Today we're joined by Abriana Johnson, host of the Black in the Saddle podcast, author of multiple children's books in the Cowgirl Camryn series, and entrepreneurial unicorn at Black Unicorn Creative.

Thank you for joining us today on Barnyard Language. If you enjoy the show, we encourage you to support us by becoming a patron. Go to Patreon to make a small monthly donation to help cover the cost of making a show. Please rate and review the podcast and follow the show so you never miss an episode.

 You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok as BarnyardLanguage, and on Twitter we are BarnyardPod. If you'd like to connect with other farming families, you can join our private Barnyard Language Facebook group. We're always in search of future guests for the podcast. If you or someone you know would like to chat with us, get in touch.

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welcome to another episode of Barnyard Language.

We're happy that you're joining us here again today on the

podcast.Caite, what's happening on the farm with the kids these days in

Iowa?

Arlene, I'm sorry that I was.

To get to recording this with you today.

I'm in the middle of making the boy child his Halloween costume.

He has been quite adamant for two years now that he is

going to dress as a combine.

And last year, thank God, he forgot, but this year he did not forget.

So I have spent the entire day turning a Hello Fresh box

and some into a fresh bubble.

And five styrofoam cones, and four styrofoam circles, and a garbage bag

into a combine for my four year old.

Oh.

And also a piece of discarded gutter for an unload auger.

So I've, now's

gonna come out on Halloween, so we will be excited to see the results.

Yes.

And it is more expensive.

And substantially more time intensive than any store bought costume

possibly could have been sure.

And it will probably disintegrate within the first 20 minutes of trick or trading,

but better not rain.

Oh God.

Don't even say that.

Okay, so the all important question.

What color of combine is going to be

it's blue, which was surprise.

I thought he was gonna go green, but, blue.

I'm hoping that he's forgotten that he wanted a gravity box to go

with it because that was too far.

Yes.

Mommy loves you a lot, but not enough to, Yeah.

Yes,

I would.

You could carry around one of his toy gravity boxes nearby if he really

needs, that, that functionality.

But yeah, you don't need to build one to scale.

I

mean, as a parent who carries everything anyway, I

suppose I should be the gravity box.

You put all the candy on it, make all the good stuff.

I like this stuff.

I know.

So just spray paint to box blue to match?

And that's what his candy's gonna go in, cuz you're gonna end up carrying that.

That's actually super cute.

Okay.

Thank you Arlene, for making my life so much simpler by

giving me something else to do.

But it's, doesn't need anything else.

It's just a blue box.

Don't put wheels on it.

Nothing.

He's gonna have to keep low standard yet, so you're

ramping it up now And I'm gonna be outta spray paint.

Hopefully not before I'm done making this thing, cuz I really don't

wanna drive another 20 miles to town to buy $3 worth of spray paint.

Anyway, the guys are picking corn.

They started with we planted one field of non GMO corn,

and the rest is conventional.

For whatever reason, the raccoons and a deer really like the non GMO corn, and

so they have been destroying that field.

So the guys were starting with that.

We pick most of our corn because we grind whole ears for feed.

And my mom is here visiting, which is amazing because it's

giving me time to make a combine, like making a combine costume.

Yeah.

We've had a couple calves.

They're all super freaking cute and other than that, just carrying on.

So how's things been at your place?

It's been good week.

The corn is happening at our place too, a little bit earlier than we expected, but

they came and tested and said it was dry enough and our custom operator was done.

All the soybeans they were gonna do, so they showed up this week.

So corn is happening.

The fields are looking very empty, which is good.

That's what we like to see this time of year.

I have agreed probably against my better judgment to go to a haunted house tonight.

So I'll report back next week cuz I am not a person who likes scary things.

Really?

Are you a scary thing person, Katie?

Like horror movies?

Suspense?

No, she's shaking her head no.

For the people hard.

No.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like mystery novels, but that's about it.

I don't like anything that involves so I like Hitchcock scary, but.

Anything where anybody jumps out, so . Yeah.

Like a, a haunted house.

It's trick features.

Yes.

Scary things.

Jumping at me hard.

Same.

Your kids get older and they think that they're brave and

they probably are braver than me.

So we'll see how that goes, both for me and for how everyone's

sleep goes the next few nights.

So I'll report back on that.

It's just like a small town, like the local museum does, a haunted house

with lots of volunteers every year.

So I have obviously never gone.

That could be interesting.

And in unrelated news, I said no to something this week.

I know it doesn't happen very often.

That's shocking.

I know I am usually the person who says yes when someone asks me to

specifically volunteer to do something.

So someone asked me to do something this week and I looked at my calendar

and checked in with myself in terms of how much bandwidth I felt like I

had for extra things, and I said no.

So that doesn't seem like a big update, but for me that's.

A big deal, so

I'm seriously very proud of you.

It's, Thank you.

It's nice to look at your calendar and go, Oh, I could have done X, Y, and

Z instead of getting partway through it and being burned out and thinking,

Why the hell did I agree to this?

Yeah.

It's not something that happens to me often either, but it is

a nice feeling to just, Yeah.

And it's, it was to help say now, Yeah, it was to help coordinate an event

that I'm more than willing to go on the day of and support because it's something

that I think is fun and important for, It's a one of the activities that the

school puts on, but it's, yeah, not something that I was prepared to take on.

And I, it was one of those things too, where if I said yes this year, Booking

myself.

It will be your problem forever.

Your kids will have kids of their own and you will still be fine.

Yeah, I'll

still be organizing the event.

Yes.

So I'll show up on the day of, but not at this time.

I will not

organize it good for you.

Thanks.

Yeah, it's good work.

. Arlene: I'll probably say yes to a bunch

the next time it happens, but That's fine.

Yeah, I think that is all of my update for the week.

We did finally pick up pumpkins, so we're recording on Saturday

afternoon and they're not carved yet, but maybe tomorrow.

That

might be.

Ours aren't either.

I don't know.

For any of our listeners who have not seen our Instagram, there's

been a trend going around where you cut just the skin off the pumpkin.

In a face and then you give it to your chickens and they're supposed

to like pack through the pumpkin and make a Jack Lanter in themselves.

So I did this.

I was all excited.

I took a little pumpkin out, I carved the face just a little bit for them.

And as I posted in a reel this morning, I picked it up and it

looked like they had done the face.

I was excited, like they hadn't done a good job.

And it was like they did something.

And then I realized that they had just inadvertently.

Heed something the same shape as a face on the opposite side from where I had

tried to get them to do it, which is basically the story of my life before.

Oh, shakes

don't watch reels.

I know.

Yeah.

Maybe it's, They don't watch the Instagram, so they don't know that

they're supposed to be on trend.

Right.

Yeah.

I don't think they care.

Yeah.

Jerks.

Yeah, that's right.

All right.

That's our Halloween content for this week, and we will . Yeah, we will move on

to our interview for this week's episode.

. Today we're talking to Abriana Johnson from North Carolina.

I was trying to figure out how to come up with a fantastic intro for

her because she does so many different things, but I ended up going with the

words that she used to describe herself.

She's an author, entrepreneur, and a creative spirit.

So thank you so much for joining us today, Abriana,

Thank you for having me.

