Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Visit Ballerina Farm With Me

00:00:00.000 hey y'all joe here and you are listening to under the influence the very very ballerina farm

00:00:12.480 edition now if you're already a subscriber to my sub stack over the influence you might have

00:00:17.800 already listened to some of these clips i kept them behind the paywall for a little bit but i

00:00:21.780 really wanted to resurface this in a bigger way because there's a lot of conversations going on

00:00:25.400 about Ballerina Farm right now. I recorded the first part of this episode inside the Ballerina

00:00:29.880 Farm store, getting my first impressions, the stuff that I ate. I'm hanging out in there with

00:00:34.740 my friend Flannery, who does not follow any social media influencers and had no idea who

00:00:39.200 Hannah Nealman was when we went into this experiment. Flannery is also the owner of

00:00:44.360 another woman-owned bookshop, Bluebird & Co. Yeah, she's also amazing. I only surround myself with

00:00:50.100 amazing women these days, and it has changed my life for the better. So the sound on this is

00:00:58.040 going to be a little bit different because I'm literally just recording while I'm wandering

00:01:01.260 around the store and scarfing down one of the most delicious egg sausage and cheese croissants

00:01:07.500 that I've ever had, but it's fun. So come along with me on this romp.

00:01:11.540 i gotta say right from the beginning this is definitely a different kind of podcast a lot

00:01:23.100 of the recordings in here i do right in the spur of the moment walking through the ballerina farm

00:01:30.140 store and then also the farm stand which is a whole separate entity and that's where you can

00:01:37.740 get ice cream at both locations. But that's really like the big protein laden soft serve

00:01:43.420 place of it all. And that one's in Camas, Utah, which is closer to the Ballerina Farm Dairy,

00:01:50.400 which I also toured with none other than Daniel Nealman, which was a big surprise for me. Didn't

00:01:56.160 think that was going to happen when I bought a ticket and signed up for the $20 general population

00:02:02.300 tour. But that is another episode of this very special premium podcast. Huge thanks to everyone

00:02:09.200 who has bought the Parisian Heist already. Keep those orders coming. Tell everyone you know about

00:02:14.760 it. It is ridiculous that authors have to hustle like this, but we do because if we don't do it,

00:02:21.220 no one else does. And if I've learned anything from influencers, it's that we have to hustle

00:02:25.900 for ourselves. We have to hustle for our brands. And that's probably the best thing that I've

00:02:30.800 learned from influencers. Honestly, it truly is. Now, on to my trip to Midway, Utah. I went to

00:02:39.620 Midway because a wonderful woman-owned bookstore called Folklore invited me out for an event. And

00:02:46.300 I will tell you, I was a little bit nervous. I'm like, is it okay if I come to what is ostensibly

00:02:53.620 a little bit trad wife country, but also it's an influencer hotspot. It truly is.

00:03:02.420 There's so many stories that are going to come out of this trip and just like fascinating business

00:03:06.820 stories, I've got to tell you. But Folklore, which also has Parisian for pre-order right now

00:03:12.820 on their website, and they'll ship anywhere. They're really just so lovely.

00:03:17.100 the event there was so wonderful. We had more than 60 women in that room. We had their murder

00:03:25.440 club come. We had people drive in from an hour away. And it was just such a delightful event of

00:03:32.460 community and camaraderie and fun. So I can't recommend it enough. Midway itself is a small

00:03:38.500 town. It's, you know, maybe a four stoplight town with about 6000 people. It is home to something

00:03:45.020 called the Swiss Swiss Days and also a Swiss Miss like junior lady competition where young girls

00:03:53.520 dress up like the Swiss Miss girl with the braids and all of the things. Their town hall looks like

00:04:01.080 a Swiss chalet. It has a cuckoo clock that chimes on the hour and it's just darling. It is darling

00:04:08.640 and sweet, but it is also not rugged country so much anymore. It is nestled in the Wasatch

00:04:16.400 Mountains, which are absolutely gorgeous. I mean, you wake up and you look at them and you're like,

00:04:20.060 Jesus Christ, why would I live anywhere else? But it is also home to a lot of new development,

00:04:27.660 like so much new development, because it's about 15 minutes from Deer Valley, Park City,

00:04:32.760 and Canyon Ski Areas. They're actually building a lift that's going to go into Midway. So there

00:04:38.020 are developments of houses that are 3 million to 20 million dollars. There is so much money in this

00:04:46.000 town and I think that's really interesting to point out because the Ballerina Farm brand didn't

00:04:52.840 just drop their first store like in the middle of bumblefuck. They dropped it in the middle of a

00:04:59.240 place surrounded by people who have a lot of money. A lot of money, a lot of power, and a lot of

00:05:06.180 influence, okay? But the town is still small. It's still small. And the Ballerina Farm Store,

00:05:12.400 which is in the town of Midway, is also pretty small. It's on a side street off of Main Street.

