SharkFarmerXM's podcast
Randy the Farmer from Bascom, FL 9-25-24
[Music] Hey, welcome again to Shuk Farmer Radio, hey! I'm your host Rob Sharkey, we're in the studio today just outside of Bradford, Illinois. Studio powered by Bexide Bread, which we are not harvesting today. Maybe, maybe this afternoon. I'm thinking you're going to go this afternoon because your twin cousins down the road are harvesting right now. Did you know that? I was unaware. Yes, they just started and they have a semi-truck that just pulled up and they are harvesting corn. Corn? Yes. I would have expected you to tell me this earlier. Just drove by, so you know, there's a five-minute delay. No, I see they just sent a truck William Bentham. We had the cart full, and it's been full of 20% corn for a day and a half, which should be fine. You don't want it to sit there any longer though, do you? No, it's time for it to go. It's a fantastic day, rain is over, sun is out, woo! Yeah, yeah, we got the deer blind finish this morning, wall-to-wall carpet in it. Never in my life have we actually gotten decent carpet for a deer blind. Usually it's like remnants that somebody threw out, that you throw in the deer blind, just so that it doesn't make noise, so that you blow out your whole field of deer. Because every deer blind we've ever had, the critters could get in. This one should, should, should be critter proof. Yes, this has a door to keep the raccoons out. Built by FBI builders. All right, Emily, are you ready for today's show? I think so. We're going to North Florida. We're going to, uh, we're Carole Baskam, is that right? Oh, that's wonderful. We're going to be talking about the Randy, the farmer. How you doing Randy? I'm doing pretty good, Rob. How about yourself? I'm, I'm, I'll let you know in about a half hour. Well, how do you pronounce it? Is it Baskam? It's a Baskam. Yes, the home of Faye Dunaway. Oh, not, not Carole Baskam. No, no, Faye Dunaway. She was in the Duncents checks in, uh, Bonnie and Clyde. A lot of popular movies a long time ago. Oh, that's the one with the baboon, right? Yep, you got it. Okay, yeah. Is Carole Baskam, is, if they found her husband yet? I don't believe, well, he's in jail, right? Is it the tiger king you're talking about? Yeah, well, the husband was one that, uh, was, uh, disappeared. And the tiger, yes. Yeah. I'm pretty sure she fed him. She fed him to the tiger. Yeah. So Randy, you, you far him down there. Tell me everything that you raise. Ah, well, we formed nothing but peanuts and cotton. And this year has been an extremely struggle with peanuts. We're knee deep and peanut harvest. And we've got, uh, another major hurricane on the way. So that should be hitting tomorrow. So we're all kind of prepped for that, making sure things tied up around the farm. Well, how far along in harvest are you? Uh, well, we should be a lot further than what we are. But about last week, we got close to 10 inches of the rain from the other hurricane that, that went, uh, it missed us. But we got a pile of rain from it. But, uh, we're kind of just getting kicked off and it really. So what happens to your peanuts when it rains 10 inches of rain? I mean, does it drain finally and they're fine or do you lose yield? That's a great question. Well, we've got, um, all our soil was very sandy. So for instance, we got about 10 inches of rain on a Saturday night and we were back plowing up peanut that Wednesday. Now it was wet and we made a mess, but we were in there. Uh, and of course, just like anything else, you know, the peanuts get wet. That affects your grade, uh, the worse the grade, the less money you get for them. So, uh, best case scenario, your peanuts never get wet. You put them upside down, let them drive for about three days and pick them. So we're about 12 days behind the peanuts just sitting out there, just stems getting weak. They fall off the peanut picker and it's just not a, not a good time. Yeah, nothing worse than wet nuts. But you were saying that, uh, you, you get sort of soul wet. What your soul, your tearing up your soul. What is that? The soul, uh, dirt. Oh, soil. I'm not the dirt, Rob. Soil. Yeah. Soil. Okay. All right. Soil. That's what I said, Rob. It's tearing up his soul. Well, that's, you know, probably is that too. So who's all involved in your farm? Oh, well, my, uh, daddy started farming in 1970 for work. So he's, he's kind of halfway retired. He, he does plow up all the peanuts. It's about all the field work he does. Uh, and then I've got my twin brother, Jim, that I work with. Yeah, he's great. Um, yeah. And we've got three other guys that work with this. He, Jeff and Kyle, all, all great guys. Do you get along with Jim? Or do you guys just? How could you not fight all the time? I mean, sometimes twins get along. Sometimes they don't. Yeah, um, no, we don't have a good relationship. Um, I'm not going to open that can of worms, but we tolerate each other, but. Jim likes to be a bit of a pile of balls, if you know what I mean. No, likes to get stuff done. I like that. Well, and not on that. And he likes to, you know, be almost a dictator. You do this and, you know, so anyways, I guess every family has got drama, but we tolerate each other. I try to do my thing. He does this thing. They say the best