Getting Fancy! w/ TV Host, PBR Bull Owner, and Fancy Lady Cowgirl Courtenay DeHoff

Episode 38 • 7th July 2023 • Barnyard Language • Caite Palmer and Arlene Hunter

Caite: 00:00:01

Welcome to Barnyard Language.

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We are Katie and Arlene and Iowa sheep farmer, and an Ontario dairy

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farmer with six kids, two husbands, and a whole lot of chaos between us.

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Kick off your boots, reheat your coffee, and join us for some barnyard language.

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Honest.

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Talk about running farms and raising

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families.

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In case your kids haven't already learned all the swears from being in the barn,

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it might be a good idea to put on some headphones or turned down the volume.

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While many of our guests are professionals, they

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aren't your professionals.

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If you need personalized advice, consult your people.

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So we may have updates that do not actually come from the house, the farm,

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or it'll probably involve the kids, cuz I believe that they went along with her.

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Katie, what's new?

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What's going on?

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Arlene, hopefully this third attempt at recording

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this week's update will work.

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Yes.

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Now that we have fixed all our computer problems, and as I know you

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keep reminding me, this is an audio medium, but for our Patreon members,

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you can see this huge pile of papers that my children dumped out of their

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backpacks onto the floor of my office.

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When I told them that they needed to pack up some toys for our

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adventure, they dumped everything from the last day of school out.

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There's something about the last day of school

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backpacks, every little scrap.

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Oh my God.

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I'm sure the teacher just dumps the desk into the backpack, which is fair.

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They don't wanna deal with all the stuff, and there could be

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valuable treasures in there that the children don't want to lose.

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But yeah, last day of school backpacks are a whole thing

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and as I think I've mentioned before, the girl child has a real tendency

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to make things at school and at daycare.

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She cuts out whole.

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Villages of small paper animals and accessories for these animals.

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And we're talking, the animals themselves are less than two inches tall, so

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the accessories are even smaller.

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And she makes backgrounds and she makes houses.

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And it's astoundingly creative, but I have one of those five gallon totes

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that I just dump the contents of her bag into because I love all the

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little things, but I also don't want them floating loose around the house.

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Yeah.

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It's just like confetti.

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Yes.

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Basically.

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Anyway, they were packing all the toys because we, this weekend one of the very

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cool things in our area is the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin.

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Baraboo was the winter home of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and

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Bailey Circus for quite a few years.

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And the National Circus Museum is there.

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They also have a big top circus that performs daily.

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And at the end of this season they are retiring the elephants and the

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girl child was too afraid to ride the elephants last year and has been

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talking about riding the elephants at least a few times a week since the

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day we got home from visiting Right.

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Last

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summer.

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So yeah.

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For building herself up for this year.

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Yeah.

Caite: 00:02:50

Yeah.

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But knowing that the elephants were retiring at the end of

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the year, we decided to take the kids back this weekend.

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Had a great time.

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Went to a restaurant where the food was not great, but the food

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comes on a model train to your table, which was pretty dang cool.

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That's delightful.

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Which is good cuz it was real spendy.

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Yeah.

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But there was a train.

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But

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It was neat.

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And in the process of sending pictures of the restaurant to one of my cousins,

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she mentioned that my, one of my favorite aunts, I don't wanna get in trouble

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by, Declaring who's the favorite, just in case family members are listening.

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Was also in Baraboo this weekend from Pennsylvania with one of her daughters and

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the grandkids which I was not aware of.

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And so we got to see them on Sunday and we rode the elephant and we, the girl child

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rode a circus pony and we got a ride in a golf cart and we got to go to the circus.

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And did

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you actually

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ride an elephant?

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It was great.

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And we came home.

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I actually rode an elephant.

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It was very slow, very bumpy.

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Yeah, very tall.

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And recently I found out that I've developed tendonitis in my hip.

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And I can say that riding elephants is not, Great for that situation.

Arlene: 00:04:08

Oh, okay.

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So keep that in mind.

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Next time the opportunity press presents itself.

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Yeah.

Caite: 00:04:13

Yes.

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That's good to know.

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Just on the off chance that any of our listeners are also dealing with

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hip tendonitis and are offered the opportunity for an elephant ride.

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Sure.

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Yeah.

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You should still do it cuz it'll be cool, but just be for words.

Caite: 00:04:27

Yeah.

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Don't get into it professionally.

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Pass some extra pain medication.

Caite: 00:04:30

Yes.

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Yes.

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Professional elephant riding.

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We came

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home about how far away is it from you guys?

Arlene: 00:04:35

Caite: 00:04:35

it's about two

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and a half hours.

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It's so long enough to stay over, but it's not like a gigantic Yeah.

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Expedition.

Caite: 00:04:42

Yeah.

Caite: 00:04:42

Yeah.

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Baraboo is very close to the Wisconsin Dells, which is basically

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the Disney world of the Midwest.

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It's a small town that is now.

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90% waterparks and escape rooms.

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And our hotel gave us a brochure with an incredibly creepy ad for a teenage

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magician who will come to your hotel room.

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Oh.

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Which seems to me like probably the stuff that true crime podcasts are made of.

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Yeah.

Arlene: 00:05:12

So you didn't book that And this

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weekend we got rain on Father's Day, but that was the first rain

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we had gotten since Mother's Day.

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So we got more rain this weekend and we came home to our corn and being

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pretty close to literally twice as tall as it was when we left on Saturday.

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Yeah.

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To when we came back on Sunday.

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So you

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could have stayed home and watched it grow instead of seeing a circus.

Caite: 00:05:35

Yeah.

Caite: 00:05:36

I'm not quite that boring yet.

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Like I'm pretty close.

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Yeah.

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But I'm not quite that boring yet.

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Other than that, the kids got to go to the pool twice this weekend because we

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were at a hotel and they were home three days last week because daycare was closed.

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And then yesterday they got to go on a play date for a

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half day at a friend's house.

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So having to just go to their normal routine this morning was a little rough.

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It was not as exciting as the last week has been.

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Yeah.

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Not

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quite the attraction.

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How are things in your world, Arlene?

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Things are good.

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So the day we're recording is the last day of school for the my

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two that are still in elementary.

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So my tween and my eight year old are having their last day of school as

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we speak, and the teenagers are done.

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So I have one who is going to graduate from high school tomorrow.

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So that's a whole new thing for our family.

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So we.

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You can only get four seats for the graduation ceremony.

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And we have, we are lucky to have lots of living grandparents and she has

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siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles and all that kind of stuff.

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So we ended up deciding that since they're live streaming the ceremony and its likely

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to be hot and crowded and long, that everyone except my husband and I are going

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to live stream it from my in-law's place.

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And they're gonna watch the ceremony there.

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And then when she's done walking across the stage, then they can chat and not

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have to sit in a folding chair, in a high school cafeteria and they brothers

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can go play and all that kind of stuff.

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And then, we'll, we will come and have lunch at their place afterwards.

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So we're looking forward to that.

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So I've been doing some.

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Menu planning.

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My mother-in-law's doing some of the meal, but I'm bringing a bunch of stuff as well.

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So getting food ready.

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And then this past weekend, my daughter's boyfriend is also graduating

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from high school and he's actually moving back to his home province.

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He had been here for a little over a year and his dad, who he lived

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with, ended up moving back to Quebec.

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So he's moving away a couple hours, almost three hours away.

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So as anyone who has teenagers knows, that is a pretty big change for a

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couple of teens who have been pretty much joined at the hip for a while.

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And he's actually been doing a high school co-op placement with us.

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So he's been working here on the farm with us, and the last month or so

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has been living at my in-laws because his dad had already moved back.

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They've been spending a lot of time together, which is wonderful.

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But yeah, so he's moving away and so we had a goodbye party for him

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on the weekend, so that was nice.

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We got to have a bunch of his friends and people from four H and local families

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and people come to wish him well.

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So that was fun too, and it's always a good excuse to get things cleaned up and

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organized and all those types of things.

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So it was an outdoor party, which worked out well.

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We actually got a little bit of rain on the weekend, but not at party time,

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so that was good too because my my house is spacious for a big group.

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Old farm houses, right?

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There's, it's not like we have a big open concept zone for people to gather in.

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So yeah, party planning with larger groups gets a little complicated in old

Arlene: 00:08:37

farm houses, so I was glad that we were able to use the front porch and the

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driveway and all that kinda stuff and have people over and not feel like we

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were all in different rooms all the time.

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Beyond that, starting to talk about what we're gonna do all summer.

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So talk of cow shows and things that people would like to do.

Arlene: 00:08:55

Making lots of trips to our local beach.

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There's a little beach in the town that's, five minutes away.

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So we're really lucky that way and that we've got a close place to go and swim.

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And our neighbors across the road very generously let us use their pool too.

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So these hot days, we've got places to cool off.

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So that's been nice and it's something that they all still enjoy doing

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together, which is getting harder and harder to find as our ages stretch out.

Caite: 00:09:21

So did the did the boyfriend take his cow?

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I with him?

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Or is

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she still, she has been sold, so she's not going with

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him and she's not staying here.

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So we have one less jersey, but in the spring we ended up acquiring

Arlene: 00:09:36

a new one for a four H member.

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My daughter borrowed another one and.

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The jersey that we bought for my daughter last year has had a calf.

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So we still have a few jerseys, but we'll only be be milking one, which

Arlene: 00:09:47

I must admit, I'm not too upset about because his cow was a kicker

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and she was not my favorite kicking and flicking her tail really fast.

Arlene: 00:09:57

Yeah.

Arlene: 00:09:57

Which is obnoxious too.

Caite: 00:10:00

That is

Arlene: 00:10:00

weird.

Arlene: 00:10:01

Yeah, and we don't trim tails very because especially if they're gonna get

Arlene: 00:10:03

shown, you don't want to trim them back.

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They need to look beautiful, but it's definitely a pain when it, she's

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trying to flick you away with it and fling her feet in your direction.

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At the same

Caite: 00:10:12

time, for any of our other non-dairy farmer listeners, one of

Caite: 00:10:19

the most surprising things I've ever seen was upon attending the World

Caite: 00:10:24

Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin, finding out that they use the.

Caite: 00:10:30

I don't know.

Caite: 00:10:30

What would you call them?

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Prosthetic tales?

Caite: 00:10:32

Yeah.

Caite: 00:10:32

They're like

Arlene: 00:10:32

hair extensions.

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I'm sure there's a real name for them.

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Like women use.

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Yeah.

Arlene: 00:10:35

But there was a, yeah.

Arlene: 00:10:37

Just tuck them in

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there.

Caite: 00:10:37

Yeah.

Caite: 00:10:38

There was a whole line of them drying in a doorway just hung on a clothes line.

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And having never seen such a thing, I was really quite shocked.

Arlene: 00:10:47

Yeah.

Arlene: 00:10:47

Yeah.

Arlene: 00:10:47

They're like extensions and that they bulk up the volume, they're not,

Arlene: 00:10:50

sometimes you're replacing a lot of hair, but sometimes it's just to Yeah.

Arlene: 00:10:53

Give a little bit more fullness to maybe a cow that has lost

Arlene: 00:10:56

some of her natural hair.

Caite: 00:10:59

Yeah.

Caite: 00:10:59

That fitting of cows for showing, especially at the World Dairy Expo

Caite: 00:11:04

level is really, Oh yeah, for sure.

Caite: 00:11:08

Yeah, for those of us who don't show animals and we're not aware of Yes.

Arlene: 00:11:12

Yeah.

Arlene: 00:11:12

And they have a competition there too.

Arlene: 00:11:14

That's really Yeah.

Arlene: 00:11:15

Really a big deal.

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I know that one of the herds that my daughter has worked for, they actually

Arlene: 00:11:20

fly in a guy in from Europe to do their fitting for their shows because

Arlene: 00:11:23

it's that important to the people who to the people who it's important to.

Caite: 00:11:28

So it's, yeah.

Caite: 00:11:29

And when you're talking about that kind of money it's especially for

Caite: 00:11:32

breeding stock where you're potentially getting more than one sale at.

Caite: 00:11:36

Yes.

Caite: 00:11:37

Yeah.

Caite: 00:11:37

For sure.

Arlene: 00:11:38

All right.

Arlene: 00:11:38

Should we bring on our guest for the,

Caite: 00:11:42

I think we should.

Arlene: 00:11:44

Welcome to the podcast.

Arlene: 00:11:45

Today we are so excited to be talking to Courtney DeHoff, who's

Arlene: 00:11:49

a speaker television personality, and is also a fancy lady, cowgirl,

Arlene: 00:11:52

which is both a mindset and a community that she has created.

Arlene: 00:11:56

Courtney, on our podcast, we start each of our interviews with the

Arlene: 00:11:58

same question, and this is a way to introduce yourself to our listeners.

Arlene: 00:12:01

So we always ask, what are you growing?

Arlene: 00:12:03

So for our farmers, that's usually crops and livestock, but it can

Arlene: 00:12:06

also include careers, businesses, and all kinds of other stuff.

Arlene: 00:12:10

Courtney, what are you growing?

Courtenay: 00:12:14

Ooh.

Courtenay: 00:12:15

What am I growing?

Courtenay: 00:12:16

I'm growing a community a community of like-minded women who are

Courtenay: 00:12:21

trying to live legendary lives.

Courtenay: 00:12:24

Like I always wanted so much more for my life and my story.

Courtenay: 00:12:28

And so through my community, fancy lady cowgirl, I am just growing this space

Courtenay: 00:12:33

where women from all walks of life, I don't care if you're a farmer, I don't

Courtenay: 00:12:36

care if you've never been on a farmer ranch in your life, if you live in a

Courtenay: 00:12:39

big city, like everyone is welcoming.

Courtenay: 00:12:41

I am just, I guess growing a community that is the best

Arlene: 00:12:44

kind of growth as far as we're concerned.

Arlene: 00:12:46

That's one of the things we're trying to grow too.

Arlene: 00:12:48

So I also heard that you might have a part in growing a bowl.

Arlene: 00:12:54

Is that another thing?

Courtenay: 00:12:56

Oh yes.

Courtenay: 00:12:57

My.

Courtenay: 00:12:59

My pride and joy.

Courtenay: 00:13:00

So yes, I am part owner of a PBR bucking bull named Top Dollar.

Courtenay: 00:13:07

I came onto the ownership team when he was a yearling.

Courtenay: 00:13:10

He's four this year.

Courtenay: 00:13:12

I came onto the ownership team, no, clueless, like he had four legs and

Courtenay: 00:13:17

I was like, okay, he's, he looks sound like I, I suppose he can buck.