So we start each of our interviews with the same question, and this is a way

to introduce yourself to our listeners.

So we ask, what are you growing And for our farmers that covers crops and

livestock and families, and it could also cover businesses and lots of other stuff.

So I'm sure this will be a long answer for you, but what are you growing?

What am I growing?

I will take the very literal sense of the word first.

I did my best to have a fall garden, y'all.

But my mom, I was outta town and my mom sent me a picture and was

like, ha, your pony so funny.

And I was like, He's in my garden.

That's not funny.

, he ate everything.

Oh, no.

So now I'm not growing anything.

Not , excepted a bigger pony.

Literally my fall garden, we'll catch up in the spring, but as far as everything

else, I am growing a kind of a career in equine, experiential, everything.

So from a children's book or a children's brand called Cowgirl Cameron to leadership

development, what I do with my clients, To building a community of black horse

people who are just trying to find our way and our space in this industry.

I'm just building experiences that surround horses and that is

like the shortest way to put it.

I was wondering how you're gonna summarize all that, but we'll get to,

we'll get to the details in a minute.

Yay.

So I Arlene writes the scripts, but then I always come back and

edit my questions to sound more ridiculous and less like Arlene.

So were you a horse girl?

I feel like that's a real specific type.

I was not okay because horse girls didn't look like

me.

And that's exactly the other half of what I was wondering is we see

more black equestrians in Western.

Writing rodeos, whatever.

But are there, is there an equal push towards black equestrians

in English writing and eventing sports, however you wanna put that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I'll start with the question growing up.

I started taking lessons when I was seven.

I remember being on this little, this slow ass gray horse.

I don't even remember his name, but it was like an old man name.

And I had to work so hard for him to do anything.

And I remember being in group lessons with, other little white girls who

their parents had bought them horses.

The horses are just trotting along and, it just felt like what?

It doesn't look like they're working hard.

But I am like kicking the shit out of this pony.

And he's not doing anything, and now in my big age I realize these are the things

that you need to learn as a young rider.

But when I was that young, I was like, No, this is not fair.

I'm not having fun.

So I stopped riding.

But then in high school I had a family member that did these

things called trail rides, and I was like, Okay, cool, whatever.

But we had a little bit of land, so we threw up a fence and he was

like, Can I keep our, my horses here?

Yeah, sure fine.

And then he was like do you know how to ride?

Yeah, I took lessons when I was seven, so how hard could it be, right?

I'm pretty much a professional.

Hell no.

Okay.

I went out in the woods and these trail rides are groups of hundreds of black

people who meet up in the woods and have cookouts and there's a dj and we're line

dancing and stuff, and then you go riding.

in the morning through the woods and there's like speakers and boom

boxes and we're all singing like oldies in the middle of the woods.

It was like nothing I had ever

seen before.

This sounds like so much more fun than any trail, right?

I have ever been on.

I know

so many people say that.

And you know when, so now I'm starting to do more and more of

that when I'm in high school.

And I've seen other, those horse girls?

The horse girls that I grew up with, they're like wearing their

tall boots to class and got their crop on their backpack.

Like girl, really?

Really?

Meanwhile, I'm like, no, my tech doesn't match, but it stays on . My

horses, they're pretty much barefoot.

They were walking horses.

So not only that they're gated, they're completely different type horses versus

the horses that they were working with.

I'm like, Oh, does your horse jump?

Yeah.

Over the log that we just happened to come up on, and I didn't want to Okay.

But I just held on because my favorite discipline is not hitting the ground

And so when they're like, Are you ours, girl?

And now that I'm in entrepreneurship and there's like this branding and

hashtag horse girl, I'm, I just still feel like that seven year

old me that's there's a certain type of people that, that use this.

And I've tried I've yeah, hashtag horse girl.

And then I'm like, This is some bullshit.

This is not me.

I'm like, no.

. That's how I got involved in the equestrian world.

And my background is in veterinary medicine.

So it was like, yes, I love riding horses.

I'm gonna be a horse vet.

And I then enter an industry also that doesn't have very many

people that look like me for me,

So it was like, how do you create a space where you don't see people that

look like you, and you just gotta experiment, You gotta try, right?

And so I started connecting the dots and saying, Okay, let's bring

veterinarians to the trail rides.

Let's you know, have a grand old time, get 'em together.

And then as I started to grow and grow in my career, people are like, I've

never seen any black horse people.

And it's Oh, that's a you problem, because I hang out with about

hundreds of them on a weekend.

You know what?

Let's start a podcast about that . And then since then,

everything has just skyrocketed.

So in terms of your education , said you started on

the path to veterinary medicine.

Where did that lead you education wise?

So I went to NC State and got a undergrad degree in

a bachelor's in animal science.

Worked at the equine education unit out there.

All my classes.

Y'all, now I know y'all have cows and things.

My grandma has a one single cow.

I've tried my best, but they don't move like horses.

Move.

I got stuck.

I got stuck in the barn aisle.

Of course the cow's heads are in the food thing.

The feeder?

Yeah, the feeder.

Yeah.

And then their butts are facing the aisle.

And I was trying to leave my lab.

and one cow just decided to stand in the aisle.

And I'm like, Okay.

So I have the option to walk around it, but then that means I

walk between a cow and cow buts.

So I just was like, Help someone help me.

I can't leave because this cow's in the way.

And I'm like, Come on, . And it was like, What girl would you say?

And I'm like, Okay, help me, . I didn't know what to do.

I don't.

I just, Cows kind of scare me and they scare my horse too.

, we're two bes in the pod in that way.

. I was

like,

way, Oh, I was just gonna say, I feel the same way around horses

because I understand how they move.

Like you get used to your type of animal and yes, Katie has both beef and sheep.

So depending on the animal you're working with, they move differently and then

you have to handle them differently.

Yeah.

So I'm totally intimidated by horses.

Yeah.

And I was a wannabe horse girl, , cause there's definitely a type.

And then the English riding world, I think it's even more what

that Oh for sure is, For sure.

And so I grew up around horses and I know the first time I worked cattle,

I was like, a horse, like you walk up and lean on it, most horses will move.

, you walk up and lean on a cow and the cow's just fuck are you doing?

And then they just kinda stand there or they bail out, Let you

fall over, so it's a very different.

Yeah,

situation.

But let me tell you from my, you have to get all these experiences

to qualify for a vet school.

You have to have so many hundreds of hours.

So I rode with a veterinarian who was a small ruminants and camelids

and put me out here with some goats, some sheep, some alpaca, not llamas.

Lamas are a little big for me, but that's a lot of fun for me.

And so that was how my undergrad career went.

But then obviously when I graduated I'm like, Okay, who's

hiring ? And it was small animal.

And so I was like, I didn't do small animal really while I was

in college, so let me do that.

And so I started working at a small animal hospital and kind of got stuck there,

got bored, and they had just fired the person who was managing the pet resort.

And so I'm like, I'm super creative, the business is failing, so let me

come in here and shake some shit up.

And so I did, and I was there for three years and did fantastic.

Like completely turned it around.

And so that was when I was like, this business shit's kind of fun.

And while I was there, I ended up getting a master's in health sciences

with a concentration in One Health from University of Florida online.

And One Health is the integration of human animal and

environmental health and wellness.