leadership is a benevolent dictator. That's the way I see Jim. Yeah, I view him as like a Hitler. You know what I'm saying? And that you don't want that. You don't want that. Yeah. You guys are not identical because he is much handsomer than you are. Well, we are identical, but I've packed on a couple pounds more than he has. But you're identical with Jim? What happened? Yes. We're identical twins. Did you fall in something like machinery? No, I mean, I have the rattlesnake drama and all that. I did the condition that I lived with. But other than that, we're pretty much exactly the same person. It bit your ankle. And now you fall a lot of rattlesnake. The leg. Yeah, bit my leg and a lot of nerve damage when I was a kid. So that's why my leg goes completely numb and dead pretty much, you know. And that's. You do trip a lot. That's why he looks like that. He does trip a lot. If you know, how do you like that? No wonder he doesn't like Jim because it's like, man, I would look like that if I didn't trip all the time. All right. Today, we're talking with Randy the farmer. He's there in North Florida. Basum, Basum, something like that. When we come back, we're going to talk about some exciting things. He's now an official brand ambassador. I cannot wait. We'll be back. 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. What is today? Wednesday? Today is Wednesday all day long. All day long. Okay. Nothing to plug. No, I mean, you know, everybody watched Shark Farmer TV last night. We were in San Francisco with Illinois Soybean Association. Yeah, who's a podcast? Okay, so we had Kim and Christian Salerno. They're the ones with the Forest Hotel in Las Vegas. Yeah. That's fantastic. And he's the one that does the poker tables. Like the felt on the poker tables for the world's areas of poker and a whole bunch of other casinos. They do the printing. So like where you put your chips, where you put your cards, advertising. There's a lot to that because, you know, you don't want bad felt because then your cards, it trips up your cards and it flips them over. And of course, you know, you don't want people to see your cards. Yeah, he took that very seriously. Absolutely. You do not, you don't want any texture. It's like one should be like glass. I never thought about it. And we also learned that dice can cut felt. Yes, absolutely. And who's throwing dice at hard? Well, I don't know. And you know, you're like, well, if you pick at the felt a little bit, you know, you just have that picker person that's sitting there picking at the felt. He said you'd have to pick at it pretty good. Till the the the pit boss comes over and thumbs you. That's right. But they're changing out felt like every couple months, which astounded me because I know there's some idiots who are going to spill their drink on the felt, right? Yeah. But I mean, in general, wow, that's a really I can't imagine have to change out my tables every couple months. I think the casinos can can fold that. I think they'll be all right. I think they're you think they're doing okay? Yeah. Speaking of being okay, today, we're in North Florida, Bascom. We're talking with Randy, the farmer who's telling us about his farm, hunkering down for the hurricane, which is not so good. Have they named that hurricane? Yeah, Randy. They have it's Hurricane Helen or Helena. Oh, okay. Well, hopefully, hopefully she's kind to you. Randy, you you have become as I'm going to say famous. You you are you're kind of like the Ricky Bobby of farmers. You found a way to try to get advertising everywhere possible that you can. Do you mean he's kind of a big deal? Yeah, you're kind of a big deal. Would you agree? I do like to quote, you know, Ron Burgundy, you know, people know me, you know. Lots of leatherbound books in your library. My apartment smells of rich mahogany. Yeah, you do have an awful big one. Tell me about the brand ambassador for James Moose. James Moose, you said it. Yep. Super thrilled and excited. Officially announced that I am the brand ambassador. It's a brand new tractor brand, manufactured right about 40 miles down the road from me. And we want to hit you to Florida. And they long story short, they approached me through a DM actually, through Instagram, the owner of Owen and said, you know, he was a big fan. And, you know, saw that I had a somewhat of a decent following. And wanted to know if I would, you know, sign on to be the brand ambassador. And I started, you know, to look at what they were proposing. And, you know, of course I would. And my neck of the woods, you know, everybody's got John Deere's ourselves included. A couple guys run cases, but it's just good to have, you know, another option for people to choose when they're looking at buying a tractor. And this is really nothing like you've ever seen on the market. James Moose, what color are we talking? Like poop brown for a moose or what? What the heck is wrong with you? I'm sorry about that question, Randy. It's fine. Emily, to answer your question, it's a beautiful color scheme. The hood's yellow, it's trimmed with some red, it's got black in it, and then some green accents throughout the tractor. So, like I say, it's nothing else on the market like it. It's a 300 horsepower tractor. Nice. The best word out of all of this is, I hope you're sitting down, because it's $100,000 for the flagship model. For a 300 horse tractor. 