A Shot of AG
Ava Kinder & Delyn Griesmann | Family Farm
Season 5 Episode 11 | 27m 1sVideo has Closed Captions
Growing up on the family farm and it's values
Sisters Ava and Delyn share their experiences of growing up on their family farm, where they developed a strong work ethic and deep-rooted values. They've always enjoyed welcoming visitors to the farm, and during their college years, they even launched a goat yoga business. Now both married and working in the agriculture industry, they continue to contribute to the family farm whenever they can.
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A Shot of AG is a local public television program presented by WTVP
A Shot of AG
Ava Kinder & Delyn Griesmann | Family Farm
Season 5 Episode 11 | 27m 1sVideo has Closed Captions
Sisters Ava and Delyn share their experiences of growing up on their family farm, where they developed a strong work ethic and deep-rooted values. They've always enjoyed welcoming visitors to the farm, and during their college years, they even launched a goat yoga business. Now both married and working in the agriculture industry, they continue to contribute to the family farm whenever they can.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship(upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music continues) (no audio) - Welcome to "A Shot of Ag".
The farmer's daughter.
Is there anything more American?
Maybe just apple pie with a slice of Velveeta cheese on top.
Today, we're talking with two farmer's daughters.
We got Ava Kinder and Delyn Griesmann.
How you ladies doing?
- [Both] Good.
- Yeah.
You both grew up on a farm?
- Yep.
- Yes.
- Okay.
That was up in Leland, Illinois.
Can you tell people from Peoria where Leland is?
- It's about two hours northeast of here.
- Gotcha.
That was a long drive, 'cause you drove with your parents.
- Yeah.
(Ava laughs) - Yeah.
- Yeah.
- I've met your parents.
That's probably a really long drive.
- I'm sorry.
(Ava laughs) - You were telling me that your dad works at the high school that you went to, right?
- Yes.
Yep.
- And he would embarrass you?
- Oh, yeah.
All the time.
Yeah.
- Like what?
- Like, you'd just be in the middle of class and he'd just open your door.
"Hi, Ava, how you doing?"
Shut the door.
Or at my graduation, I was walking across stage and he just screams, "This is the last time I can embarrass you!"
Oh, yeah.
All thing.
He'll hand me garbage in the middle of the hallway.
"Hey, can you go do this?"
Or, "Hey, I need you to do this."
I was never in class my senior year.
Never.
I was just always doing stuff for him.
- [Rob] Really?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, or he'd walk down the hallway and he'd go, "Hi, Delyn!
Guess who!
Oh, that's right.
It's your dad!"
Yeah.
- How are you two not in the rubber room right now?
(all laugh) - We have our mom.
Yeah, we have mom.
(all laugh) - You guys are a very close family, though, aren't ya?
- Yes.
- We are.
We are.
- Yeah.
You grew up on a farm.
Did you enjoy that?
- Yeah, definitely wouldn't trade it for the world.
Teaches you a lot of lessons, but I love being in agriculture, being on the farm, helping farm, did the whole nine yards growing up and it's definitely an experience that was worth it.
- It's made me who I am today.
- Yeah.
- [Rob] And who's that?
- I don't know.
I'm still figuring that one out.
- It's part of it, though.
(laughs) - I'm sorry.
I'm still on guard from interviewing your dad, so I feel like I have to have the sarcasm like up to here and that's not fair to you two.
- Yeah, we just talked about how he was ridiculous in school.
Take it down.
(all laugh) - Okay.
You both are married now.
For how long?
- I'll be married for a year in September.
- [Rob] Oh, newlywed, huh?
- Yes.
- [Rob] Okay.
Do you hate him yet?
- (laughs) Well, we were dating seven years prior, so we've been together quite a while.
- Do you hate him yet?
- (laughs) No.
- No?
Okay.
And how long you been married?
- A little over two years.
- Gotcha.
So, both of you.
- Yep.
- Newlyweds, huh?
That's a fun time in life, right?
Figuring everything out and you still like your spouse and all that stuff.
