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Show Notes
Sustainable bison ranching and how private ranchers helped save the bison from extinction is the topic for this week’s Backyard Bounty Podcast with Nicole and her guest Pierre of Bison du Nord.
What You’ll Learn
- How sustainable bison ranching is done.
- How Pierre and his family began their journey as bison ranchers.
- The difference between sustainable bison ranching and traditional cattle ranching styles
Our Guest
Established in 1972, Bison du Nord is proud to be among the oldest sustainable bison ranching operation in Canada and the largest in Eastern Canada. Pierre and his son Charles work on the ranch side by side sharing a love of nature, hard work, and adventure. Their commitment to the well-being of bison and sustainable farming practices, including rotational grazing and soil health optimization, is integral to their ranching philosophy.
Bison du Nord has a strong and healthy herd of 300 animals that graze freely in large open pastures year-round and have never treated with hormones and are antibiotic-free. Their simple feed protocol: plentiful pasture in summer months and quality hay or hay silage in wintertime produces healthy grass-fed animals, raised the way nature intended.
The ranch recently became Certified Grassfed and Animal Welfare Approved by AGW. A Greener World’s (AGW) certification highlights their commitment to high animal welfare, respect for the environment, and sustainable farming practices, including rotational grazing and soil health optimization. Pierre and his family take great pride in these certifications and in being good stewards of the land. All Bison du Nord bison meat, is exclusively grass-fed and grass-finished on the farm, offering a naturally, extra-lean meat with fewer calories, more protein and iron than other red meats. Making it one of the most nutritious (and tasty!) meats available on the market.
Resources & Links Mentioned
- Bison Du Nord Webpage
- Bison Du Nord Facebook Page
- Bison Du Nord Instagram
- Book a Bison du Nord educational tour
- The difference between Bison and Buffalo
*Denotes affiliate links
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Transcript
Announcer: 0:01
Welcome to the Backyard Bounty Podcast from HeritageAcresMarket.com, where we talk about all things backyard poultry, beekeeping, gardening, sustainable living, and more. And now here's your host, Nicole.
Nicole: 0:17
Good morning, everybody. And thank you for joining us for another episode of Backyard Bounty. I'm your host Nicole and today we are joined by Pierre with Bison du Nord in Ontario and today we are going to talk about bison ranching. So without further ado, Pierre, thank you so much for joining me today.
Pierre: 0:33
Well, I'm happy to be here Nicole.
Nicole: 0:35
Yeah, I'm so excited to have you on the show. You know, bison ranching is not super common here in the US and and so there were not too many bison ranches to choose from so I was so excited to have you on the show. Can you give us a little bit more history on your involvement in bison ranching and your ranch in particular?
Pierre: 0:58
Well, we're actually in this respect of pioneers that this is amongst the pioneers. Everyone knows that the bison was virtually threatened with extinction. And not very long ago and right at the turn of the last century, roughly in the 1890s, it's said that there were no more than 300 to 400 bison left alive on the planet. And this is from herds in the Great Plains that used a number in the millions. And it said that by some counts that there over 60 million bison roaming and living freely in the plains, both of Canada and the US. So went down to about 300. Now, the ones that were left were kept by provincial governments here in Canada, a federal government in the states with state parks, Custer State Park, Yellowstone and so on. So eventually, though, the bison if it doesn't have humans hunting, it virtually has no natural enemies. It's an animal that is not a prey animal, and virtually, has a defense against wolves, coyotes, foxes, anything. It's very large, strong animal. It's got very, very solid horns. So as soon as they started keeping them in ranches and preserves, rather, in these parks, the numbers grew rapidly to the point where there were surpluses in the parks. And that's where in Canada things changed back in the 60s, the federal government here deregulated bison, so the speaker reclassified them as a domestic species as well as a game animal as fauna. That gave us an opportunity back then. So we started our ranch and purchased some animals to develop this new form of animal husbandry, which would be bison ranching. And that was in 1972. Quite a few people started back then, but many of them have since