Summer Reunion

In this episode of Coffee in the Barn, hosts Casey Bradley and Morgan Hart reconnect after a vibrant summer of events, bringing fresh insights and personal stories from the heart of agriculture. Recorded after their recent participation in the Elevate Women in Ag Conference in Des Moines, Iowa, the duo shares their reflections on the conference's impact and the empowering experiences it fostered.

The episode kicks off with Casey and Morgan discussing their time at the Elevate Women in Ag Conference, where they mingled with industry leaders and like-minded women passionate about advancing agricultural roles. Morgan recounts the engaging social event organized by Kaylee Keppy-McDonnell and Zimpro, which featured insightful sessions on dressing for success by Crystal Blynn of House of Color. They explore the power of personal presentation, delving into how understanding color theory can boost confidence and authenticity in both personal and professional life.

A key theme throughout the episode is the balance between professional life and motherhood. Casey shares her personal journey of redefining her career, moving from swine nutrition to a broader scope, including pet and poultry nutrition. Her insights on embracing one's authentic self and breaking free from conventional expectations resonate strongly, encouraging listeners to carve their unique paths in agriculture.

The conversation also highlights the importance of community support and mentorship in agriculture. Casey and Morgan discuss how male colleagues can champion women's growth, emphasizing the value of diverse perspectives and inclusive environments. They touch upon personality assessments and personal development tools like the Working Genius model, offering listeners actionable insights to enhance their leadership and teamwork skills.

Listeners are encouraged to reflect on their authenticity and the lies they may tell themselves, with Casey and Morgan providing actionable steps for personal growth. They emphasize the importance of being true to oneself and the liberating feeling of authenticity in both personal and professional realms.

With heartfelt gratitude to Zimpro for their support and sponsorship, Casey and Morgan express their excitement for future episodes, promising more insightful discussions and expert insights into the world of agriculture. Tune in to this enriching episode and join the conversation on the vital role of women in agriculture.

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Transcript

Casey Bradley 
0:00:00 
Well, welcome back to Coffee in the Barn after our long summer break, Morgan.   

Morgan Hart 
0:00:30 
Hi, how's it going? 

Casey Bradley 
0:00:57 
Well, I don't know, summer's kind of a little chaotic around here. It's fun, but yet balancing everything seems to be, in my mind, a little more challenging than the traditional scheduled out school year.   

Morgan Hart 
0:01:28 
Yeah, it's a it's definitely a little bit more relaxed. I woul  say the kids are not in bed at their regular time. Because it's still so light out and nice out past eight o'clock. So bedtime gets pushed a little bit later and then they will sleep in a little bit later as well. So there's just different sleep schedules and different activities going on and yeah but for the most part it's pretty pretty relaxed. I was gonna say are you in your second or third trimester nowOh, I know my mom's like, Oh, is that a new maternity dress? Is that and I'm like, No, they're just the dresses that I've always had that are just a little bit more flowy. 

Casey Bradley 
0:01:38 
Yeah. 

Casey Bradley 
0:01:39 
It's just because my friends talk about maternity clothes and you know, I was, I don't have any more. I'm giving them away right after I didn't need them. I gave them away. But I was just like, you don't have to shop in maternity. You just have to look for this style. 

Morgan Hart 
0:01:55 
Yeah, my sister and I have had since I've been through two pregnancies, she's been through one. We have a maternity bin that we pass back and forth between us and some friends, and you know it has different shorts and pants and variety of shirts, and so we haven't really had to buy much after we've, you know, collected things over the last couple years.  

Casey Bradley 
0:02:31 
And that's the way it should be. I mean my sister and I did the same thing with the boys' clothes and stuff like them around and it seems to work. Oh yes, for sure. But let's talk about summer because summer working can be a challenge. I know what it was like to be in school and I could not wait to summer vacation because that meant you know no school of course but then the fair and all that fun stuff but living it through my son you know he was so excited for summer to come and I'm so excited for schools to come back. But do you feel like just in general, do you, is motivation more challenging for you from a career perspective in the summer?  