- All the remodels on the houses.
- Yeah.
- Say if you can survive a remodel, you can survive anything, right?
- I would never give marital advice to anyone, but let me drop this little nugget right now.
I would never wallpaper with your spouse ever.
Let's just leave it there.
- Well, we haven't killed 'em yet, so I think we're doing pretty good.
- You ever feel like something was said in your show that some is gonna be used as evidence?
(laughs) Okay.
So, you guys, you went, you suffered through high school.
Then, where'd you go to college?
- We both went to Joliet Junior College, and then transferred to Illinois State University.
- [Rob] Okay.
What were you studying?
- I studied agriculture business.
- And then I studied agriculture communications and leadership.
- Oh, communications.
That's a horrible major.
(Ava and Rob laugh) Well, what was the plan?
What did you think you were gonna do?
- I planned on going to college and I really wanted to be a farm manager.
I loved it, wanted to stay in the ag industry, love numbers.
So, that's why I set on that path and it took me a while to find a job, 'cause I graduated in 2019 when we had all the water we ever needed in the world and nobody was hiring, but I did find a spot and I like my job.
- [Rob] Work for FBN?
- FBFM.
Yep.
- Oh, you're the, that's the Farm Bureau Farm Management.
- Farm Business Farm Management.
- Oh, they don't own it anymore?
- No.
- It's hard to keep up with.
- Yeah, it is.
It's changed multiple times, but yeah.
So, FBFM, Farm Business Farm Management.
- So, for the people that had never heard of that, so like a farmer can take like all their information, right?
All their books and their accounting and you'll take all that, and then you can compare it, right?
- Yeah.
So, we put together comparatives that compares them to their size farming operation in the area that they are farming to other farmers that we've collected data from to kind of benchmark them.
- Why do you do that?
I mean, is it so they can know where to improve or what's the thought?
- Most of the time, it's to show them where they can improve, also show 'em where they're doing well.
We don't just wanna bring all of the bad news, but we can also show 'em like, "Hey, you're doing really well in this area.
Like, keep it up.
You're better than other people in your same category," and I mean, let's be real.
If you're a farmer, you're competitive.
Everyone wants to have the highest yield possible.
- [Rob] Not me.
- (laughs) You just wanna make by, right?
- It just happens in my case.
(all laugh) So, are you good at numbers?
- Sometimes.
Yeah.
Don't ask me to do fractions.
- Well, no, I wouldn't.
Believe me.
You could lie and I would never know.
What's five sevenths of whatever?
Yeah, you could just throw out a number.
- My brain's already doing the whole circle thing on the computer screen.
Don't ask fractions.
- But do you enjoy accounting?
- I do.
Yeah.
- Boy, you and I have different minds.
- Yes.
(Rob laughs) It takes a special person to enjoy numbers.
- Yeah.
Ava, what are you doing?
- So, I am currently a marketing coordinator at Maurer-Stutz.
We're based here in Peoria.
We're a multi-discipline engineering firm.
So, I handle social media, website, help implement brand strategy, and then I help with proposal management, few other things, as well.
So, I quickly learned, unlike my sister, I hate numbers.
We're alike.
So, (laughs) I thought I wanted to go into business, take the math route and first math course, I was like, nope, we're done with this.
So, I took communications route instead.
- [Rob] Okay.
Do you enjoy it?
- I do.
I work from home four days out of the week and I'm down in Peoria one day a week.
So, no, I really enjoy my job.
I like who I work for.
I have great boss, great colleagues.
So, yeah, no, I really enjoy it.
- So, like, are you doing advertising, social media, all that stuff?
- Yeah, so I do all their social media, manage those platforms.
- How do you do that?
Because I don't know how you keep up with it, because you gotta be doing the trends or whatever, and then as soon as you figure out, oh, this is what I...
I need to be posting reels.
Well, that was so three months ago.
- Yeah.
- How do you keep up with it?
- Trends are always changing.
It's hard to keep up with.
