The Fast Food Ranch Experience (Without the Fast Food) with Logan Shrag | Ep9

Thanks for hanging out, dude. Yeah, I'm those hats or no? Well, the short answer is I have a bunch of them. Yes. My wife bought me a little hat rack. So then I have a whole bunch of hat racks. And as I told you before, when we were when we were walking in, I wore this hat specifically and it has like some marks to it. Oh, boy. And I wore the hat and the guys like, why is your hat dirty? I said, I wear it, but I work. I'm a cowboy. Yeah. Like I got thrown off a horse and my hat didn't come off. I'm like, I shattered my collarbone, but my hat didn't come off. That's nuts. Oh, man. Well, welcome to the killer girl podcast. I'm Sam McVeigh. And today I have Logan Shrug. Did I say that right? Yep. Logan Shrug. Logan Shrug with Diamond Spring Ranch. The cowboy cowboy experience dot com. That's right. Cowboy experience. Ks.com. I couldn't get cowboy experience. Yeah, that's a good that's probably a popular domain. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate you being here. Thanks, bud. Appreciate it, man. Yeah. This will be fun. So let's let's start off with a nice soft serve. Let's hear your story and then we'll get into what you guys do. Your story from college age to what brought you to Diamond Spring Ranch today. Yeah. So I've always been an entrepreneur my whole life. And we went through some we built a business. That business filed bankruptcy. So we ended up losing a bunch of that stuff. And I saw a buddy of mine that had a horse ranch and we'd been raising cattle since 2009. So I showed cattle at all kinds of trophies and buckles and everything showing cattle like like 4H type. Yeah. Like big trophies. Yeah. Like big trophy. Is that like under 4H? Yeah. It's actually right down the road here. Oh, yeah. We show right down there. And so anyways, we showed cattle, raised short horns and still raised short horns and sell a little bit of beef. But it this was when you had to have a lot of cattle and you still do have to have a lot of cattle really to make anything work. So like be substantial. And I saw a buddy of mine. He had a ranch and still does in Kansas City. And I thought, well, maybe I mean, I like horses. We've had them growing up, but I just we just didn't have any right. I mean, right at that moment, I told my parents and they said, well, I mean, I guess you could buy a horse, you know, so I bought a horse and then to it. Yeah, that's what I thought. Right. And about the horse, my buddy brought down several of his horses. This was November of twenty twenty two, I believe. And we did our cowboy experience launch and it was really fun. We did a whole bunch of trail. I think we did like 40 trail rides. In my mind, I was like, oh, my gosh, we did so many trail rides. And then we I bought another horse from the Hutch Correctional Facility and it's a fantastic like a police horse. What did this horse do? It was he was doing he was doing time. Yeah. Yeah. He had just got released. He was on work release. Yeah. No, he his name's Taco Cat and he's a fan favorite. That's a really popular card game, actually. Oh, really? I didn't know. I don't know if that's OK. No, the inmates named him Taco Cat because coming out of the wild. So there's like ninety thousand wild horses that are out there and where out. So Nevada is a big in the there's a specific basin in Nevada. There's a bunch in Oregon. But anyways, they're all over the place. And so anyways, they catch them. The BLM Bureau of Land Management catches them. Thank you. And they then take them to correctional facilities where the inmates that are on a minimum security get to break them. So it's a really cool, cool project for them. Anyway, break them like they're they're getting on them and they're going to break a horse would be to get started from zero, be able to lead it around, you know, and be able to eventually ride it. Well, this horse, Taco Cat. I heard about this program. They had a few that were in there. This horse is nothing special. He didn't look special. You know, some got really cool markings, whatever. So but you pay one hundred and twenty five dollars for the horse or the horse. That seems like a taco for one hundred and twenty five dollars. What's that per pound? I mean, what's the horse way? That's pretty good. Exactly. And so anyways, I bought that horse second and he's we still have him today. Been a fantastic horse. He's Nate. We have a drink named the taco cat at the bar. People love him. We use him for kids lessons. My five year old and three year old ride him. So anyways, that was the second horse I bought. He almost threw me the first week I got him. So Mustangs, they some horses, you know, they buck a lot of Mustangs. They kind of do this and then they just go out from underneath you. So they like he got scared of the T-post and almost threw me like it wasn't anything crazy. But he did that little Mustang kind of dip down and about toss you. Yeah. So anyways, I about got tossed. Why? Why is a horse called a Mustang? What makes a Mustang Mustang? Well, so it's just the wild Mustang and burrow program is what they have. So a lot of people like a paper horse would be a quarter horse, a paint horse, a gypsy van or a draft or something like that. And these are just a mutt, if you will, of the horses and the strongest survive and the weak ones don't. So Mustangs, because you have to get horses feet trimmed. Mustang's feet are the best feet in horses. Some people ask to have them, you know, like trimmed like a Mustang would be. They stay fat on air. I mean, like he takes fat on air, stays fat on air like he just stays fat when my other ones get skinny. So anyways, the maintenance on him is really low. So the highest correctional facility program there is a fantastic program. I've got a number of horses from there. I was actually talking yesterday about going and getting another one from there. Anyways, it's a really cool program. So that was the second horse I bought. And then I needed actually three horses to start doing it, to start doing trail rides, because I need a lead horse and someone leading it, which was me the first year. And I needed two horses so that you and your wife could come ride. Got it. So I went to a sale barn, bought a horse for eleven hundred dollars actually here in El Dorado or maybe it was Hutch. I can't remember. But anyways, bought one at a sale barn and for eleven hundred dollars, just hoping that the horse would turn out. And I still have that horse. So she's turned out really good. She's our white horse named Eden. And anyway, so then I had three horses and I could start doing trail rides. Yeah. And we did. When you say you hope it works out like what happens if a horse doesn't work out, they throw you off and break your bones or stomp on you or you just move on to the next ranch. Yeah. Then you just sell it. But I guess like on the horse ride side, you want the right demeanor. Yeah. Especially for trail rides, because most of the people that we have at the ranch are total beginners. They've never been on a horse and you don't need a total beginner. I'd probably get on a horse backwards. How does this work? I might put you on the horse backwards on purpose. Funny enough, our trail lead now, we have one employee, our trail lead now sometimes rides Ringo, which is