Morgan Hart 
0:03:14 
Normally, if I have enough to do, I'm pretty dialed in. But when it is super nice outside, I will take an extra long lunch or go take the kids for a walk, take the dogs for a walk, go play outside, take breaks if I'm at home, if the kids are around, just to break up the day a little bit and actually be able to spend some time outside and yeah so I kind of so far balance it well but as soon as you know like 435 o'clock hits I'm like alright let's go outside and play like I'm really trying to like I've been sitting inside all day 

Morgan Hart 
0:03:53 
working I'm like I need to go outside and do something like let's go to the pool let's go to the park I think I have I'm a little bit more willing to, not more willing, but I'm more motivated to go out and do stuff after work, especially at night when it's nice out, or plan things. You know, our daughter is, you know, 

Morgan Hart 
0:04:15 
gonna be four this fall, and she's, I don't wanna say has had a hard time with school ending, but she really, like, misses her friends. And so I've been a little bit more intentional on trying to get together with either neighbors or friends that we have of kids the same age at least like once a week or planning different activities and things so that she can go 

Morgan Hart 
0:04:36 
see friends or do things outside of just being at home just because she is only at grandparents during the day or at home with us. So I do try to keep her as socialized as we can.  

Casey Bradley 
0:05:16 
Yeah, we utilize, and we got lucky because a lot of the system, not all the kids get in, but the after school program that we use during the school year, we use that for socialization for Arthur and keeping him active versus coming home and sit on the couch and his iPad like he likes to do. this summer we did the same thing and we were lucky to get in from a budgetary standpoint. It's like, ouch, the weekly cost of it, but for him it's good because he's active, he's doing different things, he's around kids all of the time. But it's still, I don't know, the schedule is just a little different because you have to take them to the program versus we bus and but it is better than camps because I've done camps in the past and the problem with camps is it's not a problem but for Arthur is a problem is the schedule is always different 

Casey Bradley 
0:05:47 
between the camps, you know, certain days of the week and he has to have structure, he has to have routine, he has to kind of be around the same kids or he struggles right from a behavior standpoint. So that's a like a double bonus with the after school summer program that we have that he gets a little camp seal. They go on field trips. I mean, they went bowling, they went go kart racing, they go to the splash pad, they get ice cream every Friday. And I'm like, you know, Fridays, 

Casey Bradley 
0:06:22 
I like to get off early and go pick them up, but I'm not allowed to because ice cream's at 4 o'clock. So I'm like, well, there goes my, you know, break of the summer of having at least every other Friday afternoon off. But no, ice cream social 

8 
0:06:39 
takes priority. 

Morgan Hart 
0:06:40 
No, yeah, I find it kind of hard to schedule. I know our kids are a little bit younger. But a lot of like the activities for kids either like summer school or like swim lessons or any sort of like outside activity is usually during the day which I've found it a little bit more difficult to like try and put our like kids except like Emma is gonna be four so like what activity can I put her in that's either like on a Saturday morning or like the same day during the week that would work for our schedule and like just trying to find other things to do. 

Morgan Hart 
0:07:27 
And at this point, it's been a little difficult to like find actual activities for her to do like during the day that are, I shouldn't say during the day, but like... During your work hours. During my work hours, yeah. I mean, they're fine now, just playing, all they want to do is play. 

Morgan Hart 
0:07:46 
So they're fine going to the library and playing for an hour or two or going to the splash pad or whatever. So it's not too bad right now, but I see that as a possible challenge in the future is, okay, how do we balance kids activities during the day or camps or whatnot kind of how you're already alluding to down the line.  

Casey Bradley 
0:08:09 
Well yeah and that's kind of what I wanted to touch on a little bit and obviously we're coming back from spring break so or spring break oh my gosh summer break come on let's get with the right season here because of the weather it's not spring. Just for you know supervisors or you to think of this summer was awful my kids were awful or how do I balance this for my employees and I really do think next summer I'm going to go back to the mentality I always really wanted it from at least here in the US Memorial Day to Labor Day that at least on Friday 

Casey Bradley 
0:08:46 
afternoons we take off so we work a four and a half day week or because of my husband's work schedule, if we don't want to have just the afternoons off, like we have every other Friday off. So I think next summer, I'm going to go back to that philosophy. And maybe look more at more camps, maybe versus the summer program because obviously the summer program has a pay even though 

Casey Bradley 
0:09:11 
we're not there. So sending him to grandma's for two weeks is I'm still paying for the rest of the child care that I need for the rest of the summer. But you know things like that to consider of how can we help our employees in the summer with you know school breaks or child care breaks that we have and that's always a challenge if you know, it's a snow day or it's a you know a holiday that you don't have off at work to balance. And I think it's just, we need to start that conversation 

Casey Bradley 
0:09:44 
and kind of explaining how I do it, but also my employees, like, I want you all to take your vacation. I don't let them carry over their vacation. And even though I'm entitled to the same amount of vacation, I'm excited that I'm going to take a week vacation yet before official back to school. 

