Hobby Farm or Business? ft Brad Doss

Announcer: 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: Thank you for joining us for another episode of Backyard Bounty. Today, I'm joined by my friend Brad, who's here with Doss financial, and he's going to be talking to us about some tax stuff with farming and things that you need to know if you're starting your new farm business. So Brad, thank you so much for joining me.

Brad: Thanks for having me.

Nicole: So you are actually my personal/business accountant. So you are pretty familiar with this farm stuff. We've been working together for a couple years now. So I know that the farm stuff is pretty familiar to you even though it can be a little bit confusing to people like me. So thank you for sharing your knowledge with us today.

Brad: Yeah, I love the talk. So I figured this was a great opportunity.

Nicole: Yeah. I don't like to talk, so feel free to take it away.

Brad: Well, my name is Brad Doss. I'm from Pueblo, Colorado born and raised. I started my accounting company roughly three years ago. I started out with just 12 bookkeeping clients, and I'm just slowly grown. I think I'm over 40 bookkeeping clients and 60 or 70 tax clients and stuff. So I got my degree out at CSU Pueblo out here. I am not a CPA, which is a little reminder, I guess. I'm not a CPA, I can still do pretty much anything a CPA can do. The only thing I can do is tax returns and bookkeeping for publicly traded companies. So I guess if your farm is publicly traded, I'm not going to be too much of a help to you, but the chances of that are probably pretty slim anyway. I've yet to see anyone that is a publicly traded company and let alone a farm. So, that's a little background of me.

Nicole: Awesome. And you're able to provide like this information is applicable to people outside of Colorado, right? It's not just state specific?

Brad: Yeah. So the federal laws apply to all 50 states. As far as bookkeeping and accounting wise, your federal side's going to be consistent. Every state has separate laws. So there might be a couple differences from state to state which I haven't done a return in every single state obviously, but the ones I have done I haven't seen anything special for farming. But that's not to say that there isn't something special in the stage but it's something that is easily... I don't know what I'm trying to say. You can figure it out. If you look at the return, you can see what kind of benefits farming might have for you are at the end of the year on the return and see something like that. So, but yeah, I'm pretty useful.

Nicole: Yeah. I think so. I use you regularly. So if somebody wanted to take their farm and turn it into more of a business instead of a hobby, what's kind of the difference on your end of the world as far as business versus entertainment purposes.

Brad: So with the tax laws that were implemented 2018 basically, quote unquote, hobby farming has no benefit to you on a tax side, you can't take any hobby farming losses anymore. So it kind of makes it to where you have to be a little bit more direct with what you're trying to do, I guess, and the key is to not call it a hobby farm and just call it a business. And that helps you a lot and you can actually still then benefit from that. And there's a couple Surefire rules that will consider you as a business and not as a hobby farm. And then there's also some that are left up to interpretation that can still classify you as a business. So if you do show losses that you can benefit from those losses, because most farms show loss.

Nicole: Yeah, unfortunately. So what does somebody need to do to be officially titled as a business like is it just having registered with the state as a business?

Brad: Not necessarily. Having an LLC definitely helps you legitimize but, the IRS has what they call safe harbor rules. And if you do that, then you will be guaranteed to be considered a business for profit and not necessarily a hobby farm. One of the rules is that if you have a positive taxable income for three out of five years. So if you lose money two years and three straight years ago profit or any combination of that, it's under the safe harbor rules. So you are guaranteed to be considered a business and all of your losses and stuff can be taken or carried forward. That's kind of a general one. There's a random one too that I found that actually, if you're into horses, breeding, racing anything like that show horse, you can deduct up to all of your profit you can actually show a loss, but you can take all of your profit every year. So, that's a random little tidbit of that.