And I'm like, okay, when we think humans, animals in the environment, what is a

better way to communicate this concept?

Then working with horses, you're the human.

You are riding or working with this horse that is in our environment and is, it's

not necessarily when you're working with horses, it's definitely a choice, right?

It's not Like cows and pigs who are, like feeding our country.

And it's also a choice too, but like horses aren't being eaten here, it's

like you're, you got 'em to ride 'em, and that's a privilege, really.

And so I was like, that would be an incredible conduit to,

to teach people about this.

And so I started my children's books series and that's the premise behind the

different stories and the interactions that come through Cowgirl Cameron.

And so what can you tell us about your current horses?

And there's a note in here about Encore.

Yeah.

So it's these, He, she, is it a.

Okay.

He hymns.

, my voice changes when I talk about a little bit, but awkward

court because him, my little baby.

But so I, I'll start from the beginning.

I bought a horse as a sophomore in college because I had me a

little job and I was making $17 an hour and I thought I was rich.

And so still my family still had my little bit of land with the fence on it.

And the other horses from high school were still there.

So it was like if I can just buy a six month old horse, they put

'em there with the other horses.

And so my parents were the kind of people like, they didn't tell me no often.

They asked me if I had a plan, and I absolutely am so thankful for them,

for instilling that skill in me because I develop a plan before I suggest any

ideas, because then you can't tell me no.

Got the business plan ready, . Got your plan.

Tell me now when I figured it all out.

Yeah.

You got

all your riches to spend.

Yeah.

And so I bought him, his name is Maestro and he is a spotted Saddle

Horse, Tennessee walking Horse.

And I raised him, from six months old.

He's 10 now.

Got him in 2012.

And so after college, I'm working, I've, I moved with him several times, found

places to live with my horse on property.

I was telling friends one day, I was like, it would be funny if

I did like parades cuz you know, I'm riding him at this point.

We're doing parades.

It'll be funny though if I had a little version and I could just drag him along.

, That'd be funny, right?

And everybody's yeah, funny.

You so crazy.

And then Craigslist was like, What'd you say?

You said you wanted a little horse that looked just like your

big horse and I kid you not.

I pulled up Craigslist and same markings.

Socks on the front, stockings on the back.

White and black main, white and black tail, like a dark brown.

I was like, It doesn't matter how much it is, I'm gonna buy it.

This is the

universe speaking.

This is right.

And who am I to say no?

Yeah, you, It makes no sense.

So I got him and that little baby, like it was just something

I thought would be funny.

I did not plan to do therapy work with him.

I didn't plan to make him a character in the children's book.

Children's book wasn't even conceptualized then.

. But based on his demeanor and his behavior, I was like,

Okay, let's see what we can do.

So I looked at the therapy horse, standards and worked towards

stuff like that, and he passed the test with flying colors.

And I was like, Okay, guess that's what we have to do now.

So Encore is a character in the Cowgirl Cameron book

series, and he travels with me.

I have I bought a minivan because minivans cause less than horse trailers and pimped

it out and he has a stall in the back and he hops up in there and we hit the road.

We hit.

That's awesome.

I I have a minivan.

I've never considered a that particular conversion, but

Yep.

Sew the seats in the back and I like lined it with plastic and everything.

And then built a wooden stall.

Situation.

And it works.

It works.

And thankfully I have a father who is very crafty.

He grew up on a hog farm.

Like the things that I asked him to do, he's Really?

I have the tools for it.

But when you

say this is part of the plan, you asked if I had a plan.

I'll pay for it, but yeah.

Just do you do this for me,

? Arlene: Yeah.

So my construction help here.

So you've mentioned cowgirl Cameron a couple of times.

Can you tell us who Cameron is and, Yeah.

What she's all about?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cowgirl Cameron started off as just a book series.

I was being asked, as the popularity of the podcast

increased to, read books to kids.

And I'm like, Yeah, I would love to read.

Books about black cowboys and black cowgirls to these kids.

And you get asked to read to younger kids.

You don't get asked to read to like fifth graders.

But all the books out there were at that reading level.

Not only were they at a higher reading level, but they were all about slavery.

And I'm like, Yeah, this is important.

I'm not saying it's not important, but I'm not going to a class of kindergartners

or first graders and talking about Farmer Jim who was a slave, and now he got to run

across the country on his horse and we're supposed to think this is a fun story.

So I started like making up my own stories to the pictures in these books.

Then I was like, Okay, this is also dumb.

Let me just write my own books and create my own stories and be

able to show representation that's not through the lens of struggle.

Because every story that comes out about horses and a black cowboy or a black

equestrian or the first black Olympian or the first Kentucky Derby jockeys

who were all black men it should not always have that context of struggle.

That's not how you get more kids interested in this stuff.

And so that's how cowgirl Cameron came along.

And it has grown since then.

I my very first book, I have two cousins, they're twins.

They are one's a speech and langu language pathologist, and then

the other ones a art teacher.

And about a month after my first book came out, they posted about

the lessons that they were doing with their kids with the first book.

And I say, What?

One has this art thing, You know the first book is Cowgirl Cameron

and The Crazy Hair Day, and the kids are making crazy hair with like

noodles and cotton balls and yarn.

And I was like, What?

You made a activity?

She was like, Yeah.

I was like, Okay, that's wild.

And then her twin is today me and one of my students worked on C sounds.

So we read Cowgirl Cameron to work on the cook and this and I'm like,

What You're working on Speech.

Mind blown.

Had no idea that this was even like something that could happen.

And so I was like, all right, what would it look like to intentionally develop.

, activities and curriculum and resources that have this same,

character base or storyline, but can help with these certain objectives.

So that's where we're going now, and it is been a bumpy ride,

but I'm so excited about it.

That is really exciting because yeah, like you said, a lot of our

educators are looking for those resources.

And telling kids that things can only come through struggle.

Yeah.

Isn't motivational sometimes.

If no, if there's a barrier, then sure.

Then that can inspire you.

But sometimes you just wanna see Oh yeah, that's cool.

That's something I could do.

It doesn't always have to be, you must overcome in order to achieve

this.

It's like Exactly.

Yeah.

Here's

the thing you can do and it can be fun.

Yeah.

I think too, as a book loving parent, it's so nice to see more books where

there's a black character where the book isn't about them being black.

That it's that just a kid who is doing kid crap who happens to not be white

or a disabled kid who is doing kids stuff without it being about disability.

And I know, Yeah.

I'm trying to remember if it was Vanessa Brantley Newton, who's a well known

author and illustrator, was talking about the importance of seeing especially

black children and especially black boys in a context of being joyful.

Yeah.

Because everything we see is about struggle and death.

And that's a very real thing.

Yeah.

But I have a kindergartner, she wants to read about fucking unicorns.

Okay.

Like she, slavery doesn't mean anything to her because she's fine, But you

read her a book about a black girl on a horse that means something to

her that should connect with, so that's, And it's just so great to see

children's books that are worth reading.

Word.

When I was a kid, it was very much Here is the moral of this story.

learn the moral of this story.

The moral of this story is not, they had fun.

, that's not it.

, learn something.

Yeah.

Screw that.

Yeah.

What I want my kid to learn is that reading is awesome.