I feel like it's one of those industries where you're constantly learning, constantly absorbing new information, because it is changing so fast.
- Yeah.
Does your boss ever go, "You know what we need to do is get a viral video?"
- (laughs) No.
I haven't been asked that yet.
(Ava and Rob laugh) - Back when you guys were in college, tell me about the goat yoga.
- So, we had started to acquire some goats and it came to the point that Mom and Dad said, kinda, "Enough is enough.
We've had enough goats.
If you guys wanna continue to have goats, you have to figure out how to pay for their feed," basically.
- Oh, so you guys were the reason for the goats?
- Oh, yeah.
Absolutely.
- Oh, yeah.
- You wanted the goats?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
Well, it started with one.
So, we had one goat probably for most of our childhood and just a single goat.
It got into everything.
He knew how to open up doors to the shop.
- Yeah, they're evil.
- And everything.
- They're not evil.
- Read the Bible!
They're evil.
- I know this is one part of the Bible I don't really care for.
(all laugh) - And so when he passed away, we were like, "We want some more goats."
So, we got two, and then we found some that needed rescuing, 'cause they were not in a very good place.
- They were probably in heaven, but you're just like, "Give 'em to me."
- So, two became four, four became six, and then we was like, "Let's breed 'em!"
And then they breed like cats.
They would have three, four kids at a time.
- Are they virile?
Do they multiply quickly?
- Yeah.
- They're not supposed to.
They say, typically, most of our moms were first-time moms and they say like one to two.
No, ours were popping out three to four.
- [Delyn] Yeah.
- I didn't know they had litters.
- Oh, yeah.
- [Delyn] Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
- Really?
You learn something new every day, don't ya?
Okay.
So, you, all the sudden, you're goat hoarders.
- Yep.
- And then what do you do with 'em?
- Well, that's where Mom and Dad said, "You gotta figure out what to do with 'em or we're getting rid of 'em."
Well, we weren't gonna get rid of 'em.
- [Rob] You could eat 'em.
You ever done that?
- No, we weren't gonna eat them.
No.
- I can't believe he just suggested that.
- I can't, yeah.
We're gonna have to stop the show.
(laughs) - No, no, no, no, no, no.
- I think we just did.
(Delyn and Ava laugh) Okay.
All right.
So, your folks said, "Hey, this isn't working."
So, then what?
- So, we started a business.
- Yeah.
- What was that?
- Goat yoga.
- [Rob] Goat yoga.
- Yep.
I saw...
It was...
I don't know, maybe it was L.A. or someplace, they're like, oh, goat yoga, and I was like, well, why can't we do that here?
We're close enough.
We can get people from Chicago down and we just started business.
We found a certified yoga instructor and we went from there.
We just started doing yoga out in the pasture.
- Just out there... - Yep.
- Okay, and how did you advertise for that first yoga session?
- We did it through Facebook.
So, we had a Facebook page, and then- - We also put out flyers around town.
- And we put out flyers.
Yeah.
- Old school.
Yeah.
Yeah.
- Yeah, yeah.
- So, it took a little while to grow a following, but we had some amazing people out to the farm and they weren't just hour, 45 minutes away.
Some people were states away.
They were in visiting family and it was just truly a heartwarming experience to just share with people that they would come out and be like, "Wow, it's so peaceful out here.
It's so quiet."
They don't have the hustle and the bustle of the city.
- Yeah.
- So, it was just, it didn't feel like work.
It was so nice to talk to people and just get, to be able to share our farm and our experiences with them and a little bit of peace for them during their day, too.
- [Rob] Okay.
- One thing we learned, too, was that people are interested and wanted to know about the agriculture industry.
They wanna know like where their food comes from.
They wanna know what happens with it and they're just curious.
- So, these were people from the city that were coming out?
- Yeah.
- Yep, suburbs.
- Yep.
- Okay.
So, they're doing their downward dog and a goat climbs on 'em.
They like that.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
Okay.
Don't they have hooves?
Aren't they sharp?
- They're not terrible.
- We trim their hooves.