the horse she likes to ride backwards so she can talk to the customer. It's ridiculous. And I tell her not to, but the horse is broken up. That's cool. That's awesome. Yeah, it's good. Okay. So that got you into the horses. So you did some stuff prior to that. Yeah. Moved into that side. Well, I've just been an entrepreneur my whole life and I just really wanted to take a shot at, okay. Um, I, I really feel like God is kind of drawing me into this piece of it. And during that time we also had just built a tree house. So we have a tree house. It's like a tree house masters, if you were a tree house. Um, there's an HGTV show that's called tree house masters. The guy that produces that show, um, lives in Mulvane, not the face of it, but the producer lives in Mulvane. Crazy. My sister got married. Um, and a friend of my dad's, he went to high school with this guy. And, uh, we said, well, we're thinking about putting a cabin out here. We don't really know what we want to do. And he said, you should talk to my buddy that does tree house masters. He came out, we said, here's these three trees and we now have a, uh, a quarter million dollar tree house. Okay. So here, let's backtrack on that real quick. So this land, so, uh, this is your, your parents land. There's 40 acres out there, 40 acres out there. Okay. So just North of Wichita, like 15 minutes. So far enough away that it's quiet close enough that it's just like kind of going down. Yeah. Once you get out there, I've been out there. You don't feel like you're close to anything. Like once you get into the property, well, really the whole idea behind the ranch is we want people to be able to, uh, quiet enough to kind of hear what matters, be able to listen to God's voice. Cause there's so much noise life moves so fast. How do we actually slow down and then hear what God really wants to tell you? You know? Yeah. Where, where did the idea? So the bit, the origin of this before the Airbnb is, which we'll go into next, but uh, the horse ride thing, where, where did you get the idea of like, I'm just going to buy a horse and people are going to pay to ride in trails. Yeah. So my buddy that had the ranch in Kansas city, I had a lot of conversations with him and the pricing structure of do you charge $35? Do you charge $65? What kind of clientele do you get with each of those? Um, you know, so we charge $45 for a regular trail ride and then 55 for a sunset ride. And, um, that keeps out, you know, uh, people that are there to cause problems really. Sure. But it's kind of the idea came from him and getting to watch what he did. A friend of mine told me, why would I reinvent average when I could copy genius? And I thought, that makes a lot of sense. And quite honestly, you know, in school they teach you, you know, don't look off of Sam's paper. But if Sam has the answer in life and I don't, why would I not like ask you for the answer? You know, like they also said we wouldn't always have calculators, but you know, now we got them on our phone. Now we don't even need that. Hey Siri, what's this number? Uh, that's great. So that, you know, that seems like a popular concept in destination places. What's interesting to me, like Colorado, right? You go to Colorado, there's trail rides, Montana, different places. And so he was doing in Kent city, which is a bigger market and you're, you're in the Wichita surrounding area. Not, not small, but not massive. So that's, it's cool to have that concept here where it's a 45 minute drive for 600,000 people to be able to have that experience. And I would agree that that's probably something a lot of people would never do in their life unless they're at a destination. Yeah, you're right. And that's a lot of the people that come out, they want this, I mean, especially Yellowstone. Yellowstone plays right into our hand because everybody wants to be a cowboy until it's time to be a cowboy. So anyways, people love to play cowboy. Like it's fun. And we really want to be able to provide a space for that. That is a safe place for getting on horses. Cause it's not safe everywhere to get on horse. You know? And really the slow down, come stay at the tree house, do have a drink at the bar at the, at the lodge, you know, ride the horses, come on a dinner date, which is a steak and potato dinner. And they just get away from it for a while, a campfire sunset ride. So anyways, it's the get away from town, but you're not that far from town. Yeah, that's awesome. It's a fast food ranch experience, right? You just drive right through. That's actually pretty good. We might want to use that. That's right. That's right. We got to cut that part out of the podcast so I can use that in a fast food ranch experience. That's really good. So take me through the timeline. So this venue, right? It consists of a event center, um, essentially, uh, the tree house, the wagon, um, the trail rides, you do the summer camp, but take me through the timeline of when you did each thing to where it's at today. So what was the first thing? The first thing was the lodge. So we moved out to the ranch in 2009 and there was actually a dirt bike track where the lodge sits now. Oh, the lodge was a dream of my dad's for years. Um, and it was just a, uh, a man cave is what he wanted. Well, it's a 40 by 80 by 30 foot tall ceiling man cave. Yeah. There's, it's hard to get it insured because there's nothing like it within 200 miles. Yeah. Well, yeah. 30 foot tall man cave. You know, like, yeah. So anyways, dad always wanted that. When I was growing up, we'd have, you know, items that were like old antique items were like, is this a barn item? You know, because that's a sudden we save these boxes and boxes of stuff that you now see on the wall, um, at the lodge of barn items that we kept for years and years and years when I was growing up because my dad really wanted to do that. Yeah. So that was a really cool, I guess, starting piece, but it was a real dream of his and end to the dream that he wanted to have something like this, um, and be able to just really use it for us, our family, our friends. Um, so that was really the beginning of that. From that, we then started raising cattle. Gotcha. Yeah. And then the cattle side was the, you're doing the competitions, raising your own meat, I guess, probably. Um, then from there, what was next on that? Was that the horses? So then it was a tree house. I believe it was, uh, this is what I'm most excited to talk about 21, something like that. I can't remember exactly, but the, uh, the tree house and we built that took about six months to build me and my crew built it. I also do residential remodeling. And, uh, so me and my crew built that and we built the entire structure of it inside the lodge. So the lodge was big enough that we built all the walls inside the lodge when it was in the winter time. And then move them, moved it, picked it up with and set it in the tree. I mean like one wall at a time. It makes no sense. How do you even do that? So we built the structure of it. Like, like you build the deck. So we got the deck that's high enough. You can drive the skids to your under. Then once we have the deck, we say, okay, now we just raise our neighbor who has a telehandler. Our neighbor has like every piece of equipment. It's fantastic. Um, and, uh, just a great, it's great to have great