Right?

Absolutely.

That's what they need to learn.

Yeah.

And with the cowgirl Cameron books, like the second book is Cowgirl Cameron and

the Great Escape Encore escapes the fence.

The fence has fallen down.

He's escape one.

We gotta find him, then we gotta fix the fence.

Both of you can tell me that's some very real shit that happens.

like we don't have to He got into your garden.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He got into the garden.

. Yeah.

And like we don't have to create these, huge morals to the story.

This is my re this is real life.

, and people always ask, Is Cowgirl Cameron new you?

And I'm like, No, she's not me.

Like she's me.

If I had a kid, she's like my kid that doesn't grow up.

So I like, I don't have to pay for her to go to college or nothing like that.

If you're not buying her new shoes every couple

months you are on to something.

, tell you what,

I just draw different kinds of shoes.

Okay.

Just black cowboys, . But it's there, there's a lesson in the sheer

experience of being this type of person and choosing this industry.

I don't have to create a lesson.

It's here.

And I feel like we, that's, there's something to learn from that.

It we're describing very real lived experiences and it, if you

wanna, get a lesson from it, it is teaching kids to be resourceful.

Identify the tools you need.

You can't just find the horse and not do shit about the fence.

Yeah.

You thought the story was over

Fox.

Yeah.

Makes the plan.

Yeah.

You got to go fix the fence, then everyone can celebrate and

you can go on about your day.

That is so very real.

So that gives a real life lens to what it means to be in agriculture.

So as that kid who read 50,000 of those Saddle Club books as a kid

that's, they never fix the fence.

The horse runs away because the horse jumps out over the fence,

but they never deal with why the fuck the horse is so untrained that

he's just ning out over the fence.

Yeah.

Or the fence being, I'd never thought about it.

But yeah, I they go on a great adventure, but they never fix anything.

They never.

Do any responsible shit.

They just, Yeah.

And that's dumb.

Win some ribbons and shine their boots,

Yeah.

And that's dumb to me.

And that kind of speaks back to that horse girl energy.

It's it le it still leaves much to be desired.

And what, the horse girls are the girls that show up to the barn and their

horse is tacked They are like, Oh my gosh, have you seen the grooms today?

But you got grooms.

I'm doing all the shit.

I'm cleaning and riding, And so it's cowgirl Cameron has

just been a vehicle for that.

We can have, we can talk about very real things that happen to us in

agriculture in, horse husbandry and.

Paint a picture, but it's still reality.

It's still fun, it's still entertaining, but it's real.

And so when I bring Encore with me, when we hop into mini mobile and go visit

people or visit kids specifically and read the books, we have conversations.

I bring out all of my little tech.

Now sometimes I understand I'm extra and it's not really realistic cuz

this little pony that's got Converses on and it just hops outta this

van that seems very unrealistic.

Okay?

But what's real is the van was $1,800 and my horse trailer was $3,500.

So this is real

an inspiring young people to be creative, right?

Yes.

I just saw a horse come out of a minivan, so anything is possible.

Anything is possible.

Two, I think, if you're capturing our imagination by, I

mean who wouldn't be excited about a pony wearing Converse sneakers

right around the back of a minivan.

and especially town kids, a full size horse and a horse trailer is big.

Yes.

And it's intimidating and yes, a pony and sneakers is not right to put

it nicely . Again no, but don't tell him that cuz he's a very big boy.

He's very big.

I understand

. Arlene: So are you also the

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is that something that has, have you been an artist your whole life or

was that something that you thought, it's my vision, I've gotta, I've

gotta create it from the start.

So it's funny, I just went back to my high school and

was telling the kids about this.

Like you, when you get tracked in a STEM career, You don't get a chance to

take these creative liberal arts classes because you have to fulfill these classes

for your degree or whatever your high school degree, college degree, whatever.

So I was a cheerleader and I'm, I was the one drawing the banners for

the football players to run through.

I'm like, perforating the banner because I wanted it to be painted.

But then the football team was like, We can't run through it.

And I'm like, Well stop being punks.

Maybe you need to go in a gym.

Like it's just paper.

It's just paper, I painted on it and I had to tape it like this so to

paint wouldn't ruin it down Anyway.

I didn't have that opportunity to be creative right.

When I was in college, you can't be that creative with medicine.

It's either alive or dead.

So I didn't do anything for a very long time.

And so it was like stored up in me Okay, we can do this.

And once I found the tools that worked for me, realized I could draw digitally

on my iPad it was over from there.

The brain works well.

And that made me think of so with the third book is what I call the

a equestrian alphabet because I realized, I have about five books

written, I just gotta illustrate 'em.

That takes a lot longer than writing the book.

And I was like, I want to be able to use terminology.

But these kids don't know what I'm talking about.

So I had to fast forward and put a alphabet book in front of all

these other books so kids would know what I'm talking about.

And my best friend called me and she was like, Lemme tell you something.

If I hear a is for agriculture one more time, I'm shipping him to you.

Okay.

, the other kid's saying Apple and aunt, but he's saying agriculture.

All right.

And Dewormer what?

? I'm like, Yes, . I didn't, Yeah.

And so I want kids to be familiar with these words and you know it's

got a glossary in the back cuz I know kids are like, Mommy, what is.

It's already here.

It's right here.

This is what it means.

But I want 'em to be familiar with that kind of stuff.

Why do we wait until they get into college and, or not college, but high school

and you asking 'em what career they want to actually talk about these things.

If we're really trying to get more people into these industries, I'm

like, I have no hope for the people who have already went through school.

Okay.

We gotta hit 'em when they're young.

start at

the bottom.

You gotta brainwash 'em early.

I understand.

Yes.

A is

for agriculture.

So did you have s is for Siemens straw narrative or did You not, We

didn't get s is for salt block.

Okay.

Okay.

And saddle and stir up.

I'm waiting for them to, for her to do a crossover with Corey Silver.

A real like Ag sex book?

I don't know.

I don't know where that's gonna go, but it'll be a thing.

I'll tell you

what, I am the baby daddy of several folds, so I,

that is not too far beyond me.

. Caite: There you go.

So what's your vision for cowgirl Cameron?

Going forward as a brand,

I'm trying to make doughy explorer my bitch.

Okay.

Yes.

She's so obnoxious,

so like weird.

Come on, vomits.

Shut up.

Okay.

I was already coming.

You don't have to rush me.

You don't gimme enough time to respond.

I didn't even hear the question.

What do you think?

Oh, cool.

Girl, wait, I wasn't a, I didn't have time to think of anything but

she's a, she's an incredible model.

To look up to.

Doc Mc Stuffings too, which I love, being a black character and she's like working

on stuffed animals and stuff like that.

But I want there to be a little bit more of a more like

reality, this is an opportunity.

I'm not trying to be out here, roll po and the wiggles and all this stuff.

Some things can be fun and cool and interesting, but they

don't have to look like blobs.

They don't have to look like random.

They can just be real.

Is that too difficult?

So

that is my goal.

I've always wondered why Doc Mc Stephan's parents aren't more

concerned about her mental stability.

, she spends a lot of time.

With these

stuffed animals.

Arlene, maybe your kids are too old for this.

Did you ever watch stock like stuffs?

