Eggcellent Adventures Ep. 54 Ft. Matt @GreenhornGrove
Welcome to another episode of Excellent Adventures. Reese right here. This is a very special episode. I got one of my friends, my buddies, my homies. Matt Greenhorn Grove is in the building.
Reec:He's also has a wonderful foundation. These guys are doing some amazing things, but how we met was on the Internet. I lost some chickens. A puppy got to them, made chicken nuggets out of them. Matt saw the post, and he sent me hatching eggs, and we've been cool ever since.
Reec:My brother from another. What's going on?
Matt:Hey, man. What's going on? What's happening?
Reec:Been like, I don't know, looking forward to it. We've been talking about this for a minute.
Matt:Yeah. This is I mean, I'm pretty excited about this. This is like I told you, this is my first, like, real podcast experience. I'm I'm excited to be here.
Reec:In studio. This is this is our our sub studio until we move back to the farm and have our farm studio. But like I said, I'm excited to get here. So what we ask everybody getting into this is what is their old cluck moment? What was the moment that you knew I'm doing this backyard chicken thing or farming thing or homesteaded thing or agriculture thing?
Matt:You know, it's funny is like, we bought the farm and we got there and like, I had no idea what I was doing at all. None those do. Got there. I mean, I come from the city and I'm like, all of a sudden I have 25 acres and I have farm buildings and all this stuff. And I was going to Tractor Supply for something else.
Matt:And my wife said to me, she said, You know they have chickens there. And I was like, Okay. I got down there. I looked at the chickens and I was like, All right, I'll get some of these. And I was like, How many chickens should I get?
Matt:And she goes, I don't know, a dozen?
Reec:Like eggs, right? Yeah, exactly.
Matt:And I was like, All right, cool. So I got a dozen chickens and then I get them home and we got the brooder and all that stuff set up, the guy tried to help me out. And then she's like, okay, now you have to build a coop. I was like, Oh.
Reec:So you got chicken mats early. Didn't have
Matt:a coop, didn't know how to take care of them. I had one bag of food and 12 chickens.
Reec:Wow. So
Matt:this is gonna get ugly quick.
Reec:That's funny. Had no idea that that was not gonna work.
Matt:No. And then in me, very me fashion, I spent like 3 or $4,000 total, like building out these elaborate chicken coops with hatcheries and automatic doors. Like, I I have my my chicken coop has, I think 18 nesting boxes in it, like for a dozen chickens.
Reec:And they probably pile all into one box. They
Matt:do, they use like two box and put all the eggs in there.
Reec:That's hilarious, man. So how much stuff did you build before I get back on task? How much stuff did you build in there that you don't use?
Matt:I think right now I'm using most of
Reec:it. Okay.
Matt:Nowadays, it only took me five years to get there, but I didn't use most of it at first a long time.
Reec:Yeah. Man, it it's stuff like that that this is what this podcast is about. It's it's just inspirational to the person that wants to get into, like, backyard agriculture, whether it's gardening or raising chickens. Because our background is similar. Collegiate sports, athletes, nightlife, right?
Reec:Yep. Nothing to do with agriculture or growing. Had you ever even owned plants before you got into this?
Matt:I think I had some like table cactuses.
Reec:Same cactus. You
Matt:see them at the at the checkout aisle at Home Depot and they're coming like a fancy you know, like, I'd get I'd keep that alive probably.
Reec:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's a cactus. Yeah.
Reec:What could go wrong?
Matt:Even even if even after it dies, it still looks like a plant. So it just sit there.
Reec:That's cool, man. Five years later, now you you have a foundation that's helping build gardens around the country. You're sending free seeds to people. I feel like I could learn how to plant an entire garden ecosystem, self sustainability situation just by watching your post.
Matt:I mean, I see people tell me that all the time and I'm like, realize I don't know that more than you.
Reec:I can't tell. I've just kept notes, you know, and I
Matt:put it in these nice little scripts and I talked about this stuff and and so it sounds like I really know what I'm talking about and I do, I make sure I do the research, I make sure everything's accurate. Right. It's real important to me, but I'm I'm we're all doing this together
Reec:Right.
Matt:At the same time.
Reec:Right. Like Man, that's cool, man. I I just enjoy I enjoy seeing the journeys of people, yours especially, it's extremely inspirational. Because I get it from my people all the time like, I wanna get started, I just don't know where to start. We none of us do.
Reec:Yeah. We just do it. Like you said, you went to you went to grab some stuff, you came back with a dozen chickens.
Matt:Yeah. Yeah. I mean your story, I feel the same way about yours. Because I mean, I've been watching you since the beginning and now you're buying it, then you got the bigger property, now you're buying another bigger property. Yeah.
Matt:You know, it's actual farm and you got you got more livestock than I do.
Reec:Yeah. Well, I hope they're happy.
Matt:Yeah, mean, from what I've seen, you're a great steward for your animals.
Reec:Appreciate that. Yeah, I try to be they count on me to depend on me to whether they're gonna live or not, you know what I mean? I take it serious. And I mean that I mean, it's fun. It's fun, rewarding work, that's what I get from it.
Reec:The other stuff that I did with radio, music, all that stuff, it was cool. It was it was glitzy. You know what I mean? Other people really like it, but this is way more rewarding for me even though I still enjoy that side a little bit. You know what I mean?
Matt:Yeah. You know, it's it's weird. I have I was always thinking I needed to be a big deal in the world. Like that was important to me.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:You know? And I would try to, you know, I buy fancy cars and I'd I'd we'd go out to these bars and I would buy the most expensive bourbon, just so people could see how big my tab was
Reec:at the
Matt:end the night,
Reec:you know? Right.
Matt:Now, I'm, you know, on the social media. I have all these really super cool people that message me and talk to me.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:That I was I never would have thought people like that would be friends with me.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:And it it makes me happier to be able to help them grow a tomato
Reec:Mhmm.
Matt:Than to be able to brag into somebody about everything I have or what I know.
Reec:I love that point. And I feel very close to that point because like I'll be in a feed store and I'll spark up a conversation with somebody about chickens or about goats now because I'm just getting some goats, right? And this conversation is with a person I probably would have never spoken to. I thought they would have given me the time of day to give me some advice or vice versa. So it's pretty cool, man.
Reec:I love that. So with you just saying that, wanna segue into social media because you're huge on social media. I'm not gonna let you downplay it today because it does it all the time. Not gonna let them downplay it over a million followers, multiple social media platforms, people love your content. You do spark some very controversial subjects sometimes in a very palatable way, in a very conscious way.
Reec:You don't make anybody feel bad about what they may should be looking at. I'll put it that way. I love your approach, but I will say this, my experience in this social media world coming from the entertainment world has been so different. It's been much more helpful. People are a little bit more happy on this side.
Matt:Yeah.
Reec:Have you noticed that or what's been your experience?
Matt:Oh God, so much, man. I mean, just like there's I I I said this, was interviewed for this article that got done about me and I they they were asking me about it and they said, what makes your audience different?
Reec:Mhmm.
Matt:And I said, you can have two people that are sitting at opposite sides of the political spectrum. Mhmm. And then you start a conversation about compost. And they're sitting there chatting with each other Mhmm. And laughing and joking, and they don't realize they're supposed to hate each other for five minutes.
