do I view myself as a science? I’m not really sure. How I view myself? I would say I’m proud to be a scientist, but I might just view myself more as a, someone who really wants to communicate.
Dan: [00:13:27] Isn’t it fascinating that we, we, we communicate with each other by virtue of storytelling, but we communicate with nature in the universe by numbers,
Tom: [00:13:38] by numbers, but also just by being in it, you know, like you, you see it and you try to understand it by seeing it, you know, but I’m not that analytical.
Dan: [00:13:47] So Bruce Wayne did, does it help you? To have a foot in the urban community. Does it bridge the gap? Does it help or hindrance? When you go out to, to be in the community with, with producers who are still completely 100% ensconced in that, that reality, right? They don’t have that dual reality to understand both of where you’re living at in the inner city.
Tom: [00:14:07] Oh, they have the dual reality too. It’s just not mine. You know, everybody has a, has a, everybody, I hope ventures outside of their comfort zone, even just to go to a neighbor or to go to town. I mean, that’s also a different environment, you’re seeing other things, but being a. Having a foot in each of those two kind of a geographic reference points for lack of better term, I think enriches my life tremendously.
[00:14:35] So I, I kind of get it when people, when urban people have an issue with ag. Cause I talked to them. I see them in the community. They are my friends and they talk and, you know, I certainly come to the defensive ag, but I understand why they’re concerned. And I also understand how ag is so frustrated with the ignorance of the average urbanite who doesn’t understand farming.
[00:14:59] And so it makes you see, okay, what is, what is the answer to this? Is, is there an answer, you know, I don’t engage publicly in that debate just privately. It’s not my place to engage in, but it does enrich my understanding of both. Right. And I, I, my, my point is to try to understand so that you can address properly if it may be in a discussion or otherwise.
[00:15:23] So if someone’s concerned about the use of glyphosate in ag, I’d like to understand why they’re concerned about that. So I can answer appropriately credibly, but I’m not going to reflectively. Just jump to the defense of the product. I want to know why they’re concerned.
Dan: [00:15:39] So because you’re Bruce Wayne in this urban setting, but secretly you’re your Batman and the agricultural community.
[00:15:45] Are you able to speak with people and make a dent in their armor about their perceptions of agriculture? Or do you think it’s just a long gone conclusion that you’re never going to convince anybody in that camp about the nature of glyphosate too far gone now
Tom: [00:16:00] that’s not my job to do that. Really like if I’m on a plane and someone says a glyphosate’s bad, uh, I will, I will use that discussion to forge some kind of relationship with the person and try to have a good conversation out of it.
[00:16:18] My goal is not to leave that conversation with that other person convinced that I’m right. That’s not my goal. My goal is to have a good conversation and the outcome look at how many things are you prepared to change your mind about. Right. I’m not that optimistic that I did in a conversation. I can change someone’s mind.
[00:16:36] My objective is to be a good person that they, that we have a good conversation and we feel that we’re more enriched than we were before. That’s my goal. And then I wouldn’t even say that’s a stated goal. It’s an, it’s a completely supplemental goal. Um, I don’t engage in a conversation to convince anybody of anything.
[00:16:51] Except when it comes to spraying.
Dan: [00:16:56] Somewhere along the line.
Tom: [00:16:58] That’s my job.
Dan: [00:16:59] Yeah. Well, this is what fascinates me. So somewhere along the line, you must have started to gain an appreciation of how much you’re helping people and stuff that you know, you’ve been so, you know, busy and for so long, maybe you just. It’s mundane to you, but the guidance that you provide to producers, it’s almost like it’s almost like magic.
[00:17:20] And when did you realize how much you were helping people and what does that come to mean to you?
Tom: [00:17:26] It’s not magic at all. It’s simply what it is. It’s economics is what it is. It’s supply and demand. Uh, when I became a scientist and moved to Saskatoon, uh, on moving here, that was the, that was the first year that we had Rhonda Verde canola and, uh, it Ohio state where I studied before that.
[00:17:48] And in Regina, where I worked prior to that, you know, we, we weren’t talking about those issues and all of a sudden new issues came and, um, It was, it was really just a realization that people needed to know something that I could maybe answer or strive to answer. And so it’s supply and demand people phone you up and say, I need to learn how to spray this product on this crop.
[00:18:14] It’s a new thing for us to do because now we’re spraying glyphosate in June. We only use to spray it and. Late April early may. What are the, what should I be doing to protect myself from drift say, and, and, you know, then you meet that demand. And not only do you meet the demand, but you try to meet the demand, that’s the satisfaction of the person asking.
[00:18:39] And fortunately that creates more demand can, right? So then you get busier and busier doing that kind of thing. And that’s kind of how, what happened to me to be quite honest, carried on a research program, did, uh, you know, research, I was perhaps driven. Uh, so you had to have a sound proposal, but on the side, a lot of my spare time was filled with answering questions.
[00:19:07] And that is really what the business has become. The business I’m in now is answering questions and it’s enjoyable because the questions are always different and the answers are always different. They’re individually tailored to a person that’s asking and understanding how to do that. Well, That makes it a positive experience for the person asking.
[00:19:28] That’s what I enjoy doing, actually.
Dan: [00:19:31] So the entrepreneurial side of helping people, you went from research to essentially being an entrepreneur with your own brand and people reaching out to you. That was a gradual process. I mean, consulting was a side hustle for you until you took the lead.
Tom: [00:19:45] I mean, yeah, exactly.