Courtenay: 00:13:21

Katie and Laramie of Hook and w Ranch reached out to me because

Courtenay: 00:13:25

they saw me on TV with the pbr.

Courtenay: 00:13:28

So I was doing commentary work.

Courtenay: 00:13:29

I didn't a little bit, but I didn't really know much about bull, about the bull

Courtenay: 00:13:32

side, about the stock contractor's side.

Courtenay: 00:13:35

And they reached out and they were like, Hey, do you wanna own a bucking bull?

Courtenay: 00:13:37

Katie messaged me on Instagram.

Courtenay: 00:13:38

I had no idea who she was.

Courtenay: 00:13:39

I was like, no.

Courtenay: 00:13:40

Crazy lady.

Courtenay: 00:13:41

Yeah, this sounds stay outta my idea.

Courtenay: 00:13:42

This sounds like a scam.

Courtenay: 00:13:42

Dunno who you're, that's how I remember.

Courtenay: 00:13:47

Yeah, that's how I remember the story.

Courtenay: 00:13:48

Katie's no, you responded and then you just ghosted us.

Courtenay: 00:13:52

And so as the story goes, I became a bucking bull owner.

Courtenay: 00:13:55

But part of why I said yes, honestly, the whole reason really that I said yes.

Courtenay: 00:14:01

I asked Katie and Laramie, I said, why me?

Courtenay: 00:14:03

Like why me?

Courtenay: 00:14:04

Of all the people who could own a bull, they said, because we want to

Courtenay: 00:14:07

show people that anyone from any walk of life can be a stock contractor

Courtenay: 00:14:12

and we'd love for you to document it.

Courtenay: 00:14:14

Like we wanna show that women do have a place on the back of the bucking shoots

Courtenay: 00:14:18

because, and this is not a fault, but bull riding is a male dominated sport, right?

Courtenay: 00:14:22

Like it's men who ride bulls.

Courtenay: 00:14:24

There are some women, but not at the elite level.

Courtenay: 00:14:27

And so I was like, okay, like women empowerment, heck

Courtenay: 00:14:30

yes, through bull riding.

Courtenay: 00:14:32

That's an interesting angle, but let's see where it leads.

Courtenay: 00:14:34

And it has been the most incredible journey.

Courtenay: 00:14:38

He made his P B R debut late last year.

Courtenay: 00:14:40

I nearly did not make it.

Courtenay: 00:14:42

I sat in the stands and I just thought, oh my gosh, I hope he does good.

Courtenay: 00:14:45

I hope he gives the rider a fair shot.

Courtenay: 00:14:48

I hope he doesn't embarrass the family.

Courtenay: 00:14:49

Like I hope he bucks, and he did so amazing.

Courtenay: 00:14:53

And his career has just taken off.

Courtenay: 00:14:55

This is his big year, his four year old year.

Courtenay: 00:14:58

He was in Madison Square Garden earlier this year, in January.

Courtenay: 00:15:01

So it has just been so much fun.

Courtenay: 00:15:03

And now he has this, rabid fan base.

Courtenay: 00:15:06

We're having to like, keep the people at bay because they wanna do meet and greets.

Courtenay: 00:15:10

They're like, where can we come and see you?

Courtenay: 00:15:12

Because he is really kind and he loves people and he loves little kids.

Courtenay: 00:15:16

And he like, goes to these big events and we, they stall the bulls so you

Courtenay: 00:15:20

can see all over their heads and we're always like, where is top dollar?

Courtenay: 00:15:23

What's, what pin do they have him in?

Courtenay: 00:15:24

You can never tell.

Courtenay: 00:15:24

Cause he's always sleeping, he's always napping, there's, they're like testing

Courtenay: 00:15:28

the pyro, top dollar's, napping.

Arlene: 00:15:30

I'm picturing like that.

Arlene: 00:15:30

It's just a really fun journey.

Arlene: 00:15:31

Sorry, I'm just picturing the book Burden Edge.

Arlene: 00:15:33

Do it with the totally chill.

Arlene: 00:15:36

But he can't actually walk when it comes down to it.

Arlene: 00:15:38

Yeah.

Caite: 00:15:40

Or Oh.

Caite: 00:15:42

I feel like one of the big bad raps that rodeo gets is that, these that

Caite: 00:15:47

the stock are treated so badly.

Caite: 00:15:49

And I think especially at the elite level, people really miss that.

Caite: 00:15:54

They make a lot of money.

Caite: 00:15:55

They're worth a lot of money, and that they have fans of their own,

Caite: 00:15:59

that they're not, you're not going out like scooping up some bull from

Caite: 00:16:03

the back paddock of God knows where and horribly abusing it in some way.

Caite: 00:16:07

They lead a pretty damn cushy life.

Caite: 00:16:09

They do know.

Caite: 00:16:11

They're working for, what, eight seconds at a time?

Courtenay: 00:16:14

It's, yeah.

Courtenay: 00:16:15

Yeah.

Courtenay: 00:16:15

They top dollar lives a better life than I do if we're being honest.

Courtenay: 00:16:20

We are a hundred percent transparent and I actually just last week,

Courtenay: 00:16:24

I'm not very good at TikTok.

Courtenay: 00:16:26

I just throw videos up and like hope for the best, but I had this like inspiration.

Courtenay: 00:16:31

I was like, I'm gonna make a video about.

Courtenay: 00:16:33

What really goes on behind the scenes?

Courtenay: 00:16:35

Do we make him buck?

Courtenay: 00:16:36

No, he's an American bucking bull, which is a registered breed.

Courtenay: 00:16:39

It's an inherent trait.

Courtenay: 00:16:40

He loves what he does.

Courtenay: 00:16:42

What does the flank rope do?

Courtenay: 00:16:43

Never touches his testicles, which is a common misconception.

Courtenay: 00:16:47

And all of these sort of misconceptions that are out there, they were

Courtenay: 00:16:51

started by animal rights groups.

Courtenay: 00:16:53

And animal rights groups have been pushing these false narratives for decades.

Courtenay: 00:16:56

So I was like, I'm gonna make a video about top dollar and I'm just gonna

Courtenay: 00:17:00

show people everything, the flank, what it's made out of, how we put it

Courtenay: 00:17:04

on, what does the stock contractor do, what does he eat, what does he weigh?

Courtenay: 00:17:08

Like what does he do in his off time?

Courtenay: 00:17:10

And I posted one video.

Courtenay: 00:17:12

And it had 900,000 views in the first night.

Courtenay: 00:17:16

And so I was like, oh, I'm gonna post another.

Courtenay: 00:17:18

So I've just been sharing these videos on TikTok.

Courtenay: 00:17:21

Now, unfortunately, my TikTok is no longer mine.

Courtenay: 00:17:23

It's top dollars.

Courtenay: 00:17:24

I post a video of me doing like a keynote or something.

Courtenay: 00:17:26

It gets a hundred views, top dollar, it's like a million.

Courtenay: 00:17:30

But I saw that in the comments over and over again and it said,

Courtenay: 00:17:34

oh my gosh, we had no idea.

Courtenay: 00:17:37

We totally thought you were like they were bucking because they are hurting

Courtenay: 00:17:41

because you guys are doing things to the people don't know what they don't know.

Courtenay: 00:17:45

And what they do know are those narratives that animal rights groups

Courtenay: 00:17:50

have been pushing out literally.

Courtenay: 00:17:52

For decades.

Courtenay: 00:17:53

I saw one comment that said, so did they used to tie up

Courtenay: 00:17:57

their testicles in bull riding.

Courtenay: 00:17:58

And I said, no, they never have.

Courtenay: 00:18:01

And groups like the pbr, the professional bull Riders, there are incredibly

Courtenay: 00:18:05

strict animal welfare guidelines.

Courtenay: 00:18:08

Even the cowboys spurs, they have to be dull.

Courtenay: 00:18:11

There are so many things in place.

Courtenay: 00:18:13

And so I love it.

Courtenay: 00:18:14

I love teaching people about top dollar and what really

Courtenay: 00:18:18

goes on and how much he loves.

Courtenay: 00:18:20

He knows who his family is, like he loves Katie and Laramie.

Courtenay: 00:18:23

And so it's just been, it's just been really fun to show that side because you

Courtenay: 00:18:28

don't necessarily, when you tune into CBS and you watch a bull riding, you see 'em

Courtenay: 00:18:31

buck for eight seconds and off they go.

Courtenay: 00:18:33

You don't get to see the behind the scenes.

Caite: 00:18:36

And I think it's not to be too crude about it, but if you have an

Caite: 00:18:40

intact animal that's worth that kind of money, the last thing you're gonna do is

Caite: 00:18:44

endanger those balls because it's so true.

Caite: 00:18:47

They're a profit center.

Caite: 00:18:49

It is, you're not gonna put a rope around them.

Caite: 00:18:51

That's, yeah.

Courtenay: 00:18:53

Because you went there.

Courtenay: 00:18:54

I'm gonna go there.

Courtenay: 00:18:55

One time Laramie said to me, he goes, I said, how do we explain it to people?

Courtenay: 00:18:59

And he said the flank never is done up any tighter than a belt.

Courtenay: 00:19:03

It's just like how a person would wear a belt.

Courtenay: 00:19:05

And then he said, think about it, Courtney.

Courtenay: 00:19:07

He's you, Utah, that tied up any other males, what, are we gonna

Courtenay: 00:19:10

jump and run and move around?

Courtenay: 00:19:12

Or are we gonna stand real still and not move?

Courtenay: 00:19:15

And I said, that's so true.

Courtenay: 00:19:17

If we were doing that, these bulls would not be bucking

Courtenay: 00:19:20

because it would hurt so bad.

Courtenay: 00:19:22

And to your point, that's the most prized possession of top dollar.

Courtenay: 00:19:27

So yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna take care of those bad boys.

Caite: 00:19:30

So what does he do in his off time?

Caite: 00:19:32

I envision bull ownership as being like a timeshare.

Caite: 00:19:34

Do you get.

Caite: 00:19:36

A third of the bull, do you get like the front half, the

Caite: 00:19:39

middle half, the back half?

Caite: 00:19:40

Do you get like four months, a year?

Caite: 00:19:42

Courtenay: 00:19:43

how does that work?

Courtenay: 00:19:44

That's a great question.

Courtenay: 00:19:45

So every partnership is different that the number one question I'm getting on.

Courtenay: 00:19:50

On TikTok is how much does it cost to own a bucking bull?

Courtenay: 00:19:53

It's just like anything with a horse or any kind of animal.

Courtenay: 00:19:56

Every partnership's different.

Courtenay: 00:19:57

It depends on the breeding, it depends on the stock contractor

Courtenay: 00:20:00

that you're partnered with.

Courtenay: 00:20:01

So I do own a percentage.

Courtenay: 00:20:03

My percentage primarily means that I'm the stage mom.

Courtenay: 00:20:06

That's the side of top dollar that I get.

Courtenay: 00:20:09

I video everything Katie videos, everything.

Courtenay: 00:20:11

She sends me the videos cause I'm not always with him and then

Courtenay: 00:20:14

I edit little things together.

Courtenay: 00:20:16

But he lives, at Katie and Laramie's Place, he lives at Hook and W Ranch.

Courtenay: 00:20:19

I live in a highrise in downtown Dallas, in this major city.

Courtenay: 00:20:24

So I don't have anywhere to keep top dollar, but I just did a video actually

Courtenay: 00:20:28

like Top Dollar has the weekend off.

Courtenay: 00:20:30

What's he doing?

Courtenay: 00:20:30

He's getting scratched, which is his favorite thing in the world.

Courtenay: 00:20:34

He loves scratches, he's napping, he's snacking, and.

Courtenay: 00:20:38

He digs holes and I, my dad said, lol we're it's funny because he's not at

Courtenay: 00:20:43

our house, he digs holes in the pasture.

Courtenay: 00:20:45

Like I said, he's really hard on the good thing.

Courtenay: 00:20:48

He's cute because he is very hard on the landscaping, but he's just out

Courtenay: 00:20:51

in the pasture being a bull, doing what bulls do, sleeping, napping,

Courtenay: 00:20:55

eating occasionally, maybe he'll see a chiropractor if he needs it, or a masseuse

Courtenay: 00:21:01

or, it's just, he's living the life.

Caite: 00:21:04

So is he out making little half dollars now or is

Caite: 00:21:08

that like his retirement plan?

Caite: 00:21:10

No, he already has, we're just getting into this bull situation.

Caite: 00:21:13

Yeah.

Caite: 00:21:13

We're not gonna talk about anything

Courtenay: 00:21:14

else.

Courtenay: 00:21:15

That's, no, it's a great que I love talking about top dollar.

Courtenay: 00:21:17

He's like my pride and joy.

Courtenay: 00:21:18

Yes, there are top dollar babies on the ground already.

Courtenay: 00:21:20

We have collected him.

Courtenay: 00:21:22

And so he, and he's been turned out on cows as well I think they turned

Courtenay: 00:21:26

him out on cows maybe during his three year old year a little bit.

Courtenay: 00:21:30

So yeah He's doing what bulls do living, like I said, really he is living a life.

Courtenay: 00:21:34

He's been, yeah, he's living a life.

Caite: 00:21:37

I do, I'm loving the idea of you bringing him home for a couple months.

Caite: 00:21:41

A year, like to your high rise and your neighbors just can you getting in

Caite: 00:21:45

the elevator with this huge ass pbr.

Arlene: 00:21:47

Dairy farmer question.

Arlene: 00:21:48

I, we are often using sex semen because we want heifers.

Arlene: 00:21:51

Go ahead.

Arlene: 00:21:52

In the, in your industry are using sex semen because you want bulls

Courtenay: 00:21:58

question.

Courtenay: 00:22:00

That's a really good question.

Courtenay: 00:22:01

I, when we, when can Katie and Laramie collected him?

Courtenay: 00:22:03

I don't believe that we, I don't know.

Courtenay: 00:22:05

That's a really good question because it would make a lot

Courtenay: 00:22:08

of sense to use sex semen.

Courtenay: 00:22:10

So the heifers, they will buck them like yearlings two year olds a little bit, but.

Courtenay: 00:22:17

Once a bull matures, those heifers just can't compete obviously.

Courtenay: 00:22:21

And it's all bulls, that you see like at the elite level in the pbr?

Courtenay: 00:22:24

That's a really good question.

Courtenay: 00:22:25

I'll have to ask Katie and Laramie.

