 Okay, I guess we're live and ready to go. It's five after nine, roughly. Sorry for the delay. Had a couple of little technical issues that we had to address, but I'd like to welcome everybody to this morning's meeting. We're gonna be hearing this morning from Kim Crosby and Keri, Thompson, and one's a milk bottler and reseller. And Kim is with Kasella Waste, and she's the compliance officer there. And I believe we're gonna talk some about the unwrapped machine or whatever it is, we're gonna find out. Anyhow, we're dealing a lot with food waste, food scraps, composting on farms. And so that issue is important to us and how it's working. But before we get into that with you, Kim, and I don't, is there any reason, Keri, do you have a time crunch or no? No, I'm good for a little bit. Yeah, so we'll have the committee introduce themselves and then, yeah, boy, that looks better, Pearson. We just had Zoom bump. Yeah, forgive me, kids at home on Wednesday. Would you like, the committee could introduce themselves please? Good morning, Chris Pearson from Chittenden County. Anthony Polita, Washington County. Ryan Calamore from Rutland County. Ryan from Franklin County and Alberg. And I'm Bobby Starr and I'm from Essex Orleans County. So with that, I'd like to again welcome both of you folks to our meeting this morning and I guess turn it over to Kim who will fill us in on DRAP or so. So anyways, the floor is yours, Kim. And we run kind of an informal meeting, I guess you'd call it. So as you go, you may get some questions on issues as we all listen. Sure. Well, welcome and the floor is yours. Well, thank you for inviting me to be here today to discuss Cassella's newly installed deep packaging operation for the record. I'm Kim Crosby, environmental compliance manager with Cassella Waste Systems, which is based out of Rutland. My office is actually here in Montpelier. We operate waste and recycling facilities and provide collection services throughout the state of Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania for your reference. And if you're interested in learning more about Cassella's operations, I have a two-page report that provides an overview of what we do and volumes and types of materials we collect that I sent over to Linda yesterday. That report also includes a link to our bi-annual sustainability report that I highly recommend checking out in your spare time. Yeah. So I wanted to say also for the record that we're aware of the existing issues or discussions related to feeding of food scraps to chickens. We have been supportive and actually have testified in support of allowing that activity to continue and be regulated by the Department of Agriculture. We think feeding food scraps to chickens and allowing farms to use food scraps as compost is an essential part of the implementation of the universal recycling law. And it's certainly a great option for managing some of the source separated organics. And since we've been following along on that topic, we heard some concerns about the de-packaging operation. So we thought it would be a good time to come in and talk about the facility that we recently installed at our transfer station located in Williston. So with the final phase of the organic span, we recognized that there was a large portion of the organic waste stream that isn't source separated. And prior to July 1st, that material was going to landfill for disposal. And then after July 1st, disposal was not gonna be an option for that material any longer. And without a facility in state, this material would have to be sent to an out-of-state de-packaging facility. De-packaging facilities do exist in other states like Maine and Massachusetts. I believe two of the de-packaging facilities in mass are actually co-located with a digester on a farm. So recognizing that there was a need to manage packaged material, we began permitting and constructing a de-packaging operation that would provide an in-state solution for our customers. So Linda, I'm gonna need permission to share now. You have it. Did you not get it? You're a co-host. Well, where do I get to it? Go to a share screen. Can you see that? No. Well, I'll be happy to share. Give me one sec. Okay. Yeah. Are you folks, Kim, hooked up with someone with a digester or? Yes. Yep, we are. Yep. It's Purpose Energy in Burlington, South Burlington, that's located at the Magic Hat Brewery. Yeah. Okay. So Linda, if you could just go to the next slide. Be great. Thank you. Yep, right there. So this is an overview of the operation of the facility. The unit can process around 20 tons an hour. We have three 15,000 gallon tanks on site for organic slurry storage. We can process and remove contaminants from our residential and commercial organic collection routes and bring that material to a certified compost facility. We installed a baler so we can bail and recycle cardboard packaging and boxes. And as I was just saying, the