[00:19:46] No. And as a scientist for the federal government, you know, uh, extension was frowned on because it was not scientifically productive. But for me, I couldn’t help myself because I felt that there was a demand and I should meet it as a public servant. And so, uh, it became a bit of a side hustle in that way, because it didn’t go in my appraisals.
[00:20:08] You know, you don’t talk, you do it, but you don’t tell anyone. Right. And you, you go to meetings, but you don’t ask for permission, that kind of a thing, you know? So that’s how, kind of how the, the federal scientists used to operate. Maybe they still do. But, um, so anyway, uh, and now as a, as a private consultant, I basically, that’s my thing.
[00:20:28] That’s what I do now. So it actually is economically viable for me as well.
Dan: [00:20:33] So where did you find that? Where did you find the greater good? I mean, you did a lot of work with the government. That’s initially when I knew you now you’re helping producers maybe more directly what’s what’s the pros and cons. What’s the differences?
Tom: [00:20:44] Yeah, great question. Do you know, I found that I’m actually, I would say I’m a better public servant having left the federal government.
Dan: [00:20:51] Wow. That’s a huge leap to make.
Tom: [00:20:56] It does tell you something. It does tell you about the current state of affairs. You know, the fact is that that, you know, the mandate to be a public servant in the public payroll, doesn’t make you a good public servant.
[00:21:06] But if your livelihood depends on providing good answers to good questions, you become a good public servant, it serves and it also serves your pocketbook. Although advice is still free and ag, right? It’s still. Necessarily not paying
Dan: [00:21:22] well, there’s a spectrum.
Tom: [00:21:24] Yeah. Yeah.
Dan: [00:21:25] There’s a spectrum, but I’m fascinated also by. It seems like you give away a lot of value.
[00:21:33] You give value, you give value, but at some point, I mean, you have a mortgage.
Tom: [00:21:39] The value comes back in, in, in, in multiples, like the value. I do not begrudge the value that I give away. I will give away data. If I, if I have the legal right to it, I will give away information that I can have been allowed to give away.
[00:21:54] I’ll give away information until the cows come home. It does not hurt you. It helps you, this is, this is maybe a bit of a,
[00:22:05] it may not be obvious, but you know, one of the best things I ever did was I developed a dataset on spray drift and, uh, and it became, I did it because at the time it was to con to the PMRA, the pest management regulatory agency, and they needed a new drift model. So I said, well, let some modernize to your current drift model.
[00:22:23] With modern practices, we did a high clearance sprayer. We did a full type sprayer with conventional and low drift nozzles and for both. So we had, and we did each at five wind speeds and we did all kinds of measurements over all valuable. And what was interesting about it is the data set was really useful.
[00:22:40] And it’s currently used by the PMRA for their modeling, their risk assessments, but then other people said, Hey, you know, we’d like to look at the numbers and maybe develop other models. And I said, here’s the data? Here’s the spreadsheet. Here’s the methodology. And why would I do that? Well, first of all, I only did it because I knew there were no strings attached to the data.
[00:22:59] It was data that I had permission to give away because no one paid for the data actually. In the public domain from the, from the very beginning, I was careful about that, but secondly, it just makes it possible. It opens up opportunities for collaboration. It creates a, you know, the name that the data set has name recognition and it’s good for the career actually, to be quite honest, it took her to share freely and so on.
[00:23:24] Why not? I haven’t, I don’t think I’ve ever, I’ve ever heard of in my, in my experience, I’ve never experienced a harm done to me by me having been generous. The only thing that bugs me is when people don’t recognize the source of something, even a picture, you know what I mean? It bugs me and it’s not a financial bug.
[00:23:48] It’s just like bad manners, man. I took that picture. You should, you should identify the source. It’s hard to in, in a, in Google images.
Dan: [00:23:57] So you say you’re in the business of giving good answers to important questions. How has that colored by skill with, with empathy and communication?
Tom: [00:24:10] Well, you know, we have limited time to communicate, right?
[00:24:15] Often our interactions are. Five minutes, uh, maybe in the public place where, where you need to do other things. Do you have other commitments or maybe you just don’t have the time of day, right? The phone call needs to end soon. So you need to get to the crux of the matter, uh, as quickly as possible. And I’ve found that in, in my life, um, people really want to be understood.
[00:24:41] Right? I mean, don’t, I’m sure, I’m sure that’s not. I’m sure that’s true for, for you and a whole lot of other people, it would be nice if we were understood, what, what are we trying to do? What are we trying to accomplish my job, therefore, uh, to sort of expedite the communication is to understand my client, that’s my job.
[00:25:02] And when somebody, somebody asks me, you know, what, what do you do for a living? I said, I try to understand farming. That’s it. I try to understand farming so that I can communicate effectively with my clients so that when they call me and they describe a problem to me, I know exactly what the problem is.
[00:25:18] So I don’t have to ask them 10 questions and that they don’t have to spend 10 minutes trying to get. Understand their problem. I know the problem because I’ve made it my mission to be ready for that question.
Dan: [00:25:31] I was going to ask you how good you are at that, but you basically answered your own question.
[00:25:37] And I can relate in the way when I was a sprayer salesman and somebody had a question, they didn’t have any idea. And this boom was surging on the John Deere sprayer. And we had to turn the height, a little flow rate valve down, and it was just one half turn of a yellow ball, Val. And the damn thing stopped surging.
[00:25:51] And I was a hero. And I knew what they were asking before they even got to their explaination, that was a very good feeling.