Courtenay: 00:22:26

Sometimes, like I grew up raising Angus, so my family has a small Angus

Courtenay: 00:22:30

operation and a lot of times, people do use that sex semen to try to get

Courtenay: 00:22:34

heifers if they're in, we always wanted heifers because we showed heifers.

Courtenay: 00:22:37

But so yeah, I don't have an answer.

Courtenay: 00:22:39

That's a good question.

Courtenay: 00:22:40

I would assume they probably

Arlene: 00:22:41

are somebody there, there's probably doing it probably somewhere.

Caite: 00:22:45

Sorry, now that we're talking women in sports do you think we're gonna

Caite: 00:22:48

see women coming into the rodeo arena and I don't wanna say harder classes

Caite: 00:22:51

because I've watched barrel racing and those women are plenty badass.

Caite: 00:22:55

But do you think we'll start seeing more women riding rough stock?

Courtenay: 00:22:59

I don't know.

Courtenay: 00:22:59

That's a really good question.

Courtenay: 00:23:00

So there are women who do ride bulls who do ride rough stock, and

Courtenay: 00:23:04

there are associations that are built or made ju just for that.

Courtenay: 00:23:08

There's at the elite level, so I'm talking pbr like when I say elite

Courtenay: 00:23:13

level, I'm talking the Unleash the Beast Tour, which is the top, 50,

Courtenay: 00:23:16

30 or so bull riders in the world.

Courtenay: 00:23:19

It's just, I don't, I'm trying, I don't wanna get, I don't wanna dig

Courtenay: 00:23:23

myself in a hole here cuz I'm the biggest like raw rah women empowerment.

Courtenay: 00:23:27

You can do all things, but there's no way in hell I'm

Courtenay: 00:23:30

strong enough to ride top dollar.

Courtenay: 00:23:32

They're just physically, genetically.

Courtenay: 00:23:35

I don't think, I don't know if I could ever get to the point

Courtenay: 00:23:37

where I could be competitive with the men at the elite level.

Courtenay: 00:23:41

And that's not a slam against women.

Courtenay: 00:23:43

Like we're just built a little differently.

Courtenay: 00:23:45

But I think women in rodeo are definitely having a moment.

Courtenay: 00:23:49

You look at what's happening in the breakaway, they added it, to the nfr.

Courtenay: 00:23:54

It's not in the Thomas and Mack, but like they have now a breakaway

Courtenay: 00:23:58

at the NFR during Las Vegas.

Courtenay: 00:24:02

You're seeing things like the American rodeo come in, you're

Courtenay: 00:24:05

talking million dollar purses.

Courtenay: 00:24:07

That was unheard of when I was in college coming up, like through

Courtenay: 00:24:10

the college rodeo ranks and stuff.

Courtenay: 00:24:12

It was like if you wanted to be a professional and you wanted to make

Courtenay: 00:24:14

a living, you were a barrel racer.

Courtenay: 00:24:16

That was it.

Courtenay: 00:24:17

And now I tell you what, those breakaway ropers are making money and I mean

Courtenay: 00:24:21

it, they're making enough money at the top level to sustain themselves

Courtenay: 00:24:26

and to be able to actually make a living out of it, because for a long

Courtenay: 00:24:31

time, breakaway wasn't necessarily something that was financially that you

Courtenay: 00:24:36

could justify doing it for a living.

Courtenay: 00:24:39

I don't know.

Courtenay: 00:24:39

As far as the rough stock though I don't know.

Courtenay: 00:24:42

It'll be interesting to see, but the way things are going with others, time events

Courtenay: 00:24:46

and stuff, I, it wouldn't surprise me.

Caite: 00:24:49

It seems like most, most women I know also have too strong of a self

Caite: 00:24:57

preservation to ride rough stock orals.

Caite: 00:25:01

Watching bull riders, they're fucking crazy.

Caite: 00:25:04

That's the different, there's no nice way to put it.

Caite: 00:25:07

Those guys are fucking crazy.

Caite: 00:25:08

There's, but for our non rodeo listeners, Breakaway is calf roping, right?

Caite: 00:25:14

Steer roping.

Courtenay: 00:25:15

Yeah.

Courtenay: 00:25:15

So essentially, so calf roping is what the men do.

Courtenay: 00:25:19

They rope a calf, they jump off and tie the calf down.

Courtenay: 00:25:22

Breakaway is the same thing.

Courtenay: 00:25:23

Only the girls don't get off and tie the calf down.

Courtenay: 00:25:26

They literally rope a calf.

Courtenay: 00:25:27

It's the rope is tied to their saddle horn with a thin piece of string.

Courtenay: 00:25:31

It breaks off.

Courtenay: 00:25:32

And the minute that rope breaks off, they put the flag down.

Courtenay: 00:25:35

And these girls at the top level of my friend Kelsey chase Domer now, who's one

Courtenay: 00:25:40

of the best in the world, just broke the arena record at San Antonio with a one,

Courtenay: 00:25:45

I don't even know, something stupid.

Courtenay: 00:25:46

Like a one six.

Courtenay: 00:25:47

They are roping.

Courtenay: 00:25:49

I don't even know how you get outta the box fast enough to do that.

Courtenay: 00:25:52

So we're talking like sub two seconds, so fast.

Caite: 00:25:57

And I think it is cool to see women competing in more events because

Caite: 00:26:01

yeah, I am 41 and even when I was watching Rodeo, to college age, it was

Caite: 00:26:07

barrel racing before the guys came on.

Caite: 00:26:09

It was the event that was on while everybody went to get their beers.

Caite: 00:26:12

Yep.

Caite: 00:26:12

And it's awesome to see women getting to compete at a level where

Caite: 00:26:17

it's something people are watching and actually, participating in.

Caite: 00:26:22

Yeah, absolutely.

Caite: 00:26:25

So where did you grow up and what is your

Courtenay: 00:26:27

background in ag?

Courtenay: 00:26:28

So I grew up in Kansas in a small town in northeastern Kansas.

Courtenay: 00:26:32

My mom and dad had a small cow calf operation, but I like to tell

Courtenay: 00:26:36

people I was just a little cowgirl.

Courtenay: 00:26:37

I was just a little cowgirl from Kansas.

Courtenay: 00:26:39

Grew up riding horses.

Courtenay: 00:26:41

Competed heavily in high school rodeo, eventually went to Oklahoma State where I

Courtenay: 00:26:45

was on the college Rodeo team, and we also showed Angus cattle all over the country.

Courtenay: 00:26:50

So showed Angus heifers at all of the big shows and just had this,

Courtenay: 00:26:54

really robust, beautiful childhood that was centered around agriculture.

Courtenay: 00:26:59

Everything we did was centered around agriculture.

Courtenay: 00:27:02

So that's my background.

Courtenay: 00:27:03

My dad, we had crops.

Courtenay: 00:27:05

We farmed a little bit, but we would not probably call ourselves farmers.

Courtenay: 00:27:08

We, you

Arlene: 00:27:09

talked a little bit already about what Fancy Lady Cowgirl is,

Arlene: 00:27:12

but can you tell us a little bit about the inspiration behind it

Arlene: 00:27:15

and what the background story is?

Courtenay: 00:27:18

Yeah, fancy Lady Cowgirls.

Courtenay: 00:27:20

Been a culmination of my tenure journey.

Courtenay: 00:27:23

I graduated Oklahoma State and immediately got into television.

Courtenay: 00:27:27

I interned at a television station, wanted to be a TV host.

Courtenay: 00:27:30

I wanted to work in cities like New York, LA, Dallas.

Courtenay: 00:27:33

I wanted to work in these top American markets for mainstream networks.

Courtenay: 00:27:37

And when I first got into television, my first job, I

Courtenay: 00:27:40

was like interviewing cowboys.

Courtenay: 00:27:41

I was going to the Calgary Stampede and I was talking about

Courtenay: 00:27:44

rural America and agriculture.

Courtenay: 00:27:45

And when I left that job, I discovered that I needed an agent

Courtenay: 00:27:50

to help me get the next job.

Courtenay: 00:27:52

And all of the agents who would watch my tapes were like, you have talent,

Courtenay: 00:27:56

but what are you wearing on your head?

Courtenay: 00:27:58

Like the cowboy hat.

Courtenay: 00:27:59

You gotta take that off.

Courtenay: 00:28:00

If people are gonna take you seriously, if you seriously want to work in

Courtenay: 00:28:03

mainstream American television, they're gonna think you're uneducated.

Courtenay: 00:28:06

I literally had someone tell me that if you wear, your hat and your

Courtenay: 00:28:10

cowgirl boots, and I was young.

Courtenay: 00:28:12

I was like 23 years old, 24 years old.

Courtenay: 00:28:14

And I was like, okay, I guess I have to choose.

Courtenay: 00:28:17

I can be the cowgirl from Kansas or I can be the television host.

Courtenay: 00:28:20

And so for 10 years I was the television host and I put the cowboy hat away.

Courtenay: 00:28:25

I didn't talk about my background, my own co-hosts.

Courtenay: 00:28:29

They knew I grew up in Kansas, but I, they don't know.

Courtenay: 00:28:31

They didn't know what I had done or where I had come from really.

Courtenay: 00:28:35

And I was working in Dallas for a syndicated morning news show,

Courtenay: 00:28:39

and there were wildfires that were ripping across parts of the Midwest.

Courtenay: 00:28:42

And no mainstream outlet was talking about it.

Courtenay: 00:28:45

And this had been going on for three days.

Courtenay: 00:28:46

I was working for one of these media giants and I pitched the story to my

Courtenay: 00:28:51

executive producer because I thought, this is a story worth telling.

Courtenay: 00:28:54

This could affect supply chain, this could affect grocery store pricess.

Courtenay: 00:28:58

This is why.

Courtenay: 00:28:59

People all over this country should care because it was a

Courtenay: 00:29:01

syndicated show, so it was national.

Courtenay: 00:29:04

And I'll never forget, she literally looked at me when she got the story

Courtenay: 00:29:06

pitch and she said, need, I remind you, this is a real news network.

Courtenay: 00:29:10

Stop bringing me your little cowgirl problems.

Courtenay: 00:29:13

And that was about 10 years in.

Courtenay: 00:29:15

And I'd had enough, like I had worked so hard in my TV career,

Courtenay: 00:29:19

television is a tough industry.

Courtenay: 00:29:21

It's volatile, it's fast paced.

Courtenay: 00:29:23

Everybody's out for themselves.

Courtenay: 00:29:25

And I was just beat down.

Courtenay: 00:29:27

I was tired.

Courtenay: 00:29:28

I had the fancy job title.

Courtenay: 00:29:30

I was working on a syndicated show, but I was just still feeling half

Courtenay: 00:29:34

full, like something is missing.

Courtenay: 00:29:36

I've got the big fancy career and I'm getting to do the big

Courtenay: 00:29:39

fancy things and interview these cool people, but what's missing?

Courtenay: 00:29:43

And so I pitched that story, she blew it off, and I told the

Courtenay: 00:29:46

story anyway on my Facebook page.

Courtenay: 00:29:48

I was like, screw it.

Courtenay: 00:29:49

If you don't think it's newsworthy, like I'm gonna post it on my Facebook page.

Courtenay: 00:29:52

And I thought, if one person sees it, One person sees it,

Courtenay: 00:29:55

it's a story worth telling.

Courtenay: 00:29:57

And in one night, the video that I made telling this story was viewed

Courtenay: 00:30:02

one and a half million times.

Courtenay: 00:30:03

And I was like, oh, okay, so this isn't just a cowgirl problem.

Courtenay: 00:30:07

This isn't just a little agriculture problem.

Courtenay: 00:30:10

People do care what's happening in rural America.

Courtenay: 00:30:13

People are interested in agriculture.

Courtenay: 00:30:15

It's just like top dollar.

Courtenay: 00:30:16

Like he's a perfect example.

Courtenay: 00:30:18

I threw up some videos on TikTok and people are invested.

Courtenay: 00:30:21

Their minds are blown.

Courtenay: 00:30:23

They're like, we had no idea.

Courtenay: 00:30:26

And so I started telling more and more stories like that in agriculture.

Courtenay: 00:30:29

People start asking me to come keynote, speak in agriculture.

Courtenay: 00:30:33

I'm like, oh, this is awesome.

Courtenay: 00:30:34

Like I'm still getting to be a TV host, but I'm also speaking and doing things.

Courtenay: 00:30:38

But what agriculture didn't realize about me is that in the year and a half

Courtenay: 00:30:43

or so that I was telling these stories on my little social media account, I

Courtenay: 00:30:46

didn't have a big following at the time.

Courtenay: 00:30:47

I was living in Dallas and then I was living in New York City.

Courtenay: 00:30:51

What they didn't realize is that the cowgirl who was the

Courtenay: 00:30:54

voice for rural America, wasn't living the cowgirl lifestyle, the

Courtenay: 00:30:57

stereotypical cowgirl lifestyle.

Courtenay: 00:30:59

And I posted a photo, I was headed to New York Fashion

Courtenay: 00:31:02

Week in this like fancy outfit.

Courtenay: 00:31:03

And I'll never forget the first message I got said, oh, we thought

Courtenay: 00:31:06

you were an actual cowgirl.

Courtenay: 00:31:09

The second one said, oh, all this time you're, you've been a fraud.

Courtenay: 00:31:13

And I was like, what the heck?

Courtenay: 00:31:15

The, this is agriculture.

Courtenay: 00:31:16

The community who was like, oh my gosh, this girl, where has she been?

Courtenay: 00:31:20

She's telling our story.

Courtenay: 00:31:21

She's fighting for us.

Courtenay: 00:31:21

She's showing up for us.

Courtenay: 00:31:23

The minute I didn't fit the part, the minute I didn't look the part or live the

Courtenay: 00:31:27

lifestyle, agriculture was like, bye girl.

Courtenay: 00:31:30

And they it was before canceling people was cool.

Courtenay: 00:31:33

I was like, I just, I got canceled.

Courtenay: 00:31:35

Like looking back, I'm like, wow, they tried to cancel me.

Courtenay: 00:31:38

And so that's a very long story of how Fancy Lady Cowgirl was born to me.

Courtenay: 00:31:41

I got pissed off, essentially is how it was born.

Courtenay: 00:31:44

And I thought, you know what?

Courtenay: 00:31:46

I have spent 10 years trying to be the blonde perfect makeup skinny girl on

Courtenay: 00:31:52

TV that the television industry wants me to be, and then I try to be the

Courtenay: 00:31:57

cowgirl that's that I've always been.