Matt:Yes. Okay. Like, I I believe these common experiences are so much more powerful. Common interests are so much more powerful than common enemies.
Reec:I like that. That makes so much more sense because I can have a conversation that a guy y'all know I'm black. So I have a conversation with a guy that pulls up with a big beard and and a a MAGA hat on. And, you know, we come from different sides of the political agreement circle or or line. Right?
Reec:And we'll have a conversation, very, very nice conversation about raising chickens. Yeah. You know what I mean? Or what pig feed is gonna be the best Yeah. Or something like that.
Reec:And we can sit there and have a conversation. It's like a common ground. It's almost like music. Yeah. Two people singing the same song.
Reec:They might not even even speak the language the song
Matt:is in, but we agree about something. That's so that's that's a big part of why I do what I do the way I do it.
Reec:Mhmm.
Matt:And it's I've I noticed that early on. You know, I noticed it pretty early on before I even hit big, I could tell that there was something special about this. Yeah. You know, that it's just I and at that time we were even more divided. Like I think we've started to recognize the misinformation and the vision for what it is.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:Which is, it's really empowering the people who want to control us more. Yeah. But by us taking it back and saying, no, we're gonna find things we like with each other.
Reec:Yeah. I like that. You know? No, that that's a great point. I think the more that we try to murder that division with our own platforms, I think that's really important.
Reec:That's why I really appreciate what you do because you're doing that. You're making people not only giving them a different perspective, but also telling them do their own research. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, don't believe me, go look it up and then see if we really need to be arguing about stuff.
Matt:I call it normalizing kindness. Yeah. I like that. Just normalize kindness, you know what I mean? It's it's setting an example, you know, you can't fight darkness.
Matt:Darkness wants you to fight it.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:You can't do that. You then you become darkness.
Reec:Yeah. That's true.
Matt:The only way to to fight darkness is to embrace the light.
Reec:There you go. Sounds like a Jedi warrior. It's fine. I'm not I am I am like a
Matt:super nerd. I own a lightsaber.
Reec:I got it. Also I do too. And a full size r two d two drinking cup. Yeah. I do.
Reec:I have that. We have those things in common as well. But, man, also so let's talk about this too because social media with you having such a wide platform, right, and the megaphone on social media. What was that moment that it started building up and you were like, wow, I'm really becoming a social media creator. It's
Matt:it happened overnight. Like almost literally overnight. So since 2021, when we bought the farm until almost the very end of 2023, it was like December.
Reec:Mhmm.
Matt:I I had spent years trying to build it up and I did all these voice overs, it's all about vanity and ego. Yeah. And I was gonna make people laugh, I was gonna become famous and that's what I wanted.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:And then in then in 2023, my wife said, you have to stop drinking. She said, you're a drunk and you are angry when you're drunk and you're not helping yourself and it's not making your life better. She says, you have to stop drinking. And I said, yeah, she's right. And so I did.
Matt:And then you look at your content, you look at what you're doing, you see it through a different lens. Yeah. You know? And I looked at everything I do and I was like, this is trash. Mhmm.
Matt:Like I'm not doing anything for anybody. But then you look in my comments, and the people in my community are just helping me helping each other and giving each other advice. And now like they're they're doing it for nothing. Yeah. They get nothing in return.
Matt:And so I looked at that and I said, what would they do if they had 25,000 followers? Mhmm. And and I said, they would probably do something nice for people. And they would do something good with it and something useful. And so I said, okay, here it is.
Matt:I'm giving myself thirty days. Mhmm. I'm gonna use my own voice. I'm gonna stop the dumb voice overs. I'm gonna stop trying to make people laugh.
Matt:And I'm just gonna speak from my heart Yeah. About things that I think that matter, like the vision Yeah. And about us coming together and about, you know, using positivity and growing stuff. I said, if people stop following me, I said, I'll just I'll quit. You know, like thirty days if people stop following me, if people leave my channel, I'll quit, and I'll be I'll focus on things.
Matt:Right. And in in thirty days, I gained 50,000 more followers.
Reec:That's crazy. Just being yourself.
Matt:Yeah. 25,000 to 75,000. I've been doing it for years. Mhmm. I was lucky to gain a thousand followers in a
Reec:month. Right.
Matt:That was a big month for me. Instead I gained 50,000 in one month. And then the next month I gained 75,000. The month after that I gained over a 100,000. Yeah.
Matt:And then by the end of the year, was I think I was almost I was over a million probably by the end of end of last year.
Reec:Wow. That's amazing, bro.
Matt:Yeah. And it's and it that was that moment was when I stopped trying to be funny or stopped trying to be interesting or stopped trying to get famous. Mhmm. And I started just focusing on doing good for other people.
Reec:Yeah. That's incredible, man. And that that goes to show that it is a market for people actually trying to do something positive. Mhmm.
Matt:I I think it's more than that. I think people are hungry
Reec:Mhmm.
Matt:For goodness. Like we're all sick of it. We're all sick of like people being ugly to each other. Yeah. We just want love again.
Matt:Like we want people to love each other again and care about each other. You know what my biggest post is that Six Pillars of Homesteading. I gained, I think a quarter million followers of that one post. Yeah. And at the end of the post, I say, help the people that care about you, and the ones that don't.
Matt:Mhmm. And it's like, I got so many comments from people who would just quote that one line and that was their whole comment.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:Because it was just it hit them so hard.
Reec:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it hits me hard just hearing it and I've I've heard it a lot of times. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Reec:That's dope, man. It's just it's really refreshing. I hope people take that away. If if anything else from this podcast, I hope they take that away. Yeah.
Reec:That one line right there. He copyrights everything, so don't try to steal it.
Matt:That's That's right, TM.
Reec:That's it, man. That's cool. So let's talk about getting into this whole homesteading journey, right? You buy the farm. What jolted you to buy the farm in the first place?
Matt:Well, ironically, it was being a drunk.
Reec:Okay. So we would sit on
Matt:the back porch, me and she was my girlfriend at the time. She was my wife yet. She's my girlfriend at the time. And we I had moved into her house because it was COVID. So I got rid of my townhouse, we moved into her place, which is a whole other interesting story.
Matt:But so we'd sit out back at night on the back porch and we would drink beer and sit and chat and just being drunk, like,
Reec:we should buy a farm.
Matt:I'll tell you, it would solve everything.
Reec:We bought a farm. Not to worry about nothing. Yeah. Grow food? Yeah.
Reec:That'd be essential. Yeah. That's it. And so
Matt:I started a garden like that there. It was like, I grew a tomato and I ate that tomato. Was like, that is a delicious tomato.
Reec:That was your old cluck moment. That tomato changed your Yeah, really did. That's crazy. So it was the best tomato you've ever had in your life. It really was.
Reec:And garden was sad.
Matt:I had these like one gallon or like one pound or whatever, one cubic foot bags of dirt and I put three tomato plants in there and try to
Reec:frame them all. Then
Matt:I'd overwater them every single day, so they got rot. And I like, what is this disease thing on there? My wife knows better than it. She's like, yeah, that's fungus.