Tom: [00:25:57] Yeah, the high, low ball valve. I know John Deere. Hey,what a great idea. Hey, let me think. It’s 700 gallons per acre. That’s never used. What’s that for, right.
Dan: [00:26:11] I remember like physically, you know, we were tormenting these poor factory reps down and at the factory, you so much about some of these things, but
[00:26:20] God bless John Deere.
Tom: [00:26:21] I gotta tell you this. So
Dan: [00:26:23] tell me, tell me
Tom: [00:26:24] farmers, have we all do have this. Like I ask people like how long does it take a farmer to understand, to recognize a bullshitter. I figure it’s about one or two seconds, right?
Dan: [00:26:38] For sure.
Tom: [00:26:39] Never five.
Dan: [00:26:40] Well, and this is very pertinent to our current world, to where, I mean, how much communications just by looking at someone and just getting a feel for their, their body movements and how they’re presenting themselves.
[00:26:53] I mean, there’s so much information presented visually in face to face and your, the nature of your handshake.
Tom: [00:26:59] Yeah, all that stuff
Dan: [00:27:01] Right there, likely a farmer’s going to decide if he can trust you or not.
Tom: [00:27:07] Yeah. But you know, the, the being, having credibility is so important, you know, and I think, uh, the farming community is polite and patient because we, we deal with people from all walks of life.
[00:27:20] And there’s a lot of people that come into ag from outside of ag because they love ag. You know, a lot of, a lot of current ag students, aren’t obviously we all know that they’re not from a farm. They just like agriculture as a topic. And so we patiently foster them and give them the institutional knowledge that you can only acquire through experience.
[00:27:38] Right? Why do we do it this way? It’s not written anywhere, but this is how it works. And so we, we have patience with that because we really recognize we only really want. A certain piece of information from that person that that person only that person can give. So we forgive perhaps there are other shortcomings, but in the, in the long run, if you really want to influence someone, you’re going to have to be very credible or not very credible, it’s going to have to be not Bulletproof, but pretty solid.
[00:28:02] Right. And, um, and so, and, and only experience can give you that. Right.
Dan: [00:28:07] How do you view agriculture in terms of being a scientist and you might’ve woken up in some other universe has a, as a geologist or a microbiologist or a, you know, an architect. How do you view agriculture specifically against all of their things that you could be doing?
Tom: [00:28:26] You know, it’s a good question because I actually haven’t been outside of ag very much, except for, well, twice. Twice I was there.
Dan: [00:28:35] And is there a story there
Tom: [00:28:38] there’s maybe a bit of a story? Um, I, uh, in 2012 I decided to run for mayor of Saskatoon. I ran a political campaign for about three months. Wow. And I, uh, basically it was like another universe.
[00:28:55] It was like another reality for me. I stepped away from ag and I stepped into. Municipal politics and all the things that it has, it was an amazing experience. It was tremendously enriching, but it was also full of, there was hurtful moments, right? It’s a campaign, you know, and, uh, when I, when I lost and went back to aG, uh, I was, I was pretty happy to be back in ag.
[00:29:24] And that’s, you know how it is. I lived in the States for three and a half years. Did my PhD done there and, uh, I understood Canada a way better. Having looked at it through the eyes of Americans, how are we perceived abroad? Who are we really? What are we projecting across our borders? We think. Of ourselves in a certain way, but how do other people think of us?
[00:29:48] And I realized that the same is true for ag, you know, when you look at ag, from a distance, you learn a lot more about it than if you look at it from, from within. And that was a tremendous, uh, eyeopening experience for me to, to, to, to do that campaign coming back to ag. I realized, man, I love ag more than ever now, more than ever.
Dan: [00:30:13] Yeah. The best cure is to get away for a little bit. And I love that. Um, is that part of where you might have developed empathy coming from Germany to Canada? You know, now you’re an urban dweller in agriculture being an American for a short period of time and seeing Canadians, is that, is that where you get it?
[00:30:31] Is that where you figured it out?
Tom: [00:30:33] No, no, I don’t think so. I mean, I think it’s, I think you’re, you’re certain wired a certain way. I think, you know, some people cant read body language. It’s not their fault. They’re just not wired for it. You’ve met those people. They can’t tell that they can’t tell that they’re annoying.
Dan: [00:30:49] I have those moments where I’m like,
Tom: [00:30:50] they’re trying to tell them with your body language or they’re not reading it yet.
Dan: [00:30:53] definitely missing a gene, but they just never got that gene to know. I mean, it’s just not self aware.
Tom: [00:31:01] It’s not their fault. So I think empathy is the same way, but I have just, I have to talk to one of my parents because, uh, my parents encouraged me to, uh, to listen.
[00:31:13] Actively improve. I remember I was sitting at, uh, my sister’s high school graduation. We’re sitting in Oak bluff and she graduated from Sanford collegiate and I sat at a table and there was a grandfather sat beside me, an elderly man. Um, my dad whispered to me at the beginning of the, of the evening and said, um, Because there was a cultural, you know, there was a huge age gap there.
[00:31:34] I was 16 and he was 70. And my dad encouraged me to engage with this man. I knew a little bit, but didn’t know very well. And he just always would prod me and say, don’t, um, like be open to others, ask other people questions. Uh, they’re interesting. Find, find the interesting thing, right. I have to say, I mean, I’ll never forget that moment when he encouraged me, because it was as a young man, it was, it was hard for me to, you know, to start a conversation with someone else that was much my senior, but I did it somehow and we reciprocated and had a great evening together, you know?