Brad: That's the guaranteed way to take be considered a business and then there's some other ways that are up for interpretation, I guess you could say. Basically the best way would be to conduct it quote unquote in a business manner, which would basically be, have good bookkeeping and good record keeping have an LLC set up at least with the state even in if you don't have any EIN Number. And the biggest thing is to show that you are attempting to make an income at least through, if you're marketing your products or you're going to trade shows or you're going to farmers markets and stuff like that, to actually show that you're trying to create an income instead of just raising some goats out on the farm and then taking their feed and writing it off when it's really not in yourself two things like goat milk or something a year, that's not really going to benefit you.

Brad: Another one that is pretty specific for like you is to if you have expertise in the activity, so I would say you're pretty expertise in the beekeeping industry for sure after listening to some of your podcast.

Nicole: Thank you.

Brad: I think it's the Drake one and you're like, "Oh, well, you can't put it in a tree, you can't. Well, the thing is with bees, I can travel up to nine miles." So something like that definitely can be considered spending enough time to justify that's a business and not a hobby. If you just feed your goats for 10 minutes, I don't know why I keep using goat references, but,

Nicole: It works.

Brad: I think it's because I had someone coming to me this year that had a goat farm so it got stuck in my head, but spending enough time to be considered a business and not a hobby.

Nicole: And it's kind of the subjective thing where they don't say, well, you need to spend five hours a day or something.

Brad: Yeah, that's the great thing about the IRS is a lot of laws are so open. Well, it's a good and a bad thing. A lot of it is left up to interpretation. So there's no set time limit per day, just whatever you can justify, I guess, I would say something that's at least part time hours between 15 to 20 hours a week, or something like that.

Nicole: That's pretty easy.

Brad: Yeah, it adds up. And if you're really legitimately a business and you're trying to make money, you'll easily do 15 to 20 hours a week, I would think. And one of them, that's kind of the last one I had a note of was, your financial status can kind of affect it. So, a lot of times, if you're rich and wealthy person, and you make a lot of money, you're always looking for tax breaks or ways to bring your income down. So if you make a lot of money, and then you show a very large farming loss, they're definitely going to look at you more, because you have the money to cover the loss whereas benefit you on the taxes. If you're more of like a middle class person, they assume that basically, you don't have all this extra money to keep losing every year on farming. So it kind of would legitimize it a little bit more for you.

Nicole: I think most real farmers typically are not on the wealthy end.

Brad: Yeah, at least not like an annual big income. Yeah, I agree. So I think there's a lot of farmers that are very wealthy, but it took time.

Nicole: Yeah, with the time you can get there, but most of us aren't so lucky.

Brad: It's a tedious business. It's not like the quick path to success or where to wealth I should say not success. But wealth and success are different.

Nicole: Especially if it's a smaller scale, I think you just enjoy living impoverished. So you can still have a job and farm at the same time and still be considered a farm business.

Brad: Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, either meet the safe harbor rule, and maybe you move some depreciation expenses or some kind of deductions, you might move them all to one year. So you might buy like a piece of machinery you really need and instead of depreciating it over five or seven years, take it all in the first year and show a big loss that year, but the next year, you'll show an income to try to get the three years of positive income out of the five so you can do stuff like that and that'll definitely legitimize everything for you. And I think honestly, most people around here at least more like small scale farming kind of they usually have jobs outside of what they do and a lot of time they start out as a hobby. And now it's growing to like a legitimate business.

Nicole: And then if none of that makes sense to you what you just said, we can always just have you do it for us.

Brad: Yeah, I was gonna say are you just bug me. I'm a dork. I like to go through IRS tax code. I mean and farming is something that's pretty specific honestly. And there's a lot of special rules for farming it has its own separate tax form on your return schedule F and it's separate from a lot of the other tax world. So it can get kind of confusing. And I know taxes are changing every year. So you definitely want to try to stay on top of it and be working with some type of tax professional.

Brad: I wouldn't recommend to do it just once a year like a bookkeeping saying a lot of times people will just save the receipts all year and then go to h&r block or something at the end of the year and then just hope for the best. I think that honestly a lot of times you're probably going to be missing out on a lot of your expenses and deductions and possibilities. Really.