Morgan Hart 
0:10:06 
Yeah, we're looking to get something scheduled too. And I ran into like, you know, we can roll over a certain amount of vacation or personal hours every year. just because we were just busy. And I didn't prioritize taking a day here, a day there, etc. So when it came to December, I was like, oh, I need to take a handful of days between November and December and the holidays and stuff so that I don't lose those hours going into the new year. 

Morgan Hart 
0:10:37 
And so this year I've been a little bit more intentional on like planning like a Friday here or you know I'm okay if we take a couple days during the week off because I have like I have the time and so actually actually taking the time and making sure to plan that plan it and I think that's the biggest thing especially with how my schedule works is I I have to I'm booked out like three weeks in advance so when I'm talking to my husband or family about a trip, I'm like, okay, like, let's get it on the books, you know, at least six weeks in advance, so that when 

Morgan Hart 
0:11:22 
somebody says, Hey, can you come to this farm? Or can we plan this meeting, etc? I can be like, Nope, I'm not available that week. Otherwise, I'm gonna make myself available if we don't have anything planned.  

Casey Bradley 
0:11:47 
I know how that goes. And but I live with my mother, my mother is number one that likes to plan last minute thing. And I'm like, you do realize that with careers and all that and school schedules, we have to plan what we're going to do and when we don't have to have like the final details. But if you're going to come for two weeks, I need to. Yes, see. So she did that to me this summer. I was traveling between rural pork and Spain and I'm like, will you come down and will you help me get organized again because she loves to clean so I just I let her now and we're like, when are you leaving mom? 

Casey Bradley 
0:12:16 
His dance recital Saturday he really wanted you to go you know it's like getting there to confirm when she's actually going to be here. they have her bedroom set up because I'm sitting in my guest bedroom, which is Recording studio today and it's my craft room and the home office and spare bedroom So it's like it does take a little planning to have company come 

Casey Bradley 
0:12:39 
So yeah, I think that's a good topic I think we also wanted to point in of we talked about personally balancing life with children in the summer and me, the sun, you know, just draws me outside and things and but the biggest problem we have is, you know, we just talked about vacation and trips, but it's hard to work around that. And, and you probably work with the US, but I know, you probably 

Casey Bradley 
0:13:09 
also have some international colleagues, but since I work with international companies and domestic companies, you know, always the joke was the Europeans during the summer is like you're not going to get anything done, basically, July and the first part of August, not all of August. So those two months from a European connection standpoints challenging because they usually take extended long term vacations. And, you know, I asked my European colleagues, I'm like, how do you do that? Like, how do you shut off to where you're not going to think about anything for 

Casey Bradley 
0:13:47 
two or three weeks? Because if I did that, I just everything I have would just get lost. Yeah, I get lost. I'm like, do I want to come back? It's just like, next week, I'm technically on vacation, but here's the thing. I'm going to be, you know, teens messages, emails, I'm going to be looking at them, I'm going to be responding. And I, that's for my sanity to think of not stressing about everything I'll have for a week, you know, I'm gone. 

Casey Bradley 
0:14:20 
So I do actually prefer to do that. But I said, absolutely no meetings. Like, if you have a five minute question, we can jump on a call, but like no meetings, right? I'm happy about that. But how do you balance that? Like, I got my vacation, my customers on vacation, my colleagues on vacation, because we also have to fill in for others. You know, 

Casey Bradley 
0:14:49 
Liliana took a week off and I said, Liliana, I'm having Liliana withdrawals, I really need you back to help manage this team and manage these projects because things are falling through the cracks because you're not here. I mean, what is some good advice for you of either managing around that from serving your customers to working with colleagues and 

Casey Bradley 
0:15:11 
helping them out be able to take vacations?  