300 horsebound tractor, yep. Does it have a cab? Oh, absolutely, cab, air conditioner. And that's the beauty when Mr. James created this, he wanted to create a tractor that a farmer needed. And a lot of the tractors out there today, they're unattainable for most farmers, and they don't need all the bells and whistles that they have. So this is just, it gives the farmer what they need, nothing extra, and it doesn't make you follow a bankrupt, so you have to hit the end of the year. So, 100 grand, is that like the base model? I mean, do you do upgrades for there? Like if you, well, is that come with wheels? Of course, of course, it comes with wheels. You know, front wheels, back tires, wheels, dual, got two hydraulic remotes. Of course, you're going to add more if you need more. Well, that's what I'm saying, then you're over 100 grand then. See, that's, I feel like you're trying to upsell me. Now, I'm not trying to upsell you. What I'm trying to do is just, is tell you what it has. And a lot of people don't need more than two hydraulic remotes, so why pay for five if you only need to? Okay, does it have air conditioning? Oh, air conditioning, radio, everything you need. This lock, four wheel drive, eat the heart start, you name it. Okay, so that has to be hard to start a, I mean, this is an entire new company. They didn't like buy out Mahindra or something like this. This is all brand new. Brand new, the whole, we did a whole episode on Acres TV, talking about how the company was started with Mr. James. And his love for trapners, his passion, you know, why he wanted to develop his own brand. But he did his homework. It's a phenomenal product. We've had one on our farm, oh gee, probably two months for right now. And a couple kinks here and there. But like I said, they're not in dealerships yet. But once this thing gets ironed out this fall, they're going to be dropping and you won't probably start seeing some popping up around your neighborhood. That's got to be hard to not just start a tractor, but to start, establish a dealer network too. Have you run into troubles there? All right, well, I'm really not involved with that. My job as a brand ambassador is just to get the word out there. And we try, I think we're doing it. Is this live on Sirius X in an hour note? Actually, we are not recording this, but it's okay. Continue. It kind of makes you want to sing, doesn't it? But that is my job is to get the word out there, brand awareness, show people what it is and, you know, hope that people follow suit and start buying them. And I'm sure they will. Do you get a royalty? I get a weave. Yeah, uh-huh. I get a little bit. Okay, well, I didn't mean to step on your toes. I didn't mean to get your your personals. Yeah, I mean, Rob, you, you, you were working with brands too. You know how it is. So, oh yeah, John Deere. I'm getting. Yeah, John Deere, I said John, John Deere. He should have gone with them. Well, I already got some of those, but now I got a James Moose. And that's what I'm focused on now. All right. Well, I got a treat for our listeners, maybe, after the break. We're going to come back with Word and World as well. And then we're going to hear a bit of Randy the farmer singing voice. That should be fun. Yeah. Okay, I really hope you all come back right after the break. 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. You know who needs a James Moose tractor as well? Well, you could use a tractor there at Nashville, can you? Yeah. He could have a full party bus with it. That's right. I have a Keck Met tractor. A what? Keck Met. Oh, I don't know what that is. It's a Finnish brand. I don't know if you're joking with me or not, but I'll just go with it. Well, what do you have for us today? Today I'm in Bascom, Florida, which is a town in Jackson County, located on the Florida Panhandle in North Florida, five miles south of the Alabama border. The population was 87 at the time of the 2020 census. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What'd you say? It was what? 87. And at the 2000 census, or 2010 census, it was 121. So a couple of people left. Well, that'll happen. Right. But according to the United States Census Bureau, Bascom has a total land area of 0.24 square miles. Okay. Known as the home of Faye Dunaway. That's amazing, really, when you think about it. Right. Why? Well, it's so small. And she is a huge, huge, huge call. Yeah, everyone's got to come from somewhere, right? Yeah. Her career began in the early 1960s on Broadway. She made her screen debut in '67 with The Happening. The same year, she made 'Hurry Sundown' with an all-star cast, and 'Roast of Fame' with her portrayal of outlaw Bonnie Parker and Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde. She received her first Academy Award nomination for that. Her most notable films include The Crime Caper, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Romantic Drama, The Arrangement, The Revisionist Western Little Big Man, a two-part adaptation of the Alexandra Dumas Classic, the Three Musketeers, in 1973 with the Four Musketeers falling in '74. It's a great candy bar. And the neo-noir mystery Chinatown. One of