Nicole: I know that in the years past, before I met you, we used other either tax programs and done it ourselves or other individuals. And they weren't always completed correctly. And then recently, in the process of applying for the USDA loan, they were very pleased to see that you filed a schedule F for us. That really helped us a lot something that the previous people did not do. So, that was super helpful.

Brad: Yeah, I think a lot of times, they just put it as a normal schedule C or something like that.

Nicole: Yeah, that's exactly what they did.

Brad: And on your tax return, there's a box in there where you have to classify what your businesses by code, and they take those codes and they compare them throughout all of the tax returns. So every single business with that code gets compared and all the outliers are higher chance of audit.

Brad: So if you were to do a farming tax return on a schedule C, you probably are going to be raising your risk of audit because your numbers are going to be so much different than someone else that might be doing a similar thing, but not necessarily farming. So you might be showing like an $8 000 loss, and the average for that industry is like 20 $30 000 net income or something. So it's going to definitely raise flags for you. So yeah, that's why it's important to definitely be on top of it, because... And farming is kind of one of the things where there is a lot that's like, up to judgment. So, basically, if you ever were to get audited, you're guilty until proven innocent, it's not the other way around.

Brad: So, if they, decide to audit you and you can't prove some of your expenses or you can't prove some of the stuff that's going on, you could be hit with a pretty rough tax bill. And a lot of times they take two or three years to get around to it, but they definitely will add up all your fees for those two, three years that you thought you were good too.

Nicole: That doesn't sound like any fun.

Brad: No it's not no one wants a big tax bill. And it was really a bummer if you really did lose $5 000 and then you have a $5 000 tax bill because your accountant filed the Schedule C so schedule F, or something really small like that. IRS audits aren't too fun to deal with. So I would recommend to avoid them. Really, the best thing is just record keeping for everything that you do. That's the best way to legitimize any business you're doing especially in farming, though. What else you got for me?

Nicole: I thought you had the notes.

Brad: Well, I ran out of notes.

Nicole: Fresh out of notes. So if somebody wanted to start a farming business upgrade from a hobby other than, maybe getting an LLC and hooking up with somebody like you to help with the bookkeeping, is there anything else that they should do?

Brad: Well, as far as the LLC and legitimizing in the business, you're good to go. But I think that what you should look at as if it's actually worth your time and money to even make it a business. If you are doing it and you want the tax break, but you're just going to keep losing money. It might not benefit you to keep growing something if you just keep losing a ton of money. If, you don't see like a true end game. Like I said, I had people that had a goat farm and they try to sell goat milk for two years and they just kept losing money more than anything and it's kind of like, I mean, you can still sell your goat milk sparingly if you want but maybe not go so full fledged into it.

Brad: It's like any other business, you really have to make sure that it's worth your time. So, sit down and I always say at least give it a couple years or something and see where it goes. You never know it might turn into something else or it might be worth it. It might not be worth it. It's hard to say with like social media and everything. I mean, really anything can grow to extreme numbers. So it's always worth a shot but don't stick around just for like tax breaks because it could come back and bite you. If, you don't. From a tax standpoint, and from a personal finance standpoint.

Nicole: And with the farming. I don't remember if you mentioned this already, but is there a maximum number of years that you can show losses before the IRS is like, "Yeah, it's time to do something different."

Brad: There's not a maximum number or anything. No, theoretically. Now most big farms, most of them will show a loss every single year, honestly. And that's totally normal because they can justify that they're doing real business by the other ways that they're doing it. And a lot of times they have like the loans or if you're raising cattle, you get USDA loans or stuff like that. And by the time you write off everything, a lot of times you do show a loss, and you can show a loss like every year, but a lot of the loss that you're taking isn't like actual money you spent, I guess you could say.

Nicole: Sure, it's not money lost in the grand scheme of things.