Morgan Hart 
0:15:45 
Well we have a really I would say relatively small team as far as on the tech support side within our research department and you know just a swine technical support group and so our team is really communicative on like during 4th of July. 4th of July fell on a Thursday this year and some of them had Friday they were taking off because either daycare was closed, or it was going to be nice out and they had projects that they wanted to do. And so for the most part, we communicate really well saying, you know, is anybody going to be in or out, you know, this day or that day. I try to communicate as soon as I can on when, like, we are taking vacation, I keep my calendar relatively up to date as much as I can. So for the most part we just communicate, you know, between the three and four of us on who has stuff going on and when people are going to be gone so that we can kind of fill in when we need to or make accommodations in case we know that two 

Morgan Hart 
0:16:22 
people are gone, we know who the go-to contact person is. And you know kind of as I'm moving into the fall and maternity leave, you know, we have multiple conversations also like, okay what projects are currently happening that need eyes on them to keep them going? And when I was on maternity last time with our second, this is just my personal preference, but I don't do good just like completely disconnecting. I'll have like a, I'll have a, you know, a response on my email saying like, I'm on maternity leave or I'm out of the office, if you need immediate assistance, contact so-and-so. 

Morgan Hart 
0:17:08 
But for the most part, I usually keep an eye on my emails just so that I can flag the things that I can either get done quickly or that aren't as of a pressing issue. And those that need to get done right away, I'll just hand off to somebody else if I can. But just for my own mental sanity, I don't like being completely disconnected and I like being able to keep track of what's going on just because I'm so organized and I like to know what's going on, what changes have been made, and I keep notes of everything with 

Morgan Hart 
0:17:44 
different customers and clients and whatnot. So moving into this maternity leave, that's how I'm kind of framing how this maternity leave will go as well. But I know like every pregnancy is different. I'm gonna have three kids at home now instead of two. You know my husband and I switch off on when we take our maternity and paternity leave and you know we have help and whatnot but the plan as of now is to kind of do it the same way that I did before but if it's not working you know I'm I'll ask for help and I'll 

Morgan Hart 
0:18:23 
communicate to my team like okay like I need to take the full, you know, eight weeks or whatever it is. Because, you know, every baby's different too. So we'll see how it goes. But that's kind of, I mean, communication is just the biggest thing, I would just have to say, communication 

Morgan Hart 
0:18:41 
and planning. 

Casey Bradley 
0:18:42 
Well, I was gonna say, I do not use the auto replies, because I'm traveling but I've had some colleagues and I won't mention their names but you have auto replies and 30 minutes later you have a response. I'm like why do you have an auto reply if you're gonna respond 30 minutes later? So I do or don't. I don't use an auto-reply either I just I just either reply you know I'm out of town for a couple days I'll get back to you or do you need this within the next day or two 

Casey Bradley 
0:19:30 
if so you know I'll have somebody else handle it. That's gonna say from a leadership perspective, my biggest thing is that I truly know when my employees are on vacation, and I consciously, as Grace is reminding me, right, my dog in the background, but I consciously try to not bother them late, and I tell the team not to email them, don't ask them. So I'd be curious to see how this goes 

Casey Bradley 
0:20:04 
with my team here coming up. But I truly know when they're on vacation or not. And then I ask them, like Liliana had vacation and she's got some family stuff going on. I said, are you available? And she's like, I asked permission 

Casey Bradley 
0:20:18 
to know if she's back or not. So it's just having that respect for your employees because I think it's important for everybody to take a vacation. But I'm also working on the fact that I need to show while I'm on vacation, I'm on vacation to my employees so they know that they can enjoy theirs as well. But from a business management standpoint, it takes on a different thing. 

Casey Bradley 
0:20:41 
I mean, communication is key. But what I'm finding is that potentially my quarter three may be a little bit lower performing here more so in July from the standpoint of balancing my schedules, my customers, vacations and things and closing deals. Do you find that as a challenge as well during the sales process in your career so far that, you know, summertime 

Casey Bradley 
0:21:11 
may be a little harder to close new deals? I mean existing business kind of keeps rolling, they tend to have potentially more pigs on feed, but the challenges of getting new business?  