my personal favorite movies, Jack Nicholson. Yeah. You ever seen that one? I have not. I'll put that on Emily's list. That's a good one. Three days of the Condor political thriller. That's another good one. And the satire network for which she won an Academy Award for Best Actress. Her second. Ah, she won that award. She was only nominated. Oh, I got you, I got you. Okay. But, um, the other notable person from Baskam. You're kidding me. Yes. Is Henry Bittleman Baskam? Oh. An American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1850. He was also distinguished as a circuit writer, pastor, and Christian preacher, as a chaplain to the US House of Representatives, and an editor, college academic, and denominational leader. Yeah. I like those circus writers. I don't care what anybody says. Circus writers. Yeah. He, um, his style was considered too florid to suit many in Ohio, where he originally preached. So in 1816, he was transferred to Tennessee. He served appointments there in, in Kentucky until 1822, when he returned to Ohio. I'm going to pretend what I know what floor it is, but continue. Um. Yeah. That's it. That's it. Fair enough. Well, uh, we're going to need your help here, because they were talking with Randy the farmer from, uh, Bascom. Now, Randy is an accomplished, uh, musical artist, which you are too. Well, both of you should talk after this show, but, uh, we're going to play a clip of his song. Are you able to help me out there? Yes. Yes. All right. Randy, you ready for this? Yep. Can't wait. All right. Let's, let's play it. All right. ♪ Nothing cuts loose like a change moves 1000 ♪ ♪ I said nothing cuts loose like a change moves 1000 ♪ ♪ Give me the juice ♪ ♪ Nothing cuts loose like a change moves ♪ ♪ Nothing else on the market like it today ♪ ♪ It's a brand new tractor, it came by the way ♪ ♪ It's got automatic traction boost ♪ It sounds like the offspring. Sounds like something. He's kind of a head banger. Yeah. Did you shut, did you shut that off? Well, we're going to play it. Yeah. Did you, will you cut that short? I actually got the, uh, I got the, uh, cut off sign from my, uh, music director. From Austin. Okay. His overlord. The whole song's like a, the whole song's a minute and 20 seconds. Sorry, Randy. Apparently Austin said, uh, no. And apparently I owe Austin a beer for one of them. We're getting copyright claims from Sony. You don't have a Spotify eventually. That's right. It's a copyright. Someone filed a copyright claim on it already, Randy. Sorry. That was you singing now, huh? Yep. That was me on the drums guitar bass. Yep. I do everything, um, there on my laptop and I got a rolling TD, uh, 27 drum set. Yeah, you, you have an album out. Uh, let's get nuts. We got a copy of it. Uh, anybody, anybody want to have it? I mean, I, it's, I, honestly, it's unopened. So, uh, that's probably makes it more valuable. Uh, yeah, we have them for sale on farmfolk.com, uh, CD with under, that's kind of a dime breed now, but, um, and then of course, if you want to listen to it for free, then you just search it on your phone. Yeah. Some people like a physical CD, like myself. I, I do. I like to, you know, yeah. I don't even know where I would play a CD. Probably in a James Moose tractor. Randy, uh, over the break, I did. I went to your, your TikTok, uh, which is, uh, it's field rose. Randy, the farmer field rose. And I see, I see the James Moose tractor. Oh, yeah. Randy, uh, you, you do know that's a John Deere, right? No, Rob. Um, it's not a John Deere. I can assure you of that. It's not. I have had a couple comments people saying that, you know, it looked just like a John Deere. Is it similar? Yes, it is. But I think John Deere was about the first one to make what a tractor looks like. So of course, in new tractor brands going to resemble a tractor. You know, I mean, this is different color, different component, engine, transmission, power, all the way around. Like they say, there's nothing original since the Bible, right? That's what you're saying about the John Deere tractor. Exactly. I mean, if somebody, a refrigerator looks like a refrigerator, no matter, no matter how many times you try to change it. You know what I'm saying? I feel it looks like a refrigerator. Yeah, if it has a CD player. There's different brands of refrigerators. Yeah, regardless, Randy. I said irregardless, congratulations on being a brand ambassador for a tractor company. That's a big deal and it's something you should be really, really, really, really proud of. If people want to find you on social media or take a look at James Moose, where would they go? Yeah, well, just, you know, Google Field Roads. We're Field Roads on Instagram. I've got the Randy, the former YouTube. My brother's got the Field Roads YouTube. We've got a show on Acres TV called Let's Get Nut. No longer have a Facebook because it got hacked. No. I feel like I missed this one. But, um, yeah, YouTube. You linked in? No linked in. No. Okay. That's a shocker. Well, Randy, unfortunately, our time is over. Sorry, we couldn't play the whole song. Maybe, maybe next time, maybe next time we'll hit record. Randy, the farmer, everybody should go follow him. He is hilarious. Randy, thank you very much. Don't go anywhere, Sean Haney's coming over next time.