[00:32:12] And, um, That was Dave’s grandpa, by the way. And, uh, it was, it was really, you know, so that’s, those are the kinds of little prods that when you get them from your mom and dad, you and you take them seriously, you, it helps you, it enriches you. Right. So I always felt, um, it’s better to ask questions than to tell, tell, talk about yourself, right?
Dan: [00:32:39] Very important point and active listening is something I think is really lacking. And most of us who don’t physically try and practice it, what is the key to empathy and active listening in your experience? Hmm,
Tom: [00:32:56] well, I mean, I think just honesty. I mean, I would say curiosity. For me, it’s curiosity. I’m just curious. I think everybody has an interesting story to tell. I’d like to know what that story is just to prepare to share. And it might be a technical story. You know what I mean? It doesn’t have to get personal story.
[00:33:12] It doesn’t have to be embarrassing. It’s just like, I want to know, Hey, why are you, why are you doing it this way? I really want to know. And, um, And yeah, I think if you’re, if you’re curious that that’s a big part of it, you know, I remember when our kids were in school, you know, we would talk about what we expect of the educational system, because everyone’s always up in arms about the educational system.
[00:33:34] And I said, I want, I expect, I expect two things from the educational system. Um, one of them is to not destroy my kids’ curiosity, if you can do that for me, I’m, you’re 50% of the way there. And the other one is to encourage them to step outside of their comfort zone, to travel, perhaps, if I get those two things in my kids.
[00:34:00] I’m good.
Dan: [00:34:02] What about making sure your kids can make widgets more efficiently than the neighbor’s kids? I mean, that’s important, isn’t it? I mean,
Tom: [00:34:10] I dunno. Who do you remember? Who do you remember from growing up?
Dan: [00:34:16] Who do I remember from growing up?
Tom: [00:34:18] Who like who had an impact on your life? Let’s not go outside of the family,
Dan: [00:34:23] outside of the family. Uh,
Tom: [00:34:27] I guess I’m asking, because I’m looking for, Mmm. Is it because they were good at doing something or because they took an interest in you?
Dan: [00:34:37] Yeah. I’m just thinking of Matthew a no. What was his name? Mr. Markam. Okay. My gym teacher, but he was also my social teacher. And. You know, we’re from a vulgar German background.
[00:34:50] It’s not like a, there was copious amounts of, uh, verbal encouragement.
[00:34:58] So Mr. Markam, even though he was a very capable gym teacher, his unique ability was he was a great pianist.. Uh, he was a great musician. He played in local rock band. He played the keyboards and sang a little bit, but he’s also a really good practitioner of the written word. And he always encouraged me, even when I was playing like heavy metal that most of the high school couldn’t sort of, you know, he saw the kernels of some of the good parts of it.
[00:35:29] I don’t want to say greatness cause, um, But to me, it was like, that’s what I was focused on was my greatness on the guitar. And there’s very few words of encouragement in that regard in a small town, Lynchburg, Saskatchewan at the time, because, you know, we grew our hair out and we were rebels and we played heavy metal and it wasn’t didn’t really fit with the, uh, the norm at the time.
[00:35:51] But it was to answer your question, I guess what you’re getting at, where you’re leading me. It was because he took an interest in me and he, because he believed in me because he said I could do it. Well, why, why sprayers? I mean, it’s a big deal. It’s a big cog in the wheel of feeding the world more than people are aware.
Tom: [00:36:07] It wasn’t, it wasn’t by design let’s face it. I mean, I, I graduated from university with a plant science degree with an interest in engineering. Uh, I took a minor in ag engineering. Uh, but it was the, who was the early to mid eighties and we just had a dry spell and that whole industry was in, was contracting.
[00:36:27] I couldn’t get a job. So I did a master’s degree. And, uh, this time I, I did an agronomy degree with a minor in ag economics. And, um, and did that basically. That was it. And then I got a job opportunity through a friend, uh, in Regina working as a contractor to implement a research program on spraying, but they wanted someone who could grow crops for plots.
[00:36:57] That’s what they were looking for. They didn’t, they didn’t care that I didn’t really understand spraying and, um, I did that for three years on a, on a, just a contract. I was not an employee, but we did it well enough that they decided to make that program permanent. They felt that there was value in studying spray technology in Western Canada.
[00:37:22] And they said, please come back here. In three and a half years with a PhD and you will be a scientist for us. That’s what I did. I went to Ohio state, a PhD in spraying and went back and you know what I mean, spraying wasn’t, it’s like this. I mean, what do you do? Like I had this conversation with my son last night after a bike ride.
[00:37:45] I, you know, he, he said, you know, I kind of don’t really want to do the thing I studied. But I don’t know what else to do right now. So then he answered his own question and he said, I think I’m gonna, I’m going to work in this field for a while and see where it leads. Well, that’s exactly what a lot of people do.
[00:38:03] That’s what I did. I got a job cause I needed one. And I wanted to actually become a farmer. That was my goal, but it was just, the timing was just mid eighties. It was just, my dad said, wait a few years, it’s not a good time to enter this business. It’s not raining. Prices are bad. Industries are sky high.
[00:38:21] All, you know, you remember the eighties, right? Yeah. So that’s what happened. And, but I, I like, I like spraying because it combines a lot of different things, right. If you have an eclectic set of interests, You know if you like meteorology, if you like physics, you know, like mechanics, you like agronomy like biochemistry and physiology.
[00:38:47] All of those things make an appearance in spray technology. Don’t they?