Brad: Yeah, only on tax side, from a cash flow side, the cash is still there. And that's why you keep doing it. And then that's legitimate too. So, but that's like a big scale farms too. If you're doing something smaller and losing... Like, if you only sell $500 worth of chickens or something, and then you have a $10 000 loss, like that's not gonna fly. But if you're doing $300 000 in cattle sales, and then you still have a little bit of a loss like 10 000 a year or something. That's legitimate.

Nicole: So there's a difference between real life losses and losses on paper on the tax side, I guess.

Brad: Yeah. So like, if you buy feed, or something like that, like that's the last and you incurred it and you actually spent the money, but if you have like a farm truck and it depreciates every year, that depreciation isn't really something you're paying out of pocket. It's just the loss of value. But on the tax side, it comes out as a big number. So you know what I mean?

Nicole: Yeah, that makes sense.

Brad: There's like depreciation, interest on loans, you actually pay the interest, but it doesn't feel like it kind of, most people just pay the one payment, and then it splits up. So stuff like that, or, cattle loss or something, your cattle die and whatever you paid for it, you can write it off, but it's kind of might have been something that an expense you occurred two years ago, and then the cattle died or something like that. So there's different kind of stuff like that really changes the taxes.

Nicole: That makes sense. Stuff that I don't really think about since you do it for me. Here's my receipts, make it work.

Brad: Yeah, I try to keep people at least educated on like the minimum of what's going on. But there's a lot of like background stuff. And honestly, a lot of people don't really care anyway. They are just like, "Whatever, what's the number at the end?" They have a question then they'll ask me, but most people are just like, "Please make it work, make it painless."

Nicole: Yes, I already have enough going on. I don't need to mess with numbers.

Brad: And see, that's all I do all day long.

Nicole: I'd rather go clean chicken coops every day.

Brad: It's funny. I always tell my fiance that I need to go buy a work truck because I really want a truck. But I always call it a work truck and she's like, "You work in an office."

Nicole: Well, as long as you sit in the truck and send an email, then it's-

Brad: Maybe, that's the key. I mean, I gotta drive. I gotta get To work somehow, right?

Nicole: Definitely.

Brad: So that's actually the thing. Yeah, maybe I just need to get more like farming clients so I can take my truck to an actual farm like, meet with with them

Nicole: On site meetings.

Brad: Yeah, the sob can't make it through the dirt road. So, that's all legitimize it to her.

Nicole: Perfect. So if you're starting your farm as a business, what is the best way to file it with the state? I know that like we are an LLC, but I know there's other options. So what's kind of the pros and cons of those.

Brad: So an LLC is basically only for a state level. There's no tax return for an LLC because they can be taxed multiple different ways. So a lot of times if you're first starting a company, the best bet is to get an LLC through the state that you're in, and then be taxed as a sole prop. So when you get your EIN number, they'll ask you what is your company structure? If you're smaller and you're just starting out, it's definitely best to have an LLC taxed as a sole proprietorship.

Nicole: Can you be a sole proprietor if you have multiple people in the business, so like it was me and my husband?

Brad: Yeah, I was gonna say if have two people or something, it's going to have to be a partnership, which you set up as a partnership. From a tax standpoint, you'll have a whole separate tax return for your partnership. But it's still taxes as if it's a sole prop because you're still paying self employment tax on it. And usually, those are the two best ways to start out. Because once you switch to like a corporation, you have to start running payroll and stuff on yourself. So get the LLC made, start as a sole prop or partnership if you're gonna be in business with other people, once your net income... So your bottom dollar income per year, once that's getting around 40 to $50 000, that's when it's going to be more beneficial to switch the company to an S corporation, which all you have to do is just fill out two forms and send them into the IRS before March 15 of each year, and that will reclassify you as a corporation and then as an S corporation.

