Ep 191 FINAL

So as you're driving in your car, wherever you're listening, you can picture me in class, learning about depth psychology, the unconscious psyche, spirit. All the things, and I actually think it's so apt for today's conversation because Evan Marks is here today. He's one of the founders of the Ecology Center, which is a 25 acre organic regenerative farm right here in Orange County.

They also now have a beautiful farm cafe that is made with all farm fresh ingredients. And it's just such a special place to be able to go and spend some time, even if you don't need groceries. I love going there, sitting on on the property, getting something from the cafe to get some work done or just kind of enjoy, enjoy a good meal out in nature with really, really authentic, genuine people.

When we're not integrated with the land, when there's not reciprocity with the land, how that affects so much more than just the ecosystem of nature, how that might really be affecting the ecosystem within this. I knew this was going to be such a soulful conversation having listened to a few of Evan's previous podcast interviews, but it completely exceeded my expectations.

But I think what I love so much about the Ecology Center is that it is so much more than just a farm. It really is. You said something in a podcast I was listening to of yours, like, we nourish the community and more than just food, you're nourishing the community I think, in so many different ways. And so that's what I'm excited to talk about more.

But welcome, thank you for being here. Yeah, thank you. I, I think I would love, I, I heard a little bit of your introductory kind of origin story, but I think for the audience it would be really fun to hear how you specifically got into maybe farming or agriculture and then kind of founding the Ecology Center.

Yeah, I mean, to the point of the nourishment, you know, we are a nourish mind, body, and spirit. So it's a, it's, it's, it transcends just the ingredients. And that's, that's, that segues into the one of what we're the real purpose here. And ultimately my origin story is putting the culture back in the agriculture.

But it really, I, I started learning quite a bit about how we've industrialized our planet, um, specifically our food production, but really in every, every nook and cranny, every, every detail. Um, we've had this dominant paradigm of taking over and, and removing the life-giving forces and inserting our, our, our own expectations and versions of, of needs.

I wanted to solve, uh, a little bit of that, that problem if I could, if said, if not me, then who was a little bit of, of sort of my philosophy in life. So I've been lucky to have some of those creative capacities to solve problems and, and forge new paths as a pioneer species. But I was supported. Um, I wa this isn't a new idea, I guess is a good way to do it.

I've, I've, I've pioneered some of these ideas in this geography. Um, but when I went to Santa Cruz, I was nurtured and if you will, nourished by a lineage of people that had been doing this for 50 years before me. Mm-hmm. Um, and ultimately indigenous communities that have done this for, for hundreds of years, 500,000 years of people basically have always, um, before the in inventive industry, we always grew food in community.

It doesn't matter where, but but, but if you just reel it back a couple generations, that was, that's a true statement. And so we had a deeper relationship to our farmer friends and, um, and ultimately, um, the food that we were putting on our table for our family. So yeah, that was some of my, my inspiration origin story.

Um, and most of my time in Latin America for six years was spent, um, in the, in the inquiry of can we restore a large. Tropical ecosystem that was a degraded pasture in the OSA Peninsula of Costa Rica into a vibrant, uh, tropical ecology that was based on trees, just like the native ecology, but it was gonna be food producing.

Um, so I was able to find a lot of success in putting the pieces back together and then developing a community of, um, of those, the Costa Ricans that lived on the land. And we did this together and it was, it was a, it was a healthy, uh, case study for me as a young 20-year-old. Um, so that was really good early, early evolution for me.

And so it, it was right then that I made the call to actually come back to where I, where I came from, which is Orange County. Mm-hmm. Um, and was fortunate enough to come to San Juan Capistrano, which really is the last bastion of agriculture in this once very agrarian community of, of Orange County. Um, so there was an, there was a, his, there's a historic farm here that I was able to show up on with a historic, beautiful 140 year old farmhouse that was empty and a dirt lot around it.

But that was, that was a little bit of my [00:09:00] whirlwind of, of journey in inquiry learning and coming home. Yeah, I mean, even as you were talking, you, you already said it, but I, as you were talking, I was thinking, gosh, was it so hard to come back? Because I could imagine, I lived in Spain for a time. I was playing soccer over there abroad, and I, there was a moment where I was like, I could never go back.

I could just stay here for the rest of my life. And then there's something that inevitably does kind of pull you back. But it sounds like maybe you had that moment too, and you were like, nah, I gotta go back. Yeah. I never, I never thought I'd come back to Orange County. Um, so it was difficult. And then, and then once I had the right opportunity and the right love, which was to invest myself fully into something bigger than myself, it became very easy.