I think we're, yeah.

We're mine verging on the two old and Yeah.

Kids get those hyper fixations and , you only get a handful of shows, so . Yeah.

There was born more than the range of my youngest and he had his octas and

that we were, we couldn't do watch anything else for a very long time.

So I know lots about sea creatures, but less, less about

the medical needs of stuffed

animals.

Yeah that's my goal.

And to be able to that's what's considered edutainment, but it's just

interesting how these entertainment brands don't hit education first.

They don't hit school systems first.

It's entertainment that has some education with it.

And My goal is just to do it a little bit different.

How do I develop lesson plans for educators and experiences that school

systems can capitalize on or expose their students to and get into the

home that way, through your homework, through assignments, through what

you're learning in school, and then have that entertainment portion second.

, Arlene: that's a, You got big

visions.

I love it.

Yeah, absolutely.

And yeah, I always tell people, they're like, Wow, that's so crazy.

You have that's such a big, it's yeah, that's fine.

Who else is gonna do it, , and I'm a firm believer that I have lots of

good ideas, but I'm not, I don't have to be the one to pay for all of them.

Yeah.

So I am like all about applying for grants and scholarships and I'm getting them.

So okay, I will do the things and then I'll tell y'all how to do it.

, Arlene: here are the ideas.

Not follow my vision.

Yeah, exactly.

I figure too they wouldn't make the money available if they

didn't want people to take it.

And if people don't use grant money and scholarship money and shit, they

quit funding it and then nobody gets

it.

Exactly.

So I will do the work to make it happen.

I, last year, 2020, I told myself, I need to hear a certain

amount of no's every month.

If I'm not getting, that means I'm not applying for

anything, for EV opportunities.

Even if it's not grants, if I'm not hearing no.

Shouldn't be like a reflection on how I feel about myself.

It's just a word.

It's just a, Not right now.

, it's next opportunity.

But if I'm not hearing no, that means I'm not applying.

And so we gotta fix that.

You can't even, you don't, you can't open yourself up to hear

a yes if you're not applying.

So I need about 15 no's a month before I feel like I'm actually doing

something.

I have to say, as the mother of a strong-willed young lady herself,

I as an adult woman, I desperately want her to be hearing these messages

about, pushing forward as the mother who has to tell her no sometimes.

, I'd rather she not learn anymore about it.

But, I'd much rather have the kid who has to be slowed down a little than the

one who never learns to push for stuff.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it's funny, I did a.

I did a podcast episode with my parents just to be, So my little brother, he's

four years younger than me, He is a equine vet tech, and he never had goals to go

to vet school, but he's developed more of a property manager role at his work.

And, he's driving trucks around and delivering medications and like doing

all these things that you just wouldn't typically think a vet tech would do.

And I'm like that's how we were raised, right?

We, okay, you can put me somewhere, but I'm gonna grow out that thing.

And because we are so resourceful, because.

We literally were told to go outside and figure out how to make it work.

And Daddy had all these tools and stuff and we got to, I had to know

the difference between a Phillip's head and Flathead, and I had just

had to know these things early.

We're just such resourceful people that we outgrow our positions very quickly

and we're given that responsibility.

So I talked to my parents about it and I was like, So how was it raising us

? And they were just very transparent.

Like my dad, he had the resources, but he didn't always have the vision.

When I got my horse in college, he said, So is he gonna pull a plow?

I said, Daddy, who has a plow?

We not plowing anything.

We don't have any vegetables in the.

No one has now you still

don't have any vegetables?

We still, thanks

mom.

Track record is poor.

Okay.

. But I was like, No, I'm gonna, he's gonna grow and I'm gonna ride him.

What do you mean he doesn't have to work?

My dad comes from that.

Animals are work kind of thing.

They're tools.

And so he's looking at us like crazy like that.

And then my mom's like very strategic and analytical, but she's

I only touch dogs what you mean?

And so now she can do so much more with Encore because

she's getting used to horses.

She got shocked by the fence a couple times last month.

She was like, I didn't sign up for this shit.

. I didn't sign up for this.

And I'm like, Wow, you have been initiated into the cowgirl culture.

Okay, That one little shock.

And you're here with us.

I loved that episode with your parents.

Yeah.

And I think she shares my my feelings about horses that they look pretty,

but maybe you don't want to act, She doesn't want to actually ride

them.

Oh yeah.

No.

Never

been all one.

No, she's not interested in that.

. So that kind of leads me into one of my questions.

So we're a parenting and Ag podcast.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And like your dad, I think a lot of parents probably see horses as maybe

not having value or purpose as an activity, and they're an expensive

thing ticket for kids to get into.

But what do you think that you learned as a child in a teen?

. And what can other kids learn from being involved in horses and in the equine

industry that you think, not that all, not that everything has to have value, but

, but what did it bring into your life that you couldn't have found in any other way?

I think that it really teaches kids to be mindful of

something that's outside of themselves.

Kids are innately selfish cuz they don't know, it's like this

I only know what I want, right?

But just for a moment, having an animal period, even with

a dog, they can have that.

I have to take care of something.

That responsibility like this depends on me to survive.

That was one of the very first things that I learned.

But outside of that, just working hard and being able to go out and do

these things, I wasn't able to go to these trail rides unless I had all my

homework done and didn't have anything I needed to do over the weekend.

So it taught me to prioritized this because I really wanted to do it.

And so I needed to figure out how I could finish everything else I needed to do so I

could do this thing that I really wanted.

And that is a hard thing for people to do, even as adults,

like, how do I go from A to B?

How do I go from just knowing about something to actually

doing something about it?

And being resourceful and being present.

Horses don't have ideally, Horses without trauma, they don't have,

whole grudges from the past.

They don't have anxiety about the future.

They can't because it's not safe.

They're, they operate in the realities that are presented to them

because that is the safest for them.

And I think that's something that I'm now teaching to adults to Fortune 500 company

executives, like how to be present and how to really operate in a way that horses do.

Yeah, I hadn't thought about that.

That way of focusing on the moment and . Yeah.

You can't think beyond where you are.

And if you're working with a horse or on a horse, then you

have to be there with them.

You can't, Yeah.

You can't let yourself get sidetracked.

Yeah.

So in talking about your podcast , it, you called Young Black Equestrians.

, and now you've switched it up to being called Black in the Saddle.

So Yes.

Can you talk to, and what is your podcast story?

Yeah.

It started off as Young Black Equestrians named it that, because that was who I was.

And so I'm like, Okay, I wanna talk to more people like me.

Yeah.

But then as the community started to grow, there was so much.

Oh, I really love what you're doing, but I'm not young.

And I'm like, Oh no, young is a feeling.

Yeah.

And then I was asked to be like on this panel and he was like, Yeah,

you can be in the youth section.

And I was like, hold on my big ass age.

I am 28.

You got me talking to the, okay.

Clearly things need to change.

And I had people on social media trying to really like,

tell me what to do because they thought I was young and I was like, Friend,

I will cuss you up one side and down the other and sleep well at night.

Don't let this name fool you.

And then I was like, Okay, we gotta do something about this.

We gotta do something about it.

So black and the saddle came to me.

early this year, like January, February, like in the shower, as

most best ideas come to you, right?