Brad: So once you are an S corp, you have to all of the officers of the company have to be on a salary. So every month you get paid X amount of dollars. And the main benefit from an S corp to an LLC is you avoid self employment tax. So say your company makes $50 000 net income And you would have to pay 15% plus income tax, which can be from 12 to 30%, or whatever it is based on any other income you have on that $50 000. Whereas if you're an S corp owner, you pay yourself a salary of, say 32 000 a year. So you pay your 15%, which is your payroll taxes on the 32. But then the 18 000 and above it is only income tax, no payroll tax.

Brad: So that's where you start saving it. But once you're an S corp, you're officially become an employee of the company as well as an owner. And so you have to have work comp or not work comp, you have to have unemployment on yourself. So you pay $42 a year for unemployment for the feds and then whatever your state rate is, in Colorado, it they give you a percentage usually around 2% on the first 13 000 $100 you pay yourself. So it's a pretty small amount. It's like another 250 a month, but you have to have unemployment on yourself as an owner and an employee of your business. So that's kind of silly. But if you ever close your business, you can file for unemployment.

Nicole: Can you have employees under an LLC?

Brad: Yeah, so you don't need to be an S corp to have employees, you can still be a sole prop. And you can hire people as employees, you do have to set up a couple of different payroll accounts and stuff like that with the feds and with the state that you're in. But you can do that you do. You will need an EIN number though, in order to have employees. So if you're just running a sole prop under your social security number, once you get once you start hiring people, then you need to go get EIN number and you set it up that way.

Brad: But I would recommend I mean, it's really simple and pretty cheap to get company set up. In Colorado, it's a $50 fee. And I usually do company setup for 150 plus $50 reimbursement. So it's pretty cheap and it gives you a lot of added protections. And it legitimizes and allows you to keep your business and your personal stuff separate too you can have like a separate bank account for the farm. You got all of your personal and I usually just recommend people get them at the same bank and I can just transfer money to the personal if they want to buy something. Something like that. So, if you're gonna do something and go into business, definitely just get an LLC. Like I said, 200 bucks will get you there and it's definitely worth it.

Nicole: Well, if I understand it correctly, and this was kind of the reason that I got the LLC before I met you. With the bees and stuff, because if something happened and somebody was to sue you and tell me if this is incorrect, and you have an LLC, then they can only sue the business right and your personal stuffs kind of protected a little bit.

Brad: Yeah, that's part of the corporate protection that you get is they can only go after the business if something happened, that creates you liable for your business. Drake will probably tell you that there's a way around it. It's called piercing the corporate veil. And so that's how come you definitely want to try to keep your business and personal expenses separate. Because even if you have a business account, but you're making a lot of personal purchase out of it, then if you were to go to court or lawsuit, they can argue that there's no separation between your company and your personal stuff and they can go after you.

Brad: But that being said, if you don't have a lot of assets to protect any way you are renting a farm or something you don't have a lot to protect, it's not really a big deal because they're, if they see you that what are they going to get out of you? But I mean, if you have a bigger operation or like big machinery or something that has a lot of value in it, whether it's equity or a lot of cash in the bank, it's definitely better to have an LLC and protect it to at least and keep your personal stuff keep your house away from any kind of lawsuit or stuff like that.

Nicole: That'd be unfortunate. If you lost everything, be unfortunate to lose your business but to become homeless out of the deal too would be unfortunate.

Brad: It would be a real bummer.

Nicole: It would be.

Brad: Hopefully you know how to raise chickens so you can eat a little bit, it's under the bridge with you and some chicken.

Nicole: Sounds delightful.

Brad: Don't know how well the chickens would survive.

Nicole: You'll have to snuggle up everybody at night.

Brad: I really want some goats.

Nicole: Me too.

Brad: I know. They're so cute right? They're like little dogs, some of them have creepy eyes though.

Nicole: A little bit and the little monsters have little tiny ears. Those ones are kind of... Have you seen those ones.

Brad: I don't think so.