Yeah. Well, it sounds like, this is kind of an aside, but it sounds like you've really curated and attracted in the people that nourish you so that you can do this work and you've really kind of Yeah. You've really curated a support system for yourself of alignment and authenticity that I think just continues to feed and allow you to do what you do.

Right. I, I, I, I agree with that. I think because this is such a unique environment, this land is extraordinary. It's, um, this is a hotman land, so this was a village site before. Uh, the colonialism. This was a farm for the last 140 years with a lot of really beautiful stories and richness of evolution. I, I call it the land of infinite possibility.

How are these different? I know this is probably like the most bare bones basic thing we could talk about, but I do think there's probably many, many, many of us, myself included, who really don't understand the difference between all of those and just how much goes into it. Yeah. I think that's a great starting place.

Um, conventional agriculture is mostly designed for commercial benefit, so it's really an extraction industry. Um, it doesn't, none of these things have to be true, but this are general, these are generalizations, you know, right there, there are many farmers that farm conventionally that are great stewards of the land.

I think that's part of our DNA. And so sometimes a lot of the methodologies that we've been in, we've inherited from industry are, uh, compromised that, that vision. And so basically, yeah, conventional agriculture is, is that big catchall for a more extractive and industrial operation. Whether it's growing, you know, 10,000 acres of soybeans in the Midwest, or, you know, a conventional operation that's growing 30 acres of fairly toxic strawberries in, in Orange County, right?

Mm-hmm. And so it's, it's, it's all of the above. Um. Of course, the segue there is organic is getting the, the, the toxins off the land. So organic agriculture, certified organic agriculture, um, has always been an endeavor of the small farmer, um, which is to use the resources that you have, um, in a more natural state.

Um, so, um, yeah, organic, by and large is removing the, the, the poisons. Um, it can still be very industrial, it can still be very extractive. And so that's where we, over the last 20 years, what was a small. Cottage idea of young, uh, of family farmers and hippies, growing food organically in a diverse way has now been co-opted by industry.

It's still industrial. It's still not really, um, in my opinion, the, the best of the best, which is supporting family farmers and family farmers that, that care about creating a more of an ecosystem, both with relationship to their community, but also in terms of the health of their farm, uh mm-hmm. Ecology.

Mm-hmm. And so the regenerative is sort of that far end, which is, um, really looking at the farm as an ecosystem. So the farm health in relationship to the human health and the community health, it's all intertwined. Um, so regenerative has a few different ways of defining itself. You know, we are regenerative organic certified, which we are proud.

Hmm. The diversity of, of the ingredients. So from annuals and perennials. So we grow vegetables, flowers, and trees for trees and other perennial plants. So that's sort of like creating a more dynamic and diversity ecology. So that there's home for wildlife and habitat for beneficial insects. Um, so it's just creating, it's, and you can kind of see these things pretty easily.

It's, um, actually before I talk about that, the other big piece is, is soil health, but it's also looking at the human health. So we pay all of our workers a living wage where we're really proud of. We love our mm-hmm. Our team. Um, so we, we try to show the surplus, all of the resources, experts we have, go to the farmers.

It's probably gonna be pretty conventional industrial. Right. So that mm-hmm. How that manifests into our neighborhoods and our suburbs. You may have a neighbor that has a native landscape that's low maintenance and just has habitat happening and it's beautiful. It's more wild. But, but it's, there's ecology.

Um, and that's what my, you know, that's what my yard looks like at home, which is that this beautiful, um, wild landscape full of fruit trees and native plants and, and it's really a forest garden. And, and, um, and so that's more on the regenerative side and, and that these are, some of these ideas are, are, are art as well as science.

But something I think I wanna point out, and this kind of brings us back to that conversation of soul, is somewhere along the line, we got this idea, I think very indirectly, but socially through culture that. It's the perfection. It's the perfectly trimmed yard. It's the perfectly placed flower box. And there's something about that that we think is fulfilling.

And yet when I step onto the Ecology Center and the wildness that's there, it's like my heart just feels at home. Yeah. And I think our souls are yearning for that. We think our soul is yearning for perf perfection and pristine and perfectly clipped. But I actually think our souls are yearning for this organic, not just in terms of no pesticides, but this organic, natural, ancestral way of living.