- Okay.
- Plus, we were doing it with the babies, so- - Yeah.
It was all like the little babies.
- They're like 10 pounds ish.
Maybe - We've interviewed people that did goat yoga before and they say, well, it generally starts in yoga, and then like in three minutes, it's just people cuddling with the goats.
- Yeah.
- Is that what it is?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
I think it's smart, because you charge people to do this.
(Delyn and Ava laugh) - Well, and our goats, I don't know, maybe we got crazy goats, but they would like to eat the yoga mats, too, so... - Yeah.
It was a large investment.
- Yeah.
We were buying yoga mats quite frequently.
- Oh, you provided the mats?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, we'd provide the mats.
- Like, were they ruining them?
- Some of 'em, they'd rip 'em in half.
Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Oh.
(Ava laughs) Do you put like the horse and you put the Tabasco sauce on it or something like that.
- They'd probably still eat it.
- We thought it was the soap we were using, so we changed that up.
No, we just think it's the mats.
- That's because they're- - It's something new in their pasture, so they were curious.
- It's because they're evil creatures.
I remember the first person I interviewed that did goat yoga and Emily set it up, my wife, and I thought this is so stupid, and then after that interview, I'm like this is the smartest thing anybody's ever done, 'cause it's basically, people are just paying you to come out and be at your farm.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
Were you able to educate people doing that?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- [Rob] Yeah.
- Absolutely.
- Because even though it's goats, they're probably asking about the corn fields and the bean fields and all that stuff.
- Yep, and all the other animals.
They'd want tour of the farm.
- Ah.
What do I got here?
- [Ava] So, that's mom's cookbook.
- It's Mom's, huh?
- Yep.
- Is it top secret?
- Yeah.
Yeah.
There's some good family recipes in there.
So, when Delyn and I were little, we were always told that if we were left home alone and in case of an emergency, if there was fire, gotta grab the important, the animals, get yourself out, and the cookbook.
- And the cookbook.
- Grab the cookbook.
- So, we have- - Has your mom heard of a copying machine?
- Oh no.
It's got all the stains on the recipe cards from when she made 'em.
- Oh, yeah.
- You can't... - It does, doesn't it?
- You can't copy that.
- [Rob] Rice crispy cookies.
- (laughs) Oh, those are good.
- Yeah, those are really good.
(Ava laughs) - Okay.
I was going before and you guys, you knew everything.
- (laughs) Yep.
Yeah.
- Yes.
- Yes.
Jello pistachio.
- Yes.
- That's how you say that word, pudding cake.
- Yes.
- What's your favorite?
- Ooh.
Nope.
- Ooh, that's hard.
- There's too many.
- Mom's disco frosting?
(Ava laughs) Or is it deco?
- Yeah.
So, Mom's- - It's deco.
- Our grandma made wedding cakes and decorated cakes.
- Oh.
- For a living.
So, mom hates frosting, 'cause she grew up always having a bowl of frosting in the fridge.
She doesn't like frosting.
- She doesn't like frosting.
- Your mom doesn't like frosting?
- No.
No.
Neither do her siblings.
- Ooh.
- No.
- I couldn't even imagine.
(laughs) - But there's a story behind this.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
- Okay.
I'd love to hear it.
- So, one day, Mom and Dad were gone.
They went to go plant a farm and Ava and I were at home.
I think I was like 13 and you were about nine and we were watching the movie "Marley & Me."
- [Rob] Okay.
- And we were about 30 minutes into the movie and the TV caught on fire.
- The TV...
It's because Owen Wilson's acting is so bad.
- Well, we didn't get that far into the movie.
- Okay.
- So, we are looking at each other, 'cause the TV just caught on fire and it's smoking and we were both like, "What do we do?"
So, what did we do?
We grabbed the Guinea pig, the dogs, and the goldfish and put it in a Ziploc bag.
- [Rob] Oh.
- Yeah.
- [Rob] Okay.
- We had to get everything out.
- And the cookbook.