organic slurry that will be produced will be transported to the digester operated by Purpose Energy in South Burlington. The digester uses organic waste streams to generate biogas that powers Magic Hat's boiler and cogeneration system. We're also planning to backhaul some of their gray water to the digester to use in our de-packaging facility to process certain types of materials in lieu of using clean water. This would be saving on water consumption. And we do anticipate formally opening the facility at the end of February. We had to hope to open sooner, but construction got delayed a few months because of the pandemic. So next slide, Linda. Does anyone has any questions? It sounds like you're utilizing everything either the cardboard or styrofoam. You're getting rid of that in a recyclable way as along with the meat products. Right, so if the packaging is recyclable, packaging, then we can recycle it. And if it's not, then we're obviously gonna have to take it over to the transfer station for disposal. But we did put a baler in, which you can see down at the bottom of that site plan. There's four cardboard that was typically in the past getting disposed of. So we'll be diverting more of that from disposal, which will be great. So you can see the tipping area. There's two bunkers there labeled tipping area that will store the material as it comes in. And then right above those bunkers, there's a hopper where the material will get loaded into and that feeds the unit right above that hopper. And inside that unit, there are paddles that kind of bang the organic material out of the packaging. And below those paddles, there's a series of screens. And you can change out the screens depending upon the material that you're processing. So we could bring those screens down to a quarter of an inch in size. And so if it's a liquid material that we're processing and we're adding water to it, that will get conveyed to those 15,000 gallon tanks. If it's a dry product that we're processing, it'll come out, one of those shoots will be conveyed with a large, looks like a large screw through one of those shoots and it will drop out into a roll-off container. And we can take that either, again, depending upon what it is to a compost facility or maybe it could be animal feed. And then we have one, the trash stays on top of those screens below the paddles and moves out and is conveyed out through a separate shoot and disposed of in a roll-off container. Any questions there? It's pretty hard to see, but... Well, I got some other pictures that'll give you a better view of it. Mr. Chair, I have a question. Well, two questions. Kim, I don't usually go for sort of grand openings as a senator, we get invited to that stuff, but this is so cool. If you do invite people, please think of me. And I'll be glad to come check it out just cause I'm very curious about it. How automated is it versus labor intensive? Like, is it all, is there one person watching this or if you're trying to reuse the cardboard or whatever, or do you have to have several people? I'm just trying to have a better vision for... Yeah, so we're trying to figure that out to Senator Pearson, when we literally just turned this unit on last week. So, we've got one person, obviously that needs to manage the material on the tip floor and load the hopper. And really the unit runs itself. There's not a lot to do behind the scenes. Obviously we're gonna need to monitor the boxes and then work the baler, but maybe two people, three people tops, maybe? That's the only, okay. Yeah, and to your point about a grand opening we had planned on doing that. It's a little challenging with the pandemic, but certainly any one of you who wants to come over and check it out, we can figure something out. That's, it's really amazing to see. It's very impressive. And a lot of credit goes to Mike Cassella. He really worked hard getting, seeing this project constructed and finished. Do they have other plants? Not you folks, but are there other plants? Is that same as Maine or Pennsylvania? Yeah, it's a similar operation. I've never been to the one in Maine so I don't wanna speak too much about that, but that is a packaging facility as far as I can understand. And without one in Vermont, that material has to go out of state to be managed. It can't go for disposal anymore. So we needed an in-state option to manage it. Yeah, well, I think and the committee can pick up on this if I'm wrong. But I thought we heard that Maine, they had a lot of plastic that also got through the process and into the meter. Did we hear that or not? Well, I think some of the concern with what's going to Maine. So I was at a Act 148 stakeholder meeting about a year ago and they had a representative from AgriCycle and from Hanna-Fords come in and talk about that process. And Hanna-Fords liked sending that material to that operation because it was easier for them. It was cost effective for