Morgan Hart 
0:21:45 
I think it's more, I would say yes in part, and I think it's more just the scheduling of the meetings and the communication between people. You know, like in the spring we have planting so you know that you're probably not going to get any meetings between April and May. And then June is world pork and then school's out. And then a lot of people take vacation the end of June, fourth of July, and so there's a lot of meetings that we wanted to have in June but they kept getting pushed because people were on vacation and so things are a little bit slower paced, I would say, um, through like June and July, and then you know, come September, you start harvesting again. So it's kind of a it's a it's a it goes up and down, I would say. 

Casey Bradley 
0:22:14 
And how do you manage that from expectations of yourself? Right? Because obviously, I'm a performer, you're a performer. What are some things that you manage your expectations, realizing that everybody's still on your timeline?  

Morgan Hart 
0:22:36 
I try to, for customers that we have, like, regular reoccurring, like, meetings every year, like three or four meetings a year, we try to schedule that next meeting at the end of the previous meeting. Because most of the time people know if they're gonna be gone for an extended period of time at least a couple months in advance and so you know in March if we have a meeting and the next meetings in June or July we say okay what day in June and July are you you guys available let's put the put the meeting on the 

Morgan Hart 
0:23:08 
books and then as we get closer we re-evaluate I would say three weeks out we say, okay, is this still working or do we need to push it more? So we try to plan meetings as far in advance as we can, I guess balancing everyone's schedules. But I mean, some meetings we have five or six different people that we have to accommodate schedules for. And so, you know, you just have to be flexible.  

Casey Bradley 
0:23:45 
No, I agree. I think the other thing I'm learning in business, and this is really hard,is this is kind of all year. It's getting to be all year, but there's definitely seasons to a lot of meetings. And if we go from starting World Pork, you know, you have World Pork, and then we may have a couple breaks, but then you have NPIC, you have PSA, you have ASAS, you have dairy science from scientific meetings. If you're a nutritionist and you're kind of want, you have customers in all species or you work across all species, it's really busy. 

Casey Bradley 
0:24:14 
I'm adding pet food in there. So even more. And then, you know, Arkansas Nutrition rounds out the summer for me. And like I could be at meeting after meeting after meeting and I don't and ask those in there. So, you know, as a business manager, I'm A, looking at budgets but B, I'm also really 

Casey Bradley 
0:24:36 
learning is, you know, my planning and scheduling is what's gonna be most valuable for me to learn and then what's most valuable for my customers. So, this year, I'm not going to PSA. I'm not going to animal science. You know, I was supposed to be part of giving away the travel scholarships at dairy science, but I just couldn't justify the cost. It's not necessarily even the cost of some of this stuff. It's the time. And I've found, you 

Casey Bradley 
0:25:05 
know, really, I'm finding to conduct business is better one on one in planning those meetings accordingly. And maybe not so many virtual meetings, unless it's just existing project work or existing business you need to touch base with, but I'm really feeling, you know, more value of the one, one on one meetings I excel in that to where all these extra 

Casey Bradley 
0:25:42 
meetings are additional costs travel expenses registration costs and here I am going to Superzoo in August so we'll fill you in on that after that but you know registration fee was 2,000 it's the same with NPIC and I was like do I go to NPIC and maybe talk to some customers I know or the people that I can just call up and have a one-on-one or do I take that revenue and invest in new customers that I need to 

Casey Bradley 
0:26:11 
meet? And so business development is key for me. So looking at those conferences and scheduling even going into the fall, that it's all about new business, business development, and then individual trips for closing deals and things like that.  

Morgan Hart 
0:26:37 
Yeah, the previous job that I had when I was more in sales and the technical service side of things, I was at every single monogastric trade show, nutrition show, academic show and you know set up and take down was Monday it was a Monday through Friday deal and you got hotels and food and for the most part I was there by myself but some of the bigger shows I had some other colleagues with us and that was right around like you know COVID and a little bit after but we really after doing that for like a full year we really evaluated you know where were our resources going 

Morgan Hart 
0:27:18 
were we just there to have a presence was a booth really necessary and so then you know moving forward the next year or two we really pulled back on how many trade shows we actually were attending as far as a booth representation and you know we almost got as much out of the meeting going and just walking around and talking to people as we did you know having like a designated booth spot. And I don't know if it was more like for me personally like a I don't say fear of missing out type thing. But like, I always thought that I had to be 

Morgan Hart 
0:28:03 
at like all the meetings. Because I was like, well, I, I just need I just need to be there. I don't want to miss anything type thing. But I've learned that, you know, if there is already, you know, two or three people from our team that are already attending, you know, am I gonna benefit from also being there? Or can those individuals just communicate back to our team? 

