SharkFarmerXM's podcast
Jessica Garza from Springdale, WA 9-16-24
- ♪ Unstoppable, unshakeable ♪ ♪ But it rolls off the tongue, unbreakable ♪ ♪ It's unavoidable ♪ ♪ You're so relatable ♪ ♪ In between the lines ♪ ♪ Start to loosen up your mind ♪ - And welcome again to Shark Farmer Radio. Hey, I'm your host Rob Sharkey. We're in the studio today just outside of Bradford, Illinois. It's the uncomfortable anxiousness of harvest. - It is, and everybody wants to get out there. I saw one field out so far, so nobody's going. But as soon as a neighbor does, you will. You just can't help yourselves. I mean, if one neighbor goes, then you're like, "Well, I could at least open up the field." - Yeah, I think we're gonna just make sure. Because that's a thing. If you get out there and you're like, "Oh, I'm gonna pick a hopper of corn. What do you do with a hopper of corn?" So I think the endros are definitely dry enough, so we might peel some endros off. Maybe tomorrow, maybe Wednesday, we'll see. - Well, and we always say this, we have to get the gremlins out. So you know, you feel ready, but something will break or something will need adjusted. - Wow, okay. - I'm just gonna say it now, because then, you know, it'll happen. - Thanks for the photo-confidential, babe. All right, today, let's go out to Springdale, Washington. We're gonna talk with Jessica Garza. How you doing, Jessica? - Great, how are you guys? - I'm doing fantastic. - Now, we're in Washington, is Springdale. - We're about an hour north of Spokane. - Okay, so you're on the east side. - Yep. - Yeah, is that the same side? - We like to say the better side. - Holy gosh, you do, though. (laughing) - But we are up in the mountains. We are not down on the Palouse, so the Palouse is southeast. We are up in the northeast corner. - So is that area fairly dry? - Yes. - Okay, and you guys are ranching up there, the owners of Moose Valley Ranch. What all do you raise? - So we're multi-generational on our property. My brother handles the hay and cattle. My parents, we lovingly refer to as the land barons now. They enjoy sitting on the porch and watching us through their spotting glasses. And then my husband and I own all of the stuff around the traditional farming. So anything that's not the hay and cows. - I really look forward to that day when we're sitting around and we're looking through our spotting glass, just seeing what everybody's doing. I'm looking forward to that. - You are. - I mean, there's some duties involved with it. So they are the peacemakers, the ultimate decision-makers. They are like the king of the castle, if you will. But I think they are loving seeing the next generation. And now the third generation, 'cause my sons are coming up and they are being little entrepreneurs. So they had their first lemonade stand this summer and you know Grandma and Grandpa were their first customers, so. - Lemonade stand. I mean, I'm just going off like your pitchers from social media. You're pretty rural, aren't you? - We are, but we actually split a state highway. So we have pretty good traffic and our driveway's big enough to get a semi-op. So I went and put sandwich boards up about a half a mile down on the highway saying lemonades coming start slowing down. And they had great traffic. - Uh-huh, did- - Look at her. She's like this advertising guru. Start slowing down now so you can get some lemonade. - Did they spike it with anything? - Well, they even had a trailer. They did not. We were well behaved. They were probably pretty spun up on the sugar because they were out there off and on on their own. I had no idea how much they drink. No clue what product went missing, but they were so good. They did a rodeo weekend and they even had a sign that said we had room for trailers if they wanted to pull in. - Oh, wow. (laughing) You are, you do think outside of the box. I will definitely give that to you. So tell me what is Market in the Mountains? - Well, we were just talking about it. The best of the West is what I think I'm gonna have a new tagline for. Market in the Mountains is our luxury Western market. And I say Western because it's really hard to show home setting, rural, country, farmhouse, vintage and Western all into one poster. So we went with Western and it is a market that pops up right in the middle of our mountain out in the hay field. In fact, I'm looking at the round bales I have to still roll out of the way to make room for all of the vendors to come in. And we invite and have an application process for vendors, Western businesses to come in and showcase for the weekend. We have a full bar that benefits lucky break ranch rescue out of Arizona. She saves slaughter horses and that's cowgirl Kate. If you recognize her, she'll be up slinging drinks at the bar and live music all weekend. It's just, it's amazing. - Okay, I'm still. - I kinda wanna take a trip to Washington this weekend. - Like who goes to this thing? - Everyone. It's been great for people because traditionally up here where we're at, you know, we're a little far from Pendleton and NFR is quite the trip for us. And but there's a strong ranching community, Western community and come on. Beyonce team for this, the year of the cowgirl. So everybody wants to be a cowgirl. We have got some-- - Must've, must've missed that. - Oh, come on, the Beyonce-- - It was on topic there. - Oh yeah. - I didn't like it at first. I thought Beyonce is singing country. I don't know, but now-- - She doesn't want to break up with all the boys, right? And then writes about it? - No, that's a lift. - Okay. All right, let's focus. - Sorry. - All right. So this, I mean, like how