either passed or gone to other things. So we started back in 1972, with one bison cow and they were very hard to obtain back then there's some humor to this because they're all of our friends in this area. In this part of Northern Ontario, we're fairly remote. We're up in the northern reaches of the province of Ontario. And we're only about 200 miles from James Bay, which is the bay that leads into Hudson's Bay, it's pretty, we're fairly Northern, it's the last commercial agricultural area in Ontario, the northern most, and our friends are mostly dairy farmers or cash croppers, or beef producers. And they wondered what we were doing with getting into bison. So when we bought a bison cow took me a year to find a male. And that was a lot of humor with our neighboring farmers who figured that we couldn't figure out animal biology, you should we should get, we should get a bison bull. The end result is we finally found a bison bull and a few more. And over all of these years, we've had the animals as a Hobby Farm, but as a sideline to her other enterprises that my father and then and I had back then, we were romantic at the beginning and idealistic. And I think we had some serious misunderstandings, we we believe that if the bison could live on its own, in cold and northern Canadian weather out in the West, and survive on dead grass and push snow aside and eat snow for water, that they would be minimal management. They actually are fairly easy to Ranch, but they do require more care and attention than we had thought back then. We thought this would be sort of a gentleman's ranching where we left them alone year round and just harvested once a year. But it's turned out to be a little bit more work especially these days. Our herd is growing our families now going into a third generation of bison ranching, and our children, my son and two daughters are now involved in in effect the owners of the ranch, and they are more purposeful perhaps and I was about it and more intent on being productive with the farm and making it work as a commercial entity. So we still are tied to a philosophy of the natural ranching natural feeding programs. And in effect we're a certified grass fed operation where else also certified animal welfare by A Greener World, AGW. And we intend to be certified shortly as the Regenerative Farming Operation. So we, I think, while we're intensive about our management, we are still also intent on having a natural ranching practices, especially that they're adapted to the animal. That's not the case everywhere, Nicole, there are quite a few bison ranchers across Canada in the US who have adopted some of the conventional beef practices, separation of animals, feedlot feeding, perhaps a bit more use of chemicals, fertilizers, and so on. So we we've stayed that stayed true to her ideals from the beginning, and have a very, very nice herd a very productive herd. And we know our herd, no numbers had had its peak after the calves are born, we have over 300 bison, of course every year, there's a large roundup, we'll sell off about 100 animals, 100 calves that are born that year. So it's but it's a very productive herd of very high quality animals. And we serve a meat market throughout Ontario. And you may have some questions about how we've dealt with the pandemic, the famous COVID-19 pandemic. And in fact, we've adjusted very well to that.
Nicole: 6:46
So you mentioned in the beginning that you decided to start with bison, why did you choose bison instead of cattle or some other form of livestock?
Pierre: 6:55
There are two answers to the one, the one one for the record, and the real one, which is which is probably pride and romance. All of our friends are here are farmers. And I say this with some humor. But we didn't think there was that much glamour to being the hog farmer. And I'm sorry, I apologize to the hog producers, or chicken producers, we just thought there was a certain romance device and especially tied to the history of North America, we thought there was an astounding challenge. And we are friends who are real farmers who were you'll find this as a very fine distinction. But where we live, we were villagers. And it was a small village here and in Errolton. And we were considered city folks. Now city folks here means somebody who lives in a village of 900 people. And that's, that's that's what urban means up here. And then they suddenly thought we didn't know what real work was, and they challenged this often. And we say, well, we could be could earn a living and raise animals that nobody else has ever raised in bison. That's how we got into bison. By the way, ever since the that time, the 1970s. When this really kicked off in Canada, there are now over 1000 bison ranchers in Canada,
Nicole: 7:34
Wow.