Courtenay: 00:32:00

And I couldn't, I didn't measure up for either, right?

Courtenay: 00:32:03

And so I was like, I'm gonna be both.

Courtenay: 00:32:05

I'm going to be a fancy lady.

Courtenay: 00:32:06

And a cowgirl and fancy lady Cowgirl was really just a hashtag that I put on the

Courtenay: 00:32:10

bottom of a post where I was just saying, look, you can advocate for agriculture

Courtenay: 00:32:15

and live in the biggest cities in America.

Courtenay: 00:32:16

The hat on your head does not define you.

Courtenay: 00:32:18

The lifestyle you live doesn't matter.

Courtenay: 00:32:20

You can still be a part of this community, and you can still tell agriculture

Courtenay: 00:32:25

stories and you can still help shift the narrative, when it comes to agriculture.

Courtenay: 00:32:30

So that's a very long-winded answer to your question, but that's the story

Courtenay: 00:32:33

of how Fancy Lady Cowgirl was born.

Caite: 00:32:36

I think that's really great.

Caite: 00:32:38

Courtney, I, one of the quotes I came across recently was Dolly

Caite: 00:32:43

Parton said to figure out who you are and then do it on purpose.

Caite: 00:32:46

And of all the people who just has been who she is and has

Caite: 00:32:52

been successful because of it.

Caite: 00:32:53

Dolly's definitely at the top of that list.

Caite: 00:32:56

So as an Iowan, I guess they don't have the Midwest in Canada is kinda

Caite: 00:33:01

my understanding, but how far west do we have to live to wear cowboy hats?

Caite: 00:33:07

Cuz Midwestern farmers we don't have a style.

Caite: 00:33:10

Our style is like John Deere t-shirt, wranglers maybe.

Caite: 00:33:16

Ha, we got at the feed store.

Caite: 00:33:18

It's not fun, it's not inspirational, but it feels weird to get

Caite: 00:33:22

all Western when you raise.

Caite: 00:33:25

Sheep and don't have horses and drive a tractor.

Caite: 00:33:29

So I'm wondering how we can have our own ag fashion moment here before we get

Caite: 00:33:34

into like back into more serious topics.

Caite: 00:33:37

Yeah.

Caite: 00:33:37

Cause it, it feels like a costume and I feel like we need

Caite: 00:33:42

something, but I don't know what

Courtenay: 00:33:44

that is.

Courtenay: 00:33:45

I'm so glad that you asked this question because I wanna challenge you, I wanna

Courtenay: 00:33:49

challenge everyone listening here is the thing about Bance Beyonce, lady

Courtenay: 00:33:52

cowgirl, my sort of like motto is that anyone gets to, it's not about the hat.

Courtenay: 00:34:00

Anyone can wear the hat, right?

Courtenay: 00:34:02

Wearing a cowboy hat or not wearing a cowboy hat doesn't

Courtenay: 00:34:05

make you a cowgirl, right?

Courtenay: 00:34:07

To me, there's I've created what I call the cowgirl code.

Courtenay: 00:34:10

And this cowgirl code is the seven sort of things, the seven steps to

Courtenay: 00:34:14

living a legendary life, because that's what being a cowgirl is about.

Courtenay: 00:34:18

Being a cowgirl is about a set of values, right?

Courtenay: 00:34:20

It's about living that legendary life.

Courtenay: 00:34:22

And when you think of the word cowgirl, like c o w it's courage, it's

Courtenay: 00:34:25

originality, it's worthiness, it's grit, it's resiliency, individuality.

Courtenay: 00:34:30

I forgot I but all of these things come together to help

Courtenay: 00:34:33

you live this legendary life.

Courtenay: 00:34:35

And one of the things that I really push with my fancy lady cowgirl narrative is

Courtenay: 00:34:40

that you wanna wear the hat, wear it.

Courtenay: 00:34:43

If it brings you joy, if it gives you power, if it makes you feel,

Courtenay: 00:34:47

like you can do legendary things.

Courtenay: 00:34:49

Wear the hat.

Courtenay: 00:34:49

I don't care if you've never ridden a horse in your life.

Courtenay: 00:34:51

I don't care if you live in Iowa and you're a farmer, right?

Courtenay: 00:34:54

And your hat might not look like my hat, and that's great.

Courtenay: 00:34:58

One of the things that is important to me through my fancy Lady cowgirl

Courtenay: 00:35:03

community, is to tear down the gates.

Courtenay: 00:35:06

That we have been keeping so tightly shut in agriculture for so many

Courtenay: 00:35:12

generations, and just like you saying, oh my gosh, I feel silly.

Courtenay: 00:35:16

It feels like a costume.

Courtenay: 00:35:18

That's what we've put that on each other, right?

Courtenay: 00:35:21

Like that whole, oh no, you're a farmer.

Courtenay: 00:35:23

You don't wear that cowboy hat.

Courtenay: 00:35:24

Have you, do you even own a ranch?

Courtenay: 00:35:26

Have you, what gener, I had someone say you can't wear a cowboy hat

Courtenay: 00:35:29

until your ninth generation.

Courtenay: 00:35:30

I'm like, what?

Courtenay: 00:35:32

There's these crazy things that people say, but I love when I'm in

Courtenay: 00:35:36

New York City during fashion week and I see a model wearing a cowboy

Courtenay: 00:35:40

hat, and I'm like, you know what?

Courtenay: 00:35:41

She probably never seen a cow in her life, but she is

Courtenay: 00:35:44

representing the cowgirl lifestyle.

Courtenay: 00:35:46

She's living her own legendary life.

Courtenay: 00:35:48

And to me, that's what being a cowgirl is about.

Courtenay: 00:35:51

It's not about a hat.

Courtenay: 00:35:52

It's not about the horse she rode in on or didn't ride in on.

Courtenay: 00:35:55

I think it's it.

Courtenay: 00:35:56

Its a mindset.

Courtenay: 00:35:57

So I just encourage everyone to think of it like that being a cowgirls mindset.

Courtenay: 00:36:01

And you don't have to wear a cowboy hat to be a cowgirl either.

Courtenay: 00:36:04

Like maybe you hate them and that's fine.

Courtenay: 00:36:07

I don't know if I answered your question, but I say just wear it.

Courtenay: 00:36:10

So what you're

Caite: 00:36:10

saying is it's the one time an egg that it's good to leave

Caite: 00:36:13

the gates open instead of shutting them like our father-in-laws do,

Caite: 00:36:16

where it takes literally two people to open the damn thing again.

Caite: 00:36:20

Yeah.

Caite: 00:36:20

I thought maybe it was just our farm, but I was at Arlene's house just

Caite: 00:36:23

yesterday and it took two of us to open the gate somebody else's shut.

Caite: 00:36:27

I'm like, you know what?

Caite: 00:36:28

Just leave the damn thing open.

Caite: 00:36:30

Always.

Caite: 00:36:30

Maybe not literally, because that's how you end up with Yeah.

Caite: 00:36:34

Lamb at weird times, but,

Arlene: 00:36:36

Yeah.

Arlene: 00:36:37

I think that's something that leave our metaphor are working hard on too, is that

Arlene: 00:36:40

idea that you have to be in the club.

Arlene: 00:36:42

That you have to be, have been here for a certain amount of time.

Arlene: 00:36:45

You have to do a certain thing, you have to do ag a certain

Arlene: 00:36:48

way, but there isn't one way.

Arlene: 00:36:50

That's the amazing thing about agriculture.

Arlene: 00:36:53

And in turn, we're also a parenting podcast.

Arlene: 00:36:55

Same thing with parenting, right?

Arlene: 00:36:57

There's no one way, we've all got different kids, we've all got different

Arlene: 00:37:00

livestock, we're all working different land, so there's no one way to do it.

Arlene: 00:37:05

And the gatekeeping just, it doesn't serve anybody.

Arlene: 00:37:09

I it doesn't help.

Courtenay: 00:37:12

No.

Courtenay: 00:37:13

And you know what?

Courtenay: 00:37:15

No.

Courtenay: 00:37:15

And I always say agriculture.

Courtenay: 00:37:19

Yep.

Courtenay: 00:37:19

We are our own worst enemies, and truly, and I bring a unique

Courtenay: 00:37:25

perspective because I was born in it.

Courtenay: 00:37:27

I was raised in it.

Courtenay: 00:37:28

I'm fourth generation, but I have lived.

Courtenay: 00:37:32

In major cities.

Courtenay: 00:37:34

I've lived in urban cultures, I've lived in other countries so I've been out of it.

Courtenay: 00:37:40

And when you get out of it for an extended period of time, like I have,

Courtenay: 00:37:44

man you, you see a different perspective.

Courtenay: 00:37:47

And what I see is that we are so just like trying to keep everything the way

Courtenay: 00:37:53

it is and not let people who don't look like us, think like us, act like us in

Courtenay: 00:37:58

that we're just hampering our own growth.

Courtenay: 00:38:01

And the other thing that kills me about agriculture is we are the first to

Courtenay: 00:38:06

complain when people don't understand us and don't wanna share our stories.

Courtenay: 00:38:10

And they don't care where their food comes from.

Courtenay: 00:38:12

And I'm just like silently in the back, like with my hand raised

Courtenay: 00:38:14

but no you weren't nobody, you weren't willing to tell 'em, you

Courtenay: 00:38:18

weren't willing to welcome them in.

Courtenay: 00:38:20

And so I, that's one of the things I do, through my fancied,

Courtenay: 00:38:23

cowgirl, it's just like top dollar.

Courtenay: 00:38:25

It's a perfect example.

Courtenay: 00:38:27

Nobody ever told those 900,000 people who watched my video, what really

Courtenay: 00:38:32

goes on behind the scenes because nobody was willing to open it up

Courtenay: 00:38:35

and say, look, here's what we do.

Courtenay: 00:38:36

Here's a full transparent, here's how it works.

Courtenay: 00:38:39

Here's, the ins and outs.

Courtenay: 00:38:41

And I think that's something that we need so desperately to do a

Courtenay: 00:38:45

little better job of in agriculture.

Courtenay: 00:38:47

And I take a great pride in being able to do that because the way that

Courtenay: 00:38:50

I help carry on my family's ranching legacy, my Pappy who's running, who's

Courtenay: 00:38:56

calving right now is not gonna be on social media sharing his story.

Courtenay: 00:38:59

He doesn't even, he calls it the Book of Faces.

Courtenay: 00:39:01

It's not Facebook, it's the book of faces.

Courtenay: 00:39:04

But I may not live on the ranch or the farm or be involved in agriculture,

Courtenay: 00:39:09

but I can help tell the story.

Courtenay: 00:39:10

And I think there's so many of us out there and I think

Courtenay: 00:39:13

women are very good at it.

Courtenay: 00:39:14

There's just something about that women have this really beautiful

Courtenay: 00:39:17

way of telling great stories.

Courtenay: 00:39:19

And so I think, there's a lot of us who can.

Courtenay: 00:39:22

Still help share the story and open those gates up just a little

Courtenay: 00:39:26

bit to allow some new people in.

Courtenay: 00:39:28

Through fancy Lady Cowgirl, I have truly been astonished, truly, and I don't just

Courtenay: 00:39:33

say this, I was truly astonished how many people want to maybe wear a cowboy hat?

Courtenay: 00:39:39

How many people would love to go to a bull riding and see a bull?

Courtenay: 00:39:44

How many people would love to go to a farm and learn how what they're buying at the

Courtenay: 00:39:50

grocery store is actually about people are interested and they do want to learn?

Courtenay: 00:39:55

Because I think there's this narrative sometimes in agriculture

Courtenay: 00:39:58

people just don't get us.

Courtenay: 00:39:59

They don't care.

Courtenay: 00:40:00

They're, I don't think that's true.

Courtenay: 00:40:02

And now more than ever, people want to know who's behind their food.

Courtenay: 00:40:06

They want to know who's running the businesses that

Courtenay: 00:40:08

they're, spending money at.

Courtenay: 00:40:09

I think we have this really special opportunity.

Courtenay: 00:40:13

To start sharing the story, but man, I get on social media and I realize

Courtenay: 00:40:17

I'm saying things like agriculture is their own worst enemy, blah, blah, blah.

Courtenay: 00:40:20

I'm not hating on agriculture.

Courtenay: 00:40:22

I show up every day and do what I do because I love this community.

Courtenay: 00:40:28

It's the people you don't make people like they do in agriculture anymore, right?

Courtenay: 00:40:34

Ag kids that are being brought up.

Courtenay: 00:40:37

They are so gonna be set up for success in anything they want to do

Courtenay: 00:40:41

because ag kids are raised different.

Courtenay: 00:40:43

I show up and I preach and I preach, and I even get tough on agriculture sometimes

Courtenay: 00:40:47

because I love agriculture, because I want to see this cowboy and cowgirl and farmer

Courtenay: 00:40:53

and whatever you wanna call yourself, way of life, continue for the next

Courtenay: 00:40:59

generation and the generation after that.

Courtenay: 00:41:02

But I think we're gonna have to do a little better job of sharing the story.

Courtenay: 00:41:07

For

Caite: 00:41:07

our listeners, Arlene, and I look like bobbing head dolls over

Caite: 00:41:10

here about this because I think it's so easy in ag to just get pissed off

Caite: 00:41:15

that people believe the animal rights stuff, and I'd be the first one to

Caite: 00:41:21

be concerned about animal welfare.

Caite: 00:41:23

Absolutely.

Caite: 00:41:24

But you can't blame people for believing stuff if they're only hearing one side.

Caite: 00:41:29

And if they're not hearing our side, you can't be pissed that they don't just

Caite: 00:41:33

magically psychically understand it.

Caite: 00:41:36

It's just that's not how it works.

Caite: 00:41:38

I if we're not telling them somebody

Courtenay: 00:41:39

else is.

Courtenay: 00:41:40

Yeah.

Courtenay: 00:41:41

I pulled up a, I wanted to read this cause like, oh, you're so right.

Courtenay: 00:41:44

To prove, you know the point.

Courtenay: 00:41:46

I had a comment that I screenshotted on my TikTok cause I was like, wow.

Courtenay: 00:41:50

Even if no one else watched this video, this was worth it.

Courtenay: 00:41:53

I had this comment that said, thanks for educating us.

Courtenay: 00:41:56

I am an animal activist.

Courtenay: 00:41:58

I work with animal rights groups and I always worry about animals being abused.

Courtenay: 00:42:03

I had no idea.