Reec:I was like,
Matt:oh, we'll just clip that off. Alright.
Reec:It's alright. Let's peel it off.
Matt:It's still growing tomatoes. That's all
Reec:that matters. It's fine.
Matt:It's fine. It's happening.
Reec:Oh man. So a conference, a moment in drunk history brings you to the idea of the farm. At what point did it become serious?
Matt:2020, we were talking about it. And then, you know, we knew that she had to My wife's a doctor. So she was finishing her residency and we needed to look to move before she would take up her first permanent position. Right. And so when we were looking, she was like, Well, what do you think about South Carolina?
Matt:I said, I don't really have an opinion.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:She says, well, one of the areas so she had is big student loans. You're a doctor, you get
Reec:big student
Matt:And one of the ways to pay off your student loans is by working in areas that are underserved, like rural communities.
Reec:Right.
Matt:And so it was an option on the table. Mhmm. Like we can move this rural community and we could have just bought a regular house. But I was like, no. We're talking about buying a farm.
Reec:Let's do this. Might as well. And then you're in in in a a rural community, which it comes with its own perks if you go certain routes. Yeah. Mhmm.
Matt:Well, I tell you that I've been I've never been happier. The smaller town I moved to, the happier I get.
Reec:Wow. Say it again for the people in the back. The smaller
Matt:town I moved to, the happier I get. I was I grew up in Chicago.
Reec:Mhmm.
Matt:I I lived in San Francisco. I lived in Las Vegas.
Reec:Mhmm.
Matt:And my just before this, was in Charlotte. And, you know, it's like Charlotte was a smaller town than
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:Than Vegas was a smaller place than San Francisco, smaller than Chicago. And it's like, now I'm in county with 16,000 people.
Reec:Wow. Yeah. I'm at 17,000 where I am now.
Matt:Oh, yeah. You guys are big town.
Reec:Yeah. Bet you
Matt:guys got a Walmart, I
Reec:think we do. That's fancy.
Matt:We don't got that.
Reec:You don't go to Walmart? No.
Matt:We got a Wendy's.
Reec:There you go. There go. You go something.
Matt:But yeah, I'm just so happy in the small town area.
Reec:Yeah. It's funny how things perspectives will change what happiness is. Right?
Matt:Oh my god. So much. Wow. What makes you happy?
Reec:Seeing these animals, having these conversations, learning, and then teaching people things that I've learned. In this space especially. I literally told somebody asked me about building a studio space because I've had several studios, right? And I told them everything he needed that made me kind of happy, but I had got so much more joy telling this young lady what to put in her chicken brooder. She had ducklings and I was like, Hey, if you get a paint tray, put the water over the paint tray so when they splash, it goes in the paint tray and you won't ruin your bedding every day.
Reec:And she was like, Oh my God, that is a great idea. I said, I got it from somebody else and now you have it.
Matt:That is a great idea.
Reec:And I have ducks right
Matt:now and
Reec:I
Matt:change out the bedding every No,
Reec:you put a paint tray in there and sometimes it's gaps. So I just put a little gorilla tape on the gap so they won't get the little feet. Because they have the little nails on the little feet. Right?
Matt:Yeah.
Reec:Yeah, just put a paint tray and then put the water on top of the paint tray.
Matt:I'm to build them a, they're big enough now. They're about to get their own duck hutch. Okay. There's gonna be a whole new YouTube series.
Reec:I I can't wait. Duck it. Do it. Oh, it's gonna be it's not just about
Matt:the ducks. It's gonna be all long form content. So it's like new I I do shorts. I'm the king of shorts.
Reec:Yeah, you are.
Matt:My sixty second video is like
Reec:They go platinum every time.
Matt:I tell you what, it's it's so hard to script it down to sixty seconds and people are always like, you forgot to, so was like, I didn't forget it,
Reec:sixty sixty seconds, it's like, there's so much I can do. And it's no dead space.
Matt:Yeah.
Reec:It's like, boom, boom, boom, every frame has meaning. You know what I mean? You're talking through every frame. I think I called you once, I was like, how the hell did you do that? Because I was like, bro, how do you keep pace and don't forget going from this scene to that scene, I know the camera's moving, it looks like a Steven Spielberg produced picture, I love it, man.
Reec:But yeah, I can't wait for that, I can't wait to see that.
Matt:You know what's crazy is when I, it takes me three to four hours to script it, because I practice the script over and over.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:Read it out loud, over and over. That's why it's so clear when I get to the garden and stuff. Yeah. I've already read it fifty, sixty times out loud. Right.
Matt:And I've, this word sounds wrong, and it doesn't flow. I'm gonna change this word. Let me get my thesaurus and find something that's a better fit for this.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:But yeah, I mean, it's like the long stuff is gonna be, I think a lot better and it's gonna be more concise. And I'm the first series I'm doing is, I have no idea how to build blank.
Reec:Okay.
Matt:So it's all kinds of stuff I don't know how to do.
Reec:Like I
Matt:have no idea how to build a duck hutch. I don't, I have no idea. I don't know how to put a paint tray
Reec:down under water. But you know now. I do now. But the thing is that you say that when I believe you think it's true, but you've built other things. So I know you know, you'll figure it out and you're gonna know what to do.
Matt:Well, that's the video. The video is me doing the whole process of how I figure stuff out so people can see it. It's gonna be me researching on YouTube. It's gonna be me looking up ideas. It's gonna be me coming up with a plan.
Matt:Me going to the store to get whatever I need. And I'm gonna set a budget for these things. Like it's gonna be like, it'll be like, I'm gonna build a duck hutch and it's gonna cost me a $100 or I can spend a $100 or anything I find on my property.
Reec:There you go. I like that. I can't wait to watch those series. I just built a dog kennel like that. Gotta watch the YouTube.
Reec:I was like, so I went and saw dog runs and they were like six, dollars seven thousand for a three bay run, right? I got those big great Pyrenees. I got the German shepherd who's getting older and I'm like, I wanted something nice for them. It was a lean to on our barn, but it was enclosed. Mhmm.
Reec:I said, we could turn this into a kennel, a kennel run with the retriever kennels I already had, and we did.
Matt:Do know that's where my chicken coop came from, right?
Reec:That's crazy.
Matt:Same thing, was an add on shed side on the side of my pole barn.
Reec:Yeah, so same, yep. I didn't even know what a lean to was until I figured it Yeah, because the guy, it's a guy at our property that knows all the terms. He was like, it's lean to. And I said, what? He said, it's lean to.
Matt:And I
Reec:said, Okay, I get it. It leans to me. Right? I said, Alright, I'm gonna turn this lean to into a dog kennel. And that's what happened.
Reec:We got it done. With weight mats that are stall mats now And a little ingenuity. How
Matt:hot do get out there for?
Reec:It gets pretty warm, but it has so much shade that it's cooler in the rear, like under it. So we have a run out. So what I learned with my Rabbitat, we made a rabbit hat, right?
Matt:It
Reec:would rain in there and then it would get soggy. So I figured if I just left a small portion that is not shaded, right? The sun can hit it and it'll dry out faster. And that's what's been happening. Nice.