Pierre: 7:44
There's over 150,000 bison that are in private hands and on private ranches, and probably about 100,000 that are in the parks, national parks and so on. So there's the animal is well beyond any threat of extinction. It's one of the few cases where private owners have ensured the survival of the species. And all of us who have ranch bison pay a lot of attention to genetics, and making sure of course, our herds are inbred. And we're very proud of what's been achieved. And we ourselves, we've been very instrumental in the creation of the Canadian Bison Association and provincial bison associations just to make sure that bison ranch properly that there were criteria attached to it, we helped build the industry so to speak.
Nicole: 8:59
That's really exciting.
Pierre: 9:00
Yeah, we're rather proud of that. So we have a sense of social responsibility. And we're very purposeful about especially now that my children have joined the continue to be very purposeful. I know it's a trendy word, and everybody claims to be holistic, but we believe in the philosophy that you want to have a well balanced operation. So that means animal health, animal welfare, and the stewardship of the land. With my children, we've created a 100 year plan for the farm. And so we've plotted out to the animals that are the wildlife we want to build so that as we improve and change our practices that at least in the same condition, if not better when when somebody picks it up 100 years from now. So we plan for the long term. We do rotational pastures, for example, rotational grazing a little bit harder to do with bison, Nicole than it is to do with sheep or with domestic bovines.
Nicole: 10:02
I can imagine.
Pierre: 10:03
The bison tend to run as a large group and, and they tend to move at once. So wider gates and we can't hold them back just with a new electric wire, we tend to have some very tall fences around the perimeter of our ranch. And just to be safe, the dividing fences are a little bit lower, they're about four feet high,. But we've now got them trained never domesticated, still a very wild animal, when you consider that it's only truly been ranched for 50 years. This isn't like bovines, where you've got 10,000 years of history where humans have essentially modified some bovines. The breeding season for example, is still exactly as these were moose or wild deer. They come in heat once a year, the rut is August to mid September, all at the same time, and calve in the spring. So we need to build our management around this. They have a social order through the herds, of course, some much of it based on size, the larger bulls tend to dominate, the feeding priority's related to size, but they tend to regroup by age groups and peers, so to speak, so that we and we we favor that on our farm. It's extensive ranching, we don't have them penned up. When I say rotational grazing, we're talking about 80 acre plots for the herd. And we move them every five or six days, to new to a different pasture. So they always have fresh grass. It's managed in the sense that we're purposeful, we want to have tall grass, and we want to have plentiful pastures. So they grow well. But we also want to avoid, I don't know, parasite buildup, if the eat too close to the ground, if we let them wear down the grasses to grasses right down to the nub, they were liable to start creating conditions for it, we'd have internal parasites, and we want to control that by moving them regularly from field to field. And they got become adjusted to this and it's relatively easy. We tend to believe that we can lead a bison anywhere wants to go. And so we we open the gates, stand back, they'll eventually cross over into the next field. And we do this through the year. So this has been working very well. In that sense, it's minimal management. We have no stables no manure cleaning, no feedlots. And essentially grass fed. So if the winter is here you can guess where we are, it's fairly Northern, we'd be put the same weather you'd have in northern Minnesota for example. We start winter feeding, for herd the size of our as we go through what are called silage bales, which are wrapped, round bales. We know through about 1500 of these round bales in the wintertime, we bring them this, this would be a feeding time from October until end of May. And they have some fresh water running all winter. Other than that, they're... that's the feeding regimen, grasses in the summer. hay in the wintertime, and fresh water. To manage these herds, Nicole, we need to identify the animals. So we could identify for example, which cows are calving and when the calf was born. We're in the meat production business, so we need to do some selection as of the weight gain. And we want to weigh each animal once a year. You need to put tags on the tag that we can read and in Canada as it is in the US I believe, traceability is mandatory for domestic animals. So if we want to move them from our farm, either to an auction or to another buyer, they have to have a readable tag and an electronic tag. So we need to tag all of the animals. If