Courtenay: 00:42:04

I hope they're all treated this well.

Courtenay: 00:42:06

That right there was worth me editing that two minute video about my bucking bull.

Courtenay: 00:42:12

We are, we're so defensive, but sometimes people like that are willing to learn,

Courtenay: 00:42:19

but I think we just write them off.

Courtenay: 00:42:20

We're like, oh, they're crazy.

Courtenay: 00:42:21

Those crazy people, they'll never understand us.

Courtenay: 00:42:24

Not if we don't give 'em the opportunity.

Caite: 00:42:27

I think maybe we need to worry more about cowgirl hats,

Caite: 00:42:30

which would just be whatever hat is on the head of the cowgirl.

Caite: 00:42:33

Cuz I see you're wearing a ball cap right now.

Caite: 00:42:35

Yep.

Caite: 00:42:35

And less about cow cowboy hats.

Caite: 00:42:37

Let the cowboys have their cowboy hats and the cowgirls can just wear whatever

Caite: 00:42:40

the hell they want on top of their heads.

Caite: 00:42:43

Yeah.

Caite: 00:42:43

And if they don't want anything on top of their heads, cool.

Caite: 00:42:46

That might just be your invisible cow for the

Arlene: 00:42:49

people who are already in the advocating space and who are trying to

Arlene: 00:42:54

make that change and communicate with people, how do we work on not just

Arlene: 00:42:58

talking to each other, because that's what the ag space sometimes feels like

Arlene: 00:43:03

for those of us who are still on the farm.

Arlene: 00:43:05

We want to reach the public.

Arlene: 00:43:07

We want to reach people who aren't an egg, but we end up following each other and

Arlene: 00:43:10

encouraging other, which is great, but if all of our followers are just fellow

Arlene: 00:43:14

farmers and ranchers, then it doesn't feel like we're making much progress.

Arlene: 00:43:18

Do you have any thoughts on how do we expand our reach?

Caite: 00:43:22

Yeah.

Caite: 00:43:22

Arlene, could we just have a moment for the irony that this is three ag podcasters

Caite: 00:43:26

not just talking to each other podcast about, not just talking to ag podcasters?

Courtenay: 00:43:31

Yes.

Courtenay: 00:43:33

No, but that's a really great question and I think.

Courtenay: 00:43:36

It.

Courtenay: 00:43:36

It starts here.

Courtenay: 00:43:37

It starts just like this.

Courtenay: 00:43:39

We talk about it amongst ourselves in agriculture, right?

Courtenay: 00:43:42

And I think that's great.

Courtenay: 00:43:43

Fancy lady cowgirl, for example.

Courtenay: 00:43:45

When that started and when my following started to grow and people started

Courtenay: 00:43:48

to latch onto that and wanted to be a part of the fancy lady cow cowgirl

Courtenay: 00:43:52

community, largely, most of them were in the agriculture space, right?

Courtenay: 00:43:56

Because that was my audience.

Courtenay: 00:43:58

But as I continued for a year after a year to share the story and say, wear the hat.

Courtenay: 00:44:04

Wear whatever hat makes you happy.

Courtenay: 00:44:06

Here's what it really means to be a cowgirl.

Courtenay: 00:44:08

This is the cowgirl code.

Courtenay: 00:44:09

Here's how you live.

Courtenay: 00:44:10

Legendary.

Courtenay: 00:44:11

The more I started to share, then I started to see the mainstream

Courtenay: 00:44:15

people start to come in, and I think it's not a bad thing.

Courtenay: 00:44:20

Advocacy is always good, right?

Courtenay: 00:44:22

Sharing the story is always good, even if it's agriculture, people listening.

Courtenay: 00:44:26

But what I've discovered, my own personal experiences, You share the

Courtenay: 00:44:30

story long enough, the mainstream audiences are going to start to come.

Courtenay: 00:44:34

And now that's one of my big focuses.

Courtenay: 00:44:36

I'm like, okay, how do I get on stages to do keynotes in

Courtenay: 00:44:41

front of mainstream audiences?

Courtenay: 00:44:42

Because I think true advocacy is not advocating to one another, right?

Courtenay: 00:44:48

We have to be advocating and sharing the story outside of

Courtenay: 00:44:52

the agriculture community.

Courtenay: 00:44:54

And people, I say share the story.

Courtenay: 00:44:56

And I largely do that on social media.

Courtenay: 00:44:58

But when I do my keynotes, so I always want to point out, I always say

Courtenay: 00:45:01

things like advocacy might be having a conversation with a mom standing

Courtenay: 00:45:07

wide-eyed in the grocery store who doesn't know if she should buy the

Courtenay: 00:45:10

hormone free or the antibi, what, whatever the hell stupid labeling that

Courtenay: 00:45:15

is in accurate is on the beef, right?

Courtenay: 00:45:17

That could be advocacy.

Courtenay: 00:45:19

Go to your, go to the grocery store in your town or your city.

Courtenay: 00:45:22

Have a con, and you don't even have to educate.

Courtenay: 00:45:25

I think sometimes when we hear the word advocacy, we're like,

Courtenay: 00:45:27

we gotta teach people something.

Courtenay: 00:45:28

Nah.

Courtenay: 00:45:29

Let's use the grocery store scenario again.

Courtenay: 00:45:31

You're walking through, just pick something up and say,

Courtenay: 00:45:34

oh, this is my favorite.

Courtenay: 00:45:35

I actually know the farmer.

Courtenay: 00:45:36

I know the farmer who produced this.

Courtenay: 00:45:37

It's local.

Courtenay: 00:45:38

Put it in your cart and walk away.

Courtenay: 00:45:40

Because that gets the wheels.

Courtenay: 00:45:41

They're like, wait, what?

Courtenay: 00:45:43

They, oh my gosh.

Courtenay: 00:45:43

They know the fuck.

Courtenay: 00:45:44

This is local.

Courtenay: 00:45:45

This is, this was actually raised in my state.

Courtenay: 00:45:48

It doesn't need to be some huge, monumental, you don't need to

Courtenay: 00:45:52

launch a brand and a TV show and do be a keynote speaker.

Courtenay: 00:45:56

And all of the things like advocacy can just be as simple as having

Courtenay: 00:46:00

a conversation with someone.

Courtenay: 00:46:03

And I encourage everyone listening, have a conversation this week with

Courtenay: 00:46:06

someone outside of agriculture.

Courtenay: 00:46:08

Just have a conversation with them.

Courtenay: 00:46:10

You don't need to teach 'em anything.

Courtenay: 00:46:12

People remember how you make them feel.

Courtenay: 00:46:14

They don't remember what you taught them or what data or research or

Courtenay: 00:46:18

greenhouse gas emissions you like.

Courtenay: 00:46:21

Nobody cares.

Courtenay: 00:46:22

People remember how you make them feel.

Courtenay: 00:46:24

So that's my challenge.

Courtenay: 00:46:25

Talk to somebody outside of agriculture.

Courtenay: 00:46:27

Have a conversation, share a cup of coffee.

Courtenay: 00:46:28

Say hello.

Caite: 00:46:31

Yeah, so while we're talking about having conversations, and I promise

Caite: 00:46:35

this is gonna circle back around to a point that'll hopefully make some sense.

Caite: 00:46:39

As a blue-haired, middle-aged white lady, a lot of people are

Caite: 00:46:43

shocked that I love listening to nascar, but only on the radio.

Caite: 00:46:49

I would rather be punched in the face than have to watch a race.

Caite: 00:46:52

And it is entirely because of the commentators cuz you listen to NASCAR

Caite: 00:46:57

on the radio, all you're seeing of the cars is when they come back past the

Caite: 00:47:03

mics, and you hear all the engines.

Caite: 00:47:05

Maybe you hear a wreck.

Caite: 00:47:07

But that's it.

Caite: 00:47:08

And all you're engaging with is how people are presenting that story.

Caite: 00:47:13

So I'm wondering as a professional commentator, it seems a lot like

Caite: 00:47:19

doing standup comedy or improv.

Caite: 00:47:20

There's a lot where you can tell that they're bullshitting because

Caite: 00:47:23

they're on a two hour rain delay and they're just trying to fill air.

Caite: 00:47:27

But how can we improve, how can mom at the grocery store use some of these skills to

Caite: 00:47:34

really improve how we engage with people?

Caite: 00:47:37

Because it's boring to just be like, greenhouse gases, blah, blah, blah.

Caite: 00:47:41

You don't, nobody wants to hear that.

Caite: 00:47:44

Yeah.

Caite: 00:47:44

You talk about bold testicles.

Caite: 00:47:45

People want to.

Caite: 00:47:47

Weirdos like me want to hear that, yeah.

Caite: 00:47:49

But you just talk emissions.

Caite: 00:47:52

Blah.

Caite: 00:47:53

I don't even wanna talk about that.

Courtenay: 00:47:55

The next time you're at the grocery store, walk up

Courtenay: 00:47:56

to someone and say, did you know that they don't tie up bulls nuts?

Courtenay: 00:47:59

They, no, don't do that.

Courtenay: 00:48:00

No, I

Caite: 00:48:01

totally would.

Courtenay: 00:48:01

That's a good question.

Courtenay: 00:48:03

Television, we're obviously we're, I've done everything from hard news

Courtenay: 00:48:07

to lifestyle and entertainment.

Courtenay: 00:48:09

It's always like the human interest stories that attract me the most.

Courtenay: 00:48:13

And I love that you use the sports analogy because I think nobody tells

Courtenay: 00:48:19

stories as well as sports commentators.

Courtenay: 00:48:22

I use the Kentucky Derby a lot of times, as an example, short I, what is it?

Courtenay: 00:48:28

I don't even know.

Courtenay: 00:48:28

Two and a half minutes, two minutes.

Courtenay: 00:48:29

I don't know.

Courtenay: 00:48:30

It's this short race, right?

Courtenay: 00:48:32

And you watch these horses run around the track and it's

Courtenay: 00:48:34

over, like it's literally over.

Courtenay: 00:48:36

The Kentucky Derby on N B C starts with four hours of coverage right before

Courtenay: 00:48:44

this like minute, two minute race.

Courtenay: 00:48:46

That's just instantly over.

Courtenay: 00:48:48

But I eat up every second of that coverage because just like to your point,

Courtenay: 00:48:54

they're telling the stories, right?

Courtenay: 00:48:56

It's like top dollar.

Courtenay: 00:48:57

They're telling the stories of the horse.

Courtenay: 00:48:59

You know the horse, like I, I love the story about mine.

Courtenay: 00:49:02

That Bird 50 to one, they roll up to the Kentucky Derby in a horse trailer.

Courtenay: 00:49:08

They have on cowboy hats.

Courtenay: 00:49:09

These like these dudes from New Mexico and NBC is like freaking out.

Courtenay: 00:49:14

They're like, who the hell are these people?

Courtenay: 00:49:16

Who are these guys?

Courtenay: 00:49:17

This is a joke, and they're interviewing 'em because like they look different.

Courtenay: 00:49:20

Whatever.

Courtenay: 00:49:21

It's a good storyline.

Courtenay: 00:49:22

Mine.

Courtenay: 00:49:22

That bird goes on to win the Kentucky Derby.

Courtenay: 00:49:25

They paid 9,000 bucks for that horse as a cult.

Courtenay: 00:49:27

You know those, that's why you get invested.

Courtenay: 00:49:31

Top dollar is a great example.

Courtenay: 00:49:32

You say, how can we have these conver, I could do videos about here are the feed

Courtenay: 00:49:36

rations that we feed our bowl because we care for him and we want him to perform.

Courtenay: 00:49:41

But no, I'm like, this is top dollar.

Courtenay: 00:49:43

Top dollar loves scratches.

Courtenay: 00:49:45

Top dollar loves Nats.

Courtenay: 00:49:46

He digs big ass holes in the pasture, which are a pain in the ass.

Courtenay: 00:49:49

But it's just what he does because he's a bull.

Courtenay: 00:49:52

I think you have to allow people to form those like personal connections.

Courtenay: 00:49:59

People feel like they know top dollar.

Courtenay: 00:50:02

Personally, it's hilarious.

Courtenay: 00:50:03

Go to event or after he bucks it like a pbr, I have dms and people

Courtenay: 00:50:07

are like, watch they're recording their tv, like as if I'm not watching

Courtenay: 00:50:11

it and they're tagging me in it.

Courtenay: 00:50:13

They're like, oh my god, it's top dollar.

Courtenay: 00:50:15

And when I think about agriculture, And sharing our story, you are like

Courtenay: 00:50:20

such a beautiful example of this, Kate, like blue hair loves NASCAR because

Courtenay: 00:50:26

you're not the stereotypical, like when people, when we see a farmer in a movie

Courtenay: 00:50:31

or on tv, you know they've got the piece of straw in their mouth and the

Courtenay: 00:50:34

over, and you're like, what the hell?

Courtenay: 00:50:36

And so I think embracing the unexpected is a beautiful way to

Courtenay: 00:50:44

really form a connection with people.

Courtenay: 00:50:46

Because Kate, when you walk away, they're gonna be like, huh a fuck.

Courtenay: 00:50:50

Who knew?

Courtenay: 00:50:51

If she can do it, she doesn't look the, like I could probably, do it too.

Courtenay: 00:50:55

I'm not sure if I'm answering your question, but I think you have to be

Courtenay: 00:50:59

able to form those connections and you have to give people permission.

Courtenay: 00:51:05

To ask all the questions, right?

Courtenay: 00:51:07

I always say there are no dumb questions.

Courtenay: 00:51:09

I can't tell you how many times people will like, send me a DM and

Courtenay: 00:51:12

or, and say something like, okay, I know this is probably stupid,

Courtenay: 00:51:16

but like, how do you tell the front of your cowboy hat from the back?

Courtenay: 00:51:20

Don't tell anyone I asked you.

Courtenay: 00:51:22

And I'm like, that's not a stupid question.

Courtenay: 00:51:23

That's a totally valid question.

Courtenay: 00:51:25

If I always say I know how to drive a car.

Courtenay: 00:51:27

I've been driving a car since I was 16 years old.

Courtenay: 00:51:29

You put me in a NASCAR car, you put me in an F1 car, I

Courtenay: 00:51:32

would be like, okay, excuse me.

Courtenay: 00:51:34

Are there gas pedals?

Courtenay: 00:51:35

What are we, and it's, you just don't know what you don't know.

Courtenay: 00:51:39

And so I think you just have to be willing to answer the questions

Courtenay: 00:51:43

that might seem silly or mundane.