far do people come? That's, I guess, what I'm asking me. Is this like local people? - People take it in three states. - No, we sold tickets across three states. In fact, probably even more. I haven't pulled the demographics. We have vendors coming from as far away at Texas, Montana, Colorado. And we've sold up tickets in British Columbia. So it's becoming, I would say, really a regional event, which sounds so weird to say. - Is this where you all like sit in a circle and then you have like a talking stick and you can't talk without the stick? - No, no, there's so much talking to shopping. It's just a beautiful market that popped up right in the middle of the field. You can check it out on our Instagram or Facebook or even on our website. There's photos all over the place. The videos, there's drone shots. It's hard to describe 'cause I haven't seen anyone else really do that. - Yeah, well, we'll have to hear more about it. Today we're talking with Jessica Garza from Springdale, Washington. Go follow her on her Instagram or Facebook. Moose Valley Ranch. We'll be back after the break. (upbeat music) - This segment is brought to you by Common Ground. Are you looking for an easy way to buy, sell, or lease your land? Well, check out Common Ground where they connect landowners and farmers and hunters too, by the way. Go to commonground.io, that's commonground.io. (upbeat music) - I think we'll probably do corn first, but the beans, soybeans are, I don't know, they're holding on. We need a rain. If we had a rain, they would mature and we'd be doing beans like crazy. - We would. I want that to just be ready. I want to get out there in the beans. I like harvesting beans the most. - You pick up rocks doing it, but hey. - Yeah. - Thinking about more of what our beans go to, you and I went out to San Francisco to the soy. How do you say it? Soy connects? - Soy connects. - Yeah. - It connects. - It connects tea. Yeah, soy connects. - Yeah. - And it's kind of really neat because we sort of started at the DeLong facility in Illinois, seeing where the Illinois farmer sells his soybeans. And then it sort of came full circle for us 'cause you have those moments out there, you're like, "Oh my gosh." So Illinois soybean associates making all these connections out there with buyers from like Taiwan and Egypt. - Which is good. - Oh, oh, fantastic market 'cause we need more markets to sell our soybeans, right? - Yeah, we could have like a whole bunch of new markets that'd be fine with me. - Speaking of which, they're on shark farmer TV tonight, tomorrow, Tuesday night, yeah. - Okay. Today, we are talking with Jessica Garza from a Springdale, Washington. Go follow her on her socials moose valley ranch. She was telling us about this market in the mountains. I am just gonna have to go 'cause I don't know. It sounds like here, like in the Midwest, you would have like, I don't know, Spoon River days or whatever, right, Emily? - I think this is much bigger though, but yes. Like who doesn't like live music and drinks and shopping? Just take the credit card and go. - Yeah. So Jessica, what is like one of the main attractions at this thing? - I think honestly, the variety that we have is probably the biggest. You know, our town is really tiny. There's really no stores to shop at, very close. And then all of a sudden you bring in these huge powerhouses and it's stuff that you would see at like NFR, but it's out here in the field and it's accessible for people. And then I think they just love getting out of town. You couldn't ask for a more beautiful spot for it to happen at. And I think it's also the community feel that we have just worked so hard to create within this like Western business community, a rural business community. - Well, and that's where your heart is, right? You're trying to get small businesses established and kind of give them a boost to get started. That's sort of where your passion is, correct? - Yeah, I actually left law enforcement and took a job in economic development. Just one of the pieces of the puzzle was that that was more where my heart was. And I've been doing it privately, you know, through the ranch, having retreats with other rural women entrepreneurs. We have a group coaching with other women, rural entrepreneurs, and then I've started speaking and teaching just on what's working for us and how we've been able to kind of create what we have. In a spot where if anybody had asked five years ago, they would have said that this was a pipe dream and impossible and never going to work. - You were a cop? - I was, yeah, for 10 years. - Did you give out a lot of tickets? - Uh, not towards the end there. I really, I went into a specialty and investigations and child sex crimes about midway through my career. And after that, I didn't write too many tickets. - Yeah, it's kind of, yeah, there's bigger fish or fry than someone that's going 15 over. - Don't say that too loud 'cause my husband's in the traffic unit of his department. So he writes a lot. - I'm gonna say that next time I get pulled over, you know, we were in a former police officer. She says you're just a little power hungry. Do you think that'll work? - Oh, don't do that. No, you're gonna get all of them then. - Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. So was that really hard to leave at work because I can't imagine working in that division and being able to, I mean, I don't know, sometimes sleep at night, right? - Yeah, I think I became really apparent when it was no longer healthy for our family. And when it was no longer where my heart was and just being burned out, honestly, when you're the only one