you chose visualize that these are, the bulls for example of even younger bulls, can be about, they weight 1800, 1900 pounds a young bulls and older bulls can get a little bit bigger than that. That's a big animal with a head when their huge head and a large hump on them. They're powerful animals and they truly want to stay as a herd to try and segregate and separate one to run them through chutes and into a a what's called the squeeze chute and to hold the animals so that we can put a tag on it or read a tag or weigh it. And thank you, it's called the wild west for a couple of weeks every year. It's one of those things where when ranchers get together and bison ranchers and this is the subject of long evenings, the design of corrals has evolved tremendously over the years. It's done as smoothly as possible. And it's still a challenge. It's a time of year here when we gather all of our friends and relatives and make volunteers out of them to help us out and to round up. But it's a exciting time. I said holistic earlier, I mentioned, we have this holistic approach, holistic, of course, with the environment, you want to be balanced that and do that as well as you can. And of course, there's the animals, health and well being. And then there's there's family life and that you want to be well balanced. And also, of course, there's the financial side. For this to be sustainable and has to produce income. On that part, my children have done her doing a better job even than I was doing. They've taught me that we should be expanding our income bases, for tourism for example. So lately, we've been doing tours through the herd, in a covered wagon, right into the herd. Yeah, it's a really exciting thing. It's fun. We get a school group after school group all through the early days of spring, and they get to see the calving and see the animals are very close up. And then through the summer, tourists book tours on our website, and pay for their tickets and show up for the tourism. It's been very, very good, and good income, and pleasant for everyone. And then of course, that's given us a gift shop for people can get all of the usual items, t-shirts and hats and so on. But at the same time, guess what my children said why are we throwing away bison skulls every time we harvest the bison? And there's a market for bisons skulls. And an old rancher like me, I didn't think there was. Of course, I was deeply wrong. And we sell , we bleach bison skulls. And we actually even get many of them painted by local artists. And so we have we sell bison skulls online. And that's a very nice source of income. That's the next generation is, is doing these things much better than I did. So that adds to the balance on the economic side. Our ranch, essentially, though, is a ranch that sells bison meat throughout the province of Ontario, mainly through farm gate. Out of our own farm, we sell a full carcasses to other small bison ranchers who farm gate. During this COVID epidemic, it's been a astounding growth in demand for them. None of them can supply and can support the demand with their small bison herds. But since we have this large herd, and we're very well set up to harvest regularly, we have a demand throughout the province. So they're slaughtered locally here and shipped and refrigerated trucks to run through the province and then retailed in various other bison producers in the province to do farm gate sales direct to consumers. So it's been a nice shift to fellow ranchers who were all short of bison. And here we have this larger herd, we have a good image. And not just the image, of course, the reality of having grass fed, certified animal welfare, the bison and healthy animals and a quality, a quality of meat product that people enjoy. So it's all turned out to actually for the better and helped us in the pandemic, it's for us has been a chance to pivot. We've always been champions of regional foods. The whole notion of provenance and where food,s who produces the food, buy local and we've participated in every campaign for the last 25 years. I think not just us, I think all across America, there have been many of us who knew this was the right way to produce food and the right way to consume food was to try and buy it regionally locally from people you knew. And products that had a history, all of us that are in this in the on the production side of food, hope to these good habits stick with people once we resolve the pandemic issues. And that it's been it's been a learning curve, and that it sticks with people.
Nicole: 19:09
Absolutely. I would agree with that. You know, one of the things like you mentioned with the pandemic is people all of a sudden I think became more aware or more concerned about where their food came from. And I think that that's, if I had to say that there was a good thing that came from this, I think that that is one good thing, you know, to have people more connected with self sufficiency and food sources and things like that. So in regards to the meat itself, what are some of the main differences between bison meat and standard beef.