Morgan Hart 
0:28:29 
What what they learned and so I've been a little bit more Selective or at least have tried to be on not trying to just like schedule myself with all the trade shows and Different conferences and things because you could fill up your schedule really really quickly just with conferences and trade shows and different meetings, even day-long meetings throughout the summer or even throughout the year. 

Morgan Hart 
0:28:52 
And so just picking which ones are most important for me professionally and personally, developmentally for my career and how I can best fit those customers or which meetings I'm going to have the biggest impact on.  

Casey Bradley 
0:29:31 
I can't agree more. And I go back to my AB Vista time, right? I was probably 80 and 90%. And Pete said, Well, it was kind of your own doing. And I almost think if I would have had more than mindset, because at Comeback, it was more like that there's more of us in the species so we can divide and conquer. But early on in your career, you feel like you have that fear of missing out or I need to learn something new. And having an intern right now and I sent some conferences, oh yeah, I want to go, I want to go, I want to go. 

Casey Bradley 
0:29:52 
And I said, well, we're going to talk about it from a budget standpoint. And who does it make sense to go? Because I think some of them have value of us going as a company, but who goes is better on the budget. And these are great example, the ASCO meeting, and we do regulatory consulting and we have regulatory in a lot of our customer projects. So that's an important area that I keep up on. 

Casey Bradley 
0:30:20 
But it's in San Antonio. Well, guess who lives in San Antonio? Liliana. She has no hotel costs, no flight costs. She's just there, and commute in every day, and get the needed benefit out of it. So I'm like, you go do that you get a report, we can do 

Casey Bradley 
0:30:38 
that back to our clients. And it's a win win, where you know, like IPP, I really didn't want to plan on 2025 until my customer said, Oh, yeah, you need to go and I'm like, Can I just send somebody instead? Because that's like an event that we, you know, maybe want to miss out. But yeah, I struggling to balance looking at my calendar, like September, 

Casey Bradley 
0:31:07 
or the Lehman Conference, Minnesota nutrition conference, Midwest, my nutrition conference, and a few other things and I'm like hmm I really think I got to pick one and the Lehman's mortgage is a vet veterinarian so I think I'm gonna go to the more general Minnesota nutrition because I do more than just pigs so it would be more value and I can plan my customer meetings around that while I'm in the area. And I don't have to come in on a weekend for that event. So that's me picking and 

Casey Bradley 
0:31:43 
choosing. Yeah, everybody goes to the Lehman conference, but value right if I'm going to sit in on some of the meetings need to be valuable from an education standpoint. And I also need to be able to conduct business. So Medicaid is like the perfect place for me to be able to do that. And that's just an example of setting the priorities. And don't be mad at your bosses if they tell you you can't go or you don't need to go. 

Casey Bradley 
0:32:11 
The fear of missing out, you're not missing out. 

Casey Bradley 
0:32:13 
Yeah, you'll miss people. And it's fun. 

Casey Bradley 
0:32:16 
But we don't have to be everywhere at all the time.  

Morgan Hart 
0:32:35 
Yeah, and I've I've learned that too. You know, I used to be always the one being like, Okay, I'll go, I'll go, I'll go. But I think that stemmed from me, the previous job of always kind of having to go. And so I just kind of thought it was like an expectation that you need to go type thing. And we do have, I don't wanna say mandatory meetings, but Iowa Pork and World Pork are the two mandatory meetings that everyone has to be at every year because we have internal meetings before. And then a lot of our customers are within those meeting regions as well. 

Morgan Hart 
0:32:58 
And you know, Minnesota pork is now another one that I have gone to the last couple of years given that a lot of my customers are there as well. And so I would say those are the three main ones that I'm like, okay, I have to be there every, every single year. And then, uh, like NPIC is in the Wisconsin Dells and it's convenient for me. 