them. It was less labor intensive. But there is material that's mixed, right? There's source separated, mixed with not source separated material. So the issue with microplastics is a problem. It's, it's in compost and it's in digest state. And we certainly have no interest in contributing to an issue. We wanna work with this technology to try to resolve that issue, the best that we can. Yeah. Kim, so do you, do I have it right that you set the machine up and you run, you know, an hour of meat and then you switch the machine around and you run an hour of crackers or whatever? Like is that, is that a premise? Cause the, it's automated, but up to a point, I'm guessing. Yeah, we can, we can process organics from our commercial and residential collection route. And I've got some photos of that. It actually comes out pretty clean. And it's, and it's great because it removes a lot of the, a lot of people are using the compostable bags. Yeah. So we can remove a lot of that. And we actually brought one test load already over to a certified compost facility. So it's nice and clean. All right. It was actually amazing to see how clean it, it did come out. So besides meat, you run a lot of other products through there or you will do it. Yeah, absolutely. Linda, if you want to go to the next slide, there's the actual unit itself while it was being installed. So that long sort of chamber there is where the paddles are inside. And that big sort of black thing is where the hopper feeds into that unit. Comes, the material moves up that shoot and feeds into the unit and then disperses to either shoot. It's, and it's, it looks small in this photo, but it's actually quite large and really impressive how quiet it is and how fast it can process material. So then the next slide. So here's some examples of the material that we can process. So Ben and Jerry's ice cream. That's either expired or it's off spec. I believe that Ben and Jerry's, this material was coming out of the St. Albans plant and was going to Hudson Falls to a waste incinerator that will now will be able to separate out here with this unit and capture the organics and dispose of the packaging. The photo on the right is expired baby formula. So you can imagine how labor intensive it would be to have to empty every single one of those containers. And this was the first material that we ran last week and those lids are made out of a number five plastic, which especially when it's really cold gets really brittle and does break apart. So we might have to adjust screens and add an additional screen at the end of the shoot to get, to get some of that plastic out that comes out. So, you know, addressing upstream packaging that manufacturers and producers are using is I think gonna be part of this equation, whether the material is going for compost or to a digester. And the bottom picture is our organics collection route that we brought in and ran through and brought over to the compost place. Okay, Linda, next slide. So this is another great example of the material that we get requests to dispose of. So the top left is a vitamin supplement. And the two other photos are there's some off-spec beer that wasn't pasteurized correctly. And I think the bottom is cider. So some labor on our part is required here, right? We're gonna have to take the plastic off. We're gonna have to remove the containers from inside those boxes. But, you know, that wasn't something that the facility was able to do. But we're able to do now with our facility. But it seems like we have an awful lot of food going to waste. Right, and that's another part of the equation, Senator Starr, right, is reduction. And I, you know, when you look at that amount of baby formula, you know, what is the solution? How do you reduce that from happening? Well, one way would be to expire it two weeks earlier and then put it out the last two weeks to be distributed to people. But anyway, I have Brian, Senator Coulomborn. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And maybe I missed this, Kim. And if I did, I apologize. How much does this machine cost? This was a $4 million investment for us. For one machine? Yeah, for the whole building and the tanks and the, yep. Okay, thank you. Sure. I have a question. How does the money flow around this? In other words, if I'm the beer company and I didn't pasteurize my beer, I get it to you. You're doing me a service in a sense. I mean, just wondering who pays for what in this system? The generator would pay a fee to bring their material to it, just like any other facility. Same as going to the dump or the recycling depot. A lot of these generators, especially if it's beer, they want a certificate of destruction. They want to know that this material has been destroyed. And we're going to be able to do that. And we were able to do that on the disposal side, but we're now going to be able to do that also with this facility, with the process that