neighbors anyway. So Ed brought his telehandler over, picked it up, set it in the trees. And, uh, it's a two story tree house. Yeah. So we put the first story in, you know, you get that solidified. Then the next one, you set it in there, put the floor in anyways. Wow. And you and your dad like did all of it. Yep. Yep. Like, so there was there, I mean, obviously you had to have some counsel, but I'm just imagining there when I've seen it, there's like, there's stuff going through the trees, like all this crazy stuff. And like somebody makes a system that keeps it all. Somebody stayed up late, many nights to make the system that the tree house is on. So it's engineered by Yale. I believe Yale and Harvard engineered it. It's when you look at it, it's really simple. You know, it's a bar and another piece that sits in the tree and allows the tree to move while the tree house, if the tree house is sitting above this doesn't move and allows the bar to move when the tree moves in the wind. And so the house isn't moving. The house doesn't move the house. Correct. Yes. So you'll be standing there or the best way that I can explain it to people is when you're in a parking lot and the car behind you is backing up and you feel like you're moving forward. You're looking at the tree and you're thinking, I must be moving. Yeah, but you're not moving. It's wild. Yeah. So, so, so those are going through. So how, how's that bar? It's just a hole. So you go in the tree, it will look about the size of a Coke can. And then it's about, oh, I don't know, 12 inches or so of a one inch thread that you put in the tree. You drill a hole in the tree. You put it in with a four foot pipe wrench and four guys. Okay. So, and the water content of the tree, when you put it in there, the water content of the tree is instantly starting to grab ahold of it. So you got 30, 40 seconds to get this in there. And you know, it's a rod that long. And then the Coke can pieces about the size of a Coke can a little smaller than a Coke can. And then you put that halfway in there. So you got a four foot pipe wrench, two guy, one guy on a ladder. Uh, no, we must have two of us on two ladders, two people on the ground pulling down and you know, it's hard. And then you take a break. Sometimes you have to break it loose with the skid steer just because of the water grabbing grabs it again. And we put these in hedge trees. So the hedge is obviously really hard too. Um, but, and then you can build on it instantly. Jeez. And the, uh, the engineering piece of it, like it goes in and then it has another safety that T that ties up to the top of the, to another piece of the tree. But the only time it fails is when the tree falls down. There you go. So how do you take care of that tree for real? It'd be nice. The hedge tree that it's on is about as big as this rug. It's crazy. That's wild. So that, that mechanism you like who manufactured house masters tree house masters is designed through them. So it's like five or 6,000 just in those three brackets to put, and then you put the bracket on and then a, a beam on top of that bracket. Dang. Yeah. That's really cool. And there's two different kinds. One is a tree that's solid that doesn't move, which is that big tree I mentioned. And then the other ones you put that allow the trees to move. Um, and the interesting part that our friend told us, um, that Dustin told us was that once a tree is, or once the tree is dead, like a four by four, for example, a four by four, a live tree has double the strength that a four by four that you would buy at home Depot does. So it doesn't have to be a huge tree to put it in to have tons of strength. Yeah. No kidding. No, it's a big tree and it's a cool tree. Like it's perfect. Yeah. Well, it hangs over and you walk underneath it. It's really cool. And we have almost a total wraparound deck up there. Yeah. And it, and it stays pretty busy, but it's on Airbnb. Airbnb. Um, and on our website, cowboyexperienceks.com that people can book it. Um, and, uh, yeah, it's, it's been really, really cool. It's full like 20 nights a month. Yeah. So people love it. It's actually sometimes hard to get it booked, especially in the summertime or springtime. Um, but yeah, man, people love it. Yeah. Yeah. Get in line folks. Get in line. That's right. That's awesome. That's wild. So that tree house goes up and the whole plan was Airbnb destination the whole time. Okay. Uh, then the next, next edition was the wagon wagon. And because the tree house was so full, which is why we did the wagon. Um, and it all goes around our cowboy experience type of deal. Um, the wagon is very unique. They make them in Topeka, Kansas here. Okay. So just up the road, we went and looked at some of them and they're really neat. And, uh, it's a lot more quaint. It's a lot smaller than the tree house. Uh, it's about 10 foot by 30 foot, but it's got a bed, two bunks, a full size shower, um, a little bathroom in there, a little microwave kind of area. Um, so anyways, it's, it's really cool. And people, it's bigger on the inside than you would think. Um, and it looks like a little house on the Prairie wagon. I mean, it's like 18 eighties going down the Prairie wagon. Yeah. Yeah. It's awesome. I can do you actually like pull that with a truck? Yeah. That's how we, that's how we placed it there with a truck. You hitch it up and the wheels that are on it are like from the Amish. So the wheels are on it. Like how they would have built a wagon wheel. Oh, so they're like wood wheels. They're wood legit wagon wheels. Yeah. Wow. And then they have a contraption where you hook it on. It comes in and it has a hitch so you could pull it around with a truck to put it in place around. Yeah. Around your property. You're not taking that on the road. Let's see how good this Amish craftsmanship really is. Wow. That's so cool. I, when I walked into that thing, I was blown away by how nice it was inside. I mean, it feels like a studio apartment. It does like when you go inside, it's, and then from the outside, you just don't expect to walk into that. Like a really nice camper. Yeah. Right. And then it's got, even in the winter time, it's cool. So they, it has a double layer. That's the canvas on the outside. Yeah. Um, and supposed to be 40% better than anything else that's out there. But the moral of the story is there's a mini split in there. So it's toasty in there, even when it's cold. So it's nice. That makes sense. Yeah. That's it. And they're made where in Kansas? Topeka. Topeka. Yep. And that's what this place does. That's what they just make. So they probably ship those all over the country. They do. Yeah. Yeah. And some people, you know, put them in circles like you'd see on the Prairie circling up the wagons. And, uh, it's a really, a really neat deal. Yeah. So your trails on your property run around right next to the wagon, the tree house, right? That's kind of where it starts. So we have about a mile and a half of trails. So we start up by the lodge. You kind of go right by the tree house and then by the wagon down a big hill up another hill. And then you're in the trees. I mean, you're in the trees a lot of the time, but then you're in a lot more dense trees. Um, and you go all the way to the end of our property, come back around. And, uh, if you're doing the sunset ride, you kind of go