Yep.

I was like, Oh, black in the saddle.

Oh, that's so funny.

Like back in the saddle, ha.

Oh look, there's an acronym.

Bits.

I'm all about some acronyms and alliteration.

Okay.

Children's book author at heart.

And it was just that, it was just like, Okay that's cool.

Moving on.

And so it wasn't until July, I was like, I need to change this podcast name.

Oh, black, remember Black, You know what?

It's gonna be black in the South . And that's just been waiting in there.

It was waiting for me to come to that realization that, I was excluding

some of my audience and I was excluding a lot of the people who

were really supportive of me and the type of content that I was creating.

I wasn't necessarily creating content for kids.

I couldn't do that over and over.

I already got cowgirl Cameron.

So we had to switch it up a little bit and and do something that was,

more inclusive of the people who I actually ended up attracting.

And that's like my branding brain coming on that's Oh yeah, that started off weird.

Now this feels so much more aligned.

Sure.

Yeah.

And it gives you room for growth too, right?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So we started off as interviewing people because podcast started

in 2019, 2020 hit, and it was all about amplifying black voices.

And a lot of people were coming to us like, Oh, I didn't know

there were black people in horses.

And so I was like let me fucking tell you.

Let me do 80 episodes.

Let me introduce you.

Yeah.

Let me introduce you to at least these 80 people that I've talked to

about this and about their roles and what they've done, their passions.

There's inventors, veterinarians, polo players, people in tech, people

over 60, a 75 year old mounted Archer.

Huh?

You 75, you black, you ride horses and you do archery all at the

same time, all at the same time.

What?

And so it went from that to don't tell me that you don't know that

black people are into horses.

Don't tell me because there's 80 episodes, okay?

I know Eighty's not a lot in the grand scheme of how many people are on this

world, but it's at least 80 hours of education that you could go through.

Now let's talk about what we can do to improve where we are in this industry.

And so now I'm talking to the doers and I'm talking to, my mentor, some

community organizations people who have been able to put ideas into

practice because that's what's next.

It's not enough to know that these people exist.

It's not enough to say, Hey, okay, wow, I'm not alone.

There's other people like me, but I wanna do this thing.

Okay, now we're gonna talk about how to do it.

And so that's a little bit how the content has shifted a

little bit cuz I want people to.

That the next step is impact.

The next step is doing something, supporting someone, joining

a community, creating space.

What does it look like to do that versus just a singular, person's

impact or journey on the industry.

So our, one of our big goals for the podcast has been building community,

and I'm wondering is we're bo standard, middle-aged white ladies how we can build

community with folks who are not standard issue, white, middle-aged farm ladies.

Yeah.

Without either insisting that the rest of you do the work for us of , how we

can help you let us help you, but also.

Make it really fucking easy for us, because we don't have energy for that.

But also, how do we not intrude on spaces that are not for us?

Yeah.

But still building community.

And that's a tough one because it's, it is, it's hard to be okay with not

being included when you're trying to be inclusive, but it's not for us.

No, I

completely, So please do all the work and tell us how to do the

work without making you do all the

work.

And people have asked me like, Oh my gosh.

You, you talk so much about this with other people.

Do you ever No.

No.

I do not ever feel like a burden is placed on me when someone asks me a

question on how they could be better.

Because naturally who I am as a very judgey person, I'm likely

going to tell you how to be better

Whether

you ask me or not, , I appreciate that cuz it, in a lot of ways it seems a

hell of a lot easier to ask you than it is for me to just guess how to be better.

And, that

is leading into my next point.

It is asking questions.

There is a power that comes from being open to asking someone questions

and not having any requirements for the answer that tells me that you

care about what I have to contribute without trying to influence it.

That okay, can you tell me how to do this but make it easy?

Or can you help tell me how to do this?

Within the stipulations that I have for what I wanna do?

It's No, I can't.

I can tell you just from my experience, what has worked, but I'm not gonna try

to fit it in, some kind of convoluted box that makes it, package perfect for you.

That's work, right?

And so when it comes to building community in a in spaces that don't

look like you or try to attract those people that, that don't have

the same lived experience as you.

It's about transparency and it's about asking those questions that are

completely open-ended and not being attached to what that answer is.

I started my Facebook group as supporters of the podcast.

Tell us what you like, what you don't like, whatever.

And then as I started having conversations there were some people that were

like, Oh my God, I thought this was a safe space for black horse people.

And I was like, I mean it's safe, but it wasn't exclusive.

But, and so many people chimed in Oh my God, that's why I was here.

Because I felt like I didn't have any other place to speak transparently.

And I was shit.

Sorry, supporters of not black supporters.

The community has spoken, I engage with me on the other platforms, but

this is apparently what they need.

So I didn't get it right.

I didn't know.

I'm just like, I just want my friends to come help me in this group, right?

Yeah.

Tell me if my podcast is good, , but then they were like,

Okay, this is what we need.

So I had to adjust.

And so as you start getting people who are interested in what you have to offer,

which is a lot like y'all offer a lot, and you have incredible conversations.

You connect with people in those ways.

In, in agriculture, in motherhood, in homeschooling in all of these different

avenues and you make, get transparent.

This is for everyone.

We are trying to create communities to support people of all

colors of the spectrum, right?

We are opening conversations because we understand that working

from home for someone, for one person might be a privilege.

but for the other person might be something that was required because

there wasn't any other option.

So this one thing could look completely different for two types of people, right?

Let's have conversations about that.

We're not gonna be, don't get nasty and there's no, you can have

boundaries, but open up, opening up that conversation is just such an

opportunity to create an environment.

And inclusivity is a buzzword, right?

You, I'm sure in some point in your life you've been included in

something, but you felt like you didn't, you shouldn't have been there.

That is exactly what has happened over the last two to three years.

Oh, let's bring them in.

Okay?

And then completely.

ignore this presence.

Or ask them to do all the work.

And it's a spectator sport, right?

So I really love this concept of belonging.

I don't wanna just be here, I wanna feel like I belong.

So I don't have it like perfectly spelled out, but that is what I strive

towards in developing my own communities.

I don't want you to just be here.

I want you to feel like you belong, and I want you to feel like you

have something to contribute.

Because also I'm gonna be, I am not trying to do all the work.

Okay?

Someone needs to have another conversation.

What?

What is going on?

And it's funny, when I say something in my group, someone will message me

like, Oh my gosh, I would love to talk about this more, but would you really?

Because you messaged me in my inbox instead of posting it in the group.

So I'm okay with the challenge.

I'm okay with the asking for you to be completely transparent and

participatory, but I'm gonna continue to ask questions that spark conversation.

They may be a little hellacious sometimes, but I create spaces

where people can share we have a call once a month, fireside chat.

Sometimes we have a theme, sometimes we don't.

Tuesday was our one for October and I just started the conversation with a question,

What are you noticing in the industry?

And we talked for an hour and a half . So people wanna be asked what

they see and what's true for them.

And they wanna be able to share it in a space where they're

not gonna be judged for that.

And that's how you create that sense of belong.

That was a long answer.

No, it was a great answer.

Yeah.

We're both sitting here

nodding

and reflecting.

Scratching our heads.

Yeah.