we're putting in place. There's a different cost for different materials. I would say like there's beer has its price and Twinkies has a price. Yeah, I don't, again, this is, literally are still in the trialing phase. So I don't even think that we've fine-tuned the cost. In a related question, Kim, then does Magic Hat just pay you as if you're an electric producer? Or, you know, it's only so much of our business, but just trying to understand, you've obviously designed this in a symbiotic way, which is pretty fantastic. And I'd love to understand their piece of this. Yeah, it would be worth actually maybe inviting them to explain what they do. I believe we have a contract with them. I'm not sure of the details I could find out though. Any other questions? I think I have one last slide, possibly. There's an overview of the general tip floor. You can see the popper in the back, the baler over to the right for the cardboard. And then one of the shoots where the material comes out. Next slide. Some of the material, as it's been processed, that's dry, right? So there's some nice organic looking material. And the picture on the left and the shoot in the far back is the one that the packaging is coming out of. So you do, or do you have a dryer there or is that dried product that went through the process? Dried product that went through, yep. And sometimes, you know, as we're working out this system and how to operate it, we might figure out that adding water is a better solution than processing it dry. That looks like it would make good chicken feed. Yeah. It does. I think that's vitamin supplement. They'd be pretty healthy. And then the next slide, I think this is the last one. And that's just a picture of one of the tanks that we can store the organic slurry prior to being transferred over to the digester. So again, you know, we're still in the testing phase. As I mentioned, we just turned on the unit for the first time last week. We're trying to figure out the best way to operate the unit. We figure it's probably gonna take a whole year to nail that process down as we go through each season. And initially where our plan is to pretty much only process the material that we handle. But at some point, we are hoping that we can open it up to, you know, a third party hauler. Yeah. So, hey. Well, that's Senator Calmore. Thank you again, Mr. Chair. This is just a comment, not a question, Kim. Like being from Rutland, I have the advantage of remembering back when John and Doug Koselev began the company. And I just have to marvel. I mean, they started with one pickup truck and began picking up people's garbage. And here they are a company that gives back tremendously, by the way, to the community. I just wonder whether John or Doug ever imagined what would, you know, what they'd be looking at when they first started. So it's a great company. Well, thank you for saying that. I appreciate that. We certainly are trying to be, you know, on the cutting edge of technology. And, you know, John has said himself multiple times, we'll cannibalize ourselves before we have to in order to, you know, save landfill space. So yeah, Senator Polina. Do you, you can sell it, own or operate these facilities in other states, you mentioned, or some in Maine, Massachusetts, do you own those or? No, this is your first one. This is the first one. Yep. This is the only, first and only one in Vermont too. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it would be good if Chris could get over and look the thing over and he could report back to the rest of us that live away. Yeah. Chris, did you have a question or? Yes, I'll take some video and you can help me share it on the screen there, Mr. Chair. I'm, I, so one is Linda saying we got to move on, but Kim, are you guys a big enough player now that you're really in the region? There is a fair bit of manufacturing of food and processing food. Are you a big enough player to talk about the upstream packaging with people or is that part of the vision down the road? I'm just curious, you know, that's a, what you guys are doing is amazing, but upstream is where we start to really make the whole thing a little easier, I would guess. Yeah. I did participate in the Vermont Product Stewardship Institute the summer on an EPR bill on packaging. So yes, we are a big enough player to want to be part of those conversations, absolutely. Yeah. We could get into a biodegradable packaging system, you know, products, that would be great. Yep. Well, I think Kim will, will move on and certainly appreciate you being with us and, you know, Cassell is doing a great job. Of course, up where I live, I live just 10 or 12 miles from Cassell of Waysight in Coventry and that runs, that runs very smoothly up there. They do an excellent job and, and so thanks a lot for, for everything. Thank you for having me. Chris, I could, Senator Pearson, I can be in touch with you about getting you over