Nicole: I'll have to show you a picture. We can't have goats with our covenant.

Brad: Oh, I was gonna ask if you had any or not.

Nicole: I literally like milk goats. But also because of my 48 hour fire shifts. You have to milk goats too frequently and my husband's very patient but asking him to go milk and go twice a day might be pushing it.

Brad: Yeah, those are so cute. I was at the zoo in Kansas last weekend. And there was like some demonic goat there. But he was like the cutest demonic goat ever. Like he had one horn coming out of the right side. And then he had like a horn stub on the left side. And then he had a third horn, coming straight, like horizontal. And he had two big old buck teeth, he had some deformity, but he was... I was like, I didn't want to take you home. You can sleep in the bed.

Nicole: You can sleep in the bed. Did you smell the goats?

Brad: Yeah, you're probably right.

Nicole: I'm sure your fiance would love that.

Brad: Oh, I don't think so. She doesn't really like... She likes animals from afar. Ever since, I've always wanted chickens, but I'm way more open to the idea of, maybe I'll have my own farm one day.

Nicole: You should.

Brad: I'll have a schedule F on my return.

Nicole: You need help with chickens or bees I got you covered.

Brad: I've never been stung by a bee. So I'm scared because I don't know what if I'm allergic.

Nicole: So the first time you're stung, you cannot have an allergic reaction because you have to be exposed to an allergen for your body to build up the antigens and to make yourself allergic to it. So most people are stung multiple times. A lot of beekeepers, the other beekeeping like 20 years and all of a sudden they get that sting that doesn't end because your bodies are weird and they kind of do their own thing but. And I wrote like this whole long blog post on this actually that gets a little scientific because the paramedic and me enjoys this topic, but.

Brad: It's a good crossover.

Nicole: It... I see what you did there? So you Can't be allergic to something that you've not been exposed to. However, after one sting or your first exposure at any time, your body has the possibility not guaranteed, but the potential to have an anaphylaxis or reaction to it.

Brad: So if I get stung once, I'm good.

Nicole: Your first one's good. First one's free.

Brad: Now you say at any time does that mean like I have a song again, Or like?

Nicole: Yeah, okay, so after you've been exposed and your body builds up the defense, then in subsequent stings, usually your body's like, okay, we've had this before, whatever, but every now and then, and it's like, three to 5% of the adult population in the US, they'll get that sting, but for whatever reason, their body just has a full histamine response. And then that's when you'll have the anaplastic response.

Brad: That's scary.

Nicole: And that's what I don't like. Like the bummer about beekeeping, you could be out in the middle of the field and you've been keeping bees for 20 years and all of a sudden, you've been stung thousands of times. But it's that one time that your body has that full fledged response to it. And there's no way really to determine whether or not that's going to be the one. If you have an atopic... What is it called? Atopic conditions. I can't remember word, but it's like eczema, asthma or something else. I forget which three of them are, then you're predisposed, you're more likely to have it. And women for some reason. And if you pre medicate like if you take a Benadryl before you go out and work your bees and then you get stung. Those are some things that can kind of potentially push you into anaphylaxis response.

Brad: So taking medicine before can make it worse, huh?

Nicole: Yeah, I don't know if it's... I don't remember the details of it, but it like, pre charges your body to have a more extreme response to a sting. So a lot of people think, "Oh, if I take a Benadryl before then it'll"... Like because most of the time when people get stung, it just gets red and itchy and uncomfortable. So people if they were like, "Oh, I don't want to be red and itchy and I might get stung, so I'll take a Benadryl to prevent that." Well, that could potentially cause an anticlimactic response.

Brad: So can they sting you in the suit?

Nicole: Yeah, it depends on the suit. So I wear just like a cotton suit. A budget suit, so it's basically just like wearing a T shirt. They're not very thick. So the bees can see right through them and then my gloves, I don't replace my gloves as often as I should. So they get kind of worn in they'll get kind of thin in places. And so then on the seams or where they're kind of worn down and the bees can stink through that. I had a hole in my veil on time that I didn't know about. And the bee found it I got stuck in the face. That was a good time or sometimes your zipper doesn't like if you don't zip it up all the way they can get in there.