00:05:19.500 There's not much parking at all. I was able to park not too far away, but people love to complain

00:05:25.480 about parking. They really do. They really do. And you walk in and it just looks like a regular

00:05:31.440 coffee shop slash bakery-ish with like, you know, the same kind of artisanal grocery sundry goods

00:05:40.900 place that is now in every town in America. I mean, everything looks a little pastoral,

00:05:47.660 little house on the prairie, a little Brooklyn-y. Everything looks the same now, right? So that's

00:05:52.740 what it looks like. You walk in, all the people working there are very young. I mean, probably

00:05:57.520 high school age, maybe a couple college age. So here's the tape from my very first impressions

00:06:05.020 of the shop. I'm a little overwhelmed. It is packed in here at eight in the morning. And I

00:06:12.780 gotta tell you, the crowd is really diverse in a really interesting way. It's young. It's like

00:06:24.940 late teens, definitely 20-somethings, influencer types. But then up to, you know, some women in 1.00

00:06:35.720 their 80s. I want to add here that there was racial diversity as well, which I was very

00:06:41.080 surprised by in this corner of Utah because I'm not going to mince words. It is a very white 0.99

00:06:48.240 area. But within the store, it did feel like it was bringing visitors to the shop from a lot of

00:06:59.560 different ethnicities, a lot of different races. And that was something that really, really,

00:07:03.500 truly surprised me. So okay, back to the tape. I'm gonna start looking at all the things that

00:07:10.520 are available. We can get the Ballerina Farm beef tallow for $40. Ooh, ooh, a chimichurri.

00:07:26.880 That's $9. Regenerative bone broth. Tomato and thyme. That does sound good. For $13.

00:07:33.720 mayonnaise 17.50 ketchup nine all right dude i want to try everything i want to try everything

00:07:41.000 i do quail eggs only five dollars fresh farm eggs six dollars for half a dozen oh these are cute

00:07:49.540 oh damn it i'm such a sucker for candles that look like food oh oh there's cookie dough there's 0.94

00:07:56.140 cookie dough and croissants. I mean, cinnamon roll croissants. I don't, I mean, can I get those 0.99

00:08:04.680 home in my back, in my backpack? $26 for six of them, which seems like a lot for croissants.

00:08:12.980 Oh God, do I have to buy the Willis sourdough starter? I'm really influenced. Coming into the

00:08:17.400 store has really influenced me. I don't actually fully know how to handle it. Ooh, a bread bow

00:08:21.720 knife. Maybe Stephen would like that. Stephen is the artist and author, Stephen Weinberg.

00:08:31.100 You may have seen him on my Instagram because he is my sister husband. Is that what we would

00:08:38.420 call it? My sister husband up in the Catskills. He's married to the wonderful Casey Cheska. 0.90

00:08:42.800 And he is the sourdough baker in our lives. He makes the best sourdough that I've ever had.

00:08:48.520 Uh, he's tried to teach me many times and I'm crap. 0.99

00:08:52.900 I'm crap at bacon. 0.99

00:08:54.100 I truly am. 0.99

00:08:55.060 I mean, why even bother?

00:08:57.080 Why, why buy any of these accoutrements?

00:08:58.900 They are not going to make me a better baker.

00:09:01.240 But that was something that I thought was really interesting about this space.

00:09:05.440 It's that it was like walking into the Instagram.

00:09:09.680 It was like walking into a pastoral fantasy where if you buy the gingham oven mitt or

00:09:16.560 the denim egg apron or the bread basket or the knife, like maybe just maybe you could be this

00:09:24.800 person, like maybe you could attain this fantasy. And that's just so classic influencer, right?

00:09:30.240 Just, you know, convincing you and maybe making you feel a little bit off kilter, but convincing

00:09:36.160 you that if you just spend money on these things, then your life is going to be as idyllic as the

00:09:42.880 heavily filtered life that you look at on the Instagram. So my friend Flannery joined me in

00:09:49.460 the shop after this. She's the owner of Bluebird Bookstop. I love her so much. She came with me on

00:09:55.740 this whole trip, and she's the one who introduced me to the folks at Folklore. And she was so fun

00:10:02.000 to bring into the store because she'd never looked at Ballerina Farms Instagram, like never ever.

00:10:06.380 and she was she was just like okay like she went into this as a total bf virgin and she's also very

00:10:15.220 interested in branding right branding and marketing because she owns her own beautiful 0.96

00:10:19.800 little shop it's a beautiful bookshop but it also sells home goods and great dresses she always

00:10:25.700 dresses me for all my book tours because I have no sense of personal style but yeah so she was

00:10:32.400 interested in Ballerina Farm as a brand. And she loved the branding on everything, just like

00:10:37.020 freaking, freaking loved it. She's like, this is top, top notch branding. But one of the first

00:10:42.020 things she looked at the Ballerina Farm Instagram account. And one of the first things that both of

00:10:47.440 us noticed is that there were a lot of young women in the shop who did look exactly like

00:10:51.980 Hannah Nealman with the very long blonde hair, some prairie dresses, there was a lot of gingham.

00:10:58.420 So there really was a lot of Gangnam in the shop.

00:11:02.040 I'm not sure.

00:11:04.060 It was just interesting to be there in the context of Utah culture and Mormon culture, 0.98

00:11:09.060 because I think there were definitely some women cosplaying this kind of ballerina farm aesthetic. 1.00

00:11:15.280 But then that's also just a Utah aesthetic. 1.00

00:11:18.900 People are very dressed up.

00:11:20.540 They put on a full face of makeup to do anything.

00:11:24.420 I mean, literally anything.