- And the cookbook and we ran outside and I grabbed the landline phone and I called Mom and Dad, and I said, "Hi, the TV's on fire.
We grabbed all the animals and the cookbook.
We'll see you when you get here," and I hung up.
Well, Mom and Dad proceeded to tell a story.
They got stopped by a train on their way to get to the house and they said off in the distance, all they saw was a large amount of smoke.
- [Rob] Oh, no.
- Because our neighbor had lit his burn pile.
- Ah.
- But they didn't know that at the time.
So, Mom goes, "Your Dad and I didn't even say a word.
We were just thinking we need to get home.
We need to get home.
We need to get home."
- [Rob] But the cookbook.
- We got the cookbook.
- Yeah, got the cookbook.
- Got the cookbook.
- Yeah.
- It was all good.
- Did the fire spread?
- No.
- No, actually, Mom had like, I don't even know what to call it.
- It's like a lace blanket.
- It was some sort of like cloth hanging behind the TV, and believe it or not, that actually put out the fire.
- Yeah.
- It was one of those big old boxed TVs.
- They used to make 'em out of asbestos.
That's why.
The lace doilies.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- That's why the old houses- - That's kinda what it was!
- Yeah.
It was kind of like this lace thing just hanging there, you know?
- Yeah.
- But yeah, no, it was one of those big...
It wasn't a flat screen TV.
It was one of the big box TVs and Mom came up with a fire extinguisher.
- Oh, the- - Running it.
Yeah.
- Yeah, the ones the size of a Buick.
- [Delyn] Yeah, it's like this big.
- It's super heavy.
- [Rob] Yeah.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
(Rob laughs) - Okay.
I've... Oof.
(Ava laughs) - That had to be a little scary, though, right?
- Slightly.
Yeah.
- Yeah.
What's on your sister's shirt there?
(Delyn and Ava laugh) - Did you get clipped?
- I did.
- You didn't even have the right camera on, did you?
(Ava laughs) Oh my gosh.
That's one of the best moments and we didn't even catch it.
(Ava laughs) Okay.
- That's perfect.
- I was like, great.
Did I spill mustard on my shirt?
- I know, I was like jeez.
'Cause she just texted me this morning, "What shirt are you wearing?"
(laughs) - That's perfect.
- This is your family's prank.
- Oh, yeah.
- Oh, yeah.
- You gotta clip it on people.
Yeah, and I'm really glad that went off without, 'cause I'm like I'm gonna scrape her arm if I do... (laughs) That's it, right?
You're just supposed to clip it on somebody.
- Yep.
Yep.
- Yep.
- And then it's yours now, right?
- He did that well.
He knew how this works.
- Yeah.
- Now, you gotta clip somebody.
Oh, I better be on the lookout.
- I don't know why you gave it back to me.
Oh, what the hell we talking about?
Okay.
Tell me about the snowstorm in 2017.
- Oh, yes.
You can tell this one.
So, Mom and Dad went on another trip to go visit a friend in Wisconsin and we got this crazy snowstorm.
I think we had like 17 inches of snow and it wasn't very big.
Mom and Dad got 30 minutes north of the house, clear.
It was nothing.
- [Rob] Yeah.
- So, we stayed at home to take care of the animals and everything while they were gone and we were capable.
We had people if we needed help that we could call, but- - But we're young, independent women, right?
- Yeah.
So, we had to do things.
So, we basically spent our days plowing out the driveway and shoveling out all the animals.
So, Delyn- - Whoa, who, whoa, whoa.
With what?
- A shovel.
- A truck.
- Oh, you're talking old school.
- Yeah.
This gets better.
- Okay.
I'm sorry.
- Yeah.
We would hand-shovel paths for the animals, but we'd plow out the driveway with the man purse.
and a plow.
- Yes.
Yes.
- And so Delyn would drive the truck and I would run the little joystick to run the plow.
- [Rob] Oh, it was a team effort.
- Yeah, it was heavy.