. Yeah.

When I think there's so much to remember too about the historical power

dynamic that for us , Oh, working to, to open our space to more diversity

and inclusion versus me coming to your space and be like, Let me in.

Include me you, Cause that's creepy.

And as fun as your trail ride sound, it would be really inappropriate

and weird for me to show up and demand that you let me come along.

The thing

is, as long as y'all money green, you'll be let in.

Oh, sure.

, they're very diverse rides.

There are white people and Hispanic people that come to these rides.

Absolutely.

Okay.

But it is historically, since the seven.

I'm sorry.

It was a cat walking down the street since the seventies.

It's just been historically black.

And so it's not exclusive in that way.

And that is a trait of the black community, right?

. You had just said something and I was going to oh.

The other thing that it grinds my fucking gears, you have seen in the

equestrian industry is Oh my gosh.

So once a month, we're going to have a lesson day for black kids, or I'm

sorry, black, we can't use black.

We're gonna do a lesson day for the urban kids, urban riding lessons.

It's ma, I'm not threatening violence, but if we were close to

each other, I would thump you . What?

That's your solution.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Black youth summer camp.

Summer equestrian camp.

Oh.

That's the example of I'm include in them . Those kids do not feel like they belong.

They feel like they are granted permission to enter this space

and they have no choice of it.

You get, and especially when you make it a separate day or a separate

week, like you're totally included.

As long as you don't come near our white kids.

Just don't come on the white speaks.

Yeah.

Come on.

The black

week.

The hell kinda genius.

It's harder to check off our to-do list if we have to put work into it.

I know, right?

It's

pretty easy to check off if it's an hour a

month . And it's Oh, let me apply for all the grant funds to pay

for these black kids on Black Week.

And I don't argue very much on Facebook, but I got time when

it comes to stuff like that.

make

time, not one.

Yeah.

You got some alerts set up for that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

. So I'm almost afraid to ask this question because I'm sure that you

have more goals and dreams than we can ever cover in one conversation.

Or, Let me take a sip water episode.

Yeah.

We'll give you a second.

But what's on the horizon?

Say in the, we can go in the medium distance.

What do you see as some of your goals and dreams going forward?

So I am really interested and open to exploring this.

Thing that I've walked into that is equine experiential education.

And, taking a step back, I realize I'm doing it for children and also

for companies that are 150 years old, they're leadership teams.

And so mid-level kind of goal, I wanna see where that takes me.

I wanna see, I just notifications, which is why I had to put my phone on

airplane mode because shit get real.

But notifications from this company that I contract with, that they not,

they're not paying any money, so I don't ever say their, I say their names

with a accent so they can't find me.

But Google a and Dise getting, forming relationships with

them to do this kind of work.

What coaching with horses executive develop leadership development.

Mind blown, you couldn't have told me I'll be doing this two years ago.

So I'm willing to explore where that takes me, but also I already

have an answer for farther than a little bit farther than midway.

I don't know how soon this can happen, but I'm also getting some education

in wine and viticulture because my ultimate like landing pad would be a

winery slash equestrian property where there could be some space for business

development and community building.

But also we're gonna drink while we're here and there's a little cowgirl

Cameron Corral down at the bottom or over there and drop your kids off there.

And then you come up here and enjoy yourself and then just make

sure you go pick 'em up before

you leave.

So you're saying Ikea with booze and horses instead of cheap ass furniture?

Cause Yes, I am on board for this.

Yes, absolutely.

I am fully on board.

Maybe once a year you could sponsor a week for Suburban white kids to come out and

be like, feel bad for these poor children.

They planned food.

Their music sucks and everybody will bring them out once a year and right at home.

Beat 'em better food and take 'em on trail rides.

Yeah.

Like stopping in Beverly Hills and like loading these kids

into your van for a week.

You know what?

Good

for 'em.

I am not.

I'm, I've gotten to the point, we win 2020 was the year that we were

living in there was so much anger.

We were so angry as black people, we were so angry.

So that anger poured out into whatever community that we were in, right?

And for us it was the equestrian community.

So we were so angry and there's never any representation.

Your models are always white.

You always have skinny ones.

Okay?

Even the white women mad cuz all the models are skinny.

All right?

So now since they're mad, we really gotta do something.

Okay, let's have some plus size models, right?

There's all this stuff.

Media representation.

Cool.

But once I, now that I'm on the other side of that I realize that

many people thought that was enough.

Oh, we got some more diverse models.

Y'all happy?

And it's No, I want, like what does your board look.

What does your marketing team look like?

Who are the people making the decisions?

Who are the people funding this work?

I had a company, I'm not gonna name them, but you can find them

if you listen to the podcast.

They were like, We wanna, get ads we wanna sponsor.

So cool.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

They send me the assets for the advertising.

I said, Okay.

So I don't know if y'all realize, but the podcast is called Young Black Equestrians.

You want me to roll this tape of all kinds of equestrians and not

a single one of them is black.

Did you even think maybe the assets should match?

What?

So that's how I know it was checking off a box for them.

Make sure we put some amount of money towards.

Let's include them, but they don't belong clearly because we don't have

any imagery that represents them.

And so I have learned that you can only stay mad for so long.

Me personally, I can only stay mad for so long until I decide

to do something about it.

And that's literally how all of this stuff comes along.

That's not that all my ideas come outta anger, but maybe like

annoyance, inconvenience for me.

Like the books, the podcast, like every time I'm Molly, be inconvenience, I

will create a solution because I don't have to live a life of inconvenience.

And when we're comfort.

Everything's going okay.

You don't feel that drive to, to change to, To make something different.

To do something different to, Yeah.

There's no innovation.

Yeah.

If you're, yeah, if everything's just going along smooth and Yeah,

just keep going.

Yeah.

And you're certainly making a bigger change this way then you

would be just bitching about it on Facebook and then Exactly.

Going back to watching tv, which is, pretty much what the rest of us are doing.

, Abriana: These are conversations that

speak from and that's still so necessary.

And when we get in the mix of things, like when we, we start operating in

our communities and we like find other podcasters and we're like, Oh my gosh,

there are so many people podcasting.

It's really no, it's not.

There's not that many people, in the grand scheme of the almost 7 billion, 8

billion people that are about to be on this earth, we're not even a percentage.

And so I tell my people that when we're talking about, horse stuff, Because you

surrounded yourself with this community.

You feel like it's oversaturated, but in reality, how many people are horse people?

It's not that much.

So then the subset of that is your discipline subset of that

is your identity subset of that.

There's so many subsets, there's not too many, and people need to hear

about it because there are people who are looking for that relation point.

And I think too, when we're working to encourage belonging and

openness in communities, we have so many things in common as mm-hmm.

,, ag people that it makes it easier to approach the things we don't have in.

Because it's, once you're friends with people, it's a lot harder to see them

as other than when they're just, if your kids only know white kids and

they only see white kids, then you can't really be horrified when they're

not sure about kids who aren't white.

Because it's, that's all they've seen, you can't force that.

Yeah, and it's if that's something that is important to you, you

will create opportunities for them to interact with people that are different.

And I've had, so many lesson barns or equine programs, they're like, How do

I get more black people in my barn?

And I say how many black people do you know in your real life?