Reec:Yeah. That works. Yeah, it worked. So I was like, wow, mistakes are making the things that we're doing now better.
Matt:Oh yeah. That's the number one thing is like, so I built that chicken coop when I first built it, I set up like $34 into it, spent way too much money. And then down the road, I knew all the things that I'd done wrong. So like I built in doors that I could shovel straight out the side of the the lean
Reec:to. Yeah.
Matt:Apparently is what it's
Reec:Right. Apparently.
Matt:I filled doors like and I built doors in the back of my chicken coops later or my my egg
Reec:Yeah. Yeah. Egg boxes. Yeah. So I
Matt:can get right to the egg boxes, right inside the coop without walking through chicken poop.
Reec:Yeah. That's it.
Matt:You know? So like the kids can run out there in their pajamas in the morning and gather eggs. Yep. And that's all that stuff like, they were all cheap, small fixes that I did that made it so much better.
Reec:Yeah. I'm doing the same now because obviously I'm moving in a temporary like spot to work and I'm building things and making sure that I don't build them in the wrong spot. So we got like dog kennel now of a 40 by 20 or 10 or 15 dog kennel that we've turned into a chicken run right now. And I've got like egg boxes in there and stuff like that. And I was like, you know what?
Reec:Let me put one of the kennel doors on the side so I can get in here fast and change the water and the food. Let me put this in the front. We were trying to figure out how to make a makeshift roof on the back. I was like, I'm just gonna buy another gate, Lay the gate on the top, use the kennel the little pieces that hold the kennel together, and just lay the gate on the top like a roof, and then run tin on top of that. And I didn't have to buy any wood or anything.
Matt:Yeah. Good.
Reec:Alright. And it was, like, quick and easy.
Matt:I tried to do as much have a do you have a room of doom yet?
Reec:Not yet. It's coming though. I already know. If I've seen you and yours, I know you got like saws and clamps and all types of stuff.
Matt:Oh man, it's even, it's so much in there now. Like, it's just like I I've talked to my wife about just getting a dumpster and just cleaning that room. Because I have like
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:So I had this bad habit. If I see a broken TV on the side of the road Mhmm. I'll stop and grab it because I know how to fix
Reec:Okay.
Matt:So I fixed TVs like crazy and I just gave them away to people.
Reec:That's crazy. How did you learn how to fix TVs? I was poor. Hey, that's how I learned how to make radio commercials. I'm not even gonna lie to you.
Reec:I was like, y'all will pay me how much? Oh, I'm about to learn how
Matt:to do this. Yeah, I was poor. I was watching TV on like a little 30 inches screen or something like And I'm driving down the road and there's this 45, 50 inches huge TV on the side of the road. And I said, I'm gonna take that. Yeah.
Matt:I took it, I got it home, the screen was fine. I ended up watching some internet videos and bought a $30 part on eBay. At the time it was those expensive TVs.
Reec:They are, they still are. I mean, anything over $500 to me, I don't care how many millions I have is expensive. So if I can get something for free, put $30 into it and now it's, come on bro,
Matt:that's perfect. I still own those TVs, my whole house is all TVs.
Reec:All TVs from side of the road TVs? Yeah, road TVs, which is good. Love road TVs, That's cool. Well, being being broke could definitely teach you some things. It's either gonna make you or break you.
Reec:Yeah. Yeah. So that's what's up, man. That's that bro, we got a lot in common. A lot in common.
Reec:That's crazy. That's how I got my dealer's license, my car dealer's license.
Matt:Is that right?
Reec:Being broke. Yeah. Yeah. Being broke and have a high insurance. I was like, wait a minute.
Reec:Hold on. You mean to tell me I can get four cars insured for the same price as one car being insured?
Matt:I'm gonna
Reec:get my dealer's license. That's what happens. That's crazy, man. Wow. Alright.
Reec:So let me get back on task. My ADHD takes over. So you get this farm. Mhmm. And at what point do you start being a farmer or you start farming?
Matt:So I don't know that I've ever really would call myself a farmer, more than a homesteader.
Reec:Okay. Homesteading. Yeah. Let's politically, I guess verbally correct. I would put it
Matt:as like the first time I started profiting and making money was off the chickens.
Reec:Okay.
Matt:So I was my, my big plan before I knew what I was doing was to sell eggs. And then I spent $34,000 in the coop. And I was like, all right, let's do the math here. Yeah.
Reec:Carry the one. One dozen is $3.06
Matt:it'll take me sixty seven years to pay off the chicken coop by selling eggs.
Reec:$33,000 coop. Yeah.
Matt:I was like, okay, well that's not effective. Uh-huh. So I I I ended up finding for cheap, we found these rare birds like the Ayam Samannis, the ones
Reec:that sent you. Yeah.
Matt:And I saw that Purina commercial where they were talking about it, it's like, well you got the Ayaem Somanis in there, or the what was his name,
Reec:doctor? Yo, Doctor. Biggs. Yeah, he came out,
Matt:was good. Yeah,
Reec:thank you. I appreciate that. I like that one.
Matt:But he's like, he's like, they're not
Reec:really, you know, they're they're fancy. They're fancy. I sell the eggs, the fertilized eggs.
Matt:Yeah. I started selling fertilized eggs for exotic birds Mhmm. On eBay.
Reec:See, there you go. And that's that's thinking outside of the shell.
Matt:Yeah. I like Well, It's because I I went looking for how do I get more of these birds because I had two of them. Yeah. And I found somebody that was selling the eggs and I was like, they're selling these eggs for a $100. Yeah.
Matt:And then the live breeding pairs of I am Simonees.
Reec:Oh, they can go up to $56,000.
Matt:Yeah.
Reec:Or higher. Yeah.
Matt:It's crazy. Yeah. So I was like, that's a pretty good income stream. Yeah. So, you know, was I tell people if you wanna be a a homesteader, have a profitable homestead, you're not gonna do it doing one thing.
Matt:No. It's it's like it's like a bundle of side hustles.
Reec:Yeah. And that's what kind of ours is going agro tourism. So I definitely appreciate where you come from with that. So you made some money selling fertilized eggs, the Ninja Chicken's eggs. So they're all black for those who might not be familiar.
Reec:But you get into this homesteading space, right?
Matt:And
Reec:now you're pushing it, like you're pushing it to other people to be more self sufficient. Was that the point of that?
Matt:At the beginning, no. Mhmm. The beginning, I just wanted to be famous.
Reec:Yeah. And
Matt:I was out on a farm and I just wanted to I figured I'll get famous on social media. Yeah. And I'll I have something interesting to show people and I'll do that and then I'll be a big deal and people will think I'm important. Yeah. That was my goal.
Matt:And then somewhere along the way that all changed, and it was more about helping people and being a good person. Mhmm. And I mean, don't even know like, now I push it out to people because I see the benefit. This is I didn't even know how much was wrong with me Mhmm. Until I got away from needing to be Validated?
Matt:Yeah. Because your chickens don't care. At all. They don't care what kind of shoes you have or what kind of car you drive. What kind of and neither do most people in a small town.
Matt:Mhmm. And neither do most people in this community. They don't care. So it's like, it it changes your way of thinking and it it keeps you it's it's like you have more balance.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:You have more balance.