Nicole: But there's other suits that are called ventilated suits. And so they're like a mesh fabric, but they stack it in three layers. So because it's three layers of material, it's just... The stinger is really tiny. I don't know exactly, the measurement, but the three layers of fabric is thicker than the length of the stinger. So they just can't penetrate through all three layers. It's just not long. But they're like $250- $300. So if anybody wants to send me one, but otherwise.

Brad: Someone want to donate for advertising time.

Nicole: Plug your company. In the next episode, and all the episodes if you send me one.

Brad: 10 000 views and the deal's off.

Nicole: And those ones are nicer because you know get so hot here and those ones breathe easier. Whereas my full cotton suit doesn't breathe so well it gets hot.

Brad: I've always been so paranoid of bees because I was like, I've never been stung in 28 years. Yeah, I'm gonna keep it up. I'm never getting stung by a bee ever in my life.

Nicole: Well, most people when they get stung by wasps.

Brad: Really?

Nicole: Because they're more aggressive.

Brad: We had a sandbox when I was little, this has nothing to do with taxes but it's related so we'll keep it in, and there's a sandbox in my backyard and we stopped playing it because we got older. And we just never maintained it really. And then there was like digging wasps which just made a big old nest in there. But I still never have never gotten stung.

Nicole: That's good.

Brad: So well. Now I feel better because now I know I have like one-

Nicole: At least one go.

Brad: ... Option.

Nicole: Realistically the odds of having an anticlimactic response to bee sting are like slim to none so it's like really nothing to worry about but there's always that potential.

Brad: I'm pretty a paranoid person too when it comes to health. So, that doesn't help me much. I'm like living in a bubble. I'd like to go skydiving or something, open myself up more.

Nicole: Or I'll take you out to the hive sometime. I'll put you in a suit.

Brad: I'll get my first sting and then I'll get the second one and then I'll be done for.

Nicole: No.

Brad: Well at least you're a paramedic.

Nicole: Yeah, well, but paramedics only as good as their med bag and I don't exactly... I can't carry Epi with me.

Brad: Well, I was listening to one of the podcast and you were talking about that. I don't know which one. So basically, like an Epi pen is just like adrenaline boost or something.

Nicole: So Epinephrine is the common term and then the... What's the word I'm looking for, like the company. So you got your generic and then you've got your like.

Brad: Real one, original company, expensive one?

Nicole: The training.

Brad: There you go.

Nicole: So you got your generic is Epinephrine and then the trade name of whichever company owned it you know because multiple companies produce epinephrine but one company called it adrenaline and then that just kind of is the trade term just like you know there's, tissues and Kleenex lots of people make tissues but only one brand makes Kleenex.

Brad: Oh, that makes sense.

Nicole: But yeah, so Epi pens, I mean, it's still epinephrine. But we don't carry just an Epi pen we carry vials, so we have to like draw it up based on, the situation itself.

Brad: Size and weight and stuff like that maybe?

Nicole: For Kids, but we have two different concentrations of one to 10 000 and one to 1000. So it depends on if we're giving it for cardiac arrest or for allergy. And that depends on if we're giving an IV or IM, it's like a shot in the muscle. So the route and the indication depends on which dosage that we choose.

Brad: That's crazy. I thought it was I thought it was like anti poison medicine or something. It's just adrenaline.

Nicole: No. Just Epi. Plain old Epi. So for our protocol for allergic reaction is starts with epinephrine and diphenhydramine which is Benadryl.

Brad: That's so interesting.

Nicole: And then other stuff as well, but that's our first line. So we need to stop the allergic reaction and reverse the current symptoms. So, that's what those two things do. The Benadryl stops it from getting worse and the Epi helps back off some of the swelling and the vessel dilatation that occurred.