Dan: [00:38:55] It’s a fascinating subject. Why is it that nozzles are the last to be picked at the party and you know exactly what I’m talking about. And I’ve been through this enough to be an authority on this subject. We would spend in my sales process, going back to John Deere.
[00:39:09] I mean, we would talk about calves and tires and horsepower. And, you know, weight to horsepower ratios and balance and all kinds of great things. And I totally get it. But at the end of the conversation at the end of the sale, you know, you’ve got 300,000 hard earned dollars going into a piece of iron. And then all those were an afterthought in a lot of cases.
[00:39:31] I mean, I had guys that were willing to put on used nozzles. So then hey it became a separate decision. I said, Let’s cool down after the deal has been pretty heated affair because this deal is always like a process, right? It was amazing. It was pretty intense. It’s just really cool, but it’s like, let’s just both take a breath, come back and let’s do the research on the nozzles because I said, we’ve got the, we’ve got the, we’ve got the horse for the carriage, you know, but it’s all about the carriage and the nozzles are so specific in what they deliver.
[00:40:03] There’s a whole world there. And you’re helping illuminate that.
Tom: [00:40:08] Yeah. And it’s a great question cause I, I don’t really know what the answer is. You know, in some ways the nozzles are overlooked because perhaps our nozzle manufacturers have done such a good job that they’re really, we can honestly say there is not a bad nozzle on the market that you can put per virtually any nozzle on your sprayer and your products will work.
[00:40:29] So this is a credit to the, to the entire industry. Uh, the chemicals. Wow. They’re really a miracle. Aren’t they? I mean, if you think about a humble little product we’re putting onto the crop and it works reasonably reliably, we have high expectations for its performance. You know what, what’s our tolerance for failures in the spray pass.
[00:40:49] Like we expect 95% plus performance while our chemistry and our noses are doing that almost by default. You have to screw up for that, not to happen. And so when something works out, well, you tend to give it less attention, but there are times when you do have to select the right tool. And that’s when perhaps it, you know, you have maybe a very specific task.
[00:41:14] You have an issue with drift, you have an issue with efficacy of a product or something, and then you can fine tune. But, you know, we have never been able to demonstrate. In our research that by picking the right nozzle, that you can turn a performance issue on its head. You can rescue something that’s actually rooted in bad agronomy, bad timing, bad rate selection, bad product selection, bad agronomy from a weed spectrum or a disease pressure issue that you can’t really overcome with any chemistry or nozzle.
[00:41:46] So our ability to, uh, to rectify something. We can keep it on the straight path, but I don’t know if we can turn things around with a nozzle. So there are exceptions to what I’ve just said, but I’m trying to downplay the importance. So I’ve always rooted the nozzle question in agronomy. I see a nozzle selection question is an agronomic question.
[00:42:10] So here’s why, what I mean by that our whole emphasis lately has been on efficiency. It’s been on timing, the ability to spray on time, the ability to finish the spray task before the next stretch of bad weather, because the consequences of not having spray that last quarter are severe possibly it could cost $5,000 in lost yield or difficulty harvesting or whatever.
[00:42:37] So that hour that you didn’t get that quarter sprayed, that hour is actually worth that much. That’s your opportunity costs. And so that’s how we’re framing this whole thing. So now we’re saying, all right, what if you had a nozzle that worked pretty well? I’d let you spray for an hour or two longer every day because of its low drift characteristics.
[00:42:55] That’s now become an agronomic tool. The efficacy is going to be passable because we’re actually, frankly, cashing a check that the chemical company wrote us for developing excellent chemistry, the products work. And so why not harvest some of that efficiency with an agronomic benefit? So I, that’s how I framed the whole question.
[00:43:17] And that’s how our end, our business has gone really beyond nozzles. And we’re now saying, look, all right, the nozzle, it works, you know, the nozzle manufacturers, every single one of them makes good products. I don’t care which manufacturer you go to. If you have a concern about drift, this is the direction you should take.
[00:43:36] Then we’re done. Now let’s talk about using the nozzle property, make sure you pressure, correct. Make sure your size selection is correct so that the pressure can be correct or consider PWM where pressure can be set and then something else takes care of it. We can have that conversation in five minutes, but now let’s talk about what really matters, and that is getting your large farms sprayed on time, you know, uh, recently, uh, uh, Western Manitoba farmer tweeted a question, how many, how many acres per foot of boom do you have on your farm? Right. And the discussion that arose out of that was pretty good because we, you know, if people said, well, shouldn’t it, should it be seeded acres or sprayed acres, uh, should, should travel speed be in there and water volume because fill time, because those are all productivity factors, the answer, the range in the answers was so wide that it, it really, that the answers would be.
[00:44:33] The question was really answered in that range. A fact of the matter is that some people think that at 5,000 acres on their 110 foot boom sprayer, uh that’s that’s all they’ve got, you know, it should with a a hundred foot boom, they extended it to 110. Do they want a 120 foot boom. They’re thinking about it at 5,000 acres.
[00:44:52] Well, I got customers are seated there spraying 15,000 seated acres with one sprayer. Yeah,
Dan: [00:44:58] isn’t that incredibly geographically specific like David Lauden would have completely different thoughts on ownership metrics when it comes to a high clearance sprayer than somebody in the Cinnaboy, Saskatchewan.