out to where the sunset is. If not, you kind of wind back around, but it's really fun. 35 to 45 minutes of riding. Yeah. And, uh, people love it. Seems like fun. It's just enough that you'll be sore the next day, not too sore, but you'll remember us and you'll have the picture for Instagram. That's what $45 gets you a little soreness and a picture for Instagram. I love it. Uh, what it tells about other features of the property. Uh, yeah. So we have a pond out there. So we've had a lot of people come out that have done trail rides elsewhere. Uh, I guess what people would call a trail ride, but it's like in the pasture or, you know, on the road or whatever. So a lot of people really like that. We're actually going through trails down by, um, the water. Uh, people really also like that. We treat them with respect. Um, I have other businesses and there's a lot of horse people that I feel like have their nose so far in the air that they can't even like look at someone in the eye. And so we totally swim upstream from that. We just want to look somebody in the eye, treat them with respect, have integrity and like, Hey, you've never been on a horse before. That's okay. Come get on my horse. You know, it's safe. Yeah. And, and so anyways, it's a safe place for people to be able to like, learn that's like, Hey, I know this thing looks huge and it's probably really scary, but it's going to be okay for sure. But it can kill you at any point. They're very heavy. Uh, yeah, no, they're great. The horses we use are very broke. They're really, really good. Um, and it's, it's fun because then people have, uh, a really fun experience after we got, um, 105 star reviews. I looked at like the AI version of what it says, um, people are saying like a summary of exactly. And exactly the things that I wanted when I started it is what people are saying. The staff is friendly. They smile. They treated me with respect. The horses are nice. The horses are safe. My kids had a fun time, you know, whatever the, that was really the things we wanted. Um, and then being able to portray that, especially when you're hiring people to then, okay, I know how I would do it, but how do we hire somebody that then goes along with our values that has integrity that knows enough about horses? Because when you're leading the trail ride, not only do you have to control the horse you're on, but you've got to control the other four horses or five horses behind you. Um, and be able to be calm if something, you know, starts to a horse starts to wander off, you know, whatever. Sure. Yeah. Your, your dad mentioned something like, is your pond spring fed? Yes. There's something about it being really cold even in the summer. It is. Yeah. So it's about this much on the top is really warm. And then you go down, we'd had it dug out a few years ago. Um, and it's all spring fed when we dug it out, more springs started showing up. So it's all spring fed. So it stays full year round and the water is cold. Yeah. Uh, it's nice in the summertime, but. Could you put trout in there? Is it cold enough? That's probably not cold enough for trout. They might make it a few days. Yeah. They might make it a few days. I'll call you and put them in and you can catch them. Yeah. Get your fly rod out there. Yeah. Yeah. Trout on Fridays. For sure. For sure. That's cool. Uh, are there any fish in it? There's fish. What the good Lord put in there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. I mean, that used to be stocked and then we had a big flood. Um, actually it dried out. Okay. We had a flood a few years before that. And then it dried out when it dried out, we dug it out and we just haven't restocked it yet. Gotcha. Yeah. We probably will. I mean, people like to, they catch bull heads and that sort of deal. So there are fish in there. Um, there's some pretty good size carp in there too, but just whatever the good Lord and the birds and put in there, whatever's surviving. That's right. Um, so I think a lot of people think and dream of doing the Airbnb destination. It's, you know, obviously it's blown up and especially since COVID what year did you put the tree house in 2022, I believe. Yeah. Which was a good time. That was still kind of the, I feel like a lot of people were trying to find places to go. It's enough outside of COVID that they were getting back to normal, but they had built those habits. I mean, we did too of like looking for places to go that are local, that are not like exactly in Europe. Now Europe is cool and expensive. I mean, that's just expensive, but to be able to find a destination that's right here, close, that's, I mean, most of your expense when you find something you really want to go to is just the travel getting there. Yeah. Um, so yeah, a lot of people, I think, think that dream that up and like have cool ideas like that and then like never do it. What was that moment where you and your dad are just like, we're doing this? Well, that's just kind of how we are, you know, like, uh, I, I heard somebody say the richest place is a graveyard because so many ideas that people had that they never did. And, uh, that's one thing that when my parent, when I was raised, you know, they taught me to take risks and have some responsibility. So take the risk. And if it works great, if it doesn't take the responsibility for it, you know? So, um, kind of like when I bought some horses, I thought, oh, I'm going to try it. You know, I can, I guess I could sell the horses if it doesn't go good, you know, cause horses are expensive to upkeep, especially when you've got eight of them. And, uh, so anyways, just taking the risk on it and just being willing to try and fill it up. And we didn't know what the heck we're doing. Sure. You know, we use you for our marketing is awesome now. Um, but we didn't know, we're just trying to get the word out there, you know, uh, visit, Wichita has been awesome in helping us get the word out there. We were a partner of them for a while. Um, anyways, like anything we could do just to talk to people, to just try and make it work. And when you've, when we first did it, you just figured it out and it didn't work that good when we first started. Sure. But now it stays busy all the time. Yeah. What, what went into, I'm sure you guys are like, okay, is there one like this in the state? Right? Like, wait, are there any, uh, not like this one? Yeah, no. I mean the, the guy, Dustin, uh, the tree house guy, um, he, uh, produces shows for a bunch of other stuff. The moving guy, the moving guy. Yeah. And he has several tree houses at his place there too. And, uh, we built the tree house and we're building it and I'm looking at the design. I'm thinking, this thing doesn't look like it's that big. And, uh, somebody comes out there, Dustin, Dustin came out to, he said, this is a effing huge tree house. And we're like, we didn't know that. We just are building one, you know, two stories. It got a loft, it's got a bathroom. I mean, well, and the deck on it goes all the way around. Yeah. Almost all the way around. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a pretty cool little deal for sure. So that I'm sure that was in your head too, of like, there's not a lot of this around here. So yeah, there's not. And, um, the uniqueness of it, that's really what we were after. And same with the wagon. It's unique. And next we might do like, um, we're thinking about doing like a horse trailer or like one of those grain silos or something like that. Something that's unique that goes along with the cowboy with the theme. That's right. I love that. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That's brilliant. But going back to your point of people wanting to do something fun, that's not that far away. Um, you know, you spend 500 or a thousand on a flight getting somewhere where you could drive out of town and spend $500 and you're going to stay the night, have a steak dinner. I mean, all that sort of stuff. And you could, you know, be at work the next morning. That's a good way to put it. Yeah. That's brilliant. And I think a lot of people just get scared in that moment. You're like, okay, this is a really cool idea, but is anyone really going to utilize it? And then you think of your location, right? And you're like, we're, we're in the smack dab middle of Kansas. Like nobody's going to want to come here, but there's a lot of people that live around here that would go there. Yeah. And there's a lot of people that come from a distance specifically to do the trail rides. Um, and then there's a lot of people that come from other States to come stay in the tree house too. That's cool. What's the farthest away that someone's come just to do that tree house? Um, I don't know. We've had people come from overseas that have stayed in the tree house. Like, uh, I talked to a guy that was from South America or something that he flew in. He had to do some sort of, uh, maintenance on a jet and needed somewhere to stay. So he flew into Wichita to do aerospace work. And then we've had some of our other friends that have come from, uh, South Africa. So anyways, there's been people that have come from all over the place. That's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. What, what's the most surprising thing to you of all the things you've done? Like as far as the usage or, um, people doing it a lot, like which one has surprised you the most? Um, I think probably what surprises the most is just in general, how much people are really looking for something like this because life does move so fast. You know, you're on your phone, you're going to work, you're driving in traffic, you're doing whatever. And just the slowdown, I think people are attracted to the slowdown. Yeah. Um, and the, the, the cowboy way of life, if you want to call it that, but people just want something that they can be connected to. And I think that really at the root of it, uh, whether you're in church or not, I think people connect to God outside and really have a chance to slow down is really what we're after. Cause it's hard, awful hard to text when you're on a horse, you know, like it just doesn't work that well. That one person you just mentioned riding backwards. I'm sure they should pull it off. She could do it. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Uh, the, the horse rides seem busy this summer. Yeah. And we'll do close to a thousand rides this year. That's a lot of rides. And I think we did 400 ish the first year, 700 is the second year thousand ish this year. So, um, we'll see what happens next year. Yeah. Is that a, do you have enough horses and help to go past the thousand? Yeah. So we'll, we'll go down in the winter time. Now we're going to sell some of our horses. Actually. Um, I have some other people that want to buy some of my other trail horses. Um, so we'll sell some of those horses and then we'll buy more as we get back into the springtime. And the cool thing about what we're doing is people want a good broke horse that's been on trail rides is taking kids that's safe for them that they know is safe. And now they see us and they are, they recognize our brand with it. They raise safe horses or they have that makes sense. So then we end up selling some to people that want to buy them, you know, buy some, put them through the ringer, sell them. So, so, so that, that process is not about them aging out. That's more of a, you've trained it to this point. Now you can go get a goodbye, get a horse. Yeah. I mean, we want, we want our horses to be healthy. We want our horses to be fat. We want them to be, you know, doing all those things. Once you get a horse that gets older and they have a little more maintenance on them, somebody else is more happy to do the maintenance and the horse is happier there because they're, you know, getting ridden. Not as often. I mean, we're asking the horses to work. They're a 1200 pound animal that we're using for a business. Yeah. And we're asking them to work. So they're riding six, eight hours on a, on a day on a weekend. So we do rides Thursday night, sometimes Friday night, all day, Saturday, and after church on Sunday. Yeah. So then they got, you know, I don't know, 12 or 15 hours of actual rides that we're doing through, through the, through the, through the weekend on the summers. So it's not, it's not more than the horse can do. We just want to make sure that the horse can do it and can do it for the longterm and can stay fat and all those things. So yes, some age out or some that we just say, you don't fit exactly what we need. We're going to go find another horse. Yeah. How do you guys decide to reinvest or when to reinvest into a new feature on the property, right? Like what you said, the tree house got full. So you added the wagon, which makes sense. Yeah. Um, you want to add, let's say you want to add another feature that's outside of horses or lodging, for example. Right. And I don't know what that would be. Yeah. Um, a roping thing or whatever, like, I don't know. For sure. Which we've done that. We've done summer camps or that sort of stuff. Yeah. We didn't talk about some of the summer camps and we built like a roping dummy for the kids to just rope on. And, um, I would say it's probably more just like the creative piece of what can we add that adds value to people. Yeah. Because right now we have enough stuff that keeps people busy, but how do we continually add more value to, you know, if we want to do a class on how to break a horse, I was talking with a guy yesterday that, um, and I'm no horse trainer. I can break horses and now they're safe, but I'm not a professional by any stretch of the imagination. Um, but we could do, uh, you know, okay, here's what we do to our horses to make them safe or a roping, not clinic, but a roping fun thing like that, or learning how to run on the horses. And we do horseback riding lessons. So a lot of the people that want to know more as far as the horse stuff, they want to know more than they come back for a lesson. So then they can end up running or loping on the horse or learning how to post on the trot or whatever the case is, because there's a lot more that goes into it than just getting on the horse and riding the horse. How'd you learn how to ride a horse? Um, I grew up with, uh, a couple, my grandpa had a horse for me that I was little and got thrown off of several times. I remember. Um, and then we had horses in oh nine when we moved out there and then, uh, I bought these other horses and I knew how to ride, but then really going and understanding better. And then when I shatter my collarbone, then I thought, okay, I mean, this is the, the ultimate like