Pierre: 19:44
Of course, I'm a strong believer that there is a difference and we want to maintain that difference by being not just grass fed but extensively ranched on large surfaces and no feed lots, not just no grains but also of course no antibiotics in the water and absolutely no growth hormones, but the meat naturally when tested is a much leaner meat. The natural state of bison meat is virtually a quarter of the fat that there would be in beef. It's a very low fat content, a little bit less calories per per gram, and less cholesterol in the meat and high iron content. That'd be some easily measured things and it's easy for us to document so it's a different meat. Then again, the cuts have the same configuration as domestic bovine so the domestic beef, so the steaks, the roasts and the ribs and so on are pretty well the same cuts. The meat will be darker because of the high iron content and won't be marbled so that because of the leanness. The taste is different enough, and it can be appreciated that it's not beef. The palatability, I think that digestability is better because of the low fat. I think it's a healthier meat but that's that's me being a missionary. For those who were hunters or who've had the privilege of eating, I don't know elk or caribou or deer, some of the these undulate meats are strikingly different so that the aroma, the taste and the appearance in your plate is such that they couldn't tell you this is beef from mass market supply your I don't know from a Costco. Bison is not as clearly defined. It's very close to beef in appearance, and in first taste, so it people adopted easily. We find if we can get past an initial objection, we find once people adopt it they tend to not go back to beef as easily, mainly because of the low fat. It's a striking difference when you use meats through lean like this. And by the way, the bison is close to bovines, has the same biology, the same four stomachs but not quite the same as beef. It is what beef would have been like before humans colonized it for thousands of years. It's a good, very good meat and healthy meat, of course. You know the cholesterol counts and the calorie count and the fat counts are all better than beef and in our ranching practices. There are people who ranch bison exactly as they would beef. It's unfortunate, but they've adopted the industrial beef production practices of feedlots, under I guess under the same financial pressures and trying to get better cash flow and accelerate growth of animals. They call it feedlot segregation by age groups and by weight groups and confinement so that the energy is converted to meat as opposed to being used to walk around in open fields. So we find that that's very unfortunate. And it destroys the natural advantage that bison have, which is it's a great specialty product for people who want to eat meat, but eat healthy meats and meats that have had minimal impact on the environment, if any. We think we're documenting here, by the way, and you call on our ranch with this is this effort at improving pastures and the density and quality of grasses on or properties.
Nicole: 23:35
Oh, really?
Pierre: 23:35
All of this is exciting, exciting things. They're an easy animal to keep within fences, by the way, if there are people out there who were thinking about it. They truly do not challenge fences. I've had goats, I've had horses in my lifetime I've had variety of animals. The bison don't even rub up against fences. They're bovine so they, they basically eat and then lay down and chew their cud just like bovines. They're placid. So that's the bovine side and they will move away. As soon as people walk towards them, they'll move away. So it's not a hard ranching, the ranching and the actual upkeep of bison is simple: freshwater availability, and either pasture or hay for the wintertime. That's it.
Nicole: 24:24
So you mentioned in the beginning that the bison needed a little bit more care than you anticipated. What care were you needing to provide that you didn't expect? And what do you think are some of the biggest challenges and raising bison in general?