to the site once we're fully operating, like. Yeah, when it makes sense. You've just piqued my curiosities. Yeah. When it could happen, I'd be great, glad to do it. All right. Thank you. So welcome, Carrie, and you're gonna talk to us a little bit about Ayers Hill Farm Creamery. We've heard, we've heard from Senator Parent quite a bit about that. And, and it's great that you could be with us this morning to tell us all about it. Well, we ain't perfected it yet. It's a lot of work, a lot of work. We've already been asked quite a few times when we do it again. I'm not sure the answer on that. I'll know more in 10 years. So we, our creamery came in August and it's going well, the milk's really selling. But it kind of, we knew there wasn't much money in the fluid milk and that's holding true. If you're gonna sell, you gotta sell on a large volume or you've gotta do value added. So right now we've only branched out to, we've got whole milk, white whole milk, we've got chocolate milk and we've got cheese curds. Cheese, they're all a hit. There were, I mean, we're out, we know we're nine miles from town, right literally on the Canadian border. So people have to seek us out. We are in Main Street Market in Richford. That's a blessing and a curse. I mean, it puts us out there, but we're on their schedule. You know, I'll get an email, that email last night needed delivery for tomorrow. You know, they need 30 gallons of white and so much of chocolate and we shipped 90 gallons to them last week. We don't have the storage here. You know, I've, I'm trying to run the farm. My husband, Nick, works for CDL, the maple sugar and equipment company, plus it's getting near sugaring season and we just don't have employees. So it's, there's definitely interest. There's definitely interest from the community. I was probably slower getting on the whole by local than other people, you know, we're farmers, you know. So when I go to Hannaford, I usually buy store brand. I don't, you know, support the local farmer note, so to speak, just because of the money issue. We're selling our milk for $5 a gallon. You know, you can go in and buy hood. I think it's 4.69 right now. So we are a little bit more expensive plus people have to travel to us. We have a little farm stand right here in our driveway. We're about a quarter of a mile from the farm. We've had quite a few people want to tour the farm, check out the creamery. We, I think there was one day since August, since we opened up that we haven't had a customer. And that was when, that was our first little snowstorm when it was 20 degrees there a month or two ago. Every day we've had, we've had somebody. It's been very well received and we're shocked. We are really shocked, but our biggest hang-ups gotta be employees, keeping the farm running, keeping the farm stand stocked. You know, and same with Nick doing his, his job. Where we have a cream separator that we're going to start in a butter churn we have on order, but everything's back-ordered because of COVID. So we do plan on getting into the butter. It's coming, it's coming just slow. And it's neat, it is, it's neat. Do you, do you do this all yourself or do you have somebody that helps you or? It's just Nick, it's just myself and my husband and my cat. Yeah, no, it's just Nick and I. It's too much. Right now it's too much where, you know, everybody starts out that way, you know, but you can't really hire anybody on. There's not, there's no profit margin right now. You know, we get out into the yogurt and we, he started some keeper just, just we're just playing with different products and stuff like that. But there's so little margin that when, you know, when you sell to a store and you give them 20% off, you're not really making anything on the fluid milk. So they, they take like out of your $5, they take a dollar, so it leaves you four. And then you have to transport it. I have to transport it, take time from the farm to transport it. Yeah, you know, and we're not, we're not big. So we just, when they call for an order, we're generally scrounging around to produce it. You know, it's, it's not, it's about a six, seven hour process between start and finish. So it's, it's very time consuming. I've had a lot of farmers interested in about it and asked about it. I try to be as upfront with them. It's not that I don't want the competition, but I just, I just, not that it wasn't a smart idea. It's difficult. Yeah. I think Senator Polina has a question. Anton. I'm just wondering what kind of volume you're doing, or could you say it based on how many cows you're, you're, you're milking or how it's sort of fitting into your farm? Yep. So we milk 200 cows. Well, we were with DFA when we cut back with the whole COVID, we're milking 185 right now. I'm still over quota. And we can do 45 gallon batches at a time. And we've been, we've been doing like five batches a week, which is, I mean, good for our, for our