Morgan Hart 
0:33:22 
Uh, I didn't go to the meetings this year, but we, cause we had a handful of other people at the meetings, but we brought a bunch of customers in from around the Midwest. And so I was still able to go up and attend customer just dinner outings and socialize with our customers during the evenings because I'm only an hour away and so that was kind of the compromise with with that conference that I was able to just join 

Morgan Hart 
0:33:50 
everyone for dinner and socialize and meet the different people that I haven't met before and and then you know the team just reported back on how MPIC went, you know, the following week.  

Casey Bradley 
0:34:17 
That's really cool. Well, we're getting close on our time allowance that we're giving ourselves for episodes. But before we go, what is the one thing that you've done this summer for yourself that is really fulfilled you?  

Morgan Hart 
0:34:19 
Oh, that's a tough question. I bought chickens. 

Casey Bradley 
0:34:20 
You bought chickens. 

Casey Bradley 
0:34:25 
Well, that sounds like mine, but yes, the chickens are not your chickens.  

Morgan Hart 
0:35:21 
I really enjoy a garden, and so I'm kind of experimenting a little bit on my garden and know the different size of plants and where to put things. I also bought, my sister and I got eight layer chickens and we built a coop and so we have chickens and we're very like our kids are in love with them especially Emma she loves you just carry them around and perch them on her arm and so that's been like one of our fun summer projects and then trying to think what else chickens the garden oh yeah and I started sourdough mmm so I've been experimenting with different sourdough recipes and just I don't want to say homesteading things but there's a lot of people and I would say my generation that seem to be doing a lot of the same things. But yeah so and Emma really enjoys helping me mix the sour dough bread and whatnot. She's content as long as I get all the ingredients in the 

Morgan Hart 
0:35:55 
bowl she'll sit there and just mix things with her hands for a solid 20 minutes so it keeps her occupied and every single time she sees me pull it out she wants to help. So you know between those three things that's kind of been our I guess different summer hobbies that we've had.  

Casey Bradley 
0:36:22 
Well my summer hobby has been kind of brought chaos to my house and I have to give my mom kudos for helping me with this project because I traveled after Idid this. So we lost our kit and we had we think somebody took it again. So we said, if we have cats again, they're only going to be indoors. And so we went to the shelter and I'm like, well, I'll foster a mama cat and keep the mama cat and one kitten. Her name's Mellie. She had three beautiful kittens. And I'm like, oh, worst case scenario, four cats is doable in a house, right? No, well, they needed a 

Casey Bradley 
0:36:48 
foster home for four more. So we have a house full of eight kittens. They're not quite old enough to be weaned. So another week, but my mom kept them alive by helping me bottle feed while I traveled. So I was ever grateful for that, right. And she's not a cat person. They have outdoor cats, and that's it. And that was really kind of her motto 

Casey Bradley 
0:37:12 
growing up. And so the fact that she would bottle feed my kittens for me and kept them going, because the foster kittens were pretty rough shape that we got. And Maui is a blessing, but it's turned out more than I thought I would really enjoy. And I think it was God teach me again of how much joy animals brought to my life. And obviously chickens because of biosecurity and just we don't live in, we live in town and things like that. 

Casey Bradley 
0:37:43 
So the joy of having cats and then here, you know, when I was younger in my career, I loved cats and dogs, but I went to the zoo and I'm like, oh, I love to work with big cats. And I stuck with pigs because that was safe. And begged my husband, I said, there's a zoo job open for a nutritionist out in San Diego. Can I apply? He's like, oh, no, we're not going to California. 

Casey Bradley 
0:38:08 
So I've always had that desire, right, to work beyond pigs. Everybody knows me as a swine nutritionist, but it's really animals. And here I told my, I've always told my husband, if he passes away before me, I'll be that crazy cat lady. And I have a husband who's supporting me being the crazy cat lady. We're actually going to build a cat research facility. 

Casey Bradley 
0:38:30 
So it's the start of my colony and the pure joy that they have brought to not only my life, my sons and my husband. It's a little chaos. They do make a little mess. We go through bags of cat litter and cans of cat food. But it's been a wonderful summer experience. 

Casey Bradley 
0:38:55 
And yet, they're to the point like, what did I sign up for keeping these? Can you get that cat colony room done like now? But yeah, that's that's my summer. So I guess we're gonna cut it off there because we do have some other stuff to talk about from this summer yet in future episodes. Yeah. Sounds good. We'll see you next time.  

Morgan Hart 
0:39:44 
Yep. See you next time.