I think plants are giving us narratives. Buildings can have unconscious narratives. Furniture can have unconscious narratives, and it's sort of like, what are the narratives we're surrounding ourself with? Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think there, you know, just when I walk on the Ecology Center, I feel surrounded by these beautiful narratives of reciprocity and nourishment and wildness, et cetera.

Mm-hmm. Um, for a lot of reasons. Um, which is, that's how we fe, that's how we find inspiration. Um, that's also how, how we, how we, how we, how we resource ourselves, how we, how we come to the creativity, um, imagination, um, depth and purpose. You know, all of these things we mostly can only find in nature, um, in my opinion, and for whatever, for many reasons.

But we can, what, you know, all the forms, um. And so that doesn't bring us to health and wellbeing. That doesn't bring us to abundant mindsets and generosity. That doesn't bring us into the consciousness that we're all in this together. We're on a living planet and we wanna work together to leave it better than we found.

It actually brings us the opposite. It brings us further from one another. Mm-hmm. Brings us into the idea that we're all, it's every man for themselves. So I don't know if I can even trust my neighbor anymore. So that's, that's where we've, we pull away from nature. We've pull away from some really basic foundational philosophies of humanity.

And we're right in the, we're right at the sweet spot of that right now with all of our politics and all of the, all of this, this eccentric, this egocentrism that's, that's manifested everywhere from social media to you name it, where it's, I'm the most important thing in the world and everything else is, doesn't matter, and I'm gonna dominate and I'm gonna conquer it.

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So check the link in the show notes to learn more about Jacob and try their bars. Yeah. Well, and, and then I'll pivot back to regenerative farming in a second, but I think with life, nature is inherently unknown and uncontrollable. And so we have tried in order to make ourselves feel safe and at peace to dominate.

More resilient humans? Yes. Rather than more like controlling humans. Yes. Change, change, change is inevitable. Everywhere you look, there's always change. And it's so funny when humans get flustered with something changing and it's mm-hmm. It's sort of our, it's just an example of our lack of ecoliteracy, which is everything is always changing Hmm.

I'm obviously speaking at the, at the systems level, but nonetheless, um, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I love what you're saying where it's sort of like, I'm afraid of change. So if my yard never changes, if my home never changes, if my city never changes, at least I can feel safe that there is something constant, there is something stable, and I think ultimately that is handicapping us and making us less resilient then we think it is.

Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No, I, I, I resonate with what you're saying. You know, and I've been fortunate to live my life and in that intersection of, of adapt adapting to the beautiful changes and, and, and finding, uh, a deeper relationship to nature. So I'm mm-hmm. Thankful to my, my grandparents that helped inspire that and my family, uh, my world experiences, et cetera.

Yeah. Well, it's the perfect model. It's the perfect model of change isn't just inevitable, it's necessary. And that, you know, the seasons represent this so perfectly for us. It's not, oh, this could happen, this could not happen. It really shows you how necessary it is. I am, I'm thinking of the book, braiding Sweetgrass.

Mm-hmm. You know, and that's, it's not all, it's not all roses, uh, and unicorns. It's, but that's, that's, that's I think, a healthy and authentic human experience. You know, versus a contrived and you know, more fabricated in reality. Mm-hmm. Yep. Okay. I would love to get a little bit deeper into some of the differences between conventional, organic, regenerative.

I've, um, you know, I've heard people talk about, and I actually don't know the science behind this, so you can speak to it. Um, organic foods have a higher nutrient density because the soil has, is more nutrient dense. Can you speak to some of that, a little bit of what the maybe negative or limiting ripple effect of conventional farming is on the land and then on the food itself that we're consuming from it.

Often our, our agriculture, we've designed it as, as a very industrial and extractive enterprise. Um, and that is, I don't wanna blame the farmer. There's no farmer to be blamed there. It's, it's really the, this, I think a lot of the expectations of, of society that food should be cheap. Hmm. If we want cheap food, we have to cut corners and compromise.

Um, and we had mechanization, we had tanks that we turned into tractors. So we can move big amounts of soil around, we can prep our fields with plows and various other implements. And we can really, we can do a lot of good, we can do good and damage. Um, we can overwork the soil with this machinery. We [00:31:00] had, um, we had quite a bit of chemistry that, that was inherited post-World War ii, that the mm-hmm.

Fertilizers and the pesticides, uh, we didn't really know what we didn't know. And so those became, those went out at large and we, you know, back then in the fifties it was, we're gonna build suburbs, everyone's gonna have houses and we're gonna feed the people. Technology was the thing. Everyone had a refrigerator.