size, but we need to be bigger to, if we wanted to make money on it, you have to sell volume. And we knew that, but we knew, we also knew that this is getting our foot in the doors, is getting the community to see what interest there is there and slowly branch out into different products, time allowing, and if we can find some employees. So I'm wondering, and I don't mean, I don't, if you don't want to talk about this, that's fine, but I'm wondering a little bit about how much it costs you to set up and whether or not COVID funds had anything to do with it. Yes. Now I did apply for two different grants. They helped tremendously. We started this on our own before that ever happened. And I'm grateful that it did happen. So the creamery itself was around 70,000, all the equipment. The problem was what I didn't figure in was the $30,000 upgrade for power. The farm was maxed out. So we'd already ordered all this stuff and come to find out we don't have enough power on the farm. So it's not so much the creamery, it's all the incidentals. And then you have to buy, you have to buy jugs or, you know. The jugs, another thing, like, I mean, we're, you know, I like cows. And I don't, I've never worked in a store. I've never, there's just some things, no matter how prepared you think you are, you're not. In order for us to get the jug, the cap, and the label under a dollar per container, we had to buy $11,000 worth of jugs and $4,000 worth of labels. So that's all overhead. That's all in a container. But we had to get the, you know, we had to get labels, 5,000 of each label because to get our costs down. But that's- We got labels for a while. So you've lost another dollar in the jug. So now you're down to $3. Because you had five at the end. Store keeps a dollar. Those jugs, that's expensive for, it seems like for a pretty cheap jug. It is. It is. And we've got the cheapest cap, you know. Each cap is five cents. And they come in a quantity of 2,500. We were the first initial three, four batches. We were putting our own labels on. Then that became too cumbersome, too time consuming. So we have to order eight cases of each container in order for the jug company to apply the labels. And you got different sizes, different kinds. Do you do chocolate now? We do do chocolates. We do four different size in white and three different sizes in chocolate. Yeah. So you had seven different labels then you- Yep. And then the cheese curd labels. There's, we do three different. We do buffalo, garlic, pepper and original and the same thing in order to get the labels in the packaging where we were gonna make a profit and still sell competitively. We're, I mean, we're out in the middle of nowhere and we don't necessarily wanna be in stores. We wanna bring the consumer here to the farm. We want them to ask questions. We want to put a face with it. That's kind of what we are. That was our idea, I guess. Yeah. Have you applied to the Working Lands Grant program? We were awarded the Working Lands Grant and we were awarded the Dairy, I think it was Dairy Processor Grant. Yeah. So we were able to, we were able to apply that money towards some of the costs, but it's, I mean, when it's a new business. So every time you turn around, I mean, there's thousands of dollars going out the door. You're not talking hundreds, you're talking thousands. You know, for a cream separator, they wanted 60 grand. We found one second hand for 12,000 comes to find out that it's not the right power source. So it's power from Europe. If we can change it over, it's going to be like 1500 bucks to change the power over. We're just getting started, you know? So, you know, there's days where we're looking at each other thinking, why did we do this? But, you know, like we have fresh cheese curd day and it, when that happens, they, there's just, there's a constant stream of people. It's a self-serve. We have a square register of people come whenever they want. But we also had to branch out into the meat. So we've got USDA, we've got beef and steaks here on the farm from the cows. And that seems to us bringing the people, the people will come and get their hamburger and grab a jug of milk. Yeah. If we had just milk standing alone, we would have already shut it down. Well, you're going to end up with your own store here. You keep going beef and then get some berries and fresh veggies. Now I got pigs and chickens on the way. Yeah. Senator Pearson has a question. Yeah, thank you, Carrie. I'm often struck at, you know, the kind of work you're describing. It's really where we were, it's old fashioned in a way. And yet you're cutting edge and congratulations and I wish you a lot of success. Can you just talk in the legislature generally, we focus a lot on broadband and what it means to rural communities and businesses. And can you talk about that? What do you have decent broadband? What is the internet piece of this? Is that part of your puzzle? Just help