00:11:25.480 and that's what a lot of my friends there told me and a lot of the women that I met at the events

00:11:29.580 so again putting it all in context was totally fascinating and so yeah here here's Flannery

00:11:37.580 and I just wandering around the store talking about that. Did you notice that a lot of the

00:11:44.100 women here and the young girls look exactly like her? No because I don't know what she looks like. 0.94

00:11:48.600 Oh well very very blonde. But they're all very attractive. Very pretty. All right I'm going

00:11:53.360 into the cinnamon roll I literally have no idea what she looks like she looks like that girl

00:11:56.280 she looks she looks exactly like that girl walking up her makeup is perfect 1.00

00:12:00.260 do you think she puts on perfect makeup to make all her homemade stuff I know that she puts on

00:12:07.340 perfect makeup you need to watch it girl oh oh isn't that good oh this is also very good

00:12:15.880 I think there's protein in the glaze and there's protein in everything here okay and that is the

00:12:22.440 other thing I have to say it is a very protein forward shop when I am home I struggle to get 1.00

00:12:30.980 the amount of protein that apparently a 45 year old woman is supposed to huff in a day if we want 0.99

00:12:37.400 to keep our bone mass or muscle mass or I don't you know all that all that shit but uh you know 1.00

00:12:44.240 you could get it in like a half an hour in at the ballerina farm store and their milk has protein in 0.99

00:12:49.320 it. Their soft serve ice cream has protein in it. They've got the protein powders. They've got

00:12:55.320 charcuterie boxes. Just yeah, it's very, very protein forward. I think that this is incredibly

00:13:02.580 strategic, right? You know, the world is telling us that protein is protein is the new, the new it

00:13:09.900 thing. Okay. And so I mean, even Dunkin Donuts the other day, I saw I saw had a sign that was

00:13:15.780 like come to Duncan for your protein and I'm like Duncan stick to your lane okay stick to the carbs

00:13:20.720 stick to the donuts that's that's what you're good at stay in your lane uh so yeah they're

00:13:26.140 really capitalizing on on the protein trend and it's everywhere like you the word protein

00:13:31.180 is just everywhere in the store I don't think I could have come here before everyone is lying to

00:13:37.820 you was written or out because it would have been too on the nose and like I just it would have been

00:13:44.940 too much for me like my head would have exploded i needed i needed the space

00:13:49.300 but maybe for the sequel

00:13:54.120 yeah i'm curious what it would have added i mean i think she would have had a farm store but again 1.00

00:14:02.380 like rebecca wasn't hannah nealman so like she has a store oh see here's more blonde lady more 0.99

00:14:10.840 blonde lady so much blonde lady here i need to grow my hair out oh my god oh there's three there's

00:14:14.760 three in a row they all look are they triplets oh my god they all have identical hair everybody

00:14:21.980 is attractive and stylish even the men and everyone is wearing a full face of makeup on

00:14:26.920 saturday morning except for us i have no bra i could people watch here all day long you know

00:14:32.320 what it looks like everybody went to church and then came here after it's saturday i know but

00:14:37.280 that's what it looks like it does but it's saturday maybe every day is church maybe every

00:14:43.700 day as church. And then there were some other fun moments in the store. Like I really liked the

00:14:52.440 red enamel sauce pots and I like the enamel bowls and plates just generally, but I'm not going to

00:14:58.260 pay $50 for a red enamel sauce pot. A lot of things were definitely overpriced. I'm just

00:15:05.400 going to say it, the $17.50 for mayonnaise. And it was a little, it was a very little thing of

00:15:10.360 mayonnaise. And I get it. Like, I like good mayonnaise, guys. But $17.50 for mayonnaise is

00:15:15.220 excessive in my book. And they had the homemade ketchup, too, which was cheaper. I think it was

00:15:19.660 like $9, maybe $7. But it was a very tiny jar. Like, you could maybe put like three or four

00:15:27.260 chicken fingers into that ketchup. My kids use a lot of ketchup on their gross, gross dino nuggets. 0.68

00:15:33.680 But it was not a lot. It was not a lot of ketchup for that much money. And then there was a

00:15:40.240 massive, massive tub of beef tallow, which Flannery and I were like, what exactly do you do

00:15:48.280 with beef tallow? I think you use it in place of other fats. I've also seen some trad wifey types

00:15:56.080 online putting it on their face, but that was also pricey. So I did not buy the beef tallow,

00:16:04.460 but I did buy some other things. Okay. I mean, I actually bought a lot of stuff. I bought a lot of

00:16:09.460 food, which we're going to get into in the next episode because I taste tested a lot, a lot of

00:16:15.200 things. But I also I also got the market tote and I love this market tote. It is red gingham. So it's

00:16:22.520 super cute and massive. It is so huge. I bought so many books when I was in Utah. I also bought

00:16:28.480 a pair of vintage cowboy boots and I put my dirty laundry in this market tote, you know, in like a

00:16:34.360 little like airtight bag. I put my cowboy boots. I put like six or seven books in it. I put my

00:16:39.920 computer in it. This is a big market tote and it was like 40 something dollars. But I think I think

00:16:45.400 that this this this was a this was worth it. It was worth it. I checked out with my tote and then

00:16:52.520 I was eyeing the farmer protein and I was like it's filled with bovine colostrum and like I kind

00:17:00.920 of knew what that was but then I kind of didn't but then I also wanted someone to say it out loud

00:17:04.840 so I asked the young woman at the checkout counter and she just blushed like she was just like I am

00:17:10.380 not talking about this because you know it's clearly colostrum involves nipples and then the

00:17:15.300 young man behind the counter just piped right up and he's like let me tell you what bovine colostrum

00:17:19.080 is my friend uh which I appreciated I really appreciated that I really did what is bovine

00:17:24.780 colostrum? Colostrum is the first milk that comes out of the... Oh, the first milk. Okay.