Courtenay: 00:51:45

You have to be willing to form a personal connection.

Courtenay: 00:51:49

People remember how you make them feel.

Courtenay: 00:51:51

Yeah.

Courtenay: 00:51:52

And sometimes that's just being friendly.

Courtenay: 00:51:54

That's just a hello.

Courtenay: 00:51:55

I think we get in these big picture in agriculture, we're like, how do

Courtenay: 00:51:59

we teach the world about what we do?

Courtenay: 00:52:00

I don't know, like maybe we just be nice to each other.

Courtenay: 00:52:03

Like, why don't we set that example for people?

Courtenay: 00:52:07

Now I'm just getting on a rant, so I'll stop and let you

Courtenay: 00:52:09

continue asking your questions.

Caite: 00:52:11

No, a hundred percent because even as a cattle farmer, I don't give

Caite: 00:52:15

a rat's ass what top dollar eats.

Caite: 00:52:18

I'll admit it.

Caite: 00:52:19

I'm not gonna start feeding my beef cattle.

Caite: 00:52:21

What you're feeding your, top of the line bucking bull because my cows will

Caite: 00:52:25

get so god damn fat on what he eats.

Caite: 00:52:27

Just guessing that his caloric needs are a little bit different than my mama

Caite: 00:52:32

cows out sitting around in the pasture.

Caite: 00:52:35

But I am very interested in the fact that he digs big goddamn holes.

Caite: 00:52:39

That's interesting to me.

Caite: 00:52:41

And if you treat somebody like they're stupid for having a

Caite: 00:52:44

question, it may very well be stupid.

Caite: 00:52:47

They're gonna remember that you made him feel like shit.

Caite: 00:52:49

Yep.

Caite: 00:52:49

That is exactly.

Caite: 00:52:50

And they are not gonna come ask you anything else that is Exactly.

Caite: 00:52:54

And so when it's about something more important, quote unquote, than which

Caite: 00:52:59

side of their cowboy hat as the front, they're gonna go to whoever they find

Caite: 00:53:03

on Instagram or TikTok or whatever.

Caite: 00:53:05

And that may not be somebody who's gonna give them the who's not

Caite: 00:53:11

gonna have the conversation that we would want them to be having.

Courtenay: 00:53:14

Let's put it that way.

Courtenay: 00:53:16

Yeah.

Courtenay: 00:53:16

And you just, you gotta be kind to people even, animal rights obviously

Courtenay: 00:53:20

as farmers, ranchers, people in agriculture, we battle with that a lot.

Courtenay: 00:53:24

We're not gonna change most of their minds.

Courtenay: 00:53:26

But what we can do is either delete the comments or whatever it is on

Courtenay: 00:53:30

social media and just don't partake.

Courtenay: 00:53:32

But what I just fires me up is when I see people in agriculture

Courtenay: 00:53:37

responding with you dumb as o b, you don't know shit about shit.

Courtenay: 00:53:41

No.

Courtenay: 00:53:41

Of course they don't, Karen, because all you're doing is

Courtenay: 00:53:45

fueling the fire with hate.

Courtenay: 00:53:47

Instead, if you have to comment, say something like you know what?

Courtenay: 00:53:51

Thank you.

Courtenay: 00:53:52

I'm so glad that you care about the an, the welfare of animals, because as a

Courtenay: 00:53:56

rancher, that's of my utmost priority.

Courtenay: 00:53:59

I love that we both care about animals and leave it at that.

Courtenay: 00:54:03

You cannot just attack people with negativity, and you can't just attack

Courtenay: 00:54:09

people with facts and figures and data, because like you said, people don't give a

Courtenay: 00:54:13

shit, they're gonna remember how you make them feel, and we have to get that through

Courtenay: 00:54:19

our brains because I just, it makes me so sad to see some of the conversations that

Courtenay: 00:54:25

are happening online and in person too.

Courtenay: 00:54:28

People do this shit in person too, and I'm like, oh man.

Courtenay: 00:54:32

That was not the way to handle that conversation, because they're gonna

Courtenay: 00:54:35

walk away not remembering anything you just told them, but they're gonna walk

Courtenay: 00:54:39

away remembering that you were a dick.

Courtenay: 00:54:41

And then that sets us back another 10 years in the conversation.

Courtenay: 00:54:46

I have

Caite: 00:54:47

gotten those comments and it is goddamn hard not to come out swinging.

Caite: 00:54:53

Oh yeah.

Caite: 00:54:53

When somebody's, you're a murderer, you're, blah, blah, whatever.

Caite: 00:54:57

But if what they're gonna remember is that you're an angry elf who wouldn't

Caite: 00:55:01

talk to them about their actual concerns.

Caite: 00:55:04

And they may have valid concerns, they may come at it in a ridiculous manner,

Caite: 00:55:11

but they may, it comes from a good place.

Caite: 00:55:15

It does.

Caite: 00:55:16

It comes from their concern about the animals, about our planet, about whatever.

Caite: 00:55:24

And I think you're absolutely right

Arlene: 00:55:26

that we, that's my big issue with a lot of the co.

Arlene: 00:55:30

I was just gonna say, a lot of the conversations about greenhouse gases,

Arlene: 00:55:33

like farmers get so angry about it, but do we not all want the same thing?

Arlene: 00:55:39

We want a healthy planet for the future generations.

Arlene: 00:55:42

We don't want to destroy the resources that we have.

Arlene: 00:55:46

So yes, some people are coming after, the livestock industry, but why

Arlene: 00:55:51

not address those concerns rather than just try and yell out Yeah.

Arlene: 00:55:54

Or get angry about it.

Arlene: 00:55:55

Let's look at the research.

Arlene: 00:55:57

Let's see what we can do.

Arlene: 00:55:58

Let's look at our own industry and make the changes that we can so that

Arlene: 00:56:02

then we can say, we did these things.

Arlene: 00:56:04

Now how about the other industries?

Arlene: 00:56:05

Rather than just be like, not our fault.

Arlene: 00:56:08

We didn't do it someone else's horse off.

Arlene: 00:56:10

Let's take accountability for the things that we can control.

Arlene: 00:56:13

And then, hopefully other people in other

Caite: 00:56:15

industries are gonna do same things.

Caite: 00:56:16

That's such a good point, Arlene, because it's not like they're

Caite: 00:56:18

being worried about greenhouse gases because they hate farmers.

Caite: 00:56:22

They're worried about global climate change.

Caite: 00:56:25

Exactly.

Caite: 00:56:25

Because they don't want to die in a fire or, have their home

Caite: 00:56:30

state flooded out or whatever.

Caite: 00:56:31

Like it's not about us.

Caite: 00:56:34

Yeah.

Courtenay: 00:56:34

And yeah.

Arlene: 00:56:37

And the conversations about eating less meat.

Arlene: 00:56:40

I think a lot of that comes down to people are looking for something they can do.

Arlene: 00:56:44

What can I do?

Arlene: 00:56:45

Yes, I can drive less, maybe I can ta take less flights, but I'm not going

Arlene: 00:56:49

on a air airplanes every other week.

Arlene: 00:56:50

Yeah.

Arlene: 00:56:51

Like I'm not, I don't have a private jet.

Arlene: 00:56:53

Yeah, for sure.

Arlene: 00:56:54

But like the things that people can do on an individual basis, often if you're

Arlene: 00:56:58

looking at a news article or watching tv, they're trying to give people ideas of

Arlene: 00:57:03

things that they can do to make an impact.

Arlene: 00:57:05

And one of the things they suggest is eating less beef.

Arlene: 00:57:07

And sure, maybe that's a thing you can do.

Arlene: 00:57:10

I don't know that's necessarily the answer, but.

Arlene: 00:57:14

The media, the news story is trying to, give a little idea.

Arlene: 00:57:18

Give us permission.

Arlene: 00:57:19

You're right.

Arlene: 00:57:19

So yeah.

Arlene: 00:57:20

If our industry can provide some examples, then we can also suggest some

Courtenay: 00:57:24

other things.

Courtenay: 00:57:24

Yeah, you're right.

Courtenay: 00:57:25

And I love that last line.

Courtenay: 00:57:26

Suggest some other, some other things that you could do or like things that could,

Courtenay: 00:57:28

people can do on an individual basis.

Courtenay: 00:57:31

And I'm, I don't say this to like bash anybody, advocates, cuz I'm not perfect.

Courtenay: 00:57:36

I've come a long way in my advocacy journey.

Courtenay: 00:57:39

I used to be the first person in the comments like, oh yeah, guess what?

Courtenay: 00:57:43

I was that person.

Courtenay: 00:57:44

I would fight back, I would post the nasty comments like, I've evolved.

Courtenay: 00:57:48

But when you talk about climate change, I think that's a great

Courtenay: 00:57:50

example about, greenhouse gases.

Courtenay: 00:57:52

I'll see people making these videos and doing things that are

Courtenay: 00:57:55

like, cows are not the problem.

Courtenay: 00:57:58

Okay.

Courtenay: 00:57:59

And that's it.

Courtenay: 00:57:59

That's the post.

Courtenay: 00:58:00

I'm like, okay but you didn't give the mainstream audience.

Courtenay: 00:58:04

What?

Courtenay: 00:58:05

That doesn't.

Courtenay: 00:58:07

Move the conversation.

Courtenay: 00:58:08

Like you can't just scream cows are not the problem and then show a bunch

Courtenay: 00:58:12

of airplanes and then not give us any like steps or not give the general

Courtenay: 00:58:17

population like any sort of like educational component to go with that.

Courtenay: 00:58:22

And that's sometimes that's a perfect example of advocating

Courtenay: 00:58:25

within agriculture, right?

Courtenay: 00:58:27

Because when you make a little video or whatever and post on your Instagram,

Courtenay: 00:58:29

you're like, cows are not the problem.

Courtenay: 00:58:32

Who's gonna share it?

Courtenay: 00:58:33

Everybody in agriculture.

Courtenay: 00:58:35

But are we moving the needle?

Courtenay: 00:58:37

Are you changing the conversation?

Courtenay: 00:58:38

No, because it's the people who already are on your side that

Courtenay: 00:58:42

are just circulating the video.

Courtenay: 00:58:43

Yeah.

Courtenay: 00:58:44

You may be getting a hundred thousand views on your reel and you've

Courtenay: 00:58:46

got a hundred thousand followers on, TikTok or whatever, but what

Courtenay: 00:58:50

are you actually teaching people?

Courtenay: 00:58:52

What are you teaching The people who live in Dallas or New York

Courtenay: 00:58:55

or in the big cities in Canada?

Courtenay: 00:58:57

Like.

Courtenay: 00:58:58

How are we?

Courtenay: 00:58:58

And that's hard.

Courtenay: 00:58:59

I'm not saying that it's easy to do cuz I'm like, how would I make a reel that's

Courtenay: 00:59:03

cows are not the problem, but here's what you can do on a, i, I don't know.

Courtenay: 00:59:06

I think we just have to be a little more intentional maybe with

Courtenay: 00:59:10

how we're like trying to start conversations and shift narratives.

Caite: 00:59:14

So Courtney, and I'll probably edit this out, but I feel like we

Caite: 00:59:18

need a TikTok series of top dollar, like digging in to climate change

Caite: 00:59:23

with his holes and then taking a deep dive into this hole about, I love it.

Courtenay: 00:59:28

This could be a whole new series, like Top Dollar does a

Courtenay: 00:59:31

deep dive and it's like some random, like just something random every

Courtenay: 00:59:35

week and they're like, what the

Caite: 00:59:36

hell I would seriously about this shit outta that because it's

Caite: 00:59:39

boring to talk about climate change.

Caite: 00:59:41

It is.

Caite: 00:59:42

We're all gonna die.

Caite: 00:59:43

There's no way to fix it.

Caite: 00:59:45

And it's really a lot easier to yell.

Caite: 00:59:47

Cows are not the problem.

Arlene: 00:59:49

I, nothing we can, there's nothing we can do.

Courtenay: 00:59:52

It is, and that's just everything.

Courtenay: 00:59:54

Like to your point, like everything in life, like I was

Courtenay: 00:59:56

laughing with my mom this morning.

Courtenay: 00:59:58

I found this really great protein powder and it's six ingredients and it's like

Courtenay: 01:00:01

beef bone broth is like how it's made.

Courtenay: 01:00:03

And my mom's looking at it and we're looking at the macro and we're

Courtenay: 01:00:06

like, dang, this is really good.

Courtenay: 01:00:07

This is a great clean.

Courtenay: 01:00:08

And I said, lol, they'll probably come out, next week that bone broth is

Courtenay: 01:00:12

killing people cuz you just can't win.

Courtenay: 01:00:14

And I think we just have to sort accept that mindset.

Courtenay: 01:00:17

Like it wor it's all gonna come to an end at some point.

Courtenay: 01:00:20

Like we can do what we can do while we're here.

Courtenay: 01:00:22

And my mom, when I first started advocating, I would get so worked

Courtenay: 01:00:26

up and I would take mean things.

Courtenay: 01:00:28

So personally, and I say this to everyone, my mom used to say, Courtney, You

Courtenay: 01:00:33

cannot single-handedly save the world.

Courtenay: 01:00:35

And damn, I damn I was trying.

Courtenay: 01:00:37

She would be like, you cannot single-handedly save agriculture.

Courtenay: 01:00:40

And I was like by God, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try.

Courtenay: 01:00:42

And so I think we have to just remember that it's gonna take all of us.

Courtenay: 01:00:46

We can't single-handedly solve all the problems.

Arlene: 01:00:50

Yeah, that's true.

Arlene: 01:00:51

So you just segued perfectly into my next question because

Arlene: 01:00:54

we are a parenting podcast.

Arlene: 01:00:55

So let's talk about your mom.

Arlene: 01:00:57

I was listening to your episode on your podcast the other day with your mom.

Arlene: 01:01:01

What do you think it was about the way you were raised that gives you

Arlene: 01:01:05

the confidence in your, like this.

Arlene: 01:01:10

I don't know this fancy cowgirl spirit, right?

Arlene: 01:01:13

That, that, lets you, blaze your own path and be yourself and like

Arlene: 01:01:18

hopefully we can all raise kids who have this kind of enthusiasm for life.

Arlene: 01:01:22

Yeah.

Arlene: 01:01:22

Tell us about your mom or tell us about your upbringing and how they

Courtenay: 01:01:26

How they helped, I didn't realize it at the time,

Courtenay: 01:01:28

but like growing up, there was nothing that my mom didn't do.