We're now eating food on cans. So it's like we ran to the commodification, which was very, very different than the way it was just 10 years previous to that, especially in the war times with victory gardens where, um, and, and the years before that where farmers basically grew in, in, in diverse ingredients for their community, um mm-hmm.

I don't wanna, um, I do believe that all farmers are, it's such a, it's such an incredible, um, endeavor. Endeavor that I just wanna spend a, send a lot of respect to all, all farmers that are endeavoring to have a relationship with land in order to feed the community. So I'd rather spend time talking a little bit about, um, us as, as eaters, try not, you know, not, uh, uh, the consumer word, um, is not always my favorite one, but us as eaters.

Yeah. Um, us as conscious consumers. Maybe I'll use it that way. And if people need education on all of why industrial agriculture is bad and there's so many great movies out there, you know, and I think Kiss the Ground does a good job and various other, um, films before that of Michael Pollan and other things.

But what, so I wanna just say that the, the thing that resonates the most with me right now is us as individuals. And some of us may feel more or less empowered with agency to actually make a difference in the world. But where we can make a difference is in how we spend our money. That's, that's the, that's, that's the most important thing, is that every day we get to, we get to stand up for our values or, or not, but I'm advocating that to the best of our ability as often as we can, that if we can just go out of convenience and towards culture, it's gonna be more delicious and more fun.

We're not, that's not what we're going to, that's not, that's not useful for us. If we have discernment and, and we have the luxury, I would invite us to go take that. Those resources, regardless of how much you are, the pricing is more or less always the same in vegetables. I just wanna say that you can get premium regenerative organic lettuce at the Ecology Center for $4 and a farmer's market and get it for $4 and you can go to Ralph's and get it for $4.

And so if I needed something, if I needed a box of screws, not just food, you know, I'm sure I could go to Amazon and get a dirt sheep and they could deliver it to my door. I could probably go to Home Depot and spend 10 cents more. But you know what? I could also go to the, the, the hardware store that I have one in my town and there's one in San Juan Capistrano that's a family operation and spent 25 cents more and feel really good about it.

Mm-hmm. Me as an individual that believes that the power of of our choices is the difference that makes the difference. Yeah, to know that it's gonna cost 10 to 20% more to invest in real people doing real things that you believe in rather than everything being an extraction just for you. So that's, mm-hmm.

You're supporting a community farm that's in your neighborhood. You're, you're getting the most delicious and most nutrient dense vegetables that you possibly can ever find. And you know the people that are growing them with love. And so you feel good about that. Completely. Well, and then, I mean, it's, it's rippling out indirect and indirect ways.

But to bring it back to, and I can't help it because I'm a depth psychologist, I can't help but go here and ask these questions. It's, we do, we've sort of been taught, you know, productivity efficiency, productivity efficiency. What's the quickest way I can get this? What's the fastest way I can make a meal?

And it is, it infinitely, exponentially more nourishing. In so many different ways, not just body, I think mind, body and spirit. And then that ripples out. I I leave there a more nourished person, so I move through my life, nourishing others more mind, body, and spirit energetically. And so, yes, I love what you're, you know, I, I may be going even a layer deeper, which is this idea of hyper efficiency that we think is doing something or giving us something better, more time.

Um. But our experience and our time here is very short. Um, and so my, one of the things that I've been fortunate enough to, to, um, to find is, is the ability to seek joy in a, in a very consistent, um, and, and, you know, every day is, is sort of my reality is like, you know, not, not just seeking bliss and, and kind of ignoring the pain.

You know, there's a, there's a heightened states of presence and then there's absence, um. Mm-hmm. But to your point, is. We get, we get to choose our reality and, and the invitation to choose a reality that is consciously designed versus one that is an expectation that we think is gonna get us somewhere.

That gets us nowhere. You know, I think I have family members and I, God, I just, they just pulled the wrong card. I think this lifetime where they, and this may, may be, um, maybe, uh, maybe you can, people in this that are listening can resonate with this, that are doing things that they don't love, you know?

Mm-hmm. My, what, what is my dharma and how can I make that work? And also make a livelihood. And that livelihood may not be ex extra extractive seeking fortune and fame may be at odds with finding joy and satisfaction. Right. And so you look at the people you know, again, that are unhappy at work or you look at the people that are rich that have no substance and purpose and their loss too.

And that's very common. That's, that's, that's the, that's, that's what I see when I look outside of my bubble is I see a lot of people that don't have purpose, that aren't, that aren't seeking these little n nuggets of going outside of their way to go to a farm stand, to have a relationship with someone.