00:17:31.280 So it's just really nutrient-dense. Cool. I can't not think about nursing babies. I can't not think

00:17:37.020 about nursing babies. I know. I know. I know. I know. Oh, God. All right. Thank you, guys.

00:17:43.560 So yeah, that was my initial impression of the shop. I liked it. It was a nice little shop. It

00:17:50.140 was a nice little shop that could literally be anywhere in America right now. There are stores

00:17:56.720 like this all over the Catskills. And just from generally the stuff it was carrying that wasn't

00:18:03.240 necessarily Ballerina Farm recipes or, you know, Ballerina Farm branded, it's stuff that you could

00:18:11.360 find anywhere. It's nothing altogether that unique. Except I got to tell you, I did like the food. I

00:18:18.220 did. I brought home so much cheese. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make a huge, massive ballerina

00:18:25.000 farm. Cheese and meat and butter plate. And it's gonna be a feast of all. It sure is. Okay, let's

00:18:33.860 take a quick break here. And when we get back, I want you to come with me to the ballerina farm

00:18:39.040 dairy. When I signed up for this dairy tour, I had no idea that it would be Daniel Nailman leading

00:18:45.400 it. I posted that I was going and actually one of the fans of this show and in our newsletter

00:18:53.480 over the influence DM'd me and said that they would love to come along. So this next part is

00:18:59.840 actually my impressions of the Ballerina Farm Dairy with Jenny, who is one of my new buddies

00:19:06.840 and also lives out in this part of Utah. So she had a really unique perspective on the farm.

00:19:14.380 We'll be right back.

00:19:24.000 Hey, Jenny, how you doing?

00:19:26.080 Hi, Jo.

00:19:26.780 I'm so good.

00:19:27.560 How are you?

00:19:28.820 I'm good.

00:19:29.540 I'm good.

00:19:29.900 So we're now obviously best friends because you slid into my DMs when you found out I

00:19:35.820 was coming to Midway, Utah, and you were like, can we hang?

00:19:39.340 And I was like, do you want to go to the Ballerina Farm Dairy Farm with me?

00:19:42.640 And you did.

00:19:43.580 I did. And I'm so not ashamed of sliding into your DMs. When you find a kindred spirit online,

00:19:51.100 like you just go for it. Yeah, no, 100%. 100%. And I just I and I welcome these kinds of DM

00:19:58.640 sidings. I really do. Because my friend Flannery, who was doing the trip with me,

00:20:03.480 who came out to folklore bookstore, couldn't do the dairy trip. And it wouldn't have been the same

00:20:08.340 if someone else hadn't witnessed it with me I think I'm so glad I was there like I really

00:20:18.340 I genuinely enjoyed it was my first dairy farm tour I've done a lot of like food tours of like

00:20:25.980 different food factories I once went to the place where like the JetBlue test kitchen which was

00:20:32.600 also kind of cool and also Mormon and now I'm just realizing weirdly related to Daniel Nielman

00:20:37.520 as well and I go to a lot of breweries and distilleries but like I learned so much about

00:20:42.620 dairy farming from this tour agreed so much so all right let's back up when I found out that I was

00:20:50.660 going to Midway to Folklore bookstore which is in the town where Ballerina Farm the brand has their

00:20:59.140 farm store and right next to Camas Utah where they have their farm um I just I did like a little bit

00:21:06.280 research about what honestly just like when i could visit the farm store and then on the farm

00:21:12.340 store's website it said do you want to tour our dairy and i was like yes i do want to tour your

00:21:17.600 dairy uh i did not know this was an option and i'm gonna throw it out there actually because

00:21:21.780 i know there's a lot of folks who follow ballerina farm a lot more seriously than i do

00:21:26.840 i i do not follow the brand on my instagram because my instagram is highly curated for

00:21:33.900 things that I like uh and so even though this is clearly an area that we we talk about a lot

00:21:40.620 on the podcast and influencing is something I report on I don't follow ballerina farm so like

00:21:49.000 I am not as intimately acquainted with the daily goings-on of the farm store as other people like

00:21:55.340 I was messaging Sarah Peterson I'm like did you know you could do this she's like of course I

00:21:58.940 knew that you could do this but um I did not know and I was like yeah I want to tour your

00:22:03.660 dairy farm this sounds awesome and this is a thing that's available to the general population

00:22:07.240 you just click a button and you buy a ticket it's twenty dollars um they only happen a couple times

00:22:15.600 a month I think and it was it was cool and apparently they sell out every time that they

00:22:22.500 do that but I had no idea what I was getting into and then I said to you too I was like hey uh yeah

00:22:27.400 so just come meet me at this random store and or at this random farm and then we're gonna gonna do

00:22:33.360 this together so it's $20 kids are free uh which is cool and yeah so we show up I drive out to

00:22:41.860 Kamas which is beautiful it's beautiful land you're from there so tell me like your your

00:22:47.120 experience you're like all right yeah I'll do this thing but I'm from the area I know this area really

00:22:50.660 well yeah first of all I I was like so ready to squire you about town and show off my my little

00:22:58.540 city because I'm so proud of it. Um, not realizing that you were actually quite familiar with Utah.