Reec:Yeah. I like that, man. I I I love the shift in mind frame in this in this space. Because like you said, they don't care. They don't care what you're wearing unless it's functionable.
Reec:Mhmm. They go, oh, how many pockets is on on those pants? Where can I get some? Yeah. That's where you keep your eggs when you're walking around.
Reec:How do I get one of those? Like I could probably got more comments on an egg apron I've worn and a newer pair of sneakers. Unless they're asking me, why did you wear those sneakers and that coop?
Matt:No one you're gonna
Reec:get chicken poop on
Matt:Did you get one of the Rue aprons?
Reec:Yeah. Yeah, are really awesome. Then Purina gave me a cool one too. So yeah, that's pretty cool, man. What was the funniest thing you've grown so far?
Reec:Funniest thing
Matt:I've grown, I think it was corn.
Reec:Okay, talk to me about it. So I wanna grow corn.
Matt:Yeah, so I learned that there's a couple of different ways to grow corn and you know, you think of corn like just grow it in rows, but if you're not doing a big enough area, you can't just do a row of corn or won't pollinate, got to grow them in squares. Okay. And then an even better way is the three sisters method.
Reec:Okay, I've never heard of this. This isn't exclusive. So if you're listening to this thirty minutes into the interview, the three sisters method.
Matt:Well, it's it's I wish it was my thing, but it goes back to the Native Americans. Okay. So they grew the three sisters, which was you do a mound. Mhmm. You grow the corn in like a spiral
Reec:Okay.
Matt:Going up the mound. Yeah. And then you also plant it with squash and beans.
Reec:Okay.
Matt:And so the beans, pole beans, the bush beans. The pole beans climb the corn Mhmm. And they stabilize it. Oh. And they use the corn as a trellis.
Reec:Okay.
Matt:So you don't need a trellis. Yeah. And then you grow squash around the bottom like
Reec:Okay.
Matt:Like you know, crookneck squash or or butternut squash. Yeah. And the leaves are prickly.
Reec:So it keeps things out. Yeah. Woah. That is a that my friends is home steady.
Matt:Yeah. And the beans are a nitrogen producer, so they're fixing the soil back. Mhmm. For the for the corn, that's a huge nitrogen absorber.
Reec:Okay. So that everybody's symbiotic. Symbiotic, man. That's so dope. Yeah.
Reec:I'm gonna I think I'm gonna use that method. You're gonna have circles of three sisters all around the property. It'd be great.
Matt:But the favorite part for me was I grew this stained glass corn. And it's so pretty, but then also you can make popcorn out of it.
Reec:Oh, cool. Okay.
Matt:So get different different corns. Yeah.
Reec:That's pretty cool, man. That's pretty cool. I was watching a TikTok video about different And somebody was like, yeah, this is the white corn. This is sweet corn. And this is and I was like, I didn't know it was that many corns.
Reec:So many. There's so many. That's cool, man. I can't wait to see those videos.
Matt:Oh, yeah. What the the thing is that, like, industrialized agriculture has taken so much of the variety out of our crops Yeah. And killed off so much of biodiversity. You know, like 95% of wheat is simple wheat. Like that's 95% of our crop and we've grown it so homogeneously.
Matt:I mean, there used to be thousands of varieties of crops like every or wheat, every area Yeah, different. Yeah. That had its own resistances and temperatures and it had more nutrients
Reec:Mhmm.
Matt:And it was better for you.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:And this isn't the best wheat in the world.
Reec:Mhmm.
Matt:It's just the most it can grow in the most places. Yeah. But we've narrowed it down to the where like if if we a single disease gets that wheat, that's a keystone's crop. Mhmm. If a single disease comes out and it doesn't have resistances to it, it can wipe out the wheat worldwide.
Matt:Wow. And we billions of people would die.
Reec:Because there's no variety. Because there's no variety. Wow. And that makes so much sense when when I was talking to my granddad before he passed. Right?
Reec:He was telling me, you know, I used to eat this, this, and this. I've been healthy my whole life. And now things upset my stomach. Mhmm. And I'm like, it's because the food is not the food you ate.
Reec:It's a different food. It's different quality. It's different things in it. You know what I mean? I I know that has a lot to do with why there's so many health issues out here.
Reec:That's why I'm so excited when you're, you know, getting people to Grow. Here we grow. That's how it's like on your shirt. You're getting people to grow things because you start to learn those, what you're talking about now, you get that biodiversity, you get those the different nutrients, different types of wheat, the different types of corn, we don't know about it.
Matt:That's the best part about researching these videos is that I learned so much stuff that doesn't even make it in the videos. Yeah. Because I just read a ton.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:But the you know, it's I actually was talking to a doctor recently about this and he was talking about how a lot of our inflammation stuff is being caused by the lack of biodiversity. Yeah. And there was this, I can't remember the name of it, but they basically found a body in a bog. Mhmm. And it was so well preserved, they thought it was like somebody who had been murdered or something.
Matt:Turns out it was a guy from, you know, I don't know ten, 20 thousand years ago. It was a prehistoric man or whatever. And they found in his stomach like 30 different 39 different kinds of grains. Wow. From one meal that you And they were like, well this is this led to them being more diverse.
Matt:They didn't have gluten intolerances and all this stuff. Right. They because they could handle it because they had so much diversity in their diet.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:And our diet is so homogenous. That's why that's why the why we've seen the rise of like, you know, gluten deficiencies and Right. Dairy deficiencies. Like I could go on for days.
Reec:No, got you. I was telling my best friend who's a lawyer, she's has a gluten allergy. I'd make fun of her. I'd say you have glu media, but she has a gluten allergy. And I was like, you need to go to Europe and eat bread so you can eat bread.
Reec:Cause I was like, it's a different type of wheat and stuff like that. They're using different things. They're actually probably using actual grains.
Matt:Oh, you know, you know what it is?
Reec:Talk to me.
Matt:It's not even just the actual grains like they do all this stuff. I just saw a post with this, I can't even take credit
Reec:for But
Matt:I watched this post and it was fascinating because the guy talks about, well they irradiate it Mhmm. To get rid of this. And then they they they bleach it, which breaks down the structure. Like all the stuff that they do to process our wheat Mhmm. And and make our grains and make our flours Yeah.
Matt:Destroys all the nutritional value in it. And and and actually some of the they had all these additives and stuff that they put into it Mhmm. To make it more palatable and make it last longer on a shelf. That's actually some of the reasons that we have some of these issues like digesting
Reec:it now. That makes so much sense that we're not supposed to eat bleach and there has to be something left over.
Matt:I heard that also, you're not supposed to eat bleach. Yeah. That does does make sense.
Reec:It's so crazy. It's so simple, but it's so true. You hear
Matt:it and you're like, that does, I get it.
Reec:Right, man. I'm like, okay, you make a GMO stock of corn, right? You make a crop, a GMO corn. And it's great because these bugs won't eat it. They won't eat the corn.
Reec:So the corn doesn't get, you know, attacked by pests. If the pests won't eat it, why should I eat
Matt:it? Yeah.