- Yeah, it was joint team effort, and so we'd basically go plow out and shovel out all the animals, come back in, watch a movie, go out and have to do it again, 'cause it was snowing that hard and that's basically what we did all weekend.
(Rob and Ava laugh) - Okay, and I'm sure the animals appreciated it.
- And Rob's like, "This is why I don't have livestock."
(Delyn and Ava laugh) - No kidding.
Yeah.
(Delyn and Ava laugh) Now, as you're off, you're married on your own.
I mean, are you, do you have any livestock?
- At the moment, my husband and I do not, but we have plans to bring livestock to the farm.
- You say, "We."
- Ryan and I do.
My husband and I.
- [Rob] Is he aware of it?
- Oh, he's fully aware.
He didn't have an option.
- Okay, and he's supportive of this.
- I don't know about all of my plans for animals he's supportive of, but a few of them, yes.
- Okay.
- I don't think he knows the grand scope of things.
- Some of them are non-negotiable.
- Yeah.
- Oh, really?
Like, it's- - Like miniature cows.
- Yeah, that's a non-negotiable.
- [Rob] You can eat those, too.
- No.
- No.
- We sound like vegetarians.
We're not.
(all laugh) We do like a good old steak.
- But is that, I mean, you guys grew up in a very, actually, in today's world, unique experience.
Not everybody gets to grow up on a farm.
- Right.
- And it sounds like you guys truly appreciated it.
I mean, is that what you'd like to get back to?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, absolutely.
We're still very active in the farming operation.
We help in the fall, in the spring.
We're running the grain cart, running the plow.
Sometimes, I run the combine for Mom, so... - Auger cart.
- Yeah, there's two different ways to say it.
- No, there's only one.
- No, I think there's two.
- And you run the auger cart and... - Well, we run the grain cart.
(Delyn and Ava) - There is nothing you can do correctly when you're running that device.
- Yeah.
Yeah, no.
You're like, you're stressed.
You're like, oh my gosh, I gotta be here and here at the same time.
Yeah.
- Yes.
- Yeah.
- Especially when the corn's going crazy and Mom's like, "I'm full.
Where are you at?"
- She's at the other end of the field.
You gotta get there.
(Rob and Ava laugh) - You guys do the canning, too?
That's a lost art.
- Yes.
Yes, it is.
- Yeah.
So, part of the cookbook, Mom has also taught us how to preserve and can a lot of food.
So, we have a huge garden.
We raise all of our meat, we raise meat birds, hogs, and cattle.
- Oh, you do eat something?
(Ava laughs) - So, Yeah, we preserve.
We have a fruit orchard.
Cherries, pears, apples, peaches.
We do spaghetti sauce, salsa.
- [Rob] Good night.
- You name it.
We're busy.
We don't turn the TV on very much.
(laughs) - No, 'cause it catches on fire.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
- Yeah!
- Especially when we're watching "Marley & Me."
- I will never watch that movie again.
- I love your family, 'cause you guys, yeah, you're close.
You make fun of each other.
- Oh, yeah.
- You clip things on each other, but you're very close.
What would you tell to a person that is moving away from their family?
What kind of advice would you give 'em?
Because I gotta imagine being that close, and now, you guys are on your own.
It had to be a little bit of an adjustment.
- A little bit, but it's...
I guess it'd be hard for us to say that, because my husband and I only moved like five miles down the road.
- [Rob] Well, that's not fair.
- Yeah, it's not fair.
- Yeah, and we bought the old farm house, old Mom and Dad's house, so we're even closer.
I never moved outta the house I grew up in.
(laughs) - Yeah.
- Okay.
All right.
- So, but I mean, we did go down to college.
- That's a stupid question.
(Delyn and Ava laugh) - There's no such thing as a stupid question.
- No.
- Yeah, that one was.
(Delyn and Ava laugh) You guys on social media?
- Facebook.
- Yeah.
- But- - You don't do the TikTok and... - No.
- [Rob] 'Cause you had goat yoga, right?
I can't believe you'd be- - Yeah, we had a page for that.