doing the work, that kind of work, it gets real hard real quick. - Super important, the people that are still doing it might have to off to them. We desperately need it. We need more people doing that work. But for me, it was time. So I didn't have a hard time walking away. - Well, I'm glad you were able to be honest with yourself in that because yeah, I mean, your first priority is your family and yeah, I've always thought if I had to do work like that, that it would be very hard to leave it at work. - Mm-hmm, yes, it is, especially with small children. - Yeah. - It's hard in general. And I was pouring so much of my off time into the ranch and the work I was doing here. And it just, you know, when you feel out of alignment and you need to fix that, that's what I did. - Mm-hmm. So your main homestead, is that a family ranch? Is that yours or CJs or how does that work? - So are three generations living here the main chunk of the property of my parents? And then there's my brother and I, and then my husband and I and our children. - Well, and it sounds like a beautiful property. - It sounds like a beautiful property. - I do think Yellowstone, 'cause it's like, it's got-- - Very school buses in the background. (laughing) - They're better not be any buried school buses back there. I find metal everywhere. No, and I mean, it's big enough. Like, I can't see my parents' house from my house. So there's lots of good space too. - If you had a spy glass, you could. - No, there's a mountain in the way. - I have to have the really massive mirror system going on or something. - Well, how do they watch you then? - Well, where a bunch of our work is, where the new Geodome site is at, and where the events happen at, it kind of triangulates between. But our houses are separated. - And you've got a beautiful property. You've got wetlands, you've got like mountain forests. You've got it all, right? - Oh yeah, we have water, we have mountain springs that bubble up out of the ground, all the way to the Aspen Grove. We have an old growth apple orchard in the back. The trees have to be 100 years old, they're huge. Some of the buildings have like 1893 inscribed on the side of them. So a really varied and long history here. - And I assume you get moose? - We do. We have every year, we usually see, we call it Mr. and Mrs. Bullwinkle and then their calf. And then throughout the year, we'll see the rest of them. They really like the wetlands down in the bottom. So they come through quite regularly. - That's gotta be neat to see moose. - Oh yeah. - The cougar and elk and all these things, just, you know. - Right, I'd say you might know. - I'd say we could see a little less bear. If we could see a little less bear and wool, we would be really good. But I'll leave that there. That's a hot button topic. - Oh, not for us. Our bears suck. I don't even know if they've won a game yet. - For that. - Are they the brown bears or the grizzlies? - They are, they're like cinnamon bears, little cinnamon bears. So I think they're brown and black bears. They're destructive. They are destructive and well populated. And then we've been seeing wolves, which is always an uncomfortable sight. Lots of coyotes, cougars and deer, whitetail, whitetail primarily, and then moose and elk. We had a quite a long shirt about come through. - Yeah, all right, I'm ready to go. Today we're talking with Jessica Garza from a Springdale, Washington. Go follow her on all the socials at Moose Valley Ranch. When we come back, you heard her mention it, the Geodome experience. I think I saw that movie had polyshore in it. We'll be back, right up to the break. ♪ You sure a little but we'll read between the lines ♪ ♪ Start to loosen up your mind ♪ - This segment is brought to you by Common Ground. Are you looking for an easy way to buy, sell, or lease your land? Well, check out Common Ground where they connect landowners and farmers, and hunters too, by the way. Go to commonground.io, that's commonground.io. (upbeat music) - You think Sean Haney is gonna be talking about what Geodomes on his show today? - Oh no. - 'Cause I'd hate to, you know, it's like you go to a party and you're like, oh, we're in the same thing. It's time for a Springdale, Washington's favorite radio segment. We're in the world as well. Well, what do you have for us today? - Today, we're back up in my home state in a little town called Springdale in Stevens County. The population was 234 at the 2020 census. The present site of Springdale was a wilderness until about 1886 when Mr. John Shreiner and Mr. Charles O. Squire arrived at about the same time. Squire erected the first sawmill in 1887, once Mr. Squire finalized his homestead. He platted the area on November 29th, 29th, 1889, which he called Squire City. He called it Squire City. - Oh, do you think there were friends, these two guys are like enemies? - It seems that they were enemies because it was called Squire City. And he was also the first postmaster, so he won the postmaster battle. - Oh, lots of yard signs, probably. - Yeah, it wasn't called Shreiner City. Mark P. Shiffer was the first merchant he bought. He brought material by horse-drawn freight wagons prior to arrival on the railroad. - This was what, 2005? - In 1889, the Spokane Falls and Northern Railway, SF and N was completed to the area and the depot was called Springdale. Springdale was the lunch stop between Spokane and Northport on the SF and NRR. Sometime before 1892, residents petitioned to have the town's name changed to Springdale. While the exact reason for this is unknown, the town is built over a series of subterranean streams, many of which