Courtenay: 01:01:32

There was nothing.

Courtenay: 01:01:33

And my mom and dad obviously ran the ranch together, but like my

Courtenay: 01:01:36

dad has a job outside of the ranch.

Courtenay: 01:01:38

Like he runs two companies in Kansas City.

Courtenay: 01:01:41

So he goes to work every day.

Courtenay: 01:01:42

So it was my mom home pulling calves, riding horses, taking kids, doing places.

Courtenay: 01:01:48

That was my mom.

Courtenay: 01:01:48

She was a truck driver, right?

Courtenay: 01:01:50

Like she was driving us up and down the road to rodeos and the older I

Courtenay: 01:01:54

get now, I can look back cuz people are like, how do you, like, where

Courtenay: 01:01:57

did you get your confidence from?

Courtenay: 01:01:59

Like, how come you just think that you can do whatever the hell you want?

Courtenay: 01:02:02

And I'm like, oh, I don't, I don't know, I just have a lot of courage

Courtenay: 01:02:04

and then I like look at my mom and I'm like, oh, there it is.

Courtenay: 01:02:08

When I think of my mom you know that Shania Twain song that's let's Go Girls.

Courtenay: 01:02:12

And like you see it on TikTok and people are like, every time I hear

Courtenay: 01:02:14

that I just wanna kick a door down.

Courtenay: 01:02:15

That was my mom.

Courtenay: 01:02:16

She'd be there just like kicking doors down.

Courtenay: 01:02:18

We used to always laugh, if mom showed up at school, It was about to go down, not

Courtenay: 01:02:25

because one of the kids was in trouble cuz she would take care of us at home.

Courtenay: 01:02:28

But like mom was always there.

Courtenay: 01:02:30

Like she was defending us.

Courtenay: 01:02:32

She had our backs.

Courtenay: 01:02:33

She was hard as hell on us.

Courtenay: 01:02:36

But I think it, it shaped, and I say us, I have a little sister, it shaped my sister

Courtenay: 01:02:41

and I into these like humans who truly think that we can do anything, right?

Courtenay: 01:02:47

I really believe that I can do whatever I want.

Courtenay: 01:02:50

It doesn't matter that I'm a woman, it doesn't matter where I came from.

Courtenay: 01:02:53

And I think that's just how our, my mom raised us and it

Courtenay: 01:02:56

wasn't like a sit down lesson.

Courtenay: 01:02:58

Like girls, you can do anything you put your mind to.

Courtenay: 01:03:00

Like my mother would never, it was just she showed us.

Courtenay: 01:03:03

She just showed up every day and showed us.

Courtenay: 01:03:06

And yeah, I'm really, I have a really cool mom.

Courtenay: 01:03:09

She's a little bit of a loose cannon.

Courtenay: 01:03:10

Sometimes the things that she posts on Instagram, I'm like,

Courtenay: 01:03:13

oh my God, please take that off.

Courtenay: 01:03:14

You have the same last name as me.

Courtenay: 01:03:16

What are you?

Courtenay: 01:03:18

Very political.

Arlene: 01:03:20

She's very, I'm gonna

Courtenay: 01:03:21

censor you now.

Courtenay: 01:03:22

But she just, even like her political posts, I'm a little more like new.

Courtenay: 01:03:27

I don't, that's not what my account is about.

Courtenay: 01:03:30

And she literally, I'm like, mom, why do you keep, and she's cuz

Courtenay: 01:03:33

by God I'm gonna take a stand and I'm not gonna let them roll over.

Courtenay: 01:03:37

And but that's how I was raised.

Courtenay: 01:03:39

She's no, if I don't speak up, who will?

Courtenay: 01:03:41

And I'm like you go girl.

Courtenay: 01:03:42

You speak up.

Arlene: 01:03:44

Yeah, you'll get there eventually.

Arlene: 01:03:45

Probably as we get older, I'm sure that our filters come off right.

Arlene: 01:03:49

I see my, the way my grandmothers are.

Arlene: 01:03:51

Yeah.

Arlene: 01:03:52

She's I'm, they don't care anymore.

Courtenay: 01:03:53

I'm whatever.

Courtenay: 01:03:53

I don't care.

Courtenay: 01:03:54

I'm like, that's clear, clearly.

Arlene: 01:03:57

Yeah, that's right.

Arlene: 01:03:58

Could you change your name on Instagram at least?

Arlene: 01:04:02

So I was also looking at your address, your address at the FFA

Arlene: 01:04:06

convention, and you're talking about, and you've talked earlier too, about

Arlene: 01:04:08

being an Ag kid and what that meant.

Arlene: 01:04:11

What do you think are the values that our ag kids are bringing

Arlene: 01:04:14

out into the world and what is it that's unique about Ag kids?

Arlene: 01:04:17

I've heard that before and I'm, I know that I've gotten jobs in the past

Arlene: 01:04:21

because I was from a farm, not cuz I necessarily had experience, but what

Arlene: 01:04:24

is it that, that our kids are getting that they can't get other places?

Courtenay: 01:04:29

Almost simple things that I notice the most.

Courtenay: 01:04:31

And I say that because I was raised in agriculture and I've been out of it.

Courtenay: 01:04:35

I've been living out of it for over a decade.

Courtenay: 01:04:37

Little things add kids when they shake your hand, they shake your hand and they

Courtenay: 01:04:42

look you in the eye When they do it.

Courtenay: 01:04:44

Add kids.

Courtenay: 01:04:45

Say, yes ma'am.

Courtenay: 01:04:47

No ma'am.

Courtenay: 01:04:47

Yes sir.

Courtenay: 01:04:48

No sir.

Courtenay: 01:04:49

Their word means something.

Courtenay: 01:04:52

Like in agriculture, when we say we're gonna do something, we do it

Courtenay: 01:04:55

because that's how we were raised.

Courtenay: 01:04:57

Ag kids are taught to take care of their neighbors, and that

Courtenay: 01:05:00

continues well into their adulthood.

Courtenay: 01:05:03

It's integrity, it's humility, it's showing up, working hard, understanding

Courtenay: 01:05:09

the value of hard work, right?

Courtenay: 01:05:12

Like I had to get out of agriculture to realize that is very rare, right?

Courtenay: 01:05:19

People don't shake hands anymore.

Courtenay: 01:05:21

They don't open doors for each other anymore.

Courtenay: 01:05:25

They don't look each other in the eye.

Courtenay: 01:05:27

They don't have real conversations anymore.

Courtenay: 01:05:29

But when I go to an organization like ffa, those kids, I always say, after doing the

Courtenay: 01:05:36

National FFA convention, I am way less worried about the future of agriculture

Courtenay: 01:05:41

because those kids are topnotch.

Courtenay: 01:05:45

They understand it, they get it.

Courtenay: 01:05:48

They are sharing agriculture's message.

Courtenay: 01:05:51

I did a podcast or something or a, a session with a couple of

Courtenay: 01:05:55

'em, and I literally was laughing because there were a couple of words

Courtenay: 01:05:58

that I literally had to look up.

Courtenay: 01:06:00

I'm like, what did this 16 year old just say to me?

Courtenay: 01:06:03

They are so just ahead of the curve.

Courtenay: 01:06:06

They're ahead of their peers.

Courtenay: 01:06:08

Who are not raised in that industry because they get up in the mornings before

Courtenay: 01:06:12

school and they go do chores, right?

Courtenay: 01:06:14

They come home from school, they do chores, then they go

Courtenay: 01:06:16

to basketball practice, right?

Courtenay: 01:06:18

Ag kids aren't sleeping in ag.

Courtenay: 01:06:21

Kids aren't playing video games because there is work to be done.

Courtenay: 01:06:24

And that translates into adulthood so beautifully, and it is going

Courtenay: 01:06:30

to set them up for success.

Courtenay: 01:06:32

Whether they wanna work in an office in a high rise in Dallas, or they

Courtenay: 01:06:35

wanna run the family ranch, they're gonna be so well equipped to do it.

Arlene: 01:06:40

So another thing that we are always talking about is not just

Arlene: 01:06:44

talking about the good stuff, because it's easy to be like, it's all gonna

Arlene: 01:06:48

be great, and raising kids on the farm is fantastic and everything's

Arlene: 01:06:51

wonderful and beautiful, but we also acknowledge how hard it can be both for

Arlene: 01:06:56

our kids and for ourselves as parents.

Arlene: 01:06:58

So what gaps do you see that ag kids have that, as parents we can maybe fill in?

Arlene: 01:07:04

Or what are the things that you, they're just gonna have to

Arlene: 01:07:06

learn when they get out there?

Arlene: 01:07:08

That we can't teach them that, that they're not learning.

Arlene: 01:07:11

Yeah.

Arlene: 01:07:11

That's a, if they're question on the farm or on the ranch,

Courtenay: 01:07:14

that's, I'm trying to think back to like me, one of the hardest

Courtenay: 01:07:16

things that I struggled with in my television career was just how mean

Courtenay: 01:07:24

and nasty people can be human beings because, I think in, we in agriculture,

Courtenay: 01:07:28

we're surrounded by each other, right?

Courtenay: 01:07:31

And largely agriculture is made up of really good, honest, hardworking

Courtenay: 01:07:36

people who have the same set of values.

Courtenay: 01:07:39

And when I got out into the real world, I was like, holy cow, you wanna talk

Courtenay: 01:07:43

about a lack of values and morals?

Courtenay: 01:07:46

And I was working in the television and entertainment industry, so I'm

Courtenay: 01:07:49

seeing it at the highest level, right?

Courtenay: 01:07:51

At its most heightened form.

Courtenay: 01:07:53

Because television, entertainment, you hear it on the news all

Courtenay: 01:07:56

the time, it's a shit show.

Courtenay: 01:07:57

It truly is.

Courtenay: 01:07:58

I loved telling stories.

Courtenay: 01:07:59

I loved being a part of the industry, but there was a lot of stuff that

Courtenay: 01:08:02

went on behind the scenes that I just I just fought back with.

Courtenay: 01:08:06

I would just get mad because I had never been raised around people who weren't

Courtenay: 01:08:12

brought up the way that I was brought up.

Courtenay: 01:08:14

Even in my small town, my high school, not all of them were ag

Courtenay: 01:08:17

kids, but like we were still small, Midwestern, rural America kids.

Courtenay: 01:08:21

And so when I got out of the real world, it was a little bit of a, of

Courtenay: 01:08:25

an eyeopener and even silly things like, oh, you don't lock your door,

Courtenay: 01:08:29

your car door in Dallas, Texas.

Courtenay: 01:08:31

First of all your stuff's gonna be gone.

Courtenay: 01:08:33

Second of all, there'll be a homeless guy in the back seat.

Courtenay: 01:08:35

Like just little things that growing up on like a farmer ranch that we just never had

Courtenay: 01:08:39

to worry about, and so I think it's really important, and my parents did a great job

Courtenay: 01:08:44

of this and it was through agriculture.

Courtenay: 01:08:46

Like it was going to National Junior Angus shows in major cities, place places

Courtenay: 01:08:51

like Indianapolis and these big cities.

Courtenay: 01:08:53

You can still be involved in agriculture, but you can help get

Courtenay: 01:08:57

your kids like out into the world a little bit because I, they need

Courtenay: 01:09:01

to see the ugly that's out there.

Courtenay: 01:09:03

They need to see what it's really like in some of these places to one,

Courtenay: 01:09:08

really appreciate and understand where they came from, but to

Courtenay: 01:09:11

also be a little more aware and.

Courtenay: 01:09:14

I don't wanna say less trusting, but honestly like I had to get a little less

Courtenay: 01:09:17

trusting, living in places like New York and Dallas and like now I go home to

Courtenay: 01:09:22

the ranch and I pull into my driveway in our like two mile gravel driveway.

Courtenay: 01:09:28

And my car that I drive, when you put it in park, it

Courtenay: 01:09:31

automatically unlocks the door.

Courtenay: 01:09:33

And the first thing I do is lock the door.

Courtenay: 01:09:34

And like I do that in my own driveway at the, and on the farm in Kansas.

Courtenay: 01:09:37

And I'm like, what am I doing?

Courtenay: 01:09:39

But that's because I've been conditioned living in these big cities.

Courtenay: 01:09:42

So I think maybe that's a gap, just remember to like, let your kids get

Courtenay: 01:09:45

out into the world a little bit.

Courtenay: 01:09:47

Let 'em, when they're old enough and you feel comfortable, let 'em go to the city

Courtenay: 01:09:51

for the day and let 'em experience, what it's like I guess in other cultures.

Arlene: 01:09:57

Yeah, and I think too that it's also important to remember that.

Arlene: 01:10:03

There's, there are people who don't look like us that are also good.

Arlene: 01:10:08

And like that sometimes we can get into this mindset of the good

Arlene: 01:10:12

people are from the country and we'll just have to get back to that.

Arlene: 01:10:17

And keeping our eyes open to where the good is everywhere else too, because there

Arlene: 01:10:23

are lots of people who don't look like us, who, even if they don't farm or, and

Courtenay: 01:10:26

just travel, doing great things, I always encourage

Courtenay: 01:10:28

people, let your kids travel.

Courtenay: 01:10:30

If they wanna travel, let 'em travel.

Courtenay: 01:10:31

Maybe it's like across the street, maybe it's to the next town.

Courtenay: 01:10:33

But I moved to the Czech Republic on a whim and my parents, I don't

Courtenay: 01:10:38

know if they supported it, but they were like, okay, see you.

Courtenay: 01:10:41

Yeah, see you later.

Courtenay: 01:10:42

I've been to, I've been to, yeah.

Courtenay: 01:10:44

Like I've been to good luck.

Courtenay: 01:10:45

18 countries now all around the world.

Courtenay: 01:10:47

And man, you wanna talk about a different perspective.

Courtenay: 01:10:52

When you get even outside, and it can be outside of your own county,

Courtenay: 01:10:55

outside of your own state, maybe even outside of your own country.

Courtenay: 01:11:00

It just gives you such a different perspective.

Courtenay: 01:11:02

Much to your point, there are incredible people all over the world of all shapes,

Courtenay: 01:11:08

sizes, colors, religions, like even people that I've met traveling who don't believe

Courtenay: 01:11:14

in the same, God I do, or whatever.

Courtenay: 01:11:17

At the end of the day, we have a lot more in common than we do

Courtenay: 01:11:21

not, and I think allowing your kids to travel and experience new

Courtenay: 01:11:25

things is one of the most greatest.