00:23:04.760 So, um, but yeah, I've been to Camas a bunch and actually I had been to their farm to buy meat like

00:23:12.700 several years ago. The area is absolutely beautiful. It still has a lot of farmland.

00:23:17.360 And so, you know, it's, it's really rich in farming history and, and people back here are

00:23:22.180 really, really proud of it. So, um, yeah, it was, it was fun to get to meet you over in Camas and

00:23:28.080 i'm just i'm just gonna you know address the pronunciation thing because i know we pronounce

00:23:32.360 really weird in utah but yes it is camas i mean whatever like should austin street be pronounced

00:23:40.460 houston i don't know uh so okay so go to the dairy farm i pull up there's a there's a smattering of

00:23:49.800 other people in in the parking lot and it's just it's small it's a small operation and i'm i'm i'm

00:23:58.060 greeted by the dairy farm manager one of the questions that i keep getting asked is did they

00:24:03.420 know who you were and this is a very interesting question because i am not a famous person okay

00:24:07.820 so it's a good question i mean i i would argue i would argue that they're savvy enough that they

00:24:14.940 may they may have vetted names googled names who knows i don't think they do and i actually do not

00:24:20.740 think that they're super duper savvy and i think maybe they could be they could be savvier to be

00:24:26.480 honest but so because i was not going into this as a press person that was not my goal my goal

00:24:33.400 honestly was to experience this just the same way that anyone else would and because i was doing that

00:24:39.900 when i when i'm talking about like when i'm explaining what happened i want to do that in

00:24:46.940 a way that anyone could do on social media um it's like not as a journalist but i'm like okay

00:24:52.300 anyone who goes on this tour could talk about the things that I saw, could talk about the things

00:24:58.620 that I talked about. My goal was never to do gotcha. My goal was not to interrogate them

00:25:05.080 with questions. But when I introduced myself to the woman who runs the dairy farm, I said,

00:25:12.260 hey, I'm Joe Piazza. I'm an author. I'm here for an author event at Folklore Books in Midway.

00:25:19.520 i wrote a book that has influenced their characters i do a podcast called under the

00:25:24.560 influence i told her about the origin story of under the influence so like they very much knew

00:25:28.440 that i was in this space and they knew who i was so anyway so we're there it's most it's mostly

00:25:35.920 families actually it's it's all families uh besides us in in the parking lot and then all

00:25:40.900 of a sudden the dairy manager was like oh okay yeah daniel's here he's just running a little

00:25:45.200 but late. And I'm like, wait, Daniel Nealman is the giving this tour? Seriously? And he was,

00:25:51.760 he was the one giving the tour. So he shows up in a battered pair of Carhartt overalls. And he's

00:25:58.100 like, Hey, sorry, I'm late. I just dropped my kids off at the ski mountain with their grandparents

00:26:03.820 and I'm going to meet them after this. And then he started showing us around, right?

00:26:08.960 Yes. I loved how surprised you were to see him there. You know, I had visited the farm

00:26:15.020 to buy meat several years ago. And he was there. He was the one who kind of handed the beef off

00:26:21.280 to me. He's like, here's your meat. Yeah, exactly. And their kids were running around

00:26:27.720 and it was in a different location. It wasn't at the dairy farm, but it was actually up at their

00:26:31.320 house. And so, yeah, I mean, I think they're pretty down to earth, even though a lot of us

00:26:39.460 who follow them on Instagram, they feel kind of bigger than life out here in Utah.

00:26:45.020 i think they're just kind of regular people and and the fact that he was wearing kind of hand-me-down

00:26:49.960 car hearts even like not even yeah they were his car hearts he was like they belong to our old farm

00:26:54.020 manager but they were like also like perfectly battered car hearts um i kind of think the

00:26:59.900 ballerina farm should start selling their own branded car hearts uh i think there's a lot of

00:27:03.920 missed branding opportunities here to be honest okay so truth be told i have definitely bought

00:27:10.860 from their retail store and when they had online they sold this i bought a ton of stuff from the

00:27:16.480 retail store you know what i bought that i loved i bought their i'm a big market tote person i love

00:27:21.740 a market tote um and i bought the red gang a market tote and it is wonderful it is so big

00:27:26.900 and its pockets are truly excellent yes so i bought this silk necktie that they said that

00:27:33.640 this is what farmers wear out in the fields when when it's cold it's like this silk big

00:27:38.760 necktie and I fully have started wearing it skiing it is so comfortable it is so warm

00:27:45.200 and it's a little bit stylish I'm down with it look I'm easily influenced girl I'm easily

00:27:51.420 influenced uh so yeah so you know Daniel comes he introduces himself and another question that

00:27:57.160 I've gotten a lot is from people saying was he as big a douche as I think he is and again I'm like

00:28:04.180 i'm not here to do any gotcha stuff but i have a really good do show meter i mean like i can spy 0.96

00:28:10.240 a douche from a mile away the majority of my boyfriends are massive douches like i know douche

00:28:17.300 i know douche well and he did he just he actually seemed seemed like a basic bro but not a douche 0.92

00:28:24.720 okay like i did not get douche vibes from him did you get douche vibes no and i dare i say

00:28:30.320 he seemed really nice he seemed really nice answered our questions seemed to really love cows

00:28:37.520 he seemed great he seemed really passionate I mean to be honest like let's I again

00:28:44.340 farming is really hard business and one of my criticisms of the ballerina farm brand

00:28:50.200 has always been one making it look a little too easy because real farmers struggle so much

00:28:55.160 It's a lot easier when you have a lot of money to back it up and to support you.