Tom: [00:45:10] Yeah, for sure. You know,
Dan: [00:45:13] different crops, you know, different yields, different,
Tom: [00:45:16] When blacked Dumbo in the, in, in, in Brunk Hill. Uh, you know, when things start jumping and you miss that window of opportunity, you may not have another chance. Right. Because things grow faster. It’s warmer there it’s. Um, so that, there’s a moment when time really matters.
[00:45:31] And then of course the poorly drained clay, if it’s rained, you are simply not going to go on that field right. Much longer than elsewhere. So the consequences not being timely in, in, in the Valley are very severe. Whereas in the rolling Hills of a Cinnaboy where the rainfall isn’t as heavy and maybe the land is better drained, you can relax a little more because of that.
Dan: [00:45:59] So from 2000, when I started selling sprayers to 2020, now there’s been a lot of upgrades in the finer points of spraying, I think before it was just, let’s get this nozzle across the field as best we can with the chassis we have in 2000. But I look at some of the. The tools of the trade then, I mean, we had an electric, uh, full marker.
[00:46:20] We didn’t even have the onboard air. Right. And if that thing got plugged your beat, we had all those piping, you know, that would get, uh, air pressure stuck in the end of the boom. That would cause those nozzles to keep pissing around the corners because the check bells wouldn’t, wouldn’t properly shut off, you know, um, We didn’t have recirculating booms.
[00:46:42] We didn’t have exact apply. We didn’t have all these things that are preserving chemicals
Tom: [00:46:47] in command. John Deere.
Dan: [00:46:52] Am I displaying my bias for chance? We bought Alexion in the fall. So anyways, but, um, Yeah, it was my bias because I felt like even though John Deere was probably the strongest brand on the market for farm equipment, statistically or philosophically, or otherwise, there was a lot to be left desired in the actual focus of the sprayer, which I think they’re starting to catch up. On now, which, you know, you can clue me in, but you’re shaking your head for those people that are listening.
Tom: [00:47:24] I am not in the pocket books of anybody as far as I know. So I can say what I want
Dan: [00:47:30] far as you know,
Tom: [00:47:32] North American sprayer manufacturers are lazy. They’re not innovative. Why? Because there’s not enough competition.
[00:47:43] So we are saddled with heavy. Fuel sucking, getting stuck machines that can’t even keep the boom level. And can’t tell you how to clean out to your satisfaction.
Dan: [00:47:58] How do you really feel?
Tom: [00:48:01] We’re given let’s face it. We’re not given the products that we actually need and why it’s because the spray, the spray manufacturers don’t understand their customers.
[00:48:15] They don’t know what it’s like to spray. Yes.
Dan: [00:48:21] Back to empathy.
Tom: [00:48:22] If, if what I, what I do, I sometimes do this, you know, I’ll go to a trade show and I’ll go up to a fancy sprayer booth. And I’ll say, please walk me through the plumbing system of your sprayer, starting with the sump on the tank. Let’s follow the block code’s, and you tell me what each one does and why it’s better this way. That conversation ends very quickly. And the fact of the matter is we’ve, we’ve got a, a horrible plumbing infrastructure on sprayers. It’s too complex. It’s too difficult to clean, so difficult to understand. Um, the user interface is too difficult, which is what you put your father on a, on a new sprayer.
[00:49:04] Like I drive all the sprayers, but I need a 20 minute tutorial in front of each one. I couldn’t start it on my own. I have to bake a pie first. You know what I mean? It’s like, come on. Are you curious, like before I can make the nozzles spray, you want me to bake a pie? Are you kidding me?
[00:49:23] And, um, No, I don’t think it’s good enough.
[00:49:29] I think we’re not being well served. We can’t keep a Boom level everything we do agrinomically like, let’s say we want to spray for this area in a couple of weeks, right? Uh, the, the, the angle of nozzle technology relies on a low boom being there otherwise it’s a waste of time because of the spray trajectory doesn’t last forever.
[00:49:49] So you have to have a low boom. So can you keep a boom blow at 12 to 14 miles an hour? Like by low, I mean, 20 inches above the heads without going to 30 or zero answer is no one can. So my challenge is why the heck not? It’s what we need. Why aren’t you giving us what we need? How long do you need to clean your sprayer?
[00:50:11] You know, and you know, the joke and I mean, anyone who’s ever heard me talk will have heard this before, but the joke is when do you know your sprayer’s clean? What’s the answer that Dan, about two weeks,
[00:50:27] right? And I mean, that’s not a satisfactory answer. You should have a guaranteed clean-out that takes 15 minutes after which you can spray your canola without fear. But what we have is a precautionary system where we’re never sure that it’s clean and therefore we cleaned one more time that we need to.
[00:50:48] And what does that cost us an extra hour? And what is that? Worse could be worth a lot of money that hour, if it means you’ve missed in that last quarter before the rain.
Dan: [00:50:59] Well, here’s how you tell if it’s clean, you’ve got to sniff that shit. You gotta gotta kinda, you know, get in the liquid there a bit to your face.
Tom: [00:51:09] And then, and then wait, and then wait 25 years.
Dan: [00:51:16] I wanted to ask you what happened to the farm. What where your, and, where are your parents now?
Tom: [00:51:22] My parents live in South of Winnipeg. Um, you know, the farm is, it’s a situation where at sometimes, sometimes the train leaves the station and that was me. And, uh, I remember distinctly when I left the farm to move to Regina to take on that job as a contractor, I had, uh, my Dad’s sprayer pickup loaded up full of stuff. And I knew somehow in my system, that that was the last time that I would be living at home and that I would not come back. And I, I actually burst into tears. I cried.