Reec:That's what I'm trying to figure. I don't understand how nobody like stinks that way. Like the pests don't eat it. Why should I?
Matt:I feel like this this bug will land on a on a pile of cow dung and he's happy with that. Yeah. He sees this corn. He's like, no. Oh, I'm not touching that.
Matt:Oh.
Reec:I'm like, my goat my goat will eat a lot of things. Yeah. He will not eat a Ritz cracker. He won't touch it. He sniffs it and he goes, he won't he won't touch it.
Reec:So now I won't touch it.
Matt:That's smart.
Reec:It is, man. So wow. Talk to me about because I know you said it. I I I have more animals than you. Mhmm.
Reec:But what is what is your dream animal? Like, you can get anything over there. What would it be? I know you got chickens. Mhmm.
Matt:Now we got ducks.
Reec:We got ducks.
Matt:We are getting next is I grow my animals slowly because I believe stewardship of your animals is so important. So until I'm ready to handle an animal, until I've done the research, I won't get them.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:Because I made a mistake once with chickens.
Reec:We won't talk about this. It worked it worked out in the end. Yeah.
Matt:But Kunis, the pigs.
Reec:Oh, cool. Yeah. I love I
Matt:have a forest, wanna clear it. And so I have a buddy, he has Kuni Kunis and so he's gonna sell me some and I'm pretty excited about it.
Reec:That's
Matt:cool. And but I have to get this the fence system and so Yeah. But they're gonna clear my forest for me.
Reec:Yeah. Are you gonna get the the movable electric fences?
Matt:I think so. I think so. I'm still not a 100%. I've talking to a couple more people. Mhmm.
Matt:I've considered just fencing in the entire forest area because there's plenty of the space.
Reec:Oh, and just let them go ahead and just go crazy.
Matt:Yeah. Just go nuts.
Reec:That's cool. That's cool. But then I
Matt:would also be keeping up the deer in the other life, so I'm like, I don't know if I wanna do that.
Reec:Yeah. I understand. So, I've seen people do it with those electric fences. That's why as they move it, you know, piece by piece and let it clear out piece by piece, they root everything, they eat everything. Mhmm.
Reec:And then they also fertilize as they move. Mhmm. So then if you're gonna plant in that area, then you can go ahead and keep it going. I saw a guy, no lie, he's like, this is where I tried to grow squash and pumpkins. This is where I tried to.
Reec:And it was just dead, everything. This is where the pigs cleared out and squash and pumpkins are just growing now because they were eating seeds and pooping and then the stuff just started growing like crazy. So he was like, I'm just letting them plant everything. So that's pretty cool.
Matt:Tomatoes apparently work really well that way. Okay. Because the acid in their stomach won't break down tomato seeds. That makes sense.
Reec:Yeah. Okay.
Matt:So those are growing, you get a lot of volunteers.
Reec:A lot of volunteers.
Matt:Yeah. I mean, that's that's exactly the theory is I I wanna work them through my forest and then set up a food forest. Okay. You know, just start planting a bunch of stuff with like, you know, the the sun, the sunchokes, the sun artichokes out there, they grow pretty flowers and stuff. But then there's the tuber underground that's very edible.
Reec:You
Matt:know, it lasts a long time and it grows like crazy. Nut trees and fruit trees and passion fruit plants. Okay. So just create a, you know, a garden of food out there in the forest.
Reec:Right. That makes sense. I mean, sustainability at its finest.
Matt:Yeah. I mean, just I don't have to work at it. It takes care of itself. I'm like, alright, cool.
Reec:That's it.
Matt:Sounds good.
Reec:That's pretty cool. And pigs are super cool. I have a couple of pigs now, Super trainable creatures. Well,
Matt:they're so smart.
Reec:They are so smarter than dolphins. They're great. I train train one to hit a button when she wants treats. I have to now take the button because she is a glutton. But yeah, it's pretty cool, man.
Reec:So I can't wait to see your journey on that. I don't have a lot of pig information, but I learn on the go. So if you need anything, call me brother. Will. That's pretty cool, man.
Reec:What is your dream, about the the homesteading space? Like, if it's all said and done, you had to give somebody a quick liner of what you want out of this?
Matt:I want everybody to take back a little piece of our food sovereignty. Mhmm. You know, because the Green Revolution was this amazing thing that happened and provided food for so many people and we needed it at the time.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:You know, the billions of people would starve without the Green Revolution. Mhmm. But now we've gotten past that and it's time to stop corporatizing food. Mhmm. Because what was a good idea turned into a great profit margin.
Matt:Yeah. And now we need to take that back a little bit and say, okay, well thank you so much for all the things that you, people you fed, but now we need to decentralize this system. Mhmm. Because we've taken it too far in the other direction. Yeah.
Matt:And we need to do it by, if I could have one thing come out of the space, be for more people to create their own self sufficiency in food, we could take back a little bit more control of our food system.
Reec:That's dope. I like that. I think, like you said, this went too far trying to monetize it. And now we've taken the quality out of it. Yeah.
Reec:And it's hurting people. Yeah. On a wide scale. So I I can appreciate that sentiment. Speaking of you wanting to help people and get to a good space, tell me about the foundation.
Reec:How did that come about? Tell me about the stuff that's going on in Asheville, and then tell me about where you would like to see it going.
Matt:Well, we in June of of twenty twenty four, I put out a post and I said, had this crazy dream that I could feed people in the world by building community homesteads. And I was like, I'd love to make that happen. And I I said, I think I said something in post like, people have already told me that this is impossible, but luckily Mhmm. You know, I like doing the impossible. Yeah.
Matt:And so, two months later we we launched it. We launched it as a nonprofit. We got our five zero one c three. Mhmm. We launched the Greenhorn Guides, which is it's a totally free website that provides e books and e learning information.
Matt:You know, we're actually gonna be expanding upon that this year. That turned into we're gonna be building community homesteads and care farms.
Reec:That's awesome.
Matt:Like these whole we're planning on buying 45 acre farms where, you know, people were the victims of domestic violence or PTSD for veterans or kids with special needs can come and experience eco therapy firsthand and work with their hands in the dirt. Patients with dementia can come work there and it actually slows the progress
Reec:of the disease. Yes, does. I read that too.
Matt:It's amazing. It's amazing. And so like, we want to build these places. And then in October of last year, Hurricane Helene came through and just did so much damage in Western North Carolina. And a friend of mine, Sean Hendrix, he used to work for MrBeast.
Matt:Now he's on with Barbarian Foundation. Mhmm. But he and some friends got together and started Operation Shelter, which was helping provide homes and stuff for people, getting them tents and starlings. And I talked to Sean, I said, know, I've got a charity. You've got this initiative.
Matt:I said, let's merge the two. Yeah. So Sean brought Operation Shelter into Here We Grow and we kind of took over the getting insurance and all the, you know, I spent a lot of time doing office work essentially, which was super fun, I love that.
Reec:Right, not being in a garden, gotta go out and do office go back inside, but it's helping people.
Matt:Yeah, is. We've done so much. I mean, now we're part of a coalition that we just helped build a volunteer camp for 150 people. Amazing. We spent $50,000 putting water into it to give all these guys hot showers at the end of their day of working.
