SharkFarmerXM's podcast
Sofia Lily from Tryon, NC 10-3-24
Unstoppable, unshakeable, but it rolls off the town unfreakable, it's unevotable, you show relatable, in between the lines, start to loosen up your mind. And welcome again to Shirk Bar Radio. Hey, I'm your host Rob Charke. We're in the studio today just outside of Bradford, Illinois. Harvest rolls on here in the great state, once great state of Illinois. Yeah, you caught yourself once great state. Yeah. Actually, our combine is sitting still. It didn't get moved over to the other field before the show, but that's okay. That's okay. We'll lose a little bit, not a big deal. We talk about every year how every half an hour matters, but hey, you know what? This is what we're doing today. We also have hunters here. Opening day was October 1st, so all the bow hunters are enjoying the fields today. We have what, 12 here? Yeah, they're out to putting up more cameras. We have a couple hundred cameras. I think there's more than that. Yes, absolutely. I don't know how much they pay in anyway. Subscription fees, you can only have so many cameras on each one, but these are little facts. Today, we're going to talk in Tennessee about the flooding. So crazy heartbreaking things going on in Tennessee today at North Carolina. Try on North Carolina. Pope County, we're going to be talking with Sophia Lilly. How are you doing, Sophia? Hey guys, I'm doing okay. We're just kind of running on empty and getting as much supplies out as we can to everybody that's struggling right now. So you're over there at over a mountain vineyard. You do have a vineyard. Is that actually in trion? Yes, sir. We're actually outside of town limits, but we're in the general vicinity of trion North Carolina. Okay, so let's start from the beginning. Do you all hear there's a hurricane coming? Was there any idea it was going to be as much rain as you got? No, there wasn't. You know, we've all been talking about this, all of the community that we've been hearing from. You know, we weren't given a state of emergency from our governor until the day the hurricane was hitting. You know, so we're underprepared. Thankfully, farmers like me and the rest of the farmers in my community have the capacity to be, you know, prepared in a way that we are on all of our farms. People surrounding us that, you know, live on wells and don't have water, you know, have horse farms but can't feed their, their horses and get them water. You know, we're trying to say horses that could get colic right now. We're feeding a lot of people that just don't have means to get to the distribution centers, that don't speak English, that we're able to get to the Latino community that aren't able to get the reception that we're doing in the county because there's no reception. Everybody's phone is operating in the SOS mode, unless you get close to an emergency tower. It really is like a disaster. Well, and when we called you today to have you on the show, you are directing people. You've opened up your farm and you have people coming in for food and you had to get somebody to kind of take over your job so that you could talk about this to get the word out, right? Yes ma'am. We basically were able to make some incredible connections. If anybody out there knows Mr. Rod's sample, he was able to get me a generator from some belt rentals and we were able to get Starlink running at our farm and become operational and create a command center. We would not be doing what we're doing without him and he's made this happen for us. So we've basically gotten a few volunteers on site helping us receive supplies. We're getting the supplies to people that are in the communities that are not able to get to distribution centers or where FEMA hasn't made it yet and just filling water basins. We've also partnered with a neighboring dairy that is turning their milk bottling line into a water bottling line and we're getting water shipped out to locations as we're hearing them from county emergency personnel. That is a continuing effort. Right now we're raising money to continue to purchase the packaging to pull this job off and get it trucks to where it needs to be. The donations can be made by Venmo-ing to over Mountain 10. That's coming directly to the farm which is directly paying the packaging company and getting the drivers paid to do this job. The amount of water is overwhelming. A lot of West North Carolina lives on well and when you don't have power or a generator to power that well you are dead in the water. So we are trying to get as much as we can done. Another way that people can help is there is a company called Lutz Petroleum, LUTZ. They have started a WNC Ag Fuel Relief Program that they have an account set up. You can call in with your credit card, pay, and get them fuel so they can deliver it to farmers to keep their generators running. Okay, that's the amount of people without power without service is just not getting set out to the rest of the country. I mean that's got to be frustrating for you all. There's no news coverage in the southeast. There's only one network that's really showing what's going on down here. It's really crazy to be flipping through the news and not