Dan: [00:52:05] Well, it’s like an old yeller strudent.
Tom: [00:52:06] I’d cried most of the way to Starbuck. And you know, the thing is I did was I I’ve never admitted this to anyone. I can’t believe I’m doing it publicly, but it was heart wrenching for me to leave that farm.
Dan: [00:52:18] Why? That’s an incredibly human that’s incredibly human.
Tom: [00:52:20] It was hard when you get a knew something. W it was it wasn’t, it was probably a goodbye forever. Now, obviously stay close to the farm. But once I had kids and a career and a house and a life in another city, I think it became inevitable.
[00:52:39] But even though my parents gentle, prodding out, you know, kind of asking, do you think maybe you might come back. And my wife and I discussed this at great length and it’s not because we didn’t love them or the farm, but we realized it was simply not the life that we were going to live. We were living this life and that was, we had to be true to that life.
[00:53:00] So I made the decision to not, to decline, and they sold,
Dan: [00:53:05] wow. That really strikes a chord for me because you know, being from the farm. But being involved in agriculture. Like it was really strange to go back and realize like, yeah, I’ve changed a lot, but the farm has continued to change at some point it’s not yours.
[00:53:26] And when that sinks in, when the only thing that you can see on that yard is not even the house that you used to live in because your brother’s living in it. You know, God bless him and his wife and beautiful, you know, six beautiful kids or whatever. Great. But when I go back there, the only thing that I can almost feel any sentiment to that hasn’t been radically altered by mankind in the, since 1993, when I left is my grandmother’s house.
[00:53:51] And even that they painted it yellow
Tom: [00:53:55] But you know, the thing is that I got to go back to my mom and dad. They, I’m sure I hurt them. I’m sure it was hard. I’m sure it was disappointing because we’d come all this way. And it was in, in, in this sense, possibly you could, you could call it a dead end cause it wasn’t going to continue. And you know how farming is fifth generation farmer, right?
[00:54:21] It’s this passing the succession in farming is idolized to such a high degree. It’s a badge of honor to be on a on a multigenerational farm and that ended with us. And do you know, I don’t even know how many generations in Germany we had. All I know is that we were farmers into the middle ages, you know, that’s all I know, but it was a long time and same with all European ancestry farmers, because don’t start farming.
[00:54:51] It’s rare. You just quit.
Dan: [00:54:54] And it’s such a different, what you’re doing now is almost so hard to equate from that old country mentality, because as good as you can do, it’s not quite the same as like working, you know, three more hours a day for like, you know, the whole season, you know, more than your neighbor, it’s still not driving straight or making a black, you know,
Tom: [00:55:15] it takes a great amount of wisdom.
[00:55:18] From a parent to allow their children to do what they’ve decided they want to do too, to step back and say, I, I, I think I know better. I think I want a different, but I’m going to let them make the decision because that’s because they’re an adult now and they need the autonomy. That takes a great amount of wisdom.
[00:55:40] And I thank my parents for that wisdom because it has helped me set my kids on the path. That they want to be on, like, I am trying to put them in the right direction, but I’m not going to burden them with an expectation that is. You know, beyond reasonable. I have expectations for them, of course, but I want them to be happy.
[00:56:00] Right. And I want them to be self deterministic. I want them to pursue their dreams because I was allowed to pursue mine. And you know, there’s always other opportunities. Like, I mean, yeah, it could have been a farmer. I love farming. I wish I was farming, but I don’t, I’m not sentimental about it anymore.
[00:56:17] Thanks for the opportunity. I’m sorry. I didn’t take it. But I’ve moved on and I’m happy and successful in my own way, in my way. And I, I created that for myself and that is also really, really important. You know, my dad didn’t want to become a farmer. He became a farmer because his mother more or less blackmailed him because my, his father wasn’t well
Dan: [00:56:40] Whoa, what do he want to do?
Tom: [00:56:42] I wasn’t super happy about the decision.
Dan: [00:56:44] What did he want to do?
Tom: [00:56:46] Just something else. He had other interests. You know, the, the fact is he was also in a different environment where farming wasn’t necessarily a lucrative activity. He saw, he saw that it was limiting in the area that we lived with.
Dan: [00:57:00] Everybody that came here was a pioneer, they were an entrepreneur, they were an adventurer.
[00:57:06] I mean, maybe they were to some degree, they were running from something, you know, or they were limited by their current circumstances, but it took such bravery to come here. Um, getting back to spraying for a minute. You, you had an interesting comment or interesting perspective about how forgiving chemical is and how advanced nozzles are and how, you know, everything, you know, so precise.
[00:57:30] I mean, it’s not that hard to get it right. And yet, from another perspective of which you’re probably well aware. Wholesale broadcasting of chemical on crops. I mean, to me, there’s going to be a point in the future, not too long from now where people are like, Oh my God, we used to spray, you know, some crops like five, 10, 15 times, like with wholesale broadcasting of chemicals across the soil and the plants, like, and all kinds of seasons.
[00:57:58] And it drifted because, because technology is going to mitigate that right. I mean, there’s going to be new technologies that allow you just spray the plants and quickly, that’s going to revolutionize things to where it’s like, Oh my God, we used to spray, just put a bunch of stuff in the tank and spray the whole field.
[00:58:13] I mean, are we, is that right? Or is it that’s something like a lot farther down the road then? Like, is that practically speaking, going to take a long time to execute?