Matt:We're building 100 homes for people. Man, that's incredible. Yeah. It's it's amazing. And this all started from just some silly post.
Matt:Right. You know? And and obviously Sean's hard working, those guys hard work with Operation Shelter starting that, we've merged it and married it. And now, it's just growing and growing and growing.
Reec:Right. Here we grow. I like it, man. Here we grow. How do people support those causes?
Matt:You can go to thegrowsquad.org.
Reec:The Grow Squad. I like it. You know what I really like? That encompasses what this stuff is all about. What I see so much helping in community.
Reec:Two people who have two totally separate things, right? Both independent, both successful, but say, let's get together and make it bigger. And partnership is the key. And that's what co oping is really a big thing in this space. And I see why.
Matt:That's how Sean found me initially. His wife was a fan of my homesteading page.
Reec:That's cool. That's really cool. Because usually somebody's wife's a fan, he's not gonna like you, But that's cool, man. That is really dope. That's cool.
Reec:What is the three of the most interesting things that you've learned Gosh,
Matt:that is like, that is a tough question. Learned crazy stuff all the time. I think one of them is that originally they thought tomatoes were poisonous because they were eating them off pewter plates, like the rich people in the 1700s and 1600s, they're eating them off of pewter plates. Tomatoes are acidic. And so the acid in the tomatoes was leaching lead from the pewter plates.
Matt:And so the people were getting lead poisoning and they blamed tomatoes. I was like, that's crazy. That is. And then it was the Italian peasants who were like, they didn't they didn't have any pewter plates. They're they're peasants.
Matt:Right. They're like, no, you're stupid. Is Yeah.
Reec:This is it. Beautiful pasta. You love this. I love it. Yeah.
Matt:I'm I'm a tag it so I
Reec:can do that. You can do that. I can. Made him an offer. Can't refuse.
Reec:It's pretty
Matt:good though.
Reec:It's a man.
Matt:Was like, alright.
Reec:It's a pretty good brand though. Alright. So I'm gonna give you number two. Number two,
Matt:man, I don't even know. I don't even
Reec:know how Well, me, all right, so let's do this. I steal stuff all the time. Like I said, I stole the paint tray situation with the ducks, right? And it worked and I pass it along. So what's one thing you've stolen lately that's worked for you?
Matt:Oh, DIY Ollas. Okay. Ollas are these terracotta pots that people bury in the ground and they put water in them, it's like been using for thousands of years. And so I did this, I bought these, they're like $50 like they're not cheap, you can buy the real ones. And I bought them and I did a video about it to talk about it.
Matt:People were like, no, you can just make that with a a terracotta pot, you put a cork
Reec:in the
Matt:bottom and you're done. I was like, Oh, that's great. And it's like $15. The next video I made was, Hey, guess what?
Reec:Right, throw $35 out the window, get $15 pot and a cork.
Matt:And the DIY Oya one, that video was huge. Everyone liked the Oya video and they saw the DIY Oya one, I was like, Hey, I'm an idiot.
Reec:I mean, but that's transparency. That's what I think that's what makes you you, right? You're genuinely transparent and not afraid to say, Hey, I didn't do that right.
Matt:Oh, yeah. I mean, I do it all the time.
Reec:Yeah. And I think it makes people more confident in their ability to mess up to to do something right.
Matt:Oh, yeah. I mean, it's so important. I mean, failure is not a failure unless you stop trying.
Reec:Yeah. I like that. He's probably copywriting that one too. Yeah. Cool, man.
Reec:What was the, I guess, most rewarding thing you've grown?
Matt:That tomato.
Reec:Okay. That that's the first tomato. You know, that's fitting because you're Italian. Yeah. Really is.
Reec:Yeah. It didn't give you lead poisoning or nothing. It's because
Matt:I don't use pewter plates. There
Reec:you go.
Matt:Some rich fancy guy with a pewter plate.
Reec:Nah. Cool. No, mean,
Matt:that tomato was, but I mean, I think some of the biggest rewards have come along the way just from things that I wasn't good at growing. You know, I wasn't good at growing this when I first started, took me three, four or five tries. Yeah. I tried garlic like three years in a row. Okay.
Matt:Didn't get it right. Didn't get it right.
Reec:It's because you're a vampire. That's right.
Matt:It makes
Reec:I do spend a lot of time up late at night.
Matt:I feel how do get up in the morning?
Reec:I'm like, oh, I'm still up. Morning, I'm still up. This is last night for me. I spent all
Matt:night working on scripts and
Reec:I just wander out
Matt:and feed the chickens and I go to bed like a normal person. Isn't that what you do? Just climb in my coffin.
Reec:That's it. So garlic is it. Garlic was it.
Matt:Think was great because like, you know, you try twice and you you don't get it.
Reec:And then
Matt:the third time you do it, it's like,
Reec:yes. Yes. That's it.
Matt:Now I understand. Now I know how to do this. Mhmm.
Reec:And it can't be taken away.
Matt:No. It can't be. Yeah. Yep. It's like the Ruth you know what
Reec:the Ruth Stop Method is? No. Talk to me.
Matt:Super cool, man. So like, when I first had the gardens, was putting plastic down over everything. Yeah. You know, I do the plastic, dig
Reec:the holes, I thought it
Matt:was great. Because the first year I did it, no plastic, weeds everywhere, tons of work. I figured out, okay, you can use plastic. So, you put the plastic down, and then everybody in my comments was like, you shouldn't use plastic, you're gonna eat microplastics. Yeah.
Matt:I was like, that can't be true. I looked it up and I was like, well, holy golly. That is true. Okay. So, I don't wanna be made of plastic.
Matt:I'll look at the next thing. This lady Ruth Stout was this lady who just threw a bunch of she's like, just planted, I throw a bunch of straw over the top of it and I'm done. Uh-huh. I was like, this can't work.
Reec:I did see that video. Yeah.
Matt:Yeah. And it's great. I gotta tell you, I've done it this year for like the first time.
Reec:Mhmm.
Matt:And I just put it over everything and like my I have almost no weeds.
Reec:Wow. That's crazy.
Matt:It's nuts. And the soil underneath Mhmm. It stays so moist. Yeah. Because it keeps the sun from hitting the soil.
Matt:Mhmm. It's not heating it up. It's like it's like it's got a lot of angles, it breaks it up. It's almost like a house fort. That's amazing, dude.
Matt:It's like this, you I dig up underneath it and then the straw is breaking down slowly too.
Reec:Mhmm.
Matt:So that's just adding more organic matter into my soil. It's just Mhmm. It's beautiful. Like it's I like it. Yeah.
Reec:I like it. Because I'm thinking about trees and I'm like, I I was telling my neighbor, I was like, you should I was like, I was trying to get in business, but you should rake all the leaves around the tree. Don't bag them because those leaves are falling and refeed the tree. Right? And they had a fruit tree.
Reec:I was like, it's refeeding the tree. Now it's talking about straw that makes sense because it breaks down. Yeah. That makes so much sense.
Matt:Yeah. Leaves do the same thing essentially. I mean, it's although I did see a cool one about protecting your trees lately, especially your fruit trees.
Reec:Okay.