00:29:00.200 And you don't have to necessarily worry about it being your sole source of income.

00:29:05.280 But at face value, he seemed like a dude who was real passionate about what he was doing.

00:29:11.560 He was pretty knowledgeable about what he was doing.

00:29:14.660 We didn't get into the nitty gritties of pasteurized milk, raw milk, but it was a well-run

00:29:21.580 small dairy farming operation and he was he was he was he was a nice bro a nice if basic bro

00:29:30.340 yes and I would say that you know I feel that same way about their operation they have a very

00:29:38.180 small farm and we have several dairy when you realize you're like oh this is small yeah and

00:29:45.400 we have several dairy farms back here and you know they do not have the marketing budget that

00:29:51.080 ballerina farm has. And so that's where it gets a little, a little dicey for me is, is the fact

00:29:58.200 that, you know, these farm, all of these dairy farm workers are working very, very hard and none

00:30:04.000 of it is glamorous. And, and so that's always just kind of like been the ick factor, uh, for me.

00:30:11.240 Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I totally, I feel that I feel that. And it's, it, it does suck real hard

00:30:19.180 that we live in this world now where the branding and the glam factor help sell things. And it

00:30:28.440 doesn't matter how much labor and hard work you're putting in, how good a product you're making,

00:30:32.780 it can still be really hard to rise to the top. I see it with books all the time, right? I'm like,

00:30:36.480 oh, the publishing house paid $1.7 million for that book. So it's getting all of the marketing

00:30:41.440 love without the author having to do anything. That sucks. And that's not fair. But it is also 0.96

00:30:46.280 of the world that we live in right now right alas that is a veiled veiled way to say pre-order

00:30:54.100 your copy of the parisian heist right now people got it ordered i'm on it i know you are i know

00:30:59.420 you are you're you're doing you're doing the lord's work right now all right let's take one

00:31:04.000 more quick break here. When we get back, more from the farm. And we are back, back to the farm,

00:31:17.260 back to Daniel Nailman. There was nothing off limits in this farm, which in this farm tour,

00:31:22.240 which is why I think if you're out there, go take this tour. It was super cool. Like we started out

00:31:26.620 with looking at like the different feeds and stuff. And I'm like, oh, okay. Like this is

00:31:30.780 just like a standard run of the mill thing. But then we went through everything from

00:31:35.940 the cows being milked to the vat of insemination semen to, and then we were just like hanging out

00:31:44.900 with the cows, just like petting the cows for like an hour. And it was so, it was so high tech.

00:31:50.880 That's what I was shocked by. That was the, that was the big shocker. That was the big

00:31:55.840 shocker here uh is for me at least how high tech this is this is a tech driven dare i say it data

00:32:05.900 and ai driven farming operation there is nothing nothing nothing little house on the prairie ish

00:32:13.420 about this farming operation no the the data that they get from the cows was was bananas

00:32:21.420 bananas yeah and so I mean there are just there's robots there's a milking robot a milking machine

00:32:30.180 right uh that they said they don't even make in the U.S. I think they said that it comes from

00:32:34.940 maybe the Netherlands uh there's the milking machine there's the robot that picks up the

00:32:40.900 poop the composting robot that like it's like a Roomba but for poop that drives around and and um

00:32:48.200 gets the poop and then puts it in the composting poop area uh and then there was one more robot

00:32:53.380 too what was the other robot well i thought it was the artificial insemination it was like the

00:32:58.160 the semen yeah the semen the semen so you oh no no the other one was that all the cows are wearing

00:33:04.640 their trackers oh that's right oh and then and then all the cows are wearing their trackers

00:33:09.720 which tell them like how many steps they've they've taken how much milk they're producing

00:33:15.320 for every given milking and if they're like dropping below a certain number how many times

00:33:21.180 they've been milked a day how much food they're eating in a day probably how much they're pooping

00:33:25.680 in a day I mean they just they have so much data and then like the ability to predict what's going

00:33:31.440 to happen next with the cows was also really interesting to me uh I am gonna say my favorite

00:33:38.400 part of the tour and like I you and I just like I had to tell you this the second I heard it there

00:33:44.360 were a couple women there with a small kid and then another baby attached to them in a very

00:33:51.400 fancy looking carrier I will say I said this in the past couple posts I did about Ballerina Farm

00:33:56.080 uh and my visits out to Midway I don't necessarily think everyone is like a Ballerina Farm clone or

00:34:02.420 acolyte I think it is a very it's there's also a very Utah Mormon aesthetic to a lot of it it's

00:34:08.900 like it's very chicken and egg to me yes um but daniel said he's like all right all of our cows

00:34:14.960 are either milk currently milking or they're pregnant and then one woman looks the other

00:34:18.900 woman she's like that's my life i'm either milking or i'm pregnant and i'm like oh my god

00:34:24.240 if i were going to write a snarky story about this that would be my lead but it's but then also

00:34:30.060 like i'm a person who as of two years ago i would have been like for the past eight years i've been

00:34:36.020 milking are pregnant that has been my life that was my life for eight years right and it's just

00:34:41.480 we just have such big families out here it's just not that unusual to to hear a comment like that