You want them to come into your space when you don't even know them in real life.

You don't even go to a grocery store that has black people that shop there.

You don't even acknowledge the barista that might, you spout in

your order and don't even say thank you, and so how about let's not put

black people in those environments?

They're like, Oh my gosh, how am I, how do I get more, more

Hispanic people in my barn?

Is anything in your barn in Spanish?

It's not rocket science.

I'm in a and many times I am being, I'm not being funny.

I'm being very cynical and smartassy, and I'm okay with that, right?

But it's this is not a giant, super giant challenge.

There are very practical things that you can do.

It's called being a human and some people don't.

Don't feel comfortable looking at their own humanity in that way.

Cause they don't wanna be like, Oh my God, I don't, dude, I'm not in, I don't talk.

Yeah.

Your attempts to, to go out and make these changes requires you

to reflect on how you show up.

And a lot of people don't wanna do that.

It's hard.

It's hard.

And then I have had to do it, working in spaces like that.

I'm new at being in, I've had to see, Okay, you can't be angry.

I worked with I worked on a training program and this woman got the

pricing wrong and I was pissed off initially because the woman in charge

let this person get the training.

Two for one and.

Later on, the woman, was emailing back and forth and then emailed the head by,

by herself instead of copying me and was like, AA lied, AA told me a story, da.

I didn't even make the decision.

I was a mouthpiece.

And so in immediately I felt like you only did that because I was

a black woman and you felt like you had a friend by going over me.

And my boss was like what do you wanna tell her?

I was like, I tell, I wanna tell her to kiss my ass and I'll

block you from all this shit and we'll never hear from you again.

And she was like, That's fair.

That's fair.

But you are also an entrepreneur and this is business.

This her reflection is not about you, it's about her own insecurities.

And I had to take a step back like, Oh, that's how this business shit works.

Okay, , I'm not gonna get mad about it.

I just need to say, Okay, thank you for your understanding.

It's not what reality is.

So you can choose to go or you can choose to stay.

And those are the facts.

So it's not just like a white person thing, it's just a skill that we

have to have as adults, period.

But when you're talking about, trying to include people and in that belonging, you

really do have to say, How do I show up?

What does it look like when I enter the room?

Do people hold their breath?

Do people smile?

Do people turn away?

And then you have

to, Sorry.

I have to say, we open and roll our kids.

And a school that, in, in rural Iowa, having any not white kids

in your school is pretty Yeah.

Pretty big.

Yeah.

And the school our kids are in is 75% non-Caucasian.

Nice.

And when I walk into the room and there's, my daughter's class of 15

kids, I think three of 'em are white.

And even as someone who loves diversity and is curious about other

cultures, it's still uncomfortable to be the white parent in the room.

Yeah.

But a, all of those other families have been so much more welcoming to me

than any similar group of white people would be to one of them coming in.

And being so what if I'm uncomfortable?

Yes.

They're not throwing shit at me.

They're not, they're not trying to set me on fire.

All they dumb They not be throwing stuff at you.

Yeah.

The kids are probably throwing shit at me , they're not doing anything.

The only thing they're doing is looking different than me and speaking

Spanish a lot better than I do.

But other than that, they're not hurting me in any way.

And That's right.

I think we can.

Admit and embrace that it is uncomfortable and then do it anyway,

which is what we're teaching our kids.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Anyway, so we ask all of our guests, if you were gonna dominate a

category at County Fair, what would it be?

And you can make up your own category if you need to.

County fair.

Y'all wanna know what's funny?

I am actually taking my mini horse to the county fair today.

, Arlene: What's he doing?

Are you reading stories or is he is he compet in something?

He's competing it's like you don't have to pay to enter and you just

show up and then sometimes you get money.

Last year he bought me dinner, like it's like $15.

We got fourth place, so I'm doing that after this.

But if I had to choose a category, I would choose like best dressed, best wardrobe

because nobody is shitting on Encore.

Okay.

Oh, I thought you were talking about your work.

Yeah, I was too.

Horses, Horses.

Wardrobe.

Go.

Oh.

Oh, wait.

It be, it can be, Oh, were we not showing our animals at the county fair?

No, I meant you

. Arlene: The idea of this question is

rock, but if you've got the best dressed horse on the fairgrounds, then oh.

We just look, We'll give you,

I don't to a county fair unless I have a horse.

I'm sorry.

. I've never bought clothes for a horse, so she's ahead of me.

Probably most people never have.

Woo.

That was funny.

I just had, I was like, What?

Oh, me.

That's like typical horse person shit.

I'm sorry.

. Yeah.

That's the

only thing that happens at Ferris,

right horse, and deep fun stuff.

That part.

That part.

I would be known for.

I feel like I would win the category for Mrs.

Get shit done.

Like it's not enough to have an idea.

You need to be able to make it happen, and so I would win that category, the Mrs.

Get shit done category.

Nice.

With the best dressed

horse for sure.

Yeah.

That's the com a combo

category.

I like that you'd have a sash with a hammer loop on it.

That'd be pretty badass.

Yeah,

absolutely.

Absolutely.

So I'm gonna go ahead and move into our cussing and discussing segment.

We've registered for an online platform called Speak Pipe, where you can leave

your cussing and discussing entries for us, and we will play them on the show.

So go to speakpipe.com/barnyard language and leave us a voice memo.

Or you can always send us an email@barnyardlanguagegmail.com

and we will read it out for you.

Katie, what are you cussing and discussing this week?

Arlene, all of our regular listeners and probably some non-regular

listeners, know that the boy child is obsessed with combines, choppers, corn

pickers, harvest equipment in general.

And some of our neighbors have started harvest, but we're not really in it yet.

So he's seeing parked combines, but none running.

. And if I hear one more goddamn demand for him, apparently I'm supposed to call

people and force them to start combining.

Or I don't know if he thinks I'm gonna go hotwire the goddamn thing.

I've never took the combine.

But there's no time like the present to start everyone,

someone else's.

For sure.

Yeah.

Go hot while someone else's coming.

I'm

sure the keys are running.

Why are they not running?

Why they parked?

Why they not, Why they parked Mama?

Why God damn kid.

So the corn's too wet?

No it not.

It dry.

Look at it.

What?

Argue with your father about this shit kid.

Like I don't normally go for a solid, go ask your father.

But for that daddy taught him about this shit.

Daddy can deal with him anyway.

Aa, what do you have to cus and discuss?

What do I have to cuss and discuss about today?

Gosh, so much has happened.

I need to know while you're thinking about it, what

size shoes does Encore wear?

Build?

A bear comes in one size.

Oh my God.

. Oh no,

I'm dead.

I am dead at the idea.

lordy.

I am cussing and discussing about.

Gosh, y'all, I really haven't gotten mad about something lately.

I'll flip it around.

It's not even something that I'm mad about.

I just cuss frequently.

Some of the opportunities that have just come my way recently,

I'm just like, Are you shitting me?

This can't be real life.

What the, what you want me to do?

You want me to do what?

You gotta be fucking kidding me.

And I feel like I'm saying that a lot, so much so that sometimes I

say it to my mother on accident, and so I'm just like, Ah, shit.

Oh my bad mama.

Okay.

What he, Oh, I'm sorry.