responsibility. I wasn't mad at the horse because the horse just tossed me and I should have sat it, you know, but in my mind I thought, okay, how can I take the responsibility and how can I become a better rider? So after I got thrown, I became a much better rider and really tried to refine, okay, what does my seat look like? I have a guy that I do lessons from, um, in Augusta. So like, how can I actually be better? Um, because if I don't know how to do it, how can I teach somebody else? And I don't do, do the lessons. Um, our instructor Jordan is who does the lessons. Um, I kind of oversee it. We were out of town on an elk hunt for seven days. How'd that go? It was great. It was awesome. We rode 75 miles on horseback. Wow. It was wild. I just put up a video on, uh, on my YouTube channel about it. Um, we'll have a several different parts series, um, on, uh, on the, on our YouTube channel. Anyways, she said, when I came back, your job sucks. Just the facilitating, just the facilitating and lining all the rides up and making it work and, you know, lining up the staff and all that sort of stuff. So she's happy to do the trail rides and lead the lessons and all that sort of stuff. I line up all the other stuff. You do all the facility. Yeah. Um, so you, you obviously at your core, I think a lot of people take, uh, they're scared to take what they love or a hobby into a business, which you did that. You were like, I love horses. Yeah. I enjoyed this process. Now I want to like do that for a living. Um, that has that transition ruined any of your love for horses? Like, no. Um, I think it's interesting because I was talking with a pastor friend of mine the other day, you know, and he's like, where is your effort worth it the most? And my effort is not necessarily worth it the most in horses. It's fun, but it's not worth it the most in horses, but I enjoy it. I think it makes a real impact on people. The cool part. One of my favorite things about it is when somebody comes out, that's wearing Crocs and sweatpants has never been on a horse before. And they are scared out of their mind to get on my horse. They get on my horse. And by the 45, the time, the 45 minutes is over there in love with that horse. And they had a great experience. They didn't get thrown the horse, didn't bolt, whatever the case was. And then that, because I've also had people that are the opposite. I've had a guy that was like in his forties. He's like, Hey, can I talk to you for a second? It kind of pulls me out to the side. He's like the last time I was on a horse that threw me or ran, I said, I get it. Our horses don't do that, you know, or our horses have not done that now. I'm not saying they won't. There's still a horse. They still could do whatever they want, but they have free will after 2000 rides. They don't do that, you know, but it's cool to see the transformation because horses, if you can believe this horses, dogs, and giraffes can understand what the person is feeling. So a horse can hear your heartbeat from four feet away. That's why dogs make good. Yeah. That's why dogs make good, like therapy animals, therapy animals, same with horses. Really? Same with giraffes. One of my dad's friends, giraffes, that's similar kind of deal. I don't know how you would ride a giraffe. I don't know a giraffe's $100,000, but he's like, that's his gig. Is it legal to buy a giraffe? I don't know. If it is, I want one. It's a really crazy customized trailer, like the neck. How cool would that be at the tree house? You know, you feed the giraffe. Oh yeah. But anyway, the cool thing is that from that 45 minutes, it's a total transformation that someone had awesome experience. They were able to, in my eyes, see God through that and God work in their life through this horse that was like, we're doing it with trail rides, but how do we actually, you know, show people Jesus through the trail ride? That's really what we're after. And, uh, I think that's, I think that's working. People want to be a part of a community. Um, we do live music out there at the, at the ranch. We put in a bar, not to sell drinks, but to then increase the community of people coming out there. Um, so, I mean, obviously we do sell drinks, but there's a concert that comes out there. People want to be a part of that. We do corporate events out there. People want to be a part of that. People want something to belong to. And that's really what we want to try and offer. But going back to your question of, you know, does it change the love for it? No, I think you have to have a passion for it. That would be if someone was asking me, Hey, should I go and do this? Do you have a passion for it? Because if you do, you should do it. But if you don't, you a hundred percent should not do it. You'll burn out because there's days it sucks. There's days you get thrown off the horse and shatter your collarbone. And some days it's real cold. It's very cold. Some days, sometimes it's snowing on you and breaking the ice in the winter time and feeding the horses when it's not fun and getting there an hour or two ahead of time before everybody gets there for the trail ride. Then they get there early. So you're not ready and need to check them in still. And then you got to put them away once it's dark. So it's, there's a lot of pieces that people want to be a cowboy until it's time to do cowboy stuff. Yeah. And I'm sure a big part of that's just respecting, respecting the animal. I mean, the care probably goes a long way into how the experience goes. Yeah, for sure. I mean, if you're not taking care of the horses correctly, it's probably gonna result in bad trail rides for sure. Yeah. They got it. The horse has to be respectful, but with any business, you know, there's, there's pieces to it that aren't that fun, but you do because you like the end result. Yeah. Yeah. I love how you say that at the end. I'm still kind of stuck on the giraffe thing. How far can a giraffe hear a heartbeat? How far away can a giraffe hear a heartbeat? I want to have that on the podcast. We need to have like a voice AI the whole time. So whenever we're not sure, we're just like, Hey, how does this work? Tyler, can we get a separate mic for chat GPT in every episode? We're going to ask chat GPT right now. Let's ask about the giraffes. Put it up to the mic though on your speaker. Let's see what it says about the giraffes. I just keep imagining the trailer that would haul a giraffe. Like it doesn't make sense in my mind. Like their heads just stick out. That would suck on the highway. Poor giraffe. Bridges. Yeah. With the bridges. I've heard that horses and giraffes and dogs are all good therapy animals. Oh, go ahead. Sure thing. So yeah, horses, dogs, and even some more unusual animals like giraffes can definitely have therapeutic benefits. Horses are super well known in equine therapy because they help people with all kinds of physical and emotional challenges. Dogs of course are kind of the classic therapy animal. And while giraffes are a little less common, some places do use unique animals just because interacting with them can be calming and kind of magical. So you're definitely on the right track. We're on the right track. There you go. Did we learn anything else? No. We just know we're on the right track. I love it. Dude. Yeah. That imagining that wake waking up in a tree