us understand because we're dealing with that not in this committee, but across the board. Broadband's a huge issue. We actually tried getting some security cameras for the shack and the broadband wasn't enough. So we had to go with a simpler version. The square register runs on Wi-Fi. There's just simply not enough, even with a farm on the farm and there's just not enough. It's not fast enough. It goes in and out. We have good days, bad days. When it rains, we don't have good service. So are there other questions? Have you thought about, is there anything that we should be doing to help small startup operations like yours? I mean, did the ag agency use your good? Could they've used your better? Environmental issues, economic issues. Are there things that we could be doing to make life easier for operations to get started? I was treated well. I can't complain about that. When I called for questions, I got the help. I've been dealing with Tony Kitzl from UVM Extension. He's been helping us come up with a business plan and actually what direction do we wanna take this? Where are we making money? Where are we losing money? I gotta say the biggest thing is employees. We need competent employees. That's the biggest hole. Yeah, and you know, we hear that every day from whoever we have in, you know, from big businesses to small businesses, to truck drivers, to just regular laborers, it's really a major problem. That's where we're trying to decide as a firm what direction are we gonna go in and we keep coming back to the whole labor. I've just recently tried to become an H2A employer for a visa and that's a lot of red tape. I've been approved, but now my two employees that were coming from South Africa, the border has been shut down. So we're in limbo there waiting to see what happens. But yeah, just say labor was the biggest deal. Yeah. Carrie, go ahead, go ahead, Carrie. Carrie, if you could get to, you know, how many I know you and I've talked about, those are two employees, but long-term, you know, looking three, four or five years down the road, what type of employment prospects do you, you know, how much labor do you think you need? I need two, so I need four people. I need four full-time people. I have two Hispanics that are milking husband-wife team and they're awesome. And now I'm trying to get two outdoor people, crops, maintenance. There's just not a labor pool. I've tried for two and a half years, applying through posting job ads through Craigslist, Facebook and Indeed. And it's not a good site out there. And we've changed, you know, I'm not asking for 80-hour work weeks. I'm asking for 40 and housing and, you know, 1650 with housing, everything included. I don't think that's a bad start and you still can't get anybody. And probably all the milk they can drink as well. That's right, and beef. Yeah. It's a maple syrup on the side. Boy, 1650 and with those bannies, I mean, that adds up to real money. I always thought it was the money, but it's not. That's not the issue. This won't work. That won't work. We had testimony the other day from a farmer and they said that their most reliable help was from 50 years old and not. And they would hire people even 70 years old if they wanted a job, because they knew that they would show up eight o'clock in the morning or whenever. And no, it's a crazy issue we got facing us. Maybe we have too many giveaway programs. I totally agree with that. But anyhow, we've got to jump on to another meeting. I have one other question. Speaking of the UBM person that helped you with your financial plan, was that through VHCB? Yep, I dealt with Tony Kitzels for a while, but I did get hooked up through VHCB with them. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And if you run across anything that you think that we could be of assistance with, give Cory a call or any one of us a call. I work on all kinds of issues from unemployment to getting signed up to get your vaccine. Right. But if you need anything that you feel that we can help you with, feel free to reach out to us. We're here to serve you people and so anyways, did you have anything else you wanted to add, Gary? Oh, I think I'm all set. Well, thanks for the time. I appreciate it. Senator Pearson has a statement or question. Yeah, just mostly a comment because I live in Chittenden County. Everybody likes to think Chittenden County is different. We hear the same issues from labor folks, about labor folks on farms and businesses in Chittenden County. You know, this is a real dynamic and I just want, I would just caution you just, obviously it doesn't get easier up by the border where you guys are, but it's an issue everywhere. I promise you that. Thank you for the great story and I wish you a lot of luck. Yeah, yeah, it was great. So thanks again and guys, we got to jump on to the other meeting with working lands for 10 o'clock. So we'll see you there and thanks again, Gary. Thank you.