The Incredible Pol Farm

I've done this veterinary business for 50 years.

I worked with farmers all my life.

Holy Moses.

Hi big guy. How are you?

Michigan is a good place for farmers.

There's dairy farms.

A lot of crop farming here.

It has very good soil, but there's challenges

all over the place.

Watch it. Watch it. Watch it.

It's springtime in Michigan.

And many, many years ago our family

started out with a hobby farm.

We had geese, we had chickens, turkeys, rabbits,

we had everything that you have on the farm.

Now here we are doing the same thing again.

Starting all over.

I'm doing the same thing.

You're just bossing me around.

I'm just here as the brains behind the brawn.

That's right.

We're building a farm, like literally building a farm.

Yep.

We're gonna transform 350 acres of land

into our working farm.

We're going to build a barn, we're going to bring in

some farm animals, planting some crops,

and it's gonna be a lot of work.

Fortunately, I have a huge family.

Give me one.

When you raise the kids on the farm,

they learn how to take care of animals,

they learn how to take care of people.

Working together like this, it's fun.

Doc and son.

Ow!

Well, let's show them how.

But you got your wheel.

You got the wheel.

Well, I mean we can just eyeball it.

We're not eyeballing it.

My Family's farmland is basically

a blank canvas, so we're really starting from scratch.

We will be starting work on a pasture

where we will raise animals.

So, my brother-in-law, Ben,

and I have to measure the pasture to

figure out how many animals it will support.

- Are you ready? - Yes.

Let's go. Let's walk.

Okay, I'll walk.

Oh man.

It's the one thing about farming is

it's gonna get me back in shape.

Yeah, I know.

You definitely need to lose a few pounds.

You don't see many fat farmers.

No.

Ben is, uh, Charles' brother-in-law.

They grew up together.

I happened to marry his sister, so we're family now.

And so he's caught the farming fever.

Yes.

452.

452. What is that in?

Do you need a break?

No, I'm all right.

I'm, I'm a little winded.

I mean I'd watch out, like it's all a little winded.

A little winded.

Okay.

Ah, Charles.

We were close growing up.

My sister and Charles started to talk again,

which kind of rekindled our friendship.

Ever since then, I think he's just been thinking,

"How can I sucker Ben into doing something for me?"

This is the best exercise program you can do.

Farm fit.

I think he goes to bed at night and

he dreams of crazy ideas and

then Doc just tells us how we're doing it wrong and

why we're doing it wrong and

I have to figure out how to make everything work.

But it's the truth.

Two 63 four inches.

263.

You know what's the acreage? How do you divide acreage?

- 40, uh, I think it's 40. - How many feet in?

43,650 square feet in an acre.

I think.

You know that by heart?

We don't have to look that up on like, Google or anything?

We might.

43,560 man. You got it.

- I'm not. I'm not. - You're like Rain Man.

Ben is indispensable.

Right, Charles?

He has a landscaping business in the city.

Landscapers mow lawns, Ben likes to call it hardscape.

Oh, whatever.

Whatever.

My dad's here.

- Hi guys. - Hey boss.

So, how big you think this field is?

Five acres?

It's 2.7 acres.

That's all it is.

Uh-huh. I don't believe it.

- We just measured it. - We just measured it.

I don't give a damn!

Do you want to walk it with us?

No.

- Yeah, you want to walk it? - No.

Okay, it works.

Keep talking.

So, this is our thought, right.

We're thinking sheep in here, ideally 11 total maybe 12.

Sounds good.

I know.

Three acres is enough to put about

a dozen sheep, and three or four cows,

but they eat a lot of hay.

So, at first, you start planting.

Can you go show us the tractor?

How to start that up?

Before we can bring in animals,

we need to make sure that we can feed them.

And this is why we have about 30 acres

next to the pasture to grow a hayfield so that

you have food for the animals in the wintertime.

To plant so much hay is a real pain in the neck.

Luckily, our family farm has a family tractor.

You know, how much I paid for that sucker?

- For the tractor? - Yeah.

35 years ago or.

- Uh, 30 years ago... - Yeah. - How much?

- $8,000. - Are you serious?

Now you can sell it for 40.

I was gonna say, yeah.

I was born and raised on the farm in the Netherlands.

I never had tractors.

We had no electricity, no running water.

We had about 20 cows, pigs, chickens.

This is how we managed to make a living.

And then when we started here, Charles was young.

He was like three or four years old.

And that's one of the nice things of the farm, but,

you know, you make the kids have responsibilities.

And when they do a good job, you tell them so.

If they don't do a good job, then you show them how to do it.

Okay.

Oh, yeah. Here.

Show. Oh.

Here. You hop in. Do it.

- Me? - Yeah.

I don't know how to... Show. Oh.

I took the air conditioning out

when I bought it 20, 30 years ago.

'Cause we never used that.

It's fine, we don't need the AC.

The radio is not working.

Okay, to start this tractor.

It sounds good.

It's an old tractor, but it's a good one.

Doc is like the encyclopedia for farms and

we need to get as much information

out of him as possible.

Okay, so that's that.

Battery is standing right there.

And make sure that there's no water coming in with it.

Check.

Okay. All set?

I don't know.

- Alrighty guys. - See you.

- Thanks, boss. - See you later.

So, you got it all figured out, Charles?

Yeah.

I was paying attention, right?

It's gonna be interesting.

We have a great tractor, and now the next step is getting our hay

planted using a seeder, which is also called a no-till drill.

Come on.

Well, what're we going to do?

Oh, it's probably that thing right there.

I have no idea.

This is going to be interesting.

Oh you'll love it, this is a great machine.

Okay what you wanna do.

Once you get hooked up to the tractor,

plug your hydraulics in, lift, it'll pick it up.

These yellow stops on the side here, flip down.

There's spacers right in here, that gives your depth.

How deep you want your no-tills to come down into the ground.

This just shows alfalfa uncoated,

red clover, timothy, and teff grass.

Yep.

There's another thing you can adjust right here.

Different depth on your no-till coulters.

Yeah.