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It's so much fun. Yeah. It's funny because whenever I, I've, for years and years and years, I've, I've had such a hard time being like. I don't get it. There's, there's work time, there's time we designate to work, and then there's the rest of life. And I've just never been able to make sense of that. I'm like, but I don't get it the whole day I'm living.

I could, I could see way more patients than what I see, but. Then I wouldn't be living in a way that's really aligned for me. I, I wake up and I do a slow hour walk every morning and I want time to, to meditate and have dinner with a friend and then see clients and then do a podcast and then maybe go on another hour walk.

We have this sort of, um, capitalist America is sort of like kind of, again, coming back to that efficiency. The more we extract, the more we do, do, do, do, do the more we get in return. And, and if you're inefficient, you won't get as much in return. And I have not found that to be true in the slightest. The more aligned and intentional I am, the abundance comes back infinitely more.

Yeah. That ma makes me think there's a permaculture principle. Permaculture is, um, a design science of which I've been practicing for the last 25 years, which is designing humans and relationship to nature in a harmonious way. And that's settlement. So that can be your house and your garden. It can be the ecology center scale.

It's, you know what I mean? It's like, it's not, it's not somewhere else. It's not. Yes. When I, when I retire, it's not, that's not interesting. It's right now, you know, and so how do we. How do we get, and that, that comes back to the conversation that we had about being uncomfortable and, and, and understanding that change is inevitable.

Those are all intertwined, which is understanding that how am I part of the ecology and how do I flow with it? And that's that, that takes, uh, work and um, and takes getting out there. Yeah, completely. I think that's a good segue into what I, you know, being a weekly visitor of the Ecology Center. I see how I feel when I'm there.

What, you know, what was the community like and what have been some of the ripple effects you've seen? Yeah. You know, it's 16 years now, and I think just at the high level, anecdotally, the Ecology Center has grown exponentially every season. So when we first started, you, we had a great group of, you know, maybe it was some hundreds of people that were tuning in and participating, um, and really taking these philosophies into action, which was transforming their backyards and being conscious consumers and participating in the community festivals and, and building, building relationship with, with community that way.[00:47:00]

So I think now, you know, we did, this weekend we had a strawberry festival, so we had over 500 families here. Um, as just one example of the things that are happening, which is that there are, we'll have over a hundred thousand visitors this year. And I believe that they're all coming here. And I, I give all the credit to the land.

Um, the land inspires us as the individuals that are the stewards of the land. But the land is, this is the land of infinite possibilities. So when you come here, your state changes form effect state. Mm-hmm. So you, you're coming into a different ecology and you start to feel good and you start to feel optimism and hope.

And, and so we've tried to, to partner with those, those emotions and feelings and just bring them, obviously the surface with the ingredients that we grow and the offerings, the programs, the field trips, the, the cafe. We now have a peace dome where we're doing yoga and meditation. Um, the farm dinners, you know, all, there's a, there's about 20 different events happening here every week.

But the good news is that this is just a long journey. There's no destination, but we are, we are seeking community and culture and, and, and it is humbling and incredibly rewarding to see how the community is showing up and that the Ecology Center is rippling into the watershed. You know, there, there is awareness now, um, throughout the geography.

And we're having fun together. And so that, again, back to our conversation of joy, that, that, that more and more people are bringing that real time into their life. Yeah. Well I think there's, there's all the direct ways you guys are rippling out through events, through, you know, I, I just was at, um, the New River Street marketplace having dinner last night, and on the menu of one of the restaurants is the Ecology Center market salad.

Mm-hmm. So you're rippling out into the community through providing fresh, organic produce to local restaurants. Yeah. Through the kids, you know, gardening classes, you have, I'm probably not using the right words, but all those direct ways. But then to your point, the way that I think to me honestly seems even more profound is the energetic ways where people are there and they are literally, I think this is getting into like quantum physics.

To take what I felt there and start to create that here in my home with my family, with my maybe more local community, whatever that looks like. Yeah. You know, we use, I use the word abundance a lot. That's my favorite word. And, um, you know, we're really trying to model an abundant life, uh, you know, and design an abundant future.

Mm-hmm. And so that, that's, that brings us that, just that feeling of abundance, you know, versus scarcity. So that's the, that's the, that's the, some of the conversations we've had where. There's scarcity in, in our agriculture, in, in how we steward our land. There's scarcity in how we consume. There's scarcity in how we relate to one another.