Pierre: 24:39
All of the animal husbandry practices are very long term business propositions, so you have to be armed with a lot of patience. It feels, and it's real in the first year, probably in the first decade, you're forever investing and reinvesting any income as you grow as you grow the herd as you grow your equipment, your sophistication,. That's one of the things that we realized in the previous years. The other one is that even though it's a wild animal, and we had assumed that they would do well with virtually zero management, and we would just fend some very large piece of land and leave them there, and just gather them once a year to harvest the ones that we want to send to market. It turns out that if you're going to do this and try during the living and have it pay it's way, that you should probably pay much more attention to what grasses are growing in your pasture. So then you want to improve those grasses and you have to buy seeds and find ways to see these in our case either no till seeding with machinery or broadcast seeding, and then you should have a selection process in your herd. Because when a bison, by the way, live twice as long as domestic bovines I should have mentioned that somewhere. And this is one of the exciting things they they live to 30-35 years of age, virtually double that of let's say a Hereford or a Black Angus or Chevenet domestic species of bovines. The other one is probably it needs inventive marketing, which we did not pay enough attention to in the early days. We're in a world where everything is mass produced, including meats, and to sell an unusual item or something that's not in the ordinary course of things, it's hard to get into these regular channels of distribution to restaurants, for example. And even consumers who have been trained now to what format and products absolutely standardized products and color, shape, size weight, packaging. Then there's the issues I mentioned earlier that we now have market stalls and we do tours on the farm. But we, to this day have not been able to do anything with hides. And that is a marvelous opportunity. And we should, it's hard to capitalize on that because in North America there's very few tanneries left, that's all been offshored. And we haven't, I think we need to try and market our products in a consumer friendly, more ready to prepare or ready to consume format for people. There are very few people, I'm not making any judgments on contemporary life here., but it's a fact of life that dual income families and smaller families and don't buy 10 pound roasts and don't have meals, Sunday meals where there are 10 people around the table and you have leftovers for the rest of the week and you prepare lunches This is we we need to up our game that way and have some products that are sized and that are formatted so that it works for today's consumer we still being healthy products and true to what we want to do. I think we need to adjust that way. And we haven't done that well. We're working on adding value to the product at the moment we sell carcasses that were virtually wholesalers and I think the cross the people who prosper at these specialty ranching enterprises add values of the product. I think if I if I offered you a bison meat pie, it would be very pleasant for you and maybe better than a roast because you don't have time to prep a roast and be in the kitchen in the afternoon. And I and yet and if it was something that was really out of the ordinary and we actually have some great recipes for some bison meat pies, it'd be better income for us, and would allow us to utilize for example, lower grade cuts on the animals. These are things that are in the future and I know my children will be doing this eventually. When I make my little speech or my missionary speech on bison ranching, I like to tell people who dream and think about it that it's entirely a viable animal husbandry practice. You can earn a living and support your family or have it as a side enterprise, if you continue to work off farm. It does not require that much time, not that much investment, perhaps less than beef even because there are no barns required no capital investments in heavy machinery. Our whole firm at 300 bison operates with a single 80 horsepower tractor. That's what we need to bring hay in the wintertime. The rest, they're out grazing year round and we don't need manure spreaders. They're doing this naturally. And that's so that's the it's it's doable. And it requires a little bit of skill at marketing, as most of I think the alternative productions you need. You have to be able to show up either at farmer's markets, you have to be able to present to the public you have to have I think a good website, and an ordering system on your electronic, e-commerce able website. If you've got those skills, and if you're caring for the animals is not very complicated, there with the bison. It's this simple and straightforward ranching practice. But I found over the years of the people who do best with bison generally have experience at marketing and not marketing in the crass way, I'm not talking that you're that you've got a checkered the plaid jacket, and you're used car salesman, but that you've experienced that moving products to people, and between people and so that you know, but things like a, a presentation, all of these things, allow you to sell your products and sell them in my case, the bison products, and to do well by it and every recurring customers. And we always ask ourselves what we're trying to do and where we want to be. And try to keep that holistic balance, meant, generally, I'm very satisfied with how it's going, especially since we're moving into third generation and doing it, it's very pleasant.
Nicole: 31:13
That's great. So if I recall correctly in looking at your website, in addition to the skulls that you sell, you also have animals available to start your own herd? Is that correct?
Pierre: 31:28
We sell a breeding stock. Over time, since we've kept records on our animals and bison records you're hardwired to develop and keep them for animals that you've got in the stall in the barn. But still we have good records, we have very good reputation on the health side for animals, and we sell a fair amount of breeding stock, we answer so many questions over a year's time, that now I've formalized this a bit., and we developed a mentorship package so that we can assist people who start up and there are quite a few questions every year. And so in an effort to be of assistance, we include a mentorship package for people who started bison ranching. This is something that we want people to do it but to do it well, and to do well by the animals, and well by themselves also, financially so that they don't want to start something they have to quit in five or 10 years. That's been part of our development in the last few years.