be seeing what's happening to the southeast and this big chunk of mountain people. It does feel a little discouraging but at the same time I'm also overwhelmed by the amount of funds that are coming in. We're focusing on all of the positive news. We're focusing on the power of social media. We're able to make big impacts because people like you and me are mobilizing. We're not waiting for the government to get here. Farmers are taking over and getting it done. Yeah, and you did mention FEMA. Do you have ballpark? Like what area have they covered? What percent of the damage are they able to get to yet? Honestly, I can't even tell you because my county is not seeing much. I know that this one community that I'm servicing hasn't gotten their delivery from FEMA. Actually, I can tell you two of them that haven't been able to get stuff but they're going into Asheville where there's the most populated people. What we're doing is what the American has always done with American grit. We want to talk about that. I don't want to cut that short. We do got around a break. Today we're talking with Sophia Lilly from Tryon, North Carolina. We'll pick it up all right after the breaks. 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. Alright, today we're out there in Tryon, North Carolina, Polk County. Beautiful, beautiful area. I would love to go see Sophia's vineyard over the mountain vineyards. Sophia was telling us about the flooding there from the hurricane. Now Sophia, I had to catch you off because of time but you're hitting on something that does not get talked about a lot. I mean, it's when stuff hits rural America. We don't get the press. A lot of argument that we don't get the help but that's when you see rural America shine. So you want to continue talking about that. Yeah, let's talk about that. So, you know, we're seeing an incredible amount of community support happening here and it's just making us so proud of what small town America is and what it is to be. We're out there of raising funds. You know, we're almost at $40,000 giving us cash which I'm just giving to my delivered and they in my team that's got a list. Each person gets a list. They get a budget and they go and spend until they run out of cash. We say FEMA's not coming. They're not going to be here. They're not going to be here. Well, you know what? We're making it happen without them. We don't need FEMA. We've shown that the American grit is there and people that are willing to step up and be leaders in their communities are able to make a big impact and a very small radius. And that's the most important thing that we focused on is not where is FEMA but where's your neighbor? How can we help them and, you know, find the elderly, get them what they need and focus on the priority of that hand, not the negatives that exist when you start looking for, you know, where are these organizations? I love talking about farmers and ranchers and their positive grit and we are known for not sitting around waiting for a handout, right? You make it happen, which is exactly what you guys are doing on your vineyard. So, what did you just finish picking all your grapes? And if you did, how are you keeping all that at a certain temperature? It's a real struggle right now. Yeah, we, that's what, that's really one of the scariest things for us is that we're sitting on years of product, not just this year. We're sitting on 2022, 2023, and now 2024's production. And, you know, the nature of wine is that it's got to be stored a certain way. Our temperature started to shift up high that got really nervous. So, we had to make a choice on how much power we could choose to have and where it was going to be. And right now, we've only got power in our production facility to keep the product at the right temperature. And we're using power from the production facility to also keep our command post going. So, you know, we're actually seeing my fuel that I'm trying to not lose, but, but don't send it there. But, well, with this, I mean, how are people even finding out that you guys are open to do this without the communication? Because we have Starlink, we are posting on Instagram and Facebook. If anybody is able to get a text out, we're able to do that. I'm working in a rescue area right now, and my buddy, Daniel Jones, out in California, he's actually relaying communications from that cave area because cell towers are people that are out of network to communicate. So, I can't communicate to a mobile phone. I can communicate to a Verizon phone. So, I'm communicating to a California number, and that California number is getting the relay of people that are in my area that I'm getting services to. It's truly insane. It is. I mean, it's kind of breaking up now and again, but, you know, it's actually amazing to think that you can actually do that to get service when the towers just knocked out in the storm washed away. Yeah, towers don't exist or they're damaged. Certain areas have gotten funding and gotten Starlink up. Anyone that has Starlink is in communication, but without Starlink, the entire communication zone is down. So, this whole area is communicating because of Starlink. Well, that's a rural area too. I