00:34:47.940 I guess and I gotta say that being in Utah and I've spent a lot of time in Utah but being there

00:34:53.720 now in the context of so much that's happening in the world and also in the context of talking

00:34:59.020 about social media and tradwifery and conservative values so much of ballerina farm and i think the

00:35:06.380 ballerina farm commentary is often just taken out of context of utah yes um and often written by

00:35:14.080 coastal media elites who don't really get the world and so they do think she's such an anomaly

00:35:20.380 and that you know she's create creating this world that like all these people are are following but

00:35:24.840 I'm like, there's so many people like her in Utah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, literally I was

00:35:31.520 like, my mother is, is this kind of Mormon trope. Like she was literally the Weber County

00:35:39.100 dairy queen. So she was a beauty queen. She made all of her own clothes. You know, we grew up in 1.00

00:35:44.340 California, but she was like the only mom I knew that canned her vegetables and canned peaches and

00:35:50.380 fruit like it was it's definitely a cultural norm I would say and even the big families I mean

00:35:56.740 in Mormon culture I don't know if you've you know we always joked that Mormons drove BMWs 0.53

00:36:02.580 do you know what that means no I do not nope bring it on those are big Mormon wagons oh okay

00:36:08.800 those are those are suburbans so like it's it's very it's it's pretty common to to see out here 0.78

00:36:15.760 you know homesteading um just really kind of going back to those pioneer roots yeah yeah exactly and

00:36:25.320 so yes i do think that from a branding and marketing perspective like the ballerina farm

00:36:29.120 brand has done a really good job capturing all these things but also there there's nothing

00:36:35.020 nothing necessarily new under the sun uh with with you know the size of their family or you know

00:36:43.620 just even their values and the things that they're promoting out to the world I think that's really

00:36:49.860 interesting to remember you know especially as we read more and more snarky commentary

00:36:54.380 on these brands and in the world and one of my friends Sarah Peterson was actually like

00:36:59.280 are you gonna become like a Daniel apologist I'm like no I'm like but I'm also not gonna snark on

00:37:04.020 someone for like just to snark on someone uh like I mean I'll snark when snark is required my friends

00:37:12.900 i am there for that uh but i also we're all here that's why we're all here right but like i also

00:37:17.960 i do not have an inherent meanness for any of this no certainly uh so i gotta say i as far as

00:37:25.040 farming goes farming i think we all have different levels of how comfortable we are um despite the

00:37:32.640 fact that the majority of people are not going to give up the products you know that come from

00:37:38.240 animals. But it did seem like a fairly humane operation, a well-run operation. These seemed

00:37:45.860 like pretty happy cows. What did it seem like to you? Joe, my favorite fact that I learned that day

00:37:51.000 from Daniel was the fact that we walked into the dairy and it was really quiet. Like there was not

00:37:56.120 a lot of noise other than the poop machines and the milking. And I learned that when cows are

00:38:03.580 happy and in homeostasis, they're very quiet. It's when they're uncomfortable that they moo.

00:38:11.140 And I'm going to take that fact to my deathbed. I feel very like I'm going to share that with 1.00

00:38:16.840 everybody I know. If you hear a cow mooing, they might not be the happiest cow that you've ever

00:38:20.760 seen. Right? Yeah, no, exactly. Exactly. So I know I love that fact too. I loved it. And yeah,

00:38:27.340 these cows they seem like pretty pretty happy cows as as he said they are either milking or

00:38:35.120 they're preggers and they've got this automatic milking machine which i do think is very interesting

00:38:41.920 because for so long i do think in the early days of the ballerina farm brand another one of the

00:38:46.340 issues i had taken with it was they were acting like oh we do this all ourselves we're getting up

00:38:50.680 we're milking the cow right um and maybe they do still milk milk their private cow i don't know

00:38:55.180 what they do okay but uh there there's a robot milking the cows and the the cows know when to go

00:39:02.280 into the robotic milker and they line up because they get a treat when they go into the robotic

00:39:06.720 milker we spent a lot of time I've got pictures and there's gonna be pictures in the subset of

00:39:10.940 the robotic milker which is really interesting and um and we met we met the baby cows uh and

00:39:19.440 they have a calf is born every other day every other day there were cows about to give birth i

00:39:26.620 was like are we gonna see a cow being born and he's like maybe it's really well and also there's

00:39:33.420 so many cows that they like everyone gets to name the cows and so at the end of it like we got to

00:39:38.920 submit names for cows and obviously i submitted the names rebecca and lizzie and tripod and then

00:39:45.360 also all of my children so hopefully uh there will there will there will soon be some some cows

00:39:51.960 with those names on the farm did i miss that did i miss that you won you left early remember like

00:39:57.040 you just took your milk and you left and so yeah you missed you missed the name submission of the

00:40:02.220 cows oh my gosh well i'll have to go back and double check in fact if i went this week we

00:40:06.640 probably might see if you named a cow if you go this week yeah yeah yeah next time you go like

00:40:11.480 try to find my cows that I named uh and yeah I'm trying to think of what else and we asked

00:40:17.900 he yeah Daniel really did answer every question that came up the raw milk did not come up uh

00:40:25.060 and honestly it just like I didn't go in like I said as journal saying going with a massive plan

00:40:32.680 to like interrogate him about it but it also just like didn't come up naturally in conversation