Matt:You're pine cones on your property? Yes. Okay. If you pile up pine cones around the base of the tree
Reec:Uh-huh.
Matt:It keeps like rodents and stuff from climbing the tree because they don't want to walk across the spiky pine cones.
Reec:Property I'm trying to save.
Matt:Oh yeah, we have pear trees. I tell you what, once you get that thing going, we produce so many pears, we don't know what to do with it all.
Reec:I got those those pigs, we'll love them once you get them. Oh yeah, for sure.
Matt:Yeah. And I'll send you I'll send you V's recipe for pear butter.
Reec:Perfect. I need it.
Matt:You're making a crock pot. It's like cinnamon cinnamon pear butter. It's so good. It's like spiced pear butters. I put it on sandwiches all year long.
Reec:That's cool, man. I do like I do love how I'm a say how emotionally and lovingly connected you talk about your family. Right? Because we're we're we talk outside of this. Right?
Matt:Yeah.
Reec:And on social media, you keep it separate. I understand why because I would do the same thing because people are nuts. Yeah. But how is it and I I've noticed, like, all my neighbors because now my neighbors are farmers or they have a lot of land. I see those relationships are long lasting relationships.
Reec:Mhmm. Has this space helped with that?
Matt:Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. Mean, it's it's a lot more work. Yeah. My my wife is just now about to start her own practice.
Reec:Okay.
Matt:Which is gonna allow her to work from home more. Yeah. And we're so excited about that because she can be around more, she can be around the property and the kids more.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:But for a long time, there's she come home from a long day at work Yeah. And it's like she doesn't wanna
Reec:do anything. She's drained. And then she's dealing with a lot of as a as a physician, you're dealing with a lot of people's Psychiatrist. Too many people's problems.
Matt:Yeah. I mean Wow. That I don't I don't I don't wanna like trauma dump on people, but like what she has to deal with, with like just the the doing therapy for kids and stuff, and she can't even tell me about any of it. Yeah. But like, she'll mention I had a child patient today, it was very on me.
Matt:Yeah. And you could see how much this stuff eats at her. Yeah. And she has to carry that with her. And the other thing is, she's the smartest person I've ever met in my life.
Matt:She's absolutely brilliant. Yeah. And so she sees the world in a way that I'll never see it. And she knows a lot of things that I don't know.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:And she has a perspective of she sees the worst people go through.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:And so it's so hard on her. So this is gonna this is gonna give her more air and more space.
Reec:That's cool. And I'm I'm sure just sometimes being able to come out on some acreage and being connected to nature can help too with the mental space. Because it helped me. I know it helped me with my mental mental health just being outside.
Matt:Yeah. And now she's gonna be able to enjoy it the right way.
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:Now for the boys? Yeah. Because we have we have it's from they're from her first marriage, but my twin boys, I've been raising them since they were two. Right. And they are God, they're such great such great kids.
Matt:Yeah. They're twins, but they're total opposites. Yeah. But I mean, just the getting to spend time with them every day and be around them all the time, it's so special. Yeah.
Matt:You know, it's so special and so great like and you know, being on social media, everyone thinks that's such a big deal, but my kids don't see that. Yeah. You know?
Reec:They just know you you're a big deal to
Matt:them. Yeah.
Reec:Yeah. You're their hero.
Matt:Oh, gotta hope so.
Reec:Yeah. No. I I can tell. Yeah. I can tell.
Reec:And we we were out of
Matt:the store one day and this lady recognized me and she goes, are you him? Are
Reec:you Greenwood And
Matt:I said I said, yeah, that's me. Hi. And then she was talking, she's very excited to meet me and she leans down to one the boys and she goes, do you know what your daddy does? And he said, my daddy helps people. And I was like,
Reec:that's it. That's why I say you're their hero. That's it. I was like, oh God, It's still my beating heart. Clutches pearls.
Reec:I mean, it was just so
Matt:to hear that from your kid, like that's how your kid sees you in the world. My dad's the guy who helps people.
Reec:That's awesome, man.
Matt:And he wouldn't have seen that guy five years ago.
Reec:Yeah. But that but all this came from a drunk conversation and one tomato. Yeah. Conversation and one tomato. And now you're sober and you grow garlic.
Matt:And that's the name part of our our upcoming podcast, ladies
Reec:and gentlemen. Drunk conversation and one tomato. I love it, E Series coming out. That's cool, man. We almost hit that hour mark, man.
Reec:I appreciate you, All the way from South Carolina. We enjoyed a great concert last night. Mary Cutter, I would have not known of her artistry until you told me.
Matt:Man, she has a good time with her on stage. She's a great crew. You know the guy with the hat on stage?
Reec:Okay. Yeah. James. His name is James.
Matt:So James played for Mr. Bungell. That was Tom Patton or Mike Patton with Faith No More.
Reec:Okay.
Matt:And they started mister Bungell. He was in mister Bungell. So I was
Reec:like, oh, he's in a I used listen to them. It's crazy. That is crazy, man. Was and that's another thing like I enjoy about this space, meeting new people, getting in different areas. Yeah.
Reec:I'd never been to a rock country concert before today, before yesterday. And I went, I was like, I'm the only black guy here. Oh, no. The sound guy's black. But it was cool, man.
Reec:It was real fun. It was it was a great experience. Meet some new people. And and I had a good time. And I appreciate that invite, man.
Matt:Yeah. For sure. I I do not we had we've been talking about getting together for so long. Uh-huh. I like to support, you know, I'd like to use my platform to try to uplift people whenever I can.
Matt:And so Mary was out, it's her first headlining show. So I wanted to come and show that I was going to support her for that.
Reec:Yeah. That was an important moment for her. Yeah, it was great. It was a good, it was a great moment. It was a sold out show.
Reec:Yeah. Glad I could come.
Matt:Yeah, was definitely sold out. It felt sold out.
Reec:Yeah, it did. It was sold out. Cover to go on, man. I appreciate you, For the 17 people that aren't following you, where's your Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and all that?
Matt:Greenhorn Grove. Everywhere, all one word, Greenhorn Grove because we have no idea what we're doing.
Reec:How did you come up
Matt:with that name? So, you know, I mean, I always loved that show Green Acres when I was a kid. And I like alliteration, I like plays on words and stuff, you know? And so I wanted something that had alliteration, g g Mhmm. Or or anything anything like b b g g whatever.
Matt:Yeah. And it was we're just bombing through names. We were watching that show Deadliest Catch and they called this guy a green horn. What about Green Horn Grove?
Reec:Yeah.
Matt:And we've gone through 50 to a 100 names. My wife had been like, no, that's stupid. No. I hate it. No.
Matt:It's terrible.
Reec:And I said, what about
Matt:Greenhorn Grove? And she goes,
Reec:oh, that
Matt:might be there
Reec:we are. Get it right at the house.
Matt:That's the one. There it is.
Reec:Oh, that's cool, man. So this has been another episode of Excellent Adventures. Matt, Greenhorn Grove. I'm so glad. I I hate that how we met for real happened, but I'm so glad it did.
Reec:I'm so glad it did. We're about to go check the farm out. So if you listen to this episode, go on our social media and see some of the behind the scenes footage. We gone.
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