mean, there's got to be people, you know, up in the mountains still. I don't know. We don't even know if there are people that we haven't even found yet. The death count is continuing to rise. We've got rescue teams that are still trying to get people out of damage zones. I mean, this is not just like a two day thing. This is going to be going on for a long time. One of the most unique things which y'all can appreciate is radio people is that the way that the mountain people have been staying up to date on local news is because of 99.9 kids' country's radio station. That's the only way we've been able to get updates. We tune into that radio station and they're providing a call in and an email for people to find out where the resources are, how to get to medical help, how to get evacuated. They're also calling in. They're also calling in to find out if their loved ones have been found. The only music that they play is every day at eight o'clock. They're playing the national anthem. And that is how we are getting communicated to is through the radio wave. So, your, your farm is a command center like you're talking about. So, what are people getting at your place, sir? Everything from formula, paper products, water, single unit dose, food. We've got some medical care that we're shipping out to a town near Batcave where they have rescue efforts going. We've also, we are coordinating efforts for hay deliveries to a local location, feed deliveries to a local location. We're trying to use our assets that we have in the community to leverage some corporations to donate a post and fencing, and that will have a distribution location eventually. But we're just trying to coordinate as we can. And, you know, basically what's happened in our situation is I've called every young farmer and rancher that I know. And as you remember, that's how we met was at the young farmer and rancher convention, that Farm Bureau put on. And, sorry, that was a big truck. But without the Farm Bureau community that we have, we would not be pulling this off. But if people, I mean, if you have people that want to bring hay, want to bring fence posts, stuff like that, can they even get it to you? Yes, they can. There's the roads, there's certain roads that are available. If you'd like, I can give you some information on the next segment on where they can communicate to get hay to. Yeah, that's, that actually would be horses to release later in another episode. But we can definitely get you in touch with the right people. Absolutely. And you got to give a big shout out to, was it big bottom creamery that's bottling the water? Amazing. They're doing that. Big bottom milk company is currently working pretty much 24/7. Big bottom milk company is owned by Stuart and Natalie Beam and Preston Green out of Rutherford County, North Carolina. Well, we want to give them a shout out too. We do have the music kitten, so we've got to go to break, but we will give them a shout out right when we come back after the break. This segment is brought to you by Common Ground. Are you looking for an easy way to buy, sell, release 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. Usually the time for we're in the world as well. Well, we're going to skip that today. But did Nashville, I don't even know. Did Nashville get a bunch of rain? Well, no, Nashville did not get any rain of significance. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. Well, today we're talking with Sophia Lilly from Trion, North Carolina. Go follow her on Instagram, over mountain vineyards, her farm or winery. Winery? I don't know. Both places. Winery vineyards? Yes. That become kind of an operation center after the hurricane. Sophia, your area. Is it is it fairly rural? Outside of major cities. Okay. When we were going into break, you were given a shout out to the, the dairy. Could you do that again? Absolutely. We've made a great part about Stuart Bean of Big Bottom Mill Company, him and I, co-chairs of our young farmer and rancher group for Polk and Rutherford County. And he reached out to me and let me know that he had the capacity to be converting his dairy line, him and his partner Preston Green, they have converted their dairy line into a water bottling facility. And today we're bottling from 9 a.m. to 1 a.m. straight bottles and getting it trucked out to distribution centers and locations where people are in need of water. Big Bottom Mill Company, they are located in Rutherford County, North Carolina. They are a small family operation. They bottle Jersey milk. Some of the best milk I've ever had. But we've basically reallocated all of our, all of our labor towards bottling water and that is going out on trucks and the distribution centers. That is amazing. Now what are they doing with their milk? Are they doing that in the off hours or are they not doing the water or did they have to just ship their milk in somewhere else? We're actually in the, in between hours, he's not bottling milk today. So milk is in, milk is cold and where it needs to be so that it can be bottled as soon as the water's finished being bottled. Yesterday we took a break in the middle of the day to bottle milk. They're doing, they're doing