00:40:38.560 well and i don't think that the raw milk the raw milk isn't it wasn't as big of a story back here

00:40:46.420 i don't think it was as big a story out there yeah and

00:40:49.960 so yeah so overall i will say top-notch dairy farm visiting experience from someone who's never

00:40:58.700 visited a dairy farm before really enjoyed it uh and then from there you were given a you're

00:41:05.600 you're given a free soft serve ice cream which are loaded with protein did you go get yours

00:41:10.800 I of course I went to get mine I like went and hung out and you get to feed like more cows and

00:41:14.940 goats and sheep and pigs over there uh and I had the soft serve that was covered in their butter

00:41:22.380 and then the butter shell hardens and there's sea salt in it and it was I had the maple cinnamon

00:41:27.460 which is which I really it's a the flavor that I'm very into of theirs and yeah I mean overall

00:41:33.660 like top-notch day we had a good time you know the one thing i wanted to talk about is is kind of

00:41:40.000 the impact of ballerina farm on the midway area because midway has largely been a really just

00:41:46.100 charming sleepy town i mean it's been you know they've filmed hallmark movies there it's just a

00:41:52.700 really cute quaint little town and so you know we've had the kind of the resurgence of um of of

00:42:00.420 boutiques and retailers and of course folklore that have opened up in midway and you know I've

00:42:07.180 been back here for probably 10 years and I thought how are these places going to survive like how are

00:42:12.640 these places going to survive and and actually like they're doing really really well it's really

00:42:19.040 busy and I'm in a lot of these stores and you know you'll hear people behind the counter say

00:42:23.680 well what brought you back here and there were some people from Denver Colorado who came to visit

00:42:29.100 ballerina farm and and that part of it is softening my heart a little bit toward towards

00:42:34.720 them I mean of course if you get on the community boards people are really pissed about traffic but

00:42:40.380 yeah but people are pissed about traffic everywhere it's like the favorite favorite

00:42:44.940 community board topic like nobody likes traffic everyone wants to bitch about parking

00:42:49.020 like it's just it's everywhere from small towns to big cities yes and so I'm super glad to see

00:42:55.980 these these businesses that are women owned thrive and survive and i'm not i'm not saying

00:43:00.840 that it's because of ballerina farms at all but i am saying that i think ballerina farms is driving

00:43:05.940 some additional traffic especially mid midweek traffic you know a lot of times we are a we're

00:43:11.140 kind of a weekend getaway tourist town but i'm finding that our stores are are busy during the

00:43:16.460 week too so anyway i i thought that was kind of unique unique take on yeah well there was that

00:43:25.020 kind of snarky um story in the cut uh about that people in the town didn't really like the store

00:43:32.360 that they were annoyed I didn't get that vibe at all and in fact every shop owner that I talked to

00:43:37.220 was like we just welcome more traffic okay like if they're bringing in folks if they're bringing

00:43:43.140 attention to the town at this point yeah parking's always a always kind of a bitch but we're we

00:43:49.720 definitely see a surge of customers and that's great right I mean retail at street level also

00:43:55.820 more retail in person is a good thing and I don't think it's all easy I know that like some other

00:44:01.960 dairies it can be frustrating because they don't have the marketing and branding budget 0.97

00:44:05.720 but also Midway isn't some podunk town like their houses there's such a surge of like also like

00:44:15.140 people moving there when they before might have had a second home because like now you can work

00:44:19.860 remote but like these are multi-million dollar houses like this is a very like well off area

00:44:26.040 in a lot of ways as well so they're people that have money to spend absolutely yes and and i love

00:44:33.180 it and especially with your friends at folklore your friends and mine at folklore you're so great

00:44:38.240 i want nothing more than for that bookstore to just thrive yes i want it to be a destination

00:44:44.760 it's become kind of a community gathering

00:44:48.100 spot or they've just done such a good job

00:44:50.840 I want that place to thrive

00:44:53.280 exactly

00:44:54.440 and look there were some other

00:44:56.860 great local businesses, local boutiques

00:44:58.680 I got my vintage cowboy boots

00:45:01.060 from Fernway down the street

00:45:03.020 Fernway is like, they're the best

00:45:05.100 they're amazing, that shop is so well curated

00:45:07.500 yeah and some great bread

00:45:09.220 from the dainty pear and a candle

00:45:11.280 shaped like a rooster from the dainty pear

00:45:13.480 I mean

00:45:14.160 And look, it's a great town.

00:45:17.400 I'm psyched to come back with my kids.

00:45:18.980 I enjoyed the farm tour.

00:45:20.700 I am sorry for people who wanted more snark.

00:45:23.220 But if you want Ballerina Farm Snark, there's lots of places to get it.

00:45:26.120 I promise you.

00:45:26.820 Am I missing anything?

00:45:28.320 I don't think so.

00:45:29.180 Thanks so much for inviting me on, Jo.

00:45:30.960 It was so fun.

00:45:32.540 Thanks so much for being here.

00:45:33.660 This was awesome.

00:45:34.440 I loved having you.

00:45:35.580 And I'll be back in Midway soon.

00:45:37.140 And then we'll all hang.

00:45:38.160 And we'll all go have some more protein soft serve.

00:45:43.380 Sounds perfect.

00:45:44.160 I'll see you then.

00:45:45.180 I'll see you then.

00:46:14.160 You

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - May 06, 2026

Visit Ballerina Farm With Me

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