Courtenay: 01:11:27

It's just one of the greatest gifts that you can give them.

Arlene: 01:11:30

Absolutely.

Arlene: 01:11:32

So Katie has left us because her laptop died, but we're gonna keep going.

Arlene: 01:11:37

So what have you got in the future?

Arlene: 01:11:40

Where, what are you, what else are you working on right now?

Arlene: 01:11:42

What are you looking forward to?

Arlene: 01:11:43

Yeah.

Arlene: 01:11:44

Can you give us any hints on right now what's on the horizon?

Courtenay: 01:11:46

Right now we are madly prepping behind the scenes because we,

Courtenay: 01:11:50

my partner Kaya Twisselman and I, my back road to cowgirls partner so Back

Courtenay: 01:11:55

Road Cowgirls is a digital series.

Courtenay: 01:11:57

It's on YouTube.

Courtenay: 01:11:58

There's eight episodes out.

Courtenay: 01:12:00

We're releasing new ones every week.

Courtenay: 01:12:02

This was like this wild, crazy dream.

Courtenay: 01:12:05

We were eating pasta and drinking wine one a year ago, almost exactly a year ago in

Courtenay: 01:12:09

Dallas, because Kaya had a, got stranded.

Courtenay: 01:12:12

Yeah.

Arlene: 01:12:13

That's when all.

Arlene: 01:12:15

That's when all the best

Courtenay: 01:12:16

ideas come out happen over wine and pasta.

Courtenay: 01:12:18

And we were just what?

Courtenay: 01:12:19

What's the dream?

Courtenay: 01:12:20

And I said, my dream is to have a TV show.

Courtenay: 01:12:22

And Kyle was like, I'd like to have a TV show too.

Courtenay: 01:12:23

And I was like, yeah, I want to show mainstream audiences

Courtenay: 01:12:27

who we are, who agriculture is.

Courtenay: 01:12:29

I wanna introduce people from all walks of life to the diverse faces of agriculture.

Courtenay: 01:12:35

Right?

Courtenay: 01:12:35

And Kyle was like, yeah, me too.

Courtenay: 01:12:37

And we're like, we should do it.

Courtenay: 01:12:39

So we rented a 2002 Euro van and in one month we planned and

Courtenay: 01:12:46

booked 16 different stories.

Courtenay: 01:12:47

I had an old D S L R camera, I shoot and edit in my television career,

Courtenay: 01:12:51

so I know how to shoot and edit.

Courtenay: 01:12:52

Didn't have great gear, but I was like, I got this old dusty camera,

Courtenay: 01:12:55

let's go shoot some stories.

Courtenay: 01:12:57

And we spent two weeks driving up and down the California coast and in the

Courtenay: 01:13:02

Central Valley telling stories of people in agriculture from all different walks

Courtenay: 01:13:06

of life, like we talked to a farmer.

Courtenay: 01:13:10

In the central coast whose grandfather kind of came over, started farming

Courtenay: 01:13:16

in the central coast during World War ii, was sent back to the

Courtenay: 01:13:19

internment camps, died over there.

Courtenay: 01:13:22

But an American family saved the land.

Courtenay: 01:13:25

Protected the land, and when they, the family members came back, Tom Ikeda and

Courtenay: 01:13:29

his family were able to continue farming.

Courtenay: 01:13:31

So he has this beautiful story about being a Japanese American farmer.

Courtenay: 01:13:35

We talked to a rancher in Sonoma Valley.

Courtenay: 01:13:38

She's this like amazing kick ass like advocate.

Courtenay: 01:13:42

She's running her own direct beef business.

Courtenay: 01:13:43

She goes to the farmer's market every week and like she's doing all the things

Courtenay: 01:13:47

and she sits on a bunch of boards.

Courtenay: 01:13:48

Like she's just this really, like powerful woman in ag.

Courtenay: 01:13:52

And Jamie was born deaf.

Courtenay: 01:13:54

And so she's doing all of this with profound hearing loss.

Courtenay: 01:13:57

We're, we went and talked to a girl outside of one of the big cities in

Courtenay: 01:14:02

California, we went into San Francisco.

Courtenay: 01:14:03

Like we were trying to really show that agriculture seeps into all facets

Courtenay: 01:14:07

of our lives, into all cultures.

Courtenay: 01:14:10

And so we just told these great stories and it was really fun and we enjoyed it.

Courtenay: 01:14:13

And we didn't really know what the future was.

Courtenay: 01:14:15

We're like, I don't know, let's see what happens.

Courtenay: 01:14:16

Like maybe we'll go to another state next.

Courtenay: 01:14:18

And we paid for this via a GoFundMe because we had no money.

Courtenay: 01:14:22

And agriculture stepped up and they're like, Hey, like people were

Courtenay: 01:14:24

giving us 50 bucks, a hundred bucks.

Courtenay: 01:14:26

We had some big donations.

Courtenay: 01:14:27

And so we had just enough money to do this.

Courtenay: 01:14:30

And we got an email while we were on the trip from this group that

Courtenay: 01:14:33

was like, Hey, we wanna be involved.

Courtenay: 01:14:35

And I blew it off cause I was like, we're already on the trip.

Courtenay: 01:14:37

Catch us next time.

Courtenay: 01:14:39

And Kaya.

Courtenay: 01:14:41

Literally we already paid for the man and it was so like in, I was

Courtenay: 01:14:44

shooting, editing, like I was so in it.

Courtenay: 01:14:46

So Kaya responded and we set up a call when we got back and we, these two amazing

Courtenay: 01:14:50

ladies in this amazing company, and they're like, yeah, we wanna be involved.

Courtenay: 01:14:53

So we just announced it.

Courtenay: 01:14:54

But Simplot Grower Solutions came on.

Courtenay: 01:14:57

They are now helping us fund a full pilot, a 30 minute pilot that is

Courtenay: 01:15:03

going to be shot by a production company who we've already hired.

Courtenay: 01:15:05

We've already got the story, we haven't announced who it is yet, but we're gonna

Courtenay: 01:15:09

do a professional sort of pilot that then we're gonna shop out to all the mainstream

Courtenay: 01:15:14

networks, the streamers, maybe it'll be on Netflix, maybe it'll be on hbo O Max,

Courtenay: 01:15:18

maybe NBC will pick it up for Peacock.

Courtenay: 01:15:20

Like our goal is to get it on a mainstream streamer because we are trying to bring

Courtenay: 01:15:26

these stories to mainstream audiences.

Courtenay: 01:15:29

And so it has just been the wildest, craziest journey and we didn't have

Courtenay: 01:15:34

a clue in hell what we were doing, and we just went out and did it.

Courtenay: 01:15:38

And.

Courtenay: 01:15:39

It's just been incredible to see what's come from it.

Courtenay: 01:15:41

So that's what we're working on.

Courtenay: 01:15:42

We're gonna shoot that pilot in the end of April and then continue producing it

Courtenay: 01:15:46

and telling the story throughout the year.

Courtenay: 01:15:48

And then hopefully we'll be ready, be ready to shop that thing out.

Courtenay: 01:15:50

Hopefully the next time you talk you'll be like, corn to DeHoff.

Courtenay: 01:15:53

Essene on Netflix's or hbos background?

Courtenay: 01:15:56

Cowgirls.

Arlene: 01:15:58

Yeah.

Arlene: 01:15:59

Yeah.

Arlene: 01:16:00

Season one available now.

Arlene: 01:16:03

That is amazing.

Arlene: 01:16:04

Yeah.

Arlene: 01:16:05

There's, that's the thing about ag is there are so many stories, right?

Arlene: 01:16:08

The ways that people have found agriculture, whether they're

Arlene: 01:16:12

first generation or 10th, right?

Arlene: 01:16:14

Every everyone has a unique story and there's so much diversity in

Arlene: 01:16:18

this industry, which is amazing.

Arlene: 01:16:21

So we ask each of our guests this question and we always ask, if you were

Arlene: 01:16:26

gonna dominate a county, a category at the county fair, what would it be?

Arlene: 01:16:31

And you can make up categories to ensure that

Courtenay: 01:16:33

you dominate are a winner, a category at the county fair.

Courtenay: 01:16:38

I would dominate the looking good category.

Courtenay: 01:16:41

Like I look back at some of the outfits that I, we showed like steers

Courtenay: 01:16:44

and stuff at the county fair, and I'm like, wow, that American flag

Courtenay: 01:16:48

shirt was fierce, like aggressive.

Courtenay: 01:16:52

Yes.

Courtenay: 01:16:53

Fierce.

Courtenay: 01:16:54

Sure.

Courtenay: 01:16:54

So I think I would dominate the, like just the fan, I would dominate

Courtenay: 01:16:57

the fancy lady cowgirl category.

Arlene: 01:17:02

Yes.

Arlene: 01:17:03

Yeah, definitely.

Arlene: 01:17:04

Big ribbon.

Arlene: 01:17:05

Fancy, yeah.

Arlene: 01:17:05

Glittery ribbon.

Arlene: 01:17:06

Maybe you can design your own.

Arlene: 01:17:11

So we also are always have a cussing and discussing segment.

Arlene: 01:17:15

So for listeners, you can send in your submissions to our SpeakPipe.

Arlene: 01:17:19

Check the show notes for the link.

Arlene: 01:17:21

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

Arlene: 01:17:24

and we will read it out for you.

Arlene: 01:17:26

So Courtney, other than all the things we've already talked about, do you

Arlene: 01:17:30

have anything that you were either

Courtenay: 01:17:32

cussing or discussing this week?

Courtenay: 01:17:33

Week?

Courtenay: 01:17:33

I'm always cussing and discussing something.

Courtenay: 01:17:36

I'm like, what have I cussed and discussed?

Courtenay: 01:17:39

What have I cussed and discussed?

Courtenay: 01:17:40

This is so stupid.

Courtenay: 01:17:41

I cuss and I cussed this every day.

Courtenay: 01:17:42

I live in an apartment, right?

Courtenay: 01:17:44

And it, not a New York City apartment.

Courtenay: 01:17:45

Like I've got a little bit of space.

Courtenay: 01:17:47

It's a one bedroom.

Courtenay: 01:17:48

It's nice.

Courtenay: 01:17:48

My bathroom.

Courtenay: 01:17:50

You cannot open the bathroom drawers if the bathroom door is not completely shut.

Courtenay: 01:17:56

Because whoever, probably a man built this stupid bathroom and every morning,

Courtenay: 01:18:03

and I slammed my F and finger in it every morning and I'm like, I don't know who

Courtenay: 01:18:07

built this apartment, but this is stupid.

Courtenay: 01:18:10

So that's what I have been cussing and discussing every

Courtenay: 01:18:13

morning for the last four years.

Courtenay: 01:18:15

I'm like, if I, you gotta the door then

Arlene: 01:18:19

choices then.

Arlene: 01:18:21

That would be super frustrating.

Arlene: 01:18:23

So we are recording still in February, although this episode won't come

Arlene: 01:18:27

out till spring, so I will have forgotten all about it because my kids

Arlene: 01:18:30

will be in school five days a week.

Arlene: 01:18:32

But right now I'm cussing snow days because we had one last week and

Arlene: 01:18:36

we had two the week before and we had three no two the week before.

Arlene: 01:18:40

And there's gonna be another big snowstorm tomorrow and it might happen into Friday.

Arlene: 01:18:46

So I don't know when my kids are actually gonna go to school, like all the days

Arlene: 01:18:49

of the week and when I'm actually supposed to do the work that I think I'm

Arlene: 01:18:53

gonna get done while they're at school.

Arlene: 01:18:54

But now this is not that week.

Courtenay: 01:18:56

New York again, like in Canada, sometimes in the us.

Courtenay: 01:18:58

Like when I was growing up, if you had snow days, say you had

Courtenay: 01:19:00

10 snow days, you had to make those up at the end of the year.

Courtenay: 01:19:04

Do you have to make up those snow days?

Courtenay: 01:19:08

Oh, our

Arlene: 01:19:09

kids do not, no.

Arlene: 01:19:11

They're just like a freebie.

Arlene: 01:19:13

In theory.

Arlene: 01:19:13

They're supposed to do online school now because online school's a thing.

Arlene: 01:19:17

But in practice it doesn't really happen.

Arlene: 01:19:21

Because when we had all, when we were doing months of online school,

Arlene: 01:19:24

everyone had all their devices and everyone was set up for all the things.

Arlene: 01:19:27

But it doesn't always work out that way when you're actually supposed

Arlene: 01:19:29

to be in school in the building.

Arlene: 01:19:31

Some of the days of the week.

Arlene: 01:19:33

Yeah, exactly.

Arlene: 01:19:35

So on behalf of Katie and I, thank you so much for joining us today.

Arlene: 01:19:38

Can you remind people where they can find you online?

Arlene: 01:19:40

We'll include it in the show notes too.

Arlene: 01:19:42

Of course.

Arlene: 01:19:42

Yeah.

Courtenay: 01:19:42

So everything.

Courtenay: 01:19:42

Where can they find you?

Courtenay: 01:19:43

isHouse@courtneydehoff.com.

Courtenay: 01:19:45

At Court DeHoff on Instagram.

Courtenay: 01:19:46

Courtney DeHoff on Facebook Court.

Courtenay: 01:19:48

DeHoff on TikTok.

Courtenay: 01:19:49

You search my name, it will probably all come up.

Arlene: 01:19:55

That's right.

Arlene: 01:19:55

We can watch some holes.

Arlene: 01:19:56

Being formed on the ground.

Arlene: 01:20:00

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Arlene: 01:20:01

It was fantastic talking to you.

Arlene: 01:20:03

Thank

Caite: 01:20:03

you for joining us on Barnyard Language.

Caite: 01:20:05

If you enjoy this show, we encourage you to support us by becoming a pat patron.

Caite: 01:20:09

Go to www.patreon.com/barnyard language to make a small monthly donation to

Caite: 01:20:15

help cover the cost of making this

Arlene: 01:20:17

show.

Arlene: 01:20:18

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Arlene: 01:20:20

so you never miss an episode.

Caite: 01:20:23

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Caite: 01:20:25

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Caite: 01:20:27

And on Twitter we are Barnyard Pod.

Caite: 01:20:29

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Caite: 01:20:32

private Barnyard language Facebook

Arlene: 01:20:33

group.

Arlene: 01:20:34

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Arlene: 01:20:37

If you or someone you know would like to chat with us, please get in touch.

Arlene: 01:20:40

We are a proud member of the Positively Farming Media Podcast Network.

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