house and just a giraffe. It's just like morning. That might be some good therapy. Yeah. Yeah. People probably never leave. The problem in Kansas is it gets cold. Oh yeah. So the giraffes can't handle the cold. Because we actually, we looked into it. I mean they're like 100k a piece. Wow. But you could just. How cool would that be? Anybody can buy a giraffe though? Like I'm sure there's special licensing. Right. How much more could you charge for the tree house? Oh a lot. You charge a thousand or two thousand a night. Oh. Just to feed the day giraffe. So how do you. Yeah. So in the winter they would have to go indoors. Yeah. Right. So you'd have to have a barn that's. But we've also talked about putting a big arena into. So yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean this is about to turn into a circus. You got giraffes, elephants. That's right. That's a lion. That's right. Lions and tigers and bears. I think you should do it. Yeah. Guys comment on this podcast if you think Diamond Spring Ranch needs to get into the giraffe business. Giraffes and riding the giraffes. There you go. Can you ride a giraffe? No I can't. Get Chachupiti out. No I'm kidding. That was awesome. No that's great. Talk about the venue. That the venue business is tough. It is. I feel like. Yeah. As far as just like hosting events and figuring out what kind of events you want to host. How much to charge. Yeah. Right. Yeah. What do you even charge. Like do you provide staffing. Do you do the food side. Like is there anything you found on for the lodge as far as hosting events that you guys like that is a good fit thus far. Is there anything that's like harder been harder to figure out. Yeah. Well it was a challenge to convince my dad to do events at the lodge because it's just. It was his man cave. You took it away from it. Well I'm kidding. Yeah. It's his man cave and we have a lot of nice stuff in there. I mean it's a multimillion dollar building. So it's all tongue and groove inside there. The bar is top notch. I mean everything is very cool in there. So it took some convincing. But when we do the trail rides people say do you rent this out. Do you rent this out. No. Do you rent this out. No. Do you rent this out. No. But we should. You rent this out. Dad we should rent this out. So anyways we now do rent it out. And the challenges that go along with it are you know how much do you charge or if we're more along the lines of like corporate. That's really kind of the kind of what we want to do and have done. We've done a few weddings. The weddings are by far the most profitable. But then you got to deal with the bride. I mean that's really the reality of it. Yeah. I was talking to somebody the other day and they said you don't have much of a filter do you. I said no I think that went away a long time ago. Yeah. Just as far as like a wedding situation they're going to be way more particular. More particular. They're going to have like. Yeah. And a lot could go wrong. It's not a wedding venue. I mean that wasn't what it was designed for. It was designed as a man cave. There's a bathroom downstairs and a bathroom upstairs. Like there's dead animals on the wall mounted everywhere. There's the world slam of turkeys mounted in there like you know. So anyway it's not designed for a black and white picturesque wedding. Yeah. You know I feel like you're sitting at the table with the couple to be and you're like would you like your photos next to this dead animal or this dead animal. They're like can we take stuff off the wall. No no you can't. You know thanks for asking. But no. So anyways it's a but also it's a very unique venue. It's a very nice venue. So people do want that. I mean there's great opportunity for photos all around it too. It is. And the outdoor piece is awesome. We got tons of trees in the tree. Yeah. Yeah. We had a wedding out there this last year and that's what we do. We have one package where they rent out the tree house with it. We have an option where they can add horses to it if they want to. So anyways there's a lot of options that go along with it. But the the corporate corporate is kind of really what we want to do. And we want to do a lot. We want to do a lot of high end stuff out there. So like a wine and whiskey club or a cigar club or again somewhere to belong to. That's something that you just don't find in Wichita USA. Cowboy Steaks. What's is there such a thing. What is a cowboy steak. Yeah. I mean fire. Well the way we cook the steaks. We've had several people come and they're like I had a steak at an expensive steak at Bricktown last night. And they were in Oklahoma City this specific couple. And they said this is way better. I said well thank you. You know I had a girl a couple weeks ago. She said I don't know if I really like steaks and her dad brought her. It was a dad and daughter date. It was kind of fun. And she said I don't really like steaks but I liked this one. And so anyways we cook. Why is it good. Well because I'm cooking them. What's your secret. Tell us. Butter and quality beef. Yeah. That's the secret. And so you do flat top. You cook them on the flat top. Put a little Lowry's on top. Flip it around a little butter on there. Get the flat top hot. Stick it on there and let it cook for a few minutes. Flip it over. More butter and then you're ready. And people love it. It's better. That's right. I use almost an entire stick of butter per steak. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's about the dinner date. That's what's called the dinner date. The dinner is very popular. People love it. It's the least profitable thing as far as time spent in that sort of deal. In my mind. I mean because of the extra time it takes and the going to the store and buying all the stuff. But again it goes back to are you passionate about it. Is it something that you want to deliver a quality product to somebody. And for three hundred twenty five dollars they get a sunset trail ride a steak and potato dinner. Cheesecake is what we're serving as a dessert. Then s'mores and a campfire. So it's like a two and a half hour. It's not an overnighter thing. It's not an overnighter. The way we have it is kind of a two hour course. I mean a lot of people can spend over 100 bucks at a restaurant real quick. For sure. On just a steak and no campfire. Yeah. No no trail ride. And it's an experience you can't find anywhere else. You couldn't just call up a farmer and say hey can I come bring my horse and build a campfire behind your barn. Do you do that experience for more than just a single couple. Like if like a group of couples right now is the max we do. And a lot of our trail rides have between four and six riders. So it just also depends on the time of year. If we have six horses available we can do three couples. Yeah. And it's better when we do it at three couples because it's the same amount of effort for three couples. But people love that. We only do that Saturday nights because it is a lot of extra effort. And we don't serve other food outside of some burgers when we do some events. But people love it. And that also is booked out. When we get into the summertime it's booked almost every Saturday night. Yeah. That's a really cool idea. And people do. They stay in the treehouse. So when do you decide to charge more for something like