an incredible juggling act over there and pulling it off with skill. It's running smoothly and they're also at that location. That is where we're receiving hay in large amounts, feed in large amounts. We're able to receive major amounts of farm equipment there like key posts, wire. One thing that's in real solar chargers for, for fencing, for hot fencing, but big bottom milk company is making the head charge on this and overmount vineyards is doing the fundraising. So we are using my social media platform to raise the funds to that big bottom and the team can you push forward? Okay, I don't mean to be insensitive with this question. I'm truly trying to understand the scope of things because sometimes you get, you know, oh, we're going to donate bottled water and then it just sits there in a palette. What is the need? What is the need for actual water in your area? So the need is bigger than anything you can even imagine. We have had towns that no longer exist. The town of Chimney Rock was flattened to the ground. People that didn't evacuate are dead. We are, you know, we've got areas that live on a, we have places that live on city water, city waters contaminated. Cities of people that do not have, we have got cities that do not have water supply. Cities, not just rural towns. We've got, I mean, there are hundreds of thousands of people without power or the ability to get water. We also, because of that, have a fuel shortage so people can't get to the water. I mean, it is unbelievable how many people are in dire straits right now because of this situation and to top it all out with each other. There's no communicating. So we are basically living in a war zone. We are evacuating people. People are stuck here. The reports are dire. I encourage you to look up Chimney Rock North Carolina and you'll see how bad it is. To give you another idea, we've had folks tell us that there was like four, three feet of water coming down from the mountains. I mean, this is like biblical. This goes, I mean, this goes to proportions that are inexplicable. So you did break up a little bit. You said 40 feet of water coming down the mountain. Yeah. I know that I actually saw interview earlier. So I know that's what she said. Sophia, you still there? Yes. Okay. So you're in crisis mode, which makes it very hard to even fathom like when this could be turned around and when you could get back to normal. I mean, is there any idea if there are any dates or people telling you, okay, we should have power by then and water by then? No, there's no end of sight. I'm receiving so much food and water that we're, you know, there's communities that don't know how they're going to get their next meal. I mean, this is truly fathomable proportions of disaster. Nashville is devastated. Businesses no longer exist. You know, buildings that once were there are gone, livestock's running around, you know, horses are on the loose. It is biblical. There is no, when people see the videos, you can't even begin to understand the devastation. Well, and you know, I bet it's so hard for you when you guys are living it, you're trying to get as much supplies and just your basic water to help people stay alive in that area. And life is going on around you. It must be really hard to not be able to communicate that to the degree that it really is. Yeah. Yeah, it's a challenge, but you know, it's like I said earlier, we're focusing on what we do have and what we can't communicate and getting resources where we get them. And, you know, someone asked me yesterday, oh, how are you doing? I'm moving forward. You know, I don't even have time to think about how I'm doing. I am focused on getting the things done that need to get done. And that's all I can focus on. Okay, let's if you could send any people to any place, where do you think the best place is to help send money? What do you need? What I need is to what I need is for people to send money to @overmountain10, send them to @overmountain10 on Venmo, have them donate money there. If they have local capacity to if they have the local capacity to bring cash or bring food, bring them bring it to distribution centers and, you know, see what see us located from gurus or county can come up with fancy supplies that can be trucked because, you know, it's unbelievable right now. Well, and you kind of got to give a shout out to North Carolina Farm Bureau. The young farmers and ranchers, you guys have really like banded together to Carolina, North Carolina young farmers and ranchers have done incredible work over the last several hours. We've got drone applicators that are dropping off water. We've got farmers turning their lines into waterling lines. You know, you've got my place that's been turned into a command center. We've got people coming from every aspect of North Carolina to serve. You know, these farmers are here to serve. Okay. It's really the spirit of the Farm Bureau volunteers that we do whatever it takes to save and take care of our Farm Bureau family. It doesn't matter if they post the West Coast city. Yep. 100% over over Mountain 10 at over Mountain 10. You can Venmo to come on folks. Let's help her out. We'll catch everybody next time. [Music]