Nicole: 32:28
And so what is your website, or the best way to get a hold of you? If somebody would like to learn some more?
Pierre: 32:34
The company's name is Bison du Nord. And so bison du nord, I guess, and if you check that up on the website, there's some good video on there, good images of the family and the bison. And if they check up on the website, then they'll get our contact information. And we'll be happy to answer any questions. We, as you may have felt in this podcast where virtually the whole family is very talkative, it could be because of the remoteness and the distance. We get our kinship and our friendships occasionally, and when people come up, we love to host people when people want to visit the ranch. We do a fair amount of custom tours for people, and we're proud of what we've done, If they check out "Bison du Nord", and the bison by the way is the real name for buffalo. What's been called buffalo is a misnomer in the end. The buffalo refers to water buffalo, and the early settlers probably thought they were seeing the same animals each seen in Africa and in Asia. But they're bison and it's said that perhaps the first French settlers called it water buffalo in French, which would "beef l'eau", "l'eau" being water. So the buffalo name came for that. But the real name of the animal is it's a bison.
Nicole: 33:54
Interesting? Well, for the folks like myself that don't speak French, I'll be sure to put a link in the description so that they don't have any troubles finding you and get more information. And you know, I wish that I lived just a little bit closer because I've seen the pictures on your website. And it really is an incredible ranch and I would absolutely love to come come visit and see your operation. It looks really amazing. And the territory that you're in is beautiful. The the area is just gorgeous. And of course your animals are very, very great looking animals there. So I definitely admire what you have going on at your ranch.
Pierre: 34:34
Well, I thank you I've enjoyed the conversation. People say then I turn into a missionary when I talk about bison ranching. We're very, very committed to it to do this for 48 years and to still be to this day we're still expanding. We also we connect with people so often and we have so much communications going on. By the way all website and their Facebook pages and Instagram and so on, this is the work of the two daughters that are, of course, much better than their and mature father. And doing and they develop something I think that really represents us. I think it shows there's a human element to our farm, there's a financial element, and there's an animal element. And I think somehow, that all seems to come through very well in what they're doing and on our social media and on our website.
Nicole: 35:30
Yeah, I've been very impressed. They're doing a great job. And you know, I feel like they're doing a wonderful job of being progressive in today's day and age and in progress is, unfortunately, just how it is. But...
Pierre: 35:44
Yeah, it's a challenge. I alluded to that earlier. If I'm allowed to do one last comment, which is, I think, because it's this balance, where you want to be progressive, progressive in the sense that there are sometimes better ways to do things, there are things that are better machinery, better techniques, some new knowledge, so you have to forever be seeking that out. And of course, you're trying to make this be sustainable on an economic basis, so that you have to be thinking about working debt. And yet you have to stay balanced. And there has to be, there's a human element to this with a family life has to be good and productive and happy. You want some serenity, in all of this while you're purposeful and you're committed. We're French. And so for example, for us food, and gatherings and large meals, and a lot of enjoyment in life is very, very important. Not just because we're French, I think that works for works for Americans, it works for Canadians, it works for everyone. But the enjoyment side of life for us is very, very important. And we've factored that into all of that all that we do. So there we go.
Nicole: 36:54
I think that's a wonderful philosophy of life just in general.
Pierre: 37:00
Thank you very much. I appreciate the call. Thanks.
Nicole: 37:03
Yes, thank you for your I really appreciate your time. And again, we'll put the link so that everybody can get more information. And I enjoyed our talk about bison today. Thank you so much.
Pierre: 37:13
Thanks for giving me an opportunity to speak about the bison again.
Nicole: 37:18
Yes, my pleasure.
Pierre: 37:20
Okay.
Nicole: 37:22
And for those of you at home listening, thank you so much for joining me for another episode of Backyard Bounty. We'll see you again next week.
Announcer: 37:29
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