that? That's a good question. When it starts getting booked out. I know it's so hard. Yeah. And again it's not so much. Because I could charge an extra hundred dollars. But I mean it doesn't really gain us that much in the long run. I mean if you do an extra 50 of them it's an extra five grand. Okay. Or we just keep it the way it is and let people have an awesome experience and not charge them an arm and a leg. Probably creates a ton of referrals too for all the other aspects of the venue. For sure. And then maybe gets them to book the treehouse that night if it's available. Right. Well and we have kind of an all-encompassing piece that like if you book the treehouse a lot of times somebody books a trail ride. Or if they come out to some sort of party. Or like we do a Kentucky Derby party every year. The news was out there this last year. And everybody dresses up to the nines for the Kentucky Derby party. Nice. But anyways they come to the Kentucky Derby party. And then they want to come on a trail ride. Or want to do a dinner date. Or want to stay in the treehouse. Or whatever it is. As a whole it makes it really cool that they can come and do multiple different things. Yeah. Yeah. That's powerful. What 10 years from now what's the hope? What's the dream for that? That venue? Cowboy town probably. Cowboy town. Yeah. Where you ride your horses in. To. Oh man. It's only horseback you ride in in a cowboy town. And you might stay the night in what looks like a saloon. Yeah. And anyways I think. I don't know. Cowboy town. Something like that. More Airbnbs. More property. Just more space to do what we're doing now. But on a larger scale. Yeah. Do you guys have room or opportunity to expand? Yeah. From where you're at? Yeah. Not landlocked? No. No. Thankfully we're not. And again we have great neighbors which makes a difference. That does make a huge difference. What advice would you give someone if they're starting a venue now and so you guys are 22. So three year almost four years into this. So we've had the venue itself as far as the lodge just a year and a half. But. And I'm talking tree house wagon like just overall you have a destination venue. What's your advice to someone after like what's something like you could save them a lot of heartache? Yeah. I when we first did the tree house I had some I found somebody that had a tree house and called him. I said what would you do different if you're going to build the tree house again? They said we wouldn't build it. That's encouraging. That's not the answer I wanted. I really want to build this. But I don't know. I think really if you're passionate about it and you feel like God's calling you towards it the people are going to show up for it. And going after going back to your point going after where you feel like God's leading you and what you're passionate about and what you're good at. I think a lot of people go through their whole life and they just never evaluate those things like what am I good at. I'm just going to go work X job because that's what was available and then they work there 30 years and there's nothing wrong with that. But I want to surround myself with the people that are trying to do more like they're going after who they feel like God's called them to be. And when you're going after what God's called you to do or be you're not going to go wrong. And I feel like he's going to provide the people he's going to provide the way because it's challenging you know to build the tree house. I mean just an example building the tree house where we how it was drawn it wasn't drawn with one of the trees in it. So this tree is coming up and over so we had to cut that tree out after it was built. And then we put an angled roof on it that was angled like this and like this. Like I do residential remodeling and building and that was still really hard. Like there's just there's problems that come up that a friend of mine says if it ain't if he says if it ain't the chickens it's the windmill. If the chickens don't have a problem then the windmill has a problem. If it ain't the chickens it's the windmill. So there's always problems that go along with it. But if in the end goal what you're trying to do and accomplish ends up impacting people in a positive way I feel like it's all worth it. But you know it is it has to be thought through ahead of time. There's a lot of pieces that moving parts that go into it and it does take a whole bunch of time that you know are you willing to spend that time. But again if you feel like God's calling you towards it jump out and do it because I think there's going to be a lot of blessings that can come from that just walking in obedience. I mean in where Saul lost the anointing that went to David it wasn't about the let me just tell the whole story. So Saul goes and conquers one of these lands. Well God says I don't want to I want you to burn all of their stuff and you can watch this in the David. It's a cool series. It's very very good. But then he brings back and says well I'm going to bring this back this 10 percent or whatever it was the 10 the best of the best of the best to then sacrifice to God. Well God desires obedience over sacrifice and that is really a telling piece in the story where then David was just willing to be obedient and God didn't remove the anointing from Saul right away you know. But then the next one coming in but that was the turning point of Saul brought these things back to then give to God. Well God didn't want to sacrifice you one of the obedience and same kind of deal I think if what God's calling you to is to go start a business or to do something be obedient to that and he'll show up. Yeah yeah so conviction purpose and then outcome being how is this going to impact people like when this is done like what gets you through those hard times right calling conviction. Yeah we call it dreams purpose legacy. Dreams purpose legacy. Yeah no that's good. That's great advice. Dude well thanks for hanging out. Yeah this has been awesome. I'm going to be thinking about giraffes when I go to bed tonight. But no I learned I learned a ton. You guys are awesome. I can't wait to go out there. We did not make it happen this summer but I can't wait to go out in the spring and take my girls out there it's it's uh to everyone listening the venue's amazing the treehouse you just you gotta you gotta go up there it's it just keeps it doesn't make sense until you're all the way at the loft and you're still like this is crazy because then when you get up that loft you're like I'm really high when we tell people we have a treehouse like oh that's cool yeah no like it ain't like a treehouse in your kid's backyard it's a house it's a 600 square foot house in the trees with the loft and a clean bed and a bathroom and a sink and and a kitchen area a refrigerator I mean everything you would normally have it sleeps four both of them sleep four I'd imagine an evening on that deck is really nice too my parents when it's not booked they just go sit on the deck yeah that'd be super fun yeah but now you guys have you guys have done an awesome job and yeah I really appreciate your time absolutely we'll get all your stuff posted in the the links and comments of this and yeah you're you're easy to talk to well thank you man appreciate it this is awesome thanks for having me of course