Brad: I feel a lot better now. Now that I can take one bee sting.

Nicole: You can.

Brad: And then it's hi alert. Higher alert. I'm already on high alert. I don't know how people get stung by bees Honestly though, unless, I mean if you're a beekeeper yeah make sense but.

Nicole: I think a lot of people most commonly is like people walking around barefoot or in flip flops and like bees like forging a flower and then they step on it. So a bee will only sting if it needs defend its colony or its person. I mean it or its itself, say itself because it's not a person. Unless you're like there's a beehive and you're throwing rocks at it or something you're too close to it. They really they don't need to protect themselves. Most people aren't near a hive to get stung in that regard. So it's usually a forger bee and they're out weeding the garden and accidentally squeeze it or something and it stings in the self defense because once they sting, they die. Their stare comes out and it kills them so they're not going to sting unless it's like.

Brad: That's a pretty cruel mechanism.

Nicole: Right.

Brad: Thanks world. Poor guys. So basically just give out, oh.

Nicole: they're all girls.

Brad: What! Okay, poor girls.

Nicole: All worker bees are girls.

Brad: So just give out good vibes to the bees and they will leave you alone.

Nicole: That's one of the biggest things actually that they were teaching in the Cornell online master beekeeper it's not like the only thing. But when keeping bees like they can feel like your energy and so if you're anxious and you're slamming them around and stuff, then they're going to be aggressive but they can like if you're calm, then they kind of feed off that and it keeps them calm.

Brad: I feel like so many animals are like that.

Nicole: Like dogs.

Brad: Yeah, they have like a sixth sense. Really? Like if I'm anxious My dog is anxious. I can tell. It's weird. He's like on high alert too or something. It's so strange.

Nicole: I don't know how they sense it. Like if it's a pheromone thing, or I think it's cool, though.

Brad: Yeah. I don't know. People are weird. Animals are weird.

Nicole: Like seizure dogs. How people we haven't created a machine that you can put on somebody's wrist that detects a seizure. But then you have seizure dogs that that can tell.

Brad: When you have a dog that starts to do figure eight race track between in your legs. They're like, "How's that? How does that work?" But yeah, that's crazy. Dogs are mans best friend, I guess. And women's best friends at this point. Because we're gender neutral podcast.

Nicole: Yes humans best friend.

Brad: Yeah. There you go.

Nicole: For those that would like to get more information and maybe get your assistance with their farm, how can people find you?

Brad: You can go to my website, which should be linked on wherever you're listening.

Nicole: Yeah we'll put it in the description.

Brad: And there's a Contact Us form you can fill out that will send me an email, my phone number on there, so you can even send me a text or call me and leave a voicemail, I usually don't answer them just because I'm busy. So I usually just have people leave me voice messages, or send me an email. And there should be a link to my Instagram account and you can send me a direct message on there. I usually check those pretty often. So kind of any of the forms really, I would say the best two ways is either call or text or Instagram's probably the best bet really. But I check everything every day. So part of owning a business right?

Nicole: Yeah.

Brad: So, like said earlier I pretty much can work with all 50 states. So there's no real restriction, remote accounting, it's pretty simple.

Nicole: Awesome. I know you've been a huge help with me and I know you've saved us a ton of money at the end of the year and stuff so and you're such a great resource to have. So anybody that needs help with farming taxes or otherwise I highly recommend giving Brad a call and he's been great. And I'm sure he can help anybody else with any other questions as well.

Brad: Thanks for having me, this was fun.

Nicole: Yeah, thanks for being here Brad. And thanks for listening to backyard bounty and we'll see you again next week.

Announcer: Thank you for listening to backyard bounty, a podcast by heritage acres market com Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. If, you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show. Please email us at [email protected] also find us on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube @ heritage acres market. All the links mentioned in this podcast will be included in the description. See you again next week.