We wanna care for the people because we're all in this together, you know, and then we, and we wanna share our surpluses. We all have something to offer. Mm-hmm. Right? Some of us have extra resources, pay it forward, support a cause that you care about because they don't have as much as you do. You might have lemons on your tree and you give, you know, that kind of idea.

There is always another thing he is dreaming. You know, even beyond the Ecology Center, you do it, it seems like, or at least when I listened to those episodes, you were doing a lot of consulting for other farms and regenerative farms and places all over the world and. That was very inspiring to me. First of all, I was like, I wonder if, if, you know human design, if he's a manifesting generator.

'cause you sound like one with how many different things you have going. But I think if I could boil it down to a simple question, it's how do you, for you personally, but also the ecology center, how do you continue to grow and maintain alignment and reciprocity even for you as, as a person leading and guiding so many initiatives professionally, but also you have family, you have kids.

And so, um, and how that, how that gets grounded, um. Is it, I have a very, that, that, that there, we have over a hundred employees here now. Incredible people we've recruited, just really special humans. Um, and then on top of that, we have a community that's backing us. So, you know, we have, we're well fed and that, that people are showing up to everything that we do.

Um, and they're buying all of our vegetables and they're eating in the cafe, and then their kids are coming to all the programs. And, and then on top of that, we have a philanthropic community that is sharing surplus. You know, we are a nonprofit and so we need the Phil philanthropy in order to grow the vision and build a movement.

Um, it's kind of, it's that simple and it's gonna take all of us rowing together, which is all of us going a little bit out of our way to figure out where we can support the butcher, the baker, and the kennels stick maker. Mm-hmm. You know, and so what we're trying to do 30, 20, 30 years from now, what if Orange County, there wasn't just this one hub as the command and demonstration of all of our values, uh, encapsulated in 28 acres, but there were dozens of small fa family farm operations with farm stands on them, and that was in your community.

Mm-hmm. And that's, that's, that's change. It takes time. You know, and so that's, that's, that's, it's a complex conversation, which is, um, is as inconvenient and it does cost, uh, there's a little, there's a premium cost to buy things from your neighborhood versus things that are grown as commodity from Mexico.

It just is what it is. Yeah. We can look at the big picture and know that as a, as an eater, um, you know, have discernment to know where we're getting our vegetables, and then, then have discernment to, to support the restaurants that are, that are trying to take those meaningful steps forward. Then the ecology changes.

We don't have that yet. Mm-hmm. Why not? Don't we? We all want it. We all want to have that richness of culture and community. Food is the anchor. It always has been, always will be. We look back at our ancestors from Europe, um, and Europe by and large is a little bit of, they have both industrial realities and then they have a lot of these, uh, community and cultural realities around food as well.

Yeah. I, I love that. Like I said, it's very inspiring to me because I think I'm also someone who, um, I love to do a lot of different things. There's a lot of parts of me that want to be expressed, which is why I see clients and I have a podcast and I'm getting a PhD, and there's always something new. I'm want that, you know, another part of me that's wanting to be expressed, and it's, it's admirable to go, here's someone that's, you're, I feel like you're very much a model and an expander for me of you can totally do it, and when you, when you manifest the right people, it becomes even easier when you move with intention and ethics and reciprocity, all these things we've been talking about, it all becomes possible, I think, in a way that's very, very sustainable.

Yeah, I think it's, I think it's pretty easy and I think you, you hit that on the nail. I mean, there's, there are farmers' markets now in most towns. Getting relationships to the farmer's market is fun because then you start to have, you start to connect with different producers. You start to see it's tap into the seasonality that it's not cucumber season right now, in April, it's actually broccolini and cauliflower season, you know, and so just that's a big part of the calibration is, is really kind of stepping into more intention, more conscious orientation towards what we're bringing into our bodies.

Mm-hmm. If we go and get convenient and get excited and, and a little over, a little over zealous, and you go spend that dollar with a corporation, um, a Target or a Walmart or whatever it is, uh, you know, basically their headquarters is somewhere else and other than the job that they're creating, that's a minimum wage job.

They're taking all of that money and they're taking it right back to their profit sharing of their mm-hmm. Of their share, their shareholders and in, its in an ex extraction industry. So, um, you know, wouldn't it be great if we didn't rely on these big producers, but by, but that's a, that's a challenging endeavor because then you drive around this, this, not even this geography, but this country, we've, it's, we've.

Mm-hmm. Completely. Evan, this was phenomenal. Thank you so much. Yeah, right. I appreciate talking with you as well.