Unfortunately, it got hacked.
- It did, yeah.
- Did it?
- Yeah.
- Now, you can't get back in it?
- Yeah.
So... - Is it by some Russian prince or whatever?
- I'm not sure.
My personal Facebook got hacked with it, too.
So, it was a mess.
- Oh, no.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
Future plans?
Like you said, were you trying to probably someday get animals?
- Yep.
- Yeah, livestock.
- And you both live where that is a possibility?
- Yep.
- Yep.
Well, we still have livestock on the farm, so we're all still close.
We all still help with it, and yeah.
- I think it'd be funny if you lived in a subdivision and brought in your goats.
- The miniature cows.
- Well, I feel like we need to bring 'em in.
- Then, we could really charge people.
- Like, people are like, "Oh, I got all these leaves in the fall.
I need to do something."
Rent a goat.
- Rent a goat.
Rent a goat!
- They will eat so many leaves.
- Oh - We got another one.
(Ava laughs) - God, I'm having flashbacks to when I interviewed your parents.
(all laugh) You talking miniature cows, are you talking like the tiny ones or just they say like the mini... You wouldn't even know it was a small one, unless it was standing up against a regular... - No, like mini mini.
- Like the Highland Dwarf.
- Like a dog size.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
- Okay.
- Fluffy.
- And then we've interviewed people that had those and they literally, they just charged people to come pet 'em.
- Oh, yeah.
- Yeah.
- You guys could be sitting on a gold mine up there.
How close is Leland to like a big city?
What is Rockford closest?
- We're 30 minutes south of DeKalb.
- Oh.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- You got all the college kids?
- We do.
- Yep.
- Yep.
- [Rob] Yeah, that would work.
I think you guys are sitting on a gold mine.
I would go home right now.
I would quit your jobs (Delyn and Ava laugh) and I would- - Except we both have mortgages to pay.
- Yeah.
- I've got a plan for that.
- Okay.
- So, you just go to the bank.
Actually, you can embezzle, right?
'Cause you're an accountant.
- Now, hold on.
(Ava laughs) - Yeah.
- Don't put my job at risk, here.
- No, it'll all pay off.
(all laugh) I want you to try to tell people what it meant to you to grow up on a farm.
- I personally feel that growing up on a farm, there's just different characteristics that you learn.
I mean, there's different forms of responsibility.
Mom and Dad always taught Ava and I that the animals come first.
They always were fed first, watered first, and then we ate breakfast, like all of that type of stuff.
So, I guess it kinda taught you to be less selfish, because you had to put something before yourself.
- Yeah.
Christmas morning always looked a little bit different.
Oh, can't open presents.
You gotta go out and feed the livestock, make sure they're watered and fed.
- Were you one of those family you had to do chores before?
- Absolutely.
- Yeah.
So, it taught your responsibility at a really young age and Delyn and I would go to Mom and Dad and that's how we grew the livestock.
We didn't used to have that much.
We're like, "We want this."
Mom and Dad were like, "Well, when you're older, let's talk about it," and they made sure that we knew it was our responsibility to feed and water them and we had to clean their pen.
You gotta manually scoop manure, you know?
So, I think it just teaches you responsibility at a very young age and we had friends, but sometimes, it was different.
They'd be like, "Oh, I wanna hang out after school."
It's like no, we have responsibilities at home.
- We cannot do that.
- [Delyn] Yeah.
- And when it comes time to the fall, you're busy.
You're 10, 12, 14 hour days in the field and it's like, no, I can't go to Starbucks with you or go out to dinner.
- [Rob] Yeah, we don't even know what Starbucks is.
All right, Ava Kinder and Delyn Griesmann from the Leland area.
Guys, thank you very much for coming down.
Really, really appreciate it.
- Thank you.
- You've been a lot of fun and you are a true, you're a true quality people for agriculture.
I mean, a voice for ag, that I as a farmer love to have.
So, I wanna thank you for that.
I want to thank you for coming down to the show today.
Everybody else, we'll catch you next time.
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