Tom: [00:58:23] Well, we did this here. We did has been here for 10 years, uh, you know, commercially viable and very successful and proven and robust, uh, Bulletproof basically.
[00:58:34] And it does it, it does it, but it does it on a on green on brown premise. Right. So, you know, it’s a preseed world, so that’s sort of branded West, um, And it’s, um, it, it, it has our strong fit there, no question, but you know, the, the revolution you’re really talking about is what we call it green on green. So you’re picking out species out of another species and selectively spraying those.
[00:58:59] That one’s harder. You know, like the first 75% in terms of accuracy apparently was low hanging fruits, you know, talking to people that’s RVO and elsewhere, and they felt pretty optimistic what they could do. But the last 25% are a bit more challenging. You know, I always tell them you’re not going to have a sale.
[00:59:15] If you promise 90% effectiveness, it said identifying the right plant. That’s not good enough for us. You do, uh, you, you, you, you sprayed Liberty on a field and you get 90% efficacy. What are you going to do? Spray it again, probably to get the other 10. It’s not acceptable. So you, you have to, um, you know, depending on the crop stage, but you, you, you have to have a very, very good technology to have an impact in the market.
[00:59:42] The market is, you know, we’re used, we have high standards. It’s not going to be. Easy to forget a hundred percent clean fields, although they are probably going to be a picture of the past because of resistance. So I view this kind of technology as environmentally, uh, obviously necessary and valuable economically.
[01:00:06] We’ll see, um, from us from a public perception. Invaluable. Unbelievable. When someone sees a weeded unit running across the field, selectively spraying plants with accuracy at 15 miles per hour, you can never go back. You can, you can never, you know what you said about broadcast spring, why would you, and the only reason you would is with the increased importance of pre emergent herbicides that you have to blanket apply.
[01:00:37] Cause you don’t know where the weeds are, but, and they’re your, your first layer, right? And we’re, we’re moving towards that in a, in an, in an era of resistance and lack of new herbicide technology development. So that is coming, but even in not world, a green on green sprayer has value. Let’s say that you want to put something.
[01:01:02] Residual down on a broadcast boom, but you also have emerged weeds and maybe a different herbicide can get those on the post. Why would you broadcast spray that? So maybe we’re going to come back to that moment. Remember that moment where we had two tanks and two booms for spot spring, back in the day, when flight was, it was 30 bucks a liter and that those days might come back.
[01:01:24] We might have a spot spray with a sensor.
Dan: [01:01:29] Well, have you heard of John Deeres? Uh, chem inject. I mean, that’s kind of a big deal
Tom: [01:01:34] Driven by a Raven pump. Yeah. You know, it hasn’t been, it hasn’t been super, it hasn’t had a lot of uptake to be quite honest. I mean, we don’t see nearly as much of it.
We’ll see. It’s like the joke is, you know, it’s hard to make predictions. Especially about the future.
Dan: [01:01:57] And who said that?
Tom: [01:01:58] Yogi Berra.
Dan: [01:02:01] I love it. I love it. So Tom what’s what’s next for Batman and Gotham city.
Tom: [01:02:10] I strive to ski and bike more to be quite honest. That’s my goal. That is the only thing I really think about.
Dan: [01:02:19] That much? Good for you. Yeah. Well, you’re enabling me because I’ve been thinking about those things a lot more. So thank you for that permission is to think about that kind of thing. Like yeah. You get to this point where it’s like, okay, what’s what’s next? What’s next then? I mean, maybe it’s just taking a little bit more time off this summer and spending like copious amounts of time outside and know on a bike with my baby girl.
Tom: [01:02:44] Yeah. It’s all good. Do it.
Dan: [01:02:45] Yeah. What’s your, what’s your theme in life?
Tom: [01:02:48] I dunno. I’m not, I don’t know if I’m that philosophical, but I would say it’s probably relationships. I value relationships. I value good relations. I’m not a hugely, you know, I mean, uh, I don’t stay in touch with a lot of other people. But I a hundred percent want to be on good terms with the people that I’m with.
[01:03:07] And so I will invest a lot in relationships, you know, um, We have our Armageddon jokes in our community. They’re all funny, you know, we mean them in jest always, but the question once came, if the Armageddon should happen, then everything goes to pot. Where should you live? Where should you live? Like what’s the best place to live, you know, when you think about, okay, where can I scrounged for food? Where’s there good apples of why a clean water, where the soil seed so we can do our one ag. So we can do that kind of stuff. That’s all wrong. The answer is you should live where your social capital is. That’s where you should live, because you need people to look out for you. You need to be there for people when they need you. And you need people when they, when you, when you’re in need and only social capital, it gives you that power. Someone’s going to find you that Canada food you that you need right now.
Dan: [01:04:02] it’s been an amazing conversation is incredible to have you on the show.
I know Katelyn Duncan’s going to listen to the end. Uh, she’s a huge fan of yours. She you’ve helped her with a number of things, I think, including bio beds or something.
Tom: [01:04:18] Yeah, absolutely. I enjoyed the interview she did with you as
Dan: [01:04:21] well. Yeah, it was really cool talking to her. And I don’t know if you’ve read the four agreements, but that is some heavy duty wisdom. Then I’m telling you it was a great way to live your life. So thanks for your time. It meant a lot. And I, I got to know you a lot better.
It was very interesting.
Tom: [01:04:36] Yes. Thank you, Dan. Appreciate it.
Dan: [01:04:39] All right. Well, take care. Have a great one. Keep riding that bike, man.
Tom: [01:04:42] You betcha and enjoy.