Mike, what are you doing to make sure our Charm Nation has plenty of good

turkey? The batch of turkeys or group of turkeys, we've got 200 of them.

They're right about three weeks old, so they're getting rambunctious.

And just today we opened up the little door.

On their brooder pen, they're finally big enough to go outside.

So they're out running around and drinking out of the creek and trying out their wings.

And for the last week or so, even at the right page, two weeks, those turkeys are starting to...

Are they up on the High Mountain Farm or not this year?

I ran into the farmer right after my YMCA visit, hard at work not on his crossover dribble, rather firing a steam kettle to simmer a personal passion.

I understand you want to talk about tallow.

We do.

Yeah, so tallow is the beef as lard is to pork.

It rolls into the whole carcass utilization aspect where we're using our whole animal.

We take all the fat trim that's in the excess.

So most of that's going to be the kidney fat that surrounds the kidneys inside the viscera cavity and then some other oddball Pieces of fat like along the flank and it's just like big chunks of like five to ten pound chunks of fat and we take that and do a chunk slow low temp render for two to three days and that just brings out bring all the cooks out all the fat.

tallow

Mm-hmm.

'Cause they are the farmers.

They put the food on our, our tables, uh, whether it's through livestock or, or through beans and, and, and everything else.

So we need to know that.

But to get back to the question, um, the code section does say that the farm machinery or tractors can operate on our highways between tracts of land and to repair shops is what it can be.

So over width, uh, slow-moving, as long as they've got their decals on it, which- I'm gonna say 99.9% of our farmers here do that in Bedford County 'cause they've been born and raised farmers and, and they know how to do that, and they do it suitably.

So we need to understand that we do need to share the road, take time with them because they are legally obligated to drive on our roads.

Mm-hmm.

How tough has it been starting, uh, start- starting the, this many games, uh, on the road to start your season, and how nice will it be to get some home cooking tonight?

Well, you know, that's just it.

Uh, that was our approach and, and really that's always our approach.

And, and we had said to the guys right off the bat that, uh, uh, it's all about how we handle adversity.

We always talk about how do we respond, and our schedule was our schedule, and that's not gonna be a focus.

Our focus is always gonna be on execution, uh, always be process-driven.

And regardless of the situation, uh, we've gotta be able to communicate.

[laughs] Well, yeah

And, um,

on Lake Erie and, you know, we did a few charters, probably a handful of charters growing up and, um, And then, uh, yeah, that's it.

And then, you know, started tournament fishing probably when I was, I would say 27, 28 years old, um, jumped in it and, and, and, you know, fell in love with it.

Just love the competition.

I've always been a real competitive guy.

Um, you know, whether it's been high school playing sports in high school football and, and, You know, track and baseball and just, you know, it didn't really matter, you know, just anything that I could compete in, I love to do.

And, you know, walleye fishing and just fishing in general was always probably my thing.

man,

Mike Miller and Val Mandel have their own storied musical career and join us now on Charm Life.

What song do you have for us today? We got a song called The Rutabaga Boogie.

It's written by Paul Shalasky, great fiddler, singer, songwriter from California.

And it goes like this.

Well, I don't like veggies as a general rule.

One little veggie makes me blow my cool.

It's nothing like a turnip or a summer squash.

Right, right.

How long did it take from the time you began these conversations to the time that you started working with Michael at the Ohio Employee Ownership Center to actually bring this transition to fruition and have it in place?

Well, it actually took almost a year, Stephanie, but I don't think we were typical in any way because of the fact that we had to a big part of the time it took was managing, communicating all aspects of it to our large investor group.

We had to have a series of meetings, a lot of conversations.

Because what was set up, again, this is the employees buying out the original owners.

like it would be in any employee ownership situation.

So each of the individual owners had their original ownership shares, but they needed a fairly long explanation of how this payback was gonna work for them.

And we spent a lot of time making sure that was fair on both sides.

So how long has it been up and running the employee ownership trust model that you have? And have you seen any change in behavior in the staff? How are they reacting?

I, I got everything I needed to get out of it, and now I'm onto the next chapter?"

I, I mean I, I, you know, for a lot of us, you know, you know, for most people, you don't get to land your own plane and, and decide, you know, to end when you want to, right? And so to play 17 seasons was a blessing.

I still had that hunger and wanted to be in it.

My kids were at an age where I could be involved a lot more in their stuff.

Um, so as far as basketball and stuff was concerned, I took a little bit of time off for sure.

I didn't want to dive right back in.

But like anything else in life, man, you get bored and you wanna, you wanna, you know, recreate some of that creativity and that competitiveness, and so got into college coaching.

Were you nervous before your first game? Were you, w- were you wondering if you could fit in there?