emerge from the ground as springs. So that could be why it's called Shreiner. - Shreiner Springdale. - Are they like healing springs or just, you know, springs? - What's a healing spring? - You know, like in Arkansas, you go sit in a spring and then you-- - It's got like soda water in it. - I don't know, it cures your eels. - Yeah, that's alternative medicine. We got some notable people here. We got Lois Stratton, Washington State representative. - Really? - Yes, and speaking of the sane side of Washington State, we have Lucian Pulvermacher, a traditionalist, schismatic Roman Catholic priest and a modern day anti-pope. He was head of the, quote, true Catholic church, a small conclavist group that elected him Pope Pius XIII in October of 1988. - Oh, sounds complicated. - Pulvermacher claims that by becoming pope, he would become able to confer the sacrament of the holy orders despite not actually being consecrated a bishop. He ordained Gordon Bateman on June 13th, 1999 and consecrated him as a bishop. After this, Bateman, the guy he consecrated as a bishop consecrated him as a bishop. - Oh, you scratch my back, I'll scratch, yeah. - This sounds controversial. - He was pretty good in Ozark, so. - I think he's gonna get me emails. - Well, Pulvermacher and Bateman claim to be bishops, no other religion with apostolic succession has recognized them as such. - Okay, riveting. Thank you, Pulvermacher. - I learned something new. - Did you, are you friends with the Pulvermacher's, Jessica? - I am not, there's some names I recognize and some I don't. There's a lot of interesting history out here with the trains and there was supposedly a robbery of gold bricks at some point and there's rumor that they were hung on the hanging tree at the ranch is what we call it. It's a petrified tree with a branch, just about the right height, so. - What if it was called the cuddling tree? They're like, "What are we gonna do now?" - I mean, obviously the hanging tree name came after. - Oh, you never know. Jessica Garza from Springdale, Washington, go follow her on her socials moose valley ranch. Jessica, what is a geodome? - Geodome is a steel structure that is shaped like a dome, I think half of a golf ball, I guess, impervious to wind, water, rain, semi-permanent structure. - For the line. - Nice, nice. Now, what does one do in a geodome? - Relax, recharge, renew. That's, we're gonna focus in on those three words. So the geodome we built is going to be catered towards couples looking to get away for the weekend or a few days, and just kind of check out. We have about a two mile round trip hiking trail up to a ridge top, we have a wood-fired hot tub, cold plunge pool with those mountain springs, unconfirmed if they were healing waters or not, and then a pond nearby, and just a chance to kind of check out and spend some time on the ranch in a really quiet corner of it. - So does the shape of the geodome, does that help with the couples, yeah, you know? - Relaxing, I don't know. - That's not what I was saying, yeah. I mean, do you advertise it like that? It's like, hey, you know, spend a night in a dome and it'll, it's like eating clams or oysters or whatever. - It'll re-energize you. - You know, I haven't. I haven't finished, I actually just buttoned up the last few things in the covering insulation and stuff yesterday. So we have not really started even advertising it yet because I like to have it done before I start selling it. So I will keep that in mind. I mean, yeah, you want people to go there so you got to have a hook, they say. - Oh, her advertising wheels are turning in a new direction, yeah. - You could say that it improves fertility, too. - I won't think you guys an invitation. What do you guys an invite to come on out for the weekend and then you can help me get a new tagline for it. - Oh, gosh. - That sounds like a challenge. - I mean, the stuff you guys come up with, I mean, are you just a creative person? - I guess, yeah. I think I just don't fit still well. So I'm always thinking, learning, doing, trying something different. We have to diversify or you die. I'm like, that's the truth. If you're an agriculture, especially with not being a large commodity farm or large beef supplier, we have to diversify. - Jessica, let's start with the market in the mountains. Give us details and if someone wants to go to it, how do they do it? - Coming up this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday. It's at the ranch right off the state highway, so you can Google the location very easily. Tickets are available online, moosevalley ranch.com. Just click over to the market in the mountain page. And if you buy early and online, you're entered into a series of giveaways that we're doing right now, so we've given away over 20 items already. And I have another 25 to go, I think. And then you can also purchase tickets at the gate, 20 bucks to enter. Gets the access to everything we don't charge for any of the kids' activities. There's bounce houses. Corn pit, our nod to our Midwest friend here. - Nice. - Walking right. All sorts of stuff. - Okay, all right, are we busy? Oh yeah, we're harvesting. Jessica Garza from Springdale, Washington. Make sure you go follow her moosevalley ranch and yeah, check out the GEO domes. I'm excited for that. Jessica, thank you for taking the time to talk with us today. Really appreciate it, hope your event goes well. But Jessica, don't go anywhere. Sean Haney's coming up next. You're gonna hear all about the Canadian GEO domes. They're upside down some way. Catch everybody next time. ♪ Care ready for, care ready for, care ready for the next year ♪ ♪ We go ♪